"I have seen what you can do," she continued. "You keep speaking my thoughts, knowing what you should not know. I will show you what I can do."
"I don't want to—"
"Seeing it will make it more real to you. It isn't a hard thing to watch. I don't become ugly. Most of the changes happen inside me." She was undressing as she spoke. It was not necessary. She could shrug out of the clothing as she changed, shed it as a snake sheds its skin, but she wanted to move very slowly for this man. She did not expect her nudity to excite him. He had seen her unclothed the night before and he had turned away and gone to sleep—leaving her to go hunting. She suspected that he was impotent. She had made her body slender and young for him, hoping to get his seed in her and escape quickly, but last night had convinced her that she had more work to do here than she had thought. And if the man was impotent, all that she did might not be enough. What would Doro do then?
She changed very slowly, took the leopard form, all the while keeping her body between Thomas and the door. Between Thomas and the gun. That was wise because when she had finished, when she stretched her small powerful cat-body and spread her claws leaving marks in the packed earth floor, he dived for his gun.
Claws sheathed, Anyanwu batted him aside. He screamed and shrank back from her. By his manner, arm thrown up to protect his throat, eyes wide, he seemed to expect her to leap upon him. He was waiting to die. Instead, she approached him slowly, her body relaxed. Purring, she rubbed her head against his knee. She looked up at him, saw that the protective arm had come down from the throat. She rubbed her fur against his leg and went on purring. Finally, almost unwillingly, his hand touched her head, caressed tentatively. When she had him scratching her neck—which did not itch—and muttering to himself, "My God!" She broke away, went over and picked up a piece of venison and brought it back to him.
"I don't want that!" he said.
She began to growl low in her throat. He took a step back but that put him against the rough log wall. When Anyanwu followed, there was nowhere for him to go. She tried to put the meat into his hand, but he snatched the hand away. Finally, around the meat, she gave a loud, coughing roar.
Thomas sank to the floor terrified, staring at her. She dropped the meat into his lap and roared again.
He picked it up and ate—for the first time in how long, she wondered. If he wanted to kill himself, why was he doing it in this slow terrible way, letting himself rot alive? Oh, this day she would wash him and begin his healing. If he truly wanted to die, let him hang himself and be done with it.
When he had finished the venison, she became a woman again and calmly put on her clothing as he watched.
"I could see it," he whispered after a long silence. "I could see your body changing inside. Everything changing . . ." He shook his head uncomprehending, then asked: "Could you turn white?"
The question startled her. Was he really so concerned about her color? Usually Doro's people were not. Most of them had backgrounds too thoroughly mixed for them to sneer at anyone. Anyanwu did not know this man's ancestry but she was certain he was not as white as he seemed to think. The Indian appearance was too strong.
"I have never made myself white," she said. "In Wheatley, everyone knows me. Who would I deceive—and why should I try?"
"I don't believe you," he said. "If you could become white, you would!"
"Why?"
He stared at her hostilely.
"I'm content," she said finally. "If I have to be white some day to survive, I will be white. If I have to be a leopard to hunt and kill, I will be a leopard. If I have to travel quickly across land, I'll become a large bird. If I have to cross the sea, I'll become a fish." She smiled a little. "A dolphin, perhaps."
"Will you become white for me?" he asked. His hostility had died as she spoke. He seemed to believe her. Perhaps he was hearing her thoughts. If so, he was not hearing them clearly enough.
"I think you will have to endure it somehow that I am black," she said with hostility of her own. "This is the way I look. No one has ever told me I was ugly!"
He sighed. "No, you're not. Not by some distance. It's just that . . ." He stopped, wet his lips. "It's just that I thought you could make yourself look like my wife . . . just a little."
"You have a wife?"
He rubbed at a scabbed over sore on his arm. Anyanwu could see it through a hole in his sleeve and it did not look as though it was healing properly. The flesh around the scab was very red and swollen.
