“That’ll hold through the rest of your lower forty,” Nate said, spitting out the flashlight and wiping his chin on his shoulder.

Hank Vance reached into his heavy denim bib overalls and pulled out a thick roll of green bills held together with a rubber band.

“Guys will pay cash to get a combine running at ten o’clock at night,” Hank said, peeling off fifteen twenty-dollar bills.

“My wife packed a pumpkin pie before she went to bed.”

Nate took the three hundred dollars and the foil-wrapped pie tin without a sound.

At half past two in the morning, the back porch latch clicked open at our rented house on Elm Street.