Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

“Actually,” Charley said. “We just got settled.”

“That’s it, then,” Miss Honey said, like a game-show host.

Charley tapped Micah’s shoulder harder. “Let’s go,” and peeled her off the recliner. She was just over the threshold when Ralph Angel called after her.

“Hey.”

Charley turned.

“Go ahead. It’s all yours.” Ralph Angel winked. “But just so you know, you owe me one, sis. I’ll have to figure out some way you can repay me.”

When Charley arrived at her farm on Monday morning, Denton was sipping from a thermos and leaning against his pickup, his shirtsleeves rolled up, a pen tucked behind his ear, an Ag bulletin poking out of his back pocket. The sight of him made the day seem suddenly brighter, and Charley kneed her door open, stepped out into the buzz of a thousand unseen insects and sultry morning air. “Good morning.”

Denton set his thermos on the dashboard and shook her hand. You could tell a lot about a person from their handshake, that’s what her father always said, and Charley could tell from Denton’s solid grip that he was the real deal — a man of integrity and honor, steady and forthright — he would not let her down, and for the first time since Frasier quit, Charley thought she might actually have a shot, not just at making the farm work; she would make Micah proud.

“So, where do we begin?” Charley said.

“Let’s have a look.” Denton headed toward the shop, but not before he whistled and his two dogs, the same ones Charley recognized from his yard, came bounding out of the fields, the larger one flinging slobber in his excitement. Now the picture was complete, Charley thought; it wouldn’t be a farm without dogs.

Charley slid the metal door back and felt along the wall for the light switch. She still breathed through her mouth for the first few minutes after she entered, but Denton didn’t seem to notice anything. In fact, he inhaled deeply, as though he were inhaling the homey aroma of fresh-baked bread. He bent to inspect an air compressor Charley could actually identify because there was one just like it, but smaller, at the gas station near her old house. Denton had barely touched the hose when the nozzle came off in his hand.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Charley said. “I told you it was bad.”

Denton wiped grease off the air compressor with an old rag. “I’ve seen worse, but I’ve seen better.” He moved from one piece of equipment to the next, calling out each machine’s manufacturer, model, and function — all for Charley’s sake — followed by the list of parts he’d need to repair it, while Charley recorded everything on a yellow legal pad. The Baileigh drill press under a veil of cobwebs needed a timing belt, and they’d have to order a new output contactor for the MIG welder. They might as well pick up another workbench, Denton said, and a set of wrenches; and that bin of odd pipes under the window might come in handy. Denton moved methodically about the shop like a chef in his restaurant kitchen. He arranged tools by size. He tested the drill press for vibration and runout, uncrimped and rewound the spool of feeder wire for the welder.

“What’ll it cost to get everything working?” Charley asked. “Just ballpark?”

“Too soon to tell.” Denton had his doubts about the tractor out front; it had been awhile since he’d seen parts for a JD 6400, and he needed to take a closer look at her fields, but when he pried the lid off a metal drum and saw that it was still full, he nodded. “Least we’ve got enough NH Four to get started. Saved four hundred dollars right there.”

By noon, they had taken inventory, and Charley’s list of parts and materials was three pages long. But before they drove into town, they climbed into Charley’s car and headed off down the narrow road that led to the back quadrant, Denton riding shotgun, his dogs in the backseat, panting and thrusting their heads through the windows.

Occasionally, as they rolled down the headland, a rabbit darted across their path, or swallows, like kamikaze pilots, swooped in front of them, while a hot breeze kicked up from the south, romancing the young cane on either side of the road. Theirs turned out to be a comfortable silence, the only sound the crunch and ping of gravel under the tires. And riding along, Charley fought the urge to say again how grateful she was — partly because she kept thinking about Miss Honey’s warning: Don’t come apart like a ball of twine , and partly because Denton’s manner was so calm, so steady, she felt more at ease than she had in months, but also because if she’d kept going like she was going, a few more weeks and she’d have been back in Los Angeles, back in her mother’s travertine castle, listening to Lorna say, I told you so .

And as far as Charley could tell, Denton seemed equally at ease. He pointed out different varieties of cane as they rumbled past the fields: Louisiana 90 with its aqua-colored leaves and creamy stalks; Home Purple, which started off pale as green tea but turned to Bordeaux in the sunlight; and Denton’s favorite, Ribbon Cane, with deep-red-and- bright-green-striped barrels that reminded Charley of an all-day sucker. Each time he called out another variety, 310 or 321, Charley repeated it, hoping that saying the names out loud would help her remember, wondering if she should confess that it all looked like the same leafy green stalks to her.

“For instance,” Denton said, “you got a lot of three eighty-four out there.”

“Three eighty-four,” Charley said. “Is that bad?”

Denton nodded. “It’s what most farmers’ve been planting since ’93. But you ought to think about mixing it up some. Maybe plant some five forty or one twenty-eight. It’s only been out two years, but it’s good. More sugar in it than three eighty-four, and you won’t get as much rust.”

“Rust. Hold on.” Charley asked Denton to hand her the yellow pad.

“What for?”

“I need to write that down.”

“All you need to do is listen,” Denton said, tossing the pad on the dashboard. “This ain’t something you take notes on, Miss Bordelon. You got to live it.”

And so, as they reached the second quadrant, Denton told Charley to pull over. When she did, Denton got out, knelt down at the field’s edge, and palmed a handful of dirt. “This is what I was talking about at lunch last Friday. This here’s good, loamy soil. You can tell by how it holds together.” He pinched a bit of soil between his fingers then put it in his mouth. “Not too much clay,” he said, “but not too sandy. Now you.”

Charley knelt. She pinched a fingerful of dirt and raised it to her mouth, but then she hesitated, thinking of all the creatures that had probably crawled or slithered over that spot.

“Go on, Miss Bordelon. It ain’t gonna kill you. All that scribbling won’t do you any good if you don’t let this get inside you. It’s the only way you’re going to learn.”

Charley guessed this was what Denton meant when he warned that she’d have to do it his way. She looked at him again, expecting his face to have darkened with impatience, but he only gave her an encouraging nod. Charley put the dirt in her mouth and swallowed quickly.

“Well?” Denton said. “What did it tell you?”

“Nothing,” Charley said. “I didn’t taste anything. I don’t know what to look for.”

“Do it over. Take your time.”

Charley raised the dirt to her mouth again. She sniffed: wood smoke, grass, damp like a sidewalk after it rained. She tasted: grit, fine as ground glass, chocolate, and what? Maybe ash? She closed her eyes as soil dissolved over her tongue, and slowly, slowly, almost like a good wine, the soil began to tell its story. She tasted the muck, and the peat, and the years of composted leaves, the branches and vines that had been recently plowed under, and the faint sweetness the cane left behind. She swallowed: a moldy aftertaste she knew would stay on her tongue for the rest of the afternoon. And though she didn’t yet know the terms to describe what she had experienced, she understood a little more clearly what Denton was trying to teach her. When she looked over at Denton again, he nodded approvingly, then, without another word, brushed dirt from his knees and walked back to the car.