The Four Winds(64)

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.”

“I surely would love to see that,” Mom said, “but not yet. What good will the sea do for us? We need work and a place to live.”

“Let’s stay here,” Ant said.

“What did you call it, Loreda? The San Joaquin Valley? It sure is pretty,” Mom said. “Looks like plenty of work here. They’re getting ready to plant something.”

Loreda looked out over the field of wildflowers and the distant mountains. “Y’all are right. There’s no need to waste gas. We just need to find a place to stay.”

After lunch, they climbed back into the truck and drove deeper into the valley on a road as straight as an arrow, toward the distant purple mountains. Green fields lay on either side of the road; in some of them, Loreda saw lines of stooped men and women working the land.

They passed fields of fattening cattle and a slaughterhouse that smelled to high heaven.

As they drove past a billboard for Wonder Bread, Loreda saw a bunch of dark heaps on the ground beneath the sign.

One of the heaps sat up; it was a painfully thin boy, dressed in rags, wearing a hat with no brim on one side.

“Mom—”

Mom slowed the truck. “I see them.”

There were probably twenty of them: kids, young men, most of them dressed in rags. Worn, tattered overalls, dirty hats, shirts with torn collars. The land around them was flat and brown, unirrigated, as dry as lost hope.

“Some folks don’t want to work,” Mom said quietly.

“You think Daddy’s over there?” Ant said.

“No,” Mom said, wondering how long they all would be looking for Rafe. All their lives?

Probably.

They came to a four-way stop, where a grocery store and filling station faced each other across a strip of paved road. All around were cultivated fields. A sign read, BAKERSFIELD: TWENTY-ONE MILES.

Mom said, “We need gas, and since it’s our first day in California, I say licorice whips for all!”

“Yay!” Ant yelled.

Mom pulled off the road and onto the gravel lot, easing to a stop at the pumps. A uniformed station attendant came running out to help.

“Fill it up, please,” Mom said, reaching for her purse.

“You pay over yonder, ma’am. Same man owns the grocery store and the gas station.”

“Thank you,” Mom said to the attendant.

The three of them got out of the truck and stared across a cultivated field. Men and women were stooped over above the tufts of green. People working the fields meant jobs.

“You ever seen anything so pretty, Loreda?”

“Never.”

“Can we go look at the candy, Mom?” Ant said.

“You bet.”

Loreda and Ant ran across the street, toward the store, laughing and pushing each other excitedly. Ant clung to Loreda’s hand. Mom hurried to keep up with them.

An old man sat on a bench out front, smoking a cigarette, wearing a battered cowboy hat drawn low.

Inside, the general store was murky and full of shadows. A fan turned lazily overhead, casting shadows and moving the air around, not creating any real coolness. The store smelled of wooden floors and sawdust and fresh strawberries. Of prosperity.

Loreda’s mouth watered at all of the foodstuffs for sale in here. Bologna, bottles of Coca-Cola, packages of hot dogs, boxes full of oranges, wrapped loaves of Wonder Bread. Ant ran straight to the array of penny candy on the counter. Big glass jars full of licorice whips and hard candies and peppermint sticks.

The cash register was situated on a wooden counter. The clerk was a broad-shouldered man wearing a white shirt and brown pants held in place by blue suspenders. A brown felt hat covered his cropped hair. He stood as stiff as a fence post, watching them.

Loreda realized suddenly what they looked like after more than a week on the road (and years on the dying farm). Wan, thin, with pinched faces. Dresses hung together with dirt and hope. Shoes full of holes, or, in Ant’s case, no shoes at all. Dirty faces, dirty hair.