—Quillan
WITH QUILLAN GONE TO get the wagon, Carina took one last look around the lobby. They were leaving Denver after just one night, and she wasn’t sure how to feel. If things had gone well yesterday, they might have stayed awhile and gotten acquainted with the DeMornays—Rose’s parents. Carina felt a keen disappointment. And though Quillan wouldn’t show it, she knew he stung still.
But now they would go to Sonoma. Oh, how she longed to see her home, her own mamma, her dear papa. Everyone, even Divina. She could almost feel their arms around her. Of course they would love Quillan. Why did she doubt it? They were not DeMornays; they were DiGratias!
She turned, and there was Mrs. DeMornay coming through the door with a quick darting step, glancing back once at the door, then proceeding to the counter. She stopped short when she saw Carina. “Oh. Oh, you’re here.”
Carina drew herself up almost to a height with the older woman.
Before she could speak, however, Mrs. DeMornay caught her hand and drew her into the alcove by the front window. “I’ve been forbidden to speak further with your husband, in case he tried to pursue things again. But nothing was said about you.”
Carina was startled. This seemed so out of character from the woman who had sat so prim and stately, offering no word yesterday when Quillan said his piece.
“Please, I have only a moment.”
Carina caught the woman’s hands. “Tell me.”
“Mr. DeMornay needs to believe . . . I’m certain he does believe . . .”
“That Rose lies in that grave?”
Mrs. DeMornay shuddered. “You can’t know how it was. We did what we had to, at first to protect Rose, then all of us. Judge me kindly.”
As they had judged Rose? And Quillan? Carina stayed silent.
Mrs. DeMornay’s liquid eyes were nearly aqua, perhaps paled a little with years, but Carina wondered if Rose’s eyes had been the same. Wolf had painted dark hair on the cave wall. Rose would have been a beauty indeed. The older woman dampened her gathered lips. “The diary . . .”
“It is Rose’s diary.” Carina stooped and drew it from her satchel. She had kept it close this morning, unable to pack it dispassionately into the trunk for the wagon. She pressed it to her heart. “My husband’s mother’s words.”
Mrs. DeMornay nodded slowly. “It was my gift to her on her nineteenth birthday.” Tears wet her eyes. “Your husband . . . was he, is he the product of a certain liaison? One which she fled . . .”
Surprised, Carina shook her head. Mrs. DeMornay knew of Rose’s seduction? “That child miscarried.” The word brought a pang to her heart, recalling Rose’s anguish. “Quillan is Rose’s son by Wolf, her husband.”
“Wolf.” Mrs. DeMornay shook her head. “Wolf?”
“The Sioux named him Cries Like a Wolf.” Carina thought the woman would faint she turned so pale and trembling.
“He was a savage?”
“He was a white captive who left the tribe and made his way to Placerville. A brave and wonderful man. Mrs. DeMornay, Wolf loved your daughter fiercely.” Loved her unto death. Slowly Carina drew the diary from her breast. She held it out. “It’s all in here.”
“No, I can’t.” Mrs. DeMornay shunned it with her hands. “If William saw . . . But here.” She reached into her purse, drew out a locket on a chain. “This is mine, so I can give it.”
It was large and gold, valuable in that alone. But Carina sensed more. Mrs. DeMornay opened it. Carina drew her breath in sharply. A photograph of a girl with dark curls and pale eyes.
Mrs. DeMornay pressed it into her hands. “I want your husband to have this.”
Carina covered it with her palm. “He will treasure it.”
Mrs. DeMornay’s lips trembled. “My daughter is . . . truly dead?”
Slowly Carina nodded. “Quillan was raised by another couple.” She sensed the woman would not bear more of the truth than that. “He only wanted to meet Rose’s people.”
Mrs. DeMornay dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I have to go.” The woman’s eyes flicked to the doorway. “I was going to leave the locket at the desk. I can’t defy William. If I were to see your husband . . .”
