“You know lyin’ is wrong, little girl?” he asked in his boyishly sweet, friendly manner.
“Sir, I’ma youth, but I ain’t no baby. I kin tell a lie for good purpose,” Sally answered.
“Tell Miz Wilhelm that Miz Dossie had to go off to do a thing ’cause my uncle call her. Tell Miz Wilhelm you mus’ ride wid her ’cause Miz Dossie have to take a wagonload for my uncle and me.”
“Yes,” Sally said.
“Stand up now, Sally, an’ help us,” Jan urged her. “Don’t speak about nothing else. Whatever you seen down at the market—or heard—don’t talk about it. If you love Miz Dossie, don’t tell nobody, not even your mama!” Sally nodded assent. Yes, she loved Miz Dossie and she saw Sheriff Emil strong-arm her.
“Can you handle the donkey and the wagon?”
“Yes,” Sally said emphatically.
“Take them into the alley behind the market. Drive slow and steady and casual. Then stop, get down, and go on back and get a ride with Miz Hat.” Jan put two fingers across Sally Vander’s lips, and she pursed her lips and kissed back at his fingers knowing that it was forward of her to do so. “Keep our secret.”
“Yes,” Sally answered.
On market day there is much movement in the hills—wagons on every road and thoroughfare. Like a swarm of bees the market women from Russell’s Knob coalesce at market day’s end. Their wagons are thick on the roads home. Sally was successful at her lies. Seated beside Miz Wilhelm, she was appropriately quiet. In a not-altogether-chaste dream, she cherished and built upon her pact with Jan in her imagination.
Jan wrung what help he could from Dossie. They put the sheriff’s body in the wagon and concealed him under straw and burlap and unsold eggs. They waited for the factories’ shift change and rode out of Paterson under cover of grim-faced exhaustion and drunken frivolity. They escaped town and took the body to the burial place.
At the grave site, Dossie was transfixed. “There’s more to killin’ a man than just killin’ him,” Jan said with little visible emotion other than weariness. It followed steps. Jan was systematic, and it was shocking to Dossie that he was so practiced at burying.
She watched Jan’s movements and responded only when he called for her attention. It felt as if all of her had poured into the knife thrust. All of her yeast was gone. All that was in her vitals had been vomited or drained away. There was a painful radiation of muscle spasms in her thighs. Her legs were soupy. She had lunged onto Branch’s back when he left off pounding her and turned to killing Jan. He had been pounding himself between her thighs. His jasper was rigid and voluminous when he taunted her, then shrunk, then bloomed again and discharged while he slammed it into her. He grabbed her neck, and she thought he’d wring it like a chicken’s. He grabbed her breasts and mashed them and tore at them with ferocity that caused her such pain she was on the lip of unconsciousness when Jan hit him.
Dossie had imagined dying—being killed by Emil Branch. Her own death was the only outcome she’d figured on. She never thought she would kill Emil Branch. She’d only imagined that it would be herself dropping to the ground dead at Emil Branch’s feet at the spot of greatest impact with his fists, his gun, his hammer, his own knife, or his belt or a rope in his throttling hands. She only saw pictured a murderous impact that would crush her like an insect. Ah, people make all sorts of plans and pacts in their head—plans to die and pacts to kill if this or that line is crossed! But juices overwhelm these schemes and dreams and ideas. The unavoidable, blood-boiling, stomach-churning physical reactions and uncontrollable sauces of emotion change everything.
Jan put Emil Branch in a hole on top of Gideon Smoot, one of Lucy’s grandchildren. Buried years ago, Gideon had already been joined by a bounty agent. Jan performed the work on the sheriff’s body with the determination Dossie was accustomed to seeing from him and Duncan when they were about the duties of hunting and fishing and keeping their hides and traps. Jan was quiet and keen, careful, slow moving, and precise. There was no reason to be superstitious about it. Rebellious, flinty, confrontational Gideon Smoot was likely laughing, pleased to accommodate a somebody that had needed killing. Gone was gone. What bones were left to mingle were mingling in the grave just like the souls attached to them were mingling in the great stewpot of the hereafter.
Jan drank some whiskey when he was done. He emptied his flask over Gideon’s grave. He sang and he traced steps with his toes and floated his arms out beside his body and whirled and turned. Dossie thought of that first night she had listened to him dancing and cavorting.
