by Bill Brooks
Our love calls and calls like the hunger of a child.
Call to thee now O’ love, call down the silence.
I can’t, I can’t, for death has stolen from me thy love
& stilled thy voice for evermore and evermore.
Why, hand, don’t you write of the beauty of her face, the sweetness of her mouth, the warmth of her limbs? Why is it harder and harder for me to see her face clearly? Each day cruelly steals a little more of my memory until at last I won’t be able to see her at all. Why, hand, don’t you tell me how she looked?
I do not know.
Elizabeth Brouchard
I read these things now and wonder. What must it be like for a soul to know its end days are arrived, to stand at the edge of the abyss and look into it?
Billy said to me one day, That poor son of a bitch. I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for him to sit there in that dirty cell and wait for them to come and hang him.
O, how I wept the night he said it.
We were standing on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean watching the last of day’s light play over the water. Farther out steamships came into harbor, came home again from long journeys. And I thought of you and how you’d said you wished you could have become a sailor—how you’d like to have gone to sea.
Do you think he was guilty?
Billy sighed and crushed out his cigar on his bootheel—a habit of his I always disliked.
Hell, I reckon he must have been—they found him guilty twice and hanged him didn’t they?
I know he was your friend—but there comes a certain callousness after the fact, a certain resignation that what was done must have been the correct thing. Billy always had a certain fatalism about him. He would not allow himself to believe that innocent men could be murdered for crimes they did not commit. But Billy was a shortsighted man too—believed only what you put in front of him. It got worse the older he got. Like most men, he gave up idealism for practicality. I grew indifferent toward him later on in life because he lost his dreams and possibilities about us, others, the world.
Don’t know why you waste time writing poetry, Liza. Who reads poems but the fey and affected, but the dreamers and fools. You’ll never make anything of it, I’m sure.
Billy died a stuffed shirt and I hope he met a practical God at the far end of his last journey, and I hope that I do not.
You would have liked the sea, Tom, watching the steamships come and go to and from unknown places.
We would have been such footloose travelers, you and I.
O, the wonders we would have seen.
Tell me if you can—are there such wonders in that world you now reside?
CHAPTER 21
Tom Dooley
Over the bald each day I went and over the bald she came. Back and forth we journeyed in our love, not caring what the others thought or how they’d have us be.
Billy Dixon came round one sultry afternoon, his face glum as anything, half drunk.
How’s it going with you and Pearl?
It ain’t, Tom.
How so?
She’s got eyes for another.
You waited too long to make your move. I tried to warn you.
No, I made it soon enough. But it didn’t stick. How’s it with you and Laura Foster?
Let me show you.
I took my fiddle and played for him reels and waltzes and jigs. He sat and listened with a forlorn countenance and when I’d finished I said:
That’s how it goes with Laura and me—our love is pure music.
O, how I envy you, Tom. You went off to war and came home a hero, then you found love not once but thrice.
Just a fool who got lucky and didn’t get himself killed.
And you courted the gals of this here Happy Valley: married, widowed, single.
Not all true, some courted me, and I never courted a widow.
You made them all love you like faithful hounds love their master.
I wanted to tell him maybe all, except for Ann. How I was afraid to let Laura ride home alone after a certain hour, afraid Ann might be waiting for her along the trail. Ann would have no master over her—she wasn’t the sort of woman to let anyone tame her.
It’s the damn preacher, Tom. That Shinbone. He’s a-courting Pearl now.
My ribs ached hearing it. I don’t know why.
Why that’s a surprise and a half. I thought all he courted was his God.
Well, if so, he’s sure keeping it a fine secret from Pearl. For, what they do with one another sure doesn’t have any Godliness in it.
A girl like her is easily deceived, Billy.
I reckon you’d know if anyone would.
I played the fiddle low and sweet to try and turn his mood. But instead he drank his liquor hard and stared at the faithless sky.
If you want, I’ll go talk to him, tell him stay away from Pearl.
As if that’d do a bit of good. She’d go to him, so taken with him she’s become. She’d go out there in that wilderness camp and eat grass if he told her to.
Then I’ll go have a talk with her instead.
O, you don’t have to take up for me, Tom. What sort of man would I be to let another present my case? No, no, Pearl’s a lost cause to me.
No man ever won a woman by having a faint heart. Fit for her, Billy.
Do I look like the kind of man who’d fight another, who’d even stand a chance of winning were I to?
You fit me good and proper, Billy—why my ribs was sore for a week.
But I sure didn’t whip you, Tom. What would it look like to Pearl if I was to fight for her and lose?
We sat and listened to the hoppers sawing in the dry grass, to the crickets singing in the dark cool places under the house. A hound bayed from off somewhere far down the valley as the light of day turned to the color of an old silver spoon that needed polishing.
Someone’s dead or dying, Tom.
Why’s it you have such in your mind every time you hear a hound baying?
I don’t know. I’ve become like all these others—full of witch tales.
How far’d you get with Pearl before Shinbone came round?
Not too very . . .
