The Gutbucket Quest

  Be honest with himself. That was hard. There was so much he’d prefer to keep hidden. And how could he be honest with himself when he wasn’t sure, anymore, who he even was? There was so much hurt piled over him, much of it his own fault. But pushing him on was Nadine, and the hope she offered. Maybe, he thought, he could wrap himself around that hope, center on it and stand out from there. He’d find a way to put his playing through that hope and have it come out saying what he wanted it to say.

  “Slim?” Nadine said suddenly.

  He was jarred out of his thoughts. “Yeah?”

  “We have trouble, I think.”

  “What you mean?”

  “There’s a car that’s been following us at least the last few miles. I’ve been going nowhere and back trying to lose it, but it’s been staying right on us.”

  Slim turned and looked through the rear window. A black sedan was close behind them, matching their speed, seeming to make no attempt to conceal its pursuit. He couldn’t identify the car or see the driver, but it gave him a bad feeling. As he watched, it put on a burst of speed and began to catch up with the pickup. Before he realized what was happening, or could warn Nadine, the car rammed into the rear of the truck. The jolt knocked his face into the window and he could feel the pickup wobble and slew on the road as Nadine tried to get it back under control.

  “Shit” Slim said. “I think they’re tryin’ to kill us.”

  The car hit them again and the truck’s rear wheels slewed around on the dirt road. Nadine stepped on the gas and the truck jumped forward with more power than Slim would have expected. He looked over at Nadine and saw a look of intense concentration and rage on her face.

  “Sons of bitches” Nadine yelled.

  As incongruous as it was, Nadine’s yell made Slim laugh. He was holding on to the back of the seat, his arm around Nadine. When the car hit the rear of the truck, the seat was forced back, pinching his fingers. He didn’t move his arm, but he held on more carefully.

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  “Hold on.”

  Nadine turned the truck. It slid sideways on the soft dirt road, but she held on to it, even as two wheels came up off the ground, then slammed back down. They drove straight off the road, tearing through a flimsy barbed-wire fence, into the open field. Slim looked back and saw the car attempting to follow them, hitting a bump wrong and rolling over. Then they hit their own bump and both of them bounced up off the seat and hit their heads on the roof. Nadine slowed down enough to navigate through the mesquite and cactus, traveling through the field for a mile or so until they burst through another barbed-wire fence and onto another dirt road. No one was following them.

  “Hell of a ride,” Slim said, relieved it was over.

  “Nothing to it,” Nadine replied. “Daddy had this old truck built up special so it could go anywhere. Remember, he really likes his fishing.”

  “Who were those guys? Vipers?”

  “Sure. Who else? That was a cheap trick, though. I know this country. I know every rock and tree and back road. I can steer around a snake in the shade. Pickens is an ignorant man. None of the local people would work for him, so he brought all the Vipers up from Arsten or Hewstone, down south. They don’t know their way around these old bumpy back roads.”

  “Do you figure we’re safe, now?”

  “Right now, yes. But tomorrow’s another day. We won’t really be safe until we get the Gutbucket back and whip Pickens.”

  Slim thought about that. He was surprised, in a way, at the involvement he had felt growing in himself. He really cared, and he’d never been a man that cared for very much outside himself and the women he loved. It wasn’t just Nadine, this time, though. She was a big part of it, that was true. But it was Progress and all the other players. It was the blues and what they meant and what they were. It was too late in the world he had come from. One man’s actions didn’t matter, there. There was no more room for any individual to be important. But here, in Tejas, he felt like he could do something that would matter, that would make a difference. What he did could be important, he could be important, be a part of the blues and part of the world.

  He wondered, for a moment, if his motives were purely selfish or egotistical. But maybe something was only selfish if he wanted it without working for it. Maybe if he worked hard for something, then the motive was something better. And he did care. He loved Nadine and Progress and the blues. And he couldn’t bear the thought of never hearing Nadine sing again, of never watching her strut the stage. Or worse, of never being able to play with her.

  “Let’s go home,” he said.

  Nadine nodded.

  9

  In the flow of a phrase, as well as in the mysterious wind of blues, reveal to me your plans for the coming revolution.

  —Andre Breton, Introduction to the Discourse on the Paucity of Reality

  Alligator Social

  Folks, I’m tellin’ you something

  That I saw with my own eyes,

  As I passed the pond one day,

  The gator was teachin’ his babies

  To do the Georgia grind.

  And I heard one of them say,

  This is a social, but the alligator’s pond’s gone dry,

  Yeah, it is a social, but gator’s pond done gone dry.

  Now ole Mister Gator, got himself way back,

  He said, look out chillen,

  I’m throwin’ water off my back,

  Aww, it was a social, but alligator’s pond went dry.

  Say it was a social, but the pond went dry

  And it must have been a social, for gator’s pond to go dry.

  Now, Mister Alligator, he got himself real hot,

  He said, “We’re gonna have that function,

  Whether there’s water or not.”

  Aww, it was a social, but the gator’s pond went dry.

  Now if you don’t believe what I’m sayin’

  Ask ole Alligator Jack,

  Wasn’t a drop of water in the pond

  When he got himself back,

  Oh it must have been a social, but gator’s pond went dry . . .

