A Good Judge of Men

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McGarron, the sales manager, issued the invitation.

Four of us were being broken in at the home office before being sent to the regional offices of the Dillon Construction Equipment Company. There’s a lot of money in moving dirt, and in selling the stuff that moves it. It’s the cream of all sales jobs. They prefer civil engineers, but some of the old boys, like McGarron, started in before Dillon started to get particular.

McGarron said, “I’ve got this camp. It’s in pretty rough country. We can go out and maybe get ourself a deer. I’ll take care of the grub and the liquor and the guns and the transportation. You guys get licenses. We’ll leave from here Friday afternoon.”

It was as much an order as an invitation.

McGarron had made it pretty clear that he could turn the thumb down on any one of us, or the whole four, if he felt like it. I didn’t think much of him from the minute I met him. A big-bellied citizen with a weather-red face and what his wife probably told him were twinkly little blue eyes. He was one of those people who keep sticking you with their thumb to emphasize a point, or knuckling you on the chest. But he knew equipment, and he had a 30-year card file in his head of everybody who’d bought anything from Dillon.

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