Wanton Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

scribbles of a child.
    The man began to toss and call out again. “Bonnie,” he moaned, “Bonnie?”
    Consolata bit down on her lower lip for a moment, silently begging the Virgin’s forgiveness for the hatred she felt toward the woman Bonita. Carefully, gently, she washed the strong-featured face once more.
    “Bonnie!” the man rasped in his delirium.
    Tears welled in Consolata’s eyes. She rose from her knees, a slender, shapely girl with dark hair that tumbled well past her waist and a face that brought many extra customers into the cantina. Leaving the cloth and basin on the floor, she reached for the finely made suitcoat hung so carefully over the back of a chair.
    In one pocket, Consolata well knew, there was a wallet, with much currency of
los Estados Unidos
inside, but she cared nothing for money. It was the folded papers that both intrigued and alarmed her, for they bore the golden man’s unpronounceable name and the names of those who should be told of his illness.
    She tucked the papers into the pocket of her skirt and, after smoothing a lock of brown-sugar hair from the señor’s forehead, crept out of the room on bare and silent feet.
    Downstairs the cantina was empty, because of the siesta, and there would be no customers to tend until the oppressive heat of the day had lifted. The street, too, was deserted, for all the villagers were resting, and the warmth settling over the valley of the Sierra Maestra was so dense as to bealmost tangible. Resisting her conscience, Consolata paused to gaze at the sun-sparkles dancing on the bay. Steep bluffs rose above the waters on three sides, making Santiago de Cuba virtually impregnable by sea, and on the tallest of these was the Castilla del Morro, a grim fourteenth-century fortress.
    Consolata shaded her eyes to look up at the stronghold and silently cursed all men who made war.
    Finally she crossed the road, the dust hot and dry beneath her naked feet, and slipped into the cool and shadowy chapel. After proper greetings to the Virgin and the Blessed Savior, Consolata sought out the padre.
    Like the golden man, the padre was an
Americano,
though he spoke swift and effortless Spanish, and he was young. He had blue eyes with laughter in them and hair the color of fire, and he smiled at Consolata even though it was clear that she’d interrupted his siesta.
    “Do they have siesta in Kansas?” Consolata asked guilelessly, trying to put off the moment when she would have to give up her terrible secret.
    The padre, who had drawn his feet down from the top of his desk on Consolata’s entrance, cleared his throat and sat up very straight in his chair, then laughed. “No, my child, they do not,” he answered in faultless Spanish. “And that is their misfortune. What brings you out in the heat of the day?”
    Consolata could not find words to answer, so she drew the papers from her pocket and extended them in one hand. The padre accepted the documents and read them in one rapid sweep of his eyes.
    “My goodness,” he said, after a few seconds of thought. “Consolata, do you know this man? Why do you have his papers?”
    Consolata lowered her head. “He came to the cantina two days ago,” she mumbled in reply. “He has the fever—”
    The padre looked alarmed. “Where is your uncle, Consolata?”
    “Uncle Tomás is away in Havana. When he comes back, he will be very angry.”
    The missionary muttered something in English and rosedecisively from his chair. Knowing that he wanted to see the stranger, Consolata led the way outside, across the hot and dusty street, into the cantina. The beautiful man from the North slept fitfully in Consolata’s bed, his flesh covered with a fine sheen of sweat.
    “How in the name of heaven did you get a man this size upstairs?” the priest asked, bending over the cot to touch the man’s fevered forehead with the fingers of one hand.
    Consolata explained that the
Americano
had roused, at least partially, after his collapse,