Dakota Born. Debbie Macomber

had spent the morning riding the field cultivator down the long rows of maturing corn. He had nearly a thousand acres planted in corn, two hundred less than the previous year. If the weather held, he could expect to clear a hundred bushels per acre, but if there was one thing he’d learned in his years of farming, it was not to count his bushels before the harvest.

      His mother was waiting for him when he parked the cultivator and climbed down. Days like this he had a thirst that wouldn’t quit. He’d taken a half gallon of iced tea with him, but that had disappeared quickly.

      “Lunch is ready,” she called when she saw him.

      “I’ll be there in a minute,” he called back, looking around for his half brother.

      Gage hadn’t seen Kevin all morning, and he suspected the boy had stolen away to be with Jessica again.

      Gage washed up, then walked into the kitchen, inhaling the mouthwatering aroma of freshly baked bread. His mother routinely baked bread and cinnamon rolls on Saturday mornings.

      “Where’s Kevin?” he asked, pulling out a chair.

      Leta glanced up, surprised. “I thought he was with you.”

      “I told him to change the oil in the pick-up when he finished his chores,” he said between enormous bites of his sandwich. It’d been eight hours since he’d last eaten and he felt hollow inside. It was going to take more than a couple of roasted chicken sandwiches to fill him up.

      “He did that a couple of hours ago.” Leta turned her back to him and busied herself with something he couldn’t see, but Gage wasn’t fooled.

      “You talked to anyone in town lately?” he asked. He didn’t need to elaborate; they both knew he was referring to the crisis with the school.

      “No,” Leta mumbled. “Don’t worry, Gage. Everything will work out.”

      Her optimism and faith had become an irritation to him, although he should be accustomed to both by now. Hassie Knight wasn’t any better. They seemed to believe that, somehow or other, a new teacher would be found to replace Eloise Patten. As if hiring a replacement was a simple, everyday occurrence. Gage knew it wasn’t going to happen. “Mom, it would be doing Kevin a disservice to send him away to finish high school. It’s time he accepted responsibility for the farm.”

      “I agree.”

      “Then you’ll consider letting him home-school?” Gage was well aware of all the problems with that solution. He knew it wasn’t ideal, especially for Kevin. But it was the best he’d come up with.

      His mother sighed. “We’ve already gone over this countless times, and my position hasn’t changed.”

      “You can’t keep ignoring the realties.” Gage wolfed down the second sandwich before the discussion ruined his appetite. Moving Kevin in with his aunt and uncle wasn’t the right solution. He should be learning more about the everyday operation of the farm. True, the boy deserved a decent education, and Gage was willing to see him through high school—some college, if possible—but this land technically belonged to Kevin, not Gage. Unfortunately, his half brother had some difficult lessons to learn. The land didn’t hold his heart, not the way it should. At this point in his life, Kevin thought about only two things: Jessica and his sketchbook. He did what was asked of him, but with little pride and less joy.

      Gage, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Farming was his life and like generations before him, he felt most alive when his eyes were filled with grit, his lips chapped and his neck red with sunburn. The land sustained his soul. If he never left North Dakota again, it would suit him just fine. He knew plenty of farmers who’d lived their entire lives without ever traveling outside the state. Whether you raised crops or livestock, the land meant responsibility, day in, day out. A man didn’t leave behind what was most important to him.

      “Kevin’s probably drawing up in the hayloft,” Leta said.

      “Not in this heat.” Drawing was all well and good, but it wasn’t serious, not for them. Not like farming. But Gage couldn’t force Kevin to care about something he obviously didn’t. He lived with the hope that eventually the boy would appreciate the rhythm of life played out each year on the farm. That he’d learn to see the particular beauty that was so much a part of his inheritance.

      “I need to drive into town this afternoon,” his mother told him when he’d finished lunch. She hesitated, then added, “You could use a haircut.”

      Gage ran his hand through his hair, knowing she was right. Cutting hair wasn’t something she especially liked; she’d do it, but preferred if he had Hassie take a pair of scissors to his thick head.

      “I’ve got things to do.”

      “Whatever it is can wait.”

      His mother didn’t disagree with him often. Suggesting he drive her into town was her way of telling him he’d been working too many hours, and it was time for a break.

      “Fine.” She was generally right about matters such as this, and he’d learned to heed her wisdom.

      She patted him on the shoulder as she walked into the bedroom to gather her things.

      Grumbling under his breath, Gage washed, changed his shirt and dragged a brush through his hair. It was nearly a month since he’d last been to town, not that there was much to see these days. He’d have Hassie cut his hair, if she had time, and then share a beer or two and some conversation with whoever was over at Buffalo Bob’s.

      “I left a note for Kevin,” his mother told him when he joined her. She had a basket of eggs over her arm, her purse and a vase full of flowers. The eggs and flowers were for Hassie in exchange for the haircut. Like him, Leta never expected anything without payment. As a farmer, Gage often skimped on luxuries, but he’d never run short on pride.

      Gage turned on the car radio as he drove into Buffalo Valley. KFGO, “the Mighty 790” AM radio station in Fargo, played country music, which Gage and Leta both enjoyed. Working out in the fields, Gage rarely listened to the radio. He didn’t need music when he could hear a melody in the wind. Besides, the radio distracted him. The time he spent on the tractor helped him sort out the answers to life, answers he found in silence.

      It was a thirty-minute ride into town.

      “You recognize that car?” His mother motioned toward the new Bronco parked in front of the pharmacy.

      “Can’t say I do.” A new car would have been cause for celebration in Buffalo Valley. The only person he could think of with enough money to squander on a car would be Heath Quantrill, but the banker wasn’t likely to park outside Hassie’s.

      “My!” his mother exclaimed, “look how clean it is.”

      Most folks didn’t bother to wash their vehicles more than once or twice a year, if that. No need to show off the rust. In any case, it was a waste of time, since a vehicle parked near a barn would be caked in mud again as soon as it was driven out of the yard.

      Gage parked a few spaces away, not wanting to emphasize the contrast between his battered green truck and the shiny new Bronco. His diesel truck had turned over two hundred thousand miles last month. John had bought it shortly before Kevin was born, Gage remembered. It’d been used ever since.

      Gage had hoped to replace it last autumn, but grain prices had been down, just like the year before and the year before that. He’d eke another six or eight months out of this old truck. He’d been holding on for the past ten years, so one more wasn’t going to make much difference. Thus far, whatever had failed he’d been able to repair, but that wasn’t always going to be the case.

      Gage could hear Hassie talking up a storm even before they entered the pharmacy. One glance at the two women sitting at the soda fountain told him they were from the city. Some Southern city, he guessed, judging by the slight—and very attractive—drawl. Atlanta? New Orleans? Their skin was pale as winter wheat, and their clothes looked like they came