“I know. I love you, too, but I don’t always enjoy it.”
Nina drained her wineglass in one long swallow and set it on the countertop.
“There’s something you should know,” she said. “If we got married—that’s a big if, by the way—but if we got married, I would insist on keeping my own name.”
“Nina Elizabeth Truhler. A lovely name. A lovely name for a lovely woman.” I leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips. “Would you like to go upstairs?”
Nina slid off the stool and moved to the kitchen entrance. She found the light switch and pushed it to off.
“Here will do just fine,” she said.
CHAPTER FIVE
I drove the Audi. My Cherokee was probably better suited for the terrain, but it didn’t have a false bottom in the trunk for my stuff. Besides, the Audi got better gas mileage—even though I cranked the air conditioner to seventy-four degrees—and these days any trip from home becomes a major expense. It amuses my friends that I concern myself with such things, what with the money I have. I wasn’t always wealthy, though. I was born and raised a middle-class kid in a middle-class neighborhood, and the lessons I learned stayed with me even after the insurance company handed me a check for three million, one hundred twenty-five thousand, five hundred eighty-four dollars and fifty cents.
I had set the cruise control to exactly nine miles per hour above the speed limit and seemed to be making better time than on my first trip to Libbie. Certainly the view was better. South Dakota, like all of the other Plains States, was supposed to be flat, with rangeland stretching as far as the eye could see, except it wasn’t. It was rugged land, with canyons, gullies, ravines, and flat-topped hills. Cottonwood, elm, and willow trees were common near rivers and shelter belts. There were fields of alfalfa and grain and corn and soybeans. Along the way I also saw plenty of bison, deer, and pronghorn antelope. Yet one thing was as advertised—the sky was big and blue and seemed never to end.
By early afternoon, I had crossed the Missouri River, where the east ended and the west began. There were fewer farm fields, and now I saw pastures dotted with herds of shorthorn and Angus cattle. There was a saddle straddling a mailbox at the end of a long farm road. Someone had driven a Chevy van nose down into the drainage ditch along Highway 212 just outside of Faith. I stopped to take a look. No one was inside or around the vehicle.
A few miles up the road, I pulled into a Quick 66 to gas up. The smell of skunk as thick as a fog punched me in the nose when I stepped outside of the Audi, yet it didn’t seem to bother a hen pheasant crouched alongside the road, taking grit. There was a cornfield on the other side of the gas station that looked like it was badly in need of water.
I filled my gas tank and checked the oil before I went inside. The Quick 66 was empty except for an old woman who sat behind the counter.
“As you can see, I’m just busier than heck,” she said.
I told her about the van.
“Oh, that’s just Eugene,” she said. “I swear that boy got his license out of a Cracker Jack box. I ’spect he’ll be along soon with his brother Al’s wrecker to pull ’er out. Al is a mechanic, don’t you know.”
I thought that was convenient, and the woman agreed with me.
“Looks like you folks could use some rain,” I said.
“Whaddaya mean?”
“The corn seems a little dry.”
“You’re not from around these parts, are ya?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Cuz we only get about fifteen inches of rain each year, don’t you know. Folks up here, if they ain’t raising cattle, they’re dryland farmers. Raise corn, beans, even watermelons with nothin’ but a thimbleful of rain. It’s an art.”
I agreed that it probably was.
I was glad when I returned to the Audi, glad to get out of the heat—the AC did such a fine job, I had to turn it down after only a couple of miles. There was a purple ridge in the distance running north and south, how many miles away I couldn’t say, and I wondered if that was where the Black Hills began. I didn’t get close enough for an answer. Instead, I turned north on Highway 73, the ridge now on my left, with the sun looking to set behind it. I passed more fields of alfalfa, beans, and corn, although they were now spaced miles apart. There were steel bins visible from the highway, and barns and cattle in feedlots and cattle at pasture and a white silo with go cardinals painted on it. A cock pheasant crossed the road in front of me, and I slowed down to avoid hitting it. A few miles later, I did the same for two hens. There were little songbirds balanced on fence rails, and killdeer, and in the distance I saw two red-tailed hawks perched on a big bale of alfalfa. The only things that blocked the view were the occasional windbreak of trees.