Bluegrass Symphony

by Lisa L. Hannett

  Heavy woollen curtains, three layers deep, were draped in front of the windows. These were . . . new? I fumbled at the unexpected fabric, trying to recognize it, trying to situate it in my memory of this room. Light streamed in through the windows the night they came. I searched for the split between panels. Light streamed in through the windows the night Ma died. In the end, I felt my way to the edge: the material was fastened to the wall with staples or pins. Furious, I dug through the layers, through the metal. How dare they? I thought, tearing to unveil Ma’s picture window. How dare they.

  “The light! Close it, close it!”

  Her voice was a hot poker up my spine. I jumped and spun to see Ma cowering on the couch. She crab-walked into the shadows, looking at me between strands of lank hair. Her figure was wizened beyond recognition. Bones protruded from her chest and shoulders, visible through her threadbare gown. The curve of her stomach was the inverse of mine, despite the litter of rabbit and cat bones on the floor. She continued to plead that I cover the windows—I responded by standing and staring. Her mouth, double-fanged like a panther’s, stretched wide; it unleashed a wail of illness and starvation that sent me scaling a rickety chair. Hooking darkness and silence back into place.

  Despite my efforts thin shafts of light oozed in, sluggish with dust. Ma’s eyes were glassy as she moaned, “Stop haunting me.” Knees pulled to her chest, she rocked back and forth mumbling, “Oh Ada, oh my Ada. Jesus Christ, please stop haunting me.”

  Ice water ran through my veins. “I’m here, Ma.” She continued her mantra, her rocking. “Ma, I’m here.” I hurried to her, arms outstretched. “I’m home. Look: I’m home. I’m home.”

  “Liar!” The force of her anger was enough to give me whiplash. “That’s what you always say—and it just ain’t true, Ada. It ain’t true. . . .”

  My knees buckled and I dropped to the couch. “No, Ma.” I spoke quietly to keep the tremble from my voice. She looked at me sideways, sniffed and tasted the air. “Liar.”

  “That’s the hunger talking, not you.” I inched closer, gently laid my hand on her shoulder. I wanted to pull her to me, to fill the gaps between her bones with my tears. But I recognized the look on her face: Mister Pérouse wore it each time my bloods drew near. “Look at me.”

  She turned away.

  “Look at me.” I cradled her chin in my hand, not pressing too hard for fear of breaking her. Forced her to see me. To accept me as real. Thinking of the jars I’d kept stacked beneath the front porch, I repeated, “I’m here, Ma. I’m here, and I’ll feed you.”

  Her hallucinations must’ve never made such an offer. She blinked slowly, focusing her gaze.

  “Ada,” she croaked. When she frowned the tips of her teeth caught on her bottom lip, distorting her mouth in a maniac’s grimace. I wondered which of her fangs would produce the milk, the blood. Which ones I should drain first. She looked down, stared at my belly—her expression frozen between joy and horror. Saliva wet on her lips.

  “Oh, Ada.” She got up, searched for something on the coffee table, on the armchair, the dining hutch. “Oh, Ada. My baby.”

  “I kept my blood-rags safe, like you said.” I twisted in my seat, followed her bewildering progress from room to room. “You can have them—might not be fresh, but—they’re yours. You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten.”

  Dishes smashed in the kitchen, pots and pans clanging as Ma pushed them aside.

  “I remember exactly where I hid them,” I continued, clearing a path to the front door. “Just outside—”

  “No!” Ma raced over, clasping a hammer. “Don’t leave.” Her eyes were wild, her breathing frantic. “I swear I ain’t never gonna touch a drop from you—from neither of y’all. Them bloods ain’t mine, baby. They’s yers. All I ask is for you to stay. I swear to God.”

  And before I could stop her, she kept her promise. Twice the hammer connected with her mouth, an unholy collision of flesh and iron. “Don’t leave me alone.”

  Her words bubbled red as she spat shards of teeth on the floor.

  Banjo gathers Ma’s few belongings, I collect mine. There’s nothing more for us to say: no apologies, no forgiveness. One’s not his to give, the other’s not mine to request. For now, that’s enough.

  We wait until nightfall to bundle Ma into Banjo’s truck, swaddled in the first cloak she ever sewed: hooded black felt, fringed in elaborate lace. The iron tang of her injury follows us outside. I brush it away with the flies.

