Rob.
Everyone in town knew what happened up there in the hills, of course, and reactions were mixed, long-bred suspicion of outsiders, youth, and those demonstrably different tripping tight on the heels of declarations of What a shame about that boy! When the funeral came round, Isaiah Stillman and his group filed down from their camp, sat quietly through the ceremony, then got up quietly and left. More than a dozen townspeople also attended.
When Val told me she was thinking about quitting her job, I said she was too damned young for a midlife crisis.
'Eldon's asked me to go on the road with him.'
'What, covering the latest pap out of Nashville? How proud I am to be a redneck, God bless the U.S.A.?'
'Quite the opposite, actually. He's bought a trailer, plans on living in it, travelling from one folk or bluegrass festival to the next, playing traditional music.'
Buy an eighty-year-old guitar, that's the sort of thing that can happen to you, I guess. Suddenly you're no longer satisfied working roadhouses for a living.
'You've no idea how many there are,' Val said. 'I know I didn't. Hundreds of them, all across the country. We'd be doing old-time. Ballads, mountain music, Carter Family songs.'
No doubt they'd be an arresting act. Black R amp;B man out of the inner city, white banjo player with a law degree from Tulane. Joined to remind America of its heritage.
'I wouldn't expect to take the Whyte Laydie, of course.'
'You should, it's yours. My grandfather would be pleased to know that it's still being played.'
'And how very much it's revered?'
'He might have some trouble getting his head around that. Back then, he most likely ordered it from the local general store, paid a dollar or two a week on it. Instruments were tools, like spades or frying pans. Something to help people get by.'
We were out on the porch, me leaning against the wall, Val with feet hanging off the side. Bright white moon above. Insects beating away at screens and exposed skin.
Val said, 'I'd never have come to this place in my life without you, you know.'
'Right.'
'I mean it.'
I sat beside her. She took my hand.
'You have no idea how well you fit in here, do you? Or how many people love you?'
I knew she did, and the thought of losing her drove pitons through my heart. Climbers scrambled for purchase.
'This is not just something you're thinking about, then.'
She shook her head.
'I'll miss you.'
Leaning against me there in the moonlight, she asked, 'Do I really need to say anything about that?'
No.
She stood. 'I'm going to spend the last few days at the house shutting it down. Who knows, maybe someday I'll actually complete the restoration.'
I saw her to the Volvo and returned to my vigil on the porch, soon became aware of a presence close by. The screen door banged gently shut behind her as J. T. stepped out.
'She told you, huh?'
'A heads-up would have been good.'
'Val asked me not to say anything. I don't think she was sure, herself, right up till now. Amazing moon.' She had a bottle of Corona and passed it to me. I took a swig. 'Talked to my lieutenant today.'
Hardly a surprise. The department was calling daily in its effort to lure her back. Demands had given way to entreaty, appeals to her loyalty, barely disguised bribes, promises of promotion.
'Be leaving soon, then?'
'Not exactly.' She finished the beer and set the bottle on the floorboards. 'You didn't want the sheriff's position, right?'
'Lonnie's job? No way.'
'Good. Because I met with Mayor Sims today, and I took it.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Obviously it was my time for surprises. And for mixed feelings. Wounded at the thought of Val's departure, nonetheless I was pleased that she'd be doing what she most loved. The two emotions rode a teeter-totter, one rising, the other touching feet to earth-before they reversed.
And J. T.? As my boss? Well…
I gave some thought to how she, city-bred and a city-trained officer, would fit in here. But then I remembered the way she and Moira had sat together up in the hills and decided she'd do okay. It goes without saying how pleased I was that she'd be around.
I was considerably less pleased when Miss Emily chewed a hole in the screen above the sink and took her brood out through it.
Because I considered it a betrayal? Because it was yet another loss? Or simply because I would miss them?
I was standing in the kitchen, staring at the hole in the screen, when J. T. swung by to see if I wanted to grab some dinner. She had moved into a house on Mulberry, or, more precisely, into one room. The house had been empty a long time, and the rest would take a while. But the price was right. Her monthly rent was about what a couple in the city might spend on a good dinner out.
'They're wild animals, Dad, not pets. What, you expected her to leave a note?'
'You think she moved in just to be sure her offspring would be safe? Knowing all along she'd leave afterwards?'
'Somehow I doubt possums very often overplan things.'
'I thought…' Shaking myself out of it: 'I don't know what I thought.'
'So. Dinner?'
'Not tonight. You mind?'
'Of course not.'
Some time after she left, second bourbon slammed down and coffee brewing, the perfect response came to me: But we slept together, you know, Miss Emily and I.
Rooting through stacks of CDs and tapes on shelves in the front room, I found what I was looking for.
It had been one of those drawling, seemingly endless Sunday afternoons in May. We'd grilled chicken and burgers earlier and were dipping liberally, ad lib as Val kept insisting, into the cooler for beers, bolstering such excursions with chips, dip, carrot sticks, and potato salad scooped finger-style from the bowl. Eldon sprang open the case on his Gibson, Val went inside to get the Whyte Laydie, and they started playing. I'd recently had the cassette recorder out for something or another and set it up on the windowsill in the kitchen. Just about where Miss Emily and crew went through.
'Keep on the Sunny Side,' 'White House Blues,' 'Frankie and Albert.' No matter that lyrics got scrambled, faked, or lost completely, the music kept its power.
'We should do this more often,' Val said as they took a break. I'd left the recorder running.
'We should do this all the time.' Eldon held up his jelly glass, half cranberry juice, half club soda, in salute. Only Val and I were dipping into the cooler.
Soon enough they were back at it.
'Banks of the Ohio,' 'Soldier's Joy,' 'It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels.'
I left the tape going and went back out onto the porch. Just days ago I'd been thinking how full the house was. Now suddenly everyone was gone. Even Miss Emily. Val and Eldon shifted into 'Home on the Range,' Eldon, playing slide on standard guitar, doing the best he could to approximate Bob Kaai's Hawaiian steel.
