Wisp of a Thing

20

Bliss climbed the trail, her back sweaty despite the cool breeze. The path wound through the woods, so well hidden that only someone with her background could follow it. Here the trees had never been cut, no fires ever thinned their ranks, and once anchored firmly into the soil, they were as immovable as the mountain they crowned. She heard deer scamper away in the shadows, the smaller movements of more phlegmatic raccoons and possums, and felt the presence of other things that lived only around the Tufa’s sacred places. She wished she had time to bask in it, to reconnect with that huge tug in her belly that led ultimately into the heart of the night wind itself. But this was First Daughter business, and the hike alone had taken an hour and a half. She’d started just before sunrise, after dropping off her note for Rob, and it would be past noon before she reached her truck again. Worse, she was almost entirely sure this would be pointless. But unless she tried, whatever she did next would be misinterpreted and scorned.

Despite a lifetime in the mountains, she found this climb so arduous, her calves burned, and she wanted nothing more than to sit down, catch her breath, and then descend. But she recognized that urge as part of this spot’s defenses, and while she couldn’t ignore it, she used the annoyance it generated to urge her on. She didn’t have to walk, of course; the Tufa had much faster and easier ways to get around. But the meeting she sought needed to be arranged in the proper way.

At last, through the final grove of trees, she saw the bare top of the mountain. Smoke curled into the sky from a stone chimney that emerged straight from the ground. In a few minutes, she stood before the rock wall built into the side of the hill, with its gray, ancient wooden door. Railroad ties provided steps for the last few yards, and planks made a crude porch. Music played softly from a cheap radio. She knocked.

“Whozat?” a man’s voice demanded.

“You know goddam well who it is,” Bliss said. “Let me in.”

The door opened, and Rockhouse Hicks peered out. In the shadowy interior, he seemed bulkier and more threatening, but of course she knew the secret of that. “What do you want?” he muttered when he saw her.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way to the P.O.?”

“So? You ain’t my keeper.”

“That’s lucky for you. I figured you might have quite a head, drunk as you were last night.”

“Don’t remember much about it.”

“Convenient. But we need to hash out what to do about Curnen and Stoney.”

“You do what you want, they ain’t nothing to me,” he said, and started to shut the door.

She blocked it open. “I don’t want to be in your damn hobbit hole any more than you want me here. So stop being a jackass and work with me.”

“You ain’t my equal, Bliss, so don’t take that tone with me. Mandalay wants to talk, she can bring herself up here, just like you did.”

“I carry Mandalay’s song, you know that. Stop stalling.”

He looked at her. The smug superiority he showed in town was completely gone, and he now appeared as a weak, tired old man. His overalls were stained with mud, and his beard held crumbs and bits of food. When he turned just so, the light revealed two long, untended hairs protruding from one ear. He said, “I ain’t got nothing to do with that retarded sister of yours no more.”

“She’s not retarded, you self-righteous bastard,” Bliss hissed. In her head, she added, She’s cursed. By you. She followed him inside.

The dwelling consisted of one room with a fireplace, a table with two straight-backed chairs, a rocking chair, and a bed. The walls were stone, sealed with mortar that had crumbled in places and allowed gray lichen and mold to grow along the seepage stains. It made the place smell like an untended armpit. All the furniture was handmade, squared off and crude. The blankets on the bed were tattered and faded. Only the five banjos in their stands gave evidence of any recent attention. The heat and light from the hearth fire were overwhelming when the door closed behind her.

“And she’s not just my sister,” Bliss continued as she unzipped her jacket. “She’s your daughter.”

“Ain’t nothing to me,” he said as he turned off the old radio and settled into the wooden rocker before the fire. He picked up an old quilt and arranged it over his legs. “She turned her back on me when I needed her most. When the last leaf falls off the Widow’s Tree, she’ll be gone. No more of that damned howling all night.”

