Fic: A Fiddle in the Band (1/?)
Title: A Fiddle in the Band (1/?)
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Relationships/Characters: Eventual John/Sherlock, Mary Morstan, Mike Stamford
Warnings: Country Music
Rating: PG
Summary: John Watson writes country western music. Sherlock Holmes sings it.
A/N: The nitty gritty: Snogandagrope made me do it. Blame her. kizzia did a lightning quick beta on this chapter, but no Brit-pick, because so far, everyone is American. Lyrics and chapter title from “Folsom Prison Blues”, which was recorded by the late great Johnny Cash, and if you have never heard him sing, you need to amend that yesterday. Listen to his cover of NIN’s “Hurt”. Best thing ever.
A few notes. This is a WIP. As a rule, I don’t post WIPs. I’m breaking that rule for this story, though. Therefore I don’t have a posting schedule, I don’t know when new chapters will appear, I don't know what the final wordcount or rating will be, and actually, I’m not entirely sure where this is going. (I should probably think about that some.) So this is all very highly experimental. I’m very sorry in advance if it all goes awry. But believe me when I say, I do not want to abandon this story. I kind of like it.
Also, eventually, there will be Sherlock in cowboy boots. That is all.
A Fiddle in the Band
Chapter One: That Lonesome Whistle
The static on the radio was oddly cheerful in the grey dawn. John Watson frowned as he played with the tuning dial, trying to land on the exact spot which would give him the music he could just hear under the fuzzy sounds of nothing. The station remained tantalizingly out of tune.
“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath as the station slipped away again, and he moved the dial slowly, slowly, slowly, concentrating to keep his shaking fingers steady.
Johnny Cash’s voice floated through the static as John moved the dial.
Well, if they freed me from this prison…
John nearly chuckled. It was almost funny, in a way, Johnny Cash singing the Folsom Prison Blues, as if he were stuck in the radio, and John trying to get him out. His fingers slipped with another irrepressible shudder, and John cursed until he realized that by sheer luck, the shake had shoved the dial exactly the right amount to land on the station correctly.
Far from Folsom prison, that's where I want to stay
And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.....
John sat back in his chair, hands raised cautiously. The station warbled a little, but remained, on the whole, clear. John tried to relax as the plaintive picking on the guitar filled the airwaves. Music - not the dead noise of static making him frantic and nervous with tension, not the heavy sounds of silence pushing him further into the ground. Just music.
John sighed and stretched out his fingers, watched them shake in the blue of early morning.
There were things to be doing, even at this hour, but John didn’t move from the chair for a moment. He stared hard at his hands, stared and willed and tightened the muscles in his fingers, clenching them without actually making a fist, squeezing every muscle in his hands and arms and shoulders until at last every part of him was still.
The music faded into a commercial for the local Ford dealership, the announcer’s rapid-fire voice tooting the fantastic deals on new trucks and SUVs and hybrids. John snorted and turned away from the radio. Put on the pot for coffee (no coffeemaker here), throw some bread into the oven (toasters were for wimps), don a coat and hat to feed the dogs. He’d do a full check of the premises once he’d eaten and written his words for the day, but the dogs would start howling if breakfast didn’t accompany the sunrise.
Four dogs, all dark brown bruisers of uncertain heritage, all perfectly friendly to John and any neighbors who happened to come by, and unfriendly to anyone else, met him at the entrance to the barn. None of them had names or ages or as far as John could tell, much of a personality except for liking food and disliking chickens. The dogs were, as always, happy to see him, and as soon as the food hit the bowls, were chowing down without another care in the world. Most of them, anyway - one, the smallest of the pack stayed by John’s side for another moment, and gave his hand a lick.
“Go on,” said John. “Or the others’ll get your breakfast and you aren’t getting another.”
The dog licked his hand again before trotting back to its breakfast. John watched them eat for a moment - one was already pushing its half empty bowl across the barn floor in its eagerness to get every last morsel of food - and then headed back to the house before his water boiled away.
