Free In a Dark Season by Vicki Lane Page B

stiff-legged and the hair on their backs went up. The near one, an old bitch, lifted her lips and showed a mouthful of yaller teeth, some of them broke off, but the light-haired girl just said, Hush now, Juno, and led me up the steps.

Chapter 7
    Marshall County Voices
    Monday, December 11
    F olks round here is tired of being treated like they ain’t of no account. These new people—they come in here with all their money, actin’ like they know everything and treatin’ us like ignorant hillbillies—”
    “It’s the God’s truth what Mason’s sayin’!” A heavyset woman, her head covered with tight, iron-gray curls, broke in, leaning across her husband to speak to the couple just beyond him. “Why, just last week, the morning after that heavy snow, one of them big ol’ SUVs with Florida plates on it stopped in front of our house and these folks piled out—there was five of them—and they went right to trompin’ round the snow in my nice front yard and runnin’ to and fro like crazy people, flingin’ snow at one another and mashin’ down my flower beds. Now I was upstairs, changin’ the beds, and when I happen to look out the window and seen them carryin’ on, I rapped sharp-like on the glass—”
    The mountain twang resonated in the voices of the group sitting in front of Elizabeth. She didn’t know them, but they were familiar just the same—the hardworking bedrock of the county—men and women who often worked day jobs as well as tending the small farms that had been a family heritage.
    Now another voice, a woman behind her, spoke. “These local yokels are just a bunch of bluster. When it comes down to it, wave enough cash under their noses and I promise you, they’ll sell that dear old home place in a New York minute.” It was an accent harsh and unlovely to her ears, and Elizabeth had to resist turning to stare at the speaker.
    The auditorium of the Marshall County High School was packed to capacity, with a throng of latecomers standing at the back and along the walls at either side. Elizabeth scanned the audience, looking for familiar faces. Sallie Kate, an uncharacteristic worried frown on her usually cheerful face, was there, as well as many other friends and acquaintances from the newcomer community.
    The
old
newcomers, that is. Most of my friends have been here at least ten or fifteen years—and most of them were like Sam and me, just trying to make a living and keep a low profile.
    Over there was Dacy, a vet tech who lived “off the grid,” as did Sallie Kate and Harley. And beyond her the Nugents, whose organic farm and orchard, together with their herd of Angora goats, had, after years of hard work, become a source of pride for the whole county and a regular destination for school field trips. So many of the old newcomers were like that—all dedicated, in their words, to “living lightly on Mama Earth.”
    This all happened so quickly—I guess I thought that the county would go on being the same as always—the local farm folks and our little group of back-to-the-land types, mostly getting along and working hard—and then bam! now there’re condos and galleries downtown and gated communities springing up everywhere. It happened in Asheville and now it’s happening here.
    Suddenly, it seemed, Marshall County and the very sleepy little town of Ransom were ripe for major development. Wealthy newcomers were pouring in, eager to capitalize on the empty buildings downtown, the acres of empty farmland lying fallow since the end of the tobacco support program, and the hitherto unusable steep slopes of the wooded mountainsides. Property prices were soaring, as were taxes, and many native Marshall County folk were beginning to say they couldn’t afford to live on the land their families had held for hundreds of years.
    After the spate of letters to the editor published in the county’s weekly newspaper had reached a height of incivility unknown in recent years, the powers that be had at