Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Night
January had been through a lot in her life, but what happened tonight shook her to the core. It took a hundred questions before River got the story out of her as to exactly what happened. Two drunk cowboys in a pickup truck spotted her on the side of the road and stopped.
She told them she had car trouble and her boyfriend had gone for help.
She tried to get rid of them but the one with the big gut-the one the other one called Jackson-ended up popping the hood. He fumbled around for a long time and eventually spotted the problem, one of the battery cables had come off.
He said, “Try it again.”
She turned the key.
The engine started.
She said “thanks” and shifted into first but before she could pull away the other drunk-the stringy muscular one called Condor-grabbed the steering and turned the key off.
“You’re going to give us a reward, right?”
She nodded.
“Sure.”
She reached in her purse.
That’s when Condor grabbed her tit and said, “I’m not talking about money, baby. Why don’t you get your sweet ass out here and show us how grateful you are.”
Her heart raced.
“Sure.” She opened the door as far as it would before Condor’s body blocked it. “Step back baby.”
When he did, January fired the engine, did a one-eighty and took off. They gave chase and ran her off the road.
Then they raped her, both of them.
They didn’t do it nice.
They were mean about it.
Thunder rolled through River’s blood as he listened.
“What’d they do with the keys?”
“They threw them that way,” she said.
River shined the flashlight to where January pointed and said, “Over there?”
She nodded.
“Somewhere in that direction.”
It took five minutes and he almost gave up twice, but then he found them, smack dab in the middle of yucca spines.
Yeah, baby.
The tires weren’t buried and he was able to get the vehicle back to the road.
“Do you know which way they went?”
She did.
She was in the trunk but the assholes were shouting and honking the horn like some kind of sick victory celebration when they headed up the road.
“That way.”
River put it in gear and took off, deeper into the country.
“Tell me about their truck,” he said. “What’d it look like?”
“It was old,” she said. “It was mostly white but the tailgate was a dark color, red or blue or black, something like that.”
“It must have been replaced,” River said. “Too bad for them.”