The Four Winds

After her makeover—new haircut, new dress, a bit of lipstick—Loreda strides confidently down Main Street until she comes to the library. She enters, savoring the sight and smell of the books, remembering her love of reading and dreams of adventure. The librarian finds her a book and processes a library card for her. Loreda requests books for Anthony and Elsa as well. That night, after picking through Betty Ann’s donated clothes, Elsa gives the rest to Jean, who remarks on Elsa’s beauty. Elsa is self-deprecating, unused to compliments.

Winter comes, bringing rain and cold, and with no work, Elsa must rely on federal food welfare. After a two-hour wait in line, she receives a few scant provisions, not nearly enough to last the two weeks until her next scheduled allotment. As she leaves the welfare office, she sees a union organizer trying to rally support among the migrants, but the police arrest him. Elsa carries the supplies back to camp and shares a few items with the Deweys. Elsa wonders what Tony and Rose would think “if they knew we were living on the dole” (280). Somehow, the poverty, the squalid living conditions, the hunger, and the privation are less debilitating than the shame of needing help.

Christmas morning brings the first sunshine in a week. The mood around camp is brighter—the men play music, and the women sing hymns. For a few brief moments, they are community. Back in their tent, Elsa and the kids exchange gifts: a vest and a bar of chocolate for Anthony; for Loreda, new soles for her shoes and a library card; and for Elsa, a blank journal and some pencils, a reminder of her dreams of being a writer.

In the cold January evening, as Elsa counts their remaining funds, Jean goes into labor. She feels something is wrong, so Elsa drives her to the hospital. The nurse refuses to admit her, claiming, “This hospital is for Californians. You know, the folks who pay taxes” (289). She gives Elsa a pair of rubber gloves and tells her to deliver the baby herself. Elsa drives Jean back to camp, ordering Loreda to boil water. Elsa helps Jean with the delivery, but the baby doesn’t survive. Wracked by grief and outrage over the injustice, Elsa sobs “until she was as dry as the land they’d left behind” (292).

As they bury the baby, Loreda is overcome with rage, and once again, she vents it all on her mother. She threatens to leave, and Elsa, at the end of her rope, tells her to go. She goes back to the tent, grabs her suitcase and $2 from her mother’s box, and leaves. When Elsa returns from the gravesite, she enters the tent and sees that Loreda is gone. She runs out to the main road, yelling her daughter’s name, but there is no answer.

Loreda walks south along the main road, wondering how far it is to Los Angeles, when a truck pulls up. The driver offers her a ride to Bakersfield, telling her he has to make one stop first. She accepts.

The driver, Jack Valen, heads north past Welty into unknown territory. He turns off the main road onto an unlit dirt road. Loreda is nervous, although Valen appears calm. He pulls up to a barn in the middle of nowhere. Lights from inside indicate some kind of activity. He assures her that the meeting inside is nothing bad, but he asks for her silence nevertheless because “these are dangerous times” (301). She promises to keep quiet. Valen goes into the barn, telling Loreda to wait in the truck, but she is curious, so she follows another couple—well-dressed, not migrants—inside. Hiding in the shadows, she observes an animated group of men and women arguing, smoking, and typing, mimeograph machines churning out copies of leaflets.

Valen takes center stage and rails against Los Angeles for turning migrants away at the border and for the deplorable conditions in the squatters’ camps. Valen urges his audience, union organizers, to recruit migrants for membership in the Workers Alliance. Loreda wants to join, but Valen tells her she’s too young. She argues that, as a migrant herself who has experienced all the same injustice he condemns, she has a vested interest in the fight. They hear sirens, and Valen pushes Loreda up into the hayloft, telling her to stay hidden until morning. The police enter, confiscate the typewriters and mimeograph machines, and arrest everyone inside on charges of being communists.

Elsa walks to the Welty police station to report Loreda missing. The desk officer suggests she go home and wait; “Mostly, they come back” (307) he says. As she leaves the station, she bumps into a man, a vagrant she thinks, with a bloody face. He offers her a ride back to the camp, but she demurs. He tells her she reminds him of someone: “A warrior.”