Ray looked out at the bleachers. Then he did something he had never done in forty years. He switched off his microphone.
"Twenty minutes, folks," he said, loud enough to carry. "Coffee's on in the café. We'll start back at eleven."
Then he walked down off the stand and went to sit beside Darlene Pike in the front row.
"Mrs. Pike," he said quietly. "I need to tell you something, and I need you to trust me."
Darlene's face went pale. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, ma'am. Somebody's doing something wrong to you." He kept his voice low. "Your cows are good cows. They should be bringing a lot more than they are. I think two men in this barn agreed ahead of time not to bid against each other, so they could buy your herd cheap and split it."
Darlene looked at the third row. Gaskins was watching them.
"Can you prove it?"
"Not in a court," Ray said. "But I can fix the price. If you'll let me set a reserve. A floor. A number those cows won't sell under. Then I'll offer the rest of the herd again after the break, and anybody who wants them will have to pay what they're worth."
"What if they won't pay it?"
"Then we load them up, take them home, and sell them next week to somebody honest," Ray said. "But I don't think that'll happen."
Darlene looked down at the folder in her lap. Then she looked at Ray.
"Russell always said you were the most honest man in the county," she said. "Set your number."
Ray went to the café.
Tanner Briggs was at the counter with a cup of coffee and his phone. He was twenty-nine and bought cattle for a feedlot in Indiana, and he had not bid on a single Pike lot all morning because his boss had told him to wait for the steer calves in the afternoon.
Ray sat down next to him.
"Tanner," he said. "Call your boss. Tell him there's six of the best young cows I've seen this year coming back through the ring at eleven, and a whole herd behind them, and they're going to sell for a fair price or not at all."
Tanner looked at him. Then he looked over at Gaskins and Fenn in the corner booth, talking low with their heads together.
"Clay told me to watch Gaskins's left ear," Tanner said quietly. "I've been watching it all morning."
"Then you know," Ray said.
Tanner picked up his phone.
At eleven, Ray climbed back up on his stand. The barn was fuller than before. Word moved fast in a sale barn café.
"Lot four, back in the ring," Ray said. "Six young black cows out of the Pike herd on Hollow Creek Road. There's a reserve on them now, folks, so let's not waste each other's time."
He started the chant.
Gaskins opened low, under the reserve. Ray did not even take it. He kept chanting as if he had not heard.
Tanner Briggs raised his hand at the reserve.
Gaskins touched his ear and looked at Fenn.
But Fenn was not looking at Gaskins. He was looking at his boots.
Then the farmer from Zanesville raised his hand. Then a buyer from Marietta. Then Tanner again. Then Clay Hollister, from the top row, which made half the barn turn around in their seats, because Clay had not bought a cow at auction in three years.
The price climbed. It climbed past what Gaskins had bid on the whole first three lots. It climbed until the farmer from Zanesville shook his head, smiling, and sat back.
Tanner Briggs bought them at a price that made Bev Truitt take off her reading glasses and look out the office window.
Ray brought down the gavel. "Sold," he said. "To the young man from Indiana with good sense."
The rest of the Pike herd sold the same way, lot by lot, at fair prices. Gaskins bid twice more, then stopped. By noon, he had gone out the side door to his truck.
Rudy Fenn did not go with him.
He found Ray at the back of the barn while the steer calves were coming in, and stood there with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking like a man who wanted to be somewhere else.
"Mr. Dunbar," he said. "I'm sorry. Merle's my uncle. He gave me my first job. When he said this is how it's done, I didn't want to argue with him."
Ray looked at him for a while. He did not lecture. He did not raise his voice.
"It's not how it's done," he said. "Not here. You want to buy cattle honest, you're welcome in this barn any Saturday. You sit by yourself. You bid with your own hand. And if your uncle comes back with you, he sits by himself too."
Fenn nodded. He looked as though somebody had taken something heavy off his shoulders.
"Yes, sir."
Darlene Pike drove to Maple Grove that afternoon with a check in her purse that would cover Ada's room for more than three years.
Ada was in her chair by the window when Darlene came in, a blanket on her knees. Darlene showed her the check and told her the whole story.
The old woman listened. Then she laughed, thin and bright.
"Ray Dunbar," she said. "He always did have good sense."
The next Saturday, a sour cream raisin pie from Dot's was waiting on Ray's auctioneer stand when he climbed up to start the sale. Taped to the box was a note in Darlene's handwriting.
To the man with good sense. Sold.
