Hell With the Lid Blown Off Read Free

in a gunny sack, and when I go to sing in church, folks get the awfullest looks of pain on their faces. Never did learn to play an instrument, either, needless to say. But I love music. I love to listen to any beautiful sound, whether it be a lady with a fine singing voice or a chorus of birds on a pretty spring morning. It was that very love of music that set my life on a new course, just a few months before the United States entered the Great War. I was twenty-two years old.
    Every morning on my rounds I passed by the Masonic Hall over on Elm Street. On that particular June morning it was hot and sultry, and the windows were open just enough to let in the fresh air. Now, at this time of day there wasn’t generally anybody in the hall except for old Boot Murillo, the caretaker. So I was surprised when I heard piano music coming from the auditorium, and I stopped dead in the road to have a listen. I never did expect any mischief. The hall was always open and anybody could go in there for meetings, or to play checkers, or the like.
    No, it wasn’t the fact that someone was inside that stopped me in my tracks. It was the beautiful music wafting out of that window like a breeze from heaven. I knew the tune, and could have sung along if I’d had a voice to do it with.

    Flow gently, sweet Afton, beside thy green braes
    Flow gently, sweet Afton, I’ll sing to thee praise
    My Mary is sleeping beside thy green stream
    Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

    For the longest time I couldn’t move, waiting for that song to end. It crossed my mind that I was going to be late back to the jailhouse, which I never was, and Scott might wonder where I’d got to. But I couldn’t have left while that music was playing if I’d wanted.
    When the last note faded away, my body just sighed of its own accord, and my heart felt so happy that I was determined to find out who had given me such pleasure on a hot morning and tell him so. I walked around to the front door and went right in to the auditorium, where I saw a slim young woman sitting at the old upright piano over in the far corner by the stage. Her back was to me and she was paging through some sheet music, unaware that I had come in.
    I couldn’t see her face so it took me a minute to figure out who she was, though I could tell right away that she was one of Gee Dub Tucker’s sisters. Every one of the eight girls in that family had her own look–some of them tall, some short, some red, or dark, or blond, but there were three who had a bunch of wild reddish curls, and this was one of them. The older one of the three was married and living on a farm outside of town, and the youngest was still a little girl, so I realized pretty quick that this was the middle one, Ruth.
    I didn’t want to startle her so I cleared my throat, and she turned around on the piano stool.
    I was already walking toward her across the wide, wooden floor of the auditorium when she turned to face me. When she smiled, my foot just hung there in the air in mid-step for a second.
    She looked happy to see me. “Trent Calder! Good morning. Mr. Murillo told me it’d be all right if I practiced here for a while. I hope I’m not bothering anyone.”
    Now, I’d known Ruth Tucker since she was a child. A sweet little old thing, all leggy and coltish, and I expect that’s the way I thought of her until the instant she turned around on that piano seat.
    I still think of that moment to this day, the memory as clear as glass even as other memories of my life fade. The hollow sound of my boots on the wooden floor, the dusty, leaf smell of the air coming in through the window. The bright, russet color of those curls that she had wound into a knot at the nape of her neck.
    She had the strangest eyes. They were big and turned up at the corners, with red-gold lashes. But the thing that bowled me over on that day was that they were purple. She was wearing a