Long Road to California Read online

  Chapter 4

  Vera Mae’s Dreams

  In her mind, the kids are still there, chattering away. Caleb with his eyes and smile, always with his mind half elsewhere, imagining prowess and glory on a distant ball field. Younger, she puts him in her mind’s eye. Sound of limb. And Nina, so eager to please, so interested in Vera Mae’s stories. Why not put Delilah here too, and her husband Harlen, bring them back from Texas. All the rest of the grandchildren, a wide circle of interested young faces.

  Caleb and Nina have gone to catch their plane. They’ll drive back, as though zipping down a highway in an enclosed pick up truck could be anything like the old days. At least they are trying to understand, she thinks. That’s something. Eyes open, the small sterile room is a blur, devoid of friendly faces. Eyes closed, she brings them back. Puts herself at her house before they sold it, small but tidy. The bright kitchen overlooking the garden, such a wealth of food and flowers.

  What the kids don’t realize, Vera thinks to tell them – too late now – is that while they were poor back in the olden days, there were others so much poorer. They see the pictures, thin bodies and ragged clothes, junky old cars. They see Dorthea Lang’s pictures – how these fascinate Nina, how she goes on about composition and artistry – and it’s all grim poverty. But there were degrees.

  Uncle Stan had a trade, his family lived in town, he did books for the other merchants. Of course he lost money in the crash, but he at least had money to lose. Only three kids. His house was solid, and paid off. Stan had a foresight that most didn’t. When prices were dropping and farms were failing, even before the dust storms got so bad, he realized it would ripple across everybody else too. He read reports, he came to see that the newer farm techniques were bad for the land.

  Others didn’t see this. Or thought it was all temporary, as Vera Mae’s own father had. A few years of drought, the dust storms, but it’d come back. Even when news reports said our Kansas dirt had flown all the way to Washington, D.C., Vera Mae’s father prayed for one more year.

  Much later, Vera Mae heard someone call Nellie’s passing a blessing. Never, never, a girl just six years old gone so fast. Sick and wheezing and the awful morning when she didn’t wake up. But that was what it took to loosen their father’s grip on the failed farm. Stan saw that his trade was mostly gone, he knew people were going west, wanted to be part of it, those vast fertile acres. But he also wanted to look out for Vera Mae’s mother, who was his sister. After they lost Nellie, she had nothing left to stay for.

  Their caravan – how the kids’ eyes widened in amazement, did those cars even run, Grandma? Their caravan was one of the better ones. Uncle Stan’s Nash was a fine car. Old but running well, the new type of engine in it. And both her big brothers were mechanically minded. They knew how to keep both cars running, knew when to add the water and oil, how hard to turn the crank, what wires went where in case they came loose over those pocked bumpy roads.

  Vera Mae’s family had the big old Ford. Temperamental, was how they described it: she’d run, but on her own terms. It had a big enough back for all of them and all their load, that was the most important thing. Oh, but it was a bouncy ride. How she remembered that. Even now, if some oversized helper came and thumped down while she was in her bed, it carried her back, jouncing on top of the mattresses in that wide back.

  The back was open, but they had strung up their camping tarps to keep off the sun. Didn’t do much against the dirt raised from the roads though. Well, they couldn’t go very fast either. Between the fidgety old engine and her ma worrying things would come untied, that they would shed their pots and pans and clothes all down the road – slow days, they were. Long and hot, dust and dirt for hours and hours, but slow going those weeks when they crossed. It was a treat, didn’t all of them know it, to be invited to ride in the Nash for awhile.

  Vera Mae sank a bit deeper. Her bed so soft that she could almost float above. Look down on the roads winding through the desert and up into the mountains. Away from the dust storms and into the crystal blue skies farther west. Did she tell them the about first layover in New Mexico? The pictures then? Nina thought they just happened upon paying work for all the boys. Oh no, that also set them apart. An old business friend of Uncle Stan’s gave them the work, it was pre-set amongst them. He was building up a paid camping ground, making money from all those passing through, looking for a safe place by the road to spend a night. She’d not thought much about it then. The fairness and all, an added expense to those who might have fared as well just pulled by the side of the road.

  They’d had canned food to bring along too. Her ma had salted up their last sow, there was meat to be had as well. Nothing fancy to look at now, but early on, Vera Mae recalled how they would stay in their tarp tents to eat. Embarrassed, you see, at this luxury, when nearby there were kids fed nothing but fried dough.

  Even Uncle Stan with his camera. She recalled children staring, rushing to pose for him. Others looking sidelong, perhaps wondering what it could be sold for. He was careful. There wasn’t much in the way of crime in those days, not like what happened here in Oakland on a given night. But desperate people did desperate things, they all knew that. They all were careful.

  She slipped deeper still into her dream. The old Ford, but Caleb driving, Nina, Delilah, Harlen all waving… her brothers in the back seats. Everyone receding down a hot dusty road. Into their journey, long and hot, but necessary for their survival. Mostly difficult. Sometimes magical.