Bone Music

by Alan Rodgers

  For the longest time Robert Johnson lay beaten and broken and disoriented in the place where the bluff met the road.

  And then he began to hear the music.

  Up on the bluff.

  So beautiful, that music. It was the number Blind Willie played that morning he first met Robert Johnson in the cabin on the bluff — “The Ode to Joy,” recut and remade and syncopated into blues, and it was intensely beautiful. Beautiful that morning in the cabin, and infinitely more beautiful now as two hundred giftie bluesmen live and dead played the melody in rounds.

  Beautiful so beautiful Robert Johnson cried to hear it.

  And slung his battered guitar over his aching back.

  And clawed his way to the summit of the bluff.

  When Robert Johnson reached the summit someone gasped and three dozen voices said “He’s here!” and the great King — there beside him at the summit — nodded and whispered that he’d known Robert Johnson would arrive. A murmur washed back and forth across the crowd, and when it subsided the rounding ode reached a new intensity.

  Robert Johnson brushed his hands against one another, trying to clean the grit that’d ground itself into his skin as he’d climbed the bluff, but it didn’t do much good. He pulled his guitar around, and found its strings, caressed its frets.

  And waited for the song to come to him.

  Now he stole a glance at the great King, and saw that the Lady stood beside him. She looked — like a doting wife, almost. Such a strange thing for a Lady such as her! An angel from on high, standing by John Henry loving him like a bride!

  But then John Henry was the King, and when Robert Johnson watched him play he saw that same magnificence he felt when he stood before the Lady.

  “Santa,” Robert Johnson said, and she turned for a moment to smile on him, and Robert Johnson was complete.

  After a while the Eye of the World appeared in the sky above the bluff, and Robert Johnson knew the end was coming for them.

  It was so crazed, that Eye. Battered in a thousand thousand fragments that only held to one another because the Lady loved them so. When he looked at it Robert Johnson knew that soon, too soon that love would no longer contain the Eye, and when it flew asunder the end would be upon them.

  And in a measure as great as any measure could be, that end would be his fault.

  Robert Johnson felt so sad.

  He stole another glance at the Lady, and he saw her kiss the great King and step away into the sky.

  Into the sky and across it, till now she stood before the widening Eye — which opened like a portal to show the great receiving hall in the Mansion called Defiance.

  After a moment she stepped through the open portal.

  Inside that hall ten thousand devils set upon her, as if they meant to tear her limb from limb —

  And Robert Johnson knew that it was time for him to sing.

  As “The Ode to Joy” faded all around him, and Robert Johnson sang the words that Blind Willie gave him.

  The tune was the tune we all know as “When the Saints Come Marching In,” and the first three verses were verses of that song.

  But the third verse was something else entirely, and I can’t recount it here entirely, for the words should burn this paper. But they began like this:

  Now when the moon

  Go down in blood

  Now when the moon

  Go down in blood

  You can hear that much on some recordings, if you look far and wide enough. But you will never ever hear the whole entire.

  As Robert Johnson sang, the Eye of the World went red as fire; and now slowly slowly it descended toward the bluff. As it fell the cracks grew wider and wider still, like bloodshot veins widening until the blood consumed it all, and the moon came down in blood, just as Robert Johnson sang.

  Now when the Crown

  The Lord was off

  Now when the Crown

  The Lord was off

  And Robert Johnson saw that crown, now, though he’d never seen it once before: the giftie’s dearest gift, and it sat upon the great King’s head. It was beautiful and glorious, brilliant as ten thousand jewels, and as the Eye fell to earth the crown tumbled from John Henry’s head and clattered down the bluff, splintering in jewelry as it fell.

  Robert Johnson expected the Eye to fall asunder, but it never did, not even as the devils dragged the Lady down to beat her bloody, no, no, that was the magic of the song that Blind Willie gave him: it was music made of magic, precious of the good Love of the Lord, and where it held the air no foul thing could ever triumph entirely.

