SAVE ALL WHO DARE THE EAGLE’S FLIGHT
Chapter Four

"So, tell us about this kiss, Angie."

When Jack and Fabrizio woke up the next morning, they had enormous hangovers. They weren’t as bad off as I had been my first time—they managed to pull themselves out of bed and beg me to get them coffee. When I came back, they were fully dressed and, even though their eyes were a little bloodshot, they otherwise seemed fine. After we had turned in our room keys, we traveled down the Seine until we came to Dijon. From there, we sneaked onto a train that took us to Toulouse. There we found a man with a cartful of hay. His name was Felipe and he was going back home to Spain. He agreed to take us to his village for a reasonable fee, so we climbed into the back and nestled in the hay. We had been like that for quite some time when Jack prompted me to tell them both about my kiss with Yves.

"What about it?" I asked, pulling some hay out of my hair.

"Aw, come on, Angie! This was your first kiss! Tell us about it," Jack urged, a malicious glint in his eyes.

I couldn’t help but smile at Fabrizio’s eagerly mischievous expression.

"Well…he walked me back to the room and said good-bye…"

"Aw," the boys chorused at the same time. It was like they had rehearsed this or something.

I didn’t really mind; like any teenage girl, I loved the attention. I stuck out my tongue, grinning. "And then he just…kissed me."

"What? Just like that?" Jack asked, sounding genuinely interested.

I shrugged. "Yeah. It was kind of sudden, but..."

"He didn’t strike me as that type of guy," Jack said, more to himself than to Fabrizio and I.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, huffing a little. Even if I didn’t like Yves as much as I had thought, he was my first kiss. Although the kiss itself hadn’t been as wonderful and romantic as everyone had promised it would be--don’t even get me started on those silly dime novels going on about it--there was still some sort of sacredness about my first kiss.

Jack and Fabrizio shared a look that made my heart sink. They had been talking again—without me. What was worse was the fact that they were talking about me. Well, about Yves, but talking about him basically involved talking about me, didn’t it?

"Anyway…uh…what was it like?" Jack asked, adopting his usual casual air.

I bit my lip. "Cold," I decided after a minute.

They collapsed in giggles. Well, Fabrizio giggled; Jack laughed.

"Well, we had just come from outside," I defended half-heartedly, feeling a smile tug at my own lips.

"Is he…ah…French, through and through?" Jack asked a minute later, his face contorting in laughter he was trying and failing to suppress.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, utterly nonplussed.

This set Jack off again.

"Really, what?" I asked, turning to Fabrizio, who was silently shaking with suppressed laughter.

"What he means is…uh…" Fabrizio let out a tiny giggle. "Did Yves use his…tongue?"

I must have gone pale, or red, either one, because Jack roared with laughter at my face.

"What? No! Ugh! You’re a creep, Jack Dawson!" I shouted, whacking Jack on the back as he rolled around on the bottom of the wagon, laughing.

Felipe, who had been ignoring us ever since we scrambled into the back of his wagon, muttered something incomprehensible in Spanish.

*****

Felipe’s village was just three miles from the Spanish-French border, so the day after we arrived there, we walked to the train station, which was a good five miles away, and sneaked into one of the empty cars that had some crates stacked up in the corners. The train unknowingly carried us all the way to Barcelona, where we stayed for five weeks. In Barcelona, we vowed not to enslave ourselves like we had in Paris. Well, Fabrizio and I did.

Barcelona was indeed warmer than Paris. It was still chilly, but it was a vast improvement over the freezing cold weather of Paris. There was an abandoned barn just on the outskirts of the city that we took to sleeping in for the five weeks that we were there. The hay was usually itchy and uncomfortable, but coats and jackets that we weren’t using served as comfortable mats. Jack loved drawing the people there; they were so full of life, of passion. We found an obscure little bar one night where the music was wild and frenetic, even better than that of Les Augustine. The girls danced in full, colorful skirts, radiating a rare kind of beauty.

It was in Barcelona that I met Pablo. I couldn’t keep this one secret; I was almost always in the company of Jack and Fabrizio. Pablo was my age and enthralled by Jack’s drawings. More often than not, Fabrizio and I would find the two of them sitting on a street corner, sketching the various people at the marketplace. Pablo stayed with his uncle, who disappeared into the bars late into the night and slept well into the afternoon. His business was kept a secret—Pablo confided that he thought his uncle was doing something illegal. Therefore, Pablo spent most of his day with us.

The first time I met Pablo, I was frustratedly trying to buy some fruit from a vendor. I can’t even remember what the fruit was; all I know was that I wanted it and the vendor didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand him. At all. And then out came Pablo, speaking rapidly to the vendor. The man nodded and had this look of realization before turning to get it. Pablo turned then and grinned at me. "You do not speak Spanish, sì?"

