Wisp of a Thing

32

Ten minutes earlier, as Rob followed Berklee’s car in his own, he made sure his iPhone noted the route. He could then retrace it to the service station, and from there to Needsville, if he needed to get back to town in a hurry. It felt good to be a bit less lost.

When the Pair-A-Dice finally came into view, Rob felt a sudden rush of panic. Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, the parking lot was full, just as it had been that first night. Apparently, Rockhouse could make his half of the Tufa drop everything at a moment’s notice.

Doyle and Berklee parked at the edge of the lot, where they wouldn’t get blocked in, and Rob followed suit. Doyle opened the trunk, pulled out a small eighteen-inch crowbar, and slipped it into one of the big leg pockets of the coveralls. Then he glanced back at Rob. “Got a couple of drop-forge socket wrenches here. They make quite a knot if you hit somebody hard enough.” He produced a large Case knife from his pocket. “And I got this.”

“No thanks,” Rob said. “I’m really not trying to pick a fight.”

“They might not see it that way,” Doyle pointed out. But he closed the trunk without further comment.

They walked across the parking lot together, just as they’d done on his first night in town, only now a cloud of leaves formed a violent miniature tornado right in front of them. And once again, they heard music and laughter as they neared the building. Berklee nervously clutched Doyle’s hand.

The Widow’s Tree was visible in the distance, its great form swaying in the wind. Only a small clutch of leaves remained at the very top; the rest of its limbs were bare. Rob remembered the names carved in the trunk, and the sad realization that Curnen, too, had lost the person she loved most.

Just as they reached the entrance, a voice said, “’Scuse me, y’all.”

A big, potbellied man in overalls and a Confederate cap came around the building’s corner. He carried a ten-pound mallet hammer easily in his right hand, like a trailer park Thor. “This is a private ay-fair. I’m betting you folks ain’t on the guest list.”

The man outweighed Rob probably by a hundred pounds, and had the mean, thick-browed look of so many rural bullies. Although the hair underneath the cap was Tufa black, his chin stubble was mostly white, except at the corners of his mouth, where it was stained dark yellow from tobacco juice. Matching streaks ran down the curve of his belly, marking times he hadn’t spit far or hard enough.

“I just need to see the girl who’s with Stoney Hicks,” Rob said. “I know they’re inside. It won’t take five minutes if nobody gets too twitchy.”

The big man smacked the mallet into his open hand. The sound was like meat hitting concrete. “You’re not going in there, sonny-boy. You best just turn around the way you came before me and Mr. Whackie here get all over you.”

Rob’s temper began to sizzle. “I don’t want any trouble, daddy-man, but I guarantee you I’m not walking away from it, either. All I want to do is talk to somebody, and I intend to do it. I suggest, if you don’t want to get to know Mr. Whackie in a whole new way, you step aside.”

“Whoa, now,” Doyle said as he moved up beside Rob. His voice was low and even. “I don’t see any need for everyone to get all huffy over this. Simple thing is, Mr. Gahan, if you pick a fight with Rob here, you’re picking one with me, too. I know you used to beat up my daddy in school, you tell me every chance you get, but that was a long time ago. As you can see, my friend here ain’t afraid of a scrap, and I don’t think you’re quite up to a double-header, especially with your bad hip.”

Mr. Gahan’s little pig eyes narrowed, and he stayed silent for a long moment. “Y’all ain’t got no business here,” he finally muttered.

“True enough,” Doyle agreed. “But sometimes you got to go where you ain’t got no business.”

Gahan scowled, spit at the ground, then turned and lumbered back around the corner of the building. Doyle let out a deep breath, and took Berklee’s hand. “Dang,” he sighed. “That aged me.”

“Me, too,” Rob said. “Thanks.”

“Wait,” Berklee said, and turned to Doyle. Her expression was suddenly fearful and desperate. “I’m not sure what’ll happen in there, but I want you to know, I really do love you.”

“I know,” Doyle said sadly. “I love you, too.”

Rob grabbed the door handle. “Here we go,” he said, and pulled it open.

