For the Love of Suzanne (18 page)

He heard Suzanne crying softly and looked at her.
“I’ll take care of this,” he muttered sadly and
went about the daunting task of heaving Red Dog onto a large flat
rock for the vultures to eat. He went back for Lame Bird and set
about the task of burying the woman who had wanted to be, and
probably should have been, his wife years ago.

Suzanne came out of the cave into the cool morning
and spotted Cody in the distance, digging with a small shovel with
Lame Bird’s body nearby. She was still upset over the
shootings. She’d never seen anyone die like that before except
in the movies. It was far more gruesome than Hollywood could ever
produce with blood stains and brain matter on the walls around the
door. She gingerly stepped over it on her way to talk to Cody.

“Why did you do that?” she asked
shakily.

He’d heard her coming and looked at her for
a moment as he dug. “Do what?” he asked as sweat poured
down his face. He’d taken off his shirt and stood wearing only
jeans and a pair of boots as he labored.

“Why didn’t you trade me?” she
demanded, her voice still trembling. “Somebody died because of
me.”

He didn’t stop his work. “Nobody died
because of you,” he muttered quietly.

“How can you say that?” she asked with
disbelief. “That guy wanted to trade me for her. Why didn’t
you do it? Why did you even save me at all? Your troubles were over
when you left me at the fort and yet you brought this burden back on
yourself. If you had traded me, she would still be alive,” she
said quietly, gesturing to Lame Bird with her hand. “Your life
would still be in order.”

“This is my fault,” he admitted
glumly. “People are dying because of the decisions I’ve
made and I can’t help that now. I feel bad about it, but the
decision was right. I don’t want to talk anymore,” he
muttered. “Please let me do this.”

She knew better than to push any man. She sat down
on a nearby rock, which was close enough for her to see Red Dog’s
body being swarmed by flies and other insects, making her stomach
roil.

Cody had promised he would get her back to where he
had found her, but she knew promises were just lies waiting to be
told. He’d verified that knowledge when he’d told her
they were headed north instead of east. They were going the wrong
way. He should have made the trade and none of this would have
happened.

Check that. If he’d left her where he’d
found her, none of this would have happened. He’d brought this
on himself and the true part of it all, she didn’t blame him.
Not really. He’d been trying to help her and she’d be
dead right now if he hadn’t done what he’d done. She knew
to be anything other than grateful wasn’t right and quickly
shifted her thoughts to something else.

She felt bad, watching him pant a little as he dug
the deep hole. The woman had obviously been his friend and now he was
burying her. A wave of sadness passed over her. She wanted to ease
his pain.

She went back to the cave and got a canteen that
was full of water and took it to him, finding him still digging in
the pit that was getting pretty deep now. She had sympathy for him
and knew she owed him an apology.

He looked up at her when she came back and took
the canteen from her and took a drink. “Thank you,” he
murmured and drank a little more before putting the cap back on and
handing it back to her.

“I’m sorry, Cody,” she said
sincerely. “I had no right to say those things to you.”

“It’s okay,” he said as he
mopped his face with his handkerchief.

He easily lifted himself out of the pit, picked up
the body of his friend and gently laid her in it. He covered her face
with his handkerchief and pulled his rosary beads out of the front
pocket of his pants and knelt beside the open grave. He wrapped it
around his hand, leaving the small metal cross dangling. He then
folded his hands, bowed his head, and began to speak in a soft, shaky
voice:

“The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the
still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art
with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a
table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my
head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever.”

Suzanne had known all along that Cody wasn’t
an ordinary man as she found herself on her knees beside him,
watching him weep without shame. She had never heard Psalm 23 recited
so beautifully. She joined him in his tears and his grief.

A short while later, she sat a fair distance away
from Lame Bird’s grave and watched Cody cover her body. She
felt bad for him and wanted to comfort him, but he’d told her
he didn’t want to talk and she respected that.

While she watched him, her thoughts moved to Mika.
She hadn’t seen her in the village. She wondered what had
happened to her. But then she’d never really seen the village
and her stay there had been short and unpleasant. Maybe Mika had been
adopted by one of the Indian families and would have a good life. She
doubted the Indians would hurt a child. Regardless, anything was
better than working at a bar and brothel at the tender age of six.
Mika had always stayed out of sight from Annalee and her working
girls, but Suzanne knew that the young girl's future was that of a
working girl. It would just be a matter of time.

