Layla Scholtz heard the truck on her way home from school, squinting at it through grime-caked goggles as it emerged from a cloud of dust in the center of town. She was sure she recognized its colors but wanted to see the logo on its side to be certain. Visitors to Verdigre, Nebraska, were so rare, what else could it be?

The dust wasn’t just dirt kicked up from 4th Avenue by the vehicle’s tires. It was a persistent miasma of particles held aloft by the winds blowing in from the dead fields. Her school talked a lot lately about the Dust Bowl from the 1930s. More than a century and a quarter later, and here they were again. Not that the dust towered into thundercloud massifs like it had then; these days, it was limited only to the areas that wouldn’t do business with Grow Salvation.

She adjusted the strap of her school bag as the truck pulled alongside: a yellow-and-white pickup with a tarp covering the contents in its back—the colors of the Grow Salvation company. And, sure enough, there upon its door was a green corporate logo in the shape of a leaf.

A man in a battered baseball cap and overalls the same color as the truck rolled down the driver’s side window and stuck his head out. The brown skin of his face was wrinkled, turned leathery under the hateful fierceness of the sun. She wondered how long it would take her tan features to grow as weather-beaten as his.

“Hey there,” he said. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

“Are you the Mower Man?” The words were out of her mouth before she knew she was going to say them. She’d been praying for someone like him to come.

He blinked, maybe not knowing what she meant or maybe from all the dust. He wasn’t wearing goggles. “Pardon me, miss?” He indicated the bandana covering her mouth. “I get the need for protective gear. Wouldn’t want to breathe this in either. Kinda makes it hard to hear what you’re saying, though.”

She pulled the plaid bandana down a couple of inches. “Asked if you were the Mower Man.” A mixture of sadness, frustration, and annoyance washed through her. “Only, if you are, momma says I’m not to talk with you.”

His eyes widened. “Well now, there’s a thing. Most people are glad to see me.”

Layla understood that. Her momma had her rules all the same.

He went on. “Haven’t been called a Mower Man in many a year. That’s a phrase from days gone by and no mistake.” He coughed a little at the dust. “Days I’d rather not remember, if I’m honest.”

Layla nodded. They didn’t need to talk about it. He looked old enough to have lived through the time when nothing grew in the heat and the drought and the winds, and she’d read about it in History and seen the recordings. That’s when the phrase for his line of work had been coined. Grow Salvation had turned the land green again, and since their products matured so rapidly, there was a lot of mowing to be done. People cheered to see the Mower Men coming down their street, because it meant the world was alive and growing once more.

She glanced at the tarp concealing the contents of his truck bed. “What you got back there?”

“Cutting equipment.” He wiped dust from his eyes. “Can you tell me where the mayor is?”

She stared at his lined face. “Maybe I don’t know the mayor.”

He smiled. “Town’s got a population of less than a hundred.”

Layla glanced across the street at the empty parking spaces, the boarded-up redbrick stores, the empty, decaying houses smothered in layers of yellow-brown dust. Momma said there’d been feed lots here in the years before Layla’s birth, employers and workers, life amid the scraggly grass and sparse trees. No life here now, and no grass or trees. Her eyes alighted on the ancient sign painted on the side of Frank’s Food Mart, long-since closed. It read, ‘Future Verdigre Depends On You.’

“She’s my momma,” Layla admitted.

Surprised, he said, “You’re Maud Scholtz’s daughter?” He extended a hand in greeting through the truck window. She didn’t take it. “My name’s Bill McPherson,” he said, unperturbed. “I’m with Grow Salvation.”

“We know who sent you.”

He wound his arm back inside the cab. “Your town’s in my sales area, and I’m introducing myself to the fine people of this here state.” His smile was so warm. Layla had forgotten smiles could be for more than masking pain. “Speaking of which, where would I find your esteemed mother this time of day?”

At nearly four in the afternoon, Maud would be working. “She’s in the diner.”

His eyes flickered to a display screen inside the truck. “Makes sense. She’s the proprietor. It’s on 4th and South Main. Give you a ride there?”

She was fifteen, trudging her way home through the dust. “I’m not allowed.”

“That’s right.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Spoke without thinking. Apologies if I made you uncomfortable. That’s my problem—too friendly.” He reached out a hand to tap the control that closed the window. “Guess I’ll see you there.”