  Breakfast, the next morning was, again, an involved production: steak and eggs and potatoes.

  “Do you always eat like this?” Slim asked.

  “When I’m out here with Daddy I do. By myself, I normally just have cereal for breakfast or something. I don’t really like to cook very much. Even for dinner I usually end up going out to Mitchell’s.”

  “You sure do cook good, though.”

  Nadine nodded as she watched Slim shoveling in the food she’d made. “Mama taught me everything I needed to know,” she said. “She taught me all about cooking. Being good at something, and liking to do it, are two different things, though.”

  “What about your mother?” Slim said. “Progress hasn’t said anything about her at all.”

  “He probably won’t,” Nadine replied. “She was from the Indian Nations. She never told me the whole story, but she’d gotten into some kind of serious trouble with her tribe. They exiled her. I guess, rather than stay with her own people, she came here. It’s not something she talked about.

  “Daddy found her out at the river, half starved, feet worn out from walking. He brought her home and I suppose it just went from there. It wasn’t light, though. I’ve never seen two people love each other as much as Daddy and Mama did.”

  “So what happened to her?”

  “Oh,” Nadine sighed. Slim could feel the sadness inside her. “About ten years ago,” she said, “Daddy was playing a gig in Arsten. Mama decided to fly down and surprise him. The zeppelin crashed and killed everybody.” She turned away from the table, wiping tears from her eyes, her small shoulders hunched and tight. “No one ever figured out what happened,” she continued. “The zeppelins were safe. The helium came from mines right here around Armadillo.”

  “Wait a minute,” Slim protested, his sense of reality jarred, “helium’s a gas. It doesn’t
come from mines. Even I know that.”

  “That’s where it comes from in Tejas,” Nadine asserted. “I mean, once it’s exposed to sunlight it’s a gas. But while it’s underground or in the dark, it’s like some kind of rock. That’s how they control the zeppelins.”

  “But why use zeppelins?” Slim asked. “We gave those up in our world a long time ago. We fly in airplanes.” Slim had actually always rather liked zeppelins, seeing them in a romantic light, but he felt he had to try to understand the logic of this world he found himself a part of.

  “They tried airplanes. They didn’t work too well. For one thing, they were way too expensive. Mostly, though, they just weren’t safe. In the last sixty years, there have only been three zeppelin crashes in Tejas. Unfortunately,” she said, sadly, “Mama was in one of them.”

  “Oh, gosh,” Slim said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, taking his hand in her own. “It hurt when it happened, but I’m okay, now. It’s just a sad memory.”

  They heard Progress’ pickup turn in to the driveway. “Hush, now,” Nadine said. “I don’t want to talk about Mama when Daddy’s around. It still hurts him.”

  Progress had left before either Slim or Nadine had woken, not telling either of them where he planned to go. When he came into the house, he was leading a wrinkled, dilapidated hound and there was a sad look on his face.

  “This is Stavin’ Chain,” he said. The look on his face made it clear that it was hard for him to say, that there was a pain just below the surface.

  Nadine picked up on it immediately. “What happened, Daddy?”

  “Well, I went to see Bonehack Sissibone, to get him to play at the festival.” His eyes had a faraway, painful look as he talked. “I got out to the house and everyone was gone. All their clothes and stuff was there. His guitars and amps and all, just sittin’ in the empty house. I knowed he was gone for good though.” He handed them a slip of paper, stained red, as if by blood. “I found this stuck to the front door,” he said.

  The note was simple, just a few words scrawled in a shaky hand. DON’T FUCK WITH THE VIPERS, it read.

  “The hound was still there, lookin’ all beat-up and worried. I figured he could help, so I brought him along.”

  “Help how?” Slim asked.

  Progress shook his head. “After what happened with you two comin’ back from Mother Phillips, I though maybe he could give us a little protection for the house.”

  Nadine nodded, but Slim was still puzzled. “Protection?” he said. “How? He didn’t protect this guy you went to see, did he?”

  “Nope,” Progress replied. “But that was physical stuff, nothin’ for it. Hounds are pretty powerful in the blues. Bonehack was a good ole boy, had a reasonable amount of power. But the Vipers was too much for him to fight, belly to belly. If they come after us, the dog probably couldn’t do no more than bark and hide. But it’s the power he can help with. If T-Bone tries to get to us with the power, Stavin’ Chain’ll stand in the way and it won’t be able to get around him. He cain’t do nothin’, you understand, but you just can’t use the power in a bad way when there’s an ole hound around.”

  “That’s right,” Nadine said agreeably.

  “Okay,” Slim said. “If you guys say so it’s all right with me. I can’t say I understand it, but I’ll buy that it works. What do I know?” He shrugged his shoulders and went on. “So what do we do today?”

  “We gots us a hard road today,” Progress replied. “We gonna go see the gris-gris man, Belizaire Cajon. He’s a player from the swamps down south. He’s a powerful man, but a strange one. There’s no tellin’ if he’ll play at the festival or not. He plays with me now and then, but, these days, he pretty much goes his own way. Folks come to him for healin’ and dehauntin’ and such.”

