Episode 54: Caveat Emptor

Well, hey there, family.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

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Come to the dark side.

We smell fantastic.

Old Gods of Appalachia is a horror anthology podcast and therefore may contain material

not suitable for all audiences.

So listener discretion is advised.

Somewhere in Pennsylvania.

A stern-looking woman in round gold-rimmed spectacles conferred quietly with the central figure perched upon a dais before a crowd of onlookers assembled around a vast underground chamber.

The excited chatter in the gallery had risen to a dull roar.

Folks were on their feet, pointing and whispering, some near shouting, their attention fixed either on the two women at the front of the room or on the man who was the focus of these proceedings,

who sat at one of two tables facing the five woman counsel that sat upon the dais.

A red-headed woman in a neat blue suit leaned over the table, speaking to the man in hushed tones.

Finally, the bailiff nodded respectfully to the woman cloaked in white on the dais and turned back to face the crowd.

She pounded her staff on a floor made of smooth stone, the sound echoing off the walls until the hubbub circulating through the gallery finally quieted, and the crowd resumed their seats.

Her mouth thinned into a hard line, and she drew in a deep breath.

Irritation ripped clear across her features before turning to the red-headed woman in the blue suit who stood facing her calmly.

The harbinger acknowledges your point, Miss Walker, the bailiff pronounced gravely.

You may represent the accused in these proceedings, but know this.

This tribunal will act according to our laws,

not those of your profession.

We expect you to be bound by them here as well.

DL Walker smiled and nodded serenely.

Of course.

I expected no less.

The bailiff turned to snap her fingers at one of the men uniformed in a white sash, who stepped up to speak with her briefly, then hurried to fetch another chair for the table occupied by J.T.

Fields and young Rachel Harlow.

DL smiled and thanked and lowered herself into the chair beside her new client.

In the gallery behind them, her sister Marcy shuffled through the crowd, whispering briefly to a thin, ratty-looking man in a gray tweed suit, who nodded gallantly, almost giving a little bow, as he conceded the chair directly behind the table where D.L.

sat to the esteemed elder Walker's sister.

The bailiff pounded her staff upon the stones again, three times ceremonial, and intoned, Thus we shall proceed, if it please the rock.

The speakers for the green may summon their first witness.

Hiram Cook opened a thin leather folio on the table before him.

He shuffled through the papers within briefly, rose to his feet, and then called out,

the green would like to speak with Elizabeth Meadows.

Everyone in the room turned to look as there was a brief shuffling amongst the onlookers seated in the rows nearest the front, and a thin, hatchet-faced woman made her way to the front of the room.

Judging by the lines on her face, she appeared to be quite old, though her gait was still firm enough that those lines might have been carved there more by hard living than by actual time.

She wore a yellow dress printed with dainty pink flowers and an absolutely ridiculous white hat with a netted veil adorned in bright blue jay feathers.

The official-looking man with the sash hastened to bring her a chair as well, and the woman took her seat, shooting him an incongruously flirtatious smile.

Hiram shuffled through his papers again and then addressed her.

Could you state your name and

place of residence for the rock, ma'am?

She cleared her throat and looked around the gallery.

taking in the many eyes that rested upon her.

My name is Elizabeth Joanne Meadows.

But ain't nobody ever calls me Elizabeth.

You can just call me Betty Jo, Mr.

Cook, like everybody else.

I live down on the south side of Baker's Gap, Tennessee.

Marcy Walker leaned forward from her seat in the gallery and touched her younger sister on the shoulder.

Dougie leaned back, but never took her eyes off the woman on the stand.

I know her, Marcy whispered.

Silly old thing's been around Baker's Gap for years.

Can't keep a job in a parlor house between here and Tipton.

And she's a loon, but mostly harmless these days.

What in the world is she doing here?

Dougie scribbled a few notes under the yellow legal pad on the table before her and nodded her thanks to her sister.

Meanwhile, Hiram Cook continued his questioning.

And

you have relevant testimony as to the careless and destructive behavior of Mr.

J.T.

Fields of Paradise.

Mrs.

Meadows?

It's Miss Meadows, Betty Joe corrected him.

