The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine (40 page)

Again Flavio shrugged. “I want to see Carina.”

Tony noted the mandolin knowingly. “She’s awake. I saw her coming from the bathhouse.”

“Will you ask her to come out?” He looked around the courtyard, the small fountain barely trickling with the lack of recent rainfall, the slender almond tree almost past its bloom, the stone troughs and benches.

Too public. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Tia Franchesca, Carina’s mamma, would watch every word, every gesture. “Ask her to meet me at the gazebo.” That small circular retreat between the vineyards and the hay fields would suit his needs well.

“I’ll tell her.”

Flavio led his horse to the railed octagonal gazebo and tethered him to graze on the spring grasses shooting up around it. He climbed the three steps and circled the open wooden structure. Each side opened on beauty.

Flavio appreciated his father’s open pastures dotted with cattle and sheep. But he loved Dottore DiGratia’s groomed vineyards and fields, his gardens and orchards, the orange trees heavy with fruit all year. He wanted a stock in this farm as Nicolo had. But if that were all he wanted, he could have had Nicolo’s share.

He took the mandolin from his back and stroked the strings, then hummed a
cantilena
, adding his own words as he saw Carina approaching. Her face was shadowed, and it broke his heart to see it. The song took a melancholy tone as she climbed the stairs. “Tesora bella, my heart must sing in your presence. . . .”

She frowned. “Tony said you wanted to
talk
to me.”

His fingers lightened on the strings. How many times they had sat together in this very place as the evening stars came out and his hand made a sweet melody. “I remember your face in the star~light, the curve of your lips when you smiled. . . .”

“Stop it, Flavio. What do you want?”

He stopped strumming, caught her hand, and drew her to him. “You know what I want. Carina mia, t’amo.
Ti voglio bene
.” Yes, he loved her. She must know it, must hear it in his voice, his fingertips. Only her love would heal him, take away the pressure that would destroy him. He felt her shaking. She would see; she would relent. She would love him again.

She looked up into his face, but with pity. It was like a knife severing his thin restraint. “I’m sorry, Flavio. I truly am.”

The last threads that held him together snapped. “No!” He yanked the mandolin from his body and smashed it into the post, splintering wood and mother of pearl in a strident wail.

She cried out and gripped her hands together. “Please.”

But he spun and slapped her across the face. Then, hand stinging, he leaped over the stairs and yanked the stallion’s reins free. He threw himself onto its back, numb to Carina’s crying, calling out to him. She was sorry? Not so sorry as she would be. No, not so sorry yet.

He kicked the horse, driving him through the softened fields and vineyards of his neighbors to the empty hills beyond. Insult spurred him like a brand in his flesh. He had put it all into place. Hoping he would not need to follow through, he had nonetheless prepared. Giocco should have done his part; yes, certainly he would have done his part, for Flavio had paid him well. He rode harder now, the horse laboring beneath him. Flavio felt the animal’s strain as fierce as his own, but he kept kicking the flanks, eating up the ground that stood between him and his purpose. He reached the quarry but circled around, coming to it from the top of the hill behind.

Only a few men were beginning their work below. But he knew Quillan Shepard would be among them. Giocco had told him the man came early and stayed late. Flavio dismounted and searched for the bundle Giocco promised to leave for him, under the rock that looks like the Virgin. Flavio saw the tapering formation and searched its feet. Yes, there it was, a bundle in oilcloth.

Carefully he lifted and unwrapped it. A stick of dynamite. He balanced it in his hands, its fuse trailing over his fingers. He’d never held destruction before. His hands were made to create. But no longer. Nothing but the destruction of that man could satisfy him now.

And so he waited, lying at the top of the hill until he saw Quillan Shepard making his solitary climb up, his wagon pulled by two caramel-colored Clydesdale horses, a chestnut, and a black. Fine animals, a good strong wagon, clattering more with an empty bed than it would full of stone. And the driver, Carina’s lover, her
husband
, sitting atop it like a king.

Flavio’s heart pumped thunderously. Could he actually do it? And how? Quillan must be on the wagon, not have time to leap free and run. It must look like an accident, like a mischarge of his own explosives. He must have some with him to dislodge the face near the top where Giocco said he worked.

Flavio looked down at the single stick. He had asked for a bundle, but Giocco refused. Only small charges were set, he told him, to loosen the stone, not blow it to smithereens. No one would believe an accident of gross proportions. It was safer for him that way, too.

