In the jumble of bodies, Inder Singh approached Rosa, sweating, wearing a scarlet dastar, shoving something into her hand. Karak sprang to her side. “Arre’ bhai! What are you doing?!” He took the money from her hand. ‘This is not Punjab!” he shouted at the other man, his voice louder than the music. “Why follow those customs here?” He slapped the bills against the man’s chest. Some of them floated to the ground. Karak and Inder’s faces were close, and Karak smiled, but he felt an affront he could not name—a hesitation for Rosa. Inder Singh backed away. His expression said, Let it go, and the moment passed. Around them, the dancing went on, as if the others did not recognize Karak’s intensity of feeling. Later, Rosa would tell Karak about her alarm and he would ridicule it—gently—even though, in that moment of possessiveness, he had felt it too.

The Punjabi men were still dancing when another group of Mexicans arrived, only men, whom Karak did not know. The mariachis had already conceded defeat to the phonograph, and were putting away their instruments when a man yelled out in Spanish, “Where is Karak Singh?” Something in his voice made the party quiet down.

Karak and Rosa were standing near the food tables. The new man, surrounded by five or six others, was at the edge of the tent, and twenty people stood between them. Karak did not recognize him, but Rosa said, “It is Carlos.”

“Carlos?”

“Our foreman when Ángel Cruz died. He despises Alejandro now—for swaying people against him. No one will work for him now.”

As she spoke, Karak remembered more: How Carlos had looked at Rosa then, a young woman on his crew. How he spoke to her differently than he spoke to the others.

Before Karak could respond, he heard Jivan Singh’s voice, loud in the darkness, coming from the middle of the crowd. “What do you want, Carlos Guerrero? You are drunk! Why have you come here?”

“We have come to make things right! You have ruined my reputation. Your partner has run off with one of our women. I’ve come to set the matter straight.”

“You and your drunk friends think you can do that?” Jivan said.

Karak could feel Rosa’s hand around his arm. She stood in the middle of the tent, in her white dress, and could not seem to move.

“There’s nothing to concern you here,” Alejandro said, stepping to the front.

“Why does he not show himself?” Carlos asked. “Is he a coward?”

Karak shook free of Rosa’s hold and joined Alejandro. “I am here,” he declared. “Get off our land.” In the lamplight, he could see Carlos’s round, grim face. Behind him, a man swayed, unsteady on his feet. But Carlos’s other companions seemed alert and malicious.

“Get out, Carlos,” Alejandro hissed. “Go home to your wife.”