by Sean Demory
The Ballad of the Wayfaring Stranger and the Dead Man’s Whore
By
Sean Demory
Copyright © 2012 Sean Demory
Cover image: Photomanipulation of “Migrant Worker,”
photographed by Dorothea Lange, National Archives
Copyright © 2012 Sean Demory
All Rights Reserved
Red Lantern
In a small, quiet house near a large, quiet graveyard, the Dead Man’s Whore puts out her red lantern.
It’s Friday, after all. The eagle’s flying, and old habits are hard to break.
The Dead Man’s Whore looks at herself in the mirror, sees cornflower blue irises nearly swallowed whole by eightballed pupils. She brushes rouge over blue-white cheeks, traces cold blue lips with hot-red lipstick and smiles, baring long, strong teeth at a world that needs gnawing every now and again.
She hasn’t aged since the haint took her. She’s gotten old and cold and stiff in that time, but she still looks like a flower plucked in her prime.
She worries that she may never die.
In the Pines
She remembers walking through the woods in high summer. The jar flies screamed in the still, hot air and she sang for lack of anything else to do.
She couldn’t remember where she was going or why, but she could hear the screams grow silent as she began singing the old song. My husband was a railroad man/killed a mile and a half from here/ His head was found in a driver’s wheel/and his body ain’t never been found.
As she walked, she felt the shadows grow sharp edges and the sunlight become muted and powdery. She could hear slow creaking and the steady tap of hail from the woods. She jumped as something landed on her head and fell on the path. She looked down and saw a jar fly, coated in frost and cracked where it had fallen.
The creaking grew louder as she walked, and she could hear whispers from the branches.
She sang, because she knew not to stop. Young girl, young girl, where will you go/I’m going where the cold wind blows/in the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine/I will shiver the whole night through.
She heard a quiet wheeze behind her on the path, smelled old hair oil and rotting meat. She could hear a cold, dry hand scrape over cold, dry stubble, hear it lick its lips.
“Young girl, young girl, don’t lie to me,” it said, each word landing like a shovel in wet dirt. “Tell me, where did you sleep last night?”
And she ran.
She left the path, stumbling over twisting, exposed roots and slipping on dark, thick patches of moss. Strangled voices from the trees shouted as she passed.
She ran deeper into the woods until she reached a tall tree next to a wide, dark creek. The tree’s branches were heavy with bound men, heavy black shoes kicking slowly. She turned and saw the haint, drum-tight gray skin stretching over its face in a pitiless grin, patting back its greasy hair as it walked toward her. She looked at the river and saw bodies float by.
The haint scratched its bony, bare chest under its overalls with thick, yellow nails, looking down at her.
“Heard you sing, my darlin’ gal,” it said. “My crops need tended, my dinner needs cooked and my bed’s so cold, my darlin’ gal. You git on home, my darlin’ gal.”
She closed her eyes and ran toward the sound of cold water, feeling it close over her head.
She felt calm and cold as her vision dimmed and, unbidden, the words drifted through her mind. In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine/and I shivered the whole night through.
And then she felt a strong hand grab her by the hair and drag her out of the water.
Don’t You Run
There was always work to be done.
The haint would slick back its hair with caked, rancid fat, looking itself over in a broken mirror. It would pull on its split, stained work boots, put a gunnysack over its shoulder, tie a black ribbon around her neck.
“I’m goin’ down the mountain,” it would say as it left. “Don’t wait up. Don’t you run.”
And, as it went down the mountain, she sang and she worked.
She sang and tended the haint’s garden of hanged men. She’d cut down the ripest ones, strip them down, break out gold teeth and pry dollar coins from their fingers. Once she stripped the bodies clean, she would drag them to the pit behind the haint’s weather-beaten shack and tip them in, one by one.
She’d tried to run, the first time she’d had to tend the garden of hanged men. Screech owls shook their heads at her and the willows whipped her back until she turned around.
Once a week, when the pit got too full, she sang and burned it down. She sat near the flames, pushing the hanged men back in as they tried to pull themselves out. She’d learned to break their fingers before they went into the pit so they wouldn’t grab at her clothes.
She’d tried to run, the first time she had to burn down the corpse pit. Thorns tore her arms and legs to the bone and hail pelted her until she turned around.
She sang and tended the rocky patch near the shed, clawing twisted, blackened roots from the ground and dusting off powdery toadstools. She sang and fed the flat-eyed, croaking chickens and tossed scraps from the pit to the haint’s flat-headed black hog, singing as it bellowed and rooted in the mud.
She sang and she worked. She sang “The Knoxville Girl” and “Down in a Willow Garden.” She sang “In the Pines” and “Dark as a Dungeon.” She sang “Take the News to Mother” and “Love Henry” and waited to hear the jar flies stop screaming, listened for the haint’s heavy footsteps as it dragged another dead man up the mountain.
She sang as it gnawed roots and dirt at a rough table. She sang as she washed its feet in cold, dark water pulled from a brackish well. She sang as she laid down to sleep, and as it crawled into bed next to her.
