The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine (38 page)

Flavio stepped up close until his face was just before Angelo’s. He sent his gaze past the blue eyes, probing. “You tell me, Tio. Could you have saved my papa?”

Angelo DiGratia became very still. His eyes blinked slowly once. “I don’t know.”

Flavio swallowed that. How could he not know? If he had done all he could the answer would be simply,
No, Flavio, I could not
. The tearing inside worsened. Now that he knew, he wished he didn’t. Could he ever look at this man he loved and not know he had let his father die?

Angelo caught his shoulders. “I love you as my own son.”

Flavio’s throat closed too tightly to speak.

Angelo pulled him into a fierce embrace. Flavio wanted his arms to come around the man who had taught him gentleness, concern for others, the value of life. But it was all a lie. His limbs were slogged with mud. He could not lift them, not to hold, to validate this man. He pulled away, refusing to meet the doctor’s eyes. He turned and walked out.

T
WENTY-ONE

What hold the flesh upon the soul that yearns for purity, while mind and body clash and strive for human surety.

Ah, my spirit, be assured, your wait is nigh to done; for soon I deem all earthly joy for me there will be none.

—Quillan

T
HE CRUNCH OF BOOT
on stone brought Quillan’s head up from his journal. The last person he expected or wanted to see was Roderick Pierce. Was this a day of trial? He squinted up with little welcome. What on earth was the man doing at Schocken’s quarry?

Pierce ignored his scowl with a grin, though the climb up the hill had taxed him it seemed. “Hello.” He fit the word between breaths.

Quillan nodded once, nothing more than base courtesy.

“Remember me?” Pierce swiped off his hat and dabbed his forehead with his sleeve.

“Like a blood-sucking gnat.”

Pierce laughed heartily. “Charming as ever.” He glanced down. “What’s that there? Writer, are you?”

Quillan closed his journal. Dust still hung in the air from the charges he had set to break up the new surface, and he had loaded his wagon already with the rough stone. He would carry the stone down to the yard below to be shaped into cobbles by the Italian stone cutters. He was only giving the horses a chance to graze before he headed down.

“Freelance?”

“No.”

“Mind if I have a look? One writer to another?” Pierce held out his hand.

Quillan’s stare was answer enough.

Pierce pulled a newspaper from inside his fustian coat. “I brought the piece that’s made you famous.”

Famous? Quillan looked at him, mystified. He was past the hope of meaningful human acceptance. On the verge of losing Carina, on guard for his life—and Roderick Pierce spoke of fame? God had a very odd sense of humor. Quillan nodded at the rock pile beside him. “You can leave it there.”

“Actually,” Pierce sat down in the spot Quillan indicated, “I have a proposition to discuss.”

“No.”

“Now I know you’re not quick on the bait, but I think when you’ve heard me out you’ll appreciate my ideas.”

Quillan took his journal and stood. “I need to get back to work.”

“Now that’s just the thing.” Pierce got to his feet, as well. “Why is a man of your financial situation working in a rock quarry?”

Quillan said nothing. What would Pierce know of his financial situation?

“I would think the sale of your mine would have you sitting pretty.”

If Pierce had stripped him of his pants and shirt, Quillan could hardly have felt more naked. “What mine?”

“New Boundless. Wasn’t that the name?”

Quillan turned and started down toward his wagon.

“Now the figures I got weren’t staggering, but certainly substantial.”

Quillan spun. “Figures?” Had Alex Makepeace run off at the mouth?

“From whom?”

“It took some digging, but one thing led to another until
whop!
I’d landed in Horace Tabor’s lap. Friend of his, are you? He spoke fondly.

Very curious about your wife. I assured him she was as lovely as any woman I’ve seen. You don’t mind my saying so, do you?”

The tendons in Quillan’s neck pulled tight. Yes, he minded any man noticing and remarking on her beauty. It only made the pain sharper. “I don’t appreciate you digging into my affairs.” He glanced at the newspaper Pierce had snatched up when he stood. “It’s all printed in there?”

“Oh no.” Pierce waved the paper then held it out again. “See for yourself.”

Quillan grabbed it, shoved it inside his shirt. Then he bent and removed the rocks he had placed to block the wagon’s wheels from rolling.

“I only covered the train incident with the small details your wife added.”

