After a long, sleepless night in the barn, Loreda climbed down from the loft as dawn turned the sky lavender and then pink and then golden.
She walked down the road, carrying her suitcase.
At Sutter Road, she looked out at the spray of tents and broken-down automobiles and cobbled-together shacks clustered in the winter-dead field.
Please still be here.
Loreda stayed away from the muddy ruts and kept to the grassy high ground as she headed for their tent. She passed a hovel built of metal scraps; inside, a man and woman huddled around a nub of a candle. The woman held a very still baby in her arms.
Up ahead, Loreda saw their truck parked by the tent. Her knees almost buckled in relief. Thank God. They were still here.
Loreda rounded the truck and saw the Deweys’ tent. Mrs. Dewey sat in a chair out front, hunched over, hands curled around a cup of coffee. Mom sat on an overturned apple crate beside her, writing in her journal.
Loreda slowed her step, moved quietly forward. In the silence that should have held a baby breathing, Loreda saw how broken both women looked.
Jean looked up first, smiled at Loreda, and touched Elsa’s arm. “It’s your girl. I told you she’d come back.”
Mom looked up.
Loreda felt a breathtaking rush of love for her mother. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
Mom closed her journal and stood up. She tried to smile, and in the failure, Loreda glimpsed the pain she’d caused by running away. Mom stood still, didn’t move toward Loreda.
Loreda knew this distance between them was hers to cross. “I’ve been as dumb as a box of marbles, Mom,” Loreda said, moving toward her.
A little laugh erupted from her mother; it sounded like joy. “Really. I’ve been a real crumb to you, Mom. And…” “Loreda—”
“I know you love me, and … I’m sorry, Mom. I love you. So much.” Mom pulled Loreda into her arms, held her tightly.
Loreda clung fiercely to her mother, afraid to let her go. “I was afraid you’d leave when I was gone…”
When Mom drew back, her eyes were bright and she was smiling. “You are of me, Loreda, in a way that can never be broken. Not by words or anger or actions or time. I love you. I will always love you.” She tightened her hold on Loreda’s shoulders. “You taught me love. You, first in the whole world, and my love for you will outlive me. If you had not come back…”
“I’m here, Mom,” Loreda said. “But I learned something last night. And I think it’s important.”
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ELSA GRASPED LOREDA’S HAND, unable to let go, and let her daughter lead her back to the tent and pull her inside.
“I can’t wait to tell you where I was,” Loreda said as she unbuttoned her coat.
The reunion was over, apparently. Loreda was on to new business. Elsa couldn’t help smiling at the quick change in her daughter’s demeanor.
Elsa sat down on the mattress beside Ant, who was still sleeping. “Where did you go?”
“To a Communist meeting. In a barn.”
“Oh. That is hardly what I would have guessed.” “I met a man.”
Elsa frowned. She started to get up. “A man? A grown man? Did he—” “A Communist!” Loreda sat down beside Elsa. “A whole group of them,
really. They were meeting in a barn north of here. They want to help us,
Mom.”
“A Communist,” Elsa said slowly, trying to process this new and dangerous information.
“They want to help us fight the growers.”
“Fight the growers? You mean the people who employ us? The people who pay us to pick their crops?”
“You call that pay?”
“It is pay, Loreda. It buys us the food we eat.” “I want you to come to a meeting with me.” “A meeting?”
“Yes. Just listen to them. You’ll like what—”
“No, Loreda,” Elsa said. “Absolutely not. I am not going and I forbid you to go. The people you met are dangerous.”
“But—”
“Believe me, Loreda, whatever the question is, communism is not the answer. We’re Americans. And we can’t get on the wrong side of the growers. We’re close enough to starvation as it is. So, no.”
“But it’s the right thing.”
“Look at this tent, Loreda. Do you think we have the luxury of fighting our employers? Do you think we have the luxury of waging a philosophical war? No. Just no. And I don’t want to hear about it again. Now, come, let’s get a little sleep. I’m exhausted.”
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RAIN FELL FOR DAYS. The land along the ditch bank became a pond. People started getting sick: typhoid, diphtheria, dysentery.
The burying ground doubled in size. Because the county hospital refused to treat most of the migrants, they had to help themselves as best they could.
Everyone was hungry and lethargic. Elsa spent as little as she possibly could on food, and still she watched their savings dwindle.
