But was there time to stop? she wondered. And was it safe? And what about food for herself? Silently she cursed her foolishness at not planning her escape but fleeing headlong into the night. When faced with the prospect of marriage with Edmund, she had been cunning and patient. What was wrong with her now, that she would behave so stupidly?
As if aware of Kathleen's indecision. Estrellita paused near an alkali mudhole rimmed by scraggly mesquite trees and sagebrush, awaiting her mistress's bidding. But Kathleen was as weary as the horse, too weary to make a decision now. She slid from the saddle and tied the reins to the nearest mesquite. Dropping to the ground beneath the sparse protection of its straggly branches, she closed her eyes just as the sun scattered the last patches of pink and gray from the horizon.
It was a restless dream, as Simon's face relentlessly pursued her. Simon ... the vaquero; El Cóndor ... the Indian; Simon ... the hacendado. But she awakened to find another face peering down at her. A horrifying face with one eye seamed closed by scars, and yellowed, misshapen teeth grinning in an ugly leer.
Chapter 18
"Ha! Amigos, it's not a muchacho, but a mujer." His small eyes ran over her. "Por Dios, what a mujer!"
Kathleen cringed against the ground as the man's foul-smelling breath assailed her, and he laughed even louder.
"La mujer does not find me handsome. Maybe I should show her I have a way with women. Eh, amigos?"
By then six or seven others, some dressed as vaqueros in what looked like blankets but most clothed only in the breechcloth of the Indian, gathered about Kathleen and the ugly man who crouched over her.
"You must share whatever you find, Angel," one laughed. "And since I'm the oldest, I get her first."
There was a lump of nausea in Kathleen's throat as the realization of their intentions seeped through her still-drowsy mind. The men seemed to press around her, stiffling her, and a hand was already at her shirt, pulling, fondling, when a voice burst out: "No!"
Above the heads of those hovering over her, Kathleen saw a young, beardless man with a scarlet scarf tied behind his head in the Gypsy fashion she had often seen in Spain. The young man's high brow bespoke of the only hope for intelligence in the motley group.
The others looked up also, irritation at his interference showing plainly on their faces. "Do you want to fight us for her yourself?" the one called Angel asked with a contemptuous snigger.
"Come on, Renaldo," another said. "You're nothing but a boy. Let us show you waht men can do."
"No!" Renaldo cried out, grabbing the shoulder of one man even as Kathleen felt the camisa rip open. Quickly she covered herself as Renaldo said, "El jefe should know about this first."
There was a perceptible stiffening among the men.
But the leader is not in camp," Angel pointed out.
"Then you had better wait," Renaldo warned. His thin, aesthetic face wore a grim expression.
Deprived of the appeasement of their lust, the men were rougher with Kathleen than they would have been had they had their own way. Under Renaldo's angry eyes, they bound her wrists and ankles with a leather riata and tossed her crosswise over Estrellita. Kathleen grunted with the pain. Before one of the grubbier looking men tied a dirty handkerchief about her eyes, she looked to the young Renaldo for aid. But it was obvious from the helpless look in his liquid brown eyes that, other than his intervention against the mass rape that would have occurred, there was little else he could do for her at the moment. She would just have to suffer the present discomfort and hope she could escape once the band reached the camp they spoke of.
But it was several hours, more than half the day, of torturous jogging on the horse, over what seemed to her to be shifting sand dunes, before she was even allowed to rest. Hands pulled her roughly from the horse's back and dropped her to the ground. After a moment, the handkerchief, now wet with her own perspiration, was gently removed, and Kathleen looked up into Renaldo's concerned eyes. He held a tin cup to her lips. Greedily she drank the stale water.
"Not so fast," Renaldo cautioned her.
"Where are they taking me?" she asked between gulps. "Can you help me? Please!"
Renaldo looked to the other men, who had squatted a little ways off to themselves. He shook his head mutely. "I can't tell you anything, señorita. Only do as they say -- and try not to draw attention to yourself."
