The old, white house had a tiny front patch of a lawn with a wrought-iron post announcing that this was the Tillman Free Press. The post was dripping in gnarled vines of star jasmine to the point where you could barely read the words on the sign.
To my great surprise Elliott was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the small office with his feet propped up on the porch rail typing away on a laptop. His eyes never left the computer screen as I climbed up the stairs, but a small playful smile appeared on the side of his face.
I didn’t bother trying to hide the fact that I was surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”
He finished typing something and then looked up at me, amused. “Every time you see me you ask me why I’m here. You do realize that I live here, right?”
“Sorry, that did sound rude. I’m just surprised to see you again.” I peeked through the window to see if there was anyone official looking inside that I could speak with. I could hear a phone ringing incessantly but no one seemed to be around to answer it. “Do you know when someone from the paper will be in?”
Elliott closed the lid to his laptop. “Yes, right now. I’m the paper.”
“You’re the what?”
“I am the paper. I own the newspaper.”
“Oh, you do? That’s weird, although I guess that explains what you’re doing here.”
He looked at me with a sort of delighted confusion. “Do you say everything that pops into your head the second it shows up there?”
I sighed. “I do.” I sat down on the rocking chair next to him. “It’s a really bad habit. I have no filter. Sorry.”
“Actually, I find it incredibly refreshing.”
The phone began ringing again. I waited for a moment, thinking he would rush in there to pick it up, but instead he just rubbed his face and sort of grumbled. I pointed toward the phone. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
“No.” We waited for the ringing to stop before he spoke again. “So how are you today? I mean about everything? The lake and Huntley.”
“Okay, I guess. It wasn’t really what I was expecting to find.” I shrugged because there wasn’t anything else I could say about it.
“Holy drowned town, Batman.”
That made me laugh. “Exactly. That’s why I’m here. I was hoping Logan and I could go through the newspaper archives to see if we can start doing some research about the town and my mom.”
“Sure. I’d be glad to help you. Do you know what you’re looking for?”
“No, not really. I just need to start looking.” The phone started again. My eyebrows rose at him, questioning.
He crossed his arms in a tight knot and pursed his lips, holding his ground. “I’m not supposed to be in the office today, which she knows, so I couldn’t possibly answer that. And my cell phone doesn’t work out here. I am legitimately and innocently unavailable.”
“Oh, got it. Girl trouble. Women love it when you avoid their calls.” I pointed back and forth between the office and his rocking chair. “Nicely done.” The racket finally stopped. She’d given up, whoever she was.
Elliott gave me an exasperated look. “Do you want my help or not?”
“Yes, I do want your help. I won’t make any more comments about the way you’re treating your lady friend.” I changed the subject. “So how long have you been the official face of the Tillman Free Press?”
“We just had our second anniversary.”
Oh no, they were a brand-new publication. There may not be any archives to go through. I didn’t want to waste his time. “The paper’s brand-new then. So, uh . . . what were you doing before you started it?”
“I didn’t start it. I just reopened it. So yes, there are archives that you can access.” Busted. He leaned back in the chair. “I was an engineer for years but just decided it wasn’t for me.”
“Really? That’s funny. I work for an engineering firm.” That was another thing that had snuck up on me out of nowhere and imposed its squatter’s rights on my life.
When I finished my undergraduate degree in art history, I imagined myself in the depths of some museum somewhere restoring great works of art. Probably in one of the smaller more remote cities of Eastern Europe, because I was oh so tragically hip. Or maybe teaching? I thought I could work at the university with my mother, mentoring brilliant but misguided youths. She in the history department, me in the art department. But then again I could barely manage my niece and I had known her for her whole life. And Logan could be a real pain in the ass. Maybe mentoring wasn’t really up my alley.
But there would definitely be coffee. In my mind I was always holding a steaming mug of coffee while inspiring the minds of today’s youth or clearing away the dust from long-forgotten masterpieces. Hopefully I was someplace cold while OD’ing on all this fantasy coffee.
Fantasy was a good word for it because a BA in art history roughly translated into “unemployable, slightly pretentious asshole.”
After graduating I worked in a coffee shop for almost a year, which was not nearly as mind-altering as one would expect. Then I entered law school. I figured if I was going to be an asshole I might as well get paid for it.
My first summer break during law school found me interning with a large international construction firm. I was assigned to the Due Diligence Department. It was mind-numbingly boring work researching various codes and ordinances particular to the local area in which a new building was being constructed. They always needed the information yesterday and the pace was insane. And I was really, really good at it. At the end of the summer they offered me a job making a stupid amount of money so I packed my soul into a little shoebox, along with my BA diploma and one year of law school, and tucked them all under my bed. Then I got myself a fancy new wardrobe and a lease on a Range Rover. Full asshole transformation complete.
That had been almost ten years ago and although I had moved up through the department the only place left to go was the department head. And since that position was currently held by the devil, and the devil wouldn’t die, I was pretty much out of options in that particular firm.
