And Condors Danced (13 page)

Johnny Díaz was seventeen, now. He had blue-black hair so heavy that it looked like a thick cap of curls, and his eyes were dark and sharply watchful, like the eyes of a wild colt. He had a quick white smile, a graceful, sauntering walk, and a face that Aunt M. said could “break an angel’s heart.” Carly thought that Johnny was too handsome to have been born in modern times. He should have lived when men wore velvet coats and plumed hats and carried shining swords at their hips. She also thought that Johnny and Lila were just exactly like Romeo and Juliet. That was because Johnny was a Díaz, and the Díazes were—different. The difference was complicated and puzzling.

The Díazes had lived in the Santa Luisa valley for longer than anyone except, of course, the Indians. Although Grandpa Díaz spoke Spanish and had come to the valley from Mexico, some people said he was not Mexican, but Spanish, and that seemed to be important. Although most of the Mexican families lived all together on the south side of town near the river, or on the ranches where they worked, Johnny’s family lived at the end of Hamilton Valley on land that still belonged to them, although it had been leased for a long time. Unlike the other Mexican women, Johnny’s mother and grandmother were sometimes invited to socials at Citronia and other important houses. And his father, Fernando, belonged to the Odd Fellows and the volunteer fire department.

But if being Spanish was a difference that wasn’t too serious, there were others that were. For one thing the Díazes were Catholics. That would have meant trouble enough, but even more of a problem was the fact that most of the Díaz land was leased to the Quigleys. In fact, Johnny’s father, Fernando Díaz, was a member of Alfred Bennington Quigley’s water company and had voted against Aunt Mehitabel’s request for membership and a share in the company’s irrigation water. And those differences explained what happened the one time Johnny had come calling on Lila. Father had sent him away and ordered Lila never to speak to that Díaz scamp again. So Johnny and Lila were not only young and beautiful and in love, but also from families that hated each other—exactly like Romeo and Juliet’s.

Watching them now, reading the secrets of their silence, Carly wrapped her arms around her middle and shivered in painful ecstasy. It was all so frightening and forbidden and wonderful that it made her stomach ache. She went on watching and shivering while Johnny and Lila looked at each other several more times before she realized what a perfect opportunity was presenting itself. An opportunity for her to play a part in a love story. Springing into action, she leapt forward, almost running over two little girls playing jump rope. “Hello” she said as she skidded to a stop. “Hello, Johnny. Hello, Lila.”

Both Johnny and Lila stared at her in a way that was not particularly welcoming. Almost stammering in her eagerness to make them understand her good intentions, and the value of what she was offering, she managed to say, “C-c-could I take messages? I mean, Father didn’t tell me not to talk to Johnny. I mean, if you both tell me things to tell each other, then you wouldn’t really be talking—to each other, that is.”

Johnny rolled his dark eyes and laughed and Lila said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Carly. Go away. Would you just go away, please?”

Carly was surprised and a little hurt. It had seemed like such a good idea. “Well, all right,” she said. “I was just trying to help.”

As she walked away, she looked back several times over her shoulder. Johnny and Lila still didn’t seem to be talking. It was possible that people in love didn’t need to—that people in love were able to read each other’s minds.

It was only a minute later, as Carly was just reentering the sycamore grove, that she saw something very dangerous—for Lila and Johnny. It was Father. He had stopped to talk to someone near the millpond, but he was obviously headed for the ball game. Carly turned and ran.

Back beside Lila at the edge of the ballpark, Carly breathlessly whispered, “Father,” and in a split second Johnny disappeared into the crowd of spectators. Lila didn’t say thank you, but a few minutes later, as the three of them were on their way to hear the Fourth of July speeches, she looked right at Carly and smiled. It was something she didn’t do very often, and it gave Carly a nice warm tingle somewhere behind her eyes. She smiled back as hard as she could.

Lila hadn’t argued when Father said they were going to the speeches, but Carly had at least tried. “Don’t you want to eat before you go?” she asked Father. “The food’s awfully good.”

Father’s smile, tight and one-sided, was not a good sign. “I ate before I came. I can’t understand this strange passion for eating under the open sky like savages, unless one prefers one’s food seasoned by dust and insects.”

