“Oh, the KKK Libel. Good question. Glad you asked. That is one of the greatest misconceptions,” said Ted, Son of Aaron (as he was identified on the name tag clipped to his 100 percent cotton tactical bib overalls). He removed his gleaming white hard hat as if the mere mention of the KKK Libel had put him at risk of blowing his stack. The warm summer breeze streamed through his thinning gray hair and might have evaporated a small fraction of the sweat streaming over his scalp. After a moment he glanced up as if checking the sky for an angry Jehovah. But nothing was there except blue sky strewn with fluffy clouds and the steel crossbar of a two-hundred-foot-tall cross. Not currently flaming. The pipefitters had not finished the work needed to conduct natural gas out to its system of burners. “My wife’ll skin me,” he remarked, “if we don’t get under cover. Let’s duck in here so I can set y’all straight.”

“Why will she skin you?” Anne-Solenne asked curiously as they followed Ted into the shade of a pop-up canopy. Julian got distracted en route by three lambs gamboling in a makeshift chicken-wire pen.

“Melanoma,” Ted answered. “Have to go into Iowa City.” This remark was mumbled in a distracted way as he was getting a voice call, faintly and tinnily audible to them on the flip-up earplugs cantilevered out from the bows of his safety glasses. He indexed those down into his ears and answered the call, excusing himself with a nod and donning his hard hat as he stepped out into the sun and ambled over toward the livestock pen. His duties as Son of Aaron apparently encompassed not just construction management but inspection of sacrificial lambs.

A junior crew member bustled in to accommodate the visitors. He pulled a couple of folding chairs off of a stack and set them up at a folding table. This was strewn with printed documents kept from blowing away by rocks and ammunition magazines. He rearranged those to make a bit of space. “Y’all can help yourselves to water and iced tea,” he said, nodding toward a pair of insulated coolers on a smaller table nearby. Until he spoke Sophia had guessed he was in his late twenties, but now she thought eighteen. “I’d fetch it myself but my hands is filthy.” He held them up as proof and flashed a grin that would have been brilliant had his teeth been all present and not brown.

“Thank you so much, we will definitely help ourselves!” Sophia said loudly and distinctly, since the young man had his earplugs in.

“The reference to Iowa City?” Anne-Solenne asked. That was where they had stayed last night, in a boutique hotel next to a tapas bar.