by Bill Brooks
So I told Tom I’d fought in the Confederate Army under J. E. B. Stuart and we’d whipped Yanks from Virginia to Tennessee until we got whipped ourselves. And that I’d stole the mule off a general after I’d run him through with my bayonet. O, such pretty lies they were, and I told him others as well:
My pap killed himself. My ma died of heart troubles. My sis ran off to New Orleans where I eventually found her. She was there whoring herself to whatever Cajun would pay her. I got hard into the bottle and all the other sins a man can get hisself into.
That’s a hard story.
You bet it is.
Where’s God in all this?
That’s a fine question.
And he looked at me with those hard eyes and swallowed down his compassion and I liked him right off and saw him as a potential recruit for God’s army. O, that I could have saved him from such a hard fate as would come.
Such innocent beginnings assure us not of sorrowful endings.
Tom Dooley
The preacher pulled a bottle of mash from his saddlebag and offered me a pull and took a pull himself. We ended up pulling all the mash out of that bottle by the time the sun set low over the blue mountains.
I best get on.
Where you aiming for?
Why, right here in this valley.
They ain’t no work.
I work for God.
Bringing the Good News?
Exactly.
I ain’t heard none of it come out of your mouth so far and don’t know a soul who’d pay a dime to hear it.
You come look for me on Sunday in some meadow or field and you will.
I watched him ride off. Seemed sober as a judge in spite of pulling all that liquor out of his bottle. He rode like a man with a lot of stories in him and I didn’t believe much of what he’d said so far. The sky was by then the color of a rose, the mountains the color of crepe, and silence came skulking into the valley like an unwanted visitor.
The taste of that preacher’s liquor got me primed on thinking how I might just find my way down to the tavern that evening, then take a walk up to Melton’s. Ann seemed dear to me just then, dear and fragile and easily broken between the desires of Melton and me. But Ann was strong, stronger than any of us and I knew she wouldn’t break, and if she did, it wouldn’t be easily. So I made up my mind I’d take a walk up to Melton’s one more time, and maybe when I was finished, I’d tell Ann I wasn’t coming no more and she might just as well settle up with Melton and see her way clear to a predictable future. In one ear I heard Ann calling, in the other, the land beyond the mountains that runs clear to the sea. I was being pulled in two directions.
And lest I forget you, Liza. You whom I barely knew but who haunted my spirit anyhow. You, a fragment thus far in my life, the scent of sweet flowers blowing on the breeze.
But before I could get cleaned up to go I had another visitor: Old Melton himself, as though he knew I’d be making a trip up to his place that evening.
James Melton
I don’t know what got into me that particular evening to make me harness up the horse and wagon and take a trip up to Dooley’s. Maybe it was the way Ann had been acting all that day: agitated with me and pacing the floor and saying bitter spiteful things to me. Or maybe it was I was just getting tired of being talked about behind my back by the other men whenever I’d go down to Swain’s or the mercantile. Or maybe it was I just needed to touch my wife again like a husband is supposed to. But whatever it was, something sure got into me, and next thing I knew I was at Dooley’s.
Tom Dooley
Tom Dooley!
Melton didn’t bother to climb down off his spring wagon. Just sat there for a long time and glared at me in the gloaming. He didn’t act like he was going to say anything, just sit there and stare at me. So finally I said something first.
It ain’t exactly the way I’d have it, Melton, for it to be the way it is.
I wished you wouldn’t come around no more.
I reckon Ann has a say in it as much as you or me.
She’s my wife, Dooley.
I know it.
That ought to stand for something, even in this depraved valley.
I don’t see how it can change, unless she wants it to. If I don’t go there, she’ll just come here.
Oh, goddamn, Dooley, don’t you see how things are? Don’t you hear what folks say about it all—about me, Ann, you?
I felt murder in my heart.
It’s nothing against you, Melton.
Sure it is. It’s ever thing against me. Ever time you lay with her it’s against me.
I’m sorry, but that ain’t the way I see it. You knew I was seeing her before I went off to war. You knew she loved me, or had to think she did. You knowing it should have been a warning it might start up again once I came home. I never planned on any of this.
Neither did I. Neither did I . . .
Melton hung down his head as though suddenly fallen asleep. All the color had bled out of the sky. A whip-poor-will trilled in the darkness.
Go on Melton. Git home. Git home. Ann’s waiting. Ann’s waiting.
I heard the clatter of his iron-rimmed wheels in the far darkness, the slow steady pattern that sounded like a sad heart trying to sustain itself.
Last thing he said before he shook the reins over the horse’s back:
It’ll come around to you someday, Dooley, this sin you started. It’ll come around, and when it does, I’ll be there to see it. There ain’t no God if’n this sin of your’n don’t come around to you, Tom Dooley.
I told myself I’d not go to Melton’s that night no matter what. But I did go. And I kept going back again and again clear up until Laura’s murder.
Elizabeth Brouchard
Even these intimacies Tom told me.
Keep the words true, Liza. Don’t let others tell lies on me.
I made him a promise.
I’ll keep the words true, Tom.
