Free Strum Again? Book Three of the Songkiller Saga by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Page B

them. "You're that ranger, aren't
you? Bud—?"
    "Buddy Lamprey," he said in a guarded voice
and then, looking more closely at her, asked, "Gussie? You back?
Why didn't any of you write and tell me what happened?"
    "It's a long story, Buddy. But they're after
me again. Would you take me back to my van? Have your gun out."
    "What happened?"
    "Buddy?" Janey Lynn said from the counter.
"Look!" She pointed at the three lights that hovered just across
the street, on the edge of the field, as if they were looking in
the cafe window wondering if they could afford something. "What do
you suppose they want?"
    "What the hell are they?" Gussie asked.
    "The ghost lights," he said, as if she
should have known.
    "Ghost what?"
    "The ghost lights. You're in Marfa. Those
are our famous ghost lights."
    She sighed. "It figures," she said, and
leaned toward the front window and waved, calling, "It's okay,
boys! I'm fine now! I'm with friends! Thanks! Y'all can go back to
hauntin' that field again!"
    They bobbed a few times up and down, split
up, circled each other, and receded.
     
     

CHAPTER 6
     
    "It seems to me," Barbara said, "that there
are a lot of coincidences in your story, Ute. That woman seems to
know a lot of people."
    "She'd been movin' around some, and runnin'
with people who moved around for a livin'. Also, ma'am—"
    "Barbara—" the woman said, looking a little
pained, as if it were a wearisome task always to have to be
educating people—even women—to the politically correct etiquette of
the moment. She also looked as if she saw a certain amount of humor
in the need to do so, however, and added by way of explanation,
"We're to call you Ute, so as far as I'm concerned, you may call me
Barbara. But I draw the line at Babs or Barbie."
    "Fair enough, Barbara.
Anyhow, as I was tellin' you before, Gussie had been a part of a
pretty small group—what you might call a subculture—for some time.
Folk musicians, and what later were called acoustic or alternative
musicians, traveled around like Gypsies or Indian tribes, swappin'
songs, swappin' venues. Some of 'em stayed
put, but even those got to know fellow musicians from a different
place when they came to visit, and they tended to put each other up
or recommend one another to supporters who would offer a spare bed
to a traveling minstrel. Sometimes, after the music lost its
broader popularity and the number of fans dropped, supporters got
to know each other too, fans, agents, reviewers, record
distributers, journalists, prose writers,
poets—even cowboy poets, logger poets, and maritime poets. Union
organizers too—people with causes."
    "Well, of course I've heard that music has
been used in conjunction with causes," Barbara said. "One or two
members have suggested that we employ it, but on the whole using
something so frivolous seems to me to undermine the seriousness of
the message we're attempting to communicate."
    "I'm sure you know best about that,
ma'am—'scuse me, Barbara, but it seems to me that if you 're tryin'
to send your message to a lot of people, you need to communicate on
a lot of different levels. Talkin' is going to reach some people
with a tin ear to whom the emotions behind a topic are irrelevant
ways to manipulate people. They'd prefer to manipulate statistics
and let them manipulate people. But for a lot of folks, if you can
tell them what you 're talking about and make it into a story that
shows how it could affect people like themselves and put it to a
tune they can whistle if they're so inclined, they're going to
remember that a lot longer than a statistic or a speech."
    "Perhaps," she said. "But I believe most
people approach the important issues in a more rational
manner."
    Ute nodded sadly and stirred the campfire
with a stick, adding some sage and broken-off bits of tumbleweed.
"I expect you 're right about that. Which in a way is my point. The
people who understood and appreciated the kind of music I'm
referrin' to were not a large majority of the