Edisto River starts somewhere
up about Batesburg， South Carolina， starts itself up like a
forest fire or a thread of cancer， pulling down through the flats
and the orchards， through the hogs and the Herefords and the
smell of rotten peaches in the sun. It will be cancer that finally
puts my grandfather Punk in the ground， cancer like fine
barbed wire they ll keep pulling from his cheek and jaw for too
many years of tobacco. He used to grow his own in the back
parts of the pastures， down where the river snakes over his
land. He cured it himself with burning cow dung.
What he d do was harvest the stalk when the leaves were
full and green， leaves enough to dress a child head to toe， and
he d bundle them by the dozen in the rafters of his smoke-
house. He d rub each leaf with ash from the last cure， set fire in
the floorboards with cedar kindling laid to tent a cow pie and
shut the door up tight. Those leaves would smoke until his fire
sweated itself out， three， four days. But all that was when he
had his cows， back when he d send us into the pastures with
feed sacks to collect up those cow pies， dry as wasps nests.
After the cows， he bought his tobacco at the Dixie Home
Store， like everybody else. He d buy it and complain about
how sweet it was and how they used maple syrup and tonka
beans as additive， and how good tobacco didn t need additive
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