Tom Dooley

by Bill Brooks

  Word is, they’re going to move you down to Statesville soon.

  To be hanged.

  O, Tom. I don’t know nothing about what it is they do down in Statesville . . .

  Sure, that’s where they take fellers to be hanged.

  Let’s have another pull of that brandy and play us some checkers.

  I can’t concentrate on nothing. Tyree wins every game easy.

  You hear any word on Ann?

  They say she’s a shrew locked up so long.

  Pearl?

  Pearl . . . let me think.

  She still out to the wilderness with you?

  Some. Not steady, though. Comes and goes.

  Where she go when she goes?

  Melton’s mostly. Fact is, I wish she’d stay gone . . .

  I guess he’s getting his revenge.

  I reckon maybe he is. On you and me, and Ann.

  Tyree Shinbone

  I love Tom as a brother loves a brother. Sometimes I dream I’ve et his flesh. O, jolly little brother that he is, he screams and screams and fire rages through the woods, and the whole world is burnt up.

  I am troubled by my thoughts lately.

  Maybe Pearl has given me the pox for I feel queer lately of something—like worms crawling in my veins headed toward my heart, my brain. Her cunny was her only grace and to the grave it might one day take me.

  To die mad of the pox—now wouldn’t that be something for a preacher man.

  All my kin have died rich and well respected . . .

  Tom Dooley

  It was a Wednesday when I’d gone to Ann’s. This was two days before I was to meet Laura at the springs and set off toward who knew where exactly? I had it in my heart to, as I said, go far beyond the blue mountains, go all the way to the sea. I featured us living by the sea, me and Laura and the babe. I had dreams of becoming a fisherman, purchasing a small boat, and everyday head out into the deep waters to cast my net and earn an honest living. I thought of the daily returning, how it would be when the evening light spread itself over the water all golden till the whole world was a sea of gold. I thought what it would feel like to be honest and tired, my boat full of fish. And upon my return, Laura and the babe would be waiting for me on the dock, their faces happy to see me and I would scoop them up and carry them off home where we’d sup and afterwards I’d play with the babe and later lay with Laura in our bed and hear the waves breaking against the midnight shore.

  In my mind, I could see the moon a broad white strip on the water.

  I don’t know why I had it in me to dream such a life, I just did. I think a man can be other things than what he was born to. All I was born to was this valley, these blue unchanging mountains, this restless spirit in me. I’d gone to the harlot war and let her embrace me and escaped her murderous arms. It did not kill me and I figured it was somehow a sign for me to do better things with my life than I’d been doing. A life not fully lived is one that’s wasted and no account.

  I’d come home worn out with war and listened to the men in Swain’s ask me all about it, slap me on the shoulder and ruminate how they’d have gone themselves except they had the gout and couldn’t march, they’d had palsy and couldn’t hold a rifle steady, they’d had wives and big broods of children that couldn’t do without them. I drank their whiskey at first because I didn’t want to insult them by not, and I listened to their questions of what it was like—the glory of killing Billy Yank—and muttered as best I could some sort of response that didn’t mean anything to me but gave them something more to chew on. Seems like those who didn’t go needed the war more than those of us who went. And after a time of being home again, I looked all around me, and everywhere I looked what I saw was men doing the same tired work, or none at all. I saw their slattern women with their faded eyes, their dirt-faced kids, the same scratch land along those ridges, the same rich folks living in the river bottoms. I saw dirt roads going nowhere unless a fella took them. But folks didn’t seem to want to go nowhere or do nothing—except for me. I’d seen some of what was beyond those mountains but not enough. O, not nearly enough and I wanted to cross them again and this time stay gone forever.

  Tyree Shinbone

  Some are born of fire and some earth—but you were born of water, Tom.

  I wanted to go to sea and become a fisherman.

  Jesus said, Come unto me and I’ll make you fishers of men.

  I dint want to fish for no men. I just wanted Laura and me to have a life, to take our living from the sea and not depend on anyone.

