Long Black Curl

by Alex Bledsoe

  He played, and softly sang:

  I went down to the depot

  Lord, not many days ago

  Got on my train

  And the train went a-flyin’

  I looked back behind

  And my baby was a-cryin’

  Said he’s gone and left me all alone.

  You can count the days I’m gone

  On the train that I left on

  You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles

  If that train runs right

  I’ll see home tomorrow night

  Lord, I’m nine hundred miles from my home.…

  With each chord, each note, Byron changed. He grew achy and stooped, and his hair thinned and turned gray, then white. His square-jawed face sagged and softened. All his borrowed time drained away, and he teared up as he contemplated seeing Harmony again. He hoped he’d recognize her on the other side, and that she’d understand why he’d failed her.

  But because of the magic in the pick, most of the chattering Tufa didn’t notice his rapid aging. When they looked at him, they saw the man they expected to see. When he finally fell to his knees and collapsed sideways, people gathered around to see an old man who was too sick to have any business coming out tonight, lying dead atop his guitar.

  The few purebloods who were fully aware of what had really happened held their peace. The hand of the night wind was not something you idly discussed in crowds.

  * * *

  Outside, the wind picked up, whipping old snow from the ground and swirling it around the two former lovers. Jeff shoved Bo-Kate away from him, and she stood with her fists clenched.

  “You hit me!” she yelled.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t fucking shoot you with your own gun.”

  “That wasn’t my gun, you moron. So now what? You going to beat me up? Did you suddenly regrow a pair? You got your own gun, maybe? How are you going to stop me, Jeff?”

  He gazed at her with something she never expected to see on his face again: tenderness. For her.

  “I don’t plan to stop you, Bo-Kate. We’ve both just been marking time until this moment.”

  There was real pain in her voice when she exclaimed, “You had your chance up on the mountain, you gutless sack of shit!”

  “Not that. This is the moment when we admit we haven’t changed. We can’t change. We don’t want to change.”

  “I never did,” she said proudly.

  He looked at her with a sadness that carried the weight of all those years of exile. “Well, I did. And I tried. But some songs run too deep.”

  He took the class ring from his shirt and let it hang outside his coat. Then he stepped close and took her in his arms. She put a hand on his chest to push him away, but she gasped at the feeling of the ring against her palm. His embrace sheared away the years of isolation and bitterness, and she felt as she always did in his arms: safe, powerful, loved.

  “Jesus, Jeff,” she said over the wind. “I never thought I’d feel this again.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Remember when Michael Finley tried to make out with me at the sock hop and you beat him up so bad, he got a concussion?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And when we made love beside Jesse Spicer after you beat him to death for trying to see me naked?”

  “Yeah, I remember that, too.”

  “Do you think we can ever feel that way again?”

  “No, Bo-Kate. We never can. This is the last thing we’ll ever feel.”

  And for the first time in forever, since that day on Emania Knob when the whole Tufa community gathered to banish them from Needsville, from Cloud County, from music and love and life, Bo-Kate Wisby and Jefferson Powell kissed.

  And had anyone been there to witness it, they would’ve seen the two lovers rise slowly into the windswept sky, borne aloft on their love and their half-seen wings.

  * * *

  Less than a minute later, Mandalay, Bliss, and Bronwyn came outside. Bo-Kate and Jeff were gone.

  “Where are they?” Bliss said.

  Mandalay slowly looked up. “They’re dancing,” she said softly.

  Bliss and Bronwyn followed her gaze into the sky, but it was too dark and cloudy to see anything. Then wet droplets splattered down on them. But it wasn’t cold winter rain—these drops were warm, and in the glow of the security lights, red.

  The three women quickly got out of the way. Bronwyn wiped her face with her sleeve and said, “What the hell was that?”

  “The end,” Mandalay said. “Of Bo-Kate and Jeff.”

  “What, did they explode or something?”

  “They’re gone,” Mandalay said. “That’s all that matters.” But she kept looking up. “Go back inside. I need a moment alone here.”

  Bliss and Bronwyn exchanged a look. “Uhm,” Bliss began.

  “I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  They couldn’t really argue with her, or overrule her, so they did as she asked.

  Mandalay stared up at the swirling sky. The silence was broken: once again the night winds spoke to her as they always did, plainly and clearly, conveying the truth about what had happened. She felt a sudden, unexpected jolt of sadness at the idea that these two lovers could neither live together or apart, and so chose not to live at all. Or at least, one of them made the choice for both.

  And that song came back to her.

  Shadows at midnight

  Shadows at dawn

  Why won’t your shadows

  Go and leave me alone

  I hear footsteps on the stairs

  Someone’s sneaking out the back

  It’s two in the morning

  And the moon has gone black.…

  “I’ve made the choice,” she said to the winds. She waited, but they said nothing back.

  Then she heard a vehicle making its way down the road. A white Ford E350 church van pulled a single-axle trailer that looked as if it could fall apart at any moment. Behind it came another car packed with people.

  The van slowed when the driver saw Mandalay. It stopped, and the driver rolled down the window. He had long black hair and a neat beard. “Excuse me,” he said, “but we’re trying to find the interstate. Are we anywhere near it?”

