The Devil's Dream

by Lee Smith

  1

  This World Is Not My Home

  There once lived a fair maid named Kate Malone

  You could not help but foller,

  Fell in love with the preacher’s son

  Way down in Cold Spring Holler.

  He said, “Put away your dancing shoes

  If you would be my doney.

  Leave your fiddle a-hangin on the wall

  And cleave unto me only.

  “Come lay with me on my bed of pain,

  Come lay with me, my lady,

  There’s many a man to give you a ring,

  But I’ll give you salvation.”

  Soon Kate she lost her merry laugh,

  She was like to lose her beauty

  Tied back her hair of purest gold,

  Bore three babes out of duty. . . .

  1

  Old Man Ira Keen

  That the one you mean? Speak up. Well, that thar’s “The Preacher’s Son,” and I’ll play it plumb through fer you by and by, but first I’ll tell ye how come I was to write it in the first place. A song don’t just spring outer nowhere, ye know, hit’ll grow in yer mind like a honeysuckle vine just a-wrappin itself around all the times and all the people and places that is yer life. Or that is how hit is fer me. A song will grow up in my mind unawares, and one day I’ll just pick up this here dulcimore and hit’ll be there whole and good, and springin to the tongue.

  —Well then, I’ll sing it, a course! And let me tell you one thing, there ain’t nothin in the world to compare with the feeling that comes over you then, hit’s like, Well, this is what happened, I see it all clear now, this is who done what, and who said what, and how it fell out in the end. Fer we go through this world with blinders on, just like that mule over yonder a-plowin in Navy Cale’s newground.

  Hit ain’t often we are given to see.

  Seems to me hit’ll come to me in a song most likely, that is iffen hit comes atall, which mostly hit don’t, a course. This life is a dark valley, hit’s a vale of tears as the feller said, don’t let nobody lie to you and try to tell you any different.

  Now I know this to be a fact. Seems like I was borned knowing it, may be that is why I got along with them Baileys bettern most folks, even old Preacherman Bailey who was mean as a snake and twicet as fast, he’d come at you like lightning right in the middle of meeting, he’d grab you up and yell right in yer face. I’ve seed folks run outer the churchhouse just a-hollerin when he come towards em, hit was nearabout comical, but you daren’t laugh, you know, nor smile, fer then he’d turn on you!

  Big old face like a lantern he had, and a big black hat that he never took offen his head, and that hook fer a arm, it was the hook that scared folks the mostest, I reckon. He’d haul you up by your collar and say, “Ira? Ira? Air ye among the elected?” But you couldn’t do nothing about it iffen you wasn’t but wait fer a sign from the Lord. Hit weren’t no use trying to lie about it neither, old Sid Bailey could smell a lie like the rest of us can smell a polecat. Hit weren’t no use trying to say you hadn’t done something you had done, neither, iffen he was churching you fer it. Lord, he used to church everbody when he was over here a-preaching. He’d church you fer running liquor or walking drunk or saying a bad word, or dancing, or fiddling, or shoeing yer horse on a Sunday. I weren’t nothing but a shirttail boy back then when he was a-preaching, but I knowed bettern to lower my eyes not to fidget. I thought Sid Bailey was God Hisself then, and fer aught I know, he might of been.

  He might of been.

  Fer I haven’t seed hide nor hair of Him since, I’ll tell you that! Not in this here vale of tears.

  But Sid Bailey was a hard man, and hit was a hard doctrine he preached. His church was a church built betwixt a rock and a slick place.

  “God don’t need you,” Sid Bailey used to say. “God will work His mysterious way whether or no.” And God ain’t necessarily with you, neither. As the feller said, you’ve got to walk that lonesome valley by yerself. You’ll see temptation to the left of you and temptation to the right of you, but you’ve got to keep on a-going. This world is not yer home.

  Now God might come down and give you a sign, or He might not. Hit don’t depend on you. Hit depends on God. You ain’t got a thing to do with it. You can pray till you’re blue in the face, and do fer others till you’re nearabout dead, but God don’t give a damn. He is going to do whatever He takes a mind to. And iffen He does give you a sign, that is, a dream or a vision or such-like—well, old Price Warren that lives over there on the mountain, he swears he saw God come rolling at him outen a laurel slick in the form of a great hoop snake—well, then you can be baptized, you can join the church, iffen you could convince old Sid Bailey you was not telling a tale, that is. And then hit mought be, hit just mought be, mind you, that after you’re dead and buried, and iffen Jesus Christ comes in the air like he’s supposed to on Resurrection Day, and iffen he calls out yer name, why then you can rise up outer the dirt and fly straight up to Heaven like a jaybird.

