Long Black Curl (6 page)

 

4

Bo-Kate Wisby looked out the SUV's window at the mountains looming behind the haze of falling snow. Unable to stand the silence, Nigel said, “Did you know there's a place called ‘Frozen Head State Park'?”

“Yeah,” she said absently.

“How does a place acquire that name? Is someone's head truly held on ice, and displayed there? I mean, your country is certainly in touch with its barbaric side, but that sounds positively Romanesque.”

“No, it's because the mountain's top is so high, it's always got ice on it.”

“Ah. That's a relief. I thought perhaps your Davy Crockett's cranium was kept there in its original coonskin cap.”

This brought her back to the moment. “How the hell do you know about Davy Crockett?”

“Television, my pumpernickel. I can even sing the song for you, including a delightful racial variant my lighter-skinned chums enjoyed singing to me.”

“You're not old enough to remember the Davy Crockett TV show,” she snapped.

He gave no indication he noticed her tone. “Your original colonial rulers have embraced the concept of the syndicated rerun.”

She sighed. “Sorry, Nigel. I have a lot on my mind.”

“Chopping off fingers will preoccupy one, I imagine.”

“There was a good reason for that.”

“I'd certainly hope it wasn't an idle impulse.”

“That old man exiled me from my home, and my family.”

“So you've said.”

She paused and mustered her resolve. She'd never told him what she was about to. “He did worse than that, too, Nigel.”

Nigel didn't look at her, but simply said quietly, “I suspected as much. I've known other women who were … mistreated as girls.”

“No, not that, although he did grope my butt once. He … Have you ever wondered why you never heard me sing until recently?”

“One never hears
me
sing, either. I sound like a garbage disposal with silverware caught in its teeth.”

“Oh, I've heard you sing along with your iPod, or something on the radio. I mean, you're right, that
is
what you sound like, but I
have
heard you.”

He gave her a dour sideways smile. “You're such a charmer.”

“But you never heard me, did you? Before three weeks ago.”

“No, I suppose I didn't.”

“And I sound pretty good, don't I?”

He nodded. “You do indeed, actually. I recall wondering why you never pursued music itself as a career, instead of concert promotion.”

“It's because that old man … and others … took away my ability to make music. To sing, to play, to dance. All of it.”

“And how did he, or they, do that?”

She looked away, out the window. “If I say magic, will you roll your eyes that way you do?”

“Indeed I will not. But I will ask, if it's not impertinent,
why
they did that?”

Bo-Kate did not answer. After several minutes, Nigel accepted that she was not going to.

Eventually she said, “You know, every time I see Cloud County again, it's like seeing it fresh for the first time. And every time that happens, I keep asking myself the same question.” She turned and looked at Nigel. “How can I be so damn stupid to keep coming back here?”

“That's from a movie,” Nigel said.

“So? It still fits.”

“Indeed. You know, there had better be a good reason for you insisting I accompany you. The mountains are like roach motels for black people: We go in, but we don't come out.”

“For a long time, people thought the Tufa were black. Hell, you thought I was half-black when you first met me.”

“For an instant or two.”

“Oh, yeah? What changed your mind?”

“There are subtle differences, my lady, that I cannot explain to you and still keep my eyes on these abandoned streambeds you refer to as ‘roads.'”

“Don't worry about anything. As long as you're with me, nobody will bother you, even if you were plaid.”

“You'll excuse me if I don't want to bet my life on that.”

Bo-Kate grinned. Nigel might be her executive assistant and occasional lover, but they bickered like siblings.

“So will people here believe I, too, am a Tufa?” Nigel added.

“Not a chance.”

“Why not?”

“Two reasons. One's your hair. You have real black people's hair. The curliest any Tufa's hair gets is mine.” She pulled one strand down into her eyes, then let it go. It bounced back into place.

“And the other?”

“Like you said, subtle differences that I can't explain to you.”

“Oh, more Good Folk magic, eh?”

