Under a Gilded Moon(7)
Sal pulled his cap’s brim lower over his face.
More scenes like the one he’d just caused would alert anyone paying attention—not to mention hunting for him—that he and Nico were here. Here and alive, when they shouldn’t have been either of those.
Winching his brother closer, Sal breathed in the mountain air, brisk and full of scents he couldn’t name. A world apart from the sultry swelter of four years ago.
Although that other world could come raging back any moment. With one particular man bursting into the car, his fury having festered and swelled in four years.
Bastard got away with murder, he’d say. If he spoke before he shot.
Sal reached for the oilskin tube that poked out from the mouth of his rucksack. Slipping loose the twine that held it, he unrolled it onto his lap. Its edges had become a stained fringe. Creases cobwebbed the image. Still, after all these years and all these miles traveled, the ink lines of the sketch popped out nearly as clearly as when he’d seen it drawn in Florence—and added his own strokes.
Running a finger over the lines, Sal marveled: the soaring rooflines, the intricate detail. And there, the sketch’s one word scrawled at the bottom: Biltmore.
Tully leaned close, peppermint on her breath, stick candy clutched in one fist. “Mighty pretty—even seeing it a second time.” She gave a low whistle, then stopped. “Aunt Rema says I shouldn’t ought to whistle like I was some sort of randy sailor. Only she won’t tell what randy’d be.”
The boy nodded. “It’s awful nice, sure enough. Where’d you get it from, mister?”
“Firenze,” Sal said. But maybe that was saying too much. “Much far away.”
The girl whistled again while the boy offered a low “Ah.”
Both nodded, as if the simple, literal truth somehow explained a story of years and oceans, of a millionaire and a peasant whose paths should never have crossed.
Hurriedly, Sal rolled the sketch up again.
Jursey, who had risen from his seat, tapped Sal on the shoulder. “You’uns sure did rile things up back yonder.”
Sal glanced away. “Is nothing.”
Tully tossed back her braid by its burlap-sack bow. “Had to be something, way you reared up like a horse with his hay on fire.”
Far, she pronounced it. It took Sal a moment to sift out the sounds.
The girl leaned toward the boy. “Me ’n Jursey’d be twins, though we don’t favor at all.” The boy squeezed in closer. “That’s our aunt Rema ahead with the knitting. And you met Kerry. She only looks to be not paying attention.”
Kerry’s eyes flicked to Sal, then back out the window.
Tully cocked her head. “You don’t much favor the type that comes here from the outside for the breathing porches. They got a look to them, all gussied.”
Jursey leaned in to stage whisper. “Rich as Jesus.”
“Croesus,” Rema corrected without looking up from her needles. “Jesus hadn’t got one flea-bitten donkey to be calling his own, which is an especial hard thing if you’re God.”
Jursey said, conspiratorially, “You friendly up close with Mr. George Vanderbilt?”
Sal paused. “From a long time ago.”
At the rear of the car, the vestibule suddenly flew open again, its door smacking the wainscoting. Heart slamming his ribs, Sal watched the reflection in the window.
But it was only two gentlemen in top hats who’d entered. Sal knew their kind from when he’d hauled luggage for tourists back in Italy: Baedeker-toting Brits and Americans, looking down on all they surveyed. These two must have strolled up from one of the luxury cars at the far end of the train—curiosity, maybe, to view the commoners’ car, which was missing the plush, upholstered chairs and crystal chandeliers and filigreed mirrors of their own. He’d seen this before: rich people who liked to peek at the lower classes—like royalty surveying the peasants. As if the great width of the gap made them feel richer still.
Standing just feet away at the back, the gentlemen peered alternately at the passengers and at what was still visible through the dusk of the landscape. Berkowitz, Sal noticed, glanced behind at the two men, then stiffened in his seat. The color drained from his face.
The shorter one stroked a thick, brown mustache, waxed on its ends. “The cuisine in the dining car was surprisingly adequate, wouldn’t you say, Cabot? Rather good oysters, really. Not a bad choice of pairing with the Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes—though I might have chosen a different white.” He glanced toward the view. “Extraordinary.”
The taller, clean-shaven one, Cabot, ducked his head to see out better, a shock of light hair flopping into one eye. “Yes. Extraordinarily beautiful.”
The young woman Kerry was watching them in the reflection of her own window.
“Actually”—the shorter man stroked his mustache—“I meant how extraordinary that Vanderbilt would build this grand chateau of his down here.”
The taller one, Cabot, kept his eyes on the landscape rushing past. “Then I wonder, Grant, what you’re seeing.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Log cabins tucked into the land with a trickle of stream running past. Whole mountainsides timbered down to stumps. Ribs on four legs—one presumes they are cattle—roaming loose through the forests. Have these people not been apprised of the invention of fences?”