Bliss knelt and shoved the chair around so that he had to face her. “You made a big tactical error with her, Rockhouse. You backed her into a place where she doesn’t feel like she has anything to lose. What happens if she decides the hell with you and your rules?”

“Hmph,” he said. He spit into the fire, and it sizzled. “That girl ain’t got long. Then it won’t be nobody’s problem no more.”

She stood and walked away, fighting the urge to make him follow his saliva into the fire. It was hard to remember that this tired, pathetic creature was also the mean, vindictive monster who sowed malice and spite from the post office porch. What did it feel like to live alone, in one room beneath the top of a mountain so isolated, no one ever visited unless they were pissed off enough to make the climb? To know that you inspired only hatred, fear, or disgust? But then she remembered all he’d done, and her pity burned away like his spit.

A small object on the table caught her eye. She picked up a tiny ax, no more than five inches long. Its metal head gleamed, and the edge shone like a scalpel. Beside it rested a walnut. “Reliving past glories?” she said, with no attempt to minimize the sarcasm.

“Kiss my ass, Bliss,” Rockhouse mumbled without looking.

“And we got Yankees, too,” she said. “There’s one that Curnen’s been sniffing around.”

“Ain’t Curnen that brought him to y’all’s barn dance, now, is it?”

She ignored him. “And Stoney’s picked up a Yankee girl with a husband. That was stupid, Rockhouse, even for him. Now there’ll be all sorts of attention.”

“Ain’t nobody gonna find nothing they ain’t supposed to find. Always been the way. Still true.”

“What if it’s not? What if things are slipping? What if the night winds want it that way?” When he didn’t reply, she slammed her hands on the table, and he jumped. The tiny ax fell to the floor. “Dammit, Rockhouse! This affects us all, not just your people! All the Tufa stand to lose now. If there’s any chance, we have to work together to stop it, or at least turn it aside so it glances off.”

“Yeah?” he said contemptuously. “What’ll you do about it, Bliss? Sing a song?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I know the right song to sing.”

“You know part of it,” he said. “And you can’t find the rest, not without Mandalay’s permission. And that little girl ain’t even bleeding age yet. And as for them Yankees…” He trailed off with a cold little smile.

“What?” she asked darkly.

Now the Rockhouse everyone in Needsville feared turned and smiled up at her, his feebleness replaced by smug arrogance. “I know what that boy with you found out behind the fire station. I know he done told that other Yankee boy, the fat one with the wife, all about it. You think them rubbings are dangerous, but I done took care of them. And as for that gee-tar-playin’ boy… well, even though he’s probably caught up in your sister’s curse now, I didn’t want to wait. I done took care of him, too.”

“What did you do?” Bliss demanded. Rockhouse’s grin faded, his eyes closed, and his chin dropped to his chest. “What did you do?” she repeated, and shook him. But although he still breathed, she knew he was no longer in the room.

She drew back and slapped him so hard, it knocked him from the rocker, then left him sprawled on the uneven plank floor. The wind whined through the chimney when she threw open the door, momentarily causing the fire to flare up. That same wind rustled the trees above her all the way down to her truck.

Rob considered his strategy as he drove the deserted highway back to Needsville. He turned up the music, which always helped him think. Sirius was tuned to an all-bluegrass station, and he sang along with a sprightly version of “Shenandoah.”

There was one solid hint about how to proceed. Something about that line from the epitaph had stopped Stoney dead the previous night, and even gotten Old Man Rockhouse’s attention. Why?

As he topped a hill, an emu stood in the center of his lane. He didn’t want to pass it on the left, because he might collide with another car coming over the next rise. He stopped ten feet from the bird and honked, but the animal stayed put.

He put the car in park and got out. He waved his hands at the bird. “Hey! Move, will ya!”

The bird blinked. Then its head turned slightly, toward something behind Rob.

He caught just the hint of a movement in the corner of his eye, but it was enough to make him duck, and the ax handle swished through the space an instant earlier occupied by his head.

He spun around. He was being ambushed.

