Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (34 page)

“Ma,” Francesca shrieked. She darted forward and tried to tear Giuditta from Mr. Crowell’s grasp, but another dark-suited man leapt forward, seized her by the shoulders, and pulled her away.

Rosa hurried after Giuditta. “What are you doing?” she cried, keeping herself between Mr. Crowell and the police wagon in a vain attempt to slow his progress. “Where are you taking her?”

“Mrs. Cacchione is under arrest for violating the Volstead Act,” he barked, shoving Giuditta to the side when Rosa blocked his way. “I’m taking her to the courthouse in Santa Rosa, where she’ll be arraigned and held over for trial.”

“On what grounds?” Rosa felt hands close around her upper arms as another dark-suited man seized her from behind, but she tore herself free and darted out of reach. “She’s done nothing wrong. Let her go!”

“Frannie,” Giuditta called shakily as Mr. Crowell forced her into the back of the police wagon. “Please meet Mario and Gina when they get off the school bus. Tell your brothers and sisters I’m fine and I’ll be home soon.” She flinched when Mr. Crowell snorted derisively, and then an officer slammed the doors behind her and she was gone from sight. With a groan the engine started and the wagon began to rumble down the gravel driveway.

The man restraining Francesca suddenly released her as the other men climbed into their cars. “Stop,” she screamed, sprinting after the police wagon, but it sped away from her onto the
main road, and eventually she stumbled to a halt, gasping. Rosa caught up to Francesca and put her arms around her, and Francesca clung to her, shaking and sobbing.

Lars reached them just as the cars were disappearing down the road toward Santa Rosa. “What happened?” he demanded, catching his breath after his hard sprint. Rosa quickly explained, and the grim look he gave her over Francesca’s head told her that his worst fears had been realized. “I’ll follow them and see what can be done. Francesca, can you fetch me the keys for your father’s car?” Wordlessly, Francesca nodded, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and fled back to the house. When she returned with the keys, it was quickly decided that Francesca would accompany Lars to the courthouse, while Rosa would stay behind to meet the children at the school bus and tell Dante what had happened as soon as he returned from the delivery run.

After Lars and Francesca raced off, Rosa returned to the walnut grove and quietly gave Mabel the dreadful news. “I knew it,” Mabel murmured bleakly, her face ashen. “I always knew something like this would happen someday. I warned Dominic, but he—” She pressed her lips together and shook her head, her eyes full of tears.

Although her heart pounded with frantic worry, Rosa took a deep, shaky breath and returned to the vineyard, hoping to calm herself with the distraction of familiar tasks. But her thoughts raced as she thinned shoots from the vines. She had known all along that Mr. Crowell couldn’t be trusted. What had Giuditta done to prompt the arrest? What would become of her? Would the officers return later for Dante, Dominic, and Vince? Suddenly Rosa felt a chill of dread. What if Dante and his sons had already been apprehended on the way to San Francisco?

When Rosa spied the school bus approaching, she hurried
off to meet it. She told the young Cacchiones in a voice ringing with false nonchalance that their mother was away on an errand, and she called all the children together into the Cacchiones’ kitchen, where she and Mabel fixed them a snack and sent them back out to play. Then Rosa and Mabel waited, watching the road anxiously, keeping an eye on the children playing in the yard, passing the baby back and forth and alternately speculating quietly about what could be happening at the courthouse and reassuring each other that all would be well.

Suppertime approached with no word from the courthouse and no sign of their absent loved ones. Rosa and Mabel were too anxious to eat, but they prepared a simple meal of pasta, salad, and bread for the children, who happily enjoyed the novelty of sitting around the kitchen table together with no grown-ups to remind them to mind their manners. Only the eldest children, Marta and Ana among them, eventually noticed Rosa and Mabel’s distraction and began watching them anxiously, gradually realizing that there was something strange and disturbing about the absence of their parents and eldest siblings.

At twilight, long after Rosa and Lars ordinarily would have taken their own children home to the cabin, Rosa gathered all of the youngsters around her in the Cacchiones’ front room and was telling them a bedtime story when suddenly she heard the delivery truck rumbling up the driveway. Breaking off in mid-sentence, she hurried outside to meet them and told Dante all that had happened that day. Stricken, he ordered his sons to unload the empty casks and hide them in the old wine cellar. Rosa joined in, and as soon as the last cask was hidden away, Dante leapt back behind the wheel and sped off down the road toward the courthouse. Dominic had wanted to accompany him, but just as he was climbing into the truck beside his father, Mabel
returned from checking on the baby and begged him not to go. Rosa read the terror in her eyes and knew that Mabel feared that if the Cacchione men set foot in the courthouse, they would not be allowed to leave. Reluctantly Dominic agreed to remain behind, and as Dante raced off in the delivery truck, Mabel fell into her husband’s arms and began to weep.