  He fed the multitudes with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish.

  What are you talking about, Tyree?

  The fish is a symbol of everlasting life, Tom.

  Maybe it would have been for me too, had I made it as far as the sea.

  I think I can see such oceans in Tom’s old eyes.

  Tom Dooley

  There is a long silence, with just the ticking of Keyes’s clock downstairs to interrupt it. Keyes’s clock is ticking off the minutes. My minutes. For time has become a slippery thing. Each tick is a reminder of how dear and precious my time is. Pen scratches wearily over the page of foolscap:

  Oh peek into thy heart, dear Jesus, and tell me where is your mercy now?

  Bend low and whisper into my ear what I did to deserve any of this.

  What you writing there, Tom?

  Nothing, Tyree, just a letter.

  You want me to carry it to someone?

  You’d have a long journey if I did.

  On that fateful Thursday Pearl came and said Ann had sent her for me to come that evening.

  What of Melton, will he be around?

  Didn’t say.

  Then there is a chance he’ll be there.

  She played the daft girl of a sudden, her previous desire for me absent in her dull stare.

  Has Tyree ruined you, girl?

  No, Tyree ain’t ruint me.

  Something’s sure wrong with you.

  Nothing’s wrong with me. I got to get on.

  I thought her behavior strange, for most generally she was eager as a hound to see me, eager to offer herself to me, to beg me to take her in and save her from all the world and from all of those who would set upon her. But instead, with just a few simple words and vacant eyes, she sallied off back toward Melton’s and that was that.

  Tom, you’re mumbling. It’s your move.

  I have no heart for games, Tyree.

  Should I tell you a story then?

  No. Leave me be.

  Okay Tom. I’ll come round later on, see how you’re doing.

  Tyree—

  Yes, Tom.

  Oh, nothing, nothing at all.

  I set out that evening on the trail lit by the ghost moon’s light. I could smell the river beyond the trees—dank and running slow like it does that time of year. It has the smell of old snakes and turtles and rotted memories. Something of a chill come over me as I smelt that old river. Raymond twisted in the branches of a dead tree, river water running through his nostrils. Raymond’s eyes all et by turtles.

  Fisher of men—Tyree says. It was George Hare and Sam Pie fished him out; I guess they were the fishers of him.

  And when I arrived at Melton’s, Ann was waiting for me, drunk and crazed. I saw the madness in her moonlit eyes.

  Tom, you sorry fucking son of a bitch!

  I should have known she would see through my ruse.

  Ann had the instincts of a fox.

  Elizabeth Brouchard

  Billy changed after you died. It was like something in him died when the news came finally back to the valley.

  George Hare brought a newspaper down from Wilkesboro with the article in it:

  Elkville Citizen, Tom Dooley, hanged . . . & it went on to tell the grisly details and how more than three thousand folks came to the Big Event!

  It told of candy butchers and lemonade sellers and pickpockets and how you stood upon the scaffold and held up your right hand and swore: Thi
s here hand would not harm a hair on Laura Foster’s head & so on and so forth.

  My father bought drinks all around and there were cheers and good riddances. For men like Mr. Pie and Mr. Hare finally had the opportunity to make hay with some of the local gals now that old Tom Dooley was dead, dead, dead!

  Billy found me by the river near the same place where you first saw me, where we first met.

  Those pretty tears will fill that river up, Liza.

  But I didn’t care.

  You loved old Tom, didn’t you?

  How’d you know? I wrote on my slate.

  I may look a fool, but I ain’t.

  And that’s how it really started—our courtship, if courtship it could be called. Billy loved you too, and we found comfort in our mutual love and grieving.

  I know I ain’t no Tom Dooley, Liza.

  Nobody said you were.

  He took his time reading my words. He seemed to me patient in his thoughts and deeds.

  Thing is, I ain’t like a lot of these others round here, neither. I got dreams like Tom did. Maybe not as big a dreams, but dreams to move on . . .

  What sort of dreams, Billy?

