Mercer County had spent spring drowning and summer beginning to burn.
The transition felt almost cruel.
Fields that had been too wet to enter in April became hard enough to crack beneath boots. Corn leaves rolled inward during the hottest part of the day to conserve moisture. Pastures lost color. Ponds shrank from their banks, leaving rings of dried mud around the edges.
Older farmers began mentioning 1936.
They did not say much more than the year.
They did not need to.
Anyone old enough remembered dust moving over roads like smoke, cattle ribs showing through hide, gardens burned flat, and wells dropping below pump depth.
Harold Vance’s office filled with telephone calls.
He drove constantly.
When he reached the Jennings place, his shirtsleeves were stained with sweat and dust instead of rain.
“Your soil moisture readings?” he asked before greeting Clara properly.
She handed him the notebook.
He read them twice.
“These can’t be right.”
“You say that often.”
“Did you measure at the same depth?”
“Yes.”
“Same time of day?”
“Between seven and eight each morning.”
“Same locations?”
“I marked them with stakes.”
Vance walked into the grove.
Clara followed.
Beyond the willow rows, the exposed clay had hardened. Deep cracks opened in polygon patterns, just as they had every dry summer Clara remembered.
Beneath the trees, the soil was different.
A layer of fallen leaves and tiny twigs covered the surface. Shade reduced direct sun. Clara pushed a spade into the ground with one foot.
It entered easily.
Vance crouched.
She lifted a clod.
He broke it in half.
The center was moist.
Not wet.
Not saturated.
Simply cool, dark earth holding water.
Vance took off his hat.
“How deep?”
Clara dug.
Six inches.
Moist.
Eight.
Moist.
Twelve.
The clay became wetter.
Vance sat back.
“These roots have gone down fast.”
“How fast?”
“Willow can establish aggressively, but this—”
He stopped himself.
Clara waited.
“This is exactly what a floodplain species is built to do,” he said finally. “Fast root development, high water use when water is abundant, access to deep moisture when surface conditions change. Your grandmother chose a plant designed for both sides of the same problem.”
“Flood and drought.”
“Yes.”
Clara looked at the silver-green leaves trembling in hot air.
The bottomland had always been described as inconsistent.
Too wet.
Too dry.
Impossible.