like working it, and then we saw a chance to buy this hotel and run it. It’s hard work, but fun bringing it back to life.”
She opened the map. “Old Highway Forty runs through town. You take that down to Eighth Road.”
Her callused finger traced the route. “And in between Avenues I and J, there’s going to be a dirt track, east side of the road. That fancy Mustang you’re driving, it’s going to get caught in the mud there. All the rain we’ve had this year, we might as well be growing rice and sidestepping alligators, we’re that close to being in a swamp. Worst winter wheat crop in twenty years. Anyway, it’s a mile, mile and a half up that track, and you’ll be on Alsop’s land. He calls it the Nicodemus Prairie.”
She handed me the map, seemed to be about to add something, but changed her mind.
Clara’s comment about walking through a swamp made me stop at a general store on the outskirts of town for some insect repellent for me and a flea and tick treatment for Bear.
I’d filled my water bottles in the hotel but I bought a banana, a couple of apples, and a bag of mixed nuts. Be prepared.
I followed Clara’s directions and pulled off the road when I came to the dirt track. I hoped there was only one—the air was unpleasantly thick and warm, and mosquitoes and flies were blitzing both the dog and me, despite our chemical protection. I’d hate to hike a mile in this weather only to find I was on the wrong road.
The track led past tilled fields. Even to my urban eye, the crops looked small and droopy, not the bright green and upright stalks of healthy plants.
We’d been going for about half an hour, my weather-resistant shoes squelching deep enough in the mud that it spilled into my socks, when the cropscape changed. The neatly squared-off rows—identical horizontally, diagonally, vertically—ended, marked by a barbed-wire fence. On the other side a wilderness appeared: no two plants seemed to be alike. Some were tall, spiky, some short and scrubby. Dotted among them were wildflowers of all colors.
I stopped to watch butterflies and grasshoppers flitting among the flowers. Under the heavy sky, with land stretching to an infinite horizon, it was hard to imagine my city, its buildings and people crammed cheek by jowl. How could both worlds exist simultaneously?
The proposed development on the drawings I’d sent to Murray, about a square mile of luxury shops, homes, golf course, private beach—you could fit all that into this land and not even notice it was there.
Who in Chicago wanted it? Who had that kind of money and why would they spend it there? Uprooting a mile of lakefront, including an eight-lane road, sounded both absurd and obscene, but the city had rerouted Lake Shore Drive around the Field Museum twenty years or so ago—if the money and the will were there, it would happen.
Murray had said it looked as though the mechanical engineers were with a firm called Punter. I’d looked them up before leaving the hotel this morning but hadn’t found a company with that name. Maybe this was a phantom project that Leo had taken seriously—but then, why had he and Simon been murdered? Over some other project? Over something completely unrelated that I didn’t know about?
Bear dropped to the ground, panting heavily. I poured water over his head and into a collapsible bowl for him before drinking myself.
We’d been alone in the fields all morning, and so when a man spoke behind me, I spun around, so startled I dropped my water bottle.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
43
Tales of a Traveler
My unconscious stereotypes had tripped me up: it hadn’t occurred to me that a preserver of prairie and an organizer of the Tallgrass Meet-Up might be African-American. That was the remark Clara had held back from making as I left.
Bear growled softly. I put a hand on his collar and squatted to pick up my water bottle. “My name is V.I. Warshawski. Are you Franklin Alsop?”
“And if I am?”
“If you are, I hope you can direct me to Coop—this is Bear, his dog. Coop left Bear with me, but I’d like to give him back.”
“Whoever he is, you don’t belong on my land.” His voice was like gravel, the words almost giving off sparks as they struck the air.
Sweat was running down my neck and soaking my armpits, but Alsop looked not just dry