Charlie Dugan, who went by the handle “Old Dog” on the CB radio, had been driving big rigs for more years than he cared to recall and had more than five million accident free miles to his credit. He was, as many of the younger and newer drivers called them, an “old hand” when it came to life behind the wheel of an eighty thousand pound, seventy two feet long big rig.

He was a tall, well built man with neatly cut silver hair beneath his ball cap with the Kenworth logo embroidered on the front.. He wore his usual faded jeans, western style shirt with the pearl snaps in place of buttons, and brown cowboy boots that showed the wear and tear of many miles and many years on the road.

As he re-lit his pipe he checked his eyes with a quick glance at the mirror mounted on the sun visor to make sure they weren't looking bloodshot or overly tired just in case he was stopped for a check by some bored D.O.T. cop. The gentle glow of the dash lights revealed a face that was heavily lined, as if every road he had ever traveled had been mapped out on it. “Damn I'm looking old.” he said to himself, and not for the first time.

Over the past couple of years he had been toying with the idea of retirement. But to his mind retirement was almost a kind of death. He had no idea what he would do with himself with all of that time on his hands. His wife of 32 years, Sharon, had “gone home” five years ago. Cancer had taken her fast.

Before Sharon, Charlie had always hated euphemisms, especially the ones for death. But he could never bring himself to think of Sharon as having died. “Gone home” was less painful somehow, but it didn't make him miss her any less. He understood now why people preferred euphemisms at times.

That had a been a rough time for him and only miles on the road with just his thoughts for company had seen him through it. The road was his life and it seemed like it always had been. It was tough for him to remember his life as a youth, before the road. Almost as tough as imaging a life without the road. Without Sharon to return home to the road was all he had left. He couldn't remember how long it had been now since he had even visited their house. Six months? A year? Longer?

At one point about three years after Sharon had “gone home” he had considered dating. There was a cocktail waitress in Oklahoma City that he was pretty sure was sweet on him, but in the end his heart wasn't in it and he just let things ride as they were. He had even considered a prostitute at one point but the idea only made him feel sick. He just wasn't that sort of a man.

It had been a hard run out from LA. He had picked up a load of produce out there and was taking it to Raleigh, NC so that the fine folks there could shop for fresh vegetables for their dinner tables. He had left out with what was a tight but do-able schedule and everything went along just fine until the water pump on the big Cat engine decided to self destruct a little east of Dallas.

He'd had his Kenworth W900 towed into a repair shop. That cost him three hundred dollars for a ten mile tow. “I'm in the wrong business”, he had thought at the time. By the time the water pump had been replaced and he had forked over a Comcheck for eight hundred dollars to the repair shop he was a good eight hours behind schedule and over a grand poorer.

He had bent the rules a bit to make up for lost time, stopping for catnaps instead of taking the legally required ten hour break, and he was back on schedule for an on time delivery. He felt a little tired as he guided his rig through The Gorge, a section of winding mountain pass that connected Tennessee with North Carolina on I-40, but he had been doing this work a long time and was accustomed to such schedules. Besides, he took pride in delivering his loads on time.

He had stopped at the truck stop in Dandridge, TN just long enough to relieve himself, splash some water on his face, and refill his thermos with strong black coffee before pulling his rig back onto the interstate. Now that he was going through The Gorge he felt somewhat energized because he knew the end of the run was near and he would be able to get some rest.

Charlie was grateful for the full moon as The Gorge can be pretty dark at night. At the best of times it was a mildly dangerous set of blind curves. At the worst of times there were sudden rock slides that you could run into without any warning at all. That can do some serious damage to a big rig, let alone a “four wheeler”. Those slides had killed more than a few drivers in the middle of the night.

He reached down for his thermos to pour himself another cup of coffee but something suddenly glinted in his headlights and caught his attention. He immediately forgot the coffee and shot his hand back to the wheel. There had been something there, for just an instant, but whatever it was had disappeared around the curve in the road.

Had he been overtaking another vehicle? Another rig perhaps? He hadn't seen any sign of tail lights since he had entered The Gorge. He glanced down at his speedometer which still read fifty miles per hour, exactly where he had set the cruise control upon entering The Gorge. Fully alert now he carefully watched the road ahead as he entered into the curve, straining to see past the headlights and into whatever the moon was willing to reveal for him. Something had been there, he was sure of it.

As he came out of the curve his headlights illuminated a minivan stopped in the road directly in front of him. There wasn't a single light burning on it. There was a car passing him on the left so he jerked the wheel to the right, towards the shoulder and the sheer drop to the river below. He had made that decision in less than a second although it seemed more like minutes to him.

Charlie was still shaken, and shaking, as he pulled into the small truck stop and set his breaks. They let out a loud “whoosh” of air and sent up a cloud of dust in the dirt parking lot. As he climbed down out of his rig he looked around trying to remember this truck stop. His mind was a blank. He couldn't recall having ever been there before.

