Earth Colors Page 23

  I fought back a snort. Our boy Nigel was in for a wild ride with this filly.

  I heard Nigel unzip his satchel.

  “Watch out with that zipper of yours,” Fred boomed.

  “Wash out your mouth, Petridge,” Nigel growled appreciatively.

  I glanced around at his laptop computer. It was a thick thing, obviously jam-packed with bells and whistles and lots and lots of firepower. Nigel began tapping commands into its keyboard. He said, “How may I prove my devotion to you, O my lovely?”

  Jenny replied, “Give me the entire holdings in this county for one farming family. Show me the influence of the geology on the lands and the productivity of the farms.”

  I was liking Jenny more and more.

  “Give me a name,” said Nigel.

  “Oh!” said Jenny. “There are so many I’m interested in.”

  “How about ‘Krehbeil’?” I said.

  Jenny’s head popped forward between the seats and she fixed a round-eyed stare on me. “You know the Krehbeils?”

  Oh shit! I thought. She knows them! I should have guessed that! Even in this humid land of tiny farm footprints, most of the farmholders will know each other. Obfuscating as best I could, I said, “In fact, I don’t know the Krehbeils. I’d never even been in this county until Sunday. But I was driving around Monday and happened to go by their house. Mrs. Krehbeil was on the front porch in a wheelchair. She fell out of it, so I stopped to help her. I stayed for a bit and helped her daughter get her resettled.”

  “Was she all right?” Jenny asked anxiously.

  “Apparently … although I’m a bit concerned,” I said, seeing a way to turn my gaffe into a route toward gaining information. Perhaps Jenny knew something damning about the family, and I could phone Faye and tell her, and that would be that. “I mean, I don’t even know these people, but it seems as if that old lady ought to be in a hospital, or a care home, where they have the equipment and staff to care for her.”

  “I’ve had the same concern,” she said.

  Nigel interjected, “Krehbeil. Spell that name?”

  Jenny said, “K-R-E-H-B-E-I-L. That’s one of the farms I’ve been telling you about, Fred. They’ve applied for an easement, but they’re not on the preferred soil types, so each year I can’t seem to get the Ag Board to give them a high enough rating to qualify for purchase.”

  Nigel said, “I thought that would be with a C.”

  “It’s an old Mennonite name,” Jenny said, returning to the backseat. “Many have Anglicized it into C-R-A-Y-B-I-L-E, but this family is out-Pennsylvania-Dutching the Pennsylvania Dutch.”

  “So then it’s a Dutch name?” Nigel inquired.

  Jenny leaned back out of sight again and said, “No. ‘Dutch’ is in this case a corruption of ‘Deutsche.’ They’re all just as German as I am.”

  “Getting back to that Ag easement stuff,” I said. “What’s all that mean?”

  Jenny shifted the volume and tone of her voice into something appropriate for a public lecture. “The encroachment of subdivisions threatens farms like the Krehbeils have. These farms have been in the families for generations, so it’s not just a loss of open space, it’s the loss of the heritage of small farmholders. The care given to the production of crops and dairy is not the same in the big agribusiness spreads in the flatlands of states out west. If the farms of Lancaster County die, a way of life dies with them.”

  I said, “You’re selling rocks to a geologist. I was raised on a ranch in Wyoming, and we’re seeing the same kind of problem out there.”

  Jenny’s face popped into view again. “Oh, really? I’m very interested to hear what it’s like out there. Your acreages are larger, right?”

  “Well, I don’t know what they are here, but it takes up to fifty acres a head out west, so a viable cow/calf operation is say, six or eight square miles.”

  “Square miles?” roared Nigel. “Hell, woman, back here in God’s country, a whole farm is fifty acres!”

  Jenny said, “That’s because here we get forty inches of rain a year. We’re raising crops and dairy on the best nonirrigated cropland in the nation. Back where Em comes from, you can’t even raise hay without added water. You get what, twelve inches a year?”

  “In a good year. We’ve been having drought lately.” It was painful to say “we.” It was my mother alone, or with the occasional hired hand, who had endured this latest catastrophe.