Flavio watched the wagon draw nearer. It must look like an accident, but he wanted Quillan Shepard to know, wanted him to see whose hand it was that threw the stick. He took out his knife and cut the fuse shorter. He only needed a moment to show himself, throw it, then dive for cover.

He’d chosen his spot well, thanks to Giocco’s direction. Quillan brought the wagon within twenty feet, then reigned in. As Quillan raised his foot to set the break, Flavio lit the fuse. He stood up, and Quillan saw him, made an instinctive motion of his hand to his hip, then gripped the edge of the wagon to jump down.

With bocce accuracy, Flavio hurled the flaming stick of dynamite. It landed underneath the wagon bed at the moment it exploded. The wagon jumped into the air, tearing the horses from their feet and hurling Quillan Shepard to the ground. He screamed when the wagon crashed down on him.

A second explosion sounded, Quillan’s own charges detonated by the first, and flame burst over the grasses. The horses thrashed in panic, trying to free themselves from the wreckage of the wagon, but they were tangled in the traces and couldn’t stand. Trapped beneath the wagon, Quillan writhed. Flavio stood transfixed, terrified. He wanted to flee, but he couldn’t.

Flames licked up from the ground to the wagon wheels and climbed toward the edge of the bed. Quillan twisted beneath the pile of wreckage that pinned him down. Smoke choked and swirled up. The horses screamed.

“Please!” Quillan hollered. “Cut my horses free!”

Flavio stared. Quillan begged for his horses, though he writhed in pain and couldn’t stop the moans? Suddenly Flavio saw his papa writhing just so, his moans torturing Flavio’s tender ears, tearing open his heart. His papa had been crushed and broken as Quillan was now. Violent men had cut him down in his strength and youth, and no one had saved him.

Flavio pressed his hands to the sides of his head. The near horse gained its feet and jerked against the toppled wagon. Quillan screamed in pain. Without thinking, Flavio rushed forward, pulling a knife from his pocket. Amid the spreading flames, he slashed the leather reins until the animals tore themselves loose and ran.

Quillan’s chest heaved. He closed his eyes, gasped for breath, and moaned again. “Oh, God . . .”

Hating himself for what he had done, Flavio gripped the massive undercarriage that trapped Quillan. With all his strength, he strained against the weight. Through tight jaws Quillan hollered his pain as the wreckage shifted on him. The undercarriage raised up only inches.

“Pull!” Flavio shouted.

Quillan twisted, trying to get free. Flavio pressed his shoulder lower and lurched with a strength beyond his own. The undercarriage lifted. Quillan slid himself out and rolled, choking on the blood that gagged him. Flavio gagged, too, staring down at the man he had mangled. What should he do? The workers below must have seen the smoke, heard an explosion greater than it should have been. Flavio heard them coming up. Waves of horror washed over him. He ran for his horse and galloped down the back side of the hill.

Quillan pressed his face into the dirt, gasping with pain and choking as the smoke engulfed him. He would burn. He would burn! Mrs.

Shepard’s voice in his ear.
“You’ll burn like your demon parents burned. Burn in hell!”
He tried to drag himself from the fire spreading over the ground.
God! Help me!
But though he was free of the wreckage he couldn’t rise, couldn’t crawl.

Smoke stung his eyes, and he smacked the flaming grass with one hand. He sucked an acrid breath and choked. Nightmare visions of his parents’ charred bodies filled his eyes as the grass crackled with flame. Suddenly hands grabbed him, and he hollered in pain. Leg. Hip. One arm bent wrong and pain shooting from his shoulder to his neck until a hot numbness replaced it.

His cheek scraped across the rough wood of a hand wagon as someone slid him in. He was moving, rolling and bumping in the cart. He gritted his teeth against the jarring. The caustic smell of burnt grass stung his nostrils. He gagged on more blood, spit it out, and tried to think.

Something he had to do . . .

He tried to raise himself up in the wobbling cart. Men scattered about beating and stamping the burning grass, arms across their faces. And there, in the midst of it, his wagon was turning to charcoal.

Quillan collapsed, groaning. He couldn’t move one leg. His whole right side was awash in pain. He fought to stay conscious. He had to.

