Oral History (9781101565612)

by Lee Smith

  But Almarine had him no gun at the time and so he was forced to leave. The ravens were squealing and calling out in the night, twas like they were laughing him home. Almarine grit his teeth and he swore he would kill her paw.

  But as it turned out, he never had to. Old Isom just up and died. Or that is how Red Emmy gave it out—but you know in your heart she kilt him. Kilt him for Almarine. Well and be that as it may, old Isom fell offen a rocky clift and died, and the ravens ate out his eyes. They’ll do that, it’s natural. They’ll eat the eyes outen a deer or anything. But nobody knows iffen Isom’s death were a natural death or not, him a-falling offen a rocky clift he’d lived on for all of his life. Red Emmy buried him herself. Then she packed all she owned in a poke—it was precious little—and set out a-walking in the light of the moon for Hoot Owl Holler.

  It was right at midnight when she come, Almarine asleep on the down tick beside the fire. Duck stood out in the yard a-howling, but she spoke a word and it hushed him. Red Emmy pushed open the door with her foot and walked in the front room. She laid her poke in the corner. Then she walked over and looked down at Almarine where he laid in heavy sleep, his light hair splayed out on the piller.

  Lord! What could have went on in that Emmy’s head? She knowed she could never be no man’s wife. She knowed how her daddy had raised her. She knowed too what her own needs was and how she had to fill them. But just right then, for a minute, when Emmy looked down at Almarine sleeping, it was like she was the one bewitched. She wanted to be a witch and a regular gal both, is what she wanted. But mainly she wanted Almarine, and her powers were considerable.

  “Almarine Cantrell,” she said.

  Almarine sat bolt upright and rubbed his eyes. At first he thought twas a dream come into his own house on Hoot Owl Holler. She stood as tall and straight as a Indian with her head wrapped up in a big dark shawl.

  “Take that off,” he says, and he watched while Emmy reached up and unwound the shawl and then pulled pins all outen her long red hair.

  “Now do ye know me,” she says, and Almarine nodded his head and reached over and opened her dress and pulled it down and pulled off her underthings too and there she stood in the wavy light of the fire, that fire as red as her hair and her mouth, and she moaned when he pulled her down.

  Well, there’s Almarine laying with Red Emmy at last, and Duck a-howling bloody murder out in the yard.

  Of course Almarine knowed better! By then he had heard those stories too, by then he knowed moren you do. He knowed he was playing with fire. Now you yourself mought know what that’s about, or it mought be that you do not. Iffen that be the case I am sorry for you, there ain’t no way I can say it in all the world. It’s like you want something so bad, you’re all et up with the wanting. It’s like the ground opens up all of a sudden under your feet and there ain’t no end to your falling. If you’re bound and determined to play with fire, you’ll do it whether or no—you’ll play till it burns you up, or the other one up, or the both of you, or mought be till it burns out.

  Almarine and Red Emmy stayed in that bed for two days solid. At the end of those two days she got up and cooked some beans and Almarine went out to feed his horse and his dog. Now what was Emmy up to, a-cooking beans? It was like she was a little child with a new play-pretty, and that play-pretty was Almarine. She was just a-playing house, is all, until her true nature come out.

  But before that happened, and it happened soon enough, they had them a spell of what I call froze-time on Hoot Owl Holler. Everthing stood still. Almarine took care of his chickens and his mules and he even planted. It was planting time. But he moved like a man set under a spell, which is what he was. Almarine moved along so slow with a little grin on his face so constant it was like it was slapped there for good. He moved like a man in a dream. And that Emmy? Lord, she was a-dusting, and a-sweeping, and a-cooking and milking the cow. As I said she was playing house. She looked real young and real pretty—her red hair just a-bouncing all down her back as she walked. You know a woman orter bind up her hair. But Emmy did not. It was the only way you could tell by looking that she differed from other womenfolks, but Almarine liked it that way and asked her to wear it loose down her back and she done it. Now this was all in froze-time when they were so happy. But twerent natural, no moren a snow in July.

