The Ballad of Tom Dooley

PAULINE FOSTER

Mid-July 1866



If it hadn’t been for Grayson, I’d a been in Tennessee.



Tom’s disappearance was a nine days’ wonder in Happy Valley. People hardly talked about anything else, and it pretty much settled the matter of his guilt as far as the settlement was concerned. Ann was wretched, listening to the talk about Tom, and worrying over what had become of him. I thought that if she ate any less she would waste away to a shadow long before Christmas, whether he came back for her or not, and if it would put an end to her moping and complaining, I’d be glad to see it happen.

As it was, though, he didn’t stay gone until Christmas. Just past mid-July, he was brought back hog-tied by two local lawmen. We were able to piece together where he went and what he did from the tales told by Jack Adkins and Ben Ferguson, the two busybody deputies that Pickens Carter sent to search for Tom and bring him back to Wilkes County. Once they had fetched him back, and seen him safely locked in the stout brick jail in Wilkesboro, the two of them high-tailed it back to Elkville to regale folks with the story of the capture of that dangerous fugitive, Tom Dula. Oh, they were full of themselves about their exploits, but the truth is that Tom’s capture had nothing to do with them. They just went and collected him as if he had been a parcel.

I heard the tale the day after Adkins and Ferguson got back. They were ensconced on the porch of Cowle’s store, surrounded by curiosity seekers, eager to hear about their apprehending the bloodthirsty criminal. It was as if the neighbors had that soon forgotten that Tom Dula was a lazy, amiable young man they’d known all his life. Now suddenly they would believe he was a monster. I slipped in amongst the onlookers, to hear the story.

“He went right where we figured he’d go,” Jack Adkins said, pointing westward toward the blue haze of mountains. “He took that Elk Creek Road to Zionville, and we reckon he laid out somewhere in Watauga County for a couple of days.”

“Where’d he stay?” somebody in the crowd called out.

Ben Ferguson shook his head. “We never did find that out, and he wouldn’t say. We’re only going by when he showed up over the line in Tennessee.”

“That was about two weeks ago,” said Jack Adkins, taking up the tale again. “He turned up, near as dammit to barefoot, and calling himself by the name of Hall, on the farm of Colonel James Grayson in the community of Trade.”

I put my hand over my mouth to cover my smile, for I was remembering what Tom had said about a colonel being a captain with money. When I thought to listen again, Ben Ferguson was telling how this Colonel Grayson had hired Tom as a field hand, and said he’d worked long enough to buy himself some new boots with his wages.

“We reckoned he’d go up the mountain to Watauga, and over the line into Tennessee, so we just rode up through Deep Gap, and started asking around up there if anybody had seen the fugitive.”

Jack Adkins took up the tale. “It took us a couple of days to work our way up to Trade, but when we finally did, we talked to Colonel Grayson, who told us right off that he had engaged a new farmhand that sounded like the man we were looking for.”

“He must have seen us coming,” said Ben. “For when the colonel went to look for him, he was gone. So he set off with us, tracking Tom Dula along the road that leads to Johnson City. He didn’t get that far, though. We ran him to earth in Pandora. He was on foot, so we were able to overtake him without too much trouble. We caught him soaking his feet in a creek there, and before he could get up, Colonel Grayson hefted a rock and ordered him to surrender.”

“What did he do then?” asked one of the onlookers in an awestruck whisper.

“Well, he give up,” said Jack, shrugging. “He wasn’t armed, y’see, but the colonel had a big old .32 Deermore on his hip, so I reckon it was not so much the rock as the pistol that made him decide to surrender. Besides it was three of us against one of him, so he let us take him, and he came along peaceable. I’ll give him that.”

“He came along peaceable right then,” said Jack. “But not the whole way back he didn’t.”

“Well, no,” Ben allowed. “We took him straight on back to Grayson’s farm, and they barricaded him in the corncrib for the night, with all of us taking turns standing guard outside. When we started back to Wilkes County the next morning, we put Tom up behind Colonel Grayson on his horse, and we tied Tom’s feet underneath the horse’s belly, so’s he couldn’t jump off and run away.”

“He tried, though,” said Jack. “Every now and again, we’d stop to give the horses a rest, and one time, Tom managed to loosen the ropes some. If the colonel hadn’t noticed it, I reckon he’d have been off in to the woods before we knew what hit us.”

