by Rishi Reddi
Shouts and screams were coming from the packing shed. Ram ran toward them. A man dashed out of the shed door, face contorted, grotesque, wielding something high above his head. It was Karak. A form moved on the ground nearby. Clothing and hair and dirt splashed red. A deep moan emanated from it, loud and mournful. Farther away, a man limped, desperate, pitiful, toward a familiar cream car. Karak ran for him, uttering sounds that were not words. Ram did not understand. A scarlet puddle grew around the form near the shed, then legs and arms flailed and the torso was still.
“Oye! Karak!” Ram yelled, racing to him as the packers scattered, as the workers in the field straightened up to see. He heard his own voice rise, loud and commanding. “Oye! Oye!” Later, he would wonder how he was aware of all this: Adela’s skirt fluttering past, Jivan and Kishen approaching from a distance; Alejandro’s men retreating to their camp.
Ram reached Karak and leaped at him, grasping for his shoulder, his leg, his torso, any way to pull him to the ground. In their combined fall, the axe was flung away. Ram had not considered its blade, and then he was on top of Karak, forcing him down. But he could not keep hold of him; his body slid on Karak’s slick back. The scent of guts and blood clogged his nostrils. Ram’s hands could not grasp him. He hit Karak and Karak hit him back, and in the confusion, Ram did not see that the limping man had reached the cream motorcar, that he was stooping at the front, cranking the rod. The engine spit and turned over, loud and assuring. Ram looked up to see Hitchcock scrambling into the driver’s seat. His contorted face flashed in the windshield as the vehicle lurched off, erratic, its engine firing furiously.
Suddenly Karak stopped. His body went limp. Ram’s fist slammed hard against his face. Blood covered them both, arms and legs and clothing. It coated Karak’s hair and cheeks. Ram thought it was Karak’s own, then realized there was too much—it belonged to that form that lay writhing on the ground near the shed. The tang of the blood suffocated him. Ram convulsed. The bile came up like an explosion and he vomited over the sand.
Karak was bawling, then whimpering, then bawling again, his face covered with tears and dirt and the redness. Ram sprang back in revulsion. He tasted his vomit, wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“He called me a goddamn Hindu,” Karak spat out. “Said I was worth one boxcar of lettuce. Why did you stop me? Why did you stop me?” He glared at Ram. “He told me to take my blanket and go home.”
Ram forced himself to look, to turn his head although the terror had pinned him, seized control of legs and arms and mind. The body was still, laying in blood and soil. What was he seeing? The whiteness of bone? A gash near the heart? A mangled neck? A torn shoulder? With a jolt, he recognized the face.
It was Clive.
33
SHERIFF FRANK FIELDING ARRIVED IN HIS MODEL T, A CLOUD OF SMOKE and dust coming up behind him, Deputy Elijah Hollins seated by his side. Jivan had instructed Ram and Karak to sit on crates and wait near the turnoff from the roadway.
“It’s our good luck that Fielding has come,” Karak said, with apparent satisfaction. But Ram did not feel relieved at all. Karak began to yell as the men emerged from the motorcar. “Don’t bother with me, Sheriff! Clive is out in my field. By the packing shed. Go and see him!”
The sheriff ran to the packing shed, his large form moving quickly, and then he stood for a long time, staring over the pool of blood at Clive’s body.
Deputy Hollins stayed with Karak and Ram, towering over them, standing guard. Clive had been dead for an hour. Jivan had not allowed Karak to approach the body or to wash the blood from his face. He had sent Kishen back to the house.
The sheriff’s face was pale as he approached them. He swallowed. “Get up,” he whispered. “What did you boys do here?”
Ram rose. His legs were shaking. He felt the earth shift under him. But Karak Singh stayed on the crate, hunched over, clasping his folded legs, gazing at the dirt in front of him. “He pointed a gun at me, Sheriff. He drank my liquor and ate my food and then he pointed a gun at me. I had to do it, Sheriff—”
“Shut your mouth,” Jivan said in Punjabi.
“You ask! I was mad, damn mad.”
“Saliya, shut your mouth!” Ram yelled.
“You would have done the same. He was robbing from me. Robbing!”
