Hard Row dk-13 Read online

  yield a few thousand an acre but was pretty much a one-

  time sale, given how long it takes to grow a pine to

  market size. Daddy still mourned the longleaf pines that

  had to be cut to pay the bills when he was a boy and

  “Y’all can do what you like about what’s your’n,” he

  said firmly, “but I ain’t interested in selling any more

  of mine,” which pretty much scotched that possibility

  since none of us wanted to go against him.

  “Too bad we can’t grow hemp,” Seth said and my

  brothers nodded in gloomy agreement. Hemp is a

  wonderful source material of paper and cloth and our

  soil and climate would make it a perfect alternative to

  tobacco. If it had first been called the paper weed or

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  something equally innocuous, North Carolina would

  be a huge producer. With a name like hemp though,

  our legislators are scared to death to promote it even

  though you’d have to smoke a ton of the stuff to get a

  decent buzz.

  Zach and Barbara’s kids had been all over the Internet

  scouting out alternatives and they had brought print-

  outs to share with us.

  “What about shiitakes?” Emma said now, passing out

  diagrams of stacked logs.

  “She-whatys?” asked her Uncle Robert.

  “Shiitake mushrooms. You take oak logs, drill holes

  in them, put the spores in the holes and plug the holes

  with wax. They grow pretty good here because they like

  a warm, moist climate and that’s our summers, right?”

  Her brother Lee added, “We could convert the

  bulk barns to mini greenhouses and grow them year

  ’round.”

  “Right now, a cord of wood can produce about two

  thousand dollars’ worth of mushrooms,” said Emma.

  “Two thousand?” That got Haywood’s attention.

  Andrew frowned as he looked at the diagrams. “But

  what’s the cost of growing ’em?”

  “According to the info put out by State’s forestry ser-

  vice, the net return is anywhere from five hundred to a

  thousand a cord. But they do warn that the profit may

  go down if a lot of people get into growing them.”

  “That’s going to be the case with anything,” said

  Seth. “What else you find?”

  “Ostriches,” Lee said.

  Across the room, Dwight winked at me and sat back

  to enjoy the fun.

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  MARGARET MARON

  “Ostriches?” Robert’s wife Doris and Haywood were

  both predictably taken aback by the suggestion.

  Andrew’s son A.K. laughed and said, “Big as they are,

  we could let Jessie here put saddles on them and give

  kiddie rides.”

  Isabel said, “Ostriches? What kind of outlandish fool-

  ery is that?”

  “Some of the restaurants and grocery stores are

  starting to sell the meat over in Cary,” said Seth and

  Minnie’s son John, a teenager who hadn’t yet com-

  mitted to farming, but was taking surveying classes at

  Colleton Community College.

  “Oh, well, Cary.” Doris’s voice dripped sarcasm. For

  most of my family, the name of that upscale, manicured

  town just west of Raleigh was an acronym: Containment

  Area for Relocated Yankees, although Clayton, over in

  Johnston County, was fast becoming a Cary clone with

  even better acronymic possibilities.

  Isabel said, “If y’all’re thinking about raising animals,

  what’s wrong with hogs?”

  “Ostriches are easier,” said Lee. “They don’t need

  routine shots, there’s a strong market for their hide and

  they’re a red meat that’s lower in fat and cholesterol

  than pork.”

  “Plus their waste is not a problem,” said Emma,

  wrinkling her pretty little nose. “They don’t stink like

  hogs.”

  “Yeah, but hogs is more natural,” said Isabel.

  “Think of the pretty feather dusters,” I said, playing

  devil’s advocate.

  “You laugh,” said Lee, “but did you know that some

  manufacturers use ostrich feathers to dust their com-

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  puter chips? They attract microscopic dust particles yet

  they don’t have any oils like other birds.”

  “You can even sell the blown egg shells at craft fairs,”

  said Emma.

  As they touted the bird’s good points, Isabel kept

  shaking her head. “I’d be plumb embarrassed to tell

  folks we was raising ostriches.”

  “But it’s something we can think about,” Seth

  said and added them to the list he was making on his

  notepad.

  “What about cotton or peanuts?” asked Andrew.

  “We’d maybe have to invest in a picker or harvester,

  but neither one of ’em would be all that different from

  tobacco.”

  Robert’s youngest son Bobby had been listening qui-

  etly. Now he said, “Don’t y’all think it’d be good if

  we could switch over to something that doesn’t require

  tons of pesticides on every acre?”

  “Everything’s got pests that you gotta poison,” said

  his father.

  “Not if we went organic.”

  The other kids nodded enthusiastically. “The way the

  area’s growing, the market’s only going to get stronger

  for organic foods.”

