Picking the Ballad's Bones by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Page A

that
department.
    As for the Randolphs—well, Torchy
thought she might do a very special song for Faron—not the kind the
other devils were trying to erase, one of her very own, the kind
she did when she went for a little swim. It should be irresistible
to a serious collector. And his poor wife would be so upset she'd
eat herself sick or else she'd try to compete with Torchy's
unattainable allure by starving herself thinner and thinner until
she died of anorexia.
    Torchy yawned. It was all very dreary,
actually. Mortals were so—well—mortal. A shame about the music
having to go—their love of the music had lifted this lot out of the
ordinary, however fleetingly, and she would miss that.
    Of course, old as she was, nobody had
ever told Torchy Burns about it not being a good idea to count her
chickens before they were hatched.
    The van drove up the long gravel and
dirt drive leading to the manor house.
    "Maybe we're too late," Brose said.
"Looks to me like they're about to close."
     
     

CHAPTER 10
     
    Meanwhile, inside Sir Walter's
mansion, the docent was saying, "I'm verra sorry but we'll be
needin' to close up." She glanced disapprovingly at the banjo,
which Gussie passed to Willie as if it were a hot
potato.
    "What a wonderful place," Gussie said,
oozing downhome charm. "I do wish we had time to stay longer and
see the books more closely but I suppose it really is time to
go."
    Willie and the banjo were already at
the door, Julianne trailing behind him. As Gussie reached the
doorway, however, she felt a pressure on her shoulder: "Please,"
Sir Walter's ghost said. "You mustn't go, just as it's getting
dark. Yon instrument has called me from my grave and you canna just
go off without explaining this whole thing to me. It's simply not
the done thing at all, dear lady."
    He was standing in front of Gussie,
his hand touching her. The docent called to her to come along and
she tried to step forward.
    "No, truly, I'm afraid I must insist—"
the ghost said. And that time, in the gathering gloom, as
headlights cut the fog rising from the Tweed that flowed so near
the dining-room window, Gussie heard him. She stepped back inside
the house.
    The docent, oddly, did not seem to
notice and somehow forgot to click the key in the lock and the bolt
onto the padlock. Juli and Willie, far ahead of her on the path,
Willie pacing with his head in the air and Juli stopping to sniff a
rose, failed to notice that Gussie wasn't with them.
    The docent strode ahead of them as if
in a trance. A car door thunked shut in the parking lot and five
pairs of footsteps coming met hers going on the walk. As the docent
tripped past the last person, a certain redhead, the docent thrust
her bosom forward and caused the plaid of her pleated skirt to
swish back and forth as her walk changed to an undulating
sway.
    Torchy Burns laughed her bawdy laugh.
The docent's old man would get a kick out of that little good deed
of hers.
    "Willie, luv, there you are!" Torchy
caroled. "Where did you go? I waited and waited for
you."
    The banjo resumed playing "Whiskey in
the Jar."
    "For the devil take the women, Lord,
you never can believe 'em," Willie recited the lyrics to
himself.
    But as Willie passed Juli, the banjo
played "The Star of County Down" and Anna Mae said, "I wonder what
it wants to tell us by playing 'The Parting Glass.'"
    "Isn't that 'Rollin' Down to Old
Maui'?" Brose asked. "Maybe it thinks we should all bug out of here
and go to Hawaii. I'm for that."
    Faron cleared his throat. "We may have
a problem here."
    "Buddy, we already got one," Willie
said. "In case you hadn't noticed. Where the hell have you folks
been?"
    "We could ask you the same question,
MacKai," Anna Mae Gunn said.
    "Now that's funny," Willie said,
looking slitty-eyed at Torchy, who was beaming back at him just as
innocently as she could, which was to say, not very. "I'd think our
little native guide could have told you about my close encounter
with her pussycat friends and siccin'