Long Black Curl (12 page)

“That don't matter,” Adecyn said. “We ain't gonna wait until they decide what they're gonna do. We got to do something now.”

“They won't like it,” Marshall said. “Bliss won't. Bronwyn and Chloe won't,” he said with a glance at Deacon. “Mandalay won't.”

“What's that old saying?” Adecyn said. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission? Bo-Kate'll end everything. All the songs, all the sailing on the night winds. We'll be just what we appear to be: a bunch of old hillbillies and rednecks.”

“Hey, I ain't old,” Draven said with a snort. No one else laughed.

“How do you know?” Marshall asked Adecyn. The man was even older than he appeared—he'd been old when the Tufa arrived, and his knowledge, if not his wisdom, was ancient and encyclopedic. But even a Tufa elder's mind could begin to wander when it filled to the brim with memories.

“Because she wants revenge,” Adecyn said. “And what better revenge than to make the Tufa just like everybody else? That's what we did to her, ain't it?”

Again only the wind and the heater were heard in the boxcar. A coyote howled in the distance.

“We need to find her,” Deacon said.

“She's probably at her home place,” a short, stocky man said. “I saw a shiny new SUV driving down that way this evening.”

“Can't do much while she's there,” Whizdom said.

“Reckon Tain might help us?” Marshall asked. “She's got no love for Bo-Kate, that's for sure.”

“She might,” Snowy said. “I can talk to her.”

“Do that.”

“I'd go check to see if Eli's got anyone around his fire,” Adecyn said.

“Why?” asked Whizdom.

“Fella sits in slow time long enough, strange things can happen. We don't need no more strange things.”

“All right, I'll go up there tonight,” Marshall said. “And the rest of you, remember: not a word.”

In unison, the Silent Sons recited their motto, from the words of poet Christina Rossetti:
“Silence is more musical than any song.”
Then, wordlessly, they all left the boxcar. The last one out, Whizdom, turned off the heater and grabbed the gallon can of kerosene.

*   *   *

Junior Damo hung up his coat, kicked off his boots, and walked to his kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and put the beer he'd bought inside. He took one, and closed the door.

They lived in the old Edelmen place, which he'd bought at a foreclosure sale knowing full well he couldn't pay the mortgage for more than six months. He'd bought it, though, because his wife insisted. And when Loretta insisted, it was either go along or be prepared to face the consequences.

He sipped the beer and looked around the living room. Their old, thrift-store furniture was cluttered in ways that told more about their lives than he probably realized. The couch was set at an odd angle so it would face the TV straight on, which was the only angle where the screen was bright enough to watch. The TV had to stay where it was because the cord connecting it to the cable outlet was only two feet long, and they could never remember to buy a longer one on the rare occasions when they went into Unicorn or Herrowton. And since they stole their cable, thanks to some fancy wiring by his wife's cousin, they couldn't call Comcast and have them come out to fix it.

Still, it was either this, or live with his in-laws. And this was infinitely preferable.

“Where you been?” a harsh female voice demanded.

He didn't look up from the beer as he popped the tab. “Up the mountain. Went to see Rockhouse Hicks.”

“Why would you go to see him? He ain't shit anymore.” There was a pause, and then an even harsher screech. “You answer me when I talk to you, Junior!”

At last he looked up. Loretta, his wife of six months, tottered her seven-months-pregnant form into the kitchen. She was clearly not happy, but that was no surprise. She hadn't been happy since the last time a white man was president. She waddled across the room and leaned against the wall, exhausted. She had not been a small woman to begin with; now she was enormous, and like air in vacuum, her temper expanded to fit the available space.

Junior said, “You're wrong, honey, he
is
shit. That means he needs to get flushed, and somebody needs to take his place.”

“As head turd?” she snapped.

“As head of our half of the Tufa.”

She snorted. “You?”

“Why not?”

“If you need me to tell you, then you're dumber than I thought.”

He took another long drink of the beer. “How's the baby?”

“Kicking the shit out of me whenever he can.” She turned away, but he heard her mutter, “Just like you, asshole.”

