Buttercup (15 page)

Joyce put a hand to the Indian’s chest. She gave Silvio a warning look. “I’m sorry about your men. We’ll take care of their burial. Now I bought you some time, but…you ain’t wanted here. Take my girl and go, while the going still good.”

Della hugged Joyce around the neck. She squeezed her neck and inhaled her scent of cloves and jasmine. “Thank you, mama,” she said softly in her ear. Joyce patted her back. “Go…be happy. Okay.”

Della nodded. She stepped back and extended her hand to her son, but Sylvester walked over to Silvio. He reached up to offer his hand. Della and Joyce watched as Silvio reached and picked him up. Joyce stepped over to them both. “You know, it’s illegal for you to be with him, and I’m not talking about him being an outlaw. Go south… far south. Beyond the reach of the law. Go to...”

“Mexico,” Silvio said. “We’ll be okay. I’ll protect them.”

Joyce nodded. “Of course you will. Travel at night, always. Stick to the carnie roads. Della can show you some places to pitch tent to keep from being seen.” She gave Sylvester one last parting look of love, then turned away, pushing for Lone Wolf to do the same.

“We don’t have much,” Della said.

“Bring what you want. Leave what you don’t. We have each other,”

Silvio winked. Taking the other hand of her son, they walked back to the train car where a dead man waited along with the few meager belongings they had there. She was free. It was a feeling she’d have to work at getting used to.

“Ma! Ma! Wake up. Hurry!”

Silvio was the first to open his eyes. It was dark. He took a moment to focus. The distress in his son’s voice helped. Sylvester’s small hands shook Della. Silvio instinctively closed his eyes for more sleep.

“Ma, ya hear me? Wake up. Hurry!”

“Wh-what is it baby?”

“We gotta run, now. I got the keys. Come on, Ma, get up.”

“Sylvester, what is you talkin about?”

“He sleep. I seen him drinkin’ so he liquored and sleep. We can go now. I took his keys.”

“Sylvester, stop. Just stop. What has gotten into you? Come with me!”

There was movement, a separation of warmth and what had been the comfort of her body. She left the tent with her son in tow. When they were gone, Silvio rose on his elbows. They’d only been on the road for a day. He found a safe enough spot to pitch a tent. He drank because he worried. Right then and there he vowed to not to do so in front of the kid.

Hearing Della's voice raise, he leaned over and looked out of the tent.

She paced. His son stood before her with his head down and hands clasped before him. His bushy locks were ruffled in the wind.

“Now tell me what this is about?”

“He ain’t my Pa,” the boy sniffed. “My Pa is a magic man in Africa.

Like in the books you showed me. He ain’t my Pa.”

“Sweetheart.” Della dropped to her knees. She cupped Sylvester's small face in her hands. “You listen heah. Your Pa isn’t a magic man. He ain’t in Africa taming no lions. Those is stories. Just stories. Your Pa is that man in there. And I’m so sorry for lying to you.”

“Why you leave the carnival? Take us from Auntie Joyce? Why you lie to me, mama!”

“I wanted you to have more than the carnival. Sylvester, mama lied because she wanted you to have something to believe in, something special. I wanted you to know how special you is. And I didn’t lie all the way. Your Pa did do a miracle. He come back for us. Afta all this time he come for us because he love us. And I can tell you, baby, that love is magic?”

“He don’t like me."

"Oh I think he does," she smiled. "You got his freckles. And his temper."

"He hate me. I took his money.”

Della laughed. “Your Pa has a thing about taking money that don’t belong to you. He sorta understand why you did it. Trust me.”

Silvio smiled. He watched them embrace. Della kissed his boy’s face clear of tears. She was so beautiful under the moon and stars. He was so lucky to have them both.

“He don’t talk to me,” Sylvester said in a small voice.

“Do you talk to him?"

"No mam."

"Wanna know what I think?"

Sylvester shyly lifted his eyes.

"I think you don't know how. And guess what? I think he don't know how either. I think you both the same that way. But he will talk to you. I promise you that, because you a part of him. Just as you a part of me. We family and we gon’ always be family.”

