The Ballad of the Wayfaring Stranger and the Dead Man’s Whore

By

Sean Demory

Copyright © 2012 Sean DemorySmashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License NotesThis ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the

hard work of this author.

Cover image: Photomanipulation of “Migrant Worker,”

photographed by Dorothea Lange, National Archives

Copyright © 2012 Sean DemoryAll Rights Reserved

Red Lantern

In a small, quiet house near a large, quiet graveyard, the Dead Man’s Whore puts out her red

lantern.

It’s Friday, after all. The eagle’s flying, and old habits are hard to break.

The Dead Man’s Whore looks at herself in the mirror, sees cornflower blue irises nearly

swallowed whole by eightballed pupils. She brushes rouge over blue-white cheeks, traces cold

blue lips with hot-red lipstick and smiles, baring long, strong teeth at a world that needs gnawing

every now and again.

She hasn’t aged since the haint took her. She’s gotten old and cold and stiff in that time, but she

still looks like a flower plucked in her prime.

She worries that she may never die.

In the Pines

She remembers walking through the woods in high summer. The jar flies screamed in the still,

hot air and she sang for lack of anything else to do.

She couldn’t remember where she was going or why, but she could hear the screams grow silent

as she began singing the old song. My husband was a railroad man/killed a mile and a half from

here/ His head was found in a driver’s wheel/and his body ain’t never been found.

As she walked, she felt the shadows grow sharp edges and the sunlight become muted and

powdery. She could hear slow creaking and the steady tap of hail from the woods. She jumped as

something landed on her head and fell on the path. She looked down and saw a jar fly, coated in

frost and cracked where it had fallen.

The creaking grew louder as she walked, and she could hear whispers from the branches.

She sang, because she knew not to stop. Young girl, young girl, where will you go/I’m going

where the cold wind blows/in the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine/I will shiver

the whole night through.

She heard a quiet wheeze behind her on the path, smelled old hair oil and rotting meat. She could

hear a cold, dry hand scrape over cold, dry stubble, hear it lick its lips.

“Young girl, young girl, don’t lie to me,” it said, each word landing like a shovel in wet dirt.

“Tell me, where did you sleep last night?”

And she ran.

She left the path, stumbling over twisting, exposed roots and slipping on dark, thick patches of

moss. Strangled voices from the trees shouted as she passed.

She ran deeper into the woods until she reached a tall tree next to a wide, dark creek. The tree’s

branches were heavy with bound men, heavy black shoes kicking slowly. She turned and saw the

haint, drum-tight gray skin stretching over its face in a pitiless grin, patting back its greasy hair

as it walked toward her. She looked at the river and saw bodies float by.

The haint scratched its bony, bare chest under its overalls with thick, yellow nails, looking down

at her.

“Heard you sing, my darlin’ gal,” it said. “My crops need tended, my dinner needs cooked and

my bed’s so cold, my darlin’ gal. You git on home, my darlin’ gal.”

She closed her eyes and ran toward the sound of cold water, feeling it close over her head.

She felt calm and cold as her vision dimmed and, unbidden, the words drifted through her mind.

In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine/and I shivered the whole night through.

And then she felt a strong hand grab her by the hair and drag her out of the water.

Don’t You Run

There was always work to be done.

The haint would slick back its hair with caked, rancid fat, looking itself over in a broken mirror.

It would pull on its split, stained work boots, put a gunnysack over its shoulder, tie a black

ribbon around her neck.

“I’m goin’ down the mountain,” it would say as it left. “Don’t wait up. Don’t you run.”

And, as it went down the mountain, she sang and she worked.

She sang and tended the haint’s garden of hanged men. She’d cut down the ripest ones, strip

them down, break out gold teeth and pry dollar coins from their fingers. Once she stripped the

bodies clean, she would drag them to the pit behind the haint’s weather-beaten shack and tip

them in, one by one.

She’d tried to run, the first time she’d had to tend the garden of hanged men. Screech owls shook

their heads at her and the willows whipped her back until she turned around.

Once a week, when the pit got too full, she sang and burned it down. She sat near the flames,

pushing the hanged men back in as they tried to pull themselves out. She’d learned to break their

fingers before they went into the pit so they wouldn’t grab at her clothes.

