Read Online Long Black Curl by Alex Bledsoe - Free Book Online

him. The Tufa might not be entirely human, but they were close enough that mortality could hum in their ear in many of the same ways.
    Then he heard whistling, and stopped to listen. It grew louder, and then Junior Damo appeared on the trail above him, coming down the mountain and jauntily twirling a stick.
    He cut off in midnote when he saw Marshall.
    â€œWhat are you doing, Junior?” Marshall asked.
    â€œMight ask you the same thing,” Junior shot back.
    â€œMight, but I asked you first.”
    â€œJust taking a walk.”
    â€œGood God, Junior, that’s the worst lie I’ve heard this week, and I had to talk to a state senator on Wednesday. But you can save me some trouble. How is Rockhouse?”
    â€œWhat makes you think I’ve seen him?”
    â€œThere ain’t a goddamn other thing on this mountain besides him that could get either one of us out here, that’s what.”
    â€œWhy do you want to see him?”
    â€œDamn it, Junior, I’m not in the mood.” He made a quick, decisive hand gesture, one that asserted his status in the Tufa hierarchy. “Now, tell me. ”
    Junior sighed. “He’s been better.” When Marshall glared at him, he continued, “Somebody done come along and cut off two of his fingers. Them extra pinkies he had.”
    Marshall kept his face neutral. “Somebody like you?”
    Junior held up his own hands defensively. “Not me, man, I swear. Somebody got there before I did.”
    â€œWhich brings me back to why you were there in the first place.” When Junior still didn’t answer, Marshall shook his head. “Junior, I don’t know who’ll end up taking Rockhouse’s place, but it ain’t gonna be you. You don’t even scare me, and I’m almost as old as Rockhouse.”
    â€œMaybe it ain’t about scaring,” Junior said. “Maybe it’s about pushing past where we been. Rockhouse wouldn’t never even think about that. Maybe it’s about time somebody did.”
    Marshall blinked in surprise. The same issues had come up among his half of the people, the ones governed by the First Daughters and protected by the Silent Sons. Bronwyn Hyatt, after her stint in the army and her now-famous rescue in the Iraq desert, insisted the Tufa could not continue the way they had for so many generations. And Mandalay seemed to sympathize with that idea, although she’d made no changes yet. “Damn, Junior. That’s downright insightful.”
    Junior said nothing, but Marshall thought he blushed.
    â€œBut I still got to climb up there and see the old man for myself.”
    â€œHe ain’t much to see.”
    Marshall smiled wryly. “He never has been, has he?”
    *   *   *
    Mandalay climbed down the hill slowly, high-stepping through the drifts stacked by the wind. Whatever lay down in this hollow, just off Skunk’s Misery Road and on land owned by the Somervilles, had been calling to her with an urgency that only grew stronger the closer she got. It pulled her off the road and into the forest despite the weather and encroaching evening. She couldn’t tell what it was, though; it seemed to exist in a fog of perception, hiding from her by ducking out of sight whenever her mind’s eye landed on it.
    But now she could tell that it had a tune: “I’m Nine Hundred Miles from My Home.” She recognized it from the few clear notes that cut through the mental and magical noise. She’d heard many versions and with many changes, but the one that always spoke to her most—and that this half-heard song seemed to mimic—was recorded by Fiddlin’ John Carson back in 1924.
    You can count the days I’m gone
    On the train that I left on
    You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles
    If that train runs right
    I’ll be home tomorrow night
    Lord, I’m nine hundred miles from my home.
    At last she had to stop,