Sylvester nodded. “You think he like to fish?”

“I bet you can show him a thing or two about fishin’, cain't cha?”

Sylvester nodded.

Silvio eased back into the blanket. He closed his eyes when they returned. Della lay next to him. She turned on her side and cradled their son to her, holding him to her breast so he could find a peaceful sleep.

Silvio moved closer, burying his face in her hair. She was right. They were family. He would fight the world to make sure they remained one.

***

Together, she and Silvio lounged under the low branches and leafy shade of an old sycamore. Della smiled. The sparkling ripples of the lake in the distance beyond the tall grass and the swaying wild flowers were caught in the afternoon breeze. Bellies full of bologna sandwiches, she held to her guy, listening to his digestion. He never took his eyes off his son. He’d bought him clothes. Sylvester stood at the foot of the hill in his knickers, suspenders and cap. Della’s heart swelled to see him looking like a normal boy, doing normal things, like skipping rocks and fishing. She thought to tell Silvio about Sylvester’s fears, but she held back. She decided to let father and son find their way naturally.

Silvio pitched a tent off a site that Della guided him to in Douglasville, Texas. The open prairie was miles away from any farmhouses. They were safe. They’d managed to escape the law by sticking to their rules. While Sylvester slept, she rode in the back of the car with a shotgun between her legs, eyes wide and alert, Silvio at the wheel.

Stopping for gas breaks and so forth, she kept hidden when he dealt with townies. Then they’d set up camp near sunrise. Two days later they were in Texas. Soon they’d be in Mexico. Soon the running would stop and they’d be a family.

His fingers gently caressed her chin. Her head was tilted back so she could gaze up into his eyes. It amazed her even now that all of it was real. “You look beautiful today here in the sun,” Silvio said, giving her an open mouth kiss. Della pulled him down on her. She loved the feel of his weight. Loving him was an adventure with the ever-curious Sylvester appearing at the wrong times. His kiss soothed her, but she desired more when their lips parted. “So beautiful,” he said.

***

Della smiled. Silvio liked the ensuing silent moments like this. With her and his boy always close, it gave him time to think, to plan. She had a way of understanding his needs and of filling that empty space in him.

There was no pressure for him to explain his choices and where they were going. She had faith in him, despite all she risked by running with an outlaw. And he knew she risked plenty.

“When will we reach Mexico?” she asked.

“Soon.”

“A day?”

“A day,” he said. She seemed satisfied with that answer. Silvio lifted from her and sat up. He watched as Sylvester shed his clothes down to his britches and then dove into the lake. The little boy was fearless. Just yesterday, he showed him how to handle a weapon. He’d be damned but the kid was as good a shot as him if the weight of the gun didn’t overpower him. He never wanted children. Never knew any. But his son was his rib. He couldn’t imagine a day going forward that he wasn’t with them, Sylvester or his Buttercup. She sat up beside him. He drew her under his arm. “Everything copasetic, doll. We can raise our boy together in Mexico. Make our own way. We got plenty money. You believe me, right?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry about your men. We haven’t talked about them. What happened... to them that night. Joyce kept her word though.

She buried them. I’m sure.”

“We don’t have to talk about them or the carnival. Those people are gone. It’s just me, you, and Sylvester now.”

She smiled. “Sylvester, he hasn’t said much. You think he okay?”

“Let me talk to him, man to man.”

“We haven’t been together in a few nights. Maybe we will get to Mexico sooner than a day. Then you and I can be together.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

***

“Water cool?”

The boy looked up. He shook his bushy locks and smiled as the water sloshed from his spongy mass of hair. “Yes sir.”

Silvio stared at the lake. “Plenty of fish. We can get some for your mama to cook. Maybe some catfish too.” Silvio walked down to where the embankment began. He picked up a rock and skipped it across the water.

“I got some bait back in the trunk. Can show you how to fix up that pole to catch one.”