When it put one hand lightly over her mouth and the other lightly over her throat and watched her breathe, she stopped singing.
Breathe
She never felt warm.
She didn’t notice it at first. Clouds always hung low over the mountain, and the wind always smelled like a cold October rainstorm. The days went from late fall to early winter and back again, and she never saw the sun.
Her gums turned blue and her nails turned blue and she sang and worked.
She stopped bleeding.
She didn’t notice it at first, not until one of the haint’s chickens snagged her arm with a talon, croaking and hissing its victory before she wrung its neck. The wound flapped open, weeping sluggishly until she sewed it shut with kitchen thread.
She forgot to breathe sometimes.
She didn’t notice it at first. She’d decided to rebel in a small way, to stay silent as she tended the haint’s garden and to stare down the screech owls. One of the dead men leered at her, licked his lips and shook his hips and she’d tried to joke back at him but could only croak and gurgle until she gasped down a few breaths.
She went back to the cabin as the dead men hacked and coughed mocking laughter behind her. She hadn’t looked in the mirror since the haint had taken her. She looked at herself in the haint’s mirror and saw her blue lips and pale blue eyes, pupils as big as dimes. She saw her pale, pale skin, saw the rope burn where the haint’s ribbon sat. She saw the torn skin on her arm, lashed shut with twine.
She thought about trying to scream, but she didn’t want to have to breathe.
You Got a Man at Home?
“I’m going down the mountain,” the haint said. “
Don’t you wait up.”
It had stopped telling her not to run. The dead girl knew what she was, so she knew better than to run.
The dead girl had made her peace. Afternoons, after feeding the hateful chickens and sullen hog and burning down the corpse pit, she would sit on the porch of the haint’s weather-beaten shack and listen to the jar flies scream while sewing dresses from scraps of dead men’s clothes. She would float in a still, dark pond near the shack and sink to the bottom, sitting with her eyes open for one minute, two minutes, five minutes until her heart began a lurching shuffle-step beat and she rose, gasping for air and looking at her reflection in the water, grown pale and slightly bloated like a dead girl fished from cold water.
Floating in the pond one long, cold afternoon, feeling her fingers go numb, the dead girl heard a man whistling in the distance. When she was alive, the dead girl could always tell the whistling of the men back from the mines with their paychecks still whole and the crushing earth off of their shoulders. They sounded quick and free.
Quick and free didn't belong here.
The dead girl pulled herself free of the water. She could feel the man's warmth, smell the blood in his veins. She wanted to crack his fingerbones open between her teeth and suck out the marrow.
The man looked like the sun to the dead girl, dressed in a road-worn pinstripe suit and a slouch hat with a bluejay feather in the band. His skin was very dark and his smile was wide and white. The dead girl saw the shape of a guitar in a burlap sack that the man carried like the only real thing in the world. She swayed in front of him, moaning low in her throat as some stray breath slipped free.
“Afternoon, miss,” he said, still smiling as he tipped his hat. “Good day for a swim.” He looked her up and down, eyes slowing before they came to her face. She smiled, despite herself, nodding along with him.
The man tipped his hat back. “That's enough to brighten any day. You got a name, miss?”
She remembered to breathe. “Dead girl,” she said, letting the rest of the breath out with a hiss.
“Well, Dead Girl, I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger. You got a man at home?” The Wayfaring Stranger smiled and ducked his head. The dead girl knew this dance, knew that it ended with one more dead man in the pit and didn’t care. She'd take a few moments of sun and then split his head and crack his fingers before the haint got to him. It'd be a kindness.
“Got a haint,” the dead girl said. “Haint’s down the mountain, but it’ll be back.”
The Wayfaring Stranger began to walk down the path to the haint's shack.
“I would surely appreciate a drink and a place to sit before I head back down the trail” He winked. “I'll tell you my story, keep you company until your haint comes back.”
The Wayfaring Stranger began to sing as he walked down the path. Kiss me, mother, kiss your darlin' he sang in a strong, sweet voice. Lay my head upon your breast/Throw your loving arms around me/I am weary let me rest.
The dead girl sang along. Through the years you've always loved me/and my life you've tried to save/but now I shall slumber sweetly/in a deep and lonely grave.
The Wayfaring Stranger laughed and kept singing. He left no footprints and cast no shadow. The dead girl wasn't surprised.
Life of Leisure
“I was walking back from playing a dance,” the Wayfaring Stranger said, idly strumming the guitar. “Had money in my pocket, liquor in my belly and a warm bed calling just down the road. No one to share the bed with but a flea or two, but a warm bed’s hard to ignore.”
The dead girl brought the Wayfaring Stranger back to the haint’s shack. She drew some cold, bitter water for him to drink and sat on the porch with him. She brushed her long, dark hair and listened to the warmth in his voice.
“Got no meat that’s fit for you,” she’d told him. “Might kill a chicken for you, haint says. Otherwise, we’ll tip you in the pit.”
“I’ll take my chances, miss,” the Wayfaring Stranger had said, taking a long drink of water and wincing at the cold. “I’m a lucky kind of fellow.”
