Catch a Shooting Star jd edit 03 12 2012 html (13 page)

Savannah waited.  She waited for him to strike her with that quirt just as she had seen him strike that poor peasant yesterday in the courtyard.  She cringed ever so slightly when he stepped forward and raised his hand.  But, from the corner of his eye, he must have seen the quirt that he still held, because he let his hand drop to his side as he balled his fist around the handle.

“Why, Savannah?” he breathed angrily.  Then, as he took her into his large brown hands, he almost pleaded, “Why do you choose to forsake me after all that I have given you?  Why do you shame me in front of our guests?”  

Savannah pulled her arm from his grip and turned away, gathering the strength to confront him.  She took in a deep breath before she began, “Diego, I was merely tired last night.  I knew that you and Rafael had business to attend to, so I excused myself.  How is that shaming you?”

Diego thought for a long moment before he calmed down, her voice easing his anger.  He cleared his throat and loosened his grip on the quirt as he nodded and finally conceded, “Yes, we had things that we needed to discuss.  However, it was not very considerate of you to treat our guest as if he were a cur from the streets.”

Savannah stepped closer to him in order to emphasize her words as she accused, “Did you not see that your friend was making obvious advances toward me?  Why, he looked at me as if I were a bitch in heat.”

Diego waved her away as if she were an annoying fly as he scoffed, “You are a very attractive woman.  Why would any man ignore that fact?”

“Why would any man allow another man to look at his wife in that manner?”

“I assure you, my dove.  It was a complement to you.  Did you not appreciate his admiration?” He asked with a brow raised skyward.

“I would appreciate it if your friends would not admire me so outwardly.  Please, be kind enough to convey my wishes the next time we have visitors,” Savannah said as she put her back to him, her arms crossed at her chest.

“Very well, then,” he said as he stepped around to face her.  “And at the same time, I expect you to respect anyone who comes into our home.”

Without thinking, about how he would react, she blurted out, “The way you respected that poor man in our courtyard?”

His response was a tilt of his head as he asked, “To what are you referring, Querida?”

“Please don’t call me that,” she snapped, wringing her hands and turning to pace the floor.  “We both know that I am not your love, or whatever that word means.  We also know that you are not what you pretend to be in society.  No, you are not the important Don that your friends think you are.  That is just pretense so that they don’t know that you are really a liar, a cheat and a thief!”

A resounding slap stopped her short.  But she drew herself up to her full height of five-feet-two inches and continued, “And a murderer!”

She took another step backward from him but still standing her ground as she spat, “Yes, Don Diego.  I saw you beat that man to death for stealing a penance of your Godforsaken money.  I heard you order his family from this village and your protection.  You act as if you are some Mexican god and they follow you like starving jackals.  But not me.  I’ll not treat you as if you alone can control my life.  Because you are nothing to me.  Nothing!”

Diego reared back to hit her with the quirt, but she skirted around the large mahogany bed and hissed, “Beat me like you beat that man and the countless other people that you have beaten into submission.”

He lunged forward and stretched his hands around her neck but she brought her knee up in defense and caught him squarely in the groin.  She was as surprised as he was at her accidental injury to him, but she regained her composure and stood straight and tall again and continued her onslaught.

“Besides,” she said, her arms crossed again.  “You wouldn’t want to harm your second child, would you?”

He stiffened, and then smiled as he realized and said out loud, “You can’t be.  I have not touched you since my son was born.”

“Our son,” she corrected before she continued, “And you did come to me.  Or don’t you remember?  The day Benjamin was christened?”

“Benito,” he corrected but he could not continue for she had waved her hand toward him and opened her mouth to speak once again.

“You had been celebrating much too much and you came to me that night.  I tried to stop you but you began to get brutal, so I let you have your way, hoping that you would not take long.  You took me and then you left me, just like you did on our wedding night.  Now, I carry another child and you will not harm this one either,” she boldly announced, hoping that he would believe her, for the moment anyway, while she put into motion her scheme to leave him with her son.  She knew a beating from him would delay her departure and she had hoped to slip away tonight while he slept.

Diego backed toward the door, still holding his stomach as he grunted, “I will deal with you later, ‘Querida’.”  He retrieved the quirt that he had dropped when she had hurt him and then slammed the door behind him.

She had won this battle, Savannah thought as she leaned against the door as if that would keep him out if he returned.  But, she knew that he would get the best of her before long, so she hurried to her dresser and pulled out some clothes.  Heaping them on the bed, she went to the wardrobe and did the same there.  She folded the items into a cloth bag and hid it beneath the bed before she smoothed her skirt and headed for the door.

She slipped through the terrazzo hallway and down the stairs to the kitchen.  When she stepped inside to gather food for their journey, she looked about and was thankful that the servants were busy somewhere else.  She found a burlap sack in the pantry which she stuffed with canned tomatoes and beans.  A fresh loaf of bread caught her eye and she snatched it up and added it to her booty.  She found dried meat behind a sack of flour.  She took both and added a knife, a fork a spoon and a bowl, which topped off the stuffed bag.  As she left the kitchen, she saw a small jug of tequila, which she hid under her bodice and the chill of the jug made her jump in surprise, but she shook off the shiver and hurried back to her room where she tucked her loot beneath her bed beside her valise. 

She drummed her finger upon her cheek as she thought of what she would have forgotten.  Remembering her toiletries, she stepped to the wash stand and retrieved a wash cloth, rose water, her hair brush and a bar of soap.  She knelt at the side of her bed and stuffed these items in with her clothes, then stood up to silently congratulate herself for finally having the nerve to do this.

Satisfied that she had tucked away all that she would need, she sighed.  Tonight, she thought, she would control her life.  Tonight, she would take her son and start her journey back home.

