Strum Again? Book Three of the Songkiller Saga (31 page)

With ears trained by listening to Gaelic,
French, other languages, Anna Mae listened for the words, grasped
them a phrase at a time, and since most of the song was a simple
repetition, got into the chant, singing with the old man. The
others soon followed. She was not actually singing harmony, but she
felt in her blood and bones that this was the real meaning of
harmony—tuning human beings to each other so that they all flowed
as one. The voices blended into an almost indistinguishable union.
Inside the song you came together not just with other people, but
with the earth, the world, the universe.

It went like that throughout. She'd sing
one, and sometimes the new-agers would start singing with her, but
mostly it would just be her and the drum, and even if the beat
didn't start out right, pretty soon the Scottish music and the
tomtom understood each other. And then one of the others would
remember a song or a snatch of a song or something about a song,
and they'd all join together and either resurrect the old song or
make a new one. Scottish themes and Indian ones seemed to call up
the same subjects. Well, why not? Both were essentially tribal
systems. Both had been all but wiped from the earth by invaders who
considered themselves to have more advanced culture.

When they had all dipped in the river to
wash away the sweat, they dressed and settled down to eat and drink
the gallons of Gatorade that were also an integral part of the
feast. Anna Mae felt weaker and stronger at the same time. When she
finished dressing, she sprinkled herself again with a pinch of dust
that looked as if she were doing a ceremony of her own and joined
the others at the feast.

"I know who you are now," said the man a
little older than she was. "You were three grades behind me in
school, but I remember you because you beat me up once when I tried
to take a book away from you."

"What a thing to remember," she said, and
grinned at him.

"Where'd you get those songs?" he asked.
"Off an old Joan Baez album?"

"You won't believe me if I tell you," she
said.

But he said, "Oh, yes, I will. I learned my
lesson when we were kids." So she told them. She didn't mean to
make a speech, but she felt closer to all of these people now, all
of whom had been strangers twenty-four hours ago, than she ever
would again, she thought. Also in her light-headed, dreamy state,
she felt less as if she had to make sense. Still, when she
finished, she apologized. "I don't like to think of white man's
songs being the magic that brings back our ways. It doesn't seem
right."

"That ain't it," the old man said. "Don't
you see, girl? You went into the coyote woman's dream and stole
those songs back from her, and from what you said, she's the one
who brought the drunkenness that stole our songs from us to begin
with. You're like fox—you outsmarted her and got back our
songs."

"There were a lot of us," she said. "And two
of the others were white people, one a black man."

He shook his open hand dismissively. "Don't
matter. You're the one that counts. Since you stole her white
songs, you ran her off from guarding ours, and now we've got
'em."

Acutely embarrassed, Anna Mae drained her
third paper cup full of Gatorade and cut a bigger piece of pie than
she intended.

Tom George, watching her, prodded, "There's
something more. Are you going to tell them?" She shrugged and he
said, "The animals came to her to learn a song too and built her a
fire. Then a spirit woman came to hear songs that had been made for
her and gave Anna Mae that bracelet for her songs."

"Sing us these songs," old man Atoka said.
"We will learn them."

* * *

Usually Brose and Dan drove the van to some
parking place, but on the day James Francis Farnham had been
patiently waiting for, Gussie kept the van to prepare for the
lingerie party she and Terry were using to introduce more songs. In
honor of this particular gig, Terry had searched her memory for
racy love songs. Street Pizza was so successful that it was getting
trendy for Kansas City businesspeople to take their lunch hours and
breaks walking down streets formerly frequented by panhandlers but
now filled with rustic music that reflected their pioneer history.
Dan and Brose piled into the van talking about whether or not to
add the street people who hung out on Main Street and where they
would find instruments for them.

