Chapter 2

My mind was churning. Back when it started, Marsh Hollow was dirt poor, the ground packed with stones, the soil half sand.

Whatever crops the town planted, they lost money year after year. Even the corn came up a size smaller than anywhere else.

Then I came home from the state agricultural college and saw all that sandy land, good drainage, big swings between day and night temperatures.

Grain would never work. But raspberries would fit just right.

Still, we'd have to change how we planted, or nothing would come up either way.

I spent half a month walking the fields, and finally worked out a way to improve the soil.

Then I took it to the town council, and we agreed on the spot.

I supplied the seedlings. The growing technique, the pruning, the spraying, the pest control, all of it I handled myself.

Just the costs, I sank three hundred thousand of my own money in.

But the condition was that once the fruit came in, I got a ten-percent cut.

The townsfolk were afraid it wouldn't work, so they even had me sign a pledge, guaranteeing no less than ten thousand dollars an acre.

Now the raspberries hung heavy on the branches, and their appetites had grown right along with them.

I didn't take the video to their faces. I just called Miles Finch.

"Miles, hold off on coming for now. Wait for word from me."

Finch went still, then spat. "Edmund, what are you playing at? I've got my refrigerated trucks, my sterile bottling line, all of it standing by."

"Nobody's got berries as sweet as your town's. I could search the whole state with a lantern and not find them. That fifteen a pound, that's me paying for quality. Don't tell me the town wants to jack the price on me now? I'll say it plain up front: if those berries get ruined by people who don't know what they're doing, and they hit the market under my label, our deal's dead."

I shook my head. "Can't explain it in a sentence. Just wait for my word."

"Fine... fine. But don't drag it out too long. Berries go soft, and they're worth nothing."

"I know." I hung up, lit a cigarette, and thought about the last two years, bit by bit. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

I dug out the pledge the townsfolk had all pressed their fingerprints to two years ago, along with the town council's official seal.

Every one of them had only seen the clause where I paid out ten thousand if the raspberries failed. Not one had noticed I'd left myself a way out.

Early the next morning, sure enough, Tyler Glass came knocking.

He had a basket of farm-fresh eggs in his hand, with Glen Lambert trailing behind him.

Tyler opened up all cheerful. "Edmund, up bright and early, huh."

I played it like I knew nothing. "Mayor Glass, you didn't come by this early just to say that, did you?"

He set the eggs down on the table and lowered himself into a chair.

"Edmund, you're one of ours, one of the boys Marsh Hollow sent out into the world. You've got the skills, and you've seen things the rest of us haven't."

"The town's raspberries came this far, and that's all thanks to you."

Glen chimed in from the side. "That's right, kid. I watched you grow up. Little dark, dopey thing you were, who'd have guessed you'd turn out this capable."

I listened to the two of them play off each other and didn't react.

I knocked on the table. "Mayor Glass, just say it straight. I don't like beating around the bush."

Tyler gave an awkward laugh. "Ha... all right, I'll say it plain, then. Don't hold it against me."

"You know, these past two years, the whole town tightened its belt to get these raspberries going."

"Now we can finally pick the fruit, there's something to look forward to, everybody's happy..."

"But... but, your..."

He stammered on for a long while, the words stuck at the edge of his mouth.

Glen shot him a look and picked up where he'd left off. "What Mayor Glass means is, could you take a smaller cut?"

"Ten percent's too much. We ran the numbers. That's over nine hundred thousand."

I kept my face blank and lit myself a cigarette.

For a moment the room went quiet.