  But after two more verses the song was done.

  And when his song was done the Eye of the World burst asunder, till now a great fiery vortex consumed it — engulfing every living thing around it.

  But no matter how the fire could consume him, the great King didn’t yield to it. “Sing!” he shouted, and he played the remade “Ode to Joy.”

  And as his song rose out of the maelstrom, it touched everything and everyone that heard it, and his host sang with him, now, the throng of Kings and bluesmen and Doctors sang and played that song whose heart is God’s dear love for man, and the fire burned everywhere but in their hearts.

  When the devils in the vortex that once had been the Eye heard that song, they ran for the sake of all that they held dear, for no evil thing can survive unchanged if it knows the Love of the Lord, and now the Lady lay alone and broken in the Great Hall of the Mansion.

  The great King, still singing, nodded to Robert Johnson, and now that bluesman picked up the melody in round, and stepped into the vortex to bring the Lady to her feet.

  “Lady, Lady,” Robert Johnson said. “It’s over now, the devils all are gone.”

  In the distance through the vortex Eye Robert Johnson could still hear the song that was God’s Love, and it made him strong to bear the sight of one so beautiful so horribly abused, for the Lady was a bloody ruin.

  “It’s over now,” he said, and then he cried, because he hurt so bad to see her.

  And now finally the Lady roused from her unconsciousness. She looked up, and saw Robert Johnson and the Great Hall and the shattered remnants of the Eye. And she said, “No, no, no, it isn’t done.”

  And she gathered the broken fragments of the Eye, and fit them into one another as though they were a puzzle. She tried to fuse them back to one another as she had so many years before, but the pieces were alien to one another now, and nothing she could do would make them bond to one another.

  As the legions of the damned returned to Lucifer’s great hall, and made ready to devour them once and for all.

  “Sing,” she said, “and your song will hold them all at bay.”

  And then she led him down the corridors of Hell.

  Miles and miles, until they reached that only sacred glade in all damnation — the place where Our Lady of Sorrows met with her Repentance, and found Salvation there; the glade in Blue Hell that once had stood upon the most beautiful isle in all the earthly world; the place that once contained the earthly facet of the Eye of the World, back when the Eye still looked on Heaven. There in that glade beneath the water of her sacred stream she set the broken pieces of the Eye, and the cool clean water surrounded the disparate fragments that were the Eye. They held it true because it covered them, joining them, but it could not weld them whole.

  When she was done, the singers on the bluff collapsed from exhaustion, and the fiery vortex consumed them all.

  When it was done there was not a ghost among them, live or otherwise. The vapors of the hoodoo Kings were pale gasses that could hardly influence a dream, much less walk the earth; and when they were gone the great halls of the Mountain Kings collapsed in ruin, and an awful pestilence fell down upon the people.

  An awful, awful,
awful pestilence.

  A pestilence where things that seem fair were always foul, where people who get their dearest wishes have those wishes destroy them; a pestilence where love and compassion destroy people they never meant to hurt.

  In the years that followed the people came into every gift they’d ever dreamed.

  And then those gifts destroyed them.

  Robert Johnson cried out in agony and loss when he saw the hoodoo masters die. When he cried the song that kept the damned away from him fell still, and in a moment they were on him. He died in an instant, and would have gone to his reward.

  But how could he, when he’d sung that song? He knew that it was true, and he loved it as he’d loved his life. In time he came to have regrets, but no regret could ever mask the truth inside that song — and what repentance ever comes from those who know that they’re right?

  As the fire died, as the earthly facet of the Eye rose (still cracked and crazed, but held together by the only Godly water in all damnation), young Elvis Presley — who’d come to the wooded ridge a-hunting squirrels and stumbled into destiny — wandered through the ashes and the vapors, gaping at the fading carnage. Here in a moment some great bluesman’s bones grew dry and dusty, aging in a moment as though they’d seen ten thousand days and nights of storm and wind; there upon the summit the vaporous ghosts of Kings dispersed into the wind.

