chapter two
In Her First Life - May 15, 1974 Rural Reedville, Arkansas. Fear seized her like a claw.
‘B
out a mile from The Sticks,
three miles from Reedville, proper, Jonathan Jefferson Reed’s old ‘62 Ford pickup just set there—a rusting hulk held together with baling wire and a prayer. The sun-bleached, blue heap hugged the edge of a large circular clearing, nearly surrounded by a sentry of towering Arkansas pine. Nothing moved. Nothing. Damn truck looked downright abandoned. Always did, moving or not. The old wreck was an unlikely means of transportation for the son of one of the most powerful families in Arkansas. Not surprising, since Jonathan’s parents discouraged him from flaunting his wealth in the face of those who had so little. Just then, his scrawny, naked, pale-white backside—with nearly protruding vertebrae—appeared in the lowered driver’s window. Inside the seedy truck cab, carpeted with fast food wrappers and the decomposed remains of unidentifiable crawling critters, the thick, hot air reeked of musty sneakers, sweaty private parts, and unshaved armpits.