Lettuce had a growing season of only 120 days. It was delicate, required harvest during a peak window, needed ice for shipment within hours of picking. In urban markets in the east and west, upstanding citizens paid top dollar for it in posh restaurants, reputable groceries. If a Valley farmer had the right amount of acreage, if he picked at just the right time, he could make tens of thousands of dollars off a field of lettuce.

Ram and Karak prepared the fields over the summer and fall and planted during Thanksgiving. Weekly, Clive came to check the crop, sometimes alone, sometimes with Jonathan Hitchcock, the vice president of Consolidated Fruit. One day in early December, the four men sat on the back porch and Clive and Hitchcock asked to look at the books; they asked about how Ram and Karak had negotiated prices for seed and workers. Ram thought this was strange. He went inside to fetch the ledger. He returned with the book to find the three men talking lightly about the weather, but his eyes met Karak’s and Ram read his irritation. Karak shared his sense of insult. In the old days the accounts were theirs. When Clive worked for Eggenberger, all that he had wanted to see was the slip of official paper with the broker’s quoted price, the amount of produce shipped.

The men looked at the records carefully. Clive pulled the ledger close and pointed out entries to Hitchcock without addressing Ram and Karak. Hitchcock took out his own notebook and a silver fountain pen, and copied numbers in a neat script. He noted dates and names of suppliers. His fingers were too slender, his nails too clean; Ram knew he had never farmed. Karak and Ram glanced at each other again. Karak licked his lips, clenched his jaw. Ram noted the redness framing his tired eyes.

“We will be using our own harvesters,” Karak stated.

“That is how we do things,” Ram added.

“If your Mexicans can put aside their mañana persuasion, they might get the lettuce out while still fresh,” Clive said. They all laughed at the joke, except for Hitchcock, who smiled patiently, folding his pen away in a leather case. His eyes were so blue, Ram thought, so pale. They talked about Clive’s children’s expectations for the Christmas holiday. He had promised his daughter a pony. Later she hoped to take it to the midwinter fair. The conversation lapsed. Their goodbyes were cordial.

Karak and Ram stood at the jackrabbit stone and waved as Hitchcock and Clive Edgar drove off in Hitchcock’s cream Packard.

“Why do they need to see the books in that detail?” Ram said.

“They are a corporation, bhai, a big conglomerate; this is the way they do things.” Ram wondered at Karak’s support of them.

“They spoke between themselves, without addressing us,” Ram said.