Wisp of a Thing: A Novel of the Tufa (Tufa Novels) (25 page)

Hicks is no stranger to hardship. He lost his father, Grannett Hicks, to pneumonia when he was only 4 years old. He was 20 when he got fired from a quarry in Morristown for singing on the job. He then boarded a bus for Nashville and talked his way backstage to meet his idol, Bill Monroe. Impressed by the young man’s courage, Monroe auditioned Hicks on the spot. A week later, Hicks was in Fort Smith, Arkansas, singing on stage with the father of bluegrass.

“You do know who Bill Monroe was, don’t you?” Howell asked.

“Might’ve heard the name,” Rob said dryly. He skimmed the details of Hicks’s brief career, looking for the point things went wrong.

After three albums, and three years with Monroe, Rockhouse finally had a solo hit with “Love Flew Away” and began his only tour as a headliner. But at his third show, he was caught backstage in a compromising position with an underage black girl. The racial attitudes of the times resulted in him being blacklisted, and the girl’s age led to the end of his friendship with Monroe. Although he attempted a comeback on the coattails of the ’60s folk revival, his difficult personality ended whatever chances he had of joining the likes of the Carter Family, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie as icons for the new generation.

“That sounds like the guy I met, all right,” Rob admitted.

Howell said, “I’ve found out some more stuff since then, though. Turns out that story isn’t exactly accurate.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t caught with a black girl. I mean, that would’ve been bad at the time, but the truth was actually kind of worse. Probably the only thing that
could’ve
been worse. I’ve got it on good authority, from more than one local source, that he was actually caught with his pants down … with his own daughter.”

Rob stared at him. His first thought, naturally enough, was Curnen, but that was absurd. This happened fifty years ago, after all. No telling how many kids the old shithead had scattered through the area. “Wow. Did he go to jail?”

“No, nobody pressed any charges—you just didn’t do that to family back then. But it pretty much finished him up as a working musician. He got blacklisted everywhere. And the girl’s boyfriend threatened to kill him, right before he disappeared. That is, the boyfriend disappeared, not Rockhouse. He never came back from Nashville, and no one’s found a trace of him to this day. Everyone figured Rockhouse and the Tufas had something to do with it, but nobody ever got arrested. No body, no crime.” He shook his head. “The Tufa are still like that. They take care of their own problems.”

“Wow.”

“Now, here’s something you’ll get a real kick out of,” Howell said, and handed Rob a yellowed, fragile sheet of paper and three flat pieces of cardboard.

The paper atop the pile was a handbill that read:

ROCKHOUSE HICKS AND THE NEEDSVILLE BOYS WE PLAY BANJO, FIDDLE, GUITAR

Singers of old time songs such as “Wayfaring Stranger,” as well as love songs. We also have yodeling with part of the songs if that’s the kind you like. We’ll supply you all we know if you want that much. It takes 5 to 6 hours to play all we know.

COME BRING ALL YOUR SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS!

Carefully Rob placed the ancient advertisement on the table and examined what lay beneath it. They were album sleeves: all showed Rockhouse Hicks dressed in the exaggerated cowboy gear of the time, grinning and clutching a banjo.

But it wasn’t the clothes that caused Rob’s chest to tighten so much that he struggled for breath. “Holy fuck,” he choked out.

“Something, isn’t it?” Howell agreed. Then he added with concern, “You all right? You’re white as a ghost.”

“I think I’ve seen one,” Rob said. He turned the album cover over and looked at the copyright date: 1959. It certainly didn’t appear to be fake.

“Would you like to sit down?” Howell asked.

“No, I’m … sorry, it just reminded me of something. About my girlfriend,” he added, figuring the lie was infinitely more believable than the truth.

Howell nodded. “Stuff slips up on you. I was in the service in Vietnam. Still happens to me sometimes, too.”

Rob forced himself to smile and sound casual. He held up his phone. “Do you mind if I take some pictures? I’d love to have copies of these album covers.”

“Sure,” Howell said.

As Rob photographed the covers, he tried to calm his thundering heart and put aside the truth of what he’d just learned. It was, by any stretch of the imagination, totally impossible; therefore, it could damn well wait a few minutes for him to think about it in detail. It took all his concentration to keep the phone steady in his hands.