On this stormy winter night, Loreda and Ant were in bed, trying to sleep, burrowed beneath a pile of quilts.
Rain hammered the canvas, rippled the grayed fabric, and sluiced down the sides.
Elsa sat on an apple crate, writing in her journal by the meager light of a single candle.
For most of my life, weather was a thing remarked upon by the old men in their dusty hats who stopped to jaw with each other outside Wolcott Tractor Supply. A topic of conversation. Farmers studied the sky the way a priest read the word of God, looking for clues and signs and warnings. But all of it from a friendly distance, all of it with a faith in the essential kindness of our planet. But in this terrible decade, the weather has proven itself to be cruel. An adversary that we underestimated at our peril. Wind, dust, drought, and now this demoralizing rain, I fear—
Thunder exploded in a deafening craaaaack.
“That was a bad one,” Loreda said. Ant looked scared.
Elsa closed her journal and got up. She was halfway to the flaps when the tent collapsed around them. Water rushed in, sucked at Elsa’s legs. She shoved her journal in the bodice of her dress and reached out blindly for her children. “Kids! Come to me.”
She heard them clawing at the wet canvas, trying to find their way. “I’m here,” Elsa said.
Loreda reached her, held her hand, kept one arm around her brother. “We have to get out,” Elsa said, fighting to find the tent flaps.
Ant was crying beside her, clinging to her.
“Hang on to me,” Elsa shouted to him. She found the split in the fabric, wrenched the flaps open, stumbled out with the children. The tent whooshed past them, taking their belongings with it.
The money.
A gush of water hit Elsa so hard she almost fell.
Lightning flashed; in the light, she saw utter destruction. Garbage and leaves and wooden crates floated past, riding the torrent, there and gone in a second.
Holding tightly to her children’s hands, she slogged against the rising tide of water and made her way to the Deweys’ tent. “Jean! Jeb!”
The tent collapsed just as the Deweys crawled out.
The sound of people screaming rose above the howl of the storm.
Elsa saw headlights out on the road, turning. Coming their way.
She spat rain, pushed the wet hair out of her eyes, and yelled, “We need to go that way, toward the road.”
The two families stayed close together, all holding hands. Elsa’s boots filled with muddy water. She knew her children were barefoot in this cold, wet water.
Together they fought their way toward the headlights. There was a row of cars parked on the main road, headlights pointed at the camp. Halfway there, Elsa saw a line of people with flashlights. A tall man stepped forward, wearing a brown canvas duster and a hat that sagged in the rain. “This way, ma’am,” he yelled. “We’re here to help you.”
The Deweys made it to the row of volunteers. Elsa saw someone hand Jean a raincoat.
Elsa looked back. Their tent was gone now, washed away, but the truck was still there. If she didn’t get it now, she would lose it.
She pushed her children forward. “Go,” she said. “I have to get the truck.”
“No, Mom, you can’t,” Loreda shouted.
Rushing water tried to push Elsa over. She pulled Ant’s wet hand out of hers and shoved him at Loreda. “Get yourselves to safety.”
“No, Mom—”
Elsa saw the tall volunteer heading their way again. She pushed her children toward the man, said, “Save them,” and turned back.
“Ma’am, you can’t—”
Elsa fought her way to the truck, which was running-board deep in water. A plastic doll in a muddy pink dress floated by, blue marble eyes staring upward. Mud and water had swept their campsite away; everything was gone. The stove had been knocked over; water swirled over it. She thought about the box that held their money and knew she’d never find it.
She climbed into the truck, grateful for once that she kept the keys in the glove box. Auto theft was low on anyone’s mind when gas was unaffordable.
Please start.
Elsa turned the key in the ignition.
It took five tries and five prayers before the truck grumbled and groaned and came to life.
She turned on the headlights and put the truck in gear.
The truck jostled from side to side, fighting its way out of the mud. Elsa kept her hands tight on the wheel; her feet worked the pedals. The vehicle rolled and bucked and sometimes the engine whined, but finally the tires found purchase.
Elsa drove slowly out to the road, where a string of volunteers helped people into cars. She saw Loreda step out of an old-fashioned, wooden- cabbed truck into the pouring rain and wave her hands in the air. “Follow us, Mom!”
