Deep Down (I) (28 page)
“But, deep down, it’s where I want to be. I’ll see if I can get a grant, commute once in a while to the university.”
“Then, how ’bout I start really sweethearting you, as they used to say in the old days?” He leaned down to kiss her check, then, when she turned her head slightly, her
mouth. The kiss lingered, both yearning and promising so much more.
“It’s about time,” she whispered, though she wanted to shout. “Too much of two separate lives have passed since we both tried to get things started and were rudely interrupted.”
“We’ll make up for all we’ve lost, I swear it, my love. My partner.”
Though she was exhausted, sore and so doped up she could hardly move, she could have flown.
On an early summer day, the thirteenth anniversary of the day they’d been parted in Deep Down and the six-month anniversary of their marriage, Jessie and Drew made a sort of pilgrimage. They stopped at the spot where they’d been found making love so long ago. In the middle of the day, in the sun on the grass, they made love.
“To seal the deal,” he’d told her breathlessly when they finally sat up and reached for their clothes.
“I’ll say,” she said with a sated smile. “We’ll show them who should be together! You know, I think we should meet here on a weekly basis.”
“Too close to the nosy Miss Pearl Keenan and her herb-hunting mother,” he said, with a grin. “Besides, although I wouldn’t mind a photo of us together here, I wouldn’t trust Tyler not to put it in his next Wildlife in Appalachia book.”
As Drew had predicted, the grand jury had not indicted Cassie for her former lover’s death. She and Tyler were closer than ever and were talking about a Christmas wedding. Tyler still went back and forth to New York, twice taking “his girls” with him. When he was in town, he lived above the sheriff’s office in Drew’s old rooms.
Holding hands the entire duration of their long hike,
Drew and Jessie walked through the forest to the grandfather tree and laid a spray of roses there from the bush in what had once been Mariah’s garden. Seth kept the hollow tree filled with dry ginseng leaves in the winter, but a neat row of new sang plants sprouted all around it now, also courtesy of the old Cherokee.
“Life sprouts anew,” Drew said.
“It does indeed,” she agreed, and tugged him away toward the creek. “There’s one more spot here I want to visit before we head back.” They were going to a community cook-out tonight, a sort of housewarming for Seth’s new cabin. Deep Down citizens who had murmured against him last year had even provided some of the wood—timber that would probably have been cut and trucked out if Ryan Buford had had his way—and they were bringing gifts for the inside of the new place today. Seth’s building was done so quickly that he had helped Jessie remodel her sun porch into a cozy, useful lab where sang leaves were proving to provide as strong ginsenosides as the more rare and precious roots had.
“Your parents’ little island, where you made your stand against Buford?” Drew asked as she stepped across the stone to the big rock and he followed.
“I felt their love and protection that day here, even though The Thing still stalked me. I’m not afraid anymore when I sense my mother’s presence, and think I hear her voice.”
On the rock, he nodded, and they held hands. “I thought about giving you your engagement ring here,” he admitted, “but I figured it might hold bad memories for you.”
“Which I banish this very minute,” she told him, smiling
through her tears, “by telling you here that, as you said, life sprouts anew. Drew, I’m pregnant.”
He looked startled, then he whooped and picked her up and swung her, moss-edged rock or not. “I’m so happy—so happy!” he told her with tears in his eyes, too. Somehow, in this special place, she felt her baby’s grandmother Mariah was happy, too.
Author’s Note
A s a lover of ginseng tea, I’ve been saving articles on ginseng for years, thinking I might make it “the hook for a book” someday. Ohio, where I live, has some good ginseng areas, but my love of Appalachia made me decide to set this book in eastern Kentucky. Also, as a history buff, I was fascinated by the background of ginseng. It was of interest to such diverse people as George Washington and Daniel Boone, and, in China, to the emperors who guarded their precious Imperial ginseng under threat of death. All this added to my desire to make ginseng a main character in this book. When I read about the outcast race of Siberian ginseng hunters, I couldn’t resist using their unusual costume in the novel.
Two books I relied on heavily (among many others) in my research are the following, both of which make good reading: Ginseng Dreams: The Secret World of America’s Most Valuable Plant by Kristin Johannsen, The University Press of Kentucky. Although I had other research on how ginseng is being used in the battle against cancer, this far-ranging book has an excellent section on this. Also
Ginseng, The Divine Root: The Curious History of the Plant That Captivated the World by David A. Taylor, is very intriguing. Additional information on ginseng is available on the Web site of the Appalachian Ginseng Foundation: www.a-spi.org/AGF/faq.htm.
As for Beth Brazzo’s power drinks, much of my research was done by visiting supermarket shelves as well as by noting numerous TV ads and newspaper articles, which promote such products as Diet Pepsi Max and Danone’s new energy drink Volvic Revive, which contains ginseng and guarana. Ginseng’s botanic name, Panax, is the root word for our term panacea, so even in the plant’s name lies a hint about many cultures’ beliefs in its curative powers.
The price of ginseng fluctuates, as do the protective measures each state and the U.S. government set forth to protect the crop. But in December of 2007, as I began this book, “brokers were selling the highly prized Kentucky root for as much as $1000 a pound on Asian markets” and “Diggers who harvest the tiny roots by hand [were] demanding up to $800/pound.” (From the USA TODAY article, “States Seek to get Grip on Wild Ginseng Market,” by Donna Leinwand, December 2, 2007.)
As for the practice of the logging industry (and logging lobbyists in Washington) making it easier to build roads and cut trees, I’ve seen numerous articles on this contested practice, including, “Forest Official Makes No Apologies for Cut-first Timber Policies,” by Matthew Daly, Associated Press, Naples Daily News, Feb. 24, 2008.
Thanks for advice on Appalachian speech to Patty Taylor, who lives in Appalachia; to Jeanie Snell for the supply of “sang” tea; to Heather Kurtz for advice on ad
vertising firm campaigns; and, of course, to Don for jaunts through Appalachia as well as for proofreading and putting up with an obsessed author. As ever, to my editor Miranda Indrigo and the great Mira support team, and to my dynamic duo of agents, Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey.
August 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3385-4
DEEP DOWN
Copyright © 2009 by Karen Harper.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.