by Bill Brooks
The pox pickles the brain like vinegar pickles an egg.
Maybe that was Tyree’s affliction—an infected brain. And now, Pearl would share in it too—his growing madness. And soon it might spread throughout all the valley until everyone was as mad as the preacher.
Oh, it was hard to contemplate—the once sweet and shy Pearl growing mad from a diseased brain. But there she was, on the ground in front of Tyree as he bucked into her delivering his redemption, a victim of his lust and hers. I had to go and tell Billy to forget about Pearl, to set his cap for another.
Just as I turned to leave, Pearl cried out and I looked round thinking Tyree had hurt her. But no, they lay collapsed in a heap of smoldering flesh, twisted arms and legs, he atop her, kissing the back of her head as she mewed like a kitten. It was a sad and terrible thing for me to see.
Because you still had some feelings for her?
Perhaps, for even the faintest love is still love.
O, Tom, don’t whisper of faint love to me, I beg you not.
When I found Billy, he was sitting with the barrel of a shotgun pressed under his chin. He had his shoe off and was attempting to pull the trigger with his toe. I kicked it out from under him.
The hell’s gotten you in such a state?
I seen him, Tom.
Who?
Raymond.
Raymond’s dead, drowned last winter in the Yadkin, don’t you remember?
No, he was here not half an hour ago. He asked me about the children, asked if they still sang. Then he warned me to leave Pearl alone, that she was his—he’d bought her.
You got to leave off drinking so heavily, Billy.
I swear, I swear, I saw him, plain as I see you now. Are you real, Tom? Or am I seeing me another ghost?
I took him outside and plunged his head in a bucket of rainwater as many times as it took to get him sober, then told him Pearl was a lost cause, that she’d come under Shinbone’s spell.
I don’t care about nothing, Tom. I’m all lost to myself. I don’t care about nothing.
Maybe not today, but tomorrow you’ll care again, or the day after.
If true love ain’t in the cards for me, what’s the point of living?
Love ain’t a bowl of soup to feed your belly, it ain’t a roof to keep the rain off you. Love ain’t everything, Billy. It ain’t even half of everything.
Easy enough for you to say, seeing’s how you’ve always had a woman loving on you and you on them.
They ain’t none of us got nothing except what we imagine we got. You’re imagining you got nothing, so you got nothing. You’re all a mess, Billy—headed for an early grave you don’t change your thinking.
Piss and damn. Piss and damn.
Billy Dixon
Tom caught me trying to blow my fool head off. It was a fool head I was aiming for, for who but a fool would attempt such a thing over such as Pauline Foster—or any other woman for that matter?
O, I might for you, sweet Liza. I might for you.
Tom Dooley
I left him there with his wet head and miserable notions and figured if he was going to kill himself, he would eventually and nothing would stop him. But I doubted Billy had it in him; it takes a certain sort of heart to take a life, even if the life’s his own.
Do you believe in ghosts, Tom? That Raymond actually came to visit Billy?
Yes, I do.
Do you believe Shinbone’s madness was spreading throughout the whole of the valley, infecting everyone he came in contact with?
If not his, then somebody’s was, for it sure was a madness of one sort or the other.
Like a plague?
Yes, I reckon it was—a plague of madness, for what else could account for the murder of Laura?
Was she so innocent and all the others so guilty?
O, Liza, I can’t say. I can’t say. Maybe she was as guilty as us all. But the child she carried wasn’t guilty. The little babe cannot be guilty . . .
Elizabeth Brouchard
On bright days, the mademoiselles stroll the boulevards of Paris under lovely parasols. I observe their lovely faces and think how different they are than the women of Reedy Branch who, in those infinite days, had hair that smelled of cooking fire, and no beauty to them. O, the mademoiselles of Paris are tall and limber and graceful as cats and not stout and sturdy as hewn logs.
The girls of Reedy Branch dye their lips with raspberries picked in summer’s heat, thinking it some sort of beauty. But the mademoiselles of Paris rouged their cheeks and sprayed their necks with perfume. The girls of Reedy Branch hid their desires from husbands and lovers, but the mademoiselles took lovers to their beds while knowing husbands winked and worked in musty offices.
Tom Dooley
A few mornings before she disappeared, Laura rode to my cabin.
Tom, there is something I need to tell you.
I’d thought it would be that another man had wooed her away from me—Grayson with all his money, or Swain with his perfidious lies. I put nothing past those two men especially—I’m sorry to say it to you, Liza, about your own father, my mistrust of him. The others, Sam Pie and George Hare and the rest I knew were just as wanting of Laura’s love, but being men of such common stock they couldn’t come up with a plan between them to win her from me. Grayson and Swain were a different matter.
If it is to tell me another’s won you over, I don’t want to hear it. You can get back on your pap’s racer and go straightaway home.
Oh, don’t be such a jealous fool. It’s nothing like that.
Then what is it?
Don’t you want to even kiss me first?
So I kissed her and let the sweetness of her kiss crawl into my bones. I kissed her and kissed her and carried her into the house in spite of her protests that what she’d come to tell me was most important.
