Just one damn thing after another, Frank Oldfield thought. Singers without enough brains to change a tire on their pickup truck thinking that they could hold him up for the contents of Ft. Knox. Singers in jail because they thought busting up bars was good for their image. Publicists frustrated because they thought it was bad for the label's image. Reporters whose only goal in life was to smear someone for the sake of a headline, to try to drag them down in the slime. Then, there were the assholes in New York. Everybody wanting the sun and the moon, without enough to go around. People think this business is simple, he thought. Boy, do they have another think coming!

Having to balance at least a dozen crises, frustrations and arguments at a time was the normal thing around him. The main crisis of the day was their latest overnight sensation, an 18-year-old girl who really didn't sing badly, if simplistically, and let a lot of bedroom into her voice and presentation. She also had the mating habits of a mink and a reputation that was only a slight whitewash of the truth. There were two guys who both thought they were her boyfriend who took after each other with switchblades the other night while she was in bed with a third. Now, one of the guys was in jail, the other in the hospital, and the reporters were swarming. Oldfield figured that she'd be making the covers of all the tabs this week over that.

Really, it wasn't that bad. Someone said years ago that "it doesn't matter what they say so long as they get the name right." In this case, maybe it didn't matter all that much that the little teenybopper had the image of a slut, because it made a lot of young male buyers have dreams of getting into her pants too, and that helped sales. It was pretty clear that she was going to be a flash in the pan, anyway. Frank had seen it before -- a kickoff platinum album, a follow-up that wasn't as good and might go gold and might not, and then a couple flops before contract renewal negotiations came up. By then she'd be so strung out that she wouldn't be able to carry a note. She might stay in the business another few years, working the county fair circuit on the strength of past glory, and then she'd be history . . . and he'd be bitched at by the guys in New York because he hadn't gotten the full earning potential out of her career. What was he, a record company executive or a pimp?

Frank had been around the business long enough to see a lot of overnight sensations come and go. It wasn't all that often that they got a young sensation who parlayed themselves into a long career; the usual case was come in with a couple of hits, then a long slide and out, or at best, back to the local bars and county fairs within five years.

Once in a while someone broke the mold. Back when Jenny Easton first broke into the business twenty years before, Frank had her pretty well figured for a five-year in and out. A couple of big hits, Smoke Filled Room leading the list; some good sales . . . and then, the slide downhill. But then somehow Jenny had gotten a second wind, and of all the damn things, ridden an album that featured a cover of a 40-year-old Peggy Lee hit right back up to platinum. Fever wasn't even country -- and worse, Nashville-Murray didn't own the rights! Well, other stuff on the album had been good old-line country, but it sure raised hell with contract negotiations. Frank had her old agent pressuring her to take the standard "rebuild the career" contract, and that had cost a lot in kickbacks. But then, under that goddamn Blake Walworth's urging, she'd dumped the agent and signed with a Hollywood agency that had quickly slapped him in the face with the sales from Fever and gotten him into a hammerlock. She'd been ready to walk right off the label, and the only way he'd been able to keep her on it at all was to sign a contract that just about gave away the whole ranch. Then, she'd moved up to that godforsaken hole in the north woods, and it almost took nuclear weapons to blow her out of there for a promo or a tour. There'd at least been the hope that she'd take a slide on the next contract, but no, she hung in there, not quite top rank, but not far below it, either -- just one of those industry standards who would be around forever and making good money all the while. She had become one of those performers they about had to keep on the label just for the sake of example.

The terms he'd had to agree to were a hell of a lot worse than he'd liked, and boy, did those assholes in New York ever lay into him over that! The stupid bastards didn't know a damn thing about the business, all they knew about was the bottom line, the quarterly earnings statement. Any move he made would be the wrong one, as far as they were concerned. They'd bitched like hell because he all but gave away the ranch to keep her on the label, and then last year, when she announced she was breaking off negotiations entirely, they'd bitched about the fact that they were losing her earning potential. You couldn't win with those jokers. You couldn't break even, and you couldn't even get out of the game.

