Fair and Tender Ladies

by Lee Smith

  My dear Joli,

  I do not know what you have heard about me by now, or what I can say

  August 23, 1940

  My dear Silvaney,

  I was washing dishes when he came. I had the dishpan full of water, I was up to my elbows in soap. He came right in the front door without knocking and walked on through the house and came up behind me and poked me in the ribs. Gotcha, he said. I knew right away, without turning around, who it was. My heart has been beating too fast ever since I first saw him. When he came for me, it slowed down.

  Hidy, I said, and he said, Hidy.

  I turned around and looked at him good and he said, You are just as pretty as I remembered. But the cat had got my tongue, I couldn’t say a thing. Martha was in there too, boiling water to scour the pans. She grinned at him. Hidy, he said to her, and she put her hand up to hide her mouth, she was giggling so. It was a bright hot day. Usually, Martha is scared of strangers.

  I am going to borry the missus here for a hour or two, said Honey Breeding. I’ll bring her back.

  Martha giggled.

  When is your old man coming home? he asked me. He never asked me whether I would go with him or not.

  Before long, I said. Him and the boys have gone into town for some fence wire.

  Well leave him a note, he said, and come on. We are going to take us a little walk.

  I can’t do that, I said.

  Just take off that apron, he told me, and come on, and I did it.

  I wrote Oakley a note and told Martha that I would be back after while. I could not afford to worry that she would tell Oakley who I had gone off with. I did it all like a dream. Here now, he said. He took my hand. He kept grinning at Martha who grinned back at him like she knew him some way, but she did not. They just hit it off, I reckon.

  The paregoric is in the dresser drawer, I said to Martha, if you need to give Maudy some. It is in that little carved wooden box that Revel gave Momma. Maudy had a toothache.

  Come on, Ivy, Honey said. I left the dishes in the sink and followed him out the back door past the lilac. Bye-bye, bye-bye, LuIda and Maudy called from the yard. They both love to say Bye-bye.

  It was a bright hot afternoon.

  Just where do you think we are going? I said, and Honey Breeding said, Up this hill.

  So we set off on the path through the orchard, past the beegums, and then commenced to climbing Pilgrim Knob. Right here is where Momma used to keep her chickens, I said. I don’t know how she did it. Ourn won’t stay up here, they cluster around the house. But Momma’s chickens were mountain chickens, you couldn’t get them down to the house. If you carried them down, they’d run right back up here, I said. So we used to have to climb all the way up here to look for eggs, I said.

  I reckon they were pretty hard to find, Honey said.

  They were, I told him. Silvaney was the best one for finding eggs, that is my favorite sister Silvaney, she’s gone from here now, I said. I have three sisters. Beulah lives up North now and Ethel lives down in Majestic with her husband, Stoney Branham. They run the store.

  That’s Branhams Merchandise? Honey asked me.

  Yes it is, I said.

  I’ve been in there, Honey said. There is a little old man that runs it, got kindly peppery hair and a moustache.

  That is Stoney Branham, I said. He is a whole lot older than Ethel. My brother Victor works in there too. You might of seen him. He sits in the back a lot. He’s real big and fat now, he lost his nerves in the war.

  A lot of men done that, Honey Breeding said.

  Did you go to the war? I asked.

  I sure did, Honey said. His voice floated back to me over his shoulder. He pulled his shirttail up out of his pants.

  Where did you go? I asked.

  First I went to Germany, Honey said, and then I went to France.

  We walked on. I had another older brother that died, I said, and then a little one that died young. And also I’ve got another one, Johnny, that I have not seen in a while that plays the piano, and yet one more that is making a preacher.

  I couldn’t believe I was talking so much, to a perfect stranger! My own voice sounded funny in my ears. It sounded rusty. I felt like I hadn’t used it in such a long time except to say something like, The wooden paddle is broke, or Close the door.

  See that rock? I said. My momma used to come up here and sit on it and cry.

  What did she cry for? Honey asked.