Junior fought down the anger. Loretta's temper was on a constant simmering boil, so it surprised no one when she barked at them. His, on the other hand, exploded without warning, and often got him into trouble. He had no problem slapping a mouthy woman, but even he drew the line at striking one who was pregnant.

This wouldn't be his first kid, but it was the first one he'd taken an interest in. Loretta wasn't a pureblood, but her family was well connected among the Tufa by marriage and otherwise, and that meant
he
was well connected. If he really intended to take over their half the Tufa, he'd need those connections to both help him achieve his goal, and then keep it. So he tried his best to ignore her singularly unpleasant personality and, just like the night their child had been conceived, tried to stay a little drunk so he wouldn't have to think too much about what he was doing.

Before Junior could respond to Loretta's abuse, or even
think
of a response, his cell phone buzzed. He fished it from his pocket and saw a number he didn't recognize. When he held it to his ear, a man's voice said, “What?”

“What?” Junior said back, puzzled.

“You wanted to talk to me.”

“Who is this?”

“Someone you wanted to talk to.”

Junior frowned, then said, “Jewel?”

“You expecting someone else?”

Junior began to sweat. He had not really planned out his end of this conversation yet, and thinking on his feet was not his strong point. Jewel Hicks was as shifty as his cousin Rockhouse, as brutal as his cousin Stoney had once been, and as devious as a copperhead in a woodpile. Junior went outside on the porch for privacy.

“I went up the mountain to see your cousin,” Junior said, praying his voice didn't shake.

“Plays guitar like a chain saw buzzin',” Jewel shot back. Junior didn't recognize the lyric. Jewel continued, “You gotta be more specific, slick, I got a hundred and fifty cousins that I know about close enough to hit with a stick from where I'm standing.”

“Rockhouse.”

There was a long silence. “Why'd you go see him for?”

“I needed to see how finished he was. And he was pretty gone. Somebody's done gone up there and cut off his extra fingers.”

More silence. Then, “Who?”

“Bo-Kate Wisby,” Junior said.

“Bullshit.”

“You think what you want, but it's sure enough been done. So now he can't sing
and
he can't play, which means he can't ride the night wind, neither. That makes him useless.”

“If you say,” Jewel said.

Junior licked his dry lips. This next bit was crucial, and it was the part he'd hoped to plan out in more detail. If Jewel got the wrong idea, then it was all lost. “That means we need somebody to take over.”

“I reckon.”

“Rockhouse ever name anybody?”

Jewel laughed. “That sum'bitch thought he was immortal. He never even thought about naming anybody else. But that ain't news to anybody that knew him. Now, why you askin' all this, Junior?”

Junior grinned. He
had
suspected that, but he needed it confirmed, and now Jewel had done just that. All Junior had to do was end this phone call without tipping his hand. “If you'd seen him like I did, you'd be asking, too.”

That seemed to satisfy Jewel. “I reckon. I'm sure we'll hear about it when somebody else takes over. That all you wanted? We're just sitting down to dinner.”

“That's all I wanted.”

Without a word of good-bye, the line went dead. Junior closed his eyes and sighed with relief. He took a long swallow of his beer and luxuriated in the way it slid down his throat.

When he went back inside, Loretta said, “What the hell are you so happy about? Unless you won the lottery, you ain't got a thing to smile about, you hear me?”

“Sure do, your voice carries.” He couldn't wait for the baby to be born, so he could take his son from this harpy and send her to the hell she deserved, a mirror of the hell she'd made of his life.

*   *   *

At the fire station, Rockhouse lay on a cot usually used for firemen working overnight shifts. As a volunteer force, they weren't manned as often as they should have been, but by the same token, the Tufa were very seldom surprised. If a dangerous fire was on the horizon, the night wind made sure someone knew in advance—via a dream, a premonition, hearing “Burning Down the House” frequently on the radio—and the fire department would have time to assemble.

Mandalay stood idly while Bliss gathered the medical tools she needed. She was thinking about what happened when her father dropped them all off. Just before he left, she'd impulsively hugged him tight, as she used to do when she was a toddler. “I love you, Daddy,” she said, and kissed his cheek. She loved the feel of his thick beard against her lips, and the musky smell of it.

