Carolina Moon

harvest.
    Other areas of the operation were necessary, the leases and rentals and factories. He used them, worked them, juggled them. But they didn’t own his heart.
    The land did.
    He couldn’t explain it, and had never tried. But he loved Beaux Reves the way some men love a woman. Completely, obsessively, jealously. Every year his blood thrilled when it gave birth for him.
    Cool morning had become steamy afternoon by the time he finished the bulk of his chores and errands. He carried the list in his head, ticking them off systematically.
    He stopped by the nursery two blocks off the town square to pick up his mother’s weed killer. The flats of flowers distracted him. He selected a tray of pink rosebud impatiens on impulse and carried them inside.
    The Clampetts had run the nursery for ten years, starting it as a roadside operation to supplement their soybean farm. Over the decade, they’d done better with flowers than crop. The more successful the nursery, the bigger the burr that lodged in the craw of the Clampett men.
    “Get another one of them for twenty percent off.” Billy Clampett puffed on a Camel, directly under the NO SMOKING sign his mother had tacked to the wall.
    “Charge me for two then. I’ll pick the other up on the way out.” Cade set the flat on the counter. He’d gone to school with Billy, though they’d never really been friends. “How’s it going?”
    “Slow but sure.” Billy squinted through smoke. His eyes were dark and discontented. He wore his hair in a vicious buzz cut that looked sharp as needles to the touch and was no particular color at all. He’d put on weight since high school, or more accurately, had lost the muscle that had made him a star tackle.
    “You gonna plant those as another cover crop?”
    “No.” Unwilling to get into a pissing match, Cade wandered over to study a selection of pots. He picked two in a verdigris shade, set them on the counter. “I need some Roundup.”
    Billy pinched off the cigarette, dropped the butt into the bottle he kept under the counter. He knew better than to leave evidence his ma would find and scold him over. “Well now, didn’t think you approved of such things. When’d you stop hugging trees?”
    “And a bag of potting soil for the impatiens,” Cade said easily.
    “Might could get you some aldicarb, too; you in the market for insecticide?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “No, that’s right.” Billy gave a wheezy laugh. “You don’t go for insecticides and pesticides and that nasty chemical fertilizer. Your crops, they’re virgin pure. Got yourself wrote up in a magazine ‘cause of it.”
    “When did you start reading?” Cade said pleasantly. “Or did you just look at the pictures?”
    “Fancy magazines and speeches don’t mean squat around here. Everybody knows you just sit back and take the benefits from the expense your neighbors put into their fields.”
    “Is that so?”
    “Yeah, that’s so,” Billy lashed out. “You’ve had a couple of good years. Just dumbass luck if you ask me.”
    “I don’t recall asking you, Billy. You want to ring me up here?”
    “Sooner or later it’s going to cave in on you. You’re just inviting pest and disease.” It had been a long, boring day, and Cade Lavelle was one of Billy’s favorite targets. The pussy never fought back. “Your crops get infected, others will, too. Then there’ll be hell to pay.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.” Cade took some bills from his wallet, tossed them on the counter. “I’ll just carry this out to the truck while you ring it up.”
    He kept a choke chain on his temper, much as he would a vicious dog. Unleashed, it was a cold and savage thing. Billy Clampett wasn’t worth the time and the effort it would take to yank it back in line once it was loose.
    That’s what he told himself as he set the pots and the two flats in the truck.
    When he came back, the Roundup and a twenty-pound bag of potting soil were on the counter.
    “You got three dollars and six cents coming.” With deliberate slowness, Billy counted out the change. “Saw that sister of yours a time or two ‘round town. She sure looks good these days.” He raised his eyes, smiled. “Real good.”
    Cade shoved the change in his pocket, kept his fist in there, as it wanted to plant itself on that sneering mouth. “How’s your wife these days, Billy?”
    “Darlene, she’s just fine. Pregnant again, third time. I expect I planted another strong son in her. When I