The Four Winds

EVERY DAY OF THAT long, unseasonably cold winter, Elsa woke with a single purpose: keep her children fed. Each day their survival felt less certain. She woke in the dark, alone, and dressed without the benefit of light. Lord knew nothing good came of looking in a mirror anyway. Her lips were always chapped with cold and swollen from her habit of biting down when she worried. And she was always worried. About the cold, about the crops, about her children’s health. That was the worst of it. School had closed last week for good—it had fallen to twenty degrees in the schoolhouse. With the supply of cow chips disappearing, heating the school had become a luxury none of them could afford. So now Elsa had added schooling to her list of chores. For a woman who hadn’t graduated from high school, being responsible for her children’s education was a daunting ordeal, but she did it with zeal. If there was one thing she wanted above all else, it was for her children to have the opportunities that came with education.

It wasn’t until nighttime, after prayers with her children, when she collapsed into her lonely bed, that she let herself think of Rafe, miss him, ache for him. She thought of how kind he’d always been and she wondered now if he would miss her, even some small bit. They had history together, after all, and she couldn’t help loving him still. In spite of everything, all the pain and heartbreak and anger he’d left in his wake, when she closed her eyes at night, she missed him beside her, missed the sound of his breathing and the hope she’d felt that one day he would really love her. She’d think, I wish I’d said, “I’ll go to California,” over and over until a fitful sleep came to save her.

Thank God for this farm and her children, because some days she still wanted to crawl in a hole and cry. Or maybe become one of those crazy women who wore pajamas and slippers all day and stood at a window awaiting the man who’d left. For the first time in her life, she understood the physical pain of betrayal. She would do almost anything to hide from it. Run. Drink. Take laudanum …

But she wasn’t an I. She was a we. Her two beautiful children were counting on her, even if Loreda didn’t know it yet.

On this cold late-December day, she woke late and dressed in every piece of clothing she owned, covering her stringy hair with both a red bandanna and the woolen hat Rose had knit her for Christmas.

She coiled Rafe’s shirt around her throat like a scarf and went into the kitchen and put wheat cereal on to boil.

Today, finally, they were going to get help from the government. It was big news in town. Last Sunday at church, no one had been able to talk about anything else.

She slipped into her winter boots and walked outside, shivering instantly. She tossed handfuls of grain at the chickens and checked their water. The well had been troublesome during this freezing winter, only working sporadically. Thank God when it froze they could gather snow to keep the animals and themselves in water. She saw Tony chopping wood by the side of the house—barn boards being ripped down and cut into kindling.

She waved as she headed to the barn. At the corral, she snapped a lead rope onto Milo’s halter.

The poor starving animal gave her such a sorrowful look that it gave her pause. “I know, boy. We all feel that way.”

She led the bony gelding out into the bright blue day. She had just finished hitching him to the wagon when Tony appeared beside her.

She saw how red his cheeks were from the cold, saw the plumes of his breath and the weight loss that had sunken his face and eyes. For a man who had two religions—God and the land—he was dying a little each day, disappointed by them both. He spent long minutes throughout the day staring at his snow-covered winter-wheat fields, begging his God to let the wheat grow. “This meeting will be the answer,” she said.

“I hope so,” he said.

The season of cold had been hard on Loreda, too. She’d lost her father and her best friend and now school had closed. The dwindling of her world left her sullen and depressed.

Elsa heard the farmhouse door bang open. Footsteps clattered on the porch steps. Loreda and Ant shuffled toward the wagon, bundled up in anything that still fit. Rose came out behind them, carrying a box full of the goods they’d be selling in town.

Elsa and the children climbed into the back of the wagon with the box of goods to be sold.

Elsa wrapped Ant up in a quilt and held him close. Loreda would rather freeze than join them, so she sat across from them, shivering.

Tony snapped the reins and Milo plodded forward. In the wagon bed, soap clattered in the slatted box. Elsa kept one gloved hand on the stack of eggs to keep them from falling. “You know, Loreda, if you joined us just to get warm, I promise I would still know that you are angry.”

“Very funny.” Loreda crossed her arms; her teeth chattered.

“You’re turning blue,” Elsa said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Sorta red, though,” Ant said, grinning.

“Don’t look at me,” Loreda said.

“You’re directly across from us,” Elsa said.

Loreda pointedly looked away.

Ant giggled.

Loreda rolled her eyes.

Elsa turned her attention to the land.

Snow-covered, this landscape looked beautiful. There weren’t many dwellings between town and the Martinelli farm, but several of the places along the way were abandoned. Cabins and shacks and dugouts and homes with boarded-up windows and FOR SALE signs plastered over foreclosure notices.

They passed the abandoned Mull place. Last she heard, Tom and Lorri had followed their kin to California on foot. On foot. How could anyone be that desperate? And Tom had been a lawyer by trade. It wasn’t just farmers going broke these days.