Rapture's Rendezvous

“Are you all right?” she shouted, looking frantically around her, seeing that the crowd had quickly dispersed and had disappeared from sight except for the women and children who had moved to sit beside the dead and mourn for their loved ones.

‘Yes, I'm all right,” Alberto grumbled. ‘The bastards weren't aiming at us. They were aiming in the other direction. But they accomplished what they set out to do. They scared the hell out of us all.”

“Maybe next time they will mean business, Alberto,” Maria said, reaching for him, urging him upward. “Please don't be so foolish. Please. Right now we must think of Papa. We must think of his . .. burial.. ..”

“I know,” Alberto grumbled, rising, brushing at his clothes. His eyes grew heavy as he looked toward the stretched-out bodies. “Come on, Maria. I'll take you to Papa….”

The fifty pine caskets were lined up in a row at a clearing that was shadowed by the huge image of the coal mine's tipple. The wind whipped Maria's black skirt around her, and her black veil that hung in gathers across her face wasn't enough to hide her deep mourning for her Papa who was one among the fifty who were being buried this day.

Sniffing into a white, lacy handkerchief, she looked around her, hoping to see Michael standing somewhere away from the crowd. She hadn't seen him since this tragedy. But she knew that Nathan -Hawkins had even succeeded at putting a fear into Michael. Nathan had added more men to his armed menagerie. The streets of Hawkinsville were silent except for the low chatter of the gun-toting men who stood at each street corner, watching for any suspicious moves around them.

Since the coal mine's explosion, Maria had refused to return to Nathan's house. She had sat beside her “Papa's casket, day and night, so full of mourning that nothing could have pulled her away. And this day, once her Papa was lowered into the earth for his final rest, Maria still didn't plan to return to her husband's house. Her Papa was dead. He was the main reason for Maria's having agre

ed to such- a marriage.

Alberto? Maria now knew that Alberto could take care of himself. Alberto was capable of much Maria had never thought possible. Though weak in many ways, he had found much courage in himself ready to emerge, to blossom, to make him into the man he had always wished to be.

Maria reached over and took Alberto's hand in hers. She could feel the trembling of his fingers. She could hear the low, throaty sobs emerging from her brother. She knew that he was mourning deeply, maybe even more deeply than she. She knew that Alberto had had many plans for the Lazzaro family. He had wanted to be the one to say that he had bettered their lives, had taken their Papa away from a life of drudgery. Alberto had confided in her the past two days, since the accident, that he had been saving money with which to invest in his own business . . . one that would be away from Hawkinsville. His gambling had been profitable. But not enough . .. not soon enough. . . .

But now? Only the Lord had taken their Papa. Only the Lord could give their Papa the peace he had sought all his life. . . .

A low whispering from behind Maria made her turn her head slightly. She listened closely. Her eyes widened when she was able to make out what was being said.

“Tomorrow night. We will make our move tomorrow night,” one man grumbled to another. “Pass the word along.”

Alberto was nudged in the side. Maria looked quickly toward him as he leaned his ear down to listen. Maria tensed when she heard the same words. . . . “Tomorrow night. We will make our move tomorrow night,” the man said. “Alberto, pass the word along. It is time. Now … or never.”

Alberto wiped a tear from his eye, looked carefully from side to side, then leaned forward, speaking into another's ear. Maria recognized the same exact words. Her hands went to her throat, finally realizing what was being planned. Nathan had made sure no groups had gathered, knowing that hatred of him was now at its highest, also knowing that gatherings could be plots being planned against his welfare. But Nathan hadn't considered the gatherings of a funeral being a place for planning. Funerals were a place of mourning… a place of silence. …

Maria watched the word being passed on from one man to another. She reached for Alberto's hand once again and squeezed it, both fear and hope making her insides ripple like the Indian grasses in the wind. She glanced upward and saw a trace of a smile beneath Alberto's thick whiskers. His tears had ceased to fall. Yes. Alberto felt confident that soon revenge would be fulfilled. Not only for himself, but for his Papa, his Maria, and all the poor immigrants in the community.

A priest dressed in full black moved in front of the gathering. He held tightly to a Bible and said, “Let us pray for our fallen brothers.” He bowed his head and spoke briefly of his Italian friends, with whom he had crossed the waters from Italy, having received a calling to come to this community, where God had warned him that the devil reigned.

Then when the brief eulogy was spoken, the priest stepped back, sweat glistening on his haggard face, and motioned for a young woman to step forward.

Maria's eyes widened as she suddenly recognized the woman. As the woman began to place single red paper roses atop each casket, Maria remembered vividly their encounter and how they had competed for the street corner in Creal Springs. When she heard a loud sigh next to her, Maria looked into Alberto's eyes and saw something she had never seen before. She could see that he had just, for the first time ever to Maria's knowledge, been taken aback by the loveliness of a woman who was not his own sister.

Alberto leaned down next to Maria. “Who is that.. . ?” he whispered. “She's so lovely.” His face turned crimson, and he thought, Even lovelier than you, my sweet Maria. Even lovelier than you.. . .

“She is one of us,” Maria whispered back. “But I do not know her name.”

“I must find out,” Alberto said, then felt shame for having such feelings while standing at his Papa's funeral. How could such things enter his mind, when his Papa was lying lifeless, ready to be lowered into the depths of the ground?

But he couldn't help himself. He had never .. . no . . . never … seen anyone to stir him so. . ..

Young, long-haired pallbearers, dressed in ill-fitting black suits, moved to stand beside the caskets, and after the paper roses had been put in place and another prayer spoken, the pallbearers lifted the caskets and lowered them into the ground.

The women of the gathering, tightly grouped, began to weep loudly and cried words incoherently into their handkerchiefs as the dirt began to be shoveled atop the caskets. Maria chewed on her lower lip, also wanting to cry out, but she felt a greater need to mourn silently. She lowered her eyes and began to move away from the graves. She didn't wish to see the final shovel of dirt placed above her father's grave. She didn't wish to think of him in the ground at all, where he would soon be wet, and then.bothered by the crawling life that burrowed through the ground and all that was lowered into it.

Hurrying, she circled around the coal mine, then onto the street that led her to her Papa's house. The house would be stone quiet, like a grave itself. It would be almost unbearable for her. But she had to go there. She would not be a part of Nathan's life. Ever again, even if he chose to send her and Alberto back to Italy. She knew that to do so, he would have more than a fight on his hands. There would be Michael and Alberto to contend with. She only had to hope, though, that what the gathering of coal miners had planned would soon become a reality, to end the whole nightmare of Nathan Hawkins. . . .

Turning momentarily, Maria wondered about Alberto, why he wasn't following alongside her. Then she saw the reason. He was standing talking with the young woman who he had been so enraptured with at the gravesides.

Maria gazed toward the woman and could see something in her eyes. It was a look of liking. Instant liking. She also . . . found . . . Alberto . . . interesting.

Maria smiled to herself, then rushed into her Papa's house, stopping to look slowly around her, seeing the chair where her Papa had spent so many lonely hours. Then she glanced toward the spot where the casket had rested the last two days .. . where she had sat.. . looking down upon him .. . keeping him company during his last hours on earth. . . .

Choking back a sob, she rushed to the bedroom that had been hers and now was again. She leaned down and reached beneath the bed, feeling the violin case that she had left there. With tears rushing down her cheeks, she pulled the case from beneath the bed, placed it on the bed, opened it and peered down onto the violin and its broken body.