LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Ten

      Sunday already, and still no hint of rain.

      Luke Claybourne sat down heavily on the top step of the porch. The sliver of shade from the roof cut the glare from the fields, but the sodden heat engulfed every corner of his Delta. He squinted at the shimmering silent fields and the implacable sky. It’s never going to rain again. Not a damn cloud. Look at that sky. As unbroken blue as the plantation’s green. Like Delta bookends this rotten summer. Rain! Please, Jesus, rain! Down by the roots it’s caking and that cotton’s getting browner by the minute. Should have listened to Roland Burroughs, that money-sucking bastard. New sprinklers that can wet you down twelve, fifteen rows at a time, Lukie. Lukie! Nobody’d called him Lukie since the old man passed.