Powerful Medicine

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2Ben jumped down from the cab, but not quickly enough to help Fran alight. Why was she so determined to give him no excuse to touch her? He shrugged before he turned to lift her bag out. Carrying it, he followed her inside, a few steps behind her.

What a walk she had! Though scared, stiff, and tired, she moved as gracefully as a deer. “She walks in beauty…” The line from a poem he’d once read came to mind, a concept right out of InDinay philosophy. In the InDinay language, the word “beauty” described more than outward physical appearance. It also spoke of character and truth, a rightness and oneness with the environment, both seen and unseen. She had that too, although a shadow lay across her aura, like the taint of some evil power.

From Great Uncle Willie, as part of a medicine man’s training, he’d been learning a special kind of sight, one which went beyond what the eyes alone could perceive. When he slipped into it for a moment, he learned the shadow was not her fault.

Ben shook his head sharply, banishing his errant thoughts. He couldn’t take on a stranger’s problems. He had more than enough of his own, and he’d probably never see her again. In reality, she was merely a tourist. She might be Indian, but she was still a tourist, and they came and went every day.

She turned back to him, a bit less stiff and guarded in the brightly-lit, public lobby.

“Thank you so much. I appreciate your help. And I didn’t intend an insult, offering to pay. Back East…”

Her voice trailed off. She made a helpless half-shrug, blinked once quickly, and then shook her head, just a tiny twitch. Her eyes held some of the hopeless dread he’d seen in those of a trapped animal. The look went through him, blade-keen. His sudden urge to protect her caught him off-guard. When had he started picking up strays?

“No problem. Welcome to Plateau, anyway. Enjoy your stay.” He swung around and stomped out, irrationally irritated by the feelings she’d stirred, the thoughts and needs she’d awakened. Since Bonnie left, he’d worked hard to convince himself he didn’t need a woman in his life. He’d managed to ignore the rest who’d crossed his path lately. Why was this one getting to him? It had to be the puzzle, the mystery of her behavior and identity.

But he was making no exceptions. He didn’t need any more of the special kind of grief only women caused. He’d had more than his share of that—nothing like an ex-wife to wise a man up.

After he dropped off his passenger, Ben drove on home through Plateau. Home as one of a nearly identical group of boxy little houses arranged in neat rows along carefully curved streets with fanciful names like Pocahontas Drive and Sacagawea Trail. He hated it, but he’d chosen the house for Bonnie. Though a poor imitation, it was the closest thing to her family home in La Jolla that Plateau could offer.

Two blocks short of his street, he pulled into a convenience store to pick up enough grub to last until his next flight out, tomorrow afternoon. Laden with frozen pizza, a six pack of sodas, a big bag of corn chips, a jar of salsa and a couple of submarine sandwiches, he took his place in the line. While he waited, juggling his selections, his gaze fell on a rack of magazines parallel to the check stand.

The photograph on the cover of a women’s fashion magazine leaped out at him—a woman with night-dark hair falling over one shoulder, bared by a daring scarlet sliver of a dress. No jewelry except massive silver earrings, gleaming against her tawny skin. Mysterious amber eyes held an expression both haughty and vulnerable. She appeared remote and utterly alone. The same woman? It couldn’t be. But the resemblance was uncanny—did she have a twin?

Ben edged forward to read the blurbs, hoping to find a name. “Super Model Francesca…the darling of haute couture tells ALL.” Francesca? Fran Jonas? Somehow, he couldn’t imagine either the woman in the picture or the one who’d ridden with him telling anything like “all.” She’d been close-mouthed enough with him.

If he had a hand free to grab it, he’d buy the magazine—just out of curiosity. Good thing his hands were full. The likes of Super Model Francesca were not for him. The last thing he needed was a woman used to living high and fast, one who had expensive tastes and a penchant for public adulation—like Bonnie.

He’d met Bonnie Comstock while he was at El Toro. The quintessential California Girl, she’d been a perfect Top Gun groupie, but a poor wife for a pilot-partner of a struggling, shoestring airline in a remote corner of Arizona. Even being alone was better than the way they had fought those last few months. He didn’t really miss her anymore, but he hated that empty house.

Ben paid for his provisions. Grabbing up the bag, he stalked out to his pickup. Damn women, anyway. First Bonnie and now her. Who was she to appear out of the blue, make him start questioning his choices? What did his choices have to do with her, anyway? She hadn’t shown even a flicker of interest…

* * * *

Once Fran secured the chain lock on the door of her room, she tried to relax. As she drew the drapes shut, she saw a restaurant across the street, a pleasant, bright, family-looking place. A needle of longing pierced her—to be free to go wherever she chose, no longer afraid. But for now, even the thought of food made her vaguely ill.

While she brushed her teeth and washed off her makeup in the tiny, utilitarian bath, Fran studied her face in the wavy mirror. It looked both familiar and strange, neither the face of the top fashion model Francesca nor that of gawky, young Francie Jonas.