  “Keep safe,” Banjo says, handing me a shotgun and a pouch of ammunition. From its heft, it’s filled with enough lead to last until doomsday. Messy bullets, these. The thought of testing them on Mister Pérouse makes me smile. I keep one eye on the horizon, but neither my master nor my father show by the time we say our goodbyes. I check Ma’s seatbelt, kiss her forehead, and swear I’ll visit soon.

  Her words are muffled but I can hear the smile behind them. “That’s what you always say, Ada.”

  No point in waiting until morning; I’ve grown accustomed to night. Before I leave, I take one last tour of the house. I don’t take anything more than I can carry: a sleeping bag and tarp, a good coat, one of Banjo’s old packs. A sackful of Ma’s finer creations to sell or to cherish—at this stage, I’m not sure which.

  Her boots, good as new. Comfortable on my swollen feet.

  I tip the candles we lit in the sitting room, wait to make sure they catch. The carpets, curtains, couches wick the eager fire, spread it rumour-fast. Soon the whole house is ablaze. Walking out, I leave the door open.

  My lungs stretch full with fresh air.

  Flames gnaw at the veranda, chew away the front porch. As I hike down the driveway, I can hear jars shattering, popping. I smile. None will find them now. The heat of my past is warm on my back; before me is only darkness. Gusts of fiery wind urge me forward and I comply. It’s time to move. I won’t go far; just far enough to be both here and away. To stay alive and reacquaint myself with this land; its lore and its language. Maybe I’ll study Ma’s pieces, teach myself to sew. And when my daughter is born and can wield the right tools, maybe I’ll teach her too. With each stitch she’ll discover our history: Ma’s and mine. Hers. A child made for darkness, she’ll be my beautiful shadow as I walk across fields drenched in sun. Wherever we end up, when she’s draped in suits of our making, my girl will know where she belongs.

  And when it’s time, be it a dozen years from now or sixty, she’ll know where to bury her blood.

  The Wager and the Hourglass

  Never cross a man who smokes his own soul leaf cigars.

  In the litany of Daddy’s warnings, this is the only one he enforces and breaks in the same breath. The very day the Mayor’s eyes first weighed the roundness of my thighs and the child-bearing strength in my back, Daddy strapped a delivery satchel across my shoulder, perched me between Springwell’s wings and sent me messagin’ from one province to the next. Out of sight is off the bartering table, Daddy still says, knowing the Mayor can’t hogtie me with a wedding band when I’m in some far-off corner of Alabaska or down a dark hole like Tapekwa County.

  Being away don’t bother me none. Over the years, I met enough friends to fill a circus, so there’s always a warm bed for me on the road. And when there’s not I come home, stay an evening or two, let Mamma catch me up on the Mayor’s latest doings. How he burns cheroots packed with soul slivers so fine he must’ve collected them since he was a boy; how he goes on using all that hard-bought power to fill his coffers, in one way or another, without caring who it helps or harms. Daddy gets edgier by the minute when I’m ’round. Soon as the gossip’s left Mamma’s lips, he fills my pack and saddlebags with at least a week’s worth of parcels; tells me to be safe, but be gone. It’s not an act of open hostility on our part, this keeping me scarce, not really an obvious affront. Xavier Grace always aims for subtly in his dealings, ’specially when they involve folk like
Alimunny Maldoon.

  Unlike his daughter.

  Back in Plantain for less than a day and already I botched Daddy’s plans good and proper. Three arrows jut from my ribs, stretching like quick-movement lines from my back. They clack together and against my bones whenever Springwell lands a hoof. Clenching my teeth, I lean forward and dig my spurs into his heaving sides, praying for shock to work its numbing magic. For now, I have to ignore his frightened whinnying, just like I’m ignoring the agony soaking through my best shirt. Until we’ve played the Mayor’s game, neither of us has time to stop for pain.