He was sure there wasn't a truck stop in the country he hadn't visited, and more than once at that. He thought he knew them all and didn't even need to carry one of those truck stop guides many drivers rely on these days. Yet somehow the place didn't look familiar.

“It's the near miss,” he said to himself, “just a little shaken up is all.” He started walking across the lot to the building. It did seem a little strange to him that the only other truck in the lot was an old B model Mack. This time of night the truck stops were usually overflowing with trucks as their drivers got some sleep. Coffee must really suck here, he thought, chuckling to himself.

As he walked into the brightly lit diner he stopped for a few seconds to let his eyes adjust to the light. A bell attached to the door was still jingling softly from his entering. He spotted the coffee counter. It was one of the old fashioned ones with a linoleum top and round vinyl padded stools with their bright chrome supports bolted to the tiled floor.

The place smelled of coffee and hot apple pie. An old jukebox quietly played in the far corner. Charlie couldn't quite make it out but it sounded like an old Hank Williams tune. Hank Williams had always been his favorite. Charlie saw that another driver was sitting at the counter nursing a cup of coffee.

He sat down on a stool across from the other driver. Damn, Charlie thought, he looks even older than I do. Older than dirt itself. The old man was dressed the way the old time truckers did back in the day. Brown trousers, white shirt, black tie, brown jacket, and hard brimmed hat like bus drivers wear, or some military wear when in dress uniform. Charlie didn't think he had seen a trucker dressed like that in more than forty years.

The waitress came over. She looked like something straight out of the 1950s. Old fashioned blue waitress uniform complete with white apron, red hair done up in a huge pile on top of her head, a little too much makeup, and a name tag that read “Rhonda”. Charlie imagined that if he lifted the apron he would find a poodle on the skirt beneath.

“Coffee, honey?” she asked him in a thick Southern drawl.

“Sure thing,” Charlie replied, “thanks.”

“Sure thing, sugar” she said, and gave him a wink and a smile as she poured his coffee. It smelled good and strong.

The older driver had said nothing to Charlie. He just sat there looking older than dirt, sipping on his coffee now and then. But after Charlie had taken a few drinks of his own coffee the old man spoke up. “You look a little pale there, sonny.”

Sonny? Had the old man really said “sonny”? Charlie nearly burst out laughing at that. It had been years, hell, decades since anyone had called him “sonny”. But he was still shaken up by the near miss so instead of laughing he just said “Yeah, I suppose so. Had a close call coming through The Gorge a little while ago. I'm still not sure how I missed that minivan without running myself off the side of the mountain”.

The old timer nodded as if he understood perfectly. “Yep, those sorts of things can be pretty scary. That gorge has killed a lot of truckers over the years you know.”

Charlie did know very well. His best friend Bill Jackson had died in a truck wreck there some fifteen years ago. It still pained him to think about it. “Yeah,” he said “it can be tricky if you're not paying attention.”

The waitress came by and refilled both Charlie's and the old man's coffee cups before wandering back into the kitchen. She glanced back once to give the old man an odd look that Charlie didn't quite understand. As the door to the kitchen swung on it's hinges Charlie thought it looked like she was on the telephone.

“My name's Johnson,” the old man said, “Sam Johnson.” He reached across the counter to offer his hand. Charlie shook his hand noticing the old man had a pretty good grip despite his obvious years. “Charlie Dugan” Charlie replied as he settled back onto his stool.

He and the old man talked for a while about trucks and trucking. At one point the old man said “Things sure are different now. Not like they were in my day. We didn't have cell phones and computers and all of that. Hell, we didn't even have interstates back then.”

Charlie asked about the old Mack sitting in the lot. “Oh, that's my Mable.” said the old man. There was a light in his eyes when he said it. He obviously loved that old truck.

“So you still out here driving?” asked Charlie. He thought the man looked far beyond the point of remaining behind the wheel of a rig, but then he did have a pretty strong grip.

“Well, not so much,” said Sam Johnson, “least-wise, not the way you mean.”

Charlie wondered about that statement for a moment, but wasn't sure what to make of it. “Not the way...I mean? What way is that, exactly?” Charlie had never liked riddles very much.

The old man, Sam Johnson, just took a sip of his coffee and got a far away look in his eye. Finally he said “I used to drive that old Mack on different lines all over the country. I hauled every kind of freight you can think of. Until that one night. In The Gorge.”

“What happened?” Charlie asked. His own close call in The Gorge was still fresh on his mind and nerves. He had been damn lucky to have made it out of that one with his skin intact, that was sure.

The old man seemed to suddenly return to the here and now. He looked Charlie straight in the eye. “That ain't important right now, Charlie. What's important is what happened out there tonight. In The Gorge.”

“But,” Charlie said, “I told you what happened, Sam. It was a close call, that's all.”

The old man's eyes never left Charlie's. “Are you sure about that, Charlie? Are you sure it was just a close call and nothing else?”

