Anthill

by Edward Osborne Wilson

  From the Alabama State Docks a bay pilot boat had begun its journey south to the shoals of Dauphin Island, where it would pick up another freighter from the bar pilots and bring it safely down the dredged channels of the Mobile Bay shallow.

  Raff had come home. He had perspective now, and seeing its physical whole from this height he thought about Old Mobile when Marybelle was built, when sailing merchantmen crowded close in a forest of spars at the head of the bay. There was still continuous old-growth pine savanna close by to the north and south. People living at the center of the city could take a wagon to the bayfront and harvest crabs and oysters from still-unpolluted waters. The economic engine of Alabama was growing swiftly then, in the plantations and freeholds along the great river that ended here. Bales of cotton and tobacco flowed down onto the docks. Sugar, rum, and tropical hardwood timber flowed in from the West Indies, and every kind of manufactured goods arrived from the Atlantic Seaboard and faraway Europe. Down below, close by the Bankhead Tower, near the foot of Government Street, once stood the open slave market, where African people were bought and sold, families sundered in perpetuity, and sent upriver to work the plantations and docks.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?" Cyrus broke Raff's reverie.

  Raff sat down, and two waiters brought them water and menus, speaking softly back and forth in a foreign language. It was Spanish. That's something new around here, he thought.

  They began lunch. Crab gumbo and lobster Caesar salad. The lobster was the spiny Caribbean species, not the big-clawed kind from up North.

  The conversation started up with Raff's career at Harvard Law and his impressions of life there, interspersed with Cyrus's comparing those from his own experience at the University of Alabama Law School.

  Coffee and dessert were served, the latter a chocolate-and-brandy concoction Raff did not try to identify. Cyrus pulled out a Havana cigar from an inner coat pocket, unwrapped and lit it. He dragged deeply and blew the smoke upward toward the ceiling in a well-formed ring, as was his custom, then searched for an ashtray. There was no ashtray. Cyrus remembered: these conveniences had grown scarce at the Cosmopolitan Club. Many fewer members used them now, and the younger trustees of the club's board had begun to speak of making the Cosmopolitan Club smoke-free. One had commented, "What's so radical about that? This club used to have spittoons all over the place for tobacco chewers. Would you like to bring those back?"

  Diners who still smoked often used coffee-cup saucers as ashtrays. Cyrus would have nothing to do with such an impropriety. He signaled a waiter by pointing to his cigar, and an ashtray was brought to him.

  "I may have to bring my own in my pocket one of these days," he said.

  Then he turned to Raff and came to the point.

  "Well, have you made any plans yet? What do you want to do? All I can say is, I and a lot of our friends around here hope that whatever it is, you won't be straying too far away from Mobile."

  Raff tensed. He'd rehearsed his response several times, and he had no idea what kind of reaction he was going to get.

  "Well, sir, I know this might surprise you a bit. I've had some wonderful offers, more than you might imagine, from out of town. But what I really want to do is work here in Mobile as a legal counsel for Sunderland Associates. In fact, I was hoping that, unless you see some problem in that, you might speak to Mr. Sunderland on my behalf."

  The two men, he knew, were not just allies in business and politics, but also connected in a manner that still mattered a great deal in the Old South. The Mobile Semmeses had been close to the Sunderlands socially for four generations. Promises, deals, and handshakes were binding as a matter of honor--and especially when family histories were intertwined somewhere back in history by marriage.

  Cyrus stiffened, bent his head forward, and stared at Raff. When he spoke, he struggled to keep his voice down, to avoid others hearing in the crowded room.

  "Are you serious? Is this some kind of Harvard humor?"

  "Yes, I'm very serious."

  "Do you realize what you're saying, then? You know as well as I do--we talked about it all a couple of years ago--that Drake Sunderland is absolutely determined to buy and develop the Nokobee tract when it comes on the market. He already owns the key parcel at Dead Owl Cove. Are you telling me you want to help him?"

  "I'm telling you I want to work for him."

