It was July and hot and I was putting out sticks and not thinking one whit about murder.

All the other rose-field jobs are bad, the budding, the digging, but putting out sticks, that’s the job they give sinners in Hell.

You do sticks come dead of summer. Way it works is they give you this fistful of bud wood, and you take that and sigh and turn and look down the length of the field, which goes on from where you are to some place east of China, and you gird your loins, bend over, and poke those sticks in the rows a bit apart. You don’t lift up if you don’t have to, ’cause otherwise you’ll never finish. You keep your back bent and you keep on poking, right on down that dusty row, hoping eventually it’ll play out, though it never seems to, and of course that East Texas sun, which by 10:30 A.M. is like an infected blister leaking molten pus, doesn’t help matters.

So I was out there playing with my sticks, thinking the usual thoughts about ice tea and sweet, willing women, when the Walking Boss came up and tapped me on the shoulder.

I thought maybe it was water break, but when I looked up he jerked a thumb toward the end of the field, said, “Hap, Leonard’s here.”

“He can’t come to work,” I said. “Not unless he can put out sticks with his cane.”

“Just wants to see you,” the Walking Boss said, and moved away.

I poked in the last stick from my bundle, eased my back straight, and started down the center of the long dusty row, passing the bent, sweaty backs of the others as I went.

I could see Leonard at the far end of the field, leaning on his cane. From that distance, he looked as if he were made of pipe cleaners and doll clothes. His raisin-black face was turned in my direction and a heat wave jumped off of it and vibrated in the bright light and dust from the field swirled momentarily in the wave and settled slowly.