I shook my head. "No, I don’t."

The vendor handed me what I had asked for ten minutes ago and I paid him the due amount. I had thought that that would be the end of it, but Pablo kept walking beside me. I’m not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the Spanish tend to get very close when they want to talk to you. You can smell their breath. It’s not exactly a bad thing; it’s just a little surprising when you turn around or look up and they’re right in your face.

"My name is Pablo Montoya," he said, his face so close to mine that I caught a whiff of jalapenos he had no doubt had for lunch. I would have shaken his hand had one of mine been empty.

"Angie Marshall," I returned, backing up as much as could be considered polite.

Pablo walked with me all the way to the abandoned barn we were sleeping in. His English was rather good; apparently, his mother had taught him when he was young. And though I know I may sound awful and shallow when I say it, I liked him better than Yves. Pablo wanted to see the world. He told me that he would get up and leave at any hour of the day, so long as he was not alone. He liked Barcelona, but he wanted to leave. He felt the music.

Jack and Fabrizio liked him, too. Jack loved having another artist to talk to and Fabrizio and Pablo found one another entertaining. I didn’t act like such an idiot around Pablo as I had around Yves—I was truly comfortable around him, just like my two boys. Pablo came to visit our musty old barn often and he was always taking us to some bar where there was lots of drinking, dancing, and fun. Pablo showed me--somewhat--how to dance like the Spanish girls and I taught him how to play blackjack. We often found ourselves holding hands without thinking, something Jack and Fabrizio were quick to pick up on.

"I like Pablo," Jack declared one day after Pablo had visited. "He’s better than Evie."

"Yves," I sighed. Jack still called Yves Evie. "And yes, I like to think so. He would probably come with us wherever we went, you know."

"Yeah. I like the kid. When we leave, whenever that will be, we’ll take him with us," Jack decided.

"Are we talking about a person or a dog?" I asked.

Jack threw a handful of hay at me.

*****

As it turned out, Pablo was the one who suggested we leave.

"My uncle has spent all of our money! The men he works for will come for him soon, and they will come for me, too, if I am there," Pablo announced after bursting into the barn one night.

"Then we’ll go," Jack decided firmly.

And so we did. Pablo sneaked a few meager possessions from his house that night before joining us at the train station. We sneaked onto yet another train. The conductors never checked the last cars, where we were; the authorities in Spain were considerably more lax about stowaways than any other country I’ve ever been to. The four of us made the car as cozy as comfortable, using our coats for beds again. By now, the weather had warmed up, so we left one of the doors open most of the time to see the gorgeous scenery. It was truly breathtaking. We didn’t find out until we got off the train, but Jack’s nineteenth birthday came and went in that train car. We had lost track of time and forgotten that it was April twenty-ninth.

One night--I think it was Jack’s birthday, actually--I found myself unable to sleep. It wasn’t unusual; I’ve never been an easy sleeper. So I did what most girls my age caught up in romantic fantasies would do; I sat on the edge of the train car with my feet dangling over the side and admired the midnight sky. It really is something to see. Presently, I was joined by Pablo. We sat there for a good long while in complete silence, just staring at the stars. I was silly and romantic—a million things were running through my head at that point. But I kept quiet.

Finally, I trusted myself enough to speak. "It’s very beautiful here. The sky was nothing like this in America or France. I don’t think even Italy was this beautiful." You see why I’ve never been adept at the art of conversation.

"It is very beautiful," he agreed. "I once heard that the stars are all the same, no matter where you go. They…travel with you. I like that."

"Me, too," I said automatically. I did. It was somehow warming to know that even if you were completely lost and had no clue where in the world you were, you could still look up at the stars and they would be the same. Doesn’t that strike a chord somewhere within?

I remember looking down and realizing that our hands were intertwined, something that happened often and usually without our knowledge of just how we ended up like that. Pablo must have looked down, too, because we both looked up at the same time and our eyes met. It was the kind of moment you read about in those shoddy dime novels or see in paintings; the often used moment where two people’s eyes meet and a certain frisson passes between them. I would have laughed if it were anyone else; at the moment, I wasn’t about to laugh.

Pablo’s hand came out to toy with one of my mousy locks of hair then, and I knew what was coming. The part of me that wasn’t fully concentrated on Pablo vaguely wondered if his kisses were cold and quick like Yves’s were. I closed my eyes when we were only inches apart and found out. Pablo’s lips were warm and soft and so nice. And, unlike Yves, he used his tongue. The funny thing is, I didn’t feel any remorse or awkwardness. Maybe I was finally no longer in love with Jack. Yes, Pablo had definitely found a place that no other man had yet taken.