“Too bad my main reporter Don’s not here,” Howell said. “He’s part Tufa. He told me his dad was actually over in Needsville the day the old notions store got Rockhouse’s first record in stock. Said old Rockhouse himself came in, to see everyone buy his new record. The lady working in the store was new in town and didn’t know him, so he asked her, ‘You got that new record by that fella Rockhouse Hicks?’ ‘Sure do,’ she said. And she went and got one, and put it on this old turntable they had up front. They all stood there listening, and when it was over, the lady said, ‘That boy sure can play the banjo.’ Rockhouse kinda snorts and says, ‘Heck, he ain’t so hot. If I had my old banjo here, I could play as good as that.’ She looks him over and says, ‘You can’t play the banjo.’ ‘Yes, I can, I just ain’t got mine here with me.’ So she goes in the back and comes out with this banjo somebody’d ordered from Nashville. She hands it to him, he makes a big production of tuning it, then jumps into ‘Love Flew Away,’ which was his first 45 single. You remember those?”

Rob managed a wry grin. “I’ve seen them in my parents’ attic. What’d the woman say then?”

“She said, ‘How’d you learn that record, it just came out?’”

They both laughed, although Rob’s was mere politeness. He turned the top album over and read the brief liner notes. “A new down-home sound for the uptown crowd,” they proclaimed. “Rockhouse Hicks turns his banjo inside out, with a freewheeling style not seen since Bill Monroe.” A quote from Roy Acuff, in large italic print, claimed Rockhouse was “the best hillbilly picker runnin’ around loose.”

The black-and-white photo in the bottom left corner showed elaborately stitched cowboy boots propped next to an open door. The song titles blended standards such as “Your Cheatin’ Heart” with odd-titled originals like “Rain of Toads,” “My Roots Are Here,” and “Chained to This Spot.”

Suddenly Rob felt a fresh new chill. How weird could this get?

The very last song on his last album was titled “The Fate of the Tyrant.” The poem from the Cricket library was “The Fate of the Tyrant Fae.” Could it be—?

Howell tapped the song title. “That last song isn’t on the album. As I heard the story, he was supposed to record it, and some folks say he did, but somehow between the time the cover was printed and the actual album was pressed, it got taken off.”

“You ever heard him play?”

“No. Needsville is Don’s beat. Tell you the truth, those real pure-blood Tufas like Rockhouse Hicks give me the willies. They have this air about them, like they’re … different, sort of. You’d have to experience it to know what I mean.” He chuckled at his own words. “But I guess you’ve probably run across that.”

“Yeah,” Rob agreed. “They can be very different.”

*   *   *

As he walked to his car, Rob was numb with the shock of the information he’d found. Missing songs, mysterious albums, incestuous scandals: those were interesting—compelling, even—but at least they made sense in the material universe he used to believe existed. A track could be left off an album, an album could fade from popular memory, and of course, a father could molest his daughter. But none of those explained the realization that had turned him pale and breathless in Howell’s office.

The face on the album cover …

… the face of young Rockhouse Hicks …

… was the face of the man who’d told him about the heartache-curing Tufa song, backstage in Atlanta.

23

On his way back to Needsville, Rob topped a hill and slammed on his brakes. Traffic was blocked in both directions. In the rearview mirror, he saw the car behind do the same thing, stopping an inch short of Rob’s bumper.

He sat shaking, his heart pounding. On the satellite radio, Ricky Skaggs sang about Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen.

A pickup had gone off the road and smashed into a tree, and now a state police car, ambulance, and tow truck clustered near it. The trooper efficiently directed traffic, and Rob waited as a vehicle traveling the opposite direction made its way slowly around the wreck. The driver rubbernecked to see details.

EMTs carried the injured driver on a stretcher to the ambulance. The victim was huge, and the two big men carrying him visibly strained with effort. Rob recognized Bliss as the third rescuer, holding up the IV bag of clear fluid attached to the victim’s arm; she didn’t notice him in the line of cars. The ambulance passed Rob as it headed toward the interstate, lights and sirens blazing.

The trooper motioned Rob around the wreck. As he passed, a shudder ran through him as if he’d crossed some unseen barrier. The odd atmosphere of Needsville started at this exact point, and as he drove the rest of the way into town, it only got stronger.

