Tom Dooley

by Bill Brooks

  Hell, why would I want to do that? Onliest slaves I know about is fellows like me and you, Billy. We all slaves to the rich man, men like Grayson and them. They get het up and start a war over somethin’ or other and make others do their fighting just like they make fellas chop their cotton and chop their tobaccy.

  Billy laced on his shoes, stood, and stomped a bit trying to get the feel of them right.

  The old bitch we call Mammy South is dead, ain’t she, Tom?

  No, she’s not dead, Billy, she’s just different than what she was.

  These fellers want to still take her to the dance.

  The dance was over the day Lee gave up his sword.

  Yeah, but these fellows ain’t so easily swayed—they’re bullheaded. You can’t beat them for nothing. They’ll still be fighting the war for a hundred years.

  He looked blighted; his cheeks fire red from all the drinking.

  I guess I better get on down to the school.

  Billy Dixon

  Tom was a good ol’ boy, a true friend. Sometimes I’d go into Swain’s and drink till it felt like my liver was drowning and I’d fall out on Tom’s porch on my way home again and he’d find me and not say a word about it and bring me coffee. We talked about the war and how it’d changed us, changed everything, it seemed. I never went off to the war and if I had, I’d been killed sure as anything. But maybe that wouldn’t have been so terrible considering how everything was the poorer for us Southerners.

  You understand that, don’t you? How it might have been easier had I not lived to see the things I did in our little valley? We called it Happy Valley—everybody did, that was its name. But it wasn’t Happy. It wasn’t ever happy I can recall.

  Tom Dooley

  I guess it was around noon on a fine spring day when they found Raymond. Fish Bailey and Otis Dillingham found what remained of him snagged in a tree that had long ago fallen into Celebration Creek, struck down by lightning nobody ever saw.

  They came into the tavern and announced it.

  We found Grayson’s nigger.

  Yassir, found him in Celebration Creek.

  Anybody seen Grayson today?

  No, no.

  Well, somebody ought to go tell him where his nigger is.

  Everyone stood looking at one another, nobody volunteering anything.

  Hell, somebody ought to go. That whole section of the creek will be ruined somebody don’t drag him out.

  It was decided that Fish Bailey and some of the others would take a wagon and a trace chain down and drag Raymond out of the creek. Otis Dillingham made a concession to ride up to Grayson’s and tell him the news.

  Somebody remarked it was just as well, what happened to Raymond. Some fellas laughed and some didn’t.

  I heard you tried to sell Pauline Foster to him, Swain.

  Like hell I did.

  Tried to sell her to that nigger?

  Why the hell’d I’d want to go and do a thing like that for?

  Knowing you, you’d see that little slip as money walking around.

  Goddamn your sorry soul. Hesh such talk as that or I’ll brain you.

  It’s just as well what happened. He hadn’t kilt hisself, somebody else might have done it for him.

  How you know he killed hisself? How you know he just didn’t fall in and drown by accident, or maybe somebody done it for him?

  Don’t make no difference, does it?

  No, I reckon it don’t. Dead is dead.

  How about a round on the house, Swain?

  How about kissing my ass?

  I’m sorry to have to say these things, Liza, to tell these things to you, but I was there and I heard it all and I went out of there and kept walking until the feeling I had began to ease up, the worst of it, anyway. I found myself standing at the schoolhouse fence, the voices of the children singing a child’s song.

  . . . I likes to hear them sing, Mr. Tom.

  I heard Raymond’s voice. I saw his happy dark face too, and for a moment it blotted out the sun. I recalled when I went out to speak to him about what Swain had done to him, the deception, and how his happy dark face turned sad. I reckon Raymond wasn’t much older than myself, though nobody knew how old he was, he may have not known himself. I thought what a short unhappy life he must have lived, except maybe his mind wouldn’t let him know all the unhappiness. Maybe in that way, his mush brain was a blessing and not a curse.

  I stood and listened to the children singing, and when they stopped, the whole world fell silent.

