They climbed back into the Jeep and made their way back across the fields to the track. The moon was higher now, and the light that fell across South Burlington Farm was alien and cold. Ed smoked his cigar half-way down, then stubbed it out in the ashtray. Nobody who worked on a wheat farm ever tossed a glowing butt out of the window.

As they approached the farm buildings, they could see the pattern of lighted windows in the farmhouse and the outbuildings which meant that all twenty of South Burlington’s John Deere tractors were in for refuelling and maintenance, that all the Jeeps and all the trailers were parked away for the night, and that Season Hardesty was waiting at home for her husband to come back and eat.

Willard halted the Wagoneer on the red-asphalt yard. ‘I’ll call you later,’ he told Ed. ‘Maybe ten or eleven o’clock. I’d like to know what Charlie has to say.’

‘Okay,’ said Ed, and then he turned around to Jack. ‘I want you to call, too, just as soon as you’ve made up your mind what that blight could be. Or even if you can’t decide what it is at all.’

‘I sure will,’ said Jack.

‘Whatever happens,’ said Jack, ‘I want us all here by six o’clock sharp tomorrow morning, with Dyson Kane if he can make it, and I want us to make a complete chopper tour of the whole spread.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Willard.

Ed climbed down from the Jeep and closed the door. He looked at Jack for a moment and then he said, ‘Good luck.’ Willard released the Jeep’s handbrake and drove out of the yard and Ed stood with his hands on his hips watching its red tail-lights disappear along the eastbound track. Then he walked slowly across to the house and climbed the verandah steps to the front door.

Two

Season was sitting with her feet up in the living-room, reading a copy of Vogue. The television was tuned to a special programme about Mid-Eastern oil, but the volume was turned down to a mutter. She didn’t even look up as Ed came into the room, unzipped his tan leather jacket, and sat down in the big library chair that had once been his father’s. Season always called this chair ‘the witness stand’, and she had wanted to throw it out when they first moved in; but to Ed, sitting in his father’s once-sacrosanct seat was one of those small but important parts of taking over South Burlington. It was no fun being an emperor if you didn’t have the throne that went with the job.