𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝙾𝙽𝙴:

The teens in the beat up Silverado beside her truck beat on their windshield and laughed at her, they knew she wasn’t from this side of the tracks. Anyone would. She adjusted her hat and looked up at the place where the rearview mirror would be. She took it off long ago, after everything happened in her hometown. With doing this, she vowed to never look back, never searching through the dust to see her past ever again.

Her rough hands thudded the beat of an old country song as her worn tires took her as far away from home as she could go. She’d run the junk metal into the ground, drain every drop of gasoline in it. Hell, she’d push the thing across the county line before she even looked over her shoulder to see the mess she’d left back home— if she ever had a home. She didn’t think so.

For some reason, the kids beside her floor their petal, keeping up with her as they race down the lonely, abandoned highway. For the first time, she looks over at them and their tires slow. She brings her own to a halt, getting out of the jacked truck and slamming the door. The boys cut up, jumping and calling out to one another as her boots crunch on the gravel beneath her feet.

A sweaty, bucktoothed white boy leans out of the jammed window, his sticky tanned flesh pulled, tugged, squished and formed into the too-tight-tank top. “Hey, sweet cheeks, where you’s headed?” His reddened cheeks are stretched into a crooked grin, nearly sickening the girl as she nears, ducking into the shade cast by the packed truck. Funny enough, it reminds her of a clown car on oldie cartoons; there’s about twelve guys in the loaded metal coffin of a truck.

“I’m about to do what your daddy couldn’t,” the girl says, leaning into their window. “I’ll straighten your ass out faster than your mama put thread through a needle. You got that, buckwheat? Mind your mouth, before I tie you up and let the crows peck on your vacant noggin’.”

The other boys in the truck let their jaws hang. Slowly, one shifts, “You got a mouth like a firecracker, rattlesnake. You know how to drive that thing?” He nods a head towards the idle black Ford Fourth Generation. It’s been souped up and loaded like a gun.

She leans forward, grinning wildly. “Wanna see my baby roar? I can beat your trash-packer on any day, button.” She didn’t wait for his answer, walked back to her truck, hopped in the cab, threw it in drive and high-tailed it like a deer through the bushes. She didn’t turn around, she continued on her heart’s path, to GravelsTown Way, a small town with only one gas station and a farmer’s market another hour away.

—— ✯✮✭✬✫ ——

Another two hours and she fills up on gas, grabbing jerky from the counter and paying 20¢. She hands him a quarter and tells him to keep the change. Five cents won’t get him very far. Her spurs click like nails on a table as she walks through the pale dust. Somewhere off in the sunset, a dog barks. She squints, shielding her eyes.

𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘺, she thinks to herself as she finds her truck beside a squatty pump , 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯.

After pumping gas into her cans in the beating heat and finishing her jerky, she flies through the countryside, her hair billowing from the window, her black cowgirl hat lays in the passenger’s seat and an oldie blares on the radio. She watches cows and horses graze in green pastures, red and white barns shimmer in the distance, corn field after corn fields flash past. She even dodges a few free-range chickens that wandered onto the road for grit, unaware of the danger.

When the sun sets, she figures rest should come, doused in regret and sorrow, she pulls to the shoulder of the backroad. Just as she settles down in the seat, her hat resting over her face, a loud gunshot rings out down the countryside.

Cries fly up from the trees, it’s the sound of alarmed birds. The girl sits up in the seat, pushing the hat onto her head over messy braids. She slides out of the seat, grabbing a flashlight from the glovebox. She switches it on and bangs the side until it flickers on, casting a strong beam of light across sun-bleached paved road, one of the few modern things in these parts of the south.

Off in the distance, she sees a small, rundown farmhouse painted a faded, peeling grey. Her sharp eyes narrow as she slides into her truck. Maybe she’ll figure it out tomorrow. She locks the doors and lets her eyes close, drawing sleep close like a riding buddy.

—— ✯✮✭✬✫ ——

“Ma’am? Ma’am?” She jolts awake, wiping drool from the side of her mouth. She sits up too quick, hitting her head on the roof of the car. The state trooper outside her window grins. She relaxes a small bit and pops the door open. “Mornin’, sunshine. We don’t see many travelers in this town. Not like your type.”

