“Three hundred graves.”
Brock Talmage said it loudly enough for half the auction barn to hear.
Then he laughed.
West Virginia, 1987.
Rain hammered the tin roof of the Greenbrier County livestock barn while farmers crowded the wooden bleachers with paper cups of coffee warming their hands.
The place smelled of wet denim, sawdust, livestock, diesel smoke, and old tobacco.
At the far end of the building, behind a sagging wire partition, three hundred turkey poults huddled together beneath yellow heat lamps.
Nobody wanted them.
Not one serious buyer.
They were late-season birds.
Too small for immediate processing.
Too old to bring a premium as starter poults.
And every additional week meant more feed, more labor, more risk, and more money disappearing before Thanksgiving.
The auctioneer had already dropped the price twice.
“Four hundred dollars for the lot.”
Silence.
He looked across the room.
“Three-fifty.”
Nothing.
A farmer near the back shook his head.
“Wouldn’t take them free.”
Several men laughed.
The auctioneer sighed.
“All right. Three hundred dollars. Who gives me three hundred?”
A bidding card rose from the fourth row.
The room went quiet for one second.
Then everybody saw who was holding it.
Marin Wickliffe.
Twenty-four years old.
Thin from too much work and too little sleep.
Mud dried along the sides of her boots.
Her brown hair was tied back with a strip of faded cloth.
And hanging from her shoulders was an oversized green barn coat that had belonged to her grandfather.
Brock Talmage leaned forward.
“You serious?”
Marin kept the card raised.
The auctioneer pointed.
“I’ve got three hundred. Three twenty-five?”
Nobody answered.
Brock stood.
He was thirty-one, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven, and dressed in a new canvas jacket with the Talmage Poultry logo stitched over the chest.
His family owned one of the largest poultry operations in the county.
Six barns.
Two processing contracts.
Three refrigerated trucks.
Enough acreage that people tended to listen when the Talmages spoke.
He pointed toward Marin.
“That girl just bought herself three hundred funerals.”
The barn erupted.
Dale Pruitt slapped his knee.
“Hope your grandmother left money for feed.”
Another farmer called from the back.
“Better start digging holes now!”
The auctioneer gave Marin one last chance to lower her card.
She didn’t.
The hammer fell.
“Sold.”
Three hundred unwanted turkeys now belonged to Wickliffe Farm.
And Marin had just committed nearly every dollar she had available for the month.
Brock walked toward her as she stood.
“Farm’s been dying twenty years, Marin.”
She tucked the bidding card beneath her arm.
“You think turkeys are going to save it?”
“No.”
His smile widened.
“Smartest thing you’ve said all day.”
Marin looked toward the pens.
“The turkeys aren’t what I’m betting on.”
Brock’s expression changed.
“What are you betting on?”
She pulled her grandfather’s coat tighter around her shoulders.
Then walked away without answering.
Three weeks earlier, Marin would not have been able to answer that question.
Three weeks earlier, Wickliffe Farm had looked exactly like what Brock said it was.
A place slowly dying.
The farm sat against an Appalachian ridge outside Renick, where the mornings arrived wrapped in fog and winter seemed to settle into the hollows earlier than everywhere else.
Eighty-six acres.
Two usable pastures.
One neglected orchard.
A tobacco barn with a roof sagging toward the middle.
A tractor that required prayer before every start.
And a farmhouse where rainwater still found its way through the flashing around the chimney.
Marin’s grandfather, Silas Wickliffe, had died the previous November.
He had left her the land.
He had also left her taxes, feed bills, equipment repairs, and a bank manager who had stopped pretending the situation was temporary.
Her mother wanted her to sell.
“You’re twenty-four years old,” she had said over the phone. “You can still leave before that place takes everything from you.”
Marin had almost listened.
A timber company had offered enough for the northern acreage to erase most of the immediate debt.
A developer had asked about the lower pasture.
Brock Talmage himself had mentioned buying the entire farm.
Not aggressively.
Not yet.
He had simply leaned against his truck one afternoon and said,
“You ever get tired of drowning, I’ll make you a fair offer.”
Marin had looked at him.
“You interested in the land?”
Brock smiled.
“I’m interested in land that’s cheap.”
That night, Marin sat inside her grandfather’s office trying to decide which bills she could postpone.
The room had not changed since his death.
A rusted fan sat near the window.
Seed catalogs were stacked in one corner.
Veterinary manuals leaned against old farm ledgers.
Dust covered almost everything.
Marin reached for one of the ledgers.
Another book slid from behind it and hit the floor.
The cover was cracked.
MOUNTAIN PASTURE NOTES
1948–1963
She opened it.
At first, she assumed she was looking at planting records.
Instead she found pages filled with her grandfather’s handwriting.
Turkey breeds.
Pasture rotations.
Growth rates.
Acorn seasons.
Wild clover.
Sorghum.
Apple waste.
Chestnut substitutes.
Distance from roost to feed.
The notes were obsessive.
Silas had recorded how much the birds walked.
Which parts of the hill they preferred.
How the meat changed depending on the final six weeks of feed.
One sentence had been underlined.
THE LAST SIX WEEKS MATTER MORE THAN THE FIRST TWELVE.
Another said:
DON’T FATTEN TOO FAST. MUSCLE FIRST. FLAVOR LATER.
Marin kept reading.
Then she found references to something she had never heard about.
Wickliffe Mountain Turkey.
The name appeared again and again.
Orders.
Weights.
Processing dates.
Notes about hotels in White Sulphur Springs.
Restaurants in Charleston.
Private clubs.
One entry mentioned a buyer from Washington, D.C.
Marin frowned.
Her grandfather had raised cattle during her childhood.
Before that, tobacco.
He had never once told her Wickliffe Farm had been known for turkeys.
Near the back of the notebook, the handwriting changed.
Shorter.
More technical.
Temperature ranges.
Brining percentages.
Air circulation.