  And of course nobody would venture nigh that cabin on a bet. Folks turned their heads a-hurrying along past the mouth of Hoot Owl Holler, they well-nigh run through them sprucey-pines. Rhoda Hibbitts who had spoke so favorable of Almarine—she had them two ugly daughters of hern, remember, a-trying to find them a man—why, Rhoda would not speak his name. Harve Justice swore he ventured up that way squirrel-hunting, and a big black raven flew outen a sprucey-pine and aimed straight at his head. Harve said that raven had eyes so big they looked like a human’s and it made a sound like a baby screaming. Peter Paul Ramey’s new baby took to colick-ing when his mama carried him past, and he colicked so bad he liked to kilt her afore he was through. I walked that baby half a day myself, with him just a-spitting up and a-hollering, so his mama could get her some sleep. She was just a young girl, and dead for sleep.

  Well, they is stories and stories.

  But the point is Almarine was bewitched, and twerent none of us could holp him. Everbody that had liked him so good, turned their back now. You don’t want no truck with a witch.

  I seed them one time myself. It was when one of them Stacy babies over on Snowman had the thrash and I was heading over there acrost the mouth of Hoot Owl Holler on my way, when something pulled at my heart. I believe I’ll just go up there and see that Almarine, I says to myself. I would like to set eyes on his face. Now I loved him as a baby, you recall. I said he was always so sweet. So I started traveling up Hoot Owl Holler on the trace alongside the creek. It all seemed natural to me right then, I couldn’t feel no witchery in the air, nor nothing wrong atall on the trace nor around that cabin when I got to it. Almarine’s chickens come a-running and a-scratching, and that witch had her wash strung out on the line like anybody. Can you feature a witch a-washing? She must of wanted so bad to be natural, what I think. She must of tried hard for a while. Anyway I hollered out one time for Almarine, but wasn’t no reply, so I went around the side of the holler to where the garden was, and sure enough they was out there a-planting. Something made me stop then, and stand stock-still behind them two cedar trees. That was the first time I remarked how it was coming on a storm—they’ll come up in these mountains real sudden-like.

  Well, Almarine was a-plowing with a bull-tongue plow hitched onto one of his mules. He was a-follering along behind the mule, guiding the plow, and you know how hard it is guiding a bull-tongue plow in the rocky ground. Red Emmy walked behind him with corn in her apron, drapping it down where he plowed. Now you plant your corn when the oak leaves is about as big as squirrel-paws, so this was about the right time. And I have to say that Almarine and Red Emmy looked like regular folks, going along down the side of the hill with their planting. The dogwood trees were a-blooming white and pink all around the field, and the purple judas behind it. The wind was all the time rising. It blowed that Emmy’s red hair all around and she was so pretty, I could see how he was bewitched. But something kept me from a-stepping out from where I stood behind them trees. All I want to do, I says to myself, is see how Almarine is a-doing. That’s all I want, I says. I says I’ll look my fill, and then I’ll be traveling directly.

  I watched while the storm come on.

  Thunder rolls, then comes lightning, over on Black Rock Mountain. The wind is a-whipping the trees and the ash leaves is showing their silver backsides. Almarine keeps on plowing as long as he can with her right along behind him. Most womenfolks would of run for the house, but you know Red Emmy don’t fear no storm. Well, the rain comes falling in big old draps makes a splash in the dirt like a silver dollar, and Almarine’s mule commences a-neighing and raising up in the trace. Almarine lays down the plow and turns, and Emmy is twisting up the rest of
the corn in her apron. She raises her face up to him and now she’s wet and her hair is dark and like it’s stuck flat to the side of her face. Her skin shows real bright in that crazy light that comes in a early-spring storm. This was the firstest thunderstorm of the year. Almarine draps that plow, and turns, and looks at her, and she moves toward him and him toward her and they go to kissing, right there in that half-plowed field in the wind and the rain. By then I knowed bettern to come out, I wouldn’t of come out for the world. So there they are kissing, with Almarine’s mule a-rearing and a-hollering, and ever time it lightnings, their faces comes plain in the sudden dark.

  You never saw such kissing in all your life! Made me feel like I had not felt for years and if that surprises you, you ain’t got no sense. Now a person mought get old, and their body mought go on them, but that thing does not wear out. No it don’t. And anyway they was kissing, and I was a-watching, and then still holding on tight to each other they start for the cabin acrost the field. They had plumb forgot that poor mule. Well, I never said a word but when they passed by where I was, Red Emmy done something made me see she had knowed I was there all along. Of course she knowed it! Child of the devil. But I had like to forgot it, that day.

