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Back Stringers Save as PDF
Chapters (64)
  1. FRONT COVER
  2. TITLE PAGE
  3. DEDICATION
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  43. CHAPTER FORTY
  44. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  53. CHAPTER FIFTY
  54. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  55. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  56. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  57. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
  59. CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
  60. CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
  61. CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
  62. CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
  63. CHAPTER SIXTY
  64. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“The instrument is too sensitive to be played by fingers alone. Muscles are clumsy and inexact, no matter how small. You must allow your hearts to guide your body. Allow yourself to feel the music and your fingers will fall upon the right spot. Hearts lead, body follows, right Kodoah?” Seeing the tiniest gesture of affirmation from the child, she moved his fore-digits back to the improper position. “So. Do not think to adjust your grip to find the correct tone. I want your hearts to find it. Do you understand?”

Nod.

The Instrument Maker stood, hind limbs crackling. “Good. You know the music now. Every note, every count, every nuance. If you truly feel it in your hearts, then you will be able to find it no matter where your hand is on the instrument.” She reached down and twisted a single peg on the ukelav, taking it completely out of tune. “Now, show me.”

The child looked down upon the instrument as if it had been hammered into splinters.

“The notes are still there, Kodoah. If the music is truly within you, you will find the notes even though they are hidden.”

The child studied her face, shut his eyes, then reset his grasp on the ukelaklava and placed his sliffbarque bow evenly upon the strings and tonal arm. He exhaled and drew the bow downward, releasing a whining note so incongruous with the music as to seem intentionally terrible. He blinked up at her.

“Go ahead.”

He reset, closed eyes again, pressed the tonal arm so far down toward the body of the instrument that they nearly touched. A confident stroke and a single note sprang from the ukelav. Pure and powerful. The first note of the arrangement. Then the next. And the next. Through wild alterations in the positioning of the tonal arm, he found the music, stroking the notes one after another, bending them together, letting his hearts lead the way.

The Instrument Maker stepped back and addressed the room with her eyes. She held a single fore-digit aloft. When Kodoah reached the end of the first measure, she gave the signal and the air boomed as three hundred others fell in to joined him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

We didn’t see a lot of the old China White down in Great Bend, Kansas, so heroin was just my best guess. Weed and shrooms were about the limit of my experience, and nectar was not those. A few of the old guys from the shop sprinkled crystal methamphetamines into their Big Gulps to get a leg up on each other as they competed for the most productive fishing stitches before the ass crack of dawn every day. Meth. Big Gulps. That’s a real thing people do.