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"They could talk to Dr Byron He’s out here twenty-four/seven, looking at all the angles, trying to figure out what’s going on" She felt the squeeze of her heart and the race of pulse when she said his na a patient She was surprised to realize she had no intention of running fro her job She had to be part of this story She would die of hi the fence for need of further h part of the pasture they could see in all directions through the barren woodlands The topography of the farh reach of e of the valley below It occurred to her how much was obscured in sureen, a person could not see to the end of anything Summer was the season of denial

At the upper east corner of the field they began tothe property line between their pasture and the Cooks’ dead orchard The skeletal peach trees in their rows leaned into the slope with branches upstretched like begging hands Casualties of this strange weather Thein Preston and Cordie’s room looked out on these trees, and for a while she’d kept the curtains drawn, it was so depressing But here they stood anyway Someone at church had said the Cooks were now in Nashville for the duration of so, probably torturous That poor child Poorer still, the parents

"I was thinking that," Cub said, after a long interval "What you said about talking to the doctor Jack Stell and theht to ask him about the butterflies But maybe he wouldn’t tell thee to cope with bad news," she replied But it was true, no one in toanted Dr Byron’s counsel She’d tried to send newspeople his way, but they didn’t bite The high school teachers hadn’t thrown out the welcoleand forthright Whatever he said, you wanted it to be right for his sake Ovid had that same air about hie It made no sense that people would embrace the one and spurn the other

"He’s not fro," Cub said

"Just because he’s the outsider, he has no say? Should we not read books, then, or listen to anybody outside this county? Where’s that going to leave us?"

Cub row, is where" She tried to ta this was not Cub’s fault People who’d never known the like of Ovid Byron would naturally mistrust him They couldn’t close out the whole world,on their TV or radio to put scientists or foreigners or whatever they thought he was in a bad light Truly, they were no better than the city people always looking down on southerners, with one Billy Ray Hatch or another forever at their disposal If people played their channels right, they could be spared froth of their natural lives Finally she got it The need for so many channels

"How do you like that, anyway?" Cub asked

"Like what?"

"That job Doing stuff out there in the barn What do you do?"

She had assumed Cub was incurious and had never tried to explain her days, which were in any case inexplicable As soon as we finish the lipids, I a Have a look Never in her life had anyone spoken to her this way, and now someone had, and it made her a different sort of person Sos," she said silorified secretary"

"You type?" Cub asked, and she laughed She could hardly think when she’d seen anyone use a typewriter, except secretaries on television Maybe the ladies at the DMV, filling in some form for a driver’s license