The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine

by Kristen Heitzmann

  Her heart jumped as she read the top name. Joe Turner! She clasped the packet to her breast, not looking at the other ones. She would let them surprise her. Letters from people she hadn’t even written. Had Mae shared her letter with Joe? Had others heard and sent their regards . . . at three cents an ounce? She laughed. What was three cents to Joe Turner?

  It was she and Quillan who were penniless. She laughed again and went outside.

  What fun she would have reading each letter to Quillan. Would he pretend he didn’t care? Or would he listen with his pirate’s smile and tease? That depended on his mood these days, which reminded her of her other errand. She tucked the letters into her saddle pouch and led her horse across the plaza, past the train turntable to the goldsmith and jeweler’s. She tethered the horse, then went inside. “Good afternoon, Mr. Grady. How is the locket coming?”

  “Not finished yet, I’m afraid. Soon.”

  “But you can repair it?”

  The goldsmith looked up with deep-set triangular eyes. “Not as it was. I’ve had to replace the front. I’m tooling it now.”

  “But the photograph?”

  He smiled and nodded. “Some things are more valuable than gold, aren’t they?”

  She agreed fervently. “Thank you for your work. Please let me know when you have it finished.”

  Back out on the street, she prepared to mount when someone called her name—a voice she did not relish hearing. All her good humor vanished, and she stopped with one foot in the stirrup, indignation rising like a tide. He would show his face again? She turned, biting words on her tongue, but he was not daunted at all. What was he made of, this Mr. Pierce?

  At the knock on his door, Quillan woke, a warm lethargy permeating his system. But Carina came in looking like thunder.

  He jolted up, wincing. “What’s the matter?”

  She put one hand on her hip. “Someone’s here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  She motioned as though that someone might slither through the door, when in fact he came in behind her looking dapper as ever in a black Prince Albert coat and gaiters. The man had gall, Quillan gave him that.

  “Quillan.” He came forward, hand extended. “Good to see you looking so hale.”

  Quillan didn’t take the extended hand, even though he could finally have done so if he wished. He sent a chilling glare instead.

  Pierce waved a hand. “Now I know . . . theft and all that. But see?” He held up the journal. “Once again, no intention to retain said stolen property.”

  “You have a warped sense of ethics.”

  Pierce grinned. “Wonder what else I’ve brought, do you?”

  “No.”

  Pierce laughed. “Well, I know you do, though you’d suck lemons before you’d admit it. I have a contract for a poetry anthology based on the excerpts from the biographical sketches in Harper’s Monthly.”

  Quillan tensed. “Excerpts of what?”

  “Your poems, of course.”

  Quillan opened and closed his mouth. He had specifically and repeatedly refused Pierce’s requests. The poems in his journal were the words of his heart, not intended for public scrutiny.

  “We had a handshake agreement. I had to give them something, and you were . . . unavailable.” Pierce spread his hands reasonably, as though Quillan should understand his necessary infamy. “The folks at Harper and Brothers are agog. They’re naming you with Emerson and Holmes. They’re crazy for American poets to compete with the Brits.”

  Baffled by the man’s obtuseness, Quillan shook his head. What did he care about competing with the British or anyone else? Those poems were his inner turmoil, his . . . He looked at Carina, saw her own indignation. The corner of his mouth flickered. With very little provocation, she would kick Pierce again. He noticed Mr. Pierce stayed out of range.

  Quillan fixed Pierce in his stare. “Mr. Pierce . . .”

  “Rod.”

  “I specifically told you those poems were not for publication. I haven’t changed my mind.”

  “Maybe this will.” Pierce held out a bank draft. “In advance of your submission. Royalties, of course, would follow.”

  Quillan neither took nor looked at the check. “What’s in it for you?”

  “A small percentage from future projects.” At least Pierce didn’t hedge. “And of course the acknowledgment that I discovered you. That goes a long way in my field.”

  Quillan laughed. Pierce’s audacity was no small thing. Nor what he offered. Another man might have jumped at the chance for fame and recognition. Quillan just wanted to be able to walk again with two sound legs and Carina at his side. His laugh died.

