Picking the Ballad's Bones (8 page)

"Good luck," Terry said, and she and
Dan dragged a hammered dulcimer, a fiddle, guitar, octave mandolin,
several drums of various shapes, and a mountain dulcimer from the
back of the van.

"We'll give you a hand," Faron
offered, but as he reached for Terry's guitar, he stumbled and
fell. He felt the neck of the guitar in the lightly padded
traveling case smash as it caught between his knee and the side of
the van, and when he stepped back he put his other foot through a
drum. As Brose reached out to help him on one side and Ellie on the
other, the fiddle became caught between them.

"Cor," Torchy simpered with sugary
sympathy. "What rotten luck!"

Terry opened her guitar case gently
and pulled out the instrument, its neck hanging by its strings. "I
see what you mean about that curse on music," she said tightly,
referring to the story they had told her earlier of their
misadventures back in the States, "but are you quite sure you
weren't the cause of the curse?"

Faron just gulped, his Adam's apple
taking a long plunge into the neck of his T-shirt and back up
again. "Sorry," he said miserably.

Ellie dug in her purse and pulled out
an American Express card. "Here. Buy new ones. We'll worry about
the bill later. Don't worry about the signatures. They never
check."

"Can we get a new van too if you wreck
Terry's?" Dan asked eagerly.

If they hadn't been late
for their train, Terry would undoubtedly have changed her mind
about letting them use the van. But the fact was, she too had
become aware of strange things happening regarding the music she
used to play, and she did believe Faron. The only thing that made
her mad was the way Torchy Burns kept smiling a little half smile
when she thought nobody was looking, as if the whole thing was
funny. They loaded the broken
instruments
back into the van. Terry was glad the van was very old and her
insurance recently paid up.

"What an understanding
sort of gel," Torchy cooed as they watched the train depart with
Terry and Dan. "'Scuse me. Back in a mo. Have to use the facility."
Ellie Randolph, who also had to use the facility, was surprised at
how quick Torchy was to beat her into a stall. Actually, Torchy had
just dipped around the corner, pulled a cellular phone from her
lawyer's briefcase, and dialed the number that would refuse any
charge made on Randolph's American Express card. Since she wasn't
sure of the number, she had the computer refuse the charges on the
card of anybody named Randolph. She sighed happily thinking of all
the purely gratuitous disruption that would cause, a sort of a
bonus. Ah, yes, bombs and such were all very well but, she
reflected, little things
do
mean a lot.

CHAPTER 8

Julianne heard the banjo playing her
song and ran straight for it, away from the hidey-hole she'd made
for herself. Since she was a little bit of a thing, she had been
able to hide behind some shit-shoveling equipment stored between
the cages. The big cats had reached their paws back for her,
dabbing at her like she was a catnip mouse but she had shovels and
a garbage can lid to shield herself and they got tired of the game
after a while and settled back to sleep.

The Gypsies naturally thought she'd
just passed on through and the lions were upset because they were
having so much company that evening. But the fact was that Julianne
was so plain scared, she couldn't move much farther and she was
afraid, once she wedged herself between the cages, that if she
tried to move away, when she stood up one of those lions would
reach out and sweep her foot out from under her and have lady toes
for breakfast.

So she had not had a very good night,
to put it mildly. She had sat there feeling the floor tremble when
the lions roared, feeling the pad of their paws when they paced,
feeling the vacuum created by their mighty yawns, feeling the
generator-throb of their sleeping breath. She had a pain in the
small of her back from sitting hunched up, and the backs of her
thighs burned like she'd been doing six Jane Fonda tapes all in a
row. Her hair was all tangled and she had a couple of long, deep
scratches still leaking blood. Her clothes were bloody, torn, and
dirty, and she smelled to high heaven of lion shit. But she was
alive, the banjo was tinkling at her, and even though she couldn't
hear another blessed thing, she heard it in her mind—"Fare thee
well, Julianna, you know. Hoo row, hoo row, hoo row, my boys . .
."

