Read Online Gutbucket Quest by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page A

work. You see, T-Bone lusted after the power. He didn’t want it for the blues, he wanted it for what he could do with it. Some people are like that with the power, wantin’ it for its own sake.” He shook his head sadly. “That’s real wrong,” he said. “That kind of wanting twists people. It did T-Bone. He couldn’t get his power from the blues, so he’s gettin’ it with money and machines and fear. Truth is, like I done said, the sumbitch owns about everything around. And if he don’t own it, people just like him do. They ain’t so bad, though. They’re greedy, but T-Bone’s the only one trying to get the power. The thing is, no matter how much money and machinery and property he gets, he ain’t never happy with it. He wants everything. He’s still bitter, you see, about not havin’ the blues. So he can’t be happy if people are free just to play and enjoy the blues, he wants to control it. Wants it to be done his way. It ain’t exactly that he’s a bad man . . .”
    Nadine laughed and said, “Shit”
    “No,” Progress continued. “Truly. He thinks what he’s doin’ is good and right. But he cain’t see that it ain’t the good and the right that anybody but him wants. That never seems to matter to him, anyway. He wants all the blues folks to make it into some big business, industrialize it. He don’t know that goes against everything the blues is about, that it would kill it. And we all know that he’s the only one would make any money on it, and if there was someone he didn’t like,well, they just wouldn’t find no place to play, ‘cept on their back porch, if he didn’t own that, too.”
    “Could he do that?” Slim asked.
    “I s’pect he could—with the Gutbucket. That there ain’t a thing to be messin’ with. It’s like a bomb, waitin’ to blow if it’s handled wrong. I don’t have no idea atall just how much power that thing’s got inside it. It could destroy him, I guess, but it could back up and destroy us at the same time. That’s why we got to go see him, try to reason things out with him.”
    “Daddy,” Nadine said. “You know you can’t reason with that man. He hates you more than anything.”
    “Why’s that?” Slim asked.
    Progress looked a little abashed. “Years ago, when he was just gettin’ started, I thought I saw something in him. Took him in as my apprentice and tried to teach him. When I finally had to tell him he wouldn’t never be no good, he took it real hard. Other folks tried to tell him the same thing, but it’s me he blames and hates for it. The boy never was too awful big on carryin’ his own load.”
    “So what do we do if he won’t listen to you?” Slim asked. Nadine pleased him by agreeing with his question and nodding her head.
    “I don’t think he will listen,” Progress replied. “But I got to try. What I think will be, is that we’ll set us up a big blues festival out at the Canadian River.”
    “What good’s that going to do?” Nadine asked.
    “Think about it. That man’s wantin’ to spoil the heart of the blues. Now, you just know if a bunch of us gets together for a festival, he’s gonna be out there with the Gutbucket tryin’ to make it turn bad. That’s when we’ll go after it. We just got to get the right folks to set it up and the right people to play. Remember, it’s the early worm what gets eaten by the bird. We gots to trick him.”
    “Won’t he try to stop us?” Slim asked. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would let it go down that easy.”

    Nadine reached over to Slim’s plate and grabbed a handful of french fries. The unconscious familiarity pleased him immensely. And when she looked at him and smiled, he almost wished for a tail to wag to show his pleasure.
    “I didn’t say it wouldn’t be dangerous,” Progress replied. “But we gotta do it. We got to go after the people we need, personal like. He’s liable to go after them, too.”
    “Who are you thinking of?” Nadine