Angels Make Their Hope Here

by Breena Clarke

  “Mr. Smoot, whereabouts are the boys? Miz Wilhelm’s son, Petrus, and your nephew, Jan. Where they gone, sir?”

  “Now, Emil, them boys is grown. They ain’t gon’ tell Miz Wilhelm and me whereabouts they going for a fine time,” Duncan said smoothly. He smiled and elicited a smile from the sheriff.

  “Where you think they went, Mr. Smoot?” Emil Branch came back at Duncan with a smile still on his lips.

  “Oh, they went to New York, of course. They crossed the line to see what pussy’s like up there,” Duncan pronounced coolly, and the young sheriff’s ears became crimson. “They’re likely to be gone awhile.”

  Ha! The old man had done it. The sheriff couldn’t continue now with his examination of the wily old codger without pursuing this unsavory conversation in front of the women. The old man had seen his embarrassment—seen his color. Is reason enough to paint your face when going for battle! These old Indian niggers know what makes a white man blush, and they know how to push him. Emil Branch fought to regain his composure.

  He should never have let the old man talk up his mama. Had Duncan seen the hungry way he’d looked at his missus? Emil Branch fumed internally. He would have to drop his inquiry for the time because he was flustered. He couldn’t escape the mountain child’s reverence for elders. Ah, old Duncan Smoot had pinned back Emil Branch’s ears! His defenses were down.

  “I hope don’t nobody else come up here lookin’ for Mr. Wilhelm, a somebody whose mama ain’t from roun’ here,” the sheriff said resignedly as he stood.

  “They wouldn’a got so far as this, Emil,” Duncan replied.

  “You ain’t meanin’ to kill lawmen, are you Mr. Smoot?”

  “You have some pie?” Duncan answered. “Dossie, bring the sheriff some pie,” he commanded. “Wrap up some eggs and a pie for the sheriff’s mama, Dossie! I’ll freshen your coffee, Sheriff Emil. You eat blueberry pie while my wife makes up the basket.” Duncan put the lawman back into his chair with a fatherly slap on his shoulder.

  Dossie exited to the henhouse. She hitched up her skirt when she got out of the sight of the men and ran about collecting eggs. She was anxious to have the sheriff gone. Here was the man who had torn her dress! Maybe he had the shawl? Though there was no direct connection between them, there was the fact that he had touched her. She was frightened of him and frightened to consider what may happen if Duncan discovered this. She put the eggs in a basket and wrapped up a blueberry pie from the safe for the sheriff’s mama.

  Despite Branch’s great annoyance and his eagerness to leave, he enjoyed the bracing cup of coffee and the pie. Here in the highlands there was a crispness to the air that embellished coffee. Of course “thiefing” the Jamaican beans when they came off canal boats guaranteed a good cup. Highland water is good, too, and good water makes good coffee. And women in the highlands could turn a handful of berries into ambrosia! The sheriff wiped his mouth and bid the women farewell with cordiality and some reluctance. He nodded to Hat, though she never lifted her eyes to his. He inclined his head at Dossie with an impressive show of courtesy.

  “Mr. Smoot, thank ye and good day, sir,” Branch said and took the basket for his mama and hitched it to his pommel.

  These mountain people—these hideouts—these residents of Russell’s Knob are a jumbled-up people, Emil Branch thought. They’re made up of whatever is thrown together in a pile. They’re the children of amalgamators. They’re the children of whites who won’t stay white and reds who won’t stay red and blacks who won’t stay black. Call them jumbles or hodgepodge people or whatever harsh moniker you can stick onto them. His own mama had come from here amongst them. Thank God his father had whitened him and raised him amongst decent, white folk. Emil Branch realized that he despised the bit of himself that connected him to Russell’s Knob, though he loved his mother. But these mountain people are audacious. They are proud. They are straight-backed fuckers.

  The sheriff rode away from Duncan Smoot’s house scratching at himself gently like a man thinking about something pretty. Emil mused lasciviously on Miz Dossie Smoot’s dark black breasts that were likely capped with delightfully darker, puckered nipples. They were sweet on the lips, he was sure. He felt his annoyance rising. She was too young to be married to that old man. “That old nigger acts like a king up in these parts—these old backward hollows where no sane white man would come,” Emil fussed to his horse.

