The Four Winds

“Is it time?” Loreda asked, bright-eyed. She looked excited, ready to go.

Elsa felt a clutch of worry. “Today will be—”

“Dangerous,” Loreda said. “We know. Is everyone downstairs?”

“I thought we should—”

“Talk more?” Loreda said impatiently. “We’ve talked plenty.”

Ant jumped off the bed, landed on bare feet beside his sister. “I’m the Shadow! No one can scare me.”

“Okay,” Elsa said. “Just stay close today. I want to see you two every second.”

Loreda pushed Elsa toward the door while Ant tugged on his boots, yelled, “Wait for the Shadow!”

The lobby was empty when the three of them got downstairs, but within minutes there was a crowd. Members of the Workers Alliance gathered in pods; they stacked leaflets on the table and leaned picket signs against the walls. Workers from the ditch-bank camp and Welty Farms and the newly constructed Resettlement Administration camp in Arvin stood silently by, looking anxious.

Elsa saw Jeb and his children in the back corner and Ike with some of the Welty camp workers.

Loreda picked up a sign that read FAIR PAY and stood by Natalia, whose sign read WORKERS UNITE.

Jack stood at the front of the room. “Friends and comrades, it is time. Remember our plan: Peaceable strike. We go to the fields and sit down. That is all. We hope it happens all across the state on this morning, as we hope that more workers join us. Let’s go.”

They filed out of the hotel and gathered in the street. There were fewer than fifty of them altogether. Natalia got into the driver’s seat of Jack’s truck and started the engine. Jack stood in the wooden-slatted bed of the truck and faced the small gathering. “The world can be changed by a handful of courageous people. Today we fight on behalf of those who are afraid. We fight for a living wage.” He yelled out, “Fair pay! Fair pay!”

Loreda held her sign in the air and chanted with him. “Fair pay! Fair pay!”

The truck rolled forward; the strikers followed. Jack reached down for a megaphone and amplified his chant. “Fair pay! Fair pay!”

Elsa and her children and the strikers walked behind the truck, listening to Jack.

They passed a Lucky Strike billboard. Several of the people living beneath it stood up, ambled across the brown field, and joined the strikers.

A quarter of a mile later, a group of clergymen joined them, holding up signs that read MINIMUM WAGE FOR WORKERS!

At every new road or camp, more people joined. Their voices rose up. Fair pay! Fair wages!

More people merged in.

Elsa turned at one point, saw the crowd. There had to be six hundred people here now, all coming together to fight for a decent wage.

She elbowed Loreda, cocked her head so Loreda would look back and see the people behind them.

Loreda grinned and chanted louder. “Fair pay! Fair pay!”

Jack and the Workers Alliance were right. The growers would have to treat the workers fairly if they wanted their cotton picked before the weather changed and frost ruined the crop. This wasn’t about being a Communist or a rabble-rouser. This was about fighting for the rights of every American.

A mile later, they turned a corner, nearly a thousand of them now, marching and chanting, signs held high, and neared the entrance to Welty Farms. The road stretched out in front of them, a straight line, bordered on each side by fenced cotton fields. A single man waited for them, stood in the middle of the road.

Welty.

Natalia stopped the truck directly in front of him.

Still standing in the back of the truck, Jack spoke to the huge crowd through the megaphone. “This is your day, workers. Your moment. The owners will hear you. They can’t ignore so many of you saying, No more.”

Loreda responded loudly, shouting, “No more! No more!”

The crowd joined in, waving their signs for emphasis.