  Mandalay looked at the trailer. “You’re a band, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. We’re out of Gatlinburg. And we’re lost. Can you or someone else give us directions?”

  “We need a band,” Mandalay said. “Right now. There’s a building full of people who need an excuse to dance and have fun.”

  The driver chuckled. The woman in the seat beside him, who had black curly hair, leaned over and said, “Well, honey, I’m sorry, but we’ve already got a gig for tonight. If we can find it.”

  Mandalay realized with a start that they saw, not a leader, but a twelve-year-old girl. It had been a long time since that had happened. And of course, it wasn’t their fault.

  Then Junior Damo appeared beside her. He smiled, all reasonableness and assurance. “She’s right, fellas. We really need a good, kick-ass band tonight. We’re a sad bunch, and we need a reason to not be. Like the song says, you can’t dance and stay uptight.”

  Before the driver could reply, the van sputtered once and died. He tried to restart it, but nothing happened. He exchanged a look with the woman, who was trying to use her cell phone. “Still don’t get a signal,” she said.

  “I bet it’s that alternator.” He sighed and said, “Well, looks like we’re stuck here. The car can’t carry all of us and pull the trailer.”

  The people in the car behind the van emerged, zipping up coats and pulling on mittens. They were all young, and beautiful, and Mandalay could see the music that danced around them, and through them. Whoever they were, they lived for the playing, and that was something any Tufa could understand.

  She smiled. “So if you’re stuck, you might as well play. Right, Junior?”

  “Right,” he agreed. “How long does it take you to set up?”


  The driver looked from her to Junior, unsure whom to address. “Uh … half an hour, maybe.”

  “We’ll pass the hat and pay you what we can,” Junior said with a smile. “Whatever it comes out to, it’ll still be more than you’d make sitting on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck all the way out here, ain’t that right?”

  “That’s probably true,” the driver agreed.

  “What’s your band’s name?” Mandalay asked.

  “Tuatha Dea.”

  Mandalay and Junior exchanged a look whose significance was totally lost on the band. As was the reason behind their wide, enigmatic Tufa smiles.

  “I’m Junior. This here’s Mandalay.”

  “I’m Danny, this is my wife Rebecca, and the rest of the band is all family, too.”

  “A tribe,” Mandalay said.

  “That’s what we call ourselves,” he agreed.

  Rebecca said, “Can I ask y’all something?”

  “Sure,” Junior said.

  “I know we crossed into Cloud County, because that was right before the Google Maps went out, so … are you folks Tufa?”

  Junior looked at Mandalay. “We are,” she said.

  Now Danny grinned. “I’ve heard you folks are some kind of good players.”

  “We can be,” Junior agreed.

  “You think anybody’d want to sit in with us?”

  “If you’re up for it, I’m sure a bunch of us would be honored.”

  “Then let’s get to it,” Danny said. “We need to get the trailer off the road first.”

  Junior winked at Mandalay. She wanted to smack him, but couldn’t deny that he’d made the situation go much smoother than it might have. She motioned him close and said softly, “Go get some help. We want to get this party started as soon as possible. And while you’re at it, ask Canton and Snad Wisby what they did with the body of Bo-Kate’s assistant.”

  “How do you know he’s dead?”

  “Because he’s not here. And wherever he is, he deserves better. He tried to stop her.”

  Junior nodded and strode back through the cars toward the Pair-A-Dice. When Mandalay turned back, she let out a yelp. Luke Somerville stood right before her.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. He nodded at the van, where the members of Tuatha Dea were already pulling out instruments. “Who are they?”

  “A gift from the night winds.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You tell me. We have practically the entire Tufa population in there so wound up, they might all gut each other before morning if something doesn’t happen to help ’em let off steam, and a band shows up out of nowhere. A band called Tuatha Dea.”

  His eyes opened wide. “No way.”

  “Yes way.” She paused, then said, “Why are you here?”

  “I snuck out.”

  “You mean now, or the other day?” she shot back.

  “Yeah. I’m not too proud of that. I just got spooked.”

  The breeze tousled his unruly hair, and his shy smile melted her annoyance. She said, “You could’ve e-mailed, or texted, or even called.”

  “I was embarrassed. I didn’t like to think of myself as a coward, or think … that you thought about me that way.”

  She was impressed with his honesty, but wasn’t yet ready to let him off the hook. “So why are you here tonight, then?”

  He looked down. “I was … well … kinda worried about you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  He bit his lip, bashful and, to her, adorable. “Well … Bo-Kate and Jeff … they’re like us. One from each side. It didn’t go that well for them, and there’s no…”

  “No sign it’ll go that well for us?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been asking around. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention your name or anything, just … well, anyway, it’s never gone too well. When two sides go to war, like she said, you know? Love and war seem to be an awful lot alike.”

  The Pair-A-Dice door opened. Several young men emerged to help the band, followed by Snowy and Tain, who headed for their vehicle.

  “It’s going well for them,” Mandalay said.

  “Wonder what the secret is?”

  “He didn’t ask her to change for him.”

  “Is that important to girls?”

