The Four Winds(50)

Wind pushed her back. She leaned into it and squinted into the driving dust.

Finding the rope they’d strung between the house and the barn, she pulled herself across the yard, hand over hand, making her way slowly. At last she came to the barn. Once inside, she snapped a lead rope onto Bella’s halter and led the poor, stumbling cow out of her stall and into the barn’s wide center aisle. The walls clattered and shook; dust rained down from overhead.

Setting the pail in place, Elsa sat down on the milking stool and took off her gloves, tucking them into her apron pocket. Lowering her bandanna, she reached for the cow’s dry, scabby teat. The barn rattled around them; wind whistled through the cracks, broke through boards.

Elsa’s hands were so chapped and raw that it hurt her as much to milk as it did the cow. She took hold. The cow bellowed in pain.

“Sorry, girl,” Elsa said. “I know it hurts, but my boy needs milk. He’s . . . sick.”

Thick brown milk came out in oozing muddy globs, splattered into the bucket.

“Come on, girl,” Elsa urged, trying again.

And again. And again.

Nothing but milky mud.

Elsa closed her gritty eyes and rested her forehead on Bella’s great, sunken side. The cow’s tail swished at her, stung her cheek.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, grieving for the lost milk, wondering how she would feed her children without milk or butter or cheese, grieving for this good animal who was breathing in dirt all day long and wouldn’t live long. The other cow had stopped producing milk months ago and was even worse off than Bella.

With an exhausted sigh, Elsa put her gloves on and pulled her bandanna up and led Bella back into her stall.

By the time Elsa made it back to the house, her forehead was scraped raw and she could barely see. This wind grated skin away.

“Elsa? You okay?”

It was Tony. He came up beside her, put a steadying arm around her.

She pulled her bandanna down to talk. “No more milk.”

Tony’s quiet was heartbreaking. “So, we’ll sell the cows to the government. Sixteen bucks apiece, wasn’t it?”

Elsa tried to wipe the grit from her eyes. “We’ve still got soap to sell and a few eggs.”

“Thank God for small miracles.”

“Yeah,” Elsa said, thinking of the root cellar’s empty shelves.





FIFTEEN





Q uiet.

No wind rattling the windows. No dirt raining down from the ceiling.

Elsa opened her eyes in the cautious way they’d all perfected. She pulled down the mud-encrusted bandanna that covered her nose and mouth, and brushed the dirt from her eyes. It took her a moment to focus. When she sat up, dirt pattered to the floor.

She checked on Ant first thing, wakened him by easing the gas mask off his small, bony face. “Hey, baby boy,” she said. “Storm’s over.”

Ant opened his eyes. Elsa could see the effort it took. There was no white in his eyes at all, just a deep, angry red. “I can’t . . . breathe.” His dirty, blue-veined eyelids fluttered shut.

He’s getting worse.

“Ant? Baby? Don’t go to sleep, okay?”

He tried to wet his lips, kept trying to clear his throat. “I feel . . . bad . . . Mommy.”

Elsa brushed the damp hair back from her son’s forehead, felt how hot he was.

Fever.

That was new.

Elsa had a deep fear of fevers, a remnant from her youth, a reminder of her own illness.

Elsa uncovered the pitcher beside the bed and poured water into the crockery basin. Then she dipped a washrag into the lukewarm water and wrung out the excess and laid the cool, damp cloth across his forehead. Water dripped down the sides of his face.

Elsa poured a small bit of water into a glass, helped him to take two aspirin. “Pretend it’s your grandma’s lemonade. Sweet and tart.” She gave him a teaspoon of sugar laced with turpentine. It was the only remedy they knew to combat the dust he breathed in, even with the mask on.

Ant drank a tiny amount and gulped down the sugar, then closed his eyes and sank deeper into the pillow.

Elsa had just released a breath when he suddenly arched up, his body seizing, his fingers curling into claws, his red eyes rolling back in his head.

Elsa had never felt so helpless in her life. There was nothing she could do; she sat there, watching the seizure wrack her little boy. The seconds seemed to last forever.

When it ended, she took him in her arms, held him tightly, too shaky and frightened to soothe him.

“Help me, Mommy,” he said in a cracked voice. “I’m hot.”

He needed help. Now.

She didn’t care if there was no money. She’d beg if she had to.

“I’ll help you, baby.”

She scooped him into her arms, blanket and all, and carried him through the house. As if from a distance, she heard the family yell at her. She couldn’t stop, didn’t care about anything but Ant.

She made it out to the porch before she realized they had no horse. Nothing to pull the wagon. The driveway stretched out in front of her, desolate and bare.

The ground was hard and flat in places, scoured to hardpan by the wind, which had also torn through barbed wire as if it were strands of hair, ripped it away, sent it flying. There were bits of it on every building; tumbleweeds stuck to it and then were covered in drifts of sand.