by Bobby Akart
Colton slowed the truck as the Loveless Café came into view. For nearly seventy years, the Loveless Motel and Café had been a fixture in southwest Nashville, known for its refuge as a cozy home away from home and its Southern comfort food.
In the 1950s, Highway 100 was the primary route between Nashville and Memphis two hundred miles to the west. Lon and Annie Loveless began a small business serving the travelers meals through the front door of their home, usually at picnic tables adorned with red-and-white tablecloths in their front yard.
As their business grew, the couple elected to expand their private home into the Loveless Motel and Café. Lon ran the motel and was responsible for smoking the meats while Annie whipped up batches of her homemade preserves and made-from-scratch biscuits.
Over time, the Loveless Café became world famous and had been featured on The Today Show, Martha Stewart, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. For seventy years, it remained true to its origins, serving travelers across the rural South who enjoyed the backroads leading to hidden treasures as opposed to the interstates, which zipped them from city to city.
It was the sight of the current visitors to the Loveless Café that forced Colton to bring the Wagoneer to an abrupt stop, throwing Alex forward in her seat, and she slammed into the back of Madison’s.
“Daddy!” she immediately protested.
“Sorry, look,” he said. Colton pulled off the shoulder under a canopy of oak trees and shut off the motor. Thus far, they hadn’t been noticed.
The parking lot in front of the Loveless Café was filled with military vehicles and construction trucks. A dozen uniformed National Guardsmen were huddled under a tent, drinking coffee.
Beyond the motel, several soldiers were setting up pylons at the exit off the Natchez Trace Parkway. Farther down, a military Humvee was parked sideways across the road, blocking access. The entrance to the Natchez Trace was not blocked, but Colton would have to drive past the entire contingent to get there. He recalled the provisions of the martial law order signed by the President, which provided for the confiscation of operating vehicles and all weapons.
“Should we go for it?” asked Madison. “We’re not bothering anyone. We could just explain that—”
“I don’t trust this at all, Maddie,” replied Colton, cutting her off in mid-sentence. “It’s a different world now. Although this looks like an official military exercise, it could be designed to entrap people like us. It’s not worth the risk.”
Madison began to unfold the map as Colton continued to study the activity in the parking area. The majority of the soldiers appeared to be preoccupied, focused more on their coffee and playful banter than what was going on around them. The Wagoneer was not well hidden and could have easily been spotted if they were paying attention.
Colton leaned over to study the map with Madison as they sought an alternative entrance to the Natchez Trace when someone tapped on the rear passenger window. Alex shrieked and Colton immediately fumbled for his weapon. His clumsy hands tried to find the grip and knocked it onto the floorboard of the Wagoneer. As he frantically reached down, another knock came, this time at his window.
“Hey, mister,” said a young boy’s voice. “Y’all gonna get busted by them po-pos.”
Colton looked up into the young boy’s face with his nose just inches from the truck’s window. He was maybe ten or eleven years old and wore a Tennessee Titans jersey bearing the number 29 of star running back DeMarco Murray. He didn’t see a weapon, or anyone else, so he slowly opened the window with his left hand while he finally found his gun with his right.
“How’s it goin’?” asked Colton harmlessly.
“All right, I guess,” said the boy matter-of-factly. “You know, if they was payin’ attention, they’d be on you like white on rice.”
Colton turned his attention to the National Guard personnel, who were beginning to make their way out of the tent and were now gathering around their vehicles. He needed to make a decision. He returned his attention to the young boy.
“We need to get on the Natchez Trace and head south, but it looks like they’re gonna block the road.”
“Yup, they is,” said the boy. “They come in last night and took over the Loveless. I went over there to get sumptin’ to eat, and they run me off. I heard ’em say they was gonna close off the roads.”
Colton’s mind raced. If they were gonna drive past the military in full view, they needed to do so now before they loaded up into their vehicles. There wasn’t another entrance to the Natchez Trace for many miles and it would require them to backtrack another fifteen miles or so.
