by Bill Brooks
O, I’ll never forgive him for what he did to us all—the carnage of his lust. But I can see in your sweet little eyes you don’t believe he done it. Just be thankful you weren’t his next victim little mute girl. It could just as easy be you lying in a grave, as it was dear Cousin Laura.
Tom Dooley
Laura and I swam naked in the Yadkin River in those first warm days of that summer. We swam and lay out on rocks and let the sun warm us. I loved to watch her body drop through the air from the bluff above the river. It was like watching a wingless angel, an arc of pale beauty, innocent and free of earth’s bonds. And when she pierced the water, she became as an arrow that pierced my heart. In after her I dove and we would unite in the green coldness beneath the river’s surface, the sunlight shattering above us. We would cling to each other, holding our breaths for as long as we could, legs and arms entwined, mouths pressed together, then kick to the surface where we’d gulp in great amounts of air, laughing, splashing like otters.
Oh, Tom, Tom, I’m as happy as I’ve ever been.
The sound of her happy voice thrilled me and I could not imagine ever being without her.
And when we became too warm from the sun, we would go under a large sheltering oak and recline in its shade and there we would make love to the chattering protests of blue jays and squirrels.
One time we fell asleep and awoke again and I saw a pile of fresh horse apples where there hadn’t been any before, and knew that Grayson had come upon us and had seen us lying together in our nakedness. O, what thoughts must have gone through his mind seeing Laura, her beauty exposed to his craven eyes? And I wonder did he do more than simply watch? Thinking about him watching us ruined the lovely day.
I didn’t say anything to Laura, letting her remain instead sweetly ignorant. And now thinking back on it, I should have gone and threatened him to never come round again in secrecy. But I had no proof it was him and not some other who’d come upon us.
. . . you are a god-awful son of a bitch if you let them hang me, Tom Dooley. Ann’s words sting as surely as death itself. But then too, she claims to love me and that sting is almost worse than death.
To think of Laura then, a freshet of life, full of love and laughter—and to think of her now, tiny and curled in that small grave where she will forever be silent—this year and the next and the next she will remain thus for all eternity and the thought causes me to wretch.
I dip the pen into the dark bottle. My hand takes on life of its own.
Thy love was spring, eternal spring.
Thy kiss was as new rain upon my tongue.
Into a lovely flower I grew, fed by love.
I waited for thee in vain through the
Same spring as would always be, until at
Last, the winter called death claimed me.
This my blind hand did write sometime between dark and dawn, Ann’s letter lying open on the cot like a paper moth, its wings spread wide.
I wonder if Grayson told Swain he saw us that day by the river, and if Swain told the others—Sam Pie and George Hare and Billy Dixon. And did they laugh and make lewd jokes and rub themselves in drunken desire vowing to have their turn at Laura as well, to take her for their own? And did such desire lead one to murder her? Did one of them come upon her that morning and she refused them? O, so much speculation, who can know the truth of anything? You must understand something, dear Liza, about men, something I learned during the war: given the right, or wrong circumstances, there is nothing beyond what a man is capable of, murder included. Brother Cain slew Brother Abel, after all. Perhaps with Laura, lust was the culprit.
You see, things were later said, I later learned, that caused me to wonder.
What sort of things, Tom?
Little vicious whispers, nothing too specific—but the men eyed me when I came and went from the tavern and spoke close to each other and sniggered. But Grayson never did—he acted above it all—like he had his own secret to keep.
You doubted Laura’s fidelity to you?
Not at first.
But later on?
O, I don’t know, really. It’d be harsh of me to talk down of her now that she’s dead. O, I could have fit them all, every last man, knocked them down and warned them to stay away, to stop their talk. But you know how these mountain men are, Liza: they’re rough because they was born rough and they have to stay rough all their lives.
Yes, my own father included.
They are truly capable of anything. They dote on cruelty when they think they got you. They’ll stick a man as easy as a pig ready for the slaughtering. To them, blood is blood, it don’t matter none.
But aren’t you one of them too, Tom?
I reckon maybe I am. Maybe I’m worse in a way from some of ’em. I went to war and learnt my business and some of them did not. But we’ve all got the same dirt under our nails, and gaze upon these same mountains and that same sun.
For it is born in each of you, these rough ways, this cruelty when one among you is weak . . . be it man or woman.
You have to be hard to survive in these mountains.
And determined . . .
Yes, determined to take what you want, what you need or else it will take you.
It is life itself you fight for . . .
Yes, life itself.
And sometimes pleasure too.
And sometimes our pleasure too—when it don’t come along easy or natural.
Elizabeth Brouchard
O, my father was a cunning man and I wouldn’t put it past him to revel in Tom’s undoing, to conspire and bare his teeth, become this feral thing that men do become when drinking and lust enters into their heads and their blood runs hot.
But Papa never showed a penchant for any woman other than Mama. I think she tainted his view of all women until he saw them as little more than things to use, like a gun or knife or slave. He had no true fondness of them after Mama’s betrayal. So, when Tom told me these things I had no trouble believing him, but dared not look back too harshly on a man whose wife had left him all alone to raise a wilted little flower like myself.