  Eventually I taught him to sign so we could speak to each other more easily and without benefit of slate and chalk or pen and paper.

  We shared that in common too, our dreams.

  We told the river our dreams and it listened. Our dreams were like little seeds that just grew in common ground we’d cultivated without even half thinking.

  O, it wasn’t love between Billy and me, Tom. It wasn’t ever really love. But it had to do because we knew love wasn’t ever going to find either of us out.

  My love went with you to the gallows—and died with you. My real love, did.

  They never mentioned that in the newspaper article George Hare brought with him down from Wilkesboro.

  &

  They never mentioned how your heart must have felt in those final fateful seconds waiting for the trap to spring. How terrible it must have been for you—the waiting.

  CHAPTER 26

  Tom Dooley

  I love you and I hate you, Tom Dooley.

  You’ve gotten into Melton’s liquor again.

  So what if I have—ain’t you ever heard when two people marry what’s one’s is the other’s?

  You sent Pearl to fetch me.

  And here you are, you blue-eyed devil.

  O, Ann, let’s not play so many games with each other. Come out with it, what ails you.

  You ail me. You and your lies is what ails me.

  I half expected Melton to step from the shadows, a gun in his hand to kill me, a plan of deceit to destroy me utterly and finally—Ann the bait to lure me.

  He ain’t here, if that’s what you’re thinking.

  I come for the money you promised me.

  Stole money, you mean. Stole off the man whose wife you been fucking right along.

  I won’t stand to hear such, not from you most of all.

  Hear it you will, Tom Dooley. The price of lies is dear these days. Are you willing to pay it?

  My anger was a hot sickness in my throat, but I knew I must do what had to be done. I’d come too far not to play it out to the end, one way or the other.

  Whatever you heard, you heard wrong and I don’t understand your venom. Why are you acting like a stepped-on copperhead?

  You want that money to marry Laura and run off with her. You thought you’d blind me with your lies, but I know what the truth is and what it ain’t.

  Where’d you hear such a thing?

  Why, Mr. Melton, of course. You remember him, don’t you, Tom, my loving and faithful husband who likes to drink at Swain’s where all the talk goes about.

  I tried hard to think of how anyone would know of my and Laura’s plans.

  Grayson, do you suspect it was?

  Yes, sir, Mr. Newbolt, it was him who I figured. Had to be. Somehow Laura’s pap learned of it and told Grayson and he told the others—Melton among them.

  So it foiled your plans.

  Not quite, but mostly it did.

  But, Tom, isn’t it possible that it could have also been Pearl? Couldn’t she have read the note before she brought it to you that day and told Mr. Shinbone, or even Mr. Melton himself?

  I reckon it might could be so.

  And out of her jealousy she . . .

  Maybe she could have even told Ann directly and Ann was just playing it off as Melton told her.

  Such twists and turns it could have come from Shakespeare’s pen.

  My hands shake now sometimes so terribly I can hardly hold my own pen well enough to write.

  Laura Foster, Laura Foster, my heart is broken, twig-like. You, the young bud that never blossomed. Thy fruit never ripened. Like a sapling, the winds of fate have sent you low to the ground and snapped you in two. You will never grow straight and true and skyward. No children will climb upon you and swing from your leafy limbs. No man will ever come with an ax and harvest you for his fire on chilly winter’s eve. Pruned in the prime, you have fallen—struck and cursed as the cursed dogwood, but even the dogwood blooms in the spring, where you never will.

  Her keening voice comes to me in the night, or is it the wind? All last winter her voice of wind haunted me. I would go and sleep at her grave if I could, let her drag me down into it with her. She lies there alone, her spirit searching for heavenly rest. For I’ve heard that the spirits of the murdered never find rest until the hand that done the deed meets its own eternal end.

  Are you waiting for me, Laura? Are you waiting for the trap to be sprung beneath my feet? Will that calm you, bring you rest? But surely you know it wasn’t me who set the snare. Did you turn in that final moment to see whose hand bore the blade, the silver arc cutting thinly through the air?

