iii. of official death
of official death
In order to avoid her death, her particular death, with
wrung neck and swollen tongue, she must marry the
hangman. But there is no hangman, first she must
create him, she must persuade this man at the end of
the voice, this voice she has never seen and which has
never seen her, this darkness, she must persuade him
to renounce his face, exchange it for the impersonal
mask of death, of official death which has eyes but
no mouth, this mask of a dark leper. She must
transform his hands so they will be willing to twist
the rope around throats that have been singled out
as hers was, throats other than hers. She must marry
the hangman or no one, but that is not so bad. Who
else is there to marry?
The very moment that Jezebel first clapped eyes on him, she knew he was special. And not special in a tawdry, romantic way. Although he certainly charmed Cecelia. But in a deeper way, he seemed to be different than everyone else. Like if she were to reach out and touch him, he would be more tangible. He was rough-mannered, but his French was passable. He came from Kentucky, but his manner spoke of someone who had been many places besides. He did not look nice.
"May I present my cousin Cecelia? Cecelia, this Jim Bowie."
Jezebel didn't rate a mention. She thought about kicking Levi in the shins, just on principle, but maybe it was time they behaved their age, he in his fourth decade, she in her third. Jim was a friend of Levi's from the militia, not really handsome, not standing next to Levi at any rate, but he had something else. She just wasn't sure what. Cecelia was a lost cause almost at once. And she and Jim made a fine couple, too. He was dark and broad where she was fair and lithe. Jezebel couldn't help but think how lovely their children would be. In the meantime, though, Jim Bowie was complicating things.
"What do you think of this?" Cecelia asked, twisting her hair in a new way. "Do you think he'd like this?"
Her better, her employer, reduced to a simpering schoolgirl. Worst of all, Jezebel had drawn ad hoc chaperone duty. There was nothing worse than following a happy couple, trying to keep them from getting 'overly familiar'. It was mortifying. A few months of very regular, proper courting, and she wasn't the only one getting tired of it. They were clearly hurting for a few solitary moments together, but Jezebel wasn't going to just let them run off and fornicate, for Christ's sake. Levi was watching, and Cecelia's older cousin was not a man to be trifled with. If Cecelia got caught with her skirt up around her waist, it was going to be Jezebel's head on the block.
Which wasn't to say she didn't have a price.
}{
The blond woman was crying. She was petite and beautiful, and she was crying like it was the end of the world. Jezebel approached her slowly, her bare feet tamping down the soft dirt of the road. It was an odd place to meet someone, at a crossroads at the end of a world. The woman was beautiful, even under the swollen eyes and the wet face. Her hands were dirty and they clutched a piece of paper. Jezebel moved carefully, settling next to the stranger in the road.
"What happened?"
"You have to fix it," she said. "You have to fix this." Then she shoved the piece of paper at Jezebel. It was printed in a script she did not recognize, but the message was hardly unfamiliar.
We regret to inform you that your husband, John Winchester...killed in action...brave defense of his fellow soldiers...dearly missed...signed, Captain S. Fuller Deacon.
"Ah," Jezebel said. "I see." This was bad, then. Real bad. She was visible, she was tangible, and apparently she was being mistaken for a crossroads demon. The knot in her chest told her she was too young for this, too young to be playing make-believe with somebody's soul. But the steadiness of her hands said otherwise.
"I won't let this happen. I won't let it. You can do it, right? You can do anything. That's what Missouri told me. She said you can do anything."
"What's your name?" Jezebel asked.
"Mary. My name is Mary."
"Where are we, Mary?"
"Kansas." Her eyebrows creased. "Can we get this over with? Ten years is more than fair. We'll have a house, we'll have babies. We can have everything we talked about."
"No," Jezebel whispered. "You can't."
"That's not what--you're supposed to fix this." Mary looked affronted more than anything else. "You're supposed to make me a deal. I want to make a deal."
"I'm not a demon, Mary." I'm pretty sure, anyway.
"Then what are you doing here? What the hell are you doing here if you can't help me?" It was escalating, she was hysterical.
"I don't know." Jezebel's voice cracked. "I'm so sorry. I don't know."
Mary slapped her, hard. Jezebel fell into the dirt and stayed there. Mary wasn't much of a fighter, but she was probably ten years older and wearing boots. And she'd clearly crossed over into whatever madness drove you to sell your soul in the first place.
"Send me somebody else!" Mary screamed. "You have to send me somebody else!" She kicked viciously. Jezebel tucked her head into her arms and curled up as tight as she could. Wake up, wake up, wake up. But it didn't happen. She wasn't a demon, she couldn't fix what was in that paper, and now they both knew it.
A woman named Mary beat her unconscious at a crossroads in Kansas, and Jezebel woke up with three broken ribs and a bloody nose.
