Chapter 5

Seth pressed the arrow.

The phone hummed once in his hand. The photograph of his father’s handwriting went where he had sent it, and nothing in the kitchen moved.

Martin took his hands off his cap. He closed the ledger, turned it face down, and looked at the window. Nella said, “They’re coming,” and hung up the phone.

Orson waited on the step. Nobody asked him in. He sat with his hands hanging between his knees, and the silver buckle looked dull in the shade.

The sheriff’s SUV came up the drive at 11:20, trailing dust. Two deputies got out. The older one asked Orson to stand. “Mr. Venn, we’d like you to come with us and answer some questions.”

Orson didn’t argue. At the car he looked back at the house, but not at Seth.

The deputy took Seth’s statement at the kitchen table, then Martin’s. When he asked about the ledger, Martin read the page aloud. His voice stayed low and gravelly and didn’t shake until the date.

“Charges are a decision for the district attorney,” the deputy said, closing his notebook. “That will take weeks. Don’t expect a phone call this month.”

That afternoon, Audra led two other deputies down the back hall of the Venn house and unlocked the door herself. She told Seth later. They carried out the handle, the tin box, and the original schedule from her father’s desk, one paper bag at a time.

Three weeks later, the district’s letter hung on the Rell gatepost in a plastic sleeve. All disputed deliveries suspended pending review. The Venn ranch had the same letter on its gate. A second notice had come to the Rell kitchen alone. It fined the family for the June 14 diversion and cut their allotment in half until spring.

The four days had run out long before the letter came. Two rows of young grafts stood gray in the orchard, leaves curled like old paper. The older trees held on. Martin walked the rows every morning and said nothing about any of it.

The district had also sent a form. It let the Rells call the ledger note a clerical error. Martin had looked at it for a week. Seth hadn’t signed it, and Martin hadn’t asked him to.

Seth walked up to the line gate at the top of the orchard ditch, where Venn land ended and the Rell trees began. Audra stood on the other side, one hand on the chain. Her braid was shorter than he remembered, cut off at the shoulder.

“They let Dad go home,” she said. “His lawyer says stay in town and say nothing. The sheriff has his statement. The DA’s office hasn’t called anyone.”

“Weeks,” Seth said.

“Maybe months.”

He held out the carbon. “The district made its own copy. They gave me this back.”

She took it and unfolded it. Her mother’s signature showed through the paper in smudged blue. She looked at it a long time.

“The letter says anything without a paper on file is suspended,” Audra said. “Hers is on file now. It doesn’t say the share’s decided. It doesn’t say it isn’t.”

“They could cite you.”

“Let them.” She set her hand on the wheel beside the chain. “It’s not enough water. It’s not in time.”

“I know.”

“I’m not going to tell you I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.” Seth looked at the gray grafts behind him. “I could’ve signed their form. It would’ve cost less.”

“Would it have been true?”

“No.”

Neither of them said anything about what came next. The wind moved the dry grass on both sides of the gate.

“I’m not going to promise you something I can’t pay for,” Audra said.

“Good,” Seth said. “I wouldn’t believe it.”

She turned the wheel. The chain slid. The old iron groaned, and something wet moved behind the boards.

Seth stepped back and watched the ditch. At first there was only the sound. Then a dark seam crept along the cracked dirt, thin as a thread, feeling its way toward the first dead tree. He stood where he was and watched it come, and on the far side of the gate Audra kept her hand on the chain.