The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine

by Kristen Heitzmann

  “Flavio!” It was Mamma Lanza. “Pranzo—dinner, come and eat.”

  He blinked as though coming out of sleep. How had the hours passed without his carrying out his intention? He looked at the rope in his hands, raised it, and studied the knot. Then he coiled it and laid it against the wall. When the despair came, as he knew it would, then . . .

  At last the awful stillness eased. Like shackles from his mind, Quillan felt the heaviness depart, and he swam up and up into . . . pain. Oh, God, was there any part that didn’t hurt? He blinked, taking in a soft gray light, broken by a dim golden glow somewhere to one side. He tried to turn to see, but his head would not obey.

  “Wait a moment.” A male voice, not unfamiliar, yet he couldn’t place it. Someone fumbled with something near his head. “I have permission to unbind your head as long as you understand that any sharp motion will put torsion on the collarbone.”

  Quillan couldn’t see who was speaking. The voice seemed to come from behind him.

  “There.” A figure stood and pulled a cloth band from his forehead. Quillan looked up with his eyes only.

  “You’ll know if you disturb the bone, believe me.” It was Carina’s brother Vittorio.

  Quillan closed his eyes. He must be more confused than he thought. Something wet dabbed his lips, and he sucked before he realized what he was doing. It was an automatic motion, something from the fog he’d climbed out of.

  “Are you in pain?”

  Quillan didn’t want to probe that question. “Where am I?”

  “Dr. DiGratia’s treatment room. Do you remember anything?”

  Quillan frowned. Dr. DiGratia—Carina’s father? He didn’t understand. But it hurt to think. It hurt to breathe. And he still couldn’t move. Wait . . . one leg seemed to respond. His left.

  “Don’t do that. You need to be very still. You’ve had a delicate surgery.

  Well, more than that, but that’s most fragile at the moment.”

  Yes, Quillan felt fragile. His throbbing right leg was completely stiff; he could do nothing with it at all, and the hip pained him sharply. His right arm also seemed stiff, and both were bound against his chest. He tried to lift his head to see down his body. It was more than he could manage. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so weak, so helpless. He swallowed, wishing desperately for water.

  As though Vittorio had read his mind he brought a glass and a spoon. “Let this run down the side of your tongue so you don’t choke.”

  Quillan took the water like a baby, then closed his eyes again, too exhausted to wonder anymore. After a time, he heard two voices conversing, the same he’d heard before. Again they spoke Italian. He—awake a moment. Yes—asked where—so many of the words Quillan hadn’t learned yet. The other voice was deeper. Dr. DiGratia’s. We will see.

  Quillan felt hands near his throat. Fingers probed along the collarbone. Quillan remembered. He had felt it break, heard it snap when he fell, before the wagon landed on top of him. He winced when the fingers found the spot, then forced his mind to clear. The hand stopped probing and reached for the edge of the sheet. With a tiny motion, Quillan gripped the wrist and opened his eyes.

  Startled, the doctor looked at him. Their gaze locked. Quillan glared, or thought he did. He wasn’t sure his face obeyed, but the doctor seemed to get the message.

  “You can relax. I’m only going to bathe you.”

  Quillan maintained his grip. “No, you’re not.”

  “Cleanliness is essential to recovery.” With his other hand, Dr.

  DiGratia folded the sheet down across Quillan’s chest.

  Feeling exposed and helpless, Quillan tightened the squeeze on the man’s wrist, though it sent aching throbs up his arm and across his shoulder to his neck. “I’ll wash myself.”

  “Will you? Which hand will you use?” The doctor’s frank stare sent panic through him.

  Quillan stared down his chest: the right arm trapped in plaster, the left bound up across his chest to the wrist. He had only movement enough to grab the doctor’s hand when it passed from his shoulder to his chest. Sudden claustrophobic panic choked up. He tried to sit but couldn’t, feeling the band strapped across his ribs. His legs were immobile, and one felt stiff as a log. An indistinguishable pain grew inside him. He felt like a trapped animal. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “It would be shorter to name what’s not.” Dr. DiGratia folded the sheet again, exposing his belly. Quillan tensed. The air of the room was warm, but his flesh quivered. Vittorio came over with a bowl of scented water. Quillan sniffed.

