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Back Low Country Save as PDF
Chapters (25)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. CHAPTER 1
  4. CHAPTER 2
  5. CHAPTER 3
  6. CHAPTER 4
  7. CHAPTER 5
  8. CHAPTER 6
  9. CHAPTER 7
  10. CHAPTER 8
  11. CHAPTER 9
  12. CHAPTER 10
  13. CHAPTER 11
  14. CHAPTER 12
  15. CHAPTER 13
  16. CHAPTER 14
  17. CHAPTER 15
  18. CHAPTER 16
  19. CHAPTER 17
  20. CHAPTER 18
  21. CHAPTER 19
  22. CHAPTER 20
  23. CHAPTER 21
  24. CHAPTER 22
  25. CHAPTER 23

When the guys headed for the boat, I picked Tybee up from his napping spot on the end of the bench and carried him inside the cabin. I put his new bed on the floor over near the woodstove, on the side of the cabin I had selected for my bunk. Then I poured him a container of dry food and a bowl of water, and placed these for him in the kitchen. His litter box went in the pantry. With that, he, like the rest of us, was fixed with all the comforts of home. He had sniffed around the cabin while I was taking care of his housekeeping but now, as I prepared to depart, I found him curled up asleep on one of the sofas.

“Sleep on, little dude,” I said as I looked down upon the small creature. “Eat and rest. You are among friends.”

I retrieved the keys to my new-old Chevy. It was time to go meet Sandy Willis.

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 17

I MADE MY WAY TO ABERCORN AND from there over to Oglethorpe.

The bus station sits in an area that looks pretty much like where you would expect to find a bus station anywhere in the country. Only a few blocks to the north, the high arch and gleaming piers and wires of the Talmadge Bridge soared into the sky, dominating the view from all directions. How ironic, I thought, as I pulled into the parking lot and switched off the engine, that Sandy should select this as the place of our meeting, in the very shadow of where her friend had died.

As I climbed out of the car, I looked downriver and noted that the clouds were beginning to thicken into a solid mass once again. It would rain again by sundown. I walked across the lot toward the front of the station and threaded my way through a small crowd milling around the front doors.

Once or twice a year, I take myself on a long bus trip. I do it because of the people I meet. I’ve often thought that were I ever to take up writing and become a novelist, I would people my books with the characters I’ve met on the bus. The two most poignant and tragic figures I’ve ever encountered on my trips were an old woman and her mentally deficient adult son, on their way to Texas to witness the execution of another of her sons.