  Hit’s a long shot, ain’t it?

  But that is what Sid Bailey preached, and what he believed, and all them hard-shell Baptists down at Bee church believe it to this day, you just go down there and ax them. Hit ain’t no different today, nor will hit be no different tomorrow, for they is some folks that wants a doctrine they can’t live with, that’s a fact. Human beings is nothing if not contrary. They don’t want nothing easy, and this is hard, hard.

  But I can kindly see it, in a way, even iffen I never could hold to it too good myself. What I figger is, any God worth His salt is not going to have no truck with me, nohow.

  Well, hit was in the year 1833 or 1834, as I figger it, that Moses Bailey, now that’s old Sid’s least son, brung young Kate Malone over here to live in that little cabin right down there in Cold Spring Holler. Hell yes, that’s what I’m a-telling you, right down this here hill and acrost Paint Creek yonder, and back in that little bitty cove. You could see the cabin right from this porch where we’re a-sitting, iffen it weren’t fer them cedar trees that has growed up so high over there. That cabin is hanted now, make no mistake about it. Won’t nobody venture near it on a bet. I wouldn’t go over there fer nothing. You stay round here long enough, you’ll hear the music when it comes true dark.—Fiddle music, a course, what I wrote the song about. Hit don’t happen ever night, mind, but when it does, Lord amercy! Hit’s the sweetest, awfullest sound you ever heard in all yer life.

  I used to could see that cabin real clear, as I was a-telling you, I used to could see pretty Kate out there of a morning with a baby on her knee, playing “This is the way the lady rides,” or long towards noon, a-churning. She’d be barefoot with her yeller hair all over her head, a-churning and singing to beat the band, “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Pappy’s gonna get you a talkin bird. And if that talkin bird don’t sing, Pappy’s gonna get you a diamond ring.”

  —Well now, I’m a-getting to it. I’m getting to it. Anything worth hearing is worth waiting to hear, as the feller says. Why don’t you go in there and reach yer hand behind the woodbox and bring me out that pint bottle of tonic I’ve got in there? You can get yerself some of it, I reckon, iffen you can search up something to put it in. Hit’s a mess in there, ain’t it? My widder sister, she set her mind on coming over here to keep house fer me after old Piney died, but I done run her off. “I don’t need yer fooling around here,” says I, “nor yer infernal messing, you go on,” says I, “and leave me alone in my mind. I ain’t worried with a mess in the kitchen,” I says. “I ain’t studying the here and now.” In fact if you was to ax me what I et fer dinner yestiddy, I’d be hard-pressed to answer ye. Yet when I think on Kate Malone, the years slide away like a pretty lady letting her dressing gown fall to the floor, and I see her ever clear in my mind’s eye, and ever young as she was then.

  I loved her, a course.

  But hit was a love as pure as the driven snow, with never a hope of having, and all the sweeter fer it.

  Kate
Malone was fifteen, may be sixteen, when Moses Bailey married her and brung her over there to Cold Spring Holler to live. Sid Bailey had died preaching at a brush-arbor meeting over in Madison County, the old lady had died previous, and the younguns had scattered every whichway.

  I was twelve years old, a-living right here on Crow Hill with my mamma and my daddy, they was Hazel and Jesse Keen, and three sisters, and my daddy’s Uncle Gabe, and my brother that weren’t quite right, Dummy, he allus lived on the place here, first with Mamma and Daddy and then with me and Piney, until he died. Dummy was sweet, ye know, but he couldn’t hold nothing in his mind. Never did work, couldn’t work, used to sit right over there in that little rocking chair and whistle. Whistled like a bird.

  Pour me a leetle bit more of that, if you will. Jest a sweetener.

  The first time I saw Kate I thought to myself, Now that is the prettiest gal I will ever lay eyes on in my life, and it remains so to this day. Fer we had seed her daddy’s wagon come, and trunks and general bustlement, and now smoke was a-rising outen the chimbley again. So I says to myself, “Well, I’ll go. I’ll go on over there, and see what they is to see.”

