For the Love of Suzanne (3 page)

“Well, that’s been made perfectly
clear,” she said indignantly. “What do you have for
bills?”

“What?” she asked dumbly.

“We have to get your affairs in order,”
she said in a businesslike tone.

“Not now, Mom,” she whined, leaning
wearily against the arm of the couch. “I’m too tired to
think about it.”

“We’re going to do it before I leave,”
she said sternly and patted her bare leg. “Now what happened to
your face?” she asked carelessly.

She closed her eyes and lied. “I fell.”

“You need to be more careful, especially in
your condition, honey.”

She nodded. “I know.”

~~~

Two days later, the family and a few friends
gathered for graveside rites for Beau Dillon. The minister gave a few
words of comfort to the bereaved family and left before they did,
which John thought was really tacky but said nothing.

Darla was more intoxicated than she had been in
the past few days and leaned on John as she sobbed. She was bordering
on hysteria and, as Suzanne laid a red rose on the casket, she leaped
at her and knocked her into it. “I told him not to marry you!”
she screamed. “I told him you would do nothing but bring him
heartbreak and misery. I was right. He hated you and now you’ve
killed him,” she wailed.

“Darla,” John reprimanded sharply,
grabbing her by her upper arm and pulled her away from Suzanne.

She wrenched away from him. “It’s true
and you know it,” she wept and sunk to her knees at the casket
and laid her head on it. “And now my baby is gone.”

Suzanne knelt beside her and put her arm around
her, crying again. The tears never seemed to stop. “I’m
sorry, Darla,” she said shakily. “I never wanted him to
get hurt let alone get killed.”

Jeannette helped Suzanne to her feet, putting her
arm around her when she got up and shot a cold glare at Beau’s
mother. “It wasn’t your fault, honey,” she told her
daughter sympathetically. “There was nothing you could have
done. It was just a horrible accident.”

John helped Darla off her knees only to have her
collapse in a heap at his feet. She didn’t move, and he knew
she was drunk and passed out. Jim helped him get her back to the car
without saying much other than he was sorry for their loss.

Suzanne walked slowly with her mother back to a
different car, getting comfort from her arm around her shoulders. “I
didn’t mean for him to die, Mom,” she wept.

She stopped and pulled her into a tight hug. “It
was just an accident. It wasn’t your fault,” she
consoled.

She felt so guilty. She didn’t know how she
was ever going to get over it.

In the weeks that followed, Suzanne became very
depressed and lonelier than ever. She donated Beau’s clothes to
charity, saved the few pictures of them during happier times, and
threw away his soap, razor, and toothbrush. She sent his high school
trophies, diploma, and other smaller things to John and Darla,
thinking they might want to have them as keepsakes. She’d
considered saving them for the baby so it would have an idea of who
its father was, but realized that those good times had been gone long
before she got pregnant and he was killed. It was better to let his
parents have them. They needed a piece of him, too.

Guilt still plagued her about the night before
Beau’s death. Her intention had been to file for divorce the
day after she’d kicked him out of the house with the hopes that
she could find a cheap attorney who wouldn’t make her pay up
front or would even do it for free. His violence, drinking and drug
abuse was too much and she didn’t want her child around that
element. It was scary to raise a child alone, but it would be better
than having that type of father.

She continued to work even though her morning
sickness was almost overwhelming at times. It seemed she spent more
time in the bathroom than she did taking care of her stations. Food
was revolting to her and certain smells made her every bit as
nauseous as food did. Her coworkers were more than willing to pick up
the slack…and the tips.

She finally got a weekend off and decided to take
a drive in the desert. She thought the sunshine and fresh air would
raise her spirits and help her forget about Beau for awhile.

She dressed in a pair of short blue jean cutoffs,
a plain pink T-shirt, white ankle socks and a pair of white on purple
tennis shoes. She got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and
got into her dilapidated car and headed out to the highway with the
windows down, letting the wind whip her hair around as the music
blasted from the stereo.

It felt good to feel semi-human again as she found
some happiness with the rock music, singing along, dancing in her
seat and even laughing at the jokes the deejay was throwing out.

She was letting loose with a “woo!”
while she picked up speed, truly enjoying herself for the first time
in months, when she came around a curve and saw a man on a horse in
the middle of the road. She slammed on the brakes and swerved to miss
him only to have the car skid off the road and roll onto its top.

