Ted Margolin, an anthropology professor at a university on the Great Plains, loves his new home. Old, distant from town, and expensive, he and Regina, his wife, love the peace of it nevertheless. Then, in just a few days, a huge row of power towers appears. He and several neighbors convene a protest group, where he sees Larry Westercamp, a local official who works with fish. Larry and his wife come alive in the atmosphere of organized complaint, and because of their disorganized energy, the meeting lasts several hours but accomplishes nothing. Afterward, Ted and Westercamp have an awkward conversation: Ted, Larry insists, is an anthropologist and so must understand the importance of living uncorrupted, as nature intended. He does his best to disabuse Larry of his idealism, leaving the other man crushed. From this point on, Ted and Regina are bombarded by mailings and phone calls from Westercamp and conservation groups. This incenses Ted, who, after a phone conversation during which Westercamp extols supposedly utopian communities of Indigenous people, skips all future meetings of the power tower group, which soon fizzles out. That winter, Ted spends two weeks helping a therapist interpret the dreams of three Indigenous people, which leaves him deeply saddened. He was helpless to help them; two were raving mad, and the other had completely lost touch with his real heritage. A week after he returns, he gets a call. It's Westercamp, and he is very sick. This time, when the idealist brings up a remote tribe living in a supposed simplistic utopia, Ted grits his teeth and humors him. That night, Regina finds him in the basement, where he is practicing with a handmade spear thrower. When she asks him what he's throwing it for, he says, breathing hard, "ninety-three feet, eight inches"—the exact height of the power towers.