Susan Albert - Rueful Death

"Wasn't that hard on everybody's back?" I asked, trying to imagine what it would be like to spade up an entire acre of garlic. And even after it was dug, the job wouldn't have

been done. The sisters had to remove the dirt, dry the plants, separate the bulbs from the tops… People who buy garlic in little cellophane packages have no idea what they're missing.

She chuckled. "You bet. But we were new in the business and everybody was willing. A couple of years later, though, we doubled the acreage, and I started to hear grumbling. Mother Hilaria tried to convince the sisters that they'd get a couple of extra days in paradise for every garlic bulb they dug, but they didn't buy it. So when we doubled the acreage again, I went looking for an old-fashioned chisel plow, like the one my grandfather used to have back in Kentucky." She gestured at a piece of equipment in the corner. "Found it in a junkyard over in Johnson City. All that was wrong with it was a quarter-inch of rust and a broken strap. Now, I just set the tractor tires into the irrigation furrows and drop that plow-point between the rows. The plants still have to be pulled, but at least they're loose. No more spadework."

I grinned at the picture of tall, strong Sister Gabriella poking around a Johnson City junkyard looking for a secondhand chisel plow. "What happens after the garlic's pulled?"

"We used to cart it up here in wheelbarrows and dunk it in a tub to wash off the dirt. Then we'd lay it out on that cement over there to dry." She shook her head pityingly. "Lord sakes, that was work. Happy garlic grows three feet high, and we harvest the whole thing, not just the bulb. That's a lot of leaf to be totin' around."

I shook my head, imagining the size of the job. "It was a good thing you had conscripts," I said. "You probably couldn't have found enough people willing to work that hard for what you could pay."

Gabriella grinned. ' 'We had a good crop of novices those years. And Sadie, bless her heart, donated a beat-up old Ford pickup, which we traded for a front-end loader for our tractor." She gestured in the direction of a dusty, antique-

looking dinosaur of a tractor. ' 'Then we built some garlic flats-chicken wire on board frames, six feet long by three feet wide by two feet deep-that we lay on the loader. Now, after the field's plowed, we pull the garlic and lay it in a rack. When one rack's filled, we stack on another. When they're all filled, I haul the load up here. We restack the garlic into those thirty-foot-long storage racks in that cement block building over there."

"It looks like a great system," I said.

She nodded. "There's still plenty of toting and hauling. From planting to market we handle the garlic eight times. If we braid it, we handle it twice more. In a good year, we'll move over two tons of the stuff."

I whistled. Two tons of St. T's famous rocambole. "It's all gone by spring, I suppose."

' "The biggest cloves are back in the ground by October. The market-grade stuff we sell as bulbs, retail and wholesale. The plants with the best tops we braid into ristras and wreaths and swags, along with chilies and dried flowers. Buckwheat, statice, strawflowers, cockscomb-the usual stuff. Sister Cecilia is in charge of that part of it. She also grows a few specialities. Chiles, gourds, strawberry popcorn. With the garlic, they make nice wreaths."

I looked around. "You've got lots of storage, plenty of labor, decent equipment. You've got water for irrigation and room for more fields. How big could the operation get?"

She grew thoughtful. ' "That depends. We could plant another acre or two of garlic and sell it easily. With an expanded marketing effort, we might sell fifty or a hundred percent more. We could grow more flowers and market fhem with the garlic, and just about double our revenue." She lifted her broad, capable shoulders, let them fall. ' 'We could get big, sure. We could make a lot more money. But why?"

I cocked my head at her. ' 'Why?''

"Well, sure. Work is good for the soul, and we can al-

ways use a little more money. But we need time for prayer and study more than we need money." A half-grin cracked her weathered face. "Woman does not live by work alone, you know."

I thought of the shop back home and the hours I'd poured into it last fall. Had I been brought all the way to St. Theresa's just to hear this bit of advice?

She grew sober. "Anyway, you know what's happening here. The garlic operation isn't likely to expand. In fact, the crop in the ground may just turn out to be our last."

"That would be a loss," I said. "A lot of people think St. T's rocambole is better than anything else on the market."

"The garlic won't be too happy about it, either," Ga-briella said. We were at the far end of the barn now, and she opened the door to a large, chilly room furnished with worktables, shelves of neatly arranged supplies, and racks filled with dried flowers, chilies, and whole garlic plants, stalk and all. "This is Sister Rosaline's part of the operation. It's where her crew braids the ristras and makes the wreaths, swags, baskets, things like that. A dozen or so sisters work here half-days all year round. August to December, Rosaline recruits an extra half-dozen. They take a rest after the holiday, but they'll be back tomorrow, starting on our spring orders. It's work they enjoy."

"I'd enjoy it too," I said. Crafting is a lot more fun than standing behind a counter all day.

"It's creative work," Gabriella said, "and worth it. The simplest arrangement sells for ten times the value of the garlic in it." Her voice grew acerbic. ' 'It beats baking bread or making altar cloths or selling rosaries, which is what other monasteries do to make a living. And it sure as sin beats playing host to a bunch of bishops."

I glanced around. "This is the room where the fire occurred last fall?''

' 'See where those two walls have been replaced, and that big patch in the ceiling?'' She pointed. ' 'We had to repaint

too. There wasn't a lot of damage, but it cost Rosaline a couple of days' work while we cleaned things up."

"What happened?"

' "There was a work light hanging on that wall. It shorted out. At least, that's what Dwight says."

"You don't agree?"

She shrugged. "The light was new. After the fire, it disappeared. But I don't have any suspects in mind, if that's what you're asking. It happened on a Sunday afternoon when nobody was here. If it hadn't been for Dwight, we'd have lost the barn." She glanced at her watch. "Let's go to my office. Sadie will be here in a few minutes."

Gabriella's office smelled of woodsmoke. It had once been a tack room, and various pieces of riding gear-bits, bridles, curry combs-still hung on the splintery walls. The rustic decor wasn't enhanced by her gray metal desk and fifing cabinet, or by the incongruous-looking computer on the shelf behind the desk. But the woodstove in the corner, topped with a steaming kettle, radiated heat. Next to it sat an old rocking chair with a wicker seat. Gabriella opened the stove door, thrust in a stick of cedar from the stack in a wood box, and adjusted the damper.

"When the wind's out of the north, the smoke blows back down the chimney," she said. "But it keeps me warm."

A moment later, Sadie Marsh arrived. She was a wiry, steely-haired woman of nearly sixty with commanding gray eyes, high cheekbones, a jutting nose, a forceful jaw. Deep vertical creases between her eyes suggested prolonged periods of concentration-or a bad temper. A determined person, I guessed, perhaps a difficult one. She wore jeans and scuffed cowboy boots, a blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and a Navajo vest striped in reds, greens, and blues. Even in Texas, it wasn't the kind of outfit you'd wear to Mass, so I guessed she'd come here straight from home.