Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

“Look, I’ve been wandering in the woods since it got dark,” Blasco said. “I got lost trying to find that goddamned town, and then I ran out of gas. I tried to go cross-country to a gas station, but once I got into the woods, I got all turned around, and couldn’t get a signal on my cell.” He opened his phone and scowled. “Still nothing. Dammit!” Then he saw the man beside the door. “Hi. Is there a working phone or a wireless connection here?”

“This-here’s a barn,” the old man said. “We don’t let the cows have e-mail or long distance, as a rule.”

The door opened, and two big young men, both with black hair, emerged in a blast of fiddle music. The door closed, silence returned, and one of them said, “Having a problem, Uncle Node?” They regarded both Don and Blasco with suspicion.

“This fella seems lost,” the man called Uncle Node said with a nod at Blasco. “Can you help him find his way?”

“Wow, you’re all Tufa People, aren’t you?” Blasco said between wheezes. “Is this one of the places where you have your ceremonies? Any chance I could watch?”

“What’s he talking about?” one of the young men asked.

“I think he’s a little disoriented,” Uncle Node said.

“We’ll orient him right up, then,” the other young man said. “Come on, friend.”

The two of them guided Blasco down the gravel road into the night. Blasco protested, “Wait, fellas, really, I want to see what goes on….” His voice quickly faded.

“Friend of yours?” Uncle Node asked Don.

Don shook his head. “He came by my office today. He’s one of those Internet bloggers. Had some weird ideas about where the Tufa come from. I told him to go home.”

“Good advice.”

Don’s eyes narrowed. “For me, too?”

Uncle Node laughed. “No, son, I’m sorry. We don’t get too many people just wandering up here. No, you’re Benji Oswald’s great-grandson, you’re family. Get on in there.”

Don took a breath, mentally crossed his fingers, and opened the door.

The stage immediately drew his eye. A banjo picker, two fiddlers, and a girl hunched over an electric piano played a rip-snorting version of “The Queen of Argyll.” The man singing was tall, thin, and dressed at least fifty years out of date. Along the wall lay a pile of instrument cases, some open and empty, others closed while their owners waited their turn. A girl in a cowboy hat and long denim skirt leaned against one of the old amplifier speakers and tuned her acoustic guitar, apparently oblivious of the music surging out around her.

He took in the rest of the room. The most striking thing about the crowd, he realized, was its amazing homogeneity: like him, everyone in sight had black hair and perfect white teeth. The room buzzed with energy, and with sudden urgency he wanted to be a part of it. He worked his way toward the stage.

A young man with a ponytail, his chin sporting a neat goatee, suddenly blocked his path. “Hey,” he said over the music. “Don’t believe we’ve met. Andy Silliphant.”

“Don Swayback,” he said as they shook hands. The music suddenly finished, and the two men awkwardly waited for the applause to end. When it did, Don added, “It’s my first time here.”

He expected some suspicion, maybe a question or two, but Andy merely grinned. “Well, then, let me show you around.” He tapped the guitar case. “You here to play, I take it?”

“Maybe.” He knew he should also ask about Bronwyn Hyatt, but at the moment it felt unbelievably rude. “I sure would like to try.”

Andy laughed. “You’ll be all right. Come on, let me introduce you to some folks.”

He met a dozen musicians of all ages, all with the same Tufa look, all apparently without any suspicion of this stranger. The last was a slender woman with long braids, one upper arm wrapped with a snake tattoo. “We’ve met before,” he said.

“We have?” Bliss Overbay said.

“You’re an EMT, aren’t you? Out of the Cloud County station?”

“Yes,” Bliss said.

“I covered that train wreck last year, where it hit that truck full of people. I saw you there.”

“Ah. Yes, that was a bad one.”

It had been. A freight train plowed into a pickup truck carrying a load of Needsville people to a family picnic. Five people died at the scene, two later at the hospital, and only a toddler escaped unharmed. It had been one of those scenes that kept Don awake for weeks afterwards.

“You didn’t want me to take your picture,” Don continued. “That’s why I remember you.”

She nodded. “And you didn’t. I remember you now. Thank you.”

“This is getting kind of grim,” Andy pointed out. “What’s say Don comes up and plays with us a bit?”

“Sure,” Bliss said. “Do you know ‘Shady Grove’?”

He nodded.

Andy tapped Don’s guitar case. “Then skin that song iron and let’s throw down.”

Bliss looked at him. “‘Skin that song iron’?”

Andy shrugged. “One day I’ll invent a catchphrase, you just wait and see.”

They went onstage as an elderly lady clutching an autoharp said into the center stage microphone, “That’s going to be it for me tonight, folks. I’ll be turning things over to ol’ Charlie Ray Bowles, and believe me, I wish I didn’t have to.” Good-natured laughter followed this teasing. “Here’s the man himself, and y’all drive safely going home.”

A squat little man in an enormous cowboy hat lumbered onstage and over to the microphone. “How’s the wind tonight, folks?” he said, and there was some applause and cheering. “I figure we’ve had enough time for even the ladies to make it back from the facilities, so let’s welcome Bliss Overbay, Andy Silliphant, and—” He looked at Don and frowned. “—and their special guest?…”

“Don Swayback,” Don said as he put his guitar strap over his head.

“Don Stayback,” Bowles said, then did an exaggerated double take. “Man, that’s a weird name. You ever get any dates growing up?” He got a few more laughs than groans, which encouraged him. “I’d rather be called ‘Don C’mon Over Here,’ or ‘Don Let’s Be Friends.’”

“It’s Swayback, not Stayback,” Andy corrected. “Clean your ears with something other than your car keys, why don’t you?”

“Oh, Sway back. That’s a lot better.” The look he gave the crowd conveyed the opposite opinion. “Well, let’s welcome Mr. Swayback and his friends to our stage, why don’t we?”

As the Tufas applauded, Bliss strapped on her guitar, Andy tucked his fiddle under his chin, and the three of them stepped up to the microphone. Bliss led them off and sang the first verse:

Don had spent most of his musical life playing alone, in isolation, mastering chords he lacked the nerve to attempt before an audience. Yet suddenly here he was, strumming away on this obscure song he couldn’t even recall learning, although he definitely knew it. His fingers found the changes with ease.

His eye was drawn to a young woman who stood in one of the open side doors, dancing by herself in slow, swaying contrast to the elaborate contra dancing around her. She looked familiar somehow, as if he’d known her once, long ago in his youth. But that wasn’t possible, since she couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen now.

Suddenly he got chills as Bliss sang:

The lyric described the girl in the doorway precisely. She caught his eye and winked before turning away and fading into the night outside.