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A thundering of hoofbeats made Maria turn with a start. She stepped from the road just as Ruby's husband Clarence pulled a black, sleek horse to a halt next to Maria. Clarence looked even as burly and dark in the daylight as he had the previous night when he had revealed to Maria that he was Ruby's husband.
This truth still confused Maria. How could a husband agree to a wife's so openly bedding up with other men? It was as though it was only a business arrangement, with Ruby being the main breadwinner of the family.
“Land's sake,” Clarence said in a slow drawl, letting the horse's reins grow slack in his hands, leaning, studying Maria. “Don’ ya'all have a way of gettin’ ‘round?” His dark eyes moved quickly over her. “But I mus’ say, ya'all sho’ look bettah in a dress. Breeches wuz meant foh men. Didn't yore mammie evah tell ya'all that?”
Maria felt a flush rising from her neck upward. She struggled even more to keep the skirt of her dress from revealing her legs to this colored man. She glanced over him quickly, seeing that he was dressed as he had been the night before, in a red plaid, long-sleeved shirt and loose-fitted dark breeches.
“It's nice seeing you again, Clarence,” she said, smiling.
“So ya'all does remembah mah name?” he said, straightening his back. His eyes showed the gratitude for her remembering him as they twinkled in dark browns back at her.
Maria shook her head in an effort to remove the wind-blown hair from her face. “Yes,” she said. “I remember you and your kindness.”
“So mah Ruby took care of ya'all's needs last night?” Clarence said, leaning again in her direction.
Maria cast her eyes downward, embarrassed. Surely Clarence knew exactly what those needs had been. She didn't answer. Suddenly her words seemed caught in her throat. She still had such need for Michael. She hadn't liked being reminded. She was much too close to Nathan Hawkins's house now to let her mind fill up with further thoughts of Michael.
“Wheah ya'all headed?” Clarence said, patting his horse gently.
Maria's eyes shot upward, then on past Clarence, to settle on Nathan Hawkins's house.
Clarence's gaze followed hers, then moved back to Maria. “Ya'all be a headin’ foh Mastah Hawkins's place?” he said, in an almost whisper. “Is that be wheah ya'all is a headin'?”
Maria bit a lower lip, then answered. “Yes. Exactly,” she said, clearing her throat nervously.
Clarence seemed to age right before Maria's eyes as his face became all dark wrinkles. “Wha foh ya'all goin’ thea foh?” he mumbled.
“For a wedding,” Maria said, fighting back a fresh urge to cry.
Clarence's brows tilted. “Whose wed din'? I nevah got word of no weddin’ takin’ place, and Clarence heahs all ‘bout Mastah Hawkins.”
“The wedding is to be mine and Nathan Hawkins's.” Maria said, then flipped the skirt of her dress around and hurried away from Clarence. She closed her eyes, knowing how she had almost choked on those words. When she heard the horse's hoofbeats following behind her, she tensed, then moved aside when Clarence stopped the horse beside her once again.
“Don’ marry up with him,” he said. “He's the devil. His house is full of deviltry. Go to Ruby. She can he'p ya'all with whatevah trouble ya'all be in.”
Tears brimmed in Maria's eyes as she stared upward into this dark face of compassion. “No. No one can help me,” she said. “I have to wed Nathan Hawkins. I must.” She lifted the skirt of her dress and rushed away from him once again, glad to hear the hoofbeats move away, instead of toward her.
Wiping her eyes, she moved onward, now seeing through her blur of tears the tiny flowers along the roadside. Somehow, seeing their innocence lightened the burden of her heart. She stooped and picked a bouquet of purple-blossomed blazing stars, sweet coneflowers, yellow with brown centers like daisies, and some pale pink gentians. She tried not to think of Clarence's words, about the house filled with deviltry. But even a handful of beautiful flowers couldn't erase the words from her mind.
Rising, straightening her back, she stared at Nathan Hawkins's house once again. It looked innocent enough with its stately outer walls of red brick and the tall pillars on the wide front porch. Then her gaze captured what the tall Indian grasses had kept hidden from her eyes till now. It was row after row of grapevines, filled with fresh green leaves. Seeing this made Maria's heart ache, now realizing just how homesick she was for Italy.
She hurried onward, watching the vineyard grow larger and larger as she approached it. It stretched out behind Nathan Hawkins's house on all sides and as far into the distance as Maria's eyes could follow. Though Nathan Hawkins was not of Italian descent, he had not only captured the Italian people and brought them to his town called Hawkinsville, but he had also somehow brought with them their one big love … the growing of grapes.
“Why?” Maria wondered aloud. “Does he wish to inflict hurt even more by reminding us all of what we have left behind?” Yes. Seeing this huge vineyard was a reminder to Maria of the freedom she and her family had left behind in Italy. Whether or not Nathan Hawkins had planted the grapes purposely as a reminder to the Italians, she knew that would be the way she would always feel about it.
She doubled her one free fist at her side, grumbling. “Oh, how I hate you, Nathan Hawkins. Oh, how I hate and despise you.”
Now clutching her small bouquet to her bosom,
Maria moved on in front of Nathan Hawkins's house. The yard was surrounded by thick borders of zinnias and marigolds. Bees buzzed around them and monarch butterflies flitted lazily from flower to flower, as hummingbirds darted in and out among gold and red petals.
Maria moved up a narrow walk of white gravel, stopping to read a plaque that had been placed on a wall constructed of blocks of coal mortared together. On this plaque, she read: August 6, 1890, the first carload of co
al was carried from Hawkinsville Coal Mine. Nathan Hawkins, Proprietor.
A sick feeling rippled at the pit of Maria's stomach. Had he been using the Italians as slaves since 1890… ? She glared toward the house and its magnificent stature. Had it been the Italians who had helped make Nathan Hawkins so rich?
The front door opened suddenly, drawing Maria's attention to a short, stocky Negress whose hair circled in masses of gray atop her head. She was attired in a thickly gathered cotton dress of small blue-flowered design and a ruffled apron gave her hands something to do as she wiped her fingers on it, all the while moving from the porch toward Maria. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, almost swallowing her dark eyes into the folds. Only her full lips and nose were prominent, those features alone having been left untouched by age.
