Rapture's Rendezvous

by Cassie Edwards

  Even Ruby's words had been in vain. Even she had bowed down to Nathan's representatives, having no choice but to do so when they had surrounded her house with guns shining threateningly from the holsters hanging from around their hips.

  Who could fight the machine guns at die coal mines and the hordes of gun-slinging men hired by Nathan Hawkins? It seemed that all was lost. Michael? Maria worried about Michael all hours of the day and night.

  The sound of a loud explosion erupting from somewhere in the distance rocked the bed beneath Maria, making her jump with a start. She rose from the bed and rushed to her window, seeing a darkness rising into the sky. Her heartbeat faltered. What had that noise been? Why was the sky… darkening… ? Then she gasped, putting her hands to her throat. The coal mine,” she mumbled. “Oh, no. It can't be….”

  She turned when Mama Pearl rushed into the room, gasping for breath. “Come quick, Maria,” she said. “It seems something terrible has happened at the coal mine. I'm sure there … has .. . been an explosion.”

  Maria's insides became a mass of trembles. She rushed to her closet and chose a black serge skirt and white shirtwaist, slipped into her shoes and then rushed down the staircase, not stopping to wait for Mama Pearl. All Maria could think about was the welfare of Alberto and her Papa. Oh God, she prayed silently, Please don't let anything have happened to them.

  Moving on outside, she peered into the distance and felt a bitterness rising into her throat. She could see the rolling clouds of black billowing upward from the area of the mine. She covered her ears when the mine's whistle began to blow in sharp, short whistles. “It was the mine,” she screamed, moving down the front steps, running down the road, then on through the Indian grass. “Michael warned that there would be an explosion. God, he was right,” she murmured, breathing hard.

  Fearing the worst, Maria ran until her legs ached and her head throbbed. And when she got to the fence that surrounded the mine, she stopped and clung to it, chewing nervously her lower lip. All the area around the entrance to the mine was a mass of confusion. The mine continued to belch black smoke, and bodies were being carried from the dark pit of the earth.

  Maria continued to look anxiously around her, trying to see the familiar faces of Alberto and Papa. Then when the crowd of women and children from Hawkinsville arrived to stand beside her at the locked fence, loud waitings and cries from the women tore at Maria's heart. She went to the main gate and joined the others in tugging and pulling at the chain that looped through and around the holes of the fence, where a lock secured its ends together.

  “It's no use,” Maria cried. “Our men are locked in as we arc locked out.” Then her cries became muffled.by her hand covering her mouth as she watched Alberto move from the crowd of men who had been busying themselves with carrying the wounded and dead from the mine. He was a mass of black. She could hardly even see his eyes through the black of his face. But the closer he came to her the more clearly she could see the streaks of wetness on his face where his tears were making a path through the black on his cheeks. When he caught sight of Maria, his shoulders sagged heavily and he began to shake his head slowly back and forth.

  Maria thrust a doubled fist between her teeth and clamped down. She knew what Alberto was saying without words. “Oh, no,” she moaned, looking on past him at the bodies, wondering. . . which . .. one was that… of her . . . Papa.

  When Alberto reached the fence, he reached his fingers through it, covering Maria's. He squeezed and fell into heavy sobs along with her.

  “Tell me it isn't so,” Maria whimpered, feeling an emptiness at the pit of her stomach, feeling such a loss without having even seen her Papa yet. She knew that he was gone. She knew that this coal mine had snuffed the breath from his lungs. She knew that she would never be able to hug him to her again.

  “Papa … is one … of the fifty. . . .” Alberto said, hanging his head, sobbing still.

  “Fifty . .'?” Maria gasped

  “After the explosion and after the dust cleared a bit. there seemed to be bodies all around me,” Alberto said, almost choking on his words. “Papa … ?”

  “He was right beside me, Maria,” Alberto said, crying loudly, his body wracked with grief. “Why couldn't it have been me? Why did that earthen wall have to take our Papa from us?”

  “An earthen .. . wall. . . ?”

  “It fell right on top of him.. . .” Alberto groaned. “When I scraped it free from him, he . . . was … no longer . . . breathing. . . .”