  “It’s arnica for bruising.” Dr. DiGratia said, gently working a bandage loose from the lower right side of Quillan’s abdomen.

  Quillan recognized the source of burning pain, although it seemed to penetrate all through him. What had happened there? Something worse than anything he’d known before.

  “Laudanum, I think, Vittorio.”

  “No.” Quillan shook his head, clenching his teeth, though the thought of dulling the pain was hypnotic.

  The doctor raised his brows, but Quillan was not about to have his senses lulled again, no matter how much it hurt. He wasn’t sure why he’d been put into the care of Carina’s father, but he knew enough not to lose his wits again. It would be a simple thing for Dr. DiGratia to remove him permanently from Carina’s life.

  “It’s not for pain only. We must keep the intestine relaxed, allow the surgery to heal.” The doctor nodded to Vittorio, who set the aromatic bowl on the table beside the doctor and prepared the opium tincture.

  Surgery on his intestine? And he was alive to protest? Dr. DiGratia must be as skilled as Carina claimed. That brought scant comfort.

  The doctor soaked a cloth in the bowl and wrung it out, then began swabbing Quillan’s skin. “Your fever broke last night. Do you remember the delirium?”

  Delirium. How did one remember delirium? But Quillan did have a vague sense of thrashing, reliving the explosion, the crushing pain of the wagon upon him as it began to burn. Crying out for his horses. He wondered now where they were. Had someone cared for them?

  “Once the perspiration began, I guessed you would come out of your stupor. But now I must wash the perspiration away so it does not putrefy your wounds.” The doctor continued to swab him with the warm cloth.

  Cringing inside, Quillan resisted the comfort of that warm swabbing. He couldn’t remember ever being touched in a healing, nurturing way, except for Carina. Where was she? He wanted to ask, but he feared she had been locked in some corner of the mansion, as far from him as possible.

  Vittorio brought the tincture of opium.

  Dr. DiGratia unfastened the strap across Quillan’s ribs. “Help me get his back first.” They raised him only enough to rub his back with the warm cloth, then wipe it dry and lay him back down.

  Quillan’s ribs shot with pain, but they were nothing to the throbbing wound in his abdomen and the muscles surrounding it. The doctor raised quizzical brows. “Now you will accept your medicine?”

  Awareness of the pain grew until it sapped his thought, his will. Quillan closed his eyes and nodded.

  “I thought as much. Vittorio.”

  Again Vittorio spooned the liquid into the side of his mouth. Quillan swallowed, lulled into a false complacency that evaporated the moment Dr. DiGratia lowered the sheet. Humiliated and fiercely resentful, he lay still while the rest of him was cleaned. Had he ever felt so stripped and vulnerable? God, what are you doing? Only the image of Christ likewise stripped and humiliated kept him from kicking with his one good leg. That, and the weakness that again overcame his fury.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  No horror terrifies the soul, like rendering the flesh unwhole; Poor feeble spirit tethered by a mangled man too dense to die.

  —Quillan

  WHEN CARINA WENT INTO the treatment room she breathed the scent of arnica and rosemary. The room was warmer than the rest of the house, and she noted the coal burning steadily in the brazier. Quillan slept, peaceful now
after his thrashing—what thrashing he could do last night, tied to the bed, chest and head. But Papa told her he had wakened.

  The restraints were removed now. Papa must believe the worst was past. She dropped down beside Quillan. She had left him only when the sweat poured from his skin, cooling the fever and ending his delirious rantings. Papa had promised it was a good thing and that Quillan would be stronger by morning. He looked stronger, and praise be to God, he felt warm, not fiery. It was a miracle.

  Five days of burning fever. Papa had grown silent and grim as Quillan’s delirium worsened. But when it gave way to drenching sweat, Papa seemed satisfied, though to her eye, Quillan had looked the worst yet.

  This morning, though, he seemed fresh and restful. What a change had occurred between the time Papa ordered her to bed and now!

