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“Sang,” he said. “Ten acres of ginseng. Street value of about three million dollars, if I harvest it right now. Four million if I wait a year. Five, the year after that.”
I wasn’t following him. “Street value? You talk like it’s illegal. Is it?”
He laughed. “Sorry; old habits die hard. It’s perfectly legal to cultivate ginseng, but this is unlike any other cultivated sang on the planet.”
“How so?”
“Ginseng 101,” he said. “All ginseng is not created equal. There’s a huge market for sang, mostly in China. They’ve been cultivating it there for centuries. But your true Chinese connoisseur turns his nose up at their domestic crop. American ginseng—wild American ginseng, mind you, what’s known as black ginseng — that’s the cream of the crop. Early Jesuit missionaries made a fortune shipping black sang to China; so did the Astors of New York. Even Daniel Boone sold it by the boatload.” Clearly he had done his homework.
“Ginseng grows great up in the Smokies,” he went on. “Likes a north-facing hillside with lots of shade, soil with just the right pH, a particular blend of trace minerals. Some of the best patches actually have names—‘the sugar bowl’ and ‘the gold mine,’ for instance. High-grade patches, even ones inside the national park, are considered heirlooms, a family’s patrimony. The locations of those patches are closely held secrets, and some old-timers wouldn’t hesitate to shoot somebody they caught raiding ‘their’ patch. Couple park rangers got ambushed and killed a few years ago over near Fontana Lake, on the North Carolina side of the park, during a crackdown on poachers.”
“I remember reading about that. I hadn’t realized park rangering was such a risky occupation.”
“Lotta mountain families still hate the government for taking their land to make the national park. And they’re by-God gonna keep digging sang.” He shook his head. “Thing is, over the long haul, it’s not sustainable. Takes ten or fifteen years for a wild ginseng root to reach its peak; takes only a couple hours, with a forked stick or a screwdriver, to dig up hundreds of ’em. Whole hillsides in the park look like they’ve been ravaged by root hogs.”
“But if it can be cultivated,” I said, waving at the proof stretching out before us, “why don’t people just grow it instead of poaching it?”
“Several pretty good reasons, actually. First, ginseng is pretty damned finicky. I’ve been trying to grow it for a dozen years now, with help from some pretty good botanists, and I’m just starting to get the hang of it. Second, it’s not like marijuana, which can give you a huge profit in just one growing season. You have to leave ginseng in the ground for four years, minimum, before you can harvest it, and during that time, it’s not generating a dime of income. The main reason, though, is the price differential.”
O’Conner reached into a deep side pocket of his gray cargo pants and pulled out a root, which he handed me. “Ginseng, I presume?” He nodded. The root had four branches, which corresponded remarkably well to the placement and proportions of the arms and legs of the human form. It looked, quite literally, like a stick figure.
“You can see why the Chinese and the Indians both named it ‘man-herb,’ can’t you?”
“I can. Only thing missing is the head.”
“Look at the texture.” I studied the root; it was smooth and fleshy, rather like a carrot or sweet potato. “That’s from Wisconsin, which produces most of the cultivated ginseng exported to China.”
“Wisconsin? The ‘Eat cheese or die’ state?”
He laughed. “That Wisconsin root there weighs about a quarter-pound; it’s worth about five bucks.” He fished around in another pocket, and handed me another root. This one was slimmer, darker, and nubbier, with rings or constrictions encircling it from its neck down to the tips of its four branches. “That’s wild black sang. Waylon dug that; we probably don’t want to know where.”
I hefted it; it weighed about the same as the other, maybe a hair less.
“That one’ll fetch two hundred dollars,” he said. I looked from one to the other, trying to see how one could be worth forty times more than the other. O’Conner took them from me. “The wild’s more potent, or at least it’s perceived to be by the people who buy it.”
“Ah, the magic of the free market,” I said.
