The cane cutters were always paid their wages at the end of the season. Before the terrible thing that happened to him, Mr. Flamm, the paymaster, calculated their earnings in a giant ledger book. The workers lined up along the road, and Mr. Flamm unzipped a green leather moneybag and doled out pesos. The moneybag had a big lock on it at the end of the zipper, and the company logo embossed on the front. As each worker received his pay, Mr. Flamm crossed him off the list. He had the workers sign next to their names that they’d received their earnings in full. These guys were mostly from Jamaica. They spoke the king’s English, but practically none of them could sign their name. They were supposed to just put a check next to it instead. Some of them didn’t have last names, just nicknames. Hatch Allain stood by to make sure there was no monkey business. It was all handled in cash. They were paid straight cash, minus whatever they’d charged at the company store, the almacén. If they’d drawn off their pay, it was recorded in the ledger book. The company let them draw off their wages so they could eat before payday. None of them owned cars or mules, and they had to do their shopping in Preston. For a while, the company paid them at the end of each workday, but Daddy said it was better to hold off and pay them at the end of the season. The reason was that some of those guys who came over from Jamaica to cut the cane found out they didn’t like it so much. They deserted, never paid the company for their boat passage from Kingston. Cutting cane is brutal, brutal work, some of the hardest work in the world. Bending over all day long under broiling sun, hitting the cane with a flat-blade machete. Leaves so sharp they’ll slice you to ribbons. People get sunstroke; there were heart attacks in our fields. They have to work fast because the sugar starts to turn. The acid content rises and it ferments if the cane sits for more than a few hours. The workers cut the cane and stripped it of leaves. Tied it into bundles and loaded the bundles onto oxcarts, and from oxcarts onto cane cars, which were shunted straight into the mill for processing. It was an eighteen-hour workday, with maybe four hours of sleep. Those guys were up before dawn, and after dark they worked by the light of oil pots. If you pay people at the very end of cutting season, they stick around and finish the job.