“Go then. He’s fetching the wagon.”
But she hesitated. “He has her mouth. Wide and generous. Too generous. Rose . . . No, I won’t say it.”
“She loved deeply.”
Tears filled Rose’s mother’s eyes. “Yes . . . impetuously.” She pressed Carina’s hands. “As you do, I surmise.”
Did she guess that from their short encounter? Did she wear her love for Quillan so blatantly?
“Don’t sacrifice that.” Mrs. DeMornay released her.
Carina shook her head. “I won’t.”
“Give Quillan the locket and . . . my love.” Mrs. DeMornay’s voice shook.
Carina nodded, a lump stopping her speech. She looked down at the photograph in the locket as Mrs. DeMornay passed out the door. Quillan did have his mother’s mouth. She closed the locket and folded it into her handkerchief, then put it in her satchel. Straightening her skirts, she went to wait at the door.
When Quillan pulled up in the wagon, she went out. He lifted her up and tucked the satchel behind the seat, exactly as he had the first time they’d met. His expression, too, was reminiscently grim. He had slept poorly, even groaning softly in his sleep. The DeMornays had opened old wounds. She considered the locket tucked secretly in the satchel. Should she give it to him now?
But Mrs. DeMornay’s concern had been palpable. And in his current mood Quillan was too unpredictable. He might confront Mr. DeMornay, and where would that leave his grandmother? So Carina said nothing.
Quillan climbed in beside her. “I’m putting you on the train, Carina.”
He would start that again? They had argued it last night, but she had not changed her mind. “I want to travel with you.”
“The train makes more sense.”
And she would arrive home without him. “Then sell your wagon and come with me.”
He shook his head. “I need it.”
She tossed her hands. “Then drive.”
He took up the lines. “At least let me inquire.”
“What’s to inquire? We can take the train or we can drive. I am not doing either without you.”
He stayed silent until they reached the station. Bene. If he would be stubborn, she would, too. She refused to leave the wagon seat when he dismounted and walked to the ticket counter. He would have to bodily remove her.
But when he came back, he eyed her squarely. “How about a compromise?”
She clutched the seat in case it were a ruse. “What compromise?”
“Train’s got a car for hauling carriages and such. They’ll take the wagon and horses while we ride in the passenger car—together.”
Suddenly exuberant, she clasped her hands at her throat. “Then yes! Of course yes!”
He flicked his hat with the tips of his fingers and leaned his elbows on the wagon side with the closest thing to a smile he could manage. “Glad I don’t have to pry your hands off that seat.”
She tossed her chin. “You only needed to be reasonable.” She held out her hand.
Instead of taking it, he caught her waist and swung her down. “It wouldn’t have taken much.” His grin pulled sideways. “Even with your best grip.”
“I would have made a horrible scene.”
He cocked his head. “A shame I missed it.”
She started to retort, but he sobered and went about readying the wagon. She swallowed her gall. After all, they were taking the train, and that meant she’d be home in days, rather than weeks.
They surrendered the full wagon and horses to a Union Pacific railroad man loading the flatcars and stock cars. She waited while Quillan instructed him pointedly about the horses, then a porter took the bags they would have onboard. Following him, Carina glanced back at the wagon as its wheels were lashed to th
e car and rendered immobile. She had a brief flash of her own wagon tumbling down the side of the mountain. Quillan’s freighter held gifts and reminders as precious as the things she had carried east.
But now they were heading west. She had traveled first class from San Francisco with Guido and Antonnia Mollica, then second class with the maiden aunts Anna and Francesca Bordolino, who thought it sinful to bask in such extravagance and probably couldn’t afford it. The second-class car, while not the squalid illness incubator of the emigrant cars, tested one’s capacity for discomfort.
She didn’t know which tickets Quillan had purchased. Would he think the best extravagant also? They passed the emigrant cars, bleak and stark. Already a smell emanated from the passengers who had been westward bound from the Atlantic coast. Poor people—how could they bear it? But then she thought of herself at Mae’s in the beginning. One adapted she supposed, as one must.
