Redemption, Retribution, Restitution

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Redemption, Retribution, Restitution Page 89

by Susanne Beck


  Enough of that, Angel, I told myself, looking up just in time to see the mother of all "hang-dog" looks being shot Corinne’s way by an obviously still-embarrassed Rio. When her eyes came to rest on mine, however, the mask of cold indifference slipped smoothly over her face once again.

  With a vast mental sigh, I walked over to the open trunk and stowed my belongings, preparing myself as best I could for spending yet another day in the company of someone who, for reasons beyond my knowing, detested the sight of me.

  In some ways, it was even worse than being in the Bog. At least there, I had love to balance out the hate, friends to balance out the enemies, and a sense of belonging which made even the hardest day easier to bear for the family I’d been so wonderfully given.

  Now, even with Corinne’s loving, comforting presence never more than a breath away, I felt alone, adrift, lost in a way that frightened me no end. It left my defenses in such shambles that I didn’t even mind that Corinne had fought my battle for me.

  I knew that I was headed square into the mouth of a very deep depression, one whose slippery slopes would be very hard to navigate once I got down far enough, but frankly, I couldn’t seem to dredge up enough energy to care.

  Ignoring the deeply concerned look Corinne tossed my way, I slipped into the car and stared nowhere but forward, hoping that time and distance would be allies in a war I had no desire to fight.

  PART 2

  THE MORNING OF the forth day of our journey found us headed down a nearly deserted highway as the panoramic vista of the New Mexico desert unfurled itself, like a carpet preparing for the tread of a king, before us.

  Never having been to this area of the country, my interpretation of the word "desert" ran along the lines of a Lawrence of Arabia type; vast, empty, lifeless, with a cloudless sky and rolling sand dunes. A beach in search of an ocean, in other words.

  What peered back at me through the car’s lightly tinted windows was, however, as different and as foreign to me as a Martian landscape would have been. Where I had expected a vast, empty wasteland, the desert—a definite misnomer, in my opinion—was instead literally teeming with life. Strange, stunted plants dotted the landscape as far as the eye could see. Cacti stood like silent sentinels guarding all who lived in their domain. Hawks and other birds-of-prey circled endlessly in the vast expanse of deep blue sky while beneath them, all sorts of animals moved with quick assurance—hunter and hunted each fulfilling its destined role.

  The wild, untamed beauty, untouched and untouchable, struck a chord deep within me. It was a land which promised, by its very nature, to give up its secrets reluctantly, if at all. Danger lurked everywhere, not in the least camouflaged by the true and undeniable beauty of the land.

  Proud and remote, it seemed to issue a challenge I was helpless to ignore.

  Come within. If you dare.

  As I continued to stare out as the rising sun revealed more of the desert’s treasures, a smile creased the plains of my face. A curious sense of coming home filled my soul, lightening the heavy burden there immeasurably.

  "What?" Corinne asked, looking at me with eyebrows raised.

  "Ice," was my simple reply.

  Brown eyes narrowed as Corinne peered out my window. After a long moment, she looked at me the way one might look at a friend showing the first signs of absolute lunacy. "I don’t think this is the right type of desert to support mirages, Angel."

  I glared at her, then turned my attention to the window once again. "That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it."

  After a long moment, Corinne’s voice came softly to my ear. "I believe I can understand the connection. Undeniably beautiful, mysteriously remote, and tangibly dangerous. An intoxicating combination."

  I could see my broad smile reflected on the glass of the window. Though it wasn’t a necessity, it felt good to know she understood.

  A flash of light caught itself in the periphery of my vision, and when I turned to look forward through the windshield, I saw the sun sparking off the gleaming metal of a tanker truck still some distance away and chasing the sun as it rose to the east.

  As I often did while on such journeys, I wondered where the driver was from, and where he was going. Was he heading for home, or was he leaving it? Where would the setting sun find him? Home with his family? Alone in a hotel room with only a television for company? In some nameless bar, searching for easy companionship for the price of a beer?

