The Farmhand Who Heard Everything

Every year, the minute the last ear of corn comes off the stalk, whoever my sister is dating falls through. My family grows sweet corn by the acre.

This harvest, there was a strange man out in our field. I figured he was my sister's newest boyfriend, so I walked over all sweet and chatty, and he didn't so much as look at me.

My mom knocked me on the head and set me straight. "Don't go claiming people. That's our hired hand, and he's a mute." A mute, I thought. Perfect. A mute can't rat you out.

So I parked myself next to him every single day and told him every secret I didn't dare tell my family.

Until I got so shameless in front of him that he let out a quiet laugh. "Interesting." It scared me so bad I jumped back a step. "You— you're not a mute!" Chapter 1 Every harvest season skins this whole family alive.

My sister and I used to think that if we worked more, our parents would work less. Instead, the more we worked, the more they planted.

Our sweet corn is sold fresh by the ear, and a machine would crush it to mush, so every ear has to come off the stalk by hand.

Once the ears are picked, the stalks still have to be cut and tied into bundles to sell as fall decorations.

My sister has had four boyfriends, and not one of them could take this kind of work. So I assumed the obvious and took this man for her new one. I looked him over.

He had on a black Tshirt, the collar washed loose enough to show the hard line of muscle at the back of his neck. When he turned around, I got a clear look at his face.

His face was too hard.

Definitely not my sister's type. "Nika, what are you staring at?" I came back to myself and looked at my mom. "You're telling me he's a mute?" She nodded. "Then how did Dad settle on a price with him?" "This mute can read and write." My mom took a drink of water. "Your dad saw him working over at the Stoltzfus place, quick hands, and decided he wanted him.

Wrote it out on a piece of cardboard. A hundred fifty a day, you in or not.

He read it and nodded." "His name's Sloan, I think." "Is that his first name or his last?" I asked. "How would I know?

What do you care?" She patted my shoulder and tossed me a pair of gloves. I pulled them on, went down into the field, and started picking.

The sun beat down and the corn leaves rasped against my arms, and when I stopped for water I caught sight of the man out of the corner of my eye.

His clothes were beat up and he hadn't shaved in days. But I kept thinking he didn't look like a broke farmhand.

He lifted an arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead without slowing down at all, his eyes on nothing but the corn and the crates on the ground. My dad was crazy about him.

He couldn't even stop for breath without working in a compliment. "With Sloan here, who needs a soninlaw? He's worth four of them!" That struck me as funny.

I tipped my head back to look at him. "All you know about him is that one word." My dad glanced at me and didn't say anything.

Early the next morning my mom cooked at the house and packed the food into an insulated lunch box. Then she cut half a watermelon. She gave me a push. "Go on.

Take the hired hand his food." "I'm not going.

Can't he come eat it himself?" I looked over at my sister, sprawled on the couch. "Why don't you make her do it?" My sister threw a waddedup napkin at me. "I got home way before you did.

I've put in a lot more days." My mom shoved the lunch bag into my hands. "Exactly! Besides, the man's out there working.

It's not going to kill you to walk it over to him." I got out to the field and found him with his back to me, stripping the ears off the stalks one by one and tossing them into a crate, quick and clean.

His white Tshirt was already soaked through, and you could just make out the lines of muscle underneath. Chapter 2 Not a bad build, though.

I set the lunch box down on the ground, crouched, and looked at him. "Mister, food's here." He didn't acknowledge me at all, just kept doing the same thing with his hands over and over.

Rude much. I judged him for about a second, then stood up, brushed the dirt off my jeans, and walked off. Two steps later a thought came to me, and I turned back to look at him.

He had pulled his gloves off, dragged up the hem of his Tshirt to wipe his face, and sat down to eat. He was a mute. Did that mean he could still hear me? It didn't matter.

What mattered was that no matter what I said, he was never going to repeat it. Once I was sure of that, I relaxed. I walked back over and sat down next to him.

He stiffened and frowned at me. "Mister, let me tell you something." He kept frowning, looking a little impatient. "You're not talking, so I'm taking that as a yes." He kept his head down and chewed, and that settled me. "You're new around here, so you wouldn't know this, but I'm the famous good kid in this town.

Smart, going places, the whole package. It's all an act." I looked at his hard, sharpangled face, and all at once I was desperate to talk.

Even knowing he would never give me a word back, I wanted to keep going. "My parents still brag to anyone who'll listen about my great job. But that job for life?

I quit a while ago." "That county office. My parents spent a fortune getting me ready for it and then pulled strings to shove me into it.

I couldn't stop them, they wouldn't hear a word I said, and it almost killed me.

They mortgaged the house a second time to put me through the degree that job requires and the certification I had to pass.

The relative they went through has real pull at the county.

Every holiday I had to trot in like some eager little idiot with an insanely expensive gift for my supervisor, because that's what everybody in that office did.

I told them I didn't want that office. They kept saying I'd never find anything better." "My whole life, everything I've done has been what they expected.

I'm done doing that." "Of course, I'm only saying this to you.

If my parents found out I'd walked away from a job that stable, they'd throw me out of the house." "Am I just incapable of leaving well enough alone?

Giving up a job that good." I watched his profile while he ate, and remembering that he was a mute, I relaxed and said what I actually meant. "But you'd think that someday I'll find something I really want to do.

That I get to live the way I want to live, too." He finished eating, snapped the lid back on the box, stood, and pulled his gloves on. I didn't know whether he had heard any of it.