  “I’ve about got it all here on my screen … .” said Nigel.

  Jenny was not yet done with her stump speech. “The Krehbeils do not want to sell out to a subdivision, but neither can they afford to remain on the land the way they’re going. They need cash influx, and there are two programs here in Lancaster County—one county-based, one private—that have funds to purchase their development easements. The programs purchase development rights from the farms, paying cash for the gap between the farming value and the development value of the land, allowing the farms to cash in on the rise in values while simultaneously preserving the tracts for agriculture. The value of those easements is equal to the value of the land as developable land minus the value as farmland. It can be huge. And even if the Krehbeils were able to afford to keep farming while all the other farms around them are subdivided into housing tracts, the infrastructure of farm-supply stores will fold up and move away, or just fold altogether. And as developments move in, the value of the land soars, and with it, the taxes. If nothing is done, Deirdre will lose the farm just because she couldn’t make enough to cover annual costs.”

  I said, “You say Deirdre will lose the farm. Does it belong to her?” I tried to recall what Mrs. Krehbeil had told me. My impression was that it belonged to her.

  Jenny said, “No, it belongs to her mother, who obviously can’t farm it anymore, and who, in fact, never did. She was a debutante who married for the life in town. Deirdre told me that they used to lived in Philadelphia, where her father had an art gallery, all very upper-crust, and this farm belonged to his mother. And much as Deirdre likes to think herself a farmer, she has little or no business sense. As I was telling Fred, the soil is not the best. And it’s more complicated than that. Deirdre’s father applied for the Ag easement before he died, but the application is still pending. If her mother dies before it goes through, then any one of the heirs can step in and jam the gears by saying ‘no way.’”

  “How many heirs are there?” I asked, wishing I could take notes without seeming conspicuously interested.

  “Four,” said Jenny, “if I recall accurately from my notes. There’s Deirdre, the eldest; then William Krehbeil the Third; then another son named Hector; and then a second daughter named … I’m not sure what her name is. Everyone calls her Cricket.”

  “So you’ve met all these people?” I asked.

  “No. Just Deirdre. And I forgot; Deirdre has two grown kids, Anthony and Cynthia, who live there on the farm, although, unless they’re mentioned in the will, they don’t count as heirs, I don’t think.”

  “Why does it matter what the soil type is?” Nigel asked, trying to insert himself back into the conversation.

  Fred said, “That’s where your eye-in-the-sky GIS system needs to take a tour of terra firma, Nigel, old pal. It’s no joke that Lancaster County has the best farmland in the country, but not the whole county. When the German farmers moved to the U.S., they sent scouts ahead to find the best soils, and the scouts knew to look for limestone. That soil had wonderful, thick, rich soil profiles. Of course, when the pioneers cut down all the chestnut trees that were growing here at the time, a lot of that topsoil washed right down into the creeks, but we’ll skip over that part of the heritage story.”

  “Fred …” said Jenny impatiently.

  Fred told Nigel, “Open your damned computer up to a general view of the county’s geology, hotshot. You’ll see parallel bands of rock types cutting across from east to west. The Conestoga limestone sits right smack in the middle. Flat to shallow slopes, and all that lime to enrich
the soil. No need to irrigate. The Germans gobbled it up. Parallel to that to the north, you have several other limestones and dolomites; some have steeper slopes, locally. Along the north edge of the county, you have sandstones and shales, some quite steep, and nowhere near as fertile. To the south, you have granites and gneiss, less desirable yet. Way down in the southernmost bit of the county, you have the Peters Creek schist all riddled with serpentine barrens. No way you’re going to make a farm out of that.”

  Here I cut in. “Where are the chromite mines?” I inquired.

  Fred said, “They’re down there in the barrens. We’ll go there later today. Just the sort of field location Nigel would adore. They don’t call it the barrens for nothing.”

  “Oh, Gawd,” Nigel moaned. “That means ticks, I suppose.”

  Fred cackled. “Big as hubcaps. But first we’re running over to Manheim Township to look at the limonite pseudomorphs, right, Jenny?”