When they reached home at last, Jan lifted Dossie to the ground gingerly. She became warm and nauseated at the sight of Duncan sitting on the top step of the porch. Why was he here? Dossie slipped through Jan’s hands onto the ground and her guts heaved up.
Duncan let out a sound that was only partially formed as the word “what.” He roared at the sight of her and rushed off the steps and covered the yard at a run.
“Duncan, you my god,” she said in a wispy voice when he lifted her. He carried her into the house and laid her on her bed. He brought a cool, wet towel to her forehead and wiped her face without asking to know what had happened.
“Jan, gwan and get Noelle and get Hat to come,” Duncan ordered without noticing his nephew’s wounds.
Dossie roused at the words and cried out, “No! Don’t call nobody to come. I take care of this myself. Bring me a tub of water.”
“What happen? Y’all took a tumble on the road—a bad spill?” Duncan spoke to Dossie in a soft, solicitous voice, then turned and shouted at Jan, “Boy, do like I say and get Hat and Noelle!”
“No! No!” Dossie cried again. “I ’on’t wan’ nobody to see me.”
“We mus’ get somebody. I fear you need some fixin’, girl. You fell down in the yard. You got knocks and bruises on you, girl. Gwan an’ fetch a doctor, Jan,” Duncan said. “Go in town and get a doctor!”
“No!” both Jan and Dossie shouted. “There is more to this thing here, Uncle,” Jan continued. “Let’s us leave her to fix herself. Let’s us talk about it.”
“What happen here, boy?” Duncan shouted. “You bring my wife back here bleedin’ and broke up. What happen?”
“Was Emil Branch. We kilt him. She’s in one piece, but we got trouble, Uncle. Emil Branch was attackin’ Dossie and she kilt him,” Jan squeezed out the words with great effort. Only then did Duncan see the thick red bands around Jan’s neck, his bruised eyes, and the gash at his hairline.
Jan propped himself unsteadily against the doorjamb.
“Son, what you talkin’…?” Duncan’s words trailed off as Jan slid toward the floor.
Duncan took his nephew under the arms and supported him. He’d heard his own voice call the young man by his baby name. It was a visceral response to the sight of his welts and his faint, and Duncan brought him to a chair and sat him in it. He poured a mug of ale to revive Jan and get the story.
“Son, what happen to y’all?” Duncan asked in a coaxing, paternal voice.
Jan gave forth the story painfully, haltingly. When it all had come out, neither could speak.
Duncan sat in the rocking chair and sawed back and forth on the floor, emitting deep grunts. Then he leaped up suddenly and stood with his fists poised.
“I ain’t help her. I open the door for that bastard. I knew his mama and I bragged on it. I didn’t think what I was sayin’. I made a enemy of him and he made my Dossie pay. I’m gonna dig him up and take off his balls and burn ’em, Jan. Then I’ma go down to Paterson and spoil his wife some.”
“No, Uncle. Stop that talk! Dossie already paid him full. We better be smart, or she’ll swing.”
“He ain’t been paid full for what he done!” Duncan’s voice sounded like the wavering cry of a sheep and it unsettled Jan. “A woman got a right to kill a beast attacking her!”
“Colored woman ain’t got that right, Uncle—not ’mongst the whites. Colored woman ain’t got the right to kill a white man no mat
ter what he do to her. You know that. Emil Branch was a lawman besides. They’ll show you a colored woman swingin’ from a tree as easily as any man!” Jan said bitterly. “Her an’ me and you, too. She’ll hang and so will all of us if they catch us!”
“Now Dossie got a killin’ on her soul, what she gonna do? What she gonna do, Jan? She mus’ been so scared. My min’ ain’t clear. Help me, son. Help me, Jan. Help me to take care of my Dossie!”
Jan looked at his uncle and was surprised. Duncan Smoot was unhinged. All throughout the proceedings since Emil Branch had died Jan had been musing that what he must do was bring Dossie to Uncle, and Uncle would grab them both up and know how to turn away the rest of the world. Duncan was the heart of their refuge. Jan had spurred Dossie and kept her from fainting by saying that they would soon get home and that Duncan would be at home and all would be well. But she’d got sick at the sight of him.
