After lunch, they climbed back into the truck and drove deeper into the valley on a road as straight as an arrow, toward the distant purple mountains. Green fields lay on either side of the road; in some of them, Loreda saw lines of stooped men and women working the land.
They passed fields of fattening cattle and a slaughterhouse that smelled to high heaven.
As they drove past a billboard for Wonder Bread, Loreda saw a bunch of dark heaps on the ground beneath the sign.
One of the heaps sat up; it was a painfully thin boy, dressed in rags, wearing a hat with no brim on one side.
“Mom—”
Mom slowed the truck. “I see them.”
There were probably twenty of them: kids, young men, most of them dressed in rags. Worn, tattered overalls, dirty hats, shirts with torn collars. The land around them was flat and brown, unirrigated, as dry as lost hope.
“Some folks don’t want to work,” Mom said quietly.
“You think Daddy’s over there?” Ant said.
“No,” Mom said, wondering how long they all would be looking for Rafe. All their lives?
Probably.
They came to a four-way stop, where a grocery store and filling station faced each other across a strip of paved road. All around were cultivated fields. A sign read, BAKERSFIELD: TWENTY-ONE MILES.
Mom said, “We need gas, and since it’s our first day in California, I say licorice whips for all!”
“Yay!” Ant yelled.
Mom pulled off the road and onto the gravel lot, easing to a stop at the pumps. A uniformed station attendant came running out to help.
“Fill it up, please,” Mom said, reaching for her purse.
“You pay over yonder, ma’am. Same man owns the grocery store and the gas station.”
“Thank you,” Mom said to the attendant.
The three of them got out of the truck and stared across a cultivated field. Men and women were stooped over above the tufts of green. People working the fields meant jobs.
“You ever seen anything so pretty, Loreda?”
“Never.”
“Can we go look at the candy, Mom?” Ant said.
“You bet.”
Loreda and Ant ran across the street, toward the store, laughing and pushing each other excitedly. Ant clung to Loreda’s hand. Mom hurried to keep up with them.
An old man sat on a bench out front, smoking a cigarette, wearing a battered cowboy hat drawn low.
Inside, the general store was murky and full of shadows. A fan turned lazily overhead, casting shadows and moving the air around, not creating any real coolness. The store smelled of wooden floors and sawdust and fresh strawberries. Of prosperity.
Loreda’s mouth watered at all of the foodstuffs for sale in here. Bologna, bottles of Coca-Cola, packages of hot dogs, boxes full of oranges, wrapped loaves of Wonder Bread. Ant ran straight to the array of penny candy on the counter. Big glass jars full of licorice whips and hard candies and peppermint sticks.
The cash register was situated on a wooden counter. The clerk was a broad-shouldered man wearing a white shirt and brown pants held in place by blue suspenders. A brown felt hat covered his cropped hair. He stood as stiff as a fence post, watching them.
Loreda realized suddenly what they looked like after more than a week on the road (and years on the dying farm). Wan, thin, with pinched faces. Dresses hung together with dirt and hope. Shoes full of holes, or, in Ant’s case, no shoes at all. Dirty faces, dirty hair.
Loreda self-consciously smoothed the hair back from her face, tucked a few flyaway strands back under her faded red kerchief.
“You’d best control those kids of yours,” the man behind the counter said to Mom. “They can’t touch things with their dirty hands.”
“I’m sorry for our appearance,” Mom said, stepping up to the counter as she unclasped her purse. “We’ve been traveling and—”
“Yeah. I know. Your kind pours into California every day.”
“I got gas,” Mom said, plucking one dollar and ninety cents in coins from her wallet.
“I hope it’s enough to get you out of town,” the man said.
There was a quiet after that, a drawing in of air.
“What did you say?” Mom asked.
The man reached under the counter, pulled up a gun, clanked it on the counter between them. “You best go.”
“Children,” Mom said. “Go back to the truck. We’re leaving now.” She dropped the coins onto the floor and herded the kids out of the store.
The door banged shut behind them.
“Who does he think he is? Just ’cause he hasn’t hit hard times, the crumb thinks he has the right to look down on