Chapter 1: A Nice Day for a Ride Keyes, Oklahoma July 1936 I stood out by the barn, the paint peeling off it like an old snakeskin. Closing my eyes, I took a deep, deep breath. Most days, the air was chock-full of dust, but that afternoon it was real clear. Full of nothing but sunlight and the smell of Ma''s Ivory Snow laundry soap. I smiled. "Ready, boy?" I asked, a leather lead in my hand. At the other end of the lead, my horse, Thimble, looked over at me. He was light gray with jet black stockings, but since he ain''t hardly ever got a wash, the dust made him look tarnished, like an old spoon.
Sometimes I wondered if we all don''t look that color. Once that red dust gets into you, it''s real hard to get out. I''d already checked Thimble''s hooves, eyeballed the tack, and tightened the saddle straps around his belly. He nickered, a soft rumble in his throat. "That''s a silly question, Ginny," he seemed to be saying. "I''m always ready!" It must have been two weeks since my last ride. Between going to school whenever the weather wasn''t too bad and Ma keeping me busy doing odd jobs around the farm, I barely had time to do more than give Thimble his oats and hay. But not that day.
I''d slipped away before Ma could make me do the sweeping like she always did after church on Sundays. As soon as I climbed up onto Thimble''s saddle, all my troubles just melted away. Up there, under the huge, unbroken sky, I finally felt like I was free. Seemed like I wasn''t the only one fixing to run, either. As soon as Thimble reached the open plain outside the farm, he tore into a gallop, kicking up great clouds of dust that hung in the air behind us like a parade of ghosts. The dust was everywhere those days. It crept under the front door, filled up Pa''s work boots, and slipped between our bedsheets at night. Sometimes it even found its way into my breakfast bowl of mush.
If I wasn''t so hungry every morning, I''d probably spit it out whenever some of that grit got in. But usually, I just added a little more sugar and tried not to think about it too much. When I was little, there weren''t no dust at all. Back then, Oklahoma was green as green. The corn stood at attention like soldiers in the field, sweet and yellow and as tall as Pa. A cool breeze would blow through the husks when the sun went down, making a sound like shhh, shhh. But when the rain stopped falling, the corn all turned brown--and when the wind turned hot and mean, the corn got too tired to stand up anymore. That''s just how it looked as Thimble and I rode past: laid low on the dusty ground, as quiet and still as a graveyard.
It felt like the whole world was holding its breath, and the only sound was Thimble''s hooves thundering across the earth. "Whoa, Thimble," I said after a few minutes. "Can''t go too far from home now--or we''ll miss supper." Thimble slowed to a canter and then to an easy jog. "Good boy," I said, combing my fingers through his mane, which was as thick and black as Pa''s. I''d had Thimble for five years, but it might as well be forever. I still remember Pa telling me that the Atwoods'' old mare, Hannah, had foaled, and that they weren''t sure what to do with the colt because he was so runty. They used their horses to work the fields and didn''t think the wobbly little thing could manage it.
I begged Pa to buy him, said I would make sure he came to good use on our farm. Ma said the money would be better spent on fabric to make a dress that wasn''t torn in three places, but I pulled out my prettiest please so Pa couldn''t help but give in. As soon as I laid eyes on him at the Atwoods'' farm, it was love, pure and simple. He ran over to the gate the moment I came up, like he already knew I''d come just for him. But it was what happened on our way back that was really special. I was walking alongside him on the path when all of a sudden, he pulled on the reins, stopping me in my tracks just as something long and dirt-colored slithered across the way. I''d almost stepped on a rattlesnake! "He''s like a little thimble, that one," Pa had said, giving my new horse a pat. "Not much to look at, but seems like he''ll do a good job keeping you from harm.
" The name stuck. Thimble never did grow to be very big, but that didn''t matter much. If I asked him to pull the whole world on a cart for me, I''m pretty sure he''d go ahead and do it. As we rode along the fence line toward the edge of our land, Thimble took a deep breath and sighed, as if he were saying, "Ahhh . What a nice day for a ride!" I smiled. "It is nice, ain''t it?" It was still hot but not too bad, and any little break in the scorching heat wave we''d been having felt like paradise. The sky was a blue marble with wispy clouds that didn''t hurry by, but hung around to give us a little shade here and there. "One day," I said dreamily, "when the rain comes back, all this will be green again.
