Chapter One

Liberal, Kansas

April 1935

The day before I left my home forever, I stood in the doorway, looked to the sky and saw no hint of the danger that awaited me. Not a single cloud marred my view. The sun hung like a yellow pearl against a silken blue sky. That is the dark secret of drought—it comes cloaked in blue skies and sunny days, the fair weather of happy times. But, these were not happy times. I needed only to look down at the earth, at the barren, dusty fields that once held oceans of wheat and I knew exactly why my suitcase stood packed and ready at the door.

My father would be home at four. Until then, I had to finish pulling his uniform from the clothesline and make a simple meal for us. Our last meal together. I gathered the last ingredients from our icebox. A few limp carrots, a withered onion, the meat from a chicken slaughtered only last night and government flour for biscuits. Funny, a wheat farmer needing government-rationed flour to cook.

I felt tense and anxious, uneasy about the future. Time and again I stared out the kitchen window, across the fields and toward a future that I couldn’t see. I fiddled nervously with my ring—a worthless piece of jewelry, silver plated and fashioned to resemble a vine. I wore it only because it was my mother’s and all I had left of her. I had grown too thin for it, but couldn’t stand to be apart from it, so I was ever touching it, checking on it.

Sometimes as I played with the ring, my thoughts drifted to my mother. I was surprised that after only a year the images were already slipping from my mind. The clearest and freshest that remained was oddly also the oldest, occurring when I was only three or four years old. We stood on the small patio and I balanced on her feet while she laughed and danced. That was when life was sweet and I had no fears at all.

My father always said that I had my mother’s disposition, since my personality was very different from his. I favored him only with my looks. I was fair-haired and tall like him. My mother was small and birdlike, with warm brown hair and eyes. My features were a mixture of the two. I had a rather blunt nose and a few too many freckles, also like my father. Now, I would sit and have my last meal with him in the house where I grew up.

I set the knife down on the counter and stared mindlessly out the window. I saw our well, with the old windmill on top and the small, barren land just beside the well where I tried my best to grow a garden. I closed my eyes and could still imagine the garden from my youth. Tomato vines that wound their way to the sky. Row upon row of carrots, their green tops bursting from the soil. The gray-green heads of new lettuce as they poked through the dark earth. All gone now. The animals, too. We had sold what stock we could and given away to neighbors what we couldn’t sell.

The only things that moved as I looked out over the farm were my father’s shirts that I had washed earlier that day and hung out to dry. They were his brand-new uniforms, emblazoned with the initials WPA, the Works Progress Administration, Roosevelt’s answer to the Great Depression, and thankfully to those of us who suffered the dust storms. There was no relief for women, though. We were left to scatter on the wind. My destination was a great-aunt from my mother’s side whom I had never met before, and I was grateful for a place to land, because my father was now free to work.

As I looked out the kitchen window, a gust of wind burst through the open window and into the kitchen, reminding me that I ought to bring in the clothes. Grabbing the empty laundry basket, I went out the kitchen door and down the stairs. The screen door slammed behind me; the wicker basket bounced at my hip. I tossed the basket onto the ground and began to pull the clothes from the line, folding each item tightly, and my mind running over the things I had yet to do.

As I took down a shirt and folded the sleeves together, I heard the sullen creak of the windmill as it came to life and started to spin. Only a moment later a gust of air rushed over me. Wary, always wary now, I looked up, but saw only that perfect blue sky. It was just the wind. No need to run. I lowered my head and resumed folding the clothes. Minutes passed and I was almost finished. Then, another gust and a creak of the windmill. Again, I lifted my eyes.

Crouching low on the horizon, almost hiding from sight, a dark cloud gathered. My eyes quickly scanned along the bulk of it, which spread across the horizon fast and wide as I watched. The cloud curled and billowed furiously until it rose up and dominated the serene blue sky. It was a monster and galloping toward me, growing larger all the while. It was my enemy. It was the dust.

I moved quickly, yanking the clothes down and tossing them into the basket. The windmill spun wildly, screaming a high-pitched wail that droned on and on. I darted a glance back. The cloud had swelled even higher. I ran faster, my eyes now glued to the storm, gauging how much time I had left. Not much. Blackness devoured the sky until only a small circle of blue remained above my head. Why was nature so cruel that she had to deliver a final blow as a farewell?