  Neck straining toward the first of three county lines, muscles frothing as twilight grips the horizon, my steed gallops with an urgency that echoes the throb in my chest. Springwell would fly to save my hearts; the one pounding between my lungs and the other marking each minute, each second, leaking life into my satchel. He would fly, if he still could. But how does Daddy’s saying go? Beware the slip between mind and lip? A couple measly words lodged in the wrong ear, a few more sent to hook the first ones back—and here we are. Bloodied and running from the saloon, Springwell’s shoulders a mash of bruise and broken bone, his white wing feathers snapped and dragging through the muck. Who knows what stung the Mayor’s pride more, Cord’s careless boast or the one I flung, meaning to distract. You might say a quick tongue’s what’s left my windcharger in a state no sawbones can fix—then again, anyone who’s had dealings with Maldoon knows that when it comes to the cause and effect of things, it don’t pay to go with the obvious.

  Already sand streams from my bag, and we’re not yet clear of town. Grunting like an old hog, I stand in the stirrups and nearly pass out as the arrowheads make nasty with my kidneys and spleen. I hike my skirt up—a hell of thing to be wearing for this type of riding, but getting ready this afternoon I’d planned on drinks, maybe dinner, not a goddamn race against the clock. One-handed, I try to catch the shimmering grains in layers of long paisley fabric. And I watch as they fall like breadcrumbs to the ground, tracing my path back to Cord.

  Dust from Springwell’s drumming hooves falls on Main Street, but there’s few folk around to disturb it. From the corner of my eye I see Jake and Lew closing the barber shop’s shutters, young Bluet barring the grocer’s doors, dark-haired tanners from down Nippissing way dropping tarps over market stalls. None paying me no mind, or so they’d like me to think, then making themselves scarce as their wares.

  “Fucking cowards,” I whisper, too breathless for yelling, ’specially when my heart’s not really in it. I can’t blame them for keeping their eyes down. Though no one’s been to the polls in a dozen-odd years, election posters still hang from each light post and eave. The Mayor’s wild hair, too white for his years, strains against handbill borders like it wants to reach out and trap us all in its web. Lining the roadside, black shoestrings tie his jowls in place on billboards twice the size of Connelly’s barn. Rows of pennants stretch from rooftop to rooftop; each fluttering triangle bears Alimunny’s thick-lipped smile, and his ever-present havana.

  Twisting my fingers through Springwell’s mane, I kick him a good one. Speed makes my eyes water and blurs the Mayor’s papery faces, but it don’t shake the image he’s left in my mind. Sweat beading on his round cheeks in the smoky, half-lit saloon. Arm stretching across the blackjack table, hand reaching for Cord. Holding my gaze as his wrist twists, jerks. Holding time in his hand, leaving a fleshy shell on the table. All while puffing on his cigar, head wreathed in a grey cloud of power.

  The lingering taste of his tobacco is sour as foolish words on my tongue.

  “C’mon, Spring!” I lash out with the riding crop, striking my windcharger’s sleek flanks. Over and over, the leather whips up and down, each stroke sending lightning pain through my body. The bag wrapped in my skirt is getting too light, too fast. “C’mon, c’mon!” I flog my horse with every ounce of self-loathing I can muster, as if it’s his fault I’m an idiot.

  Daddy thinks mistakes are like bulls. You can’t wrangle either with your back turned, he says. Look the beggars in the eye, else run the risk of being chased down and gored.

  He can’t always be right, my Daddy.

  Only way to fix things is to run, and fast. Across three counties before losing a life’s measure in sand. Keeping my smart mouth shut, my whip thrashing. Praying Springwell’s legs will hold up; that the hourglass in my bag won’t stop pulsing; and that when I cross the finish line, it won’t be as the wife of one Alimunny Maldoon.

  The Mayor don’t own much in this town. A few hundred cattle, an oil field that ain’t drawn nothing but dirt for decades. Like most folk ’round here, he’s got shares in the bank and interests in old Milo’s stockyard. Nothing special, apart from his house. Two storeys tall, with pillars out front that serve no purpose but to show he’s got the coin and the wherewithal to haul redwoods here all the way from the west coast. The great white monstrosity sneers from a hilltop, its grandeur deriding the plywood sheds the rest of us call home. This mansion, with its fresh paint and huge empty rooms overlooking Main Street, is the Mayor’s only outright possession. But as he strolls down the long drive with his walking stick swinging, he tilts his head and surveys the town as though he were looking in a mirror. In every dusty corner, every swinging shop sign, every pane of smeared window glass, Maldoon sees himself reflected. Daily he patrols the late afternoon streets, shaking folks’ hands, sampling their wares, offering advice where it ain’t needed, asking questions only to supply his own answers. Like a jealous beau checking his girl for hints of two-timing, the Mayor inspects Plantain’s every mile, marking his territory with well-chosen words and a repertoire of seigniorial glances. Then he goes to the Highway Robber for an hour or so, reassured the town remains loyally his.