The men were rising again, and Renaldo hastily retied the handkerchief about her head before she could ask further. Once more she was thrown across Estrellita on her stomach, and the ride resumed. When the boiling sun finally dropped behind the mountains, Renaldo was allowed to remove the handkerchief and the riata at her ankles so that she could ride astride. The coursing of blood back to her feet shot waves of pain up her legs, and she reeled dizzily in the saddle as she sat in an upright position for the first time in hours.
In the evening twilight, Kathleen noticed that they traveled in a westerly direction, steadily upward through narrow passes. In the sandstone cliffs of the canyon walls she glimpsed jumbles of caves carved by winds and rain.
"Robbers' Roost," Renaldo said, nodding at the faint outline of the caves as he dropped back to ride alongside of her.
"How much farther?" she asked. She had never felt so tired in all her life. It was an effort just to straighten her sagging shoulders.
"Only a few more hours. Just beyond Acton Pass. Then there will be rest and fod."
The rocking-chair moon hung high in the heavens when the party passed through a rocky enclosure that opened into a hidden Alpine-like valley. Below, nestled among the chestnut oaks and sycamores, Kathleen saw the ranchería, a crude assortment of beehive-shaped tule windbreakers that Renaldo told her were called wickiups. Their many campfires looked like lightning bugs, lending a paradoxical tranquility, Kathleen thought, to the camp of cutthroats.
As the party rode into the camp, Kathleen was surprised at the populace. Everywhere there seemed to be people, mostly men -- Mexicans wearing dirt-stained sombreros and packing horse pistols at their hips, or Indians in breechcloth and leggings, with tomahawks belted to their waists.
Occasionally a woman was to be seen, usually dressed in white cotton blouse and brightly colored peasant skirt, though a few wore tunics of deerskin that reached to their knees. Here and there a few children played in front of open doorways while the women cooked over the open fires and the men cleaned their rifles or groomed their horses.
When the bandits came to a halt, Angel yanked Kathleen from the saddle. Renaldo stepped between her and the hulking man.
"La mujer will stay in the wickiup of el jefe."
Angel's massive hand went to the butt of his pistol. "She's mine, Renaldo. I spotted her first."
The slim young man did not back down. "I do not think el jefe will be pleased."
For a split second Angel's veined eyes glared their hostility, but wavered as Renaldo's warning sunk in. He whirled and lumbered off, and Kathleen breathed a sign of relief. Before further objections could be raised, Renaldo hustled her inside the wickiup that looked to be slightly larger than the rest.
Inside, part of the dirt-packed floor was below ground level, with a black-and-white tiruta, a woven blanket, laying in one corner. About the walls was a raised platform of willow wands, which was covered with pine needles and soft tanned skins. In the wickiup's center was the blackened earth of a firepit neatly lined with stones, and around the walls Kathleen saw baskets hung, in which were domestic utensils, clothing, and dried food.
"I'll see that hot food is sent to you," Renaldo told her in his soft, cultured voice. "Try and rest. I'll sleep outside."
"What will happen?" she asked, turning back to him as he lifted aside the curtain that hung in the doorway. Her large purple eyes glittered like a night creature's in the darkness. "What will they do to me?"
"I don't know, señorita. I honestly don't know. It will be up to el jefe what will be done with you."
Kathleen shrank further back into the darkness. "T
hey'll -- he'll have me killed?"
Renaldo shrugged. The pity showed in his eyes. "The knowledge you have of us could be used to betray us. Please don't ask me what I can't tell you. Buenas noches, señorita."
Kathleen sank to the platform with a feeling of dread as the doorway's curtain swished closed behind Renaldo. Good God, was this what it had come to? All her planning, the months of running and hiding -- only to be executed by some renegade band of outlaws? Her fingers rubbed her temples in disbelief, in incredulity that she should find her early death here in a remote valley at the end of the world, when she had planned returning one day to the comforts of Boston to live fully an independent life, eventually dying in contentment of old age.
A middle-aged woman with dark, tousled hair and lively eyes brought in a bowl of savory food. "Stew," she said, handing the bowl to kathleen. "I make the best in camp."
