Read Gutbucket Quest for Free Online

call a slywalker. He liked his women and his whiskey and his dope. We all knew it was gonna put him under. Few of us were stupid enough to try talkin’ to him about it. But, you see, we’d all seen him when he didn’t have none of it, and it wasn’t the same. There wasn’t no spark in it, like he was a burnt-out light bulb or somethin’. The women and whiskey and dopin’, they lifted up his life while they was takin’ it away at the same time. And he just up and fell over dead one day. Oh, it was a sad day then, I can tell you.
    “Anyways, it surprised everyone, but old Rosie’d left a will and testament. Sort of. The man didn’t have nothin’ really. Spent his money on the sportin’ life. But what he did have, he split up amongst his regular women. What he did have, though, was a last request. The man said he wanted his ole tired body to be cremated, but he didn’t want no regular burial. Said his life had always been in the blues, and even if he was dead, he didn’t cotton to that little detail stoppin’ him from playin’ on. So he asked for his ashes to be ground up real fine. He’d made up this special plastic compound he’d been usin’ to make his guitars, and he said he wanted us to mix his ashes up in a batch of that and then make it into a guitar body. He’d already made up the neck special and all the electronics for it. I guess he’d been ready for it, you know, for a while, thinkin’ what he wanted to do. Had it all planned up. So all his friends got together and did what he wanted us to. Once the guitar was made, well, he’d left it in his will that he wanted me to have it. I guess Rosie figured I’d be the one to use it best. Either that or it was his idea of a last joke.”
    “How long ago was this?”

    “Oh, thirty, forty years, I s’pect.”
    “Why aren’t you playing it?” Slim asked.
    “Well, that there’s hard to explain. I did try to play it for a while. Tried hard. But that thing was just too powerful. Some reason it didn’t take to me. A guitar’s a thing—it’s alive and aware, son. A part of any song you create, your friend and company, sometimes your worstest enemy. It helps shape you into what you’ll become. And just like a woman, you got to find the right one, the one that fits into all your curves and bends and matches your mind and your hands and your heart. The Gutbucket, well, it just wasn’t right for me. The magic was too strong, too much power.”
    “So, what’d you do?”
    “Well, I couldn’t just lay it down. I mean, that was Rosie, sort of. When it was made, the magic took over. I don’t know what Rosie did makin’ it, what he had planned, but it was so filled with power that it became the heart of the blues in Tejas. I couldn’t play it—maybe no one can play it. But it seemed like everyone who was playin’ was drawin’ power from it. We was all goin’ to the same well, but we was all comin’ back with different water from the heart of it.
    “I had to do somethin’ to keep it safe, to preserve the heart of the blues if it was gonna be that almighty powerful. I had to have it someplace it’d be appreciated and cared for. So I took it to Charlie’s, where we headed now. Friend of mine, name of Orville Wilbur, works there. He’s a genius with guitars; makin’ ‘em, fixin’ ‘em, settin’ ‘em up. I knowed he’d take good care of it, keep it clean and intonated and all, so’s it’d be in good shape. So’s the heart of the blues would stay healthy and strong. He’s been keepin’ it for me all these years. Now it’s done been stolen.”
    “These—Vipers?” Slim asked. He’d listened to the story, but it seemed hard to believe. All this was about a guitar? A week ago he’d have said he didn’t believe in magic, that it wasn’t something that could exist. But that was in his world. That was before he’d beenblasted into Progress’ world. Now, he couldn’t be sure what to believe.
    “Yep,” Progress said, answering