  I went on home and got down my fiddle and played “Four Cent Cotton,” and “Loch Leven Castle,” and “Going Down to the River.” But after that last one, I couldn’t play any more and put the fiddle up thinking I might not ever play it again, for its music was mournful and sad as a widow’s wail. And Raymond’s desire for Pauline must have been like a moth’s, beating its wings against the candle flame trying to get at something he couldn’t possess. I reckon Raymond wanted love like everybody else. I reckon a daft brain don’t make a difference when it comes to things like wanting to love and be loved. And I reckon he surely must have known he was dying and would never ever know love when he swallowed the first mouthful of creek water.

  I went later that evening up towards Melton’s, but dallied along the trail until the valley gathered in the darkness for I didn’t want to visit Ann, but wanted to visit Pearl instead.

  When I arrived I stood there in the brambles a hundred yards from the cabin and watched as figures passed back and forth in the yellow window light inside of Melton’s. I reckon it was just past supper and Pearl was cleaning up the dishes. I then went round and entered her little shed and undressed and climbed into the small bed. I felt hidden from the world, hidden and waiting for something to happen that would dispel my lonesome mood.

  I lay there for what seemed like a long time and felt exhausted and wanting to sleep. Next I knew Pearl was in the bed beside me, her wet kisses waking me from my drowse.

  Oh, Tom what a surprise to find you here.

  Hesh, hesh.

  I took her fast and swift, hearing her sharp little grunts beneath me as she bore my hunger and I didn’t care if I pleasured her or not as long as I pleasured myself. It was a mean spirit that had me in its grip, and afterwards she didn’t say anything for a long time and I didn’t either.

  Her bed suddenly felt a terrible place for me to be.

  Don’t leave me, Tom.

  I was already half dressed and couldn’t explain it, what had taken hold of me. She tugged at my shirt to try and keep me from pulling it on and I yanked it from her grip.

  Let me be, Pearl.

  But why, Tom? Why?

  I raised a hand to strike her, but let it fall helplessly away. To hit her would have been meaner than hitting a dog because it wanted to lick you. So I told her why I was the way I was.

  They found Raymond in the creek today.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Maybe somebody killed him and threw him in to make it look like a drowning, or maybe he threw himself in because he couldn’t stand living no more.

  She ran her hands over my chest like she was still hungry for me, like she hadn’t heard a thing I said about Raymond.

  It don’t bother you, does it?

  I’d rather he be dead than to marry up with a nigger.

  He wasn’t going to harm you, Pearl. He didn’t know any better. Swain put a dream in his head and he thought it was real. He was just daft.

  Why you care, Tom? Why you care what happened to Raymond? He’s just a . . .

  I put my hand over her mouth to stop the word. I didn’t want to hear it again. I’d heard it all I wanted to hear it during the war and after, down at the tavern, and I didn’t want to hear it come out of Pearl’s mouth again.

  I got to be going, Pearl.

  She started to cry.

  I didn’t care. I left out of there with her still crying and walked the dark trail back to my place and had to go by Celebration Creek a
nd the very spot where they found Raymond and I could hear the water whispering in the dead branches of the lightning-struck tree. It was like the water was whispering of the conspiracy to the thing that had held him so dear so that he might be found at all.

  I lay abed alone, every desire and lust and dream I’d ever had, spent.

  I kept hearing Pearl’s condemnation.

  Hell, he was just some poor damn . . .

  Elizabeth Brouchard

  O, I know, Tom, I know. The spiteful aching words falling off of hateful tongues can do such damage and destroy every little thing of God’s grace & of man. Hateful words can be a fire and a plague upon our lives and souls and mark us such we cannot ever be again what we were born as: sweet, innocent little selves that ran about with happy heads and unblemished hearts.

  Is that what happened, Tom? Did the spiteful things said, the terrible things done, undo you? Did they, Tom?

  But, O, if you’d let true love into you, Tom—if you’d been as a single window letting in the sunlight, how it might have saved you and bound up your wounded heart and all the bleeding places.

