When the work was finished, the land lay neat, raw and pungent, sloping away from the canal headgate where the zanjero would meet them regularly to dispense water. Jivan Singh returned the borrowed leveler to Tomoya. Ram never acknowledged the loan; that way he did not have to feel indebted. Through the winter chill, he and Karak plowed and disked. When the threat of frost was past, they were ready to plant. Then the early March winds grew strong and warm. Wildflowers dotted the scrub and desert prairie, and the earth was crusted with alkaline. Soon it was time for Jivan and Karak to harvest their cantaloupe. Of course, Ram would help. He had become part of them now.

This season, they were lucky to find help easily. The men were building crates in the packing shed when pickers arrived one evening, nine men and two women kicking up dust along Rural Route 9, wearing sombreros, leading two burros weighed down by burlap sacks. One of the men carried an accordion, another a guitar; two teenage boys leaned against the weight of bags slung on their shoulders. There was an older man too, of unknowable age, with wrinkled skin but a strong back.

Both Jivan and Karak rose when they saw them.

“They are here already?” Karak said.

“I told them to come after two days. Not now,” Jivan said.

“Buenos días,” one of them called in a cheerful voice. Jivan and Karak ducked out of the packing shed to meet him, a rough man scarred on his right cheek. The others waited under a tree by the field. The burros stamped at the flies. Karak and Jivan spoke with the man in rapid Spanish. Ram felt a surge of his own ineffectiveness. He stacked the finished crates with Amarjeet. “They are angry at the harvesters for coming early,” Amarjeet said, translating for him.

“The crop will not be ready for a few days,” Ram said.

“But they want to harvest tomorrow and then leave for another job. Chacha-ji does not like that foreman, that man with the scar, Carlos Guerrero. He beat one of his boys last year, then argued about payment.”

“We’ll find others.”

“There are never enough workers, Ram-ji,” Amarjeet said.

Outside, the argument went on, Karak’s voice rising and Jivan’s remaining calmer, but still insistent. There was a break in the stream of words. The Mexican man glanced back at his workers and spat nonchalantly, as if relishing the upper hand. Jivan and Karak returned to the packing shed.

“These people want to come a week early and be paid for doing nothing,” Karak said.

“Not a week. A few days. Better to be early to market than to be late and caught in the glut,” Jivan said.

“I would have found the workers if you had just allowed me!” Karak slapped off his work gloves.