  Emil Branch had always lived as a white, though he knew his mama was not a white woman. She was pale skinned and had come down out of the mountains to marry a lowlander white man she loved. But Duncan Smoot had pissed him. Calling up his mama’s name and saying her maiden name with a kind of possessiveness that suggested the man had known his mother very well. How dare he! But Duncan Smoot had dared—he had dared to impugn her whiteness. How dare he suggest that his mama was other than she’d been living! His mama had not denied her home. She had simply left.

  Emil Branch rode back to Paterson musing on his mama. She was never completely at a remove from her mountain beginnings, and she had sneaked and taught her son some of the ways. Running in her shadow most of the day in his earliest years, he’d learned his mountain manners. Over the years he’d become merely dutiful to the thickset, ivory-colored woman whose straight, black, ropey hair now had wisps of gray flecked throughout. Yes, she was still a very lovely woman to gaze on, though he did not see her often. Emil knew that she would raise her apron to wipe something moist from her hands at first sight of him. Her hands were always in something damp, and she always liked to dry them before touching him.

  She was glad to see him and had moist hands that she dried as he approached. She took Miz Dossie Smoot’s basket happily. She was surprised and a little thrilled to know he’d gone a mountain to speak with her People.

  “Miz Smoot. Ma’am,” Emil Branch called out when he came up behind Dossie on the next market day. Hat thought she ought to appear busy so as to seem neither concerned for her son’s whereabouts nor cognizant of her husband’s. So Hat and Dossie had set up as usual in their accustomed place. Dossie had her back to the pathway that wound behind the market area. She started at the sheriff’s voice and turned quickly and had a momentary look of alarm. She lowered her eyes as soon as she saw Emil Branch’s face. She replied in a friendly voice, “How do, Sheriff.”

  “Miz Smoot, I know you’ll never call me ought but sheriff. But just know that my name is Emil to my friends,” he said in a self-assured manner that was like Jan’s. It was because of this similar tone that Dossie felt compelled to answer, “How you do, Sheriff Emil?” Oh, she caught up her own breath and held it. She hadn’t meant to use his name. No matter that he’d asked her to. She had not meant to cross over the line and call him by his call. She halted and stepped back and looked again at her shoe tops. It was wrong for her to have said his call name and have it tossing around in her head. She wanted to shrink and go back to her duties.

  Emil Branch advanced on Dossie and lifted the market basket. He’d seen the cringing look before. In fact, it was the look he got from all the colored except the tough old birds like Duncan Smoot or the arrogant cocks like Jan Smoot and Petrus Wilhelm. Emil Branch suddenly wanted to stand up close enough to smell Miz Dossie Smoot’s body and think of touching it and then be able to recollect the smell and the touching picture for later on. He’d felt her in his grip once! It was delicious to think of it. He hadn’t meant to tear her sleeve. It was accidental, but it was a beautiful, erotic serendipity! The sound of the cloth ripping and the shocked, frightened look on her face had given him a bone. Hadn’t been for the brawl he’d have taken her in the alley right then. And, he realized, he wanted her to know it.

  “Mama was truly thankful for your eggs, Miz Smoot.” The sheriff caught sight of Mrs. Wilhelm, who looked up when she heard his voice. Her eyes did not fall to her shoes. She looked straight at him, then looked away toward the middle distance. She did not confront him, but she did not cower. Her placid stare was like her brother’s and it
acted as a caution.

  “My mama wondered if you might ’low her to buy from you. If you would be kind and put aside a basket of your eggs, I will come on market day and fetch them for her.” He again used his pleasant, reassuring voice.

  “Sir, I be happy to.” Dossie then took the basket, lined it with straw, and asked, “How many, sir?”

  “She says ten—one for each day and three for a cake on Sunday.” He laughed and again called Hat’s attention.

  “She would best take a dozen, sir, to be sure,” Dossie said, a bit overproud of her counting and reading skills and her cleverness in commerce.

  She placed twelve eggs in the basket and handed it to the sheriff. He touched his hat brim and lay ten cents onto the crate that she stood near. “Good day, Miz Smoot. Good day, Miz Wilhelm,” he said and took leave.

  At the following market day, Emil Branch did appear again with a basket to buy eggs for his mama. He was friendly. He was deferential to Hat and excessively polite toward Sally. His true attention was, without doubt, focused on Dossie.

