EARLY AUTUMN THE sugar maples stood bare out in the yard. The trees had retreated inside themselves in a bad time, letting down dusty leaves and dreaming of the promised season, abundant rain and a fat summer sun. The absence of leaves told him a story about more than drought. The sight made Grizz anxious.
He turned when he heard footsteps crunching in the frosty leaves. A boy in a bright red Windbreaker approached, his head hung low, but Grizz recognized the younger Gunderson. The boy didn’t even know he was being watched until he left the woods and entered the yard. Grizz raised a hand as Lee approached, a dough-faced kid in work boots and jeans. “Morning,” Lee Gunderson said, his breath ghosting in the cold.
Grizz nodded. It seemed a long time had passed since he had driven him to the hospital. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m here about the job.”
Grizz rubbed his eyes. He’d forgotten his spur-of-the-moment offer, hadn’t seriously thought a Gunderson would take him up on it. “What time is it?”
Lee glanced up at the sky, then back at Grizz. “It’s around nine, judging by the sun.” Grizz noted the watchband on the boy’s wrist, one of those lumpy deals that also played video games or some nonsense. One of Lee’s eyes tracked lazy, following its own orbit. Odd Lee. The sheriff’s boy. Right here on his property. “Your mother know you’re here?”
Lee toed the dust with his boots.
“Okay, then. But I need some coffee before we get started. You eat any breakfast?”
He mumbled something Grizz didn’t catch, his chin tucked into his chest.
“Look at me when you’re talking.”
“Chocolate cake. Two slices.”
“Your mother feed you that?”
“She doesn’t get out of bed much these days. The cake is from the church ladies.” Looking at this boy who had come through the woods without telling his own family, Grizz remembered his body and felt hungrier than he had in a while. “That isn’t a proper breakfast. Come inside and I’ll fry you some eggs.”
A few nights ago Steve and a few other local farmers had come with their combines to harvest his corn. There must have been at least a dozen men from surrounding farms. Grizz had recognized Steve’s cousin Harvey and the two Folshem brothers and Jim Brogan from down the road, among others. They brought trucks and gravity bins for transferring the corn to the silo, and all those machines had lit up the night. Grizz had watched them from the house and had not come out on the porch to thank them when they were done because he wouldn’t see a dime from the corn they were taking from his fields. There was a part of him that said they were doing this for themselves, so they could go back to their houses and talk later about how Christian and forgiving they had been, and their plump wives would nod and say That poor man, and the men would say Well, and perhaps speak of how he had not come out into the yard to thank them, not even once. He knew it was unkind to think this way, because he had not deserved their mercy, and their mercy had only made him feel more desperate and alone.
Now one boy had come onto his land, a boy from an enemy family. While the coffee percolated on the stove, Grizz fired up another burner and cut nubs of butter to coat an iron skillet. He whipped the melting butter into a froth and then cracked eight eggs, folding them together with a spatula. “I would make toast, but the loaf’s gone moldy.” The rich smell of the eggs mixed with the aroma of the coffee. It had been a long time since Grizz cooked breakfast for anyone but himself, but he enjoyed it. Seth had slept in late most days, a constant battle to get him to wake up and go to school on time.
The Mirro percolator thumped this whole time as water rose and washed over the grounds. When the eggs were done, Grizz shut off the gas stove and carried over a plate for each of them. For a boy who claimed not to be hungry, Lee shoveled in his food.
“How’s your brother?”
Lee shrugged. “The same. That girl Leah comes over all the time.”
“You mean the girl who just moved here from the Cities.” Seth’s girl.
“I’m not supposed to follow. They keep to themselves. Mostly, I take care of the pigs. My mom calls