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“We can sell the cows to the governive us thirty-two bucks for the ts”

Elsa drew in a deep, painful breath and stared out at the dead, brown land She didn’t want to go into the unknoith no job and almost no money None of them wanted to leave This was home

Above their heads, the windmill creaked and the blades turned slowly

Together, they walked back to the far from their feet

SIXTEEN

“I was thinking I could take Loreda hunting toht

“That’s a good idea,” Grand her bread in a small bit of their precious olive oil “The compass is in my dresser Top drawer”

“We should clean out the barn,” Mo tent is in there soout”

Loreda couldn’t take it another second The grown-ups were jawing about nothing They seey hospital without any of the to hear the truth This stupid conversation wasthey needed to do was to clean out the darn barn

She got to her feet so suddenly the chair legs screeched She kicked the chair out of her atched it crash to the floor “He’s dying, isn’t he?”

Mo”

“You’re lying todishes” She stormed out of the house and slammed the door shut behind her

Outside, there were no horses in the corral, no hogs in their pen All they had left were a few bony chickens too hot and tired and hungry to cluck at her passing and tho were barely still standing Soon, the coould be sold to the government men and be taken away Then all the pens would be empty

She climbed up to the windmill platform and sat beneath the endless, star-splattered Great Plains night sky Up here it felt—or it once had—as if she were a part of the heavens She’d been so er, a motion-picture star