Ant drank a tiny amount and gulped down the sugar, then closed his eyes and sank deeper into the pillow.
Elsa had just released a breath when he suddenly arched up, his body seizing, his fingers curling into claws, his red eyes rolling back in his head.
Elsa had never felt so helpless in her life. There was nothing she could do; she sat there, watching the seizure wrack her little boy. The seconds seemed to last forever.
When it ended, she took him in her arms, held him tightly, too shaky and frightened to soothe him.
“Help me, Mommy,” he said in a cracked voice. “I’m hot.”
He needed help. Now.
She didn’t care if there was no money. She’d beg if she had to.
“I’ll help you, baby.”
She scooped him into her arms, blanket and all, and carried him through the house. As if from a distance, she heard the family yell at her. She couldn’t stop, didn’t care about anything but Ant.
She made it out to the porch before she realized they had no horse. Nothing to pull the wagon. The driveway stretched out in front of her, desolate and bare.
The ground was hard and flat in places, scoured to hardpan by the wind, which had also torn through barbed wire as if it were strands of hair, ripped it away, sent it flying. There were bits of it on every building; tumbleweeds stuck to it and then were covered in drifts of sand.
She saw a wheelbarrow standing upright, half buried in sand.
Could she do it? Push him two miles to town in a wheelbarrow?
Of course. She could take him as far as she needed to.
She walked unsteadily toward it and lay him down in the rusted scoop, his spindly legs hanging over the edge. She positioned his head carefully on the blanket.
“Mo-mmy?” he wheezed. “The light … hurts.”
“Close your eyes, baby,” she said. “Go to sleep. We’re going to see Doc Rheinhart.”
Elsa picked up the rough wooden handles and headed for the driveway.
“Elsa!” She heard Rose yelling for her, but didn’t stop, didn’t listen. She was in a panic to go, to get him help. She knew it was crazy, knew she was a little unhinged, but what else could she do?
“Elsa, let us help!”
Elsa plunged forward. The wheelbarrow seemed to fight back. She felt every bump in the driveway, every furrow like a blow to her spine. She made it to the main road.
Desolation. Sand in heaps. Sheds covered by it; fences fallen.
She turned onto the road and kept going, breathing hard.
Heat beat down on her. Sweat blurred her vision, ran between her breasts in itchy streams.
She stubbed her toe on something buried in the sand and stumbled. The wheelbarrow was wrenched out of her hands, clattered forward. Ant hit his head on the ground.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Elsa said. Even she couldn’t hear her words, her throat was so dry. She looked down at her left palm, skin torn away, bloody. Her blood darkened the handles.
She resettled Ant in the wheelbarrow and fought to move forward; before she’d taken a full step, she felt a hand on her shoulders.
Tony stood there, with Rose and Loreda on either side of him. “Are you ready to let us help you now?”
“You don’t have to do it all yourself,” Rose said.
“Yeah, Mom,” Loreda said. “We’ve been yelling for you. Are you deaf?”
Elsa almost burst into tears. Very slowly, she set the wheelbarrow down.
Tony took hold of the handles, lifted the wheelbarrow up, and started off. Loreda moved in beside him, took over one side.
“You made it nearly a mile,” Rose said, tenderly smoothing the damp hair from Elsa’s dirty forehead.
“I’m just—”
“A mother.” Rose reached down for Elsa’s hands, lifted them, looked at the torn, bloody palms.
Elsa steeled herself. Her own mother would have scolded her for her stupidity in not wearing gloves.
Rose slowly lifted one of Elsa’s hands, kissed the bloody skin. “That used to make it all better for my foolish son.”
“It helps,” Elsa said. It was the first time in her life someone had kissed an injury of hers to make it better.
“Come. My husband is not as young as he thinks. It will be my turn soon.”
* * *
LONESOME TREE WAS A ghost town.
Tony pushed the wheelbarrow down Main Street, past the boarded- up storefronts. The once-thriving feed store had been taken over by the Red Cross and converted into a hospital.
