They killed the last calf that morning. Ma wanted to hold off, give the poor thing a chance, but Pa said it were cruel to let a body live like that. He cracked the hammer on its head—a sick, sad sound. Later he slit the calf open and showed Sally the animal’s stomach, choked with dust. “Suffocated from the inside,” he said.
Sally cried, or would have cried, but her face was too caked with dirt. The Vaseline in her nostrils couldn’t keep it out. She wondered how much dirt was in her stomach and whether her body was already full of it, like the calf, her tears and blood just rivers of dust. But when she asked, Ma said, “Jaisus, quit nattering and help the bairn.” So Sally did, even though her baby brother was curled up like the calf had been, under a skin of dust that never went away no matter how they cleaned.
Sally followed Ma round the dugout, stuffing rags into the cracks where the dust had trickled through. Alice toddled after her. Ben watched from the bed, his feverish eyes glistening. At fourteen, he was taller than Sally and better at reaching the upper cracks. But what could be done? The dust-lung had him. If Ben were to move, Ma said it would be to her sister’s place in Topeka, away from the land that was killing him. Better still, Ma said, would be to head out to California, where there was still work to be had. But Pa had heard about the cities. Many who went there came home poorer than before. They told tales of Hoover camps, the shame of being spat on by city-dwellers. At least here they suffered together. At least here they had the land.
To lose your land was to lose yourself, her father had warned her and Ben. This was in the early years, when folks still thought next year would bring the rains back.
“This here’s the first thing our family’s ever owned in this country,” he’d said, showing Sally the dark soil between his fingers. “Mackay land.” His eyes had shone with the wonder of it. Now the earth was hard and brown and dusters turned the sky the same color, choking and fierce. “Still,” said Pa, “we have the land. We lost it once to the English. We won’t lose it to the wind.”
Two strangers were at the gate. Sally could see right off they weren’t farmers. Too pale. Too well fed.
The taller man leaned forward, dangling his hands into the yard in a way Sally didn’t like. “Your father at home, sweetheart?”
Sally looked the stranger up and down, the starving chickens pecking at her feet. “You from Washington?” There was talk of Mr. Roosevelt sending folk to tell the Nesters how to run their farms. This man, with his clean suit, seemed like he could be one of them.
A glance from the leaning man to his companion. “What d’ya think, Bill? Are we from Washington?”
The older man looked like a schoolteacher, one of the impatient ones who rapped kids’ knuckles. “We’re on official business,” he said. “We’re looking for the man of the house.”
Sally knew Ma would scold her if she let a government man pass by, even rude ones. There might be a dime in it, and a dime could buy bread.
“I’ll fetch him then,” she said. “Best come out of the blow.”
At the dugout’s entrance, Ma’s face already showed the strain of a smile. Sally knew Ma was thinking of rusted cans of water instead of tea, the assistance bread gone hard by week’s end. At least they had some milk to offer, thanks to the dead calf. Still, it was as much her mother’s smile as the need to fetch her father that made her run so quickly.
She found Pa fixing up the old John Deere D, trying to get work done while the air was clear.
“Government men come.”
Pa nodded and wiped his hands, reluctant to leave a task half done. “You take over here.”