ON a COUNTRY ROAD

An old pickup belongs on the farm, parked in the folded grass of a driveway or making passage between the rows of corn on a country road. An engine loud as black coffee, and every ripple on the road makes the seat squeak like a nest of tin birds. We spot the weasel just ahead, running right beside the tar, its body hunched almost rolling, like a half-inflated inner tube. It’s going quick, but as we pass, we see it turn its head to glare. Caught in its mouth is a burly field mouse and what a sudden, fierce look that weasel gives us, startling and sharp as a wound, just before it cuts into the crop it knows by heart.