  Maria turned her head away and closed her eyes. Her hate for Nathan Hawkins was so great, she knew that she could take her gun and shoot him now. He had just the same as killed her Papa. He had been warned about the mine's being unsafe for workers to be lowered into it. But he hadn't listened. Instead, he had taken the money which could have been used to meet the safety standards and erected a fence … an ungodly searchlight that had frightened the Italian people into utter silence . . . and then machine guns, which were the final threat. She would never forgive him. Never.

  Loud shouts brought Maria's head around. She saw the surviving coal miners moving toward the fence with shovels in their hands and hate in their eyes. When Alberto pulled free from Maria and began to move toward the men with cleanched fists, Maria yelled after him. “Alberto. No,” she screamed. “Please. No violence now. Remember poor Papa. .. .”

  But it was of no use. Alberto picked up a pickaxe and joined the men at bashing in the fence until it was lying in a mangled heap at everyone's feet. “We should've done that long ago,” Alberto shouted, raising a doubled fist into the air. “Death to the prisoner ways of life. Birth to the United Mine Workers of America. If we had joined earlier, none of this would have happened. . ..”

  The loud rat-a-lat of the machine guns filled the air. causing everyone to run in panic.

  “Alberto,” Maria screamed, covering her mouth with her hands. She began to run toward the crowd, seeing Alberto falling to the ground. When she reached him, she found him breathing anxiously with his arms covering his face.

  “Are you all right?” she shouted, looking frantically around her, seeing that the crowd had quickly dispersed and had disappeared from sight except for the women and children who had moved to sit beside the dead and mourn for their loved ones.

  ‘Yes, I'm all right,” Alberto grumbled. ‘The bastards weren't aiming at us. They were aiming in the other direction. But they accomplished what they set out to do. They scared the hell out of us all.”

  “Maybe next time they will mean business, Alberto,” Maria said, reaching for him, urging him upward. “Please don't be so foolish. Please. Right now we must think of Papa. We must think of his . .. burial.. ..”

  “I know,” Alberto grumbled, rising, brushing at his clothes. His eyes grew heavy as he looked toward the stretched-out bodies. “Come on, Maria. I'll take you to Papa….”

  The fifty pine caskets were lined up in a row at a clearing that was shadowed by the huge image of the coal mine's tipple. The wind whipped Maria's black skirt around her, and her black veil that hung in gathers across her face wasn't enough to hide her deep mourning for her Papa who was one among the fifty who were being buried this day.

  Sniffing into a white, lacy handkerchief, she looked around her, hoping to see Michael standing somewhere away from the crowd. She hadn't seen him since this tragedy. But she knew that Nathan -Hawkins had even succeeded at putting a fear into Michael. Nathan had added more men to his armed menagerie. The streets of Hawkinsville were silent except for the low chatter of the gun-toting men who stood at each street corner, watching for any suspicious moves around them.

  Since the coal mine's explosion, Maria had refused to return to Nathan's house. She had sat beside her “Papa's casket, day and night, so full of mourning that nothing could have pulled her away. And this day, once her Papa was lowered into the earth for his final rest, Maria still didn't plan to return to her husband's house. Her Papa was dead. He was the main reason for Maria's having agre
ed to such- a marriage.

  Alberto? Maria now knew that Alberto could take care of himself. Alberto was capable of much Maria had never thought possible. Though weak in many ways, he had found much courage in himself ready to emerge, to blossom, to make him into the man he had always wished to be.

  Maria reached over and took Alberto's hand in hers. She could feel the trembling of his fingers. She could hear the low, throaty sobs emerging from her brother. She knew that he was mourning deeply, maybe even more deeply than she. She knew that Alberto had had many plans for the Lazzaro family. He had wanted to be the one to say that he had bettered their lives, had taken their Papa away from a life of drudgery. Alberto had confided in her the past two days, since the accident, that he had been saving money with which to invest in his own business . . . one that would be away from Hawkinsville. His gambling had been profitable. But not enough . .. not soon enough. . . .

