It was just after seven in the morning when Harley’s red 1958 Chevy truck rumbled down Main Street, having traversed the region’s intricate web of country roads. As the truck entered downtown, it passed beneath the amber, gold, and red canopy formed by Main Street’s parallel rows of maple trees. Leaves fluttered like confetti in the truck’s headlights, while others danced beneath the tires, creating a flurry of movement and shadow.
Behind the maples stood Notchey Creek’s half-mile stretch of three-story brick buildings, many built during the 1830s when the town was a small timber and coal-mining outpost.
Today, the buildings served the many Smoky Mountain tourists who flocked to Main Street on nights and weekends, the restaurants and shops decked out with awnings in a myriad of stripes and colors. Patio tables and park benches flanked the sidewalks, favorite spots for outdoor dining or resting one’s feet after a long day of antique shopping or leaf gazing. Though Notchey Creek had its fair share of tourists, they tended to be older and more affluent, preferring the town’s quieter atmosphere to that of its bustling neighbors Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.
Main Street was quiet that morning. Just a few people walked past the dark storefronts, waiting for their mid-afternoon tourist traffic. Harley slowed her truck to an idle in front of the town gazebo, where The Notchey Creek Historical Society had hung a banner advertising Pioneer Days, a fall harvest festival celebrating the town’s agrarian past. Each year, the festival drew thousands of tourists and thousands of their much-needed dollars, all donated to the historical society. To make Main Street more festive, colorful wreaths, hay bales, and scarecrows adorned the streetlights, and terracotta pots full of chrysanthemums filled the spaces between.
Harley turned left onto Briarwood Avenue and headed north toward Briarwood Park, a stretch of tall pines and walking trails connecting the elite neighborhood of Briarwood with downtown. At this hour, the deserted road appeared ghostly and gray, enveloped in a veil of early morning mist. Ahead, in the truck’s headlights, Tina’s pink minivan peeked from the ditch and the giant model cupcake, Rosie, which usually sat atop the van’s roof, lay in the middle of the road, sans cherry. In the grass behind them, the Beds-to-Go scarecrow display had fared much better: Not a hair on Steven Tyler’s wig was out of place and his queen-sized bed was perfectly made. Propped on a bed of fluffy pillows, he grinned at Harley, his corncob hands holding a sign that read “Dream On.”
Tina, on the other hand, wasn’t grinning. She shivered in a black wool sweater, an embroidered jack-o’-lantern smiling from her chest. Her orange sequined miniskirt did not detract from the purple-and-green tights encasing her short legs, nor her three-inch orange stilettos as they tapped against the pavement. Secured to her peroxide blond locks were orange, black, and purple extensions that fell past her shoulders and she looked intently at each of her long fingernails, painted with scenes of a haunted house.
Regarding Tina’s fashion sense, Harley had always thought of a quote by their beloved East Tennessee native, Dolly Parton: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”
And so it was with Tina. Harley supposed they were both misfits of sorts. Somehow they formed a friendship in the fifth grade, and the timing couldn’t have been better for Harley. At the age of ten, she was a friendless orphan and was in desperate need of someone. Tina had been that person for her, and despite their apparent differences, Harley was eternally grateful.
She stopped the truck at a safe distance and, before she could turn off the engine, Tina scuttled over and tugged at the driver’s side door.
“Oh, thank goodness. I didn’t think you were ever gonna get here.”
When Harley opened the door, Tina threw her arms around her, as much for comfort, it seemed, as for warmth. Tina released her and rubbed her hands together. “Gosh, it’s cold out this mornin’.”
Harley reached inside the truck and took one of her barn coats from the passenger seat before handing it to Tina. She made a face of disgust as she led her arms through the sleeves, but the need for warmth overcame that of vanity, and soon she was holding the coat close to her body.
“Where is he?” Harley asked, looking over Tina’s shoulder. “The man you saw?”
She pointed behind them to the ditch. “He’s over there. And he’s still not movin’.”
Tina’s stilettos scuttled behind Harley as the two women made their way toward the ditch. A blanket of mist covered a large portion of the road’s shoulder, making it difficult to see anything of substance beyond. It was then that Tina latched onto Harley’s elbow, pointing to something in the ditch below. Harley paused, her eyes focusing in the early morning light.
A flash of something.
Black.
A garbage bag, perhaps? But on closer inspection, the garbage bag turned out to be a black raincoat, slick with dew. Inside the coat lay a man, face up, his eyes closed, pale face etched with dirt and bits of grass. He had been a handsome man once, Harley surmised, but time and something else, something terrible, had been unkind to him.
A road map of scars coursed down the contours of his face, making his age indecipherable. He could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy years of age, she guessed. A pale triangle of flesh peeked from his shirt collar, exposing a pair of dog tags linked by a silver chain. But the tags were turned away, obscuring any identifying information. She deflected her gaze to the wet grass and thought of her late mother, a regressive pain pressing against the back of her eyelids.
“Who do you think he is?” Tina asked.
Harley examined the mismatch of tattered clothes, the pants too short, the shirt sleeves too long. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe a vet who’s fallen on hard times.”
“What in the world’s he doin’ here?”
Harley had a guess. A tragic one. Taking careful steps, she lowered herself into the ditch, Tina watching her from the road’s shoulder.
“Harley, what are you doin’?” she asked. “You’re not gonna touch him, are you?”
“Just a little.”
Crouching to her knees, Harley pressed her fingers to the side of the man’s neck, checking for a pulse.
Behind her, Tina screamed.
The man’s eyes had popped open, and he was staring ahead, not at Harley, but at something beyond her, to a horror only he could see.
“Get out of there, Harley!”
But Harley drew herself closer to the man, and when he did not lash out, she said in a gentle whisper, “Sir, we’re here to help you.”
At the sound of her voice, the man’s eyes shot back in his head, the white sockets twisting back and forth. “I need to know.”
“You need to know what?”
“I need to know what happened.”
Taking the man’s hand in hers, Harley waited for him to continue.
“That boy. I need to know what happened to that boy.”
“Harley, please!” Tina yelled from the bank. “Get out of there!”
“What boy?” Harley whispered, drawing her face closer to his.
“Innocent. He was innocent.”
Behind her, Tina’s fingernails tapped against her cell phone, dialing for help. But that was all she heard, because the man was stumbling to his feet. He rose above her, his arms thrashing out in front of him for balance.
Harley shrunk back in the wet grass, shielding herself from any violence he might intend, but he was staggering out of the ditch in the direction of Briarwood Park, moving toward the tree line, his eyes fixed on the woods.
“Jed’s on his way,” Tina said, her voice shaking.
The man had already disappeared among the tall pines of Briarwood Park.