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ELSA FOLLOWED THE OLD truck into Welty. On a small, deserted street by the railroad tracks, it pulled up in front of a boarded-up hotel. On either side of the hotel were businesses that had been shut down. A Mexican restaurant and a laundry and a bakery. The streetlights were off. A shuttered gas station boasted a hand-lettered sign that read: THIS IS YOUR COUNTRY. DON’T LET THE BIG MEN TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOU!
Elsa had never seen this street. It was several blocks from the main section of Welty. The few houses she could see looked dilapidated and deserted. She pulled up alongside the other truck and parked.
She stepped out into the driving rain. Her children immediately ran to her; she drew them in close, holding them tightly, shivering.
“Where are the Deweys?” Elsa yelled to be heard over the storm. “They left with other volunteers.”
The driver of the truck stepped out. At first all she noticed was his height and the familiarity of the dark brown duster he wore. It was an old- fashioned coat, something a cowboy would wear. She’d seen it before, somewhere. He walked toward Elsa, through the headlights’ rain-beaded glare.
It came to her: she’d seen him spouting Communist rhetoric in town once, and again outside the jail, where he’d been beaten on the night Loreda ran away.
“The jailbird,” she said.
“The warrior,” he answered. “I’m Jack Valen. Come. Let’s get you warm.”
“He’s the Communist I met, Mom,” Loreda said. “Yes,” Elsa said. “I’ve seen him in town.”
He led them to the padlocked hotel door and put a key in the lock. The big black lock clattered to the side. He pushed the door open.
“Wait. The hotel looks boarded up,” Elsa said.
“Looks can be deceiving. In fact, we count on that,” Jack said. “A friend owns this place. It only looks abandoned. We keep it boarded up, for— Well, never mind. You can have one or two nights here. I wish it could be more.”
“We are grateful for anything,” Elsa said, shivering.
“Your friends the Deweys were taken to the abandoned grange hall. We are doing what we can. It came on so suddenly. There will be more help in place in the morning.”
“From Communists?”
“I don’t see anyone else here, do you?”
He led them inside the small hotel, which smelled of decay and cigarette smoke and must.
It took Elsa’s eyes a moment to adjust. She saw a burgundy desk with a wall of brass keys behind it.
She followed Jack up to the second floor. There he opened a door to reveal a small, dusty room with a large canopy bed, a pair of nightstands, and a closed door.
He walked past them into the room and opened the closed door. “A bathroom,” Elsa whispered.
“There’s hot water,” he said. “Warm, at least.”
Ant and Loreda shrieked and ran for the shower. Elsa heard them turn it on.
“Come on, Mom!”
Jack looked at Elsa. “Do you have a name besides ‘Mom’?” “Elsa.”
“It is nice to meet you, Elsa. Now I must go back out to help.” “I’m coming with you.”
“There’s no need. Get warm. Stay with your children.” “Those are my people, Jack. I’m going to help them.” He didn’t argue. “I will meet you downstairs.”
Elsa went into the bathroom, saw her children in the shower together, fully dressed, laughing. She said, “I’m going to help Jack and his friends, Loreda. You guys get some sleep.”
Loreda said, “I’ll come!”
“No. I need you to watch Ant and get warm. Please. No fighting with me.”
Elsa hurried back outside. Now there were several automobiles in the parking lot with their lights on.
Volunteers gathered in a semicircle around Jack, who was clearly their leader. “Back to the ditch-bank camp off of Sutter Road. We need to save as many of them as we can. The grange hall has room, and so do the depot and the barns at the fairground.”
Elsa climbed into Jack’s truck. They joined a steady stream of blurred yellow headlights in the falling rain. Jack leaned sideways, grabbed a ratty brown sack from behind Elsa’s seat. “Here, put these on.” He dropped the bag in her lap.
Fingers shaking with cold, she opened it, found a pair of men’s pants and a flannel shirt, both huge.
“I have something to tie the pants tight,” he said.
He pulled off to the side of the road at the destroyed encampment. Drenched, dislocated people walked toward the road, clutching whatever they’d been able to save.
In the darkness beside the truck, Elsa stripped out of her wet dress and into the oversized flannel shirt, and then put on the pants. Her journal fell out of her bodice, surprising her. She’d forgotten she’d saved it. She set it on the truck’s seat, then stepped back into her wet galoshes and out into the rushing water.
