Angels Make Their Hope Here (4 page)

At daybreak Dossie woke to see Noelle’s back as she walked away from the house. The woman in doeskin was carrying her boots and picking her way out of the yard. Her eyes were trained on the path. Her hips moved with energy like potatoes in a sack. What kind of a wild circumstance was this woman who looked so different and acted so different? The surprise was that Mr. Duncan seemed smitten with her. He’d looked at
her and listened to her with rapt attention throughout supper. Dossie had to admit she was annoyed. It didn’t suit with him being God. This woman’s sudden appearance had messed up her cloud of imagination. She’d conjured up a whole circumstance with herself at the middle of it holding on to Mr. Duncan. Here come this woman! Dossie kept up her sulky reverie throughout the early morning until Duncan Smoot came into the kitchen for his repast. “I want my coffee, little girl,” Duncan said sharply. Dossie came back to herself quickly. His face was freshly splashed with water, but he did not smile at her as he’d become accustomed to doing when his first cup of coffee was brought to the table.

“Hey, Dossie gal, gwan in and help Hattie with our supper,” Duncan said as soon as they reached the Wilhelms’ porch. Dossie’s head bobbed in response like a puppy’s. She quickly looked down at her feet when Jan, Pet, and Ernst Wilhelm, seated for their morning repast at the Wilhelms’ kitchen table, turned in her direction. “Tell Hat to sen’ me some sour milk and bread ’cause I’m hungry!” Duncan called loudly, then sat. When Dossie bowed her head in automatic concession to his command, a small cloud of shame passed over him. Though perfect obedience was what was wanted and expected in a young female, Duncan did not like to see Dossie cringe. If anyone would ask, it is why he’d brought her here. He could not stomach what he’d seen of her treatment at the hands of the lowlanders.

The boys, too, had learned to obey. Perfect obedience or suffer the punishment was what all of the People observed. Though, for Jan and Pet, it was not always clear whom to obey.

“Petrus has work to do here, Duncan. I need him at the brewery. He cannot go today,” Ernst Wilhelm said and started the tug-of-war. The cousins exchanged a glance, then continued with their mush and bread and coffee. This argument would not be settled by them. “Petrus must stay here today.”

“That big oaf there is worth two men, and I need him. We’re negotiating for a string of mules. Jan can’t handle them alone,” Duncan said.

“My son ain’t no oaf, and he ain’t born to do your bidding!” They were bald faced in their scrapping about who should tell the boys what to do. But Wilhelm was the more exercised because his wife ceded authority for her son completely to her brother.

“Calm down, Wilhelm. I ain’t stealing yer boy. I’m just borrying him. What say you, Hat?” Duncan asked, asserting his authority with his sister. The boys hung their heads and waited for the answer.

“Let him go, Mr. Wilhelm. The three banded together is better,” Hat pronounced.

“Squaw!” Wilhelm snarled at his wife. “You would side with Duncan against daylight. Your brother don’t own my son!”

Petrus Wilhelm and his father frightened Dossie. It was not solely on account of the fuss and tussle that erupted when Duncan and Ernst Wilhelm spoke but because they were so pale. Neither of them was brown tinted by sun or circumstance. Petrus Wilhelm did not, at first sight, look anything at all like his mother. More’s the pity, Dossie thought, for she believed Miz Hat was the prettiest woman she had ever seen. Pet had his father’s lank brown hair and, though his body was modeled on his father’s, it was not yet as hard and fat. Pet had the same small sky-blue eyes, the identical long, bony nose, the same
blushing complexion as his father, and the similarity was often remarked upon. Though Mr. Wilhelm raised his voice in shouts, Duncan Smoot did not cower before him. And though Petrus Wilhelm was the image of his papa, he was obedient to his uncle.

Pet wanted to rebuke his father for insulting his mother, but he did not. No boy in these hills rises against his father unless he is prepared to hurt him. This was Pet’s eternal turmoil, because he loved Papa, though he would defend his mother with his life. That, too, is the mountain boy’s code.

“Papa,” Pet said, pushing back the empty bowl of mush. His youthful appetite satisfied, he was eager for riding and raiding and adventure with Duncan and Jan. They were a band.

“I got to go and look after Jan. He’s soft and liable to get hurt,” Pet said and slapped playfully at Jan’s head. “It’s only a day gone. Me an’ Jan’ll work like beasts when we get back. Uncle needs an ox. That’s me.” He spoke in the self-deprecating tone of voice that always succeeded in extricating him from a fuss with Hat and Duncan and his papa, but pissed Jan.