  Jenny sighed. “Actually, Fred, they paved them over yesterday.”

  “What!”

  I turned and looked back over the seat toward Jenny. She had folded her arms across her chest as if she were cold, and was staring out the window.

  “But we had an agreement that they were going to leave that land open!” Fred howled.

  “I know, Fred. I’m disappointed, too.”

  “Disappointed? How about outraged!”

  “Now, Fred …”

  “Jenny, is that some kind of Mennonite thing? How in hell’s name do you keep your cool?”

  “It’s not about cool. It’s about saving my fire for a fight I can win.”

  I cut in again. “What’s the story here?”

  Jenny said, “The limonite pseudomorphs are a part of the county’s heritage. The farmers used to bring them up with the plow and collect them.”

  Fred added, “They’re an iron ore. Mining at its most elemental.”

  Jenny continued. “Fred and I had been working to preserve the last good stretch of ground they weather out of. It’s the last farm to fall in Manheim Township, and we made a deal with the township government that they could cut up the farm, put in a library and all, if they kept this one field open and let the children pick up the pseudomorphs. Put up a little display in the library, even plow the ground once a year to keep them coming up.” She shrugged her shoulders, suddenly looking small. “But they paved it over for a parking lot for the new soccer field instead.”

  I said, “Manheim Township is just south of the Krehbeil farm, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a few miles south. But sad to say, the developments will sweep through all of those farms within the next decade if no one stops them.”

  Fred drove on, his jaw set. “We’ll go on to Intercourse instead, then,” he muttered.

  “Excuse me!” shrieked Nigel. “Freddie darling, I hold you in the highest esteem, but I shall not bed thee!”

  “The town, idiot,” he said, his mood easing slightly. “Not your shorts.”

  “What mining interests are there?” I asked.

  “None,” he said. “But it has the best bakery in the county, and after that little ‘disappointment,’ I need something sweet.”

  WE CONTINUED ON our diagonal through the county until we junctioned with a secondary highway that led us straight east through Bird-in-Hand to Intercourse, and I’m not making this up. Funny names or not, the scenery was splendid. Here I found the heart of Lancaster County’s fabled farmlands. Great patchworks of beautifully tended fields spread out around us, undulating over softly rolling hills. My heart sang.

  Fred did some classic arm-waving, drive-by geology. “This is the Hagerstown Silt Loam to the north,” he said. “And to the south, the Conestoga Silt Loam. Wonderful soils, both developed on Paleozoic limestones. Over there is a log house made from the original chestnuts,” he added, pointing one out to me as we zoomed past. It was a smallish structure, built of massive, squared-off logs.

  “The chestnuts must have been huge,” I said. “A far cry from the narrow lodgepole pines my folks’ ranch was built out of.”

  “They were indeed,” said Fred, “and they’re all gone now. Jenny’s noble settlers brought in the blight. Many of the old stumps are still alive, and they keep sending up shoots, but just as soon as the sapling matures enough to bloom, the blight knocks it out again, and it’s back to the roots.”

  Jenny had a homily for this one, too. “We all do to the best of our knowledge, Fred. I’m sure those people had no idea they were carrying the blight. That’s why we have to be vigilant today to make sure we aren’t continuing to screw up our tomorrows.”

  We pulled off in Intercourse and found the bakery, which featured a confection called Whoopie Pies. They were composed of two large, soft chocolate cookies glued together with your choice of whipped filling: chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter, or maple. I chose vanilla and got a cup of coffee to go with it, figuring that Tert wouldn’t miss an extra dollar, and ambled outside with the others to munch and sip in the sunshine.

  The bakery was adjacent to a large parking lot filled with cars with out-of-state license plates that belonged to people who had come to Intercourse to send home giggling postcards and ogle the Amish. And Amish there were: Black, boxy, horse-drawn buggies trotted past on the main drag, driven by bearded men wearing straw hats who did their level best to ignore the gaping tourists in Cadillacs and Volvos. The local bank had not only a parking lot for its automobile-driving customers, but also a small stables block for the horse-drawn carriages. I ate my Whoopie Pie and joined the other out-of-staters in a little shameless goggling myself.

