Ram looked for Amarjeet’s reaction, but the boy had returned to stacking crates. The crop was one-third Karak’s, two-thirds Jivan’s; Jivan was the older man and would make the decision.

“What will you say now?” Karak asked Jivan.

“I will accept.”

Karak turned and strode out toward the house, his footsteps shaking the shed.

Jivan’s face showed no expression. He returned to the foreman, pointing to a patch of clear land bordering the field.

“What are they saying?” Ram asked Amarjeet.

“Chacha-ji is asking why he brought only nine men, when he had asked for eleven. He said that only eight seemed capable and one is too aged. The older woman only cooks for them but the younger one wants to pick too.”

The girl stood at the edge of the group, wearing a large brimmed hat that shaded her face, her skirt shifting in the breeze. She glanced at them and looked away, round-faced and stoic. She was pretty, Ram thought. More plump than his Padma, yet not delicate. She was fair-skinned like an Anglo. He could see her youth: the smoothness in the cheek, the clear eyes. She pursed her lips as the men talked about her, her eyes fixed on the ground. The other woman spoke to her but she did not respond. The old man stood near her protectively.

Ram agreed with Jivan; perhaps he was too old to work in the heat. Another man joined Jivan’s conversation with Carlos Guerroro. The talk bounced quickly back and forth.

“It will be too hot for the girl,” Ram said. He would not have allowed Padma to work in this way.

“They told her,” Amarjeet said. “But she wants to work anyway.”

By evening the workers had erected tents and unpacked their belongings. Sitting near the settling pond, sifting lentils for Kishen, Ram watched them: three tents for the men, one for the women. Karak explained the contents of the fifth: a statuette of the blue-robed Virgin of Guadalupe, a wooden cross, pictures of Villa and Hidalgo. In a clear space outside they placed a small stove.

The Hindus went to bed early. Lying on his cot, before sleep came, Ram could hear the sound of the accordion from the workers’ camp. He closed his eyes and listened. The notes rose in the night air and were distorted by the wind. He heard laughter, the clipped sounds of Spanish. A guitar strummed and for a brief moment the camp seemed cheery, as if before a celebration, and then everything lay quiet. On his uncle’s farm, it would have been the same: workers sleeping near the fields, plants waiting for harvest, the rest before the coming hard work.