The Miracles of Santo Fico by D. L. Smith

Author:D. L. Smith [SMITH, D. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC026000
ISBN: 9780446510509
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2007-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

The shepherd’s hut was stifling. Leo sat on the room’s only chair, leaned his elbows on the only table, and let sweat drip off his nose and trickle through the bristles on his chin. He refused to open the door or the shutters on the windows to allow in the cooling sea breeze. That would be too dangerous. However unlikely, someone might pass by and look in. Better to swelter than run the risk of somebody accidentally discovering his crime. So he let his body slowly bake in the stone oven and his brain smoldered under the gaze of the saintly eyes staring back at him from the dirty cot across the room.

It was close to an hour since Topo had at last trudged back up the hill toward town. It had been over three hours since the two of them had fumbled awkwardly down the road, then huffed and puffed across the pastures with their prize. The trip had taken longer than either would have guessed. Loaded with broken plaster, the old door was not only heavier and more unwieldy than they imagined, but the discrepancy in their sizes became brutally wearing for both. To keep the sagging old door relatively level and prevent their delicate cargo from tumbling onto the road, Leo had to bend over at an angle that left his upper torso almost parallel to the ground and his knees oddly bowed. Topo, on the other hand, was forced to make up his portion of the discrepancy by lifting his end almost chest high and skipping along on his tiptoes.

When they had made their initial getaway, scampering across the piazza in the shadows of dawn, fear and a short-lived surge of adrenaline had given them the impression that they could carry their litter to Roma if necessary. But after a few minutes of maneuvering down the deserted north coast road, Topo’s arms were shaking like leaves and Leo’s lower back was screaming. They both wanted desperately to stop and rest, but for fear that someone might see them and guess what they had done, they kept up these contorted positions and hurried down the road as quickly as their mismatched legs could carry them.

It was only after they’d turned off the road at the opening in the old stone wall and disappeared onto the Pizzola “estate” that they dared to collapse behind a row of cypress trees. They lay exhausted in the dry grass, panting and giggling—giddy in the confidence that the caper had been a success. Though neither mentioned it, both men sadly realized that their bodies were no longer able to keep up with their boyish enthusiasms.

The rest of their journey was accomplished in a prolonged series of short, furtive bursts of energy—each a bit shorter than the last. They staggered and rested their way past the boarded-up old house, past the unpruned olive grove, past the overgrown vineyard, past the Lombolos’ curious horses, down the goat path, across the meadow, and all the way to the shepherd’s hut overlooking the sea.

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