  “You think he’ll help us out?”

  “I thinks so, son. But you cain’t never tell with the gris-gris man.”

  “If we’re going,” Nadine said, clearing the table and piling the dishes in the sink, “then let’s go.”

  But as Slim went for the door, the hound dog whined nervously, setting himself between him and it. “He wants to come along,” Slim said, smiling.

  “No he don’t,” Progress said. “There’s something he’s afraid of. Best not use that door right now.”

  “You mean—?” Nadine asked, looking at the door with apprehension.

  “We’ll find out soon ‘nough.” Progress led the way out the back.

  They walked around the house and peered at the front door. There was something hanging before it on a string, burning. “Damn” Progress swore.

  “What is it?” Slim asked.

  “What I should have told you about,” Nadine said tightly. “The Glory Hand.”

  “The what?”

  Progress went up to the thing, reached up, caught the string between his fingers, and yanked it down. The object now dangled from his hand. “The Glory Hand,” he said. “The hound smelt it and gave us warnin’. You’d have walked smack into it.”

  Now Slim saw that the thing on the string was a severed human hand that must have been dipped in wax; the fingers curled up, glistening with the stuff, and the nails projected. Each nail burned like a separate candle, so there were five little flames. The smell was sickening. Indeed, the thing sent a current of apprehension through him, as if some nameless menace were reaching out from it.

  “I smelled that before” Slim exclaimed. “In the bathroom—and the elevator”

  “Then it has power over you,” Progress said. “If you’d walked into it—”

  “It’s disgusting,” Slim said. “But I can survive a little burn.”

  “A Glory Hand doesn’t just burn,” Nadine said. “It’s a fetish, doom for the one it’s meant for. Daddy and I can handle it, but you—”

  “Get me a tight box,” Progress said.

  Nadine hurried inside, to emerge in a moment with a cookie tin. Progress dangled the burning hand into it, then clapped the lid on and pressed it tight. Then he took the sealed tin inside and set it on the floor. “You watch this, Stavin’ Chain,” he told the hound. “Don’t let nobody take it out.” The dog growled, seeming to understand. He was no longer afraid of the hand, now that it had been contained.

  “That’s twice they’ve tried to touch you with that thing,” Nadine said to Slim. “What’s the worst that could happen to you, right now?”

  “To be forever separated from you,” Slim said without thinking, still shaken by the horrible fetish.

  “Then it must be primed to send you back to your own world,” Progress said. “One touch, and you’re gone. T-Bone’s getting occult help. Figures if he can’t get you one way, maybe he’ll get you another way. Now I knows you’s important and we better keep you safe till we finds out how you’s important.”

  Nadine nodded. “I’ll stay close to him, Daddy.”

  Slim tried to mask his delight. Clouds did have silver linings! But what could be so important about him that a man as powerful and unscrupulous as T-Bone Pickens was desperate to get rid of him?

  They took the highway out to the river. In Slim’s world, the Canadian River had been a state park and a paradise for off-roaders. But here in Tejas, while it looked as if it were still a popular location for camping and partying, it was wild and mostly untouched by civilization.

  Progress turned on to a road paralleling the river, a road that hadn’t existed in Slim’s world. It wound through the huge cotton-woods and oaks, around boulders and close to the water, seeming to go on for miles. It was a dark, rough road, covered over by the tops of the trees, sheltered from the hot summer sun.

  “Your man lives out here?” Slim asked, daunted by the unfamiliar wilderness they were traveling through.

  “Yep,” Progress said. “He likes his privacy. Says if anyone wants to find him for somethin’, they should be serious about it. So it should be hard to get to him. Then he knows they’re not just foolin’ around.”

 
Slim wanted to ask another question, but Nadine took his hand and held it, which served effectively to shut him up. Maybe she was just doing it to protect him from a Glory Hand, getting him used to her close presence, but he was glad for it anyway. The pickup bounced on along the road and he just looked out the window, trying to spot wild turkeys. In a while, they came upon a steep hill. Progress gunned the motor and the truck clawed its way to the top.

  Once over the hill, they began passing through a line of junked cars and trucks and vans which stood on the side of the road in various states of dissolution. They lined both sides of the road and pointed the way to a space cleared of trees. Ahead of them, Slim could see a potpourri of logs that some people might call a house. It looked like a box, to which rooms and outbuildings had been haphazardly added. When they pulled up in front, he could see that the whole construction had been shingled with Prince Albert tobacco tins that had been cut on one side and flattened. They were rusty brown on the side of the house where they’d been started, and as they went on to the other side they got redder and shinier.

  Plants and herbs grew unplanned around the house, and seven children playing with seven dogs were scattered around the yard under the watchful eye of a small woman Slim assumed to be their mother. Her beauty had been worn away by work and childbirth, but there was a joy of life shining inside her that gave her a beauty Slim could feel, even from a distance.

  The woman and the children and the dogs paid no attention to the three of them as they got out of the pickup. A fat man walked out the front screen door. He was half bald and bearded and jolly-looking. A wide smile crossed his face as he saw them.