  He sank back and crossed his arms, a motion he hadn’t managed in weeks. He hoped their paltry condition was not evident. At any rate Pierce didn’t look at him like an invalid. Quillan swallowed. “My poetry’s not for sale.”

  Pierce gave a dramatic sigh. “Quillan, what can I say to convince you? America needs a voice that so poignantly describes her soul.”

  Did he mean that? Did he really think the words that came to him in turmoil, grief, and joy described America’s soul?

  Mr. Pierce set the check on the bed stand. “I’ll leave this. Discuss it with your wife. If she’s forgiven my boorish behavior . . .” He glanced at Carina hopefully. “Maybe she can get through to you.”

  Not likely, Quillan thought, by the expression on her face.

  “Mrs. Shepard, I do apologize. I had scanty information and jumped to a conclusion I should never have drawn. I was desperate and thought to provoke you to reveal something—anything—I could use.”

  Quillan wasn’t sure what conclusion Pierce had drawn, but he had certainly provoked Carina, though she had yet to tell him what specifically precipitated her kick. It was obviously scurrilous. Carina crossed her arms, jaw tight and eyes like molten jet.

  “Well, then.” Pierce turned back to Quillan. “I’ll leave you to decide.” He started for the door.

  “Pierce.” Quillan’s tone was sharp.

  Mr. Pierce turned.

  “The journal.”

  Roderick Pierce drew a breath and released it, then laid the journal atop the check. “Truly, Quillan, you have words that should be heard. It’s wrong to hoard them.”

  Quillan met his frank stare, unsure how to take those last words. Wrong, to keep his private thoughts to himself? Mr. Pierce gave a short nod and walked out.

  “Oh!” Carina shook her fists. “He makes me want to—”

  “Kick?”

  She spun on him. “And you can sit there and smirk?”

  Quillan squelched a smile. “What exactly did Mr. Pierce say to you?”

  “He wanted to know if my ‘lover’ had caused your accident.” As soon as the words were out, she seemed to want them back.

  Quillan flinched even though he’d done everything he could to keep the truth from her.

  She rushed to the couch and dropped down beside him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  She caught his hands in hers. “I know Flavio did this. He admitted it.”

  Quillan raised his brows in surprise. He couldn’t believe the man would actually brag on it. Not after— “Why did you protect him?” Though he looked away, she persisted.

  “Did you think I wanted that?”

  “No.” He unfolded his arms, dropped them to his sides.

  “Then why?”

  Quillan turned back to her. How could he make her see? The harm Flavio had done him mattered less than it might. He was used to the worst in people. But in those moments, knowing he was hopelessly trapped, that fire would consume him as it had his parents, as the worst of his nightmares of melting flesh and charred bones . . . From the extremity of his pain and terror, Flavio had freed him. “Because he could have let me die . . . and didn’t.”

  “Oh, Quillan.” Carina pressed in close to his chest, nestling her head beneath his chin.

  He wrapped an arm ar
ound her, then the other. She understood. She knew his demons. She had brought them out of his own personal darkness and suffered them with him. Rose’s diary had brought her tears; Wolf ’s pictures had broken her heart. But it was to the burned-out cabin she had returned again and again, imagining their final agony. She must know what Flavio had saved him from.

  She drew a jagged breath. “He hates himself. I found him with a rope tied into a hangman’s noose.”

  Quillan turned her face up to see the truth. It was there in her eyes.

  “Why?”

  “Because of what he did. What he is.”

  Quillan looked down at his leg, the leg that might never hold him again. He felt the residual pain in his weakened body. The weeks of helplessness and humiliation, being fed and shaved and bathed while his own hands were bound to his chest. All Flavio’s doing. He closed his eyes, fighting the satisfaction of the man’s torment.

  But it was wrong. He’d spent enough years believing himself a flawed man. He would not wish it even on Flavio. And only he could change it.

  “Would he come here if you asked?”

  Her face came up as he’d known it would, in wonder and confusion. “I don’t know.”

