~~Chapter 10

I woke with a start when Father clattered a stove lid into place downstairs. I stretched my legs and winced. Dillon handled me carefully last night but he was a big man and very strong. He bent and stretched me every which way, my nipples were tender, my muscles ached and I was as tired as if I spent a day riding. My pussy buzzed pleasantly from the gentle friction of his fingers and I knew that next time, neither of us would be satisfied with only that.

I could smell Dillon in my bed clothes. Lust rippled warmly through my body.

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The sun came out late in the morning and blazed all afternoon. The light breeze was frigid but the people of Dodge threw open their curtains and turned their faces to the feeble warmth of the sun like buttercups. I took advantage of the break in the storm to get some fresh air and to slip and slide my way to the depot to retrieve a shipment of Army ledgers.

White people paid little attention to the business of Negroes, especially in Indian country. Even so, I was cautious about where I went alone in Dodge. At first glance, my father could pass for white; and with his priest's collar and French accent, he could move relatively freely about the town. I am his child but my skin is dark and I speak English gilded with the refined influence of Oxford tutors borrowed from wealthy cousins. I was out of place in a land where Negroes kept theirs. I already raised a few eyebrows at the post office so I learned to keep my mouth shut and I limited my travels to where people along the way were used to seeing me: Moss Grimmick's, the telegraph office, Jonas General Store and the depot. Anywhere else, I went with my father, Doc or Chester.

I was fairly safe in Dodge but there was one man who served to remind me of my need to remain vigilant.

Kite Thibodaux was the stockman at the depot freight office. He was a Confederate deserter who crawled out of hiding to take advantage of Lincoln's amnesty proclamation. He was jug-eared, walleyed and illiterate, disdainful of women and a virulent racist.

A few weeks after our arrival in Dodge, I went to the depot to pick up a shipment of bookkeeping supplies. Thibodaux stood in front of the pickup window hunched over a small flat bottle of cheap whiskey, a tattered feather duster tucked under his arm. His temples were deeply concave and his nose lumpy and pitted with rosacea. His hair was combed in greasy strings and cropped in a straight line high on his bulging forehead.

I waited a full minute for him to notice me.

"Pardon me. There is a shipment here for Emile Lemieux?" I said.

Thibodaux turned and stared at me with blank eyes the color of bad water. I assumed he had not heard me.

"There is a box from the War Department for Emile Lemieux," I said.

His lips crinkled back like a dog about to bite. "What you talking, boy?" he said.

It had not yet occurred to me that I should be frightened. I took the folded manifest from my shirt pocket and held it out to him. He pinched a corner of the paper between two dirty fingers. He did not open it.

"Who you tink you is?" he hissed.

"The contents are listed on this manifest. It is that box," I said, pointing behind him. "There, with the eagle seal on it."

Thibodaux's eyes widened and narrowed at the same time and his entire face turned down in a scowl. He shoved the manifest back at me and leveled a finger at my face.

"You marking me, boy?" he yelled.

Before I could react, a man stepped between us. "You want to get your finger out of that child's face, mister," he drawled.

The man's clothes were threadbare but clean. He was freshly shaven and smelled of hair tonic. There was something of the wolf in his body - rangy and loose, yet tightly coiled and lethal. His eyes were a kaleidoscope of hazel and grey and they were locked on Thibodaux. He leaned an elbow on the counter conversationally. He spoke to Thibodaux in a low voice. I could not hear what he said but I did catch, "You got that, boy?"

Thibodaux opened his mouth and closed it. He brought my box around the counter and placed it on the floor. I picked it up and backed quickly out of the office. The wolf man followed me out and gave me a smile that turned him utterly beautiful.

"My name is Jimmy," I said breathlessly.

"Festus Haggen at your service, Mr. Jimmy," he said. He took the box from me and hoisted it on his shoulder.

He kept up a colorful commentary as he walked me back to the library, laughing at his own jokes and singing snatches of a song he seemed to be making up as we went along.

"Mr. Haggen, what did you say to that man?" I asked when we got back to the office.

The merry light went out of his eyes. "Let's just say us Haggens don't take kindly to unpolitemis. Especially not from no unwashed piney woods cracker coward," he said. "You feed that polecat with a long-handled spoon, Big Jim." He gazed in the direction of the depot with a small frown. He spat in the dust.

I managed to avoid Thibodaux after that but I saw him from time to time, sweeping the same spot, watching Dillon and me from the corners of his eyes.

It was a bad idea to go to the depot alone but I didn't want to make another hike out here later in the week when the weather turned bad again. Father had the beginnings of a chest cold and I did not want him out. The breeze worked icy fingers under my coat and up my sleeves.

I cautiously approached the depot, checking for Thibodaux on the loading dock. Snow drifted undisturbed against the bay door. I stood in the foyer of the freight office and looked carefully around the room. There was no one at the pickup window and I did not see Thibodaux's bucket and broom.

"Mr. Hightower?" I called. I waited.

The door to the warehouse was open. I had been back there a few times. I thought I would find my package and leave a note for Hightower as I did before. I walked over to the warehouse door and stepped inside. It was dark but I could see a dimly lighted desk at the other end of the cavernous room, impossibly far away. The air was damp and smelled of rusting iron, sawdust, sweat and decaying buffalo hides. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I decided to cut my losses and get the hell out of there.

