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one more cow, I think I might puke.”
        “No you won't,” Alex said. “I'd make you clean it up.”
        “Is the rest of the country going to be like this?” Colin asked, indicating the mundane landscape with one slim, upturned hand.
        “You know it isn't,” Doyle said patiently. “You'll see the Mississippi River, the deserts, the Rocky Mountains… You've taken enough imaginary trips around the world to know it far better than I do.”
        Colin quit tugging at his seatbelt when he saw he was not getting anywhere with Doyle. “By the time we find these interesting places, my brain will be all rotten inside. If I watch too much of this nothing , I'll turn into a zombie. You know what a zombie's like?” He made a face like a zombie for Doyle's benefit: mouth agape, flesh slack, eyes open wide but taking in nothing.
        While he liked Colin and was amused by him, Doyle was also disturbed. He knew that the boy's persistent campaign to be let out of his belt was as much a test of Doyle's talent for discipline as it was an expression of real discomfort. Before Alex had married Courtney, the boy obeyed his sister's suitor as he might his own father. And even when the honeymooners came home to tie up their affairs in Philadelphia, Colin had behaved. But now that he was alone with Doyle and out of his sister's sight, he was testing their new relationship. If he could get away with anything, he would. In that respect, he was the same as all other boys his age.
        “Look,” Alex said, “when you talk to Courtney on the phone tonight, I don't want you complaining about your seatbelt and the scenery. She and I both thought this trip would be good for you. I might as well tell you that we also thought it would let you and me get used to each other, throw us together and smooth out any wrinkles. Now, I won't have you complaining and groaning when we call her from Indianapolis. She's out in San Francisco getting people to put down the carpet, install the drapes, deliver the furniture… She has enough on her mind without worrying about you.”
        Colin thought about that as they rushed directly westward toward Columbus. “Okay,” he said at last. “I surrender. You have nineteen years on me.”
        Alex glanced at the boy, who gave him a shy under-the-eyebrows look, and laughed quietly. “We'll get along. I always thought we would.”
        “Tell me one thing,” the boy said.
        “What's that?”
        “You have nineteen years on me. And-six on Courtney? “
        “That's right.”
        “Do you make the rules and regulations for Courtney, too?”
        “ Nobody makes rules and regulations for Courtney,” Doyle said.
        Colin folded his skinny arms over his chest and nodded smugly. “That's sure the truth. I'm glad you understand her. I wouldn't give this marriage six months if you thought you could tell Courtney to wear her seatbelt.”
        On both sides, flat fields spread out. Cows grazed. Scattered puffs of clouds drifted lazily across the open sky.
        After a while Colin said, “I'll bet you half a buck I can estimate how many cars will t pass us going east in the next five minutes and come within ten of the real number.”
        “Half a buck?” Alex asked. “You're on.”
        The dashboard clock ticked off the five minutes as they counted the eastbound cars, announcing each one aloud. Colin was only three off his estimate.
        “Double or nothing?” the boy asked.
        “What have I got to lose?” Alex asked, grinning, his confidence in the trip and himself and the boy now all restored.
        They played the game again. Colin's estimate was only four cars off, and he won another fifty cents. “Double or nothing?” he asked again, rubbing his long-fingered hands together.
        “I don't think so,” Alex said suspiciously. “How'd you manage that?”
        “Easy. I counted them to myself for half an hour until I saw what an average