The sheriff pulled Karak off the crate. “You’re under arrest,” he said roughly, placing him in handcuffs, walking him to the car.
“I know, Sheriff, I know. But go see to Clive! See to him!”
Ram waited. He thought Sheriff Fielding would come for him too, but he did not. Another police car with two officers inside turned onto the dirt road. The sheriff shouted instructions for them to stay with Hollins and climbed into his Model T. Jivan was standing near the sheriff’s motorcar. Ram stumbled toward him.
The vehicle’s window was open. Jivan placed his hand on the door. “Where will you hold him, Sheriff? Not Fredonia?” Jivan said. “You won’t hold him in Fredonia!”
“I can’t take him to El Centro until the morning,” the sheriff said, leaning out the window, one hand on the steering wheel. He sounded so weary. “They had a jailbreak there.” Lines had appeared on his forehead, around his eyes, but he gazed at Jivan evenly.
“Frank,” Jivan said, hanging on the car window, his eyes wide with alarm, “everyone is respecting you in this town. I know.” His voice was high pitched, desperate. His hand trembled as he grasped the handle of the door. “But at the jailhouse? Please! Please—”
Karak leaned forward, staring at Ram from the back seat, strangely calm, as if the men were speaking of someone else.
“I’ll watch ’m,” the sheriff said. “You have my word. I know about those boys from the lodge—”
Jivan gave a miniscule shake of his head. The automobile inched forward before his hand released the window, then the car stopped again.
“John,” the sheriff said quietly, and Jivan stepped toward him once more. “Damn Karak for being a hothead,” the sheriff said. “Get yourself a good lawyer. Try Clarence Simms. You didn’t hear that from me.”
34
AFTER RAM HAD WASHED CLIVE’S BLOOD FROM HIS OWN BODY, AFTER Deputy Hollins’s notes were taken and the grounds searched and Clive’s body removed, the farm was deserted. A ghost farm. There was no sign of Adela. Even Alejandro was gone. All the workers had run from the field after the killing. The police had set out into the desert, trying to find witnesses to question.
Ram did not know if they found anyone. And even if someone were found, he didn’t know if the worker would talk to the police.
Lettuce littered the field, half-harvested. Consolidated’s abandoned truck stood near the packing shed. In Alejandro’s camp, tin plates lay scattered about. Adela’s stove had been knocked on its side. The Singhs’ wagon was still hitched to the mules. They hung their heads in the heat but balked when Ram approached. Ram unhitched the animals patiently, took them to their shed, and watered and fed them.
He left the lettuce uncovered in the wagon bed. The crop did not matter now.
Walking back to Jivan’s home, he noticed movement in one of the tents. A shadow cast against the canvas. The flap of the tent opened and shut with the breeze. Perhaps one of Alejandro’s workers was still here after all.
Ram bent down to peer inside. It was the prayer tent; the Virgin stood dignified in her blue robe, her hands in prayer, her face solemn. A man knelt before her, but he was not praying. He was tying a bundle together, frantic. Ram held back the tent’s entrance flap and the man spun around, the dirt crunching under his heel.
“¡Señor!”
Ram could see the fear in his face, in his eyes. He was just a lad. “Where has everyone gone?” Ram asked in Spanish. The boy flinched when he heard Ram’s voice. He was related to one of the older pickers—a nephew or a godson. Ram had talked to him and Alejandro the previous day about wages.
“Se han ido, señor.” He did not meet Ram’s eye. Ram felt a surge of pity. The boy had not asked f
or this.
“Let me give you something for your labor. I will give the rest to Alejandro to pay the—”
“I do not want it. None of us workers will take your payment, señor. This place has an evil spirit. Something bad has happened here. Very bad.” The boy glanced at the statue of the Virgin. He made the sign of the cross.
“Did you see?” Ram asked. “Did you talk with the police?”
“I didn’t see anything,” the boy said, in a way that made Ram believe the opposite.
“Did anyone else?” Ram wondered if it was better or worse for Karak if someone admitted they had.
“Nobody saw anything,” the boy insisted, struggling with his bundle. He glared at Ram, challenging him to disagree. He would push Ram out of the way if he had to.
