Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(38)



“Your good, li’l lady.”

She stifled her relieved sigh. As the gamblers of the wild west films would say, ‘Never let ‘em see ya sweat, partnuh.’ Or cry.

Duke surprised her by standing and saying, “Let’s dance.”

Trusting her jaw had not dropped open, she rose to her feet, albeit a little unsteadily. His expression, as dark as her past, did not bode well. She was not oblivious to how terse had been his grudgingly given brief reading lessons over the last few weeks – in the kitchen with their two chairs purposely positioned a distance apart, as if she might have influenza or poison ivy or the clap.

And as for the writing lessons, he brushed them aside, declaring he didn’t have time or he was too tired.

The guitarist was playing Jimmy Dorsey’s popular ‘Deep Purple.’ Duke was so tall her eyes were on chest level with his red flannel shirt’s double row of metal snaps. His arm around her waist in a trapeze artist grip, he glided her round the sawdusted floor and away from the few other couples, dancing. For such a tall man, he was unusually graceful and light on his feet.

Exuberance bubbled up from a place in her that had gone numb these past two months. Her Gypsy’s feet delighted in the liberty afforded by the dance. If only she were barefoot.

With a grimace of dislike, he glared down at her. “I know what you are,” he told her, his breath rustling ringlets at her forehead that insisted on straying from her head scarf. “A four-flusher. A fraud. A thief.”

She tilted her head to give him a smarmy grin. “I think ye like me, Duke McClellan.”

His grip on her hand and around her waist tightened. “I am warning you, one slip-up – breeding bull or not – and I’ll ring your neck like I would a chicken’s.”

“Ye have a fascination with me neck, have ye now?”

“What?” The music had stopped, and so had he.

“Tis the second time ye have mentioned it. The last time I believe you threatened to use yuir razor to cut ‘my pretty little throat’.”

He blinked. His mustache convulsed. “Holy shit!” He dropped her hand, released her waist, and strode off, leaving her standing there with the few other couples who had joined them on the dance floor.

Feeling all eyes upon her, a fiery blush blasted through her. She wanted to make a break for it, to run from the saloon, to run for freedom.

Instead, compelling strains of that electric guitar glued her saddle oxfords. The music ended abruptly, and she looked up at the stage. The guitarist, a man in one of those ten-gallon hats and an equally large beard, rose and, laying aside his guitar, reached for the long neck beside his tall stool.

She met him at the stage steps. “Do ye mind, if I look at yuir guitar?”

“Hell,” he mumbled, “have at it honey,” and stumbled on down the steps.

What did she have to lose? Clearly, Duke was ready to throw her over.

Eyes blinking against the blinding stage lights and careful not to trip on the multitude of snaking electrical cords, she settled atop the stool. With reverent hands, as if examining a holy relic, she picked up the guitar. Caught up in examining the instrument, so different from a flamenco guitar, she gradually became unmindful of the saloon’s patrons.

She was not good at opening up to people. At allowing her vulnerable side to come out of hiding. It was, maybe – like something they had to earn. Like a trust thing. But hidden behind the guitar, she was a flower bud unfurling.

Hesitantly, at first, she began to strum, to feel her way over this exotic instrument’s landscape. Lost in its exploration, she became someone special. Someone uniquely defective.

The musical piece started out as an insistent chord, beckoning one to join in some intimidating memory – a soul’s yearning that, surprising even her, evolved into an arpeggio de guitarra, followed by a swelling, sensual scorcher.

By the time she finished, and she had no idea how long she had been playing, she heard applause. Dazed, she looked around at the shadowy, small assembly, on their feet at the tables surrounding the stage. From where, and when, had drifted these other patrons?

Shaky, she set aside the guitar, and slid down from the stool to grope her way down the dimly lit stage steps. The little man from hell waited for her at the bottom.

“Let’s dance,” Moe said.

Trapped on the steps between the dream world above and reality below, her fingers already crushed by his grimy paw, she acquiesced, letting him yank her onto the dance floor. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys’ ‘San Antonio Rose’ was playing on the juke box.

As short as she was, they were a nigh equal match, with her topping his height by not much more than a couple of inches. Surprisingly, Moe stepped in time with the quick music, swinging her around like she was a rag doll.

His walnut hard glare reinforced his venomous expression. “Right now,” he told her, leading her off the dance floor, “your twin is marched out each day to the Klinkerwerks brick factory. But you rat on me, Sonnenschein, and your brother’s skin will make a pretty lampshade for Sachsenhausen ‘s officer’s quarters.”

Moe knew then – he had remembered her!

And trailing immediately on that panicky thought came the exhilarating one – Luca was still alive!

Yet that knowledge did nothing to assuage the self-reproach, the shame and guilt, that gnawed at her every waking hour and still hounded her dreams at times.

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