Free Mr Majestyk (1974) by Elmore Leonard

some help o r s omething?"
    The colored guy didn't answer; he turned and stooped over and went back to work.
    At least the colored guy had picked before, not melons, but he had picked an d k new what he was doing. The Anglo kid, with his muscular arms and shoulders an d c ut-off pants and tennis shoes--like he was out here on his vacation--couldn' t p ick his nose.
    "This one"--Mendoza took a honeydew from the Anglo kid's sack--"it's not ready.
    Remember I told you, you pick the ripe ones. You loosen the other ones in th e d irt. You don't turn them so the sun hits the underneath, you just loosen them."
    "That's what I been doing," the Anglo kid said.
    "The ones aren't ready, we come back for later on."
    "I thought it was ripe." The Anglo kid stooped to lay the melon among the vin e l eaves.
    Larry Mendoza closed his eyes and opened them and adjusted the funneled brim o f h is straw hat. "You going to put it back on the vine? Tie it on? You pick it, i t s tays picked. You got to keep it then. You understand?"
    "Sure," the Anglo kid said.
    Sure. How do you find them? Mendoza asked himself, turning from the kid wh o m ight last the day but would never be back tomorrow. Walking to the road hi s g aze stopped on another big-shouldered, blond-haired Bronco from Edna and h e y elled at him, "Hey, whitey, where are you, in church? Get off your knees or g o h ome, I get somebody else!" Christ, he wasn't paying them a buck forty an hou r t o rest. He yelled at the guy again, "You hear me? I'll get somebody else!"
    "Like it's easy," Nancy Chavez said. She was going over to the trailer with a f ull sack of melons hanging from her shoulder. Pretty girl, thin bu t s trong-looking, with a dark bandana and little pearl earrings.
    "I may have to go to Mexico," Mendoza said. "Christ, nobody wants to wor k a nymore. And some of the ones I got don't know how."
    "Teach them," the girl said. "Somebody had to teach you."
    "Yeah, when I was eight years old." He went over to the pickup truck and got in.
    "Now I got to tell Vincent. He don't have enough to worry about."
    "Tell him we'll get it done," the girl said. "Somehow."
    Majestyk came out through the screen door of his house to wait on the porch.
    When he saw the pickup coming he walked out to the road. Larry Mendoza move d o ver and Majestyk got in behind the wheel.
    "How'd you sleep?"
    "Too long."
    "Man, you need it."
    Majestyk swung the pickup around in a tight turn. When they were heading bac k t oward the field that was being worked, on their right now, Mendoza said, "I tr y a gain this morning, same thing. Nobody wants to work for us. I talk to Julio Tamaz, some of the others. What's going on? What is this shit? Julio says man, I don't have a crew for you, that's all."
    "He can get all he wants," Majestyk said.
    "I know it. He turn some away, says they're no good. I hire them and find ou t h e's right."
    As they approached the trailer, standing by itself on the side of the road , Mendoza saw the girl with the dark bandana and pearl earrings coming out of th e f ield again with a sack of melons. He glanced at Majestyk and saw him watchin g h er.
    "That one," Mendoza said, "Nancy Chavez. She wasn't here, we wouldn't have an y g ood workers at all. She got some more friends drove over from Yuma. She pick s b etter than two men. But we got to have a full crew, soon, or we never get i t d one."
    Mendoza got out by the trailer. He slammed the door and said through the window , "I hope you have better luck than me."
    "Least I'll find out what's going on," Majestyk said. He could see the girl b y t he trailer, unloading her melon sack. That was something, she was still here.
    She didn't know him or owe him anything, but she was still here.
    Harold Ritchie was leaning over the fender of the State Highway Departmen t p ickup truck, holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He was looking acros s t he highway and across a section of melon field to where the dust column wa s f ollowing Majestyk's