  But now? Only the Lord had taken their Papa. Only the Lord could give their Papa the peace he had sought all his life. . . .

  A low whispering from behind Maria made her turn her head slightly. She listened closely. Her eyes widened when she was able to make out what was being said.

  “Tomorrow night. We will make our move tomorrow night,” one man grumbled to another. “Pass the word along.”

  Alberto was nudged in the side. Maria looked quickly toward him as he leaned his ear down to listen. Maria tensed when she heard the same words. . . . “Tomorrow night. We will make our move tomorrow night,” the man said. “Alberto, pass the word along. It is time. Now … or never.”

  Alberto wiped a tear from his eye, looked carefully from side to side, then leaned forward, speaking into another's ear. Maria recognized the same exact words. Her hands went to her throat, finally realizing what was being planned. Nathan had made sure no groups had gathered, knowing that hatred of him was now at its highest, also knowing that gatherings could be plots being planned against his welfare. But Nathan hadn't considered the gatherings of a funeral being a place for planning. Funerals were a place of mourning… a place of silence. …

  Maria watched the word being passed on from one man to another. She reached for Alberto's hand once again and squeezed it, both fear and hope making her insides ripple like the Indian grasses in the wind. She glanced upward and saw a trace of a smile beneath Alberto's thick whiskers. His tears had ceased to fall. Yes. Alberto felt confident that soon revenge would be fulfilled. Not only for himself, but for his Papa, his Maria, and all the poor immigrants in the community.

  A priest dressed in full black moved in front of the gathering. He held tightly to a Bible and said, “Let us pray for our fallen brothers.” He bowed his head and spoke briefly of his Italian friends, with whom he had crossed the waters from Italy, having received a calling to come to this community, where God had warned him that the devil reigned.

  Then when the brief eulogy was spoken, the priest stepped back, sweat glistening on his haggard face, and motioned for a young woman to step forward.

  Maria's eyes widened as she suddenly recognized the woman. As the woman began to place single red paper roses atop each casket, Maria remembered vividly their encounter and how they had competed for the street corner in Creal Springs. When she heard a loud sigh next to her, Maria looked into Alberto's eyes and saw something she had never seen before. She could see that he had just, for the first time ever to Maria's knowledge, been taken aback by the loveliness of a woman who was not his own sister.

  Alberto leaned down next to Maria. “Who is that.. . ?” he whispered. “She's so lovely.” His face turned crimson, and he thought, Even lovelier than you, my sweet Maria. Even lovelier than you.. . .

  “She is one of us,” Maria whispered back. “But I do not know her name.”

  “I must find out,” Alberto said, then felt shame for having such feelings while standing at his Papa's funeral. How could such things enter his mind, when his Papa was lying lifeless, ready to be lowered into the depths of the ground?

  But he couldn't help himself. He had never .. . no . . . never … seen anyone to stir him so. . ..

  Young, long-haired pallbearers, dressed in ill-fitting black suits, moved to stand beside the caskets, and after the paper roses had been put in place and another prayer spoken, the pallbearers lifted the caskets and lowered them into the ground.

  The women of the gathering, tightly grouped, began to weep loudly and cried words incoherently into their handkerchiefs as the dirt began to be shoveled atop the caskets. Maria chewed on her lower lip, also wanting to cry out, but she felt a greater need to mourn silently. She lowered her eyes and began to move away from the graves. She didn't wish to see the final shovel of dirt placed above her father's grave. She didn't wish to think of him in the ground at all, where he would soon be wet, and then.bothered by the crawling life that burrowed through the ground and all that was lowered into it.

  Hurrying, she circled around the coal mine, then onto the street that led her to her Papa's house. The house would be stone quiet, like a grave itself. It would be almost unbearable for her. But she had to go there. She would not be a part of Nathan's life. Ever again, even if he chose to send her and Alberto back to Italy. She knew that to do so, he would have more than a fight on his hands. There would be Michael and Alberto to contend with. She only had to hope, though, that what the gathering of coal miners had planned would soon become a reality, to end the whole nightmare of Nathan Hawkins. . . .

