Wisp of a Thing: A Novel of the Tufa (Tufa Novels) (16 page)

“Home’s the last place I want to be. Everything there reminds me of her. And way too many people want to tell me how I should feel.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you chose
here.
”

He thought before answering. “I’ll tell you why, but then you have to answer a question for me. Agreed?”

“What sort of question?”

“Ah, that’s cheating. You have to agree without knowing, otherwise I won’t be able to trust your answer.”

“Agreed, then.”

He told her about the backstage cowboy and the supposedly magical song. He watched her face, but she betrayed no reaction. When he finished, he said, “So what do you think?”

“Is that your question?”

“No. But I’d like to know.”

“It sounds like somebody was just yanking your chain. They knew what had happened to you and were playing a really cruel joke.”

“So you don’t know anything about it?”

“Why would I?”

“I heard you were high up in the Tufa chain of command.”

She laughed. “Who told you that? Doyle Collins? Doyle’s not a Tufa.”

“So he’s wrong?” Before she could answer, he continued, “Look, I’m sorry. Rationally, I don’t really believe a word of it myself. But if there’s even a chance … if a song exists that could get rid of this feeling, this
weight
…” He looked away and blinked his tears back under control.

“Sorry,” he said. “Slips up on me sometimes. Now, my question. Are the verses from those tombstones behind the fire station part of a song? Maybe part of
that
song?”

She’d promised to answer, but she had older promises to keep as well. She said carefully, “I’m serious when I say that I’ve never heard of a song like the one you described. As for the graves … you weren’t supposed to see them.”

“Why not?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. You weren’t supposed to be
able
to see them. Would you accept, for the sake of argument, that there are ways of hiding things in plain sight? Ways of keeping people from seeing them even when they’re looking right at them?”

He recalled the way neither he nor Kizer had been able to see the words earlier. “Like some kind of psychic cloaking field?”

“Yeah, that’s not a bad analogy. Something that keeps non-Tufas from seeing things if they aren’t deliberately shown them.”

“A magic spell?”

She half shrugged, half nodded.

“But I saw them. And so did Terry.”

A pit opened in her belly. “You showed them to someone else?” she whispered.

“Yeah, some guy in town doing genealogy. He said the Swetts were his ancestors, so I took him out there. And he saw them, too.”

She waited for her stomach to hit bottom. How could this get worse?

“But I’m not a Tufa,” Rob finished. “Not a bit. So how did I see them?”

She forced herself to stay calm. She said, “I’ve been pondering that myself. I can’t explain it. But you
did
see them. They’re verses from something that’s sacred, and secret, and powerful to us. That’s why we hide them.”

“So what’s the rest of the song?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Honestly. I have no idea how the song ends.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s a dirge. A song written for someone’s death. That’s why it’s used as an epitaph.”

“A dirge,” he said, thinking aloud, “could also be a song that takes away grief. And heartache is grief. But how can a song do that?”

She gritted her teeth against the urge to speak. He was so right, so close, and yet he had no business being. How could this non-Tufa comprehend, understand,
see
so much? What was she missing?

“Look around you, Rob. It looks beautiful and serene, doesn’t it? But there’s more blood soaked into these hills than you can imagine. And not all that blood sits quietly. On the right night, at the right time, if the right song is sung, you can see the shades in the moonlight. And that’s no joke.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Here, songs … do things. Cause things to happen. The right song at the right time can change everything.”

“Like a spell,” he said again.

“Like, yes. But more so.”

“So the song from those epitaphs has the power to change things,” he said.

Bliss nodded, but inside she was struggling to decide what she should do. Should she kill him now, and end any chance of the secrets coming out? It would be simple, and so easy to make it look like he’d slipped and fallen to his death.

But the night winds had blown them together. The sign was unmistakable. Two guitar picks floating on the water, like two musicians in the rivers of time, drawn together and lightly touching.

And then she knew what she needed to do.

She put her guitar across her lap.