The plains cottonwood was gone. Someone must have cut it up for firewood after it died of thirst.
At the makeshift hospital, Tony picked up Ant, who groaned and coughed.
Inside, the narrow building was shadowy and dark. The windows had been boarded up to keep out the dust and wind. Red Cross nurses wore uniforms that had once been starched white and were now a wrinkled gray. A doctor hurried from bed to bed, stopping just long enough at each to make an assessment and bark orders to the nurses following along behind him.
Tony carried Ant into the room. “I have a child here who needs help.”
A nurse approached them. She looked as haggard and drawn as everyone else. “How bad is he?”
“Bad.”
The nurse sighed heavily. “A bed came open this morning.”
They all knew that meant someone had died from the dust.
The nurse gave Elsa a sad look. “It’s been bad. Come.”
Elsa followed Tony into the room full of wheezing and coughing patients.
They settled Ant on a cot in back, beneath a ten-foot window covered by wooden boards. Even so, the sill was stuffed with rags. To the left, a cot held an old man who fought for every breath. A mask covered his eyes.
Elsa knelt beside her son.
Heat radiated off of him. She touched his hot forehead. “I’m here, Ant. We all are.”
Loreda sat at the end of the cot. “We’re gonna play checkers. I’ll let you win.”
Ant coughed harder.
Moments later, Rose came back with the doctor. She was holding on to his sleeve in a death grip. No doubt Rose had grabbed the poor man and dragged him over here. Somehow, Rose still had a fire in her. Elsa couldn’t imagine how she kept it lit in all this falling dirt. The doctor leaned down to take Ant’s temperature.
The doctor read the thermometer, then examined Ant and sighed. “Your son is seriously ill, which I’m sure you know. He has a high fever and is suffering from severe silicosis. Dust pneumonia. Prairie dust is full of silica. It builds up in the lungs and tears away the air sacs.”
“Which means?”
“He’s breathing in dirt and swallowing it. Filling up with it. There’s no other way to put it, but you’ve done the right thing to bring him here. This is the best place in town to be in a dust storm. We will take good care of him, I promise.” The doctor glanced down at beds full of wheezing, coughing, sweating, dying patients. “Try not to worry.”
“Is he dying?” Elsa asked quietly.
“Not yet.” The doctor touched her shoulder, gave her a gentle squeeze. “You need to go home now, let me help him.”
Elsa knelt beside Ant’s cot. She buried her face in the hot crook of his neck, nuzzled him. “I’m here, baby boy.” Her voice broke. “I love you.”
Rose gently pulled Elsa to her feet. It took all of Elsa’s self-discipline not to wail or scream or fall apart. She had no idea how she found the strength to turn around and meet her mother-in-law’s sad gaze.
“We have some butter,” Rose said in a tight voice. “We could make him a cookie or two, bring them back tomorrow, along with some toys and his clothes.”
“I can’t leave him.”
The doctor stepped closer. “Everyone here is either an infant, a child, or an old person. Each one has someone who wants to sit with them. There’s no room for visitors. Go home. Sleep. Let us take care of him. For a week at least. Maybe two.”
“We can visit, can’t we?”
Loreda said.
“Of course,” the doctor said. “Anytime you want. And there’s other kids here for him to play with when he’s feeling better.”
Elsa said, “What if—”
The doctor stopped her. “You’re going to ask what they all ask. Here’s what I can say: If you want to save him, get him out of Texas. Take him somewhere he can breathe.”
Rose put an arm around Elsa; it was the only thing that kept her upright. “Come, Elsa. Let’s go make our boy some treats. We’ll bring ’em by tomorrow.”
* * *
ELSA STOOD AT THE edge of the dead wheat field. Dry brown dirt lay in dunes as far as she could see. It was nearly four o’clock now and still the sun beat down. Hot and dry. The windmill turned slowly, creaking, doing its best.
She wanted to believe that rain would come back and the seeds would sprout and this land would thrive again, but hope was something she could no longer afford, not when Ant was lying on a cot, coughing up the dirt in his lungs, burning with fever.
