The Storycatcher (32 page)

My feelings hung all over my body. “You could use my shed. I could spare you a bit of supper. It’s simple, nothing fancy, Pastor Dobbins.”

“Paul, please.” He touched my elbow like I might be something. He looked at the wagon driver. “You can go home.” He reached into his pocket and handed the man some folded bills.

The driver smiled, nodded, and jumped up in the seat of the wagon. We walked off in the direction of my shed.

“I take my baths in the river. It’s right high now. You’ll have to watch yourself. And it will be plenty cold.” The river had slowed some. “I got some soap and a towel you can use. Them pants is terrible.” Mud soaked all the way up to his knees.

He followed me into the damp dark of my shed. I handed him my rosemary soap, and he held it to his nose, taking in a deep breath. “Smells good.”

My cheeks turned warm. “I made it. Here’s the towel.” It hung right by the dress Amelia gave me. The room filled up with silence.

When he was gone, I had to stand still for another full minute and smell him, dampness mixed with a musky man scent. The room was fully pink as the late afternoon sun worked its way in. I moved the tissue paper and looked out. The angel, in all her beauty, stood watching me. I could feel her. The river moved steady. There he stood in the water up to his waist. The
cold didn’t even bother him. Soapsuds clung to the curly hairs on his chest. Time stood right there. Nothing in my whole life will be that way again. I turned from the window and removed the dress from the nail. The softness slid over my head and stuck to my body, becoming a new skin. I smoothed my hair as best I could, pushing it into a piece of string.

He walked into the room wearing his clean wet pants.

“You be too wet.”

He smiled.

I took his shirt from his hand and hung it on a nail near the stove. Then I took his pants.

His touch was like a hot coal against my arm. “Mama said my calling to God was a gift. I didn’t believe her. I’m not and never will be good enough. Where is God in this world, Miss Lolly? But today I met you. You’re an angel. You’re my pure inspiration to speak God’s word.”

I ran my hand over my hair. My skin was so dark next to him. He kissed my fingers one by one. My mind turned still. The dress fell into a puddle on the floor. The angel was cut from marble, but Pastor Dobbins carved me from his details: my skin, that had seen only hard work, my bushy hair bouncing free from the string, my wings, angel wings, beginning to grow. They came last in layers and layers of feathers. Each one beautiful and ready to take into the air.

*   *   *

Pastor Paul Dobbins was gone the next morning. For the longest time I stayed on that cot. The cold soaking into the walls, into my skin, into my heart. Toward evening I got up and put that dress over my head. The blackberry bushes were in full bloom, white-pink with the sweetness of snow. The river had moved around to the front of the cabin and lapped at the front stoop. I walked through the water to dry ground, barefooted, until I reached the angel.

“Come,” she whispered into the air. “Come to me, child, and rest.”

I curled up at her feet.

September 25, 1869

For months, Pastor Paul Dobbins showed up in my cemetery any old time he felt like coming. Things had changed between us after that first night. It was like I didn’t have any choice but to let him visit me. He was rough, mean, and quick to leave. You would have thought I would think more of myself. But I was always on the lookout for him. He was to me like a pint of liquor had been to my daddy. Each time he came, I figured it was the last. After all, I was just a colored girl, and even though I was on Black Mountain, that didn’t keep me from knowing I was messing with pure fire. Still, I had me a stack of dreams. And him loving me was one of them. But Lord knows some dreams never come true.

It was four months after I met him—smack at the end of the hottest summer ever—when I came to know something just wasn’t right. Not just about him but my monthly business had been missing for a while. I was pretty dumb, because I couldn’t figure out why. I thought maybe I had the sickness that ate away at Mama until she died. I went to see Ma Clark. She is the colored mountain witch and is good at what she does. Her and my mama came to Black Mountain together as slaves from some island on Georgia’s coast. That was one story Mama promised to tell me but never did.

Ma Clark and Mama had been best friends, and their stories was all tangled up. That’s why I could go to Ma Clark for anything.

