They’d traveled over mountains, stayed in a motel, eaten real Pacific salmon, seen the ocean. Now they were on their way to take a look at some rich people’s horses that’d be eating the very hay he and his father had grown and tended all that spring and summer before it got pelted in the hailstorm. They pulled up to a special electric gate, and when the man there heard who they were, he swung it open for them. A few hours from now the crop would be unloaded in the barn, Arabian horses would be munching away, and his father would be driving out this gate with a wad of cash in his pocket.

The stable manager was there to meet them. Just as his father had predicted, there were Arabians grazing in the corral, and a girl around Nate’s age wearing tight black pants and a velvet jacket and hat, sitting upright in a saddle, was working on jumps.

“That’s one beauty of a horse you got,” his father said to the manager, who had introduced himself as Bo Everson. “I bet my little girl back home could give her a run for her money. She’s got natural horse sense.”

“You’re looking at ten thousand dollars’ worth of mare,” Bo told them. “Margaret there, she’s planning on taking her to the nationals.”

“She still needs a saddle to stay on, I see,” his father said. Nate knew there was no point telling him to shut up.

“So, let me show you where to unload,” Bo told them. “I’ll just take a gander at your hay here, to make sure we won’t be giving our horses any substandard feed. You can’t be too careful these days.”

“I told you it wasn’t our best quality,” his father said. “That’s why it’s priced so low.”

They stood there then, while the man cut the ties on a bale and pulled the flakes apart. A stale, sour odor rose in the air, not the sweet smell Nate remembered from seasons past, and the stems were bare and leafless. He hoped he was the only one who had noticed.

“There’s something wrong with your crop here, Mr. Chance,” Bo told them. He bent to scoop up a second handful, then brought it to his nose.

Inside his shoes Nate felt as if he were melting.

Mr. Everson looked hard at his father. “This hay is moldy and stemmy,” he said. “I can’t buy this junk.”

Nate watched the color drain from his father’s face. A vein in his forehead began to throb.

“You can’t do this, Mr. Everson,” he said. “My boy and I drove eight hundred miles to bring you this hay. I rented this truck. We stayed in a motel. The price I was giving you hardly paid for my seed.”

“Now I see why. I’m sorry.”