Music again - well, that was something, at least, he’d managed to miss the commercials. The water was boiling, too, and John could smell the toast in the oven just about to burn. He pulled it out with bare hands, dropped the hot toast on the counter, and turned to fix up his coffee, running the water through the ancient French press. Fancy enough for some; just good sense to John, since it didn’t use electricity or take up unnecessary real estate on the small kitchen counter. If a press had been good enough for his grandmother, it was good enough for him.
John was halfway to buttering the toast when he realized he was humming along with the radio, and he frowned, not quite recognizing the music, while at the same time wondering how it was he knew it. He stopped what he was doing and listened - no words, just instrumental, a bridge of some kind in between verses, and clearly placed to show off the quick bow-work of the fiddler. John could practically hear the fingers flying smoothly over the strings, free from stiffness and shakes, the sweat dripping from some unknown brow under bright stage lighting.
And then the fiddle stopped, and the artist began to sing. A deep voice, baritone, haunting and strange and full of longing and sorrow and hope and determination.
The wind comes low and straight across the Oklahoma plain
I won’t just sit and wait for the sun to turn to rain
I’ll get up on my own two feet and get out of this damn place
And leave the past behind me and try on a different face.
John froze.
He knew this song.
This was his song, sung by a voice that might have come from his own heart, exactly as he’d written it six months ago in the deep dark of the hour before sunrise. Scratched the words on paper and set them to music on the battered piano in the attic and sent off to his agent and hadn’t heard a damn thing else since, though that might have been because John only checked the post office box about once every two weeks, and come to think of it, it’d been about a month since he’d remembered to check it last, hadn’t it?
“Damn,” whispered John, and leaned against the counter as the man on the radio kept singing out his darkest nightmares.
The brightest gold will turn to brass in the harsh light of the day
The fields of wheat will turn to grass; life has always been that way
The best of times, the worst of fates are always hand in hand
You’ve got to fight against the dawn, and take it like a man.
John closed his eyes and breathed.
It was one thing to write the words in the dark of night, when no one else was looking over his shoulder. They were quiet scritches of pencil on paper, private and unhurried and alone. Putting them to music - that came so naturally, as John repeated the words to himself over the course of the day, finding the right notes, the right stops and starts and rises and falls, that when he actually sat down at the battered old piano in the attic, it was as if he was playing songs from dusty memory instead of something he’d composed himself.
John still didn’t know why he’d send the finished products off to Mike. He’d certainly never expected Mike to say anything but, Fine, good, I’ll see what I can do. Which is what Mike often said, and then nothing would come of it.
Nothing like hearing some other man sing out his nightmare. John supposed an actual songwriter would be celebrating, hearing his song on the radio. John just felt violated.
Never again, he told himself. When he opened them, the sun had risen, and the kitchen was filled with light.
*
The strains of the fiddle remained with John long after he’d finished his coffee and toast. Trying to write them had proven to be a fruitless venture, and John had broken the tip of his pencil in frustration before he finally gave up and went outside to start the morning chores. The overly friendly dog was waiting for him at the base of the porch steps, and John walked by it without a word. It followed, tail wagging.
“Breakfast get stolen?” John asked the dog when they reached the barn. “Told you to eat it and not go looking for scraps.”
The dog sat down, watching as John fumbled with the lock in the crisp morning air. The bolt slid, finally, and John shoved the door open, throwing his body weight against the wood, as the door creaked and complained.
The barn was warm and fuggy with the scent of horses and hay, sweat and manure. Two dozen horses, all in individual stalls, shuffled and shifted, some calling out to him in longing wickers, some perfectly content to ignore him. One, a deep brown horse that was at least five hands taller than any horse had the right to be, head-butted the stall’s door as John walked past.
“Hold still, Remy, I’m coming back,” said John, and the horse neighed in response.
