Angel Thieves

by Kathi Appelt

  His face has an expression of determination, as if the very act of standing there is costing him. Several seconds pass. Where is her voice? She should tell him it’s okay, that he should go. But she cannot get her jaws or tongue to engage in this conversation. Maybe, she thinks, this is punishment for misusing Jesus.

  Right then she realizes that he has stopped rocking on his heels and toes. He reaches for her right hand, and she watches, as if in slow motion.

  There is her hand, resting between both of his, a kind of hand sandwich, which he pulls up to just underneath his chin. She feels the rough skin of his palms against the soft skin of her own. It’s as if her hand has found its natural home apart from the rest of her body, and it never, never wants to leave.

  They stand there for a full minute, her right hand pressed between both of his, just underneath his chin, where she knows her head would fit. And she prays, Don’t let go. Please don’t let go. She chants it over and over and over, just the middle—no Dear Lord, no Amen.

  At last, she takes a chance. “Stay,” she says, in her quietest voice. “Please stay.” And she realizes that she has never wanted anything ever in the whole history of Soleil Noel Broussard, including her honey bear tattoo, as much as she wants this: for him to stay.

  But then he blurts out, “It’s just that I forgot . . . I forgot . . . that I have to work on that assignment for Mrs. Franco.”

  And as soon as he put the invisible period on that sentence, capped off by the invisible quotation mark, the spell is broken. The assignment? Soleil knows exactly which assignment he is talking about, and that assignment isn’t due for another week. He is lying to her. Her cheeks blaze.

  She pulls her hand away as he rushes past her and out the doors, leaving the air in the hallway all crooked and hot, leaving her there, with the loneliest hand in the Lone Star State.

  Zorra

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  SUNDAY

  In A Field Guide to Mammals, the author said you had eyeshine golden. He said, Skins valuable as trophies; offers sport to the hunter; does little damage because of rareness.

  The metal bowl is cold in the fall night. Empty, it offers no solace. Zorra’s ribs protrude underneath her matted coat. She is too weak to clean it with her swollen tongue, swollen from lack of water. It’s true she is designed for deserts as well as the jungle, but it’s now been several days since the bowl held water, since the rain fell from the clouds.

  She is dizzy with grief, trapped in her wooden cage, trapped in the tangled roots of a hickory tree.

  Zorra, your motherland wants you back.

  Zorra, rare girl, so much damage has been done. Only fifty of your brothers and sisters, your grandmothers and grandfathers, your uncles and aunts remain at Laguna Atascosa, refuge on the border, whispering winds and saw grass. They need you.

  Zorra, come home.

  Zorra. Eyeshine golden.

  Mother River Church of God’s Blessings

  HOUSTON, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

  1845

  The dirt in Houston is a rich, dark black, shot through with sand and clay and sediment from the frequent floods. Dig down a foot and the soil is soft, perfect for planting azaleas and camellias. Dig down two feet and a layer of thick red clay will stick to the blades of your hoe or shovel. Dig some more and soon water will seep into the hole, and before you know it, what you have to show for all that digging is a hole filled with muddy black water.

  It’s why there were never any basements underneath the new citizens’ dogtrot houses. Even the wealthiest among them, who built large homes with two stories and wraparound porches, never thought to put in basements. If they did, the water would eventually trickle down the earthen sides and turn the floor to a gumbo of mud and mildew. It wasn’t worth it. No one needed a large hole filled with dirty water underneath the house.

  No, hardly ever could you find a basement in early Houston.

  But Major Bay, he knew how to dig into the hard, packed clay, how to use that clay as a barrier to the water. He knew to come at it from an angle, to make the most of the clay’s natural veins. He knew exactly how to cure lime and paste it to the sidewalls and the floor to make a hard, solid crust, knew how to set the bricks in a way that left little room for seepage.

  Major Bay built a basement.

  The Reverend Phillips blessed it.

  Miss Celia stocked it with jars of peaches and honey and pole beans.

