Savage Enchantment

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Simon held the flintlock pistol on Dimitri. "Your scheme didn't work, Karamazan. Why would I pay to get my wife back when I can just as easily take her?"

  Dimitri eyes the tall, spare man warily. "You weren't to get the message until tomorrow."

  Kathleen scrambled to her feet. "What are you two talking about?"

  Simon's eyes fell on Kathleen with exasperation. "Did you seriously think your friend here wouldn't try to make the best of the opportunity you gave him? While you were packing, he left a note with Diego. You were to be ransomed -- and he'd get in touch with me -- at the proper time."

  Simon's angry gaze switched back to Dimitri. "But you didn't know Diego could smell a fox a mile away. It didn't take long for him to figure something was up and send for me. And it shouldn't take long for you to get on your way, Karamazan. Unless you want to test my patience -- and my accuracy."

  "You wouldn't take that chance, Reyes. Because it would destroy --"

  "Dimitri," Kathleen cried, "Simon doesn't bluff! Do what he says!"

  The Russian officer glanced at Kathleen, weighing her words. "I know when to bow out," he said with a grin. "Kathleen, Reyes, adiós."

  Under Simon's watchful eyes, the young man quickly saddled his horse. Kathleen gnawed at her lower lip, dreading the moment he left her alone with Simon. DImitri she could've somehow handled. Simon, no.

  When Dimitri rode down the hill into the gorge and was out of sight, Simon turned on her. "Damn it, Kathleen, you're not worth the powder it'd take to blow you to hell!"

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Do you realize if I'd had to kill him that it'd take just one word in the ears of the Russian government and it'd give 'em reason to come pouring back into California again! It'd wipe out all our plans -- our months of work."

  "Then why did you come for me?" Kathleen shot back.

  Simon's lips stretched in a thin line, and he shoved her from him. "Damned if I know."

  Chapter 30

  In the western heavens the burnt-orange moon lay cradled in luminous silver clouds. There was a harvest chill in the night air, and Kathleen slumped deeper in the saddle, trying to absorb the steamy warmth rising off Estrellita's sweat-soaked flanks.

  Instead of retracking southward toward del Bravo, Simon's quarter horse climbed the westward slopes leading out of the valley, scrambling the stony protuberances at a pace that jarred Kathleen's teeth with each step. "Where are we going now?" she called out. She was cold and hungry and miserable.

  Simon dropped back to ride alongside Kathleen. "To Frémont's camp. The revolution's begun."

  "Was that the news Gemma said you'd been waiting for?" As much as Kathleen disliked bringing up the womanh's name, her curiosity was stronger.

  "That -- and the word that Micheltorena and Sutter -- he's been made the captain of the civil military now -- are on the march with their armies toward Santa Barbara."

  Kathleen's wingswept brows raised in surprise. "The United States is getting involved in this?"

  "Technically, no. Frémont's men -- and the sixty-odd that came with his scout. Kit Carson -- are to be mainly a show of force. To give Micheltorena something to think about."

  He shoved his hat to the back of his head and continued. "As Larkin told you, the United States can't afford to give Mexico any reason to complain -- at least not till Polk gets the Texas annexation problem out of the way."

  So Simon had overheard her conversation with Larkin the night of the reception, when she pleaded with the consul for help. No wonder Simon overtook her and Dimitri so rapidly -- forewarned, he had only to set his watchdog, Diego, on her.

  Chagrined, she said, "Little good your stupid revolution'll do you! Mexico'll only quarter more and more troops here. Then the Californios'll know what it is to suffer under a real yoke of tyranny."

  "Mexico won't be able to garrison more troops here -- not if she's in a war with the United States. Which she soon will be. And after the United States wins -- and it will -- the Californios'll petition for statehood."

  "That'll be marvelous!" Kathleen said acidly. "Especially for the people who survive your revolution -- if many do!"

  Her heels dug into Estrellita's flanks, and she pushed ahead to take the lead on the narrow trail. Simon's low chuckle reached her as she passed him, and her back stiffened while she silently fumed at being the object of his amusement.

