From the river you could see it first: the pale columns of Magnolia Bend rising above a slope of winter-bare oaks, the house sitting high as if the land itself had been built to keep certain people closer to heaven than others. Down below, the fields unrolled in long, disciplined rows. Cotton stalks stood like thin little skeletons waiting for spring to clothe them again. And the Mississippi River, broad and patient, carried everything the world was willing to forget.
People in Warren County spoke of Magnolia Bend the way they spoke of a church that had never known poverty. They admired Colonel August Whitlock’s harvests, his horses, his ballroom chandelier shipped from New Orleans, and most of all, his table.
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