Angels Make Their Hope Here Read online

  “She adores him,” Hat said solemnly, “I’ve told him that to caution him.” She remembered that she, too, was stuck on Duncan and had always simply adored him. All of them, her and Cissy and Noelle, had been enthralled.

  When Cissy had fussed and fumed and had said that Hattie could not be Punkin’s wife no matter how much she wanted to be, Hattie had been prepared to ride off and search out another big, wonderful man like Punkin. A little girl who wanted to mount a horse and ride off into the wooded terrain to find a man like her brother to marry! Hat had been a silly little chap when it came to her brother. She was a fine one to call Noelle willful. But Noelle had always balked at being obedient to Duncan, and Hattie never had.

  Hat also knew that Duncan had filled Dossie’s head with tales of wood witches, enchanted purposes, and destiny. It was no wonder that she desired him and was exhilarated that he desired her.

  Dossie, the new woman—the man’s delight—agreed very quickly when he asked her about driving her own jenny and wagon and traveling with Hat and the other women to market at Paterson. Ah, she tried to disguise her self-satisfaction, but she’d been planning with Hat all along. Her nascent maturity, he thought, was nearly as appealing as her naïveté.

  Hat presented a strategy. Dossie could have an occupation as an egg seller at market in Paterson and in Russell’s Knob and show the women that she had a slot with them. She could show, with a quiet industry, that she was more than Duncan Smoot’s concubine.

  “Give her a calling. She can come in with me. Get her some good laying hens so we can take more eggs to market,” Hat said brightly. “I need the help.”

  “Tell Wilhelm to hire you a servant girl then,” Duncan answered with annoyance. “Dossie ain’t got to work.”

  “Folks will say she’s working on your pleasure then. I don’t need the help, Brother. But a woman doesn’t want to think of herself as just a man’s comfort, Duncan, even if she does love him. You scared for Dossie to go down to the town? You scared somebody can grab her up,” Hat questioned him pointedly. Ale made her impudent, and when she reached to refill her cup, Duncan took her hand from the pitcher.

  “No, girl. Hush,” he said.

  “Make it permanent if you do love her,” she said with a look of challenge.

  “Gwan home and do your drinking in your own kitchen, Pippy,” Duncan answered.

  “You’re the one who has fixed her situation, Duncan. What are you gonna do?”

  Hat left Duncan’s kitchen feeling satisfied. She knew her idea had flown. With Duncan socially set, the Smoots and Wilhelms would build up. She was not sure why that mattered, but she was convinced that it did. She chuckled to think that it was Cissy pushing her and making her take control of them. Take them in hand, Hattie, Cissy demanded in Hat’s head. Her voice was as clear as the midnight sky at harvesttime. Settle them down. Make them behave. Make them be good, Hattie.

  Hat loved Noelle like a sister, but Dossie made a perfect wife for Duncan.

  Duncan said Dossie must be able to handle the jenny and the wagon and the crates in order to take eggs to market. She dropped her eyes and said she would take his lessons and do everything just as he directed. Then, with her head still bowed, she asked for a few more chickens and a younger rooster. Duncan laughed and acquiesced. At first he considered buying the chickens from a wag who would thief them from a supply boat heading away from the falls. But he decided instead to treat Dossie to a trip to the town to buy her own birds.

  She wore her nicest dress, her shawl, and her bonnet. Hat dressed her hair and wound it up prettily. “Ask him to buy cloth, and we can sew up some more dresses,” Hat whispered. She wiped biscuit crumbs from Dossie’s face with a corner of her apron and inspected her mouth for chapping.

  Dossie’s pleasure on the road down to Paterson was sublime. The seat beneath her hummed, and she linked her arm in Duncan’s as the jenny ambled. Close touching—nearness to him—was invigorating to them both. Duncan’s muscles quickened on some turns and twists, and she loosed her grasp to free his movement. He pulled her back to his side into a pocket close to his body. It was a measure of Dossie’s new confidence with Duncan that she chattered on the trip about her plans for the eggs. The idea had been attested to by Hat, but it was Dossie’s suggestion that they trade eggs for deluxe honey from the Van Waganens and sell the honey in Paterson. It was well known that the Van Waganens never went into town, and so they did not sell their very highly considered honey at market. And it was often said by the other trading women that honey was much wanted in Paterson and could bring a bright price. And, Dossie assured Duncan, she was quite strong enough to handle the crates, the crocks, the ropes and straps, the jenny, and the wagon.