Small details like his involvement with Shane Dennison in the bank robbery, no doubt. Quillan pulled himself up to the box.

“Mind if I catch a ride?” Pierce grabbed hold of the edge of the box.

Quillan did mind, but by the time he’d released the brake and taken up the reins, Pierce was aboard.

“Now hear me out, Quillan. I’ve started, and I may as well go the whole hog before you tip me over the side.” He laughed. “The fact is, people were considerably taken with this piece, with you, and it doesn’t take a Philadelphia lawyer to see the opportunity. I’ve sold
Harper’s
Monthly
magazine on a series of biographical sketches featuring the hero of the Union Pacific.”

Quillan kept his eyes straight ahead. “Did they catch Dennison?”

Nonplussed, Pierce regrouped. “Not that I’ve heard. But he hasn’t hit another train along the line since you put him off. Now, as I was saying—”

“Two letters, Pierce:
N
and
O
.”

“The world needs heroes, Quillan. People to respect for their fortitude, courage, and old-fashioned gumption.”

Quillan shook his head, amazed by Pierce’s own fortitude. He surmised that nothing short of tipping him over the side of his wagon would suffice. If he were such a hero, why did Carina’s father refuse to acknowledge their marriage? Why did the quarry men shun him? Last night God had shown him that man’s esteem was worthless and at any rate, beyond him. Now here was Roderick Pierce, laying out the kingdoms of the world before him.

Was it the enemy trying to steal the peace he’d found in God alone?

To turn him back to groveling for acceptance among those who would never understand, never accept? Fame. The wagon rocked over a ridge and corresponding dip, but Pierce stayed in the box.

“Well, I know you’re a private man, but in truth, I’ve gathered enough to make a start on the sketches from other sources.”

That irked. “If it’s Hod Tabor, he’s got more gas than evidence. Might as well write a dime store version and be done.”

“That’s why I’m here. Mrs. Shepard charged me on the train to tell it right. She sent me here today.”

Quillan jerked the reins and turned. “You saw Carina?”

“I did.” Pierce sobered.

“How was she?” Quillan could have bitten his tongue, but he had to know.

“Well, now that you ask, she wasn’t good, not good at all. Quite upset. She’d been crying.”

Quillan’s heart tore. By now he had thought her embraced by her family’s love, imagined her wooed and comforted by the same. “Did she say anything?”

“Just that I’d find you here. Trouble, is there?”

Quillan looked into Pierce’s face. An unlikely confessor for sure, but the one person who, however misguided, seemed to care. “Yes, there’s trouble. Carina’s father, the good dottore, wants no part of me as a son-in-law. Her betrothed, from whom she fled to Crystal, wants me dead. And just about every Italian in town bows to one or the other.”

Quillan wasn’t sure what he expected, but Pierce’s measuring gaze surprised him. “I say.”

Quillan quirked his mouth at one corner. “Better look elsewhere for your hero.”

“And have you lost your fortune, then?”

“My fortune?”

“Come, Quillan. I have it from Horace Tabor’s mouth. He did finance the deal, did he not?”

Quillan frowned.

“I see that he did. You’re a wealthy man, unless that, too, has been muddled?”

Quillan glared. “It’s none of your affair.”

“Lost it gambling, did you?”

Quillan moistened his lips, restrained the urge to bodily remove Pierce from the wagon. “I did not lose it. I don’t gamble.”

And now Pierce’s curiosity peaked. “If that’s so, what has the family so all-fired?”

Quillan faced him squarely. “Just . . . me.” He saw Pierce reappraising him, taking in his rough cut, stubbled features, stubborn jaw, gray stormy eyes, unruly hair.

“You do present a formidable front.”

Quillan started the wagon again.

Pierce caught the side. “Pro patria, is it?”

Quillan flinched. Did he present a bristly front like a porcupine ready to protect his vulnerable identity?

“You know, I could help you.”

“No thanks.”

“Tell the real story.” Pierce persisted.

The real story was worse than the front. But there, he was sinking into his former thoughts. Why did Pierce keep chipping away the fragile peace he’d found? Jesus was the vine, God the vine grower, and he . . . he had to cling or be cut away and burned.

“Mr. Pierce—”

“Call me Rod.”