  "But why? How can you do that honorably?"

  "I'm telling you I can do that honorably and to everybody's satisfaction and save the Nokobee tract."

  Raff then fell silent. He took a sip of coffee. He meant to keep this close to his chest, and say no more.

  Cyrus turned and looked out the window and was silent himself for a while, struggling to construct a scenario that would make sense of what Raff had just said. He failed, and chose not to go that way for the time being. He also sensed from Raff's terse answers that his nephew would not disclose more even if he were asked.

  Well, either trust your own blood, Cyrus thought, or simply send him away. He chose trust. But first, he wanted something more.

  "Okay," he continued. "All right. Actually, I'm very pleased about how things appear to be working out. And it would be wonderful for me and Anne, and your parents, of course, to have you working right here in Mobile. But before I do anything, before I even think about approaching Drake Sunderland, I want your solemn promise--I want your oath--that you will be working exclusively in the interests of Sunderland Associates, and that you will never, ever undermine Sunderland in any way. Can you do that? Keep in mind here, Raff, that it's the honor of your family, not just your own, that's at stake."

  Raff closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He was now on ethically dangerous ground, but that was inevitable. That was the challenge.

  He let ten seconds pass, let out his breath and opened his eyes.

  "Yessir." Then he corrected himself. "Yes, Cyrus. I promise. You have my word."

  Cyrus picked up his cigar and took another drag. He pursed his lips and this time let the smoke curl out slowly. For one of the few times in his life, he couldn't estimate the consequences of a big decision he had to make. He couldn't calculate the odds. But he had no choice. And it would not look good if he hesitated.

  He passed his anxiety on to the cigar, leaned over and with annoyed abruptness, crushed it out, muttering to himself, "Damn things.

  "All right, Raff, I'll speak to Drake Sunderland tomorrow if he's around. He knows all about you. Lord knows we've bragged enough about you while you were at Harvard."

  Then, nodding his head gravely, rubbing the bald spot on his head with the three middle fingers, he regained a little of the old Cyrus Semmes balance.

  "Be warned, though. You might not get the job even with my help. Sunderland's a company that's always used a separate law firm. It would be setting a precedent to use an in-house counsel. On the other hand, to have on board a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a young local lawyer of good family to boot--not to mention one with a strong science background--that surely sounds like something they might want to try. But if they do take you on, you understand it will have to be on a probationary basis. Of course, that's true everywhere, including any law firm you might join."

  VI

  THE NOKOBEE WARS

  33

  THUS IT CAME to pass that against all odds, against all outward reason, Raphael Semmes Cody became the legal arm of one of the most rapacious land developers in South Alabama. As he walked toward his first day at work, he was in a dangerously ambiguous position, balanced on a knife edge between two opposing loyalties. A slight tip in either direction, he knew, could brand him a turncoat--a saboteur to Sunderland or a traitor to the conservationists. Either way, no one would trust him again, and his carefully constructed game plan would come apart. So he would always have to stay focused and think through his every step.

  He arrived at the office building at nine o'clock sharp. He paused outside and glanced up at the large steel, squared letters announcing SUNDERLAND
ASSOCIATES over the entrance. Then he wiped his hands down the sides of his new J. Press linen jacket to flatten any newly acquired wrinkles. He touched the knot of his maroon Harvard tie to be sure it was perfectly aligned with the buttoned-down tabs of his pale blue Pinpoint Oxford shirt. Satisfied that nothing of Clayville, Alabama, was in sight, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked through the revolving doors into the main lobby.

  Waiting for him there was the woman who identified herself as his personal secretary.

  "Well, good morning, Mr. Cody, and it's so good to see you. Everyone upstairs at Sunderland Associates is so looking forward to meeting you. My name is Sarah Beth Jackson, and I'm the one who's going to be helping you."

  "Well, I'm real glad to meet you," Raff responded. "We've got a lot of important work to do together."

