The Blood Ballad (10 page)

“Hey, who's playing the hillbilly music?” Rudy asked, coming into the office.

“Hi,” I said. “This is my grandpa playing.”

“Really? That's neat. Where'd you get it?”

“Some guy…”

“‘Some guy'? Please. Give me more credit than that.”

I laughed. “Glen Morgan, who is the grandson of Scott Morgan.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I've heard of Scott Morgan. How'd this Glen get recordings of your grandpa?”

“Well, you knew the Morgans were neighbors, right? Family legend says that my grandpa
almost
married one of Scott's daughters,” I said. “Which, if what Glen has to say is correct, would have been a nightmare.”

“Why?” Rudy asked.

“Because according to Glen, my grandpa's father wasn't Nate Keith. It was Scott Morgan,” I said. “Of course, I don't really believe that.”

“Why not?”

“Because he seems to have gotten his info from Phoebe.”

“Your cousin?”

I nodded.

“The same Phoebe who claimed she had an affair with Scotty from the
Enterprise
?”

“Not just Scotty from the
Enterprise,
but while she was
on
the
Enterprise
somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant.”

Rudy laughed, but then his laughter faded as quickly as it had come. “Then why do you look so worried?”

I explained to him about the music on the CD being Morgan Family Players songs and how my grandpa had actually written them. “My guess is the original recordings of this were never supposed to be found. They stole those songs from my grandpa. Which lends credence to the other family legend that I've heard.”

“What's that?”

“That sometime they had a falling-out and my grandpa had forbidden any of his children to even speak to that family,” I said. “My dad used to say that even if they headed up the creek bed in the direction of their home and it got back to my grandpa, they all got the spankin' of their lives.”

“Okay … so how does this correlate to your family tree being wrong?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“You're thinking if you didn't know this stuff, what else didn't you know?”

I nodded.

“Well, why don't you call Phoebe and see what information she's got?”

“I don't want Phoebe to know I know about any of this,” I said.

“Why not?”

“It's better not to involve Phoebe,” I said.

“So, what then? Are you going to ignore this information?”

“No,” I said. “I'm going to try to meet with Glen later. After dinner tonight.”

“Oooh, what's for dinner?” he asked. “You gonna make those chicken and dumplings again?”

“No,” I said. “We're going to Chuck's for pizza.”

“Oh,” he said. “That's just as good.”

*   *   *

Glen Morgan had agreed to meet with me. He lived in a suburb of St. Louis, and so I drove up there after dinner. It was dark by the time I reached his house in Kirkwood. It was December, after all, and the days were almost as short as they would get before they would grow longer again. The air was nippy and brisk, and everywhere I looked, houses were decorated with their holiday regalia.

Kirkwood is a great little community, located just west of St. Louis, with wonderful two- and three-story homes with big wraparound porches. Entire blocks were like that, with trees taller than the three-story houses. I passed the train station and then watched for the street that I wanted, turned and followed it down several blocks until I came to the address that Glen Morgan had given me over the phone.

The steps on his front porch creaked as I walked up them and rang the doorbell. I couldn't tell exactly in the dark, but I thought his house was painted a pale yellow with white trim. He answered and ushered me in. The inside of his house was a veritable shrine to his grandfather's music. Everywhere I looked were framed album covers, framed sheet music, instruments, old photographs, and magazine covers.

“Wow,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “It's an obsession.”

“I don't know what to say,” I said. “I'm fairly obsessed, too, when I get on something. But I think you take the cake.”

He laughed. He seemed more relaxed than the other times I'd spoken with him.

“Do you play?” I asked.

“Actually, I'm in a band.”

“What instrument?”

“Uh … gee, I play piano and banjo and harmonica, but with the band, I play the guitar. We played in New Kassel once at one of your musical festivals.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, I had no idea who you were, though. Or I would have introduced myself. Of course, back then I didn't fully understand the connection we have,” he said.

