Sunday morning dawned in typical August fashion. Large, fluffy clouds floated through the hazy sky. Mist rose over the fields. The sticky air hinted of the thunderstorms to come rolling across the ridges later in the day. The smell of tilled dirt from the surrounding farms filled my lungs.
Once upon a time, I had loved summer. A boy free from the confines of school could run through rows of corn taller than himself and roam the acres of trees growing on the hillsides. Farmers still raised the old staple crops—corn, apple trees, beans, and tobacco—in the lower fields of the valley, but the best cash crop for the steep slopes were the Christmas trees that took years to grow. The vastness of the tree farms created perfect playgrounds for kids, at least until someone spotted us and shooed us away.
After I returned to Millerton as a young man from the military and worked full time, the long hours of daylight gave me time for leisure after a day of labor. Shelby and I could go for an evening walk through the fields or sit on the porch and watch the sunset.
Now that I was retired—and with Shelby living at the nursing home—leisure time was all I had. Mornings started early—long before sunrise—because my body no longer let me sleep through the night. I bustled around the house in the dark, doing my best not to wake Wyatt, until it was time to venture to Abe’s Market and hang out with my friends. Once breakfast ended, dangerously close to lunchtime most days, I headed back to the house, did a few chores, and napped in the hammock with Belle by my side until it was time to leave for dinner with Shelby.
When I returned home in the evening, I ate my own dinner and waited for the sun to set so I could go to bed and sleep until it was time to do it all over again. What good were the extra hours of the day if I did the same thing no matter what? I had grown to prefer the shorter days of spring and fall. It was dark when I awoke, no matter what the month, but at least those seasons brought an earlier start to the evening.
My complaint with summer wasn’t limited to hours of light. The summer heat was tough on an old man. I scratched Belle’s ears as she snoozed in the shade of the sprawling maple tree and thought about how the hot weather was tough on old dogs too. This was probably her last summer. I had no idea how I would handle next summer without her. I had resigned myself to the fact that Shelby and I would never sit under this tree again. It seemed unfair that I would lose Belle too.
The old dog snorted in her sleep, her nostrils flaring and her back legs kicking on the ground as she dreamed. She shifted her head in my lap and resumed snoring contentedly. I leaned back against the bark of that broad trunk of the old tree, a protruding root poking me in the butt, but I wouldn’t move until I had to. Belle deserved her cuddle time.
A plume of dust rose to meet the rising sun, the first hint of C.J.’s approaching truck. The sound of the tires crunching through the gravel road brought Wyatt from inside the old clapboard house, mercifully dressed and not still in boxers like yesterday. The screen door banged shut, a rifle shot across the yard. Belle opened one eye and scanned the horizon. She must have decided nothing needing chasing, sniffing, or barking because the eye drooped closed, and her steady breathing resumed. I ran my hand down her side, stroking her warm fur.
C.J. stopped the truck in front of the house and waited for the dust cloud to settle before creaking open the door. He stood, placed his hands on his back, and stretched as if he had been driving all day. We mumbled our “good mornings” to each other, a quiet familiarity of old friends between the three of us. The breeze rustled the tree’s branches, and birds called in the distance as we chatted about nothing.
Once the sun rose fully above the mountain range, I disturbed Belle’s morning nap long enough to usher her for a pee in the yard and into the cool interior of the house. She curled up on a tattered rug in front of the dark fireplace and resumed her slumber, no protest that we were leaving her for a few hours. I pulled the front door closed quietly so as not to disturb her.
The choice of which car to take was easy. I didn’t have one. C.J.’s pickup truck would have required us to sit shoulder to shoulder on the bench seat. We piled into Wyatt’s SUV, the most comfortable option by default. C.J. sprawled across the back seat and sipped his coffee. I settled into the front passenger seat. Wyatt started the engine and did his best to get the meager air-conditioning blowing before driving down the gravel road that bisected the sprawling cornfield.
Nothing had changed in this part of the county for years, but I rarely had a chance to just sit back and watch the scenery flow by the car windows. An old barn sagged in the middle of a field. Houses and trailers were scattered along the road, old properties like mine that farmers had carved out from their land and sold to raise cash in one of the common bust years of agriculture.
The biggest building was the white clapboard church that loomed at the intersection with the paved road. Its steeple rose high into the air, a landmark for everyone who lived in this cove. A sign by the front entrance cited the biblical scripture of the week—Proverbs 12:22: The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy—and touted a fundraiser for the church’s annual mission trip to El Salvador.
This early in the morning, only a few cars congregated in the asphalt parking lot. As the sun rose higher, the lot would fill and overflow along the edge of the gravel road as families gathered for the services.
I couldn’t help myself as we drove by—I turned and looked the other way, so I wouldn’t be spotted. My reaction was silly because a lone car on a dirt road always received attention. The Good Reverend Brawley, if he happened to be looking out his window, sure knew Wyatt’s car.
