Long Black Curl

by Alex Bledsoe

  “Peggy, I’ll give you one last chance to make this civilized. Agree to sell me this place right now, and nobody important to you has to get hurt.”

  Peggy made a sharp gesture with her right hand, followed by a complicated one with her left.

  Bo-Kate laughed. “Good God, Peggy, you still believe in that nonsense? When you kicked me out, all that went with it. None of it has any effect on me anymore, if it ever did.”

  “You’ll get this place over my dead body, Bo-Kate,” Peggy snapped.

  Bo-Kate shrugged. “That’s not really a problem.”

  “Stop,” a new voice said calmly.

  They all turned. Mandalay Harris stood in the entrance to the café. She hadn’t come through the front door where Nigel stood guard, or any of the other entrances behind Peggy. She’d simply appeared, in jeans and a heavy winter coat, her black hair peeking out from under a knit cap.

  “Let’s talk this all out,” the girl said, “before anyone else—”

  Bo-Kate blinked in surprise, then reached in her purse, withdrew a small revolver, and fired at Mandalay from ten feet.

  “Bo-Kate!” Nigel shouted just before the shot rang out.

  Mandalay vanished. Peggy screamed.

  The gunshot echoed in the room, and all three stared at the spot the girl had just occupied. The weapon in Bo-Kate’s hand did not shake. “Fuck me,” she gasped, both astounded and delighted at her own impulsive act.

  “Indeed,” Nigel said. He took the gun from her fingers. “Perhaps we should—”

  Bo-Kate grabbed the gun back and pointed it at Peggy. Her voice giddy, she said, “Say you’ll do it, Peggy. Or I’ll shoot you, then—”

  But in the few moments Bo-Kate had been distracted, Peggy grabbed her own weapon, a shotgun she kept behind the counter, and had it leveled at Bo-Kate. “I may not know your dyin’ dirge, Bo-Kate Wisby, but I bet this buckshot does. You sing your song, I’ll sing mine, and we’ll see which one gets an encore.”

  The smell of gunpowder lingered around them. Nigel leaned close and said, “I have to say, she has the upper hand. You might wound her, but her weapon will make an Italian mess of you. And possibly me, since I seem to be standing right beside you.

  There was no amusement in Bo-Kate’s face when she returned her gun to her purse. “All right, we’ll call this one a draw, Peggy. But just remember, nothing you have it safe.”

  “As long as you’re around? Maybe we should fix that, then.”

  Bo-Kate said nothing, just remained still until it was clear Peggy wouldn’t shoot her in cold blood. Then she turned and walked out the front door. Nigel quickly followed.

  Almost as soon as the door shut behind them, Mandalay said, “There’s no reasoning with her, is there?”

  Peggy looked over. Mandalay stood where she had before, in the doorway to the café. There was no sign of any injury from the gunshot. “No, there is not,” Peggy said, and propped her shotgun against the nearest wall. She lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. “That bitch needs to be put down.”

  “You may be right. Hell, you are right. But who can do it? You just had the chance, and you couldn’t.”

  “It’s Bronwyn’s job.”

  “Bronwyn’s too pregnant right now.”

  “Then Bliss?”

  “Killing Bo-Kate isn’t the answer, Peggy. How did she even come back? We have to know. Otherwise, if we ever sing anyone out again…”

  “And how do we find that out?”

  “Tell the First Daughters to meet here tonight, at midnight. And…”

  She looked down. Peggy, mistaking the look for fear, said, “Lord a’mighty, Mandalay, are you crying?”

  Mandalay looked up with a wry smile. “No, Peggy,” she said in that voice that rang with all the ages of the mountains around them. “I was actually about to laugh.”

  “About what?”

  “About the look I imagined on your face when I tell you to call the Silent Sons, too.”

  Peggy fought to keep her expression neutral. “What can they do for us?”

  “Not just for us, Peggy. For all the Tufa.”

  * * *

  Bo-Kate drove the SUV ferociously around curves, skidding as she did. They were headed back to the Wisby place, or at least that seemed to be the general direction to Nigel.

  “You took a shot,” he said at last, “at a little girl.”

