The Cicadas were gone. Val lost two cases, won another, went on the Internet to pull down tablatures of "Eighth of January" and "Cluck Old Hen." The reek of magnolia was everywhere, and single-winged maple seeds coptered down on our heads-or was that earlier? Lonnie resigned. "Thing is, Turner, I don't do it now, I'm never going to." Eldon had a new guitar, a Stella with a pearloid fingerboard from the thirties in which someone had installed a pickup. "Not collectible anymore, but it still has that great old sound." J. T. sat on the porch tapping feet, drinking ice tea, and saying maybe this time-off thing wasn't so bad after all. Don Lee was out of the hospital, making the two-hour drive to Bentonville three days a week for rehab. He'd tried coming back to work a few hours a day. Second week of it, June pulled me aside. He and I had a talk that afternoon. I told him he was one of the best I'd ever worked with. But you don't have to do this anymore, I said. You know that, right? He sat looking out the window, shaking his head. It's not that I don't want to, Turner, he said. With all that's happened, I want to more than ever. I just don't know if I can.
No further foul winds came blowing down out of Memphis.
Patently, I was an alarmist.
Town life went on. Brother Tripp from First Baptist was seen peering into cars at one of the local parking spots popular among teenagers. Barry and Barb shut down the hardware store after almost twenty years. Customers routinely made the forty-mile drive to WalMart now, they said, and, anyway, they were tired. Thelma quit the diner. Sally Johnson, last year's prom queen, promptly took her spot. Slow afternoons, I'd give a try to imagining Thelma's existence away from waitressing. What would her house or apartment look like, and what would she do there all day? Did she wear that same sweater distorted by so many years of tips weighing down one pocket? Robert Poole from the feed store left his wife and four children. Melinda found the note on the kitchen table when she came home from a late shift at Mitty's, the town's beauty shop. Took the truck. The rest is yours. Love, 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."