A half-formed plan was in Charity's mind when she gained the temporary sanctuary of the bathroom; it was a plan to make good her flight from that house that was no longer a home. She had to act, decisively, on the instant. There was no time to lose!
Turning on the taps, she refreshed herself, quickly; then, leaving the water running and hoping the sound would cover her movements, she went into her own bedroom, rummaged in the drawers for clean panties and bra and put them on to cover her curvaceous nakedness.
In her closet, she found a long-neglected airline flight bag and stuffed in extra underwear, a couple of blouses, a slip and a skirt. Not daring to take time for packing more than that, she slipped on a pair of shoes and tiptoed out of her room, across the dining room to the kitchen and on out to the back porch to Donnie's little cubicle of a room.
She put the small canvas flight bag on his mussed bed and delved into his closet. She found one of his shirts and a pair of blue jeans. Putting them on, she shrugged the jeans over her swelling hips and found they fit her rather tightly, but she was afraid to take more time to look for a larger pair. Next, she found one of Donnie's old baseball type hats and put it on, trying to tuck up her long, auburn hair to confine it, somewhat. One of her brother's windbreakers completed her outfit. A womanly glance in the mirror told her that she had not really made a transformation. It had been a vague hope that she would be able to disguise herself well enough to pass for a boy, but the swell of her hips and buttocks inside the jeans and the tell-tale shape of full-mounding breasts showing under the boy's shirt could not be hidden. It would have to do, she decided, knowing that time wasted now could be her undoing.
Her mind was clear, and she was alert and ready. Picking up the light bag, she eased herself from Donnie's room, her ears attuned for any sound within the old house. Good! He was still in the bedroom… hopefully, sound asleep, or merely lounging at ease, at least.
Nimbly, she slipped through the back door and ran, lightly across the back yard toward the rear gate opening into the alley. Her heart pounded with excitement. She was going to make it!
"Charity!"
It was Gabe! His commanding voice stopped her in her tracks. Oh, God… no!
She turned to face him, absolute dread in her. He stood at the back door, still nude, his face contorted with anger.
"Where the hell are you going?" he demanded.
"I-I'm leaving… for good!" she said and turning walked through the gate into the alley, realizing that he could not possibly pursue her… naked.
"Come back here!" he yelled.
Charity kept walking. She didn't look back when she heard Gabe slam the back door.
It was a little after 1:00 p.m. when she thumbed a ride downtown, and from there walked out along the street designated as an interstate highway through town. Soon, she was out of the congested area, and she walked along, alert to the traffic, her thumb waving, asking, mutely, for a ride, willing to take her chances with whomever she rode… as long as they were going east.
Jack Leonard rolled to his side from his cradled position between Charity's mother's long, smooth tapering thighs, his thick cock sliding out of her gently clasping vaginal passage with a slight pop, a thin filament of semen connecting them for an instant, until he was on his back, and it finally broke. He was completely satiated, and he looked over at her appreciatively, taking in the curvy, youthful appearing contours of her body through still sex-hungry eyes. He had picked her up in the Palomino Club; she had seemed to be waiting for someone, but whoever he was, the man had not shown.
Jack had walked over to her booth, where she sat alone, and struck up an inane conversation, both of them knowing it was a pick-up attempt. He had not been wrong; she went with him willingly… and she had been great in bed. This was his second evening with her.
She fluffed a pillow for him and put it against the headboard while he rummaged for a pack of cigarettes, lighting one for himself and offering her one, too.
"No, thanks, I don't smoke… remember," she said, smiling over at him, relaxed… sexually satisfied, herself.
He drew smoke into his lungs and studied the glowing end of his cigarette, thoughtfully, then he said, "Dottie… I've been trying to figure you out… you're a damned beautiful woman… all alone, here in Phoenix… playing the part of a hooker… but there's something about you… you're not a real pro, at all. There's something domestic about you… like you ought of have a husband and kids…"
Dottie's eyes glistened. It was strange, this man's insight into her, his being able to look beyond the obvious, and she responded to it.
