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Chapter 3: Stetson

After laying down the law with that no-good female banker, Stetson stormed out towards the barn, remembering halfway there that he'd left his hat behind, went back to retrieve it, and then stormed out to the barn again, where he promptly spent the rest of the day hiding.

Well, not hiding, of course. He was a man. Men did not hide from women. He was just choosing to spend his day working on very important things that were not inside of the house, was all.

Which was a very different kettle of fish altogether.

His hired hands were working hard on vaccinating the new calves, and he really should go help them, but it wasn't fair to them if he made them pay for the bank's bullshit by biting their heads off for the heinous crime of breathing, so on second thought, he should probably stay away from them.

All people, actually. And anyway, Christian – his foreman – was out there with them, so he'd make sure that the men were doing what they needed to.

And while Stetson was staying away from people, he should probably do the same with beasts for that matter. Cows were trying enough on the best of days, and this was definitely not a best day, or even a mediocre day.

So, the barn it was. At least there, he had a reasonable chance of being left alone.

Damn the bank anyway. At least if they'd sent a man, he could've told that man what he really thought about him, the bank, and how screwed up this whole situation was, punctuated perfectly with his fists. To add insult to injury, Stetson also knew that he was going to hear about his rudeness – and swearing – from Carmelita sometime in the very near future.

The prospect of an ass-chewing didn't exactly make him jump up and down for joy.

Stetson looked around, trying to find a very important project to work on. The Miller Family Barn was more of a storage building and workshop combined together than a typical barn. In the winter, he would park tractors and other equipment in it to keep the expensive machinery out of the weather, but since it was the middle of summer, there was a lot more elbow room to be found.

Along one wall, there were workbenches, toolboxes, and all of the miscellaneous tools and junk that had accumulated over the years. The piles of stuff were ostensibly kept under the pretense that they could someday be used to make repairs, but Stetson knew better.

The truth was:

  1. He was a farmer;

  2. Farmers never threw away anything; and

  3. Carmelita was never allowed into the barn.

There were some laws of nature that just shouldn't be broken.

And then, he spotted it. Hidden in the very back corner of the barn was a small tarp-covered tractor. Unlike the modern equipment that was used for the day-to-day operations of the farm, this tractor was nearly 60 years old.

It had belonged to the Miller family from the day it'd rolled off the assembly line. It was the first piece of motorized equipment Stetson's grandfather had purchased. Since then, a long line of equipment had passed through their ownership. Bigger, more efficient equipment cycled through as technology advanced, but the family had held on to this particular tractor as a reminder of all the things it symbolized.

Stetson wandered over to the miniature tractor – at least, miniature in comparison to today's beasts – and pulled the tarp off, sending up a cloud of dust that had him coughing and gasping for air. Once most of it had settled and the air became breathable again, Stetson ran his hand over the rusty, chipped green paint and split leather seat, remembering...

Over the years, the tractor had sat in a field through rain, snow, and shine. Eventually, time took its toll on the machine to the point where it would no longer run. Then one day, Stetson's father wrapped a chain around the front axle, lifted a much younger Stetson into the seat, showed him how to release the clutch and how to steer, and together, they pulled the rotting tractor to the barn. It was the first thing Stetson had ever driven.

"What're we gonna do to Grandpa's tractor?" Stetson had asked.

"We're going to fix it," his father replied, amused at the obviousness of the answer.

"But this one's old and we have better ones over there."

"I guess that depends on how you judge better," his father had said, kneeling to look his young son in the eye. "If it wasn't for this tractor, your grandfather wouldn't have been a successful farmer, and that means that we wouldn't have had the money or reason to buy those other tractors that you say are better."

"But why are you going to fix it? The other tractors are stronger and faster."

"First, I'm not the only one who's going to fix this tractor, son. You're going to help me fix it. Second, we're going to fix this tractor because it's a reminder of where our family has come from. It's a symbol of all the hard work that's gone into giving us the things we have now. It may never plow another field, but this is the tractor that plowed the fields and planted the seeds that are your future and I want you to learn to respect that."

Stetson's vision was blurry. The tractor was fuzzy around the edges and his face was hot, but in his mind, he could clearly see the deep, sun-etched wrinkles at the corners of his father's eyes.

Stetson wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand as the memory faded. Damn dust in the air, anyway.

The tractor still didn't run. There was a new part attached here and there, but he and his father had only ever worked on the tractor a few moments at a time over the years.

"If they want my farm, fine. But this tractor will run again, by God," he said out loud. It was a declaration to the universe. Finally, something that he could do, rather than just sit and worry. What had thirty-one days of worry gotten him? A banker in his father's office, doing her damnedest to steal the Miller Family Farm.

He grabbed a wrench and got to work. Worrying and stewing over bankers solved nothing.

What about drooling over bankers?

Stetson stopped, his wrench in mid-air as he stared unseeingly at the tiny, antique tractor in front of him. Where the hell had that thought come from?

The stress was getting to him, that was for sure. If he didn't pull his head out of his ass, and soon, he was going to lose his mind along with his farm.

And Stetson wasn't quite sure which one was worse.

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