They sent the Indian crew skyward at noon. The other crews took the dawn and dusk shifts, when the wind was stilled in the absence of asphalt heat sent up from below like blasts from a large wing. They were allowed in the union because no one else wanted their jobs, or the shifts they kept. The Indian men were from Black River Falls, Red Cliff, Eagle Butte, Wind River, Six Nations. They were from Lac Court d’Oreilles. The names rolling off their wind-dried tongues like scattered dimes. They’d worked in Chicago on the Sears, in Saint Louis and Kansas City. They had raised this new breed of buildings from the ball-tumbled rubble of ten cities.

They went up the lift in a silent huddle. The other crews were from across Europe—Polish, Czech, German, Swedish, Irish. The rest watched as the Indians gathered and did not break into their midst with jokes or conversation. They did not disrupt the silent communion between the Indians partly because they were, after all, Indian, and partly out of respect. The Indians worked the longest shifts during the summer swelter and the winter freeze. They were assigned the most extreme parts of the frame.