"I-I have two children…" she murmured.
"Boys…?"
"A boy… a-and a g-girl…"
"Husband…?"
She was thoughtful for a moment, trying to judge just how much she should tell this big, rangy stranger. Finally, she said, "He's basically a g-good man… but I-I…"
"… But, what…?" he prodded.
"H-He drinks… and can't hold a j-job…"
"… And, you've had to support him… and the kids?"
"I… I ran away…" she confessed.
It was his turn to be thoughtful before answering, "Well… I can see you had quite a burden… but why run away from it?"
Dottie turned away from him, her face to the wall, the tears running freely and unchecked, now. She sobbed, "Our l-lives… absolute m-mess… you'd n-never believe…"
"Why don't you try…?"
"Wh-What do you m-mean…?"
"Tell me about it… I listen good…"
Little by little, detail by sordid detail, he was able to draw the story from her, asking questions, listening to her answers, trying to see things from her point of view, but not making any comments. When her recounting of all that happened up to the point of her leaving and subsequent arrival in Phoenix was finished, he told her. "I can understand most of it… and I can sure see that you had had as much as you could stand… but there's one thing I think you made a mistake on… you should have gathered up that young daughter of yours and taken her with you…!"
It was the brutal truth. She recognized it for that, and she was immediately contrite, willing to admit that she was wrong. "Oh, God… you're right… that was when she needed me the most… wasn't it!" She was clear-eyed and decisive, now.
Later, dressed and ready to leave her, there in her motel room, Jack Leonard had made a decision to involve himself in Dottie's life. He said, off-handedly, "I've got to make a run over to L.A., tomorrow… how'd set with you if I stopped by, on my way back… and bring your daughter back here to Phoenix with me…?"
It was an answer to her unspoken prayers. "Oh, Jack… would you…? I know it's the right thing… now!"
"I'll need the address… and your daughter's name."
"Her name's Charity… Charity Scott… a-and… here, let me write down the address for you!" She was excited, almost girlish in her enthusiasm. "Maybe, I should write a note to her… explaining…"
"All right… it'll make it easier for me…" he agreed. Sitting down, he waited the few moments it took her to pen the short note.
Dottie gave him the envelope and an impulsive kiss. "Thank you…" she murmured.
As Jack left her, somehow, her kiss, when she gave him the envelope, was more meaningful than the frantic ones of two hours before as she came to full, sexual arousal under him. He couldn't have explained it… but he knew that that particular kiss was given to him, freely, by the real woman – a good woman, he knew, instinctively – who resided, simultaneously within the beautiful but life-used body of Dottie Scott.
Sprawling drunkenly on the couch, Gabe grumbled at the knock on his door. "All right… all right…" he mumbled, "I'm coming…"
He heaved himself, unsteadily, to his feet and staggered to the door. Opening it he saw a tall, spare man standing on the porch. "Yeah…?" he asked, trying to focus his bleary eyes on the stranger.
"Mr. Scott…?" Jack queried, amiably.
"Yeah… what do y' want?"
"Actually, I want to speak with your daughter, Charity…"
"She's not here…!"
"Where could I get in touch with her?"
"How'n hell would I know… she ran away…!"
"Ran away from home…?"
"Yeah… I don't know what got into her…" Gabe said, then, finally, focusing on Jack, he asked, "who the hell are you… asking all these questions?"
"Just a friend of a friend… passing through… thought I'd stop by and say hello…" he evaded.
"Name…?"
"I'm Jack Leonard…" He stuck out his hand.
Gabe ignored him. "Sorry… can't help you!" He started to close the door.
Jack stopped the closure with a big hand, asking mildly, "How about your son… maybe he'd know where she is?"
"Donnie…? He's in the hospital… all shot up… they took a.45 slug out of him!"
"Which hospital?"
"County General… why?"