“We watched him like a hawk after that, but he didn’t give us no more trouble. We delivered him to Sheriff Hix yesterday evening, and they’ve got him locked upstairs in the Wilkesboro jail. They’d better keep a good watch on him, though, ’cause if they give him half a chance, he’ll run.”

“Did you ask him what he done with Laura Foster?” somebody called out.

Ben and Jack looked at each other and hesitated. Finally Jack said, “We didn’t like to ask him anything about that. Our orders were just to bring him back on a fugitive warrant. I reckon it’s up to the lawyers and judges to decide what happens next.”

They all started talking at once then, but I stopped listening. If Tom was in jail and in fear of his life, there’s no telling what he might say to whoever questioned him. I reckon he’d try to pin Laura’s murder on anybody he could think of. Except, of course, his precious Ann. That’s what I would do, if it was me in jail. Muddy the waters all I could. There was no love lost between me and Tom, so I figured it might not be long before he started trying to make people believe that I had something to do with it.

I decided it was high time I left Wilkes County.

* * *

Remember that.

I left Wilkes County. All I cared about then was keeping myself out of harm’s way.

That night I stuffed my three faded dresses, some cold biscuits left over from supper, and what little else I had in to an old blanket, and stashed them under my bed. Then I lay down and closed my eyes, waiting for morning. I didn’t bother to tell the Meltons I was leaving. They might have tried to argue about it, and there was no point in us having words over it, for nothing they could say would change my mind. Or else they might not even care at all that I was going, and if that was how it was, there would be no point in bothering to let them know. Anyhow, it’s not like they owned me or that I owed them anything. I could come and go as I pleased.

The next morning before sun-up, I got up same as I always did, and I eased my tied-up blanket of belongings out from under the bed and slipped outside. James would think I had gone to the privy, and Ann wouldn’t bother to wake up for hours. By the time they missed me, I’d have a good head start.

As I stepped outside in to the chill of the morning mist, I took a last look around the valley, as places seemed to float in and out of clouds moving across the ground. I looked over at Aunt Lotty’s little place, straight down the hill and across the road, then below the north ridge at the Reedy Branch Road that led to the Dulas’ land, and over at the Bates’ place, deserted again now, since the searchers had given up and gone back to the business of farming. Wherever Laura was, she was resting in peace.

My gaze came last to rest on the Anderson farm, situated in the low ground between us and the Bates’ place. I wondered if Laura’s nut brown boy was astir there yet, but I didn’t catch sight of him. I thought about warning him to keep his mouth shut about what he knew, but then I thought better of it. John Anderson had said nothing so far, and I think he knew well enough that it would mean the rope for him if he did speak up. All was quiet in the gray morning. Nobody saw me go.

I headed south down the Stony Fork Road until I reached the trace that runs along by Elk Creek. I was taking the same westward path to Watauga County that Tom took when he went to outrun the law. The self-same one that brought me here back at the first of March.

After the morning chill burned off, it was a tolerable walk—better than it had been in the bitter cold of late winter. It would be cooler once I got up on the mountain, but in high summer, that is a blessed thing, and I was looking forward to feeling the cool air on the mountaintop, instead of the blazing sun of a Wilkes County cornfield.

I passed nobody on the road, and I didn’t tarry, either. I didn’t care to look at the little purple flowers tucked in among the weeds along the path, nor did I stop to admire the mountains floating in front of me in a blue haze. I put one foot in front of the other, and I kept my eyes on the ground in case a snake should slither across my path. All the while I was listening for the sound of voices behind me or the thud of a horse’s hooves, but nothing broke the stillness except now and then a snippet of birdsong. For my breakfast, I took one of the cold biscuits out of my blanket-sack, and ate it dry whilst I walked.

I hoped Wilkes County would forget about me just as fast as I meant to forget about them. I didn’t care if they hanged Tom or Ann or half the county for the death of Laura Foster, as long as they left me out of it. I meant to get back to the top of the mountain, and to keep myself out of the way of the lawmen.

I can’t say that anybody was glad to see me when I finally got back. Folk there never had much use for me, nor I for them, and absence had not made any hearts grow fonder. Still I had other kinfolk there, from my mother’s family, and though they were not overjoyed to see me trudging up the path to their door, they saw their bounden duty as kinsmen, and they let me stay awhile, provided of course that I didn’t eat too much and that I did my share of the chores, and more. They would not think to tell anyone that I was there, for my coming and going interested them not at all, and news of Wilkes County never reached the holler where their cabin stood. The outside world could go hang for all they cared. I figured to settle in until the trouble blew over down in Happy Valley, and then I would see what I wanted to do next.