By the time we hopped off the train in Madrid, Jack and Fabrizio were well aware that little Angie was growing up. They didn’t tease Pablo and me as much as I had originally thought; mind you, though, they did tease us.

Madrid was a rather modern city, as it was the capital, so more people there spoke English and thus made it easier for us to go to the market. There were no abandoned barns for us this time, so we slept under bridges, along with some other travelers. The other travelers were always coming and going with no real destination in mind. It’s strange; we slept under the same bridge as perfect strangers whom we trusted completely. Most people would think that we were crazy, but it was just how we lived.

We stayed in Madrid for roughly two months and enjoyed every minute of it. The weather grew so hazy and humid that we shed our jackets and rolled up our sleeves in the fine Spanish sun. More fruits appeared at the markets and Jack, Fabrizio, and I tasted foods we had never even heard of before. The air was rich with the scents of spices and flowers. The air was alive, pulsing. The days rolled sleepily by and we basked in them serenely.

When two months had passed, Jack announced that we had stayed in Madrid long enough and that it was time to move on. No one had any complaints against this, so we slung our sacks over our shoulders and sneaked onto the next northwest-bound train leaving Madrid. The train carried us to a town called Zamora, where we were forced to get off before we were caught. We had been in Zamora for about a week before Pablo noted something.

"You know, my aunt and my cousins live a few miles away. We could stay there so that we wouldn’t have to sleep under a bridge."

Jack twirled an apple in his hand. "Where do they live?"

"It’s called Oviedo; it’s not far," Pablo assured him.

"We could go there," I chirped.

"Sì, let’s go!" Fabrizio urged.

We had to wait another week before we got hold of a man named Salvador. When we told him we wanted to go to Oviedo, he laughed. We had to ask Pablo to translate, and he looked hesitant about doing so. "He…he says that in his wagon, Oviedo is days away. He can take us as far as Palencia."

"I thought you a-said Oviedo was less than a day away!" Fabrizio complained as we settled into Salvador’s wagon.

"I thought it was," Pablo apologized. "But trust me, it is not far away. We should be able to find passage from Palencia to Oviedo."

We reached Palencia by the end of the day. Salvador, like many Spaniards, was very hospitable and allowed the four of us to sleep in his home, even though Pablo was the only one who could understand him. When we were eating breakfast the next morning, which was provided by Maya, Salvador’s wife, Salvador came from outside and began to speak to Pablo. Pablo turned to us after a few minutes to translate. "He says that his brother-in-law is going to Burgos today, and there is a train station there. The train’s first stop is Oviedo."

"Oh, thank you! Uh…gracias," Jack said to Salvador.

"Sì; ringraziare, signore!" Fabrizio added.

Salvador gave Fabrizio a strange look; obviously, Italian wasn’t as close to Spanish as we had originally thought. But he got the general gist of it and smiled uncertainly. In less than an hour, Jack, Fabrizio, Pablo, and I all clambered into the back of the wagon owned by Salvador’s brother-in-law. True to his word, he took us to a town called Burgos, right to the train station. We sneaked on board again--now that I think about it, I doubt there was a single time when we didn’t sneak onto a train--and, within two days, we were at Oviedo. We had to run for it; we think that someone at the station there may have seen us. But we escaped unharmed.

It was rather easy from that point on; Pablo merely inquired of various people who were out and about where his aunt was. It only took three people to direct us down the road to a small little house with some chickens walking around in the yard. They scattered as we walked up to the door, led by Pablo, and knocked on the door. It took a few moments before a small child opened the door and blinked at us.

The little boy asked us something, to which Pablo replied rapidly. The little boy beamed, revealing several missing teeth, and toddled inside, shouting, "Mama! Mama!" We followed him into a sitting room of sorts, where a woman who was heavily with child was trying to hush a fussy child. She looked extremely surprised as the little boy babbled something. Pablo stepped forward and added something, to which the woman beamed and embraced him warmly.

Jack, Fabrizio, and I stood there for a long time, waiting patiently as Pablo and his aunt spoke in rapid Spanish. After they had properly been reacquainted, she turned to us and smiled. "Welcome! Welcome to my home!"

Anita’s English was very good, and so we had hardly any communication problems. She had five children--Diego--the little boy who had greeted us at the door--Beatriz, Consuelo, Teresita--the fussy child she had been soothing when we first walked in--and the baby, Javier. We were welcome to stay with them, according to Anita, and we did stay for several months. When we were starting to feel that it was time to go, Anita was so far along that I argued we couldn’t very well walk out on a woman about to give birth. We spent a good few hours arguing before Jack and Fabrizio agreed to stay as well. It was the first argument I had won with the two of them, and I flaunted the fact whenever I could.