“Don’t let your uncle get you killed,” Ernst Wilhelm said. He rolled his eyes at Hat, though she had cast her eyes to her lap. “And take care of Jan. Your mama will be inconsolable if he gets hurt.”

Duncan and the boys returned at suppertime. The band had cajoled three jacks and a jenny from the landing after driving a bargain with a boat boy who had swiped them off a westbound barge. Ever the clever bargainer, Duncan skinned the boy—giving him half what the animals were worth even on the fast market—and the three were jocular, pleased with their adventure.

Dossie nodded to Duncan when he walked onto the Wilhelms’ porch behind Jan. She wanted to rush up and hug Duncan because he’d returned. Dossie restrained herself at some effort, and he rewarded her by holding her chin high, asking her to bring him a repast.

“Mr. Duncan wants a glass of sour milk, ma’am—an’ some bread for it, he said.”

“Well, he gon’ wait for his supper jus’ like Mr. Wilhelm!” Hat retorted with some humor in her fussing.

A look of grave discomfort crossed Dossie’s face. Hat noted it and was some bit alarmed. Was this girl so scared of Duncan that she dared not jump to do his bidding?

“He hasn’t been layin’ a hand on you, has he?” Hat asked, feeling guilty that she hadn’t marked the relations between this little gal and Duncan.

Affronted at the question, Dossie spoke up like she’d done that first time Hat had seen her. “No, ma’am. He does no such thing! I only wan’ him to have what he ask for,” she answered plain and simple.

Hat chuckled and remembered that she had once been absolutely obedient to her brother. “Pippy, go fetch me…,” Duncan would say, and she would run off to get string and small knives and glasses of buttermilk.

“Yonder,” Hat said and pointed toward a crock. “Give him sour milk and some of tha’ stale bread and tell him I say to stop up his mouth with it!” she said with a guffaw.

Dossie knew that it wasn’t proper for her to sit at Duncan’s side on the porch with Mr. Wilhelm and Jan and Pet. She wanted to listen to his banter, though, and feel his domination of the other men. This was the part of seeing him in company with the others that she most enjoyed. She liked crediting that
Duncan was chief among the others, and that all of the others, including her, lived in his heaven. His voice cut through the others’ talk when he expressed an opinion or told a tale or rebuked one of the boys. She presented the buttermilk and bread to him in the midst of banter and withdrew to the kitchen.

Later Hat gave her a pot to hoist, and she did and carried the dinner stew to the table.

“Sirs, your dinner is down,” Dossie mumbled shyly. Jan and Pet laughed stupidly, and Duncan cut his eyes.

Still worried that she ought not to be seated among the others in God’s heaven, Dossie sat on the edge of her chair ready to leap up to answer Duncan’s slightest wish. The boys snickered at her and hunched each other’s ribs when their uncle was not watching.

After eating themselves to founder, Ernst Wilhelm and Duncan went to the porch to smoke cigars and drink whiskey. Jan and Pet followed them, and Jan began to dance—raising his arms and shuffling his feet in soft moccasins. A cloud of smoke was soon so thick around them that Dossie stood back in the doorway and watched and listened. She was transfixed at the sight of Jan’s dancing and got woozy from the aroma of liquor and the smoke. Hat did not let her linger long.

“Come away,” she said and led Dossie to her own bedroom.

Dossie stopped just inside the doorway and, as before, she marveled. She was still unsure that Duncan was not God and these others his minions. Their places—their houses, their beds, the chairs at their hearths—had the atmosphere of a heaven. The People of Russell’s Knob were, no doubt, caught in tangles and angry fusses, but they had plenty and they were lusty and loyal
and celebratory. Yes, she had indeed been rescued by God and brought to Canaan Land.

The room was a large one and was divided in the middle by the large bed. All of Hat’s wardrobe and her many adornments were placed to the left of the bed, and Ernst Wilhelm’s clothes and sundry were to the right of the great bed. Once inside the room Hat began to loosen her clothes as if to slough off her great and many duties, placating and providing for her titans. She stooped to pick up her husband’s clothes from the floor and snorted with annoyance. She was a fortunate, privileged woman in Russell’s Knob, but Harriet Smoot Wilhelm was not self-indulgent. She was busy. She was a woman of industry and so was weary at the end of the day. Hat sat in her high-backed rocker and set to brushing her voluminous hair with a large fancy-handled brush. She twisted up her hair in thick ropes and further wound and pinned the ropes to her head. She covered up her head with a cloth.