  Beside me, Corinne stiffened; an action which quickly brought me out of my nonsensical musings. The truck was a good deal closer now, and barreling down upon a red Jeep trundling along the one eastbound lane. "Jesus," I breathed. "Is he drunk??"

  "I don’t think that’s the greatest of our worries right now, Angel," Corinne replied, her voice beyond tight.

  I turned slightly to look at her, then followed her frozen stare back to the view presented us through the somewhat dusty windshield just in time to see the onrushing truck try to pass the slow-moving jeep by pulling oncoming traffic—which, at the time, consisted of only one thing.

  Our car.

  "Rio!!" I screamed, as if she couldn’t see the three tons of polished death screaming toward us like some great white shark on an intercept course with a piece of plankton.

  At the very last moment, she jerked the wheel sharply to the right, veering off the road and onto the desert hardpan beyond. The sedan fishtailed wildly, the tires smoking and spinning in a useless attempt to gain traction on the loose sandy gravel of the desert floor.

  For a split second, I thought we were going to flip over when the backwash of air from the narrowly missed truck blasted against us with the strength of a passing tornado. It was probably the only time in my life I actually thanked God for Detroit’s one-time propensity for making cars the size of small housing developments.

  Somehow, Rio managed to keep us level, if not actually controlled. As she wrestled with the wheel clamped between white-knuckled hands, I heard a loud noise which heralded the explosive death of one of our tires just as Rio managed to get us off the desert and onto the road.

  Once again unbalanced, the car did a slow looping skid onto the opposing lanes before stopping, with a sharp jolt which pulled the seatbelt tight against my hips, against a low bolder lying partially exposed on the other side of the highway.

  "Jesus," I whispered again when the air finally reentered my lungs, the quietly ticking engine the only other sound to be heard.

  Looking to my left, I saw a Corinne who sat stiff and still as a marble statue, her face drained of all color, her eyes wide and staring behind glasses which sat askew on her face, her jaw slack.

  In short, she looked like a corpse.

  "Corinne? Are you alright?"

  After a moment, the corpse came back to life as her head slowly turned to face me. "It’s amazing how short one’s life really is when it’s flashing before one’s eyes."

  Barking out relieved laughter, I pulled her as close to me as our seatbelts would allow, hugging her tight against my chest, beyond joyful that she was still among the living.

  A moan from the front seat cut short our reunion, and when I looked forward, I saw the windshield sprinkled with droplets of blood, looking as if a grisly rain had somehow fallen from the cloudless sky.

  Reaching into one of Corinne’s pockets, I pulled out one of her ever-present handkerchiefs and vaulted myself over the front seat like I used to do when I was a child. Of course, since there was a good deal more of me as an adult, the ‘vaulting’ didn’t go as smoothly, nor as easily, as I’d planned.

  Flopping gracelessly into the front seat, I rearranged my limbs into their proper places and then took a long, assessing look at Rio. Her face was literally painted in blood from the combined forces of a gash over her left eyebrow and an obviously broken nose.

  "I’ll need another handkerchief, Corinne," I said, pressing the one already in my hand against Rio’s forehead in an attempt to staunch the heavy bleeding.

  A
s another square of cloth was handed over, I tilted Rio’s head back against the headrest and brought one of her own hands up. "Hold this," I ordered, clamping the second handkerchief over her nose and melding her hand to it.

  A mumbled phrase sounding suspiciously like "fuck you" floated out from beneath the cloth.

  "Not on your best day, sweetheart," I replied, grinning fiercely into her blazing, pain-shiny eyes. "Now just hold that cloth tight and keep quiet. I’ve got some other business to attend to."

  Grabbing the keys from the ignition and unlocking the passenger’s side door, I stepped out onto the road and walked around to the rear of the car. The rear driver’s side tire was a shredded mess well beyond even the faintest hope of redemption.

  Sighing, I went over to the trunk and popped it open, reaching in and hauling out all the baggage stored there. The bright, warm and unrelenting sunshine provided ample light as I fumbled around in the compartment for the jack and spare tire.

