Oral History (9781101565612) (7 page)

You never saw such kissing in all your life! Made me feel like I had not felt for years and if that surprises you, you ain't got no sense. Now a person mought get old, and their body mought go on them, but that thing does not wear out. No it don't. And anyway they was kissing, and I was a-watching, and then still holding on tight to each other they start for the cabin acrost the field. They had plumb forgot that poor mule. Well, I never said a word but when they passed by where I was, Red Emmy done something made me see she had knowed I was there all along. Of course she knowed it! Child of the devil. But I had like to forgot it, that day.

Red Emmy turned her head away from her kissing one time, once only, and looked at me directly where I was hid. The lightning flashes right then and I see her face and it is old, old. It is older and meanern time. Red Emmy stares me right in the eye and she spits one time on the rainy ground. Almarine never seed a thing.

Well as soon as she spits, I get a pain in my side liked to bend me double, it is all I can do to get outen that holler that day and get over on Snowman Mountain where I belongs to be curing the thrash, stead of going spying on a witch and her business. That pain bent me double for seven days, wouldn't nothing cure it. I learnt me a lesson for sure, and all during the froze-time, I never went up there no more.

So I never knowed exactly when things commenced to change, and Red Emmy's true nature come out. Which it'll do ever time, you mind me. The devil mought loan out his daughter, but comes a time when he'll take her back. Almarine must of knowed this too, somewhere in the back of his mind. When she turned to evil for good, he must not of been that surprised. The first I heerd of it myself, was old man Joe Johnson down at the store says Almarine is looking puny. He says Almarine come by for some coffee, all white-faced and thin as a rail.

“That boy don't look good, Granny,” Joe Johnson says. Joe Johnson has got this big white beard stands out in a circle around his face. I was getting me some salt as I recall. “That boy looks plumb tuckered out. You orter go up there and see him, Granny. I tell you, they's something wrong.”

“I ain't going up there,” I says. Joe Johnson always gives me some tobaccy for my pipe and gives it free.

“You ort to go,” Joe Johnson says. He shakes his head back and forth like he is grieving. “Now that were one fine boy.”

“Iffen a body don't want no holp, I can't holp em,” I says, and Joe Johnson allowed that was so. I took my tobaccy and left.

But I kept Almarine in my mind. I knowed what was happening, of course. A witch will ride a man in the night while he sleeps, she'll ride him to death if she can. She can't holp it, it is her nature to do so. The same way she'll run a horse in the ground, and she done that too before long. Now Almarine had set a big store by that horse, and twerent another month till it was dead. She had run it to death, the same way she was doing to Almarine. Witches'll leave their bodies in the night, you know, and slip into somebody else's. They'll do it while you're asleep and they'll drive you all night long with nary a speck of rest. They can take on any form. Sometimes they'll go into a cat, or a cow, or a horse, or a rabbit, or a hoot owl out in the night. They leave their bodies in the bed and out they go. All that being so nice in the daytime was moren Red Emmy could take, what I think. She had to go hell for leather all night to make up for them long sweet days. Almarine was wore out all the time, of course. He laid in the bed and slept most of the time while she worked his farm and then she'd come in and get in the bed. He was servicing her, that's all, while she liked to rode him to death. Red Emmy, she worked all day and she rode all night and she never slept. But a witch don't need no sleep.

Things went on like that into the summer. It was hot as fire, I recall, the day I crossed the mouth of the holler heading for Tug. It was a full moon coming on that night, which meant it'd be Marylou Harkins's time for sure by the time I got there. They is nothing like a full moon to bring on a baby. I was stepping on the stones acrost Grassy Creek when I heerd my name.

“Granny.” He was hunkered down by the side of the creek, throwing little old rocks in the water. He looked awful.

“Ho Almarine,” I says.

I keep on stepping from rock to rock.

“I been hoping to see you,” he says. Almarine's eyes that used to be so blue had turned pale and runny. His collarbone showed through his shirt. His hair, that used to be so beautiful, looked just like old dry straw and that's a fact.

I was talking to a man bewitched.

“Granny, I got to do something,” Almarine says.