The hour had grown late, the children were tired and curious, and Rosa knew she had to take them home. Vince promised to run down to the cabin as soon as they had any news, so Rosa hugged Mabel, gathered up her children, and headed off down the path through the vineyard. Miguel fell asleep in her arms moments after they set out, and Lupita clung to her hand, yawning and dragging her feet. Marta and Ana walked a few paces ahead with the lantern, talking in hushed voices and glancing over their shoulders at Rosa from time to time, their sweet faces drawn in puzzlement and worry.

Later, after Rosa tucked them into bed, she sat alone in the front room, gazing out the window into the darkness and straining her ears for the sound of an approaching car. She heard the attic stairs creaking and glanced around to find Marta tiptoeing downstairs in her nightgown. Rosa held out her arms and Marta climbed onto her lap as if she were as young as Lupita again. “Mamá,” she asked, resting her head on Rosa’s shoulder, “where’s Pa? Where’s Mrs. Cacchione, really?”

Gently Rosa told her that Mrs. Cacchione had been arrested but assured her that Lars, Mr. Cacchione, and Francesca were doing all they could to gain her release. When Marta asked if Mrs. Cacchione had done something wrong, Rosa told her in all truthfulness that she wasn’t sure what in particular had prompted the arrest.

To Rosa’s surprise, Marta nodded knowingly. “The Cacchiones are selling wine, aren’t they? Mario told me they do.”

Rosa sighed, smoothed Marta’s chestnut hair away from her face, and kissed her on the top of the head. “Mrs. Cacchione has sold wine from time to time.”

“But that’s against the law. It’s wrong.”

Rosa hesitated. It was against the law, but whether it was wrong, she was not entirely sure anymore. “If being against the law is enough to make it wrong, then yes, it would be wrong.”

Marta peered up at her, curious, a question on her lips, but before she could speak, they heard boots on the front porch and the front door swung open. “Pa!” Marta exclaimed, leaping up from Rosa’s lap and flinging her arms around Lars’s waist. He hugged her and glanced over her head to Rosa, shaking his head, grim and exhausted.

“Is Mrs. Cacchione home?” Marta asked.

Lars hesitated. “Yes, Mrs. Cacchione is safe at home,” he said carefully. “She’s very tired and I’m sure she’s climbing into bed this very moment, and bed is where you should be too.” Visibly relieved, Marta nodded, gave Rosa one last kiss good night, and tiptoed back up to the attic. Rosa and Lars both listened for the sound of creaking bedsprings, and when all was quiet overhead, Lars beckoned Rosa to follow him into the kitchen. There he removed his hat, splashed his face with water, and settled wearily into a chair, resting his elbows on the table. Rosa offered to make him a cup of coffee or something to eat, but he declined, saying that all he wanted was a good night’s sleep. Gesturing for quiet, he said, “Giuditta and Francesca are home, but Dante’s still down at the courthouse.”

“What?” Rosa exclaimed, lowering her voice to add, “Why?”

“He convinced the judge that Giuditta was only following his instructions and that he should be arrested instead. The judge agreed to the exchange since, as he said, it would be a great hardship for the children if their mother were locked up.”

Rosa sank into a chair across the table from Lars. “And it won’t be a hardship if their father is locked up?”

“It’s what Dante wanted. It’s what any man would do for the woman he loves, the mother of his children.”

Their eyes met, and involuntarily Rosa held his gaze until she couldn’t bear it any longer and let her eyes fall to her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. “What’s—” She cleared her throat and tried again. “What’s going to become of Dante?”

“There’ll be a trial, and he’ll be sentenced. With any luck the judge will hit him with a stiff fine rather than a few years in jail. At least then he’d be free to provide for his family, though obviously not in the way he has been.”

Rosa pressed a hand to her forehead, dizzy. Although immeasurably better than a prison sentence, a stiff fine might still be enough to ruin the Cacchiones. “Oh, Lars. This is terrible, just terrible.”

“It is, but they made their choices, Rosa, knowing the consequences.”

