It was pleasant in the kitchen. Outside, the January wind had picked up, but we were warm and well fed. Albert Lee got up and cut pieces of pecan pie for us for dessert and poured coffee. I ate and listened idly to the conversation, most of it about Chandler Mountain, the crops grown there late into the fall because of the thermals, the hard-core poverty of the Appalachians, the mountain people trying to hold on to their isolation and losing the battle.

“But you left the mountain,” I said to Albert Lee.

“Yes, but it’s never left me. And here I am, back.”

“But on the Internet.”

He shrugged and grinned. “There’s a world out there.”

“And he’s going back to it, too,” Miss Beulah said. “The day I found out I was pregnant with him was the day I started saving my pennies so he could go to college.”

“What did your husband do?” I asked.

“Coal miner.” Miss Beulah pushed her coffee cup away. “Died when he was thirty-five in the Daisy Belle mine. Methane explosion. Seventeen men gone just like that.” Miss Beulah snapped her finger.

“That was my daddy,” Albert Lee said. “There’ve been a couple of husbands since.”

Miss Beulah nodded. “One of them nice but sickly, didn’t last long. One of them sorry, wanting the money the company gave me for Jake’s death. I kicked his sorry ass out so quick it’s probably still spinning.”

I wondered how much money she would have received from a coal company forty years ago. Probably not much, but I had an idea that it explained Albert Lee’s education.

Mary Alice leaned back and stretched. “How much did you get?”

“Sister!”

But Miss Beulah didn’t take offense. “Not as much as I would have if he’d lived. Eugene Mahall down in Steele, Susan Crawford’s sister Betsy is married to his son, was hurt in the same accident and he’s been living high off the hog from the coal company ever since. Bought a bunch of land, raises cotton, built a fine house.”

“Invested it wisely, Mama,” Albert Lee said.

Miss Beulah pursed her lips. “So they say. Ask me, he’s been blackmailing the company all these years. Probably the folks who shot him. He knew something about the explosion the company’s been willing to shut him up about.”

“That could have been to start with,” Albert Lee agreed. “They could have given him more than they did us. But he took that money and made his own bundle with it, Mama.”

“How?” Sister asked. “That’s where we picked up the key to Monk’s house. That’s the prettiest house I’ve ever seen. The Mahall house, that is.”

“Lending money. Charging a fortune in interest.” Albert Lee got up and started collecting dirty dishes. “Anybody want any more coffee?”

Nobody did.

“What do they call that? Usury?” Sister asked.