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(Another vehicle, this one a pick-up. Not the jalopy.) Better to disguise herself into the least threatening object she can manage. If that fails, she will resort to more direct means of gaining an escape.

She removes the nightgown from her head and tears it in two. Then she tears the lower portion again and tears the third section into strips. (Another car. Traffic enough, and a sample fit for judging oncoming cars.) The frilly top, left intact, can pass for a blouse. (A motor from the other direction. A truck. The jalopy.) She fingers a rock as she watches the truck slowly make its way up the road.

There does not appear to be much other traffic. She begins to make her way through the grass parallel to the road. She has changed the nightgown into what passes for a shirt and tight shorts. It is far easier to run in, and might fool a driver long enough to get her in. She must remain barefoot. No amount of cotton will help that.

Before long she hears the telltale signs. It is coming the right way to keep her from having to risk crossing the road. There are no signs to say if that direction (North. It is north by northwest. Fifty degrees west of Chicago, to the northeast.) is the fastest route to civilization. She steps out of hiding at the most opportune point to be seen by the driver and not by searchers.

The driver is male and alone. The choice is made as to how to request assistance. By the time her target is at the point where a decision to stop for her must be made, she has flashed her smile, swung her hips and made the dozen or so other nonverbal promises a man reacts best to. When the car brakes and stops just past her shoulder she casts a smug grin back along the road where the next car – driven by a woman with two children in the back – will not be needed.

"Where ya going?" the forty year old man asks, leaning from the driver's side as far as his seatbelt will allow.

She grins widely as she pulls open the door and quickly slides inside. "Anywhere but here."

If he thinks that is just plain typical for a girl her age from a small farming community, he does not say. He smiles himself as he pulls back out onto the road. "I'm just going in to Monee," he says.

"It'll do."

The car looks new, but it is not a late model by her standards. There is not a lot of information about the current date in the cab. She decides she will have to dig for it as soon as she can get him wrapped up enough not to stop and eject her. She turns her head, pulls loose strands of hair back from her cheek and smiles at him again, noting a nervous politeness from him, but also a shift in how he is sitting.

She gets no further for the moment. The jalopy approaches them from the other direction. They must have gone around some block of field. She could duck, but some small echo of anger keeps her upright in the seat, smiling at them as they pass. "How fast does your car go?" she asks sweetly.

Inside the pickup, the youngest brother Clayton beats Joe roughly on the shoulder. "Stop! Stop! That's her."

"What? Where?" Joe asks, ducking blows and bending the elbow of his arm so he can keep the strikes away while not taking his hand from the wheel.