In November, the first winter storm battered them from the north, leaving behind a fine layer of snow. Clean, glistening, and white, it dusted the windmill’s rough blades, the chicken coop, the cows’ hides, and the land itself.
Snow was a good sign. It meant water. Water meant crops. Crops meant food on the table.
On this particularly frigid day, Elsa stood at the kitchen table, rolling meatballs in hands that were pink and swollen and pocked with blisters. Chilblains were common this season and everyone in the house—in the county—had raw, burning throats and gritty, bloodshot eyes that itched from too many dust storms.
She placed the garlic-seasoned pork meatballs on a baking sheet and covered them with a towel, then went into the sitting room, where Rose sat by the stove darning socks.
Tony came into the house, stomped the snow from his boots, and slammed the door behind him. He made a chapel of his gloved hands and blew into them. His cheeks were red and roughened by cold, scoured by wind. His hair stuck out in frozen shards. “The windmill isn’t pumping,” he said. “Must be the cold.” He walked over to the woodstove. Beside it, a barrel held their dwindling supply of cow chips. In these dust and drought years, the animals on the Great Plains were dying, and so this treeless land was losing the fuel source that the farmers had assumed would last forever.
He fed a few into the fire. “There are still a few broken slats in the hog pen. I’d best go chop ’em up. We’re going to need a roaring fire tonight.”
“I’ll go,” Elsa said.
She retrieved her winter coat and gloves from the hook by the door and stepped out into the frosted world. Glittery, frozen tumbleweeds cartwheeled across the yard, breaking pieces off at every rotation.
She grabbed an ax from the wooden box.
Carrying it out to the empty hog pen, she surveyed the remaining slats and picked her spot, then lifted the ax, brought it down, and felt the thunk of metal on wood reverberate up through her shoulder, heard the craaack of the wood breaking.
It took her less than half an hour to destroy what was left of the hog pen and turn it into firewood.
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THE SKY WAS SO gray it could smother a soul.
Elsa sat with Ant in the back of the wagon, bundled up in quilts. Loreda sat by herself, wrapped in blankets, her cheeks pink and chapped from the unseasonable cold. She had become increasingly silent and distant since Rafe had left. Elsa was surprised to realize that she preferred her daughter’s loud anger to this quiet depression. Rose and Tony sat up front, with Tony handling the reins. All of them were dressed in what tattered clothes could be called their Sunday best.
Lonesome Tree was quiet on this late-November day. Quiet in the way of a dying town. Snow covered everything.
The Catholic church looked lonely. Half of the roof had been torn away last month, and the spire had been broken. One more good wind and it would be gone.
Tony parked the wagon out front, tied the horse to the hitching post. He hauled a bucket over to the pump, filled it, and left it for Milo.
Elsa tugged a felt cloche down over her braided hair and gathered her children close. Together, they climbed the creaking steps and walked into the church. Several broken windows had been repaired with plywood, making the altar dark.
In good years there hadn’t been many Catholics in town, and these were far from good years. Every Sunday fewer came. The Irish Catholics had their own church, over in Dalhart, and the Mexicans worshipped in churches that had been built hundreds of years ago. But they were all losing members. Every church in the county was. More and more postcards and letters had begun to land in mailboxes in the Great Plains, containing notes from people in California and Oregon and Washington who had found jobs and were encouraging their kin to follow.
Elsa heard people coming in behind them. Unlike the old days, there was no gathering of women to gossip about recipes and no clot of men arguing about the weather. Even the children were quiet. The sound of hacking coughs rose above the squeaking of wooden pews.
In time, Father Michael stood before the altar and looked out at his much-diminished flock.
“We are being tested.” He looked as tired as Elsa felt. As tired as they all felt. “Let us pray this snow means rain to come. Crops to come.”
“God’s no help,” Loreda grumbled. Rose elbowed Loreda hard.
“Tested does not mean forgotten,” Father Michael said, peering through his small round glasses at Loreda. “Let us pray.”
Elsa bowed her head. God help us, she thought but wasn’t certain it was exactly a prayer. More of a desperate plea.
They prayed and sang and prayed some more and then filed up for Communion.
When it was over, they looked at their remaining friends and neighbors. No one made eye contact for long. Each was remembering the food and fellowship that used to grace their Sundays.
Outside, the Carrio family stood by the frosted water pump.
Mr. Carrio broke free of his family and strode toward them, his face shuttered tightly. No one wanted to show too much emotion these days, afraid a little could become too much in an instant.
“Tony,” he said, pushing the hair back from his cold-reddened face. He was a shriveled, sinewy man, with a bulwark of a jaw and a thin nose.
