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"Oh, Cub They’ll make it look like a war zone, like the Buchman place Have you looked at thatit out? It’s a trash pile Nothing butwhite threads of wool from the knees of his jeans, one at a time The air was so dry they stuck to hie, the huht She cleared a spot on the floor and carefully ground out her cigarette with the toe of her work boot "I drive past there every ti," she said "It looks like they blew up bombs all over it Then all these rains started and the wholeinto the road They have road crews out there blading the muck out of the way I bet I’ve seen that six tied in ready defeat "Well, you won’t have to drive past Dad’s upper hollohen you go get your groceries" He was already losing interest, ready for a new topic, the saht and channel-surfed without cease So a faux-eest fish in the Aht co jokes about Christians and southerners Cub clairind her teeth

"I need to get back to the house," she said Hester was feeding Preston and Cordie their supper, probably an array of ites cut crosswise There was no point in arguing with Cub, when neither of them had a say in the family plan She and her husband were like kids in the backseat of a car, bickering over the merits of so for the stairs, walked on iiant door was propped open to ventilate the hay A person could just run the length of the hay jump For the first time in her life she could see perfectly well how a person arrived on that flight path: needing an alternative to the present so badly, the only dooras a highShe’d practically done it herself The next thing to it The thought of that recklessness terrified her now,her step back fro to calm down

When she opened the around in the dusk, surprisingly slim and trim without their wool Pastor Bobby at Hester’s church spoke of Jesus looking down on his flock fro creator probably would find hunorant little du each other like crazy Hester said head-butting was a flock’s way of figuring out as boss, so it was nor always left them wildly uncertain as to ho She had asked about it, but no one in the fa now, oddly fascinated Grumpy ewes lowered their horns to toss off la at the wrong udders, and one old girl in particular was running up against puny yearlings, revisiting arguh they’d been here together all along In the still evening she heard the dull, repeated thud of heads ood reason; animals behaved with purpose, it seemed Unlike people

And then it dawned on her: scent They nize each other that way And all their special odors had been removed with the wool They’d be blind to one another’s identities until they worked up a good personal aro out this mystery by herself Maybe one day she’d inform Hester

She walked back and sat down across fro to clue us in about the foreclosure?"

"I don’t know"

"Just one day the phone would ring and they’d be like, ‘Hey, pack up the kids, get a new life, we just lost your half of the fa in with us, or us with theain You’d just as well call nine-one-one right now and get it over with Because homicide will ensue"

"I know that, hon"

"If he can’t make the payment, ouldn’t they just repossess his equiph They needed that lien on the farm"

This shocked her The equipment was so nearly new She wondered if anyone totally understood how banks could s into e to do that logging?"

"He said it was as good as done He’s signing a contract"

"Are they fro comore than what he squats on to take a crap?"

"Thanks for the visual" She thought of a e sexy by closing the bathroom door She couldn’t remember whether she’d actually read that article, or just wished souy came over from Knoxville And that’s not even theOut west"

"That figures Cooods and haul them out of here to uess"

"Well, hon, it’sthe redneck national antheet"

"I’m sorry you see it that way, but I don’t see where we have a lot of choice"

He looked sorry all right It , all that sorry She wished he would getthreads of fleece from his jeans in a slow, passive way that made her blood boil With occasional exceptions in the bedrooear It could take hih school Dovey used to call him Flash She was furious when Dellarobia first went out with hiuys with vocabularies and bank accounts, men from anywhere but here