The Ballad of Tom Dooley: A Ballad Novel

by Sharyn McCrumb

  I shook my head and let my shoulders sag, trying to look like I pitied her.

  She got very still then, taking deep breaths and twisting her hands together, and I reckon she realized that screaming at a man is no way to get him back. “Do you swear this is true, Pauline?”

  One of my favorite things in the world is to lie by telling the strict truth. I said, “I swear that Laura Foster told me she was eloping come sun-up tomorrow.”

  She looked doubtful again. “How? It’s a long walk to Tennessee.”

  “She’s taking her daddy’s mare. I reckon it’ll carry the two of them, as little as she is. ’Course, there may be a child on the way, but it won’t weigh anything yet. She’s not showing that I could see.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Not in so many words, but why else would he be in such a hurry to marry her?”

  “What would that matter? That baby could be anybody’s.”

  “Well, she’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? So meek and frail. Maybe he wants to think it’s his.”

  Ann flung herself away from me, and started up the road. “I’ll scratch his eyes out!”

  Now I grabbed hold of her arm. “You need to simmer down, Cousin. Do you think that’s likely to do any good? If he is fixing to run off with her, then having you tell him he can’t will just make him bound and determined to go. At least, that’s how it looks to me.”

  Ann stopped, took a deep breath, and looked up at the stars instead of at me. “But I can’t let him go. He’s all I ever cared about, Pauline.”

  “I know,” I said softly, hoping that she would hear sympathy and understanding in my voice, even though it wasn’t there.

  “I could tell Uncle Wilson. He could stop Laura from running off.”

  I nodded. “For a day maybe. Or even a week. But if they mean to do it, they will. Besides, Uncle Wilson might be relieved to see somebody make an honest woman of Laura. Why should he care how you feel about it?”

  We stood in silence for a moment in the cold night air, Ann staring up at the stars and me thinking furiously, trying to stay one step ahead of her threats. It was too early for lightning bugs, and even the crickets were silent that night. I waited, letting her turn the whole problem over in her mind. I thought I heard her choke back a sob.

  “He doesn’t care nothing about her, Pauline!”

  “Well, he wouldn’t be the first man to marry to get a housekeeper, would he? Maybe he just wants to settle down—like you did. And you may think Laura cares little enough about him, too, but you must know how bad she wants to get away from that house, tending all those young’uns. For all she knows, this may be her one chance. A lot of good men died in the War. There aren’t enough of them left to go around.”

  Ann had been drinking already that evening, and that was a stroke of fortune for me, for it dulled her thinking even more than usual. She didn’t think to wonder why two unmarried people of legal age would bother to run away to Tennessee to get married, when they could have invited the whole of Elkville to a wedding if they’d a mind to wed. I’m glad she didn’t think of that, for I had no answer ready there. And she didn’t seem to think it strange that an idle fellow like Tom would leave a comfortable home where he did precious little work to go and shift for himself in a strange place. It’s hard for people to think straight when you have hit them with the thing they fear most in the world. She went right past wondering if it was true and straight into wondering how to stop it.

  “Where is she meeting him, Pauline?”

  “Why, at the Bates’ place around daybreak,” I said. “I think if you were to watch the road from your mama’s house, you’d likely see her go by, if you wanted to go over there and talk to her. You’d want to get her alone, though—before anybody else comes.”

  I could tell by her breathing that she was mad enough to spit nails. That and the drink is likely why she didn’t ask me a sensible question, like why Tom and Laura would meet up at the Bates’ place. Laura lived five miles away, and Tom’s house was a mile east, down the Reedy Branch Road, and from the Bates’ place they’d have to backtrack to get on the road that led up the mountain to Tennessee. Why would they meet there when there were miles of woods between Laura’s house and the mountain road? Why the Bates’ place? Because it was a stone’s throw from John Anderson’s quarters. But if my luck held, Ann would not know that—at least not until it was too late to save her.