I never did get married, never been the type to settle down, I guess.

But yes, J.T.

Fields all but destroyed my home when I was young.

He led me and my friends to dabble in dangerous workings that led to all manner of mayhem and bloodshed back in 17.

There's a whole mess of people that lost their daddies and husbands in that year.

Thanks to that old booger sitting right there.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the woman and felt his self-restraint slipping.

Before he knew it, he was on his feet.

Honey, I've seen a lot of faces in my life, and I might forget some of them, but I don't ever forget mayhem and bloodshed.

I never seen you before in my life.

The bailiff struck the floor with her staff thrice.

The accused will remain silent, or he will be silenced, she snapped.

Your lies will not save you here, Mr.

Fields.

Dougie Walker reached up and latched onto Jack's arm, pulling him back down into his chair.

Our apologies won't happen again.

To Jack, she hissed.

You stay in that chair and keep your mouth shut.

Do you understand me?

I've never seen this.

Shut it, Mr.

Fields, before you end up choking on your own tongue like your little friend over there.

If you want my help, you have to let me help you.

And that means for now, you sit still and keep quiet.

Jack subsided into fuming silence as the bailiff nodded at Hiram to resume his line of inquiry.

Please, please, Miss Miss Matterscutt, do go on.

Well, I was just a slip of a thing.

Maybe 21 or 22 when I come to Baker's Gap, Betty Joe continued.

Shoot, I guess that was in 1915 or so.

What brought you to that part of East Tennessee?

Hiram asked.

Well, at that time of my life, I was a sought-after

practitioner of the world's oldest profession,

if you catch my meaning, Betty Joe said with a wink that was about as subtle as a fart at a funeral service.

Hiram's face flushed, and he smiled indulgently.

I'm uh sure we all do, Miss Meadows, Betty Joe simpered and continued her tale.

Well, I left a parlor house over in Asheville when I found out they'd been cheating me out of about a third of my pay.

I'd been promised a room at the evening primrose down by the rail station in Baker's Gap, but when I got there the spot had already been given to another girl.

Other house right outside the gap proper wasn't a working house no more by that time.

So I was just left out in the cold.

I didn't know nobody in Tennessee, nobody that could help me anyway, but I met a woman at the train station who said there was a place I could stay for nothing more than doing some chores and pitching in.

She said it was sort of like a camp.

It was a safe place.

All women.

And if I didn't mind roughing it a little bit, it could be right nice till I got on my feet.

Did that uh

that place have a name, Miss Meadows?

Hiram asked.

Well,

as I understand it, folks gave it a lot of different names over the years, but

me and my friends just called it

the clutch.

These old roots run

to a ground so bloody

Full of broken dreams and dusty bones

They feed a tree

So dark and hungry

Where its branches split and new blood flows

The ghost of a past you thought long buried Rise a haunt the young

The shadow falls judgment comes

Tread soft my friend amongst your fellows Take your bond your word

Lest you get what you

deserve

Betty Joe Meadows

never had an easy life.

Her daddy had run to the store for a sack of flour one day and never come back,

leaving Betty Joe and her mama Esme to fend for themselves just as the century turned over.

What Esme Meadows hadn't known was that her husband was deeply in debt, having gambled their meager savings on an investment in a so-called gem mine that never turned up more than a few murky quartz crystals.

The bank took the house and everything in it.

The state took the land to build a new highway, and thus Esme found herself working in a textile mill out in the middle of North Carolina trying to make ends meet.

When that job dried up, she packed up her daughter and moved back home to the tiny community of Bald Creek in the mountains of western North Carolina to care for her ailing mother.

Ananias Vetter had been an intimidating woman in her heyday, but by the time Betty Joe met her mama's mama, she was on her deathbed and twice as scary.

Ananias Vetter was one of the foulest-mouthed, hatefulest old bitties to ever cuss out the mailman, the milkman, hell, even the preacher if he didn't deliver the gospel just right.

All the children in Bald Creek whispered that Miss Annias was a witch

or something worse.

And they weren't wrong.

Granny Vetter had a

nasty smear of a gift.

