George got off three more rapid shots. Then, it seemed, he was out of ammunition. It didn’t matter. The bullets had done nothing to stop, or even slow the combine. Still, Lou was concerned that there was space for the thresher to swing from him to George.

Still fixed between the headlights, he began jumping up and down, hollering and frantically waving his arms above his head. The move sealed his fate. The thresher made an adjustment, and he quickly became the chosen one.

Fifteen feet.

Ten.

The noise was deafening now.

In seconds, it would be over.

Five.

Lou spun to his left and tripped on a root, rolling his left ankle. He pitched forward like a baseball player diving headfirst into a base. Unlike the rest of the cornfield, the soil he landed on was muddy and dense. He flattened himself out, hands stretched over his head, jaws clenched, waiting for the blades to tear him apart.

But there was no impact.

He had fallen into a trough, he realized—not a furrow between rows, but something deeper, an irrigation ditch. The roar and wind as the harvester passed over him were like a tornado. The ground shook violently, and the blades actually swept across his back. A millimeter or two more, and he would have been shredded.

As soon as the harvester had passed over him, Lou scrambled from the ditch and hobbled toward where he reckoned the road was, feeling every step in his ankle. Just as he was losing confidence in his sense of direction, the densely packed stalks fell away. He stumbled out into the roadway, torn and completely covered in blood and dirt. Some distance away, he could hear the combine, swinging about for another run at him. Headlights appeared up ahead, flashed twice and went out. A car came skidding toward him through the darkness. Lou tensed, ready to dive back into the corn. The headlights urgently flashed again and the approaching car slowed.

Cap leaned out the driver’s-side window. “Quick, get in the car, Lou!” he cried.

Lou clambered into the backseat, relieved to see George sitting up front, and immediately grasping the significance that there were only three of them. Cap spun the car 180 degrees, sending a pillar of dust swirling into the night sky. The car fishtailed several times on the dirt road before finally catching traction. Lou looked behind him and saw the bank of lights from the harvester fading in the distance.

Unable to stop shaking now, he kept on looking until the machine had vanished from view.

Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

At one o’clock in the morning, beneath a densely overcast sky, the vast cornfields all looked the same.