In the past Jan had wanted to set the old man back on his heels. But he studied him now in silence. A man so accustomed to venting anger and meting out punishments is now shaking with indecision?
“The harm was done to her, old man,” Jan said sharply. “Dossie’s not no lamp on the mantel that the sheriff knocked to the floor and broke.” His voice was sober and angry.
Duncan looked up at his nephew like an inquisitive child. “You think God is punishin’ me for what I done?”
“I hope there ain’t no God that cares so much for you, old man, that he’d let this happen to her.”
“I wanna talk to Noelle and find out what the Afric gods got to say ’bout this.”
“Uncle, it’s late in the day for bringin’ up religion and spells and such,” Jan chided.
“Get Noelle! Get Hattie! We got to get her some help!” Duncan cried.
“You got to be quiet some, Uncle,” Jan said in a cool voice. “We got to think about what’s been done and who ought to know about it—for they own protection. Your wife killed a white man, an’ we don’ wan’ her to hang.”
Suddenly Duncan honed his attention on his nephew as if only then questioning some facts of the events. “How come you ain’t stop him, Jan? Why you let it fall to her? You been followin’ her, been watching her. How come you didn’t kill Emil Branch when he was rapin’ my wife?”
Jan had expected the onslaught. He’d raked himself over coals to explain why he hadn’t he come up quicker. Why hadn’t he knifed Emil Branch?
But he’d lapsed in his watching and, when Sally Vander said the sheriff had come by, he went to find the shed that Mattie Ricks had told him about. When he reached it and heard Dossie’s screams, there was one long moment when he couldn’t see where she was. He heard her cries. She was beneath the man and obscured by him. Branch might have been holding her with a gun or a noose about her neck. Jan had hesitated only so much as that moment. Then he’d picked up a post with a nail in it and slammed it into Branch’s back. Branch roared and turned to face him and was upon him quickly. They mostly grappled and tried to subdue each other. Jan couldn’t catch hold of his naked opponent as his skin was slick with sweat. Branch had hold of him tightly, though, and began closing his hands around Jan’s neck, putting him in a perfect lock and throttle and cutting off his air.
“I set out to kill him, but he bested me,” Jan confessed to Duncan. “She killed him to save me, not herself. She put her soul in jeopardy for me. I won’t let her swing for it.”
“What you sayin’, boy?” Duncan flared indignantly, and Jan stood toe to toe with him. He wanted to hit somebody. Jan saw that and understood it. But Jan knew he would not allow it. Duncan would have to rein himself this time. He would have to hold himself back because of Dossie. She had borne the harm! It was for her to raise her voice and scream and make vows. She had been raped, she had killed the man, and she was shaken.
Duncan quieted. He sat down and slumped in his chair. He held his head down, bent forward.
“Husban’,” Dossie said when she rose the next day. At the sound of her voice both men’s hearts came alive with hope. She stood in the doorway, and her woolly hair was every which way on her head from lying down and tossing. “I did not do it willin’, husban’,” she said. The words tumbled fast. Her eyes filled up with water when Duncan touched her cheek. There was a quality of ghostliness in her expression. “I was scared that man could hurt you.”
Duncan placed his finger over her lips to seal them. “Hush, girl. Hush, Dossie, don’ say nothin’. Nobody blame you! You must know it!”
Duncan and Dossie sat at their table and ate hoecakes. For all of their travail, they looked like childhood sweethearts. Duncan held a cake to Dossie’s lips and she smiled and bit into it to please him.
Jan sat on the porch and considered what they’d tell the others—An’ Hat, Pet, and Noelle. They would have to know what had happened and would have to be part of a solution.
Later in the morning, Jan went out to the chicken house to take care of Dossie’s birds and her dog. There was agitation in the animals because they had not seen their mistress. They were noisy.
“Mr. Jan, Mr. Jan,” Sally Vander called out. Hiding in the familiar territory of the chicken house, Sally said her piece in a forceful whisper. “Folks sayin’ she run away wid him. Mattie Ricks from down in the town is tellin’ folks there is a letter to the sheriff’s mama sayin’ he meant to take Miz Dossie out West They say he chuck his wife for Miz Dossie and she lef’ willin’ to go. My mama say it can’ be. I ’on’ say nothin’.”
Sally had concealed herself for some hours waiting for Jan to come feed the birds. She was guessing that he’d be the one who did this errand for the woman he was so sweet on.
