The Hondo(page-6)

       Tim continued to scream for the dogs who scampered to the woods in the pitch dark of the night, it was after midnight, and Kevin finally told Tim to get in the truck, Tim obliged and jumped in. As the truck pulled out of the driveway, the truck ran off the the road toward an unkept fence row, Kevin grabbed the steering wheel and brought the truck back on the straight and narrow lane, Tim was so frightened he begged Kevin to turn around and wait until the morning. They were in too deep and far past of reconciliation of returning to that hell hole of neglection that their poor sick dad put them through over the summer, enough was enough, they simply couldn't handle another day much less an hour in these squalid and abusive conditions, onward they traveled. 

       They pulled out of the tapered lane onto the highway, they had to go through four cities to get back home, first back through Raywick, then left on Highway 49, thank God the traffic wasn't heavy, but their dad sped around 55 miles per hour, Tim was terrified, clinching his door handle and ready to bail if oncoming cars were coming and his dad crossed the center line so many times and veered off the road already twenty times, the road was a long and twisted, Tim couldn't begin to settle down but Hondo was cool as a cucumber, he never panicked, he was calm, cool, and collected under pressure, one car damn near hit us but Hondo grappled the steering wheel and slowing eased the truck back on track, finally, they made it to Saint Francis, a four-lane stop and forward they traveled, the steep hill beyond Saint Francis was where his dad was slowly nodding off, that's where the brave Hondo took over completely, he steered them the rest of the way back to Bardstown, but, his dad had to be awakened to change the gears past Holy Cross(the old Holy Cross on the highest hill in the county still stands as a remembrance of that night too), they finally rolled onto Balltown Road, another slender lane, and how Hondo managed that 90-degree turn was a miracle, now, one more highway and they're home, Highway 31-E was pretty much a straight stretch until their last left on Sutherland Lane, and when they hit Sutherland, Tim let out one sigh of relief, and thanked Hondo and told his friends at school for a month the following fall semester at St. Thomas school, what bravery his brother performed on that one miraculous odyssey home one night in late July. 

                                                                          6