There was a man of thirty-eight, from a town in Michoacán, who was doing his fifth season picking grapes on a ranch in Fresno County, California, and his name was Ubaldo Rentería. The ranch he still called by the name of the old owner, dead six years before; by the old name he called it even when he spoke to the office, and nobody ever pointed it out to him.

Roll call was at a quarter to four, in the dark. In the dark, before going out, he tied the cord of his hat under his chin even when there was no wind. The cord he tied because of the first season, when his hat had ended up in the canal and the water had carried it off. The hat was fished out by the men on the next shift, soaked, and it no longer held its shape. From that time on he never went out without tying it.

Behind him, in the second row, was Efrén, twenty-two, his brother-in-law, first season, new hat. He was the one who had gotten him in.

About what would happen in January, when they make the lists for the following year, everyone in the row said something different, and this is the season as told by the ones who were there.

The union lawyer came by the ranch one Saturday at the end of August and explained that a judge in Fresno had struck down the new rule on wages, that the money taken away by that rule could come back, and that it came back also to those who had not put their name on the suit, because the ruling holds for whoever took the cut and not only for whoever went and signed; then she left a number on a slip of paper and said to call in the evening too.

The slip Ubaldo took, and he said yes, and he said thank you, and he did not call.

Three men called, from his row, and their surnames ended up on the list the crew boss had to send to the payroll office. On the suit, instead, eighteen people in all of America had put their name, and none of them worked there; the permit they have is the one that lasts a season and carries on it the name of whoever calls you.

How much the cut came to per hour, everyone in the row said a different figure, and for certain nobody ever knew. The big number, the one with the word billions in it, the lawyer said only once, and by the end of that Saturday it had stayed with nobody in the row.

Ubaldo they had called back four times, and in none of those seasons had he ever raised his voice at anyone. From this he had drawn a rule, and the rule was that whoever gives no trouble comes back.

The rule he did not tell Efrén. To Efrén he taught one thing only, and he said it to him in the same words every morning: tie it even if there is no wind. Efrén tied it.

The crew boss was called Nacho, he had come twelve years before on the same permit, and now the list of the ones called back was made by him. The list was on a sheet of paper he carried under his arm all day. That morning, before roll call, he walked along the row with the sheet under his arm and spoke out loud, to everyone and to no one: "If they pay the back wages in January, twenty jobs go here, and the first twenty I already know." Then he stopped in front of Efrén, gave him a pat on the shoulder, asked him what his name was, and while he was asking he wrote it down on the sheet.

On the sheet there were also the surnames to send to the payroll office, and Nacho began to read them. He read Rentería. He read it once, then he read it again. The row went quiet, and the ones who had called the number turned around.

Raising your hand was a thing done in a second, and it meant weeks of difference in cash in March, when the money runs out at home. The hand went up. It went up as far as the chin, and there it stopped on the cord; he pulled it, he tightened the knot, and the clasp made its small click, which in the silence even the men in front heard. The hand was occupied, and the one who had kept it occupied was him.

Nacho waited a second, then he looked at the air above the row, where a raised hand can be seen from far off, and above the row there was nothing. He went on with the next surname, and that man raised his hand and stepped out of the row, and the row closed up where he had been. The reading went on to the bottom of the sheet.

One of the three told afterward that Nacho, the second time, was not looking at the sheet.

Whether you could go to the payroll office later as well, this is not known; whether anyone went in the days after, it was never learned, and in the row nobody asked.

At ten past four they were in the field. In the field the grapes had been ready for a few days and were picked before the heat came. Efrén asked him why his surname had been read twice, and he straightened the cord under his chin and told him there were two men with the same surname. There were not two men with the same surname. There was no wind, and the cords were tied all the same.