One for the Road

by Lynne Marshall

  “Ah, hell, the big ape’s made of iron. He’ll be fine.” Ricky-Bob reached for the mug D’Anne handed him.

  J.T. took the second one. “You got anything to put in this?”

  “You mean cream?”

  “I mean whisky.”

  She flashed him a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look and sat at the dinette. She sipped her coffee and stared at her feet, biding the time until Tyler returned. Silence engulfed the cabin while J.T. and Ricky-Bob did the same, the only sound from either of them being an occasional slurp from a mug followed by a raspy “ah” to break it up.

  An hour later, on her third cup of coffee, she saw headlights signal the return of the Rabbit. Ricky-Bob stirred from a light sleep and J.T. jumped outside to meet the car. D’Anne cautiously stood and made her way to the door, feeling a sense of dread iced with anxiety. Tyler got out.

  “Well,” he said. “I’ve got bad news and shit-awful news. Which do you want first?”

  “Where’s Bear?” D’Anne asked.

  “Jail.” Tyler’s hands rested on his hips. His lips were drawn into a tight line and a look of irritation plagued his face. “We can bail him out in half an hour or so. That’s the good news.” He folded his arms and leaned his hips against the Rabbit. “Ricky-Bob, you got a cigarette?” Tyler reached for the pack proffered by his bass player, took one, lit it and blew a long spiral of smoke into the night. “The owner docked me $300.00 for damages.” He examined his boots rather than look anyone in the eye, flicked his cigarette. “Plus bail. Looks like I’ll be coming up short on paying everyone.”

  Ricky-Bob spoke up first. “I’ve got the kids and house rent, Tyler. I need to get paid.”

  Tyler blew out another vaporous tendril.

  “Hey,” J.T. broke in. “I ain’t even paid off my new drums yet.”

  Tyler clicked his tongue and thought a few seconds, lifted and crossed his boot at the knee, snuffed out the cigarette on the sole, and tossed the butt into a nearby trashcan.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said. “Bear’s gonna get docked from his pay for the damages, plus pay me back for bailing him out.” Tyler flicked his eyes D’Anne’s way. “I’ll go without pay and maybe Dee can find a cheap way to feed us this week.”

  In the spirit of teamwork, and feeling moved by the fair and reasonable man standing before her, she spoke up before thinking things through. “I’ve got a gas card, if that will help any.” Oops, wasn’t it close to being maxed out? “And you can pay me later.” Putty in his damn sexy hands. Had she no pride?

  “Sure thing,” he said. “Thanks, Dee.”

  An hour later, a battered and bruised Bear emerged from the local precinct of the Memphis P.D. looking sheepish, yet pleased to see everyone. Tyler brought him onboard, tossed him a ready-made ice pack and tipped some brandy J.T. had found earlier into Bear’s coffee cup. Not one harsh word was spoken. J.T. and Ricky-Bob grunted hellos. D’Anne told him where she kept the aspirin and asked him if he was okay. Bear shrugged his answer.

  Tyler poured some brandy into his own cup just before joining D’Anne in the cockpit. He scrubbed his face with his free hand. “Let’s roll, Miss Slick.”

  D’Anne checked with her navigator and found her way back to an I-40 on-ramp. Ten minutes on the road, Bear came back to life.

  “Did you see that left hook I landed?” He held up an abraded batch of knuckles. “I still got it.” Bear flashed a toothless, dimpled smile. “Looky here, I didn’t even need stitches.”

  “Next time use your words, not your fists,” D’Anne blurted.

  “Shee-it,” A look of amazement crossed Tyler’s face, just before he cracked up.

  “What?” she said.

  He shot her an incredulous look and kept laughing.

  Ricky-Bob chortled an answer. “Yeah, Bear. Use your words not your fists.” He had the ancient schoolmarm imitation down and D’Anne felt her cheeks flush with heat. “Sounds just like Miss Jacobsen, my second grade teacher,” he said.

  J.T. started laughing and the boys ended by howling and rolling around on the couches while re-enacting the entire fight scene like a bunch of juveniles, making fun by interjecting Dee’s phrase after each punch. Tension finally vanished from the cabin of the RV along with sight of the Memphis city limit sign.