Jack yanked off his tie and fit it through the belt loops on her borrowed pants, cinching the waistband tightly. Then he took off his coat and put it around her shoulders.
Elsa was too cold to be polite. She put on the coat, buttoned it up. “Thank you.”
He took her by the hand. “The water is still rising. Be careful.”
Elsa held on to his hand as they slogged through the cold, muddy, rising water. Ruined belongings floated past them. She saw a broken-down truck
with a pile of junk tarped in the back. And a face. “There,” she yelled to Jack, pointed.
“We’re here to help,” Jack shouted.
The black, shiny tarp slowly lifted. Huddled beneath it, Elsa saw, was a bony woman in a wet dress, holding a toddler. Both her face and the toddler’s were blue with cold.
“Let us help you,” Jack said, reaching out.
The woman pushed the tarp aside and crawled forward, holding her child close. Elsa immediately put an arm around the woman, felt how thin she was.
At the side of the road, volunteers—more now—were waiting with umbrellas and raincoats and blankets and hot coffee.
“Thank you,” the woman said.
Elsa nodded and turned back to Jack. Together, they trudged back to the camp.
Water and wind beat at them; mud filled Elsa’s boots with cold.
They worked through the long, wet night. Along with the rest of the volunteers, they helped people get away from the flooded encampment; they took as many as they could to warmth, got them settled in whatever buildings they could find.
By six in the morning, the rain and the flooding had stopped and dawn revealed the devastation caused by the flash flood. The ditch-bank camp had been washed away. Belongings floated in the water. Tents lay in tangled masses, ruined. Sheets of cardboard and metal lay scattered, as did boxes and buckets and quilts. Jalopies were up to their fenders in water and mud, trapped in place.
Elsa stood by the side of the road, staring at the flooded land. People like her who had almost nothing had lost everything.
Jack came up beside Elsa and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “You are dead on your feet.”
She pushed the wet hair out of her eyes. Her hand trembled at the effort. “I’m fine.”
Jack said something.
She heard his voice but the vowels and consonants were stretched out of shape. She started to say, I’m fine, again, but the lie got lost somewhere between her brain and her tongue.
“Elsa!”
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
Oh, wait. I’m falling.
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ELSA WAKENED IN JACK’S truck as it rattled to a stop in front of the boarded- up hotel. Elsa sat up, feeling dizzy. She saw her journal on the seat beside her and picked it up.
The parking area was crowded with people now. It had become a disaster staging area. Volunteers offered food and hot coffee and clothes to the flood victims, who walked around with a dazed look.
Elsa got out of the truck, staggered sideways. Jack was there to catch her.
She tried to pull away. “I should go to see my children—”
“They’re probably still sleeping. I’ll make sure they’re fine and tell them where you are. For now, though, you are getting some sleep. I saved a room for you.”
Sleep. She had to admit it sounded good.
He helped her up the stairs and into the room next to her children’s. Once inside, he led her straight into the bathroom, where he turned on the shower water and waited impatiently for it to get warm; when it did, he wrenched back the curtain. Elsa couldn’t hold back a sigh. Warm water. She tossed her journal onto a shelf above the toilet.
Before she fully understood what he was doing, Jack had removed her galoshes and peeled the heavy canvas duster off of her and pushed her into the spray of water, fully dressed.
Elsa tilted her head back, let the hot water run through her hair. Jack pulled the shower curtain shut and left her.
The water at Elsa’s feet turned black with the mud. She stripped out of Jack’s clothes—probably ruined now—and reached for the soap in the dish and rubbed it in her hands. Lavender.
She washed her hair and scrubbed her skin until it tingled. When the water began to cool, she stepped out, dried off, and wrapped herself in the towel. Steam hung in the room. She washed Jack’s clothes in the sink, then
draped the shirt and pants and her undergarments and socks over the towel rack and returned to the bedroom.
Clean sheets.
What a luxury.
Maybe Jack was right. A short nap might help.
Elsa thought of all the laundry she’d done in her life, the joy she’d always taken in hanging sheets to dry, but never until now had she fully, deeply appreciated the sheer physical pleasure of clean sheets on naked skin. The fresh smell of lavender soap in her hair.
She rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Within moments, she was asleep.
