I thought about it as I picked my way through the trees toward the RV. Whatever these things were, they were evil. I didn’t know if they’d magicked Pete or what, but my folks are from the hills, and my grandpas and grandmas and aunts and uncles told me things that people would say were crazy, but which they really believed in. They saw things happen with their own eyes that we’d say were impossible. And I saw something tonight that made no sense at all in the real world. At the very best, these… people were murderers. Pete was dead, and they’d killed him. And worse.
I’d seen the two-gallon can of gas in the back of the RV, so I took it and a pack of matches and went back to the cabin. It was still dark but for the moon, and I finally looked at my watch. Two thirty-five. There was plenty night left — too much of it.
It took me some nerve to go inside, but I did. The Lovins weren’t moving. Hell, they didn’t even seem to be breathing now. The last candle was burnt out, but the moon gave me just enough light to work. I slopped the gas all up the dry wood walls and over the floor. I didn’t splash any on the Lovins, though, just in case they might wake up, but they didn’t. The tallest man, who I took to be the father, was lying in a patch of moonlight, and he wasn’t what he’d been before. His hair was full and long and dark, except for gray at the temples, and his skin was whole again.
That was enough. I didn’t want to look at the others.
I poured a trail of gas out through the front door and then touched a match to it. It ran inside quick as a snake and the whole shebang went up at once. That dry wood took to fire like kindling, and in less than a minute the cabin was blazing. Nothing moved inside. I don’t think even the burning woke them up.
The hollow was pretty well hid, so I doubted anybody’d see the flames, and there was enough of a clearing around the cabin that I didn’t think it’d set the woods on fire, though I didn’t give a damn if it did or not. I wasn’t thinking real clear.
But clear enough to haul down what was left of Pete. I found an old shovel in an outbuilding and buried him away from the cabin, back in the woods. It would’ve been quicker to toss him in the fire, but I didn’t want him with them. Not any more than he was.
I said some words over him, climbed in the RV, and drove through the dark back toward Nashville. I got lost a couple times on those dirt roads, but finally hit a blacktop and got my bearings. Back at Pete’s I put the RV in his driveway and pulled my car out of his garage without anybody seeing me, and drove home.
I had the song with me. I had it in my head. And by God, I was gonna do something with it. I couldn’t tell the truth about how I got it, so I figured I pull that journalistic thing and say I couldn’t reveal my sources. If people don’t believe me, the hell with them. One thing in my favor is that it makes something terrible out of a song everybody loves, and if I’d made it up on my own, I sure wouldn’t have done that.
I kept Pete’s DAT copy of Bertha Echols and played it again and heard something else different. That line about “You are a lovin’ daughter/My father said to me/But before you wed I’ll see him dead…” That wasn’t transcribed right either. Bertha Echols sings it “You are the Lovin daughter” and not “but”—“So before you wed I’ll see him dead,” like one thing follows the other, and for the Lovins it did.
Once I had all the lyrics in my head, I told my manager about it and he got to work. Boy, did he ever. I’m recording it next week, and Sony’s already offered to buy out my Rounder contract. I’m getting a full hour with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, twenty minutes with Larry King, I’m booked on Prairie Home Companion, but we’re actually gonna spring the song on 60 Minutes. I get the final segment, and they’re flying to Nashville and broadcasting me live singing it for the first time. A straight ahead ballad with guitar, no banjos or bluegrass from now on. Oh no, I’m looking to get back into country, where the money is.
Hell, I can wear a cowboy hat as well as the next guy, and lose a few pounds around my middle, too. Besides, the country crowd aren’t as tough on you as those tightass bluegrass folks if you wanta split from your wife and remarry — or hell, maybe just be a swinger again.
Since Linda left, my love life’s been drier than a west Texas August, but it looks like my luck might be changing. Met a real honey in the Station Inn a few nights ago. Incredible. A ten. Eyes to drown in, sweetest voice you ever did hear, and we been goin’ out every night since. Kinda surprised me she’d be rubbin’ up on a guy my age, but maybe she’s got one of those daddy complexes you hear about. I know she’s got her sights set on this old songbird, because she says she wants to take me home tonight to meet her kin. What the hell, maybe her mama can cook.
A certain chubby mandolin player made a crack about the “old hag” I was with — I knew that boy’s eyesight was bad from the diabetes and the booze, but not that much. He must be near blind as a bat. Or just jealous. Can’t blame him, I guess. It’s pretty damn amazing that a girl like her is sweet on a guy like me. Yep, my luck’s just runnin’ good for a change.
That’s about it, I guess. Tomorrow’s 60 Minutes, and I get famous again. I have to confess, though, I guess my conscience is bothering me a little — not over what I did up there in the mountains, but about whether I should do it or not, you know, take a song that people have loved their whole lives and turn it into something else, something… ugly. But hey, you can’t buy this kind of publicity. If I hadn’t have gotten it, maybe somebody else might’ve. And the money’ll be nice — I got the copyright, and whoever covers it — and there’ll be plenty in years to come — will have to pay old Billy Lincoln.
Yeah, like I say, the luck’s runnin’ good as a spring stream.
But I never did play that last chorus, did I? The last one I heard the old lady sing. Well, okay then, here we go, just in case I get hit by a meteor or struck by lightning before tomorrow night…
Sweet.
IN THE ABSENCE OF MURDOCK
Terry Lamsley
“Oh, it’s you Franz, come on in.”
“I’ve come to see Jerry. Is he at home?”
“Of course he is. Where else would he be? He’s always at home nowadays, remember. He’s upstairs, waiting for you, I expect.”
Franz gave his sister a curious look. “How do you know that?”
“I suggested that he call you or another of his old friends.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Possibly. Probably,” Barbara said, pulling the front door shut behind him.
Franz said, “I can hear it in your voice and Jerry sounded very strange when he phoned.”
“Yes, I expect he did.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“The — problem? Well, I’m not sure about that. I’d better let Jerry explain. It would sound better coming from him.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
Barbara gave Franz a wild, slightly irritated look. “Please,” she said, “go on up. He’ll be pleased to see you.”
“You seem almost embarrassed about something, Barbara.”
“Not really, no — it’s not that, exactly — but we’ve both been under a bit of a strain recently, for the past few days, in fact.”