The Blood of Heaven (14 page)

I took the burning cup up once again, swished the sweetness in my mouth, and thought of the feel of dirt-beads being rubbed from Emily’s skin, knowing that this girl would be clean. My Bible felt a sullen weight at my breast.

Is the rest true, too? I asked.

Samuel acted as though he didn’t understand.

Is he cutting foreskins for her?

Drink your drink, he said. She says she has a bride-price, and he’s the only man who’s come close to paying it. She’s awaiting him.

Will we wait here for him too? Or can we go on down to find him?

We’ll wait. It’s ripe here and we’ve got work yet to do, he said. What’re you, tired of it?

We’ve got a good bit of money now. And I thought you were eager to get to your brother.

Samuel swiped my drink from the table and downed it. I won’t meet Reuben like some fuckerall with nothing to show for himself.

It’s got to be more than fifty dollars—

Nothing to show but fifty piss-nicked shitty dollar bits. No, brother, I won’t. Samuel surveyed the room. Now go, he said, and pick yours before she’s claimed and get this business off your Doubting Thomas mind.

Secrets and a Sign of Future Promise

She was called Red Kate Collins. Her people were Irish, of the swarthy kind that are often compared in newspaper drawings to apes. She knew her age, which was fourteen, and shared her room and bed with three others, and gathered all about were scraps of muslin and calico, costume jewelry winking in tangles of old socks that smelled maybe of men but in their confluence gave up women like a ghost.

Your brother’s a fine impressive man, she said.

I’ve never known him rightly, I said.

Neither have I, she laughed. Not that a-way. He means to marry the mistress.

So I hear.

The party’ll be lovely, she said.

Beside her on the bed, I stopped her fiddling with her dress-front, saying, Can I tell you something?

A secret? she said, knowing me even then.

Of a kind, I said, tugging at the sheet she’d wrapped around herself. I’m no Kemper, I said.

How’s that? You adopted?

Right, I said. My brother calls me brother. You call me Angel.

O, she said. That suits you more, with that hair. She reached out and smoothed some back behind my ear. That’s all your secret is?

The girl I first laid with was murdered by her mother over me.

God, she said. Stranger and stranger you get.

She had a child in her.

I take my tinctures for that, she said. So don’t be fearing.

And she looked on me like I was some thing dredged up from the river-bottom by a storm and washed ashore, but it seemed also that this strange thing was one she wished to pocket and keep even then. I told Red Kate the story of my time in Chit, of Emily’s death and how I’d stuck my father down. It spilled from me, the first and only time I would give anyone the story full. And when I came to the sputtering end, I expected her to revile me, to turn and spit or send me out. But it was that her eyes had widened, her look grown even fiercer, as though I’d told her own life, which she, excitedly, proceeded to give. Her family had settled in the inner piney-woods of the Mississippi—a mother whose memory she bore only in the stings of whippings, a sullen silent father, and a brother who leered when he thought she was sleeping, his prick nudging her in the bed they shared—and were arrived and set up in their cabin but a month when a horde of Creeks descended on them. She didn’t cry when they were cut down, lamented this fact even more than her time of captivity, weeks being hustled from camp to camp and living with a grubby Indian family until one night, when they were all asleep—husband, squaw, and four youngsters—she took up a hatchet and hacked them apart save for one of the children, who escaped screaming into the woods.

She supposed that she had killed two sets of parents, and that was worse even than me.

And her words were more sweet than any tumble in the sheets, though I was hunched over with desire for that also. Red Kate’s hands had returned to her buttons and I felt my throat close up as each one was loosed by those hands which I envisioned tensed with the work of vengeance, awaiting blood-spray. You’re a miracle, I said.

That’s kind, she said, and flicked undone the last of her trusses. But I’ll be damned for what I’ve done and what I do. Now you’d better be quick. All this talk’s eaten up your time.

Red Kate squared into my vision and I wondered at her bareness, the fine line of reddish down extending from between her breasts and belly. I said, Every demon in Hell would hang their heads in shame.

You do talk, she said, and began tugging at my shirts even as I spoke.

God’s grace is greatest on those of us who’ve got the fire, and you do. I can see it.

Nodding with a grin, Red Kate put me down. But before she could work off my pants, I took a-hold of her thighs, tugged her to my face, and tried feebly to give her what Emily had wanted on that night beside the demon-hogs. My nose had not but poked her, my tongue barely grazed what it sought, when she bucked from me with a curse.

I stared dumbly at this girl now riled and covering her cleft. Jesus, she said. What do you think you’re doing? She thrashed her head. All that pretty talk—

And before I could do more than crumple and jabber, there came the fists of her sisters banging at the door, the grumbling of customers, calls to get out growing shriller as I gathered up my clothes and, giving one last look to her—eyes broad in shock, white tips of teeth bared but not a word escaping—stumbled out.

Downstairs, Samuel was waiting for me on one of the couches. While we shared a drink his whore returned, dressed in fresh and more resplendent finery, to bid him good night. When she left, we waited for mine, but Red Kate never came.

I suppose you weren’t too good, Samuel said, grinning.

I was glaring at the empty staircase, where other men and their choices shuffled up. Piss on it, I said, let’s go to work.

It was just after mid-night when we went out into the streets. I thought of those small hands wielding hatchet-handle, knew then that I could speak no more doubts or ill of Reuben’s love of bloody Aliza. Tucked between smashed casks in a close alley, I told Samuel I was sorry for doubting and he said he knew that I’d be cured up there. Then he pulled down the flap from underneath his hat and I did the same.

The drunks who happened by were in vicious groups, and we figured this couldn’t be for our sake alone, though it was something to consider that the bleary-eyed world had to arm itself against you.

