And so I found myself dancing the waltz in the open, under a yellow moon, with only a guitar to give us music. But it was enough. Jesus Montoya was a born dancer, I have seldom danced with better.
“How light you are on your feet!” he murmured.
“How clever you are with your flattery.”
He smiled, as if I had satisfied him in some way, showing white teeth.
“So you are Guy Dangerfield’s daughter—and you are to marry Ramon. It is what your father would have wished, of course.”
“And you too knew my father?”
“Not closely, alas. But I have met him. You have his eyes. But as for the rest… perhaps you have been told the same thing before, but it is of Elena that you remind me most. I think you are a strong woman, and not entirely the charmingly guileless girl you appear to be. Have I made you angry?”
“Why should honesty make me angry?”
“Ah! That is a good question. But it makes many people angry, as I’m sure you know. Shall I go even further, since you are a woman who appreciates directness, and tell you that you are one of the reasons for my coming here?”
I had to tilt my head back to look at him.
“I had no idea that news could travel so far, and from such an isolated spot.”
“Ah, but I have my ways of obtaining such information that others do not. I am what others call a comanchero. I see from the flicker in your eyes that you try to hide that you have heard of us. And, no doubt, it has all been very bad. But I will not have you think that I am also guilty of evading the truth. I was curious, you see. Here is a young Englishwoman, lately come to this country. One would expect… what? Certainly not what I find here. A woman who survived capture by the Apaches. A woman who, I am told, captured even Todd Shannon’s heart. Did you know that he has an enormous reward posted for any news of your whereabouts?”
His sudden question was abrupt, and yet I did not show him if it had startled me.
“Do you hope to claim it, señor?”
At last I had made him laugh. He threw his head back, but his laughter was strangely soft, almost soundless.
“And if I did, what would you tell me? You are to be married to Ramon Kordes, I find, and not to Todd Shannon. Frankly, I have no great love for your former fiancé, or his like! And, whether you choose to believe it or not, I do feel a certain loyalty toward my friends. So I will let you answer that question for yourself, señorita! And add one of my own. Do you wish to be rescued?”
His coal-dark eyes looked into mine, and I found that I could not answer him. But I refused to resort to subterfuge either.
“Perhaps, at the moment, I am not certain. And again… I’m not certain of your real motives either. Did you really come here to make sure that I was here? Or was it to settle old debts?”
I thought his arm around my waist tightened a trifle. “You are indeed a clever woman, Rowena Dangerfield. You answer my question with questions of your own. You will give away nothing, eh? But you wish me to admit to… what? I think you have heard the whole story already, and as a tribute to your intelligence, I will not lie. Yes, my motives for coming here were many. And before my visit is ended, perhaps we will both find answers to our questions.”
I thought I had the answers to everything that evening. I even thought that I could almost like Jesus Montoya, because he was honest with me. He was a clever man. He danced with me and acted the perfect gentleman. He danced with Elena, and I saw his head bending close to hers, his smile, faintly derisive, and hers in return. And he danced with Luz, and his manner was almost fatherly. I watched it all. The food was brought out—spiced roast beef, the inevitable beans. Steaming hot tortillas and chili; even a salad made of avocados, which tasted delicious. And there was wine, and tequila for those who wanted stronger. I tasted it, when Ramon, laughing, insisted, and it had no taste, but burned all the way down to my stomach. And all this time Lucas had not approached me; nor had I spoken to him.
I danced with him for the first time only after we had eaten, and after I had danced again with Jesus Montoya.
This time the wine made me bold enough to ask what was on my mind. “Have you made friends at last, you and Lucas?”