  And candles. There were candles made of tallow. On a small shelf built into the wall, right next to the wooden steps that Major Bay built, descending from the entrance. And matches for lighting those candles? There, on the shelf beside them.

  In the corner, they spread a layer of cotton batting on the brick floor and covered it with flour sacks. And in another corner, there was a small barrel of drinking water, with a wooden ladle for dipping it out.

  If James Morgan knew there was a basement underneath Mother River Church of God’s Blessings, he’d likely take a ball-peen hammer and bust through the floor of the small, lovely chapel. If he did, all he’d find was dirt.

  But the basement was there nonetheless. Its hollow space six feet below the altar was what made Miss Celia’s piano ring out like a cathedral’s pipe organ.

  But you couldn’t get to it through the church floor, or the church door, either. Not the basement that Major Bay built. Not the basement that wore its blessing like a gown. Not the basement that Miss Celia filled with God’s gifts from her garden.

  It was ready.

  It was waiting.

  And so was the barge that would arrive in two days’ time. The Reverend Phillips and Major Bay had made the arrangements a day earlier in Harrisburg. The barge would drift up close to the banks, its deck laden with cotton bales, harvested in the hot sun of the Brazos Valley and tied fast with twine. It would float so close, it would go so slow, that say there was a person sitting on the edge of that barge’s deck, feet dangling off in the water—that person could reach right down and grab the arms of another person, if another person happened to be waiting right there in the dark, hiding amid the tangle of vines and tree roots that protruded from the banks, and then keep on going until it reached the port in Galveston, where a tall ship waited for all that cotton to take to Mexico.

  Two days. They had two days left for the barge to not stop as it drifted past, its cotton bales stacked in neat, solid rows, still smelling like the sun.

  The basement. The barge. The tall ship. All waiting.

  And the Lady too.

  • • •

  Achsah and her girls . . . where were they?

  James Morgan

  HOUSTON, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

  1845

  James Morgan could wait. Achsah had a day’s lead on him, but he had time on his side. He also had the reward money, and since he had sent his boy to paste the flyers on doorjambs and windows all up and down the rows of shops and houses along the wharves, he knew that soon enough someone would find her and the two girls.

  The reward was a handsome sum, one hundred dollars for each of the girls and fifty dollars for Achsah, all in US dollars. The girls and their mother were far more valuable than that, but he could go higher if he needed. He hadn’t become successful at what he did by giving up money he didn’t have to. He also knew that US dollars were twice as valuable in Texas as they were in the US. Three times more valuable, maybe more, especially with the high probability that Texas would join the United States soon. Very soon.

  A day ahead. That’s all they were.

  Morgan knew that as long as it didn’t rain, her scent was still fresh enough for the dogs, the “Negro dogs,” as they were called. They’d never failed him. Last time one of his field hands tried to bolt, the dogs had him cornered in less than five hours. Brutus, his big mastiff, took three fingers off as compensation, and would’ve taken his face if the man hadn’t covered it with his hands. Can’t get much work out of a man with no face.

  He had told his handler not to let that happ
en to the little girls, to keep the dogs on leashes, even though he realized that would slow them down. It was a chance he could take. He knew that his quarry—a woman and two small girls—couldn’t go that fast, even with their day’s advantage.

  “Don’t let the dogs harm them,” he had told his handler. “Or I’ll set them right back on you. Understand?” The man tipped his hat and spat a huge wad of tobacco onto the wooden plank of the hotel porch. Morgan hadn’t looked down. That was two days ago.

  Now James Morgan sat on the porch of the Hotel de Chene and stared at the busy wharves on the other side of the street. Ever since the Allen brothers had staked out this new city and named it after the president of the Republic, Sam Houston, it had exploded in growth. Thousands of new residents had arrived, primarily from the southern United States. And since the Texans had defeated Santa Anna, a significant number of those new residents were black slaves. And that suited James Morgan.

  He relied upon slave labor to work in his sugar and cotton fields, not to mention his stables and his house.