~~~

The man on the horse gaped in horror at the car.
Never before having seen one, he jumped off the horse and slowly
approached it. It made an odd sound and the front wheels were still
turning. He smelled an acrid, peculiar smoke, but didn’t see
any fire and was really afraid to go near it until he saw a woman
inside, upside down in whatever it was. He’d never seen
anything like it and didn’t know where it had come from.

He was out looking for some renegade Indians who
were marauding and killing white people, and suddenly this
thing
seemed to have come across the sand from nowhere. At first, he
thought it was a mirage or a vision but as it got closer, he knew it
was real. He hadn’t run in fear as many others would do.
Instead, he’d stayed to see what it was and now he knew…well,
sort of.

The stench was getting to him and making him a
little dizzy, but he knew he had to get the woman out of the
strange…what was it? He reached through the window and tried
to pull her out, but found her restrained. He could tell what was
holding her and took his hunting knife out of the sheath at his waist
and began to cut it. It was tough and difficult, but he was managing
until he heard a small boom and saw fire between the spinning wheels.
After finishing the job quickly, he hoisted her into his arms and
began to run in the opposite direction, whistling for the horse to
follow.

The explosion sent him sprawling. Instinctively,
he covered the woman’s body with his own as debris came raining
down. His horse whinnied with fear and began to run. He jumped to his
feet. “Hey!” he called to it and whistled loudly, but it
kept running. “Damn,” he muttered, knowing it would come
back.

He picked up the woman again and moved her behind
a boulder, not sure if that thing was going to blow up again. It was
fully engulfed in flames and the heat it was putting out was
incredible. He wasn’t one to walk away from danger or
uncertainty, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He didn’t
know what had happened, how it had happened, or what it was that was
burning, but he knew fire was hot and could cause great pain or
death.

He gently laid her down on the sand and looked at
her. He had never seen such a pretty woman before. She was small and
dressed in a way that he’d never seen. It was scandalous.

He’d never seen a lady’s bare legs
like this or bare arms or a shirt of that color or style. He’d
never seen shoes like that, either. Who wore purple shoes with such a
bizarre mark on the sides? They didn’t look as comfortable as
his moccasins, but they did look more comfortable than what the women
normally wore.
Maybe she’s a person of the stars
, he thought.
He’d never seen one, but had heard they look different than
people who walked the earth. She looked normal enough, except for the
way she was dressed. Her clothes looked almost like undergarments.

She was yellow-haired. She had lots of it and it
was curly at the ends and was flying in the wind. He looked at her
slim body and her full breasts and thought she would make a fine gift
for the chief. Tall Deer always liked white women and kept them as
slaves. This one looked as if she could fit the part quite well, if
she didn’t die and he could get her to the village.

He stood up and whistled for the horse again.
After several minutes, it appeared in the distance and began to make
its way to him.

Suzanne stirred slightly at the rhythmic but slow
walk of the horse. She had to be dreaming. She always loved horses,
but hadn’t been on one in years. The movement was unmistakable
and when she opened her eyes a bit, she saw the big black head and
pointy ears. She was definitely on a horse. She was still groggy and
the heat, combined with the motion, was making her queasy. She didn’t
sit up, but rested wearily against the hard back of what she thought
was a chair. She almost laughed when she thought of a chair on a
horse, but she had a horrendous headache.

Pounding. She was hearing light, steady pounding.
Under her ear. She didn’t move, but looked down and saw a man’s
hand holding the reins. Brown hands. She was riding, but with who?
She struggled to sit up straight, but his hand came to rest on her
abdomen to keep her seated and forcing her head back to his chest.