She glared at him, and the anger he saw sent chills down his spine. “That's
enough
of that, Nigel. I don't care what you think about it in the privacy of your own head, but you keep a civil tongue in that mouth of yours, or somebody might just snatch it out.”

She turned away and looked out the window at the passing trees. Everything around her ached with familiarity. The Tufa connection to the physical reality of Cloud County was so tangible, it was almost like an umbilical cord. When the original exiles had landed here, back when the Appalachians were as high and rugged as the Rockies, they had bonded with the rock and soil and trees just as they'd once done in their original home. The songs they brought with them became tunes about the land they now inhabited, and the original songs they composed sealed that relationship like the first marital kiss at a wedding.

Beneath this awareness, of course, was the memory of two strands of that cord being forcibly cut that day on Emania Knob. And beneath that, thumping along like the bass note in a techno remix, was the fury that drove her desire for revenge.

Nigel pulled the SUV onto the paved road, grateful for the relative quiet. He turned west, toward the tiny town of Needsville. The road was still winding and treacherous, with patches of black ice where the sun never struck, but their progress was much faster.

Bo-Kate gazed through the bare tree branches at the rolling mountains visible in the distance. Eventually the snow became too heavy, so Nigel turned on the windshield wipers. The rhythmic squeaking finally got to him, so he risked a question: “How long has it been since you've seen your family?”

“Longer than you can imagine. When they chased me out, I didn't plan to ever return. But … things change.”

“That sounds delightfully enigmatic.”

They topped the rise and came down into Needsville itself. The entire town fronted on the highway, with no real side streets. A lone traffic light flashed yellow, cautioning people about the crossroads at the center of town. There was a new-looking convenience store and post office building, but all the other businesses seemed ancient, abandoned, or both.

“There,” Bo-Kate said. “That motel. The Catamount Corner. Stop there. I want to see somebody.”

“What's a ‘catamount,' anyway?”

“A bobcat.”

“That's not any clearer, actually. Who is ‘Bob'?”

“It's like a mountain lion, only smaller.”

“Do they have those here, too, as well as giant flightless birds?”

“They have 'em.”

Nigel parked in front of the steps leading to the porch. He saw the warm glow in the caf
é
windows and said, “May we eat here? It's after lunchtime, and I'm a bit peckish.”

“No.” The way she said it left no room for debate.

He took it in stride. “I'll just wait in the car, then. Maintain the vital communications link, as Marlin Perkins would say.”

“And I know there's no way you remember Marlin Perkins.”

“Actually, that's true. I got the DVDs from the library. Fascinating stuff. Jim and Stan really were idiots.” He unwrapped a granola bar from the bag between the seats. “Have fun. I'll use this to stave off dissolution.”

Bo-Kate got out and climbed the steps. How many times had she done that as a little girl, to get a free Co-Cola from Peggy or her husband, Marshall? As if to dispel the warmth of that memory, the snow blew almost horizontally, right into her face. She squinted through it and opened the lobby door.

Inside, the fireplace crackled in the corner of the empty caf
é
. There was no one behind the desk, so Bo-Kate rang the little bell and waited, reading the text beneath the framed picture of Bronwyn Hyatt, Needsville's lone celebrity.

WAR HERO'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN
, the headline announced above the photo of a pretty dark-haired girl in an army dress uniform. A separate frame displayed another clipping that read,
WAR HERO MARRIES LOCAL MINISTER
; this time the photo featured the same girl standing beside a handsome, sandy-haired young man.

“Bronwyn,” Bo-Kate murmured. She knew all about this girl, both from the news, where for fifteen minutes she was unavoidable, and from the innate sense all Tufa had of each other. Something warned her that Bronwyn Hyatt, now Chess, would be a formidable opponent.

Peggy Goins emerged from the back, where she lived with her husband. “Sorry, I was using the little girls' room. Can I—?”

Bo-Kate smiled and said, “Hello, there, Miss Peggy.”

Peggy stared, then said, “Hello yourself, Bo-Kate. Been a long time.”