“Mr. Pierce, you’re wasting your time.” Quillan neared the yard where he would unload his haul to be carried by hand wagons to the cutters, then stacked as street cobbles and taken to the depot. Sometimes that fell to him when they had enough rough material blasted from the surface to spare him from the work higher up.

“You know the best attribute of a newsman?”

Quillan didn’t want to hear. He was weary of the argument.

“The nose.” Pierce tapped his own. “That’s where you know when you have something newsworthy.”

Quillan brought his team to a halt, set the brake, and wound the traces. “Mr. Pierce—Rod—I don’t know what you think you smell, but if you look around, you’ll see keeping company with me isn’t the safest choice right now.”

Pierce looked. The men had stopped their labors and glared as one body. “That is an oddity of Italians, I’ve noticed. Clannish. But I wouldn’t guess they’d take it too far.”

Quillan thought back to Flavio’s appearance earlier, his consultation with one of the workers and the taunting glance that followed. As they came forward sullenly to empty his load, Quillan muttered, “I wouldn’t stake your life on that.”

“Well, I’ve seen you handle a gun.” He looked down at Quillan’s belt. “Have it concealed, have you?”

Quillan shook his head.

“I see.” Pierce rubbed his chin. “So that’s the state of affairs.”

Quillan jumped down from the box and started around to open the back.

Pierce climbed down and met him there. “I’m staying at the Traveler’s Home Hotel. Why don’t you meet me for a drink?”

“I have duties in Schocken’s store after this.”

“Till when? Six, seven?”

Quillan pulled himself onto the wagon bed. “My hours are my own. I’ll work till I turn in.”

Looking up, Pierce squinted into the glare. “Maybe I’ll come around anyway.”

Quillan shrugged and reached for the first rock. As Roderick Pierce strode off for his rented buggy, Quillan tossed the rock to the ground, and the men closed in under Mr. Marconi’s watchful eye. He paused for a moment. Marconi was in an awkward spot between the ire of the Italian workers toward Quillan and the acclaim of Solomon Schocken.

Quillan saw to it he did his work well. He would give Schocken and Marconi no cause for complaint.

After bathing, Carina peeked in at the Chinese man sleeping in the single bed Papa kept for patients too sick to send home. He seemed peaceful now, no longer ranting, though Papa checked his eyes every hour or two. But no one was in the room just now, so she left the old man to his rest.

She went up to her room and sat listlessly on the bed. She could hear the women gathering. From the bathhouse, she had seen Divina crossing the fields from her villa to Mamma’s kitchen. She would not go down to suffer Divina’s cutting tongue. And the others . . . their murmuring and nodding made her squirm. What did they know? They had wormed into the vacancy she left and did not want to leave it now. And Mamma, Mamma was the worst. Now that she no longer wept it was certainly worse. Was she so confident the marriage would be annulled?

Why weep when you’ve gotten what you want?

Carina glanced at the newspaper lying where she had dropped it. What had Mr. Pierce written about her husband? Would it hurt too much to read? Could it hurt more than she already did?

She took up the paper and unfolded the pages. There was the headline.
A Hero for Today?
She wanted to cry all over again.
Signore, why
won’t they see?
She gathered herself and read Mr. Pierce’s account of their adventure aboard the Union Pacific. He had highlighted Quillan’s role, and he did capture the essence of her husband, his straightforward, dauntless courage, his ability to lead by example.

Then she read the part she was responsible for, his previous association with Shane Dennison. Mr. Pierce had sensationalized it, but not scandalously. He told a story of a boy enamored with a man, then left with the stark truth of that man’s nature, how the boy had redeemed himself and now taken action on the side of right against the very one who had shamed him.

It was a good story, with a sprinkling of Mr. Pierce’s wit and humor. He had told it well. Did that mean Quillan would let him tell the rest? She couldn’t fathom it. She read the story again as Quillan might, saw his wry smile at Mr. Pierce’s description,
This stalwart man of doughty
countenance
. She brought the paper to her breast, pressing it to her heartbeat.
Oh, Quillan
.

She ached to see him. But it could only make it worse. What she wanted and what God wanted were no longer aligned. She must force her heart away from the one she loved. But how? Surely not by reading of his doughty countenance. It only made her picture his face, every shadow and angle that she had come to know.

“Dio, how can I stop loving him?” She turned at the tap on the door.