  My cell phone rang. It was Faye. “I wanted to apologize for shouting at you the other day,” she said.

  I was flabbergasted. “That’s okay, Faye. I mean—”

  “No, it’s not, and I wanted to say so.”

  I wanted to warn her about Tert, but didn’t want to ruin the détente by getting in her face, so I just said, “How are things? Sloane okay?”

  “A little tummy-ache.”

  “What?” I went on red alert.

  “She’s kind of cranky. She’s sleeping now.”

  “That’s, ah … nice. You still in Philadelphia?”

  “Yeah. Taking lots of walks.”

  “Oh. Listen, if Sloane’s stomachache gets any worse, or persists, you take her right to a doctor, okay?”

  Faye came back with a defensive tone. “What, you think I can’t look after my own child?”

  “No! No, I didn’t mean to suggest that. I’ve just been talking to experts about poisonous pigments, and—”

  “Relax,” she said testily.

  I thought fast, trying to think of something to say that would keep her in communication. “Are you having a good time?”

  “Tert is down at the gallery a lot, or holed up in his office here at the house.” Faye sounded lonesome.

  “Not much fun for you. Maybe you should head on up north and see some other friends.”

  “No, I made the mistake of turning in my rental car. Trying to be frugal, like you keep suggesting. But I’ve already seen the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall anyway.”

  I gritted my teeth and asked, “How’s the food there in Philadelphia?”

  “We’re eating a lot of takeout.”

  I sighed with relief. “That’s great.”

  “Huh? I thought you’d consider that spendthrift.”

  “Oh, no. No, no, no! Go for the pizza, the Philly cheese steak, the—”

  “Em? Is something bothering you? I mean really?”

  There it was, the perfect opening, and yet the moment felt infinitely delicate. If I told her that I suspected Tert of poisoning his mother—Tert, whom she trusted well enough to be his houseguest—I’d come off as a crackpot and a meddler, which in fact I hoped I was. I had not a shred of hard evidence that Tert was anything other than a privileged bit of puff pastry with an art gallery attached. So I said, “Well, it’s just you say that Sloane is sick. It’s just that you bo
th mean so much to me.”

  There was a pause, then a surprised, “Thanks for saying.”

  “So keep up your strength. Eat that takeout. And stay off whatever’s laying about Tert’s house. He’s a bachelor, you know, and sometimes they keep foods in the cupboard or the fridge way too long, and—”

  “I suppose you’re right. Sure, I’ll order Chinese next, and then maybe Thai. Except the peppers in Thai food make my milk kind of funny, and Sloane gets gas.”

  I managed to chuckle. “How well I know.” I stuffed another bite of Whoopie Pie into my mouth and chewed. It was great talking baby care with her again. Had I not been so anxious for their safety, I would have prescribed that they go get bored at Tert’s house more often.

  “So, you didn’t tell me where you are and what you’re doing,” Faye said.

  I grinned. “Oh, I’m just in Intercourse with a couple of geologists eating Whoopie Pies,” I said.

  Faye snorted with laughter. “Good old Em,” she said. “You always know how to get yourself into something worth telling about.”

  “Intercourse is a town, and a Whoopie Pie is a cookie, you see, and—”

  “Don’t spoil it for me, Em. The image is too ripe.”

  I laughed. “Okay, okay. We’re doing some fieldwork. Looks like I might get a thesis project after all. You were right to kick me in the butt.”

  “De nada.”

  I sighed with relief. We were on the right track again at last, and all it had taken was the consumption of a little humble … Whoopie Pie. “So, day after tomorrow we’ll be heading home.”

  “Yup. So you’re there in Lancaster County still?”

  “Well, I’m back. I went down to Washington, remember. I saw your great uncle. Hey, I think he’d like you to call him.”

  “Okay … but anyway, I was wondering about Friday. Do you think you can maybe pick us up?”

  “Sure! I’d be glad to. Maybe you’d even like me to pick you up early. Thursday night. That’s tomorrow.”