“Be still,” he commanded with quiet
sternness.

She wanted to see him and diligently removed his
hand, turning around to look at him. What she saw frightened her. The man was an Indian, dressed in buckskin pants and beaded moccasins. His bare, bronze chest accentuated the necklace made of a leather strip and several small turquoise beads.
His hair hung past his shoulders and his facial features were strong
and serious.

He stopped the horse and gazed at her, too. She
was astoundingly beautiful. Her yellow hair blew freely in the hot
breeze and her face was smudged with dirt and smoke, but her eyes
were a deep, magnificent blue that matched the clearest sky.

She blushed under his gaze, but was still
confused. “Where am I?” she asked in wonder, rubbing her
forehead in an effort to ease the pain.

He looked at her questioningly, glad she could
speak English. He’d never seen anything like her and he wasn’t
sure she was even human considering how she’d gotten there. He
thought again that she may be a person of the stars.

She blinked her eyes against the blinding sun.
Surely, this couldn’t be happening. The last thing she
remembered was driving down the road and singing along with a great
song on the radio. She hesitantly touched his arm, not sure he was
even real, then quickly pulled it back. Oh yeah, he was real.

She swallowed her panic and lowered her gaze. He
could kill her if he wanted to. Where was her car? How did she get
here? Where is here? Was this some kind of Old West show? Why was he
dressed like that? Who was he?

He could feel her trembling against him and for
some reason, he suddenly felt very protective of her. He kept in mind
that if the cavalry were to come upon them together, he could be shot
or hanged and her fate would be in their hands. Indian men and white
women were not supposed to be alone together. Still, the thought
wasn’t enough to make him give her up until he got her to his
village and Chief Tall Deer.

“Where is your family?” he asked her,
thinking that maybe she would want to return to them.

She cleared her throat nervously, surprised at the
timbre of his voice and that he’d spoken to her at all. “New
York.”

He knew where that was since he’d gone to
school in the East for several years. But it was a long way from here
which further confused him. “How did you get here?”

She met his dark eyes. “I don’t really
know,” she confessed uneasily. “One minute I was driving
down the road, the next I’m here. I don’t know where here
even is. Where am I?”

“New Mexico Territory,” he answered in
perfect English.

Well, at least she wasn’t that far from
home, but when was the last time anybody had called her state a
territory? This whole situation was getting more bizarre and scary.
Nothing was making sense.

He thought about returning her to where he’d
found her, but didn’t want to leave her out in the oppressive
heat with no water or at the mercy of the wildlife or worse yet, the
soldiers from the fort who patrolled regularly. They were pretty
lawless and would more than likely hurt her since she didn’t
look like any other women he’d ever seen. They wouldn’t
see her as a person of the stars, not that he was sure she was
either, but they killed for sport and he didn’t want her to
fall victim to their evil ways of shooting first and asking questions
later.

Then there was the incident with Chief Tall Deer
that he needed to rectify. He’d helped one of Chief Tall Deer’s
white slaves to escape. The woman had tried to drown herself in the
river that flowed near their village. He had pulled her from the
water then had taken her back to the fort under the cover of
darkness.

Chief Tall Deer hadn’t missed her for
several days, but when he’d discovered she was gone, he’d
been angry and sent out a search party with the orders that he wanted
only her scalp. Of course, none of the warriors had found her. He’d
gone along with the search party to look innocent. It had worked, but
it had left him feeling guilty about stealing from the chief. Now, he
had to make it right. He didn’t like the way the chief treated
his slaves, but his conscience would not allow him to do this any
other way.

He took a canteen off the horn of the saddle and
handed it to the blond beauty seated in front of him.

She was very thirsty and opened it as she looked
at him. “Thank you,” she said softly and took a small
drink, knowing too much would make her sick. She handed it back to
him, suddenly feeling very dizzy and, sure enough, sick to her
stomach. “Can I get down for a minute?” she asked
breathlessly, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. “I don’t
feel well.”