  The Captain had promised him those two girls. Mary Ann and Juba. Until the age of twenty-one, when they shall be given the status of Freewoman. He had read the will. He knew the girls were only five and three. They weren’t too young to pick cotton, they weren’t too young to scrub floors. They weren’t too young. . . .

  And besides, well before they turned twenty-one, their bellies would be filled with their own babies. He’d see to that. And then who would ever remember the will of a long-dead sea captain? Why, he doubted that he himself would remember it. And it wouldn’t take very much to buy off the court, now would it?

  Truth be told, he could probably convince the court to give him custody of Achsah herself. Who, after all, would vouch for her? And besides, it wasn’t good policy, was it, to set a Negro free just because she was the mother of your children. Thinking about it, he nearly started laughing. That would be rich, wouldn’t it? Three for the price of two.

  He swirled the liquor in his glass, lifted it to his nose and breathed it in.

  He wiped his forehead with a clean white handkerchief and took a deep sip of whiskey, imported from Tennessee where he was born, and waited while it burned its way down his gullet. It was a far way from that rocky terrain to this flat, swampy plain. If his wife, with her sour face, had her way, they’d go back there. Every day he half expected her to pack up her belongings and leave.

  And every day, he wished she would. But she had remained loyal to him, and that meant something to James Morgan. On the rare occasions when she smiled, he confessed that she was a handsome woman. She also set a fine table, which impressed the other gentry, along with the officers of the fledgling government. His status required an acceptable marriage. Mrs. Morgan gave him that.

  He realized that he needed her. But that didn’t mean that he liked her, nor did he like her company. And even though, technically, the Captain had given Achsah’s girls to her, not him, he also knew that she wouldn’t care who they served.

  He wiped his face with the handkerchief again and raised his glass to the “Negro dogs,” especially Brutus. “Don’t eat their fingers, you stupid cur!” Then he threw the whiskey back in a single gulp and waited for its slow burn to shave off the last edges of his heart.

  Achsah

  HOUSTON, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

  1845

  The predawn air was still, the bayou like glass. Achsah clung to her burning-up girl, her Mary Ann, held her tight against her chest. Beside her, Juba gripped her skirt. Soon the sun would uncover them. They had been on the go since just after midnight by Achsah’s reckoning. There was a sliver of moon that urged them on, step after step, until at last, the river haints cried, Stop! So she did, and that’s when she saw her: the Lady. Glowing in the early grayness of dawn, just at the top of the banks. And there, right in front of them, embedded in the bank, the wooden steps that would take them right to her.

  Achsah resisted the urge to cry out. Even in the pale light, the Lady was so beautiful. Was she an angel? Achsah didn’t have much truck with angels, but if she had, the statue in front of her might be one. She blinked hard to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

  Achsah pushed Juba ahead of her up the steps, and once on the top, gripped the back of Mary Ann’s head and gently lowered her to the ground, still under the cover of the shrubbery and vines that lined the edge of the churchyard. Every muscle in her body screamed from carrying her daughter over the last couple of miles, miles that had felt interminable, miles that took them through the soft mud of the bayou’s banks, mud that sucked at her feet, pulled on her legs, soaked the bottom of her skirt and made it feel as heavy as the girl in her arms. The relief of setting her down was enormous, and for a second, she felt as light as the morning air.

  She patted Mary Ann’s swollen face, wiped the sweat off it with the hem of her sodden skirt. Juba crumpled on the ground beside her. Exhaustion crawled up Achsah’s spine and down her arms. But she could not let it overcome her.

  Looking at the statue, Achsah knew she had found her destination at last, knew that this was the right place. Now all she had to do was to figure out how the Lady was supposed to help her. She looked at her through the curtain of vines. Only a few yards to the left of the statue was the small chapel. Achsah didn’t think that the chapel was where she should go. The trackers would expect that, would expect her to seek refuge in a church. It would be the first place they’d look.