John gathered the halters and fly masks from the closet before going into the stalls, one by one, clipping the halters on and leading the horses to stand in the center aisle. The tall brown horse was the last, and he curled his head around John as John fixed the halter. John chuckled, and patted Remy’s cheek.
“Right, Rem. All right, boy, I’m goin’ as fast as I can.”
Half a dozen horses were shuffling in the center aisle when John led Remy out. He unhooked their tethers and held them loosely in his hand - mostly they knew where to go, and were anxious to get there without much prompting from the likes of him. They followed as he led them into the pastures next door, and waited somewhat impatiently as he unlatched the gate, pawing at the ground and snuffling in the cool morning air. As soon as John threw the gate wide, they went through, picking up the pace until they were at a full gallop, racing across the grass and kicking their heels.
The dozen or so cows in the far pasture lowed their own greetings; if John listened closely, he could hear the sheep on the other side. The sun was just peeking out from the otherwise heavy cloud cover; John lifted his hand up to shield his eyes, and caught sight of the figure on horseback, trotting across the field, waving hello. John waved back.
“Watson!” shouted the woman, and John nudged the last of the horses through the gate before pulling it closed, setting the latch so they wouldn’t get out easily. “Don’t go in yet!”
John waved his acknowledgement, and waited for the woman to finish crossing the clearing. He had to crane his neck to look up at her, but that was only because of the horse; he’d seen Mary Morstan with her feet on the ground, and she was smaller than he was. Lithe and blonde with bright eyes and a sassy demeanor. John liked her, when he didn’t want to kick her into the nearest well. “I tried calling you this morning - were you in the fields?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been out in the fields, to town and back, and cleaned out all three dozen stalls before breakfast,” countered John with a snort.
“Show-off,” said the woman, and the horse pranced a bit. “There’s a gap on the northwest side. Thought you ought to know.”
John frowned. “Not big enough for an escape, is it?”
“Not yet. But that dapple’s looking contemplative. I can lend a hand after lunch if you’d like.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”
Mary nodded, and the horse continued to prance. “Good lord, Pondicherry, what’s gotten into you? Sorry, John. If I don’t run this beast five miles before breakfast, it’s like he hasn’t had exercise in a week.”
John chuckled. “Go on, then.”
Mary took off, a quick trot until she reached far end of the clearing, where she kicked Pondicherry into a full on gallop. John watched them go, the dust kicking up behind, until a soft bark at his feet alerted him to the dog, sitting patiently at his side.
“No second breakfast for you,” John told the animal, and went back into the barn. Plenty to do in the day still - mucking out the stalls, refreshing the water, checking the feed, washing down the concrete. The arena needed re-sanding, there were three saddles needed repairing, and that didn’t even figure in John’s personal laundry and the fact that the toilet was in desperate need of a scrub.
Another day. John’s fingers itched with the irrational need to write, made all the more ridiculous by the fact that he’d spent twenty minutes that morning already trying to do just that, without success.
The reason why flooded back; John had forgotten, and the memory of the fiddle, twisting and turning around notes he’d composed on a piano, curled around his head, danced in time with the push broom.
The dog followed hopefully behind.
*
It was three hours before John finished mucking out the stalls. The dog followed him clear up to the front porch of the house, and when John told him to sit at the base of the stairs, he did, although he still looked hopefully at John.
“Well,” said John, “Murray trained you well, anyway.”
The house wasn’t much warmer than the air outside, though that might have been the lack of wind. John threw a few logs into the little black stove that served as heating, and after a moment’s contemplation - Aw, hell, Watson, do it or you’ll wonder the rest of the day - went to find a phone.
Mike answered on the second ring. “Stamford.”
“Mike, there something you want to tell me?” demanded John.
“John Watson!” Mike sounded more relieved than anything else. “I’ve been trying to call you for days, man! You need an answering machine.”
“I have one.”
“It’s not working.”
John glanced at the answering machine. The lights didn’t blink, and the number read a solid “1”, same as it had for weeks. “Looks like it is to me.”
