early in this elaquent novel.. a sheriff is summoned to a sugarcane plantation where he finds one young white woman, about eighteen old black men, and one dead Cajun farmer. The sheriff is sure he knows who killed the cajun although each of the men is toting a shotgun, only one of them could hit a coard door but threats and slaps fail to change their stories. Each one claims guilt, and all but one promise to provoke a riot at the courthouse if the sheriff tries to make an arrest. In the meantime, they wait for a lynch mob that the dean man's father like his son, a notorious brute is sure to launch... Before it is over, everyone involved has been surprised by something the old black men not cast of all, by their first taste of power and pride
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