Dark Angel (Casteel 2)

My bitterness soured more when we returned to the bright cheerful living room. I looked at the wide windows that looked onto a back garden full of flowers in full bloom, and I tried my best to picture Luke Casteel living in this kind of nice, modern house, sitting on that long, pretty sofa behind a coffee table free of dust and fingerprints. Green plants relieved the monotony of all the browns, tans, and creamy colors accented with touches of turquoise. A very masculine room, with only the sewing basket to hint that someone besides a man and a child lived here.

"This is your father's favorite room," she said, as if she noticed how preoccupied I was with my thoughts. Pride was in her voice. "Luke told me I could decorate it as I wanted, but I wanted a room where he would feel free to put his feet up, and a sofa where he could lie and not worry about rumpled cushions. Tom and your grandfather enjoy this room as well." It seemed she would say something else, for she flushed and looked guiltily confused for a second or so before she lightly touched my arm and smiled warmly. "It is truly wonderful to have you under our roof at last, Heaven. Luke doesn't talk much about his 'mountain home family,' for he says it hurts too much."

Oh, yes, I could imagine just how much it hurt! "Did he tell you about my mother, who was only fourteen when he married her?"

"Yes, he told me how they met in Atlanta, and he said he loved- her very much. But no," she elaborated with wistfulness, "he never really talks about her so I can picture their life together in that mountain shack.

I know that her premature death scarred him in a way he will never recover from. I also know he married me because I remind him of her, and when I kneel to say my prayers at night I pray that someday he will stop thinking of her. I know he loves me, and I've made him happier than he was when first we met, but until you can forgive him, and he learns to accept your mother's untimely death, he can't fully enjoy his life, and the moderate success he's found for himself."

"Did he tell you what he did?" I almost shouted. "Do you think he was right to sell his five children for five hundred dollars apiece?"

"No, of course I don't think it was right," she answered calmly, taking the winds from the sail of my attack. "He told me about what he did. It was a terrible decision he had to make. You five could have starved while he recovered his health. I can only justify his actions by saying he did what he thought best at the time, and none of you have suffered permanent damage, have you, have you?"

Her question hung in the air as she sat with her head bowed, quietly waiting for me to say I forgave Pa. Did she believe that the worst he'd done to us had been his Christmas betrayal? No, that had been only the climax! And I could not speak up and say anything to redeem his cruelty. The hope that had flared briefly on her face faded. Her eyes dropped to her son, and deeper sadness came over her face. "It's all right if you can't forgive him today. I just hope you will be able to one day in the near future. Think about it, Heaven. Life doesn't give us many chances to forgive. The opportunity comes, flits by, time passes, and it's too late."

I jumped to my feet. "I thought Tom would be here to meet me. Where can I find him?"

"Tom pleaded with me to hold you here until he returns about four-thirty. Your father won't be home until much later."

"I don't have time to wait until four-thirty." I was afraid to stay. Afraid she'd win me over to forgiving a man I hated. "When I leave here I'm flying to Nashville to see my sister Fanny. So please, tell me where to find Tom."

Reluctantly she gave me an address, her blue eyes still pleading with me to be kind and

understanding, even if I couldn't be forgiving. And I said my polite goodbyes, kissed Drake on the cheek, then hurried away from the young wife who wore blinders.

I felt pity for such a naive woman who4 should have looked beneath the surface of a handsome, almost illiterate man who used women and eventually destroyed them. A list of discarded women behind him that I knew about, Leigh Tatterton, Kitty Dennison, and Lord knows what had happened to Sarah after she walked out on her four children and me. Only when I was in the rented car and speeding toward the border of Florida did I remember I should have gone out of my way to say hello to Grandpa.

An hour later I reached the small country town where every day Tom worked during his summer vacation, according to what Stacie had told me. I gazed around with disapproval at the small houses, the inadequate shopping center with its parking lot showing a sprinkling of late-model cars. What kind of place was this- for Tom and his high ambitions? And like an avenging angel, determined to do what I could to upset Luke Casteel's plans for his eldest son, I guided my luxurious car to the outskirts of this nothing town and found the high wall Stacie had told me about.

Some things she hadn't prepared me for, such as the long line of colorful banners snapping in the hot wind. The banners kept on such a move I couldn't read the message they imparted. Insects hummed and badgered my head as I headed for a gate that was open. No one tried to prevent me from entering a huge, grass-covered arena with many worn dirt paths crisscrossing the lawns. What kind of place was this, I thought, my heart racing, so disappointed to think that my brother Tom would settle for . . . for . . . and then I knew just what future Tom had set for himself in order to please Pa!

