Excerpt of The Ballad Of Tom Dooley by Sharyn McCrumb

A man died bravely, doing perhaps the only noble thing he ever achieved in his brutal, useless life. Another fifty years of living would not have improved him, for he had only a minute’s worth of courage, and he spent that.

That is the burden of this story, and it would shine brighter if there were a good woman at hand with the heart and the wit to tell it well. But we have no good woman to speak out for the doomed man—only a vain and selfish ditch rose, who rightly feared for her own life, and a raddled slut who delighted in the destruction she wrought single- handed. One of those wretched women is also my client, for the pair was arrested together, and bound over to stand trial for the same crime, but I have deemed it better for all concerned that they be tried separately for this deed, and I shall ask for severance as soon as I am able.

People will tell this story for a century, though I’m damned if I know why. There’s little enough to it. No doubt they will sing about it, and spin fanciful tales, and act it out, turning all its principals into Sunday school sweethearts and black-hearted villains. It will all be nonsense. At least I remember what was real. I remember.