* * *

Just beyond the distant crest of the heat-shimmering blacktop a Calowing white cloud unfolded in airy slow motion against the endless baby blue Virginia sky over Jim Bradford's pickup. The atmospheric phenomenon sluggishly stretched its snowy fingers in every possible direction, thick as cotton in some places and thread bare in others. The far corners of its highest reaches blocked the piercing rays of sun and created shadows across the desert floor far more distorted than the plume itself. The massive cloud looked as though it might fall to the earth and crush every living thing underneath like a textbook on a bothersome mosquito.

Beyond the tall corn fields to his right ran the Chowan River and to his left was the tail end of Mill Pond State Park. He left the Virginia state line twelve miles behind and he hoped to find the turn off toward Charlottesville soon. That would eventually lead him to Staunton and hopefully a cheap hotel.

Jim made a comfortable living as newspaper reporter for the Richmond Sun in Richmond, Virginia until the ripe old age of fifty-seven started getting in his way professionally. It was as if the rungs on the company ladder grew old along with him and finally snapped beneath his feet. No, it was nothing he could ever prove in a court of law, but the facts of the matter remained. In his last few years of consistently meeting deadlines he routinely found himself being shuffled down the line of importance, managing more current event features than crime. Suddenly more downtown supermarket openings and church bazaars were landing on his desk. The Weekly Crime Watch and other popular segments he had started over his long career were going to the younger reporters. A cantankerous old reporter who had a slight tendency of interjecting an honest opinion into his pieces was unfortunately doomed to the more politically correct home and garden section.