She wanted to ask Cody if he knew what had
happened to her, but would wait. Now wasn’t a good time to
speak with him about anything. He needed to grieve.

~~~

Cody hated to move Suzanne so soon after her
illness, but knew there were more men behind Red Dog. If Red Dog had
found them, the others would, too. There would undoubtedly be a blood
bath and he would not be victorious. He was surprised that they
hadn’t caught up with them yet.

He was sorry about Lame Bird and wondered how it
was that she’d been found and dragged to the cave, and wondered
if the other women were faring well. He figured they’d all been
killed and Lame Bird had been used as bait. Red Dog had never been
known for his compassion and despised the white people as much as
Chief Tall Deer had.

When he did some exploring, he found her horse and
figured she’d come alone. The horse carried food and water.
There was no sign of a struggle, making him think that she and Red
Dog had either arrived at the same time or that Red Dog had tracked
her, knowing she would come to Cody.

He tried not to blame himself, but if he’d
acted a little quicker... been more alert... she might still be
alive. She never should have come back, though. She should have gone
on with the others, although he wasn’t sure they’d made
it, either.

Suzanne was sitting in the shade of a rock,
coughing and wheezing again. She drank a little bit of water and
tried to relax, but was having problems breathing.

Cody watched her as he loaded Red Dog’s
horse with their supplies. She’d had a quiet night, but was
beginning to sound bad again. He could hear her breathing laboriously
as she clutched her stomach and was leaning over on her knees.

She was hot, but she couldn’t go back into
the cool cave. There was too much blood and she’d never had a
strong stomach anyway. It had been a struggle going in for the
canteen of water for Cody, but was necessary. She
didn’t want to go in again.

He knelt beside her and touched her hair. “Can
you ride?”

She looked up at his handsome face. “I think
so,” she said hoarsely.

“We have to leave,” he said
apologetically. “If there was one, there are more.”

“I’ll be okay,” she said with
confidence she did not feel. She rose to her feet with his help and
looked up at him. “I’m sorry about Lame Bird,” she
said sincerely and turned to walk away.

He watched her sway unsteadily and hoped she was
okay. “Yeah, me, too,” he murmured to himself and
followed her.

For the next three days, Cody and Suzanne rode
north into the mountains where the weather became very harsh. The
wind blew from the north and it was snowing, slowing them down from a
destination they didn’t even know.

He was worried about her. With the harsh
conditions and her illness, she became very weak. He led the two
horses as he held her in the saddle with him. She’d fallen
asleep and had nearly fallen off her horse, so he’d pulled her
onto his and had wrapped her in a blanket that had been on Lame
Bird’s horse. She’d had nothing warm and he was glad he’d
had the presence of mind to take Lame Bird’s moccasins off her
and give them to Suzanne. He knew she was too cold and her feet were
colder yet.

Suzanne woke up when a frigid gust of wind hit her
in the face and began to cough hard while she shivered
uncontrollably. It seemed she’d been cold for a lifetime. She
longed for a hot bath and a real bed, but didn’t complain.

He pulled her closer, wrapping the blanket tighter
around her. He was cold, too, but her body was keeping part of him
warm. Still, it didn’t dispel his worries that they could
freeze to death before they found any—or he could make any—
shelter.

The wind blew with a vengeance, blowing snow into
the faces of the horses that snorted irritably. All three horses were
working hard to pull themselves and their loads through the deepening
snow and they were tired.

He’d never named a horse, but figured his
was special. They’d been through a lot together and seemed to
read Cody’s mind and anticipate his every move. He didn’t
falter even with the two of them on his back and had a powerful
loyalty to his owner. Cody was still working on making him less
skittish, his only fault.

He decided to call him Titan.

Cody had won him in a poker game just a few weeks
before he’d picked Suzanne out of her burning machine. They had
bonded immediately. Since then, they’d been hunting, riding for
pleasure, and had been in battle. He was steadfast and true and
trained to come to a whistle.

The soldier from whom he’d won the immense
animal had been drunk and an easy play for Cody. He hadn’t
minded taking his money, but was ready to quit when the soldier bet
his horse. He had more than one horse and really didn’t need
another one. He could only imagine the one that was being bet was a
rundown old nag and refused to play. But the other man had begged him
for a chance to get his money back. Reluctantly, Cody played the last
hand and beat him with a pair of deuces and a pair of Jacks. The
soldier had one pair of aces and had wept when Cody left that night
on his horse with his saddle. Cody had felt bad for the man since it
was such a supreme animal, but didn’t give him back. The horse
was his now and he was grateful.

“Can we stop for a minute?” Suzanne
asked Cody from under the blanket.

“The snow is deep here. Can you wait for a
little bit?”

She nodded and peeked out from beneath the blanket
to see the snow was blowing almost horizontally and the wind was
bitter. How could he stand this?

Cody perked up when he thought he smelled smoke
and stopped the horses and rested for a moment, trying to catch the
scent again and make a determination as to where it was coming from.
It was there, but it was so windy, he couldn’t really tell. He
had to find the source. He thought,
if there were people nearby, they
would have a cabin and have food, water and shelter for Suzanne
. He
felt her shivering against him and knew she was cold and hungry even
though she hadn’t said anything.

He set the horses directly into the wind with
hopes of running into the source of the smoke when one of the
trailing horses stumbled and nearly fell, but was able to right
itself and plunge through the deep snow with the other one. Titan had
reared back a bit, but nobody was thrown or hurt.

“Whoa there, Injun,” a male voice
called from behind him and he heard the hammer pull back on a gun and
stopped.

He looked over his shoulder at what should have
been a man, but who looked more like a woolly creature of some sort,
with the thick beard and mustache and the bear coat he was wearing.
He had a buffalo rifle pointed at Cody.

The man came closer, still holding the gun on
Cody. “Ain’t you a little far from home?” he asked
in an unfriendly tone.

He looked at the tall disheveled man. “No,”
he said calmly.

“What ‘cha doin’ in these
parts?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m hunting,” he lied easily,
wishing the man would lower the gun. “But I haven’t seen
anything but a bunch of trees and a whole lot of snow.”

“Boris, what the hell are you doing?”
a female voice rang angrily from behind the man.

Cody turned Titan enough to see an older woman
with a weather-worn face, who was dressed just like the man whom
she’d called Boris, with deerskin leggings, a bear coat and a
raccoon hat with the tail going down her back.

“We got us some company here, Marda,”
he called back to her.

She caught up with him and looked up at Cody,
surprised to see that he was an Indian dressed in white man’s
clothes and was handsome at that. “Oh my,” she said in
awe.

“Ma’am,” he greeted politely and
tipped his hat to her.

“Hello,” she said breathlessly. “I’m
Marda Clayborne and this rude man is my husband, Boris.”

“Glad to make your acquaintances,” he
said congenially. “My name is Cody Black Fox.”

“Cody,” she echoed with a smile that
revealed broken, rotting teeth. “What an interesting name.”

He returned her friendly smile and gave her a nod
of acknowledgment.