She saw a trace of each of them, but this face belonged to someone else. Haunted eyes of someone whose bubble had rudely burst, pain-taut mouth of one with anguished memories. But also strength belonging to a woman determined and desperate enough to leave everything behind, to disappear leaving scarcely a trace, perhaps her only way to survive.

It would take a skilled detective to track her down. The fact she’d come from Arizona before going to California and then New York was not well known. Sal Gambruzzi would hire the best PI he could afford, but he had misjudged her. Maybe before he did catch up with her, she’d find family, support, and shelter. Did she still have cousins and clan who believed the InDinay must look after their own? If they cared, anymore. If her father was still alive…

If, if, if. Too many if’s and maybe’s. She spun away, leaving her toilet articles strewn on the counter and the light ablaze. Crawling into the cold, stone-hard, king-sized bed, she pulled the brightly printed bedspread up over her head.

The louvered window across the room was open a crack. A breeze rustled the curtain, bringing with it the homey hint of damp-desert pungency, the muted rumble of distant thunder.

At that moment, Ben Yazzie’s handsome, tanned face flashed across her mind.

Tall and lean, but well built, he carried himself with an unconscious arrogance that was totally male. If it were not for the power of his dark eyes, his aquiline nose would dominate his face, but his features balanced, from his square jaw to the high cheekbones, the angular lips to the black slashes of his eyebrows. A few strands of straight black hair, slipping down across his forehead, gave him a boyish appeal. If her situation were different, wouldn’t she find him interesting?

At first, there in the airport, she’d felt only reflexive fear, a need to back away. He was too powerfully masculine and much too close. Would she ever be comfortable with men again? She knew they were not all thugs, bent on violence and abuse, but something inside her had lost the will to trust.

Still, he’d tried to put her at ease, been courteous and not made a single move on her. He’d looked with frank male appreciation for a moment, but she was used to that, not truly threatened by it. It might be nice to see him again, even though she couldn’t trust anybody. Not yet and maybe not ever. Mustn’t tell anyone more than she absolutely had to until she could be sure…And that would take a very long time.

Safety was a relative thing, but at least she felt safer here than she would anywhere else. Tomorrow, she’d rent a car and follow a familiar dusty road into her past.

* * * *

Fran finally awoke late in the morning. At least she’d slept away most of the exhaustion induced by her marathon of flights, crisscrossing the country before finally ending up here. Her naturally healthy body continued to heal quickly. This morning, she even felt hungry.

Perhaps it was childish, but she felt a defiant pleasure in the total break with routine. Francesca had kept a rigid schedule of exercise, five tiny meals a day, and endless visits from the virtual army of professionals who maintained every facet of her persona. All that would never be necessary again.

Francesca was no more, and Francie Jonas had vanished long ago. Fran had registered at Lake View Inn as Frances Johnson, a characterless name for a person without a past and perhaps also lacking a future.

So who was it who now stretched lazily, winced as sensitive muscles and healing tissue protested? Who threw back the Santa Fe-hued bedspread and slipped out of bed? Fran might no longer know who she really was, but she wouldn’t worry about it yet. She sensed that was part of what she’d come home to find.

Renting a car and buying a few necessities took longer than she had intended. Not until shortly after noon, did she drive off in the tan compact sedan she’d rented.

Back on InDinay time. The thought came in a wry twist of humor as she headed east and south into the rocky red wilderness of the InDinay Reservation. At least the car didn’t stand out. Completely unremarkable in both appearance and performance, it was definitely not a Francesca sort of automobile. Not that she had owned one, but if she had, it would have been sleek, sporty and red or mirror-bright black lacquer. And fast, very fast. When she turned off the highway onto a gravel road she glanced back, but no vehicle followed. None were even in sight. Relief sifted through her. She’d done all she could to vanish cleanly, even leaving her credit cards and a substantial balance in Francesca’s checking account. Thank goodness for the “mad money” she’d kept stashed in a jewelry box. She’d been surprised how much was there, almost four thousand dollars, saved over the years. Cash left no trail. Now, she could only pray her efforts had been enough.

The five street punks who attacked her hadn’t said much, but she didn’t need to be told who’d sent them. At first, she’d tried to pin it on chance, on the one semi-serious suitor she had rejected as gently as she could, even on an unknown stalker—but try as she would, she kept coming back to Sal Gambruzzi. He didn’t like to be told no, but she had endured acting as someone’s property, as an object instead of a person for long enough. He might think he owned her, but…

The little car sped down the dusty road, a sandy red rooster tail billowing behind it. When had she last been down this road? Certainly before she started to drive, maybe around 1979. Everything looked familiar yet strange, a sort of déjà vu feeling, as if she’d spent a prior life here—which was not so far from the truth. As she took a curve, the car fish-tailed. She let off on the gas and tapped the brake pedal twice before she fell back to reminiscing.

Dad came home from Vietnam early in 1971, and mom had left six months later. Fran could barely remember her face. Too many unhappy years later, she herself had left the Reservation, never to return until yesterday…

The road narrowed, became rougher and twisting, winding snake-like among wind-carved rose and rust buttes and through stony arroyos. Driving here demanded all Fran’s attention.