The Rosewood Casket (26 page)

“This farm has been Stargill land for close on two hundred years now,” said Charles Martin. “It wouldn’t be right to let it go.”

“Well, it’s going to go anyhow!” said Robert Lee. “I never heard such hogwash in my entire life. What do you think this is, a lost episode of
Bonanza
? This farm isn’t some storybook spread that takes care of itself while you’re gone away living your lives. You don’t just turn off the television when you leave here, and have time stop until you tune in again. The farm goes on without you, and it sure as hell changes. The paint peels, the roof starts leaking, the pastures go to seed, the fences rot. Somebody has to be here to feed it sweat and money, or the mountain will just creep in and turn it right back into wilderness.

“When Daddy’s gone, who do you think’s going to keep the home fires burning up here? Do you want to see this place fall in from termites or vandals or dry rot, just because none of you has the time to take care of it, or the guts to turn loose of it? Grow up, why don’t you!”

“We’re just trying to do the right thing, Robert,” said Garrett. “No need to get all het up about it. We just hate to see this land spoiled, that’s all. Maybe we can find somebody who does want to own a farm up here. Lots of city people don’t know any better.”

“If a landowner had a second income, like a job at the university, this farm probably wouldn’t be so hard to keep going,” said Clayt. “You could farm for the exercise instead of for an income. Still, I wouldn’t want to make the commute in winter. Has your developer thought of that, when he’s talking about putting houses up here?”

“He’d fix up the road,” said Robert Lee.

“That would cost a fortune, and it wouldn’t be good for the environment up here, either,” said Clayt. “It would change the drainage, maybe cause erosion. Why, we’ve got endangered wildflowers—”

“It’s going to happen anyway, Clayt, so stop whining about it! Now either we cash in or we throw away a chance to profit from all this, but you can’t stop it.”

“Speaking of profit,” said Garrett. “We’d timber the land before we sold it, wouldn’t we? I was remembering what Clayt said about those walnut trees being worth five thousand dollars apiece.”

“No way,” said Clayt. “Timbering those trees would be an obscenity. Now hush! I want to hear what Robert Lee was saying. What do you mean, it’s going to happen anyway?”

Robert Lee’s features seemed to shrink to a point in the middle of his red face. “I don’t know that I’m allowed to divulge that information,” he said primly.

“He means the Stallard place,” said Charles Martin. “I ran into Dovey a couple of nights ago, and she told me about it.”

Clayt scowled. “What do you mean, she told you?”

Charles Martin looked away. “I saw her in the grocery store, and we got to talking about old times. She mentioned that some developer is after their land, and they’re about to lose the place for taxes. She wanted me to help them save the farm. Lend them some money.”

“Did you?” asked Garrett.

Robert Lee’s laugh was bitter. “Charles Martin isn’t that forgiving,” he said.

“It wasn’t that,” said Charles Martin, scowling. “If you ask me, Clayt is the one whose nose is still open over Dovey Stallard.”

“But you didn’t lend her any money,” said Garrett.

“I don’t keep a lot of money sitting around in the bank, for god’s sake! I tried to explain it to her. I have expenses, investments. I have a tour bus, and a back-up group, and costumes to buy every whipstitch. Everybody thinks country singers are rich, but, believe me, the money goes out just as fast as it comes in.”

“Yeah, you’re driving a good chunk of it,” said Robert Lee.

“I can’t believe she asked you for help,” said Clayt.

“Well, little brother, who else was she going to ask?” Charles Martin’s smile was bitter. “You? If locomotives were selling for a dime apiece, all you could do would be to run up and down the track, yelling,
Ain’t that cheap
?”

“So she went crawling to you, and look where it got her,” said Clayt.

“It’s definite then?” said Garrett. “The Stallards’ farm is going to a developer?”

“Looks that way,” said Charles Martin. “The Stallards can’t afford to fight it. And that means we have to decide what to do about this place, because if the mountain gets zoned residential, the taxes will eat us alive. Maybe we should talk to this developer.”

“Maybe we should try to help the Stallards,” said Clayt.

“Write them a check,” said Robert Lee. His eyes sparkled with malice. “That ought to buy them a doorknob, or two. And I know she’d be grateful to you. Don’t expect the rest of us to pitch in, though. We have a monster hospital bill coming at us. You’d better think about those medical expenses, too, before you get on your high horse about preserving the farm.”

