Rapture's Rendezvous (40 page)

“Well, I have to admit, I would have preferred to have done a much better job at beating your ass off,” Michael laughed.

“And now that your card playing is over, you're going to have one of Ruby's girls, huh?” Alberto said,
eyes wavering.

“I don't think so,” Michael said. “Guess I'd best be running back to my hotel. I'm kind of beat. I've got a few things to do tomorrow that will have to be done with a clear head.”

Alberto laughed hoarsely as he pushed his chair back and rose from it. “Well, I now know your plans can't have anything to do with Maria,” he said. “It seems Nathan Hawkins beat you inside her breeches.”

Michael pushed his chair back and went to Alberto and grabbed him by the throat, threatening him with a doubled-up fist. “Alberto, if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your damn mouth shut about Maria,” he said. “If youdon't, you may not haveany teeth left in that warped head of yours. Do you hear?”

“Hey. Ease up, Hopper,” Alberto gulped, straining, feeling the color fast draining from his face. He didn't care to fight Michael. He knew who would be the winner. He had dreamed of one day getting even with Michael, but now that he felt the strength in Michael's hands, he knew that another way would have to be found.

Michael dropped both arms, then straightened his coat, shrugging his shoulders. “Okay. As long as you understand,” he mumbled, then left the room.

Alberto swallowed hard, lifting a hand to his throat. He could feel the pulsebeat growing stronger. God. Would he ever become a man in every sense of the word? First not to be able to bed up with a female in the proper way, then not be able to defend himself. .. ?

He rushed from the room and down the stairs, moving on through the parlor to the kitchen, and out
‘the back door. He didn't want to run into Ruby again tonight. He didn't want to run into anyone. He wanted to rush home, climb beneath his covers and try to go to sleep to forget all that had happened both that day and that night.

As he rushed down the back steps, he stopped, hearing some scuffling in the dark. He tensed, then eased on around the house, wondering who might be fighting. He stumbled over something in the dark and -gasped when he glanced downward and found both of Ruby's dogs lying still in the grass. He bent and checked them over carefully. Were they dead? What had happened to them? Then muffled cursings drew him to stand next to the house, in the shadows, growing frightened. When the three wrestling figures moved out into the open, beneath the direct rays of the moon, Alberto gasped even further, seeing that one of the men was Michael Hopper. The other two were two of the men who had been playing cards with them all evening.

Alberto recoiled even more, but when he saw the flash of a knife, and saw that it was moving toward Michael's stomach, something made him jump for the man who was holding the knife. He grabbed the man by the neck, panting, and wrestled him to the ground, relieved when the knife fell to the ground beside them.

With one blow, he clipped this man on the chin, then another blow, and another, then rose, panting even more when the man lay quiet, breathing shallowly. He wiped his brow when he saw Michael lumbering toward him, blood streaming from both his mouth and nose.

“Thanks, Alberto,” Michael said, placing his arm
around Alberto's shoulder. “If you hadn't happened along, I'd have been a goner for sure. Clarence seems to have disappeared tonight. I sure could've used some of his muscles.” Michael wiped at his mouth with the back of a hand, then studied Alberto. “And are you all right? I saw the knife just as you jumped that bastard. Did he have a chance to get you before you knocked him to the ground?”

Alberto grew weak in the knees, realizing just how close he had come to being dead. He slumped to the ground, nearing the stage of retching. He hung his head in his hands, moaning. Michael dropped down beside him. “Alberto? Are you all right?” Michael's hands went over Alberto, searching him for wounds. “Damn it. Alberto. Speak to me. Tell me you're all right. I don't hate you enough to want you dead.”

Alberto's head flew up, his dark eyes weary. “You sure about that?” he said, forcing a laugh.

“Then you're all right?” Michael prodded, once again wiping at his mouth and nose, staining his shirt sleeve to make it even redder than it was.

“I'm fine. And you?” Alberto finally said. “What the hell was that all about?”

Michael slumped down on the ground beside Alberto, breathing hard. His eyes moved from one lifeless figure to the next, then to Ruby's dogs. “Damned if I know,” he mumbled. “Maybe for money, maybe for. . . something . .. else. . . .”

