Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You is rich with the music of the Southern mountains and the stories of their people. Jess Kirkman's grandmother is dying, and Jess remembers the tales she and his mother have passed down to him--a chorus of women's voices that sing and share and celebrate the common song of life. “Grounded in the gripping art of storytelling, [it] demonstrates Fred Chappell's universal appeal . . . A stirring chorale of women's voices.” ― Robert Taylor, The Boston Globe “A vibrant picture . . . Chappell describes steely, passionate women, the savory foods they cook, and the luscious landscapes they inhabit.” ― Margot Mifflin, Entertainment Weekly “An array of flavorful tales . . . a sometimes boisterous, sometimes lyrical, sometimes Gothically romantic celebration of women.” ― David Willis McCullough, The New York Times Book Review “Haunting . . . Rich, lyrical, and frequently elegiac . . . Fred Chappell has become one of our indispensable contemporary writers.” ― Greg Johnson, The Atlanta Journal/Constitution “Exuberant . . . musically written . . . Chappell here acknowledges fully and equally both the sadness and celebration and honors both, as only a gifted, fully initiated, grown-up writer can do.” ― Doris Betts, The World and I “Marvelous . . . The most affecting work of fiction about place and love . . . since A River Runs Through It .” ― Howard Frank Mosher, The Washington Post Book World Fred Chappell  is the award-winning author of more than twenty books of poetry and fiction, including I Am One of You Forever , Brighten the Corner Where You Are , and Look Back All the Green Valley . He has received many major prizes, including the Bollingen Prize in Poetry from Yale University and the Award in Literature from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He lives with his wife, Susan in Greensboro, North Carolina. Farewell, I'm Bound To Leave You By Fred Chappell Picador Copyright © 1996 Fred Chappell All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-312-16834-6 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Dedication, THE CLOCKS, The Traveling Women, The Shooting Woman, The Figuring Woman, The Silent Woman, The Fisherwoman, THE WIND WOMAN, The Madwoman, The Shining Woman, The Feistiest Woman, The Helpinest Woman, The Remembering Women, THE VOICES, Books by Fred Chappell, Praise for Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 THE CLOCKS The wind had got into the clocks and blown the hours awry. It was an unsteady wind, rising to a wail at the eaves and corners of this big brick house of my grandparents, then subsiding to insistent whispers that rustled inside the room. My father and I listened to the wind and tried to talk to each other, but it was difficult and we fell silent for long stretches, forced to attend the wind we feared so much. The room we sat in my grandmother had always referred to as the front room. There was a small black wood heater before us, its flat top handy for coffeepots and soup pans. We sat, my father and I, before this stove, which now held ashes and cinders and no fire, he in a wicker rocking chair and I in a cane-bottom straight chair. A little table where my grandmother took her frugal and often-solitary meals stood by the west wall. On our right-hand side loomed the door we were not going to open. It entered upon the long dark hall that led to the back bedroom. In that room my grandmother lay dying while my mother kept watch beside her. A doctor had been called for, but long hours had passed since my father had telephoned, choking back his sorrow and speaking in a strained, hoarse voice. Now and then he would rise to go into the kitchen, where the black tulip telephone sat on the oak cabinet, and dial again. Each time he returned, he looked grimmer. We were not allowed to be with my grandmother. My mother had given orders. "I want to be alone with her," she said. My father nodded and rubbed his eyes with his wrist. When my mother closed the door and walked down that long dark hall to the bedroom, her footsteps made a sound like she was marching for miles through a great deserted midnight warehouse. Then my father and I sat in our chairs and stared at the clocks on the mantel behind the wood heater. A tall wooden clock stood in the middle; behind gilt-filigreed glass it showed a dingy face with sharp Roman numerals and suspended below that an ornate gilt pendulum. Beside it sat a fancy clock Uncle Luden had brought from Memphis; it had four brass balls that circled below a small face, and the whole was enclosed in a spotless bell jar. There was a little dull electric clock in a black housing; my father had brought it here last week because he didn't trust the other clocks to keep good time. Then there was a large silver watch encased in a velvet box with its face open to display the hour its owner — my grandfather — had died; it always read 12:12. Only now it didn't. Now it read 2:03 or 11:00 or 6:15. T