Anita went into labor on a dull September morning not long after I had won the fight. I had never witnessed a woman giving birth before, nor did I ever want to, so I played with the children and burped Javier occasionally with Jack and Fabrizio while Pablo ran to get the midwife. Several women who didn’t understand a lick of English also came to help out with the birth. It lasted well into the night, by which time the children had fallen asleep. It was for the best, now that I think back on it; the child Anita had been carrying was a stillborn.

We stayed with Anita for another month. It was the first child she had lost. She was confined to her bed for three weeks, during which time the four of us had to run the household. I knew that Jack and Fabrizio wanted to leave, and to be brutally honest, I would have been more than happy to go as well. But every time I looked at Pablo, his pained face made me feel duty-bound to stay. I didn’t like it much; as I’ve said before, I’m not one to stay in one place. Running a household made me feel like a normal woman, something I did not want to be; I would have been a man, had I been able to determine my gender before my birth.

When a month had passed and Anita was moving around the house again, Pablo approached Jack, Fabrizio, and I one day. "My aunt says that Gijón is only a few miles away. You can get passage to England from there."

We had been sitting under a tree and I had been slumped against it, the haziness of the afternoon making me feel more tired than I really was. I sat up straight. "What do you mean by you? You’re coming with us, aren’t you?"

It was one of those horrible moments when you ask a question and only as you ask it do you realize the answer, and not the answer you want. I looked around at Jack and Fabrizio to gauge their reactions, only to be further disappointed. The looks they were giving each other…I knew at once that they had already discussed it. Why was I never included in these conversations?

"Angie, Anita can’t run the house by herself. She’s been having trouble for awhile now. Pablo feels that it’s better if he stays here to take care of her and his cousins," Jack said gently, as if I were a temperamental child.

I swallowed. "Okay." I really wanted to storm off, but I knew that would only make them treat me like a child even more. So I sat there and plucked up pieces of grass while Jack sketched Beatriz and Diego romping around nearby. Pablo joined Jack a few minutes later and Fabrizio put his cap over his eyes and fell asleep. The stillness of the air under the tree nearly drove me crazy, but I would not storm off juvenilely.

In two days, we were off. I won’t disclose all that Pablo and I said before we parted; there are some things that ought to be left private. In any case, Anita’s neighbor, Jorge, gallantly offered to take us to Gijón in his wagon. By now, we were used to hay-filled carts that trundled along on dirt roads, so it was rather easy to fall asleep, especially under the hazy sun. I wish I had been able to fall asleep. But Jack and Fabrizio weren’t tired, and if they weren’t tired, I would never get any rest.

"Are you a-gonna miss Pablo?" Fabrizio asked.

I gave him a look. "What a dumb question. Of course I am."

Jack looked at me contemplatively. "Are you gonna cry?"

I frowned. "Why would I do that? This stuff happens."

"That’s true," Jack acquiesced. "But it’s okay if you want to, you know. We won’t make fun of you."

Let me make one thing clear--Jack and Fabrizio had never once promised to not make fun of me. Then again, I had never cried in front of them, either. I hadn’t wanted to appear weak in front of two older boys, but I decided to keep the crying in mind next time they were taking the mickey out of me and I didn’t like it.

We had not been in Gijón for two days before Jack announced over a stolen dinner of chicken that he had found a small tramp steamer whose captain had agreed to take us on. Jack figured that the ship would eventually stop in England, for that was where most of the trade was conducted. We boarded the tramp steamer in three days. I can’t even remember the name of it, so insignificant was it to me. Our first port was at Brest, France. Fabrizio had fallen ill with a rare bout of seasickness, and since he was getting off--by the captain’s orders--so did Jack and I.

Our stay in France was short; we sneaked onto a train bound for Cherbourg, and from there we planned to take a ship headed for England. It was quite something to see the lady elitists in all their finery, their regalia looking almost ridiculous. I did envy some of their silken gowns and ornate hats, but I laughed whenever they attempted to walk through a door with those wide hats. Cherbourg was apparently where many wealthy families spent their time, and we were reminded strongly of the Parisians and the visiting Americans.

In Cherbourg, we found another tramp steamer. This one was definitely headed for England, to Plymouth. Having been assured that Fabrizio was healthy and would not suffer seasickness again, we arranged passage with the captain and headed for England the very next day.

Chapter Five
Stories