“What else could it be, besides the money?” Alberto asked, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. His eyes traveled over the lifeless bodies, hoping they weren't dead. But he knew the man he had dealt the
blow to wouldn't be dead. Alberto didn't have the strength to hit anyone so hard as to cause death. But the other? Alberto could see a pool of blood at the base of his head.

“Alberto, I'd like to tell.you about it, but I think we'd best get the hell out of here. Don't you?”

“Do you mean … just leave them here . .. ? Not tell anybody?”

“Ruby isn't going to like it one hell of a bit,” Michael said, rising, offering Alberto a hand. “Her dogs?Those bastards had already taken care of the dogs before jumping me. I don't know if they are alive or dead.” He placed his arm around Alberto's shoulder once they were standing side by side. “And, Alberto? I owe you a lot for stepping in and doing what you did. If you hadn't, it would be me lying beside those dogs. But I would have been filled with many knife wounds. Not only knocked in the head.”

“I've never liked you very much, Michael,” Alberto said, clearing his throat nervously. “But, hell. I couldn't stand by and watch you get murdered. Glad to have been of assistance.”

“Well, then, since we have our thank yous cleared up, let's get the hell out of here. I think I may have just found the person I've been searching for.”

“Huh?” Alberto said, moving along beside Michael, on out onto the gravel road.

“Yeah. I think you and I can work together, Alberto,” Michael said, smiling broadly. “How's about it?”

“Hell, I don't have the least bit of an idea what you're talking about,” Alberto grumbled.

“Come. We'll go to my hotel and I'll tell you all about it.”

“Where's your hotel?”

“In Creal Springs. But you'll have to climb onto the horse behind me. That's the best I can do.”

“I've got my own horse and wagon hitched over there,” Alberto said, motioning with his head

“Well, then, follow me,” Michael said, laughing throatily. “Yeah, Alberto. I think between the two of us, we can take care of that damn Nathan Hawkins.”

Alberto began to walk toward his wagon but stopped when he caught sight of a body lying partially in the brush. He felt his heart lurch, then shouted, “Michael! Come quick!”

Michael rushed to his side, then stooped when he saw the cause of Alberto's alarm. “My God, it's Clarence,” he gasped.

Alberto took a few steps backward. “Is he . .. is . . . he dead …?”

Michael checked Clarence over carefully, then rose, frowning. “No. Just has a blow to the head,” he grumbled. “We've got to get him to the porch. We'll just leave him there for Ruby to find.”

“Are you sure he's not. . . dead . . . ?” Alberto stammered, afraid to lift Clarence. He knew the weak side of himself was surfacing once again, but he just couldn't seem to help it.

“Damn it, Alberto,” Michael said. “Grab hold of his legs. I'll take his arms. Let's get him to the porch and
then
get the hell out of here.”

“Okay,” Alberto mumbled. “If you say so.”

They struggled with the heaviness of Clarence's body
until they had arranged him beside the door for a quick discovery by anyone making the next exit from Ruby's house.

Michael brushed his hair back from his eyes, panting hard. “Now, Alberto, let's head out,” he said, moving down the steps.

“I'd sure like to know what you've got up your sleeve, Michael,” Alberto.said, moving alongside him.

“You'll soon know, Alberto. Soon. . . .”

The night sounds in this state of Illinois were peaceful and serene. Wrapped in her velveteen cape, Maria paced the front porch of her new home. She shivered in the chill, clasping her arms around her, hugging herself, looking into the distance, listening. A whippoor-will was echoing across the stretches of land that lay on all sides of her and crickets hummed along, it seemed in unison. But it wasn't these sounds that had brought Maria to the porch in the wee hours of the morning. She had heard the sound of a wagon's wheels and horse's hooves, sounding almost like those of the wagon that she had called her own, but was now only her Papa's and Alberto's.

Thinking it to be Alberto returning to apologize for his nasty behavior, Maria had rushed to her wardrobe and had pulled the cape from inside it and wrapped it around her chemise, hoping to meet Alberto just as he stepped from the wagon, headed for her front door.

But nothing. When she arrived at the front door and looked toward the road, all she had seen had been just a bit of dust in the air, swirling upward from the road, the only signs left of any wagon having just passed by.

