"They saw it all, dear," the man said. "Infrared camera. They've been watching you all night, since we brought you down here." Jack, who'd made the ar...angements with Peter, clapped the man on the shoulder. "Yes. My gear is all in for repairs, so he was good enough to bring his. Thanks so much, sport." Another man crouched down and grabbed her hair, leaned close to her face. She opened her eyes and saw him. One of the men from last night, the one with the cane. He spit in her face, ran his. I pulled out all of the money and counted it. $67.45, enough for the bus ticket out of here. I was twelve years old, smart enough for my age and fed up with being smacked around by a drunk. Mom wouldn't say anything to stop him because he would smack her around if she did. Well, OK, I was gone!My bus ticket in hand, I boarded the huge Greyhound bound for anywhere but here. I sat by the window and watched carefully to see if he would show up. I thought I saw him several times but it wasn't him.. Who could take a chance of hurting Aunt Ellie's feelings? Throwing caution to the wind, I put my other hand on her right calf, and rubbed. I didn't do anything way out of bounds, but just lovingly rubbed her calves."Billy, that feels good. You'd better stop, or I'll fall asleep right here."I was sitting at her feet, remember, so I shifted my hands and gently pushed her legs apart. "You'd better not fall asleep, Aunt Ellie. I don't know if I could trust myself."She giggled, but she didn't resist. “You cook it more than that and it just ruins a good piece of meat. One nice thing about working on a cattle ranch is you get all the beef you can eat.” He opened a can of beans and poured them into a pan.“Beer,” he asked, reaching into the refrigerator again.“I don’t drink,” I said. “I’ll have a soda if you have one.”“I don’t drink either,” he said, pulling out two Cokes. “We keep beer in here for the extra hands when we hire them on.”We had a filling meal of steak, beans and loaf bread. Slim.