could affect an easy ebullience that stepped right over any sign of hostility.
“You’re supposed to notify,” he said through the screen. “I didn’t get any notice. None whatsoever.”
“Yes, well, you don’t have a phone. We talked about that last time.”
“I do accept mail.” By now, his brood of children had gathered around him.
“We are entitled to make spot visits, Mr. Stevenson. And I certainly would have called, or mailed you a letter, but we’re operating under emergency conditions.”
His face brightened. “What emergency?”
“Gosh, Mr. Stevenson, don’t you follow the news? There’s a terrible flu. Lots of people sick, just awful. There was a big outbreak in Philadelphia. Sure hope it doesn’t come to Minnesota! The thing is, we have to check the birds, make sure they’re okay.”
“My birds are fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it. We’ll just have a look and then be on our way.”
They drove the truck to an empty patch of grass midway between the house and the barns. Emily stretched out a mat of heavy plastic, and the two women unloaded their gear—garbage bags, ice chest, swabs, a pump sprayer for the disinfectant, and their personal protective wear. The Stevenson kids were sitting on the grass or in a tree swing watching them put on their gear.
“Why do I feel like a stripper?” Emily muttered. “This is, like, the opposite.”
“Maybe we should do a little dance,” Mary Lou said.
“I think not.”
First came the hooded Tyvek suit, then double plastic booties over their tennis shoes. A pair of plastic gloves, duct-taped onto the sleeve of the suit. A second pair of gloves. A hairnet and goggles. And, finally, the N95 respirator. They sprayed their garments with disinfectant, to eliminate any outside contamination. Perceptions get narrowed down in this outfit—your vision is constricted, and your hearing is muted. Walking is cumbersome. It’s easy to feel claustrophobic and paranoid and a little ridiculous. The Stevenson kids followed them to the first barn.
This one was for the toms. The hens were in the other barn. There were twenty-seven thousand birds between the two. Emily slid open the door. It was a well-run operation, she had to admit—clean, brightly lit, plenty of air, fresh bedding. Still, it always struck her when she entered a poultry farm how much it resembled a prison. The birds were all white, circumnavigating the rows of feeders like inmates in the yard. They had pink wattled necks with bluish cheeks, looking nothing like their majestic, vividly feathered cousins in the wild. Their throats vibrated as they gobbled constantly in near unison. The smell was awful, as usual.
One of the Stevenson kids, a boy, had put on booties and coveralls and come into the barn. “What’s your name?” Mary Lou asked him.
“Charlie.”
“How old are the birds in here?”
“Seventeen weeks.”
“About ready for market, I suppose.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As they walked through the mass of turkeys, the birds dispersed, making a wary circle around them. Emily took note of the birds behind them. Healthy birds are curious birds, and they will normally tag along, like the Stevenson kids. While Mary Lou and Charlie chatted, Emily began taking swabs. She grabbed one of the toms and pinched his cheeks until his bill opened, then ran a swab over the mucosa. She put the swab into a five-milliliter polypropylene tube and labeled it. She got Mary Lou to help turn the big tom upside down so she could rotate a swab inside the cloaca to collect the epithelial cells.
“What are you doing?”
Emily looked up to see a little barefoot girl in a dirty pinafore.
“Honey, you shouldn’t be in here without your daddy. Didn’t he tell you that?”
She nodded.
“Then go on back to him, he’ll tell you what we’re up to.”
When she balked, Charlie shouted at his sister to get out. She gave a sour look and walked as far as the door, not entirely out of the barn.
Emily finished the first bird by drawing blood from a vein under its wing. She continued taking samples from a dozen other birds selected more or less at random.
“Emily!”
She turned to see Mary Lou standing with Charlie at the other end of the barn.
“Look at them,” Mary Lou said, when Emily joined them. One turkey was sitting and refused to stand when prodded. Emily knelt down and peered in the bird’s face. His head was drooping, and his eyelids were swollen.
“Charlie, have you had any birds die recently?”
Charlie didn’t answer. He was staring at the barn door, where Mr. Stevenson stood, backlit by the sun, his hands in