Much like that first time days ago, the place was crowded and alive with conversation. The energy, though, felt completely different. It was simultaneously edgy, annoying, and compelling, the kind of buzz that helped fights break out at the slightest provocation and hinted that people might return home minus body parts. He heard screaming, farting, moaning, and even what sounded like animal sounds that could only have come from the men and women crammed into the room.

Doyle leaned close. “These ain’t good people,” he said warningly into Rob’s ear.

“Oh, I know.” Rob recalled the scene at the cave, the way the music had burrowed inside him and latched on to the guilt and pain he carried. Would the same thing happen again? His conversation with Bronwyn had gone a long way toward easing it, but was the effect permanent? He’d find out soon enough, he supposed.

Then Doyle pointed across the room, where Stoney’s poster boy mane towered over the crowd. Rob couldn’t see if Stella accompanied him.

“Do you see a girl with him?” Rob yelled to Doyle. “Red hair, about thirty, real tired-looking?”

Doyle couldn’t tell, and turned to ask Berklee. “Hon, do you see—?”

She stood absolutely still, staring across the room at Stoney with a look so pained and needy that it would’ve been pitiful under different circumstances. Without looking at Doyle, she gasped, “I’m sorry,” and began pushing her way through the crowd toward Stoney.

Doyle stood stunned, then turned to Rob. “I got to go get her,” he said, the pain in his voice audible even over the noise. He didn’t wait for Rob to respond.

Rob worked his way around the edge of the room. He spotted one young man with an odd, bright red face, and realized it was the ambusher he’d spray-painted. He was sure he’d be recognized, but nobody paid any attention to him.

Finally he reached the bandstand. The same Peavey amps flanked it, and a small drum set was shoved as far into the corner as it would go. A banjo lay in its open case. A single microphone stood at the center.

He looked around again, making sure no one had spotted him. He saw no sign of Rockhouse. He took a deep breath, then stepped up on the riser, experiencing a whole new form of stage fright.

With the added height, he easily saw Stoney across the room. Berklee stood pleading in front of him, while Doyle tried to pull her away. Stoney’s big arm draped casually over Stella Kizer, who regarded Berklee with both sympathy and weary jealousy. Stoney’s expression was blank, maybe slightly amused, and certainly not the least bit concerned with the pain he was causing.

Rob tapped the microphone. The speakers thudded in response. “Uh, excuse me,” he said, putting a drawl in his voice, “would Stella Kizer please come on up to the bandstand?”

Stella turned toward him. A few others looked at him oddly, but most ignored him. “Stella Kizer, to the bandstand, please,” he repeated.

She was fifteen feet away, watching him with hurt, watery eyes, but would not detach from Stoney Hicks. The big man ignored Rob, instead watching Doyle drag his wife away through the crowd. Berklee was crying, one hand stretched imploringly toward Stoney, who couldn’t have cared less.

Rob met Stella’s eyes. Please, he mouthed to her. But she looked away, helpless in the grip of whatever power had its hooks into her.

He had no choice; it was time to play his hole card.

He took a deep breath and began to sing. The melody that had haunted him now rang through the speakers.

Silence spread, like oil atop water, from the people immediately in front of him until it reached everyone in the room. By the time he finished the second verse, he had everyone’s attention, including Stoney Hicks’s. He met the tall man’s eyes, with an occasional glance down at Stella.

A commotion stirred in the back of the crowd, and someone pushed people violently aside to reach the stage. Rockhouse Hicks suddenly appeared in front of him, red-faced and gasping for breath. Blood stained his chin and the front of his overalls. His eyes were wide with fury and, Rob noticed, fear. The crowd moved away from the stage to give them both room.

A moment later, Bliss appeared behind Rockhouse and put a restraining hand on the old man’s shoulder.

Hicks was clean-shaven now, and Rob saw the outlines of the man who’d lured him here in the old man’s face. Meeting Hicks’s hate-filled glare with his own, Rob continued:

Anticipation now hung in the air like cigar smoke. His voice trembled a little as he began the final stanza.

“You little piss-ant bastard!” Hicks screamed. He grabbed the microphone off the riser and swung the heavy base at Rob like a club.

Rob blocked it, wrapped his arm around it, and yanked it easily from the old man’s hands. A great squeal of feedback shrieked through the room as the microphone fell from its holder and landed near the speakers. Hicks stumbled back, off balance.

