Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Tom Dooley

I’d had a bellyful of hearing about that horse, and I was tired of listening to the old man whine about his young’uns, as if nobody else in the world had a hard row to hoe in life. As if nobody here ever lost somebody to the War, or got a sickness they’d never get well from, or worked every day sun-up to dark and still stayed poor and hungry. I was tired of hearing it. So I stood up, and called to him over the heads of half a dozen folks, “I’ll get your horse back for you, Uncle Wilson. Just gimme a quart of whiskey, and I’ll bring her right on back to you.”

The men had been talking and laughing amongst themselves, so loud you could hardly hear yourself think, but when I said that, it was as if I’d dropped a hornet’s nest into their midst. All the talking stopped at once, and they all stared at me and him, waiting to see what was going to happen next. I thought they’d take it as a joke, but I had misjudged, because nobody laughed. And everybody remembered.

Uncle Wilson stood there for a minute, staring at me with his mouth open, and then he just shrugged and turned away. I guess he figured I was making fun of him, which was true enough, I suppose, though I did want that whiskey awful bad. It was no secret that I was powerful fond of hard likker, and they must have thought that was all there was to it: me trying any way I could to get another jug. I didn’t say anything else after that. Maybe I had said too much already.

Thomas Foster, who had not been brought up well, and who had taken more than his share of the whiskey, must have been as tired as I was of the old man’s lamentations, and he began to make sport of his uncle. He set a twig alight in the fireplace and began to stagger around with it. He stumbled against Wilson Foster, and set the old man’s beard afire. They scotched the sparks in a moment, and Wash gave him a dipper of water to soak it in, but even then he didn’t take the hint and leave.

Finally, James Melton, who always had a kind word for everybody, if he spoke at all, patted his arm a trifle gingerly, and said, “Surely Will is right. Your Laura has gone to visit relatives. I reckon we could pray for her safe return if it would ease your mind any.”

This was too much for Foster’s temper, for he had come in search of information, not threadbare homilies. He leaned in close to James Melton, though he was too short to reach his face, and he breathed out fumes of bad breath and whiskey. “Why, man, I don’t care if I was to never see the little hussy again, but the thing is, she went and stole my mare. And I damn sure want that horse back.”

His salty language put James off almost as much as his breath did, and with a sigh of disgust, he turned away from the old man, and sat down near the fire with a bit of shoe leather he was working on. A couple of the men who overheard him just nodded, not at all surprised at his words or his attitude. Most everybody hereabouts knew that there was no love lost between Laura and her father, and horses did not come cheap. Wilson Foster didn’t even own his own land. It was a wonder he had a horse at all, and he certainly wouldn’t part with it without a fight.

I was standing in the doorway, next to Ann Melton, well away from the smoke and the fumes in the little cabin. Ann was watching the road like she was expecting Tom to turn up any minute. The men didn’t much want us in there anyhow. Nobody ever had much good to say about Ann, for her carrying on with Tom Dula was common knowledge in the settlement, and, as for me, I was just the hired help, so I counted for nothing.

After Wilson Foster had sat down next to Will Holder, waiting for another turn with the jug, I heard Wash Anderson tell him, “My older sister saw your daughter this morning, Mr. Foster, just after sun-up. She said Laura was riding east along the road past her place, and that she stopped and spoke to her for a moment or two. I don’t reckon my sister would want me to tell you that, but it’s so. She said that Laura meant to get away from home, and she wished her well. Said she wouldn’t say anything that might help you find her and drag her back.”

Wilson Foster looked like he wanted to argue about this, and I reckon I could have told him a few home truths about his daughter, but I kept my resolve to be quiet and let people jump to their own conclusions.

Jonathan Gilbert nodded. “It is all well and good for Laura to take care of her brothers and sisters and keep house for her father, but she’s past twenty-one now, ain’t she? I reckon she’s entitled to a man of her own-if she can find one.”

There was a pause before Thomas Foster said, “Of course, she has never lacked for companionship, has she?” The way he said it, you knew he didn’t mean Sunday-school chums. You don’t have to spend too long in a group of respectable people before one of them bares poison fangs. The only difference between them and a rattlesnake is that a rattler has the decency to warn you before it strikes. People never do.

They had heard about Laura’s goings-on, all right. I wondered if any of these fellows knew firsthand about her dalliances with men, and whether they knew she had the pox, but nobody spoke up about that.

Then when the talking died down for a minute, I heard James Melton say to old Foster, “You must be worried something fierce, Mr. Foster. Even if she has gone off to see some kinfolk, these are perilous times, especially for an innocent young girl. There are still bushwhackers about, and I do not yet trust the roads. I hope nothing has happened to her on her journey.”

I was beginning to get a little irritated, listening to all this soft soap about poor Wilson Foster and his beloved missing daughter. He had spent a good half hour lapping up sympathy and making himself important over the disappearance of Laura, whom he didn’t care two pins for. I thought it time to take him down a peg or two, in front of all these mealymouthed fools.

I walked up to him, like I was going to give him another helping of sympathy, and then I said, loud enough for everybody to hear, “I know you must be worried, Uncle Wilson, seeing as how Laura may have run away with a colored man.”

He glowered at me, not at all happy to have that brick dropped in front of half the settlement, but, as he turned to leave, all he said was, “I am afraid of that, too.”

That shut everybody up for a good half minute, and then of one accord, they all turned away and began talking about ten different things at once to cover the sound of all that plain-speaking. Ann gave me a look when I said that, but she kept silent. Laura Foster might have been forgotten then and there, but I was not prepared to leave well enough alone.

The day after Laura went missing, Tom Dula came early to the Meltons’ house, wanting James to fix his fiddle and to get his shoes mended. Ann was not at home, but he did not ask after her, and it would have been no use if he had, for I didn’t know where she’d gone. Will Holder stopped by again, and they all commenced to drinking and swapping lies, same as always.

We sat up most of the night, till the fire burned low, and then we all drifted off to sleep any old how. I ended up sharing a bed with Tom Foster.

An hour or so before sun-up, Ann came dragging in. I woke up when I felt the cold air when the door opened, and I saw her standing over by the fireplace, taking off her wet shoes. The hem of her dress was wet, too, as if she had walked a ways through wet grass. She got undressed and slid into the bed alongside me.

I didn’t have long to loll abed, though, for with daybreak, my chores commenced. I had milked the cows, and gathered the eggs, and came back in to cook the breakfast, and Ann never stirred.

Later, when Tom came in with that fiddle of his, wanting James to mend the bridge for him, I said, “Well, here you are bright and early. We all figured you had run off with Laura Foster. Her daddy was here last night, trying to trace her, on account of her making off with his mare. He said he reckoned that you and her had run off and got married.”