The Four Winds

Loreda and Anthony wake up the next morning, don their still-damp clothes, and head outside, where several relief agencies have set up tents with food and donated clothes. Loreda approaches the Workers Alliance tent, and she volunteers. By noon, hundreds of volunteers have arrived to hand out supplies. Loreda sits with Natalia, one of Jack’s colleagues, in the Workers Alliance tent, having secured clothes for herself, Anthony, and Elsa. Watching Jack play catch with Anthony, Loreda yearns for someone like him in their lives, a man “who didn’t just spout ideas, but fought for them, took beatings for them, and stayed in place” (324). Loreda is inspired to fight, but almost no other migrants seem interested in joining the Alliance. Natalia explains how, once the Mexican field workers demanded higher wages, the government deported them. Now, the migrants have filled their shoes, and the big growers fear the same union organization.

Elsa sleeps late. When she wakes, she puts on the clothes Loreda has placed next to her bed and wanders outside. Jack offers her coffee, and they sit together. She sees Loreda’s name on the Workers Alliance sign-up sheet and tells Jack that her daughter will not be joining. They discuss the plight of the migrants, and Jack explains that he just wants to help. He leads them to Welty Farms, a corporate operation just outside of town, and tells them how to gain access to the workers’ housing. The guard offers her a cabin and work on the farm with access to a school, bathrooms, and laundry facilities, all for $6 a month. She doesn’t know how she’ll pay for it, but she accepts the offer and drives to the vacant cabin. After she has unloaded their few belongings, Jack shows up, trying to convince Elsa to join. She refuses, afraid to lose her job. That night, she writes to Tony and Rose informing them of their new address.

The next morning, Anthony and Loreda attend school. When Loreda asks about workers’ unions and the treatment of migrants, the teacher kicks her out for her “un-American” rhetoric. Walking back into town, Loreda enters the library and asks the librarian for a book on workers’ rights. She returns with Ten Days That Shook the World, an account of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution by American journalist John Reed, but she warns Loreda to be discreet: “You be careful what you say and to whom, especially in this town” (341).

Elsa spends her morning doing laundry, and then she goes to the company store. Everything is overpriced, she notices, and the shopkeeper invites her to “just take what you need” (343). She is wary of purchasing anything on credit—especially when it will all come out of her pay—but she needs food. She carefully selects only necessary items, hoping she can pay with state relief money, due in April. She then brings some of her provisions back to the squatters’ camp and gives them to the Deweys. She stops at the gas station to wash the mud from her boots and meets Jack there. Overcome with sadness over Jean’s plight, she weeps in his arms.

By April, with little to no work, they have accrued steep debt, but Elsa is cheered by the promise of government relief. After the kids go to school, she walks into town and stands in line at the relief office. When she finally reaches the front, the clerk informs her that she qualifies for $13.50 a month. Cash in hand, Elsa heads back toward the farm and notices an angry crowd outside the federal relief office; the government has cut food relief. The crowd turns riotous, but the police show up, arresting people for vagrancy. Elsa stops by the squatters’ camp and gives Jean $2.

Back at the company store, Elsa tries to pay down her debt with her relief money, but the store only takes credit. The only way to pay off debt at Welty is to work it off picking cotton. Furthermore, they can’t leave town to pick fruit up north without giving up their cabin. Elsa realizes with shock that she and her family are indentured servants.

By May, the cotton plants are ready for trimming. Elsa goes back to work in the fields while Loreda and Anthony finish their last week of school. Loreda’s teacher assigns the boys a science project while the girls learn to mix cosmetics, evidently a valuable skill for “finding a man” (357). Loreda skips class, grabs a library book from their cabin, and walks out of camp. In town, the boarded-up movie theater is being used for a town meeting. Curious, Loreda attends. At the meeting, growers and townspeople express fear and anger over relief aid to migrants and union agitators who are pushing for a strike. Jack appears, chastising the growers for their greed and abuse of their workers. The police throw him out of the meeting, and Loreda follows. At a diner across the street, Jack and Loreda discuss the inequity of the current system, and Jack tells her they will have to fight for change.

After 10 hours in the fields, Elsa buys food from the company store—on credit—and heads back to the cabin. She notices company spies loitering among the workers, eavesdropping on their conversations, presumably listening for rumors of discontent. Back at the cabin, she finds Jack, and he offers them an evening out. They pile into his truck, and he drives into town, where he picks up Mexican food. Then he drives up into the nearby foothills, where families picnic, enjoy live music, and swim in a lake. While Loreda and Anthony play in the lake, Jack reminisces about his mother, a “fierce” single mother who raised a family alone. Elsa reminds him of her. They share a moment of connection. When the kids beckon Elsa into the water—she resists because she can’t swim—Jack picks her up and carries her in. Floating on her back with Jack supporting her, she feels safe for the first time in years.

As they drive back to the farm, Elsa thinks about Jack, feeling confused, careful not to make assumptions (despite Jack’s intimations that he’d like to know her better). Jack drops them off and tells Elsa he’ll be gone for a few days on union business. He warns her that his work is dangerous and that he doesn’t want to drag her into that danger.

During the summer, Elsa and Loreda work only sporadically. On free days, Loreda and Anthony go to the library, while Elsa spends time with Jean. In September, the cotton is ready for picking, and this year, both Loreda and Anthony will miss school to work in the fields. It’s the only way to make enough money. On their first day of picking, Welty announces that he’s cutting wages by 10%. Loreda starts to object, but Elsa silences her, fearing for their jobs. At the end of the day, Loreda walks to the edge of the workers’ camp and overhears two men discussing the deplorable working conditions. Loreda joins them, arguing that a strike is the only way to achieve equity, but Elsa appears and drags her away. She tells Loreda, “It won’t be forever. We’ll find a way out” (377), but her words feel like one more false promise.

As tensions rise and whispers of a strike grow, company spies and strongmen walk among the workers, trying to intimidate them. At night, someone slips a flyer under their door, a notice about a union meeting at midnight. Loreda wants to go, but Elsa forbids it. Loreda pleads with her mother, citing the suffragette movement as proof that protest can lead to change, but Elsa is not swayed.