My feet had just landed on the first stair when I felt the hot wind slam into me and yank my dress tight against my body, shoving me toward the door. I felt the bite of a million needles on my exposed skin and the dry rush of sand as it pelted my face and filled my eyes and nose. Gasping and coughing, I muscled the door open against the wind, struggling mightily. Sand burst inside before I slammed the door closed.

Dirt blasted against the house, surrounding me as it whipped inside from the open window, and sprayed across the counters and covered the vegetables I had been cutting. I slammed the window shut, and then raced around the house, closing windows as fast as I could as dirt pummeled my face. When every window was shut, and the wind howled angrily outside, I felt my way along the walls until I reached the kitchen. I could just barely read the clock. It was a quarter past one in the afternoon and I stood in complete and utter blackness.

It was the sound, though, that forced me to the cellar. In the wind I heard howling dogs and laughing devils, their calls rising and falling in intensity. All alone as I was, the cellar was my only choice. I shut the door behind me and waited on the stairs hour after hour, for the angry howls to cease. Sometimes, I listened with my ear to the door, but all I heard was the buzzing wind, which screamed so much longer and louder than I’d ever heard it before. I confess that right then and there, I fell to my knees on those treads, and began to pray for the safety of my father, certain he was on the road and plunged into this nightmare of nature, and all because of me, because he had to buy my train ticket for the morning.

I reached to twirl the ring around my finger. I was horrified to find it gone. I crawled about on the stairs, feeling in the darkness, but I found nothing. It was lost. I was lost. Hope left me then and I knew that I was well and truly alone.

After what seemed a great amount of time, a thin line of pale light shone from beneath the cellar door, and I went up the stairs and opened the door. Sand was everywhere, covering the wooden floors and piled against the walls beneath the windows. I saw that three windows had shattered and the sand poured in, already reclaiming the farmhouse as its own.

I walked to the front door and opened it, kicking away the sand to step outside. The sky was once again a perfect blue, the sun heavy and golden in the late afternoon. But, piled onto the north side of our house, all the way to the roof, was a dune of sand. It was almost as if nature was making good and sure I’d never want to return.

As I looked around, I saw a dark spot approaching from far in the distance. Slowly it grew larger and larger, and by the time the sun just started to disappear for the night, I recognized the figure as my father.

“Pa!” I yelled, and ran toward him. Gray dust coated every inch of his skin and the whites of his eyes shone bright from beneath the grime. I didn’t care and I hugged him fiercely, almost violently. I had thought I might not ever see him again.

“I’m just fine, Zara,” said my father. “I took shelter at the Emersons’ farm.”

“I thought they left for California.”

“They did, so I didn’t have to ask permission. I broke a window and went upstairs.” He tried to give me a happy, reassuring look. “I even took a nap on their bed.”

The rest of the evening we moved about as if in a dream. The only bright spot—and it was a bright spot—was that I found my mother’s ring in the laundry basket, buried amid the shirts and sand. It must have come off my finger in my panic, but thankfully fell in the safest place it could. Instead of putting it on my finger again, I found a ribbon and hung the ring from my neck. I went to bed, knowing that tomorrow we would walk out, never to return, leaving everything untouched. We wouldn’t even lock the door so that the next poor soul might have a place to hide during a storm.

∗ ∗ ∗

Right after the sun rose in the morning, I put on my simple cotton dress, stockings and my Mary Janes. I brought an overcoat, which my father laughed at. “Imagine a coat in Florida,” he said, as we walked to the train station. More than once, I looked back at the farm, expecting to be filled with sorrow, but I felt nothing. Nothing at all. When we reached the station, he pressed a few crumpled bills into my hand.

My father was never a man for goodbyes. We stood on the platform, the great black train huffing and spitting out steam beside us, barely able look at each other. People milled around us, each one of them thin and tired looking. Much like ourselves I supposed. When he spoke, his voice wavered a bit. “I have the address of your Aunt Cleo. I’ll write to you when I can. The WPA will send you a check every month on my behalf, and if I can spare it, I’ll send you more.” He reached out and touched my cheek. “I hope things get better, Zara.” He cleared his throat before adding, “Zara, just hold on tight and have faith.”

My throat closed and I couldn’t speak, so I took the money without protest and hugged him quickly before turning away.

I climbed the steps on the railcar, and took my seat by the window, scanning the crowd hoping for one last look at him. He stood on the platform, watching me with his ever-present grim smile. From my vantage point on the train, I saw him with new perspective, with the eyes of a stranger, and he was no longer my Pa, but a beaten down man who looked as if he might blow away in the wind.