  Because my daddy was sick, I reckon, and things had not worked out like she thought.

  They never do, Honey said. He walked on before me, up the path. His white shirt flapped in the wind, so white it was dazzling. I reckon it was new.

  But she was a rich girl, I told him, who could of had a different life if she’d chose. Then I told him all about Momma and Daddy riding up Sugar Fork on Lightning, and about how Momma’s daddy, my grandfather, came and took her back to him in death.

  That’s some story, Honey said, still walking. I was right behind him. And I wasn’t one bit tired, or even out of breath. I told him all about Mrs. Brown and Revel too, while we walked up the mountain from Pilgrim Knob, and about my little dead babies buried over there. Right here is where you turn if you’re going for chestnuts, I said. Victor, that’s my brother I was telling you about that is in the store business now, he brung us all up here one time, and we fooled Garnie. That’s the one that is preaching. I pointed to the path that forked off to the right, along the ridge. And there’s a blackberry thicket over there. I came up here one time with Oakley when we were kids, I said. It was the first time he ever kissed me. I was talking about my own husband Oakley like he was somebody I scarcely knew! I couldn’t believe it.

  But we’re going this way, Honey said, stepping off down the main trail.

  Now I can’t be gone too long, Honey, I told him. I felt giddy and crazy, climbing the mountain, I felt like a girl again. It seemed I was dropping years as I went, letting them fall there beside the trace, leaving them all behind me. I felt again like I had as a girl, lightheaded, light-footed, running all over town. When I thought of my babies, I could see them real plain in my mind, their bright little faces like flowers, but it seemed to me that they were somebody else’s babies, not mine. I was too young to have them. We walked on. Now we were not climbing so much, just walking the ridge. Honey went in front. A wind blew down from the mountain, in our faces, cooling us off. I was glad. This was the path that went to the burying ground. I hadn’t been up here since Decoration Day. I said as much.

  We came to the little bunch of scraggly pines where the trail forked again. That’s the way to the burying ground, I told him.

  Well, we ain’t taking that path, he said. He went straight on, with me follering.

  I reckon it was the wind picking up, but all of a sudden, I got a chill. I never have come up here, I said. I never have gone any further along this path. What’s up here? I asked him. Where are we going, anyway?

  Noplace in particular, Honey said. I just felt like walking.

  I have never heard of such as that in all my life, I said. People around here walk to get someplace, and that is all.

  Well, I am not from around here, Honey said.

  Where are you from, then? I asked him.

  Here and there, Honey said. Noplace particular.

  You can’t be from noplace, I said.

  His laughter floated back on the wind. We were walking the top of the ridge now, above the treeline. The pines were all bent up, little and scrawny, and a low thick tangle of thorny bushes stretched away on both sides of the path. It was lots cooler. I knew I had never been up here before, yet suddenly it looked familiar. Maybe my Granny brought me up here looking for plants when I was little, I said.

  There’s not much in the way of plants to find, said Honey, once you get above the cliffs. I bet she never brung you this far.

  We went on a ways, and I had to concede he was probably right. The ridge turned flat, almost like a meadow.

  This h
ere is what you call a bald, Honey said.

  The bald was covered with little white flowers like stars, like a carpet of stars.

  It sure is pretty, I said.

  You sure are pretty, Honey said. But still, he had not turned to see me. Come on, he said. It’s just a little ways.

  What is? I asked.

  Come on, he said.

  He took my hand then and led me on through the flowers, over onto another path which stopped at the very edge of the mountain, on top of the highest cliff. From where we stood, we could see for miles. I thought I could see Sugar Fork but I couldn’t be sure, there was lots and lots of hollers, and I saw them all, valley after valley, ridge on ridge, Bethel Mountain beyond—but now for the first time I could see over top of Bethel Mountain to another mountain, blue, purple, then mountain after mountain, rolling like the sea. It was so beautiful. A single twisted pine grew bravely up out of the rocks before us. Mile after mile of empty air stretched out behind it, the sky so blue, the sun so bright. And the wind, which kept on blowing all the time—now I recalled the famous endless wind on the top of Blue Star Mountain.