  She looked at the face of her husband, smelled laudanum on his breath. His sleep was drugged, then, but Papa knew what he was doing. His chin was covered in beard, the mustache grown over his upper lip. His whiskers ranged down his neck in a W shape. She touched his face, smoothed back his hair, and stroked her fingers through it. If he awoke it would be to a loving touch, but he didn’t. His hair was damp and clumped. Though they had bathed his skin throughout the fevered days, no one had washed his hair.

  She stood, filled a pitcher from the pot of water on the warming surface over the brazier, and took from the cabinet a shallow dish shaped like a large shaving bowl with an indentation in the side. She set them and a small jar of hair soap on the table beside the bed. Gently raising Quillan’s head, she put the shallow pan beneath him, resting his neck in the hollow of its side and laying his hair down in the bowl. Then she slowly poured the warmed water over his hair, starting at the front of his scalp.

  “I said no!” He jerked, and she nearly dropped the pitcher.

  “Easy now or you’ll soak yourself.” Carina poured half of the pitcher over his hair and set it down.

  “Carina?” He opened his eyes, then closed them again, breathing thickly. “If it’s not really you . . .”

  Heart rushing with love and relief, she bent and kissed his mouth. “Who do you think it is? My papa?”

  He scowled, drawing his face into a tight mass, and his eyes opened stormily.

  Grazie, Dio! If he could be so angry, he must be getting strong! “What’s the matter?” She dipped her fingers into the jar of soap.

  “What’s the matter? I have to lie like a baby while your father . . .”

  She worked the lather into his hair, scrubbing with her fingers.

  “While Papa what?”

  He clamped his mouth shut, seemingly torn between anger and the irresistible comfort of her fingers on his scalp. She balled and lathered his hair, working out the snarls, the sweat, the last of the blood and dirt, then poured the rest of the water from the pitcher to rinse it. He sighed softly as she wrung his hair and wrapped it in a towel. Then she slid the bowl out and set it aside.

  She smiled at the begrudged loosening of his face. Suddenly overwhelmed that he was truly awake and speaking to her, she kissed his damp forehead. “Caro mio, I was so afraid.”

  His face contorted, his mouth working before any words came out. Then he sucked in a breath and said, “Carina, what’s wrong with me?

  Am I paralyzed? Why can’t I move anything?”

  She stared into his face. “Paralyzed? No. Immobilized.”

  “Why? Why am I strapped down like an animal?”

  She saw the same fear he’d betrayed in the cave. He could not stand to be trapped. Panic shot through his eyes like flashes of heat lightning. “Pace, caro. Peace.” She stroked his hair back. “You’re no longer tied. That was to keep you still while you raved. To protect you from hurting yourself.”

  “Then why can’t I move my leg?”

  She looked down. “It’s heavy with plaster, and your hip was injured, as well. You haven’t the strength, that’s all.”

  “And my arms?”

  “Your right is broken, but Papa set and cast it. Your left is whole, though the collarbone—”

  “Yes, I feel it. And my ribs?”

  “Three are broken on your right side.”

  He nodded slowly. “Where the wagon fell.”

  She caught his hand between hers as it lay just beneath his chin. “What happened, Quillan?”

  His throat worked against her fingers, and his eyes slipped away from hers. “Nitro is chancy stuff.”

  “What?” She fought sudden tears. Why wouldn’t he look at her? Did he lie? She sensed it, saw it. “Tell me the truth, Quillan.”

  He looked at her now. “It’s unstable, even when neutralized somewhat by the sawdust in dynamite. It’s the risk you take.” He had made his eyes like plates, shutting her out. Why?

  “You did this to yourself?”

  He didn’t answer. “Do you know where my horses are? Are they all right?”

  “In our stable.” Why was he evading her? To protect Flavio? She laid her palm against his cheek. “Did Flavio do this?”

  He closed his eyes. “Carina . . . I’m tired.” He was. Overwhelmingly so.

  She reached up and stroked his face. “Sleep, then. Every time you wake you’ll be stronger than the last.”

  He caught her hand, opening his eyes once more. “Will you be here?

  Will they keep you away?”