  He forced his voice to obey his will. “Ask.”

  She started to straighten.

  “Not”—he pulled her close again—“just now.” He sank his fingers into her hair. It was a little thing to have his hands back, but it felt immense.

  Past the amazed stares of Tony, Joseph, and Mamma, Carina led Flavio through the house to the shuttered porch where Quillan waited. She was uncertain even now what her husband intended, though Flavio had asked at once, “Does he mean to accuse me?”

  And she had met his gaze. “What if he does?”

  Flavio had fought an inner battle that flashed across his face, but he had come. He asked no more questions as they rode together to Papa’s house, though his expression had darkened and ebbed by turns as he no doubt pondered the outcome of it all. Now he looked both desperate and resentful. But his inner fiber, the worthy core Carina hoped was still part of him, had brought him to face the man he had wronged.

  She pushed open the door. “Quillan, Flavio is here.”

  Quillan looked up from the couch. He set down Henry Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body. She could tell by the sweat on his brow he had not been reading, but rather using it to strengthen his arms; Papa would be irked. Quillan nodded. “Let him in.”

  She motioned Flavio into the room, then positioned herself beside the bookshelf. The moment Flavio entered she could feel their tension. Flavio might be ashamed of his deed, but he was still Flavio, mercurial and proud. They squared off, both defensive. Though Quillan had asked and Flavio come, had either anticipated the difficulty of coming face to face after such an act?

  “I’m sorry I don’t have a chair.” Quillan indicated the sparse appointments.

  Flavio said nothing, but he glanced at Quillan’s leg in the cast and lost some of his defiance. “What do you want?”

  Quillan seemed to be fighting for his next words. Carina wanted to rush in to his defense, to make Flavio see what he had done, the suffering he had caused. She wanted him to know her husband, who had once been so strong, but now strained to lift a book, to make a fist, to sit up by himself.

  Quillan’s gaze was steady. “I want to thank you for getting me out.”

  Carina’s whole attention went to Quillan. What had she expected?

  Accusation, threats, demands. But gratitude?

  Flavio glared. “What do you mean?”

  Quillan dampened his lips. The tendon in his cheek pulled taut beneath the skin. Could Flavio see the effort Quillan made? He said, “My parents burned to death. It’s been my terror all my life.”

  Carina stared at her husband as though she had never seen him. In truth she had never seen him so real. She knew the truth, his inner anguish, his parents’ suffering and the fear it had caused Quillan. But to admit such a thing to Flavio? Who tried to kill him? Who might have succeeded.

  “I . . .” Flavio turned away.

  “I don’t know how you got that wagon up. But I’m grateful.”

  The wagon that had burned up all their wealth, all Quillan’s work, that had burned because of Flavio. Yes, she had been thankful for the loss, if it kept Quillan from wandering, but Flavio’s hatred and jealousy had almost cost her husband his life. She fought to restrain her anger in the face of Quillan’s resolve. Whatever he was doing, she must not interfere.

  Flavio’s hands tightened into fists, the veins rising blue, knuckles white. Carina held her breath. How would he respond? He could not have guessed this was what Quillan brought him here to say. Did he realize what it cost Quillan to reveal a weakness, a fear? To admit his helplessness to the man who had caused it?

  She saw Flavio’s confusion. Quillan’s word could bring an end to his world. It would not hang him, but he would surely go to jail, and for a man of Flavio’s temperament, that was worse than a rope. Yet here was Quillan, expressing gratitude. What could Flavio say? “Prego, my friend—I’m glad I could help”?

  Quillan didn’t give him a chance. His face hardened, not angry or fierce, but so compelling she felt the force. He held Flavio’s eyes just as he so frequently held hers, unable to retreat. His voice stayed low, but still commanded. “I want this over now. I have no grudge with you.” They were words of peace, yet they offered no compromise.

  Flavio looked at Carina with eyes she had known as long as she could remember. She saw hurt and confusion, but also, faintly, relief. She longed for him to let his anger go, to be done with hating. And then it seemed he was. There was a freshness to his face, the softened lines of hope. Her own anger evaporated as he turned back to Quillan, nodding. “It’s over.”