  Red Emmy turned her head away from her kissing one time, once only, and looked at me directly where I was hid. The lightning flashes right then and I see her face and it is old, old. It is older and meanern time. Red Emmy stares me right in the eye and she spits one time on the rainy ground. Almarine never seed a thing.

  Well as soon as she spits, I get a pain in my side liked to bend me double, it is all I can do to get outen that holler that day and get over on Snowman Mountain where I belongs to be curing the thrash, stead of going spying on a witch and her business. That pain bent me double for seven days, wouldn’t nothing cure it. I learnt me a lesson for sure, and all during the froze-time, I never went up there no more.

  So I never knowed exactly when things commenced to change, and Red Emmy’s true nature come out. Which it’ll do ever time, you mind me. The devil mought loan out his daughter, but comes a time when he’ll take her back. Almarine must of knowed this too, somewhere in the back of his mind. When she turned to evil for good, he must not of been that surprised. The first I heerd of it myself, was old man Joe Johnson down at the store says Almarine is looking puny. He says Almarine come by for some coffee, all white-faced and thin as a rail.

  “That boy don’t look good, Granny,” Joe Johnson says. Joe Johnson has got this big white beard stands out in a circle around his face. I was getting me some salt as I recall. “That boy looks plumb tuckered out. You orter go up there and see him, Granny. I tell you, they’s something wrong.”

  “I ain’t going up there,” I says. Joe Johnson always gives me some tobaccy for my pipe and gives it free.

  “You ort to go,” Joe Johnson says. He shakes his head back and forth like he is grieving. “Now that were one fine boy.”

  “Iffen a body don’t want no holp, I can’t holp em,” I says, and Joe Johnson allowed that was so. I took my tobaccy and left.

  But I kept Almarine in my mind. I knowed what was happening, of course. A witch will ride a man in the night while he sleeps, she’ll ride him to death if she can. She can’t holp it, it is her nature to do so. The same way she’ll run a horse in the ground, and she done that too before long. Now Almarine had set a big store by that horse, and twerent another month till it was dead. She had run it to death, the same way she was doing to Almarine. Witches’ll leave their bodies in the night, you know, and slip into somebody else’s. They’ll do it while you’re asleep and they’ll drive you all night long with nary a speck of rest. They can take on any form. Sometimes they’ll go into a cat, or a cow, or a horse, or a rabbit, or a hoot owl out in the night. They leave their bodies in the bed and out they go. All that being so nice in the daytime was moren Red Emmy could take, what I think. She had to go hell for leather all night to make up for them long sweet days. Almarine was wore out all the time, of course. He laid in the bed and slept most of the time while she worked his farm and then she’d come in and get in the bed. He was servicing her, that’s all, while she liked to rode him to death. Red Emmy, she worked all day and she rode all night and she never slept. But a witch don’t need no sleep.

  Things went on like that into the summer. It was hot as fire, I recall, the day I crossed the mouth of the holler heading for Tug. It was a full moon coming on that night, which meant it’d be Marylou Harkins’s time for sure by the time I got there. They is nothing like a full moon to bring on a baby. I was stepping on the stones acrost Grassy Creek when I heerd my name.

  “Granny.” He was hunkered down by the side of the creek, throwing little old rocks in the water. He looked awful.

  “Ho Almarine,” I says.

  I keep on stepping from rock to rock.

  “I been hoping to see you,” he says. Almarine’s eyes that used to be so blue had turned pale and runny. His collarbone showed through his shirt. His hair, that used to be so beautiful, looked just like old dry straw and that’s a fact.

  I was talking to a man bewitched.

  “Granny, I got to do something,” Almarine says.

  “You’ll up and die if you don’t,” I says.

  I sit down on the grass where he’d hunkered, and bees buzzes all around us. It was the prettiest day.

  “You got to holp me,” Almarine says.

  “I can’t do nothing,” I tell him, “even iffen I would. You’re under a spell and you’ve got to break it yourself,” I says.

  “What must I do?” he asks.

