“You want me here?” she challenged when both were seated. She reckoned she knew what Duncan was thinking. “You lookin’ for Dossie girl to come back? She didn’t come back. Emil Branch took her off. No, I dropped her myself. I lef’ her right nex’ to the body of the sheriff. I’ve been a real grown woman since. And now Jan is dead? I do what I want to do, Duncan. I drink whiskey, too, if I want.
Duncan looked at her and said nothing. Yes, he wanted her. And he wanted her to stay as he always had. And he was itchy about it as he’d always been.
Later they drank whiskey together. Dossie was modest. She had not become a sloppy, excessive drinker. She sipped, sat back in her chair, and listened to his talk of the doings about the place. She smiled. The sauces in his groin came to a pitch and he wanted so much to touch her and then he did. He reached across the table to stroke her face and then to touch her breast. Dossie didn’t start. She pushed off his hand. She wore an unsurprised expression as though she’d waited to confront this moment and had designed a response. She’d never before pushed him with a gentle, firm reproof, in the way of this short sweep of the fingers. “Another time, Duncan,” Dossie said so clearly and quietly and decisively that he wanted to bawl.
Pet’s first recollection, the point his world began, was the delight in baby Jan’s eyes when his mother bent over the bed in which they both lay. She sang to them. Both babies reached for her, both kicked their feet, both were taken up by Jan’s mother. Both were satisfied at that first most alluring tit. When Pet tasted warm sugar and butter spun together in a toddy or in a pie, he thought of his aunt Cissy. He was sure this was how her skin had tasted in their mouths. She was a big woman, as he remembered, though he remembered also that they were very small then. She could lift and carry them both, and both of them would let their sleep heavy heads fall onto her. He and Jan had lost her so early! Cissy! Cissy! But didn’t none of them—not even his own mama—credit that he’d suffered her loss, too. It was not just Jan who was crushed by his mother’s death. And now he was expected to bear up under Jan’s death? The fear that he might not be able to worried him.
August 15, 1863
Dear Petrus,
My dear Pet,
I received your letter and the cruel news of Jan’s death. How can this have happened? I fear for your mother’s state. Is she well? We loved him completely—your mother most of all.
Have you looked at the papers that I left for you? There is something that you should know. Why do you speak of the army? I am told you can arrange to pay for another man to go in your place. You can afford to do this I am certain. If it becomes necessary to do so. I recommend paying this bond so that you may remain safely at home to care for your mother. She will need you and the brewery will need you. Duncan and Dossie need you. It must be a troubling time for all of you. Pet, don’t go to war. Find a way to stay and take care of them all.
Please come and visit me. We are so numerous here that I can’t pull away from them and come to you. You have three siblings. Arminty thrives here.
Your Papa
Pet hadn’t opened the document his father gave him on leaving the country. He thought it contained the pernicious receipt of his mother’s purchase. He didn’t want to lay eyes on that paper, though he knew its contents. When he opened the envelope that lay at the very bottom of a box of keepsakes, he saw it was a legally executed copy of his falsified birth certificate. He was named and listed as the son of a deceased white mother and his own white father and thus was himself completely white. A note accompanied the document.
My Dear Petrus,
You may need this one day.
Your Papa
August 28, 1863
My Dear Father,
You have been cruel to my mother. Though you began nobly by saving her, you have ever since hurt her. It was a deep wound to us that you warranted she was dead and I was white. Perhaps it seemed like the right thing at the time? What can one think of a man who has done the things you have done, Papa?
Shall I state it plainly? You falsified the record of my birth. You purchased my mother and made me and I intend to enlist with the United States Colored Troops in Philadelphia. My mother will attest to me. I am colored as she is and we intend to say so. Papa, you must see that those Irish bastards who killed Jan in New York were balking and rioting at having to fight for the colored. They didn’t want to risk losing their lives on account of colored folks and slaves. I don’t blame them for not wanting to fight somebody else’s fight. But I hate them for killing Jan and I won’t fight beside them. I want to fight for the slaves. I want to take up arms. All along me and Jan wanted to take up arms for the slaves. Even as boys we wanted to grab up Uncle’s guns and right the wrongs. I will speak for myself and I will fight for myself. I am a Colored Man. I will join up. I do it so that Dossie’s baby that was made by Jan will be free and comfortable—a happy colored child. And I’ll fight for Arminty, too. Perhaps if I fight and win, you and Arminty can cross back and bring your embarrassing brood.
Papa, I am going to fight for the slaves regardless of what you advise. Papa, you have followed your jasper halfway around the world. You are a fine one to say that I must stay on the porch and mind my mother.
Your Pet,
Petrus Wilhelm
Dossie’s waters broke at dawn and she set off on a loud keening. Her body was wracked with her work, and her wailing was earsplitting. At noontime, the baby seemed to go still, a small skiff in a calm. The struggling mother continued to wail and her throat became sore. When the midwife arrived, she was cross that the mother had been allowed to weaken herself with hours of crying. Martha Remsen massaged her patient with practiced hands, relaxed her, steadied her through the throes, and shortly after nightfall a little girl came forth.