“You need to listen to the radio, man - hold on, I can look up the next-“
“I heard it.”
“Oh!” Now Mike was flustered, probably because John didn’t sound suitably enthused. Well, he wasn’t, he wasn’t about to put on a show for Mike. “Debuted day before yesterday, and it’s making its way up the charts. Getting requests for it right and left, you should see the sales on iTunes.”
John shivered and looked out the window. The horses were contently nuzzling at the grasses. Remy stood near the gate, watching the house. Hoping for a ride, no doubt.
“Who was singing it? I didn’t recognize the voice.”
“John, you have got to get out from under that rock. He’s had a few top ten hits, nothing above four or five. And he’s been playing spotlight fiddle for years - Reba and Brad, mostly, a few others. Looks about twelve years old, but he’s been on the circuit long enough. Name’s Sherlock Holmes.”
John pulled the phone from his ear and made a face at it, as if he’d heard wrong. “What kind of sissy name is that for a country music singer?”
“Well, he refused to change it. That’s how it’s going these days in the business; everyone wants to keep their own names, ‘less there’s a good enough reason to switch. And there’s never a good enough reason, not for them. So you heard the song? What’d you think? He did a bit of rearranging with the music, added in a fiddle solo, I think there were some verses he repeated-“
“I didn’t hear the whole thing,” admitted John. “The fiddle solo, though. That…that was good. Which verses?”
“Um…” John could hear Mike shuffle the papers on his desk. “The opening. Talking about the reversal from comforting dark to the bright light of day. Something about the symbolism. I don’t know, he goes on a while once you get him started.”
“Uh-huh.” The horses were off at a gallop again, racing in circles. Except for Remy, still standing by the gate. “Mike, I’ve got to go. Something’s spooked the horses.”
“Wait - you got any more songs for me? He wants ‘em. Wants first pick of ‘em.”
“Shoot, Mike, I sent you half a dozen last month,” said John irritably. “Show him those.”
“I did. He didn’t read ‘em a quarter through before he threw them out the window, called them ‘rubbish’ and asked for the good stuff.”
“Rubbish?”
“Yeah, didn’t I tell you? British. Urban’s one thing, they’ve got cowboys in Australia, or something like. British, though…”
John snorted. “Does he wear a top hat or a cowboy hat on stage?”
“Neither.”
“Oh, that kind of country.”
“Don’t knock it, there’s a royalty check from that kind of country heading your way. And half your horses are dressage, anyway.”
“Not my horses,” said John, as the horses in question galloped around the paddock again. “Speaking of.”
“Fine, fine. Get your phone fixed.”
“Sure.”
John hung up the phone, checked that the fire in the little black stove wasn’t anything to worry about, and sat down on the bench by the door to pull on his boots.
A royalty check. John, briefly, wondered what it’d look like. Big enough for new jeans and new boots, maybe. Or long underwear. He’d give in on the jeans if he could have a pair of longjohns to go underneath - really there wasn’t anything wrong with the jeans, no holes to speak of, just that they were worn thin and soft and fuzzy from years of work. The boots were all right too, he supposed: faded tan rubbed shiny from years of work. Bit of mud caked to the heels.
The coat, though - nothing wrong with the coat. Brushed leather with sheep’s wool inside, fuzzy and soft and heavy and warm. John pulled it on and did up the snaps clear to his chin, and pulled on the wide-brimmed cowboy hat tightly as he stepped outside.
The dog waited for him, sitting on the top step.
“I don’t know what kind of arrangement you had with Murray,” John told the dog, “but you’re not coming in while I’m here.”
The dog’s tail thumped against the porch.
“Go on,” said John. “I’ve got work to do.”
The dog followed John down the steps and toward the paddock, where it waited patiently as John pulled Remy out of the field and led him back to the barn to saddle him up. The dog watched from a safe distance, and when John finally got up on Remy’s back to set off at a gallop across the field, the dog followed along, running gleefully through the grass, tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth. Happy.
