And she was a paradox – a free-spirited Gypsy seesawing with a mystic-martyr in a hair shirt. Therein was in his romantic delirium.
Throughout the night, he and Romy ran through forests reminiscent of Grimm’s awful fairy tales. But running in cowboy boots and club heels gave the advantage to the dogs and their handlers in flat-soled military boots.
The baying of the canines grew ever closer. Just as he was about to call a halt for shucking their foot gear, he burst out of the forest into a fading, starlit sky – and a river as formidable as China’s Great Wall.
Romy almost bumped into him, and he noted she had already lost one shoe. She leaned over, hands on her knees to catch her breath. Despite the cold, sweat sheened her face. “A tributary of the Havel,” she wheezed. “Brandenburg is not too far on the other side.”
Thirty feet wide at the most and probably no more than hip deep, but rampant with rapids, the river was banked on either side by three to four-foot rock bluffs – and tree-lined on its far side. He shoved his leaf-tangled hair from his forehead and stared at the impassable river. “Sunnufabitch.”
At that expletive, she straightened, hands on hips. Her hair was a rat’s nest, dirt was plastered to the vaseline coating her face, and his filthy jacket would better dress a scarecrow.
No woman had ever looked more beautiful.
One of her hands slipped beneath his rawhide jacket to the pocket of her blood-smeared lab coat and dragged forth his derringer. “I’ll shoot meself, Duke, afore I allow Klauffen to make me a Nazi guinea pig again.”
Breaking dawn showed the desperation in her pixie’s face, and his gut wrenched at her soul’s awful pain he was witnessing. “Put it away! He’s not taking you on my watch.”
Dangerous rapids offered a means of slowing down a dog team – but also meant the very real probability of his and Romy’s being swept away and drowning or being bashed against a boulder. But what other choice was there?
Hastily, he loosed the rope’s knot at her waist, then at his own. “I sure as hell hope some of your circus experiences will serve you now.”
Puzzled, she stared up at him.
He tied a strong enough lasso to take down a bull. With that, he swung the rope as he would any lariat and released it to capture his target – a lightning-struck tree on the river’s far side, where most people with any brain matter would not be willing to make a crossing.
He missed. Damn’t. Time was wasting.
He reined in the rope, its lasso bobbing against the rushing water. Once again, he twirled the lasso over his head to release it as the momentum swung the loop forward. Bingo. The lasso looped the tree high up its trunk. He followed through, grabbing the rope’s slack and drawing it tight against his hip, which would have to do, since there was nowhere to anchor it on their side’s shale shoreline.
“All right, you first. Grab hold.”
The ends of her mouth dipped. “I’m not so good a swimmer.”
“Then don’t let go of the rope. It’s not like you’re walking a circus tightrope. When you get to the far side, it’ll be a bit of a drop, what with the rocky outcrop below. Swing and aim for that yonder mossy patch.”
She gulped, but she gamely latched hold of the rope, at that point eye level. She spared him one parting glance, and he forced a grin. “May you be lucky, Sunshine!”
She grinned back. Then, knees jacked up, she began a hand over hand crossing that sloped upwards. Getting midway across the thunderous river took a good three minutes. Three long, arm-muscle straining minutes. And all the while the baying of the dogs grew louder.
Suddenly, her arms, bent at the elbows, gave way, and her body sagged. Perilously, she dangled just inches above the thrashing water. Her other shoe dropped into the river and bobbed from sight in the dawn-lit foam. Her clenched fingers held fast.
She managed to release one hand and quickly shoot it forward along the rope he yanked taut. Inch by heart-throbbing inch, she caterpillared her way. Her journey’s last half took much longer than they had left timewise before their pursuers would arrive.
He did not realize he had been breathing so shallowly until she reached the far side, swung, and heaved herself onto the cushioning thatch of moss.
Now it was his turn. Admittedly more dangerous, as he would be wading, hauling on the rope with each precarious step. Turbulent water flooded his boots, making each next step herculean. Well, that was smart, Duke. Forgetting to remove your boots.