The youngster interrupted his thoughts. “You can go through our yard if’n you want.”
“What, what do you mean?” asked Colton.
“Well, my pa had a trail cut through dem woods which comes out on the Trace. He used it for his four-wheeler when he went fishin’ over there at Haselton’s pond. Your truck will fit.”
Colton studied the activity at the Loveless one last time. It was worth a try.
“Are you sure your father won’t mind?” asked Colton.
The boy became morose and lowered his head. There was a moment of awkward silence before he spoke again.
“He dead. They kilt him a week ago at the Loveless. He worked there as a cook and was watching over things for the owners when a bunch of white men come and kilt him. There wasn’t nuthin’ to steal, but they kilt him anyway.”
Colton didn’t know what to say as he became overcome with emotion. Alex began to sniffle, as did Madison. This young man had lost his father barely a week ago to a senseless murder. Yet, here he was willing to help a white man protect his family from possible arrest.
“What’s your name, young man?” asked Colton.
“LaRon.”
“Are you alone, LaRon?”
“Nah, I’ve got my ma. We’re makin’ out okay ’cause Pa brung da food over to our place. I dug holes and hid it on the property so as nobody could find it. Plus, I still walk over to the pond and fish.”
“Colton,” interrupted Madison as she regained her composure, “we’ve got to do something.”
Colton looked up and saw the olive drab green fork trucks begin to unload barriers from the flatbeds. He reached over his shoulder and pulled the door lock up.
“Hop in, LaRon, and lead the way.”
Colton started the Wagoneer, which couldn’t be heard over the roar of the diesel motors at the Loveless Café. He slowly backed up about a hundred yards, where LaRon instructed him to turn into a gravel driveway leading into the trees across the road. They wound their way through the woods until they entered a clearing.
A white craftsman-style home with a black metal roof stood in front of a barn and a couple of small storage buildings. Several raised planter beds full of vegetables were off to the left next to a well with a hand-pump. Colton guessed the home had been built in the twenties or thirties.
As the Wagoneer approached the home, LaRon’s mother emerged with two young girls behind her white skirt. She pointed a double-barreled shotgun at the truck. LaRon immediately jumped out of the truck and waved his arms.
“Whatcha doin’, boy?” shouted LaRon’s mother as she lowered the shotgun, much to Colton’s delight. He had his weapon ready to return fire but dreaded the prospect of a gunfight with the widow.
“Ma, I’m just givin’ dem directions to the Trace. Dey gonna cut through da woods.”
“Then go on now,” she shouted. “We don’t want dem soldiers up here gittin’ in our bidness. Go on!” She swung the barrel of the shotgun to the right side of the house, where Colton could see the entrance to the trail.
“Okay,” shouted Colton through his window. “We’re leavin’ now. Thank you!”
LaRon stood there with his thumbs tucked in his jeans pockets. He managed a smile and waved to Colton.
Colton put the truck in drive and started to pull away. He glanced in the rearview mirror. Alex was in the backseat, frantically digging aro
und in the rear of the Wagoneer. She apparently found what she was looking for.
“Daddy, stop, wait!” she shouted. Before Colton could come to a complete stop, she opened the rear door and bounded out and around the Jeep.
Alex walked toward LaRon, and his mother instinctively raised her shotgun in Alex’s direction.
“Alex, what are you doin’?” asked Colton.
Alex approached Laron and asked, “Do you like comic books?”
“Sure do!”
“Do you like The Walking Dead?”
“I love zombie ones!”
Alex gave LaRon the comic book given to her by Jimmy Holder. It was the one-hundredth issue of The Walking Dead series.
Tears of joy began to roll down LaRon’s face. Alex leaned down and gave the young boy a hug. He might now be the man of the house, but inside, he was still just a boy.
Chapter 5
DAY FIFTEEN
10:00 a.m., September 23
Natchez Trace Parkway
Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee
The Natchez Trace Parkway was a two-lane road running from Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi, an historic town located on the Mississippi River. This four-hundred-forty-mile highway, which locals referred to as the Trace, was traveled for hundreds of years by Indians who followed the early footpaths created by the foraging of bison, deer, and other large game.
