The highway was as straight as the edge of a wooden yardstick stretching out in front of them and disappearing into the sunset. On either side of the highway were farm fields filled with wheat stubble or vast expanses of plowed ground, dark chocolate in color, waiting to be planted. Here and there they saw a farmer in this tractor working the ground. A lone mechanical sentinel creeping across the ground in a methodical, determined gait. And once they had to take their time moving around a farmer in his tractor who was moving down the two-lane highway dragging a gigantic plow behind him.
For some reason, Mike was driving. Marissa was sitting to his right, staring out the window and keeping her thoughts to herself. And her silence was making him nervous. When she brooded like that it meant