  And so these words I add to the others, yours and mine and those of Ann & Pearl, Melton & my own father—Swain.

  & I must remember that they are only words and not stones upon which my house is built, nor stones that once slung, will kill me.

  Sleep well, Tom. Sleep well.

  & I will too.

  CHAPTER 12

  Tom Dooley

  Grayson would only pay five dollars for Raymond’s burial. Shinbone said he’d oversee the spiritual proceedings, no charge. I told Grayson I’d dig the grave and he could keep his almighty money.

  Fine, you owe me anyway for putting crazy thoughts in that boy’s head.

  I owe you nothing. Him maybe, but not you.

  Grayson laid the money on Shinbone’s stump alter.

  Never let it be said Jim Grayson don’t take care of his obligations—and rode off on his fine stepping horse.

  Shinbone and me dug the grave together and lowered Raymond in it wrapped in tarp and without benefit of even so much as a coffin.

  Doesn’t seem right, not even a pine box.

  His is just an empty vessel, Tom. It won’t matter. Few years from now even the pine would be rotted away. We just turn back into what we once were—dust. It don’t matter.

  Shinbone and I sat atop the mound of earth we’d dug for the grave, winded and uncertain what had changed in the valley, but knowing something had. A bird I don’t know the name of but whose wings were tipped with yellow lighted on the branch of a white oak and sang and sang.

  Seems it ought to rain on such occasions, not be such a pretty day, not have birds singing.

  I looked at the sky; there wasn’t a cloud anywhere.

  Maybe sunshine and pretty birds singing is exactly what’s needed.

  Shinbone looked at me.

  Let me say a few words, then we’ll finish this sad business.

  Go ahead, you seem to be the one with all the words.

  Shinbone nodded, started in.

  The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. His tender mercies fall on all things great and small, like welcome rain upon the tongues of the thirsting. He upholds all who fall, and raises them up again. He gives everlasting life to those who believeth in him. Lord, we pray you raise up poor Raymond’s spirit to your heavenly kingdom, that your mercy washes away whatever sins he may have committed. He was just a daft child didn’t know any better for the acts he may have committed. But in your almighty grace, you make him any man’s equal. Amen.

  Those were fine words, Tyree.

  We are all brothers in death, same as life, Tom. Death just declares it final.

  I know it.

  I could not help but think of Louis there in the wilderness the night before he was shot. We were near eat alive by mosquitoes and near starved and practically dead of thirst and fatigue. And we knew that we’d be in for a terrible time come the next day. We’d about lost all hope of anything good ever happening to us again. Louis shivered through that terrible night, whispered his fear in short hard epithets.

  I’m scared, Tom. Scared I’ll be killed.

  We took pieces of paper and wrote our names on them and where we was from and pinned them to our shirts so when we were killed, others who’d find us would know who we were—had been—and not just black-faced corpses.

  Don’t be afraid, Louis. Dying’s just dying, that’s all it is.

  I want to see Minnie and my baby again. I want to hold them and tell them how much I love them and that all what’s happened to me in this war ain’t what I truly am. Nothing against you, Tom, but I feel pitiful and weak and sinful when I think about what’s happened.

  I understood completely.

  I know, Louis. I feel the same. I don’t know what this war’s all about except I know it ain’t about us and fellows like us. It’s about something else, but I can’t say what rightly.

  O, Tom, do you think all this time God’s been watching down on us, seen everything we did, knowed every thought we’ve had?

  I don’t think God would get within a mile of any of this. What kind of God could watch what we’re doing to one another—us and them Yanks—and not put a hand to stop it? If such a God be, then he is laughable and crueler than any officer I ever knowed.

  All through the night we listened to our fate: men moving about, the crack of a limb, the rattle of a tin cup, a cough. Then silence, then more movement. We heard the Yanks on the other side settling in, getting ready for the coming fight, restless as we was restless, scared as we was scared. We was like doves cowering in the night, waiting for the morning slaughter of the huntsmen. And Louis breathing hard, confessing, afraid as I’d ever seen him—as though he knew tomorrow was it for him.

