Jan was ashamed to know what he knew, and so he thought he ought to do whatever was wanted to help Dossie. An’ Hat ought to know it and tell her. But she believed only what she cared to about her brother. Jan knew it for a fact. Jan fought inside himself to know whether it was his naked want or his feeling for fairness that agitated him. Didn’t Dossie deserve to know? Would Duncan give Dossie the truth and risk making her disappointed with him? Had Duncan got the balls to tell her about himself? Not likely. Jan wished he could be happy that Uncle had failed at some big thing at last. But he couldn’t be pleased to see Dossie torn up. He loved her so much. He wanted her to be completely happy.
And then he decided to tell her.
“He can’t do it? What you mean, Jan?” Dossie asked.
“He ain’t got what it takes,” Jan said.
“He does, too!” she retorted.
Jan got pissed then that Dossie didn’t understand. “I mean I think you can fuck him until you turn green with wear and you’ll never make a baby with him. It is hopeless, girl.”
“What you sayin’? You know this is true?”
“His seeds are bad. He is without the proper pepper,” Jan said with a fiendish chuckle. Dossie raised her hand and slapped him on his impudent jaw for the insult to her husband.
“He didn’t tell you?” Jan accepted her slap, held on to her hand, and kissed it. “Of course, he wouldn’t tell his pretty prize a thing like that.” Jan’s unruly feelings took a meaner turn. “I mean, of course a man knows things like this even if his gal don’t. Uncle’ll do anything not to seem less a man in your eyes. He knows his sauces are no good for making babies. But you’ll get a baby eventually if you’re naughty or if you take somebody’s baby from under a bush. Or you can raise a baby whose mama got killed like Noelle did.”
Dossie sucked in her wind in absolute bewilderment at Jan’s words. She hadn’t considered this. That there was this flaw, a failing? Duncan Smoot was without flaw in her mind so that her reaction was to disbelieve. But it confirmed a suspicion of her own and it explained what Hat and Noelle had whispered about. There were also whispers that Nancy Siscoe had uttered at the nuptials. When you come to understand and acknowledge a thing that changes the course of your life in your mind’s eye, you are left standing stiff with an open mouth.
“They coulda told me. They raised me,” she bleated.
“Noelle don’t give up Uncle’s secrets, and An’ Hat’s his sister. She tries to act like she don’t believe it. It was for him to tell you, little girl. You know that. It’s on account of a fever Uncle had when he came back from the mines. It left his seeds flat, though he is still much a man. He has even been to a doctor in town.” Jan’s voice began to soften. All trace of taunting was gone. “I used to dream Noelle would bring up a baby with Uncle and settle down and we all could be one little family together. I think Noelle dreamed it, too.”
“All of you know it, but you don’t tell me.” Dossie sounded folded in and greatly peeved. Sulking about it made her feel small and sadder still, for she knew she was a lucky woman. She had some ease from drudgery, and her husband was attentive. But now that she knew he couldn’t do it, she felt a crushing sense of ruined hope and a crushing responsibility to keep it secret. She couldn’t give up her husband’s secret. She must, at least, do as well as Noelle had done. She wanted to give Duncan a gift of legacy, to build a line and fill her porch with her loving accomplishments. Now she knew she would be a childless, pitiful, secretive creature!
And they all knew it! Did they laugh? Perhaps Noelle did… and Nancy Siscoe.
Jan’s peeved tone and acid words cut in on her reverie. “He has spoiled you. What makes you think loving him and marrying him would mean you was supposed to have it all the way you wanted? You still think he is a god and you’re going to be God’s wife? You want to be the mother of all God’s children?”
“Once even Noelle said it was my destiny,” Dossie said. She fingered the ties on her bodice.
“Well, she was drunk and so are you.” Jan laughed loud enough to flush birds from the trees.
Indeed Dossie was drunk with it now, her plan, her strategy. She wanted to be Duncan’s child’s mother—the one wonderful thing he couldn’t do for himself. She sat with Jan on the porch until it was no longer possible to see.
“You give me a gift, Jan,” Dossie said bluntly from out of the dark.