Elliott said, “I was a structural engineer. What about you?”
“I’m in due diligence with a construction firm in DC. I think I’ve grown to hate it. What made you decide to leave?”
“It just wasn’t what I wanted to be doing, the work wasn’t interesting anymore, and I hated the deadlines. And I was living in Chicago, so far away from my family.” He shrugged not wanting to elaborate. “I don’t know. The pace of life was just wrong for me. I was miserable.” I felt like he was channeling my reality at the moment.
“But how did you just up and walk away and then do”—I waved my hands at the house that the newspaper inhabited—“something completely different?” I wasn’t being polite; I really wanted to know how one did that. I was looking for a road map.
He started slowly rocking his chair. “It wasn’t easy.”
We talked for over an hour sitting there rocking on his porch. Everything he said about being miserable with the deadlines and the inconsequential work hit a little too close to home. The way he hated Sundays because they were always followed by a Monday, and a job that you hate will always destroy a Sunday. The way his boss would make ridiculous demands and then never acknowledge his team when they were able, somehow, to pull it off. The way the job was intensely boring. I wondered if Ms. Missed Call was playing a role in his discontent but I managed to stop myself before asking him. I did ask him why the newspaper though. Had he always wanted to run a paper? Be a journalist?
He kind of laughed. “No. I don’t see myself as a journalist. I’m just . . .” He thought for a second trying to put into words what he thought his role was. “I guess I just think a town needs a paper. A community has so many small things that happen that need to be reported and no one else will do it. Like the baseball scores. Or the club meetings, the little accomplishments, the births, and deaths, and marriages. It’s important for th
e people of the community to feel connected to each other and that’s the role I think we play. We try to broaden horizons a bit beyond just this little town too. I don’t know. Maybe it gives the kids an idea of what else is out there.” He shook his head at that. “Although with the Internet it’s so much easier. I don’t think kids feel as isolated today as we did.”
“Plus they can access porn whenever they want.”
Elliott laughed out loud. “Literally no filter. It just falls out of your mouth.” He shook his head, amused. “So yeah, other than porn we pretty much cover the life around here. Someone had to do it. The paper had been out of print for a few years before I came back and opened it up again.”
Thinking back on all of the history in this town reminded me of something that Mrs. Chatham had said. “Do you know anyone around here named Rutledge?”
He nodded. “The Huntley Rutledges?”
“You’re the second person that has referred to them as the Huntley Rutledges. What does that mean?”
“They were an old family in the area, some of the founders. There’s even a Rutledge Reading Room at our club. I don’t think there are any of them left, though.”
“Actually, we’re back. My mom was a Rutledge.”
He ran his hand through his hair then he looked at me. “Really, now that’s interesting. We love articles about the old families. Maybe I can help you dig up some family history and we could see if there’s a story there.”
“You mean for the paper?”
“I wouldn’t print anything without your permission, of course.”
My cell phone pinged. It was a text from Logan: can u get me food
I showed the screen to Elliott. He said, “It drives me nuts the way they write when they’re texting. All those abbreviations and lack of punctuation.”
I teased Elliott as I typed a note back to her. “Okay Grandpa. Do you have a hard time keeping those whippersnappers off your lawn too?”
Elliott tilted my rocking chair back hard and I almost fell over. “Whoa!” I laughed. “Quit it.”
Logan sent me her response: can cu from here. STARVING! stop flirting w/E.
Elliott said, “You know I’m right. What did she write this time?” He tried to lean over to see the text but I shut the phone off quickly to hide the message from him. She was being ridiculous.
“Apparently she’s starving and she can see me from the inn holding this bag of food. I better get going.” I stood up. “So, can Logan and I come back to start researching? You really don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind at all.” He seemed to be thinking of something. “Actually, let’s meet at the library. They open at eleven and their computers are faster than mine.”
I stood up. “And your cell phone doesn’t work there?”
“Something like that.”
“Sounds good. And thanks again for helping us with this.”
“You’re welcome.” He looked a little guilty. “Although, I’m actually being a little selfish. Anything about the drowned town, especially involving one of the founding families, is always so interesting.” His voice took on a tone of apology. “It sells papers.”
My family, and especially my mother, were a lot of things, but interesting was never really one of them. “Well then, mutually advantageous research.” I held my hand out and he shook it.
Elliott said, “Besides, I feel responsible since I was the one who broke the news to you about the lake. You’re kind of my problem now.”
I laughed. “Sorry about that. I can be a lot of trouble.”
“That’s the impression that I’m getting.” He teased. “See you in a bit.”
SIX
Logan and I got to the library as soon as it opened and Elliott was already there sitting at a long table in front of a laptop computer. I set up my stash across from him and organized everything around my seat to my very specific liking. I looked up and saw that Elliott and Logan were staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
They both started laughing. It’s not like I had researcher’s OCD or anything. So I had a few pens and some paper? Maybe a notebook, with some pockets and dividers. I didn’t pull out a label maker or anything.