  I know for sure I have never been up here, I said. I would remember it.

  I bet you would, said Honey Breeding.

  He dropped to the mossy ground and pulled me down beside him. See that hawk? He pointed to the right and I turned my head but when I did so, he kissed me. Mmmmmm, he said. What hawk? I said. Mmmmm, he said.

  Oakley says you don’t have a home, I told him.

  I don’t, said Honey.

  But you keep your things down at the Breedings, I said.

  Sometimes, he said. Some things. He was taking my hair down, unbuttoning my collar.

  Tell me a story, I said.

  What story? he asked me.

  All about you, I said. Tell me all about you.

  Nothing to tell, he said.

  Tell me, I said. I am starved for stories.

  Honey laughed real hard and sat up and looked out over the cliff. Well then Ivy, he said. Here is a story for you.

  I laid back on the moss and closed my eyes.

  Well I will tell you about my daddy and how he fell in love with a neighbor girl and came to a tragic end, Honey said. And this is how it happened. I was raised down in North Carolina, where all my father’s people came from, in the shadow of the mountains. We had us a neighbor named Big Lute who had been to the far West of the state, and had spent a lot of time among the Cherokees. And then he came back home one day bringing a little baby girl, nobody knew where he got her, or who her mother was. And he brought in some Indian women to help him raise her. As she grew, she turned into the most beautiful girl in the county. Dark Catherine she was called. Well the story goes that my dad seen her only one time and fell in love so bad that he turned into a misery. She was just a girl, tended by Indians. And him a married man. He knew he couldn’t have her, but he couldn’t give her up. So he took to hunting a lot, going off to his camp in the woods, trying to forget her. Now I should say that he was a famous hunter, the most famous in that part of North Carolina. And he had two hound dogs that he was crazy about named Sally and Sam, that he always hunted with. Those were Plott hounds.

  What’s a Plott hound? I asked, for I had never heard of one.

  It is a dog bred by old man Plott up on Grandfather Mountain, Honey said, and then I couldn’t help laughing. I didn’t care if he was lying or not. It seemed like years since I’d heard a story. I stretched out there on the moss, and the wind played over my face. It felt good.

  Honey went on. Well, one night when he was out there at his cabin, a strange thing happened. A little old chicken came strutting in, and went right over by the fire, and ruffled up its feathers and started to dance, and bye and bye it swelled up to become an old woman. So these two Plott hounds, Sally and Sam, started barking like Kingdom come.

  Tell your dogs to lie down, the old woman said to my father.

  I can not make them mind, said he, for he was afraid of her.

  Take this, she said, and she gave him a hair right out of her head. Tie them up with that, she said.

  But he switched it and used a hair of his own instead, for he saw that the hair from her head moved in his hand. There, he said, lying.

  Then as soon as she thought the dogs were tied up, she grabbed my daddy and started kissing him.

  So Daddy commenced to holler and then the dogs jumped up and set upon her. These were two big severe bear dogs mind you, but she fought them tooth and nail. They fought in the cabin and out the door and down the side of the mountain, and finally the dogs ran her off. But she was a tough old lady, and it took considerable doing. It was bad luck, too—or so Daddy decided—because in the four days of hunting which him and the dogs done after that, they never saw a thing. No deer, no bear, no bird, nothing. It was unnatural. So after a bit, my daddy come on home all tuckered out.

  But he walks in the house to find his old woman leaving, taking a chess pie, on her way out the door.

  You are just in time, she said. Come on and go with me down to Big Lute’s house, for his daughter Catherine is real sick and not expected to make it through the night. I’m taking this pie, she said.

  Lord no! my daddy thought. So he got himself a snack and went along.

  When Big Lute saw them coming, he came out and took the chess pie which he was fond of, and said he thanked them, but Catherine was so bad off that they couldn’t see her. When Daddy carried on about this, Big Lute barred the door. But Daddy was crazy by then, and would not take NO for a answer. So he went out by the garden and pulled up a post and stove in the door with it.

