PAULIE HARDLY KNEW HIS cousins before that first family reunion in the mountainsof North Carolina, and within about three hours he didn't want to know them anybetter. Because his mom was the youngest and she had married late, almost allthe cousins were a lot older than Paulie and he didn't hit it off very well withthe two that were his age, Celie and Deckie.

Celie, the girl cousin, only wanted to talk about her beautiful Arabians and howmuch fun she would have had if her mother had let her bring them up into themountains, to which Paulie finally said, "It would have been a real hoot towatch you get knocked out of the saddle by a low branch," whereupon Celie gavehim her best rich-girl freeze-out look and walked away. Paulie couldn't resistwhinnying as she went.

This happened within about fifteen minutes of Paulie's arrival at the mountaincabin that Aunt Rosie had borrowed from a rich guy in the Virginia DemocraticParty organization who owed her about a thousand big favors, as she liked tobrag. "Let's just say that his road construction business depended on some wordswhispered into the right ears."

When she said that, Paulie was close enough to his parents to hear his fatherwhisper to his mother, "I'll bet the left ears were lying on cheap motel pillowsat the time." Mother jabbed him and Father grinned. Paulie didn't like thenastiness in Father's smile. It was the look that Grappaw always called"Mubbie's shit-eatin' smile." Grappaw was Father's father, and the only livingsoul who dared to call Father by that stupid baby nickname. In his mind, though,Paulie liked to think of Father that way. Mubbie Mubbie Mubbie.

Late in the afternoon Uncle Howie and Aunt Sissie showed up, driving a BMW andlaughing about how much it would cost to get rid of the scratches from theunderbrush that crowded the dirt road to the cabin. They always laughed when