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He also wanted her to go to college. But it was summer and she had opted not to go to summer school. Killing a man, even a horrible man like the pastor, had messed with her concentration. Her grades remained good even though she skipped out on a lot of classes. She barely finished the spring semester. Given everything that had happened, she couldn't sit in a classroom without feeling claustrophobic.

Out here on the prairie there was room to breathe. And being able to see for miles in either direction created a sense of safety and security Cash had come to count on. She found some peace in the Red River Valley fields. When settlers had arrived in the Red River Valley in 1869, they received an allotment of a hundred and sixty acres of the most nutrient-rich soil in the world for an eighteen-dollar filing fee. Paupers from Scandinavian countries and Western Europe hit black gold. They grew children like corn. Some mothers gave birth to potential farmhands at the rate of one per eighteen months. Families would show up to church with eight to ten children, stepladdered from the tallest to the one on the hip.

It was their descendants Cash worked for. Her own folks, the Ojibwe, had been in this part of the world since the seventeenth century. Prior to the settlers' arrival, her people traded up and down the Red River with the Cree in Canada and the Dakota to the south. But they preferred to live in the forests by the lakes to the east, where deer and fish were plentiful. Cash, however, due to family circumstances and bad social policies, had grown up in the Valley. She had grown to love farm labor. She loved the quiet stillness of working the fields, driving the big machinery and trucks. There was the occasional broken machine or days of rain when one couldn't get into the fields. But as a farm laborer none of that was really her problem. The big farmers like Borgerud handled the problems. All she had to do was drive the tractor and get paid.

When the sun was directly overhead, Cash stopped the tractor by her Ranchero. She ate her tuna sandwich sitting in the shade offered by the big rear wheel of the tractor. There was a white wisp of a cloud in the sky, barely a wisp. She could hear birds talking to each other in the trees down by the river even though the river was a mile away. Looking to the east, beyond the little house with the car still running in the driveway, Cash could see cars driving down the highway two miles over, heading toward town for lunch at the drive-in or maybe to pick up machinery parts somewhere in Ada or Fargo. There were no cars driving the gravel roads out here where Cash was working. A few sections of land over, field dust was rising from another farmer plowing, but that was all that seemed to be moving in the Valley. Cash relished the peace. Sandwich. Coffee and cigarette. She was ready to get back to work.

Climbing back up on the tractor seat, she looked down the field again at the car in the yard. Several hours and it hadn't moved. She hadn't seen anyone come in or go out of the house. Cash felt a familiar tingle at the back of her head, just behind her left ear. No. Just go to work, she told herself. She turned on the tractor and started plowing. The closer she got to the house, the greater the tingling sensation at the back of her head got. At that end of the field, she shut off the tractor. She could hear the soft hum of the car engine running. Not your issue, Cash. Get to work. She started the tractor again and headed back to the other end of the field.

Cash made about four more rounds before she knew she'd have to check it out. Someone might leave a car running to go inside for a quick errand but no one left a car running all day. And that tingle told her something was off. When she got back to that end of the field, she shut the tractor off and hopped down. She brushed the field dust off her jeans and shirt as best she could. Slicked back the loose strands of hair that had escaped in the summer heat. As she walked up to the house, she ran different scenarios through her mind before settling on just asking for some water. She could always say the heat had gotten to her.

Cash came into the yard from the field side so she walked right up to the car in order to turn toward the house. She glanced at the house windows. Sheer white curtains were open and no one was peering out. No farm dog announced her presence. Cash took a quick look into the front seat of the car. It was a soft, bluish-gray Chrysler model. The key was in the ignition. The leather seats were clean. No papers strewn about. A neat and tidy car. Tire tracks indicated at least one other car had recently been in the driveway.

Cash looked again at the house. Still no movement in the windows. The back of her head started to vibrate as she walked closer to the two wooden steps that led to a screen door. Through the mesh of this outside door she could see inside the entryway, where another all-wood door was ajar. She knocked on the outside door. No answer. The door creaked on its spring hinge as she opened it. The thought ran through her mind that it was like the screen door at the Casbah bar. When she walked into the Casbah after a day in the fields the hinge would bring the door slamming shut right behind her, almost, but never quite, catching her long braid.

Cash stepped up into the entryway. Denim work jackets hung on nails on the wall above a pair of worn field boots. "Hello?"

No answer. The air where she stood was heavy.