I found her sitting on her porch shelling crowder peas. Her
husband had died before Mama of a snakebite, so like me she was all alone. “What you need, Armetta?” Her face looked younger that morning, and I almost forgot she was way older than me.

“I ain’t been well, ma’am. Could you check me?”

She placed her bowl on the floor beside the rocker. “Come on in here and let’s see what’s ailing you.”

Ma Clark had her a pair of spectacles—Mrs. Daniels had bought them for her—pushed down on her nose so she could see up close when she needed. That day I just remembered her looking over the top of them with a worried stare. She poked around on my stomach. “Lord, Armetta, you’re going to have a baby. Who you been laying with, child? I didn’t think you left the cemetery or had nothing to do with folks.” The judgment slid through them words aimed at me.

So what I’d been doing with the fancy white preacher caused a baby in me. “He’s gone off this mountain,” I lied.

She looked at me sideways. “You got to think on this one, Armetta. If he be a white man—and I think he is—you be in trouble with him.”

I looked at my hands.

“I know all about white men and what they do to colored women. I know it can’t always be helped, and there ain’t a thing you can do about it now. All we can do is pray this baby don’t make it.”

I sucked in air. “There’s not a prayer like that in me.”

She looked at me. “You so much like your mama, girl. You come on down off your high horse and understand what you about to do to this child.”

She was right. A cemetery wasn’t a place for no family, especially if my baby turned out white. Somebody would have something to say, and Pastor Paul Dobbins would be the loudest.

*   *   *

That night Pastor Paul Dobbins came right after dark like most nights, and for the first time I saw him, really saw him. He was just a mean white man using me up each and every night. That knowing must have shown on my face.

“You’re the one who keeps bringing me here. You’re the sinner.” His words rushed at me as he pulled my dress off.

He was spouting craziness like a person with a fever. How long had his loving been like a beating for me? I kept my baby a secret. It was mine, not Pastor’s.

September 27, 1869

I was trimming monkey grass today when Miss Amelia and Pastor Paul Dobbins came strolling up to the big iron gates like they was on some afternoon pleasure walk.

“Armetta.” That fool girl was waving at me like we be best of friends. Trouble was written on Pastor Paul Dobbins’s face.

I straightened and nodded at her. “Miss Amelia.” I couldn’t help but notice Miss Amelia’s arm hooked through his.

“Armetta, I have the best news.” She looked like a girl at her own birthday party, waiting on all the presents.

“What that be, Miss?” I really wasn’t interested to hear a thing she had to say. Pastor Paul Dobbins wasn’t worth nothing, but I still knew his smell, the way his muscles in his arms and down his back stood out, the tiny mole on his left shoulder.

“Well, I want you to come to work for me.” Her cheeks were pink, her blue eyes too bright. Around her neck was a cross with a diamond in the middle. She touched it and rattled on. “See, Paul, I mean Pastor Dobbins and I are going to marry. Can you believe it? I won’t be an old maid after all.”

The good pastor couldn’t look at his sin, me. I was nothing but a passing hour, maybe two each day. “That be real nice, Miss Amelia. I know your mama be proud, and a man of God to boot.” And
the crazy thing was I hurt for her. I wanted nothing but for Miss Amelia to be happy, but he wouldn’t make her that way. He was one big heartbreak. I had to make me some plans and quick.

“Armetta, you look like you’ve put on some weight.” She touched her cross. “I always worry about what you’re eating. It looks like that’s been for nothing.”

Pastor Paul Dobbins’s hard stare cut into me.

“You have to come to New Orleans with me. We’ll make the garden of all gardens. I promise.” She made that life sound so sweet I almost believed her.

The love I wore in my heart for Miss Amelia bubbled up.

“Paul says we will have the best soil in the country there. Isn’t that so, Paul? Help me convince Armetta how important it is for her to come with us. I can’t go without you, Armetta.”

“You must give my Amelia what she wants.” He patted her hand but looked over the top of my head.

Pastor Paul Dobbins was a walking, breathing lie. “I got to stay here, Miss Amelia. I can’t go traipsing off the mountain. This be my home.”