I can hardly write of him at all, so mixed are my feelings . . .
Tom Dooley
That out of town newspaperman, Newbolt, wears checked suits. The sort of suit a man might wear in a big city, but not in Wilkes County.
You must stick out like the old Joe’s pecker round here.
Har, har.
You mind my asking what a suit like that costs?
It’s silk, Thomas. I purchased it in New York City. It cost me forty-five dollars, custom-made. You like it?
I reckon it would be a nice suit to be buried in.
Har, har, I suppose it would. Me, I’d not want to throw away a good suit like this on some stiff, if you’ll forgive my indiscretion in saying so.
Hell, Newbolt, I don’t understand half of what you say sometimes, but I like listening to you.
Forgive me if my mind wanders—it’s hard to stay thinking on one thing too long in this place where the time never seems to change—where I am caged like a pitiful dog.
I went round to each of the suitors and warned them to stay clear of Laura. Of course they thought me just a damn fool—all these older men: George Hare and Sam Pie, and Swain, and Grayson especially.
You might be some sort of war hero to these others, Tom Dooley, but you ain’t as much as pig shit to me.
You think you’re the onliest one with an aching cob?
It’s time for some others of us to start having our pick of the gals round here.
You’re just a tallywacking son of a bitch!
Like that it went. They thought no more of me than a shoat hog.
Laura did admit that many men came to her cabin and tossed their favor at her pap, carrying with them jugs of liquor and offerings to set him up by paying cash money as if they were buying a horse. Said her pap was playing one off against the other to get the highest price for her. Laura had no say, you see, in who came an
d went, or who her pap invited in to stay and drink and talk of marriage. He was, she told me, a shrewd negotiator for her favors. She wanted bad to run away with me before she got sold off to one of them.
Pretty gals have always been seen as hardly more than just something to barter for or to sell. Pretty gals have always been just like niggers round these parts, don’t you know that, Liza?
And in the eyes of the other suitors, you were the bane in their affairs.
O, your words, even written out, seem as fancy as those of that newspaperman, Liza. But, I guess you’re right, I was.
You were their ruin, their poison when it came to girls like Laura and Pauline and even Ann. You won their hearts so easily. Those other men didn’t want used goods.
What man does?
None, I suppose. It’s a good thing for men that we women don’t see it the same way—or there wouldn’t have been a man in this whole world would ever have won himself a sweetheart.
You’re right as rain, Liza. But listen: Those gals were free to choose whatever man they wanted . . .
But they did choose you, Tom: Even Ann, already married to James.
Yes, and look what it’s gotten me, all their choosing.
Elizabeth Brouchard
I know that the hours of long visits, the self-absorbed way you became in your recollections, had an effect on me, my mood, my patience at times. I never wanted to be harsh with you, but there were moments I couldn’t help it. My anger grows and grows because you are where you are and because you brought down this house of cards upon yourself. Maybe not entirely, but mostly it was your own selfish and lustful actions that brought everything crashing down, Tom.
O, I know it isn’t what you wanted. I know that if you could, you would probably give your life for Laura’s. But as it is . . . well, as it is, you might well give your life for her, for no good reason whatsoever. So just ignore my sometime hasty observations, my haste in wanting to condemn you for some things. I don’t mean it. Like you, I came to love too much and sometimes my love blinds me and sometimes it makes me feel mean and cruel toward you. Like any woman with a half jealous heart, I want to make you see how you’ve hurt me with all this talk of other women, other lovers, the things you did for them that you never did for me. I’m sorry, Tom, but if we can’t be honest with each other now, when will we ever get the chance?
Tom Dooley
Somebody shot the windows out of my cabin one night, and another time I came home and found evidence of a fire set, but lucky for me, doused by a sudden rain.
The other men conspired to run you off . . .
Somebody didn’t want me around.
One thing led to another . . .
It’s me behind these bars . . . I don’t see nobody else, do you?
Tell me if you ever again confronted Ann before that tragic day of Laura’s death.
Yes, many times . . .
She would come around and beg me to take up with her again. She would promise me that she would forgive all if I would vow to her that I would stop seeing Laura. She was a mean trickster and a meaner temptress still.
Why you want her, Tom, when I’d do anything for you?
Facts haven’t changed any, you’re still a married woman, Ann.
I’ll get unmarried if that’s what you want.
No, my heart doesn’t ache for you like it once did. It’s too late for that.
I’ll go and pack my things today and move in with you.
No, no. Don’t you understand a thing about me?
That was how it generally went between us. She’d plead, and then when I wouldn’t give in, she’d curse me and swear to get even. It wasn’t enough she already had a man she didn’t want; she wanted a man she couldn’t have.
Maybe we’re all given to such easy temptations, Tom—wanting the thing we don’t or can’t have—believing we can win such objects of affections by sheer wanting alone.
And when we get it . . .
We don’t want it.
O, Liza, how did you get so wise and me so ignorant?
When you are gone in the dark late hour, I hear Keyes’s wood leg on the stairs—Thump! Thump! Thump!—bringing my supper, smell the fried side meat, and know each meal I eat will be one less I’ll get to eat. Keyes has told me they are to take me off to Statesville soon and that can only mean one thing.