Remembering that she had not packed her son’s things, she tiptoed to the nursery and filled a bag for him.  She noticed that the nurse was not in the room and the baby was not in his crib, but thought that the woman had taken him for a walk in the garden as she had often at this time of day.  She touched the tiny pillow in the crib and then took the bag of his things to her room to place them with the others. 

Tired from her rushing about and knowing that she would need her strength tonight while she ran away with her child, she lay down on her bed for a nap.  She closed her eyes against what she was sure Diego’s angry reaction would bring when he was informed that she had left and had taken his son away from him.  Stifling a smile, she turned over onto her side, away from the door and sighed one last time before sleep overtook her.

Chapter Eight

Far, far away, a miserable wailing was disturbing her journey through a thick, blissful forest of dogwood.  A veil of fog enveloped her, making visibility nonexistent.  She stepped forward, stretching her arms in front of her to feel her way.  The crying was coming closer, she heard, closer and louder.  Hush baby, she said in her sleep.  Mommy’s here.  But the crying kept getting louder and louder.

Slowly, slowly, the awareness of reality assailed her.  As the fog lifted, she realized that the crying wasn’t coming from a baby at all, but an adult.  And as the forest slowly transformed into her bedroom, she found that the dream had vanished but the crying continued, still echoing throughout the dark room.

Savannah slowly opened her eyes to see Maria and Isabelle, Benito’s nurse sitting on either side of the bed, each of then clasping one of her hands.  Their faces were wet with tears and their mouths were uttering such a dreadful, pitiful sound.

“What is it?” Savannah whispered as she trying to raise herself from the bed.

Isabelle patted her hand as she searched for the words to tell her, “It’s—it’s Benito.  He—he—Oh!”

The woman wailed wildly before she reeled from the bed and ran from the room in a flurry of skirts.

Savannah looked questioningly at Maria, but the maid shook her head and looked toward the corner of the room.  Diego stepped from the shadows to her bedside and sat down in the chair that Isabelle had vacated.

“Leave us alone,” he ordered Maria, who frowned slightly but did what she was told, quietly shutting the door behind her.

“What is it?” she repeated to her husband, who squeezed her hand in both of his.

“My son,” he started, but corrected for her sake. “Our son—little Benito has gone to Our Mother in Heaven.”

“What?” She sat bolt upright in the bed.  “It can’t be! He was fine this morning when I fed him.”

She threw back the blankets and brushed past him as he called to her, “I tell you it is true.”

She was already in the hallway and running into the nursery when she heard him say, “He is dead.”

The small room was darkened by the same thick drapery that covered all of the windows in the bedrooms and she ran toward the curtain to chase away the gloomy scene that it produced.  She turned to the crib and rushed to look inside.  To her dismay, the blankets were all that she saw.  She picked up the tiny pillow and breathed in the baby’s sweet scent as she felt warm hands upon her shoulders.

“He is gone, Querida,” Diego said sadly as he crossed his arms around her shoulders to comfort her.

“But,” was all that she could force from her wracking body.

She grabbed her stomach as a wave of nausea engulfed her.  The room began to spin and the floor would have come up quickly to meet her if Diego had not scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to her bed.  Darkness was her friend and her enemy as she fought to regain consciousness in the coming hours. 

Diego sat beside her, holding her hand.  She had taken the loss as he had predicted.  She would be easy to contain now, he thought.  Grief does not treat her well at all.  He sighed half-heartedly, then placed her hand beneath the blanket and raised the cover to meet her chin and smiled as he told the sleeping woman, “You will not leave me, my wife.  You are mine for as long as it pleases me.  And, for now, I will keep you here.  It is best that you stay right where you are.  You must recover, Querida.  Soon, I will no longer need you.”

He stalked his way to Maria’s room where he knocked quietly on the door.  Seconds passed before she opened the door and smiled up at him.  He touched her hair and let his hand cup her chin, while his other hand stuffed a silver coin between her breasts.  He knew that this would please her and that she expected a reward for telling him that she had seen his wife stashing away the things for her journey.  But, the money was only partial payment for her deed.  He knew that Maria expected much more for her part in their plan to rid themselves of Savannah for good.

Maria smiled invitingly at him and reached up to embrace his neck and pulled him into her room.  He closed the door behind her and heard her breathe into his chest, “Now, you are mine.  All mine.”

Diego chuckled and squeezed her voluptuous body into his as he corrected, “Not yet, my love.  We still have to wait.  You must be patient.”

“But, I should be your wife.  I should have been your wife long ago before that gringo bitch came here,” Maria pouted, pulling away from him.

“Ah, my love,” Diego soothed as he cuddled her from behind.  “You will be.  You will have all that you wish for.”

Seeing that she was satisfied, he wheeled her around to face the door and added with a sound slap on her behind, “Now, go and see that she stays asleep.  I must tend to some errands.”

Maria giggled and hopped out of the room to do his bidding.  He was hers, she thought as she slipped into her mistress’ room.  This intruding woman would never come between them again.  She would see to it.  She sat upon the chair that faced Savannah’s bed and dipped a bottle over a spoon before she placed the liquid to the sleeping woman’s lips and said quietly, “This will make you sleep, Miss Savannah.  For a long, long time.”

Don Diego Fernandez pulled harshly upon the reins stopping the black horse in front of a small adobe hut on the far side of the village.  As he lifted his leg to dismount, he heard a baby cry inside the house.  Anger welled up inside him as he recognized the cry that echoed against the walls of the neighboring houses. 

He stepped to the door and flung it open to see a frightened woman cowering in the corner as she shielded her child with her arms.  He strode to the woman and jerked her baby from her arms and dropped it into its crib before he shook the woman with all his might.  The woman screeched her alarm and struggled against his grip, but he held her tightly as he seethed, “My son eats first!”