Her eyes turned wet, and she looked over at Pastor Paul Dobbins. He only shrugged. She came close to me. “Please, Armetta, I can’t leave here without you.”

“What you thinking, Miss Amelia? We ain’t nothing to each other, nothing at all. We can’t be.” It near broke my heart to lie, but that devil stood there like a big stone wall blocking my way to her.

“You think on it. I know you’ll see reason. You’re just scared. We’ll have the best garden, me and you. You got time. The wedding isn’t until after Christmas. We won’t leave for New Orleans until February or March. I can’t leave you here, Armetta.”

“That be a long time, Miss Amelia. Things could change between now and then.”

“Two things will never change: my upcoming marriage to Paul and my love for you, Armetta.”

“I think we should go, Amelia.” His words hung in the air.

He never visited me again at night. I didn’t expect him to. Miss Amelia had done shown me just who he was.

It’s bedtime now, and I’m sitting on the little stoop of my shack and watching the green corn moon. We call it that ’cause it’s time to harvest. This moon always makes a soul restless. The river is churning and rushing behind the cabin. I can feel the baby moving inside of me, wings fluttering. Life from sin. Ain’t that what Mama always talked about? Jesus died for our sins and gave us life. A baby isn’t bad, but a half-white baby with a colored girl will make living hard, worse than just plain dark skin.

March 5, 1870

His hot devil’s breath hit me full in the face last night. The night was so dark I couldn’t see nothing about him. But I knew it was him even though I hadn’t seen him in five months. I’d hoped him and Amelia had left after marrying at Christmas, but I knew better. Pastor Paul Dobbins clapped his hand over my mouth. “She’s coming here to see you soon and thinks I’ve been trying to convince you to go to New Orleans with us. You’d better not say anything different.” He poked me in the stomach with his finger. “If you have to hide then hide, but she can’t know about your condition.” He came in closer like he might suck the air from my mouth. “I’ll make sure you pay if you tell her about this. You need to disappear off this mountain while you can.” He left without me opening my mouth. The place on my stomach burned with pain.

I kept my eye out for Miss Amelia, and sure enough this afternoon while I was on my knees weeding some flowers, I seen her red hair shining in the sun that cut through the trees. I’d
taken to wearing some of Daddy’s baggy overalls that hid my stomach. My heart wasn’t wanting to hurt Miss Amelia. She was a good soul, and the one person in the world who cared after me.

Her face was creased with worry. “Armetta, I need to talk to you.”

“I’m working on this flowerbed, Miss Amelia. Come on down here and join me like you used to.”

She smiled and dropped to her knees. “Paul said he begged and begged you to come with us to New Orleans, but you just flat refused. I’ve never known you to be out-and-out mean, Armetta.” Those blue eyes of hers was the saddest I’d ever seen them.

“It won’t work. You need to make a life with him. You can’t if I’m there.”

“Armetta, I need you. You’re my real family. Please come with me. I can’t live with him unless you’re there. He won’t even let me walk on the mountain. He’s like Daddy. Mama agrees with him. I can’t go back to being locked in a house. I need you to help me.”

My heart cracked some.

“Paul isn’t who I thought. It’s too late. I’m stuck.”

The baby kicked me. “I’ll have to think.”

“You can’t. It’s now or never.” The sunlight hit the diamond on the little cross and sparkled. “I’m going to have a baby. He doesn’t know.” Amelia smiled.

“I’ll go, but first I got to finish something.”

She smiled so big I thought her mouth had to hurt. Her perfume smelled of honeysuckles blooming. “We leave at the end of the month.” She stood up. “I knew you would do it if I talked to you.”

“Miss Amelia, how about we not tell him I’m going? I got a feeling that wouldn’t be smart.”

Her look settled on my shoulders. “I think you’re right. I
won’t tell, Armetta. You’re saving my life. But what do I say when he asks about my visit?”

“Tell him I refused because I’m going down the mountain to work in town.” Evil begot evil.