Free Orchid House by Cindy Martinusen Coloma Page B

seat and held her purse and satchel beneath her feet and the coconut on her lap. Her shoes were muddy and her skirt wrinkled, but suddenly she was filled with a sense of giddy discovery. Raul squeezed partway in beside her, holding the frame as the driver whipped around to return down the narrow road.
    Her skirt fluttered in the rush of air. From airplane to taxi to primitive bus to tricycle—it felt as if she’d traveled back in time, or down some primitive social ladder. Next they needed a carriage or donkey ride, she thought with a smile.
    The road was damp, and the leaves of ferns and trees at the side of the path were wet from a recent rain. The high whine and gear changes of the tricycle engine cut out all other sounds. The wind pushed back her hair, ruffling the material of her shirt and skirt, cooling the sweat on the back of her neck. Minutes passed as they drove by endless palm trees and a landscape that extended into fields gone wild with brush grown high and occasional piles of empty coconut husks.
    â€œI’ve arrived,” she whispered, wondering how many times her grandfather had traveled this very road.
    In flashes through the palms, branches, and bushes, Julia caught glimpses of structures far ahead. As the road curved around, an old majestic arc, a gateway, came into view. Its strong, solid posts were made of orange layered bricks, and its wroughtiron gate was opened for their arrival. Their driver slowed the tricycle to a crawl as they approached.
    Beside the gate Julia saw an old man, stocky but frail with age, standing proud and austere. A brightly colored blue bandanna was tied around his head, and he wore a bright red shirt over dark canvas pants. A plume of smoke came from his thin black pipe. And in the crook of his arm rested a large red rooster that he stroked lovingly from head to tail feathers. The rooster appeared as proud as the old man, staring with black beady eyes at the approaching motorcycle.
    A boy stood at the old man’s side as if the prodigy of something great. And yet, despite the man’s arresting bearing, he appeared so shockingly simple and primitive. A savage nobility of a bygone tribal age, Julia thought. Perhaps . . . a witch doctor?
    Raul nodded his head in respect. The old man gave a slight nod in return, then turned his gaze to Julia, his eyes literally sparkling. With a warm smile, he nodded to her as well.
    Julia smiled and nodded in return.
    â€œWho was that?” she asked loudly as their tricycle accelerated again.
    â€œHe is Amang Tenio. Leader of Barangay Mahinahon. You will meet him another day. I imagine he was standing at the gates to be the first to greet you. Now we proceed to the clan house of your family, which your grandfather and grandmother and their ancestors before them called home.”
    E MMAN RAN THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH THE SPEED OF A LEOPARD , his feet so quick he thought perhaps he’d be viewed only as a blur through the leaves. He knew the shortcut to reach the hacienda before the tricycle arrived, but only if he was fast enough.
    He’d seen her.
    Miss Julia, the granddaughter of Captain Morrison. An American woman on the very road he’d walked a hundred times. And not just any American woman, but one who looked as though she could be from television or a movie.
    As he ran, he remembered hearing a field-worker whose cousin lived in the States tell how few American women looked as the movies depicted. He said many were fat and ugly or from mixed-up races and looked nothing like the actresses of TV and movies.
    But Miss Julia did. She even had blondish hair. Or close enough to blondish.
    His first glimpse at her was like a scene from a movie. Julia’s hair fluttered around her heart-shaped face, and one hand held her skirt against such beautiful fair-skinned knees. His heart pounded as it only did when watching a cockfight—or that time he’d been caught sneaking into the cinema and was taken to the