#

Layla found Maud round back of the square yellow building. Despite the warmth of the day and the chance the gusting wind would spread fire, her momma was burning a stack of plants. Adding smoke to the dust.

Like her daughter, the wiry woman wore a bandana around her mouth. “How was school?” she called.

Layla shrugged. “The Mower Man’s out front, waiting to be let in.”

Her mother gave her a look. “I know.”

There were so few customers that Maud had taken to locking the front door when she was out back.

“He won’t leave until you speak with him,” Layla tried.

Her mother made a sound of disgust and stalked in through the back door. Layla followed, shedding her heavy schoolbag in the hallway. It was good to be out of the wind and the dust. She tossed her goggles and bandana into a plastic tub where they kept their stuff for going outside and then took a detour into the kitchen, past the couple of rooms where they lived. She didn’t want to miss what was coming, but she needed water to sooth her throat.

Dust coated the large front windows of the diner, blocking much of the late afternoon light. The tables and chairs stood mostly unused, except for where old Mr. Galloway sat near the wall. Mr. Galloway always came in not long after noon and stayed until nearly six, nursing small measures of the clear liquor that momma sold under the counter, on account of this being a dry county. Times were tough and momma didn’t turn away anyone. The far side of the room was filled with half-empty shelves carrying a mixture of household goods and canned food—with no general store left in town, momma’s place was as much market as diner.

Her mother was there, standing before the closed door leading out to the street. Layla watched Maud wipe her hands on her pants’ legs. Layla doubted momma knew she was there, taking it all in. She wasn’t accustomed to her mother being nervous. But that’s what she was, almost scared to let in the Mower Man.

“Well,” momma announced to the room, “no sense in dawdling here all day.” A bell jangled as she unlocked the door and hauled it open.

The Mower Man inclined his head and stepped into the gloom of the half-shuttered diner. “Might I take up a moment of you time, ma’am?” No anger about being locked outside in the swirling dust. Just that ever-present smile on his lined face, the dark, weathered skin crinkling into friendly creases.

“Nothing you say will change my mind,” momma snapped. “I am a God-fearing woman, however, and didn’t intend to leave you out there in this weather. I know my Christian duty.” She led the Mower Man to one of the larger tables.

Layla sat real quiet on a stool behind the counter while Momma refilled Mr. Galloway’s glass. The elderly man mumbled something at her, not making much sense. Layla didn’t know how old he was—older than the Mower Man she guessed. She’d known the town resident all her life and he’d always looked the same: near-mummified and shrunk into himself. She wondered if he’d die in here one day, gazing at his shot glass, and how long they’d take to notice. What would they do then? They depended on the money he brought in.

Maud couldn’t put it off any longer. She sat opposite the Grow Salvation representative.

“My name’s Bill McPherson,” he said. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“They send you because none of the others could talk me round?”

The Mower Man took a moment to collect his thoughts. “I sent myself. This town is in my sales territory. I read the file on this place, so yes, I’m here to check whether you’ve had a change of heart.”

Maud laughed. The sound was short, explosive. Far from an expression of genuine amusement.

He tried a different tack. “Came in from Lincoln. Long drive. Went through a lot of farmland. So many fields growing back now. Then I crossed into this area, and it’s nothing but brown wasteland. Got to say, I was surprised not to see any of our products here.”

She crossed her arms. “I run this town, and I don’t hold with what you’re doing. It’s unnatural. Playing God with His creations.”

Bill didn’t react to her anger. “Seeds still get carried on the wind. Our vegetation is designed to spread. Curious how I don’t see it in these parts.”

Maud grinned. “I root them out.”

Layla pictured the burn pile in the back lot, the flames licking at the broken plant stems.

The Mower Man digested that piece of news. “Quite the labor you’ve set yourself. Worthy of Hercules.” He ran his tongue over his teeth. Without a mask outdoors, his mouth must be full of grit. “I can see you’ve been working at it from the state of the land hereabouts. Mrs. Scholtz, you know you need something to hold the topsoil together. Legacy plants can’t tolerate the current climate, let alone help the human race remediate the atmosphere. What you’re doing can’t work.”

The anger, never far from her voice, filled it now. “God will provide. The path of righteousness is never easy. Yours are the temptations of the Devil. There is no place for your foul weeds here.”

