The day is hot. The sun beats down on you so mercilessly the it feels like it wants to devour you. Dust rises in the air and falls back to the ground, beginning to get used to its constant relocation.
My mouth is thick with dry dust, feeling like thousands of cotton balls. I lick my dry, cracked lips, trying to revive them. My normally clean, sun-browned arms have a sand-papery feel from the sweat and dirt that has accumulated these past few days. My hair is coarse and feels gritty. My clothes are smeared with dirt from having slept on the ground. I can only imagine what I look like.
As I come to a curve in the road, I see the dry, cracked remains of a lake and my heart aches as it suddenly comes to life with sparkling blue water and luscious green grass. The large oak tree stretching over the lake has a rope hanging from a branch extending over its face. The air comes alive with the sounds of laughter and splashing water. My little sisters and brothers, all 5 of them, play in the water, swinging on the rope and diving into the cool water. My mother sits there in the shade of another tree, watching the children play with a smile on her face and then- There’s my father! Charging over the hill and diving into the water near little Andrew. Screams of delight fill the air as everyone tries to splash dad and then begin to beg for rides on his back.
A tear forms in the corner of my eye and I can’t take it any longer. I reach out to them, running towards my mother, my siblings, my father, calling their names. My mother stands and my siblings stop their play and look at me with blank expressions. Even my father’s face is vacant of emotion.
“It’s me!” I scream, not stopping running. Suddenly, I think I hear my name behind me. I spin around.
There’s nothing. It was just a lone bird calling into the empty, dead air. I turn back and they’re gone. Everything is gone. “It was just an illusion,” I whispered to myself, one lone tear trickling down my face.
I shiver in spite of the scorching hot wind blowing more dust into my face. I squint to keep it from going into my eyes and, blinking back tears, continue to walk. I’m not going to cry. I’m sixteen. I was just another mouth to feed anyhow. It’s better that I left. I nod, that thought being my only consolation and continue walking towards my destination; Oklahoma City.
Knowing my father, I had known that as soon as they found out I had left the farmhouse in the east farmlands of Pampa, Texas, he would have gone to try to find me and the closest place with a train station was Amarillo. No smart person would go the way I was going, making the approximately 4 day hike across the Texas border into Oklahoma where I could catch a train in Oklahoma City to go somewhere. But, I knew if my father caught up with me, he would try to talk me into coming back home and I wouldn’t be able to say no. So, I had come the long way. I figured that I’d either make it to Oklahoma City or die of dehydration or in one of those terrible sandstorms. Either way, it would be one less mouth for my family to have to worry about.
I continue walking, the small satchel on my back feeling like a thousand pounds. As the sun climbs higher in the sky, every minute begins to seem like an eternity. Beads of sweat form on my neck, trickling down my back. The landscape is bare and dead. Two years of the dust bowl have all ready made wildlife scarce. The trees rise into the sky like skeletons, their branches littering the ground around their trunks. Grass is scarce and if there is some, it is a disgusting shade of brown. Here and there, you can find the carcass of an animal or the ghostly remains of an abandoned house. Acres of fields stretch to my left, bare and desolate. I begin to hallucinate as I get thirstier, images of my family popping up here and there along the road. I fumble in my satchel for my water and dare to take only a few drops, even though I feel like I could drink ten gallons. The water runs over my tongue and down my throat. It is hot, but it still feels good to have something to drink, even though it makes me thirstier.
The day finally ends and I find an old, abandoned shed along the roadside. I curl up in a corner and it doesn’t take me long to fall asleep, my satchel serving as my pillow.
In the morning, I awake and start out quickly after taking a quick swig of water. The sun is just peaking over the horizon and walking is quite bearable now since it is still cooler. I have only been walking for about an hour when the wind starts to pick up. This isn’t out of the ordinary, but it gets stronger, picking up the dust and swirling it in the air. I turn and, to my horror, see a gianormous cloud of dust so black that it looks like night is approaching. It stretches as far as I can see and it barrels towards me like a stampede of horses, picking up more dust as it speeds along. I turn and flee, my eyes darting along the horizon, searching for any shelter from the monster behind me. The monster that I knew if I was stuck out here with would bring about my end. I find it. A small house. I jerk open the door and dive inside. My eyes take a minute to adjust to the darkness but when they do I find the house furnished, though there are heaps of dust here and there. I search frantically for the door to the cellar, kicking back rugs and wiggling boards until a board gives way and I tumble into the cellar. It is pitch black and a bit damp. I reach up and slide the board back into place as the edge of the sandstorm reaches the house. It crashes into the house with such a force that the house shudders, groaning as buckets of dust are dumped on it. Dust begins to pour in through the cracks in the house and works its way down to where I am. I pull my satchel up to my face and curl into a ball, my head on my satchel to keep from breathing in the dust or the dust getting into my eyes.