"I had a wife," he said. "Big, handsome girl with hair yellow as gold. I thought it would be all right if we didn't live in a town or have neighbors too near by. She wasn't one of Doro's people, but he let me have her. He gave me enough money to buy some land, get a start in tobacco. I thought things would be fine."
"Did she know you could hear her thoughts?"
He gave her a look of contempt. "Would she have married me if she had? Would anyone?"
"One of Doro's people, perhaps. One who could also hear thoughts."
"You don't know what you're talking about," he said bitterly.
His tone made her think, made her remember that some of the most terrible of Doro's people were like Thomas. They weren't as sensitive, perhaps. Living in towns didn't seem to bother them. But they drank too much and fought and abused or neglected their children and occasionally murdered each other before Doro could get around to taking them. Thomas was probably right to marry a more ordinary woman.
"Why did your wife leave?" she asked.
"Why do you think! I couldn't keep out of her thoughts any more than I can keep out of yours. I tried not to let her know, but sometimes things came to me so clearly . . . I'd answer, thinking she had spoken aloud and she hadn't and she didn't understand and . . ."
"And she was afraid."
"God, yes. After a while, she was terrified. She went home to her parents and wouldn't even see me when I went after her. I guess I don't blame her. After that there were only . . . women like you that Doro brings me."
"We're not such bad women. I'm not."
"You can't wait to get away from me!"
"What would you feel for a woman who was covered with filth and sores?"
He blinked, looked at himself. "And I guess you're used to better!"
"Of course I am! Let me help you and you will be better. You could not have been this way for your wife."
"You're not her!"
"No. She could not help you. I can."
"I didn't ask for your—"
"Listen! She ran away from you because you are Doro's. You are a witch and she was afraid and disgusted. I am not afraid or disgusted."
"You'd have no right to be," he muttered sullenly. "You're more witch than I'll ever be. I still don't believe what I saw you do."
"If my thoughts are reaching you even some of the time, you should believe what I do and what I say. I have not been telling you lies. I am a healer. I have lived for over three hundred and fifty years. I have seen leprosy and huge growths that bring agony and babies born with great holes where their faces should be and other things. You are far from being the worst thing I have seen."
He stared at her, frowned intently as though reaching for a thought that eluded him. It occurred to her that he was trying to hear her thoughts. Finally, though, he seemed to give up. He shrugged and sighed. "Could you help any of those others?"
"Sometimes I could help. Sometimes I can dissolve away dangerous growths or open blind eyes or heal sores that will not heal themselves . . ."
"You can't take away the voices or the visions, can you?"
"The thoughts you hear from other people?"
"Yes, and what I 'see'. Sometimes I can't tell reality from vision."
She shook her head sadly. "I wish I could. I have seen others tormented as you are. I'm better than what your people call a doctor. Much better. But I am not as good as I long to be. I think I am flawed like you."
"All Doro's children are flawed—godlings with feet of clay."
Anyanwu understood the reference. She had read the sacred book of her new land, the Bible, in the hope of improving her understanding of the people around her. In Wheatley, Isaac told people she was becoming a Christian. Some of them did not realize he was joking.
"I was not born to Doro," she told Thomas. "I am what he calls wild seed. But it makes no difference. I am flawed anyway."
He glanced at her, then down at the floor. "Well I'm not as flawed as you think." He spoke very softly. "I'm not impotent."
"Good. If you were and Doro found out . . . he might decide you could not be useful to him any longer."
It was as though she had said something startling. He jumped, peered at her in a way that made her draw back in alarm, then demanded: "What's the matter with you! How can you care what happens to me? How can you let Doro breed you like a goddamn cow—and to me! You're not like the others."
"You said I was a dog. A black bitch."
Even through the dirt, she could see him redden. "I'm sorry," he said after several seconds.
"Good. I almost hit you when you said it—and I am very strong."
"I don't doubt it."
"I care what Doro does to me. He knows I care. I tell him."
"People don't, normally."
