Queen Sugar: A Novel (14 page)

“Have a good evening, Mr. Denton,” Charley said, sliding in behind the wheel. “And thank you.” She followed Denton’s truck along the headland, past the fronts of untended third-year stubble until they reached the junction, then tapped her horn twice to wish Denton a good night before turning left and bumping over the drawbridge. Up ahead, the sky was the color of gunmetal, the clouds heavy with rain. Lightning slashed through them and their lining glowed white. Nine miles down the road, the sky opened up, soaking the road until it was black. By the time Charley pulled up at Miss Honey’s, the Volvo’s hood glistened like it had just been waxed, and steam rose from it in misty sheets.

•   •   •

Miss Honey was chopping like a prep cook at a roadside diner, scraps of bell pepper, garlic, and onion scattered across the counter, when Charley walked in.

“Where’s Micah?” Charley asked.

Miss Honey gestured toward the window, and when Charley looked out, she saw Micah in jean cutoffs she must have made herself that morning, digging a long, rectangular plot in the grass.

“I convinced her to come in when it rained, but otherwise, she’s been out there all day,” Miss Honey said, and alongside the swell of pride Charley felt at Micah’s industriousness, she felt a pinch of guilt. Since the reunion, Micah hadn’t played with a single kid even though Charley promised,
swore
, she’d help her find some.

“How was your first day?” Miss Honey asked.

Charley turned away from the window. She took a Coke from the refrigerator. “Things keep getting better and better,” she said darkly. “Denton says I need another sixty-five thousand dollars. Shit!” In Miss Honey’s kitchen, Charley felt the full weight of what she was up against. Sixty-five thousand dollars more, and that would only get them to October. Where would she get that kind of money?

“One thing I don’t allow in my house is foul language,” Miss Honey said without missing a beat in her chopping. “That and taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

Her mother was right. She was a dreamer; had always been. But where had it gotten her? “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” Charley said. The kitchen was quiet except for the whir of the ceiling fan. “I know I sound ungrateful, and I don’t mean to, but I wish Dad hadn’t left me this farm. I was doing a good job fucking up on my own. Now I have eight hundred acres to remind me I’m a failure. I’m just making a fool of myself.”

Miss Honey scowled and Charley realized she’d sworn again.

“You remember that first day when we drove out to your farm?” Miss Honey said. “That day Frasier quit?”

Charley nodded. Of course. How could she forget?

Miss Honey stopped chopping, wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Well, your daddy worked out there one summer when he was a boy.”

“Out where?”

“Those fields you own. That same land. I didn’t recognize it at first, it’s been years since I was out that way. The trees are much bigger.”

“Dad never told me about working cane,” Charley said. She knew a lot about her father. For instance, she knew how much he hated the South. So eager to escape, he skipped his high school graduation dance and the parties, packed his clothes in a cardboard suitcase, and caught a ride to California with a woman from town who needed someone to share the driving and the cost of gas. He had sixty-three dollars in his pocket. He was seventeen. Years later, when she was a girl and her father brought her back to Saint Josephine for summer visits, he couldn’t last more than a week before his mood curdled. He grew antsy, short-tempered. Small things—the sound of a train whistle, the sight of an old black man pedaling his bicycle down the road, weeds sprouting through cracks in the sidewalk—annoyed him. But cutting sugarcane? Even when they sat in his living room and looked at
The Cane Cutter
, he never said a word.

“Can’t say I’m surprised he didn’t tell you,” Miss Honey said. “But soon as you said he bought the place from LeJeune, I put it together.” She pulled a chair out from the table and leaned heavily against it. Charley had lived with Miss Honey for almost a month. She had watched Miss Honey with Micah and knew she could be gentle; had seen Miss Honey explode at Violet, then turn around in the next moment and allow Violet to help her up the steps; but she had never seen Miss Honey look so troubled as she did now, as though her inner fire, the feistiness, her
Miss Honey–ness,
had drained away.

“Those were tough times,” Miss Honey said. She looked through the window. “I was taking in as much extra laundry as I could, cleaning for Miss Barbara on weekends. Pappaw was working extra shifts at the mill. All that, and we were barely getting by. Ernest was thirteen that year. He told me he wanted to work cane, but I told him no. I’d worked cane when I was a girl, and I knew how hard it was. ‘Go ask Mr. Henry down at the gas station if he has work for you,’ I told him. But Ernest didn’t listen. He got up before dawn and walked four miles to where they rang the big black bell. Got himself hired onto one of the crews making a dollar a day.”

