Coast

In the farmhouse are growing blackberries: a frontier chimney full of ravens, a kitchen and wild fruit. The sky releases gray water like a sieve on the land. Roofs can't sink lower. The dairy cows mull around trees; the women of Beaver, Oregon walk along the ditch with colored sweaters and Coleman boots.

Two dairy farms let their animals roam across the river and plank fencing--even in the summer the grass doesn't wither. Until the sands beside the ocean, all the earth is fertile. Out there, beside the ocean, jeeps drive up and down the beach; two girls hold hands; the schools write statistics about methamphetamine and suicide. Except for the salty air, the same is true here, a dozen miles inland, but the farmboys drive ATVs not Grand Cherokees through the mud and herd all the clusters of Jersey cows.

The skinny roads, then, have little traffic: empty black lines between Cloverdale and Hebo, over the Wolfe Creek to Beaver. The Sixth Bridge Inn is under construction. The pool hall is down. "One in three women in Tillamook County face domestic violence," says a billboard to visitors. And the air is green with pines.