Carina breathed a sigh of relief as they passed the shabby third-class coaches interspersed with the baggage cars. She glanced at Quillan as they also passed the second-class day coaches to the elegantly appointed Pullman Palace cars. She raised her brows as he held out a hand for her to mount the stairs. So they would travel first class. Her husband quirked a smile. Was her face so revealing?
They found a pair of plush seats facing each other, and Quillan motioned for the porter to relieve himself of their load. With a night’s growth of beard, his buckskin coat, and his hair loose, Quillan drew curious glances from the other passengers. And some not merely curious. The gentlemen at large appraised him, but the ladies seemed to think him an exciting spectacle. In their eastern titters they discreetly pointed him out to each other.
Carina sat down and smiled. Maybe they would think her a daring partner to this western pirate. But she dismissed the thought when she noticed one red-whiskered gentleman perusing her boldly. Suddenly she resented the scrutiny of these coddled sophisticates out for a lark. She had seen them before, well-heeled adventurers traveling west for an excursion. The transcontinental rails of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads joined a decade ago at Promontory Point had made her home their playground.
With hardly any delay, the train headed out of the station. Across from her, Quillan looked out the window, seemingly unaware of the scrutiny—a fact that made him all the more mysterious to the women in their car. Carina couldn’t help but see what they saw: a man unlike any other.
Quillan chafed on the train as he hadn’t with his own reins in his hands, even though their speed tripled anything his horse-drawn wagon could manage and traveled where he could never have pressed his team. He looked across at his wife, lost in a periodical. She had been reading aloud from Harper’s Weekly, then had noticed his slack attention and fallen silent.
He rubbed his hands over his knees, unable to catch the pace, the rhythm of the train. Would he rather be traveling the rough stage road that paralleled the iron rails across the land? Rather see Carina with road dust and weariness in her face? At least he’d have that sense of connection. They’d be alone together.
Though the Pullman car allowed space and comfort, he squirmed under the curious gaze of the passengers around them. Carina seemed oblivious, though not a man aboard was oblivious of her. What could he expect? He could hardly go around gouging eyes. At least people gave them space. His visage, no doubt.
Carina glanced up. “Agitato.”
“What?”
“You’re restless. Agitato.”
He shrugged.
She closed the magazine. “I thought you liked hours and hours of traveling.”
“Alone on my wagon, in the open, with my hands on the reins.”
She waved her hand. “Ask the engineer to let you drive.”
“No thanks.” He stretched his legs out under her seat and crossed his ankles. “Only live animals.”
“Antiquato.”
“There you go, calling names.”
She laid the magazine on the seat beside her. “I said you’re old-fashioned.”
“Maybe.” He uncrossed his ankles and hunched up in his seat. Had his hindquarters ever plagued him so on the box? “But I would be in control.”
“Relax for a change. Let life happen.”
“I don’t like it when life happens.”
“Testardo.”
He glared. “At least insult me in a language I understand.”
“Testardo—stubborn.”
“Testardo. Now that one I could use back.”
“Then it would be testarda.”
He straightened slightly. “So adjectives change form.”
She nodded. “To match the noun. Some nouns are feminine, like saggezza, wisdom. Others masculine: disturbo. Annoyance.”
He crooked his brow. “Is there a point?”
She laughed.
He straightened the rest of the way, pressing his back to the seat cushion. “How do you say contrary?”
“Contrario.”
“And contraria?”
She waved her hand. “It would never be used that way, of course.”
“I sense biased instruction.”
“You want to learn?” She flicked her fingers toward him.
He folded his arms across his chest again. “Okay.”
She said, “Buon giorno.”
He repeated it.
She tapped her ear lobe. “You have a good ear.”
“Buon giorno means good ear?”
