When I pulled the church door closed behind me at 6:30, the usual long sharp shadows of these prairie mornings—and the winds that rise with them—were absent. A thick sunless fog lay on the town. Cheerless, but no wind. I turned on to state highway 55 and took advantage of it, shifting out of third gear for the first time in days. I actually sat up. What a concept—no headwind. Karen's house on the east side of the Twin Cities lay 175 miles straight southeast and if the wind held off I could make it in a day and a half. I stroked the downhills hard and shifted into fifth, then sixth—the speedometer showed double digits, numbers I haven't seen forever.

It couldn't last. A hard little shower sprang over the handlebars, followed directly by the same wind I've bucked for days. The bike slowed as if braked, the handlebars wrenched lightly back and forth. I shifted back to third. My hands on the bars have gotten good at gauging the wind by now; from the southeast, 21-22 m.p.h. I put my head down and crawled.

Then. Magic.

The rain stopped. The wind died. As if the spigots from which they both ran had been snapped off. And within minutes, from north to south, in one long arc, the overcast and fog were peeled like a blanket from a bed. I expected to see a hand up there, furling it away. A gust of wind chucked my shoulder. It swung hard behind me and seemed to grab the seat, flinging it forward. I shifted out of third again. Down a hill, fifth gear, then sixth. The wind blew stronger now. I shifted onto the big chain ring, the one I haven't touched since John and I dove out of the Rockies. The wind was chasing me now, stronger still. Rain drops dangling from telephone wires or corn leaves turned to diamonds in the sunlight. Eighth gear, tenth, the top—twelfth. Another hill. I flew up it in a second and ripped down its back at 40 miles per hour. The wind kicked a notch higher. The phone wires swung on their poles like jump ropes.

I hit Barret at a solid 35, right past SPEED LIMIT—25. I hesitantly touched the brakes. But when was the last time you saw a cop run radar on a bike? I snapped them off and sailed head-down through town and back into the waving corn. Hoffman next, then Kensington, then Farwell—each a handful of miles apart and each little more than a water tower and jiggling storefronts. By late morning I flew through Glenwood, Sedan, and Brooten. The wind blasted. The towns and people began to smear; the gas station guy held his hat in the wind and became the shopper and the postman and the farmer near his shed and the next town's gas station guy, holding his hat and waving. Lowry, Paynesville, Eden Valley sped by minutes later. It was like riding the merry-go-round, everything out of control blurred and spinning around and around. It was like making love—the handlebars that feel like her hands as they lock in yours, unlock, and lock again as you speed up. And when you're through the stoplights and back in the fields you slow some, you hear the quiet again, your own breath, your beating heart. Weeds rattle in the ditch, unlatched barn doors bang far away. In the headwind you never hear these. With the wind, they are music. Late afternoon; Kimball, Annandale, Buffalo. Evening, and the Cities' western suburbs. I buy a rose from a street corner Moonie. Cross the Mississippi into St. Paul. The street lights are just snapping on as I knock on Karen's door with the rose behind me. When she hugs me—the warmth of her chest on mine—my legs leave and she is as much holding me up as holding me.

*

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