Miss Honey fell silent, and for the first time, Charley thought she looked every one of her seventy-nine years, her skin thin as parchment, her shoulders slumping, her ankles swollen as popovers above her orthopedic sandals. “All that dirt is like an oven the way the heat rises up. You feel like passing out from thirst. ’Round ten, the supervisor set a water bucket at the edge of the field. Didn’t seem to be any order to it. Seemed like, you got thirsty, you drank from the bucket. But not that day. When it came time to break, Ernest was first in line. Reached for the ladle when something caught him upside his face. Said it felt like a hunk of metal. Andre LeJeune, making his daily rounds. He’d hit Ernest with a shovel.
Let the white drink first
. Couldn’t stand seeing a black boy drink ahead of him.”

Her father had been thirteen, Charley thought. Just two years older than Micah.

When Miss Honey spoke again her voice brimmed with regret. “My son kept that job till school started because he knew how bad we needed the money, but he didn’t tell me what happened till a month before he left for California.” She asked Charley to get her a Coke from the fridge, then tore open a packet of Stanback. “I used to wonder what that did to him, but after that day we were out there with Frasier, I knew.” Miss Honey took a deep breath, and Charley saw her mouth tremble. “It’s an awful thing when a mother can’t protect her own child.”

“I know,” Charley said. She would do anything to take back that day Micah burned herself. She would do anything,
give
anything, to have those hours back. Through the window, she heard the faint echo of Micah’s shovel as it sliced through the layer of grass, cut into the soil beneath. Miss Honey was right. It was an awful thing, the worst. The very, very worst thing of all.

“Ernest bought that land and never said a word,” Miss Honey said, looking small and frail sitting there with her hands in her lap. “Now he’s gone, and I can’t tell him how proud I am.” She stood and moved to the sink, but not before Charley saw her wipe her eyes.

•   •   •

Out beyond the town limit, the Missouri Pacific’s whistle announced midnight’s arrival, while in the pitch black of the front bedroom, Charley thought about Miss Honey’s story, imagined her father, just a boy, working the long rows of cane as the sun beat down, racing to the water bucket like any child would do. Charley rolled onto her side. She had to find the extra sixty-five thousand dollars. She had to get to October, then through to grinding. She slipped out of bed and walked down the hall to the kitchen, where the stove light threw off a soft glow. She flipped the light switch.

“Oh.”

Ralph Angel sat at the table confronting a heaping bowl of Frosted Flakes. He wore a T-shirt and boxers, and Charley, in only shorts and a tank top, folded her arms across her chest, thinking this was far too intimate for a brother and sister who hadn’t seen each other in twenty years. “Excuse me. I didn’t know anyone was in here,” she said, and was about to head back to her room when Ralph Angel spoke.

“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?”

Charley hadn’t seen much of Ralph Angel since he teased Hollywood the night of the reunion. But looking at her brother now, she thought he looked smaller without the warm-up jacket, almost harmless sitting there with the big box of kid’s cereal. “The heat at night,” Charley said. “It’s the one thing I haven’t gotten used to.”

Ralph Angel poured more cereal into his bowl then pushed the box across the table. “Help yourself,” he said standing up, going to the sink, holding his bowl under the tap.

Charley stared.

“What?”

“Nothing, I guess,” Charley said. “It’s just that I’ve never seen anyone eat cereal with water before.”

“I been thinking.” Ralph Angel turned off the tap and sat down again. “We sort of got off on the wrong foot the other night.”

“Sort of, yes,” Charley said, warily.

Ralph Angel dipped his spoon into his cereal and stirred slowly, but he looked as though he’d lost his appetite. “I mean, it’s just a room, right? And like ’Da said, you got down here first.” He seemed to be talking to himself, and for a second Charley thought he’d forgotten she was in the room, but then he looked up. “The room’s yours fair and square.”

As troubling as Violet’s story was, as much as she disliked how Ralph Angel had treated Hollywood, people deserved a second chance. Because it was easy to make mistakes. “Thank you.”

Ralph Angel nudged the box of Frosted Flakes. “Sure you don’t want any?”

“I’m fine.”

“At least you want to sit down?” He pushed a chair from under the table.

“For a couple minutes.”

The kitchen was quiet, the stillness soothing. Charley wondered how long Ralph Angel had been sitting there, how many nights he spent sitting alone in the dark.

“It must feel pretty wild,” Ralph Angel said, “you being down here, riding around on tractors all day, getting your hands dirty.”

