Upon the Crest of a Southern Road

Awhile back I was scrounging for an idea for a story in my creative writing class. Then I heard a song on the radio that was the sweetest song I had ever heard and I decided I wanted to it and I did. After I got lots of good feedback on it I thought it would be fun to write four more stories based on songs. This is the first one On the Crest of a Southern Road. So please read it and comment on it, giving me suggestions on this story and maybe a song for my next story.

On The Crest of a Southern Road

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Chapter One
When God Doesn’t Love You

The window let out a creak as she opened it, just a small one quiet enough for only her to hear. A summer breeze blew in bringing the smell of magnolias and peach blossoms. Her small blonde head peeked out. The night was clear and gentle starlight illuminated the neighborhood. Looking the two stories to the ground she sighed and dropped the brown leather backpack she had packed too full. She feared it would burst open but the strained clasp held as it hit the grass.

As experienced as she had become climbing down the lattice all those months ago to meet Ray it was a more difficult task with an eight-month-old baby growing in her stomach, stretching the thin fabric of her sundress tight across her middle. After about ten minutes and four near falls she stepped down on the lush grass with her bag. She picked the bag up and held the brown leather for a moment; a silver plate read Lucille Evans in swirly cursive letters. Her parents had given it to her on her fifteenth birthday.

Even the night didn’t bring relief from the heat of a Georgia summer and sweat started to pool under her armpits. The denim jacket she had around her shoulders grew heavy with the heat and the weight of her decision. She was pregnant and alone so she didn’t know if she was doing the right thing but she hadn’t known anything for a year.

On May 9th of last year her life was the perfect clichéd teenage life, great parents, good grades, friends that she had had since kindergarten, on May 10th her pretty as a picture life was shattered. Her parents were both killed as her dad tried to beat a train across the tracks and didn’t make it. The horrific incident left her an orphan.

They were in the ground a mere three days when Aunt Thelma thrust her huge hips into their home and into Lucille’s life. She was a harsh woman who enforced fanatical religious values on the young girl. She insisted she was just trying to have Lucille grow up in God’s Grace, but really she was only there to sit in the plush furniture of her mother’s living room and buy anything her clogged heart wanted with her dad’s money, and worst of all use Lucille as her puppet, her little toy.

“Lucille Ashley Evans!” she would yell, her terrible voice would carry up the stairs into Lucille’s bedroom. The girl would run down and see what Aunt Thelma had to say but she only had bad things to say about Lucille.

“ Your bad Lucille, you're stupid and dirty and bad! God does not love you!”

Of course Lucille wasn’t really bad but with her parents gone and with Aunt Thelma pushing her over the edge she sought love in a different place.

That love she searched for was manifested in the shape of Ray. He offered her things she regretted everyday for taking. But she hadn’t known she was as much his puppet as she was Aunt Thelma’s. Only he was sneakier about it, coating his words with a sweet sugar.

“You’ll like it Luc. Trust me, would I ever hurt you? Come on Lucy just lie down.”

And once he had her, he wanted her again and again. Lucille thought it meant he loved her but it didn’t. It had taken her awhile after he left for her to realize she never loved him either.

When she told him, told him all the promises he had made her were broken, he laughed, said the baby wasn’t his, said she was a slut and how was that his fault? As bad as it had been when she told Ray it was worse when she told Aunt Thelma.

The church going hypocrite threw the bible at her, literally. She preached sins and fornication, called her nothing but a whore, told her her god-fearing parents had forsaken her, and that God…well, God did not love her.

Under the pretext of not embarrassing Aunt Thelma in front of her friends she took Lucille out of school for the duration of her pregnancy. She kept her in the house all the time and without Lucille’s consent arranged to have the baby spirited away as soon as it was born. Lucille could not have that. The baby was hers, even if it was an accident, even if its father was scum. The baby was hers and she knew she would be a good mama. So she left. If she hadn’t known anything the past year she knew this, she could not give up her baby.

