The Summer of Blind Joe Death

an Appalachian haint tale

This story first appeared in Protectors: Stories to Benefit PROTECT, my anthology to support The National Association to Protect Children. I wrote it as a homage to both the American roots music revivalist John Fahey and to author Manly Wade Wellman, who wrote the John the Balladeer tales that evoked Appalachian folklore.

The Summer of Blind Joe Death

The worst summer I remember was when I turned nine years old, and Blind Joe Death came through the holler, strumming a silver-stringed guitar made from a baby’s coffin.

We’d lost my Paw in the mine collapse the year prior, which put me in charge of putting meat on the table. That morning I lit out with Paw’s varmint rifle on my shoulder, and Shuck, my blue tick coonhound, by my side. It was a great day to be a boy, with the sun fighting through the leaves, and the birds singing their hearts out, and three fox squirrels in my tow sack.

I thought any day in the woods with Shuck was a great one, but I was about to learn otherwise.

I’d met my best friend, Red Collins, at the swimming hole, and we walked home together along the mountain road.

“You want to look for arrowheads before supper?” I asked.

“Sure, long as I get my chores done,” Red said. “I’d like that fine.”

Red was about as lanky and freckled as a daddy longlegs with the measles His left eye had a gray shadow of a goose egg underneath. I didn’t ask about it. I knew where he got those from.

We dodged a coal truck barreling down the mountain, and the ground trembled long after it passed, like a hungry man’s belly. Last year, it had swallowed my Paw whole. I imagined him still trapped down there sometimes, swinging a pick to dig his way out.

As we neared the crossroads, Shuck whimpered deep in his throat, and wouldn’t budge.

“What’s got into you, boy?”

Red stared up the road. “You believe in haints, Wade?”

“Never seen one,” I told him, “but that don’t mean they ain’t there.”

The woods in Shockey’s Hollow are dark and thick, and the old folk tell of ghost Injuns leering through the trees. My Grandma told tales of the Wendigo, so hungry and skinny you can only see it from the side, and the Behinder, that no one’s ever seen and lived. When I was deep in the woods, the Behinder, or something like it, would make the hairs raise on my neck.

I had that feeling then, and my feet would neither walk forward, or run away. I was thinking maybe to panic, when we heard a well-deep voice on top of strings that tingled like a pocketful of silver dimes. I couldn’t place where it came from, like the singer was trapped down in the mine with my Paw and his crew.

The sun is on fire, and the moon is a liar

But darling I’ll tell you one thing that is true

Wherever I wander and wherever I roam

The smile on your face is what I’ll call home

Red and me sat as dumb as two coal buckets as the guitar player rounded the corner. He looked like a scarecrow that had hopped off his cross, looking to eat a few ears of corn himself. He wore a shapeless hat mashed on his head, dusty boots and an ice-blue pair of overalls, worn threadbare at the elbows and knees. He picked a square, black guitar that hung from his shoulder on a leather strap. His fingers danced on the bright silver strings.

“Good afternoon, boys,” the singer said. He wore spectacles with smoked lenses, and looked pale as death eating a cracker.

“You play fierce pretty,” I said.

“Reckon I’ve been playing long enough that if I didn’t, I should hang myself and be done with it,” he replied, and a smile full of small grayed teeth spread across his face. “Name’s Joe.”

“That’s Blind Joe Death,” Red whispered, and froze.

“That’s what they call me,” Joe said, and scratched Shuck’s ears. “Once, it was just plain Joe. Then Blind Joe, when I lost my sight.”

“Why don’t you wear an eye patch, like a pirate?” Red asked.

“I’d have to wear two of ‘em,” Joe said. “I’d look right foolish, don’t you think? And I can see some, when the sun’s down. I usually walk at night.”

“Ain’t you scared of haints and such?” Red asked.

Joe held up his guitar by the neck. “My playing must frighten haint and beast alike, for I’ve never met nothing in the dark that’s scarier than what hides in the light.”

The thought of him strumming his guitar in the nighttime gave me a shiver. Shuck nudged my side, and kept his head low.

“It’s all right, boy,” I said, and rubbed Shuck’s neck.

Joe tilted his head and let the sun hit his face, blue veins showing through the skin. “You boys know anyone who might trade the listen of the old music for a little supper?”

“My Maw’s making Brunswick stew, Mister uh, Death,” Red said.

“Just Joe,” he said. “And what should I call my new benefactors?”

“I’m Wade, sir,” I said.

“My name’s Asa Junior, but everyone calls me Red.”

“That’s all right, Red.” Joe said, strumming up a tune. “My name’s Joseph, but everyone calls me Blind Joe Death.”

He followed us home and played “Frog, He Went A-Courting,” with Shuck howling tenor to his bass. “That’s some fine accompaniment,” Joe said. “What do you call this pup?”

“That’s Shuck, my hound dog.”

“Best dog in the holler,” Red said.

Joe strummed as he talked, answering the birds that chattered in the pines. “He wouldn’t be named after Old Black Shuck, would he?” he said.

“Yup,” I said. “My Grams taught me about Old Shuck.”

Joe picked low notes, and his dirge shivered my backbone.

Old Black Shuck, the charnel hound,

don’t be howling at my door.

I left a plate of meat and bone,

to keep you on the moor.

Shuck whined and tugged at my pants again.

“He finds that tune too familiar.” Joe laughed, and resumed his livelier picking. “Reckon I could set with your grandmother after supper? The old folks know the old music.”

I looked down at my shoes, as we walked. “She’s done gone to the other side.”

“Sorry to hear that, Wade. Reckon I’ll set with her soon enough.”

Grams would rock her chair and gum her clay pipe, and her eyes would go far away. “Old Shuck roams the mist between our world and the next. He’s big as a pony, and black as a starless night. With two eyes of yellow fire, and a howl that turns a brave man’s legs to water.” She poked my arm with her pipe stem. “Whether your time’s come or not, if you hear Black Shuck bark three times, you don’t see the sun in the morning.”

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