Dust pneumonia.
That was what they called it, but it was really loss and poverty and man’s mistakes.
She heard footsteps behind her; they came with that new shuffling-sand sound, a kind of whisper, as if man were afraid now of disturbing the earth that had turned on him.
Tony came to a stop beside her. Rose stepped into place on her other side.
“He’s dying here,” Elsa said.
Dying.
It wasn’t just Ant. It was the land, the animals, the plants. Everything. The sun had burned everything to dust and the wind had blown it all away. Millions of tons of topsoil gone.
“We need to leave Texas,” Elsa said.
“Yes,” Rose said.
“We can sell the cows to the government. That’ll help some.” Tony said. “They’ll give us thirty-two bucks for the two cows.”
Elsa drew in a deep, painful breath and stared out at the dead, brown land. She didn’t want to go into the unknown with no job and almost no money. None of them wanted to leave. This was home.
Above their heads, the windmill creaked and the blades turned slowly.
Together, they walked back to the farmhouse, dust rising from their feet.
SIXTEEN
“I was thinking I could take Loreda hunting tomorrow,” Grandpa said at dinner that night.
“That’s a good idea,” Grandma said, dipping her bread in a small bit of their precious olive oil. “The compass is in my dresser. Top drawer.”
“We should clean out the barn,” Mom said. “Rafe’s old hunting tent is in there somewhere. And the wood-burning stove from the dugout.”
Loreda couldn’t take it another second. The grown-ups were jawing about nothing. They seemed to forget that Ant was in that dingy hospital without any of them. Or they thought she was too young to hear the truth. This stupid conversation was making her sick. The last thing they needed to do was to clean out the darn barn.
She got to her feet so suddenly the chair legs screeched. She kicked the chair out of her way, watched it crash to the floor. “He’s dying, isn’t he?”
Mom looked up at her. “No, Loreda. He’s not dying.”
“You’re lying to me. And I’m not doing dishes.” She stormed out of the house and slammed the door shut behind her.
Outside, there were no horses in the corral, no hogs in their pen. All they had left were a few bony chickens too hot and tired and hungry to cluck at her passing and two cows who were barely still standing. Soon, the cows would be sold to the government men and be taken away. Then all the pens would be empty.
She climbed up to the windmill platform and sat beneath the endless, star-splattered Great Plains night sky. Up here it felt—or it once had—as if she were a part of the heavens. She’d been so many things sitting here—a ballerina, an opera singer, a motion-picture star.
Dreams her father had encouraged before he left to follow his own.
Loreda bent her legs and wrapped her arms around her ankles. She could handle the dying farm and adults who lied to her. She could even handle her father abandoning them—her—but this …
Ant. Her baby brother, who curled up like a potato bug and sucked his thumb, who ran like a marionette, all arms and legs akimbo, who looked up at her at night and said, “Tell me a story,” and hung on every word.
“Ant,” she whispered, realizing it was a prayer. The first one she’d even begun in years.
The windmill shook. She looked down and saw her mother ascending, rattling the boards as she climbed up.
Mom sat down beside her, let her legs dangle over the edge.
“I’m not a baby, Mom. You can tell me the truth.”
Mom took a deep breath and exhaled it. “We were talking about your dad’s tent because … we’re leaving Texas as soon as Ant is better. Going to California.”
Loreda turned. “What?”
“I talked it over with Grandma and Grandpa. We have a bit of money and the truck runs. So, we will drive west. Tony is still strong. He’ll find work, maybe on the railroad. I could do laundry for people, I hope. I hear Pamela Shreyer got work in a jewelry store. Imagine that. Her husband, Gary, is tending grapes.”
“And Ant is coming with us?”
“Of course he is. As soon as he’s better, we’ll go.”
“It’s a thousand miles to California. Gas is nineteen cents a gallon. Do we have enough for that?”
“How do you know all of that?”
“After Dad left, when I was supposed to be studying Texas history, I studied maps of California. I thought about—”
“Running away to find him?”
