The Dog

“… very often we don’t know how to explain what we know. We tend to think from the inside out. We tend to feel our way along. And because of the way we live it is more important usually to know what to do than know how we know it.”

Spenser from Double Deuce by Robert B. Parker

The most direct route from Huntsville, Alabama to Scottsville, Kentucky, is Highway 231, 149 miles of overused, mostly two lane federal highway, that once carried a good portion of the north south traffic in a two state wide column that extends from Key West, Florida to the Canada/U.S. border.

I was north of Lebanon, Tennessee, still fifty miles south of Scottsville, where I had two days of work, the first one with my wife, the second, a wrap up day, I planned to work alone.

When we drove through Fayetteville, Tennessee we talked about the winding roadway north of the city. In Shelbyville, we talked about the Tennessee Walking Horses the town is famous for, and in Lebanon, the birthplace of our friend, George Jackson, we talked about him as though he were at our house, dog sitting Tigger, though they have both been gone many years.

We enjoy talking to each other; and we enjoy not talking to each other; mostly we just enjoy being with each other, no matter what we are doing.

A dozen or so miles north of Lebanon Highway 231 joins Highway 31E and they travel north together for some seventy miles, until 31E heads off in more easterly direction. I pulled up to the stop sign and looked right; the road was empty. I looked left and saw a tractor trailer heading in our direction. It was at least a half mile away and I estimated that I’d be up to speed long before I was a hindrance to it. The road was four lanes at that point so I pulled into the outside lane and began accelerating all the time watching the truck in the rearview mirror.

At 50 mph it was no longer gaining and at 55 it was dropping back some. At that point the two outside lanes disappeared and we were back on the two lanes we’d been on most of the trip. The road began to climb through heavy forest with few side roads, driveways, or houses; at the same time it began to gently climb and curve, first left them right, reducing the distance I could see behind us to a quarter mile or less. Though I knew the truck was still behind us and gaining, I couldn’t confirm it.

A few miles further along, the climb got steeper and a truck lane magical appeared. I held to the inside lane since there was still no traffic behind us. We came around a sweeping curve that opened onto a long straight stretch, at least a mile long I guessed. Ahead I could see four cars, in single file, since only the northbound side had a passing lane, coming toward us. Then I saw something standing in the northbound inside lane, my lane. It was too far away for me to tell for sure but something told me that it was a dog.

I slowed, moved into the outside, looked closer, shook the notion that it couldn’t be a dog out of my head and saw that it was in fact a dog; a big brown dog, stopped in his tracks, staring at the oncoming cars that were going to keep him from completing his crossing to the gravel drive that ran at right angles from the roadway.

As I continued to slow the dog looked at our car, then us, and turned slowly back in the direction of the woods to our right, the place I figured he had come from.

I didn’t have to look in the rearview mirror, I could feel the tractor trailer coming behind us and I knew it was coming fast. I knew it would be a close call for the dog and it crossed my mind that we might get blasted into eternity while trying to give him a chance to make it to safety.

Christina, louder than she usually speaks but to her credit, calmly said, “The truck…” I didn’t reply because there was nothing to say, in fact, because I’d made a commitment not to hit the dog there wasn’t anything I could do to change what was about to happen.

We were moving less than 10 mph when I pulled as far off the road as I could so as not the scare the dog and make him stop. We passed him and I heard air brakes lock and felt 75,000 pounds of truck and cargo bearing down on us. I looked in the mirror and saw that the dog had kept moving toward safety but in spite of my willing him to move faster he didn’t and I knew in my gut he wasn’t going to make it. The tractor trailer, smoke pouring off every tire was bearing down on him like a demon that would not or could not be stopped.

The bumper of the truck caught the dog’s hindquarters. The sound was sickening. The dog, who hadn’t seen the truck, screamed like a child. Somehow he managed to move off the roadway, still screaming. I heard him tumbling down the wooded slope, thought about going after him, and knew that even if I found him there would be nothing I could do.

I looked ahead. The truck driver was fighting for control of the rig and the jury was still out on who would win. Then, brakes released, the rig moved back into the right lane. I caught a glimpse of drivers and passengers in the southbound cars – pale faces, big eyes, relief that they had been spared, and they were past. I knew the truck driver would be looking back, or at least I hoped he would be; I made an emphatic obscene gesture out my window as the screams of the dog continued to echo in my head.