“You'll up and die if you don't,” I says.

I sit down on the grass where he'd hunkered, and bees buzzes all around us. It was the prettiest day.

“You got to holp me,” Almarine says.

“I can't do nothing,” I tell him, “even iffen I would. You're under a spell and you've got to break it yourself,” I says.

“What must I do?” he asks.

“You've got to throw her out,” I says. “You've got to make the mark of the cross on her breast and her forehead with ashes, and throw her out the door and say the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost as loud as ever you can.”

“What iffen that don't work?” Almarine looks down at the ground.

“Then you've got to cut her,” I said, “and make the mark of the cross with her blood.”

Almarine turns whiter yet and shakes his head. “I'll not do that, Granny,” he said.

“Do what you will,” I says.

“I couldn't cut her,” says Almarine. Then he busts out crying as hard as he can, and it is one of the awfulest sounds I ever did hear. Almarine loved her, is what it was. You know a man can love something he don't even like, and Almarine loved her as much as he disgusted her, and scared as he was. I had seed them kiss in the rain and I knowed it. He loved her iffen she were a witch or no. Almarine put his head in my apron and cried, big old man that he was.

“Now you get up,” I said, when I thought this had lasted long enough, but he did not.

“They's something else,” he said.

“They's always something else,” I said. “Well, let's hear it. What is it?” I asked.

“She's gonner have a baby,” Almarine says. He cries down into his hands.

“Good God in heaven,” I say. “It won't be no baby like none of us-uns ever seed, I'll tell you that. You get rid of her, Almarine,” what I told him, “afore you get you a passel of witch-children up there.”

Almarine stood up. I'll swear it was the prettiest day, full June, bees a-buzzing and butterflies flitting all over the creek. Queen Anne's lace ever place you look. Almarine rubbed at his eyes like he couldn't see.

“I come back here a free man,” he says. “I served my time. I growed up here, Granny.”

“I knowed you,” I says.

“I love this holler,” he says.

“That's so,” I told him.

“I ain't a-going to lose it,” he says. Then he looks down at me and grins. Despite of him being so thin, he looks like himself now in the face, around the eyes. “I won't have no witch-children in my holler,” Almarine says. “I don't know what come over me,” he says.

“Holp a old woman up,” I says, and Almarine done so.

Then he puts his hands on his sticking-out hipbones and laughs so loud it comes back from the rocky clifts.

“I still need a wife,” he says.

“I reckon you do,” I told him, “and I reckon I'll be traveling on down to Tug now. I got me a baby to cotch.”

Almarine stood tall by Grassy Creek just a-grinning, and watched me on my way.

Marylou Harkins had a britches-baby, taken it two days to come. End of that, and I went around to the store, and what-all I hear from Joe Johnson is mighty good news. They was some several folks in there as I recall, and all of them dead to tell it. Harve Justice was in there, and One-Eyed Jesse Waldron from the Paw Paw Gap, and Luther Wade sat picking on the porch. He can play a guitar as sweet as you ever heard. I sets down on the porch to rest my bones.

“How's that baby?” Joe Johnson hollers out, and I holler back it is fine.

“Hit's a little girl,” I say. “They ain't named her yet.”

“I reckon ye could use a little of this,” Joe Johnson hollers, and he sends his girl out with some liquor in a glass.

“I reckon I could,” I allows.

They was all of them a-watching me real careful while I takes me a sip.

“What air you all up to?” I asks, I see how they're watching so close, and Harve Justice slaps his leg and laughs real loud.

“Boy, you sound like a mule,” I said, which was true, and all of them starts in laughing then. Joe Johnson's girl is catching june bugs in front of the porch.

“I guess you ain't heerd it, then,” Harve says. He is a big old skinny feller can rile you to death without even trying.

No use to rush him neither. So I sit here on the porch with Luther a-picking, and all of us sipping a little, and that Stacy boy rides up with the mail and folks starts to come from all over. It's getting on for afternoon by then. That Stacy boy thinks he is something on a stick, got him a leather pouch says the U.S. Mail. Joe Johnson gives his girl a string and so she's swinging that june bug around in the air, just a-whizzing him, flash of greeny gold. Marylou Harkins's mama come over after a time and brung me a apple stack-cake for my sweet-tooth, she says, and I thanks her kindly. I love a apple stack-cake. I was feeling real good a-setting there on the porch, and by the by it all come out like I knowed it would.