Ram released the canvas flap and left him inside. He counted out two one-dollar bills for the day’s wages. He left them secured under a hand spade, where the boy could see.
IN THE HOUSE, Jivan, Kishen, and Leela were at the table. A plate of food sat before Leela, untouched. The girl had been at school all day, but her mother had spoken with her, and now she was staring at Ram with liquid eyes, her lips quivering.
“What will happen to Karak Chacha?” she asked. Beside her, Kishen’s face looked drawn, gray.
“He will be all right,” Ram said. “He’s in the jailhouse now, Leela.” He stopped before he said too much. A fear was gnawing at him, something he did not want to name.
Jivan was staring into the distance, as if in a trance. Ram suddenly missed Amarjeet. His decisiveness. His ability to think quickly.
“Could we have stopped this?” Jivan asked under his breath.
“Maybe he didn’t do it, bhai-ji,” Ram said. “Maybe it was one of the Mexicans.” He didn’t know why he said this. Ram knew Karak had killed Clive. He knew that Jivan knew that too.
After a long moment, Jivan spoke. “When I was stationed in the Northern China provinces with the British, there was a camp master who was very cruel to us. One day, for some small reason, one of our young soldiers—he was from Amritsar, well-educated, but with a terrible temper—he chased down the camp master and killed him. It was a very dishonorable killing. No one should die in that way.” Jivan turned toward him. His eyes were misty, clouded. “The next day, some British enlisted men found the Punjabi and shot him.”
Ram swallowed. “I know,” he said. “I know.” He leaned forward in the chair and held his head. His temples throbbed, his eyes were burning. There had been a lynching of a Negro man in Riverside County the previous month. He knew Jivan was thinking of that too. Ram imagined the town’s menfolk clamoring at the door of the jailhouse, forcing the sheriff to give up Karak. The fear sat like ice in his belly. He stood up abruptly. “We must go,” he said. They looked up at him.
“Where?” Leela asked.
“Bhai-ji—” Ram said. There was an edge to his voice.
Jivan rose slowly, strode to the door, and put on his boots. He turned to look at Kishen and Leela. He suddenly seemed a much older man.
“We must go help Karak Chacha now,” Ram said. “We’ll return late. You eat your dinner and sleep.” Leela stared at him. “Take care of your mother, Leela,” Ram said.
Kishen moved toward her daughter and put her arm around her shoulders. “You go,” she said. “Don’t worry about us.”
In the bedroom, in the large trunk, Ram found Jivan’s shotgun and some ammunition hidden among the folded bedsheets. He paused at the threshold.
“Lock the doors,” he said. “Don’t let anyone in.”
“No,” Kishen agreed, as they left. Ram heard the door latch behind him.
They climbed into the car and started down the farm road. Across Jivan’s cantaloupe field, inside Karak’s home, Ram saw a flicker, a glow. He felt a chill.
“Did you see that, bhai-ji?”
“What?” Jivan asked. He was not himself, Ram thought. Jivan seemed fragile now.
He kept his eyes on the window in the distance and saw the glow again, as if someone had moved a lamp near the glass, then covered it.
Ram scrambled from the car and ran to the door of Karak’s home. The light was gone again. His knuckles rapped against the wood. There was no answer.
“Open up! Whoever is there! Open up!”
Stillness, silence.
Ram pushed on the door with his full might. It groaned. He stepped back and slammed his shoulder against it, and the latch gave way all at once.
Moonlight filtered through the window. A form was crouched on the cot in the sitting room. Even in the gloom, he recognized Adela instantly. She had pulled a blanket around herself and was huddled against the wall, eyes wide, hair unkempt. The lamp sat near her on the ground, unlit now. “Adela!” he said. He heard her whimper. “Adela!” He crossed the distance between them in two large steps and clasped her to him. She began to shudder, gulping in air.
“Why are you here? Why did you not come to the house?” His fingers scrambled for the matches, for the lamp, almost knocking it over.
She looked at him with hollow eyes. But she was relieved to see him. That was clear. Her expression told him she had witnessed everything. He was sure of it.
“I ran here,” she whispered. “I ran here—afterwards.”
“Where is Alejandro?”
