The Four Winds

The men ran through the camp, looking for boys, questioning them, snatching anything from their hands, barking out questions.

Then it was over.

When they were finally gone, Loreda stepped out of line and walked along the fence line out of the camp, carrying her laundry bag full of money. No one looked at her twice.

On the main road, she saw red lights flashing. Police going from camp to camp questioning, yanking bystanders aside.

Loreda drove back to the hospital.

There, she parked and counted the money.

One hundred and twenty-two dollars. And ninety-one cents.

A fortune.

* * *

THAT NIGHT THEY MADE an arrowed beeline over the mountains and across the worst part of the Mojave Desert in a darkness devoid of stars, with a pine coffin in the bed of the truck.

There were few other cars on the road. Loreda couldn’t see much beyond what lay in the glow of the headlights. Ant lay sleeping up against her. He hadn’t said a single word since Mom died.

At midnight, just past Barstow, Jack pulled off the road and parked.

Without a tent, they laid blankets and quilts on a flat patch of ground and stretched out, with Ant positioned between Jack and Loreda.

“You want to tell me now?” Jack said quietly, over the sound of Ant’s snoring.

“Tell you what?”

“How you got the money?”

“I did a bad thing for a good reason.”

“How bad?”

“Baseball-bat-in-a-hospital-to-get-aspirin bad.”

“Did you hurt anyone?”

“No.”

“And you won’t do it again and you know it was wrong?”

“Yeah. The world’s topsy-turvy, though.”

“It is.”

Loreda sighed. “I miss her so much I can’t breathe. How will I make it like this for the rest of my life?”

She was grateful he didn’t answer. There was truth in his silence. She already knew this was a grief she would never get over.

“I never said I was proud of her,” Loreda said. “How could I—”

“Close your eyes,” Jack said. “Tell her now. I’ve been talking to my mom that way for years.”

“Do you think she hears?”

“Moms know everything, kid.”