Southern Discomfort

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

PROLOGUE

PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS

'The construction drawings, plus the specifications to be described later, are the chief sources of information for the supervisors and craftsman responsible for the actual work of construction.'

i

The male mockingbird teeters on the edge of a whitewashed brick wall and flexes his wings in a motion designed to flush unwary insects from the ground below.

Nothing.

He glides down to an open patch of sunlit grass between the wall and a rhododendron bush and again flicks open gray-feathered wings, exposing flashes of white.

A startled cricket hastily dives under a sheltering blade of centipede grass.

Too late.

The mockingbird pounces, tweezers it from the grass with a sharp and deadly accurate bill, then flies up to a crepe myrtle and checks for enemies. At the far end of the long wall, a big yellow cat drowses in the shade provided by tall rhododendrons, extravagant in lavender bloom.

They are old adversaries who long ago established a modus vivendi of mutual respect. He knows she would eat his babies were they left unguarded, but a warning chirr usually discourages her predatory nature. His nest is well hidden among spindly, difficult to climb twigs; and if she tries, his outraged screams will marshall other birds to hurl raucous threats and help peck her unprotected back.

Only this morning, he and his mate banded with the thrashers and blue jays that inhabit this quiet suburban street to chase a snake from their territory. The sleeping cat is no real threat. The mocker swoops down onto the wall, pauses a moment to pound the cricket into a more easily digested mush, then hops along the bricks to where dogwood twigs brush the top of the wall at this corner.

Here in mid-May, the dogwood has finished blooming. No white flowers gleam among the broad leaves, only swelling green berries that will redden in the fall and provide sustenance when spiders and insects have buried themselves out of sight against winter's coming.

Here in the heart of the tree, the mockingbird and his mate have built a nest safe from prying eyes, and four half-fledged babies open their soft bright yellow beaks the instant they sense his arrival. He stuffs the broken cricket down the most insistent gaping mouth and flies off in search of more food.

All is quiet on this tree-lined street save the drone of a nearby power mower, and nothing disturbs the orderly coming and going of birds at work.