  Duncan’s only tick of displeasure in listening to Dossie spinning the plans was that she may become too opinionated like Noelle and like Hattie. Though it pleased him that Dossie was smart, he hoped she’d stay sweet, stay naïve.

  The main thing to see at Paterson was the cataract, the place where the water fell down from a great height and rushed and whorled and ran away headlong downstream. When Dossie heard the tremendous roaring she wondered why they could not hear this great noise from their porch post. It was a strange and beguiling sound of rush and thunder. Though the cataract was the source of the tumultuous sound, its noise was embellished by the din of the great turbines. Tolling clocks and factory whistles and train whistles and boat-signal cries and the cacophony of yammering people speaking different tongues added more.

  The cataract was the draw to the town, though. Noelle had taught them that it was the reason the lowlander whites had come so far a mountain and settled at this spot. They wanted the rushing water. Nay, any and all of everybody wanted that rushing water for something. That is how it had always been. All around this place folk had built millraces and coaxed water into sluices and rushes for it to do their work. Folk had always set their weir and snagged a copious dinner where the water flux sent turtles and fish headlong to their destiny in the People’s stomachs.

  There was much startling beauty to be seen. The city built by the whites was a marvel of sound and movement. The place was a hive! There were throngs of folk. Everything in the place whirred and turned and belched forth. It was such as Philadelphia had been to Dossie’s recollection. Sitting up in the wagon beside Duncan, Dossie recalled her panic at being pulled through the streets of Philadelphia by Mr. Abingdon’s lookout boy. My, but there were a lot of bedraggled boys hereabouts, too, running back and forth and toting great loads! Crowds of folk hailing and calling to each other queued up near the large machine houses. Duncan told her they were going inside to labor. Europes! There was abundant work in Paterson for a strong back and a white skin no matter what language was spoken. But the work inside was for the Europes only. “An able colored man can starve in this town that is full of work ’cause they won’t take him on,” Duncan said bitterly.

  Though fearful, as always, of a rise in Duncan’s anger, Dossie felt an exhilaration, too, at being his companion, his tuck-up and his fancy, his confidante. Duncan wouldn’t say these things to just any silly girl. She knew if she was quiet and listened she’d learn more about him and the town than even the boys knew. Duncan was a big man in Russell’s Knob. He was not boastful at home, though one might gloat that he was a powerful man. In Paterson, he was more quietly and fiercely dignified. Yes, fierce, like a wolf is fierce and fearless.

  Duncan acknowledged folk, hailing some and nodding to others, along the road and in the environs of town. Dossie worried about her dress. She wanted to preen so that he would be as proud of her as she was of him, but she was concerned not to fidget about on the wagon seat.

  They went first to a hen man who sold prime birds. The purveyor had a dazzling array of stacked cages of different-colored hens. Duncan showed Dossie some likely candidates and, though her head swirled in the stinking air of the enclosure, she selected five gray-and-red hens. They were beautiful! They were fancy! The man touted them as excellent laye
rs. Dossie left it to Duncan to select the rooster, and he chose two. “ ’Tis your choice, ma’am,” Duncan said and smiled at her. Dossie pointed to one, and the purveyor put the very fancy, very spirited rooster in a separate crate than the hens.

  By some measures, it was immodest for a decent young girl to laugh openly in public with great pleasure, pulling her lips back and showing her dark gums, revealing rows of smooth, butter-white teeth. Oh, but Dossie was overwhelmed with childlike delight at the birds. She pulled her lips back and showed the widening gap between her two most front teeth and the tiny meat that hung there in an open display of joy that made small depressions in her cheeks and wrinkled the skin across her nose.

  “What you need now, Dossie Blossom, is some dressmaking cloth,” Duncan said cheerfully when they’d handled their birds into the wagon. “Pippy said we must not forget.” Oh, he was using sweet names, a sign that he was pleased and free of care. Dossie was delighted to have earned a new sweet name. Dossie Blossom! It made her want to giggle and touch his face. But she rewarded Duncan with a happy, demure smile instead as he drew up in front of a store on a street that seemed to have colored folk milling about. Duncan tied up the wagon, held out his hand, and steadied Dossie down from the wagon seat.

  They entered a store for ladies’ goods. The pretty girls who showed the cloth tittered and smiled sneakily at Duncan and perused Dossie from head to toe. Dossie remembered to be very proud and slightly haughty like Hat was when she came into town. Hat was, like her brother, able to assume a stately demeanor that caught admiring glances. Dossie remembered also that Hat said, “With a shape like yours, if they’re lookin’, they’re admirin’. Stand up straight.” Dossie did that and chose several bolts of dressmaking cloth under the envious cat eyes of the shopgirls.

  Dossie knew that some precincts in Paterson were avoided by folk from Russell’s Knob. Duncan cut a wide berth around such places that a colored person dared not to be. The price for being unguarded was far too high outside of Russell’s Knob. And by now Dossie knew what the folk in town—the white people—said about folk who lived in Russell’s Knob. Duncan, Dossie, Jan, Hat, and Noelle were the Indians or mountain niggers, and Ernst Wilhelm and Pet and some others were called white niggers. At the market some women slyly called the women from Russell’s Knob mountain monkeys or mountain whores because the People were known to mix colors freely, a practice despised in the other towns. Russell’s Knob folk were also known for being proud and for having commerce and for being around these parts since the beginning.

  Duncan drove them uphill, then down a street, around a few bends, and came upon a house near the waterside. He tossed a coin to a scampering, aggressive boy who greeted them as they tied up their wagon.

  “Look after my wagon, boy,” Duncan called, paused, then chuckled as he ushered Dossie into the tavern. “Was a time I’d leave Jan and Pet to stand guard. They could’ve been stolen off. They was little then.” Duncan broke from his recollection and said, “You stay nex’ to me, you hear?”

  “Yes,” Dossie answered as she stepped on the threshold of the place. Duncan did not hear. His attention was taken up immediately with greeting some of the people already seated at their food. The room was well lit, the air was abundantly aromatic, their stomachs rumbled in anticipation.

  A bosomy woman hurried toward them as they entered.

  “Mr. Smoot. Mr. Smoot. Will you have a bowl of vittles and some ale, Mr. Smoot?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, Miz Minnie. We will both have your stew and some ale and a whiskey for me,” Duncan said in an expansive, self-satisfied way that caused Minnie Stewart to giggle like a small child.

  “Mr. Duncan Smoot, how you do?” she cried through her laughter. Minnie Stewart sidled up to Duncan on one of her passes to deliver bread throughout the room. “If I’d known you was wantin’ a constant gal I would have spoke to you about my Pearl.”

  “Miz Minnie, this here is Dossie,” Duncan said cavalierly, hoping to disguise his slight ill-ease at not having a surname to add. He cleared his throat and pronounced with formality. “This here is my wife, Miz Dossie Smoot.” Minnie Stewart smiled with genuine delight, and Dossie’s face came alight like she had swallowed a candle. For the second time that day Duncan had brought forth a face of complete happiness. To the credit of Dossie’s courage and self-control, she did not run out to the sanitary and toss up, nor did she smile too broadly for modesty. She sat still and felt very warm. Folk at other tables about the room nodded their heads politely and smiled. Dossie succumbed to the itch to smooth her dress and pat at the hair near her nape. Then she remembered she must answer the woman’s introduction. She didn’t want Duncan to be sorry he’d given her the honor of his name.

  “How do, ma’am,” Dossie said.

  “Miz Smoot, ma’am, I am fine and happy to know you. You take a res’ and eat a bowl of my stew,” she said. It seemed that all the folk in the room smiled. Dossie smiled and thought that Miz Minnie was funny looking but very, very nice. Her breasts were like a cupboard shelf. They protruded so far before her that she could have used them to rest a pan of biscuits. Perhaps it was the influence of the ale or the profound happiness in her vitals, but everything said or heard or seen in this tavern was like a dream. Duncan stared at Dossie across the table, though he was well aware that it made her fidget.

  The night was bright and starry when they left the tavern. Both of them were cozy with ale. Duncan was additionally mellowed with whiskey. Dossie wanted to lean her head on his shoulder but didn’t want to embarrass him while still in town. When they were out of the town proper, out past the cataract and out past the play gardens for white people, and were climbing the long, dark road to their homestead, she did rest her head on Duncan’s shoulder. He didn’t mind. He was pleased with her and she knew it.

  Suddenly he pushed her with his elbow and said, “Dossie, make a nightjar call.” She called and chirped at his command but thought that his voice saying her name was the prettiest sound she’d ever heard. She wanted to disobey him so that she could hear him say her name that way again and again.

  “Dossie,” he said, “do it again. Make the nightjar call.” The new hens in the back of the wagon made coo-coo sounds. The sound of Duncan’s voice was changed.

  Dossie attempted the call, then felt Duncan’s body tense up. He made the donkey move faster. They jostled in their seat, and she gripped her side of the wagon. Two riders came up on one side and the other. One of the men pointed a rifle next to Duncan’s ear and yelled, “Pull up, nigger!” Duncan pulled up and squeezed hard on Dossie’s knee to tell her to hold still and be brave.

  “Where you steal them chickens from?” one of the men yelled.

  The other man spoke and kept his gun right next to Duncan’s ear.

  “Where you steal that gal from? She a runaway? We was watchin’ you down in the town. You was takin’ her aroun’ like a lady.”

  They knew she was a runaway! They knew she was hiding out? Instantly Dossie felt herself filling up with dread that they would tear her away from Duncan. Dossie looked around at the man next to her. Was his voice familiar? She jumped when she saw his red face.

  “Yeah, you know me. You recollec’ me, don’t ya?” he said. Dossie did. It was the boy, Owen Needham.

  “I know you, too, gal. You the one that left off from the Logans. I was s’prised to see you in these parts. I woulda thought somebody had caught you an’ sol’ you south. Those people that you was ’scape from, they lookin’ hard for you. Yeah. They lookin’ for ya. They post an advert and a reward and I’ma get it. They sayin’ you burnt their barn ’fore you run off. I b’lieve the law is lookin’ for you.”

  Dossie quaked. She didn’t remember setting any fire. She remembered the smell of burning and the sight of Owen Needham packing up. She thought he was the one had burnt the place. They were looking for her? Her clothes began to feel clammy against her.

  Any Negro could be accused of burning. And any opportunistic rowdy who co
uld scare somebody who’d been running and hiding could make a bit of money capturing them or threatening to. A certain type of people didn’t care whether the right one was caught up—one less was one less, and all to the good.

  Duncan sat still like he was waiting for a signal. He seemed to be smelling the man who was menacing him because he made a shushing noise in his nose. He didn’t shake with trepidation. He drew up tight and seemed to twist down in his gut like a rope setting itself in a coil. His coil seemed to get tighter with each thing Owen Needham said.

  The man holding the gun began to tire. It often happened just so when a contest reached an impasse. The man had pulled the gun too soon. He ought to have used it, and now he wanted to rest his arm. The arm shook visibly. Perhaps if he faltered he would make a mistake and shoot Duncan, Dossie thought. Perhaps he would falter and shoot himself, Duncan thought. Dossie remembered then what Noelle said about the people of Russell’s Knob. They would always come and help one of their number. Dossie figured they were close to home—close enough maybe for the crow call to be heard. “You give out the crow’s call and they will come on the run,” Noelle had said. She’d led a practice with Dossie and the boys, and Dossie had, of course, been the best at the call. She looked from the corner of her eyes, and Duncan seemed like he was saying, Gwan and sing out. So she did it! Before the men had a chance to tie her hands, Dossie stood and called out a crow call very loud. She cupped her hands to send the sound far and to make it perfect. She repeated it quickly again and again so the People would know it was not the true crow.

  The men jumped in fear. Dossie’s call was loud and thrilling. They might have shot her, but they were not confirmed outlaws, and they lacked the killing instinct. Duncan drew his arm back and cracked his elbow on the nose of the man holding the gun on him. That man’s blood shot forth, and his gun arm dropped. Owen Needham raised up his arm to strike Dossie with his fist, but he dropped his hands when he saw Pet’s mastiffs come running out of the brush. Those two sloppy pusses that drooled spittle and nuzzled the hands of their friends burst forth from the wooded surround like hellhounds. The barking and growling spooked the horse that Needham’s confederate was mounted to, and his gun went off in the air. Two more rifle reports sounded, and Jan and Pet came out of the dark followed by Mr. Gin Barlow. Barlow had on his “hiding-out” clothes and could hardly be distinguished from the deep surround. Two other men came out of the dark with rifles. One of these was Ernst Wilhelm with soot smeared on his face.