“And what exactly is my ‘type’?” She pulls her boots off and shakes them out while sitting in the truck. He watches her, then laughs.

“I can tell you this; this right here is the Baker’s Farmstead. You’re taking a tabby’s catnap on the man’s property which can get you a ticket,” the man straightens his hat and wipes sweat from his brow. “The man ain’t very friendly either, ma’am.”

“Well, your momma raised you right,” the girl says, smiling sheepishly and closing herself into the driver’s seat. “I’ll be on my way now.”

She cranks the truck and prays it catches. After a bit, it roars to life. The trooper beside her pops the top of the cab and winks. He waits in her dust and gives a small wave as she disappears down rows of corn. She stops when she’s sure he isn’t following her and does a sharp U-turn in the narrow road, running over a low corn stalk. She shoots down the long path, headed for the rundown farmhouse she saw before. Something about it draws her near, keeping her from wandering too far.

—— ✯✮✭✬✫ ——

The drive winds up a small hill. The fields are barren, except for a few pastures to the west, holding livestock. Chickens cluck and scatter as she slowly follows the gravel road, keeping her tires in the grooves and off the strip of thriving grass in the middle. She pulls the sleepy truck to a halt, the wheels squeaking as the break struggles to keep itself from rattling loose.

She pops out and crunches up the drive, hopping the gate that keeps her truck from reaching the main property, where the rundown house sits, rotting on a spot of rich soil. She jumps another fence, landing in the pasture, and walks through it to avoid the sea of bear traps keeping anything alive from entering the driveway. She whistles as she goes, it’s nearly a cry for help in this neck of the woods.

A small creek runs through the pasture, her boots splash as she crosses the thinner puddles, venturing closer and closer to the house. Tadpoles dart within puddles underfoot, as if they’re ready to sprout legs and spring from the isolated puddle and onto the fuzzy green grass.

“The hell are you doing?”

She turns on the words, only the slightest bit of startled. A young man drops the two tires he’s carrying to a big red barn a few feet out, and wipes the motor oil residue from his hands onto his worn jeans. He crosses the traps as if it’s some country jig and hops the fence like a experienced hare.

“You see that?” He points to a lonely, black scarred horse grazing in the field. It’s apart from the others. Almost as if it knows they’re talking about it, it’s ears perk and turn, it’s gigantic head raises. “That thing would kill you in an instant. It’s the wildest horse we got. You understand? Untamable. You got that? Now if I’s you, I’d get my white ass off this property and go plant flowers around your mansion. Preferably before someone has to put them around your grave.”

He’s sweaty and dirty. Grime sticks to his tanned skin like sunscreen. His dangerous brown eyes hover over hers, questioning and a tad bit afraid of the strange girl. Before she can think, her mouth opens in reply.

“Well, you ain’t me, now is you? Your ass might just be whiter ‘n mine. Now is that any way to treat your visitors? Didn’t ya mama teach you anything?”

“How old are you? Tromping up here. What? You some insurance lady, comin’ to take away my farm? I done told y’all, it’s in the family’s name. Paid for and all. For generations. You can’t take this shit. And we ain’t going to no snobby court up in—“

“I see she ain’t tell you nothing,” the girl snaps. “You don’t go rattling on about your financial situation. And you for God sure don’t ask a lady her age.”

“I don’t have to tell you shit,” he hops the fence and tobbles over the traps again. “And I sure as hell ain’t gotta tell you to get off my property again, or I’ll just blow your brains out. That’s how it is here, missy. And I ain’t tellin’ you thrice.”

“Then you’d best keep your mouth shut,” she spits back, hopping the fence and tromping behind him. “‘Cause I’ma stayin’.”

“No you ain’t.”

“Why, yes I am.”

“Look here, you city slut,” he spins on her, the tires he’d just picked up bump against her stomach but she stays put, peering up at him through the sunshine, taking it as a challenge. “We don’t need no help. You’re like a stray bitch, if I feed you, you’ll keep comin’ back.”

They stand like that, facing each other and staring for awhile before he breaks away and goes inside, dropping the tires— again— at the screen door’s step. The girl hops the rotting fence, and searches for the horse the grumpy man pointed out earlier.

—— ✯✮✭✬✫ ——

Should I continue? Be honest!