It was like the green passed her by on the way to someone more worthy and kicked dust into her eyes, leaving her with dreams and visions of things to come, but...

Only the worst things.

It was said that Anias Vetter accurately predict someone's death within a handful of days if she was mad enough at them.

Rumor had it she cursed her own husband Davis in the middle of church when he handed her the hymnal open to the wrong page, hissing what a worthless sack of dog shit he was, and how she couldn't wait for the second week in October so she could be shed of him.

Sure enough, on Wednesday, October 9th of that year, Davis Vetter lay dead as a doornail.

in the middle of the main thoroughfare over in Burnsville, felled by a spooked horse.

Poor beast had been startled by the clanging of the school bell, reared up and caved in Davis's head with one mighty wallop of its iron-clad hoof.

Nice had been back home in Bald Creek, nowhere near Davis, nor the implement of his death, whose name was Bramblebush.

So no reasonable person could pin her husband's demise on her.

And yet,

folks remembered that incident in church well enough and stepped mighty lightly around Miss Nyes from that day forth.

By the time Betty Joe and her mama had moved into the little three-room cabin where a nice vetter lay dying, the old woman was a veritable tornado of curses and foul prophecies.

In her old age, she'd suffered a stroke that had left her unable to walk or bathe herself properly.

This chore became the unpleasant duty of Betty Joe,

who would slather herself in her mama's cheap perfume to make the process bearable, a fact not missed by her grandmother.

I smell that hoar juice on you, Betty Joe.

Don't you think I don't?

She'd snarl as her granddaughter gently sponged her down.

You ain't no count, nor that slattering of a mother of your.

Ain't no wonder your daddy left.

He could see the two of you wouldn't amount to stink on shit.

Smartest thing he ever done was take to the highway, left y'all in the dust.

A cackle of unhinged glee would invariably come on the heels of these awful pronouncements.

Betty Joe endured this verbal onslaught every time the house became so ripe with the sin of the unwashed old woman that there was no other option but to get up close and personal and take on the foul task.

You ain't gonna give your mama no proper grandbabies.

I can promise you that, you stupid crown, and thank the Lord Jesus for that.

Anaya spat one day as Betty Joe brushed out her hair.

You ain't gonna be nothing but a beast in rut your whole life,

but your loins won't never bear no decent fruit.

When Granny Vedder

finally died, and Esme inherited the house and the land it sat on, Betty Jo figured her debt to the woman who'd raised her was more than paid.

She set out on her own to find work in the big city of Asheville, where, after several failed attempts at waiting tables, she found that she was quite skilled and comfortable with selling what the good Lord had given her.

She found work at a hole in the wall called Le Barage des Castores,

a fancy name for a not-so-fancy house on the French Broad River.

Most folks just called it by its English translation, the Beaver Dam.

The dam would be her home for the better part of a year before a falling out with management landed her at the train station in Baker's Gap, without a job nor a dollar, nor a friend in the world.

It was here that Betty Joe met a beautiful young woman named Dolores, who had come to Tennessee all the way from Mexico in search of work.

She had listened to Betty Joe's sad story and offered to let her come stay with her and her elder cousin.

It wasn't much, she said, but it was a warm place to sleep and they had food enough to share.

Dolores had introduced her to her cousin, a matronly older woman called Nesme, who lived with a group of other cast-off and misfit women in a snug little holler a short ways outside of the town proper.

Their cozy community featured a handful of old buildings they'd fixed up into humble living quarters, a few canvas tents, and a couple of simple lean-tos, all arranged around a central common area that held a cooking fire, clotheslines, and other implements of communal life.

Nesme had been skeptical of Betty Joe at first, but at Dolores' kind urging, allowed her to stay, provided she was willing to share Dolores' room, which suited her well enough.

The pair had become fast friends, sharing stories of their lives growing up and their hopes for the future.

Over time, Betty Joe began picking up her usual kind of work, slowly building up a small but regular clientele, and when times were lean, Dolores helped her find housekeeping and cleaning work to make ends meet.

For a while, things were good.

At one point, Betty Jo had more than enough money saved up to move out of the clutch, but

she didn't.