“Must I buy it or steal it or kill it for you? What gift you want?”
“You the only one who can do it.” The words were so completely the ones Jan would have chosen for Dossie to say that he became frightened his senses were gone off. “He will think he did it,” Dossie said.
“Why you don’t ask Pet to do you this favor?” he replied. “He’s proven.” Dossie said nothing. “Ah, but you’re thinkin’ I look like him. I’m a sure thing. You pretty hardheaded about your big plan.”
“Yes,” Dossie said with deadly quiet vehemence.
“You willin’ to lie baldly and keep up lying until you die?” Jan asked her.
“Yes,” she declared.
“Fair is fair. He never told you about being sick and unable,” Jan said, testing all of her sores. “So you got a right to lie to him.” Jan finished in a perversely amiable way that worried Dossie. “He knows he can’t do it, little girl,” he said, calling her “little girl” now to keep her his baby sis for the moment. Oh, but she was a woman he wanted to fuck with every inch of himself—to know his jasper had disappeared all the way into her. She caused him a furious itch in his leathers, and he was sure he had a baby for her. But did he dare do this to her and himself? She was such a curious one. She pretended to have a wide-eyed innocence of everything, yet she was bold enough to think up a scheme to get him to make her a baby.
She don’t give a fig for the damage it’ll do to my soul, Jan mused. Her and Noelle were troublesome women. It was just Uncle’s bad luck that he’d got them both. Too bad Uncle’s little dossie had a will and a destiny of her own.
Jan decided he would do it. Even so he knew it was not the right thing to do. To love Dossie was to pull from Uncle. That couldn’t be avoided. To choose Uncle over her was to betray her hopes and would be as if he loved her less. And he did not love her less.
And how did they know for certain that she was not Jan’s true destiny instead of Uncle’s? After all, if it was a Smoot augury, then it could be as easily his destiny. He was a Smoot, too.
And Dossie seemed unconcerned with sinning as long as she got her prize. She was so damnably self-righteous in this thing. Women think fucking is easy for men, because men are always liking to do it and want to keep at it. It ain’t so easy. And women think easy is casual anyway, but it ain’t casual either all the time. Him fucking her to make a child for Uncle could be a grand plan, but it could be a mess. Jan knew that. Duncan fucking Gin Barlow’s daughter had become a mess that had ended all chances that Noelle would take up housekeeping with Duncan. The old man had forced Jan to lie about it and keep on lying to Noelle. It was a cruelty done to a small boy who loved the woman he was betraying. So the old man was due for comeuppance—for a lie or two in the service of somebody else.
“You give me the baby, Jan, and I’ll make him believe it is a miracle. You do your part and I will make him believe it. I’m younger than Noelle,” Dossie said carefully, not wanting to rouse Jan’s defenses again. “I’m more constant than any of his other gals. I was meant for him. He says I’m a wood witch or a conjurer because I make him love me. I’ll make him believe I am a wood witch. Duncan says a wood witch is a pretty thing that comes out of a forest to snare a man.” Dossie snorted a little, intimate laugh.
“Is he chucking your chin and kissing your neck when he says this?” Jan asked impishly, with some spite for her self-satisfaction. Dossie wondered that he knew his uncle’s manner so well.
“A wood witch looks like a doe with plump sides or a rabbit the size of a dog. Sometimes she appears like a pretty, pretty woman and she will make a
man think the sun rises and sets on her face,” Dossie came back at him in a string of words that he knew to be Uncle’s own.
“In that case Uncle is right,” Jan answered seriously. “There is a wood witch operatin’ hereabouts.”
“I’ll make him believe I succeed where other women fell down,” Dossie said with a startling tone of confidence and manipulation. And there wouldn’t be a sin if she was not taking pleasure. Certainly it would be like putting the bull with the cow. Dossie resolved to cultivate thoughts to drive out any others. She decided not to say so to Jan because he might be mad if he knew that.
“You got the stuffing?” Jan asked sharply.
“Yes.”
