Queen (3 page)

She grabbed the seat in front of her and pulled herself upright, staring transfixed out the window. The land was flat, and brown, and it seemed to go on forever. Queen realized for the first time in her life how immense these United States truly were. And it was then that she thought of her sisters and wondered how they'd ever find one another again in a country where there seemed to be no end to the horizon.

"Well be here thirty minutes," the driver called as he stood and stretched. "You can disembark, get a bite to eat, and look around. But don't wander off. I have a schedule to maintain and won't wait for sight-seers to come back."

Queen realized she was gawking and quickly closed her mouth as she gave the world outside the bus another glance. Where in the world would one wander to? she thought. There was nothing to see and nowhere to go.

She, along with a large assortment of passengers that had accumulated from various stops the bus had made while she slept, got off and straggled in a slipshod line toward the smell of fresh coffee and frying bacon.

"Y'all come on in," a waitress called out as the first of the group came through the door. "Find yourself a seat, I'll be with you in a sec."

Queen chose a single stool at the bar rather than a booth. It was too early in the morning for socializing, especially with a bunch of strangers she sincerely hoped she'd never see again.

Two cups of coffee and a plate of eggs and hash browns later, she rose, paid her bill, and headed for the door, intent on stretching her legs for whatever time was left. She was too tall to be comfortable on the cramped bus seats.

The air was warm and dry. She turned around and faced the east, letting the rays of the early morning sun shine a welcome on her face. Her ample bust pressed tightly against her thin cotton shirt as she raised her arms above her head and tilted her head from side to side to loosen her stiff, aching muscles.

The bus driver inside the diner paused in the act of y a sip of his coffee and stared, lost in the sight of womanly shape. Although she was a beautiful lady, he'd noticed that she rarely smiled. It had been his experience that women who looked the way she did usually appreciated the admiration of the opposite sex. This one led to be the exception to the rule. Her face was striking… an unforgettable combination wide, clear green eyes above high cheekbones, a ht. perfect nose, and a mouth that would have tried to be kissed were it not for the stubbornness r chin and the warning her body language gave, dark red hair was long and curly, and in the morning sun it looked like a halo of fire. He shuddered, itching her backside sway as she walked away, and not to think of how those long legs might wrap around a man and never let him go.

Queen took advantage of the remaining minutes to brush her hair and her teeth in the ladies' room and her teeth in the ladies' room and wished again for a chance to shower and change. But the driver's warning bellow quelled the thought. It was time to go.

Two new passengers boarded, a mother and her child and Queen held her breath, hoping she wouldn't have to share the empty seat beside her. She wasn't in the mood for three states of small talk. Fortunately the harried mother chose to sit in the front of the bus with her toddler son.

Three hours later Queen realized she could have wed herself the worry. Ultimately the mother's location was moot, as the toddler had taken free rein of the aisle of the bus. Queen winced at the mother's shrill voice and stared out the window as she listened to her repeated but apathetic warnings to the child.

"Frank! You get on back here now. You hear me? I'll whip your butt if you don't, and I mean it."

It was obvious that Frank, the toddler, had heard that impotent threat too many times before to pay close attention. He paused at Queen's seat and looked up at her, venturing a smile. Then he glanced down at the colorful map sticking half in and half out of her pocket.

"Book?" he said, pointing at the map.

Queen smiled in spite of herself and wondered why the mother hadn't bothered to wash the child's face this morning. Remnants of breakfast hung on his chin and down the front of his grimy little shirt.

"No, that's not a book," she said softly. "It's my map."

"Map." The toddler nodded as he repeated the word, uncertain what it meant but willing to agree, happy with the gentle tone of her voice and the smile on her face.

"Frank! You leave them people alone, and you do it now! Hear me?"

Frank didn't wince. Queen wondered if he was even three. His soft brown eyes were huge, but he was small, blond, and spindly, and his bare belly distended suspiciously over baggy shorts. She'd seen many children of similar situations in her lifetime and knew that most of that look could be attributed to malnourishment and lack of care.

