THE BANDIT QUEEN

CHAPTER 1

The wind whipped Eden’s hair into her face and blanked out her view of the road. She slid her eyes to her left and guided the car along the white lines in the center of the road. She slowly raised her right hand and swept her long brown hair behind her ear. Without another thought, she raised her head and stared again through the windshield. The road ran straight to the horizon with not a bend or curve in sight. Eden shifted her position and glanced up into the sky directly overhead. The sun had disappeared behind the corner of a large white cloud. She shivered in the chill of the winter day and hoped the sun would break out again. It wasn’t exactly the season for driving with the convertible top down but she welcomed any sun she could get right now. She glanced over at the boy curled up in the seat next to her. His shoulder blocked his face from her gaze and his hands twitched in his lap. She reached out and touched his shoulder with one gentle finger and left him to his dreams.
The huge trucks on the other side of the road sucked her closer and closer to the center of the road. Eden stared down the road and smiled as a tiny town appeared on the horizon. Billboards popped up on the side of the road to extol the churches, restaurants and motels to be found a few miles up the road. The only amenity Eden was interested in was a gas station complete with restroom. She pulled off the highway and then turned immediately into a shiny gas station. She nestled the car up to the closest pump and turned it off. She stepped stiffly out of the car and stretched her arms into the air over her head. The boy in the other seat curled into an even tighter ball and hid his face from the bright lights of the station. Eden stood next to his side of the car and watched the numbers on the face of the pump change with each surge of gas into her tank. After she twirled the cap on her tank, she leaned over the still form of the boy and said, very quietly, “I’m heading for the bathroom. Stay where you are until I get back. Then you can have your turn.”
She lightly touched the tangled light brown hair and patted his shoulder before she strode into the building. She returned several minutes later with a sack that she stowed in the floor of the back seat. The boy peered through his hair and deliberately closed his eyes and slid even further down in his seat. Eden nodded in understanding and drove quickly away from the lights and noise of the gas station.
“Food and drinks in that sack, if you’re interested. I’m pulling into that park over there to the right. I need to walk around a little bit and so do you.”
Eden slid out of the door of the car and picked up the bag of food with one continuous movement. She slammed the car door without another word to her passenger and walked across the dead grass to a picnic table. She stretched her legs a few times and then ran to the far end of the small park. She turned and jogged slowly back to the table. From the corner of her eye, she could see the boy had changed his position. His face had turned up toward the sun that was just feeling its way around the edge of the cloud. Eden rattled the sack noisily as she pulled out the drinks and sandwiches. She had only eaten three bites of her sandwich when the boy slid quietly out of the car and glided up to the table. He quickly folded his lean height and dropped to the bench across from Eden. They ate in silence. At least as much silence as possible thirty feet from the edge of a busy highway. The trucks and cars whooshed back and forth along the highway and covered up the smaller sounds of the park. Eden watched the bare branches of the trees waving above her head but she didn’t hear the wind that caused the movement. She set more food in front of the boy and studied him as he ate. He was probably two or three years younger than her nineteen years but he wore his age with a definite wariness. He’d left his childhood long behind but his body hadn’t matured to match his eyes. His shoulder-length brown hair blew into his mouth as he ate and he pushed it out of the way without conscious thought. He had obviously worn his hair fairly long for quite some time. His beard was light even though Eden knew he hadn’t shaved in at least two days. His clothes had been made for a much larger person and hung on his slight frame.
“Are you going to tell me your name now? We’re a whole day away from the coast and no one seems to be following us. So, how about telling me who you are and what was going on back there?” The boy looked through the tangled hair covering his face at the young woman sitting across the picnic table. Her brown hair hung halfway down her back and her blue eyes watched him with interest. She wore no makeup but her clothes and her new convertible told the boy she had access to money. Gold earrings sparkled on her ears and a Rolex watch peeked out below the sleeve of her cotton sweater. Her shoes were the same brand he once wore, back when he was just a child. Eden saw his eyes cloud over and she imagined him looking back over his life for the answer to her questions. The boy looked at her again but with wonder not with envy. He’d once lived the kind of life she obviously inhabited but he’d run away from it and had never looked back. The only remnant of his past life could be seen whenever he smiled, which was seldom. He still wore braces on his teeth, a definite holdover from his childhood. He knew he should have them removed but it was way down on the list of important things, right behind food, shelter, and safety.