The Desert of Wheat

The story opens on the endless golden sea of the Columbia Basin, a wheat desert framed by distant mountains and the winding Columbia River. The landscape is described in stark, lyrical detail, where treeless hills and dust‑laden horizons create a sense of solitude and quiet grandeur. In this unforgiving countryside, the richest wheat in the world grows, a paradox of abundance amid barren soil. The narrator’s voice captures the mix of pride and fatigue that defines the community of scattered farmsteads.

At the center of this setting is Kurt Dorn, a young farmer who has just pledged to his dying father that he will not answer the call to arms. He stands on the fence of his family’s clapboard house, watching a dust‑cloud rise as a motorcar approaches—Anderson, the wealthy rancher who holds the mortgage on his fields. With a thirty‑thousand‑dollar debt hanging over him, Kurt must face the uneasy gratitude he feels toward the man who has been creditor and benefactor. The inevitable inspection of his wheat promises to test his resolve and fragile balance between survival and honor.