He did react to her use of weeds. Leaning forward, he said, “Oh, things have changed. You’re thinking of the prototype ground cover. We have far more than our initial offerings these days. Dozens of food crops, decorative vines, even roses. Why, our white lilies are used in cathedrals all across the United States. Grow Salvation offers a mature, tested solution.” His voice grew firmer. “Things have moved on, Mrs. Scholtz. You owe it to your townspeople to listen.”

Her mouth became a thin line. Momma took her responsibilities to the town seriously. The Mower Man had maybe bought himself a chance.

“Say your piece, and then get gone,” Maud hissed.

The window of opportunity was miniscule, but it was there.

#

The sales literature showed an urban landscape literally transformed into a sea of green, the company’s bioengineered vegetation coating every inch of surface with blooming AstroTurf-like squares and lattices festooned with thriving creepers. Layla knew that these were not the ugly, almost alien growths of the company’s early years. These were vibrant reproductions of species on the verge of extinction.

Bill was showing momma paradise, and it began a few miles down the interstate.

He tapped his finger on a brochure cover. “Here’s the science part. For the plants we maintain, we’ve made their carbon capture enzymes even more efficient.” He opened the flyer, spreading it out on the tabletop. Inside featured a large diagram. “Plants absorb carbon during the Calvin cycle using an enzyme called RuBisCO, which catalyzes CO₂ into glucose. Plants use that as energy to grow, but the regular kind can only handle about a fourth of our carbon emissions by themselves.”

He leaned back in his chair, ignoring the leaflet now. Maud glared at him. She hadn’t looked at it once.

“Good though they are,” Bill went on, “we know about other enzymes that work even better. They’re called ECRs. We like to say they’re supercharged, and they work more than twenty times better than RuBisCO. Once we grow enough of these new plants, we’ll fix all the excess CO₂ in the atmosphere. Might take a while, but we combine these super-plants with countries emitting less carbon and we got ourselves a solution.”

Maud shook her head and laid her hands palm-down on the table. “You’re here for one thing and one thing only—to sell me on your plant maintenance services. We put those super-weeds of yours in our dirt, and we don’t get salvation. We get stuck with a never-ending contract for you to keep cutting them back. Else we get overrun. And Lord forbid we hire some other company to deal with your mess. You’d sue us.”

Bill scratched his cheek slowly. “They grow fast. No one says otherwise. All that glucose gives ’em energy to develop like crazy. And, yes, we’d need to cut them back.”

This was old news to Layla. Left unchecked, the very plants meant to save them would suffocate everything.

He continued, “Here in town, for example, the ground cover we’d seed would need mowing every day, and the climbing vines would need clipping every week . Crops in nearby farms would need similar maintenance.” He held up a hand to forestall her objections. “We include the underground disposal of the clippings in our prices. No extra charge for hauling them away either. That’s why we insist on handling the maintenance—so we can verify the waste is buried properly.”

Layla knew they buried it to prevent the carbon being released back into the air when the dead vegetation decayed. Burning, on the other hand, released all the carbon back into the atmosphere. Momma burned what she tore out of the ground.

“You can include whatever you like,” Maud snarled, “but we ain’t got the money to pay for it.”

There it was: a glimmer of the truth. When you were dirt poor, dirt was all you could afford.

In a calmer voice, she said, “I’ve heard your sales talk. You say your plan is put the original plants back once the climate turns normal. That’s why you kept all the seeds. Way I see it, this town can wait it out.”

His answer came quick. “The more holdouts there are the slower the recovery will be. Too many towns refusing to go along means no return to normal for anyone.”

"No one profits from a deal with the Devil.”

He took his time to answer. “You think your town will still be here the day the world finishes healing? That day could be a long time coming.”

Maud had a question of her own. “When that day comes, you think you’ll sell us the original seeds at a price we can afford?”

Bill refolded the flyer and pushed it across the table toward momma. “You don’t want to save your town, that’s your decision. Might not be what the other people living here want, though. They might want more than dust to farm in. They might even want some shade to hide under when the sun beats down. Just saying.”

Maud shook her head. “We don’t want your travesties of nature. We let you in, we’ll never be rid of you.”

“Well then, I figure I’ll leave you to it.” Bill stood. “You can keep the leaflet. Something to read over so you understand exactly what you’re turning down.”

He began walking toward the door, but then he paused. He stretched out a finger toward the mini-store’s shelves. “That food you sell. That’s made from GMOs. You know that, right? We’ve had zilch for rainfall for thirty straight years. Couldn’t have grown anything without changing our crops to cope with drought. No one ever died from eating food like that. Figured I’d point that out.” He tipped his cap in farewell.