  I recollect hit was October. The sky was as blue as Mamma’s Dutch plate, and red and yeller leaves was a-blowing crazy. Kate set out on the porch in a little rocker, wearing a green dress and a brown shawl, with a cameo pin at her neck, a-playing with a baby doll that she had brung with her from home, and singing, “Go to sleep, little baby, fore the booger-man gets you! When you wake, you’ll have a piece of cake, and all the pretty little horses.” She was rocking the baby doll. Her hair fell down past her shoulders, all gold and merry-wild. Her eyes was big and wide apart and gray, the softest gray, like kitten fur. Her lips they was full and pouty and cherry red. She kept right on singing.

  “Air you a girl or a missus?” I axed her finally, and she liked to died laughing.

  Then, “I am the missus here,” she said. “I married Moses Bailey.”

  “Morning,” another voice said then, and outen the cabin door stepped Moses Bailey. Well, he was handsome, I’ll grant him that, curly black hair and blue eyes and well set up, a stout strapping young man. He come out on the porch and I said who I was, Ira Keen from over on Crow Hill, and he made some manners, but I could tell he weren’t studying me atall in that moment. His eyes never left her face. He had eyes kindly like his daddy, sharp as the point of a knife. Kate sung on, a-rocking.

  “Hit won’t be long and I’ll give you a baby doll sure enough,” Moses said, and Kate laughed her merry laugh at him, but it was true.

  Come next August, they had them a little baby girl, and Kate thought the world of her. She thought the sun rose and set on that child, which was all to the good since by then hit was clear that everything was not sweetness and light in that cabin in Cold Spring Holler.

  Fer Moses was one of them that will not be satisfied, one of them that is always hankering after something that is just around the next bend. He couldn’t never settle down, seemed like. He’d farm a leetle bit, but not serious like, not enough to do no good, and then he’d be running a raft of logs down the Mononagh fer somebody, or trading some horses fer somebody else. But most times he was off at a preaching someplace, or traipsing the woods alone. See, Moses wanted to make a preacher the worst in the world, just like his daddy had done. But God wouldn’t give him no sign. So Moses, he kept on a-looking fer one. He used to go to meetings all around, and offer up the prayer. Other times he’d go off in the woods by hisself, hankering after his sign.

  Kate and the children was jest living hand to mouth whilst he was gone. For they’d been two more babes since that first one, which was Mary Magdaleen, they was now Jeremiah and little Ezekiel besides. It like to worried my mamma to death, I couldn’t count you the number of times she sent me over there with a turn of meal, or a sack of taters, fer Kate and them little children.

  One time when I was carrying them a mess of beans, I axed Kate pint-blank, I said, “Whar is yer old man, anyway?”

  And Kate jest smiled her sunny smile, a-taking the cookpot from me, and said, “Well, Ira, he is off wrassling with the angel.”

  Come to find out this was the truth, and the whole truth, of it. Now iffen hit’s a woman yer old man is gone off after, at least you’ve got a shape to set yerself up against, and somebody to get mad at.

  But iffen hit’s God, well, yer hands is plumb tied, ain’t they?

  Pretty Kate was stymied fer sure. And Moses being as muleheaded as ever his daddy was, he wouldn’t give it up fer nothing. The more God denied him a sign, the more determined Moses was to git one. He figgered that the more he prayed, and run the woods a-looking, the more likely he was to find his sign. Moses went from being a big husky feller to a scarecrow, and the bones in his face stuck out in a way that called old Sid to mind.

  But Moses had got to where nobody could beat him a-praying, that’s fer damn sure, he give out the prayer in meeting oncet a month, which is however often they helt it then, and he prayed everbody else under the table. That leetle old mealy-mouth circuit rider that was a-coming over here then, that leetle Mister Graves I think it was, could not hold a candle to Moses Bailey. He had a voice like the Bible, Moses had.

  Why, we could hear him plumb over here sometimes of a evening, iffen the wind was right, praying over their supper till you know hit had growed stone cold.

