The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

series The Fiddle and The Fire.”
    The entire gathering seemed to freeze in time, and each of the one hundred or more people I could see from the podium bore the expression of the proverbial “deer in the headlights”. I flinched at the sight of the near-instant transformation of the hundred-odd people before me from bereaved mourners to astounded lynch mob.
    It’s also when I noticed the cameraman and his news correspondent standing next to him, standing in the back of the chapel, nestled in amongst the other attendees, ready and waiting to make sure the revolution would be televised.
    The longer I studied their shock waiting for pitchforks and torches, the darker their faces got, until they were all murmuring to each other and glaring at me as if I’d changed the formula for Coca-Cola. This entire vignette, by the way, seemed to stretch on for three hours, but it in fact persisted a mere twenty-five seconds.
    “Really?” asked Judith, her eyes wide and bright in the window-filtered afternoon sun.
    “That—kinda sucks,” said Sawyer, and I watched the joy drain out of his face. The mild satisfaction I was feeling at cracking his boy-band confidence faltered, and the result of my insolence pierced me to my core.
    “Look,” I said, sighing, “I apologize for the reaction, everybody. I really do. My father and I just really weren’t on the best of terms to put it mildly, and I don’t know a whole lot about his series. I read some of the first book when I was in the Army, but with work and everything over there, I never really got into it. And after that, well—I pretty much missed the boat, I think.”
    Bayard got up and joined us on the dais. “We knew this was coming,” he whispered to me, cupping the microphone with one bear-paw hand, leaning into my face, filling my nostrils with his coffee breath.
    I could see my own honey-colored cornered-wolf expression in the reflection of his 70’s bicolor glasses. It struck me that he looked like Hunter S. Thompson if Thompson was thirty pounds heavier and given to picking out ties to wear to Olive Garden.
    “And you have no idea just how much this is going to blow up if you agree to step into your father’s shoes,” he was saying. “This could be the next big thing with this Comic-Con crowd. To that end, I’ve been working on a little something in my spare time. A little deal. Something to sweeten the pot.”
    “What would that be?” I asked. “Max, you know I’m an artist first. I haven’t written anything worth a crap in ages other than that ghostwriter project, for the climber guy that got stuck in the Colorado mountains a couple years ago. I got a couple graphic novels and advertising jobs on the table.”
    “HBO wanted to talk about doing a Fiddle TV series before your father passed. Nerf wants to license foam swords and dart revolvers. I’m even getting word of a video game. Of course, you would only see a fraction of it—but this all would make your residuals from Bear With Me look like hobo change.”
    I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Sawyer, and his eyes were like scalpel blades. “I’ve read some of your stuff, man. You’re not as bad as you think you are.”
    I studied Bayard’s rubbery face and considered his intel, then stared down at the ostrich feather until the world around me faded to gray.
    Once I’d had enough of pretending to think about it, I looked over to Sawyer and Judy, staring straight into Sawyer’s camcorder, and said loud enough for the microphone to catch, “You know, they say you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Let me sleep on it, okay? Let me catch up on the series, and I’ll see where we can go from there.”
    They both grinned. A few people in the funeral party applauded softly. I scanned the people before me and saw quite a few more beaming faces than just a few minutes prior. Even the teenagers that looked like they woke up in a cave and came straight to the funeral were glowing.
    Sawyer leaned