“Your wife will need more than a root woman the next time, Mr. Smoot. A midwife or a doctor should be called sooner,” she said to Duncan, when she had been given some supper, a glass of ale, and her fee.
Duncan leapt up in alarm, but was stopped by Martha Remsen. “She is at the end of her energy, sir. She is sleeping, but she will recover. She is young and the baby is robust.”
Duncan sat back in his chair and thought about the long day when Pet was born. He glanced up at Hat’s placid, pretty face and remembered that he and Wilhelm got stupid drunk that day and brought a white doctor in from town that they had threatened with a gun. The man was surly, and he scared Hat, and the boy only came when the doctor had gone onto the porch to smoke and Cissy alone was there to catch his slick body like grabbing up a trout.
Through the first hours Dossie’s baby was fretful. Dossie slept, then roused before dawn light and saw Duncan by the window holding the baby and looking out. What did he look at in the dark? Who did he look at in the shadows? “Jan,” she called in a hazy consciousness.
“No, Dossie Bird, it is Duncan,” he answered very quietly, very softly. “I am sorry, Dossie. It is only me and your baby girl.”
“Ah, Duncan, you so good,” Dossie said as her confusion cleared. She had heard Jan’s voice in her dream and she started to remember his words. He was not soft. He did not plead. He hectored. He’d invaded her deep dream state, and each time she had turned from one side of the bed to the other, it was to escape his voice and his implacable grimace. He was not coy. He did not smile. He demanded that she tell it all and make the terms she’d pledged. “Don’t lie to him and don’t soften to him unless he swears,” Jan hollered at Dossie in her head, causing her ears to throb. When she was fully awakened, when Duncan had handed her a cup of water, when she sat upright in the bed, Dossie spoke out as though a hand pushed her at the center of her back and would not let her stall, turn back, or turn around.
“Duncan Smoot, you got a daughter now? Do you accept my daughter now? Jan made her for the Smoots. He said, ‘Uncle will make my child fortunate and you will make him beautiful and, if she is a girl, she’ll be a prize.’ ” Dossie smiled inside herself to recollect this talk, but her face was h
eavy with grief and could not express a smile just then. “Is it in you to know all of these things and call her daughter without hesitation?” Dossie watched Duncan’s eyes and thought she would recognize if he tried to dissemble.
“Hush,” he answered. For the first time since Dossie had returned with Jan’s body, Duncan felt impatient, miffed at her. Is he so small a man as to be unable to accept what Grandmother has given him? “What will you call her? Will you name her for your Ooma?”
“No, no. Give her a name from your people? Is she your daughter then?”
“Sarah then,” Duncan said quickly. “Sarah Smoot. It is my mama’s name. She was Sarah Vanderhoven. She became Smoot just after the Vanderhovens split up. Some of the family went to Cincinnati calling themselves Hoven. The others stayed in Russell’s Knob and called themselves Vander. So my mama became a Vander, then a Smoot. The People are curious acting sometimes, Dossie girl,” Duncan babbled, letting his words trail off and smiling to himself.
There was a touch on her spine. She turned her head toward her left shoulder and saw his head very large. She knew his curls.
“Jan did not rape me. Emil Branch did that, and his baby left me when I reached New York. Jan Smoot, your nephew, did not do me any harm. He did not fool me or force me or wear me down with pleading or frighten me. I came to him with the plan. I wanted a favor and I begged him so that I could bring a baby for you. I wanted it for myself most of all. I was so jealous of the other women. I only wanted him to put her there. It is what he did finally as a gift to me… and to you. I was a silly and spoiled girl who wanted what every other woman had. Jan loved me and I knew it. I ought to have loved him at least by half of what he loved me, but I never did. He loved you very much and I knew it and I trifled with his love and his loyalty so I could have my prize and have you. I lost him. I know you threatened him not to harm me or lose me in New York. I harmed him. I lost him. It would be wrong for you to think that he took an advantage with me. He did not. I welcomed him. I coerced him. It was me who used him.”
Duncan tried to take up talking as if he hadn’t heard what she said. “Sarah Jane because of Jan. It’s a good name: Sarah Jane Smoot. Sarah was Cissy’s given name, too.” He spoke almost as if he was completely surprised to remember his sister’s name. “Papa coined her name Cissy to call her something different from my mama. Sweet, lovely Cissy. Her name was Sarah Jane.” He paused in speaking, then breathed deeply, he sighed and held on to the child more firmly. “Dossie.” He said the name in a way he’d never spoken it before. It was her name as it stood, not embellished with his endearments, fripperies, and decorations of speech. It was her as she stood before him with no desire, no lust attached.