She laughed much harder than his error could have warranted. “It means good day. A polite hello or good-bye.”
“Buon giorno.” He committed it to memory.
She said, “Come stai? How are you?”
Come stai? That, too, went into recall. “And what do I answer?”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “At the moment?”
“Watch it.”
Again she laughed. “You say, Bene. Fine.”
“And all this time I thought you were cursing me.”
“It can also mean, Fine! or Well! ” She threw up her hands.
He nodded. “And if I’m not fine?”
“Male!”
“Very descriptive.”
“Italiano is a beautiful language. Bella lingua! And easy. Much more regular than English.”
He leaned forward. “In words maybe. But the inflection and sign language . . .” He shook his head.
“What are you talking about, sign language?”
“The hand motions.” He caught her hand as it flew by. “I don’t think I’ll ever get the hand motions.”
She tugged, but he held on, laughing. “And the fire of it. Every sentence is exclaimed.” He threw up both hands. “Buon giorno! Come stai! Isn’t life incredible! I just met you on the street!”
She slapped his knee. “I won’t teach you, then.”
He settled back. “You can’t help it.”
“What do you mean?” Her lower lip pouted in pure prima donna irk.
He should stop before she really got mad, but he couldn’t resist. “I’ll learn whether you intend it or not. It just slips out.”
“What slips out?” Her hands formed fists atop her knees.
“Your language.” The train wobbled over a rough portion of track. His hat dropped off the hook and landed on the seat. He hung it back up.
“It does not.”
“Sure it does. That time in the mine shaft? You talked all night in Italian. And provoke you? Whew! There must be a switch. Gather enough emotion, out comes Italian.”
“Omaccio!”
He laughed. “Un gross’uomo.”
She slapped the magazine across his knee.
“And that’s another thing. Are all the women in your family slappers?”
Her mouth fell open with a huff. Then she snapped it shut and glared.
“Not that I mind. You can’t damage this tanned hide. But—”
“Oh!” She threw the magazine flapping into his face.
“And throwing things. I suppose I’ll g
et used to that.”
She jumped to her feet just as the train took a sharp turn. Quillan leaped up and caught her waist as she swayed. “It’s all right.” He addressed the startled faces around them. “Just a cramp.” He settled her back down to the seat, looking all fired to spit nails. “Careful, now. Don’t want to tumble into some gentleman’s lap.”
“Certainly not yours!”
“Now, Carina.” He laughed.
She crossed her arms and pouted.
He nudged her knee with his. “How do you say I’m sorry?”
She looked to the window and clamped her mouth shut.
He leaned across. “Pardon me? Forgive me? Anything like that in Italiano?”
“Mi dispiace.” She spoke without looking.
“Mi dispiace for having hurt you.” He took her hand. “I deserved the violence.”
She sniffed.
“Let’s see . . . bella signora.”
She turned. “What are you trying to say?”
“My wife is the most beautiful woman on the train.”
She waved him off with her hand.
“The most wonderful woman I know.” He pulled a wry smile.
“You can count on one hand the women you know.”
He imitated her gesture. Her eyes flashed. He caught her hand before she could slide to the corner. “Carina, you may not realize it, but your hands are more communicative than words. It’s the first thing I loved about you.”
“It is?” She softened.
“It is. Your gestures mesmerize me.”
“They do?” But now she looked suspicious.
He laughed. “I mean it.”
She threw both her hands up. “How would I know? One minute you tease, the next—”
“It’s in the eyes, Carina. You have to watch the eyes.”
“It’s more in your mouth. Sometimes you make your eyes like plates, but your mouth, that’s what gives you away.” She paused.
Quillan wondered what she was thinking. She reached under her seat for the satchel, drew it up, and plunked it into her lap. Carina reached in and took out a handkerchief. Was she going to cry? Surely he hadn’t upset her that much. But she unfolded it and cradled something in her palm.
“What’s that?”
She held it out. “It’s for you.”
The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine Page 14
