But the bewilderment wasn't so much attributed toward the unknown benefactor but to the strange flight to which she was driven. She held the two, crisp thousand-dollar bills tightly in her hand, and followed the cedar and barbed wire fence up to the ranch road. At one of several deerblind gates along the front property line, she leaned against a makeshift baling-wire closure until it gave, and continued quickly up the main road several miles toward the place that working locals used for an after hours meeting place and unofficial bus stop. Since her childhood, the family ranch was the only place Carrie had ever known sanctuary and escape. In the better days her brother was sent out to spend each summer living and sitting and painting under the watch of several paid caretakers - it proved less expensive and more therapeutic than institutionalized care.
Gas money costs five bucks.
Walking alongside the freshly sealed blacktop she kicked at all the displaced river rocks that fell beneath her stride, and contemplated the ride ahead. That shade tree was the only oasis between the lower and upper forks of the river. The rolling terrain afforded her a twenty-second notice of approaching traffic, yet she thought it safer to just wait behind the oak to avoid being spotted by any of the foreman's family. She had just finished dining on the green apple and club crackers from her backpack when the headlights of the old yellow junker came into view. Only three silhouettes could be discerned inside as the bus crept toward the roadside picnic table as part of its Friday night ritual.