Chapter 11

Somehow without opening her eyes, Romina knew that she had been unconscious for a long time. She was lying now in a different bed and the sheet drawn up over her bare nipples was smooth and soft unlike the coarse cotton covers she had been accustomed to. And the air was much cooler, which meant that she had been transported even further up the mountain. Her muscles ached from their long inactivity and there was a rather sharp hurt on the left side of her head behind her ear, but otherwise she realized that she was still miraculously in one piece.

Opening her eyes seemed like too much of an effort at the moment and she dreamily lay in the soft bed, trying to focus her attention on the voices hovering around her in the room.

"She's going to make it," commented a professional well-educated voice in a matter-of-fact tone. "The crease in her skull is healing over nicely and I can't see any evidence of brain damage. The injection I've just given her should bring her around in a few minutes. Her heart beat has picked up nicely and I can detect an increase in muscular activity ... as soon as she's conscious, I would recommend a tranquilizer to help her through the shock ... ah, blood pressure is improved ... lovely girl, I would say that she is worth substantially more than the five million lire our beloved government is offering for her capture . ... "

Romina understood the doctor's words, but they had no real impact on her, still lost as she was in the half-way dreaminess of semi-consciousness.

"I do hope you won't be tempted to try to collect that five million lire, doctor," came another voice. It was Roberto! But where was Il Volpe?

"All I hope to collect is my old age pension, Roberto," retorted the doctor, obviously somewhat offended. "And you know me better than that."

Romina's eyes fluttered open and she saw that she was lying in a cool shuttered room. Outside she could hear birds singing and crickets chirping, revealing that she was still in the countryside. Roberto, his beard neatly trimmed and wearing a clean tan suit, was sitting by her bedside and at the foot of the bed stood another man, about Roberto's height but about a decade older, who was obviously the doctor.

"Ah, here we are!" smiled the medical man as he saw that she was once more in the world of consciousness.

"You've had a long sleep, little lady!" The physician checked her pulse and heart again, cautioned her against trying to sit up for a few minutes and then offered to leave them alone for awhile. Roberto invited him to help himself to some food and wine and the doctor nodded and left.

"How do you feel?" asked the young man solicitously, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead. "I've been worried about you."

"How long have I been unconscious?" she asked, her voice gravelly with disuse.

"Ten days," replied the ex-school teacher. "When you didn't regain consciousness after the shoot-out, I sent Mario and some others to Strappani and they brought back Doctor Torresi to take care of you. He says you're going to be alright."

"Roberto," she asked clinging to his hand. "What happened? Everything is so confused in my mind. I remember the lieutenant came back and then ... and then nothing."

"Torresi said I wasn't to let you become excited," replied Roberto, "but I guess you have to know the worst or you'll wear yourself out wondering. When we came down off the cliff, Il Volpe told me to take the group down the path to make sure the police were still running. Tullio had a bad cut on his back from falling against a rock on the cliff and Selenia was taking care of him when we left."

"I figured Barzini would run all the way to Strappani because I'd known him all my life and he had always been a coward. But he wanted you badly and somehow managed to get the four men who were still alive to set up an ambush for us. We walked right into it and he took us all prisoner without firing a shot. I expected that he would kill us right then and there, but he was thinking about you, not us, and he left three of his men to guard us and started back up for the cottage with his sergeant."

"The rest of the story is mostly guess work. Apparently Tullio felt better after Selenia patched him up and the two of them came down to the trail to see what we were doing. They must have come away without their pistols and blundered into Barzini and the sergeant on the path. We found their bodies later, both shot at close range. I can understand if you didn't think much of Tullio, but he was a good loyal man, even if he was a little rough at times. And Selenia ... you're an outsider really and it's hard to explain how we all felt about Selenia. We loved her very much, all of us..." the young man stopped for a moment, swallowing and trying to bring his emotions under control before going on with his story. Romina was filled with shock when she learned of the deaths of the fat rough bandit and the cheerful peasant girl, but she somehow sensed that there were worse things still to come.

"When we heard the shooting, I jumped one of the policemen who was guarding us and got his rifle away from him. The details are pretty gory, but there was a couple of minutes of real hell and when it was all over the three cops were dead and we were racing up the side of the mountain after Barzini."

"Finding Tullio and Selenia slowed us down and he obviously got to the cottage way ahead of us. As nearly as I can re-construct things, the sergeant stood guard outside while Barzini went in. The lieutenant apparently got off the first shot and killed Il Volpe. Then he nicked you in the head and you cut him down with the machine gun. The sergeant took off when he saw us coming and escaped, I'm afraid, and now everybody knows what happened."

Romina nearly fainted when her fears were finally confirmed. She had somehow guessed that Il Volpe was dead from the way Roberto behaved. He was now acting with a new air of authority although the grief he held inside him was not well-concealed.

But she could not believe that she had machine-gunned the lieutenant!

"Surely ... surely," she stammered," it was Il Volpe who shot Barzini. I could never have done it."

"Il Volpe's revolver had six shots in it," the young man answered simply. "We didn't bother counting, but the lieutenant must have had thirty bullets in him and we found the machinegun in your hands with the barrel melted. No loss to the world, really."

Romina sank back on the pillow, too exhausted even by this short conversation to cry. Doctor Torresi came back into the room and administered a sedative which would give her a few hours of natural sleep.

As the drug took effect, she felt her muscles relax. It all seemed so unreal. She managed to cry a little then, thinking about her father's death, and then she slept.