  An hour later the light of the scorching moon gave Kathleen her first glimpse of Frémont's camp. Ghostly gray tents dotted a small plateau rimmed on three sides by steep canyon walls. In the camp's center, instead of the stars and stripes, waved a red and white flag with a red star and a grizzly bear.

  "Some of the mountain men must've already got the jump on declaring California a republic," Simon muttered, his face displaying obvious displeasure.

  As they headed upward toward the encamped mesa, a guard called out from among the boulders that encroached the path, and Simon signaled back with a burst of three successive shots from his pistol.

  Kathleen and Simon were allowed to continue along the path unchecked. However, once inside the camp, they were approached by a man in buckskin with hair slicked down by bear grease. He held a lantern high in his hands. "Captain Frémont's been expecting you," he said, and led them toward a tent standing toward the rear of the encampment.

  Inside, Frémont sat at a makeshift desk of crates. A different Frémont than the one Kathleen had met at Simon's cabin. He wore the blue uniform of the United States Army, and his sandy-brown hair had been clipped just below his ears.

  "Simon -- Mrs. Reyes," he said, rising. He took Simon's outstretched hand with a grin. "As usual, you're late."

  "And tired," Simon said. "Do you have a vacant tent for us, John?"

  "Yes -- and a tub of water that's chilled by now. But my men'll quickly heat some more water for you, Mrs. Reyes."

  "Nothing could sound better," she said shyly as she brushed back the dusty wisps of hair that had escaped from her chignon. Apparently her marriage to Simon had caught Frémont by surprise. She could only be grateful for his natural courtesy and tact.

  "Go on," Simon told her. "Ill come to the tent later, after John and I have finished talking."

  The same mountain man guided Kathleen to a darkened tent but left the lantern with her. "I'll be back with buckets of hot water, ma'am," he told her.

  Kathleen would have liked to soak for the rest of the night in the steaming water, but, knowing that Simon might return at any moment, she quickly bathed. Her long hair she was forced to wash without soap, since there was not enough water to adequately rinse it.

  When Simon pushed aside the flap, she was already dressed -- in a long-sleeved, high-necked white muslin gown -- and sitting on the one cot in the tent. If Simon was startled by the sight of her in a nightgown, her hair falling in tangled curls among the gown's folds, he gave no indication.

  Kathleen continued to painfully comb the snarls from her hair while Simon wordlessly shucked his dirty clothing before her. As if the two of them had always shared bedrooms, he stepped into the battered tin tub, totally unconscious of his nakedness.

  Like a wall of gold, Kathleen's thick hair fell over her shoulder as she brushed it, concealing the flush of embarrassment that tinted her face. She was confused by the forced intimacy that had steadily grown between them.

  "You'd better get some sleep," he said. "We leave tomorrow for Santa Barbara."

  Kathleen peeked through the cascade of hair. "I'm to go also?"

  Simon picked up the cake of soap and began lathering the bronzed skin of his chest and arms. "There's going to be fighting there. You'll stay at La Palacia where it's safe."

  "Safe for me -- or for you?" Furious, she slammed her brush on the cot and advanced on Simon. "What you mean -- isn't it? -- is that I'll be a prisoner again so that I can't give away your plans."

  Simon took a deep breath. "Kathleen, you're beginning to sound like a shrew."

  And before she realized what happened, one of
Simon's arms snaked out and wrapped itself about her legs. She fell forward across the tub and was only saved from a nasty bruise against its edge by Simon's other arm.

  "Let go of me! You're getting me wet!"

  "What you need is a whipping," he said. He threw up her gown to reveal the firm mounds of her buttocks.

  Kathleen thrashed about, twisting and flailing her arms. "Don't you dare!" she shouted. But his hand came down heavily across her bare rump, and she gasped with each sharp, repeated whack. Then, although Simon's blows were just as hard, Kathleen ceased her struggling, as if welcoming the deliverance of each strike like a lashing caress.

  Simon's hand came down once again, and remained on her buttocks for a breathtaking moment. Kathleen waited, suspended in an interlude of time, for what she did not know. From above her, Simon's voice came like the gravelly rasp of flint against the blade. "Get up, Kathleen."