  “Hell, what lives in that little girl is the oldest thing in these hills.”

  “Perhaps. But I suspect that, had your shot found its mark, only the body of a little girl would’ve been found there.”

  She glared at him. “Are you questioning me again, Nigel?”

  He was glad she couldn’t see his hands tremble. “I have to on this one, Bo-Kate. There are simply some lines in the world, and cold-blooded child murder is one of them.”

  “Lines that you won’t cross?”

  “That I hoped you wouldn’t, either. But no, I won’t cross it.”

  Suddenly the gun was in her hand, the barrel an inch from his face. “Then what the fuck use are you?”

  Nigel licked his lips. “I’d like to think my charm has value.”

  Bo-Kate’s eyes flicked from the road back to him, and then she put the gun back down. She held up her own hand, which now trembled as much as his. “Goddamn, Nigel, that was a close one.”

  “It certainly was.”

  “That little girl you’re so worried about isn’t even human. She’s … Fuck, I don’t know what she is, really. I’m not sure anyone does, including her. But you saw her appear and disappear. Could a real human being do that?”

  “You have a point.”

  She let out a long sigh. “But you’re right, I shouldn’t have tried to shoot her. It was pointless, and I knew that. It’s just that when I saw her, I…”

  “Lost it?”

  She chuckled. Her temper was notorious among the venue owners and band managers she worked with, but Nigel understood that it was mostly an act, a buffer to prevent real trouble later on. This was something different, though.

  “So,” he said, hoping the storm had passed, “Where are we going now?”

  “Back home. I found something in the woods the other night, and it’s time to bring it out.”

  I know dark clouds will gather round me

  I know my way is rough and steep

  Yet golden fields lie just before me

  Where God’s redeemed shall ever sleep

  I’m going there to see my father

  He said he’d meet me when I come

  I’m only going over Jordan

  I’m only going over home

  Byron and Fiddlin’ John looked up as the sin eater entered the clearing. “That didn’t take long,” Byron said.

  “Nope,” the sin eater agreed as he took his spot.

  “You looked kinda peaked,” John observed.

  “Must’ve been something I ate. What’d I miss?”

  “’Bout three songs and four ounces,” Fiddlin’ John said.

  Eli grinned. He understood where he was, and was one of the few non-Tufas who were able to slip in and out of fairy time at will. He did notice that his thoughts got fuzzier the longer he stayed, which meant that whenever he came back, he noticed things he hadn’t before.

  And this time, he noticed Byron Harley. And remembered Mandalay’s confusion. Now, he was confused as well. Who was this big guy?

  “Come on, then, let’s keep it a’goin’,” Fiddlin’ John said, and led them into another chorus of “Wayfaring Stranger.”

  When they finished, Fiddlin’ John held up his hand for silence. The only sound was the fire’s crackling. Then the others heard it: a sobbing woman.

  It grew louder, along with footsteps through the damp leaves. Byron stared into the darkness, and saw one shadow detach itself from the others and approach. As the firelight reached her, he saw that it was a young woman with red hair, without a coat or gloves, arms wrapped around herself against the cold. Her sobs
had the weary, ragged quality of those that came after hours of crying.

  Byron got to his feet and limped over to intercept her as she reached the clearing. “Hey, honey, you’re okay now,” he said, and draped his jacket over her shoulders. “Sit down and join us.”

  She put up no resistance as he guided her to the log and sat beside her. She was pretty, except for the way her eyes were swollen from crying.

  “My name’s Byron, honey. What’s yours?”

  “Stella,” she whimpered. “Stella Kizer.”

  “Where’re you from?”

  “Michigan.”

  “You do know you’re in Tennessee, right?”

  She nodded. “We were staying in Needsville. My husband and me.” At the mention of her husband, she began to sob anew.

  Byron put one massive arm across her shoulders and drew her close. He had three sisters, so he knew how emotional women could get. “There, honey, it’s all right. We’ll get you back to him.”

  She jumped up and wrenched away. “No! I can’t go back. You don’t know what I did, what I did to him!”

  “Whatever you did,” the sin eater said in a calm and knowing voice, “it wasn’t your fault.”