She could hear not only the frailing
of the banjo, but her mind replayed a memory of her and George
singing that song, a modern sea chantey sung by men who fished from
motorized boats that didn't require the rhythmic chanting quality
of the older chanteys. It was a slow, rolling song that could be
heard on shore when sung by a crew still far away, telling of the
catch and if all were safely still aboard, and from whence they
came. "Here we're comin' with blackfish and men" was one verse she
remembered. But now it seemed to her the message was, "Here is
Laz'rus with Willie and Gus, goodbye, fare thee well, goodbye, fare
thee well." Leaving? Leaving her? No way!

And with that thought, the spell was
broken for the lions were not nearly as fearsome to her as the
terror of being left behind, deaf and alone in a foreign country.
Besides, fortunately, the lions already had their moth-eaten furry
knickers in a twist over having forklifts scooted under their cages
to haul them off the train and onto the truck.

So Julianne jumped up, stumbled, since
her feet were mostly asleep, and flung herself out from between the
cages before the cats could finish airing their displeasure at the
men and machines that were moving them out of the railroad car and
onto the trucks. She half fell out of that railroad car and onto
the ground beside the tracks. The forklift operator, who was the
man who had been giving her a hard time back in the Gypsy car, sat
there with his mouth open, then jumped down and started to chase
her.

She kept the sound of the banjo in her
head and although she felt the vibrations of the machines rumbling
and the man's heavy running through the soles of her feet, she paid
it no mind and ran on until she ran blindly into the door that
Willie MacKai, Gussie Turner, and the banjo had just gone through.
She wrenched it open, feeling the Gypsy man's breath on her scalp,
and squeezed inside, pulling the door hard after her with one hand
while groping toward Willie and Gussie with the other.

Willie MacKai turned around to see
what was happening and was both relieved and aggravated to see the
Widah Martin literally throwing herself at him. He'd honestly
thought she had more class than that.

He stepped aside and she crashed into
Gussie instead, and Gussie put her arms around her and petted her
while her breathing calmed. The Gypsy man, who was starting to come
through the door, got a load of Willie MacKai with his bloodshot
eyes and his two days' worth of beard and his sweaty T-shirt and
dirty blue jeans and his arms all corded up from playing the guitar
most of his life. Not to mention his expression, which was mostly
compounded of not yet having had enough coffee to be awake and also
being peeved at all the noise that was threatening to shake him
awake. Willie was a lover not a fighter. He didn't want to get the
voice strangled out of him or his hands busted up fighting, not to
mention getting his nose mashed or his teeth knocked out and him
without insurance. But years on the stage had given him the trick
of making anything he felt that he wanted to show look ten times
more intense than it really was and he watched a lot of Clint
Eastwood movies, so he did ferocious anger-on-a-leash very
effectively. He projected his attitude at the Gypsy with a little
half snarl he practiced in the mirror. He looked so dangerous that
it occurred to the Gypsy that maybe the girl he was after belonged
to this guy. The Gypsy decided that maybe he would a lot rather
face his wife in a fair fight, and that there would be other
chances to get the girl back later if that was still what the
redheaded witch who kept his tribe supplied wanted him to do. So he
smiled an ingratiating, gold-toothed smile and backed
away.

An hour later Juli, Willie, and Gus
were sitting in Hy MacDonald's bare living room. Hy's wife had left
him two months before and he was down in the mulligrubs. A man like
Hy, who was usually cheerful and full of noise, could be seriously
depressed when he was so inclined, full of anger, black,
self-deprecating jokes, and vicious attacks on his ex-wife's
character and lineage. He told them much more than they wanted to
know about all of that until Gussie put a halt to it, asking him
where he thought they could go to find ballads and what was the
best way of getting in contact with or leaving a message for the
remnants of their group and could they, by the way, talk him into
taking them around?