Where were they taking him? To finish him off? The fire could have done that. Suffocate or burn. Like his wagon. Like his money in the safely concealed box above the front axle. First flood, now fire. Quillan stopped struggling. What was the use?

Shaking with fear, Carina nudged Ti’Giuseppe aside. “Let me do it, Tio. I have to hurry.” She cinched the saddle and flipped the stirrup down.

“Carina.” Giuseppe caught her hand. “Be careful.”

“It’s not me, Tio, it’s Quillan. Flavio has lost his mind.” She swung onto the horse.

“Go.” He nodded his head. “Warn your Quillan.”

“Pray, Tio.” She grabbed the reins.

“Yes.” He moved aside as she urged the horse out of the barn.

Carina rode hard to Schocken’s quarry. She didn’t know what Flavio would do, but she had to warn Quillan. Yes, even if it took deadly force to defend himself. She should never have said no. Flavio was too unpredictable, too unstable. Her cheek burned with his slap. Though the pain had died, for him to strike her . . .

She kicked her heels. Papa’s horses were fine stock, but this one felt like a plodder to her now. “Per piacere, Signore! Make this horse fly.”

Her hair was a mass of tangles, her face flushed with the wind and her own anxiety when she reached the quarry. There was confusion already in the yard, and she looked up at the men fighting a fire on the hill. Fire was bad, but Quillan was her only concern.

She swung down, searching for his wagon and team. Maybe it was too early; he was still abed or in town on some errand. The quarry was large; he could be . . . Then she saw a horse running panicked among the stone piles. Its bulk and huge shaggy hooves . . . Her breath caught. Socrates? Or Homer?

Again she searched the yard, then the hillside with her eyes, frantic now to make sense of the scene. Something burned on the hill, some large charred mass. And what was that being wheeled down by two men in a long handcart? She looked again at the burning shape and made out wheels. A wagon? Quillan’s?

With a cry, she rushed toward the men hurtling down the hill into the yard. Workers just arriving huddled around the cart, and Carina couldn’t see. They spoke altogether, asking the same questions as hers.

What happened? Is he alive?

She pushed through and saw Quillan, still and bloody, curled on the cart. “Quillan!” Her shriek startled the men, and they looked more confused than ever. She gripped his wrist, found a pulse, then searched one face and another. “Who did this? How did it happen?”

They shook their heads. “He must have set a charge wrong.”

“There was an explosion.” They waved their arms up the hill.

It broke her heart to see the charred remains of his wagon. She knew what it meant to him. Was it an accident? Or had Flavio done this? Could he?

They shook their heads. “We don’t know what happened.”

It didn’t matter. Quillan needed help. Crumpled and bleeding and unconscious, blood trickling from his mouth . . . Dear God, what if his injuries were too great? “Take him to Dottore DiGratia. Quickly!”

She didn’t know if he should be moved, but if he had survived the ride down the hill . . .

Someone ran for a team and wagon that stood in readiness but had not been loaded yet with stone. Four men lifted Quillan from the cart to the wagon. A cry wrenched from his throat, straight to her heart, but he didn’t open his eyes. Her whole body shook. “Send someone ahead to get Papa ready. Tell him what happened.” Carina climbed in and cradled Quillan’s head in her lap. “Go! Go!” she called to the driver.

The wagon lurched and bumped, and Quillan’s face flinched. Once, he groaned, but he still didn’t open his eyes. Carina’s heart trembled. Quillan, so strong and able. Did he know she was there? She held his face sideways on her lap so he wouldn’t choke on the blood. There must be internal damage. What had happened? An explosion they said, like the men in the mine? Every one of them had died.

No, no, no! Don’t even think it!
Papa would know what to do. Papa would—Her spine suddenly went cold. Would Papa do what was needed to save him? Or would Quillan’s death be more expedient, as Flavio’s father’s had been?
Signore, the thought is too terrible. Please, you promised
to work good for those who love you. You know I love you. Only save his life,
and I’ll let him go
.

Isn’t that what everyone wanted? Papa and Mamma and . . . Flavio. Was he capable of this cruelty?

Or was it Quillan’s own carelessness? She had seen him challenge death on the train and in Crystal, flying in the face of danger as though he could not be touched. Had he taken one chance too many? The men at the quarry thought it an accident. But she could not forget the rage in Flavio’s eyes. Had she driven him to this?