  Sarah Beth, he thought. How perfectly Alabamian. He recalled again that it was a Southern habit to give a double first name to the second daughter.

  Sarah Beth was a talker, who disliked even a brief interval of silence. "I hope you had as nice a weekend as I did," she went on as they entered the elevator. "My family and I went fishing over at Pascagoula. We caught two big wahoos. They're real delicious if you grill them fresh. Have you ever tried wahoo?"

  Raff frowned and shook his head slowly as though sad that this experience had been denied him. In fact, he had a hard time even picturing a wahoo. He remembered that it was a large game fish that occasionally showed up in restaurants, and in general was considered a novelty in port towns along the Gulf like Mobile.

  They reached the fourth floor and went through a door with an opaque glass window gold-labeled SUNDERLAND ASSOCIATES and into the main administrative office. A large hand-painted sign on the reception desk read WELCOME, MR. CODY.

  Sarah Beth led him to his office, located at the far end of the floor. He entered, looked around, then walked over to peer out the window. The view was of tar-papered rooftops with narrow congested streets down below. He figured, correctly, that the offices at the opposite side of the floor had the view of Mobile Bay. The room was bare of books and paperwork, for the last day, he knew, even the last hour. Sarah Beth handed him a handwritten note. He was due for a luncheon meeting in three hours with Drake Sunderland and Richard Sturtevant, vice president and chief financial officer. It would be in Sunderland's suite, on the opposite side of the floor.

  Members of the staff began to break away from what they were doing, mostly getting settled in with morning coffee and small talk. They came to meet the new legal counsel, singly or in small groups, and add their welcome. They chatted for a while about this or that, and all left with the mandatory parting, or something close to it: "Now, if there's anything I can do to help you, you just let me know."

  He listened carefully to what each said, no matter how perfunctory. He tried hard to memorize their names and read the undertones in their words. He noticed that several spoke with a slight edge, taking overlong to explain the roles of the executive staff members and stressing their own availability to give him advice anytime he felt a need for it.

  Raff could understand the implied resentment toward a twenty-five-year-old entering the firm at a level they viewed as above their own. He wanted to remind them, but could not right then, that the legal counsel was a new niche at Sunderland and outside the hierarchy, and that he was not going to be a supervisor or a director of anybody except Sarah Beth Jackson. He made a mental note of those who showed what appeared to be some degree of anxiety. It would be wise, he thought, to draw close to them and gain their trust in the future.

  At the luncheon meeting Raff encountered another, more serious risk. After lunch had been served and pleasantries wound down to the point that serious talk could begin, Sturtevant came quickly to the point.

  "Raff, Mr. Sunderland and I just want to clear the air on a certain matter for once and all, and keep it that way. We want to be a hundred percent sure that we don't get any conflict of interest within the firm or even the appearance of one. I'm sure you don't want that either."

  "Nosir, absolutely not," Raff said. "Something like that could undermine the operation of this company and even in some cases might open us to litigation. But so I can be perfectly clear, what exactly are we talking about here?"

  Raff was pretty sure he knew where Sturtevant was headed. He had arrived on dangerous ground, and more quickly than he had expected.

  "Well, we know you're quite a naturalist," Sturtevant replied, steepling his hands, "and you put a lot of effort into environmental law while you were at Harvard. Now, that's all to the good. Don't get me wrong about any of this. Environmental issues are getting more and more important these days, and in the business world too, and we need your kind of expertise in what might turn out to be pretty rough waters. But we'd really like to hear your feelings about where you stand. I mean, suppose push comes to shove on some environment issue. Suppose Sunderland Associates runs into heavy opposition from some environmental group or other on one of our projects. It might even become a big media issue, with reporters interviewing you and all. How are you going to handle that?"

  There it was. Sturtevant could not be plainer. Raff knew that how he answered now, right this minute, could set the tone of his relationship with Sturtevant and Sunderland, and his future effectiveness in his new job.

  "Mr. Sturtevant," he said, raising and opening his hands, "I'm glad you asked me."