I had not been there more than a week before Ann turned up at the door, escorted by Cousin Sam Foster. It is easy enough to track somebody in these parts, I suppose, for there are few enough people, and not much else to do besides take note of their comings and goings. One of the young’uns let her in—Ann does not take no for an answer—and then they sent him to fetch me from out the garden, where I was hoeing weeds in the hot sun. I might have thought it was a rest to leave off working in the heat, but being around Ann was never restful. Either she was ordering me about to tend her babes or cook and wash up, being too lazy to do it herself, or else she was in a bate about something or other, and everyone within earshot must listen to her moaning and bewailing about whatever it was. I had been about as glad to escape one as the other, but it wouldn’t do to let her know that. I am particular about letting anybody know what I think about anything, because knowing such things might give a body power over me. When I came inside and saw her standing there beside the hearth, I wiped my hands on my aprons, tore off my poke bonnet, and went and embraced her as if seeing her had been my dearest wish in the world, but I took note of the fact that Ann did not come alone. I had walked all the way to Wilkes County in the dead of winter right by myself, and nobody spared a thought to my safety or comfort, but here in the middle of high summer Ann Melton must have a gentleman escort to ease her journey up the mountain. I added that to my stock of grievances against her.

Either the journey had taken the shine off her perfection, or else all the worry over Tom was taking its toll, for you’d have thought her well over twenty-one to look at her. Dark hollows shadowed her eyes and cheekbones, and her dress hung on her bony frame as if it were a hand-me-down from a woman twice her size. I did not remark upon the change in her, but I was pleased to see that she had got acquainted with suffering.

She did not mince words. “You have to come back with me, Pauline,” she said, in a voice like flint.

I never tell people what I want. I just make sure that what I want sounds as if I am doing them a favor, so I said, “I cannot impose on your kindness any longer, Cousin. You and James were good to take me in when I was sick, but I have trespassed on your hospitality long enough.” What I meant was that with the Wilkes County justice of the peace sending out warrants to arrest people right and left, I wanted to get well away from there, before I got caught in the snare myself.

That ought to have been plain enough for anybody to see, but most people cannot look past their own desires, and, since Ann was one of that sort, she believed my words instead of her own common sense.

She waved aside my protests of sparing her my presence. “It doesn’t matter, Pauline. You have to come back. Tom is still in jail, and I hear they may be looking to arrest you next. If you stay here, it will look like you’ve run away.”

Well, I had. Moreover, I couldn’t see any percentage in going back into the thick of a legal tangle. Ann made it sound as if she was worried about me, but I’d never be foolish enough to believe that. Ann Melton would not walk forty miles up a steep mountain to save me from being torn apart by wild hogs, much less just to keep me from being arrested. In fact the only thing I could think of that would make her put forth that much effort was him: Tom Dula. I can believe that she’d walk barefoot through a briar patch for his sake—and not for much else.

Sam Foster stayed silent in all of this, looking as embarrassed as a man watching childbirth. He had done his duty to see his kinswoman safely up the mountain, but it was plain enough that he wished himself elsewhere now. James Melton had not come with her. He would have said that the farm, the children, and his shoe making kept him too busy for such an excursion, but I think the truth was that he did not much care what happened to her, and he was tired of dancing to her tune.

I studied her gaunt face, trying to work out what she had really come about. How would my coming back help Tom? Did she want me to tell some lie on his behalf? But perhaps there was no subtle scheme for me to divine. Ann’s only gift from fortune was her perfect face; being able to think clearly and make a plan were not skills she possessed. I thought it most likely that she missed having someone to talk to, especially now. Hardly a word ever passed between Ann and James Melton, and she could hardly expect him to care that Tom had been put in jail. To Ann, it was no use fretting unless there was someone to hear you out, and she had no woman friends, for not a soul in the settlement could abide her. She thought of no one but herself, and she cared nothing for the womanly concerns of home and children. Who among them would hear her out if she wanted to weep and wail about her lover being imprisoned? Why, nobody. But she paid me eleven cents a day to cater to her whims, and I suppose that in the end she forgot that my friendship was boughten. All along she had thought she was doing me a favor by taking me in, and now she was here asking me for the favor of coming back.

“I never bargained on being mixed up with the law, Cousin. Eleven cents a day won’t buy that.”

