He looked at Opal.
“You knew.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Dale frowned.
“You did.”
“I hoped.”
“That’s not the same.”
Opal looked across the rows.
“No.”
“It isn’t.”
The following morning, Harlon Voss drove county roads as part of an emergency erosion survey.
He had not seen Opal in person since sending the pamphlets years earlier.
He remembered her letter.
A teenager asking unusually specific questions about hardpan, slope, root penetration, and erosion.
He had mailed everything he thought might help.
Then work continued.
Dozens of farms.
Hundreds of questions.
Years passed.
Now he drove past fields stripped raw.
He stopped repeatedly.
Photographs.
Measurements.
Notes.
At the Whitlock property, he stood inside one of the new gullies.
At another farm, he measured sediment piled against a fence.
Then he reached the Vance boundary.
He stopped the truck.
Sat.
Looked.
On one side of the road, damage.
On the other, the sixty acres of contour oak rows.
Seven years old.
Canopies beginning to interlock.
Understory thick.
He could see where water had moved.
He could see the debris caught along the rows.
He could see no major soil loss.
Harlon stepped out.
Walked.
Two hours.
He measured.
Took photographs.
Checked slope.
Examined the lower road.
The county road adjacent to the Vance boundary remained intact while sections farther along had washed badly.
Eventually Harlon drove to the farmhouse.
Dale answered.
“I’m looking for Opal.”
Dale raised an eyebrow.
“You a bill collector?”
Harlon smiled.
“Extension.”
“Worse.”
Dale called her.
Opal came from the barn.
Mud on her jeans.
Hair tied back.
Twenty-three now.
Harlon introduced himself.
Her expression changed.
“You sent me the shelterbelt material.”
“You’re Opal Vance?”
“Yes.”
Harlon stared toward the Flat.
Then back.
“I want to see your records.”
She almost laughed.
“My records?”
“All of them.”
Opal went inside.
Returned with the green notebook.
Then another.
And another.
Harlon stared.
“How long?”
“Seven years.”
“Everything?”
“Most things.”
“Rain?”
“Yes.”
“Infiltration?”
“Yes.”
“Mortality?”
“Yes.”
“Spacing?”
“Yes.”
“Grass establishment?”
“Yes.”
“Storm observations?”
“Yes.”
Harlon looked at Dale.
Dale shrugged.
“I told you she was strange.”
Opal smiled.
They sat at the kitchen table for almost three hours.
Ruth made coffee.
She mostly listened.
Harlon read numbers.