  PAULINE FOSTER

  May 26, 1866

  On the last Friday night in May, old Wilson Foster was stumping all over the settlement complaining loud and long about Laura running away from home. The weather was fine that evening, and after supper, instead of staying home, people congregated up at the Meltons’ house, passing the pleasant evening with one another and enjoying the fresh air after a long winter of being cooped up in smoky little cabins. We had a houseful, and hardly enough likker to go around. Ann’s brother Thomas Foster had come over, along with Will Holder. Jonathan Gilbert, who sometimes worked for James Melton, was still there, helping him cut leather for shoe making. Washington Anderson turned up, of course, hunting Tom, but he wasn’t around, for once.

  Foster hadn’t been asked to the party, but he showed up in the yard outside just as the light was fading, dressed in his usual raggedy farming clothes, and he shuffled into the cabin, looking forlorn.

  “Have any of you’uns seen my Laura?” Wilson Foster asked them, after he’d downed a few swigs from the jug to take the chill off his bones.

  Nobody had.

  “Well, I reckon she might have took off with Tom Dula. I’ve caught them in bed together a time or two. Has he been around?’

  Tom Foster spoke up. “I seen him just a while ago this evening. But he was by hisself. I never did see Laura.”

  The men looked peeved to be put off their drinking by an old man bearing troubles, but at first they were polite enough, saying it was a shame that Laura had gone missing. Nobody reckoned there was much to it—maybe she had gone off visiting kinfolks up in Watauga. Will Holder said he hoped he’d find her soon, then they’d turned their backs on him and went back to what they were saying before, not giving him another thought. Well-brought-up people will be civil to anybody, but you shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking you matter to them. I wondered if old Foster had figured that out, or if he even cared.

  He didn’t seem to heed their indifference, but just went on moaning about how ungrateful Laura was to have gone off and left him, and how he didn’t know what he was going to do with all those young’uns to take care of, in addition to all the extra chores. I wondered if I was the only one wondering who was looking after his children while he was out and about, visiting with all and sundry, but nobody spoke up, and I never heard that anybody in the settlement offered to do any cooking or laundry for him, either.

  While he went around, asking if anybody had seen his daughter, I kept still in the doorway, watching Ann to see how she was taking this news, but her face was as blank and innocent as a barn cat’s. I wished I’d had more turns at the jug. It’s easier to put up with fools when you have a tot of likker warming up your insides to deaden the noise. Good thing I’d had a drop or two to drink before he came, but it was wearing off now, and I could have used reinforcements.

  Somebody handed old Foster a gourd of whiskey, and I hoped that would shut him up, but between gulps, he went on and on about how hard it was on him with Laura gone, and then he started in again, bewailing the loss of that infernal horse, and saying that he reckoned he could do without Laura well enough, but he wanted that mare back.

  “She ought to be easy to track,” he said. “She’s got a sharp pointy place on one hoof where I had started to file it down, but had to leave off afore it was done. You look for that pointed hoof print in the dirt, and you’ll find my Belle. I know which way she was a-going. I tracked her past the Scotts’ place and down the river road. Picked her up again on the Stony Fork Road, and found tracks all the way to the old B
ates’ place. She went off the road then. Started through an overgrown field, and I lost the trail. Don’t reckon she can have gone far, though.” He looked around, hat in hand, eyebrows raised, waiting in certainty for someone to offer to help in the hunt.

  I’d had a bellyful of hearing about that horse, and I was tired of listening to the old man whine about his young’uns, as if nobody else in the world had a hard row to hoe in life. As if nobody here ever lost somebody to the War, or got a sickness they’d never get well from, or worked every day sun-up to dark and still stayed poor and hungry. I was tired of hearing it. So I stood up, and called to him over the heads of half a dozen folks, “I’ll get your horse back for you, Uncle Wilson. Just gimme a quart of whiskey, and I’ll bring her right on back to you.”

  The men had been talking and laughing amongst themselves, so loud you could hardly hear yourself think, but when I said that, it was as if I’d dropped a hornet’s nest into their midst. All the talking stopped at once, and they all stared at me and him, waiting to see what was going to happen next. I thought they’d take it as a joke, but I had misjudged, because nobody laughed. And everybody remembered.

