Part 6
The kitchen was ready before Grant arrived.
June had twelve months of projections in a folder, supporting invoices behind them, and notes from the lender’s review clipped inside the cover. Their attorney had examined the purchase documents and the access issue. Mara had read every page of the operating plan, including the pages she had once left to June.
Caleb was drinking coffee at the table when the pickup came up the lane. He took his mug to the counter.
Grant entered without Dean, broker, or surveyor. He noticed Caleb’s position but addressed the sisters.
“I gather you’ve had time to think.”
“We have,” Mara said.
The new offer improved the price a little. Some equipment terms were simpler. It remained a generous way out: no ranch debt, money to start again, fewer demands on their days.
June listened without interrupting. Mara let Grant finish.
Then June closed her copy.
“We’re declining.”
He looked at her rather than her sister.
“You’ve checked what winter will cost?”
She opened her own folder. “We can meet it.”
“Meeting winter costs isn’t long-term security.”
“No. It gives us time to work.”
Grant studied her figures. “Calving may change your view.”
“Then we’ll discuss it,” Mara said. “The two of us.”
His eyes moved toward Caleb. Caleb drank his coffee and stayed at the counter.
“And when your help moves on?” Grant asked.
“We’ve allowed for staffing changes,” June said.
“A machine failure? A bad market?”
“The repair reserve is here. So are the limits on what we can finance. The cattle assumptions are on the next page.”
Grant turned it.
“You’ve been preparing.”
“I’ve been doing the accounts.”
He sat with the folder open for another minute. Then he returned it to her and gathered his own papers.
“If you decide otherwise, call me.”
“We know how,” Mara said.
At the mudroom, Flint raised his head. Grant paused, looking down at him.
The shepherd yawned and put his muzzle back on the mat.
June waited until the pickup was on the road before letting out a laugh.
Mara leaned against the counter. “What?”
“I was remembering Dean’s route back to his truck.”
Caleb rinsed his mug. “Flint offers several levels of service.”
Mara pulled out a chair.
“Now sit.”
He looked at her.
June brought a second folder from the office. This one contained fewer pages.
“Should I be concerned?” Caleb asked.
“Depends how much you enjoy forms.”
He gave her a look. She smiled and put the folder in front of him.
At first, he read only the title and the term dates. They wanted him through calving season, officially responsible for winter operations. Then he reached the compensation section and went back to the beginning.
Part of his pay would become a share of profit. If the arrangement worked through spring, and if all three wanted to continue, their attorney would draw up a longer earn-in agreement. Over several years, it could give him the right to purchase as much as a quarter of the operation.
Purchase. Not receive.
He set a finger beside the percentage.
“What happens if somebody needs out?”
“Buy-sell provisions,” June said. “Valuation method agreed before anyone buys anything.”
“And the existing debt?”
“Separated and assigned clearly. Same with liability.”
“What if spring comes and we can’t stand each other?”
“Then we end the trial,” Mara said. “Before ownership changes.”
Caleb turned another page. June had worked through questions he hadn’t yet asked. There were limits and review dates. There was room to disagree without destroying the operation.
He could see a way it might work. He set the pages down.
Mara rested her arm on the table.
“Your service record isn’t why we’re asking.”
He looked up.
“And Grant didn’t earn you an offer.”
“I didn’t think—”
“You finish the dull jobs,” she said. “You don’t save your best work for an audience.”
June remained quiet.
“You ask before changing our equipment,” Mara continued. “And when I told you you’d overstepped, you heard me.”
Caleb looked toward the mudroom. Flint slept through the sound of a cupboard closing.
“We need someone who has a reason to plan beyond his next paycheck,” June said. “That’s what this is.”
He read the percentage again.
He remembered payments due before cattle money arrived. He remembered standing beside equipment he should not have financed, knowing exactly how to operate it and no longer knowing how to afford it. The papers in front of him were better than the ones he had once signed. He still couldn’t make his hand turn the next page.
“You can take it with you,” Mara said.
“Till when?”
June shrugged. “We considered demanding an answer before the coffee cooled. Seemed theatrical.”
Mara glanced at her, then at Caleb. “Sleep on it.”
“I’d like to.”
After supper, he carried the folder across the yard. Flint shook snow from a paw at the bunkhouse door and settled near the heater.
Caleb sat on the bed and spread the pages beside him. The duffel was on the shelf above his coat. He looked at it, then reached for a pencil and began marking questions in the margins.
He didn’t give them an answer over breakfast.
First came feeding, then a cow moving stiffly on her left hind leg. Mara wanted her watched before they went anywhere. Caleb helped bring her in, checked what Mara asked him to check, and waited until she was satisfied the cow could rest comfortably.
A little after seven, June came out carrying her coat.
“Well?”
Caleb held up the folder. “I want the lawyer to walk us through it.”
June’s smile appeared and disappeared as she reached for the pickup door. “He’s expecting us…”
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