Strum Again? Book Three of the Songkiller Saga (26 page)

That night was Friday night, and she drove
back to the Tiger club, where the bartender took advantage of a
large clientele to launch into the story she had mentioned earlier.
Joyce stayed over at her mother's house Saturday and drove to the
club as soon as it opened, where the bartender resumed the story
for her and two other people. When the bartender got to the part
where she had been possessed by the ghost of Sir Walter Scott, she
said, "Sorry. Last call. Hope y'all can come back Monday. Bar's
closed tomorrow."

"I have a jewelry party tomorrow anyway,"
Joyce told her.

"Is that so?" the woman said.

"Yes, I promised my friend Margie I'd do it.
She's a nurse. It's not so much the jewelry, you know, though some
of it's nice." She held up the fake opal-and-diamond ring she wore
on her left hand, where a married woman would wear a wedding band.
"It's extra income for some people and then too it's a way to meet
people. Margie works evening shift, so she doesn't know many people
aside from work. You're probably familiar with how it works? I host
a party and get free gifts in return according to the amount of
sales Margie makes and whether or not we persuade someone else to
have a party and so on. I—I don't suppose you'd like to come?"

"Oh, now, I do admire that ring of yours.
Would there be one like that there? Could I bring a friend?"

Joyce felt herself go hot in the face
and realized she had been hoping the woman would come. Over the
last week she'd almost started to think of the bartender as
her
teacher. "Please do. Tell me,
Gussie, have you always been a storyteller?"

"No, ma'am. I never used to do it at all
except for tellin' a joke once in a while. I sort of started when I
met up with Wat—Sir Walter Scott I mean. I swear that man knew all
the stories that were told in legend and song."

"Song too? You've mentioned songs before. Do
you sing then?"

"I have friends who do."

"Well, tell me, what are your fees? I think
it would be great to have some entertainment for my friends so that
the jewelry party doesn't seem quite so crass—as if I'm just
peddling things. More gracious, don't you think?"

"Yes, I surely do agree. And I'm sure one of
my friends would love to bring some songs. We'd appreciate gas
money, and I know I wouldn't mind havin' a chance to get a pretty
ring like yours, but maybe we could work somethin' else out too,"
she said mysteriously.

"Good," Joyce said, a little amazed at her
own daring, and slightly worried too. She decided she may as well
be clear with the bartender about her concern before things went
any further. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention—well, I hate
to sound like a snob, but my job's involved—if you just didn't tell
anyone where you know me from or what you do. I wouldn't want them
to know I drink."

Gussie smiled and her apple cheeks dimpled
mischievously. "No problem, sugar. I'll just tell anybody who asks
that you buy your diet sodas from me."

"You don't mind lying about it?"

"Nah, they don't need to know that I never
charge you. I hope you won't think I've been above myself, but I
never put nothin' in your drinks, honey. Tell me if I'm out of
line, but I never did think you really wanted a drink—just a little
company."

“
I
thought
those must be awfully watered drinks.
While I do admit that I find your presumption in changing my order
condescending, Gussie, I've got to say that your perception was
absolutely correct. And I'm pleased to learn that I haven't
suddenly become an alcoholic after all. Let me draw you a map to my
house."

* * *

Margie was explaining how the jewelry party
plan worked to the women when Gussie and her friend arrived and
shucked off their coats. Joyce was relieved to sec them. The
jewelry was okay, she supposed, but she was bored by the chirpy
presentation and really didn't see anything she wanted for her free
gift. She had already earmarked another of the fake opal rings for
the bartender.

Tonight Gussie was not wearing her pink
jogging suit, but a red tartan skirt and shawl with a white blouse.
She looked the perfect picture of a nice older lady. Nobody would
guess she was a bartender. Her friend looked like a model on her
day off—tall and thin with shoulder-length brown hair, high
cheekbones, large luminous eyes. Her fingers were the longest Joyce
had ever seen, and she was clutching a guitar case. As soon as
Joyce spotted them, everyone else turned their way too.

