“This many?”
Mara looked uphill.
Rows continued.
“Bigger than a home orchard.”
She photographed everything.
Then did something her first three months on the property had taught her.
She stopped.
No aggressive clearing.
No cutting vines blindly from upper limbs.
Removing heavy vines could snap weakened branches.
Opening an old orchard suddenly to full sun could stress bark and roots.
Mara knew enough to know she did not know enough.
That evening, she called Clifton University Extension.
She eventually reached an agent named Natalie James.
“I think I found an orchard.”
“How many trees?”
“At least eighty.”
“Active orchard?”
“No.”
“How old?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“Fruit?”
“Several kinds.”
“Where?”
Mara gave the parcel location.
Natalie became quiet.
“That property?”
“You know it?”
“Everybody knows it.”
“Apparently nobody knows it very well.”
Natalie visited three days later.
She spent two hours examining the first rows.
“These are old.”
“How old?”
“I’m not going to guess.”
“Can you identify them?”
“Some maybe.”
She held one fruit.
“But you need someone better than me.”
“Who?”
Natalie smiled.
“An apple hunter.”
His actual name was Walter Avery.
He disliked “apple hunter.”
“I am a retired pomologist.”
That was the first thing he told Mara over the phone.
“Natalie called you an apple hunter.”
“Natalie enjoys irritating me.”
“Do you find old apples?”
“Yes.”
“So…”
“Retired pomologist.”
“Yes, sir.”
Walter was seventy-four.
He had worked more than thirty years in horticulture, much of it with fruit-tree identification, preservation and extension education.
Retirement had apparently meant driving around Appalachia looking for old orchards.
He arrived in a faded Subaru containing pruning tools, notebooks, sample bags, a magnifying lens, three apple reference books and enough coffee for a cross-country trip.
He did not become excited when Mara showed him the first tree.
That disappointed her.
He examined bark.
Leaves.
Fruit.
Spur growth.
Tree form.
Then walked on.
Second tree.
Third.
Fourth.
Every few minutes he wrote something.
Mara followed.
“Anything?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Apple trees.”
She stared.
Walter smiled.
“Patience.”
At the seventh fruiting tree, he stopped longer.
Picked one apple.
Turned it.
Cut it horizontally.
Then vertically.
The flesh was cream-colored with faint reddish staining near the core.
He smelled it.
Bit.
Chewed slowly.
Spit the sample into the grass.
Mara frowned.
“That bad?”
“Professional tasting.”
“You can swallow.”
“I’m trying twelve apples before lunch.”
He picked another.
Moved to the next row.
After almost an hour, Walter removed his glasses.
“How many acres behind this?”
“Maybe twelve before the ridge turns.”