His hands rasped as he stroked the sides of his old, battered guitar. He’d told her the guitar’s story, pointing to this chip where a jealous boyfriend’s straight razor had almost cut him and that hole from some stray buckshot. She’d watched his hands, imagined the calluses crushed between her molars and then the feel of that rough warmth on her face. She smiled a little, feeling the warmth stagger slowly down her neck and across her shoulders.
“Life of leisure suits you, Dead Girl,” the Wayfaring Stranger said with a sly smile as he sat down to play. “You’ve got some color in your cheeks.”
The dead girl turned away to brush her long, dark hair and smile as her blush curdled into old bruises. The Wayfaring Stranger kept playing, looking away as the pink turned to black and purple.
“Anyhow, I was walking,” he said. “Girl pops up from behind a tree. Sweet little thing, more curves than a bag of snakes on a hot day, dressed tight and short and not meant for outdoors. She crooks a finger to me, the way that sort of girl can do, and…”
Copper flashed in his hand as he drew out an old penny, worn and twisted from a freight train’s wheels. He held the coin in his left hand and let it run up and down the strings, letting the notes lilt and rasp, twist and turn until the dead girl could almost hear words.
“’Come on over to me, guitar man,’ she says, just like that.” The Wayfaring Stranger closed his eyes, fingers drifting over the strings. “’You leave that guitar alone, run your fingers up and down me. I keep you fed, keep you warm and wet. Come on over, guitar man.’”
He opened his eyes, looked at the dead girl with an eyebrow cocked. “Not often a man looks like me gets that sort of call,” he said. “Prettier man, sure, but not a man looks like me.” The dead girl knew that he was waiting for her to speak up. She might’ve said something when she was alive, but it didn’t seem worth the time. He nodded, chuckled slightly and kept playing.
“Anyhow, I took a good long look at her, as you do, and I saw something.” The smooth, curving notes became ragged and wretched, hissing and grinding against each other. “You know, that girl didn’t have a shadow. Looked like something between a snake and a rat hiding there, cocking its hip and crooking its claws at me.”
The Wayfaring Stranger began playing again, a walking tune that spoke to the dead girl of warm nights under open skies.
“I keep an eye on the girl and not on the thing moving her around and I say, ‘Sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got a wife and five children waiting for me at home. And I’m a deacon. And an Odd Fellow. Can’t be seen with the likes of you, beg your pardon.’ And off I walked, not looking back.’”
The dead girl could feel the warm night air, hear the thing curse and fume in the trees and see fireflies write out sigils of triumph in the night as the Wayfaring Stranger told his story. She felt a laugh building in her, making her throat twitch and her belly flutter and she breathed in, letting it clatter out of her mouth like stones thrown on a wood floor.
“Anyhow, I keep walking,” the Wayfaring Stranger said, the music slowing, meandering and turning in on itself. “Didn’t look like the path I’d walked before, but I knew that I’d best keep walking if I wanted to get anywhere near home. I hear someone playing scales up ahead. Strong. Angry.”
He began playing up and down the neck of the guitar, notes cracking and ringing off of each other. The dead girl listened to the jar flies scream, touched the bruises along her neck and cheeks. I won’t break those fingers when I throw him into the pit, she thought to herself. He can keep those hands.
The Wayfaring Stranger watched her, eyes narrowing for a second, then began to play quick, harsh chords. “I saw a black man sitting on a burned stump. Not black like me, you understand. Black like tar on a moonless night. Black eyes, black teeth, black hair, black tongue. Black suit, black shirt, black ribbon tie. He’s playing a guitar the color of sweet, dark coffee and it just�
� sings.”
The slide flickered in his hand again and notes began to twist and sob, making the jar flies whisper.
“’I can see that you play, boy,’ the black man says, black smoke curling out of his mouth with every word. ‘You come on over here, play me a song and I’ll give you this guitar here, make the world stand up and take notice with every note. Come on over, boy.’”
The Wayfaring Stranger began playing simple, unadorned chords, listening to them drift out over the hills. He patted the guitar idly as he played.
“Can’t lie, it sounded like a fine deal,” he said. “No more passing my hat after a barn dance and finding a plug nickel and half a cigar. No holes in my shoes. I’d burn at the end, but I’d been told I’d burn either way.”
The music stopped and he looked over the hills, eyes gone dim at the thought of another life. He shrugged.
“Couldn’t leave my girl behind,” he said, tracing road dust on the side of the guitar before he began to play. “’Sorry, sir,’ I told the black man, ‘this guitar ain’t mine. I’m just holding it for a friend.’ And off I walked, not looking back.”
The Wayfaring Stranger flipped the flattened penny over his knuckles, listening to the jar flies scream.
“Should’ve looked back,” he said. “Next thing I know, that guitar’s knocked my head half off and the black man’s carving my shadow out with a jackknife. Guess he didn’t want to make that third offer.”
The Wayfaring Stranger winced as he took another drink. He began to play a slow, stately waltz.
“I saw that black man walk this way, so I followed. Not much else to do, nowhere else to go, no way to rest until now.” He looked at the dead girl as he began playing the melody.