She had a family here.

Dolores had become like a sister, and Nesme, her adoptive mother, she had friends.

There was Miss Darla, who came all the way from the Low Country down in South Carolina, and Miss Irene from over in Cherokee, who most folks called Granny Smoker.

Franny and Tessa were two sisters from up near Tipton, whose daddy had been somebody once upon a time until he'd run afoul of the wrong people and left his daughters even worse off than Betty Joe and her mama had been.

Other women came and went.

Some just needed a safe place to stay for a night or two, while others took rooms or pitched tents and made the clutch their home for a while.

Women from town come by too sometimes.

They came to have their fortunes told or to beg or barter for a solution to one problem or another.

An inconvenient bun in the oven.

or a troublesome man who needed scent on his way.

The sort of help the women of the clutch could provide varied, but their services were all rendered with discretion.

Some of the town women were just curious, young'uns daring each other to walk out to the clutch to see if there really were witches and outsiders living in the old ruins out in that holler.

They too were welcomed with kindness,

if that sentiment was tempered with a pointed word or two about the wisdom of minding one's own business.

But regardless of who came and went, there was a feeling of community, of sisterhood.

Men never lived in the clutch, and if they felt unwelcome there, then that was as intended, though they were never outright banned.

Many came to the clutch in search of the same sort of help as the women, and occasionally one might drop by to barter for the services of Betty Joe or one of the other girls.

But all seemed to understand almost instinctively that the clutch was the domain of women.

They would come to visit and leave again quickly, and Betty Jo never even had to learn their names, because most never come back a second time.

She did remember one particular man who passed to the clutch from time to time, though a peddler.

With a single mule pulling a wagon filled with all sorts of goods from all over the country, little feller was the last of a dying breed, roaming from town to town, sharpening knives and scissors on a wheel, selling salt and lard at prices more reasonable than the local mercantile, or at whatever price he chose if there weren't no mercantile nearby.

Carried a wide assortment of cooking supplies, wild stuff you'd never think of that he said he'd get from traders and hunters out in the deep hills like bear bacon and elk jerky.

Betty Joan never liked the man

and would stay in her room whenever he came calling.

If there was some item she desperately needed, she'd give her dollar or two to Dolores to to buy it for her.

The truth was, the strange little man made her

uneasy.

He never tried to get fresh with any of the girls or anything like that, at least not that she'd ever seen.

No, it was

something else.

Something about him put Betty Joe in mind of Granny Anias and her dark prophecies.

And where did he get all the crazy stuff he sold?

Some of the items in that cart were mighty unusual.

Dolores came back laughing from one trading session with the odd little man, saying her aunt had paid him four whole dollars and read his cards for some dried deer meat, a bundle of fresh herbs and spices, and a whole mason jar of what she said was wolf grease.

Where in the world would somebody get wolf grease?

Wolves are pretty much all muscle and gristle.

How many wolves would some feller have to kill to fill a whole jar of wolf grease?

Why would she even cook with it?

When Betty Betty Joe asked these questions,

Nismia Menez just smiled and shut that jar up in her pantry where it would keep cool until she needed it.

It was that damn wolf grease that spelled the beginning of the end for Betty Joe Meadows and the little family she'd made for herself amongst the women of the clutch.

Not long after the peddler's visit, Dolores had left the clutch to cook and clean full-time for a bachelor with a sizable farm on the other side of Baker's Gap.

Before she left, she had confided to Betty Jo that she was falling in love with the man and entertained hopes that they might one day marry.

The news hadn't set well with Betty Joe.

In her profession, she'd seen men paint a girl many a glorious watercolor picture of the future in the heat of passion, but those rosy dreams rarely, if ever, saw the light of day.

Despite her misgivings, she bit her lip and wished her friend the best as she left the clutch with her little bundle of belongings one bright morning at the end of winter.

The months of Dolores' absence were long and hard for the clutch.

Nazme was suspicious of her young cousin's sudden urge to leave the little holler they had worked so hard to make a home and had pried the truth from Betty Joe's lips that Dolores had left less for work and more for love.