So putting one foot in front of the other she waddled down the sidewalk trying hard to not stumble over cracks to get to the bus station before morning. She had to be on a bus before Aunt Thelma took her lumbering body up the stairs and into Lucille’s bedroom finding her missing; she had to.

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Chapter Two
The Greyhound Military

The morning was bursting with yellow light that glinted off the dew on green southern grass. The morning was so brilliant that even the choking brown growth on all the trees looked alive and full of pleasure for the day to come.

Rays of the sunrise shot through the bus station window and hit Lucille’s purple eyelids. Closing her eyes tighter she tried to not let the sun disturb the few seconds of sleep she had been getting. But thoughts of missing her bus filled her head and she reluctantly sat up on the hard wooden bench.

The air conditioner was blowing right on her and goose bumps covered her exposed legs. She shivered and stood. Trying to stretch out sour muscles she reached her arms up over her head but the ache stayed. Lucille turned in a circle looking for a clock. She had bought her ticket when she arrived last night and it was the first bus that left that morning.

She was going to Kentucky, it wasn’t far but it was far enough. She was going to find Riley. He was a boy who lived next-door to her a few years ago. They had been best friends growing up; they did everything together. He was a little older than her making him twenty to her seventeen although the three years had never gotten in the way of their friendship. When he moved they wrote to each other everyday but Lucille’s parents died then she met Ray and she just stopped. She read his letters and cried over them all the time but she just couldn’t bring herself to write back.

More people came and bought tickets for her bus and a crowd was starting to form. The east-facing window continued to traffic in bright morning sun causing Lucille to squint and silently curse the sun for rising.

The clock ticked, people complained, a baby was crying and Lucille sat. A roar came from the south, growing louder until it was right outside. The hiss of exhaust releasing from the tailpipe gave the vehicle away as what it was. The 6:35 bus en route to Lexington, Kentucky. It would take about two days with scheduled stops and a stay over night in Clarksville, Tennessee. Lucille looked forward to the time it would take them to get there so she could think things through, especially what she was going to say to Riley. Riley was a completely different fear all together. Would he even want to know her after what she had done, would he think the same things Aunt Thelma did?

The others filed out of the building and on the bus, obedient soldiers in the military of Greyhound. Lucille hesitated.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” She said to herself.

If she got on that bus, there would be no turning back. It would be all over then, her life as it was now. It was a shattered life but could she let go of the shards, leave this town, the house her family grew together in? Doubt filled her; she couldn’t give up the small piece of her parents that still was tangible in her life. She just…

As she started to back away she felt the quick pop of a hiccup in her stomach. Her baby, she wasn’t doing this for herself she was doing it for her baby. To turn back now would be placing the baby in Aunt Thelma’s hands.

With each little hic the baby gave out Lucille’s spine filled with steel. Grabbing her bag she marched onto the bus.

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Chapter Three
What’s a Holler Anyway?

It was dark; they had driven all day. Mostly the other passengers ignored her, which was fine with Lucille, but now they were all sleeping as Lucille stayed awake. She couldn’t sleep, not with fear dripping through her like acid filling the hollowed out cavernous hole in her heart created by loneliness, not with the knowledge that she would never know love again.

She unfolded Riley’s letter, the paper was thinned from being over read. He wrote to her about how he had moved away from his parents and got a job mining. Three paragraphs down he wrote his new address, just in case, 1231 Backlade Road, Greenrock Holler. What was holler? She didn’t even know if it was a real address but hopefully it would get her to him, whatever a holler turned out to be. Hopefully he forgave her.

The bus slowed and turned off the highway, weaving its bulky metal body on the exit ramp and through the city streets to a gas station. The telling hiss blew out again as they stopped. Some people woke up and hauled their stiff bodies outside to relieve tight muscle and full bladders while others burrowed further down into their makeshift beds.

Toddling off the bus Lucille winced, another Braxton Hicks contraction. At first she thought that they were real contractions but Aunt Thelma informed her of her ignorance. They were getting worse and more regular, but it was to early too be getting real contractions, she still had a whole month to wait.

Fumbling down the stairs, she decided to lean up against the bus until it was over. While she sat there breathing through her tribulation of pregnancy a mechanic slammed the hood of the bus down.

