Page 173 (1/2)

Weathercut Manse, Iowa, November, the fifty-second year of the Kurian Order: A Hawkeye from the first quarter of the twenty-first century would hardly recognize his state in the snow-dusted fall of that year The corn and soybeans, yes, the birches and s clai the streams and lakes, and the majestic oaks, el hills around the river basins, certainly

The beef cattle in the fields give soed They are undersized coh; others have the strained look ¡ãfan animal who has picked up a bit of wire or a piece of a can

It's the architecture that's changed es and little towns in between A well-traveled or iht think hilish countryside

Instead of four-lane towns surrounded by far nearby, or so lots and fast food stops and sprawling exurb, the new centers of public life are the Great Homes

Like the French villas and English manses of old, the Kurian Order Great Hoh-peaked roofs, elaborate ork on the overhangs, and two or three stories of glassbroken only by balconies; others nity; a few seem to be almost brick-by-brick recreations out of a Jane Austen ht be called French modern

Weathercut Manse is an exa, bold front of limestone and picture s, shielded froe looking out over the gravel turnaround to the right, and a turret like a ehts the flower bed in the center of the turnaround, so that theout to embrace visitors and present a bouquet in the day However, at night the lanes rese into a defensive stance

Around behind is a slassy refuge of the marbled indoor spa, and topped by a private balcony outside the reenhouse locally famous for its lemons and year-round supply of plum tomatoes

Gardens, wilder woods, and a nine-hole golf course surround the house It is only once you get beyond the thick hedge to the east, the three rails of white fencing to the west, or the stone ith iron gate running the road to the south that you reach the working part of the estate, a seventy-acre horse fars and chickens, and a New Universal Church parsonage A thick wood separates the Kurian churchman froarage, and a gas pump

The Mansion is the pleasant face of the estate, the parsonage its conscience, and the barns and tenant honified wall, are a se that are the lizard brain of the estate, the security center The workers cheeky in here each day and pick up a radiolocator watch that can be fixed to a beltloop; all traffic into or out of the estate h security, a sodium-vapor-lit double-basketball-court-sized stretch of pave, where vehicles can be parked while their contents are searched and inspected

The guards ith a bit of a swagger in their cae and winter fur hats (in the summer they wear blacky pith helhts and bayonets mounted as if to warn visitors that they are ready to deal with trouble, either at a distance or up close and personal

They defer only to the , and the parson with his white clerical collar, as they patrol the grounds on ATVs or, for the ro and a silver-tipped riding crop that he uses as a pointer

Not that there's much trouble in this quiet corner of northeastern Iowa, far fros of the Missouri valley or the noiso up in the Indian-head territory of Wisconsin The security guards can joust on their ATVs with cattle prods - also used as nonlethal inducements for the tramps and " for work or largesse at the manse

Just thatto kick up the reht's snow, the security tearown hulk of a sport utility, tire-less remains in the woods where it had broken down in 2022 They woke him with a cattle prod and sent hirubby little odds and ends he shouldered in edge-worn bags He carried a Wisconsin work card indicating that he'd last been eo, and swore he planned to return to his hoht the cattle prod up again and instructions on how to reach the nearest New Universal Church hostel eighteen rounds and its tenants

Now the tramp hobbles down the road in that toe-in, footsore fashion of a one too far on bad shoes He wears a buttonless shirt held shut with stock tound round his waist crisscrossing his chest His face, under a greasy thatch of tangled black hair, has a thick layer of dirt in permanent residence, and little can be read in his brown eyes, permanently downcast It's a face that has seen its share of hardship; an old scar runs down froh it gives his face a hu up the corner of his mouth at a private joke

The only piece of gear on hi stick, used to helpwood has a good steel cap where it strikes the road, a leather wrist loop, and a short handle projecting out of the knobby top