For the Love of Suzanne (15 page)

She could taste the blood and it was making her
sick again, but her impulse to throw up was vanquished when somebody
stuffed a dirty handkerchief in her mouth. She could no longer cry
out and closed her eyes with the agony of what was to come.

From nowhere, a shot rang out and Walking Bull
fell on her, his weight nearly crushing her. She was losing air fast,
but she heard more shots and men cry out and scramble. More shots.
More fleeing. More chaos.

She didn’t know who was shooting, but it
didn’t take long to see the hero of the day when he stepped
into the firelight, fully dressed in blue jeans, a white shirt, boots
and a hat. He was holding pistols in his hands and had one aimed for
the chief’s forehead as he rolled around in the dirt drunkenly.

“You are too sick to exist,” he
growled and pulled the trigger.

She tried to scream, but with the gag in her
mouth, it was impossible. She had a dead man on top of her whose
weight was almost unbearable and making air a premium.

Cody kicked Walking Bull’s body off her as
if he were trash and quickly pulled her away from the fire. He knelt beside her and pulled the gag out of her
mouth. “Don’t move,” he told her sternly and eased
her onto her side, trying to be careful of her arm as he reached
behind her and cut the tie that was binding her hands. “Don’t
move,” he said again and went to free the other white women.

Suzanne started throwing up while she coughed and
finally fainted.

Cody helped all the women to his lodge, but took
special care with Suzanne, carrying her in his arms as his horse
followed them. The other women were sobbing softly as he forbade them
to speak and he followed them closely, hoping nobody would see them.
Everybody’s life was in jeopardy now, especially his. He’d
shot and killed Chief Tall Deer and his son, Walking Bull, and the
seven or eight spectators who’d been laughing and encouraging
the heinous, unfeeling men. The whole village would soon know. They
would want revenge.

He laid Suzanne inside the lodge, told the others
to stay there and be quiet, then went to Lame Bird’s lodge and
walked in without announcing himself. She was one of the few women
who lived alone. The fire in the middle of her lodge was dying, but
he could see her sleeping soundly on her pallet. He knelt beside her
and quickly covered her mouth with one hand as he held a knife to her
throat with the other. “Stay quiet and give me some clothes,”
he ordered in a hushed but rough tone.

She looked up at him with fear in her eyes and
nodded.

He released her and stood up as she did and
watched her make her way to the other side of the small lodge and
open a trunk she’d received from a white trader. “Are you
leaving?” she whispered.

He nodded. “I need clothes for the white
woman. All the white women.”

She looked at him in shock. “How many?”

“There are four.”

She tossed him three red calico dresses. “I
don’t have anything else.”

He figured Suzanne could wear something of his.
She didn’t have an aversion to wearing strange clothing and
wearing clothing for men wouldn’t offend her.

“Take me with you,” she told him
softly.

That surprised him. “Why?”

“I can’t live here without you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t take you.
I have enough to deal with as it is.”

“They will kill me,” she said in a
frightened voice.

“Why?

“I am your woman whether you like it or not.
Take me,” she pleaded. “Please.”

He knew she was right and didn’t want any
more bloodshed. “Get to my lodge as fast as you can. We have no
time to waste.”

She nodded.

He jogged through the village to his lodge where
the other white women were huddled next to Suzanne and tossed them
the dresses. “Get dressed,” he told them sharply. He
stepped outside and got his buckskin leggings and a white cotton
shirt out of his saddle bag. When he went back inside, Suzanne was
throwing up as a red haired woman was helping her by rolling her onto
her side. He tossed the clothes to her. “Get these on her and
be careful about it. She has a broken arm.”

A brown haired woman, who was disheveled and
dirty, was still struggling with the dress. “Leave her here.
She’s gonna die anyway. She’s just gonna slow us down,”
she wailed.

The redhead glared at her. “Shut up,”
she hissed. “You may have been able to run Annalee around that
saloon, but we’re not going to put up with your mouth and
pouting. Now get over here and help us,” she said coldly.

