“I’ll be listening for some music in a little bit,” the man said with a grin.
“What kind of stories couldthisbus tell us, Aunt Sharlene?” Joelle asked.
“Oh, honey,” Nita said with a giggle and twinkling eyes, “not a one of us three kiss and tell.”
“Except to each other,” Billy Joe said, “But we’re all leaning toward memory loss, so we can’t be sure if what we remember is what really happened.”
“Yeah, right!” Joelle pointed to a parking spot big enough for the bus and trailer.
Nita was already out of the van before Ford could open his door, and long before Joelle could get out of the passenger side. By the time he made it to the back to help take things out of the trailer, Billy Joe had opened the doors and was setting lawn chairs up in a circle.
Billy Joe and Nita went to work tuning their guitars, while Sharlene took her fiddle out of the case. Ford sat down in one of the chairs and got ready for the show just like he had on the nights when they camped out. That evening was different in that Billy Joe left his guitar case open and set it to the side of his chair.
Ford leaned over and whispered for Joelle’s ears only. “You think they’ll bring in enough money to pay for the parking fee?”
“If they do, they will brag for the rest of the trip and claim that they are now professionals since they had been paid for a gig,” Joelle answered.
“I hate to see them disappointed, so I’ll be the first one to make them into professionals.” Ford pulled a five-dollar bill from the money clip in his pocket and tossed it into the guitar case.
“Thank you,” Billy Joe said in an Elvis impression, “thank you very much.”
Joelle’s giggles at his antics warmed Ford’s heart. For the past three nights, he hadn’t even gone to his grandfather’s tent, but rather rolled his sleeping bag out on the floor of the van right beside hers. Sharlene had teased them about needing to find a courthouse on the way to Nashville, so he could make an honest woman out of her great-niece. But after that one morning, no one had said anything, which was still a mystery. The way they bantered and bickered, Ford had expected more talking about it and teasing than he wanted to hear.
Nita hit the chords for “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It,” and before the end of the song, several people had gathered around.
Ford didn’t know if they were there for the music or to take selfies and family pictures with the bus, but it didn’t matter, because all the attention sure put big smiles on the band’s faces.
Billy Joe took the lead on the second Hank Williams song, “Lost Highway.” Ford kept time to the music by tapping his thumbs on the arm of the chair and wondered if his grandfather had chosen that song to mess with him. Ford realized he had to choose a path before long, but until he made up his mind about whether he wanted to put down roots or do some serious traveling, he wasn’t going to be goaded into saying he would take over the ranch.
The lyrics became more than just words when they talked about the time when he would curse the day that he started rolling down the lost highway. When the song ended, folks around them clapped and whistled, and Billy Joe smiled and started off on another Hank Williams tune. Sharlene and Nita took turns with the verses and then harmonized with him during the chorus.
The crowd grew bigger and bigger, and several of them threw coins or bills into the open guitar case. When they started singing, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” Ford thought of the nights that he had slept close to Joelle and didn’t have those horrible nightmares. Then he remembered the nap he’d taken at the dude ranch and how he had awakened in a cold sweat as he relived the day that he had been the only one to survive the ambush.
Why have you been fighting so hard against what you feel for Joelle?his grandmother’s voice whispered.
Could his grandfather possibly be right about a good woman and roots curing the problems he’d brought home from the last deployment? He glanced over at Joelle to find her staring at him.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you remember these songs?” he asked, but what he really wanted to know was if she was feeling the same thing he was.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “Saturday night at Aunt Sharlene’s was concert night at least once a month. You’ve been gone too long, Ford Holt. I could have usedsome backup on the nights when I was the only one in the crowd to listen to them.”
“I’m here now,” he said.
“Yes, you are, and I’m glad,” she said with a smile.
Could she mean that she was glad—as in just liking him as a driver? Or could it possibly be more?
***
Dusk was settling, and the crowd had thinned out a little when Sharlene stood up. “We’ll be closing out our tribute to the amazing Hank Williams Sr. tonight with one of his hymns. When I was a little girl, it was a good night when my mama could pick up theGrand Ole Opryon her radio. It was an awesome night when Hank Williams ended the show with this song. Thank all y’all for coming around and thank you for your contributions.”
She put her fiddle to her shoulder and pulled the bow across the strings. The light breeze picked up the haunting whine and carried it across the parking lot and down the strip. Then Nita and Billy Joe started picking their guitars and singing, “I Saw the Light.”
“Think they’re talking to us when they sing that?” Joelle asked. “Maybe not in the spiritual sense, but in seeing the light of what we should do in the future?”
Ford turned to look at her, and she could see that he was struggling with the same thoughts that she was. Did they take over the ranches? Did they step back and ask for more time? Where was the light, and what was it showing them?
