Hal rode along the outer edge of the field closest to the plantation house until he came to a track leading inwards, presumably where the cart loads of cut cane would be brought out. Still there was no sign of life anywhere in heat that made the air shimmer, the only sound the ceaseless calling song of cicadas. So, the cane could not yet be ripe enough for cutting. When he arrived at a ramshackle cabin the colour of driftwood at the far side of the field, he dismounted, holding his horse’s bridle, waiting in the shade of a copse of aromatic trees.
There was a small garden plot at the front where a rangy black woman, dressed in a blue calico shift with a grey kerchief around her head, knelt to w**d around the staked beans, pouring a wooden dipper of water from a pail onto each meagre plant
