stood near the tree line.
A banner hung between two utility poles.
CEDAR RIDGE HARVEST WEEKEND.
Beneath it were smaller words promising a corn maze, hayrides, cider tasting, pumpkin decorating, live music, and a “VIP sunset experience.”
I didn’t recognize the event.
I definitely recognized the land.
My name is Jack Mercer.
I was forty-two years old, and Mercer Farm had been in my family for eighty-seven years.
Six hundred and twelve acres outside Millbrook, Missouri.
Corn on the north fields.
Soybeans along the creek bottom.
Cattle pastures west of the house.
A machine barn built by my father.
A white farmhouse my grandfather had enlarged one room at a time whenever the family could afford lumber.
Nothing fancy.
Nothing decorative.
Nothing that looked like the kind of place where women wearing designer boots should be directing strangers to valet parking.
But that Thursday afternoon, my farm looked like someone
