Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

But clear enough to haul down what was left of Pete. I found an old shovel in an outbuilding and buried him away from the cabin, back in the woods. It would’ve been quicker to toss him in the fire, but I didn’t want him with them. Not any more than he was.

I said some words over him, climbed in the RV, and drove through the dark back toward Nashville. I got lost a couple times on those dirt roads, but finally hit a blacktop and got my bearings. Back at Pete’s I put the RV in his driveway and pulled my car out of his garage without anybody seeing me, and drove home.

I had the song with me. I had it in my head. And by God, I was gonna do something with it. I couldn’t tell the truth about how I got it, so I figured I pull that journalistic thing and say I couldn’t reveal my sources. If people don’t believe me, the hell with them. One thing in my favor is that it makes something terrible out of a song everybody loves, and if I’d made it up on my own, I sure wouldn’t have done that.

I kept Pete’s DAT copy of Bertha Echols and played it again and heard something else different. That line about “You are a lovin’ daughter/My father said to me/But before you wed I’ll see him dead…” That wasn’t transcribed right either. Bertha Echols sings it “You are the Lovin daughter” and not “but”—“ So before you wed I’ll see him dead,” like one thing follows the other, and for the Lovins it did.

Once I had all the lyrics in my head, I told my manager about it and he got to work. Boy, did he ever. I’m recording it next week, and Sony’s already offered to buy out my Rounder contract. I’m getting a full hour with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, twenty minutes with Larry King, I’m booked on Prairie Home Companion , but we’re actually gonna spring the song on 60 Minutes . I get the final segment, and they’re flying to Nashville and broadcasting me live singing it for the first time. A straight ahead ballad with guitar, no banjos or bluegrass from now on. Oh no, I’m looking to get back into country, where the money is.

Hell, I can wear a cowboy hat as well as the next guy, and lose a few pounds around my middle, too. Besides, the country crowd aren’t as tough on you as those tightass bluegrass folks if you wanta split from your wife and remarry — or hell, maybe just be a swinger again.

Since Linda left, my love life’s been drier than a west Texas August, but it looks like my luck might be changing. Met a real honey in the Station Inn a few nights ago. Incredible. A ten. Eyes to drown in, sweetest voice you ever did hear, and we been goin’ out every night since. Kinda surprised me she’d be rubbin’ up on a guy my age, but maybe she’s got one of those daddy complexes you hear about. I know she’s got her sights set on this old songbird, because she says she wants to take me home tonight to meet her kin. What the hell, maybe her mama can cook.

A certain chubby mandolin player made a crack about the “old hag” I was with — I knew that boy’s eyesight was bad from the diabetes and the booze, but not that much. He must be near blind as a bat. Or just jealous. Can’t blame him, I guess. It’s pretty damn amazing that a girl like her is sweet on a guy like me. Yep, my luck’s just runnin’ good for a change.

That’s about it, I guess. Tomorrow’s 60 Minutes , and I get famous again. I have to confess, though, I guess my conscience is bothering me a little — not over what I did up there in the mountains, but about whether I should do it or not, you know, take a song that people have loved their whole lives and turn it into something else, something… ugly. But hey, you can’t buy this kind of publicity. If I hadn’t have gotten it, maybe somebody else might’ve. And the money’ll be nice — I got the copyright, and whoever covers it — and there’ll be plenty in years to come — will have to pay old Billy Lincoln.

Yeah, like I say, the luck’s runnin’ good as a spring stream.

But I never did play that last chorus, did I? The last one I heard the old lady sing. Well, okay then, here we go, just in case I get hit by a meteor or struck by lightning before tomorrow night…

Sweet.

“Oh, it’s you Franz, come on in.”

“I’ve come to see Jerry. Is he at home?”

“Of course he is. Where else would he be? He’s always at home nowadays, remember. He’s upstairs, waiting for you, I expect.”

Franz gave his sister a curious look. “How do you know that?”

“I suggested that he call you or another of his old friends.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Possibly. Probably,” Barbara said, pulling the front door shut behind him.

Franz said, “I can hear it in your voice and Jerry sounded very strange when he phoned.”

“Yes, I expect he did.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“The — problem? Well, I’m not sure about that. I’d better let Jerry explain. It would sound better coming from him.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

Barbara gave Franz a wild, slightly irritated look. “Please,” she said, “go on up. He’ll be pleased to see you.”

“You seem almost embarrassed about something, Barbara.”

“Not really, no — it’s not that, exactly — but we’ve both been under a bit of a strain recently, for the past few days, in fact.”

“It shows.”

“Well, you’re here now. Perhaps you can sort things out.”

Franz started to climb the stairs. “At least I’ll try,” he said.

Barbara waited until he was passing the chair lift waiting at the top of the stairs before she called out, “Thanks for coming, Franz. Jerry will be so pleased to see you.”

Franz said, “So you said, just now.”

He walked along the landing, stopped outside his brother-in-law’s room, and waited a few moments before lifting his fist and rapping rather loudly on the door.

“Is that you, Franz? Come on in.”

Franz walked in to the room Jerry called his office. It resembled an office in as much as it contained a large desk covered with a certain amount of paper and a typewriter. Jerry called himself an ‘old-fashioned’ writer. He claimed to despise computers and people who used them and was proud of his antiquated method of producing his and Murdock’s scripts. As far as Franz could remember, Murdock transferred the finished script to respectable Word form, but Jerry was not supposed to be aware of that. Murdock was not present but Franz thought he could detect the faint smell of the man’s horrible cigars hanging in the air.

Jerry was sitting in a wheelchair near the window. The heavy curtains were drawn and the only light in the room came from a big lamp hanging over the desk.

Franz said, “What have you been up to Jerry?”

“Not a lot. We’ve just about put the new series to bed, I’m pleased to say.”

“You didn’t invite — summon — me here to tell me that.”

“True enough. I’d forgotten what an extremely no-nonsense sort of person you were Franz. Forgive my attempted polite small talk.”

“Barbara thinks you’ve got a problem.”

“Hum. Well, it’s not exactly a problem. One that you might be able to solve, that is.”

“What is it then?”

“Something inexplicable, Franz.”

“Go on then, astonish me.”

“Okay. Murdock has gone missing.”