Papa removed his hat, shook his friend’s hand. “Where are the Cirillos?” “Ray got a letter from his sister in Los Angeles,” he said in a thick Italian accent. “Seems she’s heeled. Got herself a good job. Him and
Andrea and the kids are fixin’ to head out that way, too. Says there ain’t no reason to stay.”
A silence followed.
“Wish we’d left already,” Mr. Carrio said. “No money for gas now. You heard from your boy? He found work?”
“Not yet,” Tony said tightly. None of them had told anyone the truth of Rafe’s desertion. The idea of his betrayal and weakness becoming public was more than they could bear.
“Too bad,” Mr. Carrio said. “Seems you’re stuck.” “I’d never leave my land,” Tony said.
Mr. Carrio’s face darkened. “Ain’t you figured it out, Tony? This land don’t want us here. And it’s gonna get worse.”
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EVERY DAY OF THAT long, unseasonably cold winter, Elsa woke with a single purpose: keep her children fed. Each day their survival felt less certain. She woke in the dark, alone, and dressed without the benefit of light. Lord knew nothing good came of looking in a mirror anyway. Her lips were always chapped with cold and swollen from her habit of biting down when she worried. And she was always worried. About the cold, about the crops, about her children’s health. That was the worst of it. School had closed last week for good—it had fallen to twenty degrees in the schoolhouse. With the supply of cow chips disappearing, heating the school had become a luxury none of them could afford. So now Elsa had added schooling to her list of chores. For a woman who hadn’t graduated from high school, being responsible for her children’s education was a daunting ordeal, but she did it with zeal. If there was one thing she wanted above all else, it was for her children to have the opportunities that came with education.
It wasn’t until nighttime, after prayers with her children, when she collapsed into her lonely bed, that she let herself think of Rafe, miss him, ache for him. She thought of how kind he’d always been and she wondered now if he would miss her, even some small bit. They had history together, after all, and she couldn’t help loving him still. In spite of everything, all the pain and heartbreak and anger he’d left in his wake, when she closed her eyes at night, she missed him beside her, missed the sound of his breathing
and the hope she’d felt that one day he would really love her. She’d think, I wish I’d said, “I’ll go to California,” over and over until a fitful sleep came to save her.
Thank God for this farm and her children, because some days she still wanted to crawl in a hole and cry. Or maybe become one of those crazy women who wore pajamas and slippers all day and stood at a window awaiting the man who’d left. For the first time in her life, she understood the physical pain of betrayal. She would do almost anything to hide from it. Run. Drink. Take laudanum …
But she wasn’t an I. She was a we. Her two beautiful children were counting on her, even if Loreda didn’t know it yet.
On this cold late-December day, she woke late and dressed in every piece of clothing she owned, covering her stringy hair with both a red bandanna and the woolen hat Rose had knit her for Christmas.
She coiled Rafe’s shirt around her throat like a scarf and went into the kitchen and put wheat cereal on to boil.
Today, finally, they were going to get help from the government. It was big news in town. Last Sunday at church, no one had been able to talk about anything else.
She slipped into her winter boots and walked outside, shivering instantly. She tossed handfuls of grain at the chickens and checked their water. The well had been troublesome during this freezing winter, only working sporadically. Thank God when it froze they could gather snow to keep the animals and themselves in water. She saw Tony chopping wood by the side of the house—barn boards being ripped down and cut into kindling.
She waved as she headed to the barn. At the corral, she snapped a lead rope onto Milo’s halter.
The poor starving animal gave her such a sorrowful look that it gave her pause. “I know, boy. We all feel that way.”
She led the bony gelding out into the bright blue day. She had just finished hitching him to the wagon when Tony appeared beside her.
She saw how red his cheeks were from the cold, saw the plumes of his breath and the weight loss that had sunken his face and eyes. For a man who had two religions—God and the land—he was dying a little each day, disappointed by them both. He spent long minutes throughout the day
staring at his snow-covered winter-wheat fields, begging his God to let the wheat grow. “This meeting will be the answer,” she said.
“I hope so,” he said.
The season of cold had been hard on Loreda, too. She’d lost her father and her best friend and now school had closed. The dwindling of her world left her sullen and depressed.
Elsa heard the farmhouse door bang open. Footsteps clattered on the porch steps. Loreda and Ant shuffled toward the wagon, bundled up in anything that still fit. Rose came out behind them, carrying a box full of the goods they’d be selling in town.
Elsa and the children climbed into the back of the wagon with the box of goods to be sold.
Elsa wrapped Ant up in a quilt and held him close. Loreda would rather freeze than join them, so she sat across from them, shivering.
Tony snapped the reins and Milo plodded forward. In the wagon bed, soap clattered in the slatted box. Elsa kept one gloved hand on the stack of eggs to keep them from falling. “You know, Loreda, if you joined us just to get warm, I promise I would still know that you are angry.”