* * *

Willie tried playing in all manner of public
places after his disastrous gig in the health club—parks,
campgrounds, bus stops, and the airport. But every time he tried to
play someplace indoors, he got through a song or two and someone
ran him off. Outdoors the weather was getting rawer and colder all
the time. He stayed with old friends about so long, and he had to
move on. He didn't even get to share the music with them too
much—most of them had day jobs and he was a night owl by nature, so
when he woke up, they'd be gone to work and he wouldn't get in from
trying to find work until they had already gone to bed.

He was playing the unemployment line in
Austin, and a big security guard was bearing down on him when
Torchy Burns tapped him on the shoulder.

"Come on, sugar. You look like you need a
drink."

Naturally she knew where the last of the
bars were, but even these had greatly changed. They served only
wine and light beer, and nobody was allowed to become anything
approaching drunk. The state laws that held the bar and the
bartender as well as the owners personally liable for any accidents
or injuries incurred by patrons had shut down a great many places.
Most places had twenty-four-hour sports, news, or other
informational programs playing, which discouraged singing.

Willie was glad Torchy was there with him,
bringing with her the comfortable air of unwholesomeness that
always surrounded her. They sat in a booth, and she bent low so
that he had a great view of her décolletage. Her face was so close
to his that her red hair kept tickling his nose.

"Poor Willie," she said, stroking his thigh.
"So those bastards at the Temple fired you, did they? I could make
them hire you back."

"Oh, no, darlin', I sure wouldn't want
you to do anything like that," Willie said. He found he was
breaking out in a cold sweat at the very idea—or maybe it was
Torchy's hand that was causing the cold sweat. "Damn. I just need
the kind of places I
used
to
play in. I ain't played enough since settin' foot back on Texas
soil to break a damn guitar string yet."

"Well, you can always play in here," she
said. "There's not much drinking, true, but there's always a poker
game going, and Lady Luck, that's me, sugar, is always welcome. So
are her friends."

He took her at her word, but when he tried
to find the level of this particular audience, it backfired on him.
With gambling as the only one unadulterated vice left to them,
people were dead serious about it, and they didn't want any
distraction.

So a few nights later, when Willie wandered
in, sat down, bought a light wine, and picked up his guitar to play
an old Pat Garvey song, "The Lovin' of the Game," which he had
suddenly remembered, the reaction was not quite what he'd hoped
for.

Even though he had powdered himself with
fairy dust real well after his shower, the poker players paid him
little attention. Playing for audiences that had no intention of
being played for when they came into a bar was not a new experience
for him. Sometimes you just had to get rowdy enough to attract
their attention, while at the same time appealing to their
interest. So he played "Jack of Diamonds," which began,

"I'm a rambler, I'm a gambler,

I'm a long way from home.

And if you don't like me then leave me
alone.

I'll eat when I'm hungry

And drink when I'm dry.

If rye whiskey don't kill me I'll live till
I die."

To his chagrin the prettiest woman said, "If
you want to sing that sort of thing, you should be going to SAD
meetings instead of bothering people in controlled establishments
like this one."

"And just what are SAD meetin's?" he asked.
"Anything like funerals?"

"Only if you don't go in time. It's a branch
of SA—Stop Addictions. Stop Addictive Drinking has programs all
over the country and has been very effective for many people."

"Thank you for your concern, darlin'. I
believe I'll do that very thing," he said. What the hell. It was an
audience. "Where might a fella find such a group?"

"
Anyone
can find out the location of the group
nearest them by calling the number in the book," the woman said.
"Or you can ask the bartender. They're all supposed to know. Half
of them go themselves. Alcohol Ingestion Management is much too
serious to try to do while drinking yourself."

"Nothin' that a ball bat or a shotgun
couldn't fix," Willie growled under his breath, but he asked the
bartender, and the bartender pointed him to the Baptist church down
the street.

"Next meetin's at midnight," the bartender
said.

"That's convenient," Willie said.

"Well, just because you stop drinkin'
doesn't mean you have to be so extreme as to keep reg'lar hours,"
the man said. "Besides, the night's the hardest time. You tell 'em
Joe sent you, buddy."

