Alex Bledsoe - Wisp of a Thing

“Yes.” She paused. “You know the stories they tell about mountain people being all weird and cousin-marrying and inbred? They always leave out the reasons. Before there were roads, you could live on one side of a mountain and never see folks from the other side. They might be five miles away as the crow flies, but it’d be thirty miles up and down, and over dangerous trails at that. People didn’t mix much, and there’s still a few people around here who live like that. They keep to their own… for everything.”

For a long moment, the only sound was gravel under the tires.

She continued, “And you really can’t understand unless you’re from here, which I thought you were at first, especially when you found that graveyard. That’s still the damndest thing.”

“But I’m not a Tufa.”

In the light from the dashboard, he thought he saw her smile. “The Cherokee called us Nunnehi. ”

“You know,” he said, annoyed, “I’m getting real tired of you half-assed telling me things. Either trust me or don’t, but quit dangling carrots in front of me, okay?”

Bliss stopped the truck so suddenly, the tires slid on the rocks. When she turned to look at him, Rob noticed her eyes reflected light like an animal’s.

“Rob, this isn’t easy for me. I’m used to keeping secrets, not revealing them.”

“Okay, then, let’s take it one thing at a time. What’s the deal with Curnen?”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Her parents were brother and sister.”

Rob blinked. “And she’s your sister?”

“Yes.”

“So your parents—”

“No, no, we only have the same mother. My daddy was fine. Curnen’s father was… well… an important person in these parts, at one time. And very, very good at getting what he wanted, even to the point of using threats and force. Which was why…” She looked out the windshield at the trees illuminated by the headlights. Dust from the abrupt stop drifted lazily through the beams. “It’s hard to talk about something so personal.”

“I know what you mean,” he said with no irony. “So she’s retarded? Or ‘challenged,’ I think they call it now?”

“‘Challenged’ is better because it’s more accurate. Something was done to her, and she can’t escape it. But she’s resisting it the best she can.”

“Why don’t you help her, then?”

Bliss’s voice choked. “Because I can’t.”

He wanted to ask more, but there was something in her voice, a pain so similar to his own that this time, he reached over and took her hand. At first she allowed it, then squeezed his fingers and pulled her hand free.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It slips up on me, too.”

“Will she hurt me?”

“No. She wouldn’t. If she’s visiting you, she senses something about you.”

“Like what?”

“A… kinship, for lack of a better word.”

“Because of my hair?”

“No. Something deeper. Something painful.”

He started to reply, but the memory of the way she’d snuggled her cheek into his hand overwhelmed him. The girl, like her sister, like Rob, carried around more pain than a being should have to. They were all three bound by it.

Bliss put the truck back in gear and drove on. Light showed through the trees ahead.

“Looks like a good crowd,” she murmured. They rounded the last curve, and Rob saw two dozen other vehicles parked neatly parallel along the road. Past them stood a huge old barn. In the moonlight, the roof sported immense painted letters urging people to SEE ROCK CITY, although Rob couldn’t imagine a lot of tourists passed it. Bliss parked at the end of the line.

Rob had heard many types of singing in his life, but never anything that filled the air like this music. He sat transfixed, as caught in the melodies as a deer in headlights. He distinguished fiddles, guitars, accordions, and each rang with a purity he’d never encountered, as if somehow the song reached directly into his heart and connected with his emotions.

“You all right?” Bliss asked with a knowing smile.

“I hope so,” Rob said. “Unless I’ve died, and this is heaven.”

“What if it’s hell?”

“Like Mark Twain said, heaven for the climate, hell for the company.”

This made her smile. “Come on, I want you to meet someone.”

They grabbed their guitars, and Bliss took the cooler from the picnic basket. Then they walked up the road toward the barn. Rob saw a vast shimmering starfield above the trees, brighter than he’d ever seen before. He blinked as several dark objects quickly flew over just above the treetops, momentarily blocking the stars as they passed. They were too big for birds or bats, but he couldn’t imagine what else they might be. Kites at night?

Bliss stopped and turned to him. “I almost forgot, I have to warn you about something. They’ll offer you drinks. Mostly homemade, but somebody always brings beer. It’s very important that you don’t drink anything except the stuff I brought in this cooler.”

“Why?”

She ignored the question. “I need your word on it. I know you’re honorable, and if you say you won’t do it, you won’t do it.”

“Why?” he asked again.

“I promise I’ll tell you later, and you’ll believe me then. But I need your word now.”

He sighed. “Okay, I promise. I won’t drink anything except what’s in your cooler.”

He followed her up the driveway, and almost immediately the music drowned out the sound of their feet crunching gravel. He didn’t recognize the song, but it carried that eternal, timeless quality only the best tunes embody.

He glanced back the way they’d come. The road disappeared so thoroughly into the darkness that he worried it had vanished. “What if I decide to leave on my own?”

“You’d never find your way out,” Bliss said. “Just like no one who isn’t invited will ever find their way in.”

When they reached the barn door, the dozen or so people gathered there all warmly greeted Bliss. They were big men and small wiry women, dressed exactly as Rob imagined working-class mountain folk would dress. To one side, a prepubescent girl danced on a flat board thrown on the ground while a young man marked time with spoons that echoed the tempo of the music inside. The girl watched her feet with grim concentration, the lace hem of her dress fluttering like a line of white butterflies.

A large man in overalls and an Atlanta Braves cap sat on an old crate at the side door, a cigar box on his lap. Moths and other insects circled the light above him. “Hey, Bliss,” he said as he hugged her.

“Hey, Uncle Node. How are you doing tonight?”

“If things get any better, I might have to hire someone to help me enjoy it.”

“Sounds like quite a crowd.”

“Yes indeedy. Something in the air seems to’ve called everybody out tonight.”

Bliss nodded toward the dancing girl. “Clementine’s getting pretty good at that flatfooting.”

He smiled proudly. “She sure is. I reckon by winter, she’ll be ready to move inside.”

“Reckon so, too. Noah Vanover, this is my friend Rob. He’s a musician, too.”

“Never woulda guessed with that guitar case,” Vanover said with a grin. He offered his hand. “How y’all doing? Call me Uncle Node, everybody else does.”

“Good to meet you, Uncle Node,” Rob said. The man had an immensely strong handshake.

“Quite a shiner you got there,” he said, nodding at Rob’s black eye.

“Tiffany Gwinn,” Bliss said. “Rob stood up to her and lived to tell about it.”

“Now, that I would’ve purely loved to have seen.”

Bliss dug in her pockets and produced what looked to Rob like two small rocks. “This should cover me and him,” she said, and handed them to Vanover. They clattered against other stones when he put them in the cigar box.