From Pharaoh's Hand by Cynthia Green Read Free Book Online Page B

asked.
              “ So far out in the sticks, no one will ever find you. Just ‘til the heat is off. Then, if you still want to go home, you can leave. I can’t risk being in the public eye. Not right now. I promise, if you behave, I won’t hurt ya none.”
                  She slumped against the seat. Her mouth was dry. 
         “ I need something to drink. I’m going to be sick.” He passed her a Dr. Pepper that had been lying in the seat, half drunk and hot.
              “ That’ll have to do, I reckon.”
                    Catfish put the truck in gear and hauled it back up the hill to the main road. He took a right at the top of the hill and headed back to the entrance of Mousetail Landing State Park.  Then he made a left onto Highway 412, and sighed a breath of relief as he entered his vast wooded kingdom. It was good to be home.
                               
                 
                 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5
     
    Life in Pharaoh’s Kingdom
     
    “And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage.”
     
     
                  Back on the main highway, Catfish and Beth passed an old church on the left, Howard’s United Methodist Church. They made a couple of hair-raising turns away from the river. Beth could see the charred impressions on the guardrail where someone had met their fate on the dangerous curve. She held her breath as they maneuvered the bend, but Catfish seemed oblivious to any danger.  He was on home turf now. All urgency was gone.  He even let her sit up in the seat as long as she ducked down when they met the occasional car.
                Beth noticed there was little traffic on this highway. She wondered where they were going as she tried to burn the route into her memory. Every edifice, every bridge, every creek’s name they passed, she repeated silently to herself. She dared not break the silence after his threats to dispose of her.
                  Unlike West Tennessee, once they had crossed the Tennessee River, the landscape transformed into rolling hills reminiscent of the Smokies farther east.  The road twisted and curved, ascending and descending in its winding path. The trees were all bare allowing her to see straight through them and view hilltop homes. It amazed her that people were able to get their vehicles up such steep inclines.  A few homesteads dotted the roadside, simple frame houses or mobile homes with peculiar homemade shelters built over them. Beth wondered if this was to protect the trailer from falling trees and limbs.
                  They passed another church, The Church of Latter Day Saints on the left, and Beth assumed they were coming into a more populated area, but her hopes were squashed with the passing miles. A few more homes with grazing horses, a few more mobile homes, and a few home businesses popped up, but nothing that appeared to be a city. They passed a sign that indicated a home for troubled teens on the left.  She had been to Nashville before, so she assumed that everything between Jackson and Nashville was well populated and thriving. The only thing she could see thriving out the window was wildlife. Yet, there seemed to flow a simple serenity that she assumed most of the people who lived in this area enjoyed. That would be its only plus, she imagined.
                  After about fifteen miles, they began another steep ascent and at the top of the hill made yet another sharp s-curve. Beth looked down in the vast gully below. It was a long way to the bottom. A sawmill was in operation right on the curve. At last, some form of life presented itself. Once they navigated the curves, what lay in the valley before them was the idyllic little town of Linden. Beth began to see more houses, a few more businesses, a couple more churches. Soon they were at a red light. She