“Yeah, about that…”

“Wait,” he said. He handed me a manila envelope. “These are for you.”

I searched his face for some sort of clue as to what I'd find in the envelope, but I couldn't decipher what lay in his eyes. I opened the envelope and inside were photographs of my grandpa, dozens of them. Mostly, they were of him onstage at hoedowns or box socials with the Morgans. I knew this because I recognized Scott Morgan in the photographs. I also knew from family legends that my grandpa had played on occasion with the Morgan Family Players.

There were a few candid shots in the bunch, one of which was of Grandpa sitting at a picnic table with his fiddle at his chin and a giant watermelon sitting in front him. The smile on his face was one of pure joy. I wondered what was happening at the moment that photograph was taken. Was it a church picnic, or just some local gathering where his mother had hauled out the watermelon and a pie or two and everybody just jammed? That's how it always happened when I was a kid.

“I don't know what to say,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” he said. “Have a seat.”

I sat down, and he offered me a glass of iced tea. “I have to tell you, Mrs. O'Shea, I've discovered the most amazing things.”

“Yeah, about those things, Glen. What proof does Phoebe have about the parentage of our grandfather?”

He smiled but hesitated to speak. “I know this is hard for you. Your reputation preceeds you.”

I smiled, because honestly, I'd heard that before. And let me tell you that my “reputation” isn't always good. Not that it's necessarily bad, just that, well, I can be difficult. Rudy assures me that I'm worth it, but still. Glen had either heard from Phoebe or from somebody else in the family that I'm a bit particular when it comes to other people writing the family history. I've already done it, darn it. I'll admit I'm a bit vain about this, but I suppose it's more than that. I'm the one who worked my fanny off to trace the family tree—a total labor of love—when nobody else even cared. So to have somebody come along and suddenly care seemed both exciting and unfair. Don't get me wrong. I'm not one to hoard my research or my discoveries. I'll share anything I have with anybody who's interested. I believe that genealogy and one's family history should be shared. If people were interested now, that was great. It was fantastic. I just didn't want anyone to come along and tell me that I didn't know what I was talking about after I'd spent twenty-something years of going it on my own.

“Right now, I'm in a very precarious situation,” Glen said.

“Why?”

“There are people who don't want this news to come out,” he said. “By now, I'm sure you've realized that your grandpa wrote a great number of the Morgan Family Players songs.”

“At least nine, judging by the CD you gave me.”

“My family recorded hundreds of songs. Of those hundreds, your grandpa wrote twenty-seven of them, that I know of, and never got credit for any of them. Nor did he get paid for them. And during the Depression, that money could have come in handy, I'm sure. As you can imagine, if word of this got out, Scott Morgan's reputation would be stained and your family would have legal rights to royalties on the Morgan family's music.”

“Right,” I said. When he spoke of my family having rights to the Morgan family's music royalties, I'm fairly certain he meant my father and his siblings. In Jed's case, maybe his children would benefit from this, since Uncle Jed was dead now. But in my case, it would go to my father. If all of this were true, I'd be much more interested in my grandfather getting the credit he deserved than in the money. “So why are you telling me this?”

“Because it's not right, for one thing,” he said. “For the other, if John Robert was Scott's son, then the sin is doubly worse. Scott Morgan cheated his own son out of money and fame.”

“So, all this is out of a chivalrous notion?” I asked. I knew there were people who did the right thing, but when it came to money, more often than not, they didn't.

“If all of this is true, and I believe it is, then John Robert is as much a part of the Morgan Family Players legacy as my father. I want the history of my family right. And adding John Robert to the roster is right, so to speak.”

“What's her proof?” I asked again.

“Letters from your great-grandma to Scott Morgan. They come right out and say that he is the father. I believe, and I quote, they say, ‘The boy looks more like you than any of your own sons. He is yours. How can you be so cruel?' End quote.”

“What's she referring to? So cruel about what?” I asked.

