Jake had farmed with his father and brothers. He knew that farming was brutally hard work. No matter how much toil a farmer put in, he could be wiped out overnight by a hailstorm or a duster or a collapse in the price of wheat or barley.

She knew that everything he said was true. Times had never been worse. Even the old-timers couldn’t recall when it had been so hot and so dry. Prices couldn’t be lower. Truck farmers were dumping their produce in the barrow pit and pouring oil on it because it wasn’t worth trucking it to market. Something was wrong with the weather. Clouds would come streaking over the prairie, turn dark and threatening, and then vanish after leaving no more than a few drops of rain. But Emaline reminded him that things always change and that land would never be cheaper.

“Folks always tend to think that whatever way things are, that’s how they’ll always be,” she said. “In good times they think times will always be good. They live high on the hog, get themselves in debt, then they lose it all when times go bad. In bad times, people hunker down. They’re afraid to spend a dime. They think there will be drought and depression from now till Kingdom Come, but it won’t be like this forever, Jake. The rain will come back and times will get better.”

Jake didn’t necessarily believe her, but she found an argument he couldn’t resist. A farmer was his own boss. He didn’t have to listen to some foreman barking at him on the job or find his pay docked because he showed up fifteen minutes late for work. There was no more independent man on this earth than the American farmer. He finally agreed. As soon as they got back to Scottsbluff, they would start looking for a place. He saw himself with a big, lush farm, a brace of prize horses, maybe a purebred bull. A half dozen strapping boys to do the heavy lifting and three or four beautiful girls to help around the house.

Back in Scottsbluff, Calla Plessman and Charlie Naudain organized a little party for the newlyweds. Cecil Narrows was there with Earl Beckman and Vernon Schneider. All her regulars. Somebody invited Dexter McGuinty. He hung around making people nervous with his badge and his twin Colt .45 revolvers. Vernon had a hangdog look, but he shook Jake’s hand as if to say the better man had won. Charlie Naudain wasn’t sure that was true, but he knew that Emaline would never have married a homely fellow like Vernon. It wasn’t in her.