"I'll stop by and see him…"
Gabe bristled. "What's your game? You're too damned interested in my kids! You a cop… or something…?"
"No… like I said, I'm a sort of a friend of a friend… just passing through Redfern… that's all…"
Jack Leonard turned to leave. "Thanks…" he said, anxious to be gone, trying to control an urge to slam a fist into Gabe's slack, drunken face.
"Who's this friend of a friend… you're talking about?"
The big man faced him again and said, "I don't think you'd know her… maybe you never did… really know her!"
"Well… what's her name… damn it?"
"Dottie!" Jack Leonard said. "Dottie Scott!"
He walked, quickly, to his car at the curb, got in and drove away toward the avenue.
Gabe came after him, shouting, "Dottie? Where the hell is she? WHERE IS SHE?"
His voice was drowned out in the roar of the big car's engine. He stumbled and fell, and could only watch as the car disappeared from sight. "Where is that bitch?" he screamed.
Once he gained permission to see Don Scott, Jack was able to gain his confidence, revealing where his mother was and telling him that she was safe and well; further, he explained why he was in Redfern, attempting to find his sister, Charity. He, also, related his conversation with Gabe.
"Was he smashed… as usual?" Don asked.
"Yes, I'm afraid he was!"
"… And, you say Charity split?"
Jack grinned. "Yes… Gabe said she ran away…"
"That's great!" Don smiled. "I was afraid she wouldn't make it… she was really afraid he'd…"
"Afraid…? Of what…?" Jack probed.
Don became serious. He asked, "You really want to help Charity… and Mom?"
"Yes… yes, I do…"
"All right… I'll lay it on you… give it to you like it is!"
"Okay!"
"I was trying to get Charity away… she was afraid our old man would try to rape her… that's why I tried that stupid robbery… to get some money, so's we could split! All she had was me… and I fucked up!"
"Do you know where she'd head for?"
"East! I told her to head for New Mexico!" Don told him.
"Why?" Jack wanted to know.
"L.A. and San Francisco are no place to be on the street, right now! Where it is is the communes… and New Mexico's the best!" Don said.
"Would she do it because you told her to?"
"I think so!"
"It's not much to go on, but I'll try!" Jack told the boy.
The big freight truck, pulling double trailers sixty feet long overall, a sleeper behind the seat and requiring the services of two drivers, ground to a stop alongside Charity where she stood at the side of the highway. She looked up, almost seven feet above the ground, at the man who leaned out of the side window and said, "Where are you headed?"
"New Mexico…"
"Hop in… if you want a ride we're going through New Mexico…" he said, with a disarming smile.
"Well… I-I don't know…" Charity said, doubting the wisdom of accepting a ride in a truck… with two drivers. "… I-I was trying to catch a r-ride… in a car…"
She had been trying for over an hour and a half to thumb a ride, but the motoring public – especially travelers – she discovered was apprehensive about picking up hitchhikers. Several cars had slowed down, but the drivers had sped on, after looking her over, and she was, rapidly, getting discouraged.
"People aren't picking up hitchhikers like they used to… too many things happening nowadays," he said, re-enforcing her own feelings; then, "Good luck…"
The driver shifted into gear and the truck began to move, the big diesel engine developing an ear-splitting roar as the huge rig began to inch forward.
"W-Wait!" Charity yelled.
The truck shuddered to a stop, and she noted that another truck, painted the same bright blue had stopped just behind the first.
"You change your mind?" the co-driver asked, leaning out his window.
"Y-Yes… I've got to have a ride… even for a little ways… maybe you could let me off in Palm Springs…"
"All right… hop in here! Palm Springs it is!" he opened the door, smiling down at her and offering her a hand to boost her up.
"Th-Thank you… ever so much!"
Just before the door was opened for her, Charity read the sign on the side of the cab: J. L. TRUCK LINES; Phoenix, Arizona; San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Dallas, Oklahoma City.
"I'm Pete…" the co-driver said. "My partner's name is Jeff… and you're…?"
"Charity…"