Shutratek shouted, “Sak!” then fell at my feet unconscious and dying. She’d had a massive heart attack. I bent to pick her up. I held her head and tried to make her breathe in, but she never did. She never breathed and she never awoke. I closed her eyes with my hand and laid her down. I looked up again at the balloon, climbing ten thousand, twenty thousand feet in the sky and trailing a long tail of white and black smoke.
“Sailor,” I said, “Sailor.”
A moment later, from somewhere above and behind me on top of the stone wall, I heard a voice. I knew the voice well.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEVE CASH lives in Springfield, Missouri, where he was born and raised and educated. After an attempt at gaining a college degree, he lived on the west coast, in Berkeley, California, and elsewhere. He returned to Springfield to become an original member of the band the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. He is the co-author of the seventies pop hits “Jackie Blue” and “If You Wanna Get to Heaven.” For the last thirty-three years he has played harmonica, written songs, perfomed with the band, helped in the raising of his children, and read books. He is writing the final novel in the Meq trilogy.