Chapter Two
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Relationships/Characters: Eventual John/Sherlock, Mary Morstan, Mike Stamford
Warnings: Country Music
Rating: PG
Summary: John Watson writes country western music. Sherlock Holmes sings it.
A/N: The nitty gritty: Snogandagrope made me do it. Blame her. kizzia did a lightning quick beta on this chapter, but no Brit-pick, because so far, everyone is American. Lyrics and chapter title from “Folsom Prison Blues”, which was recorded by the late great Johnny Cash, and if you have never heard him sing, you need to amend that yesterday. Listen to his cover of NIN’s “Hurt”. Best thing ever.
A few notes. This is a WIP. As a rule, I don’t post WIPs. I’m breaking that rule for this story, though. Therefore I don’t have a posting schedule, I don’t know when new chapters will appear, I don't know what the final wordcount or rating will be, and actually, I’m not entirely sure where this is going. (I should probably think about that some.) So this is all very highly experimental. I’m very sorry in advance if it all goes awry. But believe me when I say, I do not want to abandon this story. I kind of like it.
Also, eventually, there will be Sherlock in cowboy boots. That is all.
A Fiddle in the Band
Chapter One: That Lonesome Whistle
The static on the radio was oddly cheerful in the grey dawn. John Watson frowned as he played with the tuning dial, trying to land on the exact spot which would give him the music he could just hear under the fuzzy sounds of nothing. The station remained tantalizingly out of tune.
“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath as the station slipped away again, and he moved the dial slowly, slowly, slowly, concentrating to keep his shaking fingers steady.
Johnny Cash’s voice floated through the static as John moved the dial.
Well, if they freed me from this prison…
John nearly chuckled. It was almost funny, in a way, Johnny Cash singing the Folsom Prison Blues, as if he were stuck in the radio, and John trying to get him out. His fingers slipped with another irrepressible shudder, and John cursed until he realized that by sheer luck, the shake had shoved the dial exactly the right amount to land on the station correctly.
Far from Folsom prison, that's where I want to stay
And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.....
John sat back in his chair, hands raised cautiously. The station warbled a little, but remained, on the whole, clear. John tried to relax as the plaintive picking on the guitar filled the airwaves. Music - not the dead noise of static making him frantic and nervous with tension, not the heavy sounds of silence pushing him further into the ground. Just music.
John sighed and stretched out his fingers, watched them shake in the blue of early morning.
There were things to be doing, even at this hour, but John didn’t move from the chair for a moment. He stared hard at his hands, stared and willed and tightened the muscles in his fingers, clenching them without actually making a fist, squeezing every muscle in his hands and arms and shoulders until at last every part of him was still.
The music faded into a commercial for the local Ford dealership, the announcer’s rapid-fire voice tooting the fantastic deals on new trucks and SUVs and hybrids. John snorted and turned away from the radio. Put on the pot for coffee (no coffeemaker here), throw some bread into the oven (toasters were for wimps), don a coat and hat to feed the dogs. He’d do a full check of the premises once he’d eaten and written his words for the day, but the dogs would start howling if breakfast didn’t accompany the sunrise.
Four dogs, all dark brown bruisers of uncertain heritage, all perfectly friendly to John and any neighbors who happened to come by, and unfriendly to anyone else, met him at the entrance to the barn. None of them had names or ages or as far as John could tell, much of a personality except for liking food and disliking chickens. The dogs were, as always, happy to see him, and as soon as the food hit the bowls, were chowing down without another care in the world. Most of them, anyway - one, the smallest of the pack stayed by John’s side for another moment, and gave his hand a lick.
“Go on,” said John. “Or the others’ll get your breakfast and you aren’t getting another.”
The dog licked his hand again before trotting back to its breakfast. John watched them eat for a moment - one was already pushing its half empty bowl across the barn floor in its eagerness to get every last morsel of food - and then headed back to the house before his water boiled away.