  The tone of his voice, his distant manner, were almost as humiliating to her as the nights she had endured with Aguila. Abruptly she shoved herself from him, trying in what was anything but dignified to pull her wet gown down about her ankles.

  But for once Simon did not seem to find her predicament amusing, did not mock her as she half expected. He rose from the tub and, in the strained silence that permeated the tent, pulled on the same dusty pants and flannel shirt he had discarded.

  "I'll come for you early," he said over his shoulder as he turned to leave.

  For a long moment Kathleen sat there, stunned, not quite sure what to make of Simon's actions. Then she flung herself across the cot, her anger at Simon spilling out in all the oaths she had ever heard -- the guttural curses of the sailors, the vivid swear words of the vaqueros. But nothing drove away the haunting ache that gnawed inside her.

  It seemed to Kathleen that morning came just as she finally fell asleep. In the predawn darkness, Simon squatting at her side was only a shadow against the dimness of the tent. "It's time to go," he said as her lids swept open. Then he was gone."

  When Kathleen had pulled the brightly patterned skirt and low-cut blouse over her shift, she joined Simon outside where he stood gently quieting the saddled Salvaje and Estrellita.

  "The others?" she asked. "Frémont's men aren't coming?"

  "They'll join mine in Buenaventura at the right time," he said, and took her by the waist, throwing her up over the mare's wide back.

  The westward journey over the Santa Ynez Mountains passed in a heavy silence that puzzled Kathleen. Simon's face was set in an expression as stony as the sheer cliffs that rocked in both sides of the passes they negotiated.

  Warily Kathleen watched him as suspicion grew within her. What if La Palacia was not her destination? What if Simon intended to rid himself of her along the way to Santa Barbara rather than leave her alive to warn the sldiers at the presidio?

  Noon came, and Simon halted on the rocky banks of a swift-flowing mountain stream. From beneath the cool shade of an evergreen -- as darkly green as Simon's eyes now were -- Kathleen watched with growing fear as Simon deftly whittled a spear from the limb of a fallin pine. Was this the moment she would be sacrificed on Simon's altar to revolution? Had she not come to realize that Simon could be ruthless when it came to the California cause?

  However, the moment of danger passed when Simon knelt at the stream's bank and, after some moments of concentration, jabbed the spear into the water.

  "Trout," he said, rising with the still-wriggling fish impaled on his spear. At that moment, Kathleen thought he looked years younger than the thirty-odd she had at first judged him to be.

  She sat contentedly watching him clean the fish and prepare the fire, all the while marveling at his skill in wilderness survival. The fish had a wonderful smoked flavor, and Kathleen stuffed herself, so that when she finished she stretched out, wanting nothing more than to sleep the long, lazy afternoon through.

  Simon, setting on his haunches, watched her from across the fire. When Kathleen heard him rise and cross to her, her heart began to thud expectantly. Slowly she raised her lids. He stood there above her, his thumbs hooked in his belt.

  "You tempt me," he said. And then, as if she might misunderstand, "I'd like nothing better than to stretch out for a nap. But we have to be on our way. Rain clouds are climbing in the west."

  He bent over and took one of her outstretched hands, pulling her to her feet. "We'll stop early tonight." He turned away abruptly, as if her nearness repulsed him.

  Throughout the rest of the afternoon they rode through one pass after another. And as the sun dropped from sight, the horses trotted along a winding corridor of stone which opened into a path leading out onto the saddleback of the mountains. The moisture-laden wind blew from the sea, whipping the hair from its knot at Kathleen's neck.

  Turning around in the saddle, she saw the valley behind her nearly sheathed in darkness. Farther down the muntain they had just ascended, a band of antelope grazed.

  On the western side of the mountain there was still enough sunlight to follow the mossy path that plunged a short distance into the green cover of the firs. Minutes later, Simon reined in before one of the larger brush-covered hills of chaparral that ridged the mountain. Dismounting, he untied the saddlebag before coming over to Kathleen and helping her down.

  "What is it?" she asked when he released her.