Later, there is always time to tell me later.
But Tom . . .
. . . and removed her dress and other things.
Oh, Tom . . .
. . . and kissed her honey mouth and nectared breasts and the fine down below her navel until I heard the soft little sounds I’d grown so accustomed to escape her lips . . . and kissed her and kissed her.
This I write with all candor.
Later as we held to each other quietly, a stripe of sunlight lay across the bed. And up from the river blew the gentlest of breezes—like cool fingers seeking us out and caressing us most tenderly.
Now what was it so all fired important that you came here today and kept me from my work?
I said it sweetly, teasingly, for we’d learned to be as children when together—laughing and teasing each other, chasing and catching and dragging each other down into an embrace, playfully, blissfully.
O, Tom, I’m not sure if it’s good news or not.
I felt suddenly afraid I’d lose her through this news she was about to tell me.
Go ahead and just say it, Laura.
She gave me a lingering kiss.
I think your baby child grows inside me.
My heart lurches even now as I think of those words that force me to reach for my pen and ink to add to the account of the events that lead to the tragedy.
O what news thou has brought thee of
Events not yet but soon to be, of a changing
Season wherein all dreams become reality
And time itself sifts backward to this moment now?
With such joy I kissed the slight roundness of her tummy, imagining the small fluttering life that must already exist there and she wept when I did so.
Don’t cry.
I cannot help it.
I kissed her hands and the prominences of her warm wet cheeks.
She clung to me and made promises of being a good wife to me.
We’ll marry.
When, Tom, when?
Soon. I’ll need to think it out.
My thoughts of a life together lay beyond the Yadkin Valley, lay beyond the ridges, lay beyond anything I
could imagine. I’d need to raise some quick money for us to go far away, but how I didn’t know.
I dangled a needle from a thread above my belly.
Whatever for?
To see if it will be a boy or a girl.
And what did the dangling needle tell you?
That it will be a boy.
I should have been happy, overjoyed, but all I could think of was of other boys who grew into men and went off to war never to return. The jellied eyes of the dead, their dark faces turned toward the sun—so many mothers’ sons all in a row, scattered like human trash. All began their new life foretold by the dangling of a needle, and I wondered if the dangling needle ever foretold of their youthful death.
Well, a boy is a fine thing to look forward to.
Really Tom? Are you really pleased?
Sure I am. Why every man wants a son, don’t he?
He’ll have your fine hair and dark eyes.
Oh, I don’t know about that; let’s hope he looks more like you.
In spite of misgivings, there was a sweetness to the news, and Laura seemed so fragile to me in that golden light as the sun sought its evening rest. I took her gentle into my arms and held her, for I felt greatly responsible for the first time in my life.
My pen scribbles along the page of its own truck:
Listen to thy beating tender heart,
& tell me if you hear it—the heart of an
Unborn king, a fiddler, a riverman, a
Wanderer, surgeon, lawyer or Prince?
For who can know what blood thy blood will
Stir, and what great or terrible deeds
He will perform upon this heaving earth?
A boy, she said it would be, foretold by the dangling needle. You see, she was a superstitious girl who would turn and walk the other way if a black cat crossed her path, and toss salt over her shoulder if a shaker spilled.
She was not unusual for mountain folk. Women especially let themselves be guided by superstition—and who’s to say they don’t know things most the rest of us can’t conceive? For I tell you here and now that I believe things happen round us without our knowledge, that Billy Dixon did see Raymond’s ghost, and that I have seen Laura, here in the cell on certain nights when sleep has drugged me just so. And I believe it is her hand that guides my hand in writing of such things—for I have no poetry in me, no words that can match what I see on the page.
So there are strange occurrences and I’m not one to judge them anymore like I once did. I only hope that this other world round me where fairies and unseen gods live who wait to claim me, do so with loving kindness, more so than I’ve had on this earth and in this life until this very moment—and when they put the rope round my neck.
For what kindness will I find in death
That I’ve not found in life if not that
Angels exist, and other fantasies?
Keyes stomps up the stairs. I realize it is morning—the last words I wrote caused me to faint and sleep the night. Which morning it is, I ain’t sure, but it doesn’t really matter so much if it isn’t my last just yet.
Tom, how’re you this morning?
Ready to walk all the way to those mountains.
Shoot boy, I wish I could let you.
Wouldn’t nobody have to know I didn’t trick you.
I’d know.
Would it be the worst thing you ever done, letting an innocent man escape the rope?
No, sir, if you was innocent like you say, it’d be a good thing. But I ain’t a judge and I ain’t a jury, I’m just an old one-legged jailer. It ain’t much to lay claim to, but without it I’d have nothing. So if I was to let you go, you’d just be making me into a one-legged tramp.
You give that letter to Ann?
Yes, sir, I seen she got it.
Well, hand me in that mush and side meat, I’ll see what I can do with it.
Tom?
What?
She didn’t say nothing when I give her the letter.
I didn’t expect she would.