Well, fuck me, he thought. He looked Hispanic and had attended a Kansas City public high school, so he knew how to fight when he had to. And if they were swinging ax handles at him, he definitely had to.

Rob dived right at the man who’d tried to blindside him and tackled him to the pavement. The ax handle skidded away across the blacktop. He straddled his attacker’s chest and punched him in the face, sending a jolt of pain through his own hand. The guy clutched his nose and cried, “Shit!” He had black hair and dark Tufa skin, and looked barely old enough to drive.

Then someone else hit Rob hard across the back with what felt like a baseball bat. He cried out in agony and surprise, then reflexively jumped to his feet. The blow made him gasp for air. He kicked the fallen man hard in the groin to put him out of commission, then turned to face the second attacker, his fury rising until it blanked out any sensation of pain. “Come on, you son of a bitch!” Rob croaked.

The second man, also a young Tufa, brandished a shiny aluminum bat and took a wild, clumsy swing that Rob easily avoided. Despite the pain, he body-blocked the second man into the car’s fender. The bat clanged off the hood and landed in the road. Rob head-butted the man and drove his knee hard into his crotch. With a thin moan of pain, the second man joined his friend on the ground.

Rob blinked, momentarily dazed by the skull-to-skull contact, then retrieved the baseball bat and stood over the two men. Both curled fetally and clutched their groins.

His back felt numb and hot, but he knew the pain would return soon enough. The urge to pound them into hamburger was incredibly strong, but he managed to hold back. “What the hell!” he yelled at the two. “Who the hell are you guys?”

“Get… the fuck out of Needsville,” the first man wheezed.

Rob slammed the end of the bat against the pavement next to the man’s ear so hard, the tarmac cracked. “Says who? Stoney Hicks? Rockhouse?”

“You just need to go, man,” the second man added, his voice whiny from pain. “Ain’t no songs for you here.”

Rob felt under the driver’s seat for the can of spray paint he’d gotten from Doyle. He put one knee on the first man’s chest and sprayed bright red paint all over his hair and face. “I’ll know exactly who you are if I see you again, asshole,” he snarled. “Tell Hicks Junior and Senior that they need to send full-grown hillbillies next time.” He turned to mark the second man, but he’d already staggered off into the weeds, and Rob didn’t feel like chasing him.

Beyond him, for just an instant, Rob thought he saw a third figure, wide and distinctive. But the shadow he imagined to be Rockhouse Hicks vanished the moment he looked straight at it.

Breathing heavily, Rob got back into his car and, hands shaking, drove into town. He repeatedly counted to ten until his temper got back under his control.

Back in his room, he went into the bathroom and gently removed his shirt. A purple bruise ran across his shoulder blades, and it was already tender to the touch. A few inches up, and the guy would’ve knocked his head clean off. He dug out the piece of paper Doyle had given him with Bliss’s phone number on it. He got no answer, and no machine picked up.

Whom could he go to? The police would do nothing. Doyle had his own problems, and Bliss was unavailable. Even the only other stranger, Terry Kizer, had left town. He was on his own.

He paced for a long time, trying to walk off the rush from the fight. Finally an idea struck him. He turned on his laptop and searched for the address of the closest public library. He wanted archives of the local newspapers, to verify Doyle’s story of Stoney Hicks’s former flames. If he could show Stella that the big lunk was such bad news that his girlfriends actually died, perhaps she’d find the strength to break free of him.

Needsville had no library or newspaper, which didn’t really surprise him, but a quick search revealed a library located in the nearby town of Cricket. The link to the library went through the town’s main Web site, where he found the odd description under the title, “Welcome Ye to Historic Cricket.”

A Victorian village in the middle of the Smoky Mountains? Why had he not run across this before? He clicked on the link to the library.

He Googled directions, checked the library’s hours, then logged off and tried Bliss’s phone number again. He still got no answer. If she had caller ID, she’d think he was stalking her.