“Well, boss, that’s an interesting question. Whoops . . . Someone on the other line.” The dial tone buzzed.

A three-hour drive into cow country, taking it easy. Strong winds buffeted the car after I crossed over into Binghamton and paralleled the Susquehanna River past a string of towns—Endicott, Apalachin, and Owego—through Hoopers Valley, and onward. Winter, but not-quite-winter; yellow and brown pastoral vistas patched with ice, like an embalmed corpse of a landscape. Cold to the touch and ready for a permanent shroud of snow. The terrain mellowed the farther west I rolled along the Allegheny Plateau; mountains ceded to long, hilly valleys, scattered forests, and plains. Here was the core of the Southern Tier, bucolic territory bordering Pennsylvania. Breadbasket and erstwhile Christian heartland of the entire state. The Burned-over District, as certain writers of history books would have it known. Lands of the False Revival might be another nickname. None of that concerned me beyond the ticking of a box and filing the data into the niche of my brain captivated by useless trivia.

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Midafternoon found me in the Chemung River Valley, following the Chemung River, a muddy tributary of the Susquehanna, toward Elmira. Cruising due north, Elmira segues to Elmira Heights and the Heights bleed into Horseheads, which is composed of Horseheads proper, Horseheads Village, and Horseheads North. Twenty thousand citizens dwelling in a mix of modern box and clapboard houses. Neighborhoods are green in the summer and downright postcard-worthy in the fall around Halloween. I felt a pang of sadness to have missed the last of the red and yellow foliage, scruffy lawns, fake cobwebs, and ghosts and jack-o’-lanterns. Christianity and the old gods dance hip-to-hip during the witching season, particularly in historical fossils such as Horseheads. The discomfort this engenders among the upright is a revelation to behold. Contemporary mores erode tradition, year by year. The spiritual blood of puritans and pagans slows to a trickle, yet the ancient heart thumps feebly, not quite dead, only dreaming.

The town was named for the herd of sick and injured packhorses slaughtered upon General John Sullivan’s return from his triumphant campaign in the north against the Iroquois Nations in 1779. Natives lined the road with the skulls. Over two centuries later, they referred to the area as the Valley of the Horses’ Heads. Picturesque as it was, the region’s history depressed me. I already missed the Catskills, which was no picnic either.

Past downtown congestion and rural-fied urban sprawl, hilly farmland spread toward the horizon. I pressed in a westerly direction, proceeding across a vale of retail lots and the regional airport, toward the outskirts of Big Flats, turning north at the last moment. Forest closed in and traffic dissipated. The stripped canopy made a latticework of the fading sunlight. I sailed into gloom.

Sooner or later, the winding secondary roads would’ve delivered me to Sugar Hill State Forest or the Finger Lakes. Instead, I took an unmarked access lane. Fresh, clean pavement for a mile, straight as a Roman street, then the lane quickly degenerated into a shabbily patched stretch of potholes and swells. Trees thinned and the road broke onto a man-made prairie that butted against a distant line of bluffs and tall timber. NO TRESPASSING signs were posted every hundred yards. A hawk roosted atop a lamppost, ignoring my car, its gaze fixed northward. I passed lattice transmission towers. There were electrical substations in the area. Had the collider been completed, its energy needs would’ve rivaled that of a large city.