For years, Shelby and I had sat in the same pew week after week near an open window, fanning church bulletins to stir the humid air as the minister cautioned sinners to mend their ways. C.J. sat with us. Wanda sang in the choir.
After the service each week, we returned to our house, cooked a big Sunday afternoon meal, and ate under the maple tree as my dog—I have always had dogs—frolicked in the yard. As the afternoon drifted into evening, we tossed horseshoes, and sometimes, on the hottest days and under the scorn of the women, sipped a cold beer or two.
C.J. stopped attending services first, shortly after Wanda died. He still came to the house Sunday afternoons for dinner, at first making excuses that some chore took longer than expected and made him miss the service, but later admitting he couldn’t listen to the singing voices of the choir without hurting too much. The sympathy he received when people noticed his eyes tearing up was too embarrassing to him.
I told him that was silly, even admonished him it was okay for a man to cry every now and then. I stuck with that opinion even after we received the news of Jessica’s death and Wyatt’s existence, but after Shelby began her slow decline, I understood his reaction. When she could no longer go to the services, I stopped attending. I told people I needed to stay with her in case she hurt herself. When she’d moved to the nursing home, I had never returned to the church.
With Abe’s Market closed on Sundays, no Liars’ Table to sit around, and no desire to enter the church, C.J. and I were as apt to spend the morning fishing as anything. Our friendship was all the churching either one of us needed.
Few cars traveled the country roads on a Sunday morning, so Wyatt made quick time through Millerton to the interstate. Broad Street was even less busy than normal. With all the empty streets and sidewalks and darkened storefronts, I realized how much it resembled an abandoned town in the scary movies Wyatt liked to watch. I imagined zombies hiding in the shadows of the factories in the industrial park. Even Ronnie didn’t venture there on Sundays, but attended the small black church out on the west side. Maybe vampires slept in the storeroom of Abe’s Market, closed for the day as the Morgan family gathered at their downtown church before going out to the house for the Sunday dinner Martha would prepare. Visions of werewolves scampering unmolested through the three blocks of the vacant business district flashed through my head. Even Sammy’s Pub, a place targeted by many of the ministers during their sermons, respected the Sabbath and locked its doors.
I shook the thoughts from my head as we approached the entrance to Interstate 40. The quiet of town was shattered with the sprawling truck stop, the Walmart, and the smattering of fast-food restaurants all open and bustling. Sunday was just another day out here, except for the Chick-fil-A, of course, whose drive-through lanes sat empty.
We ignored C.J.’s request to grab a biscuit from Bojangle’s and merged onto the interstate for the drive through the Pigeon River Gorge and into Tennessee. Slow-moving semis clogged the right lane, the hills and turns making it impossible for them to go faster. Tourists, impatient with the pace, raced in the left lane much too close to each other’s bumpers.
Neither truckers nor tourists seemed aware of nature’s beauty sprawling around them, but it always awed me. The tumbling water of the river had carved the ancient gorge deep into the mountains, stone walls towering over the road on either side. Beyond those walls lay hundreds of thousands of acres of undeveloped land—the Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This wild land sheltered us and served as a barrier to keep the rest of the world out. Until the interstate opened during my childhood, getting through these hills was a challenging task. Even with it, travel could be daunting. Only a few exits were scattered for the many miles and were irrelevant to most people since the roads didn’t go anywhere except into the wilderness. People like C.J. and I, though, ventured out to Fines Creek or Coogan’s Cove for trout fishing among the many creeks or in the Pigeon River itself.
As we approached the Tennessee state line, we passed the old hydroelectric plant. I’d always marveled that it was built not only before the interstate but before roads of any sort came through the gorge. The construction workers who built it—and their families who lived in the company town created to house them—traveled by the river itself.
Within a few miles, we exited from the gorge, the road straightened, and the pace of traffic quickened. The town of Newport flashed by shortly before a third lane of concrete was added in each direction as Interstate 81 merged with its traffic from Virginia, the nation’s capital, and beyond. Even on a Sunday morning, the road was thick with cars headed into Knoxville. We were leaving the serenity of our mountains behind and entering the wider—and wilder—world.
I was mesmerized by the waves of humanity around us. C.J. must have been thinking the same thing as he broke the silence. “Makes you appreciate Miller County, doesn’t it?”
A small red car whipped past at eighty miles per hour and abruptly changed lanes in front of us, missing another vehicle with only inches to spare. My seat vibrated from the bass thumps emanating from the cranked-loud stereo. I shook my head in disbelief. “I seriously doubt he’s late for church.”
“I don’t know,” C.J. replied. “The way he’s driving, he better be praying.”
I gripped my hands together and thought how happy I was we had decided Wyatt should drive. His younger reflexes and experience with traffic kept us safer. When we got some space around us, Wyatt glanced into the mirror at his rear seat passenger and asked C.J., “When were you last over here?”