Music again - well, that was something, at least, he’d managed to miss the commercials. The water was boiling, too, and John could smell the toast in the oven just about to burn. He pulled it out with bare hands, dropped the hot toast on the counter, and turned to fix up his coffee, running the water through the ancient French press. Fancy enough for some; just good sense to John, since it didn’t use electricity or take up unnecessary real estate on the small kitchen counter. If a press had been good enough for his grandmother, it was good enough for him.
John was halfway to buttering the toast when he realized he was humming along with the radio, and he frowned, not quite recognizing the music, while at the same time wondering how it was he knew it. He stopped what he was doing and listened - no words, just instrumental, a bridge of some kind in between verses, and clearly placed to show off the quick bow-work of the fiddler. John could practically hear the fingers flying smoothly over the strings, free from stiffness and shakes, the sweat dripping from some unknown brow under bright stage lighting.
And then the fiddle stopped, and the artist began to sing. A deep voice, baritone, haunting and strange and full of longing and sorrow and hope and determination.
The wind comes low and straight across the Oklahoma plain
I won’t just sit and wait for the sun to turn to rain
I’ll get up on my own two feet and get out of this damn place
And leave the past behind me and try on a different face.
John froze.
He knew this song.
This was his song, sung by a voice that might have come from his own heart, exactly as he’d written it six months ago in the deep dark of the hour before sunrise. Scratched the words on paper and set them to music on the battered piano in the attic and sent off to his agent and hadn’t heard a damn thing else since, though that might have been because John only checked the post office box about once every two weeks, and come to think of it, it’d been about a month since he’d remembered to check it last, hadn’t it?
“Damn,” whispered John, and leaned against the counter as the man on the radio kept singing out his darkest nightmares.
The brightest gold will turn to brass in the harsh light of the day
The fields of wheat will turn to grass; life has always been that way
The best of times, the worst of fates are always hand in hand
You’ve got to fight against the dawn, and take it like a man.
John closed his eyes and breathed.
It was one thing to write the words in the dark of night, when no one else was looking over his shoulder. They were quiet scritches of pencil on paper, private and unhurried and alone. Putting them to music - that came so naturally, as John repeated the words to himself over the course of the day, finding the right notes, the right stops and starts and rises and falls, that when he actually sat down at the battered old piano in the attic, it was as if he was playing songs from dusty memory instead of something he’d composed himself.
John still didn’t know why he’d send the finished products off to Mike. He’d certainly never expected Mike to say anything but, Fine, good, I’ll see what I can do. Which is what Mike often said, and then nothing would come of it.
Nothing like hearing some other man sing out his nightmare. John supposed an actual songwriter would be celebrating, hearing his song on the radio. John just felt violated.
Never again, he told himself. When he opened them, the sun had risen, and the kitchen was filled with light.
*
The strains of the fiddle remained with John long after he’d finished his coffee and toast. Trying to write them had proven to be a fruitless venture, and John had broken the tip of his pencil in frustration before he finally gave up and went outside to start the morning chores. The overly friendly dog was waiting for him at the base of the porch steps, and John walked by it without a word. It followed, tail wagging.
“Breakfast get stolen?” John asked the dog when they reached the barn. “Told you to eat it and not go looking for scraps.”
The dog sat down, watching as John fumbled with the lock in the crisp morning air. The bolt slid, finally, and John shoved the door open, throwing his body weight against the wood, as the door creaked and complained.
The barn was warm and fuggy with the scent of horses and hay, sweat and manure. Two dozen horses, all in individual stalls, shuffled and shifted, some calling out to him in longing wickers, some perfectly content to ignore him. One, a deep brown horse that was at least five hands taller than any horse had the right to be, head-butted the stall’s door as John walked past.
“Hold still, Remy, I’m coming back,” said John, and the horse neighed in response.
John gathered the halters and fly masks from the closet before going into the stalls, one by one, clipping the halters on and leading the horses to stand in the center aisle. The tall brown horse was the last, and he curled his head around John as John fixed the halter. John chuckled, and patted Remy’s cheek.
