Blood lines

Blood line part 2

She liked the rain, this golden girl, this pride of his seed...

His daughter liked the rain.

"I even talked to her once," Carlos was saying, matter-of-factly. "She was coming out the water, and I called to her..."

The old don leaned back, long thin fingers clutching the chair-arms. He looked up at Carlos as though seeing him for the first time.

"If you speak to her again," he said evenly, "I will have you killed. Slowly."

For a few moments, there was only the sound of the rain in the trees, spraying the clapboards of the house, dripping from the gutters to the ancient tiles.

Then there was a hurried slap of footsteps on the wet floor, as Carlos sped down the verandah and vanished into the house.

The old don sat forward, hands folded on his lap. He scanned the mists below. Waiting.

And thought about the plans he'd made, the lengths to which he had gone. The privilege of wealth, and obsession.

He allowed himself a grave smile. It would all be over soon. For himself and the girl. The gulf between them would close, and things would be as they should.

They would be father and daughter once more.

The old man let his head drop, his shoulders hunched against a sudden chill behind the rain. He told himself he could afford to close his eyes, to rest for a few minutes. Just a few minutes, before she returned to his sight.

While in the trees above, unnoticed by the old man, the howler monkey flitted from branch to branch, looking for something, anything, on which to feed.

Father Thomas Hobart studied his tired hands gripping the hoe, whose wooden handle was as coarse as shaved stone, and as hard. He held it fiercely, digging its gray metal scoop into the earth.

Scraping the dirt. Doing the day's work.

All around were the sounds of other tools at work, the labored breathing of the men using them. There were only eight, not counting himself, yet after all this time Hobart could only put a few names and faces together.

Not that it mattered, he reminded himself. They were all the same.

All the same. Broken men, failed vocations. Doing the penance of the fields. Working in the afternoon sun, sweating into their ludicrous sandals or sneakers, tending the gardens like medieval monks. Striving for their grace, he thought murkily, or at least a semblance of their ruthless piety.

He looked up at last, to see Vincent leaning on his hoe, wiping his nose with a handkerchief. Vincent was the closest thing to a friend Hobart had in the place. He gave Hobart a nod.

Hobart nodded back, straightening. He held the hoe with two hands overhead, like a barbell, and stretched. The sweat, mixed with grime, came down his forearms. The pale whiteness that had once circled his wrist, from his watch-band, was now as tanned as the rest of his arm.

That watch had been a gift from a parishioner, many years before. He remembered giving it to the Abbot when he first came here. He smiled grimly. He'd always suspected the bastard sold it to help buy the new wine press.

Hobart stood over a row of tomatoes, allowing himself another moment's rest. Above, the sun was pulling new colors out of the Mediterranean sky. It was just spring, but a hot one, and alreadyhe'd caught the scent of early blossoms.

And it was then, just then, that Father Hobart realized he had no idea what day it was.

He shook his head, tried to clear his thoughts. There were still many furrows to be cut, new seeds to be planted.

Bending to work again, he felt suddenly dizzy. The heat, probably. Or lack of sleep. His head throbbed, and instinctively—an instinct reborn a thousand times—he felt near the top of his skull with anxious fingers, felt for the still-tender surgical scars, where the bullet had gone in...

Some time later Hobart had worked his way over to the stone wall that ran along the east face. Ivy sprouted, mixed with spurts of hastily-applied cement. Beyond, in the high Apennine valley, the trees were a thick tangle of greens and browns, as unkempt as a drunk's beard, and about as deliberate.

Hobart leaned against the wall, yawning. Vincent whistled over at him suddenly, making him glance up. Vincent tossed his hoe into the dirt, looked about at the others with comic-opera scorn.
Hobart smiled. Speaking during daylight hours was forbidden, but Vincent always managed to get his feelings across. The little man looked up at the sun, shook his head, then strode purposefully across the field toward the main house. His broken sandal strap, unmended for days, flapped softly in the dirt.

Hobart didn't follow. He simply stood where he was at the wall, hoe held upright against his shoulder, like a guard on duty.

One by one, the other men made their way back to the house. But Hobart stayed where he was, almost motionless, concentrating on the rivulets of sweat now drying on his cheeks.