&
I’ve kept the words true and nothing hid, unless from me it was hid, for where is the real truth in anything?
CHAPTER 7
Tom Dooley
Grayson had been right about one thing: winter in the air. Snow came without warning during the night, soft and silent as death. It came over the ridges, snagged in the trees, clouds and clouds of it like a white army marched quietly down the slopes and into the valley until it lay over every rock and branch and living creature. Creeks ran like black veins in the snow. The mountains disappeared. In a single night, the world had changed.
I felt Ann shivering and arose, slipped from the bed, and went to the window, and the little piece of sky I could see was red—a smoky red, not bright like blood. I slipped back into bed with her.
It’s snowing.
What?
It’s snowing.
She lay there shivering against me; two blankets weren’t enough, my body wasn’t enough. Melton snored softly.
It’s early to snow.
I know it. Could be a sign of a bad winter.
Oh, Tom, don’t say things like that. I’m freezing.
She pressed her back against me and I could feel the blood in me stir. I pressed against her so she could feel my stirring. She lifted her nightdress and brought one leg up and I moved between her legs and felt bad doing it, but couldn’t help myself. Seemed like I was completely powerless to resist her, and completely powerful when I was taking her.
I put my hand over her mouth so her little mewing sounds wouldn’t wake Melton. He knew everything of course, but sleep was a refuge for him and I didn’t want to torture him any more than he was already by being bodacious with Ann—especially after his visit up to my place. I wasn’t afraid of him; I just didn’t want to make little of him in the doing of what I was with Ann.
She thrust back against me, took me into her body, and held me there with her legs clamped now. She had powerful strong legs, not like Pearl’s that were thin and without strength like branches of a willow. I
t wasn’t the only difference between them.
Melton snorted and turned over in his bed; I could hear the leather laces of his bed creak and thought sure he’d come awake.
Don’t be careless now.
I won’t, Tom.
Go gentle with it.
Yes, yes.
We whispered while we fornicated as though it were a great secret we couldn’t let Melton in on. But of course he already knew everything and it was such a foolish game we all played with one another. It didn’t take long to quench our desire and we lay still as the dead after. Soon I could hear Ann’s little sleep breathing, her body limp next to mine.
I left early that morning before anyone awakened and trudged through the snow hoping the wind would blow and cover my tracks so it wouldn’t remind Melton that I was there. Perhaps he could convince himself that I hadn’t come the night before. It had been late and he was already half into the bottle. So maybe with a little trying he couldn’t be sure whether I’d arrived or had just dreamed drunkenly of the possibility. I told myself again that I wouldn’t return, that if Ann wanted to see me, she would have to come to my place. But Ann was a strange stubborn girl set in her ways about certain things.
My love is sharp as a knife for you, Tom. But I won’t act like a slattern and trudge up to your place just ’cause you think it might look better to folks. It’s my house too—not just Melton’s. I earned ever stick and rock in it.
Knives are dangerous things, Ann.
They cut and they cut. And I’d cut him if he was to try and stop me and I’d cut you if you proved unfaithful.
So you see, even if I had wanted to end it with her, I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t have done something fatal.
Ann Foster Melton
O, those cold, cold mornings of wanting when Tom left my bed, left me there with James who would come round afterwards and paw at me and try and get me back into bed. I’d fight him, but sometimes there was no fighting him off and he’d take me, and it wasn’t like we were fornicating at all, but more like he was wanting to destroy me with his hard rough body and I would hurt for several days after.
You give it to him, by God, you’ll give it to me as well!
It wasn’t always that way, for lots of times, he just left me alone, went and cobbled his shoes and tended to himself. I guess I should feel lucky it wasn’t always that way, but those days it was hard on me and made me only want to be with Tom all the more.
Tom Dooley
I came to Shinbone’s camp: a tent, a stump, a rusted bucket, the mule tethered to a stake. Shinbone stood in the glorious cold shaving his face in a mirror of water in the bucket. The mirror caught a piece of sun and part of his face and I tried to pass unnoticed but he stopped shaving and called me into his camp. It was O’Hearn’s fallow field. I reckon Shinbone figured he could raise more than a little holy hell on that patch of ground.
Welcome to my church.
I looked around.
Most churches I been in have walls and a roof.
This is the church of the living waters. Don’t need no walls or no roof either.
A body could freeze before they got through the singing parts.
He bared his teeth and laughed.
They’d not freeze for all the fire and brimstone I’d rain down upon them.
And what if they weren’t sinners?
Then they’d know the loving warmth of the Savior.
I know something else could save a man on such a cold day as this one.
What might that be, Tom?
Some liquor to warm the bones.
His mule brayed and the sound carried out as far as the mountains in that clear crystal air. A patch of snow fell from the upper part of the balsam and landed softly. A jay cawed sharply and the mule flicked its ears.
Jays are quarrelsome creatures.
Yes, sir. About like some women I’ve known.
You’re a ladies man, ain’t you, Tom? I could tell the first time I laid eyes on you. But beware: there are Jezebels all around just waiting to snare us. The wanting of a woman will ruin a man quicker than anything.
You might be half right on that one, Parson.
