Chapter 4 - The Transformation
Three weeks passed, and the nature of Dry Creek underwent a quiet, terrifying shift.
The poison spread by the townspeople had worked, after a fashion. Billions of grasshoppers lay dead in the ditches, rotting under the terrible August sun, filling the valley with a sour, chemical stench that drove people inside their houses with the windows nailed shut. The fields remained black and dead. Nothing grew. The cattle that hadn't been sold to the government buyers were thin as paper, their hips sticking out like shelf brackets, eating dry sawdust and boiled thistle weeds to keep their bellies from collapsing.
At the general store, the ledger was closed.
Mr. Miller stood behind his wooden counter with a double-barreled shotgun resting against his stool. He no longer gave credit. Not for flour. Not for lard. Not for salt.
"I got nothing to sell because nobody’s got nothing to give," Miller told a desperate mother from the eastern road who had brought her mother’s silver ring to trade for three pounds of beans. "The bank in Salina is coming down next Tuesday to inspect the mortgages. If I don't have cash, they close my doors."
The town was starving.
Except for the small farm on the western ridge.
While the rest of Dry Creek was surrounded by poisoned ditches and rotting insects, the Martinez land had become a strange, vibrant oasis of life.
Because Tomás had refused the County poison, his soil was clean. And because his birds ranged three miles in every direction—crossing roads, dry creek beds, and abandoned pastures—they had swept the surrounding land completely clear of living insects before the poison could reach them.
The three hundred and thirty-seven chicks were no longer chicks.
Fed on an unlimited, high-protein diet of fresh grasshoppers, wild seeds, and clean spring water from the Martinez well, they had grown at a rate that defied every farming book in the state.
By late August, they were massive, broad-chested, glossy-feathered birds. The pullets had deep, rich red combs that sat proud on their heads, their feathers shining with an oily, healthy sheen of deep mahogany, bronze, and snow-white. The young roosters had developed heavy, muscular legs and sharp, watchful eyes, patrolling the boundaries of the property like feathered soldiers.
And then, on a bright, cold Tuesday morning—August 28, 1934—ten-year-old Mateo came running out of the barn so fast he tripped over his own boots and tumbled into the dirt.
"MAMA! PAPA!" he screamed, his small hands cupped together against his chest as if he were holding a diamond. "LOOK! LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN THE STRAW!"
Tomás and Elena rushed out of the kitchen.
Mateo stood up, wiping dirt from his knees, and slowly opened his hands.
Sitting in his dirty palms was a single, perfectly smooth, deep-brown egg. It was still warm to the touch, heavy, clean, and glowing in the morning light.
Elena gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
In 1934, in the middle of the Dust Bowl, a fresh egg was not food.
It was gold.
"Where did you find it?" Tomás asked, his voice barely a whisper, kneeling beside his son.
"In the old horse stall!" Mateo cried, pointing with a shaking finger. "Under the wooden feed box! And there’s another one! And another one over by the leather harness!"
Tomás stood up and walked into the dark, sweet-smelling shade of the barn. Elena followed him, holding her breath.
In the corners, under the mangers, inside old wooden crates, and nestled in clean mounds of dry grass the children had gathered, the flock had begun to lay.
That first morning, they gathered fourteen eggs.
The next day, thirty-two.
By the end of the week, as the young pullets hit their full maturity all at once, the daily count reached one hundred and eighty-four fresh, heavy, brown eggs every single morning.
One hundred and eighty-four eggs a day.
In a town where there was no milk, no butter, no fresh meat, and no lard, the Martinez home had suddenly become the only food engine within forty miles.
On Saturday morning, Tomás did not go to the general store to beg for credit.
He washed his face, put on his cleanest cotton shirt, and loaded three wooden crates lined with clean straw into the back of his old car. Inside the crates, packed in neat, beautiful rows, were thirty dozen fresh eggs.
Elena stood by the car door, her eyes shining with a complex mix of fear and wonder.
"Be careful, Tomás," she whispered. "People are hungry out there. Hungry people aren't always kind."
May you like
Tomás looked at his wife, then at the barn where three hundred and thirty-seven healthy, noisy, vibrant birds were scratching happily in the sunshine.
"They laughed at eighteen dollars, Elena," Tomás said quietly, cranking the car’s hand iron until the old engine coughed into a steady rumble. "Let’s see what they say about thirty dozen eggs."