  That proprietary look—the half-cocked chin, the money-countin’ squint—got deeper as he entered the saloon and saw me sitting at the blackjack table, sipping a mint julep while Cord tried his luck on the cards.

  There was no crowd to speak of, not at that early hour. Just the bar staff, the diehard card sharps, and a boozer whose missus had lately found Jesus. Lingering by empty booths, a handful of girls wearing strategically loose sundresses kept the joint looking pretty, but left us as exposed to the Mayor’s scrutiny as their pale, well-fondled tits.

  “Evenin’, Herramiss,” Maldoon said, addressing me by my first name as though we was pals, his cane thumping in time with his confident gait. Slinking behind the croupier, he placed a hand on the small of her back and nodded for her to go take a break. Flushing, the girl snatched her purse from under the table, then got out of the way as the Mayor hung his cane on the ledge.

  “Alimunny,” I said, taking the same liberty he had, avoiding titles and formalities.

  “Up for a bit of a game, are we?” He picked up the deck and started shuffling, gaze never leaving my face. Slowly, slowly, the cards slipped through his fingers. They snicked one by one on felt worn thin with the grease of desperate, sweaty palms. Two for Cord, two for me, two for the dealer.

  “I ain’t playing,” I said. He flipped the first card, feigned surprise to find the ace of hearts staring up at him. His head tipped so slightly in Cord’s direction you could almost think the movement was natural.

  “You sure? Looks to me like you are.”

  Oblivious, my date examined the hand he was dealt. “Hit me.”

  Maldoon smirked. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Alimunny—”

  “Tut, tut,” he clucked, pushing a card across the table, leaving it trapped beneath his fingertips when Cord tried to take it. “Such a nasty tone to use between friends.” Straightening up, he pulled the card away. “It’s no fun for anyone when you stay so aloof. Always out of reach ain’t you, Ms. Grace?”

  Cord turned his big hazel eyes at me, then looked at Maldoon. “Y’all know each other?”

  Now, I’m not one to waste time answering stupid question
s, so me and Cord don’t talk overmuch when we’re together. To be fair, guys like him, them that worked ridiculous long hours in Connelly’s chook shed next county over, ain’t renowned for their thinking. But his brown hair curls down his neck just the way I like, long enough to grab hold of if the mood’s right, and his butt simply begs to be smacked. Though it ain’t always verbal, we converse well enough our own way.

  My hand sought and squeezed his thick, warm fingers. “Babe, this here’s the Mayor of Plantain.”

  “How d’ya do.” Maldoon resumed his dealing, eyes and hands steady. “Y’all been together long?”

  What he didn’t say, but what I could read in his posture, his calculating glance, his concentrated placing of a single card in front of my date, was Long enough for you to miss him, if’n when he’s gone?

  Cord chuckled. “Herramiss brung me my pink slip a few months back. That Connelly’s a whoreson, ain’t he? Getting an angel to deliver the devilest news I ever got.” He tapped his finger for another card, then winked at me. “I reckon she keeps callin’ on me out of pity.”

  My laugh was forced. “Least you know I ain’t after your money.”

  Any other man would’ve taken offence at that, but not Cord. He just smiled, laid his cards on the table and said, “Twenty-one.”

  “And dealer busts.” Maldoon counted out Cord’s winnings, tossed him the chips. He anteed up for another round while the Mayor drew a thick cigar from his jacket’s breast pocket. Biting off the end, he called one of the saloon’s cigarette girls over to light it for him—which she did with heel-clicking swiftness.

  Tinged with red, the smoke smelled of cloves and burnt hair. He breathed deep, held the soul fumes in his lungs for two heartbeats, exhaled in tight-throated bursts. Most smokers’ faces relax after taking those first few drags, but not Maldoon’s. His inhalations were methodical: in, hold, out; in, hold out. Concentrated gearings-up for something worth burning a piece of his own soul to get.