The Road to Riches

As I drove out of Miss Fanny’s front yard and headed back toward Bremen by way of Tallapoosa, my mind kept turning over the predicament of a young woman with no identification, no proof of who she was. When only 14 years old, she’d already suffered the indignity of having a father toss her into a poker pot in the full knowledge that if he lost, he’d force her to live with Blake Thompson. By some bizarre twist of fate, she had now totally captured my imagination. And I was finding it very difficult to not think about her as I bounced along the dirt road leading toward highway Seventy-Eight and my Julie.