  Three and a half hours later, coming up on Arkadelphia, D’Anne could barely hold her eyes open.

  “Pull into that truck stop,” Tyler said from beneath the cowboy hat he used to cover his eyes in the copilot reclining chair. “I’ll buy ya some breakfast.”

  She glanced at the clock and noticed it was six-thirty. He didn’t have to ask twice.

  In the corner of the diner, all five filed into a large red vinyl booth complete with chrome rimmed Formica tabletop. With Tyler on one side and Bear on the other, D’Anne hardly had room for her elbows. But she didn’t care with the wondrous smell of bacon capturing her attention. Tyler felt substantial and warm and she fought the urge to cuddle up against him. How would it feel to rest her head on his shoulder just for a few seconds?

  A woman with painted-on black brows that gave the impression of continuous surprise, approached with menus and an order pad in hand. “Y’all know what you want?” She smiled with lipstick smeared on her teeth.

  After D’Anne ordered, she flopped back against the booth. “Wake me when my breakfast gets here.”

  “Let me drive the rest of the way, Dee,” Tyler said.

  “But you’ve got to have a special license,” she reiterated.

  “How the hell do you think I made a living when my singing career went south?”

  D’Anne lifted her head from the back of the booth, she imagined herself matching the waitress’ surprised look. “Okay,” she said, and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands not caring if she smeared mascara or not. “I’d love to get some sleep.” The last two words ran together with a large yawn.

  After breakfast, when Bear offered to finish her hash browns for her, she excused herself for the ladies’ room and promised to meet everyone outside.

  ****

  Tyler scanned the diner parking lot, remembering his years driving a Mac truck for a large produce firm based in Tennessee. It seemed he’d never really left being on the road. But it sure felt good to be singing again. On the far side of the lot, he saw an SUV pulling a tent trailer. It nagged at him.

  He waited for Dee out front of the diner. The others had already unlocked and boarded the rig.

  She crossed the lot to join him just as the light bulb went off in his head. Mutt and Jeff. Well, I’ll be danged.

  The remainder of the drive was uneventful. Puffy early morning pastel-tinged clouds dotted an otherwise clear-as-a-bell blue sky. Evidence of the Piney Wood Forest stretched along the roadside, reminding him Texas wasn’t all wide-open spaces. He found Wright Patman Lake campground a few miles south of Texarkana a little after nine a.m. and talked the owner into letting them check in early.

  Once everything was hooked up, Tyler took dibs on the pull out bed and crashed into a sudden, near comatose sleep.

  Several hours later he woke up bleary eyed and wrapped around Dexter who remained unconscious. “Where’s Dee?” he asked, but no one answered. He glanced around, but the cabin was empty.

  He combed his hands through his hair and scratched his stomach before making an attempt at standing. He peeked out the window in the door. J.T. was on a lounger reading Rolling Stone magazine, and Ricky-Bob stretched out on another, whittling on a stick with a smoke in his mouth. The sound of a flush from the bathroom brought his attention to Bear as he stepped out with a serene smile on his battered face.

  “Where’s Dee?” Tyler repeated.

  “She drove into town to buy some wieners and beans.”

  Bear’s potent bathroom aroma wafted across the cabin and forced Tyler to come to attention. “Geez. She better buy some room freshener, too.” He left the door open when he went outside. Bear followed.

  The breathtaking lakeside view gra
bbed his attention and held it for a long moment. When was the last time he had a vacation and went fishing or hunting? It seemed too far back to remember. He breathed in thick humid air, rich earth and pine scent, and slapped a mosquito going to town on his neck, as he paced the perimeter of the campsite. He liked it here.

  “Hope she gets some bug spray, too,” he said.

  Ricky-Bob tossed him a canister. “Here. She already had some.”

  Tyler took to spraying his arms, neck and anyplace uncovered, then rubbed some across his cheeks and ears for good measure. “Damn, it’s hot.”

  “I’m fixin’ to take a dip,” Bear said. “There’s horseshoes down a piece. Want to play, R.B.?”

