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By Root 1033 0

finely with a paring knife. I decided to use it all. The leaves and stems I had left at the river. The root now sat on a piece of paper on the counter. I washed the knife and the fork I’d used to hold the root while I chopped it. I ran water down the sink until I was sure the diluted traces of juice had gone into the septic tank. I doubted whether they would tear up the ground to investigate the septic system. After grinding the mince into the meat along with pepper, garlic, onion, cumin, red pepper, cinnamon, allspice, a dash of cloves, and plenty of salt, I filled the sausage casings and tied them off every six inches. They were about as thick as a man’s thumb. No telling which of them were lethal and which weren’t. I carefully washed the meat grinder and the sausage stuffer, using plenty of water, then I packed the canning jars with sausage, shredded cabbage, and brine. It was not unlike the feeling you get when you are baking a birthday cake for someone. That person inhabits your mind. So I thought continuously of Rose.

I also felt a sense of pleasure and pride in my planning. Liver sausage and sauerkraut couldn’t possibly appeal to Jess, and was something both girls had detested the thought of all their lives. It was too strong-tasting even for Ty, who could eat venison and rabbit and lutefisk with the best of them. The perfection of my plan was the way Rose’s own appetite would select her death. It would come as a genuine surprise even to me.

I burned the paper that had contained the minced hemlock, careful to imagine as completely as possible the potential scrutiny of the sheriff. I burned it to ashes, then swept the ashes onto another piece of paper and burned that. Then I buried the ashes in the heap of leaves and grass clippings beside the garden. I sterilized the jars in the pressure canner, reflecting that poisoning by botulism was theoretically possible, but probably not with someone as sophisticated about that sort of danger as Rose. These sausages and kraut would be cooked at a temperature above 212 degrees for more than fifteen minutes for sure. The orderly progress of cooking something put me in the usual serene mood. I was finished and cleaned up by two. At five-thirty, I carried a box of twelve full jars down the road to Rose’s. It was hot and dusty. Rose was in the kitchen frying hamburgers.

“Look at this,” I said. “There’s a surprise.” She smiled as she took the jars out of the box and saw what I had brought. Pickled peaches. Tomato chutney. Dill pickles. The stalks of dill in the jar looked just like poison. She grinned as she pulled out the jars of sausage and kraut. She said, “What a sweetie you are. You did all this today?”

“Just the kraut.”

“I guess the others won’t eat this, huh?”

“Not on your life. Blech. I wouldn’t, either. I hate sauerkraut. And doesn’t it make you incredibly flatulent?”

“Not really. Thanks.” She kissed me on the cheek. I could see the girls and Jess in the living room, watching the evening news. Jess caught my eye, smiled, waved to me, went back to the news. One of the jars of sausage was close to the edge of the table. I pushed it back and looked at Jess again. For the first time in weeks what was unbearable felt bearable.

A cooling breeze came up as I was walking home. I was calm now, interested to see what would happen.

40

THE KEY TO A GOOD HARVEST is dry weather, because the corn and beans won’t store well if they are carrying much moisture; 15 percent is ideal for corn, 13 percent for beans. Corn in the field, ripe and dented, will have over 20 percent. The difference can be exactly measured in the money it costs, and the propane it takes, to drive the excess moisture out of it. Long dry sunny September days are equivalent to money in the bank. Rainy days mean difficult choices, machinery stuck in the mud, long hours as the weather gets colder, complaints at the elevator about moisture content and poor quality, and smaller checks when you decide to sell.

There is always too much of everything at harvest.

Starting about the fifteenth of September, and