Nora turned slowly and looked down the rows. The trees were no longer accidental shapes in the brush. They were survivors of an intention that had been buried almost beyond recognition, an intention made by someone who had once expected harvests, maintenance, and years of useful growth.
She tried to imagine the land before the blackberry canes rose over the lower branches. Sunlight on open rows. A tractor moving between trunks. Someone checking a pump beside the little slab.
"How many are worth saving?" she asked.
Wade's expression grew serious. He pointed to a hollow tree that leaned toward the planned access lane. "That one needs a risk assessment before anybody stands beneath it. Some others need work but can wait."
He motioned toward the strongest trees. "And a few look good enough that you might justify spending money on them now. Don't count all the trunks as income. An orchard can be alive and still have a lot of trouble in it."
He made three categories on Tess's sketch: dangerous, living but not urgent, and promising for careful rehabilitation. They spent the next hour walking the accessible rows and assigning provisional marks. The promising group was smaller than Nora had hoped, but it was real. Wade identified several with healthy canopies and visible fruiting wood, though he warned that years of shade and competition could mean poor yields for some time.
Nora found herself listening with the same concentrated care she had used when learning goats. Every tree was an individual under shared conditions, and the differences mattered. A hollow center did not always mean death, but it could mean danger. Green leaves did not guarantee sound limbs. An old graft union offered history, not a promise of this year's crop.
Near one of the better trees, Rook lowered his nose to the ground and remained there. He sniffed slowly around the exposed root area, then moved to a patch a few feet away and did the same. Nora called him when Wade started walking. The dog followed without objection, leaving behind an observation no one yet knew how to interpret.
"He keeps doing that," Tess said when they returned to the truck.
"Looking for mice, probably. Or buried nuts."
"At only some of the trees?"
"The best mice have standards."
Tess smiled, then wrote a small mark beside the number of the tree where Rook had lingered. It was not an official finding. She simply no longer wanted any repeated detail lost because it seemed unimportant at the time.
The orchard discovery brought hope, but the fire lane still had to be completed. Nora did not allow herself to celebrate for more than one evening. She made a pot of beans, placed Wade's sketch next to the county access plan, and calculated the work remaining. The difference between the two documents frightened her. The orchard map suggested possibilities measured in years. The access plan carried a deadline measured in weeks.