Granny Remembering Enna Mae

Now let me think back on Enna Mae a spell…
Lord, that girl weren’t born like the rest of us.
Came in quiet on a storm night,
wind rattlin’ the cabin and rain hittin’ the roof like God tappin’ His fingers.
Her mama said she opened her eyes wide right off,
just lookin’ around that room like she hadn’t been gone long.
That’s how she always was—
not new to this place,
just returnin’.
By the time she was big enough to wander,
she took to the ridge like she was made for it.
Most young’uns stayed near the porch,
but not her.
She’d slip out barefoot at dawn,
hair flyin’ every direction,
and walk that mountain like she was checkin’ on her property.
Didn’t matter if it was misty, snowy, or hotter than sin—
she walked it all the same.
Some said she was half-wild.
I say she was half-remembered.
There was an old white oak up top—
biggest tree this side of the county.
When she finally fell in a hard winter wind,
the whole ridge felt it in its bones.
Most folks saw a dead trunk layin’ split open.
Enna Mae walked right up to that stump like she’d been waitin’ on it.
Sat herself down, calm as you please,
hands relaxed in her lap,
like she’d taken that seat a thousand times before in another skin.
And I gotta pause here,
because this next part’s important.
There come a time when Enna Mae’s heart was heavy as wet wool.
The man she loved had sickness in him,
and fear had its claws deep in her belly.
One cold evenin’,
she packed a Mason jar with his picture,
a page of scripture her daddy wrote out for her,
and the stubs of the candles she’d burned through prayin’.

Didn’t tell nobody where she was goin’.
Just climbed that ridge in house shoes and a coat—
and if you know anything about women’s grief,
you know that ain’t strange at all.
She set that jar on the stump like she was settin’ down the sun.
Said real soft,
“This worry ain’t mine to carry no more,”
and the mountain took it.
Held it so she could go home lighter than she’d come.
That jar’s still up there, you know—
dirt clingy on the glass,
paper yellowin’,
but strong as ever.
Some things don’t weaken.
They deepen.
Now somewhere after all that,
the menfolk brought home a buck big enough to brag about.
Enna Mae walked right over to that deer,
laid her hand on its hide,
and thanked it plain.
Then she asked for the fur.
Lord, the men started stammerin’ about how hard it is to tan a hide—
scrapin’ and stretchin’ and salting—
they talked so fast they near passed out.
Enna Mae just stood there waitin’ for ‘em to finish.
When they ran out of excuses,
she said, “Fine then. Give me the tail.”
And they did.
Next mornin’ that girl stepped out of her cabin with her red hair loose
and that deer tail tied right into it like it belonged there.
It swished when she walked—
a soft little flick of the wild followin’ her every step.
Children stared.
Women blinked.
Men tipped their hats outta instinct.
And the woods…
well, the woods went quiet around her,
like they were listenin’.
One evenin’ she climbed back up to that stump altar,
sun bleedin’ down behind the ridge,
fog stretchin’ low across the ground like somethin’ alive.
She sat herself down,
that deer tail movin’ just a whisper behind her,
and let her eyes drift shut.
And that’s when he appeared—
the wild man.
Folks’d whispered about him for years,
a tall rangy thing half hid in the tree line,
more shadow than flesh,
movin’ with the quiet of a buck and the stare of a preacher.
Some said he weren’t quite human,
some said he just preferred the company of coyotes to people,
and some said he was born wrong and raised right by the woods anyway.
But that night,
he stood at the edge of the treeline
watchin’ Enna Mae sit on that stump like the mountain’d crowned her.
Didn’t move toward her,
didn’t run off—
just stood there breathin’ slow,
listenin’ to her breathe,
like two creatures recognizin’ somethin’ old in each other.
And from that night on, sugar,
the ridge had two guardians:
the Deer-Tail Woman,
and the Wild Man who watched her like she was the only sunrise he trusted.