“I’m looking up corn stuff,” Harry explained to her husband. “Like, did you know that people living in what is now Mexico domesticated corn fourteen thousand years ago?”
“Isn’t corn basically a grass crop?”
“Yeah, but says here that the original plant didn’t look anything like modern corn. They called it teosinte.”
He stood next to her now. “Fourteen thousand years ago. Imagine if you got a toothache back then. Ouch.”
“Hurts enough now.” She looked up at him, then back at the screen.
“Says here that what we call sweet corn was first grown in Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s. The first commercial variety was introduced in 1779.” She scrolled up more stuff. “Hey, hey, honey, how about this?”
He leaned down and read along with her. “Corn invaded by corn smut is considered a delicacy in Mexico. Infested corn was cooked even before Columbus.”
“Guess every culture enjoys its delicacies.” She touched his hand. “But maybe Buddy can make a little money. I’m going to call him.”
“Okay. I’ll shower.”
“Thirty minutes to supper at the most.”
He kissed her on the cheek.
She dialed Buddy Janss, launched right in with her discovery.
“They eat that stuff?” replied an incredulous Buddy.
“Buddy, if you go to your computer, Metapathogen.com has a little section on corn smut, under its Latin name, Ustilago maydis. Yeah, Mexican restaurants think it’s terrific.”
“Well, I already walked the insurance agent through.”
“You did, but if you call around to some really fancy Mexican restaurants, maybe you can figure prices. Obviously, if they’ll pay more than the crop insurance, that’s an easy decision.”
“You bet.” His voice picked up energy.
“Before it slips my mind, when Cooper and I walked through Hester’s library looking at her beautiful books, we found some on fishing, and a picture of her with a friend fishing. She ever talk about this with you?” Harry pointedly did not mention the friend was scarecrow Josh Hill.
“Oh, well now, over the years maybe once or twice. Hester and I mostly stuck to business.” He chuckled. “Her version of business.”
“Had you ever been in her house before the reception?”
“No. What about you?”
“Me neither. I was surprised at how lovely it was. And the expensive things she owned.”
“Life is full of surprises.”
Saturdays Harry and Fair liked to join their friends for foxhunting. As the fox was chased, not killed, they especially enjoyed riding behind hounds, land rolling before them like green waves, Blue Ridge Mountains behind, a splendid theatrical backdrop.
Today’s hunt lasted three hours. Once back at their trailers, people wiped down horses and threw sweat sheets over them, since it was warm, in the mid-fifties. After putting out buckets of water, they hurried to join everyone else at the tailgate. Literally it was a tailgate: The tailgates on trucks were dropped, a few card tables were put out and little oil tablecloths were tossed over them.
The talk always began with the day’s sport before rapidly moving to other subjects. Many of today’s hunters had also attended Hester’s service.
Big Mim, hot coffee in hand, mentioned, “I believe Sarah Price will take over Hester’s house.”
“Wonderful,” Wesley said, nodding.
“I’d think you’d feel otherwise,” said Neil with a hint of sarcasm. He was a non-rider who’d come to join the group, as did others, food and drink being a reliable magnet.
“Why? It’s a piece of old Virginia, and better that such places stay in the family.”
“Ah.” Neil swilled his scotch. “You’re right. I was thinking of the commission on a sale. Would sell for a lot, that place.”
Harry said, “I couldn’t possibly afford my farm today. It’s kind of crazy.”
“Prices go up and down,” said Wesley, “but when it comes to beautiful farms in Virginia, they have held steady despite all. Now, I’m not saying I’ve sold a lot lately, mind you, but we are in a better position than most of the country.”
“Not the boom towns,” Neil pressed.
“Like Oklahoma City?” Fair asked. “You know, it’s exciting when something hits like the boom in the Dakotas and Oklahoma. Hope, energy, jobs, but you wonder how it will all turn out down the road.”
“Honey, that’s true for everything.” Harry smiled, then focused on Neil. “How about fertilizer samples? Just enough to, say, put on three small patches, four feet by four feet. I’ll make little squares back behind the sunflowers.”
“Be happy to. I know if you have a good experience and endorse my products, others will follow.” Neil was right about that. “Have you thought about what you would be growing?”
“Have.”
Tazio and her boyfriend, Paul Diaz, joined them. As Paul rode and trained Big Mim’s horses, Tazio had realized she’d better learn to ride.
To Paul’s credit, he was studying architecture, and the two, on his weekday off, would drive to Richmond, Washington, and other places to look at buildings constructed at different periods in our history. He found he liked it, just as Tazio found she liked riding.
“She’s going to move up to Second Flight,” Paul bragged of Tazio, referring to the foxhunting group closer to the action.
Tazio rode in the back on an adorable babysitter of a horse, but as she gained skill and confidence, she would move up a notch.
“Never doubted that for a minute,” Fair told her.
“How’s it coming for the Halloween Hayride?” Neil asked.
“Frankenstein will be ready,” said Tazio. “He’ll snap the restraining belts, climb off the table, attack the good doctor”—she nodded at Wesley—“then run out the door.”
“I’m scared already,” Harry said.
Neil laughed. “It’s going to be the scariest hayride ever, and we will raise a bundle. I’m committed to that and others are, too.”
“I think a room in the library should be named for Hester,” Harry thought out loud.
“You’re right, honey,” Fair agreed.
“After the hayride, we can bring it before the library board. I’m getting excited about this.” Neil smiled.
“You get excited about anything that makes money,” Wesley teased him.
“Profit motive. Built this country,” Neil fired back.
Big Mim, who had left the group, sailed back into their conversation, changing the subject. “Given the dryness, not a bad hunt. We do need rain, though. Desperately.”
“That we do,” Fair said. “The ground is so hard it’s like running on brick.”
“Tazio,” Big Mim addressed the architect, who looked stunning in hunt kit, “you’ve been over there at the school buildings. Are they salvageable?”
With a big grin, Tazio replied, “They are in great shape. The real expense in fixing them up would be plumbing, heating, air-conditioning. But those buildings were solidly built, well sited, and there’s not even a leak in those roofs. You could actually still use the huge cast-iron furnaces.”
“Good,” Big Mim said. “Lot of history there.”
“I wish older people would write down what they lived through—the good, the bad, and the ugly,” Harry said with some emotion. “History books can be dry or filled with speculation about this world force and that armament technology. I want to hear what people who lived through it all thought and felt.”
“Good point.” Tazio rested her hand on Harry’s shoulder for a moment.
“Speaking of knowing, the TV reporters and the newspaper say that Hester was shot,” said Neil. “And so was that fellow you found in the Morrowdale field. But how and where were they shot, exactly?” he asked, not realizing that Harry might not wish to recall any of this.
“I don’t know,” she replied.