She remembered the small bag of dried fruit that she'd stashed in her jacket pocket yesterday to be eaten sometime during the trip. From the look on the child's face, this seemed to be as good a time as any. She glanced warily across the top of the seats, anxious that she not antagonize Frank's mother, but the woman seemed unconcerned about where her child was or what he was doing.

Queen dug into the pocket of her jacket, pulled out bag. and motioned for the child to come closer. Aware that he'd spill it if she just handed him the bag, She opened it and began handing him a single piece at a time. He slid onto the seat next to her with anticipation. The child's fist clutched around the bit of dried peach is if he'd just grasped a lifeline in a storm-tossed sea. Unlike some children, he didn't even bother to investigate what he was putting into his mouth. Instead, it went in, and went down as fast as it had been inserted. Queen laughed softly. "Here's another. Chew it first, baby,"  she said. "Chew, chew, chew." She mimicked the notion, laughing to herself as the child flashed tiny teeth and imitated her order.

Half an hour passed as Queen doled out the bits of fruit and Frank chewed. And then the fruit was gone and Frank's eyes went from the empty bag to Queen. She shrugged and held out her hands to imply what was painfully obvious. "All gone," she said.

Frank stared and then nodded. He was fully aware of the word. "Gone, gone," he repeated. And, in a flash, so was he.

"Where have you been?" Frank's mother asked. Queen winced as she heard the sharp slap of the mother's hand on the child's tiny thigh.

What hurt her even more was the fact that Frank didn't bother to cry. What could that child's life have been like that he was already so accustomed to deprivation and pain?

Queen had an urge to stomp to the front of the bus slap Frank's mother into the middle of next week, but she knew there was no use. There were thousands just like her, and Queen couldn't save the world. By this time tomorrow she hoped they'd all be in different states. Responsibility had just taken its last free ride on Queen Houston's shoulders. She was through fighting other people's battles and raising other people's kids.

"But when can you get it fixed?" a man asked, voicing the same question the other passengers had been thinking ever since the bus had ground to a wheezy halt in a small town just across the New Mexico border.

The driver shoved his hat to the back of his head and frowned. "Look," he said. "I'm a driver, not a mechanic. I've called the company. They've already dispatched another bus. It'll be here in two, maybe three hours. Until then, we sit tight."

"But I've got to get to L.A. by day after tomorrow," the man went on. "If I don't, I might lose my job."

The driver shrugged and walked away.

Queen sighed. This delay hadn't been part of her plan, either, but at least she didn't have a deadline she was trying to meet. All she had planned was to get to Arizona. After that she'd decide what came next.

Two hours and several angry passengers later, Queen was beginning to change her mind. A small cheer arose in the midst of the weary travelers as they saw a bus pull up and park.

"That's not the one!" the driver shouted before the crowd moved toward the door. "That one's a regular, and he's headed for Colorado, not California."

Groans and grumbles met his remark. Queen frowned and then, on an impulse, went in search of their driver, who'd just made a fast exit out the door.

"Would it be possible to change my route?" she asked "I think I'd like to take this bus instead of waiting."

The driver frowned. "This one don't go straight into Arizona. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, when he gets into Denver, he'll just do a turnaround and come back south."

"It doesn't matter," she said. "I can always catch another later, can't I?"

He scratched his head and then finally nodded. "I suppose you can do anything you want to, lady. Wait here. I'll tell the driver to wait while I get your bag."

Queen felt a small spurt of excitement. He was right. She could do anything she wanted. Less than thirty minutes later she was on her way, leaving the disgruntled and stranded passengers who were still waiting for the substitute bus to arrive. Queen didn't care how long it took her to get where she was going. Anything was better than sitting and waiting.

As they traveled north, she noticed that the rivers they crossed were swifter and deeper, the trees were thicker and greener, and the familiar shape of mountain rinses beckoned in the distance. A small, distinct sign on the side of the highway told her all she needed to know: "Colorado State Line."

