The Four Winds

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.

Mr. Gerald pulled a pink slip of paper out of his shirt pocket. “This is a formal foreclosure on your back one hundred sixty acres. Unless you repay your debt in full in the time stated, we will auction off that section of land on April sixteenth to the highest bidder.”

* * *

ELSA’S SHOES SANK INTO the deep sand every now and then, upsetting her balance as she and Tony walked to town. On either side of the road, abandoned farmhouses and automobiles were buried in drifts of dirt; sometimes all she could see of a shed was the roof’s peak, sticking up from a dune. Telephone poles had fallen down. Not a bird called out.

In town, an otherworldly quiet reigned. No automobiles rumbled up the street, no horses clopped in a steady rhythm. The school bell had been ripped away in the eleven-day storm and still hadn’t been found. No doubt it was buried and would be revealed when the wind returned and shifted the landscape yet again.

At the makeshift hospital, Elsa came to a stop. “I’ll meet you in thirty minutes?”

Tony nodded. He pulled the patched gray hat down over his eyes and headed toward the schoolhouse for the town meeting, his shoulders already slumped in defeat. No one expected much from the government man’s return.

When Elsa entered the shadowy hospital, it took her eyes a moment to adjust to the hazy gloom. People hacked and coughed; babies cried. Tired nurses moved from bed to bed.