  Uncle Wilson stood there for a minute, staring at me with his mouth open, and then he just shrugged and turned away. I guess he figured I was making fun of him, which was true enough, I suppose, though I did want that whiskey awful bad. It was no secret that I was powerful fond of hard likker, and they must have thought that was all there was to it: me trying any way I could to get another jug. I didn’t say anything else after that. Maybe I had said too much already.

  Thomas Foster, who had not been brought up well, and who had taken more than his share of the whiskey, must have been as tired as I was of the old man’s lamentations, and he began to make sport of his uncle. He set a twig alight in the fireplace and began to stagger around with it. He stumbled against Wilson Foster, and set the old man’s beard afire. They scotched the sparks in a moment, and Wash gave him a dipper of water to soak it in, but even then he didn’t take the hint and leave.

  Finally, James Melton, who always had a kind word for everybody, if he spoke at all, patted his arm a trifle gingerly, and said, “Surely Will is right. Your Laura has gone to visit relatives. I reckon we could pray for her safe return if it would ease your mind any.”

  This was too much for Foster’s temper, for he had come in search of information, not threadbare homilies. He leaned in close to James Melton, though he was too short to reach his face, and he breathed out fumes of bad breath and whiskey. “Why, man, I don’t care if I was to never see the little hussy again, but the thing is, she went and stole my mare. And I damn sure want that horse back.”

  His salty language put James off almost as much as his breath did, and with a sigh of disgust, he turned away from the old man, and sat down near the fire with a bit of shoe leather he was working on. A couple of the men who overheard him just nodded, not at all surprised at his words or his attitude. Most everybody hereabouts knew that there was no love lost between Laura and her father, and horses did not come cheap. Wilson Foster didn’t even own his own land. It was a wonder he had a horse at all, and he certainly wouldn’t part with it without a fight.

  I was standing in the doorway, next to Ann Melton, well away from the smoke and the fumes in the little cabin. Ann was watching the road like she was expecting Tom to turn up any minute. The men didn’t much want us in there anyhow. Nobody ever had much good to say about Ann, for her carrying on with Tom Dula was common knowledge in the settlement, and, as for me, I was just the hired help, so I counted for nothing.

  After Wilson Foster had sat down next to Will Holder, waiting for another turn with the jug, I heard Wash Anderson tell him, “My older sister saw your daughter this morning, Mr. Foster, just after sun-up. She said Laura was riding east along the road past her place, and that she stopped and spoke to her for a moment or two. I don’t reckon my sister would want me to tell you that, but it’s so. She said that Laura meant to get away from home, and she wished her well. Said she wouldn’t say anything that might help you find her and drag her back.”

  Wilson Foster looked like he wanted to argue about this, and I reckon I could have told him a few home truths about his daughter, but I kept my resolve to be quiet and let people jump to their own conclusions.

  Jonathan Gilbert nodded. “It is all well and good for Laura to take care of her brothers and sisters and keep house for her father, but she’s past twenty-one now, ain’t she? I reckon she’s entitled to a man of her own—if she can find one.”

  There was a pause before Thomas Foster said, “Of course, she has never lacked for companionship, has she?” The way he said it, you knew he didn’t mean Sunday-school chums. You don’t have to spend too long in a group of respectable people before one of them bares poison fangs. The only difference between them and a rattlesnake is that a rattler has the decency to warn you before it strikes. People never do.

  They had heard about Laura’s goings-on, all right. I wondered if any of these fellows knew firsthand about her dalliances with men, and whether they knew she had the pox, but nobody spoke up about that.

  Then when the talking died down for a minute, I heard James Melton say to old Foster, “You must be worried something fierce, Mr. Foster. Even if she has gone off to see some kinfolk, these are perilous times, especially for an innocent young girl. There are still bushwhackers about, and I do not yet trust the roads. I hope nothing has happened to her on her journey.”

