Art's Blood Read Online Free

farm and had already proven himself a reliable worker. Furthermore, he had a relationship with the aging tractor that, in Elizabeth’s opinion, bordered on black magic. Whereas she was often baffled by its seemingly random breakdowns, Ben always knew exactly what fluid to add or which widget to replace in order to appease the sulky mechanical brute.
    She had welcomed him, happy for the company, now that both of her girls had lives elsewhere, and grateful for his help. Ben had moved into the old cabin across the creek from her house, and within three months, he, with the help of Julio, a Mexican worker who lived in a house near the drying sheds, had taken over most of the day-to-day operations along with all the heavy lifting. His efforts had almost doubled the farm’s revenues, and Elizabeth had made him a partner in the business.
    “Well, hell,” he said, staring gloomily into the empty bowl that sat on the table before him, “now I wish I’d gone. I was afraid it would be kind of lame and I had work to do here, so…you say Kyra was crying? Was she really upset? Or do you think it was just part of the act?”
    Elizabeth studied Ben narrowly. For some time now she had suspected that her big, handsome, and unattached nephew was more than a little interested in their pretty new neighbor. Several times he had commented on “the way she lets those guys take advantage of her,” and his frequent visits “just to see how they’re getting along” had not gone unnoticed.
    “Hard to say, Ben. You see…” and she told him what she had overheard just before the final scene. “I guess it was all planned but Kyra did look really…I guess the word would be ‘distraught.’ She ran off after Boz and then Aidan just stood there for a while. He didn’t say anything, just kept looking around at the mess Boz had made of their stuff. There was foam everywhere and the cameras were completely trashed. Then he just kind of stomped out of the gallery. There was a little applause again but that died out pretty quickly and everyone left— well, as soon as the champagne was gone, everyone left.”
    “What did Laurel think?” Ben rose and stretched, then collected their bowls and carried them to the sink.
    “She wouldn’t say anything…just looked smug and hummed a few bars of that old gospel song— you know the one, ‘Farther along we’ll know all about it,/Farther along we’ll understand why.’ ”

    * * *
    Twenty-one years, Elizabeth thought, as she unpinned her long coil of dark hair, brushing it and plaiting it into a loose braid. She noted the white hairs that silvered the braid, more every day, and shrugged. Her deep blue eyes looked unseeing into the mirror. Sam and I came to Full Circle Farm twenty-one years ago. And Rosemary is twenty-nine; Laurel, the baby, is a sophisticated twenty-five…and you, Elizabeth, are fifty-three. When did all this happen? It seems like forever…and it seems like yesterday.
    It had been an idyllic life, raising their two daughters on this beautiful North Carolina mountainside. She and Sam had been fortunate in so many ways, not least in their shared love for the land and each other.
    In the early years they had grown tobacco like their neighbors: plowing the steep hillsides with mules, growing the plants from seed, setting them in the long rows, hoeing the rocky soil to discourage the rampant weeds, topping the tall plants by cutting off the pink flowering shoot at the top to encourage the main leaves to grow larger, snapping off the useless suckers. They had been willing acolytes to the endless familiar ritual that bound the families of their rural community. At one with our brothers in the Third World, Sam had said one spring day as they set out plants using crooked sticks to dig holes in the muddy fields. But when the sprays— herbicides, fungicides, sucker control— needed to make a crop became ever more numerous and ever more toxic, Sam and Elizabeth had gone organic, turning