The Vendetta Defense

you’re doing, bumpkin? You’re hogging the whole road! Fool!”

“Oh, my!” Tony exclaimed, startled. The sudden lurch to a stop set the birds complaining and flapping their wings. He put his hand up to protect the cages from falling. “I didn’t see you. The birds—”

“The birds! The birds are no reason to cause a traffic accident! Cavone! Idiota!” Coluzzi’s face had gone red and he seemed to get angrier as a result of Tony’s explanation, not less so. His eyes and mouth were large and his dark hair combed back with brilliantine, making it as black as his shirt, with its gold buttons and pressed epaulets. It identified him as a squadrista, one of the elite cadre of Fascists who helped Mussolini rise to prime minister mainly by beating people up, breaking strikes, and destroying all opposition. But Angelo Coluzzi needed no identification in this region, as everybody knew him, or of him, for he had attained high station at only eighteen years of age, mostly because of his father’s influence.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Tony said. It cost him nothing to placate the man, any more than a father minds calming a child in tantrum. And Tony’s attention was riveted, despite the noisy blowing of the horses and the feather-beating of the pigeons, on the lovely signorina sitting beside Coluzzi.

Her eyes were as brown as the earth itself, and her hair was, almost miraculously, the identical color, only shot through with filaments of red, like veins of clay in soil. Bright red lipstick, which Tony knew was the fashion among city women, made her mouth shiny, but Tony would have noticed her lips whether they were painted or not. She smiled at him kindly despite the anger of her companion, and because Tony was not stupid, he apprehended in an instant that she and Coluzzi made a poor match and wondered if she would ever realize it herself. He concluded that she would, because of the intelligence dancing behind her eyes.

“Stumblebum! Why in heaven’s name are you leading your broken-down pony along? How can you be so dim-witted?”

Coluzzi continued his diatribe; it seemed that nothing could stop him. “Buffoon! Are you so simple you don’t realize that man is meant to ride upon his animals and not walk beside them, as a lover?”

Tony ignored the insult, so lost was he in the eyes of the woman. He contrived to think of a way to make her acquaintance, and then God sent him one. “Please forgive me, sir. My pony is so burdened with his own weight he can’t bear even mine after a long day’s journey. If I may formally introduce myself, by way of apology, my name is Anthony Lucia, from near Veramo, in Abruzzo. And you, sir, are Signore Angelo Coluzzi, I believe.” Tony bowed slightly.

“Abruzzese! I knew it! Farmers and nose-pickers!” Coluzzi yanked again on the mouths of his fine horses, who, resigned to his ill treatment, only stamped their feet in response. “Si, I am Coluzzi. So you know me.”

“Of course I do, sir.”

“You are loyal to Il Duce.”

“Si, si. Of course. As are we all.” Tony was hoping Coluzzi would now introduce the young lady in the seat of his cart, but no such introduction was forthcoming. Tony glanced again at the woman, and her smile emboldened him. “I have not had the honor of meeting your companion. She is so lovely, she must be your sister.”

“Fool!” Coluzzi’s eyes narrowed. “She is lovely, but she is no blood relative. Her name is none of your business. Now, move out of our way. I have already delivered my pigeons and must return home before they do.”

Tony bowed deeply, this time to the young woman, and doffed his felt cap with a flourish. “Well, Miss None- of-Your-Business, my name is Tony Lucia, and I’m very honored to make your acquaintance.”

Gentle laughter came from the cart, but Tony was bowing too low to see her laugh. He knew only that the sound made him aware of the exact location of his heart within his chest, something he’d never given a thought to before this moment. He straightened up slowly and whacked his cap against his wrist to shake out the dust before he returned it to his head and shoved it down over his mass of dark, curly hair at an angle he hoped she would find attractive.

“How dare you!” Coluzzi bellowed. “How dare you, show-off! How dare you speak to my Silvana!” In one motion, he raised the long whip he had been using on his horses, snapped it high in the air, and cracked it across Tony’s face.