She’d tried to run, the first time she had to burn down the corpse pit. Thorns tore her arms and

legs to the bone and hail pelted her until she turned around.

She sang and tended the rocky patch near the shed, clawing twisted, blackened roots from the

ground and dusting off powdery toadstools. She sang and fed the flat-eyed, croaking chickens

and tossed scraps from the pit to the haint’s flat-headed black hog, singing as it bellowed and

rooted in the mud.

She sang and she worked. She sang “The Knoxville Girl” and “Down in a Willow Garden.” She

sang “In the Pines” and “Dark as a Dungeon.” She sang “Take the News to Mother” and “Love

Henry” and waited to hear the jar flies stop screaming, listened for the haint’s heavy footsteps as

it dragged another dead man up the mountain.

She sang as it gnawed roots and dirt at a rough table. She sang as she washed its feet in cold,

dark water pulled from a brackish well. She sang as she laid down to sleep, and as it crawled into

bed next to her.

When it put one hand lightly over her mouth and the other lightly over her throat and watched

her breathe, she stopped singing.

Breathe

She never felt warm.

She didn’t notice it at first. Clouds always hung low over the mountain, and the wind always

smelled like a cold October rainstorm. The days went from late fall to early winter and back

again, and she never saw the sun.

Her gums turned blue and her nails turned blue and she sang and worked.

She stopped bleeding.

She didn’t notice it at first, not until one of the haint’s chickens snagged her arm with a talon,

croaking and hissing its victory before she wrung its neck. The wound flapped open, weeping

sluggishly until she sewed it shut with kitchen thread.

She forgot to breathe sometimes.

She didn’t notice it at first. She’d decided to rebel in a small way, to stay silent as she tended the

haint’s garden and to stare down the screech owls. One of the dead men leered at her, licked his

lips and shook his hips and she’d tried to joke back at him but could only croak and gurgle until

she gasped down a few breaths.

She went back to the cabin as the dead men hacked and coughed mocking laughter behind her.

She hadn’t looked in the mirror since the haint had taken her. She looked at herself in the haint’s

mirror and saw her blue lips and pale blue eyes, pupils as big as dimes. She saw her pale, pale

skin, saw the rope burn where the haint’s ribbon sat. She saw the torn skin on her arm, lashed

shut with twine.

She thought about trying to scream, but she didn’t want to have to breathe.

You Got a Man at Home?

“I’m going down the mountain,” the haint said. “Don’t you wait up.”

It had stopped telling her not to run. The dead girl knew what she was, so she knew better than to

run.

The dead girl had made her peace. Afternoons, after feeding the hateful chickens and sullen hog

and burning down the corpse pit, she would sit on the porch of the haint’s weather-beaten shack

and listen to the jar flies scream while sewing dresses from scraps of dead men’s clothes. She

would float in a still, dark pond near the shack and sink to the bottom, sitting with her eyes open

for one minute, two minutes, five minutes until her heart began a lurching shuffle-step beat and

she rose, gasping for air and looking at her reflection in the water, grown pale and slightly

bloated like a dead girl fished from cold water.

Floating in the pond one long, cold afternoon, feeling her fingers go numb, the dead girl heard a

man whistling in the distance. When she was alive, the dead girl could always tell the whistling

of the men back from the mines with their paychecks still whole and the crushing earth off of

their shoulders. They sounded quick and free.

Quick and free didn't belong here.

The dead girl pulled herself free of the water. She could feel the man's warmth, smell the blood

in his veins. She wanted to crack his fingerbones open between her teeth and suck out the

marrow.

The man looked like the sun to the dead girl, dressed in a road-worn pinstripe suit and a slouch

hat with a bluejay feather in the band. His skin was very dark and his smile was wide and white.

The dead girl saw the shape of a guitar in a burlap sack that the man carried like the only real

thing in the world. She swayed in front of him, moaning low in her throat as some stray breath

slipped free.

“Afternoon, miss,” he said, still smiling as he tipped his hat. “Good day for a swim.” He looked

her up and down, eyes slowing before they came to her face. She smiled, despite herself, nodding

along with him.

The man tipped his hat back. “That's enough to brighten any day. You got a name, miss?”