“I love you, too, june bug,” he said easily. He was not a man who felt admitting affection was unmanly.

“Tell Leshell I love her, too.”

“I will.” When she pulled away, he looked at her closely. “Are you all right? Do you want me to stay?”

“No. Bliss and I can handle this.”

“I don't doubt that. But I'll still stay if you want.”

She felt a fresh surge of affection. “No, Daddy, that's okay. I'll be home later. I can't imagine we'll have school tomorrow, so I'll be able to sleep late.”

He gave her a tiny grin. “Yeah, enjoy that while you can. When you have a job, you don't get snow days.”

“I know,” she agreed.

Now she stood against the wall, hands stuffed into the pockets of her borrowed jeans, and watched Bliss begin to clean the wounds on Rockhouse's hands. The old man was buried under a pile of blankets; his face was gray and slack. But his eyes were open.

“This is pointless, you know,” Bliss said.

“You can stop,” Mandalay said.

“No. It's my job. I can at least make him comfortable. It's what I'd do for anyone.”

Mandalay looked at the old man's face. How many times had she done that, wishing it were the last time? And now that it was, she found herself as numb as he must have been coming down the mountain.

Bliss said, “So what happened between you and the Somervilles?”

“Luke found me before I froze to death and brought me home.”

“Did he—?”

She smiled. “He was a perfect gentleman. He
is
only twelve, you know.”

“His father once cut the brake lines on Dan Yorty's truck. Sent him off a ravine and broke his legs. Lucky he didn't die.”

“The ‘sins of the father' isn't really a Tufa concept, Bliss.”

“I'm just saying, they're not our people. They might not have had your best interests at heart.”

“Well, they did ask me to stay to dinner.”

“Did you—? No, of course not, I apologize for even thinking it.”

“If one of us had Rockhouse at our mercy, then we might've tried the same thing. It would be easy enough to do, and to claim it was just hospitality. And maybe it would be.”

“Do you think this was?”

She smiled again, suddenly older than the rocks beneath them, and Bliss got the chill she always got when Mandalay revealed her true nature. “No. But Luke stood up for me. He knew what they were doing and told them to stop.”

“Why?”

“Not everyone is what you expect, Bliss.”

“Well … like you said, he's just a kid.”

“So am I.”

She didn't look up when she asked, “Why were you out in the snow in the first place?”

“I just … I had to get out of the house. I can't explain it. The night winds wanted me to run.”

“Away from something, or toward it?”

“I'm not sure yet.” She almost brought up hearing “I'm Nine Hundred Miles from My Home,” but decided against it. Whatever that had been, it was something she hadn't yet worked out for herself, and having other people's theories bouncing around her head would just create the kind of psychic noise that kept her from comprehending things. There
had
to be a reason, and she'd figure it out. Or the night winds would smack her over the head with it.

Bliss bandaged the stumps of Rockhouse's amputated fingers. He watched her in his enforced silence, his eyes gleaming with tears of frustration and rage.

Mandalay remembered the arrogance and smug hatred that used to reside in the old man's face. Now, deprived of voice and music, he was pitiful.

But she knew he was still capable of being dangerous.

“Bliss,” Mandalay said, “I need a moment alone with Rockhouse.”

“I'm almost done,” Bliss said without looking up.

“Now,” Mandalay said in the voice that brooked no dispute.

Bliss looked up sharply, then nodded and quickly left the room. She closed the door behind her as she went into the garage where the lone fire truck was kept.

When they were alone, Mandalay looked down at the old man.

“Ain't this a mess,” she said at last. “Here you are, tore to pieces, and here I am. Pretty soon everybody's gonna expect me to step up and do like you did, keep us all together. The thing is, everybody was afraid of you. You made sure of that, didn't you? Like when you killed your daughter's husband, or made Uncle Node drive off that curve? Hell, you even sent a mudslide down on that whole Waddle family, just because one of 'em stood up to you.”