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Cub exa at the fra her own family had turned out that well It was a dated picture, Winnie Ogle wore a ponytail in a scrunchy, and the tere just toddlers Dellarobia had lately seen those girls helping out in the nursery, preteens now, both a bit burdened by the look of too s But sweet girls, responsible kids Dellarobia’s eyes wandered around the office It was no-fuss, like Bobby, with a simple cross on the wall and one of those colossal Bibles on a stand, the type that would break bones if dropped He had a lessNew American translation on his desk, she noted, pressed between a pair of weird, crudely made ceramic bookends that looked like fists As if so to squeeze scripture juice out of that thing A congregant must have made the bookends This in fact she observed to be a theme of Bobby’s decor: the Kleenex box wore a brown and pink crocheted cozy, and three hand-carved wooden wisepaper clips, Sharpies, and a yellow cube of Post-it notes Dellarobia couldn’t decide if that was tacky or astute If born to the present day, ould the Savior find handier than Post-its?

At length Bobby laid the pages down on his desk and folded his hands together "There’s nothing in that contract to hurt you," he said, looking Bear directly in the eye "Hester is right You return that earnest ot it worked out on the spreadsheet there, with the balloon paid off by your extra income this winter and the rest of the loan refinanced I’d consider your son’s advice about selling off so There are folks in this congregation who’d be happy to send work your way Contractors and so on"

Dellarobia could see this rankled Bear, ould not want his working life in any way the concern of this flock Bobby apparently saw this too, and subtly shifted gears "Your financial concerns can be met I think that’s clear That land has value to your family the way it is"

She was i these rocky shoals But he still sounded a lot like a guy at the bank turning you down for a loan: overly benevolent, in a manner intrinsically related to the fact that he’s about to sock you Bear sat on the front of his chair with his big-knuckled hands on his knees and his elbows out, essentially in a crouch, ready to stand at any le er de spell cast over Hester

"Well, sir," Bear said, "I’ to return thatthat could be trees laying down All due respect, Bobby, that’s money in the bank and it’s my call"

Bobby nodded, leaned back, folded his hands behind his head "What I hear you saying is you want to log that mountain because it’s yours, and because you can And my job here I think is to warn you about the sin of pride"

Cub’s head carabbed hiets too big for his britches, he pays for that You’ve seen that"

"You pay with your health and your peace of reed "You heard Cub about the ater If you can’t live by the laws the Lord God ardless"

"My name’s on the deed of that land too, Dad My family’s house"

"That land was bestowed on us for a purpose," Hester said "And I don’t think it was to end up looking like a pile of trash"

For a moment Bobby’s and Dellarobia’s eyes met, as bystanders to the family arbitration To all appearances, they could just as well have fought it out in their own living rooed the stakes Not just the pastor but this setting, thosethirty pounds of higher laws And Bear in his Sunday suit, this was no small part of it either He was an older and smaller man here than at home in his work clothes, without access to his ordinary tools of contempt It crossed Dellarobia’s mind that he would be buried in that suit Bobby now advised hi down his o on the land Strength cauer

Bobby looked amused "Well nohat are you, Burley, a tree puncher? What have you got against the Lord’s trees?"

In a sense theht, where the winner is called abruptly for no discernible reason Suddenly Bear was defeated and Bobby was bea the family in prayer Hester see to maternity she’d ever seen in her mother-in-law Too bad it was not her son but Bobby in those high beams, and too bad Bobby didn’t notice His eyes were already sneaking toward the big open calendar on his desk, where the squares of his days were jammed with little handwritten notes in various inks Maybe Dellarobia was ine the condescending way he patted Hester’s shoulder when they left Doing his best, she knew Bobby’s flock was needy and his duties large

Dellarobia went to collect the kids and brought theon and Bear’s red pickup sat together like fas Bear had one hand on the roof of his truck and was slicing the air with the other as he spoke to Cub, regaling him with the specs on some piece of equip firewood, spoils of all the downed timber after the winter’s floods Bear now explained that this fellow he kneas selling the splitter for next to nothing because it needed a little work, one of those fools who’d throw out sorowl underneath the diain, and his blood pressure was still measurable in his face Dellarobia knew they probably had not seen the last of his argu She watched the three of the ten feet away ignoring the grandkids, absorbed in untwisting the strap of her yellow purse As if everything that had just happened to this family had not happened What ith these people?