She remembered to breathe. “Dead girl,” she said, letting the rest of the breath out with a hiss.

“Well, Dead Girl, I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger. You got a man at home?” The Wayfaring

Stranger smiled and ducked his head. The dead girl knew this dance, knew that it ended with one

more dead man in the pit and didn’t care. She'd take a few moments of sun and then split his

head and crack his fingers before the haint got to him. It'd be a kindness.

“Got a haint,” the dead girl said. “Haint’s down the mountain, but it’ll be back.”

The Wayfaring Stranger began to walk down the path to the haint's shack.

“I would surely appreciate a drink and a place to sit before I head back down the trail” He

winked. “I'll tell you my story, keep you company until your haint comes back.”

The Wayfaring Stranger began to sing as he walked down the path. Kiss me, mother, kiss your

darlin' he sang in a strong, sweet voice. Lay my head upon your breast/Throw your loving arms

around me/I am weary let me rest.

The dead girl sang along. Through the years you've always loved me/and my life you've tried to

save/but now I shall slumber sweetly/in a deep and lonely grave.

The Wayfaring Stranger laughed and kept singing. He left no footprints and cast no shadow. The

dead girl wasn't surprised.

Life of Leisure

“I was walking back from playing a dance,” the Wayfaring Stranger said, idly strumming the

guitar. “Had money in my pocket, liquor in my belly and a warm bed calling just down the road.

No one to share the bed with but a flea or two, but a warm bed’s hard to ignore.”

The dead girl brought the Wayfaring Stranger back to the haint’s shack. She drew some cold,

bitter water for him to drink and sat on the porch with him. She brushed her long, dark hair and

listened to the warmth in his voice.

“Got no meat that’s fit for you,” she’d told him. “Might kill a chicken for you, haint says.

Otherwise, we’ll tip you in the pit.”

“I’ll take my chances, miss,” the Wayfaring Stranger had said, taking a long drink of water and

wincing at the cold. “I’m a lucky kind of fellow.”

His hands rasped as he stroked the sides of his old, battered guitar. He’d told her the guitar’s

story, pointing to this chip where a jealous boyfriend’s straight razor had almost cut him and that

hole from some stray buckshot. She’d watched his hands, imagined the calluses crushed between

her molars and then the feel of that rough warmth on her face. She smiled a little, feeling the

warmth stagger slowly down her neck and across her shoulders.

“Life of leisure suits you, Dead Girl,” the Wayfaring Stranger said with a sly smile as he sat

down to play. “You’ve got some color in your cheeks.”

The dead girl turned away to brush her long, dark hair and smile as her blush curdled into old

bruises. The Wayfaring Stranger kept playing, looking away as the pink turned to black and

purple.

“Anyhow, I was walking,” he said. “Girl pops up from behind a tree. Sweet little thing, more

curves than a bag of snakes on a hot day, dressed tight and short and not meant for outdoors. She

crooks a finger to me, the way that sort of girl can do, and…”

Copper flashed in his hand as he drew out an old penny, worn and twisted from a freight train’s

wheels. He held the coin in his left hand and let it run up and down the strings, letting the notes

lilt and rasp, twist and turn until the dead girl could almost hear words.

“’Come on over to me, guitar man,’ she says, just like that.” The Wayfaring Stranger closed his

eyes, fingers drifting over the strings. “’You leave that guitar alone, run your fingers up and

down me. I keep you fed, keep you warm and wet. Come on over, guitar man.’”

He opened his eyes, looked at the dead girl with an eyebrow cocked. “Not often a man looks like

me gets that sort of call,” he said. “Prettier man, sure, but not a man looks like me.” The dead

girl knew that he was waiting for her to speak up. She might’ve said something when she was

alive, but it didn’t seem worth the time. He nodded, chuckled slightly and kept playing.

“Anyhow, I took a good long look at her, as you do, and I saw something.” The smooth, curving

notes became ragged and wretched, hissing and grinding against each other. “You know, that girl

didn’t have a shadow. Looked like something between a snake and a rat hiding there, cocking its

hip and crooking its claws at me.”

The Wayfaring Stranger began playing again, a walking tune that spoke to the dead girl of warm

nights under open skies.