So, at about twenty-five past midnight,
there stood Willie, guitar in hand, saying, "Evenin', brothers. My
name's Willie MacKai. I understand I got me a drinkin' problem, and
Joe sent me. By way of tellin' my story, I'd like to sing you a
little song."

He sang
them
"Jack of Diamonds" and got much better
response than he had in the bar. After the regular business meeting
was over, while the group leaders were hunting for the disk
containing the informational film for the night, he played three
other songs to enthusiastic applause. One was Stan Rogers's "The
Mary Ellen Carter," one was "We Shall Overcome," which he lead as a
chant and deemed to be as appropriate for an audience of people
trying to overcome some
thing
,
as it was for an audience of people trying to overcome the
oppression of some
one
. And
then he sang the "Temperance Union" song, thinking that it would be
funny to the people he was singing to. A tactical
mistake.

The counselor asked, "Brother, how long did
you say it had been since you had your last drink?"

"We're doin' serious work here, MacKai,"
another man said. "When you're serious about it too, come
back."

* * *

"Well, shit," Willie said to Torchy when she
showed up later. "I had no damned idea you had to give up a sense
of humor when you give up drinkin'."

Torchy didn't find it to her benefit to
remind him that a lot of people never had a sense of humor to begin
with and definitely didn't have one when they were drinking. What
was to her benefit was to sympathize and soothe and hand Willie
another bourbon.

"Had it all leeched out of 'em, Willie," she
said, swirling the liquid in her glass. "It's terrible. That's why
I stuck with you folks so long. You're the only ones left who
pretty much haven't been cleaned and scoured into hominy, with no
color, no taste, no nourishment, and sure as hell no magic. I don't
know how I ever let my bosses talk me into this. I guess just
'cause they're so much more powerful than me. I shoulda fought 'em,
Willie. I should never have given up my kingdom. All them poor
goddamn little fairies runnin' around over there with no queen.
Just because some mortal bitch had the hots for my sacrifice."

Willie shook his head. "The bastards are all
the same, Torchy. They'll screw you every time."

"Yeah," she said. "Fuck 'em."

"Damn straight," he agreed, though he
wasn't real clear what he was agreeing to right then. It just felt
good to have somebody to talk to that he knew, and who wasn't
expecting him to solve everything. He felt like Rip Fucking Van
Winkle. While he'd been gone seven years, something inconceivable
had happened.
Texas
had
changed.
Texans
had changed.
Well, it seemed that way, anyhow. Maybe it was like Torchy said,
and it was the lack of magic in the world, but he privately
suspected the Yankees. If they hadn't infiltrated Texas, the devils
would never have gotten such a stranglehold. Them with their
gun-control laws and their Perrier water and their clippy way of
talking. But of course he knew that wasn't it either, not really.
Because he had sung for a lot of Yankees, and when they were having
a good time, they were as good a people as any. So it probably was
the devils, damn 'em, he thought, and then realized how
redundant
that
thought
was.

"It's a hell of a thing," he told Torchy,
"to be home and still be homesick."

"I'll drink to that," she said.

Willie wasn't stupid, and he wasn't really
drunk. He knew she was manipulating him, but he had sort of gotten
used to the idea that women manipulated men, and his experiences in
the ballads had even shown him that maybe sometimes they had good
reason. He hated all of this. He thought he would be bringing music
back to the United States, and instead he was practically having to
beg people to pay attention to him. He was a musician and a good
one, and he was tired of being shut up pretty near every time he
started a song.

Torchy watched all this in his face as
she twirled her drink and smiled to herself. "I've had reports on
your friends.
They
all seem
to be doing rather well. In fact, the boss is cooking something up
to interfere with them again, but I doubt he'll succeed. The music
is growing very strong around them, what with the luck I gave them
and the fairy dust and all."