“Has indeed. How's Marshall these days?”

“No different. How's the big city?”

“Nashville's Nashville.”

Peggy straightened some of the tourist brochures in the desk display. She looked to be in her fifties, with immaculate black hair starting to go gray. She wore a sweatshirt with an image of a bear cuddling a guitar. At last she said, “You and I could exchange pleasantries all day, Bo-Kate, but I know damn well you ain't here just to visit. So tell me what you want.”

She smiled. “I want Rockhouse's old job. He can't do it anymore.”

“So you heard about that?”

Bo-Kate smiled. “Night wind blows all the way to Nashville, you know. I heard he got called out, his dirge got sung, and his inbred daughter ripped out his throat. Might've been easier for everybody if she'd just killed him outright, but that ain't the way it happened, is it?”

Peggy hid her surprise as much as she could. “So you can hear the night wind?”

Bo-Kate laughed. “That's all you've got to say, Miss Peggy? What about me taking over for Rockhouse?”

“Anything to do with Rockhouse and his people, you'll have to take up with him, and them.”

“Oh, I have.” She reached into her purse and pulled out the baggy. She placed it on the desk between them. Against the bright white paint, the bloody fingers looked even more ghastly.

Peggy gasped and looked up at Bo-Kate, eyes wide. “You didn't.”

“I did. He's done, Peggy. He can't sing, and now he can't play. Believe me, I know how that feels. But I'm not just aiming for
his
job. I want it
all.
I want to bring us back together, one tribe, and I have some ideas about how to also bring us into the present. No more hiding, no more singing just for ourselves. What do you think of that?”

“I think you'll find that the other seat is still occupied.”

“By that girl Mandalay? Please. That kid is even less of a problem than Rockhouse, and just as easy to fix.”

“You're threatening a
child
again? You didn't learn a damn thing, did you?”

“I'm not threatening anyone. If she wants to step down and live here quietly, that's perfectly fine with me. I might even keep her on as an advisor. I'm just saying, I'll be coming for what I want, and if anyone gets in my way, no matter how old or young they are, they'll have to deal with the consequences.”

“You are a vile woman, Bo-Kate Wisby,” Peggy said. “Vile. It's the only word for it.”

“Yeah, well, sticks and stones, Miss Peggy. You know ‘Bonnie Annie,' right? I'll steal my father's gold and my mother's money, just like the song says. But I don't need a sea captain; I'll make
myself
a lady.”

“Not if somebody stops you.”

Now she laughed outright. “There's not a person in this town, in this
valley,
who can stop me. Not you, and for sure not that creepy-ass little girl. I'll see you soon, Miss Peggy.” She turned and strode out of the lobby.

*   *   *

Peggy Goins stared down at the baggy with the severed fingers. The skin was cut clean, with the ends of the bones visible in the stump. Blood pooled in one corner of the bag. One finger lay nail-up, while the other displayed its pad. The distinctive fingerprint whorls were crisscrossed by tiny scars, and blocked in places by calluses from more years of banjo playing that anyone could imagine.

How many times had she, girl and woman, heard those fingers in action? The old man was a vicious, lying, perverted bastard, but he could make a banjo ring out like the bells of Christian heaven. Now, even if his other fingers remained, that sound was gone; no more would he create notes and chords only he could play.

Softly, she sang,

As I was a-walking down by St. James' Hospital,

I was a-walking down by there one day,

What should I spy but one of my comrades

All wrapped up in flannel though warm was the day.

She snatched a tissue from the nearby box and draped it over the bag of fingers like a burial shroud. Something essential had just died, permanently and irrevocably. It was like losing the rain. And it left a vacuum into which the awful Bo-Kate Wisby hoped to step.

She had to call someone. Mandalay was the obvious choice, but something stopped her. It wasn't like Mandalay wouldn't know what had happened on her own, anyway. That girl knew everything. Instead she pulled up Bliss Overbay's number on the speed dial, but hesitated at the last moment. She couldn't go around spreading a panic.