  Now it began to rain, and the bones and the ashes and the vapors washed away into the river as though they’d never been.

  As though no King had ever ruled the river delta, and the land were some petty province of politicians and presidents and barons of foul industry.

  But in all that death and devastation, one relic did remain: the great King’s guitar. It lived because the Lady lived. It was she who’d made the hammer that rang like a bell, and as she survived it did as well.

  And young Elvis Presley, stunned and astounded and agog as he wandered through the ruin, found it there.

  And picked it up.

  Carried it away, into his destiny.

  Within the Bosphorus of Hell

  Timeless

  When they’d traveled ninety miles through the Bosphorus of Hell the maelstrom’s intensity redoubled, and here the tiny boat was racked — tossed and tumbled in the fiery channel. A windstorm blew into the canyonlike passage, and with the wind came wet rain that steamed and sparked and spattered hot droplets as it touched the fiery sea, till now the rain became a hot steam fog that hid the rocks and hazards from them.

  “Sing!” Elvis shouted. “You know the song!”

  The boat rocked, and Dan tightened his grip on the rungs beside his seat. It didn’t do him any good. The boat’s keel hit something hard, so hard it damn near shattered. The impact sent Dan reeling across the deck, smashing his head into the starboard side.

  “Not me,” Dan said, pushing himself dizzily off the deck. He was dizzy, and he wanted to puke but knew he didn’t dare, and he wanted to cry like a baby and maybe he did, who can say what a man does in a fog too thick to see? “You’re the King,” Dan said. “You know that song.”

  And that was true, but Dan knew it, too — when he said that song he knew the tune, and he knew he had to sing it no matter what he said.

  Polly Ann began to hum.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she sang, “the storm’s a song / song’s a lover / love’s a tempest / raging in your heart.”

  Dan had never heard that song before, but he knew it all his life. And Hell knew it, too, for as she sang the steamy mist coalesced in droplets all around them.

  “You’re right,” Dan said, and then joined her in the chorus.

  As the maelstrom eased and the wind blew clear to drive them south toward the meridian of Hell.

  The Devil’s Quarter of New Orleans - The Present

  When Emma and Leadbelly reached the great front door of the Devil’s Mansion, an elegant figure — Emma almost thought it was a gentleman, but after she looked him in the eye she knew that couldn’t be — an elegant figure stepped out to receive them.

  “My name is Emma Henderson,” Emma said. “My mother was Virginia. This was once a man name of Huddie Ledbetter, but lately folks have called him Leadbelly.”

  As she spoke Leadbelly grinned, ear to ear; when she was done he took a bow.

  The devil in the tux-and-tails — Emma knew he was a devil because his eyes were slitty snake-eyes, even if the rest of him looked human — the devil in the tux-and-tails nodded, turned sharply, and stepped back into the Mansion. When he was gone Emma asked Leadbelly who he was.

  “I don’t know his name,” Leadbelly said. He smiled wickedly, and Emma knew he was about to lie. “I don’t know much about this place. I only get here now and then.”

  Emma scowled. “I bet you don’t,” she said.

  “I don’t!” Leadbelly said. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  His words rang so hollow that there wasn’t any pretending about them. Emma huffed; Leadbelly didn’t try to contradict her.

  And then it didn’t matter, because the devil with the fancy clothes reopened the door. He greeted them dryly, and showed them to the parlor.

  “Wait here,” the devil said, “until the Master calls for you. Find the hospitality of his house if that please you.”

  Emma thanked him; Leadbelly rubbed his hands.

  “C’mon,” he said when the devil was gone. “We going to roll the bones.”

  Emma gave him a cross look. “I’m not doing anything of the sort,” she said. “I don’t gamble with the Devil.”

  Leadbelly shook his head. “Ain’t no call to gamble with the Devil,” he said. “Remember, luck’s a Lady.”

