Looking more like a drowned rat in the rain than a sleek fox, the small animal paused on the crushed shell shoulder of the bayou road and raised its nose in the downpour in search of a dinner scent. All it received was a bath of half salt half rainwater thrown from under the tires of a small sports car it neither smelled, heard nor saw. It sputtered, sneezed and slipped back into the reeds at the edge of the canal. It paid no heed to the source of the shower and it could get neither fed nor wetter in the downpour.
***
The driver of the vehicle was totally unaware that he had bathed and nearly drowned the fox. In fact, his concentration was tunneled on trying to discern where road edge ended and shoulder began. In the rain, no painted lines were visible; on the center or on the side; if, indeed, they existed at all on this back-country road. The only sounds were the hiss of rain on the car, the swish of standing water being planed from under the wheels (the source of the fox'es shower) and the rhythmic slap of the wipers as they struggled to keep the windshield of the two-seater clear.
The road curved gently as it followed the meander of the Louisiana Bayou. The car curved with it. The driver, intent on keeping his small car on the road, had only time to talk with himself. So intent was he on the road that he hadn't heard the scratchy country western station on the car radio for nearly an hour. "Damn! I can't see anything but rain. I know there's a road here somewhere, but there sure isn't any shoulder to pull off on." His forehead was shiny and his shirt wet, not from rain, but from the exertion of driving. Twenty miles back he had nearly become a floating island as a sugar cane truck took both sides of the road on a curve. Now, he occasionally had only the feel of tires crunching seashells to tell him that he had drifted from the road. But, the rain, the road and the car all melted into the flat light of the bayou dusk.
***
Dark had fallen on the Louisiana road. At least the rain had slackened to a steady but undriven drizzle and he could see to drive. His headlights, projecting yellow-white cones ahead of him, were bejeweled by the reflection of the falling rain drops toward which he sped. As he drove the tiny low car through a tight and blind left curve the lights glanced off an object unnatural to the bayou night.
"What the sam hill? That was a person. How the hell?" A brief glance in the mirror showed nothing in the dark and taking his eyes off the road nearly put him in the bayou. He slowed the car to a stop and having seen no lights in his rear view mirror for the last ten minutes, he began to back up slowly, ready to shift and move over at any sign of traffic. As the car rounded the curve his backup lights illuminated the shape of a totally sodden person wrapped in a sleeping bag. Face, age and sex were indeterminate under a ball cap from the bill of which cascaded a small waterfall.
He wound the passenger window down and yelled out, "Are you Okay?"
A haunted face appeared from under the ball cap. "I'm c-c-cold." The face was young, but the voice shivered so much that sex could still not be determined.
"Do you need help?"
The biggest brown eyes he had ever seen just looked at him and repeated, "I'm c-c-cold."
"Did your car break down?" 'No, I didn't see any cars stopped, ' he though to himself "Do you need a ride somewhere?" The eyes just looked into the dry car. "Come on ... get in, quick before all that water gets in the car. You got any baggage?"
The young face shrugged the sleeping bag from shoulders, opened the car door and more fell than entered the tiny cab. The sudden infusion of warm moisture immediately fogged the windows. "What about your sleeping bag?" The eyes just looked at him. "Okay ... it's your bag." He put the car into gear and picked up speed deeper into the bayou.
***
"Th-thanks for picking me up, mister." The voice, at last, under control from its earlier shivering fit, was husky, but feminine.
"What were you doing out there, miss. I hadn't passed anything for 10 minutes. You must have been 5 miles from the nearest anything. I'm Mike ... and you?
"Wilhelmina Lafourche ... but you can call me Billie L, nearly everybody else does. Can you take me into Houma? I want to catch a bus." Mike chanced a look at the face behind the voice. It still resembled a soggy swamp animal, but the tired eyes were wide and fearful. In the dark, he couldn't determine the color of the matted and wet hair, but the complexion was clear and the face showed signs of being attractive, if dirty. Below the face was a soggy oversize T shirt. His eyes paused too long on the erect nipples behind the shirt and the sound of crunching shell returned his gaze to the road.
"Well, I would, but we're headed the wrong way and it's too late for you to catch a bus, anyway. If I can read this map right, I can't even U-turn for 13 miles till we come to ... uh, Bayou Petite, I think. I've got a room there and they've never been full yet, so we'll put you up there. I've got to go to the office in Houma, tomorrow. If you still want to go in, I'll take you then.
"I can't register at the motel, mister. They know me there. They'd call my uncle."
"Come again?"
"Well, I mean, he tells everybody he's my uncle. He's got a bayou shack back off the road where you picked me up. My pa left me with him when I was 13. Pa ain't been back for years and Uncle Jake, well he was s'posed to raise me till my ma came back. Least ways that's what pa said. Folks is always farmin' out kids 'round here cause of the times they're out fishin'."
"Uh, he doesn't know you were out hitching a ride?"
"Uh, uh. I run off."
The thought of being picked up for kidnapping or of being pursued by a backcountry set of irate relatives interrupted the concentration of driving. "Uh, why? I mean, I don't want to get in any trouble down here."
"He was doin things I know he ain't s'posed to. To me, I mean. Ma told me 'bout men and such. And I had a beau once and we used to, well you know. Then, 'bout a year ago, Uncle Jake found out and run Jimmy off. 'Bout then he came into my room one night and started touchin me whilst I was asleep. Told me pa had said it was alright. I was scairt, cuz he's bigger'n me and ma always told me to obey my elders." Her voice dropped into an embarrassed whisper. " 'Sides, I like to do it. Makes me all tingly." Now, her voice returned to normal. "But, last night he said he was gonna take me on his fishin boat, so's his crew would stay aboard. Well, I knew that wasn't right, cuz I only like to do it with men I want to. So, I took his money and lit out."