Act 3: Dawn of a New Day



Heha heha heha heha heha heha heha





Lee squinted one eye open. Was he dreaming? He swore he heard someone ...panting?

Lee slowly squinted both eyes open. He could see Amanda's face. She didn't appear to be panting, so, where was it coming from?

Lee thought "Okay! Now I know I'm a little disoriented!" He swore he just saw a flash of white streak past his peripheral vision. Lee closed his eyes and blinked them open again. He saw nothing and heard nothing but the sound of Amanda breathing. Lee shook his head and decided that he must have imagined the whole panting thing.



"Lee?" Amanda said sleepily.

"Yes, Amanda" Lee said as he reached through the steel bars to brush Amanda's soft hair off of her furrowed brow.

"I have something kind of unbelievable to tell you," Amanda said as she arched her back to stretch and took a deep breath before she continued, "You know that book we've been reading?"

"Yes..." Lee said wondering where Amanda was going with this.

"Well, I think my great-great-great-grandfather wrote it." Amanda said with a sigh of relief.

Lee carefully asked, "Is that what made you cry last night?" He was almost afraid to ask. He just knew there were some things about his wife he didn't yet understand.

"Well, yes, in a way. You see, when I was little, my dad used to tell me stories about his great-great grandfather Jackson West. I always thought they were just that, you know, only stories. But now I realize ...my dad was telling me the truth." Amanda attempted, from her estranged position, to lean her head on Lee's shoulder.

"Oh, what stories?" Lee wasn't sure what to say at this point.

"There were several, but one story really struck me the most," Amanda began, "My father told me that Grandpa Jackson had helped slaves escape along the underground railroad and was eventually caught and tortured and killed for his efforts. I think it was during the Civil War when he was killed."

"So, this," Amanda continued as she held the book, "means that this very book was most likely written by Grandpa Jackson's own hand, years before he was killed. It's just so sad and amazing. We're reading my great-great- great grandfather's first hand account of his initial effort to free a slave." Amanda turned to look in her husband's tender eyes, "Then I got to thinking about my dad and, well, I just started to cry...it seems too incredible..."

"Very incredible" said a voice Lee and Amanda did not recognize. Blue stood outside their cells and smiled.

Lee and Amanda looked at each other in surprise.

heha heha heha heha

Snow came up and stood by Blue's side. Lee looked at the white-faced husky and uttered "Oh man!"

Now he knew the source of the panting and the white streak.

"That will be 75 dollars each for non-smoking cells..." Blue said straight- faced as he walked away.

Lee jumped up and said "Hey!" Was this old man joking?

Lee could hear the old Indian shuffle away and stop at the entrance of the jail. Then Lee heard the old man chuckle.

"Good joke, eh?" Blue said as he shuffled back and looked at Lee from around the corner.

Lee was really beginning to think he woke up on the wrong side of this story, er, the floor.

"Who are you?" inquired Amanda.

"Blue" said Blue.

"Oh we've got an expressive one here!" thought Lee as he said, "Look man, you can tell me who you are after you get us out of here!"

Blue looked at Lee and said, "Don't have the key?"

"Look man, I'm not in the mood...!"

"Lee," Amanda said softly as she stood parallel to her husband, "Excuse me sir, my husband and I really need to find the person who put us in here. Can you help us get out?"

"Look up" Blue said.

Lee was really getting fed up with this old-timers nonsense, "C'mon man help us out!"

"Look up," Blue continued, "You have to climb over, I don't have the key."

Lee was incredulous. As he looked up, he noticed that, the whole time, they could have climbed up and escaped over the cell wall. There was a two foot gap between the walls and ceiling. Lee's face turned all shades of Heinz 57.

Amanda said "Oh my!" and smiled at Lee. If it wasn't so ridiculous, it would be funny.

Lee hoofed it over the side and jumped down next to Amanda. After a quick embrace and kiss, Lee helped Amanda climb up and out, over the cell wall.

"Oh! The book..." Amanda said.

Lee nodded and then jumped down, book in hand, next to his wife and told Blue, "There's a man who locked us up, he had red curly hair, thick glasses..."

Blue continued, "Bad breath, mean streak, yeah...Dr. Frye."

"You know who he is?" Lee demanded.

"Yeah." Blue said as he walked away.

"Don't you want to catch Dr. Frye?" Amanda asked, "He's stolen a truckload of artifacts...."

Blue continued to walk away.

Lee took Amanda's hand as they headed outside and followed after Blue.

Blue finally stopped and stood next to his 4-wheel drive Bronco.

"Matlock." Blue said as he entered the driver's side.

Amanda and Lee looked at each other, puzzled.

Blue beeped his horn at them and yelled "Get in!"

"Oh boy!" they said in unison as they climbed in and took off at warp speed.

****

"Don't you have sh-sh-shock absorbers?!" Lee yelled at Blue over the blaring country music.

Blue smiled in return as they four wheeled it across the Hopi Reservation, toward Flagstaff and Northern Arizona University.

****

Dr. Frye, tenured professor of anthropology at NAU, looked smuggly at the 25 students before him. They groveled at his every word. "You maggots wouldn't know a Sikyatki Polychrome pot if it bit you on your..."

"Assiniboine" Blue said as he stood near the back of the lab and held a peice of pottery made by that northern plain tribe.

Frye sneered as he looked up at this old senile Indian man. He had always bribed the old kodger with free AOL internet CD's in exchange for access to restricted parts of the Reservation.

Frye walked up and hissed in Blue's ear, "You'll never catch me!"

Blue walked through the doorway and said, "I just did" as he stared at Dr. Frye and pulled out the tape recorder from his pocket.

Frye looked at his students and said, "Okay everybody, let's just ignore the doddering old man." He then pushed Blue out of the door and ran down the hall, right into the path of Lee and Amanda and a very irritable state trooper.

"I didn't even have my doughnuts yet, Carrot-top!" yelled the Statie as he hauled the Prof away. Those darn 8 a.m classes!

****

"Lee." Amanda said with a smile and little else as she made her grand entrance from the bathroom. She wore an alluring white lace chemise they had found at a boutique in Tlaquepaque, a retail establishment there in Sedona, near their hotel. "I had alot of fun sight-seeing with you today...how would you like to see a sight of your own now?!" she teased in her best Mae West.



"What?" Lee said without looking at Amanda. His eyes were glued to the t.v. screen. After calling the front desk for Pay-per-View, Lee sat in anticipation for "Debbi's Double D: Doing Dallas and Denver" to begin....

"What are you watching!?" Amanda exclaimed as she gawked at the t.v. screen. Amanda scowled at Lee and stormed past him. She noisily flung open the sliding door to their balcony and stepped out, she didn't care who was watching! Amanda stood in the frigid air, shaking...from...anger.

Frigid. That's just how she felt right at this moment. "Here we are, finally together on our honeymoon and Lee's got the audacity to order that trash!" she thought, "I can't compete with that! What is he thinking!?"

Still angry, Amanda stomped back through their room, gave Lee her best 'you jerk!' look, threw on her coat, and snatched that blue diary from the nightstand.

Lee sat, stunned, as Amanda slammed their door.

"Whoops" he mumbled. This was definitely NOT how Lee envisioned their evening together. Reluctantly, he got up, turned off the t.v. and followed after his distressed bride.

tbc