  “You’ve got to throw her out,” I says. “You’ve got to make the mark of the cross on her breast and her forehead with ashes, and throw her out the door and say the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost as loud as ever you can.”

  “What iffen that don’t work?” Almarine looks down at the ground.

  “Then you’ve got to cut her,” I said, “and make the mark of the cross with her blood.”

  Almarine turns whiter yet and shakes his head. “I’ll not do that, Granny,” he said.

  “Do what you will,” I says.

  “I couldn’t cut her,” says Almarine. Then he busts out crying as hard as he can, and it is one of the awfulest sounds I ever did hear. Almarine loved her, is what it was. You know a man can love something he don’t even like, and Almarine loved her as much as he disgusted her, and scared as he was. I had seed them kiss in the rain and I knowed it. He loved her iffen she were a witch or no. Almarine put his head in my apron and cried, big old man that he was.

  “Now you get up,” I said, when I thought this had lasted long enough, but he did not.

  “They’s something else,” he said.

  “They’s always something else,” I said. “Well, let’s hear it. What is it?” I asked.

  “She’s gonner have a baby,” Almarine says. He cries down into his hands.

  “Good God in heaven,” I say. “It won’t be no baby like none of us-uns ever seed, I’ll tell you that. You get rid of her, Almarine,” what I told him, “afore you get you a passel of witch-children up there.”

  Almarine stood up. I’ll swear it was the prettiest day, full June, bees a-buzzing and butterflies flitting all over the creek. Queen Anne’s lace ever place you look. Almarine rubbed at his eyes like he couldn’t see.

  “I come back here a free man,” he says. “I served my time. I growed up here, Granny.”

  “I knowed you,” I says.

  “I love this holler,” he says.

  “That’s so,” I told him.

  “I ain’t a-going to lose it,” he says. Then he looks down at me and grins. Despite of him being so thin, he looks like himself now in the face, around the eyes. “I won’t have no witch-children in my holler,” Almarine says. “I don’t know what come over me,” he says.

  “Holp a old woman up,” I says, and Almarine done so.

  Then he puts his hands on his sticking-out hipbones and laug
hs so loud it comes back from the rocky clifts.

  “I still need a wife,” he says.

  “I reckon you do,” I told him, “and I reckon I’ll be traveling on down to Tug now. I got me a baby to cotch.”

  Almarine stood tall by Grassy Creek just a-grinning, and watched me on my way.

  Marylou Harkins had a britches-baby, taken it two days to come. End of that, and I went around to the store, and what-all I hear from Joe Johnson is mighty good news. They was some several folks in there as I recall, and all of them dead to tell it. Harve Justice was in there, and One-Eyed Jesse Waldron from the Paw Paw Gap, and Luther Wade sat picking on the porch. He can play a guitar as sweet as you ever heard. I sets down on the porch to rest my bones.

  “How’s that baby?” Joe Johnson hollers out, and I holler back it is fine.

  “Hit’s a little girl,” I say. “They ain’t named her yet.”

  “I reckon ye could use a little of this,” Joe Johnson hollers, and he sends his girl out with some liquor in a glass.

  “I reckon I could,” I allows.

  They was all of them a-watching me real careful while I takes me a sip.

  “What air you all up to?” I asks, I see how they’re watching so close, and Harve Justice slaps his leg and laughs real loud.

  “Boy, you sound like a mule,” I said, which was true, and all of them starts in laughing then. Joe Johnson’s girl is catching june bugs in front of the porch.

  “I guess you ain’t heerd it, then,” Harve says. He is a big old skinny feller can rile you to death without even trying.

  No use to rush him neither. So I sit here on the porch with Luther a-picking, and all of us sipping a little, and that Stacy boy rides up with the mail and folks starts to come from all over. It’s getting on for afternoon by then. That Stacy boy thinks he is something on a stick, got him a leather pouch says the U.S. Mail. Joe Johnson gives his girl a string and so she’s swinging that june bug around in the air, just a-whizzing him, flash of greeny gold. Marylou Harkins’s mama come over after a time and brung me a apple stack-cake for my sweet-tooth, she says, and I thanks her kindly. I love a apple stack-cake. I was feeling real good a-setting there on the porch, and by the by it all come out like I knowed it would.