“People were scared. They wanted to go. They took our burros.”
He held her.
She wriggled in his grasp. “I know how to take care of myself,” she said. She covered her face with her hands. “Alejandro’s coming back right now, I’m sure. In the morning, maybe.”
Ram felt a surge of anger against Alejandro. Behind him, he sensed Jivan’s presence and turned. The older man stood in the doorway, watching them.
Adela did not notice. “It is all right. When Father died, it was all okay within a day. That is how these things are.”
“You saw it happen,” Ram said. It was not a question.
She looked at her lap. Her vacant eyes alarmed him.
“Ram,” Jivan said.
They had to protect Karak. He could not stay here.
“Come,” Ram said. “I will take you home.”
She did not move.
He got up and gathered the blanket around her. Then she refused his help, walked to the car on her own, and climbed into the back seat. She was shivering, although the night held the April warmth.
Jivan followed them out. “Karak has a pistol,” he said, reminding Ram.
“Yes,” Ram said.
He found it in the place where Karak usually kept it, on the top shelf of a cupboard in the kitchen. Ram did not like the weight of it inside his pocket.
They rode in silence, Ram driving, Jivan staring at the glow of headlights on black roadway. Adela sat almost invisible in the darkness in back. The moon shone on the skin of the sand dunes. Adela said calmly, “The Lord knows Karak is not a good man. But if that other had not pointed his gun at Karak, he would not have attacked him.” Ram and Jivan exchanged a glance.
“Which man?” Ram asked.
“The one who . . . the man who . . . What is it you call him? Clive.”
“He took out his gun?”
“The other man was watching this,” Adela said.
“Other?”
“Jefe. The cripple with a handsome face. Karak became too angry. You know how he does. Clive told him to take his blanket and go home. Take it and go.” Her voice was monotone.
“Clive pointed a gun at Karak?” Ram blurted out.
“How can someone say, ‘Take your blanket and go’? As if that man were nothing? How can he say, ‘A Hindu is worth only a boxcar of lettuce’? When he has grown the crop himself? How—” The words caught in her throat. “Karak is not a nice—”
“Which man had the gun, Ad—”
“Ram—” Jivan interjected.
Adela fell quiet. Ram silently berated himself for his impatience. He heard a muffled sob and realized that she was crying.
�
�Peace, daughter,” Jivan said. Dark fields sped past their windows. The car sputtered under them.
After a few moments, Adela spoke again. “Karak held an axe. Clive has a gun. Did you know? Clive has a gun? The handsome man, the cripple . . . There was blood on his leg. It was not his blood!” She said the words lightly, as if memorizing them, as if making sense of them to herself. “He was scared after Karak . . . after Karak . . .”
Ram shuddered. What had happened after the moment Clive was holding the gun? What had Karak done?
“You must tell them, Adela,” Jivan said.
“What?” Her eyes grew wide with alarm.
“You must tell them.”
“Tell what?”
“Tell the sheriff about the gun. It will help Karak.”
“After what he has done to Rosa?” she spat out. “Everyone knows—”
“They will hang him—” Jivan said forcefully.
“Bhai-ji—” Ram said.
“Already everyone despises me,” Adela whispered, as if defeated. “If I tell, our neighbors will run me out of town. They threaten me—”
“Why?” Ram asked. He half-turned in his seat and glanced back at her.
“You don’t know?” Moonlight streamed inside the car. Her eyes looked into his. Her face was filled with disdain. The car swerved to the right then recovered.
He turned back to the road and shook his head slightly.
“Because of you. Because . . . everyone knows . . .”
He was quiet. He had not been aware of this. He felt Jivan’s gaze on him.
“So answer me—” she said.
“Because it is the truth,” Jivan said.
She did not speak for the remainder of the ride. At the barrio, Ram walked with her to Alejandro and Esperanza’s front door.
Alejandro answered his knock, Esperanza stood behind him. She had been crying, and when she saw Adela, she made the sign of the cross. “Gloria a dios,” she said. Her voice held a tremor. She helped Adela to the chair in the front room. In those moments before Alejandro and Esperanza could acknowledge him, before Rosa appeared, Ram slipped back outside.