realizing that he was actually more impressed than angry. Not only did Lauren have the right sources in the campaign to get a lead, she had the balls to actually follow his car to see where he was going. But did she know anything new? He thought fast. She did not know about the cleaner at the Havana. She did not even know about the motel. She could follow his car but she could not follow his investigation.
“No,” he said. He laughed before adding, “But I’ve got nothing for you. That woman in there hasn’t said a word since she was arrested. She still hasn’t.”
He opened his car door.
“Come on, Mike. Gimme something. It’s been cold waiting for you to come out.”
Mike smiled again. He was actually enjoying this as long as he didn’t have to give away any secrets. “I’ve got nothing for you, Lauren,” he repeated. He winked at her as he shut the door and started the engine. Within seconds she was a shadow in his rear view mirror, gazing after his retreating car, no doubt already compiling her next blog post.
CHAPTER 6
THE ROAD ACROSS Kansas reached ahead of Mike like a rope stretched tight against some invisible peg past the flat horizon. He drove for hours barely moving the steering wheel, past Kansas City, past Lawrence and Topeka. Briefly the highway climbed up into the Flint Hills, where the old prairie grasses were never turned into farmland. The sudden beauty of the country shocked him and he pulled over at a rest stop, getting out of the car under a winter sky that suddenly cleared and bathed the landscape in beautiful sunshine.
He stood there for a moment of peace and freedom, untied at last from the heated atmosphere of the campaign back in Iowa. He felt the ever-blowing wind in his hair and the faint warmth of the winter sun. The sky felt big again; a gigantic dome of blue, not the glowering gray that seemed to have hunkered down in Iowa, barely above head height, for the last month. A sudden explosion of feathers in the brush took him by surprise and a prairie chicken hurtled into the sky. He laughed and got back into the car and started driving again. Soon the landscape of the Flint Hills was just a receding bump on the horizon and the road to Garden City beckoned again across the plains.
As his car ate up the miles and hours, the view gradually changed. The terrain, already virtually flat, seemed now to defy belief and become even more so. Western Kansas was a harsh landscape and ploughed fields surrendered to tougher soils that could only sustain herds of lanky cattle foraging on the short grass. He drove by Greensburg, Dodge City and Cimarron and finally into Garden City itself. It was a beaten down looking place, dominated by the hulks of the meat-processing factories on its outskirts and ringed by black-earthed cattle feed lots, where untold millions of cows from across the Midwest were fattened up on grains before being driven to the waiting slaughter houses.
Though small and isolated out on the plains, Garden City was a familiar name to Mike. The meat plants acted as a notorious candle, enticing thousands of illegal immigrants like moths to its flame. Even in Florida Mike knew hundreds of men and women who would suddenly abandon the fruit fields for a shot at labor they could not imagine being even more harsh than the work they already did. Usually, though, they discovered a deep disappointment. Conditions in the meat plants were dangerous, pay was low, and raids by la migra were a permanent part of life. Most workers soon found they had merely swapped the backbreaking toil of fruit picking for the equally-tough task of wielding huge cutting knives on a never-ending production line of cow flesh. It cost many a finger or two before they moved on yet again.
But Mike got lucky in his quest to find Ernesto Benitez. He knew a handful of union organizers and community activists out here, part of an informal network to which his own organization back in Florida
“No,” he said. He laughed before adding, “But I’ve got nothing for you. That woman in there hasn’t said a word since she was arrested. She still hasn’t.”
He opened his car door.
“Come on, Mike. Gimme something. It’s been cold waiting for you to come out.”
Mike smiled again. He was actually enjoying this as long as he didn’t have to give away any secrets. “I’ve got nothing for you, Lauren,” he repeated. He winked at her as he shut the door and started the engine. Within seconds she was a shadow in his rear view mirror, gazing after his retreating car, no doubt already compiling her next blog post.
CHAPTER 6
THE ROAD ACROSS Kansas reached ahead of Mike like a rope stretched tight against some invisible peg past the flat horizon. He drove for hours barely moving the steering wheel, past Kansas City, past Lawrence and Topeka. Briefly the highway climbed up into the Flint Hills, where the old prairie grasses were never turned into farmland. The sudden beauty of the country shocked him and he pulled over at a rest stop, getting out of the car under a winter sky that suddenly cleared and bathed the landscape in beautiful sunshine.
He stood there for a moment of peace and freedom, untied at last from the heated atmosphere of the campaign back in Iowa. He felt the ever-blowing wind in his hair and the faint warmth of the winter sun. The sky felt big again; a gigantic dome of blue, not the glowering gray that seemed to have hunkered down in Iowa, barely above head height, for the last month. A sudden explosion of feathers in the brush took him by surprise and a prairie chicken hurtled into the sky. He laughed and got back into the car and started driving again. Soon the landscape of the Flint Hills was just a receding bump on the horizon and the road to Garden City beckoned again across the plains.
As his car ate up the miles and hours, the view gradually changed. The terrain, already virtually flat, seemed now to defy belief and become even more so. Western Kansas was a harsh landscape and ploughed fields surrendered to tougher soils that could only sustain herds of lanky cattle foraging on the short grass. He drove by Greensburg, Dodge City and Cimarron and finally into Garden City itself. It was a beaten down looking place, dominated by the hulks of the meat-processing factories on its outskirts and ringed by black-earthed cattle feed lots, where untold millions of cows from across the Midwest were fattened up on grains before being driven to the waiting slaughter houses.
Though small and isolated out on the plains, Garden City was a familiar name to Mike. The meat plants acted as a notorious candle, enticing thousands of illegal immigrants like moths to its flame. Even in Florida Mike knew hundreds of men and women who would suddenly abandon the fruit fields for a shot at labor they could not imagine being even more harsh than the work they already did. Usually, though, they discovered a deep disappointment. Conditions in the meat plants were dangerous, pay was low, and raids by la migra were a permanent part of life. Most workers soon found they had merely swapped the backbreaking toil of fruit picking for the equally-tough task of wielding huge cutting knives on a never-ending production line of cow flesh. It cost many a finger or two before they moved on yet again.
But Mike got lucky in his quest to find Ernesto Benitez. He knew a handful of union organizers and community activists out here, part of an informal network to which his own organization back in Florida
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