“I’m not against money, you guys,” said Clayt with a weary sigh. “You’re right: I don’t have two nickels to rub together. You think I wouldn’t like to have a place outside town, and a truck that wasn’t disintegrating in the driveway? Or that I wouldn’t like to buy some free time to do some volunteer work for local conservation groups, instead of having to hustle every waking moment for enough money to live from one month to the next? Yeah, I could use money, maybe more than most of you. But I believe I’d rather starve than to sell out the family land to some developer, who’ll put in a hundred houses on lots the size of postage stamps. Do you know how many habitats would be displaced if we let this happen?”

Garrett Stargill put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You can’t appoint yourself guardian of the planet, Clayt,” he said. “You can’t save it all. Now think about what Daddy would want us to do.”

Robert Lee laughed. “No mystery about that,” he said. “Daddy didn’t give a damn about nature, far as I could tell, unless you could shoot it and eat it. He’d have sold the farm to strip miners if they had made him a halfway decent offer.”

“He stayed here, didn’t he?” said Clayt.

“Maybe he didn’t care much for the rest of the world,” said Charles Martin. “The only time he ever saw it was in a war. And he got shot down in the English Channel, remember? That would drive anybody back up the mountain. I never could talk him into going back to Italy, even when I played Rome.”

“He wouldn’t go anywhere around here, either,” said Clayt. “Remember, he always used to tell us how he’d take us camping sometime, or on a long canoe trip down the Nolichucky? But we never did anything with him. He’d work all day, and then he’d lay on the couch and watch television with a paperback western in his lap.”

“Farming is hard work,” said Robert Lee.

“Not that hard. Not all the time,” said Garrett. “And when we were kids, he wasn’t any older than I am now, so don’t tell me he was too old and tired to manage.”

“He didn’t want to be bothered,” said Charles Martin. “Remember how he’d start looking around when you tried to talk to him, and then he’d say something like, ‘How about that?’ so that you weren’t sure if he heard you or not.”

“Fathers weren’t supposed to be nurturing in those days,” said Robert Lee, making the word into a sneer. “You ought to be glad he didn’t beat the tar out of you, and stay drunk all the time. We had friends with fathers like that.”

“Well, if he cared about us or this farm, he sure managed to keep from showing it,” said Charles Martin.

“Well, I care about the farm,” said Clayt. “Besides, this land issue isn’t about Daddy. We’re Stargills, and this is Stargill land. It’s our turn to say what becomes of it.”

“Okay,” said Charles Martin. “Let’s hear your say, Clayt. What should we do? Hang on to the land, and lose it to taxes, or watch it get hemmed in by crackerbox houses? Or should we try to find a buyer we approve of? Or do you just want to give it to the government for free, and have nothing to show for two hundred years of Stargills’ work?”

Clayt went to the window, and began to rub the dust away with his palm. “The land has the look of winter yet,” he said, peering out. “That’s why you can talk so easy about giving up this land. Three weeks from now those words would stick in your throats. You’ve forgotten, haven’t you, what it’s like here in late spring? So beautiful it takes your breath away. The lilac bushes reach almost to the second-floor windows by now, and they’ll be covered with flowers, making the breeze smell like perfume. The maples will be leafed out on the hills. You can see ridge after ridge from here—all the way to North Carolina. The stream will be ready for trout fishing, and the blackberries will be gearing up for summer. And at twilight fawns come out to play under the trees in the meadow. You couldn’t give it up if you remembered.”

“Well, we did give it up,” said Robert Lee. “Remember? I’ve been living in Cincinnati for more than thirty years, and Garrett and Charlie are in the flats of west Tennessee and Kentucky, so don’t give us a song and dance about the beautiful mountains, because we’ve already lost the land, cold turkey. We couldn’t afford to live here.”

“Maybe we ought to talk to this developer,” said Garrett. “At least we could hear him out. Maybe he can address some of our concerns, and we can find a solution that we can all live with.”

“I can’t live with any solution that includes a developer,” said Clayt.

