I looked at the dark shape of Carl’s pickup parked by the loading ramp, its bed stacked neat and high with forty wooden harvest crates.

Tomorrow morning at six thirty, those crates would sit under the awning at the Route 9 stand, bringing in six hundred and forty dollars of honest money earned on my father’s land.

I reached into the back pocket of my jeans and felt the smooth, hard edge of the plastic card I had taken back from Ruth in the dusty yard.

It would stay right where it was until I walked into the bank on Monday morning to hand it over to the auditor in person.

I slipped the silver watch back around my wrist, pushing the small metal pin into the hole in the leather strap until the clasp clicked tight.

The sweet corn fields stretched out quiet and wide under the late summer sky, the long green rows dark against the horizon.

I put the plastic card in my back pocket and picked up the sweet corn basket.