He smiled down at me in an amused fashion, but under his moustache I thought his mouth looked crooked. “Why should we be enemies? Always, it is a woman who can drive men apart. But women come and go, si? With Luz, her padre was my friend, an old friend. And I desired her, why should I lie about it? I spoke to him when he knew he was dying, he knew I wanted her, and it might have been arranged, if Lucas had not come back. Young—yes, he must have seemed so young to her! Young and hard and swaggering. She looked at him, and he looked at her. Soon it began to seem that she needed rescuing, and he was the one to do it. And there was the question of his proving something to me—a matter of manhood. Of a time when he was very young, and he went with us when we raided a certain village in Mexico. You are shocked? But I think you have heard of the comancheros. That we are worse than bandits, worse even than our Apache brothers whom the Anglos have learned to fear, and to respect. There was a woman, that time. A girl, you might call her. And Lucas, who was like my own son, had found her. He did not know what to do with her. It was a game of pursuit and capture. She expected to be raped… do I shock you? But he did not know how to go about it. And so—so I took her from him. ‘When you are man enough to fight me for a woman we both want and win, then I will grant you the prize of war, niño,’ I told him. And the time came when we fought again over Luz, and he won. It surprises you? It surprised me too. I would have killed him, if I could, but he had learned certain ways of fighting from the Chinese. Have you seen Lucas fight? He learned it in prison, and from the time he worked on the railroads in Kansas, and in Utah, working side by side with Chinamen. He does not use their style of fighting often, for he told me once that it was a secret, that he had sworn never to use his skill unless it was in self-defense. I was angry when we fought, and I had a knife—I suppose it gave him an excuse. Nevertheless, though it might surprise you, I too, in my way, am a man of honor. ‘You owe me a woman, Montoya,’ he said, and it was true. He left me lying senseless in the dust, when he might have killed me instead, and he took Luz with him when he left. Brought her here. By now, I would have thought he’d have married her. I could have forgiven him more easily if he had!”
“So you haven’t forgiven him at all, have you?” I whispered. In spite of myself, his impassioned speech had caught my mind, making me wonder what else lay under the surface here. “And what of Elena?” I hadn’t realized that I had put my thought into words, until I saw Montoya smile his crooked smile at me again.
“Ah, so you’ve noticed that too? Elena is like a distant star, the goddess all men crave for. I have always wanted her. Even when she was married to my closest friend. Even later, when I knew what killed him. And now… I do not know. Perhaps it is habit. Perhaps we are really friends at last, after all the years that have gone by, and the understanding we have gained of each other. I have a tremendous admiration for Elena. I respect her, as I have been able to respect no other woman. More than that, you will not get from me! I have told you more than I should. I wonder why.”
He looked down at me thoughtfully. And it was at that moment that the music stopped for a few seconds, while Chato held a bottle of tequila to his mouth and drank thirstily from it.
When he turned back to his guitar again, one of the vaqueros accompanying him on the mouth-harp, it was Lucas who held me in his arms, while Elena, laughing, danced with Jesus Montoya.
How it had happened, I could never be quite sure. I had time to notice how well Luz and Ramon danced together, and then, because I became stiff, and my feet seemed to stumble of their own accord, he took me off into a corner of the patio, and lifted me up by the waist, so that I found myself sitting on the wide adobe wall.
I had had no time to struggle, nor even to protest. I remember that the moon was behind him, and I could not see his face clearl
y, only the bronze glints in his hair as he continued to hold me, his hands still on either side of my waist.
“You have a way of making men open their minds to you, without your feelin’ a damn thing yourself, don’t you, Rowena?”
I started to say furiously, “You have no right to question me…” when he cut me off, his husky voice curiously harsh.
“When will you stop playing games with me? And why only with me? I didn’t drag you off here to start another argument with you, only to ask you something, for God’s sake! I know how you feel about me, and maybe I’ve deserved most of it, but at least I’ve been honest with you Rowena. An’ that’s all I’m asking of you now.”
It was to combat my own sudden breathlessness that I made my voice so icily cold. “I don’t understand you, Lucas Cord. At one moment you attack me, and the next you demand honest answers from me. Answers to what? And why from me?”
