The Dummy Line (2 page)

Tanner Tillman was a few months away from high school graduation. He had been the quarterback of the Sumter County High School football team and was headed to Auburn University to pursue a degree in forestry. Tanner drove a 1981 Jeep CJ-7 with big mud grips and a sound system that had cost more than the Jeep. He was what the locals called a “good kid.” Levi’s, cowboy boots, and button-down shirts were what he wore most days. He rarely got into trouble, and because his grandfather had been an alcoholic, his mother was very strict about drinking. Like most good ol’ boys from the South, Tanner dearly loved his momma and he didn’t want to hurt her, so he never drank. His grades were mediocre at best because he spent most of his time bird-doggin’ Elizabeth Beasley, a cheerleader and the runner-up for home-coming queen last October. They had been dating most of the school year. Their senior prom was a few weeks away. Tanner was making big plans that included a limo.

Elizabeth’s father was a very successful accountant, so she had grown up with most of life’s finer things. She planned to attend the University of Virginia at Charlottesville to study architecture, specializing in the design of modern antebellum-style homes. Elizabeth was the perfect daughter—involved in everything and careful about whom she dated and her reputation. She was an all-American girl. Her appearance was striking; consequently, every red-blooded male in the four surrounding counties knew of her. The good guys spent every penny they had on dinners, flowers, and movies, unsuccessfully trying to win her affections. The bad boys lurked in the dark hoping her bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle would break down somewhere remote. All the girls were simply jealous. Without knowing it, she was on everyone’s radar screen. Her father joked about building a moat around the house to protect her. Elizabeth didn’t realize he was serious.

It was Friday night, April 15. Elizabeth’s father would be at the office late finishing the tax returns for his clients who had waited until the very final minute. Her mother always helped organize and electronically file the returns. These were the only few days of the year she worked, and she mostly did it to see how much money the other families in the community earned.

After months of hounding, Tanner had finally talked Elizabeth into going parking out on his family’s land. Her parents would be working late. This might be the perfect time to stay out much later than normal. The relationship was becoming serious. They had dated exclusively for the last several months. Tanner was working her hard because he knew that once she went to college she would never return. He needed her to fall in love with him.

Elizabeth had no intentions of going all the way with anyone, but she liked Tanner more than she publicly admitted and was a little curious about a few things. A strict Catholic upbringing had guided her so far, and she didn’t intend to stray off the path…very much. Tanner was Southern Baptist; at this stage in his life, however, he wasn’t guided by much of anything except his hormones. Elizabeth was special, and he didn’t want to push too hard or too fast. He respected her. Tanner knew that he was in love.

Elizabeth insisted that they go someplace safe. Tanner had the perfect spot. His family owned 160 acres out in the county. There was no way in the world anyone would catch them out there. Tanner tried to sell her on the idea of watching for shooting stars. She knew what he had in mind. His second-biggest concern was draining the Jeep’s battery listening to the radio, but he’d solved that problem. He’d borrowed a battery from a seldom-used delivery truck at the lumberyard where he worked. No one would ever know. If his sound system drained the main battery, he was prepared. Elizabeth would be impressed.

The date started with a forty-minute drive to Tuscaloosa, western Alabama’s society hub and home of The University of Alabama. Most all of their dates started with a drive to Tuscaloosa, as there wasn’t much recreation for teenagers in Sumter County. Tanner had the top up on his Jeep so it wouldn’t be too cold and windy on the interstate. After dinner at Dreamland Bar-B-Que, they went on campus to Thomas Sewell Stadium, commonly called “The Joe,” to watch Alabama and Auburn play baseball. Night games were perfect for dates. The temperature was pleasant, the crowd was fun, and there was plenty of time to talk. They loved to talk. There was so much going on in their lives. College decisions were bearing down on them. Each was deeply interested in the other yet secretly suspected that their relationship couldn’t survive the distance. They both wished they could step back—let the world slow down. The young couple shared a Dr Pepper in a big plastic cup. Tanner loved sharing anything with Elizabeth.

After the ball game, they quietly walked back to the parking lot. He was so nervous that he forgot to open the door for her. Tanner usually had impeccable manners. She smiled, recognizing what was going on. She knew what was on his mind.