When the first European explorers came to the region, led by Hernando de Soto, the path was well worn and later became a wilderness road followed by pioneers and settlers heading west out of Tennessee and Kentucky. Eventually, at the behest of a group of ladies’ garden clubs in the South, the Natchez Trace became a part of the National Park Service in the late thirties.
The Trace followed and maintained the spectacular scenery along its route, including the preservation of the swamps and forests, by limiting access to only a handful of access points along the entire parkway.
Over the years, tales of buried treasure, ghost stories, outlaws, and witches became as much a part of the Trace as the road itself. Stories of the demise of the Kentucks, entrepreneurs who traveled to and from Natchez to sell their goods, at the hands of outlaws and Indians were commonplace. Then the brutal battles between the rebs and the yanks during the Civil War were remembered as the Union Army was bent on bringing the South to heel.
The Rymans were feeling better after hitting the open road. This morning, no ghosts of the Trace’s violent past invaded their thoughts, and the encounters of the morning were already a distant memory. Mile after mile, the road dipped and turned gracefully through rich fields, grassy meadows, and trees whose leaves were beginning to turn into their autumns shades.
And there was no traffic. Not a single car coming or going. The dreamlike quality of being completely alone in the world was only interrupted on one occasion when a lone farmer, sitting atop a Tennessee Walking Horse, was seen herding cattle off in the distance.
“This is more like it, don’t you agree, guys?” asked Colton.
The wind blew through Madison’s hair and she stuck her head out slightly to catch a deep breath of fresh air. She loved this. In fact, she wondered why they couldn’t find a place here to find a spot, plant roots, and make a new life.
Alex must’ve been thinking the same thing. “Daddy, maybe we could find a farmer around here to take us in. You know, sleep in the barn or something until things settle down and we can go home?”
Colton, who was maintaining a steady fifty miles an hour, wheeled the Wagoneer through a set of curves. As they entered a wooded area, he replied, “It does look inviting, honey, but we don’t know any of these folks. What if we take a chance and drive up someone’s driveway and find out they’re dangerous? We could lose everything, including each other.”
The open fields were suddenly gone and Colton continued to wind his way through the woods. The two-lane highway seemed tight as the shoulder of the road gave way to a steep embankment on both sides with no guardrail.
“I know that, Daddy, but we have to trust someone,” replied Alex.
Colton had unconsciously picked up speed during his conversation and was now going over sixty when he rounded a bend in the road.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed as he let off the gas and shoved on the brake pedal. He immediately checked his mirrors and looked for an option to pull off the road. There wasn’t one.
The three cyclists toting heavy backpacks and bedrolls apparently were caught off guard as well. One rider overreacted and pulled over to the shoulder, losing his balance, which caused him and his now destroyed bicycle to tumble down the hill toward the overgrown brush. The other cyclists stopped to assist their friend, but hurled curse words and shook their fists at Colton.
“Sorry,” yelled Madison as Colton continued to drive past them.
“Should we stop to help them?” asked Alex.
“I didn’t run him off the road,” replied Colton. “Again, it’s like I was saying. We can’t take the risk. They’ll figure it out.”
The family drove in silence for several minutes as the road opened up into farmland again. As they approached an intersection that included an exit to Leiper’s Fork, Madison saw something that was straight out of the eighteen hundreds.
“Look, to the right,” she exclaimed. “Slow down for a minute, Colt.”
Colton slowed the truck at the overpass and the Rymans watched as four sets of horses and carriages came down Highway 46 toward Leiper’s Fork.
“Hey, their wagons are loaded with baskets of vegetables,” said Madison.
“Another one is holding piglets!”
Colton came to a full stop at the overpass and the Rymans exited the Wagoneer to take in the spectacle. Colton whispered into Madison’s ear, “Help me keep an eye out for those bicyclers, okay.”
