The Four Winds

Elsa and Loreda drive into town to pick up their relief check. While waiting in line, Welty and two policemen pull up and enter the office. When Elsa reaches the front of the line, the office clerk—with Welty looming over her—informs her that she is not eligible for relief as long as she can pick cotton. She can only receive a check when picking season has ended. Elsa protests, but a policeman removes her from the line. Outside the office, Jeb Dewey calls for Elsa’s help—Jean is sick. Elsa drives to the squatters’ camp, where they find Jean burning with fever; they suspect typhoid. Loreda goes in search of aspirin, but the company store is closed. Elsa then drives to the hospital, but the nurse refuses to help. She gets Anthony’s baseball bat out of the truck, pounding the desk. The appalled nurse gives her aspirin, but she is too late to save Jean. Ravaged by rage and despair, Elsa and Loreda go looking for Jack.

That night, Elsa, Loreda, and Anthony drive out to the barn where Loreda attended her first union meeting. There, Elsa tells Jack she wants to join the strike. Despite her fear, for herself and her children, it’s more important to teach them that they deserve better.

Loreda spreads the word among the workers about future meetings. That night, they receive a letter from Tony and Rose. The dust storms have abated, temporarily at least, and the government is delivering water to parched farms. Elsa then tells Loreda and Anthony her own history—about feeling unwanted by her own family, her love for Tony and Rose, and how their farm became the home she always wanted.

Later that week, they drive to the old barn. Despite Welty’s intimidation tactics, over 500 people attend the meeting. Jack announces a sit-down strike on October 6 “at every field and farm we can throughout the valley” (410). The police show up, followed by trucks of hired enforcers with clubs and guns. Elsa runs, looking for Loreda and Anthony, but someone hits her in the head, and she falls unconscious.

Elsa wakes up with Jack at her bedside. Jack’s colleague Natalia has driven Loreda and Anthony back to their cabin. Jack reports that the police burned down the barn and confiscated the typewriters and mimeograph machines. He confesses that Elsa has “unbalanced” him. He runs her a hot bath, and afterward, rather than putting on the same old worn dress, Elsa steps out of the bathroom wrapped only in a towel, and she and Jack make love. Later, he drives Elsa back to the cabin, and Loreda realizes for the first time the actual danger of a strike.

On the day of the strike, Elsa, Loreda, and Anthony ride a truck to the cotton fields. Along the road, Jack and a few colleagues hold picket signs and call for fair pay. Welty drives up with several armed men and announces a further wage cut. Jack confronts Welty, arguing that his paltry wages are un-American. Elsa then leads Loreda and Anthony into the fields—the vanguard of the strike, she hopes. Soon, all the workers follow her into the fields and sit down.

By dusk, the workers have occupied the fields all day and picked no cotton. Jack is bruised from the encounter but encouraged. As they walk back to the cabins, Elsa is frightened. How long can they strike with no wages or food? That night, she receives an eviction notice.

During the night, Jack shows up, telling Elsa he suspects trouble. He wants them to leave the camp that night, so they pack up their few belongings and drive to the boarded-up hotel where they stayed after the flood. After Loreda and Anthony settle in for the night, Elsa and Jack dance together in her room.

Elsa wakes early in the morning and writes in her journal before the day’s strike: “We fight for our American dream, that it will be possible again” (426). Downstairs, the hotel lobby is full of striking workers. They file outside and follow Jack’s truck to the fields, carrying signs and chanting. Along the way, members of the clergy join the march. By the time they reach Welty Farms, the crowd is a thousand strong. Welty tries to intimidate the workers with an armed guard atop the tower and a truckful of strikebreakers, but Jack entreats them to hold their ground. A car of vigilantes drives up and beats Jack with bats; he calls to Elsa to keep the crowd united. Taking up Jack’s megaphone, she addresses the workers, telling her own story of hardship and loss, a story they all share. The crowd is galvanized, but the police answer with tear gas. Through the haze and the pandemonium, the tower guard shoots Elsa.

Jack carries a wounded Elsa from the truck, the sight of her blood-soaked dress quieting the crowd. Even the police and the vigilantes hesitate to obey Welty now. Loreda picks up a fallen rifle and points it at Welty, threatening to shoot unless he allows the strikers to occupy the fields. He stands aside, and the workers solemnly file into the fields for the second day.

Jack brings Elsa to the hospital. Loreda is filled with regret over all the years that she blamed her mother for their hardships. Elsa wakes in the hospital, post-surgery, but the damage is too severe: The doctors can only keep her comfortable until the end. She looks at Jack, Loreda, and Anthony and imagines the family they could have been. Before she dies, she passes on the lucky penny to Loreda.

Loreda resolves to return to Texas and bury her mother on the family farm. Needing money for the trip, she disguises herself as a boy and robs the company store of over $100. Ditching the boys’ clothes, she blends in with the other camp residents and walks away unnoticed.

Jack drives Loreda and Anthony across the Mohave Desert in the dark of night, Elsa’s body in a simple, pine coffin in the back of the truck. They camp by the side of the road outside of Barstow, California. Unsure how to handle her grief, Loreda thinks of all the things she never said to her mother, hoping that Elsa will hear her.

Loreda, now 18, looks out across the flourishing wheat fields of Tony and Rose’s farm. Rain and soil conservation have reinvigorated the fields. Loreda reflects on the loss and tragedy that have shaped her young life. As she stands in the family cemetery looking at her mother’s headstone, Rose hands her an envelope. It’s from Jack, and it contains a thin book with a news clipping: a picture of Elsa standing on the back of Jack’s truck urging on the strikers. The caption reads: “Elsa Martinelli leads strikers amid a spray of teargas bombs and bullets” (446).

Loreda says goodbye to Anthony and her grandparents. She leaves for college in California, “unbroken” this time, strengthened by her mother’s memory.