After shucking my boots and banging them against the porch rail to get off the mud, I walk inside and find Daddy settled in his rocking chair, his big, stockinged feet stretched as near to the box stove as he dares. He starts to greet me but coughs instead, kerchief over his mouth. It rattles his whole body, and I can practically hear his bones shake. He pulls away the kerchief and crumples it in his fist to hide it. He thinks I don’t know what he’s coughing up.

The bed quilt drapes across his shoulders, and a mug of coffee steams on the tree-stump table beside him. The house smells of burning pine and freshly sliced turnips.

“Mama said you found some gold today,” Daddy says calmly as I set my boots next to the stove to dry.

“Yes, sir.” I head back to the table, where I reach into my pocket for the eggs I gathered and set them beside Mama’s stew pot.

He sips his coffee. Swallows. Sighs. “Did I ever tell you about the Spanish Moss Nugget?” he asks. Then he doubles over coughing, and I dare to hope it’s not so violent as it was yesterday.

“Tell me,” I say, though I’ve heard it a hundred times.

Mama’s gaze meets mine over the stew pot, and we share a secret smile. “Tell us,” she agrees. I pull up a chair, then lay my rifle on the table and start taking it apart.

“Well, since you insist. It happened in the spring of ’35,” he begins. “The easy pickings were long gone by then, and I’d had a hard day with nothing to show. I was walking home creekside, trying to beat the coming storm, when I chanced on a moss-fall under a broad oak. A wind came up and blew away the moss, and there she was, bright and beautiful and smiling; bigger than my fist, just sitting there, nice as you please.”

Never in my life have I seen a nugget so big. I’ve heard tales, but I’m not sure I believe them. Still, I nod as if I do.

He says, “But the storm was something awful, and night was falling. I couldn’t get to town to get her assayed, so I brought her home. I showed her off to your mama, then I hid her under the floorboards for safekeeping until the storm passed.”

He pauses to take another sip of coffee. The fire inside the stove pops. As soon as I’m done cleaning my gun, I’ll take off my stockings and lay them out to dry too.

“And then what happened?” I ask, because I’m supposed to.