“What choice did they ever really have?” she countered. “They couldn’t give up their vineyard. You’re a farmer. You know what it means to lose land your family has held for generations.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied quietly. “As do you.”

They sat silently for a moment, each lost in thought, each longing for beloved acres, rolling hills and tilled fields and rich soil, the promise of spring and the abundance of harvest. Rosa understood why the Cacchiones had taken such risks to hold on
to their land, defying the law and courting danger rather than letting their cherished ranch slip from their grasp. She might have done the same in their place. She would have done the same.

The next morning, Lars rose before dawn, bolted down his breakfast, and hurried off to the Cacchione residence to check in with Giuditta and Dominic before heading out to the orchard. Rosa saw Marta and Ana off to the school bus and hurried after him as soon as she could, Lupita and Miguel in tow. The yard was empty and hushed, the usual bustle of a spring morning on the ranch oddly absent. Unsettled, Rosa found the Cacchione children playing with jacks and wooden trains on the front porch and sent Lupita and Miguel running off to join them while she went inside to the kitchen. There she found Giuditta, pale and drawn, sitting with a cup of coffee cooling in her grasp, a plate of eggs, buttered toast, and ham untouched on the table before her. Mabel and Francesca sat on either side of her while Vince paced nearby, scowling and muttering under his breath. They greeted Rosa with bleak, wordless nods, all except Giuditta, who stared straight ahead at nothing, her face hollow and gray, dark circles beneath her eyes, her lips almost colorless.

Dominic had already left to meet with the family’s lawyer, Francesca told her, and with occasional worried glances at her mother, she explained what had happened the day before to provoke Giuditta’s arrest. Mr. Crowell had asked for another half dozen prunes and lunch, and Giuditta had offered him a glass of wine with her usual intimation that it was from the family’s two hundred gallon supply for their own personal enjoyment. When Mr. Crowell praised the vintage and asked to purchase a jug to take home to his wife, she remembered Rosa’s warnings and cautiously demurred. But Mr. Crowell persisted,
promising to pay top dollar and mentioning a neighbor who, he claimed, had assured him Giuditta had excellent wines to sell. Giuditta knew the neighbor he named, and thus reassured, the lure of the astonishing price Mr. Crowell offered proved too great a temptation. Giuditta sold him a jug of wine for five dollars, unaware that his colleagues from the Prohibition bureau were watching the scene unfold through binoculars, awaiting his signal to swoop in and arrest her.

“He said Clifford Clarkston sent him,” Giuditta said numbly when Francesca finished. “He had a name. I believed him. And now we’re ruined.”

They all hastened to assure Giuditta that she should not lose hope, that the judge had shown mercy in allowing Dante to take her place and that he might be more merciful still throughout Dante’s trial. But Giuditta was not comforted, and in the two weeks leading up to Dante’s trial, she sank deeper into despondency.

The proceedings were swift and methodical, retold in exacting detail in the Santa Rosa
Press Democrat
and followed closely by everyone in Sonoma County—and with apprehension by Dante’s fellow grape growers, many of whom were themselves bootleggers. As testimony proceeded, it came out that Mr. Crowell had not chosen Clifford Clarkston’s name at random merely to lend credibility to his story, but rather that the neighbor had fired off an angry letter to the “lazy” Prohibition bureau to report the Cacchiones and to demand that the department “step on them” and help make Sonoma County dry and sober once and for all.

Arriving home after a grueling day in court, a bewildered and exhausted Giuditta told Rosa that she couldn’t understand why Clifford Clarkston had reported them. Their families had
always gotten along well enough, except for one incident about five years before. Clifford and Dante had exchanged heated words after Clifford had let his fence fall into disrepair and his cows had wandered onto the Cacchiones’ property, destroying a half-acre of the Cacchiones’ oldest and most prized Zinfandel vines before the herd could be rounded up. But that had been years ago. Clifford had paid for the damage and the Cacchiones had put the matter behind them. They assumed Clifford had too, but evidently he had nursed a grudge all the while, and had at last found a way to satisfy it.

The Cacchiones’ lawyer put forth a valiant defense, but eventually Dante was found guilty and sentenced to a one-thousand-dollar fine and two years in prison. As the sentence was handed down, the crowds packed into the courthouse burst into catcalls and angry jeers, Giuditta’s anguished cry ringing out above the uproar. Dante merely lifted his chin stoically and allowed the bailiff to lead him away in shackles.