Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(39)



At fifteen, she had deserted him, abandoned him, after they had both undergone that first round of sterilization. In the lab’s outer room, they both momentarily had awaited the SS guard to come for them. Luca lay in fetal position on the cold, metal bench. He was too weak to stand and hacking up deep coughs of sputum from inside his chest that echoed around the antiseptic, white-tiled room.

Its door to the outer hallway had stood negligently ajar – tempting her to make a bid for escape. Loyalty to Luca . . . or a chance for life?





§ CHAPTER TEN §




Steam off the weekly wash wreathed the kitchen. From the deep sink’s cold soak, Romy was wringing the ranch hands’ soiled clothing, which she had sorted and segregated into woolens and cottons and colors, and then transferred them, with more Ivory soap flakes, into the electric copper tub for boiling. The men’s Sunday best she would stand overnight in cold water containing a blue whitener.

Young Bud’s overalls invariably seemed to be the dirtiest, and rubbing them on a scrubbing board helped little. It was as if a roped bronco dragged him through the chaparral six days a week.

The back door swung open, and Duke, ducking his Stetson, entered. In one hand, he held his shotgun, in the other, by its legs, a lifeless turkey. “In time for Thanksgiving,” he said, flopping it onto the sink counter.

He filled the muggy kitchen, leaving her little space for breathing and making her uneasy. After all, her freedom still depended on how well she did her job – and on his good will.

Duke and she had established a tacit routine in order, not only to avoid getting in one another’s way, but also to avoid one another - period. The less they saw of each other the better. He made no bones about it.

He would arise early, before dawn, to claim the bathroom, admittedly a mess from her hour-long bathing ritual the night before, then make his own chicory coffee, and with sunup would tend to the barn animals, returning at seven to breakfast with her and the hands.

She looked askance at the gaunt bird. “I’m supposed to pluck that meself?”

His long mouth tugged down his mustache’s shaggy ends. “Isn’t that what a cook does?”

For over a month, she had been on her best behavior, burning little and ringing the breakfast, lunch, and dinner bells on time – while he continued to allot an hour of his time following dinner to provide her the agreed upon reading lessons. This was usually Friday nights, after the hands had withdrawn to the bunkhouse, previously reserved for checkers with Sally. Who had called it off?

The lessons were purely impersonal on his part, but for his occasional, stingy praise – “That a girl!” And last Friday, at her pestering, he had, at last, included a writing lesson. The few times his glove mitt of a hand overlapped her Lilliputian one, demonstrating how to grip better the pen, so that her strokes were not so shaky – well, that praise and his touch had brought a different kind of warmth to her skin

The door burst open again; this time it was Bud. “Hey, Romy, do you know where my cap – oh, Duke,” he said, coming up short.

Duke eyed the tennis racquet in the kid’s hand. “You plan on cleaning the stalls this morning with your racquet?”

“I – uh,” she intervened, “had asked to borrow the racquet.”

Duke’s quizzing gaze switched to her.”

“To beat the parlor rug,” she explained.

She reached up and with a damp, wash-reddened hand pushed back the mop of sun-blond hair that tumbled over Bud’s eyes. He was only a little taller than she. In some ways, he reminded her of a younger, more innocent Luca, before the SS had snatched him from the streets. “Yuir washed cap is on the clothesline – between the parlor rug and Micah’s overalls.”

“Oh, swell,” he grinned, passing the racquet to her. “Thanks, Romy! On my way to the stalls, Duke.”

Once the door closed again, Duke looked at her with a searching scrutiny. After a moment, he said, “You’re too old for him.”

“What?” She stared up at him, not certain she understood.

“For Bud. That is exactly why I didn’t want you here, stirring up the men.”

“Ye dung heap, ye bag of ballsch, ye – ” wordless with fury, her grip tightened on the racquet.

“Don’t even think about it, Sunshine – or I’ll turn you over my knee again.”

At that, she let a slow knowing grin tilt her wide mouth to one side. “Ye’d like that, wouldn’t ye now?”

What she glimpsed behind his own dark smile surprised her. That glint in his eyes could have knocked her off her feet – so rare but so powerfully erotic was it. Then it faded.

“No. I wouldn’t. After my old man came home from the Great War, he was handy with his fists on ma and me.” He looked unseeingly down at the pairing of her small huaraches and his large boots. “Believe it or not, I’ve never hit anyone – before you.”

She shrugged. “What with yuir size, no one would be fool enough to take ye on.”

He straightened, rubbed the back of his hand across his mustache, then gazed down at her with weary eyes. “Only you. Only you are foolish enough to take me on But that time in the pickup will be the first and last, Sunshine. You have my word.”

Funny that, the tingly way she had felt with his hand on her backside, private as it was. She looked down, formulating her question. “That thing about Bud just now, ye’re still trying to find a reason to get rid of me, are ye not?”

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