“You be a good wife someday, Sally,” Jan said. He couldn’t help flirting and flattering the young girl. “You smart and brave, eh?” His attention made Sally giggle widely and show her prominent, brown gums.
Jan circled her waist and made her staunch in the enterprise by kissing her. “Don’t say nothin’ different—not even to your mama.” He knew she would not betray them. “No matter what they ask you. You don’t know nothing. Anything could be true, you say. That letter can work in our favor,” Jan said more to himself than to her. “Me an’ Miz Dossie are goin’. You gonna wait for me to come back? I’m comin’ back, you know,” he vowed, teasing Sally, using her poor heart to his purpose. “Don’t pass up any good beau if he should come along, though, you hear?” Jan pursed his lips in a kiss. Sally turned and ran away.
Pet stood around expectantly for much of the morning. He felt something was happening that he’d been left out of. Later Pet and his mother set out together for Duncan’s place. Both of them could feel a draw—a something in the air.
“Brother!” Hat called out breathlessly. She was in a lather by the time she was in sight of Duncan’s porch. “Brother!” she called out.
“Come in quiet, Hattie. Don’t holler,” Duncan replied.
“Where is Dossie, Brother? Sally said she was doin’ an errand for you and now folks are sayin’ she’s run off.” Hat confronted Duncan at the threshold.
“Hat, I’m here. I’m sorry to worry you.” Dossie’s voice from inside the house was small like a penny dropped.
“Dossie?” Hat’s forehead wrinkled up and drew tight in with questioning.
“What’s goin’ on here, Uncle?” Pet asked Duncan, but looked into Jan’s face. Jan’s eyes shifted and Pet felt betrayed. Jan had kept him out of something important.
“Is Emil Branch, Pet. Dossie had to kill him.”
“Kill?” Pet blurted.
Hat sucked her breath in loudly. “Kill? How come she kill the sheriff?”
“He was rapin’ her, Hat. He was violatin’ her,” Duncan wailed.
“He had his hands on my neck and she knifed him to save me,” Jan confessed to his cousin. He felt his admission exposed him as a worm and he watched his cousin’s face experience a range of expressions.
“Then it’s a case of self-defense,” Pet answered, though he knew he sounded n
aïve and falsely hopeful.
“The law won’t see it like that, Pet,” Jan said. “We’re in a stew.”
Kill the sheriff with a knife! Little Dossie had done that? Hat took Dossie’s hand and led her into the bedroom.
In the other room the men had stood around Dossie obscuring her from view. In the bedroom Hat saw that her face was pained, that she winced, that she was close to a faint.
“Let me see?” Hat was frightened, but she faced looking. “I can maybe help you,” she whispered while they removed the wrapper that Dossie had kept tightly closed up to her throat.
“He dirtied me with what he did, Hat. He changed me. I killed him. I’m not the same as I was,” Dossie squeezed out in an odd, uncertain voice.
“We’ll heal you up. You will be yourself again,” Hat replied. Her words were gentle and urgent and conspiratorial. Perhaps she could keep her brother from seeing the thick bands on Dossie’s thighs and arms. Maybe Emil Branch’s finger marks on Dossie’s breasts would fade before Duncan saw them. Maybe they could keep Duncan from digging up Emil Branch and cutting off his leather.
There were things in Emil Branch’s pockets and Jan had removed them before wrapping his body and putting it in Gideon’s lap. There were two tickets for a train passage to Phillipsburg. There was a receipt for a wagon and a receipt for a horse, both to be picked up in Phillipsburg. He’d had a gun and a knife. He’d carried tincture of opium in a leather pouch in his coat and he had a flask of whiskey.
Jan looked around at all of their faces. He knew he must say the thing that no one wanted to hear. “She’s got to go. We can’t hide what happened if she stays.”
“My wife ain’t going nowhere,” Duncan shouted out. “I’ma take her place if I gotta. I’ll face the law.”
“Settle down, Duncan. We got to have a plan,” Hat said. She uncorked the whiskey and poured some of it for all of them. Jan’s hands shook and she pressed his hands around his glass and squeezed. She poured his drink tall.
“What good will it do her for you to swing? A colored woman whose husband is hanged is in desperation,” Hat said to her brother.
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