Maria continued to pace, sighing heavily She knew that she could return to bed, but she hadn't been able to
sleep. Closing hereyes in the new surroundings, beautiful though they were, had become an absolute impossibility. She had lain there, listening for the familiar steps of Nathan, fearing his return would carry him right to her room, to demand more from her body. Did she have a lifetime of dread ahead of her? Wasn't there any way out of this complication she had gotten herself into?

She feared not, for it seemed that Nathan was even more powerful than she had at first suspected. How many wives had there been before her? How could Mama Pearl not have grown suspicious before now? But maybe Mama Pearl was being held against her own will, and being forced to pretend such joviality.

Maria knew that she would have to agree to anything Nathan would demand of her now. The thought of possibly being taken and left deep inside the bowels of the earth frightened her so. Would he truly add her body to those that she suspected he had already taken to the coal mines and left to die?

She shook her head, trying to make her mind quit traveling in such vicious circles. She was letting her imagination run wild. This wasn't the time. She needed her rest. Hadn't Michael said that he would meet her this very next day? She needed to be fresh, to make him love her even more.

Sighing, she turned and went back inside, walking quietly up the steepness of the stairs, on to her room. She tossed her cape aside and stretched out on her bed, resting her head on her hands as her elbows pushed against the mattress. She gazed out the window, suddenly feeling as though she was in Italy. Didn't the setting outside the window resemble Italy? Beneath the
soft velvet rays of the moon, row after row of grapevines sat in clusters, as though they were people, stooped, with rounded backs. Only by daylight did they show their true forms, which then resembled fingers, as their tendrils reached out to the next cluster of vines.

A deep sadness crept through Maria's heart. She missed Italy. She missed her Gran-mama and her Aunt Helena. And she now missed Alberto and her Papa, and they were only a stone's throw away. “One doesn't have to be across the ocean to be separated,” she whispered, settling down onto a pillow, feeling her eyelids grow heavy. She reached up and lifted her hair from beneath her head, letting it drape across the pillow behind and beside her, then let herself drift off into a restless sleep. She dreamed of Michael, his lips, his hands, his voice, and then she was awakened abruptly when she heard a noise outside her door in the hallway. She tensed, thinking it was Nathan, seeking her out in the dark. She rose, pulling a night robe around her shoulders, then crept to the door, opening it slowly.

“Maria .. . ?” a voice spoke from somewhere beside her.

Maria put her hands to her throat, turning on her heel, peering through the darkness. “Alberto . . . ? God Alberto, is that you? How . . . ?”

Alberto moved to her side and took her hand in his. “Maria, I've got to talk to you. Now. Tonight.” he said thickly. He glanced quickly around him. “Where's Hawkins?”

Maria was in a state of semi-shock. “Alberto, how did you get in here? Why . . . ?”

“The front door was unlocked. I just walked in. I had to see you.”

“But what if Nathan had been here? What if he had heard you? Wouldn't you be afraid of him shooting you like a thief in the night?”

“I had to take that chance,” Alberto grumbled, taking her by an elbow, guiding her back into her room. Once inside, he shut the door behind them. “Now. You must tell i.ie. Where
is
Hawkins?”

“How did you know he wasn't even here in this room where I slept. . . ?”

Alberto laughed hoarsely. “Maria, if Hawkins had been in that room with you, I know you would've steered me away from it long before now.” His eyes moved around him, seeing what was possible beneath the dim rays of the moonlight streaming in through the one window.

“I still cannot believe you would enter this house as you have done,” Maria whispered.

“I can feel my way around any house. Especially if it's to find you, Maria.”

Maria went to her nightstand and turned on a light, flooding the room in shallow yellows. Alberto went quickly to the light, looking beneath its shade. “Electric,” he said. “So Hawkins
has
brought you to a house of riches, huh?” He began to walk around the room, touching the softness of the upholstered chairs, and then the bed. He bounced onto it, laughing shakily. “God. What a bed. Now I can understand why you would agree to live here.”

Maria went to him and sat down beside him, taking a hand in hers. “Alberto,
that
is
not
the reason at all,” she said sternly. “Now that you're here, you're going to
hear all the true reasons. You shall not leave this house until you listen.”