  “I’ll be here. If I leave for a moment I’ll be back. Don’t worry. Just rest. Get strong.”

  He closed his eyes.

  Signore, he is so weak. He can’t be expected to remember. Maybe he doesn’t know, didn’t see what happened. Maybe it was only an accident. She was the one jumping to conclusions. What proof had she that Flavio caused it? She touched her cheek and remembered his face with his soul torn asunder. She closed her eyes. That was why she suspected him.

  Quillan slept through the day, obviously worn out from such small exertion that morning. Papa came in at regular intervals to check his pulse, his incision, his temperature. “Did he speak with you?” he asked Carina softly during one examination.

  She nodded. “He asked what was wrong with him.”

  Papa felt the glands beneath Quillan’s jawline. “Some swelling,” he said as much to himself as her. “The glands would be enlarged by so much injury.”

  “Will he be all right, Papa? Will he heal?”

  Her papa cocked his head. “Healing is mending, Carina. Is the mended cloth what it was before?”

  She felt a sinking in her heart. “Then he won’t . . .” She couldn’t voice her disappointment.

  “Will bones that knit be as bones never broken? I don’t know. Will a body cut open have the integrity of one never exposed?” He spread his hands. “I don’t know.” He looked up, and his sudden keen stare took her by surprise. “Did he say what happened?”

  She looked into her papa’s face. Did he also suspect? “He said nitro is unstable.”

  Papa stood and washed his hands at the basin, shook the water from them, then reached for the towel. “That was all?”

  She dropped her eyes to Quillan’s sleeping face. Should she tell Papa what she suspected? What if she were wrong? Anyway, it was Quillan’s choice. “He was very tired. He couldn’t speak long.”

  Papa turned slightly, and she felt his doubt. As Quillan said, the whole world knew what she felt and thought. Did she have any right to blame Flavio without proof? How could she know? Quillan would not or could not say. But Flavio could.

  The thought sent fire through her veins. Go to Flavio? Confront him? That would mean leaving Quillan’s side. Papa would watch him, though Quillan seemed not too happy about that. Still, the question harried her, now that worrying whether Quillan would live no longer consumed all her thoughts.

  “You are wan, Carina.” Papa hung the towel and straightened his vest. “Take some air.”

  She looked up. Had he guessed even these last thoughts? Did he suggest she should go? Impossible. But nonetheless, he had given her the opportunity. She stood.
“Yes, Papa. Do you need anything?”

  He shook his head and went to his bookshelf. While he searched the spines, she went out the door. She could take a horse, but it wasn’t so far. It was two miles and more through the vineyard and the Lanzas’ pasture to their house, a little shorter to Flavio’s studio. That’s where she would find him, painting or brooding.

  She took the path from the house to the near vineyard. The vines had been gathered into heaps, ready for burning. The ground looked pocked and lanced. Her heart broke. Ah, the weeping vines. She passed between the rows, cursing the ground that harbored the parasite, which destroyed the roots like sin the soul.

  Hill after decimated hill she passed. Her brothers and their workers had been busy while Papa tended Quillan, busy ripping out the grapes and tossing them to be burned. Such desolation, such waste.

  Then she came to a field of vines and stopped short at the wonder. A green mist softened the black gnarly branches. She stared all along the rows of grapes. How had they been spared? Rapt, she passed among them. Had this field been overlooked? Was this a weak attempt that would be ignored when the workers came to yank them out?

  Deeper into the vineyard she went. She could sense its vitality. These vines were alive, thriving even. Papa had found a viable rootstock. They were small, yes, in their first year of planting, but they were strong. Oh, Signore! She felt such hope. She crossed through the pastures of the Lanzas’ cattle and saw the small wooden house that was Flavio’s retreat.

  She stopped walking, wondering for a moment what she was doing.

  Did she want to know? Could she bear to know? If Flavio had injured Quillan so brutally . . . But knowing could be no worse than wondering. She moved forward to the door between two flowering quince. Flavio loved them because they bore vibrant, orange-red blooms.

  His stallion, Juno, grazed nearby. Carina passed between the plants and stopped at the door. She knocked, then opened the door herself and walked in.