His voice quieted, but I felt the involuntary tightening of his hands about my waist and flinched.
“You and Montoya. I saw how long he talked to you, and I watched your face. He told you, didn’t he?”
“What was there to tell? Or does your conscience bother you? One more example of your callousness… your selfishness! You did not want Luz, but you took her from a man who might have married her, and brought her here to this prison! And for what? Will you marry her? How long must she wait while you go off when you please and return if you please? Is there any feeling to you except for your ill-conceived lust for Elena and your hate for Todd Shannon? Why, you move everybody else around as if they were pawns, don’t you? You brought me here to suit your own ends—because I was Todd Shannon’s fiancée, and because my father left me a fortune. And if I had not promised to Ramon, what would you have done with me? Kept me here as a slave forever? Sold me across the border? Or would you kill me, as you tried to kill Elmer Bragg?”
My voice was shaking when I had finished. I had not meant to say so much, but suddenly, it was as if everything I had been holding inside me burst out, and I could not help myself. He had asked me for honesty and I had been honest with him.
He had dropped his hands from my waist and was staring at me, his head slightly tilted so that he could study my face. I thought I heard him suck in a deep breath and tensed myself for the angry tirade that must surely come. There was an aura of barely suppressed fury that I could feel emanating from him, and knowing his uncertain temper I should have been afraid. But there was such a welter of confused emotions within my mind by now that even if he had struck me I might almost have welcomed it as a release from the terrible tension that was between us at that moment.
But he had more control over his feelings, whatever they were, than I had shown tonight.
“Guess there’s nothing more to be said between us now, is there? Come on, I’ll take you back to Ramon now.” His voice was flatly expressionless, and this time, instead of seizing me by the waist, he held his hand out to me.
I did not—could not—take it.
“I can manage quite well!” I said childishly, wondering why my voice still shook. My hands shook too, as I tried to lever myself off the wall, feeling the skirt of my gown catch on some slight protuberance as I did.
Afterwards, I blamed the cuts on my fingers, which had begun to sting and throb painfully again, and my misjudgment of the height of that wall, which seemed so low. Perhaps I had had too much wine to drink. But I felt myself pitch forward, and then his arms caught me. I was being held far too tightly and too closely, my face pressed against his shoulder, and I was too weak with shock and reaction to move.
I did not want to. I discovered that I was breathing far too fast, and that it made my head dizzy, so that I was forced to lean even more closely against him; and my most treacherous thought of all, I knew that I would not be able to bear it if he released me now.
There are certain times when certain actions seem natural and foreordained. Still holding me against him, Lucas put his hand in my hair, pulling my head back almost cruelly. Perhaps he read in my face what I could see in his: wonder. Even a kind of bitter anger. And hunger. Then he kissed me, with a violence and a passion that was like an explosion, stunning us both.
I felt the wall against my back, and his body against mine as I pressed myself closer to him with a shameless ardor I would not have believed myself capable of. I could no more have denied my longing for him than I could have commanded myself to stop breathing. We kissed, and kissing was not enough. With a passion I had been taught once, but now became natural and artless, I slipped my hands under his shirt, holding him with my palms against his skin, feeling the muscles in his back move.
I felt him wrench his lips away from mine and almost cried out loud as my eyes flew open. His breathing was as uneven as mine—I noticed that, and wondered why he had stopped kissing me.
“Lucas…”
“Don’t, for Christ’s sake! What were you tryin’ to prove this time? What a lecherous, dirty bastard I am? That I’m incapable of resisting any female who falls into my arms and presses her soft body against mine, even if she happens to be my father’s wife or my brother’s fiancée?”
I felt as if he had slapped me. I could feel the blood drain from my face and then flood back, leaving my cheeks burning. He had held me, kissed me, forced me into betraying myself a second time by using my own weapons against me. If I had had a gun with me, I think I could have killed him then.