And you and me can work the land together. What do you think of that, boy?" Thimble whinnied. I think he agreed that this was a good day for dreaming. As a matter of fact, that day was the first in a long while that everybody in my family was feeling top dollar. When I got out of bed in the morning, I found Ma humming the gospel and opening every window in the house to let the fresh air blow in. We''d all put on our Sunday best, even me. Now, I''d much rather be in a pair of overalls than a dress, but Ma made me put one on, anyway. My sister, Gloria, was thrilled.
She put on her fanciest frock and flounced around the kitchen like she was the queen of England. Ma says that when I''m sixteen, I''ll want to be just like Gloria, but I reckon that''s just Ma''s wishful thinking. She''s never really known what to do with me. Pa, on the other hand, took to teaching me all the things that boys know, on account of him never having a son. And let me tell you--it ain''t easy doing all those things in some fancy dress. We all strolled out to church with the neighbors, everyone smiling and talking like things were normal again. Still, pretending things were normal was hard, even on good days. The church pews got emptier by the week, with so many families moving to California, where there wasn''t any dust and jobs were ripe for the picking.
"We ain''t going," I''d heard Pa say to one of the other farmers after the sermon was done. "Things are bad," he said. "But they ain''t that bad. Not yet at least." I was glad. Even though life in Keyes was no picnic, it was home. I couldn''t imagine having to pack up and leave. Pa always told me that our blood was in this land, ever since my great-grandfather bought it, back at the turn of the century.
He farmed it, my grandpa and my pa farmed it, and one day I planned to farm it, too. I once told Pa that I was going to take over when he was too old to do it himself anymore, and he laughed. But I wasn''t joking. I was deadly serious. So tell me: How was I supposed to do that if we sold it all and went to California? Pushing all those worries from my mind, I tried to concentrate on enjoying the ride. "Speaking of picnics," I said to Thimble after a while, "you know what I''d like to eat, if I could have whatever I wanted?" His ears swiveled back, listening. "I reckon I''d have a plate of Ma''s fresh biscuits just drowning in some sausage gravy. And, for dessert, a big slice of pecan pie, all to myself.
" Thimble nickered. "What about me?" I laughed and scratched behind his ears. "Don''t worry, boy, I wouldn''t forget about you. How about a basket of fresh apples with a few sugar cubes on top? Wouldn''t that just be heaven?" I expected Thimble to nicker again, because there''s nothing my horse loves more than a handful of sugar cubes, but he didn''t. Instead he slowed to a stop, his body suddenly as tense as a guitar string. He raised his head high and opened his dark eyes so wide, I could see the whites all around them. "What is it?" I asked. I''d been so caught up with thoughts of rain and California and hot buttered biscuits that I hadn''t noticed how cold it had gotten.
I hadn''t bothered changing out of my blue gingham church dress to ride, which would probably make Ma bawl me out once I got back. I had been plenty warm in it all day, but I got to shivering as a chill wind started to blow in my direction. By then, Thimble was really fretting something serious. He pawed the ground, drawing long, jagged lines in the dust, and he took a few steps back toward home. "Something''s wrong," he seemed to be saying. "Very, very wrong." I raised a hand to my forehead to block the glare and looked around, searching for whatever had got Thimble so spooked. Our corner of Oklahoma was as flat as a pancake, so from just about anywhere, you could see for a hundred miles or more across the high plains.
I looked past the neighbors'' old farm, past the huddled roofs of downtown Boise City, and then--I saw it. A great black cloud the size of a mountain was sat right there on the horizon. But unlike the mountains in my schoolbooks, this one was moving--turning and twisting in on itself like a living thing that was darker than midnight and bigger than creation. It was a dust storm. A whopper. And it was headed straight for us. "Go, Thimble! Go home!" I shouted, my heart already galloping in my chest. Thimble whinnied in reply and made a tight turn before breaking into a run so f.