Sylvester shrugged. Silvio ran his hand back over his head. He glanced back. Della nodded at him. She made a gesture with her hand for him to go on, to keep trying. His son dropped on the grass and pulled at a few blades to relieve the awkwardness between them. Silvio looked down at the boy. The awkwardness wasn’t exactly his fault. “Got a question for me?”

The boy glanced up. He squinted as if the sun burned his eyes. “It true? You my pa?”

“I am.”

“Where you been?”

Silvio sat next to him on the grassy earth. He let his legs go out before him, crossing his feet at the ankles. “Prison.”

“For?”

“For many things. None of which I done.” He looked over to his son. To be six, he was wiser than his years. He wondered what a fatherless boy thought of a father that was different than him.

“You love my ma?”

“I love you both.”

“Then I’m glad you come. She used to be sad.” Sylvester looked back at his mother who blew kisses at him. “She ain’t no mo’. She smile a lot too.”

Silvio looked back at Della. There was nothing more beautiful to him than her smile. Sylvester rose and dusted his bun. “Can we fish now?”

“I think we can manage it.”

Sylvester grinned. He turned and ran toward his mother, yelling that he was going to fish. It was the first he heard the boy speak with excitement. Silvio rose with a new understanding. The wealth of a man wasn’t to be found behind the iron doors of a bank vault. No, those treasures existed in his family.

Three days of blistering heat would bring the storms. Silvio rustled up the horses the evening before and saw the proof. A wave of dark grey storm clouds moved into the valley over the small town of El Teina. It was the rain he heard first. Thundering pellets smacked the roof shingles and windowpanes angrily. A soft rumble of thunder echoed in the distance.

Living in the oven that was his Mexican town, rains were a welcomed event. They were soothing, pleasing, cooling, just like the touch of his wife. Soft, gentle fingers spread over his chest. Silvio’s eyes slowly parted as the sheets moved, and her warm supple body grazed over his. He felt her going lower beneath the sheets just as the heavens split and lightening flashed through the windows. Her lips parted, and her mouth received him—moist warmth slid over him with ease. Her mouth on his shaft was steady and skilled. The bobbing of her head up and down sent waves of heat rippling through his pelvis. It spider webbed through his chest. Silvio groaned his approval as she sped up the pace, giving a fierce suction to his cock that left his legs shaking.

“Della,” he wheezed, clawing at the bed sheets. Silvio’s hips lifted upward in consonant rhythm. She sucked him off hard, rolled her tongue around his rod, and swallowed his cock. Soon he was fucking her mouth, hitting the back of her throat. Silvio grunted, racked with pleasure and tight pain from restraint. Then, like only his woman would, she lifted and quickly got on his lap. She eased down on his dick, pumping her hips to and fro, bouncing, riding him. Silvio’s eyes rolled up in his head as he gasped out deep breaths for mercy, several of them back to back. She fell forward on him, kissing him deeply as her round soft ass bounced on his balls, and her wet pussy covered him. Morning had come, and so did he blissfully.

Spent, Della lay on him, breathing shallowly. “Morning,” Silvio smiled.

Their daughter cried out. Della lifted her head in reaction to the call of her youngest. He groaned. His fears were soon realized once she shifted and rose. Silvio shivered through the mournful withdrawals over the separation. “Don’t go.”

“I have to. It’s the storm. I’ll be back,” she said putting on her chemise, then her robe. Silvio groaned.

“Fine, I’ll go find Hector and the boy. The saloon should open soon.”

Della stopped at the door. Still panting from the quickie she gave him, he looked at her. She was beautiful. Her hair longer, she now wore it with a center part and two long braids. She blew him a kiss. “Then I will see you again at lunch.” With that said, she was gone. Silvio grunted but rose. He could smell her on him like warm honey mixed with the feminine scent of her skin and hair. He’d have her on him all day. Walking over to the washbowl she left in the room, he splashed water on his face. His head lifted to the cloudy mirror and his eyes locked on his reflection. His beard had grown along his jaw nicely, but he hated it. Della didn’t. She kept it trimmed. She said she liked the feel of his whiskers over her skin. But he knew different. She wanted him unseen from those that might uncover his identity. They had two run-ins since they escaped that bloody night.