}{
Everyone was talking about it. Bowie this, Bowie that, Bowie was shot, stabbed, and run through with a sword cane. Bowie lived to tell the tale. And kill a bunch of men with his special knife. Jezebel didn't know who was more tired of hearing about it, her or Levi.
"I always said you were a terrible shot."
His face burned.
"Relax," she sighed. "I don't know why I said that. You did good. He's alive."
"No, you're right." He put a hand on the back of his neck. "I'm a crap shot. Jim's alive and thank God. But."
"But the whole mess could have been avoided, if you'd just killed that sonuvabitch in the first place."
"Precisely."
"Think again," she said. "It's Bowie. Trouble follows him like his shadow." Jezebel elbowed Levi in the ribs good-naturedly. "You coulda shot all those sons a bitches all at the same time, and Jim still would have found a way to almost get killed. Honest to God."
"Still."
"Still, what?"
"Still, I'm a crap shot."
She didn't know why it bothered her so much, seeing him with such a hang-dog look. But it did. The words were out of her mouth before she could consider the consequences. "You want me to teach you?"
His blush deepened, and she wondered if it was a mistake. It was condescending. She was just a bastard in a house full of gentlemen.
"Yes."
She smiled, relieved. "Excellent. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be picking off flies at a hundred yards. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I've left them alone long enough."
When she found Bowie and Cecelia in the gardens, she regretted it. They were half hidden behind a trestle. Cecelia was pushed up against the lattice, hair mussed, and breasts exposed. Bowie had his hands all over her. Jezebel might have been a virgin, but she was nobody's fool.
"You idiots," she hissed. "I could have been anyone walking through here."
Cecelia turned her face away, suddenly concerned with propriety as she pulled up the front of her gown. She stepped away, behind the cover of the ivy. Bowie cleared his throat, and turned. His intentions were written clear on his face.
"Look, girl."
"My name is Jezebel."
"Look, Jezebel. Why don't you just turn around and go back the way you came."
She made a noise of disgust. "I'm responsible," she whispered. "If someone finds out--"
"Then be sure they don't." He dug in his pockets, coins clinked together.
"Save your money." Jezebel crossed her arms over her chest.
Bowie gave a short little laugh. "Then what do you want?" He was unperturbed by her expression of distaste. "In the time it took us to have this conversation, you coulda run to the house and called in Levi twice over. You got a price. Name it."
"I want the knife."
Well. She'd said it, clear as day. Another sentence she never thought she'd speak aloud. But she did, she did want that knife. That knife was famous as hell, and it was soaked in the blood shed on a sandbar in Natchez. That knife was something special, and Bowie knew it, too. She could see it in the set of his mouth, the way he was considering her offer.
"Sir," she spoke just above a whisper. "You want to be alone with Cecelia. I can see that. She's very beautiful. And I know that you'll treat her with respect, regardless of how you speak to me. She's quality. And if you get to compromise her, you'll get to marry her, and then you'll be inducted into what might be the most powerful family in all Louisiana. I might just be somebody's bastard, but I am not stupid. I know what you want. And I know what I want."
Bowie knelt. He reached inside his boot. The knife was not what she was expecting. It looked more like a plain butcher knife, just a little smaller. He stood and held it out to her, handle first. She took it, turned it over. It was well-balanced and warm from being so close to his skin. Jezebel spun it in her fingers, before securing it inside her own worn boot.
"Right then." Her stomach was a little unsteady, but nothing that wouldn't pass. "Keep your voices down. I'll be just out here. You hear me talking, you best pull your britches up in a hurry."
}{
It was the older Wolf boy this time. His eyes were harder than his brother's, his face more closed off. But just as scared. He wasn't but a few years older than the younger one, and he kept a weather eye on him at all times. Jezebel wondered if he was prepared to be a man. It was going to come to that. Regardless.
"You spend a lot of time with my brother, lady."
Jezebel nodded.
"Keeps him out from underfoot. Much obliged."
"De nada. He's a good boy."
"Yeah. He is." The older brother frowned. "But not that good. What do you two talk about, anyways?"
"I'm just telling him a story. Trying to make it last. Keep his mind somewhere else."
He nodded. "Papá sent me in here. He says you should know, Seguín is leaving."
"What?" She jumped to her feet.
"Travis don't have a choice, lady."
Jezebel scrambled out of the chapel and into the courtyard. Seguín was there, on horseback, carrying hastily-written, desperate letters, pleading for assistance. If anyone was going to get out, it was him, but his departure was the end of something nobody wanted to name.
On February the twenty-fifth, Juan Seguín left the Alamo.
He was riding Jim Bowie's horse.
Jezebel, Jezebel,
Won't try to deny where she came from.
You can see it in her pride,
And the raven in her eyes.
Try show her a better way,
She'll say you don't know what you've been missing,
And by the time she blinks you know she won't be listening.
-"Jezebel" by Sade
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