Oral History (9781101565612) (6 page)

She's gone when he looks back.

Almarine screams like a painter and plunges ahead down the trail to the little pool. He runs off in the woods to the left, and yet again to the right. He runs all over the place a-hollering, but he can't find his red-headed woman again, nor has she left any sign. She has gone as quick as ever she come, like firesmoke up into thin air. Almarine sits on a rock and cries and then he stands up and swears to find her. He fires his gun off once, straight up in the air. It echoes off all them rocks. Almarine puts that yaller flower in his pocket, starts for home. He has forgot all about the courting trip he had planned, to Roseann, West Virginia. He has forgot everything he ever knowed nearabout except for that red-headed Emmy.

Almarine come over to ask me about her, but I daren't tell him a thing. I was churning the time he come.

“You better go back over to Black Rock,” I says. “Find you a sweet God-fearing town girl, what I say.”

“My mind is set,” Almarine says. “Ye could holp me if ye would, old granny.”

“I will not,” I says. “I don't know a thing.”

“I'll find her whether ye holp me or no,” Almarine says. “I don't give a damn fer yer notions.” And then he turned on his heel and left. I watched him walking off down my holler a-swinging his arms. I would swear in my soul he was whistling. A young man like that, he don't have ary idea what he's fooling with, and not afeard of a thing. Well, I went back to my churn but the butter never come that day, I can't say twere ary surprise. I was lying through my teeth to Almarine, and butter won't come on a lie.

I had not set eyes on Isom fer thirty, mought be twere forty years. Isom kept to his doings, me to mine. They was a time when we was children, we was friends. We both growed up right here on the side of Hurricane, but then Isom's maw died and his daddy beat him so bad that he took to the other side of the mountains. A mountain man, old Isom was. He used to come down to Joe Johnson's store at Tug with them bags of ginseng—you could get five dollar a pound for it, even back then, you get eight dollar a pound for it now—and trade for supplies and then hightail it back up on Snowman Mountain. Then he started a-sending that Emmy. As for Emmy, I'll get to her in a minute. Old Isom is what I want to study, for a spell. Because it's a funny thing how I had not seed him for years, and yet in a way I felt like I knowed him bettern I ever knowed ary a soul. They was a time once when me and Isom— but Lord, that's another story. Isom had done gone his way, I'd went mine. For Isom was evil clear through. He kilt his brother and beat his paw before ever he took to the mountain, or so they say. Myself I knowed Isom, albeit I hadn't seed him, like I knowed the back of my hand.

But didn't nobody know how he got that gal. Some says he had him a wife and he kilt her, and others says he just drempt Emmy up outen the black air by the Raven Clifts. Others says he stole him a baby from West Virginia.

Abednego White swears Isom has got them ravens trained to cotch him chickens and bring them up there. He says those chickens is a-flapping their wings all the way, with the ravens a-carrying them. Abednego tells it for a fact. But anyway Isom got him a girl someway, and then he pledged her to the devil, as I said. She growed up with ravens, in caves. She was a fair sight oldern Almarine, too, Red Emmy, she must of been forty when Almarine happened upon her. I'd say she was forty if she was a day. But a witch don't show age like a regular gal, her body's too full of blood.

So I never said a word while Almarine searched, and searched, and searched all over Snowman Mountain. He tried and tried to find that path again, leading down from them old white rocks, that path and the little pool, but it was like it had plumb disappeared. Try as he would, Almarine never could find it again. Nor could he spot the little redbird, nor find that yaller flower he thought he'd put so careful in his pocket, nor any other flowers like it. It was like it was all in his mind. Iffen it was or iffen it wasn't, twerent up to me to say, but I'll say this—iffen a body searches for so long, he's bound to find something, that's a fact. And soon he come upon her up there by her daddy's cave, a-cooking out over a fire. It was fixing to get dark that evening, and the smoke swirled all around.

Almarine stood right there and viewed her through the smoke.

“How are you called?” he said. Then he started walking toward the fire.

She looked at him through that smoke like she didn't want to speak, and then at last she said, “Emmy.” Her voice seemed to come from a distance. “You better git on away from hyar,” she said, but then her daddy come a-running all wild-haired outen the cave and knocked her to the ground and fired a pistol at Almarine's head. He had already killed him two or three, it was said, who'd come around courting his Emmy. Of course, they said too that he and Emmy were moren a hundred years old, or old as the hills or older. Folks'll say anything.

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.