And somehow, hearing that men and probably a few women had struggled with sugarcane for centuries and that the crop’s history reached across the Atlantic to Cuba, Santo Domingo, the West Indies, and Brazil, Charley felt as though she were part of something larger, a worldwide movement. People had fought over sugarcane and died for it. They had married for it, prayed over it, and cursed its existence.
And then lunch was over. Denton and Alison wiped their mouths and balled up their napkins, while Charley cleared their baskets. And when she returned to the table, she saw that, for once, they both looked relaxed, their faces not etched with the permanent frowns that came with being cane farmers.
“You guys are the best,” Charley said, overcome again. Because, for once, it had been a good day, and at least for a few hours there was nothing she wanted more than to be a cane farmer, and there was nothing more satisfying than sitting down with her partners over baskets full of peel-and-eat shrimp and washing it all down with a cold beer.
Every day around four fifteen, cicadas fell mute in the stifling heat, the cane grew eerily still, the sky, almost colorless all afternoon, turned to slate, the clouds from white to battleship gray. Thunder rumbled. A rush of wind. And within minutes rain fell in opaque sheets, the half-dollar-size drops exploding against the shop’s tin roof so loudly Charley could barely hear the radio. Whatever fieldwork remained would have to wait.
It had rained for twenty minutes when Charley, sifting through a stack of new invoices, heard a truck pull up. Denton’s dogs, which he’d left behind to keep her company, started barking. It couldn’t be Alison, who left at three to retrieve his grandsons from day care, but it might be Denton, back from Lafayette, where he’d driven for an order of discs.
But Denton’s dogs kept barking, and soon Charley heard a man’s voice calling, “Mr. D.? Anybody here?”
Charley went to the office door. It was Denton’s friend from the auction, the one who’d helped load their winnings onto the gooseneck trailer. “Come in, come in.”
He stepped into the office, stamped his feet. “Man, I tell you,” he said, brushing rain off his baseball cap, “it’s coming down sideways.” He wore the farmer uniform — T-shirt, dusty jeans, and boots — all of it darkened with rain.
Charley struggled for his name. “It’s Ramon, right?” She’d been so embarrassed the day of the auction, she hadn’t said much more than “thank you.”
“Close enough. Name’s Remy.” His hand was damp and warm. “Remy Newell.”
“Remy. Right. I’m Charley—”
“Bordelon,” Remy said. His voice had an internal luster, as deep and rich as cherrywood. “I remember.”
Charley waited for Remy to make a crack about the auction: how foolish she’d acted going up against the rainmaker; how silly she looked crying when Denton surprised her with the equipment, but he didn’t. He just stood there. Dripping. She fetched a roll of paper towels from the bathroom. “Thanks again for loaning us your trailer. And for delivering all our new toys.”
Remy dried his face and arms, which were pale under his T-shirt where his farmer’s tan ended, then stooped to wipe the puddle on the floor. “Y’all cleaned up. That tractor you snagged only has eight thousand hours on it.”
To her surprise, Charley could grapple with sugarcane math. Eight hours a day, one thousand days. Grinding season lasted three months, which was roughly one hundred days. If her calculation was correct, the tractor had been running for eight years. Not bad as tractors went.
She gestured toward the papers on the desk. “I couldn’t do any of this without Mr. Denton.”
“I’ve known Mr. D. since I was sixteen,” Remy said, nodding. “I used to work cane every summer. Dug ditches and filled ruts till I worked my way up to driving a combine. Still don’t know why he did it, but Mr. D. always looked out for me. Made sure I didn’t lose a hand in the scrolls. Some of the old-timers don’t want to admit it, but Mr. D.’s one of the smartest men around.” He paused. “If I know half as much about cane when I’m his age, I’ll have done all right.”
“His mind is quick,” Charley said. “I’m blown away by the ideas he comes up with. The other day our partner, Alison, said he was a genius. I think that’s true.”
“And he’s got a good heart.” Remy’s voice went quiet. He looked at Charley as though there was a story he wanted to tell her. “I owe him a lot.”
Outside, the storm had passed. For a few minutes they sat quietly, listening to the rain on the metal roof downshift into the softer syncopation of water dripping off the eaves.
“So—”
Remy snapped his fingers. “Almost forgot. I brought y’all a surprise.” He invited Charley to his truck.
It had been a scorcher of a day with temperatures in the low hundreds, humidity close to 90 percent, but now that it had rained, the temperature had dropped, at least for a bit, and the air was breathable again. Insects resumed their chatter. The ground fizzed audibly where moisture evaporated, and the cane leaves were glossy and dazzling in the late-afternoon sun.
“Buddy of mine caught these earlier,” Remy said, “but it’s way more than I can eat.” He opened the passenger door, and Charley saw that other than a cracked windshield, the cab was neat, with an empty ashtray and a gleaming cup holder. Three large sacks of shrimp sat on the front seat. “One for each of you.”
Charley wished she had something to give Remy in return. “Thank you.” She had seen the Vietnamese and Cambodian fishing boats docked at Dago’s fish market near the Point. “I don’t think I could get shrimp any fresher.”
“I know you city folks think nothing happens in a place like this, but I tell you, it’s a pretty good life.”
Remy heaved the sacks over his shoulder, refusing Charley’s offer to help, insisting the briny water dribbling from the corners would stain in her clothes. Then he lingered, though whether to wait for Denton or to talk to her, she couldn’t tell.
Charley listened for Denton’s truck but heard only the fizz of the ground drying.
“So, you getting the hang of this cane farming?” Remy cleared a place on the couch.
“It took awhile, but I finally learned to keep the tractor in the row,” Charley said. She told him how they were slowly transforming the back quadrant, about the twenty-two-pound possum they trapped last week, and how Alison insisted on carrying a rifle in his tractor so he could shoot rabbits and other wild animals that ran out of the cane. Then suddenly, Charley paused. Remy was just being polite, she thought, making small talk and listening patiently until Denton arrived. “This is way more than you wanted to hear, I’m sure.”
But when she glanced at him over the stack of receipts and catalogs, she saw Remy looking back at her with open, unfiltered interest.
He smiled. “Keep talking. I’m hanging on every word.”
“I’ve talked enough. Tell me about your farm.”
“You don’t want to know about that. It’s nothing special.”
But Charley insisted that she did.
“I lease three fronts,” Remy said. “Colette, over in Saint Abbey, is six hundred and fifty acres, and Emilie, out near the bay, is four hundred. The biggest, Genevieve, out near Four Corners, is almost a thousand, with the rest in bits and pieces sprinkled around the parish. All in all, it’s about twenty-one hundred acres.”
“Twenty-one hundred acres. That’s enormous.”
Remy smiled modestly. “It’s respectable. Just wish I owned it.”
Charley had grown accustomed to Alison, who yelled, and to Denton, who, while her partner, also projected a quiet authority that required a certain respect. But Remy’s manner put her at ease. He talked to her farmer-to-farmer, in a way she found she liked.