“I take the weight for losing Jan. I have not been a wholly honest man. I didn’t lie to you, but I kept the truth from you. And I was cruel to him because he knew all my secrets and I knew he’d one day love you more than me and want to tell you about all of my sores. And I taunted him for loving you and I shamed him into bringing you home and going to war. I know I’m the one to be the caretaker of the Smoots. But I ain’t done so good all told.”
Duncan handed the infant into Dossie’s arms. It boggled his mind to think on what had happened to Jan. He knew now and was ready to admit that he had failed to save Cissy and Jan both and the weight of this great failure could only be mitigated by his complete embrace of the baby girl. Duncan Smoot is a man who has made big mistakes—eye gouging, burning and punishing, stopping or not stopping. Grandmother’s very flawed instrument. Wherefore he is Sarah’s papa? He is Sarah’s papa because she is Dossie’s daughter and he is pledged to Dossie, to Jan and to Cissy, to his mama and all of them back to Lucy Smoot, who turned her back on the barrel of a gun to free her children. He’d thought he was the pasha, the head of the clan. Perhaps his life is finally just this simple? He is the scarf on Dossie’s arm and her standard bearer and her protector. He is here to make her daughter fortunate.
He has already given her girl a sweet name. He has coined it in his head in his own private baby parlance. She is Janny—she is Jan as he had always said it with the added fillip of delight.
Is Dossie some kind of a wood witch that she has enchanted him so? Duncan studied her face and allowed himself to renew his enchantment. The beautiful favorite!
“You must promise to be a gentler man if you want us to stay.” Dossie’s voice was steady with great effort. “I will not let you chastise my girl. You must leave the switch to me. You must increase your sweetness or we will go. Jan made me promise to make you sweeter or go away. I pledged it to him and I will not go back on this promise.”
“Dossie Bird!” Duncan exclaimed. “Where could you go? This is your home.”
“You must pledge it or we will leave Russell’s Knob,” Dossie declared and captured his eyes levelly. “Dossie is no rabbit now, Duncan Smoot. She is Mother Bear and she will be her cub’s champion.” She started to chuckle with herself. She remembered! Was it a fancy tale or a prophecy? At their winter work, Hat had poked fun at her brother’s mysterious time away, saying that he slept with she-bears in wintertime all because long, long ago Duncan had gone into a bear den in dead of winter when it was so cold they could barely catch their breath in the biting wind. Duncan, against advice, had taken a torch into the bear den. They all knew Mother Bear was inside, had taken her children and gone to sleep. He came out a day later sayin’ that he’d slept with the bear and her cubs and that they’d hardly noticed him and it was very, very warm and smelled very, very pleasant. “Everybody knows Duncan is the bear’s fancy,” Hat would finish and giggle uncontrollably. Noelle would snap her eyes and pinch Hat’s arms.
“This is your home, girl! It always has been,” Duncan declared rather than swear any specifics.
“Duncan, you are not God,” Dossie countered.
“Dossie, I pledge to be a stalwart for you and your daughter, Sarah Jane Smoot,” he pronounced pleasantly.
“Yes, Jimmer?” Dossie asked, testing him, pressing him, teasing him.
“Yes, Dossie, I swear it solemnly.”
Why, he’d torched the devil’s tail to bring her to the mountains, to the ancestors, to Jan. Even if the white men’s God had put this mark on his register as a sin, still it will have been well done.
“Yes, Jimmer.”
Even if the Afric gods curl their lips in displeasure at his deeds and his methods, it will have been well done still. Janny, beloved Janny! Sarah Jane Smoot comes to the world!
“Yes, Jimmer Fish, it is well done!”
Acknowledgments
A work may have one author, but it needs friends and supporters to become a novel. I would like to acknowledge the deft and delicate, intelligent and beautiful touch of Terry Adams, my editor at Little, Brown and Company.
I would like to recognize the invaluable counsel, conscientious representation, and friendship of my literary agent, Cynthia Cannell, and the Cynthia Cannell Literary Agency.
Getting here is only half the battle. The battle is being here and thriving, and it needs a sister-warrior. I acknowledge my great good fortune to have Cheryl L. Clarke, poet and essayist, as my sister, my colleague, and my mentor.
About the Author
BREENA CLARKE grew up in Washington, D.C., and was educated at Howard University. For Angels Make Their Hope Here she drew inspiration from the tales and legends of the settlers of the Ramapo Mountains, not far from her home in New Jersey. Her previous novels are River, Cross My Heart, which was a selection of Oprah’s Book Club, and Stand the Storm.
ALSO BY BREENA CLARKE
River, Cross My Heart
Stand the Storm
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Epigraph
PART ONE Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
PART TWO Chapter 4
Chapter 5
PART THREE Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
PART FOUR Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Breena Clarke
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2014 by Breena Clarke
Cover design by Allison J. Warner
Cover art: landscape photograph by Duncan Walker / Getty Images; bird by Ilbusca / Getty Images; carriage by A-Digit / Getty Images
Cover copyright © 2014 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
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Angels Make Their Hope Here Page 23