“I’m telling you there is nothing wrong with the engine.” he said.

“I was driving and I saw smoke! Then it started to clank!” the gruff bus driver barked out. “Clank clank clank clank clank!” hitting the flashlight he held on the bus.

The younger man in the mechanic’s jumpsuit flinched for a moment then gathered himself back up and drawled out,

“There’s nothin’ wrong with the bus and y’all should be on your way. If you're worried all I can tell ya is stay on the back roads and off the highways.”

The burly bus driver huffed and stomped back on the bus leaving the mechanic to roll his eyes and meander his way back to a dark garage.

Lucille had barely registered the conversation as she concentrated on the flickering neon peach sign in the gas station window.

“We’re leaving now and anyone not on the bus is being left behind to annoy that wool headed tenderfoot of a mechanic.” Mr. Muscle Head bus driver man yelled.

Tired and in pain Lucille made her way back up the stairs and into her seat.
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Chapter Four
Greyhound Saviors and Hannah


The bus driver had taken the wool headed tenderfoot’s advice and stuck to back roads. The dark deserted roads were lined with thick woods and no cars drove on them at all. So when the bus’s engine blew and the whole monstrous vehicle rolled to a stop, never to start again, it was a little bit of a disadvantage.

Lucille looked around. The twisted trees casted tangled shadows on the road and and the muted stars blanketed a dark sky. The woods seemed unlimitless, a boundless ocean of firs.

Complaints came from all the passengers.

“We’re stuck here all night!” one screechy middle-aged woman yelled.

The bus driver was outside slamming around inventing new profanities to call the mechanic and a wide-eyed Lucille huddled down in her seat as the pain increased. Another false contraction came on and she winced, a quiet groan escaping her pale chapped lips.

“Are you ok honey?” a round woman with a round face and a honey sweet voice asked.

“I’m fine.” Lucille gasped. At the same moment a warm liquid gushed from between her legs and clear lines like water ran down her thighs.

“Honey you're in labor! This little girl’s in labor!” Chaos exploded and people started to rush around. Lucille’s pain kept her mind dull and slow so when they had her lying down in the aisle she barely noticed.

“Honey,” the round face of the woman reappeared. She sounded worried. “We got not hope of getting to a hospital, the bus is dead. You gotta be strong and deliver the baby here.”

Panic pushed through her. Alone? She couldn’t do it alone on a bus!

“I need my mom!” she sobbed.

“We don’t got time for that now the baby’s coming and we can’t stop it.” A man in flannel and a trucker hat said.

“Honey you're not alone. I’ll be here for you. And you got your baby, you’re a mama you’ll never be alone again.” The woman reassured her. “Now you,” she was speaking to flannel man in a commanding voice, “are you sure you know what your doing?”

“Yea I know what I’m doin’ I deliver cows and pigs on my farm all the time, ain’t nothin’ to it.” He replied.

“ A cow is a little different then this child here!” being nervous, the woman was becoming a little daunting.

“Ma’am I may talk slow but my head works just fine, now as it is I got the best experience to do this despite that it’s with animals and even so the baby don’ really seem to mind at all she’s comin’ anyway.” The woman was flustered at being put in her place but got out of his way.

Hours passed and Lucille cried out as people did everything they could to help. The night faded and the sun breeched the crest of the road. Light came through the windshield hitting Lucille’s purple eyelids.

At that moment a baby’s cry floated over the other people’s voices to Lucille’s ears. Relief and joy burst through her body. The passengers allowed her to sit up as they handed her a baby swaddled in the farmer’s flannel shirt.

“It’s a girl,” said the woman. She was smiling peacefully at the little bundle. “She’s beautiful.”

Lucille’s thin arms were quaking as she took the small child in her arms. She looked just like Lucille. No trace of Ray could be seen.

Blissful tears went down her cheeks and she looked at all the people around her, in the morning light they looked like god-sent saviors.

They helped her onto a seat as she looked at her daughter. Wonderment filled her as she touched the baby’s silken skin. The woman was right. She wasn’t alone and she wouldn’t be ever again.