Well, he could get out of the game, he thought. He was getting into his late fifties now, and the thought had occurred to him more than once. Even though the market was heading for the shitter, what with a Republican in the White House, his portfolio was oriented toward long-term capital investments, not high flyers. It'd involve being a little frugal maybe, compared to the way he was living, but the tensions would be a hell of a lot less. Actually, there had been a time or two that he'd envied Jenny her little independent label, able to do some niche things that Nashville-Murray couldn't and wouldn't touch -- like that album of Celtic harp music that they had on their label. The sales were really nothing to write home about, but it had been a solid seller, and without the overhead involved in a big album, he could see how they could be making a few bucks off of it.

He remembered growing up, the old bluegrass music that his grandparents used to play, real mountain music, not the horseshit that passed for country these days. A person could have a good time, he thought, just hanging around some of those bluegrass festivals still occasionally held in the hills around home. Who knew what someone might turn up there? Retirement might be boring, but he could think of worse things to do, even if it involved setting up a canopy at some of those festivals once in a while and selling CDs directly from producer to consumer. It'd cut out a lot of middlemen, that was for sure . . .

But that was neither here nor there. He was sure he'd go nuts, being out of the action. After all, for thirty years a dozen crises a day had been the normal way of life. God, he could write a book about some of the stuff that he'd seen. In any case, it wouldn't happen soon, but it was damn tempting after all the bitching he got from New York.

The topic this morning had been Jenny Easton again, as if he hadn't heard it all at least twice a week, and even more after Saturday Night came out, and all because not one penny of it was going into the quarterly earnings statements up there in New York. The album was fading now after six months on the charts, but Frank didn't have to do the math to realize that it'd done at least as well as an independent as it would have if it had been a Nashville-Murray release. He was being blamed for losing every damn cent -- after his hands had been tied by the same dumb bastards who hadn't been willing to let him negotiate a contract that might have kept her on the label long before she'd taken it in her head to go independent.

But according to the bottom-line bastards in New York, it was all his fault. If they realized how much they'd lost by just not letting him run the business like he knew how to, and waste half his damn time listening to them complain and chasing after their petty but pointless directives, he could have gotten them the increases in earnings they'd wanted in spite of a soft economy and a soft market. But no, someone had to take the blame, and it wasn't going to be the people who caused the problem.

Damn Jenny, anyhow. Blake, too, especially Blake. If he could just talk to Jenny one on one, without his meddling, he was sure he could get some kind of contract out of her. It might not be the we-take-all contract that the jokers in New York wanted, but at least it was a step in the right direction. Didn't she realize that she was killing the goose that laid the golden egg? No matter how much she wanted to do that new-wave stuff of hers, the golden eggs were still the old-line Jenny, and she and Blake were thinking about not doing another old-line album, at least not right away, maybe not ever again! Good God, she still got a hell of a check each quarter from Nashville-Murray from the old old-line albums that stayed in print and continued to sell regularly. No matter how much she might like to do some other stuff like that album of harp music, stuff that she'd done ten and twenty years before still outsold the best you could ever hope to imagine with an album like that.

And then, to top it off, the last time he'd talked with Blake, he'd said they were taking a look at a young couple who were in the process of recording an ambient, new-age album. Ambient New-Age! On the Jenny Easton label! Didn't that woman realize what an album like that on her label would do to old-line sales? Her real fans would think she'd gone crazy! For God's sakes, the least they could do would be to come up with another name for the production, maybe a subsidiary company that wouldn't have to have Jenny Easton associated with it! Somehow, new contract or not, he had to talk at least that much sense into her. If he tried to talk to Blake about it, he was dead sure that it would never get to her -- at least with the importance that it deserved.

For months he'd tried to talk to Jenny. Not Blake, Jenny. But, he'd kept getting put off with some of the lamest excuses possible. He couldn't stop trying to get hold of her just on the odd chance that he might get through to her, but it had been clear for a long time that it was going to be just about impossible. Then he'd gotten a strip torn off his hide by the New York jokers once again over all the money they'd lost because he hadn't been able to keep her under contract for Saturday Night. Wouldn't that just be lovely when the quarterly meeting in New York in September rolled around!

