At 80 miles per hour, the candy apple red 1968 Corvette effortlessly cruised the gentle curves near the edge of the Texas hills. It wasn't a loud sound. Not loud enough to scare him, but it was loud enough to notice and fill him with anxiety. He immediately gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as a wave of near-panic ran down his spine. Then, as quickly as it appeared, it calmed down. A slight but unusual vibration began to emanate from somewhere deep within the car, or so it seemed. He glanced in the rearview mirror, saw that there were no vehicles as far as he could see, and decided to park the car on the shoulder. Just then, the ribbon of concrete twisted sharply to the right in a nasty hairpin curve. It meandered in a desperate loop that took him completely by surprise, and he stupidly stomped on the brake pedal, far too hard. The tires squealed loudly as they made heavy marks of hot black rubber on the narrow concrete roadway. The rear of the car began to flip, and he instinctively turned the steering wheel to the left to skid. This action now brought him too close to the left shoulder, where large protruding rocks threatened to destroy his car. A few meters beyond the rocks the road plunged into a deep depth; a seemingly bottomless pit. He swore out loud that he had let the turn surprise him. Then, just before the inevitable collision with the rocky shoulder, he released his foot from the brake, turned sharply to the right and, with sincere passion, slammed hard on the gas pedal. The Corvette's wide tires screamed violently as they chewed hungrily on the tire. dry cement. If the... middle of paper... Hew Banks looked around for the creature belonging to the voice and found it sitting lazily on a rickety cane-backed chair behind the counter with a long, filtered cigarette hanging loosely. his lips. She got up with an audible effort. She was dressed in a large, sleeveless floral blouse that had seen better days in a long time. The rough-boned woman reminded him of pictures he had seen of Appalachian-type families, although at the moment he couldn't remember if it was in the Ozark Mountains or somewhere in Kentucky. Her deeply weathered skin was clearly the result of spending her youth in the hot Texas sun. Matt attributed the coarseness in her voice to the countless packs of cigarettes she had smoked, and more than a pinch or two of cheap whiskey. Wrinkles covered his face like an old, wrinkled buckskin coat that had been thrown into a pile on the closet floor for too long...