  It was as though a barrier broke inside Flavio, and Carina imagined peace pouring in. Her heart jumped with gratitude for Quillan’s integrity and courage. Quillan held up his hand, shaking slightly with the weakness in the muscle. Slowly, Flavio grasped it, hand to wrist like a brother. One moment they clung, then he left without another look.

  Flavio left the house confused, yet less confused than he’d been since Carina’s return to Sonoma. Riding over, his stomach had knotted, not just in pondering Quillan Shepard’s motives, but in seeing him at all after the last broken and bloody sight. Damage there was, but also strength of a sort Flavio did not understand.

  The grip of his hand, shaking as it was, had transmitted a terrible peace, and Flavio imagined it as Moses’ hand or some other chosen tool of Il Padre Eterno. Or Cristo himself. “I have no grudge with you.” How could he say that after what he’d suffered? To call him there and thank him . . .

  Flavio swallowed. Was it any wonder Carina’s heart was lost? There was pain in that thought, but he couldn’t fault her. The fault was his, but even that didn’t bring him to the black place. It seemed sealed off, and other parts of his mind beckoned, parts he hadn’t probed in too long. What power had Quillan’s grasp unleashed?

  He sighed, passing through the gate to the barn where he had left his horse, but Angelo DiGratia stood outside it. Flavio stopped before him. He hadn’t known what he would feel looking into that face again, but he looked now. “You know what I did?”

  Angelo dropped his chin, but not his gaze. “Both of us know the worst.”

  It was true. There were no secrets between them, only guilt. Ti’Angelo had let his papa die; Flavio had tried to kill a man. Yet the one who could have brought Flavio to justice had released him. His papa could not release the doctor. But he could.

  At the same moment, they gripped each other’s upper arms and held on. Though they did know the worst of each other, there was no animosity left in Flavio for this man he loved, nor the man’s daughter, he realized, though there was the pain of loss. The grip of her husband’s hand had sealed her from his heart, yet there was no animosity left for Quillan Shepard, either. The terrible strain that had been tearing him apart was gone.


  “You’ve made your peace?” Angelo DiGratia spoke softly as the night descended around them.

  Flavio nodded. “I’ve made my peace.” The night felt fresh and new, the air rich with moisture and the scent of the barn.

  Ti’Angelo’s grip tightened. “Dio vi benedica.” God bless you. He kissed Flavio on both cheeks. It was both welcome and farewell. Though nothing would be the same, they were healed.

  “And you, Ti’Angelo.” He kissed the doctor willingly, then took his horse and rode home, not to the house where his parents slept, but to his studio. A canvas stood on the easel, but no paint had touched it. His hand and mind had been paralyzed, though he had sat hour by hour trying to put his skill to it.

  Now he mixed his paints and took up his brush. Through the night he worked, forming arches and pools, olive trees and strips of cloud. But in the foreground it was Gesù Cristo, untouched yet by whip and thorns, reaching down to a man on a litter and forgiving his sins.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Forgiven, forgotten, the sins once held tight.

  Surrender may render one stripped of one’s right.

  But the chalice of malice one drinks quid pro quo, is purged of its scourge when we mercy may show.

  —Quillan

  QUILLAN CLENCHED HIS JAW in frustration. For two weeks Carina had read him a letter a day. First Joe Turner, opining his fear that the mineshaft named for Carina would stop producing simply because they had run into some bad rock. Her absence, he was certain, would bring the end to his good luck, and couldn’t she consider returning to Crystal? Carina had written back her assurance that the mine was safe and would produce as long as God willed, but no, she was home now and would stay.

  Then there was Mae’s, filled with the happenings of a town Quillan no longer had time for, men finding fortunes where his had been washed away, earned again, then carried across the country to be burned. He had smugly believed the money had no hold on him since he refused to depend on it. Now he knew that without it he was trapped. And how was he supposed to restore it as an invalid?