Cody was appalled at the woman’s lack of
compassion, but had known for a long time she was the whiner of the
group. Annalee had seen to her every desire because she’d
threatened to leave so many times when she was the biggest moneymaker
in the house. He said nothing about her cruel remarks, but he wasn’t
going to tolerate her antics, either. They didn’t have time for
it. If she thought he was going to leave Suzanne behind to be
tortured and killed, she was sorely mistaken.

The brown-haired woman knelt beside the other
women as they worked together to dress Suzanne, who did not cry out
as they guided her broken arm through the shirt sleeve.

That worried him even more. She was unconscious
and not coughing or trying to fight off anyone. The only reason he
knew she was alive was because she was wheezing in her chest.

Lame Bird came in, wearing a dress similar to the
other women. “I have food and water for everyone,” she
murmured to Cody.

He nodded. “Thank you.”

The brown haired woman was horrified. “She’s
coming, too?”

He glared at her. “What’s your name?”

“Cheri,” she said in a coy voice.

That annoyed him even more. “Well, Cheri,
you will behave or I will personally put a bullet through you and
leave you for the buzzards. Now, get moving.”

She quickly went back to helping the others with
dressing Suzanne.

He handed Lame Bird his rifles and ammunition,
knowing she would load it onto the horse just like she always did. He
then asked her to go get five more horses.

She did what he’d asked without question.

He didn’t have saddles for any horse but
his, and he needed it for Suzanne. He lifted the other women onto the
backs of the horses and handed them the reins. When he got to Cheri,
she refused to go near it. “Are you trying to get us all
killed?” he asked angrily.

“I don’t like horses,” she
pouted.

The redhead reared her horse over to them. “Get
on the damn horse before we leave you,” she said between
clenched teeth.

Cody was none too gentle when he tossed her up
onto the back of the bay mare and handed her the reins. “I will
leave you,” he threatened the whiny woman. “We haven’t
got time for this.”

“You aren’t a very nice man,”
she said with that same pout.

“I can assure you I don’t care what
you think of me. Keep up or I will leave you behind,” he told
her seriously. He went to get Suzanne loaded onto his horse, no easy
chore since she was still unconscious, but Lame Bird helped him. He
thanked her and got on behind Suzanne, then led the women out of the
village at a fast pace, headed toward what he hoped was safety.

Cody and Lame Bird led the exhausted and now quiet
women to a river far away from the village and let them rest. They
refreshed themselves in the cool water and let the horses rest,
drink, and eat.

He dropped to the ground from the saddle and
caught Suzanne as she was about to fall carrying her to a shady spot
beside a wall of rock.

Lame Bird followed him, carrying a canteen. “She
is very sick,” she commented quietly.

He nodded and laid her down. “She may die if
I don’t get her to a doctor,” he said with unabashed
concern in his voice, taking the canteen from her and dribbling some
water into Suzanne’s mouth.

“You love her, don’t you?” she
said sadly.

He didn’t respond. He did love her. He knew
it the first time he saw her, but he regretted bringing her here.
Time and again, he played in his mind how he’d met her. He
thought of the burning machine that would have undoubtedly killed her
if he’d left her inside, the way she laughed at him when she
was trying to explain things from her world that he didn’t
understand, her object that created fire, and how she’d been
kind to him despite her fear. He thought about how she trusted him
now even if she wasn’t lucid. She’d come back to him
without questioning his actions.

He pushed Suzanne’s hair away from her face
to look at the cuts and bruises.

“Was Tall Deer or Walking Bull ever cruel to
you?” he asked Lame Bird in a quiet voice, not looking at her.

“No. They liked to torture the slaves,”
she said casually as she sat down next to him.

He knew that to be true and had hoped that they’d
never bothered Lame Bird for associating with him. Neither of them
had liked him and both thought he was a traitor and belonged in the
white man’s world. Sometimes he thought they were right, but
the white man didn’t want him anymore than the Chiricahua. He
was stuck between both worlds.

He looked around for some sort of shelter, a cave
or something, where Suzanne could get some real rest. “We will
be followed and I don’t think she can stand much more time in
the saddle or in the heat. We need to find some shelter.”