"Hi, y'all. My name's Gussie Turner. This
here is my friend Terry Pruitt." Terry smiled a smile that was like
a flower blossoming—her rather austere face suddenly was warm,
human, and utterly lovely. Joyce had at first thought that Terry
was wearing a nice outfit too, but up close she saw that it was
just a white cotton T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of
new wide-legged jeans belted with a decent belt, and a vest in some
colorful ethnic print. An earcuff sporting two silver feathers
flashed through a sheaf of Terry's brown hair as she unpacked the
guitar and tuned.

Gussie took command of the room easily, with
a little inquiring nod at Joyce, and, sitting sideways in a chair
in the middle of the group, proceeded to fill the room with her
story and gestures in a way that somehow did not annoy the other
women. Margie was plainly fascinated.

Gussie told them some of the first part of
the story Joyce had already remembered, but made it fresh for her
as well. The difference was that every time she got to an incident
where there was a song, Terry Pruitt sang the song, taught them the
chorus, and encouraged them to learn the rest of the song. Gussie
added, "Learning the songs, ladies, that's how you keep them going.
That's how we keep the world turnin' and keep at bay all that
bedevils folks and makes them want to give up and die."

"For every song you learn," Terry said
in her melodic voice, "every
note
you learn, every
word
you rhyme with another, every time you sing it, you sing away
one shaft of pain, one piece of misfortune, one disappointment. Try
it."

The whole room tried it, tentatively at
first, but gradually some of the women chimed in churchy harmonics,
and then some did a little better. Some couldn't sing at all, but
Terry encouraged them too.

Gussie stopped the story before she got to
anything new and said, "If you want to hear the rest of it,
somebody better give another party and invite us. There'll be more
songs too, but for now I think I'll let Terry sing a couple more,
then we'll be off."

Terry, grinning, dedicated "Health to the
Company," to the audience but then turned to Joyce and said, "I'm
going to play a tune now I composed just for you, for being kind
enough to invite us and sponsor our music. It's called 'Planxty
Joyce Kranz.' "

" 'Planxty Joyce
Kranz
’?" Gussie asked, as if they hadn't
rehearsed this part, which Joyce was sure they had from the comical
bewilderment on Gussie's face. "Is that anything like 'Planxty
George Barbizon' that O'Carolan wrote?"

"O'Carolan wrote lots of tunes with titles
starting with the word 'planxty,' " Terry said, using Gussie's
question as a cue to instruct the audience. " 'Planxty' is an Irish
word that means something like "in honor of" or "dedicated to."
Back in the days of minstrels and harpers, and these days too, a
musician was sponsored by a great house—given hospitality and a
place to play his music and sometimes a salary. O'Carolan had lots
of patrons, and they're the ones he dedicated his planxties too.
Though mostly we do songs rather than tunes, I'd like to offer this
planxty to Joyce for having us here tonight and promise to try to
compose a different one for anyone else who'd like to have a party
like this."

The notes poured out as liquid, sweet and
tart as lemonade on a hot day, as soothing as a cat's purr, as
magical as bird flight. Tony's long hands danced on her instrument,
tripping out the notes of Joyce's own personal song. Joyce had a
sudden longing to know it, learn it, keep it, and suddenly
remembered something.

As soon as the tune ended, she darted down
to her storage locker, where a former lover had dumped his stuff.
Yes, there it was, the old guitar. She carried it by the neck back
up the stairs and handed it to Terry.

"I used to play piano when I was a little
girl. Can you help me learn my song on this?"

* * *

"After that," Ute said to the mounted women
riding with him across the hard-packed earth, "Terry ended up
givin' a lot of guitar lessons, the ladies ended up givin' lots of
parties, learnin' lots of songs, and eventually Joyce started usin'
some of them with her classes—showin' 'em how the great advertising
jingles sometimes had their origins in old, old songs or at least
from ancient or historical themes. Margie, who worked in the
nursery, began singin' lullabies to the babies and eventually
started teachin' them to the mamas. After a time the mamas started
havin' their own parties. Lots of songs got spread that way."