Naismee began to fret about her younger cousin and spent long days in her little cabin bent over a circle of mirrored black glass that she used for scrying, trying to catch some glimpse of the girl's future to ease her mind, but in this she was disappointed.

The spirit, she said, told her that Dolores was in danger.

Betty Joe tried to comfort her, but her own mind was drawn time and again to her Granny Annias' grim prognostications, and she too began to worry for her friend.

Then, fourteen months almost to the day of her departure on a bright spring morning, Dolores stumbled into the clutch, foot sore and exhausted under the burden of a belly that was heavily swollen with child.

Betty Joe stood in the center of the clutch, hanging her laundry intended to a pot of stew intended for the night's dinner.

When Dolores caught sight of her, she cried out for help.

Betty Jo was quick enough to catch her beautiful friend before she she and the child had come tumbled to the ground.

Auntie!

Nazby!

She cried out in panic, and the older woman poked her head out of the cabin.

When she saw her beloved kin return to them safe, she cried out her thanks to the Lord and then hustled to help get Dolores to her pallet in the little shack she and Betty Jo had shared, still unoccupied, awaiting her return.

The baby arrived the following day, a healthy, fat-cheeked baby boy with a shock of dark hair just like his mama's.

With mother and child settled safe and well into the loving arms of the clutch, Nazme had questioned Dolores about the child's father.

What had happened to send her young cousin fleeing home to them in obvious terror?

Tearfully, Dolores had relayed to them the whole story: how she and her employer had fallen in love and lived secretly together on the farm in an arrangement that was essentially a common-law marriage.

They had been so happy together.

And then she had fallen pregnant.

And Jubal, a good man, Dolores assured them, had insisted they make things official.

He wanted to do right by her and by his child.

So he had introduced her to his mama.

And that's where all the trouble began.

Jubal's mother, Mavis Tucker, was not so good a woman as her son was a man.

She was spiteful and controlling, and more concerned about her supposed good name than either doing right or the happiness of her children.

Her son?

Marry a servant?

And a Mexican one at that?

Oh,

she would not abide it, she had said, and she went as far as to brandish a knife at Dolores' swollen belly.

It was at that point that Dolores fled, her heart broken, but the safety of her baby paramount in her mind.

Naismey had listened to the story with apparent calm, patting her young cousin's hand and stroking her back and assuring her that all would be right in the end.

She was safe now and her life was just beginning, hers and her sons.

She should rest and not worry.

Naisme would take care of everything.

And so she did.

The women of the clutch spent a few days celebrating the birth of Dolores' son, who she named Joaquin for her father, and raining blessings down upon him and his mother.

By then, Nazeme had secured a place for Dolores far, far from there, where the child father would never find them, and the two were packed safely off to Arkansas to begin a new life with a bright future.

Betty Jo had thought that would be the end of things, but she was sorely mistaken.

Nazme Jimenez was not done with the folks who had shamed and threatened her Dolores, nor were those folks done with those women.

The women of the clutch soon learned exactly what Wolf Grease was good for.

Learned the ways of tooth and claw and the siren song of the moon.

By the end of things,

many men lay dead and the family Betty Joe had found in the clutch had scattered to the wind.

Nazme lay dead.

Granny Smoker had chosen to remain a wolf and disappeared into into the forest.

Miss Darla had fled after their battle with the witches who'd come to put a stop to all the bloodshed and Betty Joe hadn't seen her since, but hoped she was doing all right.

Tessa and Franny had enjoyed being wolves so much they had a hard time finding their human shapes again, but the nice man who'd come to the clutch with the witches had cared for them until they were able.

Betty Joe herself had returned gratefully to her human shape.

The wolf grease had started giving her visions akin to the ones Granny had suffered, and she wanted none of that, thank you very much.

She had more or less returned to life as she had known it before, eventually securing a place for herself at Evening Primrose after another girl moved on.

And she'd bounced between one house and another most of her life, eventually giving birth to a child of her own,

a daughter.

But she never really got over the loss of her friends and her home in the clutch, she confided tearfully.

In the great chamber under the mountain, Hiram Cook nodded solemnly.