  Ann stood there saying vile things about Laura and me, her breath a vapor of the foul whiskey homemade by a nigger cousin of Raymond’s, sold at half the price you could buy at Swain’s.

  Well, go on to her, Tom, if that’s what you’re aiming to do. I don’t care a mighty goddamn.

  I was already in it deep, the lying; one more lie wouldn’t hurt Laura and it wouldn’t hurt me and might even help us both.

  She come to me for help. That’s all.

  Yes, and I know the sort of help she’s a-looking for.

  No, not what you think.

  Then tell me what it is—this new lie of your’n.

  And so I told her the only lie I thought I could and make it seem just pleasing enough to her, but not so much she’d gloat in the misery of it.

  And that was?

  I even hate to repeat it now.

  But unless you do, how will the others know, Tom?

  I told her that Laura had come to me saying she was pregnant, but I saw no pity in Ann’s wistful gaze. Then I told her it wasn’t mine but another’s.

  Whyn’t she go to whoever the pap is? Why’d she come to you, Tom Dooley?

  Because the pap is her own pap, that’s why. She was riddled full of guilt and shame.

  Even with a head full of bad drunk angels Ann gave a start at such news.

  Lordy, Jesus! Her own pap?

  That’s right, only old Jesus ain’t the one going to help her—it must be me.

  Why you? Why not some other?

  Like you, maybe, who wouldn’t give her the time of day? Or Swain, who’d try and sell her off to one of those louts hangs round his place drinking all day?

  Grayson, what about him? I heard tell Grayson’s been going over there courting her. Why wouldn’t she go to him?

  She’s afraid of Grayson. Grayson’s as old as her pap and the two of them drink together most every night.

  I don’t reckon I could have pulled it off if Ann had been full sober. She was just drunk enough, and maybe pleased enough the babe wasn’t mine, to buy it whole hog. Hell, I told it so sincere I near had tears in my eyes.

  So Ann gave you the money?

  Said she would, said she�
��d not gotten it just yet.

  And she never did give it to you?

  No, sir, she never did. Instead, what she did was dangle the promise of it in front of me like a carrot in front of a donkey, only the donkey was me. Said I should come back the next day.

  And when you went.

  Same thing.

  And the time grew shorter still . . .

  Yes, sir, the time grew short.

  Winston Newbolt

  So many lies abound in this place, among these people, even I am not sure what to believe. There is a sincere timbre in Tom’s voice, but the most guilty men in the world can come across as the most sincere—for what have they got to lose by more lies, and what have they got to gain by favoring the truth?

  O, I can’t wait to return to New York, for I’ve become too enchanted with Tom Dooley to be faithful to my trade.

  Tom Dooley

  Keyes calls out in his sleep some nights; calls the slattern’s name.

  Flo. Flo!

  Shut up, I think. I imagine them together—three good legs and a wood one lying on the floor, or propped up in the corner maybe. It’s a sorry thing to think about it, but sometimes the thinking about such keeps me from thinking about other things much worse.

  By Thursday evening I’d become desperate. Even thought of robbing Melton if I had to. Maybe hide along the road and when he went by in his wagon on the way back from Swain’s leap out and knock him in the head with a rock and take his poke. But in the end I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t any sort of thief. I might have been a lot of things, but I wasn’t a thief.

  That last night before I was to meet Laura I waited for Melton to leave home, then crept up to the house. I could see Ann inside, and Pearl was with her and they were talking close together. I went round and knocked on the door and Pearl answered it.

  Cousin Ann, Tom Dooley’s here. Real proper announcement, like I was a stranger to them suddenly.

  Ask him what does he want?

  Ann, you know why I’ve come.

  He says you know why he’s come.

  I don’t know no such thing, why he’s come.

  Pearl started to repeat Ann’s words.

  I don’t need a go-between. Come out here, Ann. Come out now.

  Ann appeared behind Pearl; the greasy light caused them to look more like sisters than cousins—twin devils arisen from the flame of deceit.