I’m scared. I have never been in a sandstorm alone before. My father always pulled the spare sheets out of the cupboard upstairs and would cover us with them then my mother would make it a game. But we all knew the dangers of the dreaded storms. People had died from them. Inhale too much dust and it would cause you to suffocate. Our neighbors little boy had wandered outside right before a dust storm and hadn’t been able to find his way back inside, dying in the middle of his own yard. I squeeze my eyes shut and begin to pray fervently that I would make it through the storm.
Hours later, I emerge from the cellar and find the house in worse shape than I had entered it in. Some of the sections of wall have collapsed and parts of the roof have caved in. A thick layer of dust covers everything. I push the door open and find my surroundings just as lifeless as before. I sigh, thinking about the time I had lost, and continue on my way. As I go along, I think back to my home and how everyone would be helping right then to clean the house out, sweeping and fixing the places that the storm had ripped open in the walls and the roof.
They probably think you’re dead. I am surprised at the thought, how it had just appeared out of nowhere, but it is probably true. They have no idea where I am. I resolve then that I will send them a letter as soon as I find work and let them know that I am all right.
I make it to Oklahoma City after walking all through the night and into the late afternoon. I’m exhausted. My legs ache and my feet are sore. It is odd seeing civilization again beings that I have tried to avoid highly populated areas up until this point. I find the train tracks and walk along them until I came to a station. I climb up on the platform and cross over to a middle-aged woman sitting in the ticket booth.
“Excuse me,” I say, my voice gravely, almost inaudible, but as politely as I can, “could I-”
“Get out of here!” She screams, pointing a menacing finger at me. “I don’t want none of your dirty money.”
“But-”
“Out! Or I’ll be calling the police!”
I turn and dash off the platform where I collapse by a stack of old, empty crates. I put my head in my hands. Well. This was wonderful. I had just made a perilous 5-day journey only to have to be turned back now.
I stand up and brush myself off, hanging my head, starting to make my way out of the train yard into the street beyond. I can hear the engines of those newfangled horseless carriages that all the boys back home talk about. I can’t go back. That’s out of the question. I’m done with being a burden. I will go find work somewhere. There has to be someone that could use an extra pair of hands. I don’t have to be paid much. I just need to find something. Then, maybe, someday, I will be able to head north to places like Ohio.
“Psst!” My head snaps up and I turn, searching for the owner of the voice. “Over here!” I then see him. A young man not much older than myself. He has sandy brown hair and green eyes. He motions me behind another stack of crates. I dart over to him and find that he isn’t alone. With him is a young woman, though you almost can’t tell because she has her hair pulled back into a cap.
“Heard Annie yelling at ya. She don’t like us too much. Thought I could give you a hand though,” the man grins at me, extending his hand. “My name’s Matt. This is Tracey but we call her Tray for short. And because it sounds more boyish.” He looks me over. “Where ya headed?”
I shrug, opening my mouth to try to speak but I can’t make any sound come out.
“Why this things dry as a bone!” Tracey exclaims, grabbing a bottle of water and handing it to me. I drink eagerly but Matt cautions me on drinking too much. A train horn sounds in the distance, its sound piercing the air like a knife. Matt looks up as the train comes speeding around the corner.
“Well, I guess you might as well just come along with us. We can finish introductions later.”
I follow Tracey and Matt along the edge of the train yard to a clump of trees.
“We can’t get in yet because people don’t like it very much when hoboes are riding along their line for free.” Hoboes? I have heard a lot about hoboes. I have heard about lots of crimes they had committed. My dad often said that people just needed people to blame and hoboes were just vulnerable people. He also said that, though they were poor, mistreated people, they used people’s compassion for their cause and were able to get people to give them far more than they needed.
“Other people are in a hard time too,” he would say, sighing and shaking his head. “Just because they got a name for themselves to signify that they’re poor don’t mean that they get free hand outs where ever they go. I hope my family is always more respectable than them kind of people.”And here I am, in the company of hoboes.
The train whistle blows again and the train begins to slowly make its way down the track. Tracey grabs my arm and pulls me out beside the train, trotting along beside it for a minute as it begins to pick up speed and then, sprinting towards the next car, Matt grabs the handle and pulls himself inside effortlessly. Tracey swings in next and then both of them pull me in. They sit down in the boxcar, but I stand in the doorway, watching the lifeless landscape fall away before me. I’m not sure what my future holds; what the future of the world holds. If we will ever make it out of this depression, out of this dust bowl. But I do know one thing: I am going to do everything in my power to make it a better place and improve my current position because you can never be sure of what life has in store for you just around the bend.