I stepped back out of the door and heard a flat, nasally voice behind me.

"Where you going, boy?" It was Thibodaux.

I did not answer. I began to walk into the office, but he caught me by the arm and swung me around. I tried to pull free but he had a good grip. He caught my other arm and pulled me against his body. He pushed his face close to mine.

"You tink you something, don't you, you skinny black coon?"

The stench of chaw and rotting teeth roiled out of his mouth, gagging me. I made a disgusted sound. He narrowed his eyes.

"You too good for me?" He shook me and squeezed my elbows tighter.

I clamped my jaw against my cry of pain. I would not give him the satisfaction. I glanced behind me.

His grin was nasty. "Ain't nobody here. It's just me and you." His eyes crawled over my face. "Now I got you close, I see you ain't half ugly. I seent you with that nigger-loving marshal, me. You tink I don't know? You walk around with your nose in the air but I bet cash money you bending over for him. Got his spunk all in your mout' ain't you, boy?"

His ruddy neck was ringed with dirt mixed with grease in the loose skin. Something shiny peeked above of the dirty collar of his frayed undershirt. He had punched a hole in a small silver coin and tied it around his neck with a double strand of red thread. He was North Louisiana backwoods Catholic and next to his crucifix, he wore the disme as protection against the gris-gris.

He gathered my wrists in one hand and reached around to knead my buttocks. He chuckled. "Oh, yeah. I see why Dillon be fucking you, sweetmeat." He glanced toward the dark open doorway of the warehouse. "You take his, you can take mines, ni**er."

He turned back to me with another evil grin. I looked into his eyes and I knew that he would never leave me alone, that he would follow me home or lay in wait for me one day, rape me and probably kill me, secure in his knowledge that no one would come looking for the murderer of a black girl.

I pulled back as hard as I could then slumped forward, catching him off guard. His balanced faltered and in that instant, I brought my bony knee to his groin with all my strength. At the same time I whipped my hand forward and yanked at the red thread, raking his cheek and neck with my fingernails in the process.

He released me and crumpled to the ground with his hands cupped between his legs. I jumped back, ready to run, but he was not going anywhere soon. His face was almost purple and thick veins corded in his scrawny neck. He made little grunting sounds. A boil festered in the crease between his cheek and the side of his nose. His rosacea had worsened since I last saw him and his nose was an angry red, swollen and pitted, dotted with pustules. It had likely flared up due to the cold and his poor hygiene but he would not know that. I needed to make sure that he would stay away from me forever.

I squatted by his head and waited until I knew he could see me. I held his eyes.

"Who is the ni**er now, you white trash piece of shit?" I asked softly.

I tapped his nose with my finger. He winced. "Hurts, n'est-ce pas?" I said. "It has been hurting a lot of late, has it not? Je vous connais, Thibodaux." I dangled his disme from its piece of filthy red thread, letting it hit one side of his nose then the other. Fear broke in his eyes. "You turn your face from me," I said. I flicked my eyes down to his crotch. "Or I will make it fall off."

I dropped his charm in my coat pocket and straightened. His mouth opened and closed like a caught fish. White threads of spittle stretched between his lips. He coughed weakly. I casually searched through that week's mail and retrieved my package. I stood with my back to Thibodaux when I wrote my note to Mr. Hightower. I stopped at the warehouse door and stared down at Thibodaux. His eyes flinched away from mine and he remained where he was curled on the floor. I walked away.

I let the wind blow the foul odor of Thibodaux from my skin. I hated having to resort to making that vermin believe that I was vaudou - and I hated that fear was the only power I held over people like him. I felt slightly hysterical with anger and fright and I was nearly home when I had to stop and lean against a building until I could drag air back into my lungs. I saw Dillon step out of the jail and onto the boardwalk. Something inside me gave way a little and my eyes stung with tears. I wanted to fling myself into his arms. I walked slowly toward him, my jaw clenched and my shoulders stiff.

He stared me intently. "What happened?" he asked.

"Well, hello to you too, Mr. Dillon," I said.

"Jimmy -."

I swiped a tear off my cheek. "The cold wind makes my eyes water."

"Uh, huh."

"It does."

He let it go but I could see in his eyes that he would pursue it later. "I've been looking for you today," he said.

"I needed some fresh air." I pointed to the box of ledgers I held under my arm.

"Are you free Sunday after supper?"

"Yes."

"I'll come for you."

I bit my lower lip to keep it from trembling. I nodded and swallowed hard.

He gave me another long, assessing look then tilted his head toward the library. "Get out of the cold," he said, glancing over my head in the direction of the depot.

I ran up to my room and scrubbed my face and neck with the harsh lye soap we used to wash the pots. I could never tell Dillon what happened. Kite Thibodaux was defective and possibly evil but I did not wish to be responsible for his death.

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I spent all of Sunday trying to think of a legitimate reason why Dillon and I needed to be together that evening and how to tell my father without stumbling over a lie. I was shelving books when Dillon came to collect me Sunday evening.

Dillon leaned in the door. "I'm going to borrow Jimmy, Reverend," he said. "Nothing dangerous but it will take all night."

"Fine, fine," said Father, waving a hand. He was transcribing a stack of land deeds from English to Spanish. He did not even look up when Dillon and I left.

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