The Four Winds

Loreda came up beside her. They watched the woman with the baby carriage. “We’ll make it,” Loreda said into the quiet.

Elsa didn’t know how to repond. “We made it through the Dust Bowl,” Loreda said, using the recently coined term to describe the land they’d left behind. They’d read a newspaper a few days ago, learned that April 14 had been dubbed Black Sunday. Apparently three hundred thousand tons of Great Plains topsoil had flown into the air that day. More soil than had been dug up to build the Panama Canal. The dirt had fallen to the ground as far away as Washington, D.C., which was probably why it made the news at all. “What’s a few miles of desert to explorers like us?”

“Not a speck,” Elsa said. “Let’s go.”

They walked back to the truck. Elsa paused, placed her hand on the warm, dusty metal of the hood. An amorphous fear—of so many bad outcomes—coalesced into a single word. Please. She trusted God to watch out for them.

After a late supper of beans and hot dogs and almost no conversation, Elsa herded her children into the back of the truck to sleep on the unfurled camp mattress they’d brought from home.

“You sure you’re okay driving alone at night?” Loreda asked for at least the fifth time.

“It’s cooler now. That will help. I’ll drive as far as I can tonight and then pull over to sleep. Don’t worry.” She reached past her sagging collar for the small velvet pouch she wore around her throat. She removed the copper coin, looked down at Abraham Lincoln’s craggy profile.

“The penny,” Loreda said.

“It’s ours now.”

Ant touched the coin for luck. Loreda just stared at it.

Elsa put the penny back in its hiding place, kissed them good night, and then returned to the driver’s seat. She started the engine and turned on her headlights; twin golden spears cut into the darkness as she put the truck in gear and drove away.

On the road, night erased everything except the path the headlights revealed. No cars were traveling east.

The road was as flat and black and rough as a cast-iron frying pan.

As the miles accumulated, so did her fear. It spoke to her in her father’s voice: You’ll never make it. You shouldn’t have tried. You and your children will die out here.

Every now and then, she passed an abandoned vehicle, ghostly evidence of families who’d failed.

Suddenly the engine coughed; the truck did a little jerk. The rosary looped around the rearview mirror swung side to side, beads clattering together. A cloud of steam erupted from beneath the hood.

No no no no.

She pulled to the side of the road. After a quick check on the sleeping kids—they were fine—she went to the front of the truck.

The hood was so hot it took her several tries to unlatch it, open it. Steam or smoke tumbled out in the dark. She couldn’t tell which it was.

Hopefully steam.

She couldn’t add water until the engine cooled down. Tony had drilled that fact into her head as they’d prepared for the trip. She untied the jug of water from the hood, held it close.

All she could do was wait. And worry.

She looked up and down the road; no headlights for as far as she could see.

What would happen when the sun rose? Triple-digit heat.

How close was she to the end of the desert? They had maybe three gallons of water left in their canteens.

Don’t panic. They need you not to panic.

Elsa bowed her head in prayer. She felt small out here, beneath this immense, starlit sky. She imagined the desertscape around her was alive with animals who survived in the dark. Snakes. Bugs. Coyotes. Owls.

She prayed to the Virgin Mary. Begged, really.

Finally, protecting her face with her bandanna, she opened the radiator and poured in the water. Then she retied the empty jug onto the truck and went back to her seat.

“Please, God…” she said, and turned the key in the ignition.