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and neighborliness.”
    In Ford’s opinion, the downturn was going to be a very good learning experience for the country. His only concern was that it might notlast long enough, in which case people would not have ample opportunity to learn enough.
    â€œOh, for fuck’s sake.” Hemingway got to his feet, waving a dismissive hand at Hoover and Ford. “What we need is a big goddamn war. That would put things straight. And send everyone back to work in a hurry. Maybe Mr. Ford can put a word in with his buddy, Adolf.”
    â€œWhat did he say?” Edison asked Ford.
    Ford leaned close to the old man’s ear and gave him the sanitized version.
    It was then that Earl Senior motioned to his son. Time to be off to bed so the men could speak freely.
    Time for young Earl to dutifully march back to the lodge, climb up to his bedroom. Time to lie on his cot and sniff at the wood smoke clinging to the sleeves of his shirt, to stare at his own palm, which had touched the big paw of Ernest Hemingway. Time to lie awake and imagine what extraordinary things were being said around that campfire on the edge of the wild Florida pinelands.
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    When he finished the story, Earl rose, drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and swabbed the sweat from his brow. He stretched his arms and blinked at Claire as if surprised to find her there. He smiled, turned his eyes back toward the darkness.
    â€œSo why that story, Earl? What’s it mean to you?”
    â€œJust some ranch history, how it used to be.”
    â€œBut Coquina Ranch is still that way. Great men passing through, sitting around the campfire, having their mysterious talks.”
    â€œWe’ve been a little short of great men lately, wouldn’t you say?” Earl looked at her with curiosity.
    Claire rubbed her palms on the legs of her jeans, cleaning off the sticky film of the wildebeest’s blood.
    â€œThat’s what you’re saying? You’d like to improve the guest list?”
    He flinched as if such a thought was painful beyond imagining.
    â€œDad, if you don’t like how Browning’s running things, sit down and discuss it. He listens to you. He respects you.”
    He shook his head as if somehow she was missing the point.
    â€œThat creature you’re skinning,” he said. “How do you feel about all that?”
    It was Browning’s idea to convert two hundred acres of the ranch into a safari-style hunting preserve and import exotic African game. A scheme to wring more profit from the ranch. He’d selected a remote area of pastureland, pine forest, and scrub on the western edge of Coquina Ranch. It was the natural place, since the tract had been fenced decades before to hold German prisoners of war—a plan the war department canceled just weeks after the vast fence was completed.
    These days corporate hotshots used the Hammonds’ landing strip, bunked in the primitive hunting camp on the preserve, and chased the game in dune buggies and ATVs. Most returned home with an exotic trophy. But because the initial outlay for the imported game had been far costlier than Browning had expected, so far the enterprise had failed to turn a profit.
    Though neither man discussed it openly, Claire knew the safari scheme had created discord between Browning and Earl. Not because it was a bad investment, but because those exotic creatures violated the longstanding tradition of the Hammond clan of maintaining the natural history of the ranch, keeping the land unspoiled and the flora and fauna as close to native as possible.
    â€œThat story,” she said. “Were you suggesting Hemingway and Henry Ford and the others somehow cooked up World War II?”
    Earl smiled.
    â€œNo, nothing that dramatic. But we did get a pretty nice lake out of the deal. That levee around Okeechobee, you might say that was Hoover’s gift to my dad.”
    When she first arrived at Coquina Ranch and was acquainting herself