Glen shrugged. “I'm not sure. But those letters were written when John Robert was young. The letters give no indication that she was thinking about leaving Nate Keith.”

“Nor would she,” I said. “It would have been suicide to even think it.”

“I've heard of Nate Keith's … wrath.”

“Nate Keith gave no indication ever that John Robert wasn't his son. In fact, he left him the home place in his will,” I said.

Glen made the palms-up gesture. “I don't know how to explain it; I just know what the letters say.”

I stood then to look at the items hanging on the walls. “May I take a closer look?”

“By all means.”

As I walked to the wall, I got a glimpse of his hallway and a room that I could just see the corner of. It looked like an office. There was a computer, and it was surrounded with books of some sort, sheet music pinned to the wall, and recording equipment. He was in the middle of a big project. I knew, because my desk and office looked like that when I was in the midst of something huge. He followed me to the wall and pointed to the people in the photographs as he told me who everybody was. “That's my dad, Roscoe. This is his sister Miriam, and that back there is their cousin Toot.”

“Toot?”

“Yeah, his real name was Charlie, but they called him Toot. This is my dad's brother Eddie, and, of course, that's Grandpa Scott. Scott had two other sons and another daughter, but they were never in the band.”

“Why not?”

“Uncle George was tone-deaf and just never took to any instruments, Uncle Cletis didn't care about music, and Aunt Em was … touched.”

“‘Touched'?”

“Yeah, not all there.”

“Oh,” I said. I understood a thing or two about touched relatives. “Who's the other woman? Playing the guitar.”

“That's Belle. She was married to Uncle Eddie. She disappeared one night.”

“‘Disappeared'?” I asked.

“She and Eddie had a big fight; she said she was leaving, and she did. Never came back. None of us ever heard from her again,” he said.

“So, I have to ask, where did Phoebe find these letters?”

“She told me her dad had them. When her dad retired last year, they downsized and were going through stuff and found them,” he said.

“If they were letters that our great-grandma had sent to Scott Morgan, how did they come back to be in our family's possession?” I asked.

“I'm not sure.” He shrugged. “Who knows what went on in the decades before we were born?”

“Why did Phoebe contact you?” I asked.

“I suppose she recognized the name of Scott Morgan.”

“And the music? That you just recently discovered?”

“You sound as though you're skeptical.”

“Of course I'm skeptical,” I said. “I've spent my whole life doing this sort of thing, and then out of the blue, my nutty cousin manages to find letters indicating the pedigree of our grandfather is all wrong and you find long-lost recordings that indicate he wrote much of the music for the same family that Phoebe is suddenly laying claim to. Sounds like a scam to me.”

“Scam?” he asked, glancing about nervously.

“Like maybe you're wanting to conjure up some cheap publicity for the Morgan family. What, have you got a book in the works? Are you writing a book on the family and this is your way of getting publicity for it? Introduce some equally talented fiddle player who just never got a break and make him the illegitimate son of your subject, who just happened to write some of the music? It would cause quite a stir,” I said.

He swallowed. “As a matter of fact, I am writing a book on the family.”

“Yes, as I thought. Thank you very much, Mr. Morgan. It's been nice meeting you. I'll treasure these photographs,” I said and headed for the door.

“But there's more,” he said.

“More what?”

“More music where that came from. I've got more recordings of your grandpa.”

“Great, that's wonderful.” I didn't care. I was not going to be a part of this.

“I am writing a book, Mrs. O'Shea, but that's the only part you've got right. Sure, the publicity will be great for it, but I didn't
plan
it. I just got lucky.”

I stood at the door, knowing that if I stayed and listened to anything else that he had to say, it could change the way I thought of everything. If I walked out right then, I could keep my heritage intact. What had I just been thinking about? Those people who tried to manipulate the family tree to be what they wanted? Was that what I was doing? Staring real evidence in the face and refusing to believe it because I didn't want to give up the pedigree I'd come to love? “Where did you get the music?”