Up limped the stranger. The family murmured in alarm. He was taller than any of us. He reminded me of beef cattle that grow grotesquely large on enriched corn. “Call off the dogs,” said the stranger to Dice, who stood at the threshold, unmistakably our leader.

The man held a blue Velcro briefcase. He wore a khaki vest with bulging pockets. His chin disappeared into his neck on a long, fleshy incline.

Dice whistled and the dogs ran to him, smiling. “Why are you here?” Dice said.

“Testing the water,” said the man.

“The creeks?” Dice said.

“Yes, sir,” said the man.

“Are you from Delta?” Dice said. I recognized the name of the developer company.

“No, sir,” said the man. “I’m testing the water.” He looked up at Dice.

Dice stepped off the porch toward him. I remembered Dice as I first saw him, the prizefighter, fists up against the world. If I had been the water-testing man I would have fled. Sara and Bay edged in, and the rest of us stood and stepped off the porch, coming closer and closer the way predators do, to intimidate.

The man smiled. He had large, clean, crooked teeth. “So it seems a few of your streams are already impaired.”

“Our streams,” Dice said, “sustain us.”

The man’s chin receded farther into his neck. “I noticed a generator in one of them,” he said.

“Are you a scientist?” Dice said.

“Yes,” the man said, defiantly. “Sir.”

“Are you researching for some kind of impact statement?” Dice said.

The man seemed to notice then how close we were around him. His eyes darted. He was looking for gaps.

“We didn’t know any people lived around here,” he said.

It seemed to me that a shiver of fear passed through the family. We couldn’t be numbered. We couldn’t be found.

“Leave,” Dice said.

The man stepped backward, bumping into Sara. She smiled at him like an angel.

“Tell your boss,” Dice said, “if he tries to remove us, we will destroy him.” Dice reached out and took the man’s hand, as he’d taken Isaac’s hand. Dice stared at the man’s eyes, wouldn’t let him look away. “We’ll ruin him,” Dice said.

The man withdrew his hand. He held his hand and rubbed it, gaping wide-eyed at Dice.

“Bay, will you drive our guest down to the road?” Dice said.

“Come here,” Bay said to the poor man.