Gun for Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page A

few minutes past eight, it was already hot and the air so dry it made her trail-raw eyes feel like there was grit in them. Kneeling on a flat rock beside the stream, she splashed water on her face. Its coolness soothed her burning eyes but stung her chapped lips.
    Suddenly, soundlessly, he was standing beside her, holding her hat.
    ‘Better put this on, ma’am, ’fore you get sunburned.’
    She placed the hat on her head, asking: ‘Are you ever going to call me Ellie?’
    ‘You ever gonna tell me why you shaved your head?’
    She laughed. ‘Why, Gabriel Moonlight, you’re as pushy as I am.’
    ‘Wasn’t my intention.’ He turned to leave.
    ‘Wait. I’ll tell you …’ Ellen ran her fingers through her wispy buttery curls and thought a moment before saying: ‘It’s growing out now….’
    He kept silent, hoping she’d continue.
    ‘Many of the sisters at the convent do it. I didn’t wantto. In fact I hated the idea, but …’ She shrugged and self-consciously touched her hair. ‘You may not believe me, Gabe, but I had very pretty hair. It hung halfway down my back. I used to get lots of compliments on it and at night, just before going to bed, I always brushed it one hundred times so it would shine. But long hair gets hot and sweaty under a coronet—’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘Coronet. That’s a nun’s hat. These days, coronets are considered somewhat medieval and a lot of sisters in other convents wear much smaller hats. But our order insists we wear one – along with an under-cap that covers our forehead in front.’
    Realizing now why the upper half of her forehead was so pale, he said: ‘So that’s what the old man meant—’
    ‘Miguel told you I was a nun?’
    ‘No, but he started to call you ‘Sister’ once an’ then corrected himself.’
    ‘Poor sweet man. I can’t blame him. It’s been awfully difficult for him. He’s worked at the convent for most of his life, and been a close part of mine for almost two years. And then out of the blue I quit the order and ask him to come with me to—’
    ‘You’re not a nun any more?’
    ‘I never actually was one. Not officially. I was a novice. I still had a few months left before I completed my novitiate. That’s a training period,’ she explained, seeing he didn’t understand the word. ‘Sort of like, well, like probation. All novices are required to go through it in order to prove they are suitably ‘called’ to the religious life.’
    He toed the dirt with his boot and tugged at his thick, graying dark hair.
    ‘An’ you, you didn’t figure you were “called”?’
    ‘At first I did. I was absolutely committed. But after a few months I felt isolated and wasn’t so sure. Neither was Mother Superior. We had several long talks about it. I tried to be honest with her, to tell her how I really felt, how I missed being around lots of people, having fun and dancing and playing the harpsichord and, well, that concerned her. She reminded me that giving myself over to God and spreading his word was a full-time, lifelong commitment. I knew she was right and that I was just being weak and tempted by material pleasures … but I still couldn’t decide.’
    ‘Yet you stayed on at the convent?’
    ‘Yes. I kept hoping that one day God would give me a sign. But he never did. Or at least, I didn’t recognize it.’ She paused, troubled by her past indecision, then said: ‘But that isn’t why I quit.’
    He waited and this time she didn’t continue. He decided that whatever was chewing at her must be too painful to discuss and started to leave.
    ‘Don’t go. Please …’ Then as he turned back to her: ‘I’m not normally a quitter. In fact once I get my teeth into something I can be most stubborn about not letting go….’
    Feeling like he was prying, he said: ‘You don’t have to tell me, Ellie. Not unless you’ve a mind to.’
    She wasn’t listening. Her mind was off somewhere, somewhere it didn’t want to be, and suddenly she was