  Emma frowned again. “Don’t fool yourself,” she said. “This ain’t no Lady’s Mansion.”

  “Get on with you,” Leadbelly said. “You coming or you not?”

  Emma hesitated — and felt suddenly afraid. “You ain’t leaving me alone here,” she said. “What kind of fool you think I am?”

  Leadbelly chuckled; he had a smug and greasy expression on his face. “My favorite kind,” he said. “My very favorite one.”

  He wandered down a corridor lit bright with candelabras, to vanish through a door of beads that glittered bright as jewels. Emma hurried after him, because no matter how she dreaded to see that man gamble with the Devil, she dreaded aloneness in that place much worse.

  Inside the glittering door was a casino, just as Emma had expected; she found Leadbelly standing at the roulette wheel, watching it hungrily.

  “Give me a number,” Leadbelly said.

  “I won’t give you nothing,” Emma said.

  “I said, ‘Give me a number,’ damn it. And I meant it.”

  Emma scowled. “And I said I wouldn’t give you nothing, and I still won’t give you nothing.”

  The wheelman grinned wide and hungry. “Double zero?” he asked.

  Leadbelly grinned back at him. “That’s what she gave me, all right,” he said, and then he placed his bet.

  Which lost — so badly that it cost him double to stay in.

  When he saw that Leadbelly grabbed Emma by the wrist and looked her in the eye so angry, so enraged! “What kind of Lady are you?” he asked. “You ain’t got no kind of luck.”

  “I wouldn’t give you nothing,” Emma said. “I said that and I meant it.”

  The deadman swore. “Woman,” he said, but before he could go farther Emma cut him off.

  “You said my little girl was here,” she said. “You take me to her, Huddie Ledbetter. You take me to her now!”

  Leadbelly swore under his breath, but he seemed to acquiesce. “Okay,” he said. “Follow me down.”

  “What?”

  “Follow me down,” Leadbelly said, and he held out his hand to lead her away —

/>   But before they could go a second step the doorman found them.

  He tapped Leadbelly on the shoulder, and cleared his throat, and the dead hoodoo man whirled around as though he’d been challenged — to see the doorman standing behind him, watching coolly, almost imperiously.

  “Oh,” Leadbelly said, suddenly humble as a child. “Sir.”

  “The Master will see you now,” the doorman said. “He’s anxious that you hurry.”

  Within the Bosphorus of Hell

  Approaching the Fallen City Firgard

  Timeless

  The calm lasted as long as they sang, but no one could sing forever. When his voice grew tired Dan tugged Elvis’s sleeve to urge him on. “You too,” Dan sang. “You too. You have to sing!”

  But the deadman only scowled and turned away.

  “Damn you!” Dan shouted — and when he swore his song was broken. Polly’s shattered too, just a moment later as she gaped at him.

  And then the maelstrom had them. It rose up out of nowhere and in a moment, so powerful and intense that the first blast of it threw them half across the strait.

  The second threw Dan into the bulkhead, knocking him senseless.

  The third tore their sails from the rigging.

  “Sing!” Elvis shouted — but by then it was too late.

  Much, much too late.

  For the gale that dashed them on the rocks was already in the air around them, and no song could have stopped it, no matter how pure or true. As Dan tried to find his voice it lifted them out of the fiery sea, carried them in air across the channel, and broke them on the rocks.

  Damning them forever at the inner sphincter of the Bosphorus of Hell, by the Fallen City called Firgard.

  An age ago the angels cast that city from the precipice of Heaven, and now where once it was an exalted Jewel of Heaven it is a ruin in Hell that writhes with the animate corpses of the damned. It lies on the south bank of the Hellish Bosphorus where that perilous channel meets the Sea of Fire and Ice.

  “Swim!” Elvis shouted, pointing toward the shore. As he shouted the wrecking impact threw Dan off the deck, into the fiery sea —