“Is that how it happened with Elena too?” I said in a choked voice I could barely recognize as my own, and I raked my nails viciously across his back, wishing they had been knives. I felt—oh God, I felt the tearing of his skin and the warm stickiness of blood; then, with a grunt of pain and shock, he caught me by the shoulders, pushing me so hard against the wall I thought my back would break.
This time I would not close my eyes weakly when he brought his face close to mine. I glared into his eyes, and they looked dark and glittering, like the eyes of an Apache. I clawed at him again, and he slapped me; then before I could cry out he had leaned his body into mine and was kissing me again—so hard and so painfully that I felt I could not breathe, that I would forever feel the imprint of his lips on mine. My hands were pushing against his chest now, and I could hear my own helpless whimpering in my throat.
“Is this what it takes to keep you quiet?” He whispered it against my bruised, open mouth, and then, his hands moving from my shoulders to my breasts, “Whatever I am, whatever you are, I can’t stop myself from wanting you.”
I hit him, as hard as I could across the side of the face, using the back of my hand. “And I despise you, for the animal you are!”
My knuckles felt bruised and I almost sobbed with the pain, but I had the satisfaction of knowing I had hurt him too. There was a livid welt across his cheekbone that he had begun to rub at absently while he stared down at me.
“Damned if you aren’t the first woman ever slapped me that hard,” he said quietly, almost wonderingly.
“But I’m sure you deserved it this time at least.”
I gasped, and pressed my aching knuckles against my lips.
When had Ramon come up? And how long had he been standing here?
“You should have chosen a more isolated place for forcing your attentions upon my novia… brother!”
I had never known Ramon’s usually easygoing, pleasant voice to sound so hard, nor seen his eyes so narrow and cold.
I felt as ashamed and humiliated, but his eyes had merely flickered over me, their expression unreadable, and now they were fastened upon Lucas, who turned slowly to face his brother.
“Well? Surely you have some explanation. You are not usually at a loss for one. Were you merely testing her true feelings for me? Or would you try and make me believe that she threw herself at you and deliberately enticed you into making love to her? Come, you must admit that I am patient! By now another man in my place would have shot you as you stand.”
I noticed, for the first time, the awful, om
inous stillness that surrounded us. There was no more music in the background. Here in this secluded, shaded corner even the torchlights were merely a faint glow somewhere behind us. And I saw, as he casually moved his hand upward, the gun that Ramon had carried against his thigh.
I opened my mouth to say something, but I could not make any sound emerge from my suddenly dry throat.
It was Lucas who spoke, his voice quiet. “I have nothing to say. No explanations.”
“And you expect me to be content with that?”
The hammer clicked back on the gun. I felt as if I had been trapped in a nightmare.
“It seems as if you will be content with no less than to pull that trigger, Ramon. Why don’t you do it quickly before your scruples get the better of you?”
Even in my half-dazed state I could not mistake the soft, deliberately taunting note in Lucas Cord’s voice.
And it seemed to me in that tiny, suspended moment when they faced each other—Ramon with the gun in his hand, his face grim, and Lucas, standing so negligently, his arms at his side—that some men appear to court death deliberately, and that Lucas was one of these.
I know Ramon realized this too, and his handsome face twisted in a snarl of bitterness.
“I think you would like me to murder you and carry that guilt with me for the rest of my life. But I will not make it so easy for you. Where is your gun?”
“I saw no need to wear it this evening. And in any case, Ramon, I will not duel with you, if that is what you have in mind. For God’s sake!” I saw Lucas’s eyes narrow, and his voice turned harshly impatient, “Must we stand out here acting out some stupid drama? I kissed Rowena, and she slapped my face. Now… if you feel you ought to shoot me for that go ahead an’ shoot. Or else I’m walking away.”
“Must you be reminded that you are no longer dealing with a little brother, but a man you’ve insulted? I saw you strike my novia, and had I been close enough I would have killed you then!”
The Wildest Heart Page 35