  Now hit would of been hard on anybody, a course, to have their old man git turned thataway, but hit was particular hard on Kate Malone. Fer she was nought but a gal, and she had come from the fun-lovingest family you ever seed. They lived on the other side of Lone Bald Mountain there, at Cana. As Kate was the only gal left at home, they all doted on her, and waited on her hand and foot. She was not raised to bear the life that she fell into, Kate was not. Her daddy, Pink Malone, was the bestest fiddler around those parts, and every one of them boys fiddled, too. Hit was always music and laughing and frolics over at Cana. They’d run a set at the drop of a hat, they’d still be a-dancing when the sun come up. So you couldn’t of found two families more different-like than the Baileys and the Malones.

  Moses didn’t make no bones about it. When he axed old Pink fer to marry Kate, he said right out that they was to be no music at the wedding. Then Pink looked over at Kate, and she cried and said, “Oh please, Daddy, this is the man I want with all my heart,” so they wasn’t nothing that Pink could say or do to stop them. They was married indeed, though it is said that Kate’s mamma took to her bed the day of the wedding, she was that upset about it, and hit is further said that all Kate’s brothers fell on the ground a-crying when Moses took her away.

  Moses wouldn’t hardly let her go back over there to visit, neither. He said that the Devil walked in that house, and that fiddle music was the voice of the Devil laughing.

  Well, time passed and I growed up to be about as sorry and wild as any young buck in the county, but when it come to Missus Kate Malone, I would of laid down at her feet and died if she’d of axed me to. I was keeping company with first one gal and then the other, but couldn’t none of them lay a glove on Kate Malone, to my way of thinking. Sometimes I’d get all hot and bothered thinking about her over there in that holler, and how Moses Bailey done her, and one day I determined to speak up about it. I believe I must of been about eighteen year old at the time, so ye can reckon about how much I knowed! Kate, she would of been in her early twenties by then, and she was already losing her bloom like so many gals does around here, wore out by work and children. I swear, hit’s a sight what all a woman puts up with. I tell you this now, but I never give it a thought back then when I was as heedless and unthoughtless as any critter in the forest, back when hit might of done somebody some good.

  No, Kate was not as pretty as she was when she come over the mountain from her daddy’s house at Cana, but she did not appear to have lost all her spirit, neither, despite of her sad lot. “Do ye reckon Kate knows that she is ill used?” I mused to myself, a-crossing Paint Creek on my horse. Fo
r iffen a body don’t know something, hit won’t worry them atall, a course. Hit’s knowledge that is the root of all evil, as the feller said.

  Hit was late November when I rode over there this time.

  Daddy and me had killed two hogs three or four days previous. I was taking Kate some hog meat and cracklings. That was jest my excuse, don’t ye know. Fer I had determined to see how things set with her. I had been sparking a girl over at Hanging Rock, and somehow I felt I could not do no real business over there afore I ascertained the state of things with Kate.

  From the creek I seed smoke rising, and when I rode into the Baileys’ clearing I seed Kate herself out there in a man’s black coat a-stirring something in a big black kettle over the cookfire.

  “Ira!” she said. She allus said my name like she was glad to see me. “I am just stirring up some apple butter,” she said, “Hitch and light,” she said. “Hit is nearabout done, and I will send some home to yer mamma, who has been so kind to me. How is yer mamma?” she said, and I said that Mamma was tolerable, all the time studying Kate real close-like. Her cheeks was red from the heat of the fire, and her hair had tumbled down. She kept it tied back all the time. She tried to put it back now, but she couldn’t afford to quit stirring the apple butter.

  “Jest set down and wait a minute,” she said, and I hunkered down right where I was and smoked a cigarette.

  I looked around good. Hit struck me how lonesome the cabin was, set back in the cedar trees thataway, despite her children a-playing all around the steps. Hit was kindly dark back in there, and the cold wind come a-blowing through them cedar trees with a sighing sound, a crying sound, real mournful-like. The feel of the forest was all around. With the leaves offen the trees, you could see how close the mountain rose up there behind the cabin, and how rocky and mean it looked. Now that is Lone Bald Mountain, ye see it over there, hit is not a pretty mountain, neither. They is a cropping-out of rocks yonder, right afore ye reach the bald where the ravens stay, and hit used to be in them days that bears was frequent on Lone Bald, too. Kate’s cabin was mighty close to the mountain, to my mind, and mighty far removed from the rest of usuns living around here.