Kathleen took a tentative taste of the stew while the woman lit an oil lamp. She set the oil lamp down and turned to face Kathleen with her hands planted at her thick waist. "My name's Concha, niña. I'm Armand's woman."
"Armand?" Kathleen asked, bewildered by the turn of events that had culminated in her imprisonment in a wickiup and being waited on by this garrulous woman.
"Armand Devier. He's one of the mountain men. But you're new here. Tomorrow you'll understand more."
Kathleen wanted to ask more, but the feisty woman was gone before she could swallow her mouthful of stew.
How long before this leader returned? And what then? She looked around the wickiup but saw nothing with which to defend herself. Nothing except the wooden spoon. She put it in the bowl and set the bowl away from her. Her appetite was gone. Anger, mixed with anxiety at her helplessness, churned inside her.
She would not give in meekly to this scurvy band of men. If nothing else, her tongue would serve as a weapon. She would wait for the leader's arrival and cut the vile wretch to shreds, hurling every abuse upon him she had ever heard. She would scratch his eyes, tear his face to ribbons.
The oil-dip burned low as Kathleen wove plots that she knew were nothing more than foolish fantasies, but nevertheless, the inventive workings of her mind kept her fear at bay. Yet even as she planned how she would meet her foe, her haughty demeanor reducing the begger to abject humility, her eyes closed in weary slumber.
Chapter 19
She should have known! Why hadn't it occurred to her that he was the leader of the band of renegades? -- insurrectionists, Aguila had called them. El Cóndor, the vaquero, el jefe. They were all one ... Simon.
For all her good intentions to remain awake, he had come upon her as silent as the Indian he looked now, staring fiercely down at her, his burnished skin glinting in the early morning sun that streamed through the curtained doorway. From outside came the fait stirrings of the awakening ranchería.
"You!" she hissed with all the venom that coursed through her as she jerked to a sitting position.
Simon grinned a sudden lopsided smile, looking almost boyish with wet hair that glistened as if he had just bathed. The breechcloth barely covered his nakedness. Kathleen's gaze fell to the rigid muscular thighs as he dropped the curtain back in its place and moved further into the wickiup. Embarrassed, she quickly raised her eyes to his face and saw the amusement displayed there.
"I hope my wife has rested well."
"Your wife?" she sputtered. "I'll never be your wife, Simon Reyes! You're the lowest, the vilest human being -- no, I take that back. You're not even human. You're an animal that --"
"You mean, mi vida, those tender words you swore before God, and the marriage papers you signed, meant nothing?"
"Don't call me that -- mi vida!" she shouted. "I'm not 'your life.' Or your wife either! I'm nothing of yours!"
A sarcastic grin curved Simon's lips. "I'm under the impression, from Renaldo's report, that you're my prisoner."
"How did you find me? I was careful -- Estrellita didn't leave tracks. And when are you going to make them let me go?"
"Your horse didn't leave tracks. You did." He held up a torn strip of white cotton material. "On a sumac shrub."
He tossed it to her and crossed to the far corner, where he dropped the saddlebags that were slung across one shoulder. Kathleen looked up from the ragged patch she held and warily watched as he haunched over the saddlebags and drew out a razor. He rose and faced her.
"And as for when I'm going to let you go -- I'm not. You're my wife, Kathleen .. and you'll pay the price for using my name -- your wifely submission."
"I won't."
The slashed brow raised in mock surprise as his long, brown fingers rubbed the beard-stubbled jaw. "Where will you run to next? Back to Woodsworth? How long do you think a lone female would survive in California? Don't you know the only other American woman in the California territory is Larkin's wife? Yesterday should've proved to you what your chances are alone out here."
"I'll take that chance any day against staying with you."
"Oh? My men'll be glad to hear that. Women are scarce here -- and an American woman, well ..."
Kathleen gasped. "You wouldn't let them!"
Simon crossed to her and stood above her. "Wouldn't I? he asked softly. "Do you dare test me?"
The image of the wild mustang she had watched him break flashed through her mind. She saw again the frothing mouth, the broken spirit. Kathleen's head dropped to her chest with the realization of the power the man held over her.