No reason for Wyatt to know that answer, because it was before he came to us, but I knew the question hurt C.J. My friend turned his head to watch the traffic and probably hide a tear. “Eight years ago, right after Wanda got her diagnosis. We knew it was probably going to be her last Christmas. I asked her to name any present. She wanted to see the Christmas lights at Dollywood one last time. I didn’t think it was much of a present because we did it every year. Besides, I had thought it would be too tiring for her, but it was a great trip. She loved how festive it made her feel, despite the chemo.”
Wyatt licked his lips as he scanned the traffic around him. His voice shook as he asked, “You never came back?”
C.J. looked down at the floor of the car. His voice was so quiet I barely heard him over the noise around us. “Once she was gone, I had no reason to come back.”
Wyatt twisted his hands on the steering wheel. “I bet the lights were amazing.”
C.J. could only nod.
“I heard Dollywood was fun. I’ve never been, though.” Wyatt shrugged, and the inside of the car grew quiet. I thought, as I often had, of how abnormal Wyatt’s childhood had been. I figured most of the kids in his school had traveled the few miles out of town to the sprawling park. No wonder he hadn’t gone to class often. Their lives were so foreign to his, he couldn’t have been able to find much in common with them.
To break the awkward silence, I said, “When Shelby started having her episodes, we both knew things were going to end sooner or later. I asked her if there was anywhere she wanted to go before it was too late. She said she wanted to see a show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. I got us tickets—I didn’t care what it was, just that it was there—and booked a couple of nights at a hotel. Spent more money than we could afford, but I’m glad we did it.”
Wyatt said, “First time you left me home alone since I had moved in.”
Shelby and I had quietly debated whether to invite Wyatt to join us for the trip, but we both wanted some alone time. His first few months had been rough and challenging, though the Bigfoot incident was the beginning of his settling down. Now, though, thinking of all he had missed as a kid, I wondered what he would have thought of such a trip. “We should have taken you with us.”
Wyatt shook his head. “That was for you and Grandma. Besides, it meant a lot to me you trusted me enough to leave.”
“You were ready.”
Wyatt grinned. “I was, but Belle wasn’t. That dog paced the house for days. I was a poor substitute for you in her mind.”
I didn’t want to tell Wyatt I’d probably spent more time on that trip fretting about Belle than I did him. Instead, I focused on a passing billboard advertising moonshine for sale in Gatlinburg. Legal moonshine made no sense. Moonshine was what it was, not because of the distilling process, but because it was untaxed liquor. Revenuers chased moonshiners because they wanted the tax money, not the recipe. To tax liquor and sell it in a store meant it was not moonshine anymore, which was just proof tourists will buy anything.
Wyatt, however, was still focused on our out-of-county travels. “Sounds like you two only left Miller County for your wives.”
Traffic slowed as we approached the bridge over the Holston River, the entrance to Knoxville. As I watched the water flow under the bridge, I thought of how it would soon merge with the French Broad to form the Tennessee River. From there, it dumped into the Ohio River then the Mississippi, the Gulf of Mexico, and beyond. Just the day before, I had stood knee-deep in the Pigeon River, fishing. Had the water that had swirled around my legs already made it to Knoxville?
The traffic came to an abrupt stop, startling me out of my thoughts. I finally answered Wyatt. “I came over here to get you after your mom died.”
We stared at the mass of taillights in front of us. Wyatt softly said, “You did that for Grandma too.”
Of course, he was right. Fortunately, C.J. saved me from answering. “Your grandpa spent all his time in school talking about leaving Miller County and never coming back, but not me. I couldn’t imagine waking up every morning without seeing those mountains.”
Wyatt looked at C.J. through the rearview mirror. “Your wife was the same way?”
“After we got married, Wanda and I would take off once every year or so for vacation at Myrtle Beach or Pigeon Forge—even drove to Washington D.C. one time—but we never even talked about living somewhere else. I’ve never been in an airplane and never wanted to.”
Thankful to have avoided Wyatt’s earlier comment, I said, “It didn’t take me long in the air force to figure out I had already lived in the best place in the world. I couldn’t wait to get back.”
Traffic began to inch forward. We could see a mass of flashing lights, the apparent cause of our slowdown. Wyatt said, “I grew up thinking Millerton was an awful place, and I had never even seen it. All Mom talked about was how little it was and how everyone was always in your business. She used to say no one could ever get ahead there.”
Wyatt’s reaction when we’d first seen him had made that clear. “You sure didn’t want to go home with us when we came for you.”
“No, I didn’t.”
We drove past two crumpled cars in the breakdown lane. Firefighters were stowing their gear. A wrecker was hooking up the first vehicle. A teenage girl sobbed into her cell phone. A middle-aged man gestured while speaking to a police officer.
Wyatt said softly, “But I’m glad I did.”