Queen looked up toward the distant, snow-capped peaks and felt a tinge of familiarity. They reminded her of the Smokies that had surrounded Cradle Creek, with tops that were constantly lost in a swirl of cloudy mist. She frowned. Remembering Cradle Creek was the last thing she'd intended to do. The farther they rode, the closer they came to the mountains, and as they entered a small town at the foot of a particularly high peak, the bus began to slow down. Queen sighed. Her legs ached form the inactivity. She would be thankful for the chance to move about.

"All out for Snow Gap," the driver called. "Well be here about fifteen minutes. It's the last stop before Denver, so make it count."

Queen got off the bus and stretched, then looked around. The geography might be different, but the bus stops were predictably the same. Deciding against riding all night with a greasy hamburger in her stomach, she decided to explore instead and began walking alone the small, narrow sidewalk, along a street lined with colorful-looking stores. She would remember thin later that choosing the hamburger would have simpler.

A child's cry pierced the quiet of the small town. Another accompanied it, and Queen turned to look at the scene being enacted on the street two doors down. Without thinking she walked closer, noticing that a man in uniform was trying without success to usher three children varying in size and age into a van. She frowned at the sign on its door: "Colorado Department of Human Services." Welfare workers! Because of her own childhood, she had an instinctive distrust of the juvenile system.

"No, Sheriff, no!" the oldest boy shouted as he struggled to be heard. "You've got to listen to me. I swear Dad didn't abandon us. Something must have happened to him. He's never left us alone before. You can't take me away, you've got to help me find him."

"Now, Donny," the man said. "You've got to trust me to do what's right. You three came off the mountain claiming that your daddy didn't come home last night, and you expect me to just let you go back the way you came? You'll have to go with Mrs. Sutter. She'll see that you're taken care of until family comes to get you. It's the best way, don't you see?"

Donny yanked away, then grabbed at the smallest boy who was crying helplessly in the arms of the woman from social services.

"let him go!" Donny yelled, taking the child from the woman and wrapping his arms around his little brother's body. The child buried his face in his brother's neck and sobbed.

Queen watched in sympathetic horror as huge tears tracked the face of the third child, who was clinging silently to Donny's leg. The uniformed man shrugged and stared at the social services woman, as if to imply that matters like this were more in her line than his.

The woman frowned and reached to reclaim the child in Donny's arms.

Queen never knew what made her do it. It could have been the déjà vu of seeing her own childhood reenacted in these boys, or it could have been the look of pure terror and then hope that appeared on Donny's face as he looked past the sheriff and into Queen Houston's wide green eyes and saw a sympathetic soul staring back at him.

"What's going on here?" Queen asked as she pushed  the woman and slipped her arm around the boy's shoulder. She squeezed it gently as she felt his body tremble. "My bus just arrived," she said, improvising as fast as she could. "I was expecting your daddy, not you guys. Where is he, anyway?" Then she turned, smiled sweetly at the man, and extended her hand. "Sheriff…?"

"Miller," he added, and shook her hand without thinking.

Queen nodded and smiled. "My name is Queen Houston. Donny is my nephew… of sorts. It's only by marriage, but family is family, you know."

She turned and looked down into the shock spreading across the oldest boy's face and wondered if she was about to get herself into more trouble than she could handle. And then she saw his expression change to one of relief and knew that he'd made a choice. For the moment she was the lesser of two evils.

"My goodness," Queen went on, ruffling the hair of the two younger boys. "You two have grown so much, I don't know which is which. I bet you don't even recognize your aunt Queen!"

Donny caught on to what she was asking him, and his nimble, thirteen-year-old brain kicked swiftly into gear.

"Will's the one hanging around my leg. This is J.J."

"I would never have known," she said, and knelt to look face to face at Will, who looked to be about ten years old. "You guys are really tall for your age."

"All the Bonner men are big," Donny said quickly. "But my daddy, Cody, is still the tallest."

Queen stood upright and then looked down into three sets of eyes in varying shades of blue and knew that she must have lost her mind for what she was about to do. But she knew as well that she'd lose it anyway if she got back on that bus and left these three boys to face this hell alone.