“Right, Rem. All right, boy, I’m goin’ as fast as I can.”
Half a dozen horses were shuffling in the center aisle when John led Remy out. He unhooked their tethers and held them loosely in his hand - mostly they knew where to go, and were anxious to get there without much prompting from the likes of him. They followed as he led them into the pastures next door, and waited somewhat impatiently as he unlatched the gate, pawing at the ground and snuffling in the cool morning air. As soon as John threw the gate wide, they went through, picking up the pace until they were at a full gallop, racing across the grass and kicking their heels.
The dozen or so cows in the far pasture lowed their own greetings; if John listened closely, he could hear the sheep on the other side. The sun was just peeking out from the otherwise heavy cloud cover; John lifted his hand up to shield his eyes, and caught sight of the figure on horseback, trotting across the field, waving hello. John waved back.
“Watson!” shouted the woman, and John nudged the last of the horses through the gate before pulling it closed, setting the latch so they wouldn’t get out easily. “Don’t go in yet!”
John waved his acknowledgement, and waited for the woman to finish crossing the clearing. He had to crane his neck to look up at her, but that was only because of the horse; he’d seen Mary Morstan with her feet on the ground, and she was smaller than he was. Lithe and blonde with bright eyes and a sassy demeanor. John liked her, when he didn’t want to kick her into the nearest well. “I tried calling you this morning - were you in the fields?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been out in the fields, to town and back, and cleaned out all three dozen stalls before breakfast,” countered John with a snort.
“Show-off,” said the woman, and the horse pranced a bit. “There’s a gap on the northwest side. Thought you ought to know.”
John frowned. “Not big enough for an escape, is it?”
“Not yet. But that dapple’s looking contemplative. I can lend a hand after lunch if you’d like.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”
Mary nodded, and the horse continued to prance. “Good lord, Pondicherry, what’s gotten into you? Sorry, John. If I don’t run this beast five miles before breakfast, it’s like he hasn’t had exercise in a week.”
John chuckled. “Go on, then.”
Mary took off, a quick trot until she reached far end of the clearing, where she kicked Pondicherry into a full on gallop. John watched them go, the dust kicking up behind, until a soft bark at his feet alerted him to the dog, sitting patiently at his side.
“No second breakfast for you,” John told the animal, and went back into the barn. Plenty to do in the day still - mucking out the stalls, refreshing the water, checking the feed, washing down the concrete. The arena needed re-sanding, there were three saddles needed repairing, and that didn’t even figure in John’s personal laundry and the fact that the toilet was in desperate need of a scrub.
Another day. John’s fingers itched with the irrational need to write, made all the more ridiculous by the fact that he’d spent twenty minutes that morning already trying to do just that, without success.
The reason why flooded back; John had forgotten, and the memory of the fiddle, twisting and turning around notes he’d composed on a piano, curled around his head, danced in time with the push broom.
The dog followed hopefully behind.
*
It was three hours before John finished mucking out the stalls. The dog followed him clear up to the front porch of the house, and when John told him to sit at the base of the stairs, he did, although he still looked hopefully at John.
“Well,” said John, “Murray trained you well, anyway.”
The house wasn’t much warmer than the air outside, though that might have been the lack of wind. John threw a few logs into the little black stove that served as heating, and after a moment’s contemplation - Aw, hell, Watson, do it or you’ll wonder the rest of the day - went to find a phone.
Mike answered on the second ring. “Stamford.”
“Mike, there something you want to tell me?” demanded John.
“John Watson!” Mike sounded more relieved than anything else. “I’ve been trying to call you for days, man! You need an answering machine.”
“I have one.”
“It’s not working.”
John glanced at the answering machine. The lights didn’t blink, and the number read a solid “1”, same as it had for weeks. “Looks like it is to me.”
