“This is where Dale Earnhardt won his last race,” said Matthew solemnly.
Harley nodded, trying to look as if he’d remembered that. Might be in his notes somewhere. “Okay, Matthew. Good call. That was in-”
“October, 2000,” said Cayle. “The fall race at Talladega.”
Harley waited a couple of seconds to see if anybody was going to dispute her, but several heads nodded, so she must be correct. He smiled. “Right again. Anything else?”
“I’d almost call it a miracle, that race,” said Jim Powell. “Remember it? I saw it on television. Dale was running in eighteenth place that day. It didn’t look like he had a cat’s chance of winning. Then all of a sudden toward the end of the race, he moved from eighteenth place all the way up to first in only five laps. Then he went on to win it. Most incredible thing you ever saw.”
Arlene spoke up. It was one of her good days. “You didn’t see it, Jim,” she said. “You went to the bathroom, thinking Earnhardt was out of the running, and when you came back, I was jumping up and down screaming for Dale just as he took the lead.”
Jim looked pleased to be corrected. “Why, that’s right, hon,” he said, patting her hand. “I guess it’s never wise to give up on somebody, is it?”
Bill Knight, who had been looking out his window, admiring the green hills in the distance, said wonderingly, “You never think of Alabama having mountains. It looks like New Hampshire out there.”
Sarah Nash leaned forward and touched his arm. “They’re the same mountains,” she said. “The Appalachian chain begins here in north Alabama and ends up in New Brunswick, Canada. So the Bodines from upstate New York and the Allisons from north Alabama may have more in common than one might think.”
Harley laughed. “Well,” he said, “that’s one thing I sure never heard anybody say in connection with Talladega. Anything else?”
“That track cost $4 million to build back in ’69,” said Jesse Franklin. “Some of the speedways they built in the late nineties cost around 200 million to construct. Being an auditor, I keep up with monetary things like that.”
“Okay, that’s more than I knew, folks,” said Harley, making a silent vow to dig his guidebooks back out of his suitcase tonight. “I was waiting for somebody to say that it’s a super speedway, and one of the restrictor plate tracks. The reason for restrictor plates, some folks say.”
Justine heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Harley, everybody knows that,” she said. “But what everybody really says about Talladega is that it’s haunted.”
“Justine!” Bekasu turned back from the window and tried to shush her sister.
Justine shrugged. “Well, somebody had to say it,” she said. “I bet you were all thinking it. Well, maybe not Reverend Knight, ’cause he doesn’t know Neil Bonnett from Robin Hood, but the rest of y’all know what I’m talking about. And it’s not just the fact that Davey died here, either.”
“I’ve never heard anything about this,” said Terence, glancing at Sarah Nash. “Haunted?”
She gave a little shrug and then nodded. “So they say.”
Harley knew exactly what Justine was referring to, but it wasn’t the kind of thing drivers talk about, not even when they’re paid to be tour guides. He glanced down at Ratty to see if he had any reaction to Justine’s announcement, but Ratty was keeping his eyes on his lane of I-20, seemingly oblivious to the chatter behind him.
“You might as well tell them now, Justine,” said Cayle. “You’ll end up telling everybody one at a time at the next rest stop anyhow.”
Harley nodded. “You opened this can of worms,” he said. “You might as well spill it.”
“Okay,” said Justine. “Microphone?” She swayed up the aisle to stand next to Harley. “This used to be Cherokee land, you know. These hills. Now, Talladega-which means ‘border town’ in Cherokee-some people say that the place was built on an old Indian burial ground, or something, and that there’s a curse on it because of that.” She was solemn now, and round-eyed with the enormity of the tale.
Bill Knight frowned at this unexpected lurch in subject matter. He glanced down at Matthew, but the boy didn’t even seem surprised, much less disturbed, by this announcement. He supposed that between the zombie video games and the slasher movies, it would take more than a ghost story told in broad daylight to frighten a modern child.
“What kind of curse?” Terence called out. He had glanced around to see if anybody was laughing, but they weren’t.
“Okay, here’s the story,” said Justine, leaning into the microphone and assuming the hushed tone of the campfire storyteller. “Remember Bobby Isaac? He was the Winston Cup champion in-well, when I was a kid-”
Jim Powell spoke up. “Nineteen and seventy,” he said. “Year Arlene and I moved into our house in Shelby.”
“Right,” said Justine. “I knew it was B.D. Before Dale. Anyhow, Bobby Isaac was a successful, dedicated driver, okay? He was well paid and well known. So, in 1973 Bobby Isaac was racing in the Talladega 500-”
“As a matter of fact he was in the lead at the time,” said Ray Reeve, who knew where this story was headed.
“Wow. I’d forgotten that,” said Justine. “Okay, so he’s on the front stretch when all of a sudden he pulled into the pit without any caution flag, and without being told to by his crew chief. Just ups and parks the car. The crew all came running up to him. ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘What’s wrong with the car?’ ‘Are you sick?’ And you know what he said?” She looked to Harley for confirmation.
He sighed. “Go on,” he said. “Tell them.”
“Okay, when they asked Bobby Isaac why he pulled out of the race, he said that something told him to get out of the car and walk away.” And he did. Cross my heart, it’s the truth. He didn’t finish that race-we’re talking about thousands of dollars at stake here, y’all. And he may have raced a time or two after that, but basically he was done right then and there. Now can you imagine somebody in his salary range-a surgeon or a trial lawyer, maybe-just walking away from his chosen profession just because a supernatural voice ordered him to?” She looked back at Terence. “Would you?”
Terence coughed and looked embarrassed. “I don’t know,” he stammered. “Maybe. If I’d really heard the voice.”
“Wasn’t there more to the story?” asked Shane. “I thought I heard that they checked over Bobby Isaac’s car after he parked it, and they found some problem with it that would have put him into the wall if he hadn’t got out.”
They all looked up at Harley for confirmation. “I don’t know,” he said. “It was before my time, and it’s not the kind of thing drivers want to talk about. How about if we gripe about restrictor plates instead?”
“Well, that’s just another wreck story,” Ray Reeve pointed out. “I mean, if you’re talking about why they implemented them in the first place. Bobby Allison.”
“Restrictor plates!” said Shane, in the tone people usually reserve for words like “maggots.”
“I know,” said Justine. “But if you don’t want Bobby Allison in your lap, you’d better put up with them.”
“Or Bill Elliott,” said Sarah Nash. “Bill Elliott is the one who did 212 miles per hour at Daytona. Not that I’d mind having him in my-” Her voice trailed off and she snatched up her magazine, holding it a bit too close to her face to actually be reading it.
Bill waved his hand to attract Harley’s attention. “What’s this about having Bobby Allison in your lap?”
Harley smiled with relief at the prospect of getting the tour discussion back on track. This he knew. “Now that’s the story you ought to tell, coming into Talladega,” he said. “The 1987 Winston 500. Dodging the bullet. Everybody knew it was going to be a fast race that year. Talladega is a super speedway-a long straightaway to build up speed on. Bill Elliott took the pole in qualifying with a speed of 212.8 miles an hour. That’s more than three miles a minute, folks. I can’t even tell you what that feels like. That was before restrictor plates-in other words, back when there was no limit on speed except the capabilities of the engine and the driver.”