“Is’t all for Uncle then? No itch to be naughty? No care for anybody else? No small corner in your heart for this dog, Dossie Blossom? Girl, it will take a time or two,” Jan said. “You got the stomach to keep doin’ it and foolin’ him all the while? We got to do it when he is aroun’, not when he’s gone off, you know. He is got to think it could be him.”
“Yes. I can do it,” Dossie said.
“All right. You don’ have to love me any, little sis. I love you. I want you to be happy. One of us got to be in love, though, if you want your baby to be beautiful. I’ll love enough for us both.” They exchanged smiles, and Jan left Dossie on Uncle’s porch where she belonged.
Ah, Dossie smelled so good—so desirable. Jan thought of her as a soup of flower smells. Uncle was coddling her. He was keeping her in comfort like a good wife should be kept. Even her common, everyday dress was clean and fragrant. She didn’t smell like no stable whore like Charity. What would happen to her if he took her away from Uncle? He knew he ought to do this thing to make her happy, to simply give her his gift. But what all would be let loose if he did?
10
EMIL BRANCH SAID THE day would come—that he alone would decide it. There was no choice for her if she wanted to avoid trouble. There were people who wanted to know about Duncan Smoot. They would like to know what was his true enterprise. Emil Branch knew Duncan was one who thiefed the barges and transport wagons. He knew Duncan was up to other stuff as well, and some people could profit by knowing it. He would have his way. There was no escape—no avoidance. If she screamed out… if she told on him. Go ahead and tell her husband or her cousins. Let them try to defend her honor and end with ropes around their necks. He said he knew about Owen Needham. He knew the fool had come a mountain to try to grab her back for a bounty. He knew the fool hadn’t survived his consequences.
Emil Branch had been pleasant, friendly the first time he took Dossie’s arm and led her away from her market stall. He asked her to come with him to speak with his mama. It was only a few steps, he said. He said his mama could not come out amongst the crowds at market for she was not very well. She wanted to meet the wife of Duncan Smoot. He’d said it sweetly—that his mama said this to him.
Then Emil Branch had made a lascivious sound and pushed her against the slats of a shed at back of his mama’s house. He fingered her, drawing circles around the nipples on her breasts and sticking his hands between her legs. He rubbed his hands all over her dress as if he meant to measure it for someone else or memorize the body beneath it. He smooch-kissed her neck and ears. He covered her face with his lips.
“You think because I don’ haul him in for his thieving that I don’t know he’s a thief. I know what he is. I know all about him. And I know about you and where you come from and how he got you here. I want some. I’m gonna have it. And you ain’ gon’ tell him a thing. You do, I’ll kill him. I’ll kill ’em all.”
Emil Branch sat on a barrel, smoked a cheroot, and watched the tears and gatherings from Dossie’s nose drip off her face. She saw the sappy accumulation staining his pants and was shocked that his exhausted sausage had not penetrated.
“I wonder is Duncan Smoot really your husban’—a legal husban’? Did the old nigger take you in front of a preacher or a justice of the peace? Or did he just take you behind the barn and tell you you was his wife an’ mus’ do like he say? Look like the old nigger grab up a little girl and say she is his wife ’cause he wan’ her. He ain’ got no more legal right to keep you tied to him than I do if I wan’ to. You sign any papers? Aw, a gal like you can’ do no signin’. You don’t know what man ain’t got a paper on you—sayin’ you b’long to him. You come outta slavery. I know it. You wearin’ a fine dress now, but you was once upon a time somebody’s miserable slave before he snatched you. I’ma grab you up an’ take you away with me. I’ma go west an’ take you with me for my appetite,” Emil Branch taunted her.
The next time he took Dossie away from her stall and pushed her into the shed, he accomplished a quick, sharp, painful penetration.
After this Dossie considered a pigsticker. She found a knife among the many and various ones that Duncan had. It was a more formal weapon than the cleavers and gutting knives she was familiar with. She drew it out of its sheath and familiarized herself with the way it felt. She cut herself to test it. Throughout a day of duties she stroked and handled the weapon. She ran through her mind should she or shouldn’t she and when she would do it—at what point would she chance it—thinking to be forced no further. What was the mark?