They sat for some time all looking at the baby. The little girl's fingers were wrapped around Lucille's finger. As the morning came the masses were leaving for work and the anbandoned road became an avenue for America's work force.

The familiar brusque voice of the bus driver said, “A car pulled up and the driver agreed to take the girl to the hospital and get help for us.”

So they helped her into the small car. The old man driving smiled sympathetically at her.

“Wait! Don’t leave yet!” the woman opened up the car door and jumped in back. “I’m coming with her.”

As the car started to drive off they headed straight into the dawn; Lucille squinted at the light and thanked the sun for rising.

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Chapter Five
Finding Riley’s Holler

Carrying the young child in her arms she walked up to a small mountain shack. The address Riley had given her was helpful. Apparently in Kentucky a holler was a small mining town in between two foothills of a mountain. Outside of Kentucky it would have been pronounced hollow. But in Kentucky a holler was an authentic address, just ask Loretta Lynn the Kentucky residents had said.

Lucille knocked on the door and a muscular man with smudges of dirt on his face answered. The man before her was not the wiry boy she remembered. This wasn’t the boy who had helped her build snow forts in winter or did algebra homework for her. This was a man, burly and rugged with a dusting of facial hair on his strong chin. This man made her breath catch in her throat. He looked at her puzzled for a moment then yelled,

“Lucy girl!”

Her heart clenched when he used that name for her; she hadn’t heard it in so long. This was the boy she remembered just wearing a man suit. All her trepidation gone and relief poured into her.

“Oh Riley! I had this long speech planned, but I saw you and it’s all gone, and it doesn’t matter anymore, god I’ve missed you!” Lucille ran on.

He looked at her, worry clashed with elation in his expression.

“Lucy I’m so happy to see you! Come in!” he led her into a small living room. She turned to him when they were in the house.

“This is my daughter.” She said without prelude. Before he could scorn her she handed him the baby.

As he held her and touched her creamy skin he started to say something,

“Lucy how…what…” then he changed his mind and sighed saying instead, “What’s her name?”

“Hannah, it means loved by God.”

“Lucy-” she interrupted him.

“Sit down, it’s a long story.”



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Chapter Six
His Lucy Girl


On his back porch the two sat, looking up at the sky.

“…and that’s it. I thought I had lost everything but when she was born…I knew that even though everything I’d known and loved was gone I’d gained her. It’s me and her, we’ll face this world together.” She smiled and leaned back looking at the stars.

“You never lost me.” She looked at Riley; he was sitting up looking at her. “Come here Lucy girl.”

He pulled her into his arms and she slid easily into the embrace. When he spoke it was a soft whisper in her ears.

“I’m in love with you Lucy. I always have been.” Now she pulled away from him. But he still held her hands. “When you stopped writing me I just couldn’t give up, I couldn’t believe you’d forgotten me and I wasn’t going to let you. I’ve waited my whole life to tell you that but I knew I had to wait for you to grow up and I’ve never seen you so grown up before. So Lucy just know that…I love you. I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way but I had to tell you.”

Her hands were shaking and she took one and put it behind his neck, pulling him close enough to press her lips on his for a quick kiss. He’s eyes were still closed when she pulled back. Getting up, Lucille slid the screen door open.

“Lucy?” he whispered questioningly.

She surprised even herself when she said “I love you too Riley.” She paused for a moment and thought. “That’s why I stopped writing, because I thought I didn’t deserve you after all the terrible things I did with Ray but I know differently now. I still need time though, time to think and learn who I am and how to be just that. But once I do you better watch out Riley, ‘cause I’ll be looking to marry you.” She looked at him for a second more then ducked into the house.

“Hey!” he called to her. She peeked her head back out again. “ Don’t make me wait forever just because you know I will Lucy girl”

She smiled mischievously and walked inside. Riley sighed contentedly to himself.

“Even if she’s just grown into one tough woman she’s still my Lucy girl.”


Dedicated to Ashley Nelson, Andy Derks, and my Momia