The Four Winds(52)

“Is he dying?” Elsa asked quietly.

“Not yet.” The doctor touched her shoulder, gave her a gentle squeeze. “You need to go home now, let me help him.”

Elsa knelt beside Ant’s cot. She buried her face in the hot crook of his neck, nuzzled him. “I’m here, baby boy.” Her voice broke. “I love you.”

Rose gently pulled Elsa to her feet. It took all of Elsa’s self-discipline not to wail or scream or fall apart. She had no idea how she found the strength to turn around and meet her mother-in-law’s sad gaze.

“We have some butter,” Rose said in a tight voice. “We could make him a cookie or two, bring them back tomorrow, along with some toys and his clothes.”

“I can’t leave him.”

The doctor stepped closer. “Everyone here is either an infant, a child, or an old person. Each one has someone who wants to sit with them. There’s no room for visitors. Go home. Sleep. Let us take care of him. For a week at least. Maybe two.”

“We can visit, can’t we?” Loreda said.

“Of course,” the doctor said. “Anytime you want. And there’s other kids here for him to play with when he’s feeling better.”

Elsa said, “What if—”

The doctor stopped her. “You’re going to ask what they all ask. Here’s what I can say: If you want to save him, get him out of Texas. Take him somewhere he can breathe.”

Rose put an arm around Elsa; it was the only thing that kept her upright. “Come, Elsa. Let’s go make our boy some treats. We’ll bring ’em by tomorrow.”



ELSA STOOD AT THE edge of the dead wheat field. Dry brown dirt lay in dunes as far as she could see. It was nearly four o’clock now and still the sun beat down. Hot and dry. The windmill turned slowly, creaking, doing its best.

She wanted to believe that rain would come back and the seeds would sprout and this land would thrive again, but hope was something she could no longer afford, not when Ant was lying on a cot, coughing up the dirt in his lungs, burning with fever.

Dust pneumonia.

That was what they called it, but it was really loss and poverty and man’s mistakes.

She heard footsteps behind her; they came with that new shuffling-sand sound, a kind of whisper, as if man were afraid now of disturbing the earth that had turned on him.

Tony came to a stop beside her. Rose stepped into place on her other side.

“He’s dying here,” Elsa said.

Dying.

It wasn’t just Ant. It was the land, the animals, the plants. Everything. The sun had burned everything to dust and the wind had blown it all away. Millions of tons of topsoil gone.

“We need to leave Texas,” Elsa said.

“Yes,” Rose said.

“We can sell the cows to the government. That’ll help some.” Tony said. “They’ll give us thirty-two bucks for the two cows.”

Elsa drew in a deep, painful breath and stared out at the dead, brown land. She didn’t want to go into the unknown with no job and almost no money. None of them wanted to leave. This was home.

Above their heads, the windmill creaked and the blades turned slowly.

Together, they walked back to the farmhouse, dust rising from their feet.





SIXTEEN





I was thinking I could take Loreda hunting tomorrow,” Grandpa said at dinner that night.

“That’s a good idea,” Grandma said, dipping her bread in a small bit of their precious olive oil. “The compass is in my dresser. Top drawer.”

“We should clean out the barn,” Mom said. “Rafe’s old hunting tent is in there somewhere. And the wood-burning stove from the dugout.”

Loreda couldn’t take it another second. The grown-ups were jawing about nothing. They seemed to forget that Ant was in that dingy hospital without any of them. Or they thought she was too young to hear the truth. This stupid conversation was making her sick. The last thing they needed to do was to clean out the darn barn.

She got to her feet so suddenly the chair legs screeched. She kicked the chair out of her way, watched it crash to the floor. “He’s dying, isn’t he?”

Mom looked up at her. “No, Loreda. He’s not dying.”

“You’re lying to me. And I’m not doing dishes.” She stormed out of the house and slammed the door shut behind her.

Outside, there were no horses in the corral, no hogs in their pen. All they had left were a few bony chickens too hot and tired and hungry to cluck at her passing and two cows who were barely still standing. Soon, the cows would be sold to the government men and be taken away. Then all the pens would be empty.

She climbed up to the windmill platform and sat beneath the endless, star-splattered Great Plains night sky. Up here it felt—or it once had—as if she were a part of the heavens. She’d been so many things sitting here—a ballerina, an opera singer, a motion-picture star.

Dreams her father had encouraged before he left to follow his own.

Loreda bent her legs and wrapped her arms around her ankles. She could handle the dying farm and adults who lied to her. She could even handle her father abandoning them—her—but this . . .

Ant. Her baby brother, who curled up like a potato bug and sucked his thumb, who ran like a marionette, all arms and legs akimbo, who looked up at her at night and said, “Tell me a story,” and hung on every word.