What he really ought to do was to take the several days he would need, go up there to that godforsaken hole in the woods, and try to talk to her face to face. There was a chance that he might be able to get through to her . . .

. . . and, maybe not. There would still be Blake to contend with. Queer or not, he had a reputation as someone it didn't pay to mess with. After all, Jenny had hired him as a bodyguard. After she did, he'd had a little quiet investigation run on him just to find out what kind of problems he'd be dealing with, and found out that Blake was a master martial artist. Black belts in half a dozen different things, starting with karate and going on through several other far-eastern sounding names that didn't mean much to him except to tell him that Blake was not a guy to get in a shoving match with. No way he wanted to go up there and try to face him down without some bodyguards of his own. It was why he'd turned down the idea months ago -- it meant a war, with him right in the middle. Now what would that do to any chance of a contract negotiation? How would that look if some one of the tabs, or worse, legitimate media heard about it? Or, one of the trash TV rags like Hollywood Tonight?

Hmmm . . . how would it look? Even Blake probably wouldn't be willing to risk the bad publicity that would result if he pounded the living shit out of him while a camera crew had the tape rolling. He knew that Jenny didn't like camera crews showing up to get sneak shots of her in her home town, but that didn't mean that it was illegal. Sure, there was that camera crew who got a little hosed, like Lenny from the Trib told him about back last winter. From what he'd heard, they'd done something dumb in front of the wrong person, which had to be expected out of a guy like Lenny who couldn't take a perfectly good piece of scandal and run with it instead of drop it on its ass. And, that was a long time ago, when Jenny was a lot hotter item in the tabs. Probably no one had tried sending a film crew up there in the sticks, at least not in years.

It'd be tricky . . . he couldn't look like he was involved with the film crew. In fact, he'd have to look like he was warning her about them -- that might put him on her good side, and they might be able to at least talk like adults. It couldn't be put together overnight, but that was fine since he'd have to find some time in his schedule to make the trip. It'd involve some creative lying, but he was good at that. After all, he couldn't have stayed where he had in this business for as long as he had without it . . .

* * *

Driving a long way takes time. Once, thirty years before, a pair of racing drivers in a Ferrari made the coast-to-coast trip in under 32 hours; "We never exceeded 175 miles an hour," one later reported. There are numerous reports of teams of people making the trip in 48 hours without breaking the speed limits too badly in the process.

Flagstaff to Spearfish Lake is only about half that distance, but there was only one driver each for the Cougar, carrying gear, recording equipment and the all-important drives full of recordings, and for the red Neon, carrying more gear and two Celtic harps. They'd left Flagstaff early in the morning the day after they got off the river, still tired, and decided not to push excessively hard, take their time, and make several stops. What with the stop in Kansas City, it took them five full days to make the crossing; five days from the redrock of the Grand Canyon, the barren deserts of the southwest, across the prairies of Texas and Kansas, through the rolling hills of Iowa, and finally, to the lush green pine and broadleaf trees of the northern forest. After six weeks in the barren-but-beautiful rock-bound desert of the Grand Canyon, the forests around Spearfish Lake seemed like a jungle.

Late on the fifth day out of Flagstaff, the red Neon led the white Cougar through the northern town, out to the neat Victorian houses on Point Drive, nestled in their green lawns and large trees, with the broad blue of the lake reflecting the clear blue of a cloudless northern sky, and came to a stop in the driveway of one of the more modest of the houses in the neighborhood.

Trey was road-weary from the trip; it was a lot of driving, and besides grabbing some clothes more appropriate for the conditions from the pile of his things in Myleigh's apartment, he'd spent a little time on the couch -- not enough -- catching up on his sleep.

Trey couldn't help but be a little nervous knowing where he was going. In all of his life, he'd never really known anyone who was really famous, never even met someone who was in her league, and he hadn't been shy about telling Myleigh about his concerns. She'd told him not to worry about it at all; Jennifer was just like everyone else, especially when she was at home and with her friends. "Now that I think about it," she'd said. "You do share many qualities with Blake, and I think she will detect that early on. You will find that Blake treats her with a great deal of deference, but it is because she is Jennifer, rather than Jenny. Treat them as you would, oh, Randy and Nicole, and you shall have no problems."