"Yes. That's why I'm here. Things are not right to me merely because he says they are. He is not my god. He brought me to you as punishment for my sacrilege." She smiled. "But he does not understand that I would rather lie with you than with him."
Thomas said nothing for so long that she reached out and touched his hand, concerned.
He looked at her, smiled without showing his bad teeth. She had not seen him smile before. "Be careful," he said. "Doro should never find out how thoroughly you hate him."
"He has known for years."
"And you're still alive? You must be very valuable."
"I must be," she agreed bitterly.
He sighed. "I should hate him myself. I don't somehow. I can't. But . . . I think I'm glad you do. I never met anyone who did before." He hesitated again, raised his night-black eyes to hers. "Just be careful."
She nodded, thinking that he reminded her of Isaac. Isaac too was always cautioning her. Then Thomas got up and went to the door.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"To the stream out back to wash." The smile again, tentatively. "Do you really think you can take care of these sores? I've had some of them for a long time."
"I can heal them. They will come back, though, if you don't stay clean and stop drinking so much. Eat food!"
"I don't know whether you're here to conceive a child or turn me into one," he muttered, and closed the door behind him.
Anyanwu went out and fashioned a crude broom of twigs. She swept the mounds of litter out of the cabin, then washed what could be washed. She did not know what to do about the vermin. The fleas alone were terrible. Left to herself, she would have burned the cabin and built another. But Thomas would not be likely to go along with that.
She cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and the terrible little cabin still did not suit her. There were no clean blankets, there was no clean clothing for Thomas. Eventually, he came in wearing the same filthy rags over skin scrubbed pale and nearly raw. He seemed acutely embarrassed when Anyanwu began stripping the rags from him.
"Don't be foolish," she told him. "When I start on those sores, you won't have time for shame—or for any other thing."
He became erect. Scrawny and sick as his body was, he was, as he had said, not impotent.
"All right," murmured Anyanwu with gentle amusement. "Have your pleasure now and your pain later."
His clumsy fingers had begun fumbling with her clothing, but they stopped suddenly. "No!" he said as though the pain had to come first after all. "No." He turned his back to her.
"But . . . why?" Anyanwu laid a hand on his shoulder. "You want to, and it's all right. Why else am I here?"
He spoke through his teeth as though every word was hurting him. "Are you still so eager to get away from me? Can't you stay a little while?"
"Ah." She rubbed the shoulder, feeling the bones sharply through their thin covering of flesh. "The women take your seed and leave you as quickly as possible."
He said nothing.
She stepped closer to him. He was smaller than Isaac, smaller than most of the male bodies Doro brought her. It was strange to be able to meet a man's eyes without looking up. "It will be that way for me too," she said. "I have a husband. I have children. And also . . . Doro knows how quickly I can conceive. I am always deliberately quick with him. I must take your seed and leave you. But I will not leave you today."
He stared at her for a moment, the black eyes intent as though again he was trying to control his ability, hear her thoughts now when he wanted to hear them. She found herself hoping her child—his child—would have those eyes. They were the only things about him that had never needed cleaning or healing to show their beauty. That was surprising considering how much he drank.
He seized her suddenly, as though it had just occurred to him that he could, and held her tightly for long moments before leading her to his splintery shelf bed.
Doro came in hours later, bringing flour, sugar, coffee, corn meal, salt, eggs, butter, dry peas, fresh fruit and vegetables, blankets, cloth that could be sewn into clothing, and, incidentally a new body. He had bought or stolen someone's small crudely made wagon to carry his things.
"Thank you," Anyanwu told him gravely, wanting him to see that her gratitude was real. It was rare these days for him to do what she asked. She wondered why he had bothered this time. Certainly he had not planned to the day before.
Then she saw him looking at Thomas. The bath had made the most visible difference in Thomas' appearance, and Anyanwu had shaved him, cut off much of his hair, and combed the rest. But there were other more subtle changes. Thomas was smiling, was helping to carry the supplies into the cabin instead of standing aside apathetically, instead of muttering at Anyanwu when she passed him, her arms full.