He motioned I should hunker down awhile. I said I best be getting on.
Sit a spell. I could use the company. How’d it be was I to try my first sermon out on you?
About like taking a whipping, I reckon.
He laughed hard.
Could you stand it some better with some blackberry wine to warm you?
Break it on out if you got it, but I can’t stand being too long in one place.
Tyree Shinbone
I figured it no accident that Tom came ’round to see me. He wouldn’t let on he was looking for salvation—he wasn’t the type; few men I ever met that had the Confederate blood in them were the type to admit very much of the heart and what the heart needs.
I pitched into my best sermon, let him have it with both barrels—figured long as he was drinking my wine, he had an obligation to hear me out.
Tom Dooley
Shinbone produced a bottle, took a pull, then handed it to me and commenced preaching all about how Eve tempted Adam to sin, then took on the concubines of King David and so forth. Ranted about how an excellent wife was the crowning glory of her husband, but one who brung him shame was like a rotting in his bones.
It was as though he knew about the triangle of Ann and me and Melton and was trying to burn my soul up with shame over it, trying to warn me about the price I’d pay. He ranted until he was near out of breath, then pulled some more on the blackberry wine, his nostrils snorting steam in that aching cold air.
He smote open his Bible and began to read in a loud voice:
Those whose hearts are perverse are an abomination to the Lord.
Pull of wine.
Keep away from the flattering tongue of a seductress.
Pull some more wine.
A harlot reduces a man to a crust of bread.
Pull.
He who goes to his neighbor’s wife shall be burned!
I could see that blackberry wine wasn’t doing either of us any good and was about gone altogether by the time he let up some. I stood and said I had to go. His glare burst forth from under the brim of his black hat; a droplet of blood stood frozen on his cheek where the razor had been too keen.
It’s the worst kind of sin there is, Tom—to covet thy neighbor’s wife.
I balled my fists in anger. Who was this stranger to tell me anything! Outsiders!
Come here to pass judgment on us when they didn’t know a thing about us—Shinbone and Grayson.
Talk like yours can get a man a bloody nose, Preacher.
Not my words, but His!
He pointed a bony finger skyward.
Hell, you’ll be a long time awaiting God in this place. More likely you’ll freeze to death in the waiting.
I was over the next ridge quick enough but could still hear him shouting down the devil with his high and mighty preaching. Calling my name, God’s, Satan’s.
I made steady journey back and forth all that winter to Melton’s, but avoided Shinbone’s encampment. Once or twice when the weather let up, Ann came to visit me in spite of her oath that she never would. I was always a little concerned she’d come unexpected trying to catch me with another woman. I worried about her finding out about Pearl and me. Not so much for my sake as Pearl’s.
Why you so jumpy, Tom?
Nothing, Pearl, thought I heard something.
Listen.
I don’t hear nothing.
Neither do I.
Go on back to sleep.
Kiss my eyes closed, Tom.
One day I found a circle of small footprints outside my window, and the next trip I made to Melton’s, Ann was there alone, sulking.
I seen you was over to my place.
Wasn’t, neither.
Saw footsteps about the size of yours.
Why’d I be over to your place?
Com
e to see me, maybe. Come for some loving maybe.
I don’t reckon I have to walk near three miles to get some loving. All I’d have to do is let the word out and I’d have men lined up outside my door.
Yes, but you wouldn’t let the word out. I know you better than that.
You think you know ever thing there is to know about me, don’t you, Tom Dooley?
We quarreled like that until she come out with it, said she heard a woman’s voice inside my cabin. I said it was Pearl’s, that she’d brought me over a jug of mash to feed the cold I was battling.
Her jealous eyes clouded.
Cousin Pauline?
One in the same.
I’d kill her if I thought you and her were . . . I’d kill you too.
For the first time I realized Ann was right, I didn’t know everything about her. Fact is, looking into those angry temptress eyes, I suspected there was a whole lot about her I didn’t know and might never know.
Kill me, huh? I don’t care for that kind of talk, no sir. Best I get on back to where I can close my eyes and not have to worry about somebody sticking a knife in my ribs.
Just maybe you should.
I slapped my hat back on my head and turned to leave but Ann grabbed me and turned me round and mashed her mouth on mine, and the next thing you know we were giving in to our mad passions. For it was like that with Ann and me; one minute we could be arguing over any little thing—her jealousy, or how I should steal her away from Melton—and the next she’d have me pulled on top of her and I’d be glad she had.
Ann Foster Melton
Tom did everything in his power to make me jealous. But what he didn’t understand was the depth of a woman’s jealousy, and how much it wounds and wounds. I suspected he was fornicating with Cousin Pauline. I was more mad at her than him—for men are weak and can’t control themselves, but women are controlling and know how to turn a man’s head and get a man to do their bidding. I wanted the truth, I wanted Tom to tell me with his own lips that he and Pauline were fornicating. I knew if he told me, I’d do whatever I had to to get her to quit going after him. Pauline was a slattern, everybody knew it. After they hanged Tom, she went off somewheres up in Tennessee and had a nigger baby. I wasn’t surprised to hear of it. I wasn’t surprised.