  So she scanned the churchyard, noticed the large pecan trees, the stately pines, noticed the open grounds that surrounded the statue. It seemed like the whole area was uncovered, unsheltered. She couldn’t detect anything that resembled a hiding place. She could also see that the church itself sat so low that she was sure there was no crawl space underneath it.

  She sat down hard on the ground next to the girls, pulled up her knees, and rested her head on them. If she weren’t so tired, she knew she’d break into tears.

  But she also knew that there was no time for crying. They had come too long and too hard, and she had to find help for Mary Ann soon, very soon.

  She raised her head and stared hard at the Lady. The statue glowed in the gathering light. It had taken them three long days and nights, with little food and sleep, to make their circuitous way to this spot. They had avoided the gators and the snakes, they had been fodder for a thousand biting mosquitoes. Every inch of her body hurt. Her skin was raw from the insects that had chewed on her. Her mouth was bone-dry from breathing so hard while she carried Mary Ann. She could not have come this far, only to fail because she couldn’t see what she was supposed to see. She had memorized the instructions passed to her, slave to slave, from Major Bay, but they only got her to the statue. They didn’t tell her what to do once she found it.

  Achsah!

  She cocked her ears. The river haints, the ones that had slid beside them through the water all along the way, rose into the air.

  Achsah, they sang. Hurry!

  She wanted to hurry, knew that as soon as the sun cracked the sky, the hounds would resume their howling trail. Time was slipping away, but where? Where was she supposed to go? She knew she could not just fall at the feet of the statue, not out in the wide open like that.

  At once, anger rose up her neck, a bright heat that surged into her cheeks and forehead and through the top of her skull. One daughter was burning up on the ground beside her. The other was crumpled down in a heap, weary to the bone.

  She wanted to run up to the Lady and shove her. She wanted to take something hard, maybe a hammer, and smash her to bits, to watch her slump on the ground like her quiet Juba.

  Instead, she pushed the vine aside again and stared at her. Hard. The Lady’s body was turned in a particular direction, as if she was squarely facing the front of the church. Was that a bluff? It seemed so. The church didn’t offer any solution. So she followed the curve of the Lady’s outstretched hand, her palm up. Was she making an offering? It seemed she was facing one way, yet pulled i
n another.

  When Achsah looked down, she saw that the arm that was not outstretched hung by her side in a fist, as if she were holding something. Instinctively Achsah patted her pocket. The tiny figurine was still there. She took a deep breath and stood up, and that was when she saw what she was supposed to see. The Lady’s head was tilted so that her face nodded toward a copse of shrubs, just to the side and behind the building. At once, Achsah knew where to go. The Lady could not have been clearer if she had spoken out loud.

  Quickly Achsah gathered Mary Ann back up, limp and heavy and hot. She pulled on Juba’s arm and whispered, “Run, baby. Run.” And like that, she flew to the opposite side of the churchyard, as fast as she could, the vanishing stars tracing their steps. With Mary Ann in her arms and Juba holding on to her skirt, she hurried to the hidden brush arbor, cloaked in wild roses and yaupon bushes and stinging dewberry vines, paused only long enough to see the thin stream of light from the opening, hardly large enough for a woman and two little girls to step through. There, in front of them, barely distinguishable from the ground itself, a door. Achsah laid Mary Ann down again and pulled on it. As soon as she did, she saw the wooden steps, and right beside them on a shelf, a candle, glowing in the darkness.

  Achsah, sang the river haints. Achsah!

  But she paid them no mind. For in that moment, she and her little girls were safe. Safe in Major Bay’s basement, blessings all around.

  Buffalo Bayou

  HOUSTON

  She has always been a nursery for sun perch and bullfrogs and river rats and dragonflies and mosquitoes. But her favorite? Alligators.

  At her most toxic, during the years when she served as a sewer for the city, when she was filled with runoff from the sawmills and breweries and cotton gins, when boats emptied their bilges into her silty bed, even then, she has raised alligators.