Amanda’s defiance was leaving her. She had never seen anything like this, never imagined anything like this. Hank didn’t have to pull her when they walked away. He stopped by a well pump.
“There are two wells for all the workers, but they’re pumped dry by sunup, and the next closest well is a mile away. They don’t get much rest as it is, but they lose what little they have by going for water.”
He began walking toward the fields, his hand still clutching her forearm. He led her to the hop fields. On one side the workers had pulled down the tall, steeple-like trellis that supported the hop vines and on the other side the trellis was still up. The field was covered with men, women and children hurriedly pulling down the vines and stuffing them into bags. It was unbearably hot here and the heat waves shimmered in the humidity.
“Would you like to work in that heat, Amanda? A man died from the heat yesterday. So far four kids have been taken out on stretchers. There’re no toilets out here, so the pickers can either not go all day or take the hour or so to walk back to the camp and wait in line for the toilet. And do they drag their one-hundred-pound bag of hops with them or leave it and let someone steal it? They go there,” Hank said, pointing to the unpicked rows. “Of course that means that when they reach that part of the field they have to pick while walking in human excrement.”
Amanda could say nothing. She could barely stand up in the intolerable heat. She made no resistance when Hank began pulling her again. He led her to a wagon, took money from his pocket and handed it to the man standing at the back of the wagon. “How about a cool glass of lemonade, Amanda?” he asked and handed her a filthy glass with a hot liquid in it.
She didn’t dare refuse him. She took a sip, then grimaced. With great difficulty she swallowed the awful-tasting drink.
“Citric acid,” Hank said. “Lemons cost more. With citric acid your father can make gallons for pennies, sell it for five cents a glass and make hundreds of dollars of profit.” He took the glass from her and offered it to a sweaty, tired-looking little girl of about eight years. The child drank it greedily and looked at Hank with adoring eyes before turning back toward the fields.
“Your father sells food too, and the only water they get is one glass for one bowl of stew. You want a second glass you have to buy another bowl of stew. You can’t buy the water by itself—and Caulden sure as hell doesn’t
give away the water for free.”
He began pulling her again, but this time Amanda walked beside him. He didn’t have to hold her to him. She had to see all of it, had to see part of the world she had never known existed. She had sat in her room year after year while the hops were picked and had never even wondered about the people picking them.
Hank led her to the weigh station but they couldn’t get close because everywhere were men and women frantically dumping their heavy canvas bags full of hops on the ground and stripping the vines and leaves off. There was pain and anguish written on the faces of the people, as if they were fighting for their lives.
“It takes a man many hours to pick a one-hundred-pound bag of hops, and then he drags his bag to be weighed and have it credited to his name, but your father has set up inspectors to tell the pickers the hops aren’t ‘clean’ enough. So the pickers have to waste precious hours pulling off vines and string and tossing out unripe hops. Usually a man can pick two hundred fifty to four hundred pounds a day, but your father has it so a man can only get a hundred pounds a day. He works all day in this sun, no water, no toilet, and he earns from ninety cents to a dollar ten.”
He turned to face her. “You know why your father demands such clean hops? Two reasons: one, he doesn’t have to pay for the weight of a few leaves and string, but, most important, the second reason is because he wants the worker to quit. Your father is awfully clever, Amanda. I wonder if you got your brains from him. He came up with an ingenious way to cheat these people. The going rate across the country for hop picking is a dollar a hundred pounds. Your father, in his ads, promised top wages and a ‘bonus.’ His wages are ninety cents a hundred-pound bale and a ten-cent bonus for every bale picked. This ‘bonus’ is to be paid to the people who stay the whole harvest time. If a worker quits before all the hops are in, he loses his ‘bonus.’ Already a thousand Japanese have left. They wouldn’t work in this filth. For every person who quits, your father gains ten cents on a hundred pounds. Multiply ten cents by thousands of bales by thousands of people. What you’ll get is one hell of a lot of cigars for Caulden and”—he looked her up and down—“one hell of a lot of silk dresses for you, Amanda.”
Hank’s fury was spent now and his shoulders slumped. “You can go home now, Amanda. Go home and sit under a tree with your pretty mother and enjoy what your father provides for you.”
“Wh-what is going to happen here?” she managed to say. Her voice was hoarse. The horror of what she was seeing was just seeping into her.
“I don’t know. This is worse than I was led to believe. Whitey has been doing a lot of talking. The workers are terrified of losing their jobs, but seeing your six-year-old kid pass out in the heat does something to you. And as hard as these people are working, what with the wages so low and the food and water so expensive, they’re spending what they’re making. Some of them are already in debt to your father. Tempers are beginning to boil. I think they’ll go to your father soon.”
“He won’t listen,” Amanda said, watching a little girl pull vines off hops. She was about three years old, and the seat of her pants, showing under her dirty dress, was soiled. Amanda didn’t feel like defending her father. The man who could allow something like this year after year couldn’t be defended.
Hank lifted one eyebrow at her. “No, he won’t listen, but I’m going to try to persuade him. I worry what will happen if some changes aren’t made.”
“You?” Amanda said. “But this morning I saw Sheriff Ramsey come to our house. Sheriff Ramsey will…” She trailed off.
“Shoot first,” Hank said. “I’m aware of that. I want you to go back now, Amanda. I don’t want Whitey to know who you are. Stay in your room. Better yet, why don’t you and your mother go to San Francisco for a few days?”
Amanda could only look at him. Coward, she thought, I have always been a coward. At fourteen I was afraid to stand up to Taylor, and at twenty-two I’m afraid to stand up to my father. She turned away from him and started back toward the ranch house. Maybe she could make up for lost time.
Hank watched her go. It wasn’t her fault, he knew that, but he’d wanted her to see what he was fighting. He made a little prayer that she’d take his advice and go away somewhere. But he didn’t have time to worry about Amanda. He had to find Whitey and see what that fanatic was planning. These people were just hot enough and angry enough that it wouldn’t take much to push them over the edge.
Chapter Seventeen
The door to the library was open, but it wouldn’t have mattered to Amanda if it were closed. She walked into the room. Her father sat at the desk, papers before him, Taylor bent over him.
Taylor straightened and frowned at her. “Amanda, you are supposed to be in your room. I told you—”
Amanda looked only at her father. “There is going to be violence if you don’t change what is happening in the fields.”
J. Harker looked at her, his only movement his mouth working on his cigar.
“Amanda, you are not to speak of things you know nothing about,” Taylor said. “You are to go to your room this instant and—”
“Shut up, Taylor,” Amanda said. “This is family.” Her father leaned back in his chair and Amanda met his gaze equally. The smells of the toilets and the rotting garbage were still in her nostrils. “The union leaders are talking about bloodshed, and your blood is whose they want to see first.”
“Amanda,” Taylor said, recovering from his shock, “you cannot—”