Tears seeped into my eyes. Circus grounds! A small, cheap, crass, unimportant circus struggling to survive. Tears began to streak down my cheeks. Tom, poor Tom!

As I stood beyond the gate in the hot afternoon sun and listened to the sounds of many people at work, some hammering, some singing and whistling, some shouting orders, others answering back in irritable voices, I also heard laughter, and saw children running, chasing one another. They threw me curious glances, and I guess I must have looked very strange in my early fall Boston attire that was totally wrong for Florida. Strange-looking people in bizarre clothing idled about. Women in shorts washed their hair over basins. Other women acted as hairdressers. Laundry was hung up to dry in the hot sunlight. A few palm trees offered some shade, and if I had been less prejudiced, I might have found this scene picturesque and charming. However, I wasn't about to be charmed. Strong animal odors wafted to my nostrils. An assortment of men in scant attire, with deeply tanned skins and bulging muscles, moved with purpose from here to there, setting up stands and booths with signs that read "Hot Dogs" "Hamburgers" and so forth. They repaired colorful posters that advertised a half-man and half-woman, dancing girls, the world's fattest woman, the world's tallest man, the world's smallest husband and wife, and a snake that was halfalligator and half-boa constrictor. Not one man failed to stare my way.

Many a time Tom had hinted in his letters that Pa was doing something glamorous that he'd dreamed about all his life. Working for a circus? A small, second-rate circus?

Almost numb with despair I moved forward, staring into cages where lions, leopards, tigers, and other large wild cats were caged, seemingly awaiting transportation to another area. I stopped before one of the antique animal wagons, staring at the tiger poster adhered to its side where red paint was peeling off.

A time warp ricocheted me back to the cabin. It could have been the original of the tiger poster that Granny had described to me so many times, the one her youngest son Luke had stolen from a wall in Atlanta that time when he went there at the age of twelve, and his Atlanta uncle forgot to keep his promise of taking his hillbilly nephew to the circus.

And Luke Casteel, at age twelve, had walked fifteen miles to the circus grounds outside the city limits and had slipped into the circus tent without paying.

Almost blind now with tears, I ducked my head and used one of my linen handkerchiefs to blot my face. When I looked up, the first thing I saw was a tall young man coming my way, carrying with him something that looked like a pitchfork and, cradled under his left arm, a huge tray of raw meat. It was feeding time for the big cats, and as if they knew, lions and tigers began to toss huge shaggy heads, showing long, sharp, yellowish teeth, sniffing, gnawing, crunching bones, ripping into the bloody raw flesh the youth poked through the cage bars with the fork. They made deep rumbling noises in their throats that I had to take for pleasure.

Oh, my God! My God! It was my own brother Tom who gingerly thrust the meat forward for savage paws to rake closer before teeth began to work.

"Tom" I cried, running forward. "It's me! Heavenly!" And for a moment I was a child of the hills again. The designer clothes I wore faded into a shabby, worn-out, shapeless dress gone gray from repeated washings in lye soap on a metal scrubbing board. I was barefooted and hungry as Tom turned slowly toward me, his deep-set, emerald eyes widening before they filled with delight.

"Heavenly! It's ya, really ya? Ya came t'see me, after all, drove all this way!"

As always when he was excited, Tom forgot his good diction and reverted to country dialect. "Oh good glory day! It's done happened! What I prayed fer!" He dropped the large tray that was now empty of meat, let go of the pitchfork, and opened his arms.

"Thomas Luke Casteel," I called, "you know better than to slur your contractions. Did Miss Deale and I waste our time teaching you good grammar?" And into his welcoming embrace I ran, throwing my arms about his neck, clinging fast to this brother who was four months younger, and all the time gone by since I'd seen him last vanished.

"Oh holy Jesus on the cross," he whispered emotionally, his voice hoarse, "still scolding and correcting me just like old times." He held me an arm's length away and stared at me with awed admiration. "I never thought you could grow prettier, but you're more than pretty now!" He swept his gaze over my rich clothes, pausing to take in the gold watch, the polished fingernails, the two-hundreddollar shoes, the twelve-hundred-dollar handbag, and then he was staring at my face again. He exhaled in a long, whistling breath. "Wow! You look like one of those unreal girls on magazine covers."

"I told you I was coming. Why do you seem so surprised that I'm here?"