  “It’s important to anybody.”

  He looked down. “Well … I like you fine like you are.”

  “I don’t scare you?”

  “Sure you do. But so did my dirt bike at first, and I love it now.” He blushed, although she wasn’t sure if it was because he’d compared her to a motorcycle, or because he’d used the word “love.”

  “Well, I like you, too. But I don’t know if we’ll end up together or anything.”

  “Me, neither. I mean, we’re twelve, right?” he added quickly. Then he grinned. “Want to dance when the band gets ready?”

  “No. Follow me.”

  She took his hand and led him around the building.

  * * *

  Junior watched the others help the band unload, and held the door while they carried equipment and instruments inside. He saw Mandalay and the Somerville boy duck around the corner of the building, and filed that away for future reference. You could never tell what would be important someday.

  A flash of reflected light caught his eye. On the ground, in the middle of the fresh blood splatter, something metallic gleamed. He picked it up, wincing as it cut his finger. It was a tiny axe.

  At the corner of the building, a lone figure silhouetted by the security light watched him. With a jolt, he recognized it as Rockhouse Hicks, but not the way he’d been the last time Junior saw him. He was younger, with black hair again, and he smiled at Junior with a kind of knowing viciousness. He shook a finger in mocking disapproval, then faded into the darkness.

  Goosebumps ran down Junior’s spine.

  * * *

  The icy wind slapped both Luke’s and Mandalay’s bare faces, and tangled her hair. When they reached the edge of the woods and stopped, she said, “Now we can dance.”

  “There’s no music.”

  She laughed. “Just listen.”

  He paused. And faintly, on the wind, he heard the sound of a distant fiddle. It took a moment for him to parse out the song, but then he recognized it from his grandfather’s visits: “I’m Nine Hundred Miles from Home.”

  She put her arms around his neck. “Put your arms around me now,” she said, and he did. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then hold on.”

  And again, if anyone had been there to watch, they would’ve seen two people rise into the cold, windy night, carried aloft by first love and half-seen wings.

  ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

  Both Tuatha Dea and Fiddlin’ John Carson are real.

  You can find out more about Tuatha Dea at

  http://www.tuathadea.net.

  Their album Tufa Tales: Appalachian Fae is inspired by these novels.

  The music of Fiddlin’ John Carson (March 23, 1868–December 11, 1949) can be found in the excellent Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order series from Document Records:

  http://www.document-records.com.

  SONGS WITH QUOTED LYRICS

  Unless otherwise indicated below, all song lyrics are either public domain or original to this work.

  EPIGRAPH

  “Appalachia,” written by Josiah Leming. Copyright © 2009 by Josiah Leming. Used by permission.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,” found on pp 196–197 of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. 3, by Francis James Child (Houghton Mifflin, 1882).

  CHAPTER 2

  “The Snows They Melt the Soonest,” first published in Blackwood’s Magazine (Edinburgh, 1821).

  CHAPTER 3

  “Paranoid,” written by Alice Peacock. Copyright © 2014 by Alice Peacock Music/ASCAP. Used by permission. (The original video for Alice Peacock’s song “Paranoid” can be found here: htt
ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ZQhVd0xFo)

  CHAPTER 4

  “The Unfortunate Rake,” composer unknown, earliest date 1790.

  CHAPTER 5

  “I’m Nine Hundred Miles from My Home,” traditional, composition date unknown. First recorded by Fiddlin’ John Carson in 1924, http://www.secondhandsongs.com/work/29381.

  “Babes in the Wood,” composed by William Gardiner (1770–1853), composition date unknown.

  “Across the Blue Mountains,” traditional, http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/AF014.html.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Home, Sweet Home,” lyrics by John Howard Payne, composed in 1823 for the opera Clari: Or, The Maid of Milan.

  CHAPTER 7

  “The Valiant and Fury Girls,” written by Lou Buckingham. Copyright © 1994 by Lou Buckingham. Used by permission.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Engine 143,” composer unknown, based on the true story of the wreck of the FFV (Fast Flying Virginian) near Hinton, West Virginia, on October 23, 1890.

  “Johnny Faa,” first documented in The Tea-Table Miscellany, 1740.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Poor Murdered Woman,” first published by Lucy Broadwood in her collection English Traditional Songs and Carols (London: Boosey, 1908). Originally collected by Rev. Charles J. Shebbeare from a Mr. Forster of Milford, Surrey, in 1897. Slightly modified by Bledsoe for this book.

  “The Curragh of Kildare,” written by Robert Burns (1759–1796) in 1788, based on the stall-ballad “The Lovesick Maid.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Old Dan Tucker,” composer unknown, first sheet music edition published in 1843.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Sugar Blues,” lyrics by Lucy Fletcher, music by Clarence Williams (1893–1965), published in 1920.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Fire on the Mountain,” traditional, earliest American publication date is 1814 or 1815 in Riley’s Flute Melodies (where it appears as “Free on the Mountains”), and as “I Betty Martin” in A. Shattuck’s Book, a fiddler’s manuscript book dating from around 1801.

  “The Parting Glass,” traditional, earliest reference 1605.