She frowned a little, for she wasn’t used to being denied anything. “But we’re kin, Pauline. Couldn’t you come back for my sake?”

Why do handsome folk always think you ought to be honored to do them a kindness? I didn’t owe her nothing. I just stared at her, wondering if she would ever realize that.

“Pauline, there ain’t nobody to talk to. I can’t tell James about any of this, and like as not he’d be glad to get shut of Tom anyhow. You know that none of those sanctimonious biddies in the settlement will give me the time of day. And with Tom gone…”

Ann began to weep, though she might flood the room with tears for all I cared.

“Ain’t we friends, Pauline, as well as kin? Didn’t I take you in when you was sick? And now I am most sick to death with worry over all this, and I miss you. I miss having you around.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said. “Let me get my things.” I did not agree to go because I wanted to help either Ann or Tom, or because I cared one whit for her tears and her tribulations. I went because I wanted to watch what was going to happen. I also thought that I might need to be there in order to make sure that it happened.

* * *

I went back with them, leaving the cool shade of the mountain groves for the blistering sun on the cornfields of Happy Valley, and many’s the time I cursed myself for a fool for doing it. I settled back in to doing the chores on the farm, tending the Meltons’ girls, and milking the cows, and listening to Ann fret about what would become of them.

Once she said, “Poor Dula. I wonder if he will be hung. Are you a friend of Dula? I am. Are you a friend of mine?”

I thought that worry and eating next to nothing had addled her brain, but I forced myself to smile. “Why we are of the same blood, Ann. I am more than your friend. Did I not come back with you in your time of need?”

She sprang up from her chair, and grabbed my arm. “Come with me now then. I need to see that it’s all right.”

I hung back, knowing what was in her mind. “Come on where?”

She gave me a sullen glare. “Just out to the woods. Not far from here.”

I knew what she meant, but I wouldn’t say it out loud any more than she would. Finally, I said, “You mean … to where the horse was tied up?”

She shook her head, as pale as I’ve ever seen her. “Not there. Just down the Reedy Branch Road a ways and up the ridge.”

I was tempted to ask her how she knew exactly where the horse had been, but she looked in no mood to be trifled with, so I kept on pretending I didn’t know what had happened. She strode to the door and held it open, nodding for me to come with her, but I just blinked at her, like I was slow to understand, and finally she said, “Come on! I need to make sure that the grave has not been disturbed. Animals might have dug her up.”

“But what if one of the neighbors was to see us going there and tell the searchers, Ann? What then?”

“What neighbors? My mama? Wash Anderson and his sister? They won’t think anything is amiss. They haven’t yet, have they? We’re just going out for an afternoon walk.” She tried to laugh and show that she wasn’t a bit afraid. “T’ain’t far. Come on.”

She shooed me out the door like a stray cat, without even giving me time to stir the stew pot or put on a shawl, and a minute later, we were making our way down that steep hill that leads down to the Stony Fork Road just opposite Lotty Foster’s cabin. She wasn’t out in the yard, though—drunk already, I thought as we passed her door—and I saw no one about at the Andersons’, either. The Bates’ place was as deserted as ever. I had thought we might be heading there, for the searchers had been milling around it for weeks now, and I knew they had found the horse’s rein there, but Ann did not spare a glance for the west side of the road. She trudged ahead another quarter mile or so, directing her steps toward the wooded ridge that ran alongside the Reedy Branch trace. It was down that road near a mile that the Dulas lived, and I expected her to set off following the creek down to the Dulas’ woods, but she just kept forging straight on through the field and threading her way through the weeds, heading up the ridge. She didn’t hesitate, either. She knew exactly where she was headed.

About two hundred yards past the creek and up the ridge, we had left the open fields of the valley, and now we were stumping along through the woods along the southern slope of the ridge, with Ann forging so purposefully ahead that it was plain she knew the way by heart. I was trailing along after her, dodging briars, trying to keep up with her, and hoping that if one of us trod on a rattlesnake, it would be her.

I stepped on a dead branch once, and the crack it made when it broke under my foot made my heart jump clear up to my throat. I don’t get scared the way other people do, but I can be startled, by sudden moves or loud noises, same as anybody. I was more careful after that, and not so intent on keeping up with Ann. If she wanted to show me something, she could wait for me.

