Harris?”
There was no answer and she met his steady gaze
without blinking.
261
MARGARET MARON
Pete Taylor stirred uneasily, but it was the daughter
who caved.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Mother! Tell him.” She turned
to Dwight. “I loved my dad, Major Bryant, even though
I hated the way he ran the farms. But OSHA and EPA
and yes, law people like you not only let him get away
with it, it’s as if you almost encouraged him to break
the laws.”
“Susan!” her mother said sharply.
“No, Mother. I’m through biting my tongue. From
now on I’m going to speak the truth. You think I don’t
know the real cost of growing a bushel of tomatoes?
That I don’t know how Harris Farms shows such a good
profit year after year?”
“Harris Farms sent you to school, miss! Gave you an
education that lets you look down on your own par-
ents.”
“Not you, Mother.” She touched her mother’s hand.
“Never you. I know you did your best.”
She turned back to Dwight. “Growers like my dad
cut against the market every way they can. They ignore
the warning labels on chemicals, they ignore phony
social security numbers, they turn a blind eye to how
labor contractors take advantage of their people, and
they don’t give a damn about a migrant’s living con-
ditions or whether or not the children are in school.
My mother does. When Harris Farms finally got cited,
Mother got involved. She checks the paperwork and
makes sure everyone’s documented, she doesn’t let lit-
tle kids work in the fields, and she made Dad get rid
of those squalid trailers he had down there in the back
262
HARD ROW
fields of the Buckley place. No decent plumbing and no
place to wash off the pesticides. My mother—”
“Your mother’s a bleeding-heart saint,” Mrs. Harris
said sarcastically.
“Well, you are, compared to Dad.”
“Only because it’s cheaper in the long run to do the
right thing,” her mother said gruffly. “It’s all dollars
and cents. I don’t want us shut down or slapped with a
big fine.”
“Slapped is the right word,” Susan Hochmann told
Dwight. “There aren’t enough inspectors to check out