I spent a lot of years in trucking and I knew exactly what had just happened. A driver, going too fast, and not paying attention, had just killed a dog and barely missed killing God only knew how many others. I came back up to speed and held a position about a half mile behind the truck. I knew what the driver had done wrong but I was also convinced that I had done something wrong. I knew there had been something I could have done to have saved the dog but whatever it was, it wouldn’t come to me, not then.

Three miles further along the truck began slowing for a four way stop, stopped, then turned right into the parking lot of a truck stop. I followed. I had it in my mind that I would have a face-to-face confront with the driver, knowing when I was done he would know he had met the Safety Manager from hell and more importantly he would know what to do the next time he faced a similar situation.

He turned in wide circle and found a parking space facing south, the direction we’d just come from. I pulled up beside his door and waited. He opened it and I found myself at a loss for words, at least the words that I thought I would say. He was a she; early forties, plump, wearing jeans and a short sleeved uniform shirt. She reminded me of Claudia Moody. The first woman driver I road tested and one the best I’ve ever ridden with. My plans to get out of the car went out the window.

Her truck was still running and the diesel made conversation difficult. I shouted, one of the dumber things one human could possibly ask another, “What in the hell were you thinking about?”

She looked at me like she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I shouted, “You stupid, Bitch!”

She replied with an equally poorly thought out remark, “You can’t talk to me like that.”

She was right and I knew it. I shook my head, rolled up my window, and drove slowly away.

*****************

That wasn’t the end of it, not by a long shot. In fact, as it turned out, that was only the beginning. Christina and I talked about what had happened. I tried to explain why the event had affected me the way it had, knowing as I talked that I didn’t have the words for it. Christina told me what had come up for her and she did it far more eloquently than me. We talked about her issues and she found peace around what had happened while I continued to search for mine.

We didn’t talk about the incident again but I didn’t stop thinking about it, I couldn’t. I wasn’t upset with the driver, though I knew every mistake she had made. I knew I could have done something different and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I kept searching, recalling, reliving, and looking.

The next day I pulled up to the stop sign at 31E, looked at the dashboard clock. It was 12:45, fifteen minutes later than I’d sat at the same place yesterday. I looked right, and the road was empty, just as it had been the day before. I looked left, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the tractor trailer but the road in that direction was empty also. A little disappointed, I turned north. When I saw the gravel road coming up on the left I slowed. There was still no traffic in either direction. I was barely moving when I passed the drive. In my head I heard the dog screaming, the tires sliding, and once again I smelled the acrid scent of burning rubber. I saw the beginning of the skid marks and realized how close the truck was to us before the driver realized what was going on. The path of the truck was marked with rubber so thick and so far I knew that the tandem wheels on the back of both the tractor and the trailer had been flat spotted.

At forty miles an hour I drove on to the four-way stop, turned right into the truck stop parking lot, then headed back south. I didn’t have a plan, I just knew I had to do it and I didn’t have a clue why. At the junction of 231 and 31E I turned back toward Lebanon, drove about a mile and turned around again. At the junction of 231 and 31E I glanced at the dashboard clock and saw that it was 12:30 – the exact time it had been when I looked at it at that same spot yesterday, only today when I’d pulled up to the sign it had been 12:45. I knew what was going to happen next.

I looked to the right. There was no traffic in sight. I looked left and saw the tractor trailer just like I’d seen it yesterday. I pulled into the right lane, gathered speed, and at 55 mph I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that I was pulling ahead of the truck.

Minutes later I rounded the curve and saw the oncoming cars and the dog standing in the northbound, inside lane, watching them pass. I began slowing, turned on my four way flashers, and moved right. I came to a full stop, looked in my rearview mirror, and saw the tractor trailer slow and move into the outside lane also. The driver, a woman I now felt I knew well, turned on her four way flashers and came to a smooth stop about ten feet behind me.

I leaned out the window, looked at the dog and shouted, “Will you move a little faster?” He wagged his tail as he crossed slowly in front of me and ducked under the guard rail. A moment later I heard him breaking through the underbrush as he moved down the embankment.

I turned into the truck stop parking lot and waited as she swung the rig around and pulled up beside me. With the diesel still running she opened the door, looked down at me, smiled, and shouted, “Thanks for making that happen again.”

I grinned too, then shouted back, “I think it took all three of us – you, me, and the dog, to make it happen again.”

I saw her thinking about that, and then she smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. I drove on to Scottsville. On the way home I slowed at the spot; the skid marks were gone, I wasn’t surprised. As I passed the gravel driveway I thought I saw the dog disappearing over the hilltop. I wasn’t surprised at that either.