As if recognizing her submission, he said, "I'll send Concha to you with some breakfast -- and clothing. When I return this afternoon, I want you dressed as a woman -- as befitting my wife. Do you understand me?"
Kathleen's head swung up. Simon waited. She looked away. "I understand you," she said stiffly.
The green eyes, as ever startlingly light against the wall, shaken, but grateful for the reprieve of even one day. Much could happen in the span of a few hours. A careless guard. A sympathetic heart swayed. She had only to stay alert. And something to eat would certainly help her strength.
The rumblings of her famished stomach had grown to audible dimensions when Concha entered with a cup of steaming coffee and a plate of carne asada, a thin steak the Indian broiled on a parilla. Following behind Concha was a little girl of maybe three years with straight black hair and the largest brown eyes Kathleen had ever seen. In her pudgy arms she held a mound of clothing as carefully as if she were carrying fine chine.
"Buenas dias, niña," Concha said, "Dormes bien?"
"I slept all right," Kathleen replied, resenting the woman's cheerfulness. After all, the woman was there by her own volition. Concha hadn't been roped and tied like a calf and dragged half way across California to have a cutthroat burn his brand into her -- as Simon would do that evening.
Kathleen shuddered at the thought of the horror that awaited her. Better to be executed -- quickly -- than to be slowly, bit by bit, degraded in body and spirit. And when Simon had used her, what then?
With a woman's intuition, Concha placed a roughened hand on Kathleen's shoulder, and said softly, "Don't be afraid, niña. El Cóndor, he's a good man. He's like all men. And," she added as an afterthought, "he's like none other. But if you do as he says, he'll be kind to you."
Kathleen picked dully at her food and wondered how many other women Simon had kept there. And if they had stayed of their own accord or, like herself, been forced to stay by Simon's sheer strength of will. And it chagrined her that he had yet to use physical force on her. Her memories alone of that one night in La Palacia were sufficient to reduce her to a cringing heap at his feet, and she detested herself, even more than him, for her weakness.
The food that had smelled so appetizing settled like a lump of cold mush in her stomach, and she put it from her. Concha had taken the clothing from the toddler and, depositing it in one of the baskets on the wall, was about to depart. Not wanting to be alone with her thoughts, Kathleen detained the woman.
"The child, Concha -- is she your daughter?"
"Sí, niña. Chela, tell the lovely lady hola."
The little girl stared solemnly at Kathleen, blinked, and then shyly stuck out one small hand.
"Hello, Chela," Kathleen said, charmed by the tiny creature. "Her father -- is Armand?"
"Sí, but she has all my looks," Concha said. "I hoped so much that she'd have Armand's red hair."
"She's beautiful as she is, Concha." Kathleen released the child's hand and turned to Chela's mother. "How did you come to be here? With these-these bandidos?"
Concha looked at the American girl evenly. "You mean how did I get to be a camp follower, little one? And we are not bandidos. We are revolutionaries."
The woman moved to the doorway and, pushing aside the curtain, stood looking out at the camp's activity. "I'm here because I'm half-Indian and was separated from my parents -- like all Indian children -- at eight years to be trained in the mission. I was to be taught the domestic duties so that I could serve in some Castilian household. Hellhole! Bah!" she spat, slinging closed the curtain and whirling to face Kathleen. "Instead -- at ten -- I was taught how to please the mission's soldados. My sister Hermelinda was more fortunate. She died of the disease the white men brought -- the smallpox."
"I'm sorry," Katheleen murmured, knowing her words were of no comfort to the woman.
"I survived," Concha said stoically. "And that was enough. Armand found me and took me away."
"Your mountain man?"
"Sí. His parents were French. He ws born in the Klamath mountains of Alta California. All his life he's trapped for furs. Until the officials in Mexico City proclaimed that foreigners were unwelcome in California -- only those of Spanish blood."
Concha snapped her fingers. "So, Armand rebelled -- like many others -- to fight for freedom. And me ... I fight alongside Mi hombre."
"Freedom." Kathleen half-muttered the word to herself. She had not realized wht a precious commodity the abstract word was. Until twenty-four hours ago.
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