Charley shrugged. “I don’t mind.” Just this morning, under Denton’s careful tutelage, she’d donned thick gloves and safety goggles and he’d shown her how to use the blowtorch. “It’s interesting.”

“Come on, sis. You can level with me. I mean, Saint Josephine isn’t exactly Vail, Colorado, or some other fancy place. Even this—” And here, Ralph Angel gestured to indicate Miss Honey’s kitchen. “I mean, it’s not exactly the Beverly Wilshire. It’s gotta be an adjustment, seeing how you were a debutante and all.”

“I was never a debutante,” Charley said. “It just looked like a fairy tale.”

“Well, kudos to you for coming down here. I’m not sure I’d have done the same.” Ralph Angel looked down at his own hands, turned them over to stare at his palms. “So, I was thinking. I’m going be down here for a little while. I’ve got some free time on my hands, maybe I could help you out on the farm.”

Charlie blinked. “What do you know about sugarcane?”

“Well, nothing. But I was thinking I could manage the office or something.”

“I already have a manager,” Charley said.

“Yeah, I know. Prosper what’s-his-name. Micah told me. But I was thinking about something administrative. I’m good with numbers. I was an engineering major in school.”

“There’s not really much to administer,” Charley said.

“There’s gotta be something I can do.”

Charley looked around the kitchen still crammed with paper goods and cases of soda from the reunion. “I appreciate your interest. And if you knew something about sugarcane, I’d say yes, absolutely. But since you don’t, it would sort of be ‘the blind leading the blind,’ know what I mean? And besides, I can’t afford to pay you.”

“I know we could work something out. I could build up some equity or something. Come on, sis. There’s gotta be something. At least say you’ll think about it.”

Charley sighed. “I’ll think about it. But I have to see how things go these next couple weeks.”

Ralph Angel smiled. He picked up the cereal box and poured another bowl. “Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

It was a Wednesday morning, the third week of June. The sun had risen high enough to bake the fields and the air was warm, but still held a little of its coolness from the night’s embrace. Charley had just settled into the ratty desk chair and was sorting through old bank statements and outdated copies of
American Truck
magazine when Denton poked his head in the office.

“Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m going to teach you how to fish,” Denton said. “Like I told you that day you came to see me, the time for laying-by has almost passed.”

“Laying-by,” Charley said envisioning the notes on her yellow pad. “That means cleaning up the rows.” She felt like a kid at a spelling bee.

“Correct, and Frasier should have done it way back in May.” Denton slid a finger under his baseball cap and scratched his scalp. “But if we work quick and double up on fertilizer, we might be able to catch up.” He led her out into the yard. “I found an old disc plow behind the shop. The discs were rusted, but the iron case held up pretty good. I cut up some of that rebar you found in that box of pipes and made us this three-row. It’s basic, but it’ll get the job done.”

Charley knelt before the length of extruded pipe. Denton had welded three metal spikes long as chef’s knives along the length of it—one on each end and one in the middle. “I can’t believe you made a piece of farm equipment,” she said. With the circular patterns on the spikes, and the spray of rust along the extruded shaft, the contraption was more suited for a museum sculpture garden than a cane field. “How do we get it out there?”

Denton pointed to the tractor. “We hook it to the back and pull it through the rows where all the weeds are growing. I spaced the spikes far enough apart so they won’t tear up the cane. Frasier should have gotten to the weeds when they were low. Now they done took us. You got stands out there that are tied up from end to end. That’s lesson number one, Miss Bordelon. Never let them weeds get out ahead of you.”

They rode out to the second quadrant, Denton on the tractor, the three-row clanging like church bells as he rumbled over ruts, and Charley following close behind in his pickup, the sun reflecting softly off the hood’s dull paint, the dogs pacing in the truck bed, where they barked at every bird or insect that happened by and lifted their noses in the breeze. She gazed out over her fields. Almost a month, and she was still not accustomed to the way the land looked—no mountains or rolling hills, even, to break up the horizon; the sky lower somehow than it was in California; the land for as far as she could see flat as a sheet of paper—and Charley wondered how long it would be before the place felt familiar, how long before she felt in her bones that she was truly home.

Ahead of her, Denton signaled that they’d arrived. He pulled over, climbed down from the tractor, and stood on the headland. Charley joined him.

“See what I mean about this field being tied up?”

Charley squinted and, for the first time, noticed thin green vines dotted with bright red poppylike flowers twisting among the cane stalks. “Is that kudzu?”

