To Make Death Love Us (22 page)

All but the one who
was only slightly maimed, for he was most nearly without handicap and, therefore, most nearly
useless.

Colonel John shook
himself, steeling himself for the rest of the adventure. Choosing the space available nearest the
door, he slid down Marco's stiffening legs, alert to any sound of protest from the truck. He kept
his ears tuned to the call of his human seismograph, Serena.

Upon the floor of
the cab, he reached out and then extended his hand an inch at a time until his fingers closed on
one of the loops of the extension cord.

The truck heaved
with a sickening jerk and the Colonel froze, his head tilted up to the top of the cab, away from
ultimate destruction.

Serena called out
but there was no need of it. The new evidence of their peril was known to them all.

The Midget reared
back, imagining that even the small weight of his head and trunk would restore the delicate
balance. Indeed, it seemed to do so.

The moon passed
behind a cloud. Dark descended, with its ability to terrify the poor, trapped creatures in the
truck. Will let out a soft, strangled cry as though his senses had roused in pain.

Colonel John
manipulated his fingers so the cord trav­eled through his hand until he had the plug.

"The mountain is
trembling," Serena called out.

The Colonel, with
fear in his heart, lifted up one hand to reinsert the plug.

"Don't move!" cried
Serena, sensing some convulsion.

The Colonel froze
there in the dark, having no idea how far away the receptacle for the plug might be, a foot or
only a few scant inches. Dare he reach that bit farther?

The moon reappeared
just as he was about to retreat and give up the chancing of it. His fingers were only inches from
the panel of the cab, the plug a hair's breadth from contact. With shaky fingers, he pushed it
home. The moon disappeared as the light of the worklamp came on.

Carefully, the
Colonel retraced his steps, making his way up the human alp that was the body of Marco. He
climbed the legs, gained the mesa of the lap, and cau­tiously as any challenger of Everest, moved
up the torso until he gained the dead man's shoulder. From that van­tage, he found purchase and
the way back through the small window.

He carried the
precious lamp with him and brought its comfort with him, too. The simple restoration of the light
seemed to lift everyone's spirits.

"Well, let's have
at it once again, shall we?" the Colonel said.

Serena placed her
hands once again upon the boxes, bales, and things. Pepino and the Colonel labored to clear the
last few obstructions from the tunnel that would allow even the largest of them to escape. It was
already wide enough to give safe passage to Pepino and Serena, as well
as the Colonel. But they would not stop, despite the dan­ger to
them all, until it would be wide enough for Paulette, as well.

A torrential finger
of water broke through, high up on the face of the mountain, pushing aside the boulders and
debris that had impeded it. The finger of rapidly moving water branched out and became a
three-fingered hand, rushing down the face of the mountain. That hand would crush and tear away
the sheer side of the mountain.

Hands are tools and
the pride of jugglers of all persua­sions.

Will Carney felt
the same way about his hands as did all pool sharks, card and dice mechanics, musicians and
sur­geons. Without the full use of them, life lost most of its meaning.

Just as no
violinist should also be a prize fighter— Paulette wept over that film many a time—or no magician
should try to bottom-deal a deck of cards in a big-money game, no juggler should let his hands
get the better of him with someone else's property. In Will's case, his hands had touched a young
girl in the wrong places at the wrong time.

And from that came
the damage to his left hand, that maimed and scarred claw that was now all but useless in
the pursuit of that skill of juggling which he
once so proudly possessed.

The four of
them—Will, Pepino, Paulette, and Colonel John—Serena and Marco had not yet joined their little
band—found themselves stranded and broke on the out­skirts of a farm community no more than two
streets long and one street wide somewhere in the south of the great state of Pennsylvania. The
fringe of the town was as far as they got before the battered Plymouth station wagon ran out of
gas.

This failure of
their transport irked Will no end, for it was a basic rule of his that the sharpie had to come
upon his marks with every indication he was riding the crest of success and had need of neither
money nor favor. To enter walking in the dust was to invite disaster. Walking in alone, he would
have made no brave show of well-being to be afoot. With his freaks in tow, it was worse, far
worse.

Whereas Paulette
gained a certain grandeur from the simple act of rising from a chair, it was quite another story
to see her panting and puffing as she made her painful way even a few yards. The great effort of
walking brought sheens of sweat to her body which shamed her and made her seem disheveled and
slovenly.

It was no great
help to the image of success to see the Colonel trotting along beside her, his little hands
raised as though to catch her if she toppled. It made for a comic thought about what would happen
if, indeed, she did trip and fell on the little man.

The arrival, even
in so small a place as this, had to be done with a certain flair. With a hat tipped jauntily over
one eyebrow and a spring that spoke of well-being in every step. The bar of the best hotel should
be sought out. Failing such an amenity, then the local tavern—there was always a tavern, no
matter how small the crossroad—was
the
place to set up shop. The wares Will had to sell sold best when he could trade a ready smile, an
air of hail-fellow-well-met, and lively conversation sprinkled with off-color jokes and his pair
of clever hands.

As Will considered
all this while standing beside the car, with one foot perched on the running board and staring at
the gas cap as though it might perform some miracle for the hoping, he became aware of someone
peering at him from afar.

A house stood well
back from the road. From the shad­ows of the porch, a figure in white stood watching them. The
little house had none of the raggedy air of the rest of the dwellings and stores. There was a
certain Victorian grace about it and the porch even had four supporting pillars that looked
vaguely Roman. The shadows were violet in color and gave the appearance of being cool and
otherworldly. Will was suddenly filled with a longing for the kinds of summers he'd heard and
read about but had never really known.

