Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [86]
“No?”
“Nope. He’d have had a spade and a burlap bag, and he’d be a little higher up than this, and he’d be looking in the fall. Not now.”
“You can’t find it now?”
“I could. Sammy couldn’t.”
Eddie clucked his tongue at her. “Bragging.”
“Well, it’s just…you know. It’s easy to find in the fall, and people do what’s easy. Spring and summer, ginseng’s a real shy plant, and then in October it goes careless and gets bright-red berries and these yellow leaves like highway construction flags.”
She didn’t mention that whenever she found it in that condition she plucked off the gaudy leaves and tucked them in her pockets to save it from being discovered by hunters. She scattered the ripe berries under new groves, helping the ginseng roots to keep their secrets. Later on, when she did her weekly washing in a tub of scalding water, she’d roll ginseng leaves out of all her pockets like wads of tissue. Eddie would think she was nuts if she told him that. Hoarding this mountain all to herself, was his general accusation, but that wasn’t it. If no person ever saw it again, herself included, that would be fine; she just loved the idea of those little man-shaped roots dancing in their world beneath the soil. She wanted them to persist forever, not for the sake of impotent men in China or anywhere else, just for the sake of ginseng.
Eddie Bondo was curious about the roots. When they sat down in the moss on the bank of Egg Creek to eat their lunch of sardines and crackers, she took a stick to the soft black dirt and tried to draw pictures of the different forms she’d seen: one-legged man, one-armed man; they weren’t always perfect. Rarely, in fact.
He wasn’t looking at her pictures. He was looking at her. “Those guys don’t scare you, do they? You chew them up and spit them out between your teeth, smiling the whole time.”
She looked down at her ginseng man. “What, you mean Sammy Hill?”
“And the best part was, he loved it. He’ll go down and tell everybody he ran into this long-haired she-wolf with legs like a pinup girl.”
She didn’t like to think about what he’d tell. “I try not to step too hard on their manhood. You do that, next thing you know they’re back up here with three or four of their buddies, which can get ugly. But no, they don’t scare me.” She shrugged. “They’re just people I grew up with.”
“I can’t picture that,” he said. “You with those guys. You driving a car, going shopping. I don’t really see you anywhere but in the woods.”
“Well. I guess it’s been a while.”
“Don’t you miss it, any of it?”
“If you’re speaking of high school and the Sammy Hills of this world, no, I don’t.”
“I’m not. You know what I mean.”
She tried to decide if she knew. “There’s some people I’d love to spend the day with, sure. And certain things.”
“Like what?”
“I couldn’t even say.” She thought about it. “Not cars or electric lights, not movies. Books I can get if I ask. But walking around in a library, putting my hands on books I never knew about, that I miss. Anything else, I don’t know.” She pondered some more. “I like the beach. My husband’s family had a beach house in North Carolina.”
“The beach doesn’t count. I mean stuff invented by people.”
“Books, then. Poems, scary stories, population genetics. All those pictures Mr. Audubon painted.”
“What else?”
“Chocolate? And Nannie’s apple cider. And my border collie, if he weren’t dead. But he counts, domestic pets are inventions of man.” She closed her eyes, fishing for the taste of something lost. “And music, maybe? That’s something I used to love.”
“Yeah? Did you play any instrument?”
She opened her eyes wide. “No, but I listened a bunch. My dad played in a bluegrass band, Out of the Blue. And when I lived in Knoxville there was this little bar where we’d go, bluegrass and country music. People you’ve never heard of. These sisters used to play there sometimes—man, they were great. They came up from Texas, I think. The Dixie Chicks.”
Eddie Bondo laughed out loud.
“Yeah, funny name.”
“Funny you. You’ve been out of circulation awhile. They don’t play