"Whew," said Heather-Jon, "that fairy dust
must have been powerful stuff to affect all those women that
way."

"Could be," Ute said, squinting into the
sun, then taking his industrial-strength sunglasses out of his
shirt pocket and saving his eyes from the rays. "And it could be
that the songs and stories themselves were just that exciting, or
that the women needed them just that much."

"Maybe," Shayla said, twisting on the
designer pockets of her custom-made riding jeans with the built-in
politically correct canvas chaps on the front of the legs. "Pardon
me if I don't believe all sisters are created equally receptive to
enrichment, however, and those were very boring, middle-class
women."

"Not after Terry and Gus got through with
'em, they weren't," Ute told her.

CHAPTER 19

Willie left the bus feeling pretty cocky and
got a ride with the family of one of the other passengers, a
soldier, as far as the outskirts of Abilene. He had fixed the bus
driver good, and the passengers had followed after him like puppy
dogs, wanting to learn more songs. That fairy dust was great
stuff.

The soldier and his family begged Willie to
have dinner with them, to meet the rest of the clan, to play his
music at the family reunion. But Willie was still sick of people
then. He thought for the first several miles of walking along,
guitar in hand, that he was so sick of human companionship that he
never wanted to see another person in his life.

He didn't even try to thumb a ride for a
couple of hours, then his feet got sore, his arm got tired, the
wind picked up and cut through his jeans and jacket, numbed his
fingers and nose with cold.

He cussed himself for not taking the
soldier's family up on their offer. After all, he was here to play
music, wasn't he, not play Greta Garbo? And there would have been
free food, a bed for the night. This stretch of road was not
exactly teeming with motels and restaurants.

A red sports car whizzed past him a whole
lot faster than the law allowed, and he swore as it sprayed him
with dust. A few minutes later he heard the motor roar again, then
he saw it, way off down the long flat road, zooming backward toward
him nearly as fast as it had gone by the first time.

A familiar female face topped by red hair
poked out the window. "Want a lift?"

"What the hell are you doin' here, darlin'?"
he asked her.

"What the hell do I ever do anywhere,
darlin'?" she asked. "Get in."

He was surprised to find that he was
glad to see her, gladder than he would have been, in fact, to see
any of his more human and predictable companions. For one thing,
she liked him for all his worst impulses, and that was pretty rare
in a female of any kind. Of course,
her
impulses tended to be worse than his ... but
nobody was perfect. Now that he no longer had to guard the banjo
from her, he could freely admit to himself that he sort of enjoyed
her. You never knew what she was going to do next.

He piled his guitar and banjo into the
backseat and then climbed in beside her. "Thought you'd never ask,
you gorgeous thing."

"Where to? For someone who's been bustin'
his ass to go out and spread all this sunshine and song around, you
seem to be a little behind at seeking an audience."

He bridled at that. "Goddamn, darlin', I
just finished playin' a gig on the Oklahoma City-Wichita Falls bus.
A man has to have a little time to his own self. And I'll tell you
somethin' else for sure, once I got 'em broke in good, the folks on
the bus were a whole lot more appreciative than those jerks back at
that bar where I met you."

She smiled and stroked his thigh with her
right hand. The hand was exceptionally warm, as if she had been
lying out getting a tan all day and the sun had soaked clear
through to the bone. "Don't you worry yourself about that,
sugarpants. That was just some of my compadres havin’ a little joke
at your expense. You haven't lost a thing, and all kinds of people
will be delighted to hear you. Trust me."

"Yeah, sure, darlin'," he said in a tone
that reminded her in case she'd forgot that he didn't trust her any
farther than he could throw her. He liked that about her, though.
He was getting awfully tired of being around reliable people who
insisted that he be reliable too. It was plain enjoyable to be
around somebody who made him feel like a deacon of the church by
comparison. And one thing about her, being a devil she could never
assume that morally superior tone women had a habit of taking with
a man. He would never ever have to identify her with those
mistreated girls he had become a part of in the ballads. He'd never
have to feel guilty around someone who was so much guiltier from
the get-go than he could ever think of being.