At the Catamount Corner, Rob checked his e-mail and did a quick, fruitless search on the Internet. Evidently Rockhouse Hicks’s musical career had faded so thoroughly that not even cyberhicks who knew every concert played by Uncle Dave Macon could remember him. This both delighted and saddened Rob; the shit-heel deserved it, but at the same time, what a fate to befall a musician who’d once shared the stage with the immortals.

The room phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hi,” Bliss said. Her voice sounded a little odd. “I just finished my shift. Can I see you?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. I’m at the hospital in Unicorn. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

*   *   *

Forty-five minutes later, Peggy Goins pushed open the door behind the Catamount Corner, lit her cigarette, and nearly screamed. Her first thought was that the dark shape huddled beside the wall was a bear cub, which meant the momma bear wouldn’t be far away. Then she sighed with relief.

Bliss Overbay sat on the ground, her back against the building, legs drawn up, and head down on her knees. She still wore her dark brown EMT uniform and cap. Peggy fluttered her hand over her chest. “Lord a’mercy, Bliss, you almost scared me out of my skin. I should be standing here just a skeleton, you know that?”

Bliss’s eyes were red, and tears glistened on her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Peggy,” she said in a trembling voice. “I just didn’t know where else to go. I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t want to do it inside, and I just had to rest a little.…” She began crying again, the kind of big sobs kids make when they’ve lost the battle to be brave.

With her cigarette held safely aside, Peggy knelt and put her free arm around Bliss’s shoulders. “There, there, darlin’,” she said gently. “I know something’s happened—now, you just tell Peggy all about it.”

Bliss nodded. “Uncle Node. He went off the highway in his truck.” She looked up and met Peggy’s eyes. “Right at the county line.”

Peggy’s jaw muscles swelled as she gritted her teeth. “That six-fingered sonuvabitch.”

“It was because of me, Peggy,” Bliss blurted, still crying. “I stood up to him in public, and he couldn’t do anything about it, but Uncle Node was right there with me, and I didn’t think to protect him.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Peggy said, and sat on the ground beside her. The gravel dug into her legs through her starched and ironed jeans as she let the other woman snuggle into her embrace. “You’re not responsible. You’re the regent, not the queen.”

“The queen’s in elementary school,” Bliss said bitterly. “It
was
my responsibility.”

“Bullshit, if you’ll pardon my French. Uncle Node’s been around almost as long as I have, and knew the risk of standing up to Rockhouse.”

“I can’t let him get away with it, Peggy,” Bliss said, resolve finally breaking through the tears. “He hurts too many people. That nephew of his alone has killed how many poor girls who did nothing to him but love him.”

“Honey, ain’t a girl in these mountains don’t know what she’s getting into when she lies down with a Tufa boy. It’s just a shame the Tufa girls can’t do it so easy. But then again, there’s things we do that the boys can’t even imagine.” She remembered the looks on young men above her, long-haired and scraggly-bearded hippie lads, their eyes wide with wonder as they experienced just what a Tufa girl could do in an intimate moment. It had been a time of free love, and Peggy embraced it with a fervor that these now-nearing-retirement men no doubt still wistfully remembered. But that was too long ago in the world’s years to dwell on now.

She nodded at the treetops looming over them. “What do you think is moving them boughs around?”

“The wind,” Bliss said, like a child to a patient parent.

“That’s right. That wind brought us here, that wind still guides us. And she whispers to you far more than she ever has to me. I’m sorry you never got to be just a girl and play and have fun with the boys, but you just weren’t picked out for that. Until Mandalay is ready to step up, you’re on one end of the stick, Rockhouse is on the other. If you jump off, he goes all the way up. And don’t nobody want that, including him, I imagine. Am I right?”

Bliss thought about the rank, primitive place Rockhouse called home, and the solitude he endured because no one from her side trusted him, and no one from his own loved him. They only feared him, which kept them in line but also kept him isolated. She nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You here to see that boy Rob again?”

Bliss nodded.

“That sister of yours has been poking around him, too.”

“Yes. She knows he’s different. She thinks he can help her.”

“Nothing can help that girl. And if he ain’t careful, she’ll latch on to him and pull him down with her.”

“It’s not all her fault, Peggy.”

“No, but it takes two to tango, if you know what I mean.”

“My God, Peggy, she was a
child
. She was
his
child.”