Once they were in the Jeep, Tanner wanted to ask her about parking, hoping she was still willing. So far he had played it pretty nonchalant, like he planned these events all the time. Inside he was a bundle of nerves.

Something in his back pocket started vibrating, making a thumping sound against the tight canvas seats. He had forgotten that she had stuck her cell phone in his back pocket on the way into the game so she wouldn’t have to carry her purse. The vibration really startled Tanner. Elizabeth got so tickled and laughed so hard that Dr Pepper shot out of her nose.

“Is that your butt vibrating?” she asked and burst out laughing again.

Tanner blushed and handed her the phone.

Elizabeth pushed her hair behind her ear and cheerfully said, “Hello,” while she smiled lovingly at Tanner.

“Yes ma’am, it was a great game. Well, except Auburn won.” She winked at Tanner. “It was nine–seven. We will…I promise. We’ll be careful. Y’all don’t work too late. I love you, Mom. Bye.”

“Checkin’ on you?” he asked.

“More like checking on you, to make sure you hadn’t kidnapped me,” she said with a grin.

“So, still wanna see the stars tonight?” he asked, starting the Jeep and giving her his best smile.

“Sure it’s safe?” She squinted at him.

“I swear it is,” he replied, making a cross sign over his heart.

“Let’s go!” she exclaimed, smiling widely, and then kissed him on the cheek.

Tanner drove holding Elizabeth’s hand while they listened to her new Kenny Chesney CD. When they finally got to the gravel road, Tanner dropped the Jeep’s top. The sky was clear, the temperature cool. No one to interrupt. The perfect setting for a few hours of stargazing.

The camp house was about 150 yards past the gate and stood silent, surrounded by massive pine trees. Enveloped in total darkness, Jake swallowed hard and hurried to park so he could turn on some lights. The darkness confirmed that Tate hadn’t made it. Tucked into the corner of the lot, off to the side of the main camp house was the Love Sub. He parked right in front of it and left the headlights on while he got out, unlocked the door, found the switch, and quickly flipped on the lights. Relief flooded him as much as the lights did the darkness of the camper.

Katy was right behind him, claiming the top bunk for herself and the Beanie Babies. Jake left her on the bed and went outside to unlock the camp house and turn on the floodlights. Safely navigating the sheer quantity of junk lying around outside required as much light as possible. There were old cookers, bald tires, and tree stands, and the grass was almost knee deep.
I gotta tell Katy to stay on the path so she won’t step on a rattlesnake
.

As each light turned on, Jake felt progressively better. He wasn’t scared of the dark, but at times, it got a little spooky. On the far side of Jake’s camper was an abandoned mobile home. It had huge holes in the walls, exposing the insulation, and all the windows were broken. Katy imagined it was haunted. Even at thirty-eight, Jake preferred not to think about it. This whole place was creepy. The camp looked like a Hollywood version of a Ku Klux Klan meeting place, complete with Rebel flags and animal skulls.

Katy was in the upper bunk doing whatever nine-year-old girls and Beanie Babies do as Jake moved their stuff from the truck into the camper. After turning on the electric space heater to knock the chill out of the air, he organized their gear for the morning hunt. Boots, long johns, socks, and camo, all ready for action. The only items left in the truck were his shotgun and his hunting vest.

“Let’s start a fire. We can play a few games of pool while it gets going,” Jake suggested.

“Oh, yeah!” Katy excitedly replied and began climbing down from the bunk.

One of the things Jake really liked about this camp was the outside fire pit. It was so relaxing to sit around a fire when the air was chilly. Jake loved the way it felt when his front side got warm and his backside was cool. He could sit for hours just watching the flames and periodically poking at the wood.

By placing a starter log with a few pieces of fatwood in the old ashes and stacking dry logs around it, he methodically built the fire. Then, to get it going as fast as possible, he soaked everything with lighter fluid. He dropped in a match. The fire flashed. He immediately felt the heat on his skin. Standing there for a few seconds, he watched the fire quickly overtake every inch of lighter fluid.

“Wow…that’s a big fire!” Katy exclaimed.

