The colonel threw his leg over and slid off his saddle.  Harry sensed sparks of anger flying from the colonel’s eyes. Although fearful he stood his ground. Schullo brandished his riding crop. Harry heard the squeak of Schullo’s boots and then the whizz of the riding crop, he ducked, but it smacked the side of his face.

“I told you boy, I have no grandson.”

Harry staggered as the colonel delivered a second stinging blow on the upswing hitting him below the jaw. He fell to the ground, salty bile gushed into his mouth. Blood spilling from his forehead stung his left eye.

“Damn you. The Trumfios are peasants; I don’t associate with the likes of them.”

Schullo pushed his riding crop into Harry’s chest. “You get the hell out of here or I’ll beat the crap out of you, boy.”

Harry’s lips quivered, words would not come, he gazed up at the old man who denied him. He wanted to rush him, knock him down and beat him with his fists. Instead, he could only lie in the dirt, his heart in pieces.

The colonel mounted his horse, spurred him, the animal snorted and reared up, his front legs coming down inches from Harry’s face. Schullo gave the horse a kick and yelled over his shoulder, “If I ever see you again, you’ll end up like your grandmother.”

Harry lay on the ground holding his bruised and bloody face. How could this man be my grandfather? I want to love him and he beats me. I love my pa and I know he loves me. How can he come from a man like this?

The colonel’s groom came to Harry and picked him up and said in Italian, “You best leave here and not come back.”
Harry said, “But, he’s my grandfather.”

“No, not here, not now, not ever, go before he comes back and never come again.”

The groom walked to the corral, dipped his bandana in a watering trough, returned and gave Harry his bandana. “Here take this,” he said.

Harry wiped his eye; the groom helped him brush the dirt and mud from his clothing. He dabbed the slash on his forehead.

“Don’t come back,” said the groom. “The Colonel is a hard man. Never come again. He’ll kill you and no one would ever know.”

Harry nodded his head and thanked the groom. He had no idea where to go. The trip surely did not turn out as he expected. His relatives turned him away, his grandfather denied him, and he had no papers. He was a boy without a name or a country.

Slumped shouldered, he trudged back to the grove of fig trees. He sat down, slipped on his shoes and gazed up at the sky and said, "Please someone help me."

He decided not to go back to the Trumfio house and returning to Angela’s house, might get them in trouble. If Schullo reported a strange young man, and word got around that Angela and Marcella had let an undocumented person in their home, either the black shirts or the police might arrest them.

In less than three weeks, Harry was due back in Reggio di Calabria. Somehow, in that time, he needed to find an American Consulate, prove he was an American, acquire a passport and buy a steamship ticket.