Edited by A+ Editor Girl (Thanks!)
Sadie Mae was washing dishes when she caught sight of something in the woods, down past the old Buick Uncle Bud had dumped back in '46. She dried her hands as she went outside for a better look.
The woods were oak and walnut and even a few chestnuts. Most all were over a hundred feet tall. Around her trailer, thick undergrowth grew up where it could get sunshine. Between the brush and the trees and the deep shade, Sadie Mae couldn't get a good look at whatever was wandering out there.
She searched the woods from the back porch. "Must have been a bear," she thought as she turned to go back in. The sound of a cracking branch had her looking again. There it was again, down by the creek, a bit of light brown hair. It could be a bear. She craned her neck to catch another look.
She listened but heard nothing. No grunts, no footsteps, no sounds but the birds. And it was too tall for a bear. In the shade of the trees, she saw a branch twist. "Now, that's shoulder high to Ned Leach if it's an inch" she thought. "That must be a man down there. What's a man doin' sneakin' about my house?"
She retrieved her gun from behind the screen door. Holding it across her scrawny chest, she peered across the dirt yard into the trees. "Someone come pokin' around my place better think again. Ain't been on my own out here since Old Willy run off with Sophie Chase without taking care of myself!"
What would someone be doing out in the woods behind her trailer? She didn't have anything to steal, that's for sure. She left folks alone, no call to do her harm, much less murder.
"Oh my gawd!" she thought, "It's a molester!"
She could just see him, tall and broad with a long ponytail hanging down his back. "He must be wearing some leather jacket" she thought, "and boots. I bet he's got a motorcycle parked down on Frog Hollow Road!"
He'd overwhelm her, that's for sure. Just scoop her up in his arms and carry her back to the bedroom where he'd toss her on the bed. There wouldn't be anything she could do but let him have his way with her. "Why, I'd be just too weak to fight him off!" she thought," Not some tall, strappin' young man with a motorcycle and a pony tail!"