Daring to take a peek, she saw the old foreman on horseback and bearing down over Santi, the stone wall between them looking pitifully inadequate. He was pointing his crop at Santi’s chest – and more specifically, to her horror, at the orange juice that had spilled on it.

No! Immediately she knew which so-called ‘crime’ he was being accused of and she went to spring forward, to cry out, to explain – but an arm jerked her back in the same moment, a hand clasping over her mouth.

‘Don’t.’ The voice was low, hushed and deadly serious. Eyes wide, she looked back at her brother, Arlo, his arms tight around her just as she heard the crack of the whip – how it whistled through the air, the stinging slap against skin, and then the cry, Santi’s cry.

She couldn’t bear it, wanting to cry out herself, and she struggled to get free again but Arlo’s grip only increased, her tears instantly running down her cheeks and over his hand as the whip spiralled through the air, once, twice, three times. She wanted to turn and see Santi, to make it stop, to run over and comfort him, but she could do none of those things as instead she was held in a vice, both of them huddled down beside the water tank until the whipcracks stopped and moments later they heard the sound of hooves drumming the hard ground once more.

After a minute of silence Arlo dared to raise his head above the wall. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said quietly, releasing her.

Nene sprang free like a wildcat, desperate to see Santi – but he was already running in the opposite direction, towards the pueblo blanco in the distance. He was stumbling and limping badly, his hands outstretched as though ready to break a fall, but he was still fast – faster than her – and she could see his shirt had split across the back, revealing the red seams on his skin beneath.

‘Santi!’ she screamed.

But nothing could be heard above the galloping horse, nor seen through the plumes of red dust its feet kicked up.

‘It was me!’ she cried, whirling round to her brother instead, enraged, desperate. ‘Me! I took those oranges from the grove!’

‘It would have made no difference. If not the oranges, something else.’

‘Why? He did nothing wrong.’ It was the brutal simplicity of his words that hurt her the most, the brazen acceptance of the status quo.

‘He was there,’ he shrugged, as though that was reason enough. ‘You know how Papa will react when Pedro tells him about the bull.’

‘So he hurt Santi because Papa will hurt him?’ she cried, incredulous.

‘He could have just as easily hurt him if he had seen Santi walking with you – and he would have been justified that time. Look at you!’ He gestured down to her bare legs, her skirt still tucked into her undergarments and hanging in loose billows like old-fashioned bloomers.