The land had not always been unforgiving. Nana Vera remembered when the soil broke apart in dark, loose handfuls and earthworms twisted against the plowshare after a spring rain. Thomas remembered walking behind his father through rows of corn that hid a grown man by the end of July. Eli remembered those stories more clearly than he remembered seeing anything like them with his own eyes. In his lifetime, and especially during the last three summers, the fields had seemed to grow lighter in color and harder with every passing season.
The drought had come in stages, which somehow made it crueler. One spring began with enough rain to persuade people to plant, then ended with dry winds that stripped the moisture out of the seedbeds. The next summer brought several heavy storms, but each storm dropped so much water at once that it tore gullies into the bare slopes and ran straight to the river. By the third year, even the farmers who liked to say weather had always been unreliable were speaking more quietly about what might happen if autumn brought no relief.
The Barnett farm occupied four acres beyond the last bend in the road, on ground Thomas's grandfather had worked when the town still had a proper grain buyer. The farmhouse was a modest white structure with a porch that leaned almost imperceptibly toward the east. Its paint had been renewed so many times that the boards beneath looked softly rounded, and the screen door carried a familiar dent where Eli had once ridden his bicycle into it. A red barn stood behind the house, faded to a dusty brown where the afternoon sun struck it hardest.
It was not enough land to make a comfortable living even in good years, but it had been enough to make an honest one. Thomas grew corn and beans on the better sections, rotated smaller plantings where the soil permitted, and accepted seasonal repair work from neighboring farms when money ran thin. Ruth tended the kitchen garden, sold preserves when the fruit trees cooperated, and managed the household accounts with an accuracy that made Thomas both grateful and uneasy. They did not waste money, and that was precisely the problem: there was almost nothing left to cut.
At forty-three, Thomas moved like a man older than his years. His wrists had thickened from handling tools, his shoulders carried a permanent forward bend, and sunburn had made the skin at the back of his neck darker than the rest of him. Each morning he rose before five, put on his boots while the house was still dark, and walked the fields before breakfast. He could tell how much the crop had suffered by watching the leaves, and Eli had learned that the silence Thomas brought back to the table often told the family more than any report of inches or bushels.