We made no take that night, and I believe I would’ve dropped my pistol anyhow for the way my mind was wandering. The places it went were soft and the color of dark-burning flame. To clear my mind, on our way back to Lowde’s that morning, I left Samuel and went to find some souls to save. He hollered for me to tuck my mask back and I realized that the flap was still down, the frayed edges of the eyeholes appearing now.

The early morning passersby were for the most part unmoved. Vendors doing far brisker business as the hour grew late and the sun came full up watched me from their stalls, sniggering. And my voice was worn to a rasp and my tongue grown thick and dry like the Word burnt there had gone bad. By noon only a pair of raggedy old men had come forward to be saved. They were both so filthy I didn’t want to put my hands on their greasy heads when they took off their shredded hats to be touched, and I wouldn’t go down to the river with just these two. I had them stand by while I resumed the call to Salvation so that they jabbered behind me a list of their own sins. My idiot chorus drew no further followers, only more scorn and derision, which harried the Word out of me. I was tearing at my hair, cursing them all, cursing in my heart the way my verses were cut off even as I spoke them. My old converts followed suit and I sprung up onto a store-front railing with every cuss I knew, found a rain barrel there, and clawed water from it to cast on my mumbling supplicants; and they lifted up their hands and sang praises. I was slapping them across their faces when a man going by said, Some preacher.

I flung myself at him and I was the good shepherd indeed; and the crowd that gathered parted for me when I got up from the battered heckler to go home. My followers didn’t follow; they’d fled while I’d been clawing at the man on the ground, whose screams were still audible a street over. My fingers hurt for all the blood caked underneath my nails. I looked at them and all they did was remind me of her.

The Shining One Appears

I might have gone in straight-away and tossed my Bible in the fire if it weren’t for the roomful of guests at Mother Lowde’s. The lady herself was at the long table with them, as was Samuel, and they all hallooed me when I came in. The man at the far head of the table was bejeweled and shining as Lucifer himself. At his neck he wore a silver collar-guard; his hands—one holding a glass, the other hugging to him the bare shoulders of a mulattoe girl—were covered in rings.

Samuel rose, clapped a hand to my back, and escorted me table-side to be introduced to the Reverend Ivan Morrel.

The Reverend put out a gold-and-silver-decked hand and I forgot how battered mine was from the heckler’s face and gave it to him without a thought. Knuckle splits barely dried on my walk were reopened by his grip.

So you’re the other preacher boy, eh? He had a sweet voice that could lead you far places, and you knew he could do justice to a psalm. He’d not let go of my hand and proceeded to bring it close to his eyes and examine my cuts.

My, my, said the Reverend. You brained some poor body, didn’t you?

I might’ve, I said to the titters of those seated at the table.

Did you kill him? asked the Reverend.

Not so much as that, I said.

More laughter all around, loudest from Mother Lowde, who seemed to know him.

Morrel had me put my hands out on the table and the others all leaned across and leered at my busted claws. He took my hand again and dug beneath the nail of my forefinger, picking out a peck of flesh, and letting me go again, rolled it into a ball between his fingers. Not taking his eyes away from the pearl of flesh, he said, You must be a fine preacher. Anyone willing to dig at a man’s skin to get at his heart is a true Christian.

He was well-fed and tall, but in his words and face there was an aspect of my father, and this harrowed me. Before I knew it Lowde had a-hold of my hands and was wiping them clean as best she could with the damp of her apron, which was daubed and spotted with blood-stains older perhaps than me or even Samuel.

And I hear, said the Reverend while she wiped, that you boys even managed to bring Lady Lowde into the fold. I’ve known her for years and tried my best, but none of it ever stuck.

Mother Lowde let me go and I found a place at the table beside Samuel. The Reverend Morrel’s fellows were raunchy-looking suckers, nowhere near as decked in finery as him who now called for Lowde to make us a round of coon-boxes.

I only got three eggs, she said.

Well, hell, said the Reverend. Then one coon-box for each preacher you see here.

There was no grumbling from any of the others, and I swelled a bit at being favored.

Behind the counter, Lowde had taken a pin from her hair and was presently twirling the point of it against the small of an egg until she made a tiny hole there; and pressing a finger on the opening she turned the egg delicately over and made another such hole at its base. With this accomplished, above, she pulled a glass in front of her and put her lips to the hole at the small end and blew into it so that the white and yolk began to flutter out the larger end and into the glass. When she’d emptied three shells, she set them beside the glass and went out into the street, returning with a handful of blue clay dug from the roadside. She took a pinch of the clay, put it in her mouth, and began chewing.

The Reverend said, I know from Sister Lowde that you’re more than preachers, but also fellow chips.

Neither of us answered.

Don’t fear, he said. I admire that just as much.

Then it’s true, said Samuel.

And I bet you’re too young to’ve been caught, said Morrel.

Not yet, I said.

Well. You’ve got yourself some hands there, but have a look at this. Morrel put out the hand I’d shook and turned it palm-up. I have been caught, he said.

There was a line of raised dark flesh in a slash across his palm. The others looked as though they’d heard of it many times, but still all eyes were on the scar.

The iron wasn’t hot enough when they first tried it on me, said the Reverend. They did it right there in the God-damned courthouse—my sentence for stealing horses because no one wanted to take my ears. Horses! God knows I’ve done better than that.

His men laughed. His whore was as rapt as Samuel and me. Mother Lowde brought our coon-boxes, the eggs now filled with sweet rum and sealed at both ends with clay so that you had to tooth out a hole to suck at the liquor mixed with the remaining white which clung to the walls of the shell. I went baby-birdy at mine but Samuel’s cracked on his first attempt at the juice and he plucked it into his mouth and licked the rum from his hands. The Reverend for his part was an expert at coon-boxes, feeding drops to his mulattoe while he continued.