  Ricky-Bob stood without answering, left his whittling on the chair and cigarette in his mouth, and started walking toward the pit. “Come on, let’s toss a few,” he said with one eye scrunched closed to fend off smoke. “Let me kick your ass, B-man.”

  They wandered off and J.T. followed. Tyler plopped into one of the loungers and watched Dexter investigate and initial several trees. Before long, sweat trickled down his temple and back. It felt too damn hot to be sitting in jeans.

  He went back inside the RV, deciding to baby himself by switching on the air conditioner. The annoying rattle started right up. Dang. He couldn’t figure what was more irritating, the heat or the noisy AC.

  He rummaged through several kitchen drawers in search of a screwdriver and found one on his third try. The footstool made him tall enough to reach the vent panel in the ceiling where most of the racket was coming from. He worked diligently for several minutes loosening the screws and finally removing the slatted panel. Tyler switched off the air and went back up on the stool, on his toes, to have a look inside the recessed air conditioner space.

  “What the hell?”

  A shoebox was pressed far in the corner of the vent with several thick rubber bands around it. It was just enough interference to shimmy the fan system when it was running, which he surmised made the racket. He stretched and reached for it, slid it to the side of the opening and brought it down to the kitchen counter for investigation.

  Moving the eerie Snoopy-adorned urn that held what was left of Dee’s husband’s ashes, he made room for the shoebox and proceeded to remove the rubber bands and lift off the lid.

  His eyes flashed wide. “Hol-lee Shee-it.”

  Before him sat five thick bundles of hundred dollar bills and another pack of cashier’s checks for ten grand each, made out to Dee, crammed into the length of the size-ten shoebox. His heart raced at the sight. He lifted one of the bundles and fanned it with his thumb. There had to be several hundred thousand dollars shoved inside.

  What is Dee’s story?

  Tyler figured she didn’t want him knowing about it, whatever it was. A sudden urgency to get everything back in the box and replaced in the AC recess before Dee returned from the market made him work extra fast. He guesstimated four or five hundred thousand bucks had to be in that box. He shook his head with both new respect for and concern about D’Anne Palmer.

  The thought of how much recording studio time it could buy crossed his mind.

  Mutt and Jeff popped into his thoughts, too. Now, the ransacked cabin made sense. Being followed by two cartoon characters suddenly turned sinister.

  Tyler’s mind set to work on a plan while he screwed everything back in place. She’s using the band as a cover to get back to California with what? Stolen cash? And to think she had me feeling sorry for her, looking all sexy and innocent and helpless and all. But she really seemed unglued by the break in. He clicked his tongue. I guess everyone’s good at acting out in Hollywood, California.

  Tyler stepped down from the stool when he heard the Rabbit pull onto the campsite. He met Dee’s smiling face at the door and offered to carry her bags.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Right. Act all clueless, Slick. I’ve got your number. “Morning,” he said, businesslike.

  “It’s three in the afternoon.”

  “Oh, right.” He collected two bags of groceries from the car and brought them inside.

  “It’s a good thing I know how to shop on a budget. It won’t help your diet much, but at least we won’t feel hungry.”

  She seemed all cheery and enthusiastic.

  “Isn’t this place gorgeous?” Her eyes were bright and her smile way too appealing.

  Tyler looked out at the lakeshore and sighed. “Just grand,” he said, resolved to not notice how damn good she looked in shorts and sandals. “Did

  you buy any diet soda?”

  ****

  Tyler withdrew into deep thought for the remainder of the afternoon. He sat in a puddle of sweat under a shade tree, which didn’t help his disposition one bit. Dee approached with a tall glass of lemonade, the kind she made to pucker lips and quench thirsts. He reached and nodded thanks.

  A few swallows later, his plan was complete. Under no circumstances was the RV to ever be left unattended. And why hadn’t Dee insisted on the same? Why would she spend the evening at the club in Memphis with half a million dollars unattended in the RV?

  No wonder she was so dang worried about those alley dwellers.

  He glanced Dee’s way and saw serenity on her face while she happily sipped her drink and stared at the pristine blue water in the lake. Her hand slapped a bug on her arm and she reached for the can of bug spray on the table.

  How can she be that relaxed hiding all of that cash? Tyler shook his head. Something didn’t add up and he intended to find out what part of the puzzle was missing.