A small boulder afforded him momentary respite from the swirling water. Within mere yards of safety, he heard behind the victorious shouts of the trackers and canines’ ferocious barking. Shit! He risked a glance over his shoulder.
Four Nazi handlers struggled to hold the leashes of their straining dogs. Frothing, they were eager to dash into the water.
Jackboots planted in a firing stance, an officer stood in their midst. He sported an eyepatch. That had to be Klauffen. At his shoulder, he braced a Mauser, its sight homed in on Duke, his red cable-knit sweater a perfect bull’s eye.
A split-second decision. Death by a bullet – or – let go of the rope and be brain-bashed against one of the boulders.
Above the roar of the rapids resounded the firing of a bullet. Stunned – he felt nothing! A blink of an eyelid later, he was equally stunned to watch Klauffen topple over the three-foot bluff like a statue with a crack through its granite forehead.
Wasting not a second in questioning, Duke swung his attention back to the shore ahead – and Romy, shivering in the crisp dawn air. Derringer still upraised, she had an unrepentant smile on her sprite’s face. “Two out of two Angels,” she hollered. “Not a bad day’s work.”
He could not imagine why he had ever sought respectability, because it was a sham compared to reliability, compared to someone who had another’s back. Swinging ashore, he said, “The danger isn’t over, Annie Oakley.”
“What?”
He didn’t have time to explain who Annie Oakley was. Before more shots could ring out, he hustled her forward into the concealment of the trees. “Those mastiffs could still find a way to circle round to this side and pick up our scent.”
She rolled her eyes and huffed, “We wash it off, Duke.”
“Nope,” he said, tugging off with effort one of his boots and dumped the water from it. “Dripping water from our bodies contains our skin cells.”
She blinked. Gulped her fear. “Oh.”
He emptied the other boot before replying with a grim smile, “Time to hot foot it again – this time to Brandenburg.”
§ CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR §
The cold front had blown through, leaving only a chill in the autumn air.
Half way through their flight, Duke took one look at Romy’s bare feet – bruised and scratched – and snarled with what she could only interpret as impotent rage; but the look he turned on her was one of unexpected gentleness.
Chafing one cold foot between his warming palms, he grinned lecherously. “Lucky me – you’re going to ride me again, Sunshine.”
She beamed. “This ‘hot-footing it’ of yours has it points.”
He swung her up across his shoulders, piggybacking her. “What now?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He set off at a trot among the spindly trees lining Williamstrasse, one of the main roads leading into the outskirts of Brandenburg. “I’m counting on the city’s scents and distractions confusing our trackers.”
He didn’t add what Romy knew he and she were both thinking – the real danger being that radio communications could have already alerted a Brandenburg patrol.
Low-slung branches and humped-up roots slowed his long strides. The wet leather of his boots complained audibly at each step. However, his breathing was barely snagged.
With its Gothic red-brick buildings and medieval town wall, Old Town Brandenburg was also home to the Euthanasia Centre, where the Nazis were killing people with mental diseases, including children, and – under any other circumstances �
�� was one of the last places she would want to be.
In normal situations. But life in Germany was not normal, and today . . . .
Fortunately, not far outside the town wall, its ancient watchtower contrasting severely with modern trolley tracks, resided a decrepit biergarten. At that early hour, little more than a scattering of townspeople were strolling about, and only a few delivery trucks were making their stops.
The outdoor wooden tables were as yet unoccupied, and he parked her on one of the dew-damp benches. A late autumn haze blanketed the ground with a morning mist. “Stay put, Cinderella. I’ll return with slippers for your tootsies and a coach for us both.”
“The Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella was not a lass to mess around with, Duke. If ye abandon me here, I swear I shall put a gypsy curse on yuirself.”
Faint lines of fatigue edged his mouth and eyes. Surprising, because it seemed he had no weaknesses, and worse, no need for something outside himself. “You already have,” he said morosely.
He headed back toward the thoroughfare. She called out, “And a bagel or two if you could filch them would benefit me stomach.” Which was topsy-turvy these days.