“Tie vines,” Denton said. “Also known as morning glory. And it’ll smother your cane if you don’t stay on top of it.” He walked back to the tractor, lowered the three-row, and secured the hitch. “We’ll go up and down the rows, pull up the grass first, then we’ll come through with the fertilizer. The trick is to get down to the seeds and the roots so the vines don’t come back again. I’ll take the first row so you can see how it’s done, then I’ll turn it over to you.”

“But I don’t know how to drive a tractor,” Charley said.

“Time for you to learn.”

As Charley stood by, Denton climbed onto the tractor, turned the engine, and fishtailed back and forth until the three-row, like an enormous comb, was directly behind him, then he slowly guided the tractor into the field, being careful to line the tractor’s tires up with the furrows so the cane passed underneath the chassis. He pressed the clutch, gave the engine a little gas, and the tractor lurched forward, the three-row’s spikes sinking deep into the earth like a dog bite, pulling up the roots and turning over clots of soil in three rows as it dragged along. Brilliant, Charley thought, and her heart leaped as she watched Denton roll through the field. When he reached the far side, Denton swung around and came back.

“Amazing,” Charley called over the engine noise. “Mr. Denton, you’re a genius.”

But there was no time for compliments. “You’re up,” Denton said stoically, and shifted into neutral, set the emergency brake. Heart thumping, Charley climbed into the seat. “Now release the clutch.” Charley obeyed. “Now grab hold of that lever and switch into first, then release the brake.” Denton was patient but firm, and Charley followed his instructions like a schoolgirl—
shift into first
,
release the brake
—letting out a small cry of delight as the tractor rolled forward. “Now look-a-here,” Denton called, walking beside her, “as long as you keep the tires in the furrows, the three-row will do like it should. It’ll follow behind like a duckling. Don’t be hasty. Turn around and check every few yards or you’ll tear up your cane. You get to the other side, swing around wide and come back. Understand?”

“I think so.” Charley gave a tentative thumbs-up.

“Remember. Go slow. This ain’t the Kentucky Derby.” And then Denton stopped walking, stopped talking, and let her go.

Charley was halfway down the row and feeling light-headed before she realized she was holding her breath. Her hands sweated from gripping the gearshift so tightly. She exhaled, sat back in the seat, glanced quickly behind her to check that the three-row was still there, and was relieved to see that it was, the spikes cutting through the soil, tearing up weeds and roots, the earth folding in on itself like cake batter. Charley turned forward and straightened the wheel to keep the tractor in the row. From up there in the seat, she had a different view of her fields entirely. Overgrown as they were in places, scraggly and neglected in others, when taken all together, they still held a certain beauty; it was like floating on a sea of green tea, and she felt the tiniest bloom of satisfaction knowing that with a lot of hard work and some luck, she might,
just might
, be able to tease a miracle out of those plants.

When she returned to where Denton stood, he nodded approvingly. “Not bad, Miss Bordelon,” he said, squinting up at her.

“Thanks.” Charley beamed.

Denton tugged his hat brim lower over his eyes, and Charley thought she saw a smile curl in the corners of his mouth. “Just a hundred fourteen rows to go.”

•   •   •

Lunchtime. Back in the shop, Charley and Denton dragged two folding chairs just inside the shop door, where, if nothing else, it was a few degrees cooler.

“Tomorrow, maybe the next day, we’ll hit those rows with nitrogen,” Denton said. He peeled the top slice of bread off his sandwich, which Charley had picked up on her way in, and regarded the remaining layers of sliced turkey, cheese, and tomato with disappointment.

“Do you not like it?” Charley asked, thinking she should have ordered the plate lunch.

“I remember when I could eat for twenty-five cents a day,” Denton said. “Ten cents for a piece of ham thick like this.” He held his thumb and forefinger a few inches apart. “Fifteen cents for a soda water. Now it’s ten dollars and you can’t even see what you got.” He looked across the road where afternoon sunlight leached through the gathering clouds. “Truth is, everything cost more nowadays. Labor done doubled. Insurance done tripled, fuel done tripled. Meanwhile, the price of cane’s been the same for the last seven years. You couldn’t have picked a worse time to get into this business, Miss Bordelon.”

Charley felt an ache spread through her gut. Her mother, too, was a straight shooter, often brutally so. “It’s a cold world out there, Charlotte,” her mother had said. “You have no idea. You go down to Louisiana trying to be a sugarcane farmer, all you’ll be is a pretty face.”

