Night of the Black Bear Read Online Free Page A

it.
    Speaking up again, Merle told Jack. “I gotta be at my job in Gatlinburg by 5:30. Bess said she’d drive me there tonight, and my boss will drive me back to the Firekillers’ house after work.”
    Bess, the woman wearing work clothes, spoke up, “But you gotta pay me back, Merle. For the ride, I mean.”
    â€œHow, Bess?” he asked.
    â€œSing one more song before we go.”
    The nurse’s aide had left the room, but she poked her head around the door again, saying, “I heard that! Is Merle going to sing again? Sing loud, Merle, so I can hear you from the nurse’s station.”
    So Merle was a singer? He didn’t look more than a year older than Jack. In fact, he looked something like Jack, only taller and stockier, with hair a little redder than Jack’s blond color and eyes more gray than blue.
    Plucking a few strings on his guitar, Merle announced, “I’ll sing this one ’cause Mom likes it best.” He waited just a moment, strummed a chord, then began to sing:
    Downtown by the neon lights
    Where trouble runs and the young men fight
    There’s a woman singin’ slow
    Her voice is rough and low
    And when she steps to the microphone
    The songs she sings are all her own….
    Jack straightened in surprise. Merle was good! Really good! The song went on:
    Now I might seem as far apart
    From Mona’s world as day from dark
    But Mona sings her soul to me
    And all her songs, they set me free
    She makes me feel I’m not alone
    She sings for me as if I was her own.
    The women in the room applauded, yelling “yay’ ” and “whoo hoo.”’ By then Jack wasn’t just surprised, he’d zoomed all the way to astonished! Merle was as good as any singer Jack had ever heard on the radio or on television.
    â€œThat’s my favorite of all the songs Merle ever wrote,” his mother was saying, as she smiled and nodded her head.
    â€œYou wrote that song? Yourself?” Jack stammered.
    â€œYes, he did,” Arlene answered proudly. “You know, we named Merle after the country singer Merle Haggard. When he grows up, Merle’s gonna be just as famous as Merle Haggard.”
    Who was Merle Haggard? Jack had never heard of him.
    Bess asked, “You used to sing, too, Arlene, didn’t you? Back a ways?”
    â€œWell, yes, I did. When Merle’s daddy was alive, we sang together. We wanted to be another Johnny Cash and June Carter, can you imagine?” She laughed a little at that, then clutched her chest, saying, “Ooh, that hurts!”
    Johnny Cash! Jack knew about Johnny Cash. “I worked on a Johnny Cash CD cover,” he said.
    For a few silent seconds, everyone stared at Jack in amazement. “You…you designed a Johnny Cash record cover? By yourself?” Merle asked.
    â€œNo! No, I mean…I never designed it for real. I just fool around with Photoshop. Like…I change pictures to make them look funny or scary. Then I post them to a blog.”
    â€œOh.” They all looked a little disappointed. “Well, let’s see your Johnny Cash cover then,” Corinn told him, pulling a small laptop from a briefcase near her feet. “I brought my computer today so we could go over Arlene’s Dollywood hospital insurance plan. Here, I’ll turn it on for you.”
    Jack wished he’d never mentioned Photoshopping. He felt really stupid as he moved over to the computer Corinn set up on the bedside stand. Taking a deep breath, he signed into the blog and pulled up the picture he’d posted.
    There it was, a CD cover of country music superstar Johnny Cash with his famous black shirt and pants all covered with one-dollar bills Jack had pasted on him digitally. “I call it ‘Cash on Cash,’” he said weakly.
    Their reaction was a big surprise. Corinn, Bess, and Merle burst out laughing, and Arlene cried, “Oooh, let me see! That is so funny.