“Very funny.” Loreda crossed her arms; her teeth chattered. “You’re turning blue,” Elsa said.
“No, I’m not.”
“Sorta red, though,” Ant said, grinning. “Don’t look at me,” Loreda said.
“You’re directly across from us,” Elsa said. Loreda pointedly looked away.
Ant giggled.
Loreda rolled her eyes.
Elsa turned her attention to the land.
Snow-covered, this landscape looked beautiful. There weren’t many dwellings between town and the Martinelli farm, but several of the places along the way were abandoned. Cabins and shacks and dugouts and homes with boarded-up windows and FOR SALE signs plastered over foreclosure notices.
They passed the abandoned Mull place. Last she heard, Tom and Lorri had followed their kin to California on foot. On foot. How could anyone be
that desperate? And Tom had been a lawyer by trade. It wasn’t just farmers going broke these days.
So many were leaving.
Let’s go to California.
Elsa pushed the thought away with force, although she knew it would come back to haunt her in the dark.
In town, Tony parked the wagon and tied Milo to a hitching post. Elsa retrieved the wooden box full of eggs and butter and soap and hefted it into her arms. On the few still-open storefronts, placards announced the arrival today of Hugh Bennett, a scientist from President Roosevelt’s new Civilian Conservation Corps. In an attempt to put Americans back to work, FDR had created dozens of agencies, put folks to work documenting the Depression in words and photographs and in sweat labor, building bridges and fixing roads. Bennett had come all the way from Washington, D.C., to finally help the farmers.
Inside the mercantile, Elsa was struck by the empty shelves. Even so, there was a tantalizing collection of colors and aromas. Coffee, perfumes that hadn’t been purchased in years, a box of apples. Here and there on the barren shelves were utensils and dress patterns and shade hats and bags of rice and sugar and tinned meat and canned milk. Stacks of gingham and polka-dot and striped fabric lay gathering dust, as did the stacks of eyelets and lace. Grain sacks had become the only fabric used for clothing.
She went up to the main counter, where Mr. Pavlov stood, wearing a weary smile and a white shirt that had seen better days. Once one of the richest men in town, he was now hanging on to his store by his fingernails, and everyone knew it. His family had moved in above the store when the bank foreclosed on his house.
“Martinellis,” he said. “You in town for the meeting?” Elsa set the box of goods on the counter.
“We are,” Tony said. “You?”
“I’ll walk over. I sure hope the government can help folks around here. I hate to see people give up and leave.”
Tony nodded. “Most are staying, though.” “Farmers are tough.”
“We’ve worked too hard and made too many sacrifices to walk away.
Droughts end.”
Mr. Pavlov nodded and glanced at the box Elsa had laid on the counter. “Chickens still laying. Good for you.”
“That’s Elsa’s soap, too,” Rose said. “Scented with lavender. Your missus loves it.”
The children came up to stand beside Elsa. She couldn’t help remembering how they’d once run around in here, oohing and aahing over candies, begging for treats.
Mr. Pavlov pushed the rimless glasses higher up on his nose. “What do you need?”
“Coffee. Sugar. Rice. Beans. Maybe some yeast? A tin of that nice olive oil, if you have it.”
Mr. Pavlov did calculations in his head. When he was satisfied, he yanked on the basket that hung from a length of rope beside him. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote on it: Sugar. Coffee. Beans. Rice. Then said, “No olive oil in stock and no charge for yeast,” and put the list in the basket and pulled a lever that lifted to the second floor of the store, where his wife and daughter did the receipts.
Moments later, a heavyset girl came out from the back room hauling a sack of sugar, some coffee, a bag of rice, and another of beans.
Ant stared at the jar of licorice whips on the counter. Elsa touched her son’s head.
“Licorice is on special today,” Mr. Pavlov said. “Two whips for the price of one. I could put it on a tab.”
“You know I don’t believe in handouts,” Tony said. “And I don’t know when we could pay.”
“I know,” Mr. Pavlov said. “My treat. Take two.”
His kindness was the sort of thing that made life bearable out here. “Thank you, Mr. Pavlov,” Elsa said.
Tony stowed the new goods in the back of the wagon and covered them with a tarp. Leaving Milo tied to the hitching post, they walked along the icy boardwalk toward the boarded-up schoolhouse, where several other horse-and-wagon teams waited outside.
“Ain’t many folks here,” Tony said.
Rose reached for his hand. “I heard Emmett got a postcard from his kin in Washington State. Railroad jobs there.”