“Let’s play some pool. I’ll keep an eye on it. We’ll let it burn down some before we roast marshmallows. Did you get enough to eat? Are you hungry, thirsty?”

“I’m fine, Dad.”

“Well, come on. Walk right behind me. This grass is so high you might trip over somethin’. Let’s have the World Championship Pool Tournament. Loser leaves town,” Jake joked.

“You’re in trouble, big boy, ‘cause I’m gonna beat you like a redheaded stepchild!” Katy rambled, doing her best tough-girl imitation.

“Katy, where did you hear that?”

“From you! You say it all the time when you’re workin’ Scout at the river.”

“Well, don’t say that anymore. It’s not nice. It’s just an old-timey saying. Jeez, girl, you’re gonna get me in trouble,” Jake said, rolling his eyes.
I’m gonna have to watch what I say around her. She’s a sponge.
Walking toward the camp house, he remembered something else that might get him in trouble.

“Hey, Katy, don’t pay any attention to the pictures on the walls, and don’t tell Mom, OK?” Jake knew that wouldn’t have deterred him when he was her age, but Katy was the kind of kid who typically would do what was asked. On his last trip to the camp, he had covered up the really bad ones (or good ones depending upon your perspective). All that could be seen easily were a few Texas girls in bikinis.

Jake suspected that the guys who owned this club never brought out their wives or girlfriends, based on the sheer number of pinups on the walls. Or maybe they did and the women just didn’t care. Morgan would have walked in, looked around, and run right back out. Her idea of roughing it was a Hilton. Throw in a few nudie pictures, and it would hit the fan.

“Please go to the bathroom, Katy, while I rack up the balls.”

“Aw, Dad.”

“Please.”

“The door doesn’t lock.”

“It’s just me…and I’m not going to bust up in there while you’re doing your business.”

“Uhhhh…OK.” She shrugged and plodded off as though she were doomed.

Once the balls were racked, Jake picked out a cue and stuck his head out the door to check on the fire. It was still roaring strong.

“It won’t flush!” Katy hollered, sounding perplexed.

“You must have broken it, girlfriend.”

“Dad, I’m serious.”

“Sorry. I forgot to turn the water on. Hang on.” Jake found the water key and a flashlight that worked for a few seconds if he shook it real hard. He walked to the far end of the lot, shook the light, found the water service, and hurriedly turned it on. Jake never wasted time in the dark.

“Try it now,” he yelled as he stepped back inside.

“Thank you!” she responded over the flush.

Jake smiled. All this with the bathroom made him think of
Sanford and Son.
His dad really liked that TV show. He would belly-laugh when Fred flushed the toilet. A lot of things reminded him of his dad.

Katy came bounding out of the bathroom, and the World Pool Championship began. She loved to shoot pool and was slowly grasping the fundamentals. Jake was a patient teacher, refraining from comment when one of her striped balls disappeared each time he stepped out to check on the fire. After Katy had won two games, they decided to go roast marshmallows. They talked and enjoyed the fire. Katy asked a million questions about the stars, to which Jake knew only a few answers. She could tell when he was making something up, so he was careful. He loved his time with her. It was very relaxing.

Watching her eat marshmallows, Jake realized how open-minded she was to even consider spending a Friday night and the better part of a Saturday in a hunting camp. She had even passed up a birthday party at the skating rink to be here. She was so vibrant and full of life. He wanted to hold her—to protect her from all the pains of growing up.

Girls. They’re so cool. Make that little girls,
he thought. All his buddies warned him about the hound-from-hell teenage-girl years ahead. But maybe all this bonding they were doing now would help him…them…through the rough years that surely were ahead.

“Katy, listen…that’s a whippoorwill…hear him? You can never count his whistles…you’ll always fall asleep first. He can go all night.”

“That’s cool. What does he look like?” she asked and stuffed a blackened marshmallow into her mouth.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. The legend is he’s an Indian brave who’s lost his girlfriend on the Trail of Tears, and he’s constantly whistling trying to find her,” Jake said in a scary voice.

Katy stared at him, listening to the distant whippoorwill’s somber song. She cocked her head a bit like she wasn’t quite buying that part of the story.

