“Eggenberger has more land, bhai,” Karak said. “A half section just two miles from here. He gave one hundred and sixty acres to a man named Roubillard. The other one hundred and sixty acres are free. For cotton—perfect.” Karak raised his eyebrows, accentuated the word with his hand.

Ram nodded, nothing more.

“I have not yet seen it,” Karak said. He was looking carefully at him. “Would you like to come with me?”

“Now?” Ram gave a little laugh.

“Now. Why not?”

“The sun is high,” Ram said, and the wound in his side felt raw today, but he did not want to reveal that to Karak.

“It’s still morning. We’ll go and return before noon. In the wagon, it won’t feel so hot.”

Ram wanted to please Karak, and Karak was eager, and they both knew Ram was flattered that Karak wanted to show him something. They hitched the mules to the wagon and shared the driver’s seat. The sun beat through the fabric of their shirts and stung their backs. Ram, still recovering from his injuries, felt light-headed. He grasped the side of the wagon but said nothing.

They passed fields of lush green separated by sand and smoke tree and creosote. Karak egged the mules into an irrigation canal. The wagon dipped and rattled forward and up. Water splashed from the wheels and the bellies of the mules, sloshed at the soles of his boots. Ram closed his eyes against the motion and swallowed hard, willing his stomach to remain calm. They turned south and stopped under the mottled shade of a mesquite tree. Every bump of the wagon had vibrated through Ram’s wounded chest. When he stepped onto the sand, his leg buckled and he grabbed the side of the wagon. Slowly, he followed Karak.

They stood at the corner of an alfalfa field that lay in neat strips of vibrant green and chocolate brown. On one side lay the road they had just traveled, on the other, sand and scrub stretched, uninterrupted, to the west. Gazing out at the horizon, the endless sky, the white slivers of cloud above Mount Signal, Ram forgot about his unsettled stomach. He had seen this moment before, felt this heat before, smelled the sandy loam and dust-wind since he was a child. For a moment, the sky spun above him, but it was not only dizziness that he felt. If he looked past Karak’s dastar, past this sparse cluster of trees, he would see his uncle’s farm near the edge of the lower Chenab Canal. Water running from Himalayan snow and Shivalik rains, thundering, tremendous, toward the Indus River and the Arabian Sea. At the southeast corner of his uncle’s land stood this same mesquite tree that sheltered tired travelers. The village women would send them water in tin cups, rotis and chole served on leaves. On the far side, in blessed privacy, stood the hut where he and Padma spent their nights. A gust of wind lifted sand into Ram’s eyes. His vision skewed; he saw a single point of light surrounded by darkness.