  She choked out a sob that seemed to come from so deep inside her, it made them all ache in sympathy. “You know?”

  “Yes, I do.” Eli recognized her as one of the normal people who occasionally ended up in slow time after a major emotional trauma. And he knew what had happened to her at the Pair-A-Dice with Stoney Hicks, back when the boy had been a magnet for women. “If you want, I can take you back.”

  “No. I can’t face my husband, not after … after what I did.” She shrugged Byron’s jacket off her shoulders and ran off into the woods again before any of them could stop her. In moments, her footsteps and sobs were gone.

  Byron turned to the others. “Fellas, my leg ain’t up to chasin’ her, but one of you two should—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” the sin eater said. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  “She’s pretty much going down the mountain,” Byron said, annoyed. “And in the dark, without a coat, in the middle of winter. You keep telling me how dangerous it is—”

  Eli reached for the jug. “Tell me something, Byron. You ever read ‘Rip Van Winkle’?”

  “I ain’t much of a reader.”

  “Do you know the story?”

  “He’s someone who falls asleep for a long time, right?”

  Eli nodded. “He met up with some supernatural folk, took a drink of some of their magic beer, and time stopped for him. It didn’t for the outside world. That’s what’s happened to that girl.”

  “That’s plumb crazy,” Byron said, but something in the way Eli spoke made it sound plausible. And for the first time since he’d stumbled into the clearing, Byron felt the same rush of the fear and sorrow he’d felt up the mountain, at the site of the plane crash. He sat down, overwhelmed, and felt his eyes burn with tears.

  “Here,” Eli said, passing the jug. “You look like a fella whose wife just left him, and his dog ain’t doin’ too well, either.”

  Byron took a long swallow, luxuriating in the burn down his gullet and into his stomach. The emotions overwhelming him seemed to recede, leaving a kind of numbness that was different from simple drunkenness. But whatever it was, he was grateful for it. He passed the jug to Fiddlin’ John and said, “You’re being awful quiet.”

  “I think I want to get on down the mountain, too,” he said quietly, as if worried he might disturb some delicate balance. “My daughter Rosa’s likely to be worried about me.”

  “Your daughter comes with you?” Byron asked.

  John nodded. “She calls herself Moonshine Kate.”

  Byron smiled. “Well, I’ll be. I figured that was your wife or girlfriend or something.”

  “Nope, that’s my baby girl.”

  Byron picked up his guitar and put it across his lap again. He started strumming, “My Man’s a Jolly Railroad Man,” which he knew by heart from one of those old scratchy 78s his father used to play. John smiled, too, and began to play along. Eli pulled out his Jew’s harp and picked an occasional note, but he mainly watched the darkness in the direction the woman had disappeared.

  He would lead Fiddlin’ John Carson back down the mountain in the morning, because he knew that the man had years of life left to him. But he also knew Stella Kizer would not emerge from the forest for another twenty years, although mere hours would have passed to her. And as for Byron …

  What the hell was he doing here? And where was he supposed to go?

  19

  Dinner at the Wisby household was tense as only family gatherings can be. Nigel grew up as one of two children, in a small row house with his mostly unemployed dad and bitter housewife mom, so he knew a thing or two about the dynamics at work. But nothing in his family compared to the animosity Bo-Kate brought out in everyone.

  Memaw and Paw-paw regarded their only daughter with the same sideways suspicion you’d show a snake that slithered into your house. Is it poisonous? Should I chase it back out, or just kill it outright? Paw-paw slopped gravy with bits of crumbling biscuit, his actions loud and wet, while his wife daintily cut corn from the cob before eating no more than three kernels at a time with her fork.

  Tain, once again dressed in skimpy summer attire despite the snow and wind outside, sipped her iced tea and kept trying to catch Nigel’s eye. He understood that she wasn’t interested in him particularly, just in “the new guy,” who happened to be an exotic black man from a strange background. Despite her beauty, it creeped him out a little, counteracting most of—but not all—the desire her blatant carnality inspired.

  Bo-Kate’s other brother, Snad, slouched in his chair half-awake, scooping up mashed potatoes and slowly raising them to his mouth. He hadn’t said a word, and Nigel was unsure whether the passivity was his natural state, or if he was stoned out of his mind.