“I keep an eye on the girl and not on the thing moving her around and I say, ‘Sorry, ma’am, but

I’ve got a wife and five children waiting for me at home. And I’m a deacon. And an Odd Fellow.

Can’t be seen with the likes of you, beg your pardon.’ And off I walked, not looking back.’”

The dead girl could feel the warm night air, hear the thing curse and fume in the trees and see

fireflies write out sigils of triumph in the night as the Wayfaring Stranger told his story. She felt

a laugh building in her, making her throat twitch and her belly flutter and she breathed in, letting

it clatter out of her mouth like stones thrown on a wood floor.

“Anyhow, I keep walking,” the Wayfaring Stranger said, the music slowing, meandering and

turning in on itself. “Didn’t look like the path I’d walked before, but I knew that I’d best keep

walking if I wanted to get anywhere near home. I hear someone playing scales up ahead. Strong.

Angry.”

He began playing up and down the neck of the guitar, notes cracking and ringing off of each

other. The dead girl listened to the jar flies scream, touched the bruises along her neck and

cheeks. I won’t break those fingers when I throw him into the pit, she thought to herself. He can

keep those hands.

The Wayfaring Stranger watched her, eyes narrowing for a second, then began to play quick,

harsh chords. “I saw a black man sitting on a burned stump. Not black like me, you understand.

Black like tar on a moonless night. Black eyes, black teeth, black hair, black tongue. Black suit,

black shirt, black ribbon tie. He’s playing a guitar the color of sweet, dark coffee and it just…

sings.”

The slide flickered in his hand again and notes began to twist and sob, making the jar flies

whisper.

“’I can see that you play, boy,’ the black man says, black smoke curling out of his mouth with

every word. ‘You come on over here, play me a song and I’ll give you this guitar here, make the

world stand up and take notice with every note. Come on over, boy.’”

The Wayfaring Stranger began playing simple, unadorned chords, listening to them drift out over

the hills. He patted the guitar idly as he played.

“Can’t lie, it sounded like a fine deal,” he said. “No more passing my hat after a barn dance and

finding a plug nickel and half a cigar. No holes in my shoes. I’d burn at the end, but I’d been told

I’d burn either way.”

The music stopped and he looked over the hills, eyes gone dim at the thought of another life. He

shrugged.

“Couldn’t leave my girl behind,” he said, tracing road dust on the side of the guitar before he

began to play. “’Sorry, sir,’ I told the black man, ‘this guitar ain’t mine. I’m just holding it for a

friend.’ And off I walked, not looking back.”

The Wayfaring Stranger flipped the flattened penny over his knuckles, listening to the jar flies

scream.

“Should’ve looked back,” he said. “Next thing I know, that guitar’s knocked my head half off

and the black man’s carving my shadow out with a jackknife. Guess he didn’t want to make that

third offer.”

The Wayfaring Stranger winced as he took another drink. He began to play a slow, stately waltz.

“I saw that black man walk this way, so I followed. Not much else to do, nowhere else to go, no

way to rest until now.” He looked at the dead girl as he began playing the melody.

My latest sun is sinking fast/my race is nearly run he sang, that strong, sweet voice quieting her

hunger. My longest trials now are past/my triumph has begun.

The dead girl began to sing along, breath coming as effortlessly as sleep after a long day’s work

and a hot dinner. Oh come, angel band/come and around me stand/oh, bear me away on your

snow white wings/to my immortal home/oh, bear me away on your snow white wings/to my

immortal home.

The jar flies stopped screaming, and she could smell rancid fat and old hair tonic.

“Haint’s back,” the dead girl gasped. “Best kill you now. It’ll be a kindness.”

“Wait.” The Wayfaring Stranger smiled at her. “Just you wait.”

Fixin’ to Hang

The dead girl felt the Wayfaring Stranger’s warm hand in hers once before he fell.

The haint came roaring up the mountain, dragging a dead man by the heel. “What sumbitch is

sittin’ on my porch?” he howled, and the hanged men gurgled and hissed in the forest behind

him. “What sumbitch is fixin’ to hang?”