Almarine had up and got rid of Red Emmy, was the long and short of it.

He had throwed her outen the door and she had left. Mrs. Davenport had told Harve that she seed Red Emmy going off up the trace toward Snowman Mountain where she come from, all bent over and moving slow. Mrs. Davenport said she seen her face and it looked like a old, old woman. All of this had put such a scare into Mrs. Davenport that she went straight home and got in the bed and wouldn't cook no dinner, Harve said. Harve said he bet she's there yet. Luther Wade said he had run into Bill Horn—now Bill Horn works over in Roseann for the lumber company, comes home whenever he takes a mind to—and Bill Horn said he was crossing Snowman on the trace and heard the awfulest hollering and laughing you ever heard, coming down from the Raven Clift. He said it made his horse shy and the hair on his arms stand straight up. They was all laughing over Mrs. Davenport down in the bed and Bill Horn taking a fright.

I sat there a-sipping and never laughed or said ary a word.

I was a-looking out the valley there—it's real pretty where Joe Johnson's store is—over toward Black Rock Mountain off in the sky, and all of a sudden it was like a thundercloud rolls acrost my eyes and it all turns dark and I'll swear I can hear her laughing. Then I rubs my eyes and takes another sip and it's all gone, Joe Johnson's girl is whizzing that bug around my head.

“You ought not to laugh,” I says. “We ain't seed the end of it yet.”

“Now, Granny.” Joe Johnson comes out and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Now, Granny,” he says. “Almarine took up with a crazy girl, and now he has run her off. There ain't a man among us mought not of done it nor worse. That gal and her daddy was crazy as coots.”

But I can't get what I seed and heard outen my head. I stands up slow. “You mark my words,” I say, and I take up my stack-cake real careful, and set off a-traveling for home.

“Crazy old woman,” that Stacy boy says, and I hear him alright, but I never look back nor give any sign. Thinks he is a power with the U.S. Mail.

I walk the trace for home and after a time the moon comes up to light me on my way. Now this is a big full yaller moon, and no harm in it. I cross Grassy on the stepping stones at the mouth of Hoot Owl Holler, and the water is all shiny from that moon. There's a little wind through the sprucey-pines, sounds like a song. I look up Hoot Owl Holler and I can't see a thing, but I don't feel nothing neither. It feels real calm and pleasant now in Hoot Owl Holler, and I lean down and get me a drink outen Grassy Creek and I heads upstream for home.

So Almarine gets shed of Red Emmy, and it's not two months before he has got him a wife for sure. And this time he done hisself proud.

 

He was over in Black Rock on a Saturday as I recall, to buy him a new mule and shoe his horse, when a wagon comes in all burdened down with goods and children and womenfolks walking along. They was not but one man, a little old bent-over man said he was bound for Kentucky and how far was it, and set down there where Squirrel Waldron's forge is, a-wiping his face.

Squirrel looks up from shoeing Almarine's horse and says, “You have got you a mess of family, ain't you?”

The man wipes his face again and says, “Lord, Lord.”

It don't look to anybody like he'll make it to Kentucky the rate he's going. Then the womenfolks—twere his wife and her sister, if I recall—they go down to Poole's store to buy them some food, and the children start running all over the place a-banging Squirrel Waldron's tools. Squirrel being real particular about his tools. Almarine is just standing there a-watching it all, and they's other folks too have come out to see. There hadn't been such a commotion in Black Rock for a while.

This old man wipes his face and says “Lord, Lord,” and then he whoops at two of his biggest boys to get him something. He whooped in a foreign language. So they go to rummaging around in that wagon, spilling goods all over the road, and then they come up with the fanciest saddle you ever saw, silver tracings all over it. They brung it over to the old man and lays it down in the road. By this time a considerable bunch has gathered around to look.