“You need to listen to the radio, man - hold on, I can look up the next-“
“I heard it.”
“Oh!” Now Mike was flustered, probably because John didn’t sound suitably enthused. Well, he wasn’t, he wasn’t about to put on a show for Mike. “Debuted day before yesterday, and it’s making its way up the charts. Getting requests for it right and left, you should see the sales on iTunes.”
John shivered and looked out the window. The horses were contently nuzzling at the grasses. Remy stood near the gate, watching the house. Hoping for a ride, no doubt.
“Who was singing it? I didn’t recognize the voice.”
“John, you have got to get out from under that rock. He’s had a few top ten hits, nothing above four or five. And he’s been playing spotlight fiddle for years - Reba and Brad, mostly, a few others. Looks about twelve years old, but he’s been on the circuit long enough. Name’s Sherlock Holmes.”
John pulled the phone from his ear and made a face at it, as if he’d heard wrong. “What kind of sissy name is that for a country music singer?”
“Well, he refused to change it. That’s how it’s going these days in the business; everyone wants to keep their own names, ‘less there’s a good enough reason to switch. And there’s never a good enough reason, not for them. So you heard the song? What’d you think? He did a bit of rearranging with the music, added in a fiddle solo, I think there were some verses he repeated-“
“I didn’t hear the whole thing,” admitted John. “The fiddle solo, though. That…that was good. Which verses?”
“Um…” John could hear Mike shuffle the papers on his desk. “The opening. Talking about the reversal from comforting dark to the bright light of day. Something about the symbolism. I don’t know, he goes on a while once you get him started.”
“Uh-huh.” The horses were off at a gallop again, racing in circles. Except for Remy, still standing by the gate. “Mike, I’ve got to go. Something’s spooked the horses.”
“Wait - you got any more songs for me? He wants ‘em. Wants first pick of ‘em.”
“Shoot, Mike, I sent you half a dozen last month,” said John irritably. “Show him those.”
“I did. He didn’t read ‘em a quarter through before he threw them out the window, called them ‘rubbish’ and asked for the good stuff.”
“Rubbish?”
“Yeah, didn’t I tell you? British. Urban’s one thing, they’ve got cowboys in Australia, or something like. British, though…”
John snorted. “Does he wear a top hat or a cowboy hat on stage?”
“Neither.”
“Oh, that kind of country.”
“Don’t knock it, there’s a royalty check from that kind of country heading your way. And half your horses are dressage, anyway.”
“Not my horses,” said John, as the horses in question galloped around the paddock again. “Speaking of.”
“Fine, fine. Get your phone fixed.”
“Sure.”
John hung up the phone, checked that the fire in the little black stove wasn’t anything to worry about, and sat down on the bench by the door to pull on his boots.
A royalty check. John, briefly, wondered what it’d look like. Big enough for new jeans and new boots, maybe. Or long underwear. He’d give in on the jeans if he could have a pair of longjohns to go underneath - really there wasn’t anything wrong with the jeans, no holes to speak of, just that they were worn thin and soft and fuzzy from years of work. The boots were all right too, he supposed: faded tan rubbed shiny from years of work. Bit of mud caked to the heels.
The coat, though - nothing wrong with the coat. Brushed leather with sheep’s wool inside, fuzzy and soft and heavy and warm. John pulled it on and did up the snaps clear to his chin, and pulled on the wide-brimmed cowboy hat tightly as he stepped outside.
The dog waited for him, sitting on the top step.
“I don’t know what kind of arrangement you had with Murray,” John told the dog, “but you’re not coming in while I’m here.”
The dog’s tail thumped against the porch.
“Go on,” said John. “I’ve got work to do.”
The dog followed John down the steps and toward the paddock, where it waited patiently as John pulled Remy out of the field and led him back to the barn to saddle him up. The dog watched from a safe distance, and when John finally got up on Remy’s back to set off at a gallop across the field, the dog followed along, running gleefully through the grass, tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth. Happy.
Chapter Two