  “How is Mr. Smoot, ma’am?” he asked, to draw her into a converse.

  But it was Hat who broke in on his plan by answering. “He is very well, sir,” she said.

  Emil Branch touched his hat brim with politeness. He put his dime on the crate when given his eggs, but he did allow his finger to brush one of Dossie’s when the basket passed between them. Did she flinch at his touch? He couldn’t be sure if it was not just simple surprise that he had breached etiquette.

  The sheriff noticed a change on the next market day. Miz Smoot and Miz Wilhelm and the young girl, Sally Vander, were accompanied by Jan Smoot. Though the young man appeared to be lounging idly at the wagon, he was watching his uncle’s wife like a guard dog. Emil Branch got tense with resentment and thought that Jan Smoot was a haughty, jumbled-up cur with tawny skin and curly hair in need of bear grease to press it down.

  He was cordial to the women and pretended to ignore that Jan was looking at him. But Jan was not deferring to him. It was that mountain pride that gave Jan Smoot the stuffing to act like a white man in the town. He figures he’s a different kind a nigger and the rules don’t apply to him! Branch mused to himself.

  In Jan’s presence, Emil Branch did not even smile at Dossie, and she did not smile at him. She only accepted the basket, counted out the eggs, nestled them safely, and handed the basket back to him. Her fingers slipped away from the basket quickly so that he could not touch them. The sheriff walked off with only a slight inclination of his head, then caught the sideways glance of Jan Smoot. He turned back to Dossie and spoke loudly. “Ma’am, my mama credits your good eggs for building her vigor. She misses the clean air of the highlands, she says. I’ll come again if you don’t mind. I will take your eggs to her.” He spoke ceremoniously, with an excess of courtliness that startled Dossie and pissed Jan.

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Dossie replied as if she were afraid of his displeasure, and he was encouraged by a spontaneous courtesy.

  “Until next week then, ma’am,” he said and tipped his hat again.

  Dossie allowed a small expression on her lips—a small jot of courtesy. Did she want his attention, he wondered. It would be much easier to seduce her if she actually did, but not requisite. He was as easily aroused by reluctance and fear in women as by willingness.

  PART FOUR

  “THE GRANDMOTHERS SAY THAT when you get your sweet soul’s delight—your one special jot of luck—it is a dossie.” Hat spoke and used her hands in a movement that seemed like throwing a powder into the air. “A dossie,” she said while flinging her fingers apart. “A dossie is an ember in the hearth that snaps and pops in among the flames and, though small, keeps the fire roaring. It’s a small, brown bird that answers your hunger. A dossie is a precious thing—a small found luck. When a man in Russell’s Knob considers himself lucky, he says he has a dossie in his pocket.” Hat smiled girlishly.

  “True?” Dossie asked in genuine wonderment. “How you think my Ooma knows this? She’s been nowhere near to here.”

  Hat stood and cupped each elbow in the palm of her hands crosswise her chest in her stance for the serious consideration of facts.

  “Well, the Grandmothers know it all. Maybe Grandmother came to her in a dream and gave her the name. We are pleased to have you. You are a found luck for the Smoots,” Hat said and smiled with satisfaction.

  Dossie. She recalled that she’d been stopped in her tracks—mired in her thoughts. She puzzled. Had Grandmother called on her Ooma in a dream? Bil and Ooma had never said a thing about Grandmother that she could recall. Can Grandmother know about them and guide them and them not know it? She’d wanted to ask Hat, Who is Grandmother? Is there a way to know her when you see her?

  Instead she asked, “Ma’am, what is a gal’s good luck called?”

  “Ah,” Hat answered. “It can also be a dossie, of course. But a good woman wants a nest, a comfort. She wants to have her children and make a nice home and build up her people. So she dresses her hair and plumps up her tits and swishes and sways about and smiles and waits patiently and, if she makes a good, sturdy weir, a pretty skimmer fish will get caught in it.” Hat chuckled and squeezed Dossie’s jaws. “A woman’s luck then is called a jimmer. You hear Honey Vander call her husband Jimmer? His given name is William.” Again Hat used her pretty hands to illustrate. She held them one atop the other and moved them over her lower self like a fat, old man coming to the dinner table.

