She stared.
“They found the trees.”
“And they'll kill them.”
“They're eating kudzu.”
“They'll eat bark once the kudzu's gone.”
She looked toward the nearest doe.
The doe was already chewing something suspiciously close to a sucker growing from the trunk.
“Hey.”
The animal stared at her while chewing.
The girl pushed her away.
The older farmer smiled.
“Congratulations.”
“What?”
“Your rescue crew is also your first threat.”
She groaned.
By afternoon, they had built a crude temporary barrier around the exposed row using electric netting she had bought secondhand.
The goats protested.
Loudly.
Repeatedly.
They could still reach kudzu beyond the protected section, but apparently not being permitted to eat the specific thing they wanted became a moral injustice.
The girl ignored them.
Her father arrived near sunset.
He parked the old pickup at the top of the slope and walked down with the careful expression of a man preparing himself to hear that his daughter had either uncovered something extraordinary or damaged something expensive.
She led him to the first trunk.
He touched the graft.
Then the metal tag.
Then looked down the row.
“How many?”
“Twenty-seven exposed.”
“How many alive?”
“Nine definitely.”
“Maybe more.”
“How many total?”
She gestured toward the wall of vines.
“No idea.”
Her father stared.
The older farmer said:
“Could be dozens.”
The girl corrected:
“Could be hundreds.”
The older farmer looked at her.
“We're not saying hundreds.”
“Why?”
“Because you have found twenty-seven.”
“On one line.”
“One line does not make hundreds.”
She folded her arms.
“You were saying the land was worthless yesterday.”
“And I was wrong yesterday.”
“That doesn't make you right today.”
Her father raised both hands.
“Good.”
They looked toward him.
He pointed first at his daughter.
“You don't know you have hundreds.”
Then at the older farmer.
“And you don't know she doesn't.”
Neither spoke.
The father nodded.
“Excellent.”
“What?”
The girl asked.
“Everybody knows something they don't know.”
He smiled.
“That's progress.”
The young woman rolled her eyes.
Her father crouched beside the first tree.
“What are you going to do?”
“Call extension.”
“Good.”
“Then?”
“I don't know.”
“Better.”
She looked toward him.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because not knowing is cheaper than pretending.”
It was the kind of thing her father said when he wanted to sound practical but was actually worried.
She understood.
He stood.
“Whatever this is, don't start spending money you don't have because one old apple appeared.”
“I know.”
“Don't borrow against the farm.”
“I know.”
“Don't let somebody from television convince you you're sitting on a fortune.”
“I know.”
“Don't—”
“Dad.”
He stopped.
“I know.”
He looked at her.
Then smiled slightly.
“You paid three dollars.”
She groaned.
“Everyone needs to stop saying that.”