Well, that was all right; after all, she knew Jennifer and Blake, had known them for years. But, still . . .

It was good to get out of the car, where his clothes were plastered to his backside after having sat there for so long. He could stretch, move around, let the blood move into parts that had been sitting still for a long time. He looked over at Myleigh as she got out of the Neon. "So this is the place, huh?" he said.

"This is the place," she agreed. "Randy's parents live three houses back the way we came, along the shore. Randy and Nicole live about two miles farther on in that direction. Trey, the last several years this town has been as much a home as I have a home to go to, and I have come to appreciate it. I should hope that you do, too."

"There the two of you are," they heard a man's voice say. Trey looked up to see a big, handsome guy step out on the back porch. That had to be Blake, Trey thought; he's bigger than he looks in his picture. "Jennifer, they're here," he heard Blake call into the house.

A moment later Blake was joined by a tall blonde with hair gathered into a ponytail that hung down well below her waist and dressed in nondescript shorts and a tank top. The two of them came down the steps and joined Trey and Myleigh in the driveway. It turned out that both towered over Myleigh but that didn't stop them from sharing big hugs all around.

"It is very good to see you again," Myleigh said, "But I should be remiss if I did not introduce my companion, Trey Hartwell."

"So, you're Trey," Jennifer smiled, turning to him. To his eyes, she looked about thirty, maybe a touch older, certainly not the nearly 40 that he knew she was. Maybe Michelle would look like that when she was Jennifer's age, he thought. "We've heard a lot about you," she went on.

"It's good to finally meet you," Trey smiled. "After all, I've heard so much about you the last six months or so that I feel like you've been a part of my life."

"Well, we really appreciate all the help you've been to Myleigh," Blake said. "She can be a little, uh, overwhelming at times."

"I confess, sir, I am inordinately aware of that fact," Trey mocked Myleigh -- something he rarely did. Somehow, already, he got the feeling that he was part of the group.

"Don't we know it," Blake grinned. "Did the two of you have a good trip?"

"Long and dull, I fear," Myleigh said. "And, how is Jeremy?"

"Growing like a weed," Jennifer smiled. "He's asleep right now, but why don't we go out on the front porch and you two can recover from your trip?"

Out on the front porch overlooking the lake, Trey really began to relax a bit. While much of the discussion went over his head since it was about people he didn't know much about, he was comfortable with the tone of the conversation -- just catching up, not really gossiping, watching casual friends who liked each other a lot. Blake and Jennifer had to pump him a little for the story of how he had recovered Blue Beauty back in January, and for his feelings about how the tour had gone back in March. These weren't high and mighty people, just down to earth folks who obviously had some talent. While they liked to live comfortably, they weren't ones to show off their money.

After a while they heard crying from inside. "Sounds like he's back with us," Blake said. "Want me to go deal with the diapers, hon?"

"No, I'll do it," she said. "He's probably hungry, too. Now that we don't have to worry about waking him up, I'd like to hear just a sample of this marvelous music you have been talking about."

Trey went out to the car, got one of the recorders, and once he was in the living room -- large and nice, but obviously lived in, too -- Blake produced a patch cable to run to the huge stereo system from the recorder. "I don't know where to start. Maybe the last one, track 417. We recorded that down at Diamond Wash during a break from loading up. I haven't gotten around to hearing this one myself, but it struck me at the time as being better than average, but probably not the best."

"Whatever you think," Jennifer said, from over in an armchair, where Jeremy was being fed under a light blanket. "We know what raw recording sounds like."

"All right," Trey said. "I'm just going to dump the tracks together and fiddle with levels as I go along." He hit the Play button. There were a few seconds of near silence, just the sounds of a light burble of moving water. All of a sudden, they began to hear the sounds of Blue Beauty. It was light, gentle -- but full of a profound glory. Trey imagined that he could hear undertones of sadness and wistfulness in it, almost a lament that the scenes of the last two weeks would now have to be but memories. The harp sounds rose to a restrained excitement, then faded to almost a farewell, a final lament, before winding down to fading repetitions of some of the earlier themes. Finally, the recording ended, leaving the room filled with silence.