The dusky sun glowed golden against his pitted face and made him momentarily lovely. I thought of Louis, how lovely a boy was he. I wondered for a time, before that fatal shot that took him if maybe I lost all manliness. But since that day to this, I’ve had no doubts. For it was Laura I now loved most truly. And before Laura, it was Ann and maybe even Pearl a little—and others along the way. I think that war just made us all a bit funny and queer about ourselves. The loneliness and fear twisted things in our hearts and passions, made what was true untrue. Made us question everything about ourselves. But I’m okay now.
Billy and I drank until that old evening sun went down beyond the ridge.
It doesn’t seem real does it, Tom?
What don’t?
This life.
Hell, seems real enough to me.
I mean when you stop and think about it, that we’re only here for a short time and then are gone again, it don’t make much sense. Why so short a life? What purpose do we serve? What’s the dang point?
Whiskey turns you into a thinker, don’t it?
I suppose it does.
You was smart, you’d march over and take Pearl from that madman and marry her, Billy.
She’d never do it now that Shinbone’s got her under his spell.
Shinbone ain’t the marrying kind, but Pearl is.
You had at her plenty, didn’t you, Tom?
That ain’t important what went on between us. What we was don’t have a thing to do with what we are. Yesterday’s gone and what happened in yesterday is gone too. If we was all perfect, hell, wouldn’t it be a perfect place.
Well, I still can’t get it out of my head, what all you done with her and what Shinbone’s doing with her right this minute, even if she was to go with me, there’d still be that in my head ever t
ime I got up with her—how she’d had other men.
Ah hell, Billy.
I thought for a moment he was going to fit me again, remembered the sting of his knuckles on my jaw. Son of a bitch could hit for a schoolteacher, I’ll give him that.
Elizabeth Brouchard
Did you ever tell Laura about Louis, Tom?
Louis is lost history. It didn’t matter none about Louis.
The history of the heart is such a tender tale.
Oh, stop it, Liza.
You begged me to desist my inquires whenever I touched a tender place in your soul. But how could I ever know a thing about you unless I asked the most tender things? I only wanted to know the true you, Tom, not the other you that everyone else knew, or thought they knew. You see that is what love is, wanting to know the true other—not the false. And yes it wounds, the things you sometimes say, but wounds heal with time as long as they have the balm of truth to heal them.
Little did I know I would end up marrying Billy. Who could have foresaw such an event? All that love I had for you simply spilled over to another and was lost; for Billy never had the capacity to accept so much love, had never known it before he met me. I’d thought a man like Billy was capable of returning love measure for measure, so bereft of it had he been. But instead, he’d only learned to be cautious, suspect of any sort of love as true, and I never could teach him about me—not the way I could have taught you, Tom. Not the way I could have taught you.
Tom Dooley
After a time of just sitting, listening to the evening come down around our ears, I grew restless to get on.
Well, Billy, what are you going to do?
Go on home, I reckon.
Just let Shinbone have her?
I reckon.
Maybe you ought to go over and knock the shit out of him and tell him to leave your gal alone.
He’s a preacher, Tom.
He’s a goddamn madman, crazed in the head as a lightning-struck mule.
Billy eyed the sky as though he expected Jesus or somebody to come down like a bolt of lightning and strike me dead. All I saw when I looked up was the Dog Star.
I always thought you and him were friends, Tom.
Whatever gave you that idea?
You talk about him a lot.
I talk about shooting squirrels a lot, it don’t make me friends with squirrels.
Hellfire but you’re a confusing man, Tom Dooley.
Damn straight.
Billy slept on my porch that night, mouth so wide open, stars could have fallen in it and he’d never even known the difference. He seemed to me as pitiful as some old hound without a home, just somebody’s nuisance of a creature. I hadn’t the heart to chase him off. But maybe I should have.
Newbolt comes a visiting and offers me a cigar and I take it and he says:
Are you enjoying your cigar, Tom?
I feel like a banker.
There is a certain je ne sais quoi about a good cigar.
Je ne sais quoi! As if I’d know what that meant. He had a flannel mouth brought all the way from New York. It wouldn’t hold rainwater in this valley. I asked him was he married.
Only to the profession of words, dear boy.
Sometimes I set my hand to writing and strange things happen.
How so?
I write things I hadn’t intended, like as though there is some force inside me taking over.
The muse, says he.
The what?
He simply blows smoke rings and grins.
The next day after Billy had gone to sleep on my porch, I went to see Pearl, to warn her about Shinbone and try and get Billy into her favor.
What concern is it of yours, Tom Dooley? I recall it was you who didn’t want nothing to do with me.
Billy’s a good fella, aside from his getting into the bottle at times.
Tyree doesn’t drink and speaks sweet words a woman likes to hear.
Billy would too you give him half a chance.
It was a moonstruck night and I told her to blow out the lamp in case Ann was keeping an eye on things.
She’s awful peeved with you, Tom. Curses you left and right.
I can’t help none of that. I didn’t come here to talk about her.
Oh, Tom, come back to me. I’ll give you more than Laura ever could.
She took my hand and placed it on her breast, but I pulled back like it was fire.
So there you were with her alone, the night full of moonlight . . . surely you were tempted.