  Turning momentarily, Maria wondered about Alberto, why he wasn't following alongside her. Then she saw the reason. He was standing talking with the young woman who he had been so enraptured with at the gravesides.

  Maria gazed toward the woman and could see something in her eyes. It was a look of liking. Instant liking. She also . . . found . . . Alberto . . . interesting.

  Maria smiled to herself, then rushed into her Papa's house, stopping to look slowly around her, seeing the chair where her Papa had spent so many lonely hours. Then she glanced toward the spot where the casket had rested the last two days .. . where she had sat.. . looking down upon him .. . keeping him company during his last hours on earth. . . .

  Choking back a sob, she rushed to the bedroom that had been hers and now was again. She leaned down and reached beneath the bed, feeling the violin case that she had left there. With tears rushing down her cheeks, she pulled the case from beneath the bed, placed it on the bed, opened it and peered down onto the violin and its broken body.

  She lifted the violin to her bosom and cradled it to her, rocking it back and forth, feeling so much at this moment. When she heard a knocking on the front door, she hesitated, then thought it might possibly be Michael and rushed to the door and opened it. She almost dropped her violin when she saw Nathan standing there, looking even more craggy than she remembered. His narrow, gray eyes were pools of emptiness, and as he removed his hat, revealing his head of shining wax to her, Maria stepped back away from him. He wasn't anything but a threat to her and Alberto. She swallowed hard and “said, “What do you want, Nathan?” She turned her back to him, lowering her eyes. “You have caused this family nothing but grief. You are evil. You will always .. . be . . . evil. .. .”

  “You are to return home with me. Now,” he demanded. “Your place is by my side. You are my wife. You have no place in this . . . this rat trap .. . of a . . . house.. . .”

  Maria swung around, her lips trembling almost uncontrollably. “1*1I never return to your house with you,” she screamed. “Get out. Do you hear? Get out. My Papa was just buried because of you. Do you understand? You are the cause of my dear Papa's death. I hate you. I'll always hate you. You'll never get the chance to touch me or my life again.”

  “Hah!” Nathan exclaimed. “You say I am the cause of your father's death? Well, I have news for you. This Michael Hopper and his union men are responsible.”

  Maria's face drained of color. “What did .. . you say … ?” she gasped, feeling her knees weakening.

  “Don't you kn
ow that violence travels side by side with those union men? It's become a well-known fact that once the United Mine Workers of America intervene, there is violence. No. I am not the cause. There was no trouble until Michael Hopper began spreading lies about me and my coal mine. He is the cause. No one else.”

  “Lies! It is a lie,” Maria shouted. “You are the cause. You alone.”

  “I don't lie,” Nathan said, licking his lips nervously. “You have chosen to be loyal to the wrong man, Maria.” .

  “Get out, Nathan Hawkins,” Maria shouted, moving toward the door. “Get out with your filthy lies. And leave me alone. Do you hear … ?”

  “No. I won't leave you alone,” he warned. “You will return to my house. I will see to it. In time, you will wish you had never come back here. You are meant to be my wife. Nothing else.”

  Maria stomped a foot as he moved from the door and toward his carriage. With a pounding heart, she slammed the door, then went to her bedroom and placed her violin back inside its case, now full of wonder. Could Michael and his men be made to feel responsible for this disaster? Had Michael somehow even caused the blast… possibly to scare the coal miners into joining the union? Had Alberto even had a hand in such a thing . .. ?

  She clenched her fists to her side. No. It was all wrong. Neither Alberto nor Michael could cause such a thing. They are good. Nathan is the evil one.

  “Maria … ?”

  Maria swung around and found Alberto standing there with the woman from the funeral… the woman from the streets of Creal Springs who made and sold flowers.

  “Yes? What is it, Alberto?” Maria said softly, wiping tears from hereyes with the back of a hand. Hereyes traveled over this woman, again seeing her beauty. She had delicate features, with a small nose, tilted, not at all like most Italians noses, but her olive skin tones and her long, flowing hair and dark eyes showed the Italian in her. She smiled sheepishly back at Maria, then moved toward her. “We've met, haven't we?” she asked, reaching a hand of friendship toward Maria.