It was a customized black Breedlove C22, with her name set in inlaid faux pearl letters along the neck. “We’ve talked enough,” she said. “Let’s play. This is another song by Kate Campell. See if you can follow me.”

*   *   *

The spotless black truck was parked incongruously outside an old shotgun shack high on the mountain. In a few weeks, enough leaves would have fallen that Needsville would be visible below, through the bare branches. As it was, though, the vehicle and building were hidden from view.

Rockhouse Hicks sat on the tailgate, his banjo in his arms. He softly plucked the strings, just loud enough to cover the sounds of sexual activity coming from the shack. Inside, his nephew Stoney Hicks was having his way with the woman from town. She was willing—they were all always willing—but she had no idea that she’d pay a horrendous price. Non-Tufa girls around here knew to avoid Tufa boys, especially full-blooded ones like Stoney Hicks.
Especially
Stoney.

The cries and grunts faded, and Stoney emerged, barefoot and clad only in his jeans. He was a staggeringly good-looking young man, with a face like a Native American warrior and matching jet-black hair to his shoulders. He stood six-four, and every muscle was chiseled perfection. He wouldn’t have been out of place on a romance novel cover, were it not for the cold, selfish mockery in his eyes.

“Hey, Uncle Rockhouse,” he said as he opened a cooler in the bed of the truck. “Want a beer?”

“No, thanks,” he said. “How’d it go?”

The younger man grinned. “How’d it sound like it went? Had her on her knees begging before the door even shut. What are we going to do about her husband?”

“Us? We don’t do anything. She’ll take care of that, once you tell her to, just like she got us those tombstone rubbings.”

“What’s so important about ’em?”

“You don’t be worrying about that. You didn’t look at ’em, did you?”

“Nossir, you told me not to.”

“That’s good. Make sure you don’t. You hear me, boy?”

“Yessir,” Stoney said contritely. “So, uhm … her husband?”

Rockhouse shrugged and spit tobacco into the dirt. “Fella comes up in here, being all nosy and asking questions, something happens. Nobody’ll be surprised. Nobody’ll ask too many questions.”

The door to the shack opened. Stella emerged, fully dressed but with unmistakably ruffled hair. She looked around until she saw Stoney, then gasped as if she’d been wandering in the desert and he was an oasis. “H-honey?” she said meekly.

“Fix your damn hair, will you?” he snapped at her, and she quickly went back inside. He took a long drink of his beer. “She’s a good one, though. Knows a lot of city-girl tricks.”

“Enjoy her while you can.”

“Oh, I will.” He finished his beer, tossed the can into the woods, and went back inside.

Rockhouse began playing “Carolina in the Morning.”

15

“You’re not bad,” Rob said when she finished the song “See Rock City.”

“Did you expect me to be?” Bliss replied.

“Not at all. I heard you at the roadhouse, remember? So who taught you to play?”

“Mostly my grandfather. He started showing me things when I was about six or seven. Oh, do I remember them snappy black eyes glaring at me when I’d done something wrong or fell back a little bit. But eventually he slowed down and I sped up, and he taught me a lot. What about you?”

“Self-taught. Bought a DVD and sat in my bedroom learning chords and writing songs all through high school. Better than leaving the house and getting beat up.”

“And then you ended up on TV. How did that happen? Unless,” she added quickly, “you’d rather not talk about it.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I had a band. Three other guys, but they were … you know how some people are serious about what they do, but some people just do it because it’s easy and then quit when it turns into work? That was them. Not their fault, but I wanted more. Anyway, whenever I’d complain about how that show just made musicians look stupid and shallow, they’d say I should audition. They were kidding, but one day I was at the mall, the auditions were going on, and I just went in.”

“And you won.”

“Better for everybody if I hadn’t.” He paused. “So what was your first time like?”

“Excuse me?”

“The first time you ever played in public.”

“Oh. Well, let me see. I guess I was about ten years old. I was having a real hard time with the guitar Granddaddy wanted me to play, so Daddy bought me this thing, it was bigger than a ukulele, but smaller than a regular guitar. They called it a tiple; you ever heard of it?”