I admit I was somewhat. I’m just a human man.
I told her Shinbone would only bring her heartache, that he wouldn’t stick like Billy would stick.
You claim to know a awful lot about what other fellas want, Tom, but you don’t know a thing about me.
I know you’re wanting to have me right now, that’s how far your loyalty to Shinbone carries. That your way of showing me how much you’re taken with him, putting my hand on your teat?
She suddenly kissed me hard and bit my lip so that it bled, then licked the blood from my mouth and offered her tongue to me to suck.
And did you take her offer?
I pushed her away is what I did.
That must have taken great will considering everything that had already transpired between the two of you—your known history with her.
O, Liza, I know I sound like a no account man, but I wasn’t always. There was a time when I was decent and honorable. I never killed nobody in that war unless’n he was bound to take my life. I could have killed more, but I dint. Them poor Yank boys was just like us Rebs, scared and doing only what they was ordered. I dint like killin’ none of them.
Pauline Foster
Sure, he came to me and begged me to stay away from Tyree. He tried his best to convince me to take up with old Billy. But Billy wasn’t nothing compared to Tyree. It was like comparing a stud horse with a three-legged dog. Tyree had been everywhere and promised to take me everywhere with him when he left this valley again. Billy didn’t want to do nothing but teach in his little schoolhouse and drink himself into the bottom of a bottle for all I could see. Billy didn’t have no fine ways about him. Tyree had been to London, England and back again. Said he’d take me to India with him. India! I guess you could see why I wasn’t about to trade him off for no Billy Dixon.
Tom Dooley
Keyes comes with my plate while I wait for you, Liza.
Supper, Tom.
That side meat moving or is it my eyes?
Har, har.
The side meat’s gristly, the mush tasteless, the coffee bitter. I’ve lost all appetite for everything but freedom. I eat as much as I can, slide the plate under the bars for Keyes to pick up when he returns, and take out my ink and foolscap. Go on, hand, write what you will:
The truth is, I fucked Pearl that night. I fucked her bitterly and hated myself for doing so. I fucked her with haste wanting it to be over quickly, before I had time to think and change my mind. I fucked her in a punishing way. But little did she seem to understand, mistaking instead my carnal sorrow for her cherished love.
Oh, Tom, says she. Oh, Tom, oh, Tom . . . over and over until I wanted to scream. I cursed myself all the way home, along the path, past Billy Dixon’s place where I knew Billy to be wallowing drunk out of pity for himself. It’s so goddamn easy, I wanted to shout, to wake him with the truth of how easy it was to diddle a girl like Pearl. All you have to do is shove it in, Billy. Just shove it in and she’ll be yours.
I hated Pearl and I hated myself and I hated Billy Dixon and the whole damn lot of ’em—ever body but Laura. Laura was the only one who could make me feel clean.
A pain in my chest stops my hand. Approaching death? If so, I deserve it for such black thoughts.
Keyes comes and picks up my tray, eyes the leftovers.
I wasn’t hungry.
Hmmm . . . hmmm . . .
I know he will consume what’s left, quietly, secretly; he has the appetite of a goat.
&
nbsp; Oh, near forgot, this came for you.
He hands me an envelope through the bars, my name neatly written on it.
I can hear the hunger in his breathing.
I didn’t eat off none of that side meat, case you were wondering.
Might just put it between a biscuit. No use throwing it to the dogs.
Hell no, better in your belly than some dog’s, Keyes.
Okay, then.
After he leaves, I open the envelope and take out the letter inside.
Dear Tom . . . it begins. I can see it is from Ann.
CHAPTER 22
Tom Dooley
The letter is from Ann, its words are like fishhooks in my flesh. Her accusations far-fetched:
You killed her, Tom, confess it. You killed poor Cousin Laura and now want to lay the blame at my feet.
O, God.
They have me locked up day and night. I plead for mercy. If only you’d confess you done it, I could go home. James comes every day and cries and tells me he loves me and that it is all your doing that has put me here. I know you hate us both, but is that any reason to do what you’re doing?
Could it possibly be that Ann is right, that I did the terrible thing they accuse me of, that my trembling hand that trembles now as it takes up the pen is the same hand that . . .
They say I will hang, that they will stretch my pretty neck. How could you hate me so much as to let them do it? Your false love is worse than treason, your heart black as rot if you let them hang me.
I cannot force my eyes away from her scrawl of scorn.
You are a god-awful son of a bitch if you let them hang me, Tom Dooley.
Oh, please, please don’t let them do it. Please, yr. Ann
P.S.: . . . who loves you still in spite of everything you done to me.
Ann Foster Melton
O, the carnage Tom Dooley wrought on this place and me. He consorted with me right under my husband’s nose and he took liberties with Pearl and poor Laura and about any gal who would let him. He had no more morals than a dog and his ways nearly got me hanged. Were it not for dear sweet James—a faithful husband if ever there was one—I might have gone crazy for the worry. Tom put a knife in poor Laura’s bosom as surely as he consorted with me and the others. I don’t know why he done it other than her jealousy might have drove him to it. And but for a last minute fit of conscience, he would have let them hang me as well.