Somehow, the Wayfaring Stranger calmed it down. He raised his hand, took off his hat and

began to speak, and the haint’s muscles stopped twitching. He complimented the haint on the

dead girl’s hospitality and the beauty of his land and the haint puffed up with pride. He told a

dirty joke and the haint laughed with a black-lung rattle that lasted after the laugh ended. When

the haint told the dead girl to kill a chicken for the table, she looked it in the eye and knew that

the Wayfaring Stranger would be dead before sunrise.

After the Wayfaring Stranger ate, the haint sent the dead girl to put on her good dress. She went

into the small backroom and dressed slowly in the patchwork party dress, hands lingering over

denim and black-dyed wool as she waited for a dull thud from the main room. The dead girl took

the haint’s straight razor from the top of a rough-cut dresser and hid it in a fold of her dress.

The dead girl decided that the haint would remember this day, one way or another.

When she came back to the room, the haint was sitting, eyes half-open as the Wayfaring Stranger

played a soft, mournful song. It motioned to the dead girl and she sat by its seat so it could run

long, spidery fingers through her long, dark hair.

The dead girl looked at the floor. She’d learned to wait, listening to the haint’s nails gouge

furrows in its chair and feeling its fingers scrape along her cheek. She felt its fingertips twitch

before its hand went slack and listened to the Wayfaring Stranger’s song.

Dead girl, dead girl, come away with me he sang insistently, the sound of the guitar ebbing and

flowing in the room like breath. Follow me where the sun shines bright/ Move fast, move fast,

only take what you need/Can’t keep the haint down all night.

She looked at the haint and saw its eyes rolled back, its jaw slack. She heard a quiet scrape as the

Wayfaring Stranger stood and looked up at him, saw the care in his eyes as he sang.

Saved a man bein’ rode by a hag every night/Gave a drink to the Wandering Jew/ Helped a girl

held down by the Serpent hisself/Now I come up this mountain for you. Yes, I come up this

mountain for you. And he began to walk, playing softly.

The dead girl watched him leave, saw the tears in the back of his coat where his shadow had

been carved free. She sat for a while, her head resting on the haint’s thigh. She watched the haint

twitch in its sleep like a starving dog on the hunt.

Then she stood and walked, hearing crickets in the distance and smelling the warm summer air in

the Wayfaring Stranger’s wake.

The dead girl walked through the garden of hanged men, listening to them groan and mutter in

the darkness. She walked past blackberry brambles with dark thorns, glinting in the night like

two-penny nails. She walked past her still, dark pond and saw black shapes gliding under the

water. She walked and listened, hearing a snatch of song or quiet strumming in the distance until

she saw the Wayfaring Stranger walking along a narrow path toward the river.

The clouds had parted and she could see him look back once and smile, wide and white and

relieved.

The dead girl heard something tear behind her, snapping and popping in the woods, and she

fought not to run.

The clouds closed over the moon and the jar flies screamed as the haint came for them. The dead

girl could hear strangled voices barking and slurring to each other. She could hear the haint

curse and fume, heard heavy rope snap and sing. She knew that she’d never get away if she ran.

The dead girl walked deeper into the woods, stepping over twisting roots and leaping over dark,

thick patches of moss and listened for gasping sobs, smelled sweat and blood and fear. She found

the Wayfaring Stranger crouched behind a tree, battered and muddy and gloriously alive. She sat

beside him, put one cold hand over his warm mouth and held his other hand tight, feeling his

pulse stutter and pop in his palm.

They hid in the undergrowth as the haint’s hanged men blundered through, heads flopping loose

under burlap sacks, hands reaching out to grab and catch. The dead girl saw the haint in the

distance, a low fire guttering in its palm.

“You git on home, my darlin’ gal,” it said, each word landing like a heavy strap across her

shoulders. “My crops need tended, my dinner needs cooked and my bed’s so cold, my darlin’

gal. You git on home, leave that other one to me.”

The dead girl pointed to the path and stood as the hanged men passed. She began to follow them,

dragging her feet heavily through the brush. She reached a cold hand out, blundered past one of

the hunters and kept moving, looking back to see the Wayfaring Stranger lurching behind.

She kept moving toward the river, listening to the water flowing and waiting to jump. The dead

girl heard a stumble, the sound of well-worn shoes moving quickly toward the path followed by

gurgling coughs and guttural bellows. She didn’t turn around until she saw the river, refused to

look back until she could see that deep, dark water stretch in front of her.