Carly’s next attempt had consisted of repeating some of the comments Father had made about last year’s speakers, but that didn’t work either.

“Don’t criticize your elders,” Father said, and that was that. A moment later they arrived at the bandstand.

The next day the
Santa Luisa Ledger
said that Colonel J. C. Edwards’s oration abounded in eloquence, wit, and instruction, and that Miss Maudie Longworth’s recitation of the Declaration of Independence was given in a most impressive and masterly manner, and that the organ, borrowed for the occasion from the music room of the Quigley mansion, was presided over with much elegance and grace by Miss Penelope Titus.

Carly supposed it was true. If she herself had failed to be instructed and impressed, it was probably because her mind had been elsewhere. Just before the three of them had taken their places in the audience, she’d caught a glimpse of Matt hanging by his knees from the limb of an oak tree. By dropping back a few steps she’d been able to motion to him, a frantic waving of arms which she wasn’t at all sure he read correctly. It had been a complicated message to send by sign language, and his face hadn’t exactly lit up with understanding. But on the other hand, understanding might be hard to read on a face that was upside down. So all during the instructive speeches and elegant music, she’d been busy wondering if Matt would be waiting for her.

But when she finally managed to edge away from Father during an intermission, Matt suddenly appeared at her side.

“Sure,” he said, “I knew. You were saying to wait around until you could sneak away from your pa. I knew that right off.”

Carly giggled, and then, deepening her voice to a pitch more suitable for Sherlock Holmes, she said, “A brilliant deduction, Dr. Watson. Or—what was that Indian’s name?”

“Eenzie,” Matt said.

“A brilliant deduction, Eenzie. Come on, let’s run.”

They ran through the park and out onto the shortcut path to Palm Drive, where they had to stop for breath. Clutching his side, Matt said, “By hokey, you sure can run some for a girl, Carly. Where the Sam Hill we goin’, anyways?”

“We’re going,” Carly said, “to solve the mystery of the Fourth of July Assassins.”

“The Fourth of July who?” Matt asked.

“Assassins. The evil murderers who threw the bomb under the royal coach.” When Matt went on looking as blank as a barn wall, she sighed and said, “Okay. That part is just pretend. But there’s a real mystery, and we’re going to solve it. We’re going to find out who threw the Big Reds at the Presbyterians. My theory is it was done by atheists.”

After a minute Matt closed his mouth and grinned. “Shucks,” he said. “I never heard tell of any—what did you call them?”

“Atheists,” Carly said.

“Yeah. I never heard of any of them in Santa Luisa. What do they look like?”

“They don’t look like anything special. But Brother Tupper—he was the visiting preacher from Carolina—Brother Tupper says they’re people who don’t believe in God or Congress or policemen, and they go around throwing bombs at the righteous. Some of them might live right here in Santa Luisa and we wouldn’t even know because they usually act like ordinary people except they don’t go to church or vote or pay their taxes.”

Matt grinned. “That part sounds like my grandpa.”

“Really?”

Matt stopped grinning. “He didn’t do it, Carly. He don’t even hold with firecrackers. He heard about a boy in Santa Barbara got his eyes put out, and since then he won’t let me have anything but ladyfingers.”

Carly laughed. The idea of Dan Kelly throwing firecrackers was pretty ridiculous. “I know he didn’t,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

W
HEN CARLY AND
Matt reached the corner of Palm and Main, the street was deserted. Except for some scraps of paper streamers and a few more orange peels and candy wrappers than usual, there was nothing to indicate that a parade had recently passed that way—or that a tragedy had nearly happened on that very spot. Their most exciting find was a few scraps of red firecracker paper in the middle of the street.

“Big Reds,” Carly said excitedly.

“That don’t mean nothing,” Matt said. “Lots of people have Big Reds.”

Carly nodded. She picked up a few scorched shreds of paper and carefully put them in her pocket. Then she looked up and down the street. Up and down—and up again, to the second story of the Olympic Hotel. Suddenly she grabbed Matt’s arm and pointed.

“Up there. The assassins must have been on the roof of the hotel. See, they could have been standing behind that false front where no one could see them, and all they had to do was light the string and toss it over.”

“Yeah.” Matt said. “By hokey, Carly. I bet that’s it, all right.”