Thank you, Betty Joe, he said.

Yes, quite a few of us remember hearing about the incidents down in Johnson County.

I know we all sympathize with your loss.

Betty Joe dabbed at her eyes with an old ragged handkerchief.

Thank you, Mr.

Cook.

She started to rise in her chair, but Hiram wasn't quite finished.

One more thing, Betty Joe, he said in an apologetic tone.

I I have to ask the question that I'm sure Miss Walker there is just itching to ask.

What does any of this have to do with Mr.

J.T.

Fields of Paradise?

I couldn't help notice you never mentioned him.

Betty Joe shifted uncomfortably in her hard-backed chair.

Well, I told you when that little old feller who sold Miss Nazeme the Wolf Grease would come, how he made me feel strange.

Well, it was because my gift was trying to pin down the day he was going to die, the way my granny could, And I

couldn't.

It made my head spin just being around him.

And I didn't see him again till years later when we went to do some Christmas shopping over in Paradise.

And I didn't recognize him at first.

He don't look the same.

But when my head started spinning like that again, I knew him well enough.

Betty Joe Meadows pointed a trembling finger at Jack.

It was that man right there.

He done it.

If he hadn't sold Nesby that wolf grease, we'd never have become monsters.

It's It's his fault.

I lost my home.

I lost my family.

Before Dougie could restrain him, Jack had leapt to his feet, his cheeks flushed with anger.

What a load of shit, he snapped.

I never sold that woman, nor nobody else, a damn thing that made them do anything they didn't want to do.

Y'all got a hold of some wolf grease and couldn't control the working that come with it?

Then how in six of the nine hells is that my fuck?

Jack's tirade halted in mid-sentence, and he clutched at his throat, gasping for air his eyes snapped up at the harbinger who sat with her cowled head lowered her pale hand held in a casual gesture of contempt his vision swam as he fought for breath and then the hooded woman relaxed her hand on the table and suddenly he could breathe again

As Jack dropped heavily back into his chair, he saw the bailiff step up to whisper briefly with the harbinger nodding reverently before turning to Hiram Cook.

Is there any further evidence to be had from this witness?

The bailiff asked.

Hiram Cook turned back to Betty Joe and nodded reassuringly.

She cleared her throat nervously and nodded.

Well,

there is the matter

of the children.

Well, hey there, family.

Welcome back to The Rock and the Trial of One JT Fields of Paradise.

Now, if Betty Joe's tale of woe sounds familiar to you, well, it should, as it's rooted in one of our earliest and most special tales.

And if for some reason you've never heard the story of the Wolf Sisters, I highly recommend you go check that out.

Right about

now.

Well, Wait a minute.

Let me finish talking here.

We hope everybody is keeping well and being kind to your neighbors and minding your own business where applicable.

You know, we invite you to mind a little bit of our public business by following us on all the dark altars of social media, be it walking in the sunshine of our Instagram, congregating with the family over on Facebook or Discord, or even if you're clinging to the ever-crumbling bones of the carcass of the thing that once was Twitter, but now

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You can head on over to oldgodsofappalachia.com and complete your social media ritual with ease and with joy.

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We appreciate your support over over there, even more than we can ever say, as it literally, and I mean quite literally, keeps our lights on.

And of course, here's your Every Time I See Y'all.

I say it reminder that Old Gods of Appalachia is a production of Deep Nerve Media distributed by Rusty Quill.

Today's story was written by Steve Schell and Cam Collins.

Our intro music is by Brother Land and Blood, and our outro music, Atonement, is by John Charles Dwyer.

The voice of D.L.

Walker

is Cam Collins.

Talk to you soon, family.

Talk to your real self.

The grave

is hungry.

A tongue and splits its mouth

with just

one name upon its lips

with just

one name upon its lips.

And the brance

won't bloom without its roots

The brains won't bloom without its roots

The brains won't bloom without its roots

Surely it will show the rotten truth

Family, won't you come with me into the darkness, into the sweet-smelling gloom of a dead-mooned night,

into the realm

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Look in the show notes for a link.

Come to the dark side.

We smell fantastic.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game, Day Scratches from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

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