Miz Hat was changed when she came into this precinct—this part of this fine room that had her chair was nearby the window facing east, that had her accoutrement, that had her embroidery on a small table beside her chair, that was a cozy within a cozy home and hearth. If you did not see her in this room, you might think she was stingy with smiles. Oh, but here, unfurling her hair ribbons and looking at her combs, she was animated and cheerful as a kitten, a laughing girl. When she’d done up her own hair, she went to a drawer in her chest and took out a sleeve of red cloth.

The sleeve was tied with a fancy ribbon and, when Hat opened it and lay it out, revealed pockets for combs in a bed of deep green color. The inside of the wrapping was further
embellished with stitched pictures of birds and flowers. Hat smiled gleefully when she spread the breathtaking array of bone and wooden combs. Dossie caught up her breath at the sight of them.

“Ah, Miz Hat.” Dossie was dumb and overwhelmed with wonder. “Where they come from?” she asked.

Hat snickered behind her hand and hugged her hands over her stomach. “Mr. Wilhelm brought me a fancy present when he behaved badly and I stung him, you see,” she said and executed an intricate set of eye movements. “I wearied him. I fussed. I cried constantly until he went to the city and bought me this. Then I was sweet again, you see.” Hat giggled. “Whore’s tricks! We all learn them. But are they not a delight?”

Her words were thrilling, they seemed uncertain waters, a grown woman’s secrets. Ah, she knew Miz Hat suffered her husband. Dossie disliked him herself.

Hat pulled off her headcloth and applied firm but gentle fingers to her hair. “I’m glad of you, girl,” she said massaging. “Cissy and Noelle fought over fixing up my hair. They played with me like I was a doll. I was a very spoiled dolly before Cissy died,” Hat said, letting her levity fade.

Hat’s nut-colored hands were beautiful on the white sheets when she pulled back the counterpanes and exposed her bed. Ah, in God’s house they are flush in bed linens! Hat’s hands amazed! She had nails so clean and smooth shaped a baby could suck her fingers like a tit.

To have a warmth beside you in your family is not a prize or a privilege; it is a necessary. So surely God would have a necessary, because God would have all that was necessary. God wouldn’t go without. God must have a family.

Invited into the bed, Dossie lay awake beside Hat and listened to the drunken talkers for a time after Hat had fallen asleep, disappearing beneath her covers. Had she escaped and landed next to God and his family of folk? Dossie still believed they were her divine deliverers. She slipped out of the bed onto the floor, drew up her knees, and sat back against the four-poster. Miz Hat was a wonder! She was so sweet when the men weren’t around. Well, sometimes she was sweet with Jan, but with Mr. Duncan most of all. It seemed she never wanted her husband or son to see her smile.

Dossie was too nervous to sleep deeply in case Mr. Duncan wanted her to fetch or to follow. She listened and was certain she’d identified his snoring. She rested and drowsed against the bedpost listening to Jan whistling. He was the last to be awake. Pet had long since ceased playing his spoons. Mr. Ernst Wilhelm must be the one who was snorting snores every so often. It was a rude sound, and Dossie attributed it to him without proof. She listened to Jan make up music with his own mouth and mark the cadence of his dances. There were trills in Jan’s sounds that put Dossie in mind of some birds and, though the dancing was unavailable to her, she heard the shushing of Jan’s soft moccasins on the wood. Was that the flapping of wings? What was this boy? Was’t possible he took the air when all was quiet and all the others slept? Only her fear of waking Hat kept her in the bedroom away from peeping at him.

Jan Smoot was the most handsome of all God’s people. Jan was dark eyed like his uncle, deep tan skinned, fluffy haired beautiful in an aloof, unself-conscious way. It was as if he knew very well how beguiling his face was but didn’t care to take advantage by calling attention to it. How could he help smiling, though, for his soul was sweet. When he smiled he drew
all eyes, and even the blind woman at the well would know that he was beautiful, for she would hear the sharp sigh of delight that passed the lips of folk who could see him. It fitted together to Dossie. Jan was very much like his uncle.

Finally it became completely quiet in the Wilhelm house except for snores. God’s people were noisy when they slept, Dossie thought. It was a measure of their happiness, their peaceful and unguarded ways, that they lay themselves down and closed their eyes with little care when they were spent from the day. And they sucked air and made sounds that must have carried for miles. But no one heard and found them. Their mountains kept their sounds from giving them up. Birds were their confederates, everywhere masking their voices with singing and chattering.