Return to Umbria by David Wagner (13 ebook reader txt) 📗

their tickets, and slipped into the red car just as its light began flashing.

“Perfect timing,” he said. They squeezed themselves and their bags next to the window while the car lurched upward. Thanks to the wedge-shaped base underneath the car, the cabin would remain horizontal as the chain running along the track pulled it up the steep incline. The car immediately emerged from the station and started up the hill, olive groves visible through the trees that lined the route.

Rick and Betta looked around and caught their breath. The car was almost full. At the far end a group of elderly Italian tourists chattered away while looking out the tall windows. The middle section held a family of five including a baby in a stroller, as well as two men Rick guessed were locals. The two talked and looked only at each other, which he took to mean they’d seen the view and didn’t need to check it out again.

Next to Rick and Betta stood three women whom he immediately pegged as Americans. Affluent Americans dressed in a certain way, Rick knew from observing so many tourists in Rome, and two of these three had money. Their cropped linen pants and loose tops were of light colors, indicating residence somewhere warm, and expensive, like Florida or Southern California, but a silver and turquoise belt on one said the Southwest. Their tans confirmed it. The third, a woman about Rick’s age, was dressed more modestly, like most tourists her age. Her two older companions wore stylish but comfortable sandals, while she had low-cut hiking boots. Boots wore her hair long and tied behind, while one of the sandals women kept hers shoulder-length and brown, and the other in sandals had short, spiked hair that was vaguely blond. Were the two in sandals divorcees? Or—since he guessed their ages to be hovering on one side or the other of sixty—widows? The third, the younger woman, had to be a relative, and in fact there was a resemblance between her and one of the other women. As he continued to analyze the three, a guidebook clattered to the floor.

“Francine, how can you be so clumsy?” said Shoulder-Length Hair.

Spiked Hair bent down to pick up the book, but Rick reached it first and handed it to her. “Oh, thank, you,” she said. Then, a pained look on her face, she turned to the woman who had berated her. “Or I should say—?”

“It’s grazie, Francine. How long is it going to take you to get it?”

“You’re very welcome, Francine,” said Rick.

“You speak English very well,” she said as she grasped the book. “Where did you learn it?”

“I lived in the States a few years.”

“I don’t even notice an accent. Whoops.” The car veered slightly as it switched to one of the double tracks that allowed the two funicular cars to pass each other. She smiled when Rick grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. The younger woman watched but said nothing.

“Back off, Francine,” said Shoulder-Length Hair. “He’s with that girl, and she’s half your age.”

“You’d better hold on.” Rick pointed to the bar that ran under the window. He moved back to the corner where Betta had been observing the scene.

“Some of your connazionale?”

“They are. And I can never turn down an opportunity to practice my English.”

“I didn’t need any English to understand what was going on with those three. The tone of voice and body language are enough.” Betta nodded at the one with the shoulder-length hair. “That woman is a witch.”

“A witch is supposed to be old and haggard, like the Befana.”

“She’s old, all right, and remember that the Befana brings toys to children. She looks like she would be more into getting gifts than giving them.”

The car darkened as they entered the tunnel under the fortress guarding the promontory on the eastern side of Orvieto. A moment later the car slowed and arrived at the station. The doors slid open and everyone filed out. The station, a twin of the one below, opened out on a wide piazza where a small bus waited, its driver watching the people climb on, filling its seats and aisles.

The woman Betta had described as a witch pushed her two compatriots to the front of the line. “Girls, if you just stand around being polite, the Italians will fill this bus and we’ll be left on the curb.”

“But Mom, that would be—”

“Move it, Gina, this isn’t the line at Starbucks in Santa Fe.”

The comment got a smile out of the third woman, but she too did as she was told. The three squeezed to the back of the bus and found seats.

By the time Rick and Betta had studied the signs and realized it was their bus, the driver waved them away to indicate he was full. Get on the next one, his bored expression told them. The bus pulled out with their fellow funicular riders. The younger woman stared from the window and noticed Rick, her expression changing to a weak smile.

Rick took the handle of Betta’s suitcase. “Let’s enjoy the scenery while we wait for the next one.”

They walked past the arched fortress gate toward a weather-stained statue and reached what Italians call a belvedere. The ride up, enclosed as it was with trees and other vegetation, had not given them a sense of how high they had risen from Orvieto Scalo, which made what they saw more impressive. The valley they had driven through spread out below, bisected by tiny twin ribbons of highway and railroad, and dotted with factories and other buildings. It was a view seemingly made for pleasure, but its original purpose was purely defensive. A force of any size coming from north or south would have been spotted easily by sentinels posted on the ramparts of the fort, giving the town time to prepare for battle. These days, the invading hordes bent on plunder were armed not with swords and lances, but cameras and euros.

Rick and Betta enjoyed the