Layla stared down at her lap. She didn’t understand why he’d given up.

Mr. Galloway sipped at his shot glass, not offering an opinion.

#

The Mower man did not leave town. Nor did he give up.

Layla saw him the next morning as she left for the walk to school. He was on South Main taping up posters. She crossed to where he’d affixed one to the outside of the old general store. The air was still, and Layla was grateful for the lack of dust blowing as she read the poster.

DON’T BE LEFT BEHIND. JOIN THE FIGHT TO HEAL THE WORLD. BUY GROW SALVATION PRODUCTS TODAY.

There was another one of their pictures. A photo of a house covered in flowers this time. The company was selling kits for converting the exteriors of old buildings into growable spaces, along with a service contract.

The Mower Man saw her and strolled over, his arms full of posters and a tape gun. “Good morning, Layla. How are you?”

“Thought you left.”

He shook his head. “Why would I do that? Your mother doesn’t speak for the town.”

Layla looked at his patient face. He kept his temper better than most around momma. “You don’t hate us?”

“Hate you?” He frowned. “Why would I do a thing like that? Your mother is allowed to have an opinion. I think she’s wrong, but I can see she wants what’s best for everyone.”

Layla didn’t know what to say.

He filled the silence. “I actually kind of admire her persistence. Most people gave up their convictions when food got scarce. She’s stuck to her principles. I understand her way of looking at the world. I really do. She’s independent—wants to stand on her own two feet, and she wants the past back. But we can’t undo such a big mess without working together, and the past is gone. Those can be hard truths to accept.”

“Why aren’t there other companies here,” Layla asked, “selling us the new plants? We only ever see Grow Salvation, and even your company doesn’t come often.”

He unrolled another poster and got ready to glue it up. “Our rivals concentrate on the larger towns and cities. They're in it for the money. We focus on everywhere. It’s the only way we’ll get the job done. Fixing the world. In a way, we’re helping your mother get what she wants—a return to how things were. Putting ourselves out of business.” He laughed. “Maybe you should tell her that. Faster she hires us, faster we go bankrupt.”

Layla heard the front door of the diner jangle. “Layla!” called her momma . “You forgot your lunch kit.”

She turned and saw her mother freeze in surprise. The shock didn’t last long.

“You!” Maud thundered across the empty road. “Get away from my daughter and stop what you’re doing. How dare you spread your lies!”

Bill tipped his baseball cap at her. “Good to see you, ma’am. I think you’ll find I have every right to be here.”

“Got no right to put up posters on private property!” Maud shoved the lunch kit into Layla’s hands.

“Figured it wasn’t doing any harm, on account of being abandoned.”

Maud wasted no more words on the Mower Man—she went to the nearest poster and tore it down, reducing the glossy paper to fragments.

He kept pace with her as she marched to the next one and repeated her actions, and then to the next one. Layla watched from afar, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

“I have more,” he observed.

“And I got all day to tear ’em down,” Maud shot back.

Next to the company man, Momma sounded like a child. Layla’s face flushed with shame. She could see him wracking his brain for the right thing to say.

He sighed. “You know, we can only save the world if everyone pitches in. The scale we need to apply these fixes on… it needs to be in every corner of every country, and we need to keep at it for a long, long time. Otherwise, it can’t work, and we’ll all suffer for it. Not wanting to be part of something bigger than yourself, your family, your neighbors—that isn’t going to work.”

He put his glue gun away in an overall pocket. “But I can see you’ve made up your mind. Maybe we can talk again the next time I swing through your town. No decision should ever be final.”

Layla clutched hold of her lunch kit as she hurried off in the direction of her small, mostly empty school. The building felt like her soul, small and mostly empty. The Grow Salvation truck rumbled by as she reached the corner of the road. Layla watched it drive away.

#

The opinions of the TV news anchors and pundits were a susurration of hate in the Scholtz family’s living room. The words hung like dustbowl grit in the air, scraping at Layla’s body. Slumped on the couch in the small room at the rear of the diner, she did her best to ignore the Patriot Party channel Momma loved to watch. Sometimes, Layla felt like she’d been given to the wrong family as a newborn. One day, her real parents would knock on the diner’s doors and explain it had all been a mix-up and could they please have their daughter back.

Layla flipped through her manga, trying to ignore Momma’s eyes on her.