Tom, how’s she going tonight?
He swings open my cell door and hands in my plate, a fork and spoon, no knife of course, then steps out again and makes sure the lock is turned in place.
He snorts impatiently as though he’s got some place to go and I don’t know why he stands staring at me as long as he does. I tell him to go on and he does, thump . . . thump down the stairs, each step he grunts from that big belly of his he carries.
I eat my supper in silence, not hungry. The room I’m in gets smaller by the minute. I take up my pen again, this time determined in what words I’ll write . . . for they are words meant for Ann and I’ll force my hand to write them. I’ll give Keyes the letter to take to her when he comes to collect my plate:
Dear Ann,
You blame me for everything, say that if I’ll confess to Laura’s murder that you’ll be set free, that your pretty neck won’t be broken by the hangman knot. Is that what you want of me, this man you say you love in spite of everything? Is that how you’d see your lover, swinging from the Tory tree? Is it me, or you who should confess? I know I ain’t been in my right mind for a long time. I know I’d gotten bad drunk that night and was still so the next morning. But I wasn’t alone, if you recall. Your pretty throat swallowed some of that liquor too. My only real regret is that I allowed you back into my life at all. Shinbone calls people like us Star Crossed & Timeless. I think people like us are simply fools guided by our lusts and not our heads. I know that is what it was for me, or I’d not let you turn me back into your fool. I hope that you are the one who is happy now that you see me in this place, now that you have made sure my fate was sealed. But what I want to know is, who were your co-conspirators, or was it your plan alone to see me thus? Without affection, Tom Dooley.
I fold the letter quickly into quarters before I change my mind and tear it to pieces. I don’t know where to place the blame, but I know I must place it with someone.
Thy love was false and falsely said
But my ear did hear it as pure truth
And caused me to raise my hand in
Oath of vain servitude to my own death.
Could I, I wonder, dig my way through these stone walls with just a pen and fork and spoon? And could I go beyond those far blue hills and sail across the oceans and come into strange lands that would have me as I am? And if I could, could I leave behind all thoughts of love and Laura Foster? & could I go without you, Liza? For taking you with me would only bring you to ruin as it did the others. O, what devilment I’ve placed myself in—what a terrible stew!
A gentle rain begins to tap along the outer walls like an insistent lover. It falls upon the thirsty grass beyond these walls and dances upon the sill. And in my haste to taste its freedom, I extend my fingers as far as I can through the window bars until they are touched by what feels like a dead girl’s tears that soon bring my own . . .
I close this for now, Liza, knowing you will read it soon enough and understand I’m not as all cruel as they would have me.
Elizabeth Brouchard
It has rained a thousand days and more since you wrote those words. And the rain has not changed, and the seasons come and go without change. And everything is the same and nothing is the same.
My bed is empty, Billy is gone too and I sometimes wonder if there is a heaven and if there is, is Billy still drinking and falling asleep on your porch, Tom? I’d like to think it so.
I close for now, the young mademoiselles are waiting for their piano lessons.
CHAPTER 23
Tom Dooley
Lawyer Vance comes to see me, a portly brave man whose faith in justice is unflag
ging.
We ain’t lost yet, Tom.
But in his eyes, I see the cause is lost. Two trials and two convictions, what hope can remain?
They’ve only circumstantial evidence, no eyewitnesses, nothing to tie you to Laura Foster’s murder but their pitiless hearts and jaundiced eyes—for somebody has to pay, or they will not rest easy in their beds at night.
What about Ann, will they hang her too?
O, let’s not concern yourself overly much with poor Ann. I’ll defend her.
I want to thank him for his efforts, but if he defends Ann as well as he did me, then surely she will hang. It’s not his fault. I had fear and superstition working against me. I had a jury with George Hare and Sam Pie and Swain and Grayson as my peers. My peers! Their slanderous hearts will put the rope around my neck and Ann’s as well.
You’ve done what you could, Mr. Vance. Best you go and defend Ann and try and save her from the rope. Forget about me.
I have appeals in to the courts as we speak.
Twice guilty. How you going to appeal that in people’s minds?
I have great faith that justice is blind.
And so are those who sat in judgment of me.
I’m even appealing to the governor for a pardon in case all else fails.
I found Pearl in the meadow with Tyree Shinbone. Found her on all fours, Pearl’s bare buttocks exposed to Tyree, his cob long and hard. I’d gone to warn each about the other—a grand scheme I’d worked out to win Billy Dixon another chance with Pearl and to save her from the madman.
But too late, too late—Pearl grunting with each thrust of the preacher behind her.
Sister, let me save you from hell and perdition!
Oh yes, Brother Tyree!
And bring to thee redemption!
Oh yes, bring me redemption.
And rain down fire and brimstone upon thee who is a sinner.
I am a sinner! I am a sinner! Rain down on me fire and brimstone!
I stood off in the brambles and watched and felt anger prickle the back of my neck. My plan had been to tell Tyree that Pearl had the pox, then go and tell Pearl the same about Tyree. I’d had it once myself and knew how terrible it was to get rid of. Left unattended it infects the brain, makes a body go crazy, bluestone is its only cure!