“They’ll be sorry,” Tony said. “Those jobs are a pipe dream. Gotta be. Millions are out of work. Let’s say you do run off to Portland or Seattle and there ain’t work. Then where will you be—in a strange place with no land and no job.”
Elsa held Ant’s hand. Together they climbed the steps up to the schoolhouse. Inside, the children’s desks had been pushed out of the way, positioned along the walls. Plywood covered several of the broken windows. Someone had set up a row of chairs facing a portable movie screen.
“Oh, boy,” Ant called out. “A movie!”
Tony led the family to a row in the back, where they sat with the other Italians who were left in town.
A few more folks filed in, no one saying much. A couple of the older folks coughed constantly, a reminder of the dust storms that had ravaged the land this fall.
The door banged shut and the lights went out.
There was a whir and clatter of sound; a black-and-white image appeared on the white screen: it was a howling windstorm blowing through a farm. Tumbleweeds cartwheeled past a boarded-up house.
The caption read: 30% of all the farmers on the Great Plains face foreclosure.
The next image was of a Red Cross hospital, beds full, gray-uniformed nurses tending to coughing babies and old people. Dust pneumonia takes a terrible toll.
In the next image, farmers poured milk into the streets, where it disappeared instantly in the arid dirt.
Milk sells for below production costs …
Haggard, ragged men, women, and children drifted across a gray screen, looking ghostlike. A Hooverville encampment. Thousands living in cardboard boxes or broken-down cars or shacks cobbled together from cans and sheet metal. Folks standing in soup lines …
The movie snapped off. The lights came back on.
Elsa heard footsteps, boot heels clacking confidently on the hardwood floor. Like everyone else, Elsa turned.
Here was a man with presence, dressed better than anyone in town. He moved the makeshift movie screen out of the way, stepped over to the
blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, wrote Farming methods, and underlined the words.
He turned to face the crowd. “I’m Hugh Bennett. The President of the United States has appointed me to his new Conservation Corps. I’ve spent months touring the farmland of the Great Plains. Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas. I got to say, folks, this summer it was as dire in Lonesome Tree as anywhere I’ve seen. And who knows how long the drought will go on? I hear only a few of you even bothered to plant a crop this year.”
“Don’t you reckon we know it?” someone yelled, coughing.
“You know there’s been no rain, friend. I’m here to tell you it’s more than that. What’s happening to your land is a dire ecological disaster, maybe the worst in our country’s history, and you have to change your farming methods to stop it from getting worse.”
“You sayin’ it’s our fault?” Tony said.
“I’m saying you contributed,” Bennett said. “Oklahoma has lost almost four hundred and fifty million tons of topsoil. Truth is that you farmers have to see your part in it or this great land will die.”
The Carrington family got up and walked out, slamming the door behind them. The Renke family followed.
“So, what do we do?” Tony asked.
“The way y’all farm the land is destroying it. You dug up the grasses which held the topsoil in place. The plow broke the prairie. When the rain died and the wind came up, there was nothing to stop your land from blowing away. This here is a man-made disaster, so we got to fix it. We need the grasses back. We need soil-conservation methods in place.”
“It’s the weather and the damn greedy banksters on Wall Street, closing their banks, taking our money, that’s what’s ruining us,” Mr. Carrio said.
“FDR wants to pay y’all not to plant next year. We’ve got a conservation plan. You’ve got to rest some of this land, plant grass. But it isn’t enough for one or two of you to do it. Y’all have to do it. You have to protect the Great Plains, not just your own acreage.”
“That’s it?” Mr. Pavlov said, standing up in a huff. “You’re telling ’em not to plant next year? Grow grass? Why don’t you just light a match on what’s left? The farmers need help.”
“FDR cares about the farmers. He knows you’ve been forgotten. He has a plan. To start with, the government will buy your livestock for sixteen
bucks a head. If possible, we’ll use your cattle to feed the poor. If not, if they’re full of dirt, which I’ve seen out here, we’ll pay you and bury them.” “That’s it?” Tony said. “You brung us all the way down here to tell us the disaster is our fault, we need to plant grass, which ain’t a crop that makes money, in land too dry to grow anything, in a drought—seeds we can’t afford—and oh, yeah, kill your last living farm animal for sixteen lousy
bucks.”
“There’s a plan for relief. We want to pay you not to grow crops. Might even get the banks to forgive mortgage payments.”
“We don’t want charity,” someone called out. “We want help. We want water. What good is keeping our houses if the land is useless?”
“We’re farmers. We want to plant our crops. We want to take care of ourselves.”
“Enough,” Tony said. He shoved his seat back and stood up. “Come on.
We’re leaving.”
When Elsa glanced back, she saw the disappointment on Bennett’s face as more families followed the Martinellis out of the schoolhouse.