In the lobby the clerk, Elmer Somebody-or-Other, a pale, pointy-faced young man from Ventura, was slouched down in a swivel chair with his feet up on the desk, sound asleep. Carly and Matt tiptoed past him and up the stairs. She’d never been upstairs in the Olympic before, but it wasn’t hard to find the second flight of stairs and the door to the roof.

The incriminating evidence was right there, where Carly had expected to find it. On the tar-paper roof directly behind the false front, there were several burnt matchsticks and a couple of firecrackers that had obviously pulled loose from a string.

“See, I told you!” she said. “Big Reds. We’ve solved the mystery. We found where they, the atheists, were standing.”

“Okay,” Matt said, “but who are they? What do they look like?”

Carly sighed impatiently. “Like I told you, they probably look pretty much like everybody else. We’ve just got to get a good description of them.”

“How’re we going to do that?”

Carly began to shake her head, but all of a sudden she nodded instead. “I know,” she said. “I know how. Let’s go down and ask the clerk. Maybe he saw somebody go up on the roof.”

“Maybe,” Matt said. “’Less he was asleep at the time. Reckon he wasn’t, though. Not during the parade. Maybe he did see something.”

Carly had started down the first flight of stairs, with Matt right behind her, when suddenly she stopped dead. Turning back, she put her finger to her lips and then squatted down behind the bannisters. Behind her Matt did the same thing. By peering out between the rungs they were able to get a clear view of the front desk, where Elmer was now wide awake and talking to a visitor. The visitor was wearing a fashionable linen summer suit and a motoring duster and his large portly shape was strangely familiar. It looked like—and it was—Alfred Bennington Quigley.

Mr. Quigley had lowered his voice from its normal booming roar to a loud hissing whisper. Carly couldn’t quite tell what he was saying, but as usual it sounded very forceful. And by the eager way Elmer was nodding and shaking his head, it was easy to see that he was impressed. And then as Carly and Matt watched, Mr. Quigley reached in his pocket and counted a bunch of bills out onto the counter. It looked like quite a lot of money.

Elmer was reaching toward the money when Mr. Quigley turned to look carefully around the lobby and Carly ducked away from the bannisters, pulling Matt with her. By the time they dared to peek out again Elmer was alone, standing stiffly behind the counter with a surprised look on his pale, pointy face.

Carly and Matt waited for a few minutes and then they went on downstairs and tried asking Elmer if he had seen anybody go up on the roof during the parade. Even before they asked him, Carly pretty much knew what Elmer would say—or wouldn’t say. Elmer, it seemed, hadn’t seen anybody, or anything, and as far as he knew, nobody had even been near the roof of the hotel during the parade. That was what he said, but he didn’t say it with much conviction, and it was perfectly clear that talking about it made him extremely nervous.

They might have tried to question Elmer a little longer, but Carly suddenly noticed the time on the big wall clock in the lobby, and grabbing Matt by the arm, pulled him out onto the sidewalk. “Run,” she said. “I’ve got to get back right away.”

They ran most of the way back to Oak Park. There was no time—or breath—for talking. But when they were approaching the bandstand, where the final speech was just ending, Matt grabbed Carly’s arm and pulled her to a stop. Grinning and gasping for breath, he said, “Well, I guess that lets the atheists off the hook, anyway.”

Carly nodded. She hated to admit it. It would have been a lot more exciting if it had been atheist assassins instead of just old Henry Quigley Babcock again.

They caught sight of Carly’s family then, but before Matt faded away into the crowd there was just time for Carly to warn him to keep quiet about what they had seen at the Olympic Hotel. “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “Least not until we get some proof. But in the meantime we’ll keep the suspect under observation.”

“How we going to do that?” Matt asked.

“Well, maybe we’ll disguise ourselves like Sherlock did sometimes so we can follow him around without him recognizing us.”

Matt grinned sarcastically. “Sure thing,” he said. “Sure we will.”

“We will so,” Carly said, jutting out her chin. “Just you wait and see, Matt Kelly. I have it all planned out. Do you want to hear how we’re going to do it?”

“Later,” Matt said as he started edging off among the trees. “Later. Okay?”

“Okay,” Carly called after him. “And remember. Keep mum.”