He nodded. “Doesn’t take an MBA to figure out that poaching this root in the wild gives a damn good return on an investment of zero. Of course, the poachers aren’t counting the environmental costs, or the occasional fine or murder.”
I pointed to the cultivated root. “But you’ve figured out a way to get rich on these at five bucks apiece?”
O’Conner bent down and plucked up one of his own plants. He brushed off the dirt, which seemed an odd mixture of black loam, white Styrofoam granules, and mucilaginous goo—“hydrophilic gel,” he said as he wiped the root and his hands on the leg of his pants. “Slimy as snot, but it cuts my irrigation costs thirty percent.” He handed the plant to me. It was nubby with constrictions.
I blinked in confusion. “What — you’re transplanting wild seedlings?” He laughed and shook his head. “I don’t understand,” I said. “You grew this here?” He nodded. “But it looks just like the wild one.”
“Bingo. I’m not cultivating twenty-dollar-a-pound ginseng here, Doc; I’m growing thousand-dollar-a-pound wild sang. If it looks like wild sang and quacks like wild sang, it’ll sell like wild sang.”
If his entire ten acres looked this authentic, the audacity and the brilliance of his plan were breathtaking. “How come you can grow roots like this, but the cheeseheads up in Wisconsin can’t?”
“I’ll tell you, Doc, but then I’ll have to kill you.” Seeing my expression, he snorted and gave me a reassuring pat on the back. “Like I said, I’ve had some help from some good botanists. We found a way to shock the plants, chemically and thermally, at regular intervals during the growing season — not enough to really hurt ’em, just enough to make ’em pucker up in those constriction bands. Sort of like subjecting new wood to bleach and buckshot for that weathered, wormy look. Adds a year to the time required to get a mature, man-shaped root, but that extra year will pay for itself ten times over when we harvest.”
“You tested this on buyers yet?”
He grinned. “That’s where I was part of last week. Product testing. Not just buyers, but chemi
sts, too. The chemists say it’s every bit the equal of wild black ginseng. The exporters say they’ll take all I can bring ’em.”
Suddenly all the secrecy made sense. “So the kudzu camouflage and the hidden road — you’re keeping the operation hidden so nobody knows it’s cultivated?”
He nodded. “Plus the kudzu creates the shade the ginseng needs. I figure my cover’s gonna get blown within a few years, but by then, I’ll be millions of dollars ahead. Besides, even if I have to come down some on the price eventually, I’ll still be way ahead of the cheeseheads. I mean, look at what they’re producing.” He pointed scornfully at the smooth root in my hand. “It’s like a supermarket tomato — the right size and color, but a sorry substitute for the vine-ripened real deal. Eventually, Cooke County Black Ginseng — I’ve trademarked the name already — will become the Vidalia onion of ginseng. People will always pay a premium for it, because it’ll be the best there is. If the marketing and business plan work like they’re supposed to, we’ll create a hundred jobs within two years. Maybe help reduce the poaching in the Smokies, too, which would be something to feel proud of.”
“You do defy expectations, Jim,” I said. “The hillbilly stereotype may never be the same.”
But O’Conner wasn’t listening to me. He’d suddenly taken a step to one side, cocking his head toward the house, then he cupped both hands behind his ears to catch more of whatever sound he was seeking. “Well, damn,” he said to himself, and ran for the kudzu tunnel.
By the time he disappeared through his back door, I could hear it myself. “Damn,” I echoed, and began running, too.
By the time I reached the front porch, the faint sound had become the distinctive, rhythmic, and ominous beat of a helicopter rotor. Unless I missed my guess, the helicopter would be piloted by Chief Deputy Orbin Kitchings.
O’Conner, one hand shading his eyes, stared toward the mouth of his hanging valley. Judging by the way the sound ricocheted off the ridges, the helicopter was flying low and closing fast. Suddenly it rose into view, climbing up out of the gorge at the lower end of the valley, almost as if emerging from the earth itself. Black with gold trim, it was unmistakably the sheriff’s JetRanger, and it was headed straight for us.