“You’re awful quiet tonight,” Momma said.

Layla read the same page again. She couldn’t concentrate. “I’m reading.”

“You’re angry with me,” corrected her mother. “I can tell.”

Maud was wrong. Layla was more sad than angry. The Mower Man had offered them hope, but Momma had turned her nose up at it. Principles didn’t hold back dust clouds. Neither did faith.

Her mother tilted her head back, defiant as always. “They ain’t natural, those test-tube plants, and I want no part of them. The grass and flowers and trees that God gave us are good enough for me. And they should be good enough for you, too.”

Layla had heard it all before. “The plants God gave us are all dead.”

If they didn’t take what the Mower Man offered, what would they be left with? She worried about how they’d keep going. Mr. Galloway sipping at a glass for hours on end wasn’t enough.

“The Lord will provide,” her mother said.

That was it, then. The great plan of Mayor Maud Scholtz. To wait for a miracle.

Layla went back to her manga, struggling through a few more pages. Later, after momma went to bed, Layla snuck back into the living room and reset the password on the Patriot Party streaming TV service.

It would take momma hours of waiting with customer support to get it working again, and she’d be mad as hell when she found out the cause. In the meantime, Layla would be spared the steady drip-drip-drip of hate poisoning her home. And maybe Maud would think clearer.

It wasn’t the miracle momma wanted, but it was a start.

#

Layla went to school the next day wondering when the axe would fall. Momma hadn’t noticed yet. Layla daydreamed through endless lessons, and images of Maud screaming in her face dominated her thoughts as she trudged home.

The wind was picking up again, with a hint of a storm coming. It wouldn’t rain for months and then they’d get a deluge. Famine or flood, those were their choices.

She spotted the Grow Salvation truck parked on the side of 4th Avenue and stopped short. It was Bill’s truck.

The tarp covering its bed was pulled up at one corner, exposing rows of neatly labeled bags. Bill himself was standing a few feet from the road, sprinkling handfuls of granules from one of the bags onto the dirt, a bandana in company colors tied over his mouth. Once he was finished, he carefully returned the near-empty bag to the truck and tied the tarp back in place.

“You’re sowing seeds,” she said.

He stiffened. He hadn’t noticed she was there.

“I don’t know what you think you saw,” he called to her. She was still a good twenty feet from the vehicle. “I was emptying some trash. That’s all.”

She thought about the plants that kept sprouting. How momma had to scour the area and root them out. Carried by the wind, Bill had said.

Layla stepped closer until she was standing beside the truck. “I won’t tell,” she said, then blurted, “Momma tries to do the right thing.”

Bill lifted his baseball cap to scratch his scalp . “Yeah. Knowing what right is, that’s the trick.” His eyes crinkled and Layla knew he was smiling beneath his mask. “Personally, turning the world green again seems right to me.” He gave a mock salute. “You take care, Layla Scholtz. I’ll be back next year.”

She spoke before he could get in the truck cab. “Where can I get seeds of my own?”

“They’re available online.” He opened the truck door. “Plant them just before a storm so that they get water.”

“There’s a storm coming now,” she said.

His eyes twinkled. “Is there? I didn’t know.”

A thought struck her, and she sagged against the hot metal side of Bill’s truck. “Even if I have seeds shipped to a friend’s house, I don’t have the money.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I can see how things are tight.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Then he held out a fifty-dollar bill to Layla. “Enough to get you started. Don’t tell anyone I gave it to you.” She stared at the money dangling from his fingers.

“Thing with your mother is,” he added, “some people won’t accept a hand extended in friendship no matter how much they need it. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I hear you,” she answered. She took the money.

Momma didn’t have it in her to make a deal with the Devil. Layla understood why. But the town needed a future. It didn’t matter that there were no good choices—a hard road ahead was better than no road at all.

Bill got into his truck and started the engine. “Way I see it, some people say no, and others just know.”

Layla closed the door for him, glancing through the window as it swung shut. She saw a crucifix on a chain around his neck . As the truck growled away, slipping into the thickening clouds of yellow-brown dust, the first raindrops of the storm began to fall.

Layla raised her face to the welcome moisture, letting it clean the lenses of her goggles. By her feet, seeds waited for the cool caress of water. Perhaps this time there'd be too much life for Maud to tear out of the ground.

She tucked the bill into her wallet and hurried through the rain. She’d make sure of it.

© 2023 Mike Morgan