We went a good ways up that ridge. I think that if it had not been high summer, I might have had a good view of the valley below, but the trees hemmed us in, making it as dark as twilight in midafternoon. The scrub oaks and pines made a canopy over the clearing, shading it from the sun. There was a bare patch underneath one of the trees, and around it the grass had been trampled down. The rest of the clearing was covered with grass or leaves, so this one bare patch caught my eye at once.

Ann stood in the middle of the clearing and looked all around her, and I could tell that she was trying to see the woods through somebody else’s eyes—the searchers, like as not. Was there anything out of place that might make them take a closer look?

“There’s newly spaded earth yonder by that bush,” I said, pointing to a bare patch of ground. “Anybody could spot that.”

She gave me a hard, unbroken stare. “What do you know about it, Pauline?”

I shrugged. “More than I care to know. Just that this is as far as our poor cousin Laura got that day. I reckon you’d know the rest, though.”

She turned away without a word, and walked over to the bare patch, which was next to a big bush at the edge of the clearing. Then she knelt down and crawled partway underneath it. I went over there, too, and I got down so I could see what she was looking at. I was more interested in watching Ann than I was in what she was investigating. After all these months of watching her laze in her bed whilst James Melton and I did all the work about the place, it was strange to see her so energetic and determined. Seeing her hunched under that bush in her brown calico dress put me in mind of a fox, trying to dig out a nest of rabbits. I reckoned Ann had already got her prey, though, though I wouldn’t have said so out loud just then. She has a fearsome temper, does Ann.

She crawled back out, dusting her hands on her skirt, and I peered down through the leaves, but there wasn’t much to see: only a line of newly spaded earth, as if someone had dug a four-foot trench and then filled it back in. The lower branches of the bush covered it well enough, if you didn’t know where to look, but we both knew that hunting dogs don’t go by the look of things. I decided not to point this out to Ann, though, for she was in a high-strung state as it was, and if I’d told her that trench might be discovered, I’ll be bound that she’d have tried to make me dig it up with my bare hands. Ann Melton never dug that grave, I thought. She may have stood by and watched the damp earth being spaded, but I could not imagine her soiling her tiny white hands with a shovel handle, nor putting forth the effort to dig a hole in the ground big enough to receive a human body. Oh, I could see her killing somebody quick enough. That fearsome temper of hers would carry her through that enterprise, but the arduous task of hauling a corpse up the ridge and concealing it under the soil—no, she would leave the spadework to someone else, and since I had not been pressed in to service to do it for her, I knew who had.

As it was, she contented herself with picking up a few handfuls of leaves and putting them down over the bare spot. She made me do the same, so I scooped up a pile of wet oak leaves that had been there all winter, and I let them fall on top of the spaded earth.

It seemed funny to think of somebody I knew and was kin to being down there, just a few inches below my fingertips. I reckon if I was to claw at the earth instead of dropping leaves on the spot, I could uncover her face and see her looking up at me.

I would like to have seen what her face looked like, after two months dead, but I had Ann to reckon with, and I knew that if I tried to dig, Ann would either collapse in a screaming heap or else pick up the nearest rock and lay me out where I stood to keep me from telling what I knew. So I contented myself with dumping another handful of leaves on the grave.

We didn’t stay much longer after that. Ann walked twice around the clearing, studying that bush from every possible angle, but she made no move to do anything more. I figured she wouldn’t. Moving the body was not to be thought of, even if her nerves could have stood it, which I doubted. We had brought no tools with us. Besides, I had yet to see Ann lift a finger to do anything.

Finally she sighed and wiped her muddy hands on her skirt. “They won’t see anything. Let’s go back.”

As I followed her out of the clearing, she turned and caught my arm, digging her nails in to my skin. “You know what’s down there, don’t you, Pauline?”

I could see there was no point in lying to her, so I just nodded.

She dug her nails deeper in to my arm. “Well, if you don’t keep your mouth shut about this, you’ll be out here, too.”

I believed her, and I resolved to be more careful of her in future. I wasn’t afraid of her—just wary, same as you’d be if you saw a snake on the path in front of you. I knew she had a temper and she was too selfish ever to be trusted, but now she had told me something she ought to have kept to herself. Now she had cause to be afraid of me, and Ann always struck out at what made her fearful. So I must be watchful.

They say that once a dog has killed chickens, you might as well shoot it, for it has got the taste of blood and will never stop killing. I didn’t think it would come to that with Ann, but I reckoned it would be easier for her if she took a notion to do it again.