"Trey," Myleigh broke the silence finally. "Are you sure that was Blue Beauty and me?"

"I recorded it there and brought the recorder all the way here, so it about has to be," Trey said lightly.

"I hardly remember it like that at all," Myleigh said, wondering at the thought. "That is so very much more evocative than I ever dreamed."

"And you said that was only average, or a little better," Blake mused. "How much of that did you say you had?"

"I haven't had the time to go over it since I talked to you on the phone," Trey said. "Counting the spoils, over forty hours. I'm guessing I can probably hack it down to twenty, maybe twenty-five without too much work."

"And then, it gets hard?"

"Yeah."

Jennifer smiled. "Looks like you've got some work to turn that into an album. I could hear some things that you'd want to do on a mix that would improve it a little, but I've got to admit, I don't think trying to add a background track would improve it much. What do you think, Blake?"

"Some mixing work, sure," he said. "Bring up the ambient stream babble a little at the beginning and end, maybe a couple places along in the middle, but really, I don't think it would be worth trying to build an accompaniment. You can almost hear the sigh of resignation at having to leave. Myleigh, that's some powerful music."

"I find myself utterly amazed," she said still half in shock at what she'd heard. "I had no idea that it would be that evocative. I knew that things were happening between Blue Beauty and the Canyon and myself that I could not understand, let alone verbalize to another."

"Trey, does it all sound like that?"

Trey shook his head. "After a while I thought I could start to detect an underlying theme, but no, it covers a pretty broad range."

"Did you work it out that you have to get back in a few days?" Jennifer asked. "Or can you stay around for a while?"

"I can go back if I want," Trey said. "I keep thinking that I ought to. I can stay around and help you with a rough edit, point out places that I think have promise, but if I'm heading back I need to be out of here in a week or so."

"I doubt if you can get a good start in a week," Jennifer said. "Especially if you're having to take off work to do it. And I'm not going to have you editing and mixing an album for us out of the goodness of your heart. We're going to be facing enough work with Whispering Pines over the next couple months as it is. Blake and I will help you all we can, but a lot of it is going to have to ride on you and Myleigh, so welcome to Jenny Easton Productions."

"Uh, Jennifer, I wasn't . . . I mean . . ."

"Don't worry about it," Blake smiled. "It's been a long day. We'll haul everything downstairs and back it up tomorrow. Then, we'll work out a strategy for attacking this pile." He let out a sigh. "If the rest is as good as you say, sweating this down to a 60- or 70-minute album is going to be one of the toughest jobs I've ever seen."

"And, I guarantee you that the last track or two you have to cut will seem like hacking off your arm, both of you," Jennifer grinned. "But let's not worry about that tonight. Can the two of you stay for supper?"

"Oh, certainly," Myleigh said. "But I beg of you, nothing heavy. The food Canyon Tours provides is most excellent, and I have spent six weeks eating it. I fear I have blown up like a balloon and can hardly fit my clothes."

"Trey?"

"They feed everyone pretty good," he grinned. "Believe me, it's fun to watch our vegetarian friend tie into a steak like a great white shark."

"Yes," Myleigh sighed. "I fear their cooking has given me a new addiction."

"I'll come up with something light," Blake smiled. "Have you kids worked out a place to stay?"

"Randy and Nicole offered us their hospitality before they returned here," Myleigh said. "However, I do not wish to partake of it so excessively that I might take advantage of their good nature. In any case, I believe Nicole will be leaving for her Girl Scout Camp in a few days, and I should feel it wise to avoid the appearance of evil that might obtain should I stay with Randy while she is gone. Nor do I wish to take advantage of your good nature and upset your arrangements, considering your having Jeremy in the house. I confess that we have made no other arrangements, but we have a few days in which to work something out."

"Are you two looking for a place together?" Jennifer smirked.

"As I said," Myleigh smiled back. "I feel it best to avoid the appearance of evil, although it is something for consideration should we be able to find the appropriate quarters."

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