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coping. Thanks. I hear you weave, too, something I’ve always wished I could do. I used to do a little pottery. But now—I don’t have any hobbies. Just those thirty cows. Thirty-one, to be exact. We just had a birth.”
    Moira smiled back. She could use a friend. She almost asked, Will you be my friend? They’d been so busy with the orchard these last few years, she hadn’t taken time to join a group or make friends. “Sugar? Cream in your coffee?”
    “Black.” Ruth planted herself down on a kitchen stool, looked comfortable, as if she belonged there. “No frills. So tell me about this latest, um, accident. You look like it might help to talk about it.”
    Moira poured the coffee, stuck her elbows on the kitchen table, stared down at the old pine boards, wondered where she should begin. With the school board, maybe? Or was she paranoid herself, beginning to believe what Stan had said, that perhaps the vendetta between Stan and that woman Cassandra Wickham had something to do with the malice—there was that word again—in the orchard?
    So she told about the vendetta. “He came home last night in a fury. Had three Manhattans—he holds his liquor better than most, but by golly, there’s a limit! The woman’s trying to ban a book, she’s ‘crucifying’ some English teacher, he said. Stan’s been involved in censorship before, it’s one of the reasons we chose Vermont; you’re supposed to think for yourself here. No one to dictate: do this, do that. But then he found himself in the middle of another row. The woman is archconservative, she wants us to think her way. She belongs to some church called the Messengers of Saint Dorothea. I’d never heard of it before! I mean, she has a right to her beliefs, but Stan’s afraid she’ll bring a whole group of the religious right onto the school board. They’re the ones who voted her in. They’re organized!” She stopped, drew a breath. Was she getting worked up herself, like Stan?
    The cardinal was slamming at the window again. Ruth was watching it, her tongue stuck in her cheek, looking thoughtful.
    “Bertha belongs to that group,” Ruth said. “My sister-in-law. Or was. Pete and I are divorced now, but Bertha hangs on. Well, she has a right, I guess, my kids are her nieces and nephews. Anyway, she’s been writing letters to the editor. She’s taken an interest lately in the school board. I wondered why. I guess I was naive. I mean, I’ve got a child in that school! I’ve got to get out of the barn now and then, find out what’s going on.” She squinted at the window. “What is it with that bird?”
    “It wants to get in,” Moira said. “It wants to get in and that’s a bad sign.” She laughed to lessen the solemnity of the words, but Ruth was taking her seriously.
    “We won’t let him in,” Ruth said. “We’ll keep him out. I promise you that. I’ll keep tabs on that crazy Bertha. See what I can find out about the school board woman.” She grimaced, then smiled, and swallowed her coffee.
     

Chapter Six
     
    Stan had them lined up in the barn: Rufus, the eight Jamaicans, four of the five local help. The Jamaicans, headed by Bartholomew, stood stiffly against the barn wall, their caps shading their downcast eyes, hands loose at their sides, their work pants stuffed into tall rubber boots. The locals appeared more relaxed, more confident, in jeans and caps stuck on backward the way the crazy kids wore them these days. There was Adam Golding; the twins, Rolly and Hally Butterfield, who had never finished high school and were exercise freaks—lifted weights, the muscles bulged under their tight-fitting T-shirts; and six-foot-tall Millie from up on the mountain, seated cross-legged on the barn floor. Emily Willmarth was the only one absent: Most days she had a class; today she had a dental appointment. She couldn’t pick on a regular basis—his wife had hired Emily in spite of his concerns for the girl’s inexperience.
    Rufus stood