The Four Winds(5)

Elsa stood there a moment, confused. She couldn’t even go in? Why not? Sure, Prohibition made drinking illegal, but everyone in town wet their whistles in places like this and the cops looked the other way.

She walked aimlessly up the street, toward the county courthouse.

That was when she saw a man headed her way.

Tall and lanky, he was, with thick black hair partially tamed by glistening pomade. He wore dusty black pants that clung to his narrow hips and a white shirt buttoned to his neck under a beige sweater, with only the knot showing of his plaid tie. A leather newsboy cap sat at a jaunty angle on his head.

As he walked toward her, she saw how young he was—not more than eighteen, probably, with sun-darkened skin and brown eyes. (Bedroom eyes, according to her romantic novels.)

“Hello, ma’am.” He stopped and smiled, took off his cap.

“Are you talking to m-me?”

“I don’t see anyone else around here. I’m Raffaello Martinelli. You live in Dalhart?”

Italian. Good Lord. Her father wouldn’t want her to look at this kid, let alone speak to him.

“I do.”

“Not me. I’m from the bustling metropolis of Lonesome Tree, up toward the Oklahoma border. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. What’s your name?”

“Elsa Wolcott,” she said.

“Like the tractor supply? Hey, I know your dad.” He smiled. “What are you doing out here all by your lonesome in that pretty dress, Elsa Wolcott?”

Be Fanny Hill. Be bold. This might be her only chance. When she got home, Papa was probably going to lock her up. “I’m . . . lonely, I guess.”

Raffaello’s dark eyes widened. His Adam’s apple slid up and down in a quick swallow.

Eternity passed while she waited for him to speak.

“I’m lonely, too.”

He reached for her hand.

Elsa almost pulled away; that was how stunned she was.

When had she last been touched?

It’s just a touch, Elsa. Don’t be a ninny.

He was so handsome she felt a little sick. Would he be like the boys who’d teased and bullied her in school, called her Anyone Else behind her back? Moonlight and shadow sculpted his face—high cheekbones, a broad, flat forehead, a sharp, straight nose, and lips so full she couldn’t help thinking about the sinful novels she read.

“Come with me, Els.”

He renamed her, just like that, turned her into a different woman. She felt a shiver move through her at the intimacy of it.

He led her through a shadowy, empty alley and across the dark street. “Toot, toot, Tootsie! Goodbye” floated from the speakeasy’s open windows.

He led her past the new train depot and out of town and toward a smart new Model T Ford farm truck with a large wooden-slat-sided bed.

“Nice truck,” she said.

“Good year for wheat. You like driving at night?”

“Sure.” She climbed into the passenger seat and he started up the engine. The cab shuddered as they drove north.

In less than a mile, with Dalhart in their rearview mirror, there was nothing to see. No hills, no valleys, no trees, no rivers, just a starry sky so big it seemed to have swallowed the world.

He drove down the bumpy, divoted road and turned onto the old Steward homestead. Once famous throughout the county for the size of its barn, the place had been abandoned in the last drought, and the small house behind the barn had been boarded up for years.

He pulled up in front of the empty barn and turned off the engine, then sat there a moment, staring ahead. The silence between them was broken only by their breathing and the tick of the dying engine.

He turned off the headlights and opened his door, then came around to open hers.

She looked at him, watched him reach out and take her hand and help her out of the truck.

He could have taken a step back, but he didn’t, and so she could smell the whiskey on his breath and the lavender his mother must have used in ironing or washing his shirt.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back, feeling hopeful.

He spread a pair of quilts out in the wooden bed of the truck and they climbed in.

They lay side by side, staring up at the immense, star-splattered night sky.

“How old are you?” Elsa asked.

“Eighteen, but my mother treats me as if I’m a kid. I had to sneak out to be here tonight. She worries too much about what people think. You’re lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“You can walk around by yourself at night, in that dress, without a chaperone.”

“My father is none too happy about it, I can tell you.”

“But you did it. You broke away. D’ya ever think life must be bigger than what we see here, Els?”

“I do,” she said.

“I mean . . . somewhere people our age are drinking bathtub gin and dancing to jazz music. Women are smoking in public.” He sighed. “And here we are.”

“I cut my hair off,” she said. “You would have thought I killed someone, the way my father reacted.”

“The old are just old. My folks came here from Sicily with only a few bucks. They tell me the story all the time and show me their lucky penny. As if it’s lucky to end up here.”

“You’re a man, Raffaello. You can do anything, go anywhere.”