*   *   *

Spencer Arrowood was not especially pleased to see Frank Whitescarver on the threshold of his office the first thing in the morning. The pudgy man in the polyester suit had a look of urgency on his face, which Spencer figured meant bad news for somebody.

Dabbling in local politics was a necessary evil that went along with the job of sheriff, and Spencer managed it well enough, but he did not enjoy it. He had seen too many elderly good old boys get elected because a shiny suit and a down-home accent made the working folks feel that the candidate was one of them. They would not learn until too late—if ever—that their possum-faced country boy had traded their interests for his own gain. They would find their road requests indefinitely tabled, the landfill slated for their section of the county, or the trailer park approved for their community, while the more affluent county residents were represented by officials who would tolerate none of this. Meanwhile, the genial poor folks’ representative sold his land to the state for a new elementary school, or managed to purchase new acreage at just the right location to capitalize on some future venture. Frank Whitescarver was just such a local politician. He was forever serving on one board or the other, to no one’s benefit but his own, as far as Spencer could discern.

Still, it wasn’t the sheriff’s business to judge the unindicted, or to make gratuitous enemies, so he stood up and extended his hand. “What can I do for you, Mr. Whitescarver?” His expression was one of polite concern. He’d be damned if he’d smile.

Whitescarver’s jowled face looked solemn, and his hand was sweaty. “Well, Sheriff,” he said, “the fact is that I need you to act in your official capacity to enforce a county ruling.” He reached into his pocket and took out a sheaf of typed papers.

Spencer scanned the first few lines, and looked up, his eyes narrowed. “An eviction notice?”

The realtor nodded. “I’m just as sorry about it as I can be, but I have to think it’s the kindest thing sometimes to save these poor old farmers from their own stubbornness, before they starve to death and ruin their families along with them.”

The sheriff had been reading the document. When Frank stopped talking, he said, “You bought J. Z. Stallard’s land for unpaid taxes?”

“Oh, I made him an offer first,” said Frank, shaking his head sadly. “I drove out there special, early this week, ready to buy the farm from J. Z.—and I’d still have had to pay the taxes, you know—but he wouldn’t hear of it. I guess people just can’t face facts, sometimes. But he’s getting old, too, and it’s hard for some of these old-timers to let go.”

“So there was a tax sale?” said Spencer, keeping his voice neutral.

Whitescarver pointed to the bulletin board in the outer office. “You’ve got the notice posted right out there, Sheriff.”

“And you bought J. Z. Stallard’s farm?” He felt as if he were spitting out the words, but Frank Whitescarver’s expression did not change.

“That’s right.”

“And you want me to go kick them off their land?”

“I believe the state of Tennessee considers that your sworn duty, yes, sir.” Frank Whitescarver had stuck his chin out, and his eyes had gone piggy, as if at last he had become a bit embarrassed at the situation, but he was determined to brazen it out. He had a signed legal document, after all.

Spencer Arrowood sighed. He still had inquiries to make about the box of bones that Nora Bonesteel had saddled him with. The words
See Rattler
were penciled on his desk calendar for this morning. Besides, there was more work of every kind, now that he and LeDonne were splitting all the duties again. He would never admit to Martha Ayers how much they had missed her work. “Well, I’m kind of busy right now,” he said, “But I’ll try to get around to it. How long are you going to give them? Six months?”

“A week.”

“A week?”

“They’ve had years to pay their taxes, haven’t they?” Frank Whitescarver shrugged. “They knew this was coming. No use postponing the inevitable. They need to get on with their lives. It might be easier to get it over with quick, like pulling out a splinter, don’t you think?”

“All right,” muttered the sheriff. “I guess it has to be done.”

“I thought I’d ride out with your deputy when he serves the eviction notice—”

Spencer Arrowood shook his head. “I’m going to do it myself. I owe them that at least.”

*   *   *

Lilah Rose Stargill pushed herself away from the breakfast table with a contented sigh. “Well, ladies,” she said, “as soon as I fix my face, we can get started on our sewing again.” She smiled as she patted one wrinkled cheek. “I always say that the best makeup would be some plaster of Paris mixed with spackling, and a little color thrown in. That would cover the damage, wouldn’t it?”

Kelley yawned. “I don’t see why you should get dressed up just for us.”

“I never bother with it at all,” said Debba.