  “You young’uns act like we’re some sort of crimi-

  nals ’cause we didn’t sit around and let the crops get

  eat up with worms and bugs and wilts and nematodes,”

  Haywood huffed. “Every time we find something that

  works, the government comes and takes it away.”

  “Because it doesn’t really work,” said Bobby. “All

  we’re doing is breeding more resistant pests and endan-

  gering our own health.”

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  Haywood’s broad face turned red. “There you go

  again. Like our generation poisoned the world.”

  “Some of your generation has,” said Jessie. “Crop

  dusters filling the air we breathe. PCBs causing can-

  cer. Look at the way some farmers still sneak and use

  methyl bromide even though it’s supposed to be illegal

  now. And then they make their guest workers go in right

  away.”

  Her indignant young voice italicized the word

  “guest.” She knows as well as any of my brothers that

  migrant workers are but the newest batch of labor-

  ers to be exploited. I remember my own school days

  when I first learned that expendable Irish immigrants

  were used to drain the malaria-ridden swamps down in

  South Carolina because slaves were too valuable to be

  risked. To claim that undocumented aliens do the work

  Americans are unwilling to do ignores the unspoken

  corollary—“unwilling to do it for that kind of money.”

  Hey, the balance sheet can look real good when you

  don’t have to pay minimum wage.

  But if Haywood was unwilling to be lectured by

  Zach, no way was he going to be lectured by nieces or

  nephews.
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  Or by me either, for that matter.

  “We ain’t here to argue about what other people are

  doing on their land,” he said hotly. “We’re here to talk

  about what we’re gonna do on ours.”

  Robert sighed. “I just wish we didn’t have to quit

  raising tobacco.”

  Andrew and Haywood nodded in gloomy agreement.

  “We don’t,” Seth said. “At least not right away. We

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  won’t really lose money if we sign contracts for another

  couple of years.”

  Andrew brightened. “At least get a little more return

  outten them bulk barns.”

  My nieces and nephews looked at each other in dis-

  may at the prospect of sweating out tobacco crops for

  another two or three years.

  “But it wouldn’t hurt to start cleansing some of our

  land,” I said. “It takes about five years of chemical-free

  use to get certified, right?”

  Lee shook his head. “Only thirty-six months.”

  “Well, if you guys want to do the paperwork, you

  can start with my seven acres on the other side of the

  creek.”

  “The Grimes piece?” asked Seth.

  I nodded.

  “I’ve got eight acres that touch her piece that you can

  use,” he told the kids, and he and I looked expectantly

  at Daddy, who held title to the rest of the Grimes land.

  The field under discussion was isolated by woods on

  two sides and wetlands on the other, so it would be a

  good candidate for organic management.

  “Yeah, all right,” he said. “You can have mine, too.

  That’ll give y’all about twenty-two acres to play with.”

  Some of the cousins still wanted to grumble, but Lee,

  Bobby and Emma thanked us with glowing faces. “Wait’ll

  you see what we can do with twenty-two acres!”

  Haywood, Robert, and Andrew were still looking

  skeptical.

  “Have some cookies,” I said and passed them the

  cake box.

  45

  C H A P T E R

  6

  It is a wonder that everybody don’t go to farming. Lawyers

  and doctors have to sit about town and play checkers and

  talk politics, and wait for somebody to quarrel or fight or

  get sick.

  —Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

  % On Wednesday morning, the first day of March,

  I was in the middle of a civil case that involved

  dogs and garbage cans when my clerk leaned over dur-

  ing a lull and whispered, “Talking about dogs, Faye

  Myers just IM’d me. The Wards’ dog found a hand

  this morning.”

  News and gossip usually flies around the courthouse

  with the speed of sound but these days, with one of the

  dispatchers in the sheriff ’s department now armed with

  instant messaging, it’s more like the speed of light.

  “A what?”

  “A man’s hand,” the clerk repeated.

  “Phyllis Ward’s Taffy?” The Wards were good friends

  of my Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash, and I’ve known Taffy

  since she was a pup. They live a couple of miles out from

  Dobbs in a section that is still semirural and I drive by

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  their house whenever I hold court here, so I often see

  one of them out with Taffy when I pass.

  “I don’t know the dog’s name. All Faye said was that

  a Mr. Frank Ward called in to report that their dog came

  home just now with a man’s hand in its mouth.”

  Taffy’s a white-and-tan mixed breed with enough re-

  triever in her that Mr. Frank had once taken her duck

  hunting in the hope that she would turn out to be a

  worker as well as a pet. She loved the thirty-mile drive

  to his favorite marshland, she loved being in the marsh,

  she loved splashing in the water, but as soon as he fired

  the first shot, she took off like a rocket. He called and

  whistled for hours.

  No Taffy.

  Eventually, he had to drive the thirty miles back and

  face Miss Phyllis, who hadn’t wanted him to take their

  house pet hunting in the first place. It was a miserable

  eternity for him until Taffy finally dragged herself home

  a week later, footsore and muddy.

