A spiritual thriller which, like a freight train, jerks into immediate motion, thunders into places altogether unexpected, and at last . . . well, who can tell where a fast moving freight might be destined? As for the protagonist, young Virgil Maro, he remains as uncertain about the aid he receives as he is about those who pursue him. And like the great combines that ply the vast grainfields of the American West, Virgil’s plight cuts a broad swath through tracts heavy with a mixed harvest of illusion, suspense, faith, and occasional gleanings from myth’s wild weeds.