He brought three extra ollas that Kishen always hung in the back, one at a time, walking slowly. They talked while he carried them, his arms embracing the vessel, leaning toward her, from the Hindu farmhouse to the Mexican camp, back and forth. Months later, the Mexican girl and the Hindus would laugh together about this.

15

March 1916

THIS IS WHAT THE ANGLOS AND THE HINDUS AND THE OTHERS THOUGHT they knew about the Mexicans in the Valley: they were dirty, lazy, primitive; they were of mañana persuasion. They treated their women like chattel. They did not know how to negotiate an agreement regarding land and property. How could their country know anything but chaos and war between brutal strongmen, even though they called it by the noble name of revolution?

And yet things happened. The Mexican government made money from an international water deal, the country held elections, and despite everything the Americans in the Valley said, the Anglo farms could not run without them.

When the Mexicans came and started work, Karak felt the fair-skinned girl admiring him, and it was irresistible. She was called Rosa. He liked the name. Every night, after the work was done, he sat with her near the jackrabbit rock, eating dates and talking while one or two of the men played a guitar or an accordion at the camp, the breeze carrying the music toward them. Whenever Alejandro saw them together, he would approach, and Karak could see that Rosa was less lively when he was near. Alejandro would glance at Rosa and speak pointedly about the harvest, turning his body toward the fields, and Rosa would wander away.

Karak was not discouraged. His muscles ached from hauling the crates on and off the wagon, driving the wagon through the dust and wind to the shippers in town. Still, he sought the girl out, again and again.

The family did not seem to care. Kishen ignored him as she watered her vegetable garden. Jivan would be in the house, Amarjeet might be lying on his cot. Leela did not bother them. It was only Ram who found a reason to stay nearby. It bothered him that Ram would hover.

On that first day that Karak had fetched water for Rosa, Ram had been hovering even then. After the jugs had been delivered, Karak asked to know her name. He asked the question in the way he would ask a grown man, with respect, certainly not as one talks to a teenage girl: “What is your good name?” he had said.

She was about to walk away, but his question made her pause; he noticed the slight hesitation of her foot, the turning of her head.

“Rosa.”