  ****

  The next two days passed quickly. The weather remained hot and sticky and, much to Tyler’s aggravation, Dee used the rattling AC often. He had mentioned to the band he didn’t think the RV should be left alone at any time, and considering all their instruments were stored in it they didn’t seem to need further explanation. They remained ignorant and blissful at the lakeshore.

  Bear bought a one-day fishing license and caught some catfish for Wednesday’s dinner. Dee grilled them and tolerated Bear’s complaints about needing to dip the fish in beer and cornmeal and fry them for the best flavor. She just kept reciting her mantra about eating well to keep fit and merrily served the men a Spartan dinner of fish, brown rice and steamed vegetables. Bear grumbled under his breath and smothered it with barbeque sauce. The horrified look on Dee’s face made him laugh.

  Tyler told her to stay put at the campsite on Wednesday night after dinner, and it didn’t go down well.

  “The YMCA is loaning us a van for our equipment. You don’t need to drive us over or back.”

  She looked hurt and did a bad job of disguising it.

  “Oh,” was all she said.

  “You’re probably getting tired of hearing all the same tunes over and over again anyway, right Dee?”

  She studied his face with her astute green eyes and said, “Not really,” and almost made him change his mind.

  Her conciliatory smile made him want to beg for mercy. Why was he such a sucker for this lady?

  “I’m starting to like your country music,” she said. Her eyes flirted a slow path from his chest to his face, like a shy girl admitting she had a crush on him.

  His eye twitched. “Dexter won’t have to be locked up inside the RV if you’re here. I’m sure he’d appreciate your company.”

  “It’s kind of spooky out here at night. I can’t even get a cell phone signal.”

  “Dexter will look after you.” He felt like a heel, felt way too protective. It took all of his resolve to walk away and get dressed for the concert.

  ****

  Later at the fairgrounds, Tyler couldn’t get his mind off Dee until it was time to perform. Scanning the crowd, he thought he saw the taller of the dynamic duo, Mutt and Jeff. In light of his discovery, he was now certain they were following them. But Tyler would rather have them here at the fairgrounds mulling around than stalking Dee back at camp. Truth be told, he would much rather have her he
re with him where he could keep his eye on her, and to hell with the money.

  He started singing “Your High Class Love Broke My Honky-Tonk Heart” and watched the crowd recognize the old tune and rush to line dance.

  The performance was another great success. The band tore up the stage with blistering country music to match the sweltering heat of the night. And when they performed “Star-Spangled Heart,” the crowd went wild. Afterwards a music promoter from Tennessee appeared to invite them to perform at a showcase in Dallas on Thursday night. Tyler couldn’t pass up the opportunity. No telling where it might lead.

  ****

  After the band left, D’Anne stewed for a couple of hours, then got the bright idea to try for a cell phone signal on top of the RV. But first, she’d take Dexter for his evening constitutional. When the dog did his duty, she decided to use the campground bathroom. Her feet crunched on the gravel toward the small shower building as she illuminated a steady path with her trusty dime store flashlight. Surrounded by dead quiet, she opened a squeaky screen door to enter the facility. A dim fluorescent nightlight swarmed with round, black bugs and moths. She cringed. When she finished washing her hands with ice-cold water, she dried them on her shorts while dodging and swatting at bugs. She crunched her way back toward the RV. She heard extra crunching and looked for Dexter. He was right beside her. She glanced over her shoulder and felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Dexter wasn’t growling, but she honestly didn’t know if he ever did. Imaginary or not, she sprinted through the dark back to the RV for shelter.

  Desperately needing to hear another voice, she decided to phone home. No signal. Then she remembered her bright idea.

  D’Anne left a bewildered Dexter watching from the ground while she ascended the metal ladder on the back of the mobile home. Once on top of the RV, the night sky and view of starlight magically dancing on the lake took her breath away. She closed her eyes to enjoy a gentle breeze across her face and the sound of rustling pine trees in the distance. The scent tickled her nostrils, almost making her swoon. She lost her balance. The cellular phone rolled from her hand. She spent a few moments on her knees feeling around in the dark until she found it, flipped it open and hoped for a signal.