Pain ripped through the young man’s cheek, tears sprang to his eyes, and he staggered backward in surprise and shock. Through his tears he saw the horrifed expression of the woman, her bright mouth a red gash of pain. Tony could see she had cried out—for him, yes—though he cowered shamefully. Coluzzi cracked the long whip again, and this time it struck the sweating rumps of the horses and they leaped into the air, clawing it with front hooves, and bolted right at Tony.

He threw himself out of the way, half rolling and half stumbling into the hard ground at the side of the road, landing on his hip and shoulder before he came to a stop at the edge of the field. Dust and small rocks sprayed in his face, and he spit them out in time to see Coluzzi’s cart take off down the road away from the city. Suddenly Tony’s old pony spooked, then galloped off in blind panic down the road, toward the city. No!

Tony scrambled to his feet. Pain shot through his shoulder, and he heard an odd grinding coming from there, the unmistakable sound of bone against bone. He had broken his collarbone. But there was no time to lose. His pigeons!

“No! Whoa! Stop!” Tony shouted. Holding his arm against his side, he ran in agony after the old pony, who galloped away with the cart, careening this way and that, using energy he must have hidden from Tony. The cart bounced on the rocky road. The towers of pigeons cages swayed dangerously. The cart was heading straight for a large rock. Tony’s heart leapt to his throat.

“Whoa!” he cried out, but the pony ignored him and galloped faster. Tony picked up the pace, cradling his arm, wincing at each stride.

The cart smashed into the rock. Tony held his breath. The pigeon cages at the end popped out of the cart, flew through the air, and crashed when they hit the road. The other cages quickly followed, toppling out of the cart. “No!” Tony yelled, but to no avail. He sent up a quick prayer for the safety of his birds.

The wooden cages, which Tony had carefully constructed but hadn’t built to withstand such a calamity, splintered instantly. The twine tying them tore apart. Cages split open all over the road. Tony raced to the cages, his shoulder broken, his feet painful. When he got there he fell to his knees, gasping for breath, as his pigeons struggled to free themselves from their wrecked cages, injuring themselves.

Tony scrambled from cage to cage, breaking them open so the birds wouldn’t get hurt further. His shoulder protested the effort and he heard his bones rubbing, but he ignored it. The race was a total loss, a year’s training and a day’s travel, but there would be other races. He had to save his birds. He hurried to the next cage. Soon passersby came along, laughing at the sight of the young man destroying his own cages and freeing his own pigeons, but Tony didn’t care. He finished wrecking the last cage and looked heavenward.

The birds, anxious to return home to their mates, were taking flight one by one, a running river of wings flowing up, defying gravity, soaring high into the clearest of skies, the blue darkening to black. A few flew on bloodied wing, but most looked healthy and sound. Tony’s heart lifted with them. Forty pigeons, all slate-gray colored, skated on air currents only they could see, circling just once as Tony had taught them, so as not to waste time, then heading south. He squinted to see them go, holding his hurt arm still. They flapped away, obeying instinct and training, going straight to their mates, and Tony kept watching as they grew smaller and smaller, until they shrank to bright white dots, like stars in the twilight, and then even the stars disappeared. Tony swallowed hard, his heart suddenly full of emotion, and then he understood why.

Silvana. The sound of her laugh was in his ears. Feminine and musical, from her perch on the cart.

Her laughter, right beside him in his ear. He could feel the whisper of her painted lips, then a gentle shaking on his shoulder, which hurt no longer, his collarbone miraculously healed.

“Pigeon Tony,” said the woman’s voice, and he opened his eyes, to look into not Silvana’s earth-brown eyes but the bright blue eyes of another woman. Her mouth had been red the first time they’d met. His lawyer, this Judy.

“Pigeon Tony,” she was saying, calling his nickname, one that Silvana never heard. “Wake up, you’re almost home.”

Then he heard another voice, coming from his other side. He looked up into more familiar brown eyes. Though they weren’t Silvana’s, they hinted at hers, for they were her eyes passed down to her grandson Frank.