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Inad someone else, a wife from Mars with a nicer personality She’d co new here to see She slowed her breathing and just watched the little threads that clung to his jeans, standing straight out as he pulled theht air was crisp for the first time in months, full of proht of these fall nights when the air suddenly went so dry her pajamas lit the sheets with little sparks Why would cool weather s a thousand tiular brainless replies: woolly worms predict the weather and the Lord ht She knew she should be patient with those underly endoith intelligence, but could everyone at once be below average? Most, she suspected, were just sliding by

She had seen trees aflae was hers alone What had she been thinking? The full proposition now flooded her with panic, shutting her into a tight place "They can’t log that mountain," she said

"Why not?"

"I don’t knohy not"

A lake of fire, ould Cub estion he’d heard all his life and probably believed The Revelations Her mind worked differently Flame and inundation were opposites, they canceled "The world can surprise you," she said finally "It could be so special up there"

Cub lifted the plane of his eyebrows "He’s selling trees, Dellarobia"

She balked, knowing his wariness of people anted to save trees for trees’ sake An easy want, when they weren’t your trees, or your foreclosure "But what kind of trees?" she pressed "Ior little or red or blue or what? If Bear’s signing a logging contract, I think he should walk up there and look at what he’s selling You both should"

Cub stopped picking at his jeans and looked at her as if confronted with a whole neife Like those sheep out there, bewildered by the fa-up hair, and replaced it, studying her all the while For the firstinvisible ti seen

"What for?" he asked, at last

"What for? It’s out of the question to walk your own land?"

"Not my land yet"

She had carried the leaf rake up here, and now pictured herself walking to the hay metallic clatter Cub still drove the saine overhaul, with so many miles on it you’d think surely he’d been somewhere But he hadn’t seen a state line, and didn’t care What did it take to move a man hen he ran out of steain with, resembled a mountain?

"If it’s not your land, then what are we, sharecroppers?" she asked "We work this farht want to claim it Even if your dad has not passed away as of yet Why won’t you act like one thing in the world is yours?"

"I walked the fences that tiot out"

"Jesus Christ, that was the winter I was pregnant with Preston"

"No need to take the Lord’s name in vain"

"I’ve hardly seen you set your boots outside this barn in five years That’s a fact, Cub How do you even knohat’s up there in that hollow? There could be anything You all are fixing to sell off so, and you don’t even knohat it is"

"Well, I don’t expect there’s any gold "