Breezes coming off
small lakes and ponds. Picnics filled with gaudy bunting and laughter. His eyes misted over and
he imagined he heard the tinkle of cracked ice in tall glasses filled with lemonade.

Will turned to see
the figure in white, a girl, standing by the side of the automobile, a tray with a pitcher and
four glasses upon it in her hands. Will hurried around the car to join her just as she murmured
an invitation to Paulette and Pepino to refresh themselves.

The Colonel stepped
out of the car and the girl gasped in wonder and delight, then colored in some confusion. Will
guessed she hadn't seen the little man at all till now, and had brought only enough glasses for
herself and those she had seen. Thirsty as he was, Will refused, raising his slender hands and
insisting he had not thirst but "thank you very much all the same."

It was no nicety of
manners that led him to do that. Will knew elaborate courtesy was the confidence man's best
defence.

The drinks were
wonderfully refreshing. The girl set the tray and pitcher down on the hood of the car and drank
her lemonade pretty fast, then filled the glass again and handed it to Will.

"I think you were
just being polite and I should have said I'd already had some on the porch."

"But you wanted to
be friendly and drink with the strangers," Will grinned.

The girl colored
again and said, "Well, then, you be friendly, too."

"Oh, I will, I
will." He took the lemonade and downed it and smacked his lips with just the right emphasis, not
so loudly as to appear vulgar but loud enough to seem might­ily pleased.

"Is there a hotel
in this fair city?" Will asked with a wink of his eye.

The girl laughed at
his using such a description of the sorry little bump in the road which was her hometown. She
shook her head.

"A local inn? A
rooming house?"

"There's a shed
beyond the house. It's a place where the hired men sleep during harvest time."

"Is it yours? I
mean your daddy's?"

"No. It belongs to
the town, if it belongs to anybody."

She smiled again
and Will admired her little teeth, her clear, white skin. He reckoned her to be about
seventeen.

A screen door
slammed and Will turned to see a woman standing on the front porch, drying her hands upon an
apron.

"Evalina," she
called, and then again, "Evalina, ask those folks to come out of that hot sun onto the porch in
the shade."

"Yes, Mama,"
Evelina said quickly, and turned to make the invitation she hadn't offered herself.

She forgot her
manners, Will thought, when she laid her eyes on me. Will took it as a sign.

Paulette was seated
on the porch swing, took up all of it. Mrs. Demming sat in the rocking chair fanning herself with
her apron and smiling in the most pleasant way. Neither she nor Evalina had, by word or gesture,
indi­cated it was anything greatly unusual in their lives to be entertaining such remarkable
strangers.

The ladies talked
on about sewing, the weather, and small, social matters. And all the while, Will and Evalina kept
bumping eyes. Pepino sat on the steps of the porch, his head against a pillar, eyes closed and
acting quietly happy. The Colonel entered into the women's talk like the little charmer he
was.

After an hour, a
truck rattled into the backyard. The men stood to greet Mr. Demming, just back from his fields.
He was as calmly friendly as his wife and daughter. Maybe his eyes raised a little at the sight
of Paulette and the Midget but it was only the merest shadow of curiosity and secret pleasure. He
invited them all to dinner.

They ate at a long
trestle table and the summer bugs sang all around in the twilight making it a day of wonder­ful
good fortune.

Oh, there'd be no
problem for shelter, the Demmings said. The men could sleep in the field hands' shed, but they
insisted that would never do for Paulette. They'd make up a bed for her on the summer porch.
Paulette started to cry for the generosity being shown them and the kindness given her. The
Demmings didn't seem em­barrassed by her tears. They just smiled and accepted them as
thanks.

When it grew dark,
it was time for bed, which was the way farmers lived.

In the shed, as
they lay down their blankets upon the straw mounded upon simple, wooden, slatted cots, Pepino
remarked that it had been a long, very long, time since such generous, unquestioning hospitality
had come their way.

"If all the people
of this town are like the Demmings, I might just stay on," said Pepino.

Will was slicking
his hair in a bit of mirror fixed to the shed wall.

"What are you
about, Will?" the Colonel asked, with a touch of fear growing in his voice.

"It's summer and
that's a wonderful time for young girls that are so restless they can't get to sleep."

"What the hell are
you saying?" the Colonel almost shouted. "That child's like a fawn and just as
innocent."

Will showed his
grinning teeth. "You don't know how to read the looks of a woman. ..."

The Midget
stiffened with alarm at his words. "Woman? She's hardly grown. Don't spoil things, Will. This
could be a resting place for a little while."

"Go to sleep,
little man. We'll want to be helpful with the chores in the morning," Will said, and went out
into the velvet, summer dark.

Whatever the plan
of his seduction makes no matter. How Will got the girl to leave her bed and room and join him on
the moonlit grass was probably no special secret. It was an adventurous time for Evalina. Not
that she was daring Will to try more. She was neither tease nor tempt­ress.

She was as innocent
as John recognized her to be. Maybe that urged Will to go further than he might have gone with
girls who kept saying no when they meant yes.

Maybe he got
terribly roused by her naive misunder­standing of it all.

Whatever. The first
the others knew that something was amiss in the night was when they heard Evalina's thin,
high-pitched voice crying out in fear and shame. It wasn't a scream. More a cry of outrage and
hurt.