The Four Winds

The Golden State.

Elsa swept her children into her arms and twirled them around, laughing so deeply it seemed to be the voice of her soul. Light returning to the dark. Relief.

Hope.

* * *

LOREDA SCREAMED.

Mom downshifted. The truck bucked and lurched and slowed, taking the hairpin turn at a crawl.

The cars behind them honked. They were a caravan of jalopies now, a bumper-to-bumper snake of cars going down a mountain.

Loreda clung to the metal door handle until her fingers ached and the sunburned ridge of her knuckles turned white.

The mountain road twisted again and again, some turns so sharp and unexpected that she was flung sideways.

Mom took a turn too fast, yelped in fear, and crammed the gearshift down.

Loreda screamed again. They barely missed hitting the wreckage of a jalopy in the ditch, lying on its side.

“Quit bouncing, Ant.”

“I can’t. My pee’s startin’ to come out.”

Loreda slid to the side again. The door handle pinched her skin hard enough that she cried out.

And then, at last, a huge valley stretched out in front of them, an explosion of color unlike anything Loreda had ever seen.

Bright green grass, flowering bits of color, maybe weeds or wildflowers. Or

ange and lemon trees. Olive trees grew in swaths of silvery gray-green.

Cultivated green fields lay on either side of the wide black roadway. Tractors tilled large swatches of land, turned up the soil for planting. Loreda thought of the facts she’d collected as they readied for this trip. This was the San Joaquin Valley, nestled between the Coast Mountains to the west and the Tehachapi Mountains to the east. Sixty miles north of Los Angeles.

Another mountain range dominated the northern horizon, rising up like something out of a fairy tale. These were the peaks John Muir thought should be named the Range of Light.

As Loreda stared out across the San Joaquin Valley, she felt a hunger open up inside her, one she’d never imagined. Seeing all of this unexpected beauty, such colors, such majesty, she wanted suddenly to see more. America the Beautiful—the wild blue Pacific, the snarling Atlantic, the Rockies. All the places she and Daddy had dreamed of seeing. She wondered what San Francisco looked like, the city built on hills, or Los Angeles, with its white-sand beaches and groves of orange trees.

Mom pulled over to the side of the road and sat there clutching the wheel.

“Mom?”

Mom didn’t seem to hear her. She got out of the truck and walked into a field strewn with bright wildflowers. On either side, acres and acres of freshly tilled brown soil, ready for planting. The air smelled of rich earth and new growth.

Mom drew in a deep breath, exhaled. When she turned back to the truck, Loreda saw how shiny her mom’s blue eyes were.

But why cry now? They’d made it.

Mom stood there, staring out. Loreda saw a trembling in her hands and realized for the first time that Mom had been afraid. “Okay,” Mom said at last. “First Explorers Club meeting in California. Which way do we go?”

Loreda had been waiting for the question. “We’re in the San Joaquin Valley, I think. South is Hollywood and Los Angeles. North is the Central Valley and San Francisco. I reckon the biggest town in these parts is Bakersfield.”

Mom went to the back of the truck and made sandwiches while Loreda rattled off every relevant fact she’d memorized. The three of them walked out into a field full of wildflowers and tall grass and sat down to eat.

Mom chewed her sandwich, swallowed a bite. “The only thing I know is farming. I don’t want to go to a city. No jobs. So no to Los Angeles. No to San Francisco.”

“The ocean is west of us.”