  "A cave." He began to thread his way through the shoulder-high bushes. Every so often he would stoop to gather broken twigs and limbs. "This is where we'll spend the night."

  Reluctantly Kathleen followed and found herself swallowed up by a cool karkness. "Simon," she called out. She was half-afraid some kind of bat would sweep down upon her, like in the stories she had heard as a girl.

  "It's all right," his voice said at her shoulder.

  She heard the strike of a match, and the cave was filled with soft light.

  "It's little more than a gouged-out portion of the mountain ... but it'll be a dry place to sleep for the night," he said as he set fire to the dead brush he had gathered. "Dig some food out of the bags while I tend the horses."

  Kathleen found the remains of the smoked trout and some hard biscuits to much on, by the time Simon returned. She was reaching for the canteen when he sent it skidding across the cave's damp floor with a kick of his boot.

  "Scorpion."

  He crossed to her and, stooping to take her hand, which already prickled, he held it to the firelight. Then he surprised Kathleen by placing his mouth against her palm. The sucking tickled her skin, and she tried to draw away. He held her firm.

  After a moment he spit. "I doubt the venom's had time to travel. You'll probably be feverish tonight, but that'll likely be all the effects you'll suffer."

  Kathleen watched as his dark head bent over her hand again, and an unexplicable tremor passed over her. She felt slightly lightheaded but suspected it was due more to the realization of her weakness at Simon's mere touch rather than any affects of the sting.

  Covertly her gaze followed him as he put away the remains of the meal and spread out the saddle blankets. Using one of the saddles as a pillow, he stretched out his long frame. He glanced at her and said, "We've got another day's ride to Santa Barbara. You'd best try to get some sleep.

  Cautiously Kathleen lay down on the other blanket, only inches from Simon. Half afraid of him, of herself. But whatever moment she feared never came. Only, after an interval, the steady rhythm of His breathing. At once reassuring and frustrating to her.

  For a while she lay there watching the puffs of smoke from the dying fire stream upward to some concealed outlet in the cave's celing, and listening to a cicada chirp somewhere jsut outside the cave's entrance.

  Then at last sleep came, but with it dreams. Dreams of Simon, dressed as the vaquero, in Gemma's office -- and Simon the ranchero giving his full attention to Francesca's words. Then a curioous oppression seeped into the dreams, which soon turned to nightmares as the faces of Angel, Edmund, and Aguila drifted before her.

  "Kathl
een! It's all right -- it's all right."

  She opened her eyes to find Simon leaning across her.

  "You were moaning," he said softly, "and thrashing about like a sick calf."

  He put a hand to her head. "You might be, at that."

  Kathleen felt nearly half-frozen, as if the cold glaciers of a million years earlier were rising through the floor of the cave. Her teeth chattered. "I'm cold, Simon."

  But she was only partially aware of the warmth that enveloped her as Simon gathered her body up against his.

  Chapter 31

  Unconsciously Simon ground out the half-smoked cigarette with his boot, leaving an ash-stained circle on the hardwood floor of Gemma's office. He was in an ill humor, and he knew it had nothing to do with the foray he was to lead in four days at Beunaventura.

  If the bit of intelligence Nathan had gleaned from the governor's palace was correct, Micheltorena and Sutter had marched out of Monterey with a combined force of almost three hundred men. And by the time they reached Santa Barbara, the presidio's roster had added another fifty-seven. Yet with Castro's forces soon to arrive, and backed by Frémont's show of force, there was a good chance of defeating the governor.

  Nor was his ill humor due to the report that Edmund Woodsworth had been seen at the presidio talking with Micheltorena. What was the man up to now? So far, his own spies had served him well, supplying him with information not only about Woodsworth's movements in California but the man's life in Boston. Sweet Jesus, no wonder Kathleen was disgusted by the man's touch when she had practically been sold to someone like WOodsworth!

  But then, he himself hadn't made the situation any better. Why had it taken him so long to admit to himself the truth of that first night? Maybe if he hadn't been so drunki, if he hadn't willingly let himself be deceived into thinking Kathleen was Aguila's paramour -- maybe his bestial behavior that night he raped her woudl never have occurred ... and she would not hate him as she did.