She turned to Denton. “Maybe,” she said, “but anyone who tries to stop me,” and here she thought of Landry, with his slick smile and flashy sedan, “anyone who thinks I can’t do this, can go to hell.”

Denton turned to look at her, and for a few seconds he didn’t say a word, just stared. Then he smashed the top bread slice back on his sandwich and took a bite. “I like that you’re willing to work hard,” he said. “May turn out to be good at fishing after all.”

•   •   •

Ten straight days of clearing the morning glories, and tearing out johnsongrass, and spraying double doses of fertilizer. Ten straight days of dirt and dust and sweat from places Charley never knew she could sweat. Ten straight days of rumbling up and down the rows—up and down, up and down, up and down—while the sun blazed overhead and heat rose from below, and finally,
finally
, Charley’s second quadrant, and then the rest of her farm, was neat as a pinstriped suit. The cane was still stunted, much to her dismay, and in some places looked worse than it had before, but Denton assured her that now that the rows were clear, it had a chance to grow properly.

“What’s next?” Charley asked, as they rode to the hardware store late one afternoon. An order of wrenches had come in.

“Time to run your drains,” Denton said. “All that dirt we cleared between the rows has piled up on the ends. Have to clear it out or your fields won’t drain right, and the last thing you want is for water to get hung up out there. Cane likes to be damp, but it hates to be flooded.” He turned left at the junction and rolled down his window. “Good news is, most of your land is the perfect combination of sand and loam. It drains well. Go over it with a piece of equipment, you can hardly see where you passed. It’s that black jack land, all boggy and filled with clay, that’ll hold water and tear up your machines.”

“Who knew laying-by was so involved,” Charley said.

Denton nodded. “It’s critical. You’re giving the cane your final
Amen
. You’re saying, ‘That’s it. I’ve done all I can do.’ Everything goes like it should, it’s the last time you’re in your fields till grinding. After laying-by, you stand back and let Mother Nature take over.”

From the passenger seat, Charley looked at Denton, and for the hundredth time was overcome with relief and gratitude. It wasn’t simply the knowledge that she couldn’t have done any of this without him. No, it wasn’t simply that. It was the feeling she got in his presence, a sense of peace, a quiet calm, as though she were standing in the shadow of an old redwood. They didn’t make them like Denton anymore; she couldn’t have asked for a better mentor. She’d noticed that sometimes, whether it was driving the tractor or operating the drill press or mixing a batch of fertilizer, he seemed to hold himself back, forced himself to step aside so
she
could learn, rather than doing the work himself. At least three times she’d walked into the office to find him scribbling on a pad, sketching pieces of equipment he planned to make. And was she imagining things, or did he seem to be walking with a newfound lift in his step?

“So, we run the drains and then we’re finished?” asked Charley. They were approaching the little town of Jeanerette, where LeBlanc’s Bakery on Main Street had been baking French bread and ginger cakes since 1884. Over the front entrance with its big picture windows, the red light glowed brightly, signaling that fresh loaves had just come out of ovens and were ready for sale; all you had to do was walk around to the side door. The air was heavy with a sweet, yeasty aroma and Charley inhaled. She’d have to pick up a couple loaves on her way home.

“We won’t be sitting around eating bonbons, if that’s what you’re thinking. Still lots to do before grinding.” Denton scratched his forehead thoughtfully. “And that’s if Mother Nature doesn’t throw us a curveball.”

“What could go wrong?”

Denton inhaled, as though he, too, was tempted to stop for a loaf and eat it right there in the car, if only they could afford the time. “What could go wrong?” He looked out over the hood then at Charley. “Plenty.”

•   •   •

Charley called Violet on her way home that evening. “So, exactly how long do you plan to boycott your own mother?”

“Look who’s talking?” Violet said. “When was the last time you talked to Lorna?”

“Touché.”

“Besides, Mother is welcome at my house anytime as long as she doesn’t bring you-know-who.”

“Please come over, Violet,” Charley said. “I miss you. You don’t even have to come in. We can stand on the sidewalk.”

Violet sighed. “I miss you, too, sweetheart, and I hate not seeing y’all. But if I give in, Mother will think she can always rewrite the rules for Ralph Angel. She never let us get away with half of what she lets him get away with. Someone has to draw the line. Speaking of which, how are you holding up?”

And so, Charley told Violet what Denton said about needing more money, about her father working sugarcane as a boy. “I never knew Ernest did that,” Violet said, and Charley heard in Violet’s voice the same sorrow she’d heard in Miss Honey’s. And finally, she told Violet about Ralph Angel asking to work on the farm.