  I just can’t no more, Tom.

  Me, either.

  If we die tomorrow, our souls will be stained forever with our sin.

  We ain’t dying tomorrow. You’ll make it home to Minnie and Louisa and I’ll make it home to my people and that will be the end of it and we’ll grow into fat old men with lots of grandchildren and that’ll be all she wrote.

  But Louis’s fear had put a darkness in me and I hoped if we were killed, it would be early and that we’d not have to fight the whole day only to be killed in the twilight hour. I always thought I’d want to die in the morning, not in the evening—not beyond the supper bell. I wanted to hold Louis and make him know it would be all right, that we’d be safe, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew whatever had been between Louis and me had forever changed us, but I didn’t regret it no more than I regret having lived or dreamt or hankered for the far mountains.

  Shinbone stood with the wind fluttering his hair into stringy brown ribbons.

  We’re the unwanted, Tom, you and me and poor fellows like Raymond there.

  I began shoveling dirt down in the grave, the clods striking the tarp-wrapped body with dull thuds.

  If we are, then it was your God who made us the unwanted, just like he made Raymond a mush brain and Grayson a high-stepping man and all the rest of us what we are.

  O, don’t say it, Tom.

  It’s true, ain’t it? He made us all—the good and the bad. We ain’t none of us had no choice in the matter of what we are, what we become. If sinners we be, then sinners He made us.

  Shinbone began to shovel too. I don’t think either one of us wanted to think any more about death, best to cover it up and get on with the matters of the living.

  Tyree Shinbone

  Tom was a fellow I admired much for his unfettered ways and free spirit. But he held no truck in the Lord I could see. The war ruined him, ruined his thinking, and I can’t say I blamed him for being godless in his thoughts. For some, like myself, such a terrible event will cause a man to cleave to God, but for others, it will only alienate him. Tom was like that, alienated from all godly thoughts.

  I believe there are good men who are godly without knowing
or thinking that they are. I believe Tom Dooley was one of those men. I believed it then, and I still believe it, Miss Brouchard.

  Tom Dooley

  Shinbone told me he admired me for my unfettered ways. Said things I didn’t fully understand the meaning of. I think some of it was he may have been going crazy even then and nobody knew it, especially not him. We finished up our burying and sat a spell in the warm sun and I listened to Shinbone carry on.

  We’re the unwanted because we represent the truth, Tom—fellas like you and me.

  I don’t represent nothing I can see.

  Surely you do, just as I do. I tell them what they don’t like to hear and you go about your way without care what they think of you. You’re honest in that, Tom, and honesty is an unwanted thing with most men. I reckon there is plenty of them who would like to go about as unfettered as you.

  I wanted to deny there was anything in me anyone would admire. I know I tried to always do right by others, never wanted to kill anybody in that damn war. I just wanted to be left alone is all.

  Shinbone sighed. I look at you and oft wished I was as unfettered myself. But I’m fettered to the Lord, Tom. He’s got me buckled down.

  I don’t know a thing about it.

  Surely you do, and I suspect the reason is because you have faced death and realize there’s nothing to it, no reason to be afraid. You’ve seen the face of the shining God a time or two already.

  I ain’t seen the face of nothing.

  Why I’ve seen it myself—that’s how I know about you.

  I suggest you leave off with all the God talk.

  I wish I could, Tom. I wish God hadn’t burdened me with this heavy load.

  Oh, Jesus Christ, Shinbone. You don’t want it, leave it. Go on and cross them mountains and don’t come back.

  I can’t. I am bound to the Word. I can’t leave it, Tom. I can’t.

  I thought they were blisters, when after we’d finished shoveling the dirt o’er Raymond, I saw Shinbone’s hands again. The palms were bleeding like last time he’d showed them to me before at his camp—wounds in the palms. I wanted to ask him about those hands of his, but by then he had a look in his eyes like he wasn’t there. I just walked away, leaving him by the grave, and went to Melton’s, my heart full of anger.