  I heard one of the doors open and close as I set about dragging the items I needed from the trunk and setting them down on the hard-packed sand on the side of the road. As I watched, Corinne did a slow circle while taking in the sights through slightly widened eyes, her half glasses once again in their customary perch atop her nose. "I don’t suppose Triple-A comes out this far into the middle of nowhere."

  Laughing, I hefted tire and jack, manhandling them around to the correct side of the car. "I’ve got it covered."

  She leveled me look of pure speculation. "Yes, I believe you do." She continued to watch as I loosened the lugs holding the wheel on slightly before readying the jack. "Another of Ice’s lessons learned?"

  "Exactly. My father thought I’d have a husband to do these things for me, so he never bothered to teach them to me. When Ice found out... well, let’s just say she made sure that I’d never be at the mercy of some friendly trucker with a tire iron and less than charitable thoughts."

  "Smart woman, that Ice."

  "You know it."

  As I crouched down to set the jack beneath the car, I heard the door open and looked up just in time to see Rio emerge from the sedan, the makeshift bandages still pressed against her injuries. Her eyes flashing something other than pain, she took what appeared to be a menacing step toward me, either to pummel me senseless in payment for what I’d had the audacity to say to her, or to take the job of changing the tire into her own hands.

  What little remained of my good humor snapped and I found myself slowly rising to my feet, lug wrench in hand. "If I need your help, Rio, I’ll ask for it. So just... go bleed somewhere else, will you? You’re blocking my light."

  To my utter surprise, the standoff was over almost before it began. Lowering her eyes for a split second, Rio took several steps backward until she was even with the car’s hood. When she finally raised her head back up, I saw something—perhaps the tiniest shard of respect—glimmering there. While we weren’t suddenly best buddies by any means, I had the definite feeling that the playing field had been leveled, if only just a little.

  The look of amused pride Corinne gave me caused a flush to heat my face and I crouched back down to hide it, fiddling with the jack and lug wrench I still had in my hand, and cursing her under my breath.

  A short time later, it was done. After putting the tools and remains of the shredded tire back into the trunk and packing our belongings in there as well, I strolled around to the front of the car, taking a close look at the bumper, which was sitting snuggly against the bolder which stopped us.

  Aside from a tiny scratch in the dusty chrome, the bumper was none the worse for the wearing. The same could not be said, however, for the bolder, which was sporting a very large fissure at the point of impact.

  "They sure don’t make ‘em like this anymore," I said, shaking my head in amazement.

  "That’s a fact," Corinne agreed from beside me.

  After a moment, I turned to find Rio looking silently at us both. Taking a chance, I stepped over to her, stopping just outside her comfort zone. "I... um... Would you mind if I took a turn behind the wheel for awhile? Give your cuts some more time to stop bleeding?"

  Her eyes narrowed, then, just as quickly, relaxed as she nodded, somewhat reluctantly, I thought. Still, a nod was a nod, and I practically jumped at the chance, quickly opening the driver’s side door and sliding into the seat. Because Rio was twice my size, my feet didn’t come anywhere near to the pedals on the floor. Reaching down, I pulled a hidden lever and eased the heavy bench seat forward to accommodate my smaller frame.

  Hands on the wheel and feet easily reaching the gas and brake pedals, I grinned with pleasure, no longer feeling like a small child behind the wheel of Daddy’s sedan. "All aboard! Next stop... um... where is our next stop, anyway?"

  "Tucson," Corinne answered as she slid into the back seat, groaning with relief. "Angel, my varicose veins thank you for the extra leg room back here. My bunions sing your praises as well."

  "As long as they don’t ask me to kiss them."

  "You should be so lucky."

  The passenger side door opened then, and Rio made as if to sit beside me. Halfway down, however, she got well and truly stuck, obviously not expecting that I would have pulled the seat so far up in the interim.

  As her fanny hovered a good five inches above the seat, unable to move up or down, I tasted the blood which came from literally biting back my hysterical laughter. Looking at Corinne through the rearview mirror was quite possibly the worst thing I could have done. The speculative, totally evil look on her face almost sent me into convulsions.