  “You hear about that country singer, Raylon Dupree?” Bo-Kate’s father said between bites.

  “What about him?” his wife asked.

  “They say he ran off with a policeman’s horse in New York. He was all drunk, and somebody in some bar said he wasn’t a real cowboy, so he had to show ’em.” The old man shook his head. “That’d been you or me, we’d be sitting’ in jail right now. He just got a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back.”

  “That’s always the way,” his wife agreed.

  “Them big shots in Nashville, they think they eat roses and shit sunshine,” the old man added.

  Tain turned to Bo-Kate. “Hey,” she said, drawing out the syllable. “Doesn’t your old boyfriend manage Raylon Dupree?”

  Bo-Kate looked up sharply. “Shut up, Tain.”

  She leaned her elbows on the table and blew a loose strand of black hair from her face. She grinned, taunting. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he does, I read that on the CMT website. You ever hear from him?”

  “Shut … up … Tain,” Bo-Kate said warningly.

  “She never did tell you about Jeff, did she?” Tain said to Nigel. “They were Romeo and Juliet, or Roseanna McCoy and Jonce Hatfield. Nothing could keep them apart.”

  “I mean it, Tain,” Bo-Kate said.

  “You shut up, Bo-Kate,” Tain said with sudden ferocity. “Who the fuck are you to come barging back in here, fucking everything up again?” Nobody wants you here. Whatever song you’ve managed to steal, it ain’t yours and never fucking will be.”

  “Language, young lady,” the old man snapped.

  “Come on,” Tain taunted Bo-Kate, “tell your colored boyfriend here all about Jeff. How handsome he was, how much you loved the way he fucked you in the bed of his truck, how when he killed that Spicer boy because you told him to, you fucked him right there beside the body. Ain’t that true, Bo-Kate?”

  Bo-Kate leaped to her feet and snatched up the big fork used to serve the pork roast. “How about I kill you, Tain, and do every man in three counties a favor?”

&n
bsp; Tain jumped up as well. “Bring it, bitch.”

  “Language!” the old man roared, and slapped the table so hard, the silverware jumped. “If you two can’t be civil, you can just get the hell out of my house!”

  “It’s my house, Daddy,” Bo-Kate said, still glaring at Tain. “It’s all going to be mine before I’m done, so enjoy it while you can.” She rammed the fork into the wooden surface hard enough that the tines stuck in the wood, then turned and stalked from the room. Nigel rose to follow, but she said, “No, Nigel. You just stay here and be ready to go when I get back. It’s time to bring on the headliner.” She snatched her coat from the chair by the heater and went outside.

  She glared at Tain from the doorway. “And you, Little Miss No-Panties. I’m going to sing you to a place where no man will ever touch you again. You’ll be all alone, for the rest of your miserable slutty existence. You think about that.”

  When she was gone, Nigel let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and said, “I apologize. She’s not herself today.”

  “I don’t know who you think she is, then, because that’s my damn daughter, all right,” Paw-Paw said. He took another biscuit from the bowl.

  Nigel glanced at Tain, then did a double take. Tears poured down the girl’s cheeks. When she realized everyone was staring at her, she jumped up and ran upstairs.

  “Goodness,” Nigel said. He felt ridiculously uncomfortable now, alone with the elder Wisbys and the mute, dissolute brother. “I hope we didn’t hurt her feelings too badly.”

  “It’s not her feelings,” Mewmaw said. “She’s part glaistig. She can’t stand the thought of never having men around.”

  “Now, you don’t say that,” her husband said.

  “What’s a ‘glaistig’?” Nigel asked.

  “Nothing,” Mrs. Wisby said. “I spoke outta turn. She’s just a girl who likes men a lot, ain’t nothing wrong with that no matter what them Christians say.”

  Nigel sat quietly after that. The two old people continued to eat, eyes downcast, not speaking. The noise of their chewing and swallowing was almost deafening. Snad finished his mashed potatoes and stared at the residue on his plate. Nigel wondered where Bo-Kate had gone, and how long he was expected to sit here, trapped by politeness.