  Even though he never again took her hunting, the

  dog did prove to be an excellent retriever. A rutted sandy

  lane bisects the farm. Locals call it the Ward Turnpike

  and use it as a shortcut between two paved highways.

  According to Aunt Zell, Taffy’s always coming back

  from her morning runs with drink cups or greasy ham-

  burger papers that litterbugs throw out. Over the years,

  she’s brought home golf balls, disposable diapers, mit-

  tens and ballcaps, a large rubber squeaky frog, a plastic

  flamingo, the bottom half of a red bikini, and a paper-

  back mystery novel titled Murder on the Iditarod Trail.

  “Phyllis said it was a right interesting book,” Aunt

  Zell reported.

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  But a man’s hand?

  Even though the Wards’ place was five or six miles

  east of Bethel Baptist, surely that hand had to go with

  those legs that had been found Friday night. Unless

  we’ve suddenly thrown up a serial butcher?

  Dwight was probably already out there and it would

  be unprofessional of me to bother him, but I was sup-

  posed to be having lunch with Aunt Zell and nobody

  could fault me for calling her during the morning break

  to let her know when I’d be there, right? Burning curi-

  osity had nothing to do with it.

  (“Yeah and I’ve got twenty million in a Nigerian bank

  I’d like to split with you, ” said the disapproving preacher

  who lives in the back of my skull. “Just send me your

  social security number and the number of your own bank

  account. ”)

  “Deborah? Oh, good!” Aunt Zell exclaimed. “Did

  you hear about Phyllis and Taffy? Is this not the most

  gruesome thing you’ve ever heard? First those legs and

  now this hand? Cold as it is, Phyllis said she had to give

  Taffy a bath in the garage before she could let her back

  in the house. I hope you don’t mind, but I told her I’d

  bring them lunch if I could get you to carry me out

  there? Ash is still up in the mountains and the roads are

  icy all the way east to Burlington so I made him promise

  not to drive till it melts.”

  “Of course I’ll take you,” I said.

  “Thanks, honey. I do appreciate it.”

  (“It’s always nice to get extra credit for something you

  want to do anyhow, ” my interior pragmatist said, happily

  thumbing his nose at the preacher.)

  When the clock approached noon, I told the warring

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  attorneys to try to work out a compromise during lunch

  and recessed fifteen minutes earlier than usual. I called

  Aunt Zell again from my car and she opened the door

  as soon as I turned into her drive. The rain had slacked

  to a light drizzle. Nevertheless, I grabbed
my umbrella

  to shelter her back to the car.

  Aunt Zell is my mother without Mother’s streak of

  recklessness or that tart wry humor that kept Daddy off

  balance from the day he met her till the day she died.

  Although she never had children, Aunt Zell was the duti-

  ful daughter who did everything else that was expected of

  her. She finished college. She married a respectable man

  in her own social rank. She joined the town’s usual ser-

  vice organizations and volunteers wherever an extra pair

  of hands are needed. She not only lives by the rules, she

  agrees with those rules. Never in a million years would she

  have shocked the rest of the family and half the county

  by marrying a bootlegger with a houseful of motherless

  sons. But she adored my mother and she had immedi-

  ately embraced those boys as if they were blood nephews.

  Furthermore, she’s always treated Daddy as if he was the

  same upright pillar of the community as Uncle Ash.

  When my wheels fell off after Mother died, she was

  the one family member I kept in touch with and she was

  the one who took me in without reproach or questions

  when I was finally ready to come home.

  So, yes, I would drive her to Alaska if she asked me

  to, whether or not I had ulterior reasons for going to

  Alaska.

  Like me, Aunt Zell wore black wool slacks and boots

  today, but my car coat was bright red while her parka

  was a hunter green. She had the hood up against the

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  arctic wind and a halo of soft white curls blew around

  her pretty face.

  “March sure didn’t come in like a lamb, did it?” she

  asked by way of greeting.

  I held the rear door for her and she carefully set a gal-

  lon jug of tea and an insulated bag on the floor before

  getting into the front seat. Even though the bag was

  zipped shut, the entrancing aroma of a bubbling hot

  chicken casserole filled my car and reminded me that I’d

  only had a piece of dry toast and coffee for breakfast.

  The Ward place was a much-remodeled farmhouse

  that had been built by Mr. Frank’s grandfather when

  this was a dairy farm. There had once been a smaller

  house over by the road that took its name from the

  farm, but when a tree fell on it during a hurricane, the

  grandfather had sited a larger house on the opposite

  side of the farm, away from the bustling dairy. The cows

  and the dairy were long gone, but the hay pastures re-

  mained and so did the Wards, who valued heritage over