Rob nodded. Her accent grew stronger when she talked of her family.

“There was a big barn dance coming up,” Bliss continued, “and one of the men who organized it happened to come by the house one day and heard me singing and playing that tiple. He asked me to come down and told me, ‘You don’t have to play but one song.’ And I think I played fifteen songs before they let me off the stage.” She put her hands back on the guitar. “Now let’s play something else.”

As he settled onto the bench across the table from her, she began to play and waited for him to join in. He concentrated on following her melody, and at last he recognized it as an obscure country song called “Calico Plains.” When they finished, he said, “That was great.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You’re the first person I’ve met who knows that song.”

“That’s not the Pam Tillis version, is it?”

“No, it’s Matraca Berg’s original, off
Lying to the Moon
. Bought the cassette at a flea market.”

“She’s great, isn’t she?”

“She’s the real deal. Except she says the name wrong on ‘Appalachian Rain.’ The tradition is that it’s ‘latch,’ like throw an ‘apple
atcha,
’ not ‘apple
laycha.
’”

“I’ve heard it that way more than the other.”

“That’s true. Maybe eventually that’s how we’ll say it, too. ‘Tradition’ doesn’t mean just passing down the old things, anyway. You also pass down a tradition of creativity, of being alive. Otherwise, it dies on its feet. So I guess if she needs to say it wrong to make the song work, it’s okay.”

“The one song of yours I’ve heard sure isn’t traditional. Sounds like you’re developing your own thing.”

“Oh, I just piddle around with stuff. No one wants anything genuine, anyway. They want the same thing they’ve always heard. Like that TV show of yours. No one cares what the songs are about, as long as the singer can hit the high notes. That sort of thing bores me.”

“The singer, not the song.”

“Who said that?”

“Exactly.”

She looked confused. “What?”

“Sorry, making a joke. Pete Townsend of the Who said that.” He chuckled. “I’m thirsty now.”

“There’s bottled water in the basket. And our food.”

He helped spread the cloth over the table, and they quickly set out her meal. When he bit into the first sandwich, the ham had a deep sugary taste different from any he’d had before. They talked about songs and musicians, and he told her stories of some of the odd people he’d met during his TV tenure.

When they finished eating, she picked up her guitar again. “Okay. This is my favorite Kate Campbell song. And it’s pretty easy to follow, too, so feel free to jump in.”

She began by playing the first verse without singing, so he could pick it up. He got most of it the first time through; as she said, the changes weren’t that complicated. Then she sang:

Tangled vines cover the lattice

They creep and crawl around the house

Nobody lives there

Only ghosts hang around

“This is the chorus,” she said.

I have seen hope and glory fade away

I’ve heard old folks talk of better days

And all that’s left to guard the remains

Are wrought iron fences

“Wow, that’s great,” Rob said as they played the verse again without singing. “Great details.”

“She’s a master of that,” Bliss said. “Now here’s the second verse.”

Sarah Mae bore two children

One died at birth and one at Shiloh

Now they’re on a hill long forgotten

Carved in stone

Rob reached over the table and grabbed the neck of her guitar so hard, his knuckles turned white, silencing the music with a jarring
ching!
“Why the fuck did you pick this song?” he said, his voice choked.

The rage in his eyes caught her off guard, and she swallowed hard. “I just … we were listening to her in the truck.”

“Yeah, and that was just a fucking coincidence, too, I suppose?”

He got up and came around the table. She scooted away. “Rob, stop it. It’s just a song!”

“That was what he said to me!” he yelled.

“What who said?”

“The man backstage at the Fox! He told me the song I wanted was ‘on a hill, long forgotten, carved in stone’!”

“Rob, I swear, I don’t know anything about that! I just like the song, and—”
And it’s been stuck in my head for days,
she finished to herself. Now she knew why.

He put his guitar down hard on the table and stalked away, trying to get control of his temper. What the hell was going on?

“Rob?” Bliss asked. She had to be very careful now, to sense the right things to say. She was certain the winds had brought her here for this conversation, this moment.