Charlie felt cold creeping up his spine. “What do you mean, old timer? You trying to say I hurt somebody out there?” He was thinking hard now, about The Gorge and what had happened there. He could remember jerking the wheel to the right and then...pulling into the truck stop. Why couldn't he remember the rest of the drive through The Gorge?

Nerves, Charlie thought, just nerves from the close call, that's all. But there was something... some doubt, growing in his mind. What the hell had happened out there? What was happening to him? Was he losing his nerve after all these years? Maybe he was getting too old for this.

Charlie then wondered about the waitress on the phone. Talking to her husband? Charlie hadn't noticed a wedding ring. A girlfriend? The state police? Did they know something he didn't? Had they received a call about a hit and run truck? Had they been told to call if a truck matching the description of his came in?

No, this was crazy, he would know if he had hit someone. Wouldn't he?

“Yes, Charlie” said Sam Johnson, “somebody was hurt out there. In fact, somebody died out there tonight. That's a cold hard fact, Charlie.”

Charlie just sat and started at the old man, his mouth gaping open. What the hell was this old man talking about? And how would he know anyway? Had the state police called? This was just crazy. He snapped his mouth shut and sat bolt upright. He wasn't buying whatever it was that this old nut was selling. He's just trying to mess with me, Charlie thought. But Charlie felt fear creeping into him all the same.

“No, Charlie, he isn't trying to mess with you.” Charlie jumped at this, startled. It was the waitress, Rhonda. She had come back in, coffee pot in hand, and was gently patting Charlie's left hand. She must have read the look on his face. “You best listen to him, honey. Everything will be all right.”

Charlie felt the anger starting to well up from deep inside him, replacing the fear. These two were playing some kind of a joke on him. Some way for them to pass the time when things are slow. Well, he wasn't the type to put up with such nonsense, no sirree! “How much for the coffee?” he growled as he reached for his wallet.

“Charlie,” the old man said in a gentle, almost sorrowful tone of voice. It reminded Charlie of the tone of voice one would use when trying to explain the death of a pet goldfish to a five year old. “Charlie, just take a second and think about The Gorge. About what happened out there. After you cut the wheel, what happened then?”

Charlie had been thinking about that, thinking about it harder than he had thought about anything in his life. “I told you, “ he said in a tone more gruff than he had intended, “I drove here and stopped to get some coffee and settle my nerves.”

But now he was starting to wonder about that. How far had he driven to...here? And where the hell was “here” anyway? “I didn't kill anybody! I would damn sure remember it if I did!” Charlie could feel himself shaking. His hands were balled into fists and he could feel his face flush with heat.

“Didn't you, Charlie?” asked the old man who called himself Sam Johnson. The old man looked very serious. There was no sign of a joke in him at all. “Charlie, do you remember driving here at all?”

“Well, uh, no. Not exactly. I mean, I'm sure that's just because I was a little shook up is all.” said Charlie. He sounded uncertain even to himself. Maybe especially to himself. Could it be possible? Could he have killed someone out there on I-40 and not remember it? No, of course not. That was crazy. The old man, Sam Johnson, he was crazy. Crazy as a loon.

But what what if he had dozed off for just a second without realizing it? Maybe then...

“Charlie,” the old man said, “I know this isn't easy for you. Believe me I know it. I've been there. But someone did die out there in The Gorge tonight. Charlie, when you cut the wheel...”

“Damn it!” Charlie shouted, cutting the old man off in mid sentence, “I don't know what you two are up to here, but knock it off!” He grabbed up his cup and swallowed down the rest of his coffee in a single gulp. He slapped two dollar bills down on the counter and was about to get up. I need to get away from these two, thought Charlie, they'll have me thinking I might have massacred the Brady Bunch with a butter knife if I stay here much longer.

The old man and the waitress both just nodded silently and sad faced while watching Charlie. Charlie heard the jingle of a bell from behind him. It was the bell he had noticed on the door as he had walked into the diner. Someone else had come in. Charlie had the urge to glance over his shoulder to see who it might be. He was hoping it was someone, perhaps another driver that he knew, coming in to restore some damn sense to the world.

Or maybe it was a state trooper coming to arrest him for a hit and run he couldn't remember. His heart sank into his stomach at that thought. Was that who Rhonda the waitress had called? Had he really killed someone out there? Could it be? Maybe someone was standing on the shoulder of the road when he swerved to miss the minivan? Maybe trying to fix a flat tire? Charlie's blood ran cold and suddenly his mouth and throat were as dry as a desert.

He finally looked over his shoulder and saw the person walking in, eyes fixed right on him. It wasn't a state trooper. It was someone he knew. Someone who's face was forever etched into his memory. He stood, his legs feeling a little like Jello, tears welling up in his eyes. He struggled to find his voice as emotion choked in his throat. “Sh-Sharon?”

“Hiya, Charlie” she said, “I've come to take you home.”