Elliott poked at the pens, unsettling their straight line. “Do you ever get a wild hair and write outside the lines?”
“Oh okay, mocking from the guy who writes notes on his hand.” I lined the pens back up.
Where was the old librarian saying shush when you needed her? This particular librarian, whose name was Bitsy—yes, Bitsy, swear to God—couldn’t have been older than thirty and never once told either one of them to shush. In fact, at the moment she was shouting directions about the wireless printer from her desk at the front of the room.
Logan plopped down next to me and booted up her laptop. “I think we should look for stuff about the lake first, right? I mean that’s just like so weird that there’s all that stuff under there. Graham said there’s an old church steeple from the town that’s still floating around in the lake.”
I glanced over at her. “When did you talk to Graham?” She ignored me.
Elliott shook his head. “That thing sank to the bottom years ago. It’s become a bit of a local legend and ghost story. Kids on the lake say they can hear the bells ringing at night.”
I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of some haunted church steeple floating around the water ringing its bells. Or even worse, sitting at the bottom of the dark lake looking up at you through the silty, green water.
Logan and I searched the Internet for information while Elliott dug into the newspaper archives. After a few hours we had an emerging picture of the lake and its formation.
In the 1930s Franklin Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority as part of the New Deal. The TVA was tasked to develop solutions to problems occurring down the length of the Tennessee River valley. They were innovative in finding new ways to deal with power production, river navigation, and flood control.
The creation of man-made lakes along the river and its tributaries provided jobs in that desperate time of the Depression. The dams also provided power production and ushered a vast number of people into the modern world with electricity.
The dam at Lake Huntley was the last one built before the TVA switched their efforts to nuclear power plants. Poor Huntley, the last kill before the carnivore went vegetarian.
In 1963 the dam was approved and construction began on the diversion tunnels. There were some poignant photographs of the town of Huntley after it had been abandoned. Although to call it a town was a bit of an insult to the word. Huntley was merely a crossroads with six or seven buildings near the intersection. The largest was a hardware store, which seemed to double as the town’s soda fountain and possibly the post office. There were also two churches and an old storefront that looked like a dress shop. A few other buildings rounded out the tiny town but we couldn’t make out what they had been.
In the black-and-white photos the signage was being taken down, and in the foreground one of the wooden churches had been jacked up onto a flatbed truck and was in the process of being moved. In the next set of images the church was gone, carted off somewhere, and the few buildings that remained had been razed. The only proof of their existence being the concrete foundations left behind. I wondered where that other church had been, the one that wasn’t torn down so that its steeple could haunt the lakefront. It wasn’t in any of the pictures we found of the town.
I held up the printouts of the photos of Huntley side by side. Before and after. I hated to admit it, but there didn’t seem to be much lost. Huntley wasn’t much of a town.
I had a long queue of pictures spooling out of the printer and Elliott went to pick them up for me. After about the fifth print he started laughing.
“What?” I asked.
He held up the pictures, all of them black-and-white images of the dam, the diversion tunnels, the water slowly filling in the valley. “You’re being kinda weird about the lak
e.”
I went over and snatched the papers from his hand. “I am not.” Then I hit him on the shoulder with the stack. “You have to admit it’s very odd. I feel like I can’t wrap my head around it, and it’s so creepy.” I peered down at the pictures. “It would be so strange to watch your home being gobbled up by water.”
I held up one of the oldest photos. It was taken inside the Huntley General Store in the late 1930s. There were three men in the photo standing in front of the rows of merchandise. They had waxed mustaches and bow ties and their hair was parted and greased right down the center of their heads. One man was standing on the middle rung of a tall wooden ladder. There were rows upon rows of glass jars holding all manner of who knows what lining the walls. The way the men stood—solitary, staring into the camera—was haunting.
When I looked at the image I could imagine a wall of water exploding into the center of town, knocking the men off their feet and washing them down the length of the valley. Turning them over and over in the rapids until they could no longer stand it and they simply let go. Drowned. I imagined each parcel and jar and sack being tossed and thrown by the force of the raging water. Rushing downstream and being slammed and battered until it all came to rest at some distant location. Mismatched and wrecked. Shoes hanging from tree limbs. Grain sacks drained of their contents and lapping at the shore of the newly created lake. Broken shards of glass twinkling in the sun on the granite outcroppings in the water.
I knew that none of this had happened. I had a thirty-four-page report from the TVA listing the measures taken to clear the town of all of its people and contents. I had an article in the local newspaper describing the warning sirens that blew every fifteen minutes for half a day before they shut down the diversion tunnels and began to fill the reservoir and then continued to sound sporadically throughout the summer. I had pictures of the water very slowly and methodically climbing up the wall of the mountains over a series of eighteen months.
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