Elizabeth Brouchard
The ladies of Paris are like no other ladies anywhere. Their lovers often take lovers—it seems a trend and no one minds. It is everyone’s secret here in beautiful Paree!
The mademoiselles do not fret over minor infidelities and other betrayals, for they have their parasols and beautiful dresses & lovers of their own, you see.
CHAPTER 24
Tom Dooley
Laura’s pap threw rocks at my door until I came outside. He had one in his hand ready to throw it.
What are you doing, Mr. Foster?
I ain’t letting her marry a no account long as they’s fellas like Grayson willing to pay for the privilege. Swain owns a tavern, George Hare a farm, Sam Pie a mill. What you own? You know how fine it would be to have a son-in-law owns a tavern?
He reminded me of a banty rooster, feisty and small but didn’t know just how small he was. His black hair stood up on his head like a rooster’s feathers and he had little rooster eyes. He was scratching up my place and I didn’t like it one bit.
You best go on now, Mr. Foster. It’s my business and none of your own.
By gar, I’ll see whose bidness my kin is.
Laura’s of age to say who she does and doesn’t want to marry.
Marry! Why boy, you got a head chock full of queer ideas, ain’t you?
Don’t be throwing no more rocks at my door.
I’ll bust you in the damn head with one . . .
I’m not trying to rile you, but if they’s any busting to be done, I’ll be the one doing it.
His face became as dark red as a rooster’s feathers.
Don’t come round my place no more, Tom Dooley. Don’t come round Laura no more, or you just might end up floatin’ in the Yadkin.
I watched him hike up onto the back of his unsaddled horse, shift his weight until he was balanced just so, then dig his heels in and race off as though to show me he could handle about anything—a big fast horse or a “no account” fella such as myself.
That had to have made you feel pretty badly, being upbraided by such a man.
No. It just made me more determined than ever to get me some money put together and take Laura off from this place, far from the men who would try and own her and sell her for the price of a drink. For, she wasn’t a thing to be owned, to be sold off to the highest bidder.
No, of course not.
Men round here, some of them anyways, feel as though a woman ain’t nothing but a piece of property. Like your pap did with Pearl, trying to sell her off to Raymond.
So you made yourself a new enemy in Mr. Foster.
Yes. I was getting good at making enemies without even trying.
But surely he couldn’t have had a hand in Laura’s death or you in this fix . . .
No, but the way I heard it, her pap sure didn’t seem all that broke up, either; he was a lot more concerned about his stole horse than he was the fate of Laura.
She took his horse that morning she was to meet you.
So they say.
Squire Wilson Foster
I let that fool Tom Dooley know I wan’t going to stand for his taking up with my child. I went out there and raised holy hell with him for even thinking such notions. But there he stood all puffed up as though he was the richest fella in the valley, as though my word didn’t count for nothing. He had no respect for me or Laura neither—if he had, he wouldn’t a put such fool notions in her head. It was all those fool notions got her where she is—and got him where he is, too.
Damn sorry thing a man can’t raise himself a child and have her grow up and marry into something.
Now all I got is a little old grave to look at and a sorry future when I could have had me a little something for my troubles. Why, about any man in the valley would have given a pretty penny for a pretty gal such as Laura. But no, Tom Dooley saw to it that any such a dream got ruin’t. Far as I’m concerned, Tom Dooley is a stealer of other folk’s dreams.<
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Tom Dooley
Pearl came a day or two after Laura’s pap had thrown rocks at my door, stating her reason for coming was that Laura had sent her. I could still see her that day in the meadow with Shinbone. For that was how I would always see her—her white hams offered up to heaven as though it was Shinbone’s sacrifice to his god of lust.
Cousin Laura sent me to give you this.
She handed me a letter sealed with wax.
Thank you for delivering it.
She dawdled.
You best get on back lest Ann starts to wonder where you went off to.
I don’t work for her no more.
Oh, and how is it you’re getting by?
I took up with Tyree; he takes care of me now. But then I reckon you already figured that one out.
How would I know what you and Tyree been up to?
Don’t play fool with me, Tom Dooley. I saw you that day standing off in the brambles. You got yourself a eyeful of me and Tyree. And you want to know something?
No, I don’t.
I was glad you seen us. I told Tyree later how you was watching and he laughed and laughed and so did I . . .
I felt suddenly sad for her. Tyree Shinbone would only lead her to great heartache. Pearl was fragile in a way the others weren’t—she was fragile in the head.
How do you mean? She doesn’t sound fragile, Tom. She sounds as flinty as the others . . .
She isn’t as pretty for one thing. She is the sort of woman men find easy to take advantage of because she’s so needy of loving—it wouldn’t take much for her to break in the head.
So you found her easy to love yourself?
Yes, I loved her in a way, and still I took advantage of her, and each time I did I felt the sorrier for it.
Because it turned you into the same as the others—the very men you’d come to detest.
Yes, yes, yes.
I told her I wished her the best in her new life and she smiled but without pleasure and her lip began to tremble.
Oh, Tom. I know you must hate me for what I did with Tyree.
Don’t hate me.
I don’t hate you.
I’ll leave him if you want me to.
