The Four Winds(120)

“Jack said the same thing. So did Rafe’s mom, come to think of it.”

“I sure could use me some of that gin we been talkin’ about.”

Elsa ran her fingers through Jean’s damp hair. Heat radiated from Jean’s body to Elsa’s. “I could sing . . .”

“Please don’t.”

The women smiled at each other, but Elsa saw Jean’s fear. “It’ll be okay. You’re strong.”

Jean closed her eyes and fell asleep in Elsa’s arms.

Elsa held Jean, stroked her hot brow, and whispered quiet words of encouragement until she heard the rumbling sound of the truck returning.

Thank God.

Loreda drove up and parked. She opened the truck’s door and got out, banging the door shut behind her. “Mom!” she yelled. “The store wasn’t open.”

Elsa craned her neck to see Loreda. “Why not?”

“Probably because of the strike talk. They want to remind us how much we need them. Pigs.”

Jean’s body suddenly arched and stiffened. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her body began to shake violently.

Elsa held her friend until she stilled.

“There’s no aspirin, Jean,” Elsa said.

Jean’s eyes fluttered open. “Don’t fret none, Elsa. Just let me—”

“No,” Elsa said sharply. “I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare go anywhere.”

Jean’s breathing slowed. “I might go dancin’.”

Elsa eased Jean’s head back and got out of the truck. “You stay here,” she said to Loreda. “Try to get Jean to drink more water. Keep a wet rag on her forehead. Don’t let her kick the covers away.” She turned to Jeb. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where yah going?” Jeb asked.

“I’m getting her aspirin.”

“Where? You got any money to buy some?”

“No,” Elsa said tightly. “They make sure we never have money. Stay here.”

She ran to the truck and started it up, drove out to the main road.

At the hospital, she walked across the parking lot and pushed through the doors, leaving dirty brown footprints across the clean floor as she walked to the front desk, where a woman sat alone, playing solitaire.

“I need help,” Elsa said. “Please. I know you won’t let us come to the hospital, but if you could just give me some asprin, it would be such a help. My friend has a fever. Really high. It could be typhoid. Help us. Please. Please.”

The woman straightened in her chair, craned her neck to look up and down the hall. “You know that’s contagious, right? There’s a nurse at the new government tent camp in Arvin. Ask her for help. She treats your kind.”

Your kind.

Enough is goddamned enough.

Elsa walked out of the hospital, went back to the truck, and grabbed Ant’s baseball bat from out of the bed. Carrying it, she walked across the parking lot, trying to stay calm.

This time she banged through the doors, took one look at the woman sneering up at her, and slammed the baseball bat down on the front desk hard enough to dent the wood.

The woman screamed.

“Ah, good. I have your attention. I need some aspirin,” Elsa said calmly.

The woman spun around, yanked open a cabinet. With shaking hands, she started pawing through medicine. “Darn Okies,” the woman muttered.

Elsa smashed a lamp. Then the phone.

The woman grasped a pair of bottles and thrust them at Elsa. “You people are animals.”

“So are you, ma’am. So are you.”

Elsa took the aspirin.

She was almost to the front door when a big man came lumbering down the hallway toward her.

“Stop her, Fred! She’s a criminal!” the woman at the desk yelled.

He blocked the door.

Elsa stepped closer to the man in the brown security uniform, holding the bat down at her side. Her heart was thundering, but strangely, she felt calm. In control, even. She had the medicine and no one was going to stop her from getting it to Jean. “How badly do you want to stop me, Fred?”

The man’s gaze softened. “The missus and I came here from Indiana about five years ago. It was a helluva lot easier then. I’m sorry for the way you’re treated.” He pulled out a five-dollar bill. “Will this help?”

Elsa almost cried at the small kindness. “Thank you.”

“Now go. Alice is probably calling the coppers already.”

Elsa sprinted out of the hospital, threw the baseball bat into the truck bed, then started the engine and stomped on the gas. The old truck fishtailed in the gravel and slowly straightened out on the dark road.

She turned onto the road to the squatters’ camp and pulled up in front of the Deweys’ truck.

She found Jeb in the bed of the truck with Jean, cradling his wife in his arms; the children stood with Loreda beneath the wooden overhang close to the side of the truck. The boys held the little girls’ hands.

“She keeps askin’ for gin,” Jeb said, looking bereft and confused. “She don’t drink.”

Elsa climbed up into the bed of the truck, settled in on Jean’s other side. “Hey, you, bad girl. I’ve got some aspirin.”

Jean’s eyes fluttered open.