  And there she was—blackhaired and beautiful and raving mad. You could see that she was not long for this world. Daddy pulled the covers back and saw that her buttocks was plum tore off and her hips and legs were all tore up, and then he knew at once what had happened, that she had come to him in the shape of a hen and then in the shape of an old woman, and those Plott hounds had nearabout killed her. And he leaned over and whispered something in her ear.

  Honey leaned over and kissed my ear and whispered something in it.

  What? I said. I sat up.

  We don’t know, said Honey. She died that night. But he lived on and my mama bore him three sons and I am the third one. Everyone said that he was never the same after that. Then one night—after sitting at Dark Catherine’s grave for hours—he walked up the hill behind our house and climbed the tallest oak tree there and crawled out on the stoutest branch, and hanged himself dead by the neck. That night there come an awful big storm, which is what always happens after a suicide. And after the storm passed and the morning light came, they found my daddy’s body swinging with a smile on his face.

  For in death he had joined her, I said. I felt like I was almost asleep.

  Yes mam, said Honey Breeding.

  And then what happened? I said.

  Well then my mama, she died of the blues, and they farmed us boys out all over Kingdom come. The family I ended up living with, the old man tended bees, and he taught me the ways of them.

  Is that the Breedings? I said.

  That is some of them, Honey said.

  And whatever happened to your brothers? I asked him.

  My brother Bill is in the coal mines, Honey said, in Bluefield, West Virginia, but I have not heard a word about Roy in years and years.

  That is like Beulah, I said.

  And that aint all, Honey said, sounding very serious.

  What? I asked him.

  Ever time I see a sycamore tree, I have to run the other way as fast as my legs will go, Honey said.

  Why? A thrill shot through me.

  I get a big urge to hang, is why, he said. I reckon I take after Daddy.

  Wait a minute! I sat up. You said it was a OAK tree, first! And now you are saying sycamore tree. I got to laughing. This is awful. I don’t believe a word you are saying.

  Well you said you wanted to hear a story. He was taking off my shirtwaist then
and he got up and laid it real careful to the side.

  Not that story, I said.

  What story, then? He was playing with my titties.

  The true story.

  How are you going to know if it’s the true story or not?

  I knew he was teasing me. I will know, I said.

  You will not, he said. And anyway, it don’t matter. For you are a married woman, out here for the afternoon.

  Married, I said after him.

  Sugar Fork seemed far away, far off down the mountain. I leaned back and watched while he took off his pants. The sun was blinding me. I laid back while he did everything to me, everything. I watched the hawk gliding huge smooth circles out in the air. Now do this, he said, and I did. I had never even thought of doing such a thing before in all my life. I believe it’s against the law. Then he stretched out on his back too, and closed his eyes and slept. I sat up on my elbow and watched him sleep. He had gold hair all over him.

  I traced his thick blond eyebrows across his face. I loved him so much right then. I love you, I said.

  He opened his bright pale eyes.

  No you don’t, he said. You just think you do. But this aint real, he said.

  It is real, I said. I am here, aint I?

  That’s not what I mean, he said.

  I love you, I told him again.

  Don’t love me, said Honey Breeding. Don’t you dare.

  I will if I want, I told him, which was true. So there! I got up and walked to the edge of the cliff and looked over. The wind lifted up my hair.

  Honey sat up and shielded his eyes and looked at me. You are so beautiful, he said. You look like a Princess.

  I’m too old to be a Princess, I said.

  Then you look like a Queen. All of a sudden he got up and made a run at me. Gotcha, he called, and I leaped back at him. Gotcha back! I said. I believe it was the first time I had ever been naked in the sunshine in my life. I don’t expect I will ever do it again, either. The sun seemed to burn into my whole body. But it felt wonderful. We played tag for a little while there on the bald on the top of Blue Star Mountain.

  Fire on the mountain, fire in the sea—Honey ran back toward the bald—can’t catch me!