In his absence, she fretted for him. Given his height, he would be as conspicuous as if he had been wearing the Jew’s Star of David blue armband. Worse, he didn’t speak German and, if questioned, might lapse into his childhood stuttering. No, he would never let down that guard, no matter what.
Still, at any moment, she expected to hear police whistles, shrill sirens, or gnashing dogs. But, nay, just an occasional honking of a car horn. And then came a persistent beeping toot.
She glanced back toward the street and saw Duke’s lanky body astride a motorbike, his long legs outstretched, scruffy cowboy boots balancing on the brick pavers. A laugh bubbled out of her. Only Duke. Sweet Baby Jesus, he was one damned good looking laddie.
Up she sprang and, ignoring tender feet, sprinted across the biergarten’s gravel and turf. She flung herself onto the seat behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Far better than any pumpkin coach!” she chuckled at his ear.
“Cinderella’s slippers are in the saddlebag.”
“You know, Duke, for a mere gadje, ye are fast becoming a skillful, thieving Gypsy.”
He looked over his shoulder at her, and his disreputable mustache curved with his grin. “I am not sure if that is a compliment or not.”
That disarming and infectious smile! “Common thieves don’t even come close.”
Balancing precariously on the back, she fished inside the saddlebag to find a pair of boy’s size brogues, which, to her amazement, fit perfectly. It was as if he knew her so well, knew her better than she knew herself – and that was a threatening. She could easily lose herself, her identity, in loving him – and become vulnerable again.
Her stomach was growling. “And the bagels?” she demanded.
“Right now, Sunshine, I’m a little short on change – and time.” He shot the motorcycle out onto the boulevard and into the morning’s increasing traffic.
With danger lurking at almost every corner in the form of a Mauser-toting Nazi soldier, she was surprised at the exhilaration coursing through her.
Once through Brandenburg and out onto the open road, the motorcycle swept through river valleys and undulating countryside. Beneath her hands, she could feel adrenaline pulsating through his stomach muscles.
Never had she felt more alive.
That zinging feeling lasted for quite some time, well past midday, when they crested a hill and came upon a lumbering military truck convoy, transporting infantry toward the Netherland’s border. Red swastika armbands circled the sleeves of young, fresh-faced soldiers. Abruptly her heart throttled into high gear. Her stomach seized up, threatening to overspill in another bout of heaving.
He went to pass, and she yelled into the frigid wind, “Your brain is knackered, Duke McClellan!”
He ignored her and sped by the olive-drab trucks. A sweep of his hand in the air could have passed for a friendly wave or an impudent obscene hand gesture. “‘Fortune favors the bold,’” he yelled over his shoulder. “Virgil.”
Late afternoon and a road sign indicating Kassel fifteen kilometers ahead signaled they were probably only halfway to Rotterdam. Her teeth felt as if they were vibrating, her lips were chapped, her hands were frozen nubs, and her arse had gone fookin’ numb.
Toward sunset, as if he sensed her waning stamina, he steered the motorcycle off the beaten path into a picturesque vintners’ village celebrating Octoberfest with an open-air wine festival. “Time for replenishing our BMW’s tank,” he announced.
“Do we chance getting caught?”
“Without a break and gas,” he said over his shoulder, “we’re liable to end up somewhere down the road in a bar ditch.”
On the Fulda River, Kassel’s quaint town square had drawn hundreds to revel in honor of its vineyards’ harvests. Timber-framed shops had set up stalls and tables loaded with oak casks for wine tasting – and samplings of bratwurst, pretzels, and schnitzel. A brass band and accordion provided lively music.
He wedged the motorcycle among parked lorries, carts, bicycles, and automobiles, and she dismounted, barely able to stand. The band’s polka music was loud, and she stretched up to shout at his ear, “Tis me turn to provision for us.”
“Don’t land us in the hoosegow, please.” His face reddened with wind-burn and his hair windblown, he trailed her with an uneasy look.
She sashayed among the stalls. Deftly, from here and there she surreptitiously stashed food into the pockets of his ample jacket she was wearing. Finishing off her plundering, she sidled out of his now heavily laden jacket and her lab one and passed them to him.