  I was beginning to get a little irritated, listening to all this soft soap about poor Wilson Foster and his beloved missing daughter. He had spent a good half hour lapping up sympathy and making himself important over the disappearance of Laura, whom he didn’t care two pins for. I thought it time to take him down a peg or two, in front of all these mealymouthed fools.

  I walked up to him, like I was going to give him another helping of sympathy, and then I said, loud enough for everybody to hear, “I know you must be worried, Uncle Wilson, seeing as how Laura may have run away with a colored man.”

  He glowered at me, not at all happy to have that brick dropped in front of half the settlement, but, as he turned to leave, all he said was, “I am afraid of that, too.”

  That shut everybody up for a good half minute, and then of one accord, they all turned away and began talking about ten different things at once to cover the sound of all that plain-speaking. Ann gave me a look when I said that, but she kept silent. Laura Foster might have been forgotten then and there, but I was not prepared to leave well enough alone.

  * * *

  The day after Laura went missing, Tom Dula came early to the Meltons’ house, wanting James to fix his fiddle and to get his shoes mended. Ann was not at home, but he did not ask after her, and it would have been no use if he had, for I didn’t know where she’d gone. Will Holder stopped by again, and they all commenced to drinking and swapping lies, same as always.

  We sat up most of the night, till the fire burned low, and then we all drifted off to sleep any old how. I ended up sharing a bed with Tom Foster.

  An hour or so before sun-up, Ann came dragging in. I woke up when I felt the cold air when the door opened, and I saw her standing over by the fireplace, taking off her wet shoes. The hem of her dress was wet, too, as if she had walked a ways through wet grass. She got undressed and slid into the bed alongside me.

  I didn’t have long to loll abed, though, for with daybreak, my chores commenced. I had milked the cows, and gathered the eggs, and came back in to cook the breakfast, and Ann never stirred.

  Later, when Tom came in with that fiddle of his, wanting James to mend the bridge for him, I said, “Well, here you are bright and early. We all figured you had run off with Laura Foster. Her daddy was here last night, trying to trace her, on account of her making off with his mare. He said he reckoned that you and her had run off and got married.”

  Tom stopped in his tracks and looked at me like I was foaming at the mouth. Then he laughed, and h
elped himself to a dipper of milk out of the pail. “What use do you suppose I have for Laura Foster?”

  I shrugged. “You’ve been sniffing around Wilson Foster’s place for weeks now, so everybody reckoned you’d gone away with her.”

  He finished the milk, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Well, I’m here and she ain’t, so that settles that, doesn’t it?” He gave me a hard stare as he said it, daring me to say one more word on the subject.

  I just nodded, and tried to look like I was scared of him. Maybe he didn’t know where Laura Foster had gone, but I was certain that she wasn’t coming back.

  * * *

  The settlement talked about Laura Foster and precious little else all the way until Sunday. After all, Laura was a young, unmarried girl, and nobody knew what had become of her. Her disappearance was a nine days’ wonder. There isn’t much to talk about in a little farming settlement, especially with the War being over. For nigh onto a year, no news certainly had meant good news—no more death rosters sent back from the battlefields to break people’s hearts; no more bad news about shortages or rationing to drive folks to the brink of starvation; no more terrifying reports of armies headed this way to steal the food or requisition the livestock or burn the barn. The War had given everybody enough excitement to last a lifetime, and they weren’t sorry to see it end.

  Now, though, human nature being what it is, people were beginning to tire of the sameness of peacetime in the backwoods. They craved a little excitement again. Not more war and death, to be sure, but just a tidbit of scandalous news to spice up the endless talk about crops and weather.

  All the people I met at the store and on the way there—well, the women, anyhow; I don’t know what the men talked about—ruminated over Laura’s disappearance like so many cows chewing cud. A few of the timid old ladies would have it that she had been set upon by bushwhackers and carried away, but most of the rest, who knew about Laura’s soiled reputation, figured that she had gone off of her own accord, probably run off with some man fool enough to want her. I did more than my share of visiting the neighbors that week, but mostly I just listened to the talk, and held my peace.