One Foot in Eden

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s depiction of racism and racist violence, death by suicide, war crimes, miscarriages, and infertility.

In Jocassee Valley, Sheriff Will Alexander and his deputy, Bobby, arrive at a local bar, responding to a call to break up a bar fight. They learn that Holland Winchester started the bar fight, which does not surprise Will. Holland agrees to pay the bartender for the damages. After he does so, he pulls out a bag with his Gold Star medal for bravery. Holland shows Will the contents of the bag, which Will recognizes because he fought in World War II. The bag contains shriveled ears that Holland cut off his victims during the Korean War. Holland tells Will that they remind him of what he did in Korea, even though Will does not understand why he needs help remembering.

Two weeks later, Mrs. Winchester, Holland’s mother, reports Holland missing. As Bobby and Will drive to Mrs. Winchester’s farm in Jocassee, Will thinks about the history of the valley. Jocassee Valley was named after the Cherokee princess Jocassee, who drowned herself and whose body was never found. Will thinks about his Cherokee ancestors and what the valley represented to them. Will knows that Carolina Power plans to turn the valley into a reservoir, displacing all the farmers who live there.

When Will arrives at the Winchester farm, Mrs. Winchester asserts her suspicion that her neighbor, Billy Holcombe, killed Holland. She heard a gunshot at the Holcombe farm the day before. Will walks over to speak with Billy, who works in the fields. Although Billy and Will are distant cousins, Will does not know much about Billy, other than the fact that he had polio as a child. Billy denies knowing anything about Holland, but Will suspects that he is hiding something. Afterward, Will drives to his childhood home, where his brother Travis lives with his wife, children, and Will and Travis’s father. Travis speaks to Will aggressively because Will moved into town with his wife Janice and never visits them, even though their father is unwell. Will leaves, feeling guilty about his life choices.

As Will drives home, he thinks back to 1935, when he received a football scholarship to go to Clemson. After he received news about his scholarship, Janice Griffin invited him to her house for dinner to meet her family. At the time, Will thought the Griffins were rich because of their house, but years later, Janice learned that her father lost everything in the stock crash of 1929. At the dinner, Will felt out of place because Janice’s father was a doctor and the family lived in town, while the Alexanders were farmers. Now, when Will gets home, he talks with Janice in bed, even though they are not close anymore. Will thinks about how Jocassee will be underwater in a few years, and no one will remember the Holcombes, Alexanders, or Winchesters.

The next day, Will recruits men to help him search the Holcombe land for Holland. Mrs. Winchester tells him that Holland was having an affair with Billy’s wife, Amy. Will instructs Bobby to dredge the river by the Holcombe property. Afterwards, Will talks with Amy. She is pregnant, and Will wonders if Holland is the father. Amy denies knowing Holland, but Will thinks she is hiding something. As Will watches Billy in the fields, he has a flashback to fighting against the Japanese army in World War II. He wonders if Billy is feeling the same fear over killing Holland. Will sees buzzards in the sky and realizes that they must have found the body. When he mentions the buzzards to Billy, he tells Will that they are circling over his plow horse, Sam. Sam broke his leg the day before, and Billy shot him. As they walk to the river, Will has a flashback to when he told Janice that he lost his scholarship because of his football injury. She was pregnant, and she believed that her father would give them money so Will could finish his degree. When she asked her father for money, he told her that he lost his money in the stock market crash. Will dropped out of school. A few weeks later, Janice had a miscarriage. After the miscarriage, their doctor told them that Janice would not be able to have children because the miscarriage scarred her cervix.

Billy shows Will the horse carcass covered in buzzards. After investigating the river, Will drives to visit his father. Will’s father tells him that he needs to visit his nephews more often. As Will leaves, he thinks about how his father always wanted him to farm the land. Will resolves that when he finishes serving this term as sheriff, he will farm the land with his father before Carolina Power floods the valley.

The next day, Will and Bobby search the Holcombe’s house but find nothing. Will speaks with Widow Glendower up the river. Will knows that most of the valley believes that the Widow is a witch. The Widow tells Will that she has not seen Holland. Even though Will does not believe in the supernatural, he feels relieved when he finishes speaking with her. Will returns to the Holcombe farm and leaves with Bobby. As they drive away, Will suddenly gets an idea about what Billy did with the body. At the house, Will asks Billy to walk down to the river with them. Bobby and Will tie a rope around the horse’s neck and move it. Will searches the ground beneath the horse but realizes that Billy did not hide the body there. As they drive away, Will thinks about how people try to fill their loneliness. He knows that a pastor would say that loneliness comes from being unaligned with God, but Will does not know if he believes that.

The next morning, Travis calls Will because their father has had another heart attack. At the hospital, Travis tells him that the doctor said that their father has only a few days to live. Travis found their father in a field the night before. When Will asks Travis why he did not call him the previous night, Travis says that he did not know if Will would care. Will gets angry and pushes Travis against the wall. Travis’s son pulls out his pocketknife and tells his uncle to let Travis go. Will releases Travis and goes in to see his father. His father is unconscious, but Will apologizes to him and wishes that he had apologized when his father could hear him.

Will returns to the Holcombe farm. He spends the day with Bobby and a group of volunteers, searching the river for any sign of Holland. Since it rained the night before, Bobby judges that Holland’s body would have resurfaced if he was in the river. Will goes to the house and finds Billy in the shed, making a crib. As he watches Billy, Will realizes that his confrontation with Travis that morning showed him that he made an irrevocable choice by leaving Jocassee. He knows that he will not feel the same loss as Travis or Billy when Carolina Power forces them to leave. Will tells Billy that he got away with the murder, then leaves.