Madison nodded and turned her attention back to the wagon train.
“Hey,” shouted Alex to a teenage boy in overalls who led the first wagon with another, younger boy. “Where y’all goin’?”
As the wagon made its way through the underpass, the younger boy hollered, “Ya sure are purdy!”
Alex blushed and smiled at the boy, whose brother immediately gave him a playful shove. He then responded to Alex’s question. “There’s a market in Leiper’s Fork. We’re takin’ this stuff to sell or trade.”
Alex leaned over the guardrail as the first wagon passed beneath them. The next buckboard contained the boys’ parents.
“Y’all could get a pretty penny for that truck,” said the father. “In fact, I’ll trade you my whole last wagon full of pigs fer it. You can have the wagon too and the horses. I tell you what else, you can have them young’uns drivin’ it also. But you gotta feed ’em!”
The man started roaring in laughter, but the woman on the seat next to him didn’t seem to think it was as funny. She grabbed his green John Deere cap off his head and began to swat him with it.
“You lay off them young’uns,” she hollered. “Or I’ll whoop ya!” That last part echoed from underneath the bridge as the horses continued to clomp their way to Leiper’s Fork.
“There you go, Alex,” started Colton. “I could make a deal with Farmer Bob there, trade for the pigs and the wagon and the young’uns. Who knows? I could marry you off to the boy and get a dowry or somethin’.”
“Daddy!”
“Colton Ryman! You stop that, or I’ll whoop ya,” shouted Madison as she chased Colton around the truck.
Chapter 6
DAY FIFTEEN
10:55 a.m., September 23
Natchez Trace Parkway at I-840
Near Boston, Tennessee
Alex’s parents were still teasing her about getting married off to Farmer Bob’s oldest son. He was cute, but it looked like he was missing a front tooth. Alex was sure she’d seen him spit out his tobacco juice—a definite deal breaker.
For several minutes, she had to endure a series of bad jokes.
“What do you get if you cross an angry sheep and a moody cow
? An animal that’s in a baaaaaaaaad moooooooood!” If the opening salvo wasn’t bad enough, then the jokes devolved into pure silliness.
“You may be a farmer if—your dog rides in the truck more than your wife!”
“You may be a farmer if—you know cow patties aren’t made of beef!”
“You may be a farmer if—your No Trespassing sign reads beware of wife!”
Guffaw, guffaw.
Alex had had enough, so she sought out her iPhone, which she’d charged the day before. Time for some music. She opted for some of Jake Allen’s classics. She had to get used to it ’cause she was sure he and her daddy would find plenty of opportunities to sing together.
As the music filled her headphones, her mind wandered to that two-week vacation at Shiloh Ranch, as the Allens called it. She really did have a good time fishing and eating down-home Southern-style cooking. Although her interaction with then thirteen-year-old Chase was awkward at times, she remembered that they were inseparable. They’d spent their days walking through the woods or along the banks of the Tennessee River. Sometimes they’d fish or ride their four-wheelers through the many trails that traversed the perimeter of the Shiloh National Military Park where the Allens’ property was located.
The evenings were fun too. Every night involved a campfire, singing, and trading stories. The Allens’ caretaker, Stubby Crump, was from McNairy County, as was his wife, Bessie. They’d lived their entire life in southwest Tennessee. Stubby’s military career and short-lived minor league baseball stint made for some interesting conversation. Alex remembered Stubby as being quick with the one-liner jokes, but she was especially fond of Bessie’s cooking. When they made it to Shiloh Ranch, Alex was sure the Crumps would keep them well fed, despite the circumstances.
It was several years ago when Alex was a preteen and didn’t fully understand the workings of the male species. She’d changed a lot since Chase tried to impress her with teenage boy machismo and the ability to dip tobacco. He was always clowning around, doing his best to garner her undivided attention. But it wasn’t until he took his shirt off to show Alex how to use the rope swing over the lake that she realized he was kinda cute. Alex closed her eyes and wondered if he’d grown up much now that he was seventeen.