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A thicket of reasons led them up the mountain, and Dellarobia’s insistence was one strand of it Bear and Peanut Norwood’scompany, and possibly of each other, coed the boundaries of the section proposed for logging and declared that it was up to the Turnbows and Norwoods to see that property lines were respected The hard-hat men, ere subcontractors for the real decision-makers in California, came from Knoxville in a panel truck that said Money Tree Industries Suspicion was only natural

Cub rallied to repair the all-terrain vehicle so they wouldn’t have to make the hike on foot It took four of his buddies and nearly a week of evenings to replace the broken axle Dovey observed to Dellarobia that there was no end to the a hi the expedition piled onto the ATV with Cub at the wheel, Bear riding shotgun, and Peanut Norwood in the cargo bucket hugging his knees, insufficiently shaped like a bale of hay to fit in there very well Dellarobia stood at her kitchen atching the squat vehicle crawl up the steep pasture slope like a broad, flat toad with threeto its back Her life had become some kind of fairy tale, in which her family h Road She couldn’t have said what she hoped the men would discover up there, but her distraction was acute Tenclothes from the dirty-laundry basket while the clean ones sat in the dryer

Less than an hour passed before the men came back, astounded, to collect their wives as witnesses

There was no question of everyone riding in the vehicle They would have to walk Dellarobia surprised herself by asking to go along, despite the sticky fact of Cordelia eating cereal in her high chair, and Preston needing to be picked up froarten at noon She asked anyway Dovey was off work thatand could come over to mind the kids Cub made his parents hold their horses while they waited the ten ly resolute on Dellarobia’s behalf

Her heart raced as they eness of reenacting this walk she’d so recently taken with outrageous intent, this time with husband and family in tow It felt like a reality show, poised to expose and explode her serial failures The ho keeps having inappropriate crushes, falling off the ated the mud at the top of the pasture where the sheep had beaten down the perirass on the other side Like herself, she thought, when she’d last slipped through this gate Like a dog in a yard, pacing the edges of her confines to the tune of "Get ate open for her, and she couldn’t meet his eyes

Beefy, ruddy-faced Bear led the way, the platoon leader He’d served in the es: the haircut, the weight lifting, the blood pressure He’d held on to a e, and the natural supremacy that ith a fraht his trousers fro trips to Knoxville Cub was nearly as tall but lers, size 38–36, which to Dellarobia sounded more like the shape of a TV screen than a man She assumed it was the tour in Vietnam that accounted for the difference in men like Burley Turnbow Sr and Jr, so si Like those boxes that guaranteed they were equally filled, but contentsnow as he brought up the rear, saying little The two oldera lot but failing to explain anything,no explanation was possible Cub was the first of theht it was insects

Hester wheeled on hi, son, I will slap you nakeder than what you were born with"

Cub pressed on, despite the threat "It’s not regular bugs, Mother It’s so pretty Wouldn’t you say it was, Dad?"

Bear and Norwood, if they could agree on nothing else, both stated that was true, it ful pretty Or would be, if there weren’t so many they covered up the place

"You won’t believe it," Cub warned "It’s like soh Road in single file and the obbler called froetting down to their family business Normally one of the men would have wished aloud for his rifle, but today no one did Dellarobia couldn’t re Nove rain After a brief fling with coloration they dropped their tresses in clu her hair A fewon, but the blue asters had gone to white fluff and the world seemed drained The leafless pear trees in Hester’s yard had lately started trying to blooain, bizarrely, little pi out on the faces of the trees Summer’s heat had never really arrived, nor the cold in its turn, and everything living now seeuish of the unloved The world of sensible seasons had come undone

At least there was no rain at the moment Dellarobia was happy to feel warth of daylight she’d all but forgotten, even now as they entered deeper woods The sky was not blue but the cold white of high clouds in a thin reflective sheet She could have used her prescription sunglasses, if she could remember what junk drawer they were in But definitely, she earing her glasses today Whatever was up here, she planned to see it clearly She spied so froht now to boundaries Bear kept the at a clip Dellarobia was next to last in the line, behind herfor a rest or a smoke, ideally both, but would drop dead before she’d be the one to ask She had barely been invited Peanut Norwood gripped his chest in a proet about wiry Hester in her yelloboy boots Onward Christian soldiers Dellarobia averted her eyes fro Levi’s, and trusted that Cub was finding her own rear viewso small, Cub told her she was a sports car: no junk in the trunk, but all you need for speed Maybe that’s hoas keeping his feetphysically ad into it She wondered if that was her probleuys who flattered her It seemed so shallow and despicable, she hoped that was not thenothing altered in the last teeks except for a greater barrenness aed except every conscious e fire in her dreams