The Territorial

Down in the valley, where the sorghum fields swayed under a harvest moon, folks gathered at Rusty’s Feed & Seed to chew over life’s troubles. Lately, the talk turned to the city folks pushing apps and algorithms, telling farmers how to plant and pray.

Old Miss Eula, her hands knotted from years of quilting, sipped her coffee and said, “The idea of personal control is treated like an illusion, nowadays. They want us dancing to their tune, not our own.”

Young Nate, barely seventeen, sat in the corner, scrolling his phone. He’d been saving for a drone to “manage” his pa’s crops, sold on ads promising efficiency.

But the more he scrolled, the more he felt like a puppet, tugged by invisible strings. His pa, Amos, noticed the boy’s restless eyes.

“Nate,” he said, “put that thing down and come with me.”

They walked to the barn, where Amos kept an old plow horse named Juniper.

“She ain’t fancy,” Amos said, handin’ Nate the reins. “But she knows the land better’n any machine.”

Nate, skeptical, took Juniper to the field. The horse plodded steadily, ignoring the buzz of a neighbor’s drone overhead.

Nate tried guiding her, but Juniper snorted, setting her own pace. “She ain’t controlling herself,” Amos chuckled. “She’s choosing her path because she knows it.

”Nate frowned, “Ain’t that the same thing?”

“Nope,” Amos said. “Control’s what you force. Choice is what you trust. World’s tellin’ you your choices don’t matter, but that’s a lie. You steer your heart, not some app.”

Nate spent the week with Juniper, learning her rhythm. He ditched the phone, feeling the dirt under his boots and the reins in his hands.

Nate and Juniper kept plowing, finishing the field by sundown. Word spread through the Hollow.

Folks started turning off their gadgets, trusting their own hands instead. At Rusty’s, Miss Eula grinned as farmers swapped stories of planting by instinct, not instructions.

By harvest, Nate’s fields bloomed fuller than the drone-run farms. He sat with Amos under the stars, Juniper grazing nearby.

“Pa, why’d you trust me with her?” he asked.“

‘Cause you needed to remember,” Amos said. “Ain’t nobody controlling you but you. World’ll try to spin that differently, but your heart knows the way.”

Nate nodded, feeling the truth settle deep. In the valley, where the wind carried wisdom, folks chose their steps, one true turn at a time.