Twenty

The gravel road ends at a gate, and the gate is open. Taped to the gatepost is a flyer: SEED SWAP. BRING WHAT YOU HAVE. Ahead of you in the late light people are going in by ones and twos with crates, a jar, a rake, past a helipad with a basketball hoop on it.

A man sits on a crate by the post with a handheld radio. He counts them into it as they pass, thumb on the button: Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. The last is a woman with a ring of keys on her belt. Nineteen, he says, and lets go of the button.

He looks at you. Twenty, he says, off the air.

That's Paloma, he says, nodding the way the woman went. She goes down to the cellar after the count. It's cold down there.