  "Rick, call me Rick, let's not stay formal around here, Raff."

  "Okay, Rick, I'm glad you asked that question. I've given this matter a lot of thought myself, believe me, and I want to reassure you and Mr. Sunderland right now to your complete satisfaction."

  In fact, he had all but memorized the answer he would now make.

  "I promise you there will be no conflict of interest, or any appearance of conflict of interest, on any case on which I work. Let me put this as strongly as I can. I do intend to work with environmental groups around here and promote conservation. I hope you'll approve of that. This region needs it badly. But I will also work toward solutions and so forth that are to your complete satisfaction. I think you'll find that my connections with environmental organizations will work out to the benefit of the company."

  The group fell silent for the good part of a minute. Then Sturtevant said quietly, "Well, now, I think I can speak for Drake Sunderland also when I say I'm satisfied with that answer."

  "Yes," Sunderland quickly added, "thank you. Now, if we're all happy, let's get organized here. If you're ready, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda."

  By the end of the week, Raff was deep in legal work of the kind previously sent to independent consultants. He found to his relief that for the most part he could manage his new tasks easily. He also projected that he could do so at an overall saving for Sunderland Associates. Most of the work concerned acquisition and sale of plots in the city and suburbs, and reviews of contracts for construction on them. So far, it was all at the level of Contract Law 101 at Harvard.

  After several months, when Raff felt comfortable enough with his new position, he joined the Alabama Nature Conservancy and the state organization of the Audubon Society. At the first opportunity thereafter he offered their local representatives free legal advice, and received enthusiastic responses. That was not difficult work either, nor of great importance. So far, it had not as yet yielded decisions in conflict with the commercial interests of Sunderland Associates. He seldom encountered problems in conservation that could not be settled by standard methods of negotiation.

  On the side he began to study the essential players in government, business, and land management at the local and state level. He went out of his way to meet the most important among them. Raff was consciously preparing for the small fraction of future conflicts that would demand exceptional skill and effort. He was bound to honor the promise he had made to Sunderland and Sturtevant. There would be victories for the company and there would be defeats. Then, he expected, there would
be a very few with major long-term consequences. The most agonizing of these was the fate of the Nokobee tract. That, Raff knew, would be the game-breaker.

  In the meantime, outside of business luncheons and receptions, Raff's social life was not with his professional colleagues at Sunderland Associates. Instead, Raff used his leisure hours to quietly build a circle of friends in the environmental movement.

  Raff's key contact was inevitably Bill Robbins, whose office at the Mobile News Register was only five blocks from the Sunderland Office Building. Robbins's relationship with Raff soon changed from that as mentor and adviser to close friend and partner. They made it a habit to have lunch together in the Rebel Cafe and Deli, located on Bledsoe Street halfway between their two places of work, and famous for its fried mullet, hushpuppies, and crab gumbo. Occasionally, Bill's wife, Anna Jeanne Longstreet Robbins, joined them when she could break away from her job as a manager at the downtown Sears.

  Their conversations ranged widely, usually including the more savory political gossip from around the state: a governor indicted for embezzlement, a famous football coach about to be fired for a dalliance with a member of his staff, a state senator photographed leaving a Biloxi casino with a male prostitute.

  But invariably, they settled on the latest events at the South Alabama conservation front. Robbins always brought along a folded map of the surviving pockets of old-growth floodplain cypress and longleaf pine. "Those little parcels are the key to everything," he said.

  At their second meeting, Raff decided to disclose his full plan to save Nokobee, so the two men could discuss it at length. The confidence was exclusive. Only Robbins would know. Not even Anna Jeanne would be told, and most certainly not Cyrus Semmes. Raff was desperate to share the subject with someone else who really cared about Alabama conservation, and he needed practical advice from the knowledgeable newsman. He was familiar with the oft-quoted definition of investigative journalism: seduction followed by betrayal. But he trusted Robbins completely. They were full partners, bound together by the same goals.