Oral History (9781101565612) by Lee Smith

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.
    â€œAlmarine 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.
    â€œTake 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.
    â€œNow 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