Pictures of You Read Free Page B

left Belo Horizonte the taxi was able to move steadily ahead, unencumbered by the traffic that had bogged it down in the city. Eva was aware of other automobiles as they progressed northward, but each kept its pace consistent with the terrain. Occasionally, and of greater interest to Eva, the taxi passed men and donkeys. These men, often short of height and swarthy of complexion, were dressed in the light-colored, loose-fitting work clothes so appropriate to the climate. Each pair of feet was protected from the roughness underfoot by heavy-duty work shoes, seemingly held together after years of use by red-tinted mud and layers of dust that caked the seams. Each head was crowned with the obligatory hat, unstructured, wide-brimmed, and well worn, providing a token measure of privacy from the elements, both human and natural.
    It appeared to Eva that these particular Brazilians, leading their heavily burdened donkeys from one rural area to another, were shy people who felt totally content within their own millieu but might resent the intrusion of an outsider in their daily lives.
    Strange, she thought, the extremes she had seen in her first few hours in this country—these wayside travelers, exuding a purely natural, rugged, uncultivated kind of raw beauty as compared with the refined air of sophistication and studied perfection of the city dwellers. For the first time since leaving the airport at Belo several hours ago, Eva recalled the man she had seen there whose gaze then had sent such disturbing currents from one end of her body to the other. A sixth sense told her that his beauty was as genuine as that of his more bedraggled countrymen. Yet she felt her guard rising, even as she mentally re-evaluated him. This man, she told herself, probably had more in common wth her late husband and his circle of friends and admirers than either had with these simple country workers. She had learned
the hard way about this type of man. He used people for his own ends, playing one against the other as it suited him, taking everything he could get until there was either nothing left to take or someone else whose givings were more promising. Eva knew that the power this man must have over women, so clearly conveyed to her in his earlier scrutiny of her and her own reaction to it, could prove devastating to the woman who should let herself become ensnared.
    No, Eva was determined that she would never let herself be hurt again by such a man. The wound was still raw from her marriage to Stu; she must let its dull ache be a steady reminder, a repeated warning against any who would prey on her vulnerability. But then, this expedition had physically removed her from the rat race; she need have no fear of any scheming playboys in Terra Vermelho.
    Terra Vermelho. No sooner had her thoughts formed than the words were echoed by her driver. Indeed, as she gazed to the right she caught her first glimpse of the town as it silently emerged from the late afternoon mist that had so protectively concealed it from the outside world.

CHAPTER 2
    The taxi made a sharp turn off the main highway onto a narrow asphalt road that threaded its way carefully between alternating rock formations and low woodland patches. The descent into this mountainside pocket was a gradual one, enabling Eva to leisurely view, both by eye and through her camera lens, the town which lay directly below. With mountains looming all around, the town had been solidly built on the graduated steps at the base of one of the gentler inclines. The houses were set in clusters, some at the lowest levels of the pocket, some a short way up the hillside, with a wide smattering on the middle tiers. The buildings themselves were of a natural gray limestone, varying in shades from the freshest off-white to the more weathered tones. Most were of a single story; a very few were graced with a second floor. All were designed with the tall, narrow doors and windows trimmed in blue in the style so typical