Lame Bird was lost in this vast openness.
Everything looked the same. There were big rocks and cacti, an
occasional desert animal, lizards, scorpions, and snakes. “I
know not of any place to go,” she said regretfully.

“I do, but it will be a long, hard ride. I
don’t know if she will make it that far.”

“You can take the other women and I will
stay with her,” she offered.

He shook his head. “No. I must keep her with
me.”

“You can come back for us.”

He shook his head again. “I can’t
leave her. It was very kind of you to offer,” he told her,
giving her a slight smile of appreciation.

“How far is this shelter?” she asked
curiously.

“A day,” he said, pointing in the
direction they would go.

“No.”

Both looked at Suzanne when she’d whispered
the word, then moved back a bit as she began to thrash around.

“I will kill you if you hit me again,”
she yelled, throwing her unbroken arm around crazily. “You son
of a bitch, I am pregnant,” she cried. “Oh my God, he’s
dead. Beau is dead.”

Cody gently took her arm that wasn’t broken
and ran his fingers lightly over her cheeks and forehead. She was
still feverish, but not like she had been. “The fever,”
he murmured to Lame Bird, suspecting Beau was her husband and
wondered if he was really dead.

Lame Bird moved closer to Suzanne and gently
lifted her head, giving her some water. “She is burning up,”
she told Cody.

“I know,” he murmured. “She
needs to rest for more than just a little while.”

“Is there a town close by?”

“Not for days,” he said despondently
as he watched the woman who wanted to be his wife give water to the
woman he loved. It was a little awkward, but then he’d always
known that Lame Bird was very kind and would help anyone.

He forgave her for barging into his lodge and her unkind words while she’d been there, but he never should have let her come. She should have stayed back and maybe make a fine wife to the warrior whom she’d been talking with not so long ago She had a lot to offer. She was
steadfast, caring, and helped everybody. She was also very pretty
with her petite body, round face, dark hair and cheerful, dark eyes.
In another time, a time before Suzanne, he might have made her his
wife just to take care of her, but he didn’t want to bring
shame to her with his mixed blood. That fact aside, he wanted to be
in love with the woman he married; although he appreciated her very
much, he did not love her. She deserved that from her husband.

“We cannot stay here, Black Fox,” Lame
Bird said seriously as she gently put Suzanne’s head down. “We
will all be killed. They will find us and kill us.”

He knew what she was saying was true and looked
around for a place for all of them to hide. The heat was almost
unbearable. The women were tired, as were the horses, and Suzanne was
sick. He didn’t see anything that would serve as shelter for
one person let alone six people and five horses. He didn’t like
to think negatively, but it looked like their luck was running out.

He knew he couldn’t turn out the women on
their own. They couldn’t take care of themselves and if the
sweltering heat didn’t kill them, the wild animals would,
provided the warriors didn’t catch them first. Suzanne needed
rest and there was just nowhere to go.

The redheaded woman from Annalee’s saloon
came up to them, holding her skirt up over her knees in an effort to
cool off. She had bright blue eyes and a pretty yet dirty face. “Can
I help?” she asked politely, her Southern accent deep but
feminine.

Cody looked up at her. “Can you doctor?”
he asked with some hope in his voice.

“Well,” she sighed and knelt on the
other side of him to look at Suzanne and ran her hand over the other
woman’s forehead. “She’s very feverish and should
see a real doctor.”

Lame Bird leaned forward to look by Cody at the
woman. “She is with child.”

The red-haired woman looked at Cody with surprise.
“Is that true?”

He nodded. “It’s true.”

She took the canteen from Lame Bird and ripped a
piece of her skirt away, then soaked it with water and began to clean
Suzanne’s face. “Considerin’ the circumstances, you
don’t have a choice but y’all shouldn’t be
traipsin’ all over hell’s half acre.”

“I know,” Cody said softly as he
watched her.

Suzanne stirred slightly and opened her eyes, but
was too tired to move. She didn’t recognize the redhead or the
Indian woman, but she did recognize Cody as tears slipped down the
sides of her face. She turned away from him in shame. “Don’t
look at me,” she whispered.