“What a scamp you are,” he marveled.
“Fortune favors the bold. Romy Sonnenschein.” She grinned. “Now watch.”
She joined behind a counter a tired-looking, busty young woman in braids. She was dispensing Riesling from a cask spigot into a dimpled dubbeglas, and when Romy reached for another one to fill, the fraulein snapped, “What are you doing? Who are you?”
Romy counterfeited a consoling smile of camaraderie and replied in her best Dutch-German dialect, “I am your relief. You didn’t know?”
The young woman frowned, hesitated, then shrugging plump shoulders, shoved past Romy and out of the stall – at which point Romy began serving the already tipsy customers, among them Duke, who quaffed the wine in one swig.
Five minutes later, she deserted the stall to join him. Dipping fingers between her meager breasts, she waved a small wad of Reichsmarks. “Tips for me excellent service.”
He shook his shaggy head, badly in need of another one of her trimmings. “Virgil could take a lesson from you.”
He led her down the slope toward the river. Here, the boardwalk was deserted but for a couple who, braving the chilly breeze coming off the water, embraced against a dock’s light pole. Upon sight of Romy and Duke, they wandered off to seek out shadows afforded by the nearly bare branches of the river’s trees.
Duke found a spot of cushioning, dry grass for them to sit and, famished, they wordlessly consumed the looted food. Or rather he did. Her consumption was tentative and picky.
Mayhap, it was just the aftermath of stark fear catching up with her. But her stomach was somersaulting, and it was all she could do to keep the food down.
Standing, he swiped his hands on his Levi’s. “Wait here.”
She watched him, hands tucked inside his jeans back pockets, stroll along the dock. Idly, he peered from one side to the other at the watercraft tied to the wharf. Then, abruptly he vanished into the depths of a motorboat. Presently, he reappeared, almost swaggering with the victory of the red petrol can in hand.
While he refilled the motorcycle’s tank, she tried to polish off the jacket’s remnants of her food theft, but even licking her fingers proved nauseating. Shrugging back into her lab coat and his jacket she puzzled over this. Mentally, she began to co
unt back. She barely noticed rustling, shriveled leaves cartwheeling across her brogues. Holy Mother! She was with child!
He rocked the BMW off its stand. “Ready for a night ride?”
Feigning enthusiasm, she drawled, “Yeeee-haw and ride ‘em cowboy.” She swung on back and, as the motorcycle roared off into the western twilight, she held fast, wanting to absorb the feel of him beneath her hands, to impress the memory of him forever in every pore of her body.
The hours raced on, and so did her mind. Joy and despair vied with one another for predominance in her thoughts. What to do? What to do? She could raise the bairn on her own, of course. Was it a girl or a boy? If a girl, she would name the bairn after her own mum. And, if a boy – she would name him Duke, naturally.
She dreaded dawn’s pink light that would bring into sight the border checkpoint of the Teutonic town of Lobberich. On the other side awaited with welcoming arms the Netherlands – and the end of their journey together.
But first there was the German checkpoint to get past.
“Hang on, Sunshine!” he shouted.
She risked a peek around his shoulder. At the motorcycle’s hurtling approach, two Nazi guards hustled from the gatehouse with rifles shoulder leveled. Her arms tightened around him. Then this was it. All her and Duke’s hair-raising escapes – only to die within eyesight of freedom.
With sudden revelation, she gasped – she was the Ace of Spades.
Abruptly, Duke gunned the bike. Her thighs hugged his. Her knotted hands gripped his stomach. The BMW bucked onto its back wheel. The front pawed the air like a rearing stallion. Then, the motorcycle rocketed forward. Cold wind roared past her.
Eyes closed, she waited for the inevitable bullet. When next she peered over her shoulder, soldiers were diving from the BMW’s path.
Suddenly, at that instant, the sun finally set, as if in a great rush, as if it had been waiting for the border crossing to be concluded.
Duke’s exultant laughter rang out. “We did it, Romy!”
“Lucky us!” But that was not entirely how she was feeling
GYPSIES, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES Page 27
