Picking the Ballad's Bones (34 page)

And on the seventh night,
just as they were about to drop, the banjo played "The Flower of
Northumberland," and Jock waved, and twisted his ring three times
widdershins on his left finger, and Anna Mae stepped from his
shadow and into the room and joined hands with the living. And the
banjo played "Glenlogie" and Jeannie Gordon and her love dropped
hands, twisted their rings three times widdershins around their
fingers
and who but Willie MacKai and
Julianne Martin should step from their shadows and into the room to
join hands with the others?

And finally the banjo played the
"Borders Gathering Song" or "The Fray of Suport," and the Widow
Hetherton gave her ring three fierce yanks around her finger and
her shadow swelled and bulked until it solidified into Brose
Fairchild, who also joined hands with those beside him, linking the
two ends of the snake dance as the banjo played its final tune,
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"

CHAPTER 28

The storyteller
had been so engrossed in her own story
that
she barely noticed the shifting
movement of the people around her.

Toward morning, when she
finished her story, the dawn pierced the fog at the same time a
stiff breeze blew away the patch that had veiled the bus and the
passengers to
reveal that while the
storyteller had been immersed in her own tale, the other passengers
and the bus had disappeared
except for one
lone figure who sat across from her, her sandaled toes touching the
storyteller's. As the last scarf of fog blew away, the remaining
listener lifted her head, and her broad straw hat with the chili
pepper and rattlesnake hide hatband tilted back to reveal unruly
flame-red hair and a dopey, irreverent grin.

This last listener clapped
three times, slowly. "Well done, Gussie, luv," she said. "But what
happened to the others later? I've missed you, you know. I
was
—
called away
rather suddenly by the peace crisis in Eastern Europe."

"Well, Torchy, without
interference from you, the kids spent the rest of their seven years
researching and singing
in Ireland, Wales,
Cornwall, all of those places where the songs had direct relatives,
then on to Germany and France,
the rest of
Europe, and back through Africa with Gachero. They'll be along
directly."

"I know. I can hear the
banjo. I suppose you were going
to meet
them?"

"I was."

"Well, then, I'll just
give you a lift
—
"She indicated a bright red BMW.

"Mighty kind of you to
bother, Torchy, and somewhat uncharacteristic," Gussie said, rising
to her feet

"You've quite gotten the
gift of gab since I saw you last."

"Wat's legacy."

"How nice," Torchy
responded, climbing in the driver's seat. "Buckle up, now, there's
a dear," she said, but the seat belt snaked around Gussie like an
anaconda, strapping across her chest and waist and padlocking
itself at her hip. "Safety first!" Torchy trilled, though she did
not buckle her own belt as she gunned the car into a blurring
takeoff down the steep mountain highway. "Now then, where are we
meeting them?"

"In the desert, by the
banks of the Rio Grande," Gussie said. "How have you been,
Torchy?"

And the Debauchery Devil's
eyes gleamed red, reflecting the dawn burning through her
windshield, she said, "Not good, luvvie. In fact, you'll find I've
been fully rehabilitated.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is the
author of 22 solo fantasy and science fiction novels, including the
1989 Nebula award winning Healer's War, loosely based on her
service as an Army Nurse in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. She has
collaborated thus far on 16 novels with Anne McCaffrey, six in the
best selling Petaybee series and eight in the YA bestselling Acorna
series, and most recently, the Tales of the Barque Cat series,
Catalyst and coming in December 2010, Catacombs (from Del Rey). Her
last published solo novel was CLEOPATRA 7.2, soon to be re-released
for e-book download and print on demand by an imprint of Gypsy
Shadow Publishing.

Scarborough admits to having been a
folk music fan back when she was a child, long before it was
fashionable, throughout the Great Folk Music Scare of the 50's and
60's, and long after it was fashionable, up until today. She
visited the Library of Congress Folk Music Archives for the first
time while researching these books and met then-librarian Joe
Hickerson, a fine musician and songwriter, and asked him if he'd
mind dying heroically in the telling of this story while she blew
up the Folk Music Archives. Hickerson and other museum staff seemed
delighted to be so gloriously martyred and had the entire
Songkiller Saga trilogy specially bound so it could have a place in
the (thankfully not-blown-up) Folk Music Archives. Since writing
these books, Scarborough has received fan mail about them from
musicians she's admired all of her life and has made several new
friends in the field.