The Four Winds(31)

“Yes.” Elsa frowned at the odd change in topic.

“Ant asked me why his stomach hurt all the time. How could I tell him that the land is killing him?” He stood, took her by the hand, and pulled her up to stand with him. “Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“West. To California. People are leaving every day. I hear there are railroad jobs to be had. And maybe I’ll qualify for that program of FDR’s. The Conservation Corps.”

“We don’t have money for gas.”

“We could walk. Jump on trains. Folks will give us rides. We will get there. The kids are tough.”

“Tough?” She pulled free of his hold, took a step back. “They don’t have shoes that fit. We have no money. No food. You’ve seen the Hooverville photos, what it’s like out there. Anthony is seven. How far do you think he can walk? You want him to jump on a moving train?”

“California is different,” he said stubbornly. “There are jobs there.”

“Your parents won’t leave. You know that.”

“We could go without them?” He made it a question, not a statement, and she could see how ashamed he was to even ask it.

“Go without them?”

Rafe ran a hand through his hair and looked out over the dead wheat fields and the graves already on this land. “This damnable wind and drought will kill them. And us. I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t.”

“Rafe . . . you can’t mean this.”

This land was his heritage, their future, their children’s future. The kids would grow up on this land, always knowing their history, knowing who they were and who they’d come from. They’d learn the pride that came with a good day’s work. They would belong somewhere. Rafe didn’t know how it felt not to belong, the pain of it, but Elsa did, and she would never inflict that heartache on her children. This was home. He had to know that hard times ended. Land endured. Family endured. How could he think they could just leave Tony and Rose here alone? It was unconscionable, unthinkable. “When it rains—”

“Christ, I hate that sentence,” he said, sounding more bitter than she’d ever heard him.

She saw the agony in his eyes, the disappointment, the anger.

Elsa wanted to reach out and touch him but didn’t dare. I love you burned in her dry throat. “I just think—”

“I know what you think.”

He walked away and didn’t look back.



LEAVE. JUST GIVE UP on this land and walk away with nothing.

Actually walk away. She was still thinking about it hours later, well after night had fallen.

She couldn’t imagine joining the horde of jobless, homeless hobos and migrants who were headed west. She’d heard it was dangerous to jump onto those trains, that legs and feet could be cut off, bodies severed in half by the giant metal wheels. And there was crime out there, bad men who’d left their consciences along with their families. Elsa was not a brave woman.

Still.

She loved her husband. She’d vowed to love, honor, and obey him. Surely “follow him” was understood.

Should she have told him they’d go to California? At least talked about it? Maybe in the spring, if they’d had rain and a crop, there would be money for gas.

And God knew he was unhappy here. So was Loreda.

Perhaps they could leave—all of them—and come back when the drought ended.

Why not?

This land would wait for them.

She could at least discuss it with him properly, make him see that she was his wife and they were a team and if he wanted this enough, she would do it. She would leave this land she had come to love, the only home she’d ever had.

For him.

She threw a shawl over her worn lawn nightgown, then stepped into the rubber boots by the front door and went outside.

Where was he? Out on the windmill, alone, chewing on his disappointment? Or had he hitched up the wagon and gone to the Silo so he could sit at the bar and drink whiskey?

It was nearly nine o’clock and the farm was quiet.

The only light on in the house shone in Loreda’s upstairs window. Her daughter was in bed reading, just as Elsa had done at her age. She walked out into the yard. The chickens roused themselves lethargically as she passed by and quieted quickly. She heard music coming from her in-laws’ bedroom. Tony was playing music on his fiddle. Elsa knew that music was how he spoke to Rose in these hard times, how he reminded them of their past and their future, how he said, I love you.

She saw Rafe in the darkness by the corral, an upright slash of black against the black slats of the corral, all of it sheened silver by the light of a waxing moon. The bright orange tip of his cigarette.

He heard her footsteps, she could tell.

Rafe pulled away from the corral, stubbed out his cigarette, and dropped the unsmoked portion into his shirt pocket. Tony’s love song wafted toward them.

Elsa stopped in front of Rafe. All it would take was the smallest movement and she could rest her hand on his shoulder. She knew the faded blue chambray of his work shirt would feel warm after this long, hot day. She’d hemmed and washed and stitched and folded every garment he owned and knew each one by touch.

How was it possible that Elsa was close enough to her husband that she could feel the heat coming off him and smell the whiskey and cigarettes on his breath and still feel as if an ocean sloshed between them?