“You goddam Yankee shitwad!” Hicks yelled as he charged forward. “You fuckin’ jackrabbit cornholing—”

Bliss stepped in front of Rockhouse, her back to Rob, and made a forceful gesture with her hand. The room instantly fell silent. “No more,” Bliss said carefully to Rockhouse; then she turned to Rob. “Stop.”

“It’s up to him,” he said, and pointed at Stoney with the microphone stand. “He knows why I’m here.”

All eyes moved from Rob to Stoney.

“Let her talk to him,” Bliss ordered Stoney. “Then we can all get back to our lives.”

Rockhouse started to say something, but Bliss whirled on him. “If you so much as open your mouth, old man,” she hissed, “I will get on that stage myself.”

Rockhouse slammed his mouth shut like an angry red-faced bullfrog. Bliss went over to Stoney and took Stella’s hand. The woman looked like she’d been told the worst news in the world, but put up no resistance as she was led to the bandstand.

Rob stepped down and looked in her eyes. “Terry’s worried to death about you, Stella, and the police think he might’ve even killed you. I don’t want to force you to do anything, but if you want to go back, I’ll take you.”

She looked as frightened as anyone he’d ever seen. “I… can’t… leave,” she whispered, although it sounded more like a plea than a statement.

“Do you want to leave?” he pressed. “Because if you do, not a Tufa in this place is going to stop us.”

She looked back at Stoney as if she were a starving woman and he the only meal in town. She sobbed, and in the expectant silence it echoed around the room. Then she looked back at Rob, her eyes wet with tears. “Yes,” she said in a soft voice, “I want to leave.”

He grabbed her hand. “Then we’re leaving.”

He’d barely turned away when he felt a big, meaty hand on his shoulder, and Stoney Hicks spun him around, yanking Stella from his grasp. “She’s my girlfriend now,” Stoney said.

That did it. Months of choked-down rage, stronger even than what he’d unleashed at the ambush on the road, surged up from the pit of Rob’s stomach, exploded in his solar plexus, and poured out in a scream as he threw himself at Stoney.

His momentum drove the bigger man back against the edge of the stage, and they fell together onto the wooden platform with a thud like a cannon shot. Rob was in full berserker mode, astride the bigger man’s chest and still incoherently roaring. He smashed Stoney in his smug face once, twice, three times with fast little snap punches, enjoying the wet crunching sound he got with the third one. His knuckles were smeared with crimson.

Then everything went red, followed by gray, followed by a roaring pain from the battered lump on the back of his head. He fell off Stoney and sprawled limp on the riser. Something wet and warm spread under his hair. His vision blurred and sparkled around the edges, and he had a momentary sense of total disconnection from the world around him. Then his eyes gradually refocused and the pain roared back. He looked up.

Rockhouse stood over him, brandishing the mike stand like a spear; no, like a king’s scepter. Blood—Rob’s blood—dripped from the weighted base that had slammed into the back of his head. Rockhouse looked different, too. He had immense batlike wings, tattered at the edges, and huge pointed ears that rose almost higher than the top of his head. His eyes, previously sun-narrowed to slits, were big and black, like an insect’s. Rob saw his own face, slack-jawed and dazed, reflected in their shiny surfaces.

Rob turned his head slightly. Bliss stood behind Rockhouse, one hand reaching in slow motion for the microphone stand. She had graceful, curving butterfly wings and an expression of infinite sadness.

Almost everyone in the crowd now sported wings, in fact, along with sparkly skin and smooth, youthful faces. He wanted to laugh, it was so beautiful, but the impulse got lost somewhere between his brain and his voice. What an amazing sight: a room full of hillbilly fairies, all watching him.

Then he realized they weren’t watching him. They were watching Rockhouse. With great effort, Rob turned his head back to the old man.

The microphone stand rose above Rob like a dark moon in a white sky. Big and solid, it would smash his skull if it came down hard enough. And one look at Rockhouse’s face told him it would come down that hard. He wanted to move, to react, but he had to lie there and watch this weird TV show playing out in slow motion all around him.

Then he blinked, everything snapped back to reality, and he realized he was about to die. Desperately he shouted the last line of the song: