Angels Make Their Hope Here (20 page)

There was also in Emil Branch’s pocket an advert extolling
the opportunities of the frontier that had been torn from a catalog of accoutrement for westward travel. Clearly Emil Branch had been planning to go west.

It was nearly impossible to convince Duncan that he must play his assigned part and only that—that he must sit on the porch and wait. And it pained Dossie that the People would think she was so dirty a gal that she would run off from her husband. But they must think it.

Duncan lay his head on his knees.

“I make up my own min’ ’bout where I’ll go,” Dossie asserted. “I mus’ go to New York for the story to hol’. I got to go for me and Jan to be safe and escape the rope. We goin’ ’cuz we got to, Duncan,” she said. “I’m the cause of this trouble!”

“No! No! I ain’t lettin’ you go,” Duncan roared like a bear. His anger was newly roused.

“I killed a man, Duncan. I can’t be too careful wid myself. I’m bol’ enough to knife a man, I am bol’ enough to go down to New York,” Dossie declared and then added a short, sharp, ironic snort of laughter though she did not feel amused.

“No!” he said again. “You stay here and I won’ give you up!”

“No, Duncan, you can’t hol’ out against the lawmen who will come to get me. They’ll take me and Jan and they will kill you and all the rest of the People. They liable to burn out the town. I murdered their sheriff—or Jan did it.”

“What you do when you got no choice is not hel’ against you in judgment. I am sure of that,” Hat insisted, trying to defuse Duncan’s panic.

“No. I can’ pay back the People like this. If me being here brings a wrath on my home, I got to run.”

It was a stubborn barn dance. They each walked across the floor and scuffed their feet and breathed hard and each shook
their head and wrung their hands. Jan and Pet banged their fists into their own palms. There was no other thing to do but follow up with Emil Branch’s plans. There was nothing else for Dossie but to hide or hang.

Hat became the captain—the conductor. Sally Vander was sworn to care for the chickens. Hat sent Jan east to New Barbados on horseback with salable goods. He was to leave his horse there with the colored blacksmith until he came back upriver. Jan would then board the same canal boat for New York City that Dossie already had got aboard in Paterson. She, too, would have market goods, and neither would be much noticed onboard toward New York City.

At the riverside in Paterson, Hat pinched at and chucked Dossie’s chin at parting. “I count you a lucky woman, because you have the choice of them. Both of them love you very much. I ought to be green jealous of you.”

Dossie bent and hoisted her crate of goods. She wasn’t no bundle of sticks anymore like when she’d first come. Even then she hadn’t been weak—was surprisingly strong for a little gal. Hat considered ruefully that perhaps Dossie was thought small only for being up next to big and tall Duncan. She was a stand-alone woman now, though.

“Hat, I love Duncan alone. I don’ love Jan. That’s not why I’m goin’. It is for the plan to hol’,” Dossie asserted.

“Look out for Jan, girl. You be careful of him. I’m scared the people down there will treat you bad an’ he will die taking up for you. Duncan had a bad time in New York town.”

Hat and Pet boarded a train going west from Paterson to Phillipsburg. Wearing a hard-felt hat like Emil Branch’s, Petrus
Wilhelm and his hooded companion seemed to fit a certain description. Hat clasped Pet’s hand and held close to him and thought that Pet was handsome—very big and imposing—in his traveling clothes. At Phillipsburg they took possession of the wagon and horse that Emil Branch had already purchased and then left Phillipsburg heading westward.

Duncan waited for the others to get gone. Then he, too, left surreptitiously. He knew he must seem to be gone off tracking his wife and her kidnapper.

T
HE LAST CUP OF COFFEE
Dossie had in her homestead—the first cup of coffee of her new life—had been drunk in the dark before dawn and was a potent tonic. Later when she’d stepped onto the packet in Paterson, her going away seemed like a horrible dream.

When the boat came into New Barbados, Jan was there with his bundles. They mixed with other folk bringing farm goods to New York town for commerce as Hat told them to do.

As they boarded for New York, the captain of the packet boat raised his arm to keep Dossie from getting on. He declared he transported no females into New York unless they were high ladies, which he’d never had the privilege to transport, or if they had a stout man to protect them, a gentleman or a ruffian capable of keeping them safe. His only exception, he sneered, was for a workingwoman who was willing to give him a fee. Jan then stepped to Dossie’s side, fingered his pigsticker, and showed his most dreadful, implacable face. The man accepted their fare and waved them toward a comfortable spot.

Dossie glanced out of the corner of her eye at Jan and wondered how well she knew him. The flinty scowl was chilling. It was a visage to accompany a lunging, gut-cutting knife wielder. Ah, the mountain people are haughty about their knife skills.
Even she—even Dossie—had shown proof with a knife. She got a curious feeling in her gut as the boat pitched and plunged toward New York. Dossie was convinced of them both. She and Jan had an answer for all comers. Between them two, they would be safe.

It gave Jan no pleasure that they’d had to leave like this, running from their hearth, her not able to sit in her comfort. Now that they had gone, he realized he didn’t want it this way. He was already missing home, and he was frightened that she was left with only him to look after her. He missed Uncle. Dossie held her face still and lowered her head when anyone came near, but she did not weep as he feared she might. It surprised him some that she didn’t crumble like a cake because her god was gone.

Jan flicked his pigsticker and scraped dirt out of his fingernails. Any and all onboard saw that the mountain boy had a pigsticker against trouble. Jan got annoyed when Dossie removed her hat and replaced it with a rude rag head scarf. Why’d she want to look like an old servant? Duncan would not like to see her like this. But did that matter now? They were no longer in Duncan’s orbit.

Dossie felt a chill around the shoulders as they traveled away from their home. She encircled herself with herself, lay her cheek on her knee, and rocked back and forth. She sucked the fingers of her right hand into her mouth and closed her eyes like a baby child. The comfort was great! Cheek to knees she felt her own body warmth and recollected cold evenings around a fire watching Duncan. His face swaddled in his bushy mustache, sewing on his fishnets. Oh, to touch the hair on his face now! Dossie hungered to have her face muffled in rabbit tails from the pillow at the back of her chair.

Conversation onboard the vessel was high pitched and mostly regarding men and supplies going into the big conflict.

“You goin’ down to join up?” a colored fellow traveler asked Jan. The friendly, dark-colored man was ebullient, sat down next to Jan, and took up a conversation as if the two were companions. “It’s the colored man’s fight!” he whispered to Jan.

He then raised his voice to say, “Ezra Oliver I’m called. They raisin’ a army to free the slaves. I’ma join up. Can you’uns read and figure?”

“O’ course,” Jan snapped, not wanting to talk, then regretting his unfriendliness. There was a familiarity about the fellow that made him homesick at once, and at once comforted.

“You’ll pardon?” Ezra added quickly. “I don’t have no letters. Those that got a bit of the cream in ’em like you and some schooling is going’ to rise in the army of the colored!”

“Jan Smoot is my name.” Jan cringed a bit but was not offended by the man. He and Pet had been coddled. He knew it. He and Pet and Dossie had advantages, though they’d been up in the mountains and didn’t know city ways. They could read. Why, they had even read Mr. Fenimore Cooper’s book
The Last of the Mohicans,
because Uncle brought it home one year at springtime and had made them accomplish the book, though it was spring and they would rather have been fishing. Pet’s papa, as profligate as he was, believed firmly in Bible studies and reading from the Good Book on idle evenings.

“We’uns better leave the boat here,” Ezra Oliver said in a whisper, but with great punch when they came into a canal lock outside of Pavonia. Jan, wholly convinced of Ezra Oliver by this time, did not hesitate to respond. “Gather up your things and let’s us hop off, Dossie,” Jan said to her with quiet solemnity to match Ezra’s. Dossie took up her goods unquestioningly and
slipped off the boat with Jan and Ezra despite a sharp pain in her intimacies and a sick dizziness.

Ezra Oliver smiled broadly when they were safely on land. He explained that it was a common occurrence that colored travelers were set upon and robbed by brigands before the boat came into Pavonia. Folk who knew this knew to get off the boat.

Jan and Dossie followed Ezra Oliver into Pavonia on foot, and he led them to the folk who helped colored to cross to New York unmolested. They boarded the ferry, and both felt a frightening lurch in the gut at putting another river between them and their home.

“The smaller I stay, the less fighting you have to do, Jan. You can’t change what is. Maybe your insides is too white to be a colored boy in this town.” Dossie said and Jan spat on the ground.

It was not meekness. Dossie took low because, in many ways, New York City was like Philadelphia. She remembered the terror and confusion of the streets of that city and the fear, then comfort, followed by a complete puzzlement. Jan had never been in so big and busy a place as this no matter how he chose to behave. He himself was frightened, Dossie knew, and felt small and was liable to be incautious. Her legs shook and she was so frightened for them both that she feared she might wet herself and further the discomfort between her legs.

The dark skin ended at Dossie’s lips so that when she parted them a pinker skin emerged visible. She licked at her lips and tasted them again and again, taking the salt she found there into herself. She needed fortitude now. She needed the salt. She
needed to put down the discomfort and the fear. The wind had been in their faces for the whole of the cross to New York. Here was the place that Jan had painted up—that Duncan had described!

On the lane in front of a lot between two tall and top-heavy buildings, Dossie stood behind Jan with her eyes down. Jan became fidgety and uncertain. Duncan had warned him and threatened him about Dossie. “Don’t leave her alone. Take care of her. Bring her back safe.” He’d said that if any harm befell Dossie, and Jan survived it, he should run off to sea and never return to Russell’s Knob. Jan had clasped Duncan’s hand and sworn to that.

Jan and Dossie headed to the Five Points to find a flop and to find Worm, the man Duncan had told them about. Jasp Wardman was called Worm respectfully because his face and neck and even his hands were covered with ropey, swollen lumps from his many knife fights. Behind each ear hung a fleshy mass that appeared, at first, to be decoration. Duncan said the fellow had been a professional knife fighter in his earliest days on the waterfront and had been slashed many times. He survived all these confrontations and had the lumpy skin as proof. He was dark black skinned and covered his head with a bright red cloth tied at an angle. He wore a leather strap around his waist on which hung awls, hammers, and rusted metal stakes. This belt was worn over grimy, wide-legged pantaloons, as Worm eschewed trousers for a different costume.

“Ach! Is’t the old boy too scared to come back to New York town hisself? He sent you, eh?” Worm hollered and clapped Jan enthusiastically when he learned that he was the nephew of Duncan Smoot. “That jumble boy went back to the mountains when ’em put they foot in his ass in this city! He knowed I ain’t
gone nowhere. I sent too many white men down to the devil’s front door for to be scared of ’em. You is home, boy!” Worm guffawed, all while punching and slapping Jan familiarly. “Set your woman to picking rags. One of the gals’ll show her how. You come for a mug of beer, boy,” he roared.

“Dossie don’t pick rags,” Jan piped up indignantly before she could accept the work.

“Aye, she’s the queen then. I know. Only on y’all mountain is the coal-black gal a queen,” Worm said good-naturedly. His manner was very loud, but unexpectedly circumspect when he turned to look at Dossie. He glanced her up and down quickly though not leering. “Gal, sit here and watch dem other gals while I take yer boy for a beer.” He smiled at the top of her head.

Dossie looked to the ground beneath her feet, not raising her eyes as she nodded.

Jan was so irked by Dossie’s new demeanor and his mouth was dry from so much excitement that he left for a drink with Worm.

“It’s cold up yonder in them mountains then? For it takes a dark piece of coal to warm the cock of a mountain man, eh,” Jasp Wardman hooted. “A pretty coal! A real pretty coal!” He cuffed Jan collegially about the back of his head as they left the yard. Jan fingered his pigsticker and did not laugh with Worm. The man noticed Jan’s pique and added, “No mud on your madam’s shoes, young boy. No matter the color. Matter the cunt only, sure!” Worm laughed and spit and elbowed Jan companionably as they continued toward the tavern. Soon enough Jan became relaxed and reciprocated with brotherly jostling.

It was a short walk to the first grog hole they stopped in. Below the level of the thoroughfare, the room was packed with
drinkers. Worm kept his big arm collared around Jan and led him through several rounds of drinks as they leaned against a wooden trough.

“Boy, you’ll be a popular one in this town—like your uncle. You jumble boys can be a big success with the women here—and some of the men. You’re a pretty one. I’d fancy you myself, but your hind parts ain’t big enough for my taste.” Worm guffawed and grabbed Jan’s ass and squeezed. It was a move so quick and firm and surprising that Jan had no time to reach his knife. “If your girl is on the game she can earn a decent wage in town until she run out. You lay about and take in the town till you fin’ you a rich game an’ she can make enough for to feed you both.” The porter in Jan’s mug told him to relax, but his guts made him wary of the man. To whom had Duncan sent him? Only Worm’s deep association with Duncan saved him from a fight. What would Duncan have done to Worm if he’d heard this remark about Dossie? The man would have lost an ear for certain or one of his sausage lips.

“Dossie ain’t a whore. She’s my unc—she’s my woman. I’ma take care o’ her. She gon’ sit on her duff and lap up milk if she want,” Jan said, his head suddenly clearing in the way of a practiced drinker.

Worm continued to smile as he spoke. “I hope she don’t end up clawin’ your eyes out ’cause you caused her to starve.”

At dawn, Jan returned to the rag yard stinking to high heaven and coddling an achy, remorseful head. He smiled broadly when he saw Dossie. She wanted to show her annoyance at him, but thought better of it. She’d thought about it all of that night. She was not his wife or his woman. He had no obligation to her and she had no right to scold him.

Dossie sloughed off her pique because of Jan’s jaunty walk
and his flushed face. He showed her the money in his pockets. He showed her the turns and capers he’d cut atop a table in Black Bob’s Cellar, a good-time tavern. He spun and cavorted until his head caught up with him and tossed him back on his hind parts. Dossie smiled and sat at his feet to hear him tell about his adventures. She kept up her smiling despite the grinding throbs in her belly. Her night had been long and painful, such a bone-lonely time that her parts had ruptured and blood had run and the ragpickers had kept her dress unsoiled, had given her good rags to staunch the flow and a hot toddy. Perhaps it was best he hadn’t been there.

“Oh,” Jan hollered and leapt up. “We got us a flop. Come on.” He grabbed Dossie’s arms and tugged her to her feet. He started to run off down the thoroughfare without a thought for their grips, their satchels, and the provision they’d brought with them, which Dossie had guarded through the night.

“Jan,” Dossie called quietly.

“It’s for both of us together. It can’ be no other way. I can’ let you out of my sight no more. I promised Uncle.” Jan had been so frightened when his head cleared from drink, and he realized that he’d left Dossie alone with the ragpickers.

The triumph of the evening before had come when Black Bob Simpson, owner of the saloon for colored and any who cared to join them at Lispenard Street, negotiated a deal for Jan to dance in his bar. Worm had touted his dancing and said that he was fresh from the highlands and knew the traditional turns and steps. When he took the raised platform that all comers showed their stuff on, he did the freshest, the most athletic, the most graceful turns in his repertoire. Bob hired him on the spot and offered the room on the second floor for him and his woman.

In the part of town that Jan now led Dossie to—whereabouts was their flop—there were lots of dark black gals on the arms of white boys or jumble boys as light as white. And there were, as well, white gals with their arms linked into colored men of all of the shades. Dossie started to countenance the palaver of the ragpickers and got scared of losing Jan to some other gal. His eyes were alight. Even though he did not truly belong to her, she knew they must stay together. Their hitch was beyond that a man and woman feel for each other.

To reach the room at the back of Black Bob’s tavern, a big, dirty barn of a building, Jan and Dossie threaded through groups of women gathered in the hallway and in doorways. There were some smells of cooking and some sounds of small children crying.

Inside a large room on the first floor, women moved around a piano singly and paired up with men. Threading through was a fright, for the passages in the building were narrow and the walls and the floor wet feeling. When they reached their place at the very back of a passage, stepping over a foul lake of water in the corridor, struggling to keep their parcels dry, Dossie’s heart was thumping like the tail of an excited dog.