But I felt a little lighter. I don't know why I wanted to tell him, either. Probably because he was a mute and could keep a secret.

Watching him work his way down the row with his back to me, my head went completely empty. There was something about him that made a person want to get closer.

Back at the house, my sister gave me a disgusted look. "Did you take him his lunch or did you stay and eat it with him?

What took so long." "If it's too slow for you, take it yourself next time." I opened the lunch box and set it in the sink. "So you took a whole month off this time?" my sister said.

Something tightened in my chest and I made a noise of agreement. My sister let out a small laugh, sitting there snapping green beans. "Did you?

Then how come Bryce says you quit?" Bryce works in the same office as me. We went to grade school together, and he has the nastiest mouth alive. My head snapped around.

I checked that nobody else was in the house, and then my face went cold. "When did you find out?" My sister dropped the beans in the bowl. "Does it matter?

Annika Rae, I'm telling you right now, don't lose your mind. A job that stable, people claw over each other to get in and never make it, and you just quit.

You've got a lot of backbone, don't you." Chapter 3 "Your resignation hasn't taken effect yet, has it?" My sister looked at me. "This family sank a fortune into that job.

Go back before the end of the month and pull the letter. They haven't posted the position yet, so there should still be time.

I'll pretend I never heard any of this." "I can't pull it." "Don't be so selfish. Do you have any idea how much Mom and Dad spent on that job?

Do you have any sense at all?" Listening to her made me restless and sick at the same time. "Did I ask them to spend it? Did I say I had to have it?

Why don't you ever ask me why?" It was the first time my sister and I had ever gone at each other headon.

The words were barely out when my dad pushed the door open and came into the kitchen, his eyes moving between the two of us.

The man named Sloan was right behind him. "What's going on?" my dad said. "What's all the yelling? If you've got that much energy, get out in the field." "Nothing.

I'm going to do laundry." My sister picked up the laundry basket and went out the door. I looked up and met Sloan's eyes.

They were narrow and not large, but the pupils were very dark. Like they could see straight through a person. The next day my mom came back in from the field.

I poured her a glass of water, and when she'd finished it she waved a hand at me. "That hired hand of ours is worth more than any of the ones your sister ever brought home." I laughed a little and took two bottles of water out of the refrigerator. "I'll run some water out to Dad and them." My dad and Sloan each had their own stretch of field.

After I brought my dad his water, I came around to Sloan's side. He was faster than my dad.

The ground around him was covered in crates of corn, and there was a whole spread of cut stalks besides.

I ran over and held the bottle out, and he glanced at me, hesitated, and took it. Then he walked over to the concrete pad and sat down.

I sat down right next to him and gave him my best coaxing look. "Mister, I'm going to keep going, all right?" He tipped his head back to drink, his throat working, water running down through the stubble on his chin and sliding under his collar.

I stared for several seconds before I came back to myself. "So you're probably dying to know.

If it was a job for life, why did I quit?" "I sat there every day, in front of a computer, until eight or nine at night.

My supervisor dumped the entire backlog of files on me to digitize, and none of it was even urgent. He just wanted to squeeze me.

Every day felt like the day before, and there was nothing to look forward to." "But the real reason is that my supervisor was in his fifties, bald, with a wife and kids, and he told dirty jokes in the office all day long." "Then at one of the office parties he got drunk and cornered me in the break room and said he wanted to take real good care of me." "And after that he found a new way to make my life hell every single day." His hand stopped partway through a drink, and it occurred to me that maybe he just couldn't speak and could hear perfectly well. "Then his wife came storming into the office swearing I was sleeping with her husband, and that piece of trash told her I'd come on to him.

The whole office got a show out of me. And then guess what happened?" I was grinning by then, and in my excitement I grabbed his arm. His arm went stiff.

He gave my hand a flat look, and then he gave me one. I pulled my hand back fast. I smiled at him. "Sorry. Got carried away.

I was done taking it, so I put my fist right into that old bastard's nose.

The blood came pouring out of it, and then I kicked him in the crotch and crushed his balls." He stared off into the distance, his eyes empty.

I shrugged. "That kind of satisfaction has a price, though. I owe an enormous medical bill that I pay down every month, and I still haven't paid it off.

If my family ever found out, they'd lose their minds." Chapter 4 "I've spent this whole time regretting the money.

But right now, honestly, I think I was brave." I watched the side of his face and waited for him to say something. Sorry. Forgot he was a mute.

But his silence felt like a kind of quiet agreement.

When I'd finished, he got up and went back out into the field, pulled his gloves on, and started cutting stalks with the corn knife. He was cutting a lot faster than before.

It gave me the strange impression that he was angry. It started raining toward evening, and my mom sent me out with his dinner again.

I came up to the farmhouse he was staying in with my umbrella and found the gate in the yard fence unlatched. He was sitting on the porch steps, smoking.

I pushed the gate open, and at the sound he put the cigarette out, stood, and came toward me.

It was the first time he had ever walked toward me on his own, and for some reason it made my heart stumble.

Watching the rain soak into his clothes, I lifted my arm and tilted the umbrella his way. He took the lunch box and looked down at me.

Being looked at like that made me uncomfortable. "What?" I pointed at my own face. "Do I have something on me?" He gave me a look that meant I should follow him inside.

I didn't understand, and I had no idea what he wanted. I followed him in and looked around. The room was big and very empty.

He pulled out a long duffel bag, unzipped it, gripped the bottom, and shook it hard over the floor. Cash came pouring out of it onto the boards.

He picked up the pen and paper on the table and wrote it out: Pay it off