Far from resenting her intrusion, he
actually looked relieved—tired, but relieved at having the flow of
acid that had been eating him shut off for a while, and to be
distracted by other people's problems that he could, of course,
treat as if they were small matters he could handle easily. Other
people's problems tend to be that way. Willie helped him finish a
bottle or two of scotch and Gussie took a glass for herself and one
for Juli too, strictly for medicinal purposes.

* * *

"I'll drive," Brose said firmly to
Faron.

"It wasn't his fault about the
instruments," Ellie objected. "If you hadn't all been crowding him
and been in such a hurry, he wouldn't have stumbled. He knows what
he's doing."

"Uh-huh," Brose said skeptically,
climbing behind the wheel and holding out his hand for the
keys.

Faron handed them over with a shrug
and pretended to curl up for a nap.

Anna Mae said, "Don't let's all be
macho and infantile over this. We need to think up a
plan."

"Goddammit, woman, we know we need to
think up a plan," Brose said. "And don't start any of that women's
lib crap on me now."

"Pardon me, but it seems to me that if
your good buddy Willie MacKai was a little less into the old lone
wolf act, he and the banjo might be here right now and we'd know
what to do. Not to mention if he hadn't separated from the group to
begin with to go off with her." She turned to Torchy, who was
snuggling in as close to Faron on the other side as she could, to
Ellie's consternation. "Just where did he go, anyway?"

"Don't frown at me so, ducky, just
because he didn't come your way. I know he's attractive but it
isn't my fault he preferred me. And later, he simply preferred
someone else. For all I know he's still on the train."

"And he's not the only one missin',
don't forget," Brose said belligerently. "There's Julianne too. I
thought you two was together. If you're so damn smart, why didn't
you keep an eye on her?"

"Look, I've lost my home, my land, and
my job over this mess you people got me into," Anna Mae said.
"Don't expect me to play nursemaid to you too."

Torchy smiled. "Wake me at the next
petrol station, there's a love," she said to Faron. "I need to use
the facility again."

"Do we even know where we're going?"
Ellie asked.

"Faron mentioned Sir Walter Scott's
estate and Gussie seemed to think that was a good idea," Anna Mae
said. "And there's bound to be some border lore there
someplace—maybe the guide can give us some idea where to look
further."

"Okay, we'll drop you off there,"
Brose said. "And the Randolphs can go to the library, and do what
college kids are good at. And I'll go talk to people, hang out in
the clubs, see what I can turn up."

"I'm sure you'll just love that," Anna
Mae sniffed.

Torchy passed out cold with the top of
her red head snuggled against Faron's leg.

* * *

"You're supposed to beat 'em, DD, not
join 'em," the Chairdevil told her when the Debauchery Devil had
resumed her seat at the board.

"I thought you said this was to be my
operation, boss? I'm handling it my own way. After all, I've done
the hardest part. Willie MacKai and the banjo have been eliminated
and the girl—"

"Idiot!" the Chairdevil thundered.
"Your job is to lie to everyone else, not to me. Do you think I
don't have ways of checking up?"

The Debauchery Devil raised an
inquisitive brow.

"The two women, MacKai, and the banjo
are all alive and well. Your minions failed and you didn't even
check up. And now those—musicians"—he spat the word as if he were
saying "cannibals" except that that word was one he tended to say
with a sentimental smile—"are where they can actually locate some
of those songs."

"Do tell?" she asked
mildly.

"Your problem, Debauchery, is that you
do sloppy work," the Expediency Devil told her. "You don't check up
on things. You don't cover all your bases. You leave things to
chance."

"Yeah," said the Stupidity and
Ignorance Devil, "and we're in charge of chance."

DD, in the Torchy Burns guise, gave
the other devils her very best ingratiating smile, the one they
liked with a little hint of a death's-head grin, and said, "Thanks
for the tip, ducks. Now, if you'll 'scuse me, I'll get my people
right on this."