  When her fingers moved in a deliberate, exaggerated pinching motion, I lost all control, doubling over the steering wheel and choking on my laughter so hard I thought my lungs were going to fly clear out of my chest and land on the dashboard like a pair of glistening, overstressed balloons.

  With a titanic grunt and a mighty heave, Rio freed herself from the car, then spun around quickly to glare at us both; her blood-caked face, blackening eyes and massively swollen nose only serving to make her look more menacing.

  "Asthma!" I wheezed, fanning my heated and tear-streaked face as I tried desperately to gain some control over my hysteria.

  "Horrible case," Corinne deadpanned from her seat behind me. "We’re just hoping the desert air does the poor dear some good."

  Falling into the role I’d begun, I gave Rio my best impersonation of a woman trying desperately to breathe.

  It was a pretty damn good impersonation, if I do say so myself. Especially given the fact that at that particular moment in time, I was a woman trying desperately to breathe.

  "Perhaps it would be best, Rio, if you consented to share the back seat with me. Let the diminutive one sit all crouched up in front while you and I recline in luxury back here."

  Had I the breath for it, I would have shot Corinne a look hot enough to curl her hair. Since breathing was still a priority, however, I settled for a nice mental fantasy of tying her down and beating her senseless with her own teakettle.

  Diminutive indeed.

  I didn’t even bother to turn my head when an imperious finger tapped me on the shoulder.

  "Drive on, Jeeves. Tucson awaits."

  Adding a fireplace poker to my little fantasy, I grinned as I started up the car and pulled back onto the highway.

  * * *

  "Stop here," came the imperious command from the backseat as I tried to navigate the spaghetti-snarl of intersecting freeways that marked the entrance to Tucson.

  "Where here? Do you have a particular exit in mind, Corinne, or will the overpass do? I’m sure the trucks behind us would be more than happy to turn this car into an accordion, if that’s the look you’re after." I’ll freely admit to sounding a bit snappish, but I believe you would have too, had you spent the past five hours in vehicular hell, listening to two overgrown children sniping back and forth behind you. I spared a brief moment to wonder if it was some sort of cosmic payback for my own childhood spent doing mu
ch the same thing during long road trips with my parents.

  "Keep driving," came the expected countermand from Rio, who’s voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a very deep, very full well.

  "Get off at the next exit, Angel. I refuse to bled upon any more by this overgrown, pig-headed, sorry excuse for an adult."

  "Keep driving. I’m fine."

  Gritting my teeth against the overwhelming urge to just pull over and boot both of them out onto the middle of the crowded highway, I instead arrowed the car to the next exit and followed the long, curving ramp until it led me out onto a wide, nearly deserted street. Pulling off to the side of the road, I turned the engine off, left the keys in the ignition, opened the door, and stepped out onto the pavement, intending to put as much distance between myself and the "battling Bickersons" as possible before my head exploded.

  It didn’t matter that I seemed to be walking into some modern-dress version of an Old West ghost town, where bars and chains adorned the dusty, empty windows and doors. It didn’t matter that most of the signs were in Spanish and therefore incomprehensible to me. It didn’t even matter that I could literally feel the unseen eyes assessing me and making my flesh go tight against my bones.

  All that mattered was the blessed silence which surrounded me, all the more dear for bringing with it warm sunshine and fresh air. Closing my eyes and tilting my face up to the sun, I let its warm rays bathe the tension from my body.

  "Angel?" came a voice from behind me. "What are you doing out there?"

  When I didn’t answer, the car door opened and I heard the sound of sensible shoes hitting the pavement. A moment later, Corinne was by my side. "Angel? Are you alright?"

  "As soon as this headache goes away, I’ll be just peachy."

  "How... ? Oh, because of the discussion?"

  I turned to look at her. "That wasn’t a discussion, Corinne. I know discussions. I’ve had discussions. That wasn’t one of them. It was a war. Between two grown adults. In a car. For five hours."

 

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