“You always know it’s spring when you hear one. The old-timers say you’re supposed to drop and roll on the ground three times when you hear the first one each spring or you’ll have bad luck all year.”

“Is that true?”

“No, it’s just superstition.”

Jake poked the fire. It kicked up some sparks, and the conversation continued. They discussed school and the
American Idol
TV show. Then she asked a question that really surprised him: “How much does it cost to be a member in this huntin’ club?”

“Why do you want to know?” he asked, very suspicious. “Did Mom ask you to find out?”

“No, she didn’t…really. I’m just curious.”

Jake didn’t want to lie, so he told her the truth, and nothing else was said about it.

Finishing his Coke, he realized it was almost eleven.
It’s too late to call Tate’s house, even if I could get a cell signal.

“Let’s go to bed. We gotta be up by four forty-five. We have a pretty good walk in the morning.” Jake yawned.

“We never told any ghost stories,” Katy realized.

“Well, it’s late and I’d rather not tonight.”

“You’re scared…aren’t you?”

“No ma’am, I am not. Now come on, let’s go to bed.”

“Just one story please…It doesn’t have to be a ghost story. Pleeeease?”

“OK. Let me think,” Jake said, poking the fire. “Well, once I was in Dallas on a business trip and we were headed to the airport. There were five lanes of traffic.”

“Five—wow!” she replied like she understood.

“Yeah, it’s not like West Point at all…anyway, this truck with a bunch of construction workers passes us doing about a hundred miles an hour, and when they pull into our lane, this cooler falls off the truck. It’s sliding in our lane and we can’t get around it and it’s too big to run over. The truck is long gone. So we had to stop and—”

“Who’s ‘we’?” she interrupted.

“Uh…me and uh, anyway, that’s not important,” he replied. “So we stopped and I got out to drag the cooler off the highway so it didn’t cause an accident. When I grabbed the cooler, it was too heavy to move. Curiosity got the best of me, so I opened it, and guess what was inside?” he said excitedly.

“I dunno,” she said, growing more interested, her eyes wide with anticipation.

“There was a bag of ice and a Ziploc with a bloody big toe in it.”

“Oh my goodness. I bet they were going to the hospital…Did y’all catch the truck?”

“No. There was no way. They were long gone, and we were in a rush ourselves.”

“So what did you do?”

Pausing for dramatic effect, he slowly shook his head and said, “All we could do was call a tow truck.” Jake kept a straight face for a few seconds, then broke into a big grin.

She stared at him inquisitively. She smiled as the light clicked on in her mind. “That was a good one. I believed you for…about one second.” Katy was still smiling.

“Come on, let’s go to bed.”

“OK.”

The camper had warmed up considerably. Katy threw on her pajamas and climbed into her sleeping bag on the top bunk. Jake locked the door, set the alarm clock, checked it again, and looked over their clothes one final time, then turned out the overhead light.

“The turkeys are gonna gobble like crazy in the mornin’,” he said, tucking her in. “I have a good feelin’ about our hunt.”

“Me too, Dad,” she said sleepily.

“Good night, Katy. I love you. Thanks for coming,” Jake said as he patted her form in the sleeping bag.

“Good night, I love you more.”

Jake pulled off his shirt and blue jeans. He would sleep in his boxers in the bunk right underneath Katy.

The whippoorwill was still going strong. Inside the camper was perfectly quiet, except for the buzzing sound of the electric heater. Jake relaxed and thought through the day’s events: the hassles of work, the unspoken uncertainty of his marriage, and the joys of being with a gregarious, carefree nine-year-old. Jake smiled and closed his eyes.

“Dad, can I get a horse?” Katy asked.

“Katy, horses are real expensive. And besides you already have four cats, a dog, two hamsters, and a goldfish!”

“If you don’t let me have one, I’ll tell Mom how much this turkey club costs.” She giggled, pleased with herself.

“I see, so I guess you’re gonna blackmail me now to get everything you want?” Jake remarked with frustration.

“Maybe.” She giggled again.

“Go to sleep, Katy.” He shook his head in admiration of the way she’d set him up. He knew this was only the beginning.