Child With No Name by Franklin Horton

Author:Franklin Horton [Horton, Franklin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-20T16:00:00+00:00

30

The Farm

North Carolina

Tonya was pleased to find that the tiny camper had air conditioning. So pleased that she turned it down cold to the lowest setting and took a nap for most of the afternoon. When she woke up she was parched and in a thick-headed stupor, like she’d awoken from a days-long drug binge. After fumbling around in the cabinets she found some disposable cups and filled one from the sink. The water tasted of rust and smelled funny but she drank it since it was all she had.

A search revealed there was no food in the camper and she wondered if she’d slept through dinner, but had no way to know. There wasn’t a clock and she didn’t have anything that told time. She unlocked the door and stumbled outside, the oppressive heat hitting her like a fist in the face. Squinting against the sun, she tried to get an approximation of the time of day from its position but couldn’t tell anything. The terrain here was different than home, flatter, and that threw off her perception. There were no high ridges and deep valleys.

She closed the camper door to keep the cold air inside and walked around the metal building that hid her trailer, watching the ground for snakes. She didn’t know what kind of snakes they had here but the thick weeds and scattered junk piles looked like an excellent place for them.

When she got to the dirt lot where the RV had left her, she headed off down the two-track dirt road the rest of her traveling companions had taken earlier. This was where Shelby said the kitchen was. He also told her that her meals would be brought to her and she wasn’t to wander around, but she never had been a good listener. They pointed that out to her in school up until the time she quit going.

Around her, hidden by borders of dense trees, she could hear the sounds of machines running. It sounded like tractors but she couldn’t see them from where she was. She didn’t know how far she walked, but it seemed to take forever in the heat. Lugging her belly around made it worse, affecting everything from her balance to her breathing.

Eventually, she passed another thick boundary of trees and came upon what looked like some kind of community thrown together in a clearing. There were campers and mobile homes in orderly rows. Crude shanties and dormitories were thrown together with the cheapest cuts of lumber, all painted long ago in a mint green paint that had peeled in the humidity.

Between the structures hung sagging clotheslines laden with hand-washed laundry. The clothes hanging in the still, damp air were thin, old, and patched. Tonya’s belongings were currently scattered to the four winds, stored at the homes of friends where she frequently crashed. She had nothing to her name at the moment, yet she wasn’t sure she’d wear any of what she saw hanging out in this encampment. She might be destitute but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a sense of style.

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