When the dead girl turned, she saw the haint watching her, a coal hissing in its palm. It held out

its other hand to her. She saw a group of hanged men methodically kicking something that

snapped and hissed.

“All’s forgiven,” the haint said, jaws snapping around each word. “You git on home, my darlin’

gal.”

The dead girl closed her eyes and stepped backward toward the sound of cold water.

She felt calm and cold as the water closed over her head and, unbidden, the words drifted

through her mind. Go down, go down, you Knoxville girl/With the dark and roving eyes/Go

down, go down, you Knoxville girl/I’ll never be your bride.

She floated forever, cold and quiet and alone.

And then she felt strong, warm hands grab her by the wrists and drag her out of the water.

Lonesome

The dead girl heard crickets chirping and frogs rumbling in a night filled with stars and a moon

that filled the sky with more light than she had ever seen. She remembers dark skin and a wide,

white smile that looked like the sun as the Wayfaring Stranger led her on a path past an old

willow tree.

He’d escaped, he said, with an old trick he’d learned on the road. The Wayfaring Stranger talked

fast, told her the places they’d go and the things they’d do. The dead girl felt the warm air pass

her by, smelled night-blooming flowers and saw the man’s unmarred back move down the path.

She followed, hiding the haint’s straight razor behind her back until she could put it to his neck.

The dead girl stood close to the shadow, her nose against his ear as she pressed the blade against

its throat. She could smell dust and bones and old wine from the Wayfaring Stranger’s shadow.

“Figured that haint, it might find a way to keep me around,” the shadow said. “Only way I can

move is if He’s not around. Never seems to last. “

The dead girl led the shadow to the willow tree. The shadow sat, watching her with wide eyes as

she sat down beside it, her head on its shoulder and the razor at its throat.

“Sing me a song and you can run,” the dead girl said. “It’s a beautiful night. Sing to me and I’ll

let you run.”

Kiss me, mother, kiss your darlin' the shadow sang in a soft, broken voice. Lay my head upon

your breast/Throw your loving arms around me/I am weary let me rest.

The dead girl sang along. Through the years you've always loved me/and my life you've tried to

save/but now I shall slumber sweetly/in a deep and lonely grave.

The dead girl let the shadow run. Its blood was thin and papery, and its flesh tasted like night-

blooming flowers.

She walked for months after that, never staying in one place long, listening for a clear, sweet

voice and watching for a man without a shadow. She rode with truckers and salesmen, keeping

her quiet counsel and remembering to breathe and blink at the right time and to hit hard, bite

deep and keep moving when her blood ran too cold and she needed something warm to tide her

over.

She walked and wandered until she found a small quiet house near a big, quiet graveyard and

waited, sitting at the window, brushing her long, dark hair and waiting for a friendly word or a

moment’s company.

Her first dead man watched before he bothered to speak. He stared, mouth moving silently,

slowly being eaten away by the march of time and his own memories, and he reached out to her

for an hour, not daring to touch her.

The dead girl watched the dead man and laughed for the first time since before the haint took

her. “Stop gawping and get on in here,” she said. “It’s lonesome.”

She sat with the dead man, listening to his half-forgotten stories and remembering to nod and

smile at the right times and to reach out and brush his arm at the right time. He felt old and worn,

musty like a badly-patched coat on a summer morning. He jumped up at that and ran out of the

dead girl’s small, quiet house that night.

He came back the next night, glowing with a younger man’s shy bravado. “Welcome home,

sugar,” she said, knowing what the dead man wanted to hear. “I’ve been missing you so much.”

Evening’s Trade

The Dead Man’s Whore looks out of her window, where the evening’s trade lines up. Row upon

row of the unquiet dead, waiting for a moment’s breath, a moment’s touch, a moment’s flesh.

She’s become a wealthy woman, learning the secrets of desperate dead men. Bags of cash,

passwords and forgotten promises have kept her very well.

The Dead Man’s Whore lets the memories flow through her as she opens the door to her small,

quiet house.

“Welcome home, sugar,” she says as the dead man drifts through, eyes locked on the ground and

hat in his hand. “I’ve been missing you so much.” She watches the ghost’s face light up at a lie

they both know to be false and hopes that she never dies.