The morality of tobacco itself was something else we didn't question. Our parents smoked. Daddy and some of the boys still do. But only one or two of their children have picked up the habit. Those grandchildren who hope to stay and wrest a living from the land were hoping to find an economically feasible alternative to tobacco.

Each of my farming brothers has his own specialty on the side. Haywood loves to grow watermelons, cantaloupes, and pumpkins even though he makes so little profit that by the time he pays his fertilizer bills, he's working for way less than minimum wage. Andrew and Robert raise a few extra hogs every year and they get top dollar for their corn-fed, free-range pork. Those two and Daddy also raise rabbit dogs, and Zach's bee-keeping hobby now turns a modest profit because he rents his hives to truck farmers and fruit growers. Seth and I have leased some of our piney woods to landscapers who rake the straw for mulch, and Seth's daughter Jessica boards a couple of horses to pay for the upkeep on her own horse.

Today, we were all gathered at Seth and Minnie's to try to reach an agreement as to what the main money crop would be. Outside, the weather was raw and wintry with a forecast of freezing rain. Inside things were starting to heat up. The boys planned to apply for a grant to help make the changeover to a different use of the farm, if they could agree on what that use should be.

It was a very big if and today was not the first time Haywood and Zach had b.u.t.ted heads on this.

Zach is one of the "little twins," so called because he and Adam are younger than Haywood and Herman, the "big twins," and Haywood does not like being lectured to by a younger brother even if Zach is an a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al at West Colleton High, where he himself barely sc.r.a.ped through years earlier. Andrew and Robert are even older than Haywood, but they listen when Zach and Seth speak.

Seth is probably the quietest of my eleven older brothers and the most even-tempered. I would never admit to anybody that I love one of them more than the others but I have always felt a special connection to Seth. He didn't finish college like Adam, Zach, and I did, but he reads and listens and, like Daddy, he thinks on things before he acts. Even Haywood listens to Seth.

So far today, we had discussed the pros and cons of pick-your-own strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, or grapes. Someone halfheartedly raised the possibility of timbering some of the stands of pines. That would 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 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 printouts to share with us.

"What about shiitakes?" Emma said now, pa.s.sing 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 service, 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.

"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 foolery 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 committed to farming, but was taking surveying cla.s.ses 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 computer chips? They attract microscopic dust particles yet they don't have any oils like other birds."

"You can even sell the blown egg sh.e.l.ls at craft fairs," said Emma.

As they touted the bird's good points, Isabel kept shaking her head. "I'd be plumb embarra.s.sed 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 quietly. 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 criminals '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 endangering our own health."

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 cancer. 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 laborers 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 undoc.u.mented 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.

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 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 dismay 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sed them the cake box.

CHAPTER 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 during 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 their house whenever I hold court here, so I often see one of them out with Taffy when I pa.s.s.

"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 retriever 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 hamburger papers that litterbugs throw out. Over the years, she's brought home golf b.a.l.l.s, disposable diapers, mittens and ballcaps, a large rubber squeaky frog, a plastic flamingo, the bottom half of a red bikini, and a paperback mystery novel t.i.tled Murder on the Iditarod Trail.

"Phyllis said it was a right interesting book," Aunt Zell reported.

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 supposed to be having lunch with Aunt Zell and n.o.body could fault me for calling her during the morning break to let her know when I'd be there, right? Burning curiosity 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 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 dutiful 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 service 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 immediately 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 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 gallon 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 ca.s.serole 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 remained and so did the Wards, who valued heritage over the hard cash the land would probably bring if they ever put it on the market. As I approached, I saw patrol cars down on the turnpike, but I didn't spot Dwight.

("Not that you're looking for him," my inner preacher reminded me sternly.) As is still the custom out here, I followed the drive around to the back rather than parking out front. A single light tap of my horn brought Mr. Frank to the door and he held it wide for us to run through the icy raindrops. Taffy was right there at his heels ready for a friendly pat or ear scratch and smelling faintly of baby shampoo.

"If she's ever seen a stranger, she's never let us know," said Miss Phyllis, coming out to the sun porch to give me a welcoming hug. "But you've been a stranger lately, Deborah. I do believe this is the first time I've seen you since the wedding."

She's small and bird-boned and always makes me feel like an Amazon even though I'm only five-six. After a quick look of appraisal, she smiled and said, "Married life must suit you."

"It does," I agreed.

"And Zell tells me that you're a full-time stepmother, too? Poor little boy. That's so sad about his mother. How's he doing?"

"Pretty good, everything considered," I said as Mr. Frank took our coats and we went on through the warm and cheerful kitchen to the dining room where the table was set with five places even though there were only four of us. "It helps that his cousins are close by. And Dwight's mother, too, of course. It's not as if he's had to adjust to a bunch of strangers."