Кристин Ханна - The Four Winds

“They’re already at risk,” she said. “They can’t be taught that this is what we deserve, that this is America. I have to teach them to stand up for themselves.”

Elsa felt both a stunning sense of relief, almost of coming home, finding herself … and a deep, abiding fear. Courage is fear you ignore. But how did one do that, really? In practical terms.

“The rifle tower they built in the field … that’s to scare us, right? What we’re doing—a strike—it’s legal.”

“It’s legal. Hell, it’s the very essence of America. We were built on the right to protest, but laws are enforced by the government. By the police. You’ve seen how they support big business.”

Elsa nodded. “What do we do?”

“First we need to get out the word. We’ve set a strike meeting for Friday. But it’s dangerous even to tell people, let alone to show up for the meeting.”

“Everything is dangerous,” she said. “So what?”

He laid a hand along her cheek.

She leaned into his touch, taking strength and comfort from it.

THIRTY-THREE

In the dark just before the dawn, Loreda opened the cabin door and stepped outside. Last night’s gathering of the Workers Alliance had energized her, galvanized her. The Communists were working hard to bring about a strike, but they needed people like Loreda to spread the word through the camps. The Communists couldn’t do it on their own.

It’s dangerous, though, Natalia had said to Loreda last night. Don’t forget this. When I was a girl, I saw revolution up close. Blood runs in the streets. Don’t forget for one moment that the state has all the power—money and weapons and manpower.

We have heart and desperation, had been Loreda’s answer.

“Yeah,” Natalia had said, exhaling smoke. “ And brains. So, use yours. ”

Loreda closed the door behind her and walked out into the camp. She could hear people readying for the day, serving food, packing lunches. There was a long line at the toilets.

But the quiet was new and unnerving. No one laughed or even talked. Fear had moved into the camp. Everyone knew they were being watched by people whose loyalty was to the grower, not to the workers. Unfortunately, you never knew who the traitor was until you said the wrong thing to the wrong person and a knock at your door came in the middle of the night. They had heard the cries of families being hauled out of camp.

The first colors of sunrise cast light on the coiled barbed wire that topped the new fencing. She walked toward the line for the toilets and waited her turn. Afterward, she saw Ike filling his canteen at the waterspout outside the laundry. Loreda tried to look completely casual as she moved toward him, but she may have failed. She was filled with adrenaline, scared and exhilarated and excited.

She stepped in close to him, said, “Friday,” without stopping. “The barn on Willow Road. Eight o’clock. Pass the word.”

She kept going, didn’t even look back to see if he heard. She walked back to the cabin, very slowly, expecting every minute to be stopped.

She closed the door behind her.

Mom and Ant looked at her.

“Well?” Mom said quietly.

Loreda nodded. “I told Ike.”

“Good,” Mom said. “Let’s go pick cotton.”

THAT NIGHT, AFTER ANOTHER long, hot day in the fields, there was a letter from Tony and Rose to cheer them all. After supper, the children climbed into bed with Elsa and she opened the envelope and withdrew that letter. It had been written on the back side of Elsa’s last letter to them. No reason to waste paper.

Dearest ones,

It has been a hot, dry summer. The good news is that the wind and dust have given us a respite. No dust storms for ten days. Not enough to call an end to them, but an answer to prayers anyway. August and the first half of September were entirely unpleasant. All we did, it seems, was sweep, but these last few days have so far been kinder. Also, the government has finally realized that the help we most need is water and it is being delivered by the truckload. We pray there will be a crop of winter wheat. At least enough to feed our two new cows and the horse. But hope is hard to come by.

Sending you all much love. Miss you terribly.

Love, Rose and Tony

“Do you think we will ever see them again, Mom?” Loreda asked in the silence that followed Elsa’s reading of the letter.

Elsa leaned back against the rusted metal bed frame. Ant resettled himself, laid his head on her lap. She stroked his hair.

Loreda sat opposite Elsa, against the narrow foot of the bed.

“Remember that house I stopped at in Dalhart, on the day we left for California?”

“The big one with the broken window?”

Elsa nodded. “It was big, all right. I grew up there … in a house that had no heart. My family … rejected me, is I guess the best way to put it. Looks mattered to my family, and my unattractiveness was a fatal flaw.”

“You’re—”

“I am not fishing for compliments, Loreda. And God knows I’m too old for lies. I’m answering your question. This one, and one you haven’t asked in a while. About me and your grandparents and your father. Anyway, my point is that as a girl, I was lonely. I could never understand what I’d done to deserve my isolation. I tried so hard to be lovable.” Elsa drew in a deep breath, released it. “I thought everything had changed when I met your father. And it did. For me. But not for him. He always wanted more than life on the farm. Always. As you know.”

Loreda nodded.

“I loved your dad. I did. But it wasn’t enough for him, and now I realize it wasn’t enough for me, either. He deserved better and so did I.” As she said the unexpected words, Elsa felt them reshape her somehow. “But you know how my life really changed? It wasn’t marriage. It was the farm. Rose and Tony. I found a place to belong, people who loved me, and they became the home I’d dreamed about as a girl. And then you came along and taught me how big love could be.”

“I treated you like you had the plague.”

Elsa smiled. “For a few years. But before all of that, you … You couldn’t stand to be apart. You cried for me at naptime, said you couldn’t sleep without me.”

“I’m sorry,” Loreda said. “For—”

“No sorries. We fought, we struggled, we hurt each other, so what? That’s what love is, I think. It’s all of it. Tears, anger, joy, struggle. Mostly, it’s durable. It lasts. Never once in all of it—the dust, the drought, the fights with you—never once did I stop loving you or Ant or the farm.” Elsa laughed. “So, my long-winded answer to your question is this: Rose and Tony and the farm are home. We will see them all again. Someday.”

“They were crazy,” Loreda said. “Your other family, I mean. And they missed out.”

“On what?”

“You. They never saw how special you are.”

Elsa smiled. “That’s maybe the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Loreda.”

ON FRIDAY EVENING, AFTER another long day of picking cotton, Elsa and her children snuck out of camp and drove to the end of Willow Road for the strike meeting.

Inside the barn, typewriters clattered; people talked loudly and moved about. Communists, mostly. Not many of the workers were here.

Jack saw them in the doorway and came over. “The growers are getting nervous,” he said. “I heard Welty is fit to be tied.”

“The camp was full of men with guns last night. They didn’t threaten us, but we got the message,” Loreda said.

“We can hardly blame people for staying away,” Jack said.

“The Brennans ain’t comin’,” Ant said. “They said we’re crazy to come.”