The Ballad of Laurel Springs by Janet Beard

Author:Janet Beard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2021-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The headlines in the wispy Douglas County Register usually consisted of school board decisions, new business openings, house fires, and automobile accidents. But that spring, real news happened in Tates Valley. Two teenage girls were killed at a campsite on the river, just at the edge of town.

At first the sheriff’s office released scant details, which of course set everyone in town conjecturing about what had happened, their own gruesome stories filling in the blanks. Cause of death was strangulation in the case of one girl, and blunt-force head trauma in the other. They were out-of-towners, traveling together from Ohio. The most tantalizing aspect of the crime was that no one knew who did it.

Mama hadn’t picked up a paper since Daddy died, as far as I knew. But she pored over the articles about the murders with a worried look on her face. “What is this world coming to?” she would say, obviously not expecting an answer from the likes of me.

A couple days after the news broke, I took Daddy’s truck into town to buy groceries. No fewer than three of our acquaintances stopped to say hello while I was shopping, cordially asked after Mama, then quickly segued into murder gossip—the most surprising of them being old Pastor Davis, who had a theory involving a man he’d seen at last week’s late service.

“He must have been from away. I ain’t never seen him before.”

“Just because he’s a stranger doesn’t mean he’s a murderer,” I pointed out.

“The wicked often hide behind Christ.”

I politely wheeled my cart on by the reverend.

Back home, as I unloaded groceries from the back of the truck, I was surprised to hear laughter coming from the house. I hoisted a paper bag on my hip and opened the front door to see Freddy sitting across from Mama in the living room. I noticed his mandolin leaning against the fireplace.

“Hi there, Sarah. Freddy’s been entertaining me.”

He stood. “Can I give you a hand with those groceries?”

“Oh no, thanks. I got it.”

Even before I finished unloading the bags and joined them, I heard Mama singing: “She fell down on her bended knees, for mercy she did cry. ‘Oh Willy dear, don’t kill me here, I’m unprepared to die.’ She never spoke another word, I only beat her more, until the ground around me within her blood did flow.”

“Geez,” I said.

Freddy turned to me. “You know this song?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a murder ballad,” he explained.

“Yeah, I got that much.”

“It’s called ‘The Knoxville Girl.’ Some folks say it’s about my great-aunt,” said Mama, “but I’m not sure. She never even set foot in Knoxville, as far as I know.”

“Was she murdered?” asked Freddy.

“Yes. Long before I was born. She was just a girl herself.”

“That’s heavy.”

“Speaking of which, everyone at the store was talking about the murders,” I said.

“What murders?” asked Freddy.

“Have you not read the papers?!” asked Mama. “Why, it’s been on the Knoxville evening news the past three nights.”

“We don’t have a television or subscribe to any mainstream news sources.

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