Dossie had become enmeshed so quickly. Emil Branch had grabbed her in the alley and torn her dress, but he’d seemed almost apologetic when he came to Russell’s Knob, when he came to the market stall. He’d fooled her. She’d thought she had no reason to fear him.
Take a stand with the knife. Threaten him enough that he would kill her. If he dropped her, then she could crawl and die somewheres that Duncan and ’em could find her body. Pray they make her sacred to themselves and speak of her again and again—like they do with Cissy and Lucy Smoot. And if he defiled her body pray God the skin would die away and rot quick and the bruises would disappear. Dossie promised herself that she would beg Emil Branch to leave her body in the highlands where the vultures could finish off her flesh when he has done. Then Duncan could see the unblemished bones if the merciful vultures picked her clean, and he would put them bones out next to the honored ancestors. It was a dreadful measure of Dossie’s despair that she began to think that this death and only this could bring her out of the trouble. Further and further she descended under a cascade of bad thoughts on account of Emil Branch.
This was, of course, her retribution. She hadn’t done it yet. But she had planned. She and Jan had discussed it. They had agreed that her desperate desire merited a desperate strategy. The Grandmothers were making her pay for the sin she was contemplating. Was that it?
“He got hidey-holes all aroun’ town where he kin do his dirty business in,” the pretty, plump-faced girl said when Jan paid her. Mattie Ricks, a hot-corn seller by occupation, was a member of a cadre of colored who watched goings-on on the streets of Paterson. People walked by her. Some bought her corn and butter. She noted them and could be hired to tail them.
“He likely got her in a alley behin’ Caretaker Street an’ the Market Street. His mama got a shed there. He worryin’ her? He hurtin’ her? Maybe, maybe not,” she said. Jan scowled and Mattie Ricks laughed. Ah, she was young to be so coldly convinced! But Mattie Ricks knew what she was talking about. Few colored women who made a living on the streets of the town had not had some experience of Emil Branch. He was known to use his lawman’s prerogatives for personal matters.
Dossie knew Emil Branch was dead because she was certain she would not be breathing and moving if he were alive. She took as evidence of her survival that her arm trembled, that the arm belonging to the hand that reached out and took up the knife and ran it into the man’s back trembled. The courage that powered the knife’s plunge into Emil Branch’s back was forged from the conviction that she was willing to die to stop him. She was willing to die to save Jan’s life.
When Emil Branch recovered from Jan’s surprise attack, he took a low knife fighter’s stance. His nakedness hung in defiance of all decency, and he moved at Jan.
/> Dossie grabbed up her knife that Emil Branch had thrown atop her clothes. He believed it was a sham when he stripped her and threw it aside. He considered her protests a game. A black gal will always want a white man, and every one of them wanted to be roughed up some.
Dossie closed her hand over the handle. And because she had been touching and stroking and practicing with it, it came into her hand smoothly, effortlessly.
She plunged it to the handle in Emil Branch’s kidney and, like a practiced fighter, she followed the blade’s plunge with thrusting her body behind it to sink it. She turned it in his flesh to quiet his nascent scream. But still there was screaming. She hollered out and sat back on her haunches.
Her thrust nearly finished Jan as well, though, for Emil Branch tightened his fingers as he was stabbed. For an excruciatingly long moment the three were tangled. Finally Jan was able to dislodge dead Emil Branch. He squatted.
“Cover yourself up, Dossie Bird,” Jan said very quietly. It was a startle. She flinched at his words and reached to gather her clothes.
“Steady yourself,” he commanded and gave her a pull from his flask. “Bear up,” he managed despite his squeezed throat.
Then Jan proceeded in a string of actions that unfolded as they did for recognition that every action is one more advance toward death. What had they done and what will they do with dead Emil Branch? By the time her mind had spun out the sequence of events, Jan had a plan and had set something in motion and she was borne along.
Jan cleaned up some and went to Dossie’s marketplace. He waited hidden until Hat’s attention was turned away. When she set out to look around for Dossie, Jan caught the eye of Sally Vander, the only other person to have an inkling of what was in the air. Jan drew her to the side of the wagon.
Angels Make Their Hope Here Page 17