“Yeah. Turns out I’m stupid, but not that stupid. California is a big state. And I don’t even know for sure that he went west. Or that he stayed west.”
“No. We don’t know any of that.”
Loreda leaned against her mother, who put an arm around her.
Leaving. Loreda thought about it for the first time, really thought about it. Leaving home.
“I wanted you to grow up on this land,” Mom said. “I wanted to grow old here and be buried here and watch over your children’s children. I wanted to see the wheat grow again.”
“I know,” Loreda said, with a sting of realization: there was a part of her that wanted that, too.
“We don’t have a choice,” Mom said. “Not anymore.”
* * *
A WEEK LATER, MOST of the chicken coop was still buried in dirt, as was one whole side of the barn. The cows had been sold and taken away and the farm had been transformed by the eleven-day dust storm into a sea of brown waves. It was too much work to dig out from all that dirt, especially now that they were leaving. The big, wooden-slat-sided truck bed had been loaded with a few of the things they thought they’d need in their new life—the small wood-burning stove, barrels of goods and food, boxes of bedding, pots and pans, a gallon of kerosene, lanterns.
Elsa walked like a Bedouin up and down the dunes, past the windmill. At last she found some yucca, growing wild, its fibrous roots exposed by the wind and erosion.
She hacked up the roots, ripped them out of the ground, and dropped them into a metal bucket.
Back at the house, she saw Loreda seated at the kitchen table with Tony, maps laid out around them.
“What’s that?” Rose said, coming out of the kitchen. She’d canned two chickens for the trip. That, along with the last of the canned vegetables, a sugar-cured ham, and some preserved Russian thistles, should get them to California.
“Yucca. We can boil it and eat it.”
Loreda made a face. “A new low, Mom.”
Outside, a car came into view. They looked at each other.
When was the last time they’d had visitors?
Elsa wiped her hands on a cement-sack dish towel and followed Tony out of the house.
The automobile rolled up the road, dodging this way and that to avoid cracks in the earth and sand dunes and coils of barbed wire. Yellow-brown dust billowe
d up from the thin rubber tires.
Tony crossed the porch and headed toward the automobile coming their way.
Elsa tented a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun.
“Who is it?” Rose asked, coming up beside her, wiping her damp hands on her apron.
The automobile rumbled up into the yard and stopped in front of Tony. The cloud of dust dissipated slowly, revealing a 1933 Ford Model Y.
The door opened slowly. A man stepped out of the car, straightened. He wore a black suit, the buttoned-up coat strained over a well-fed gut, and a brand-new fedora. A thicket of gray sideburns bracketed his florid face.
Mr. Gerald, the only banker left in town.
Rose and Elsa walked down into the brown yard and stood with Tony.
“Morton,” Tony said, frowning. “Are you here about the meeting tomorrow? I hear that government man is coming back to town.”
“Yes, he is. But that’s not why I’m here.” Morton Gerald shut the car door gently, as if the automobile were a lover in need of care, and doffed his hat. “Ladies.” He paused, looked uncomfortably at Tony. “Perhaps the ladies would like to give us some time to speak privately,” he said.
Rose said firmly, “We’ll stay.”
“How can I help you, Morton?” Tony asked.
“Your note for the back hundred and sixty acres came due,” Mr. Gerald said. To his credit, he looked unhappy with the news. “I’d roll it over if I could, but … well, as tough as times are for you farmers, there are men in the big cities speculating on land. You owe us nearly four hundred dollars.”
“Take the thresher,” Tony said. “Hell, take the tractor.”
“No one needs farm equipment these days, Tony. But the rich men back East, the men who own the bank, they figure there’s still money in land. If you can’t pay, they’re going to foreclose.”
There was no answer, just the sighing of the wind, as if it, too, were disgusted.
“Can you pay something, Tony? Anything, so I can hold ’em off?”
Tony looked whipped, ashamed. “I have more land than I need, Morton. Go ahead, take those acres back,” he said.
The Four Winds Page 16
