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Harland glared at the two platters and their accompanying beverages. After a lengthy pause, Harland spoke up. “Are these, ah, is this food for me?”

“Yes, Harland,” said Abel. “Pick one, either one. You may have one, but not both meals.”

Harland sighed. “I would like….” He stopped in mid-sentence, sensing something otherworldly about having to make a choice from two very different selections. Paranoia froze him in place.

Penny, the woman who had placed the food before Harland, recognized instantly the farmer was afraid and unable to make a choice. Her instincts told her that Harland was either terrified of making a wrong choice, or found the situation unfolding around him so absurd as to be unable to respond.

“Mr. Sven, I made you two meals,” Penny said in motherly tones. You may have either one. You need to eat. I would be pleased if you would accept one of my dishes.”

The farmer rocked back in his seat slowly, his face pulsing with rash red. Without uttering a syllable, and pleading to Penny with his eyes, Harland pointed to the plate brimming with the many different foods.

“Yes, Mr. Sven, you may have that one.” She handed him a place setting and a napkin.

As Harland took the knife, fork and spoon, a stranger crossed the room and took a seat across the table from the farmer and to one side of Abel.

“Harland, this man is a physician,” said the town’s founder. “This is Arthur Ruchelshouse, he has been our caregiver for as long as we’ve been on the bluffs.”

Harland put his utensils down and dropped his hands to his side. He glared at the doctor.

“Hello, Mr. Sven. I’m Art.”

Harland remained tight-lipped.

“I’m going to ask you just a few things while you eat your meal.” The physician touched the cheeks on his own face. “Mr. Sven, you have what we call a butterfly lesion on your face. Have you had it long?”

The farmer nodded imperceptibly.

“That’s a clue, a symptom of something. It tells me you are quite sick. Could I ask you to stick out your tongue for me?”

Slowly, Harland did what the doctor asked.

“Mr. Harland, your tongue is bright red, unnaturally so. Does the skin inside your mouth next to your molar teeth hurt you?”

“Yes,” the man said in a whisper.

“How about your throat, your windpipe and esophagus?”

“They’ve bothered me for a month.”

“Do you have rashes on your elbows and crusty spots? Do you have indigestion often, nausea, loose bowels sometimes?

“How would you know?” Harland rumbled defensively.

“I would imagine you are in real pain much of the time.”

Harland exhaled a storm of carbon dioxide. “You’ve got that right.”

Doctor Ruchelshouse folded his hands and leaned over the table toward the farmer. “Mr. Sven, you are suffering from a disease called pellagra. It was a common ailment in the Deep South during the Depression. It’s caused by niacin deficiency. That deficiency is due to eating a diet like you see on this plate.”

The doctor touched the platter containing the square of corn bread and the small slab of dried meat. He inched it toward Harland. “You are eating a diet the majority of which is corn. Would that be correct?”

“We don’t have anything too much else to eat.”

“It’s making you sick, Mr. Sven, very sick. But we can remedy that.”

Abel pulled the anemic fare away from the farmer leaving only the full meal before him. “Harland, please, eat all you want. This is a complete meal. A few of these and your illness will go away.”

Harland raised his fork but hesitated.

“It’s okay, Harland. Go ahead. Some of us haven’t eaten much at all in the last twenty-four hours either. We’re going to join you.”

More plates of food were brought to the table. Max and Oleg joined Abel and Harland. Penny sat down with a cup of hot tea. The doctor remained, too.

Abel took a bite of his meal, and gestured to Harland to get started on his. The farmer lowered his face to his plate and was about to shovel the food into his mouth, when he stopped abruptly and glanced at everyone around him. “People in these parts, we say grace before a meal,” he said cautiously. “Always do.”

A smile of understanding brightened Abel’s face. “Of course, Harland. We would be pleased if you said grace.”

The man who had spent an entire lifetime with his hands and feet in black fertile soil grimaced and closed his eyes. He seemed to suspend in time before he broke his silence. “Dear Lord, we give you thanks for your gifts from the soil, for your bounty from this great and fertile land that you have made. Amen.”

A chorus rose from the throats of those seated with Harland: “Amen.”

Harland collapsed over his food, shoveling the sustenance into his mouth as fast as he could chew and swallow. Gulping, he took a breath and coughed his throat clear. “This is the best meal I’ve had in ages.”

“You can thank Penny, Harland,” said Abel.

The farmer turned to the woman among them. “Bless you, ma’am.”

Penny smiled warmly.

“When we’re done eating, Harland, we’d like to have you do one last thing,” Abel added. “Then we can all get some rest.”

Harland seemed resigned to his fate. “Whatever.”

“We’re going to take you on a tour. You will see exactly where this food comes from.”

Chapter One Hundred-Ten

The long rooflines of dozens of glass greenhouses emerged from the night as ruddy pink dawn advanced on the bluff ridge. The little powerhouse puffed white wood sawdust smoke into the atmosphere. Eight of the dozens of glass houses shimmered with electric light, activated by timers a half hour before sun up.

Abel and company shepherded Harland to the largest of the brightly illuminated greenhouses. The farmer read a sign on the door: Strawberry Cathedral.

Welcome to hippie heaven, Harland thought to himself, shaking his head.

The party descended four steps down a few feet below grade level into the hothouse. All were enveloped by tropical heat and the thick smell of moist green vegetation and sweet earth. The heat felt luxurious against Harland’s diseased skin. The building surrounded an emerald jungle eight feet in height. Tiny white flowers and pale pink and red orbs dotted the greenery.

Abel approached a wall of green and plucked a red object from a plant. He handed it to Harland. It was a large ripe, ruby strawberry.

“Don’t be shy, farmer. Take a bite.”

The man sank his teeth into the fruit. “Oh, mercy.” The flavor was overwhelming to a palette that hadn’t tasted something so sweet for months.

Harland stood bewildered. Abel had pulled the fruit from a wall of foliage rising eight feet from the ground. Cautiously, the farmer stepped forward and touched the leaves. There was something white and rigid behind the plants. He parted the green growth and examined what lay behind. A white plastic pipe stood fast in the soil and reached nearly to the roof glass above. Holes were drilled in the plastic and strawberry plants grew from the openings. It was a veritable strawberry tree.

The farmer spun about, seeking out the man who had forced him to come to the bluffs. “How many plants on one of these things?”

“Eighty to a tower, Harland.”

“Eighty? Can’t be.” Pragmatic to the core, Harland realized the strawberry tree took up the space that only two or three plants would if growing on the ground. Independency villagers were getting forty times the production from a few square feet of soil than a conventional grower.