Кристин Ханна - The Four Winds

Elsa paused, surprised by how loud and forceful her voice had become. She stared out at the workers, saw for the first time that their ragged clothes and hungry faces were badges of courage, of survival. They were good people who didn’t give up. “We came to find a better life, to feed our children. We aren’t lazy or shiftless. We don’t want to live the way we do. It’s time,” she said. “Time to say, No more . No more company store cheating us and keeping us poor. No more lowering wages. No more using us up and spitting us out and pitting us against each other. We deserve better. No more .”

“No more!” Ike yelled.

Loreda shouted, “No more!”

There was a moment’s pause, and then the crowd rallied, blocked the strikebreakers, and chanted back at Elsa in unison.

“No more. No more. No more!”

The crowd raised their voices and their signs, ignoring the gunman in the tower and the policemen and masked vigilantes.

Their courage stunned and invigorated Elsa, who chanted with them.

“Fair wages!” the pickers chanted, lifting their picket signs into the air.

Elsa heard a high whistling sound, then a thunk of something metal landing at her feet. A second later, smoke erupted, blanketing everything, obscuring the world.

Elsa’s eyes stung. She saw the strikers run blindly into each other, panicked. They backed away from the truck.

Someone shouted, “They’re throwing tear-gas bombs!”

More whistling, metal tear-gas canisters landed among the crowd; smoke billowed up.

Elsa lifted the megaphone. “Run into the fields, not away,” she cried out, coughing hard. She wiped her eyes but it didn’t help. “Don’t give up!”

The workers panicked, ran in every direction, bumped into each other. No one could see much through the stinging tear gas.

A shot rang out, loud even in the pandemonium.

Elsa felt something hit her so hard she staggered, clutched her side.

Warm, wet, sticky.

I’m bleeding.

She heard Loreda scream, “Mom!” and Elsa wanted to answer, to say, I’m fine, but the pain.

The pain.

She dropped the megaphone, heard it thunk to the back of the truck. Through the burning, stinging haze of smoke, she saw Loreda pushing through the crowd, screaming, and Ant stumbling along beside her.

All Elsa wanted was to let them get to her, stay awake, tell them how much she loved them, but pain was overtaking her, squeezing until she couldn’t breathe … My babies, she thought, reaching out for them.

IT SEEMED TO HAPPEN in slow motion: the sound of a gunshot, Mom staggering forward, blood turning her dress red. Jack throwing men off of him.

Loreda screamed and grabbed Ant’s hand, fighting her way toward the truck, through the panicking crowd. She saw Jack hit one of the vigilantes with his own bat and fell another with a punch.

“They shot her!” someone yelled. The vigilantes backed away from the truck.

Jack jumped into the back of the truck, took Mom in his arms.

“Is she alive?” Loreda screamed.

Mom opened her red, teary eyes and looked at Jack. “We failed.”

Jack lifted Mom into his arms and carried her out of the truck.

He stood in front of the strikers, holding Elsa. Her blood dripped through his fingers and onto the ground. Tear gas drifted past them.

“Strike … lead them,” Mom whispered, and Loreda understood.

“Arrest them!” Welty shouted to his henchmen, but the policemen backed away from the woman covered in blood. The vigilantes froze. Some dropped their weapons. The strikebreakers fell silent.

Loreda saw a rifle on the ground at her feet. She picked it up, walked over to Welty, who blocked the entrance to the field, and aimed the gun at his chest.

Welty raised his hands into the air. “You wouldn’t dare—”

“Wouldn’t I? If you don’t get out of our way, I’ll kill you. As sure as I stand here.”

“It won’t do any good. I’ll break your damn strike.”

Loreda cocked the gun. “Not today.”

Welty stepped aside, moving slowly.

Ike stepped forward, pushed his way through the crowd. He walked past Jack and headed into the field. Then Jeb and his children followed … and Bobby Rand and his father.

The workers filed silently, solemnly into the field, taking up space in the rows, making sure no one could pick this cotton today.

In Jack’s arms, Mom lifted her head, looked out at the strikers gathered in front of her. She smiled and whispered, “No more.”

As scared and shaken as Loreda was, she’d never been prouder of anyone in her life.

JACK HELD MOM IN his arms and kicked the hospital door open. “My wife needs help.”

The woman at the front desk looked horrified as she raised up out of her cushy chair. “You can’t—”

“I’m a goddamn California resident,” Jack said. “Get a doctor.”

“But—”

“ Now, ” Jack said in a voice so dangerous even Loreda felt a flash of fear.

The woman called for a doctor.

While they waited, blood dripped onto the clean floor. Ant saw it and started to cry. Loreda pulled him close.

A man in white bustled toward them, flanked by a nurse in a starched uniform.

“Gunshot in the abdomen,” Jack said. His voice broke halfway through the sentence and Loreda saw his fear. It heightened her own.

The doctor called for help and within moments Mom was on a gurney, being rushed away from them.

Jack pulled Ant close, held him. Loreda moved in to be with them. Jack’s arm circled her.

All Loreda could think about was how mean she’d been to her mom. For years. There was so much to say now, to undo. She wanted to tell her mother how much she loved and admired her, how she wanted to be just like her when she grew up. Why hadn’t she said it all before?

Loreda wiped her tears, but more kept falling. She couldn’t even be strong for Ant. She prayed for the first time in years. Please, God, save her.

I can’t live without my mom.

WHITE.

Lights too bright.

Stinging.

Pain.

Elsa opened her eyes again, squinted at the intensity of the light overhead.

She was in bed.

She turned her head slowly. Every breath hurt.

Jack sat in a chair beside her, holding Ant on his lap. Her son’s eyes were red, bloodshot. Tears streaked his freckled cheeks.

“Elsa,” Jack said softly.

“She’s awake,” Ant said.

Loreda rushed in, almost pushed Jack and her brother aside. “Mommy,” she said.

Mommy.

That one word brought everything back: Elsa rocking Loreda to sleep, reading her stories, teaching her to make fettuccine, whispering Be brave, into her ear.

“Where…”

Jack touched her face. “You’re in the hospital.”

“And?”

She saw the answer in her loved ones’ eyes. They were already grieving.

“They couldn’t repair the damage,” Jack said. “Too much internal bleeding, and your heart … they say there’s something wrong with it. Can’t keep up or some damn thing. They’ve given you pain medication … there’s nothing else they can do.”

“But they’re wrong,” Loreda said. “Everyone’s always been wrong about you, Mom. Haven’t they? Like me.” Loreda started to cry. “You’ll be fine. You’re strong.”

Elsa didn’t need them to tell her she was dying. She could feel her body shutting down.

But not her heart. Her heart was so full it couldn’t hold all of the love she felt when she looked at these three who had shown her the world. She’d thought she had a lifetime to show them her love.

Time.

Hers had gone too fast. She’d only just discovered who she was.