  9

  DOSSIE RECOLLECTED THE PRETTY story that Hat had told on that day so long back. Hat had used her hands to point up a tale of luck and the Grandmothers and all such other fanciful nonsense. A dossie! Was she the lucky one or the one who brought luck for someone else? Why hadn’t she got a jimmer then? Why couldn’t she get a fulfillment? Were the gods of all the other people so dead set against the Smoots that they worked against them thriving? Was she making herself worried unnecessarily?

  Jan drew in his breath and spoke into Dossie’s breasts as if he were unable to raise his eyes to her face. “Please don’t make me do this ’cause I won’t be able to stop it if you ask. An’ I won’t be able to stop even if I hear you ask and know you mean it. I’ll keep on anyway,” he said. “You better be sure. No squealing about force later on. You better stop me now!”

  Dossie did not, of course. She had taken off her bodice and shown him what he’d come to see. She made his life complete with her hardheaded plans.

  The puzzling thing that made Jan dizzy, made him aroused, made him ashamed, was that all of the shuffling and sorting and pulling together amongst the Smoots was pushing him out of their circle, and Dossie was the root cause of all the shuffling. And now she wanted a fulfillment. She wanted him to complete her dream. All he wanted was Dossie, wanted to fill her like a Christmas stocking, wanted to eat her like a cake!

  He confronted her in the chicken yard. He came to stand before her and block her path. He moved in front of her and seemed to be pulling her into a dance. He stood the ground and would not be avoided. She was surprised at how wide Jan was. She thought of him as tall and slender like Duncan. But here he was taking up the width of the yard. When she turned away and walked into the chicken house, Jan followed.

  “What the matter, girl? You sick? You sorrowful for what?” he asked.

  “Watch yourself, Brother. I’m not your young sister no more. I’m a married woman, and I got a woman’s troubles,” Dossie answered.

  “I s’pose if you wasn’t married you’d be pleased to have your troubles,” Jan said knowingly. He brought back a feeling of camaraderie and reminded Dossie with his tone that they were friends and cousins.

  “I want it so bad!” she said with a frustrated belch that filled the chicken house with a sour scent. “Is a child. I want to give him my baby. Is the only gift I can give him. He’s got everything else. I am tryin’, Jan.” Dossie turned to face him and spoke as if they were continuing a previous confabulation.

  “I do everyt
hing he want me to do to please him. I do everything that Miz Sienna says. She has a yard full of children. She ought to know.” Dossie’s unhappiness spilled out suddenly like milk overturned and running off the edge of a table.

  “I done all,” she continued. “I feed myself secret teas and I rest myself like she said. She say that soon as the first one comes I won’t be able to stop them.” Dossie chuckled and swiped her face. “I touched her bed for luck, Jan,” she said as she turned her face up to his.

  “I want to fix myself to be like other women. If a man whispers in their ear, they are all filled up with a child! How come not for me, Jan? I am wishin’ and prayin’ for a fulfillment. I want my baby so bad. It’s like a hive of bees in my head. I am always thinkin’ and hopin’.” Dossie moved among the chickens and seemed ready to kick at them.

  “Noelle would say you must fool the ancestors. You must act like you don’t care if you’re fulfilled. She says they want to surprise you with your dreams, to take you unawares. So don’t beg ’em,” Jan said in the damnably contrary and mysterious way he shared with Noelle. He pinched Dossie’s cheek. It was the same advice that Duncan gave.

  “Aye, but she don’t have a baby herself,” Dossie came back, then regretted her snappish words when she saw Jan’s smile fade a bit.

  “That ought to tell you something.”

  “Aye?”

  “She don’t want a child. She’s got all the child she wanted with me,” Jan answered good-naturedly.

  “Miz Sienna said to hold my knees up after and let his seeds take they time to find a comfortable place. Hat says that, too. But Duncan…” Dossie stopped talking when she saw Jan’s eyes get very large with discomfort.

  “Why won’t Noelle take me to see the old women healers? Hat says they could be a help with a woman’s concerns, but it takes an anointed woman to carry you there. Noelle act like she don’t want me to go. She still dislike me because Duncan married me? Is not my fault,” Dossie said. She looked at Jan with the disingenuous, self-satisfied look of a successfully seductive girl. “Is nothing you can do to make my case with Noelle?” she appealed.