Free Ever After by William Wharton Page B

caravans, all driving fast, really fast, and cutting in and out all the time, that I finally say something to Bert’s brother.
    â€œSteve, don’t they have any speed limits here? You’re doing seventy and almost everybody is passing you. I thought France or Germany was bad, but this makes their driving look almost sane.”
    â€œEverybody in Oregon is going somewhere in a hurry it seems, Kate. I don’t understand it myself. But if you go under seventy you’ll be run right over. You know, Oregon is one of the few states that went back to the sixty-five mile speed limit. This means they drive seventy-five without the cops doing anything. Maybe it’s the frontier spirit.”
    He looks over at Bert and laughs. We’re in a big American car with plenty of space for our luggage and us. The three kids are in back with me—without seat belts, so I have to hold onto Day and Mia, one in each arm, and I tell Wills to hold onto the armrest. In California and in Germany, I always drove using special seats with straps for the kids, which in turn were held down by seat belts. It’s the law in both those places, but I’d do it anyway. A little kid doesn’t have a chance, even if you only need to stop fast. Bert looks back at me from the front seat.
    â€œSee, Kate. We’re in the wild west here. That fifty-five mile-an-hour speed limit saved more lives than any law that’s been passed in the United States, but in Oregon they’d rather be dead than safe. They don’t like anybody else telling them what to do.”
    I hold tight onto the kids till we come off the highway. It’s early evening and the countryside is beautiful, except there seems to be a terrible smog, worse than in Los Angeles.
    â€œWhat’s all the smoke, Bert? Do they have big industry up here?”
    â€œThat smoke’s from field burning, Kate. One of the biggest crops in Oregon is grass seed. The farmers burn hundreds of thousands of acres of stubble from the fields after they harvest the grass seed. It’s been going on for almost forty years. Everybody tries to fight it but the seed growers are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year growing the stuff. It’s hard to stop them.
    â€œAll kinds of organizations have tried, but nobody seems to get anywhere. The people in Oregon are paying for it. Their eyes sting, and there are darkened skies, constant smoke, and cancer-giving pollutants. All just so a few farmers can get rich. It isn’t really farming either, it’s agri-industry, a pall over Oregon.
    â€œI used to be head of a group at the university that fought them; in fact I was arrested once for picketing the governor’s mansion. Sometimes, it makes me ashamed to be an Oregonian.”
    I wonder how the smoke is going to affect Wills and me. We’re both terribly allergic. But then, next week, Wills will be flying down to Los Angeles. In all the fuss, I almost forget I won’t be seeing him much during the next year. He has been my best friend and closest companion. I’m going to miss him. But as Bert says, he’s Danny’s child, too. In many ways, in the way he is inside, he’s more Danny’s child than mine.
    I know something about Bert’s family. His father was a butcher who had his own shop in Falls City, a small town with only 600 people. His father expanded the shop to sell other goods so people wouldn’t need to go all the way to the next town to buy the little things they’ve forgotten.
    He made a reasonable living. Bert and the other kids in his family all worked in the store. I also know that his dad bought some land just outside town and built a house there on seventeen acres. He tried to grow holly bushes to sell at Christmas, but it didn’t work out.
    When we drive into the Woodman place I’m enchanted. I have no idea that the house would be so personal, so handmade. It’s a bit run-down, mostly needing