I saw, even in the darkness, the look on Ramon’s face, and I managed to say faintly: “No, Ramon!” But Lucas, although he must have seen it too, merely raised an insolent eyebrow and started to walk past him. Perhaps he meant to take the gun from Ramon, perhaps he did not really believe that Ramon, the quiet-spoken gentleman who had been brought up by Jesuits, would actually shoot.
The gun went off with a blinding flash. I think I screamed, and the smell of powder was bitter in my nostrils. It is strange how the small details come soonest into one’s mind afterward, when the recalling of violence is too frightening or too painful.
I remember that I leaned back against the wall, feeling my legs suddenly too weak to support me. I remember the warmth of the rough adobe bricks under my ice-cold hands.
Ramon had taken a step backwards, and now he took another, the gun still steady. Lucas had seemed to stumble, but now he stood still, staring at Ramon. Very slowly he touched his right arm, and I saw him look down at fingers that were sticky with blood.
He looked back at Ramon then, and his voice sounded abstracted. “Either you’re a very bad shot, hermano, or an excellent one. You’ve drawn blood. Does that satisfy your honor?”
“You have a poor idea of honor if you think so! Now, will you draw the knife that you carry in your boot, or will you stand there like a coward and let me use you as a target to prove that I am as good a shot as you are?”
“So it’s to be knives, now?” Lucas’s voice sounded faintly contemptuous. “Ramon, you’re making a fool of yourself! Can’t you see that?”
The gun boomed again.
This time the bullet had grazed his thigh, and already the blood was starting to drip down his pants leg, leaving an ugly, dark stain. I thought I saw a look of shock on Lucas’s face as he looked from his wound and back at Ramon.
The moon had disappeared behind a cloud, but one of the torches suddenly flared in a rising wind, and I saw the cold determined look on Ramon’s face. “Have I convinced you yet, Lucas?”
It was at that moment that Jesus Montoya, a cigar in his mouth, strolled casually to join us.
“So this is where you all are! Elena heard the shots, and asked me to find out what they were about. So—have you two been having a little target practice to impress the lady?”
“Montoya, you keep out of this!” Lucas said furiously, at the same time that Ramon gave a short, sneering laugh.
“I’ve been trying to persuade my usually reckless brother to fight like a man. But it seems he doesn’t like having to face the consequences of his actions!”
Montoya took his cigar out of his mouth and studied it carefully. “So! This becomes interesting.” He looked straight at Lucas then, and there was a knife edge of hardness underlying his smooth voice. “I am not so old that I do not have eyes, and ears. Did I not warn you once that women would be your downfall? I think you cannot make up your mind, Lucas amigo. I think you always want that which belongs to someone else… or is beyond your reach. Am I not right?”
Lucas said tightly, “This is an affair between Ramon and myself, Montoya. And you and I have not been friends for a long time. If you came here looking for a fight with me you can have it, but as for Ramon…” he looked at Ramon and said steadily, “I will not fight you, little brother. You will not make me, even if you go on shooting. So go on—finish it!”
“This is—I cannot believe this is really happening!” My voice sounded high and hysterical, but I managed to push myself away from the wall and stumble forward. I had the feeling that they had almost forgotten my presence until then, for all three turned to look at me. “Have you all gone completely mad? Do you expect me to stand here and watch slaughter? What’s the matter with you all?”
“Rowena, you will please go back to the house.” Ramon had never before spoken to me in such a harsh voice. “This is an affair between men.”
“But it concerns me, does it not?” I was angry now, and still shaking from the reaction to fear. “Do you think I’ll go away, just because I am ordered to! And I won’t put up with being quarreled over!”
I would have said more, being both angry and overwrought, but Jesus Montoya’s fingers closed like steel over my arm, although his voice was deceptively mild.
“I think this quarrel has been a long time coming, señorita. And you have still a lot to learn about men. This has become a matter of honor.”
“You want to see them fight! You’d sit back and enjoy watching them kill each other, wouldn’t you?” I flung the accusation in his face, but he only chuckled.
“I would not stop them. But then, did you not just hear Lucas say he would not fight his brother?” His tone gave the words a lightly mocking contempt. “Here Ramon.” I saw the long, wickedly pointed knife blade glitter as he tossed it, to stand quivering in the tree trunk behind Ramon. “Why don’t you carve him up a little as a punishment, if you don’t want to kill him? A knife is silent, at least. I have always thought guns far too noisy! As a matter of fact,” he added thoughtfully, “it is something I should have done myself, and would have, if I had suspected how he would treat Luz.”
“Damn you, Montoya, I’ve done nothing to Luz! And I warn you again to stay out of this, or by God I’ll kill you this time!” There was a deadly note in Lucas’s voice that made me catch my breath, but Montoya only laughed jeeringly.
“Without a weapon? And if we fight with our bare hands as we did before, how long before the blood you are losing makes you weak, eh?”
Lucas took a step toward him, but the knife blade, held against his chest, stopped him. Ramon, his face cold and set, had snatched the knife from the tree, holstering his gun as he did so.
“Before you try to kill him, you will first finish your business with me.”
“Ramon, I’ve already told you that I have no quarrel with you. But my old friend Montoya and I have scores to settle. Get out of my way.”
“The time is past when you can give me orders, my bastard half brother!”
The knife blade moved so fast it was like the flicker of lightning that lances through the clouds overhead.
Lucas Cord’s carelessly unbuttoned shirt had a rent in it, and I saw the thin line of blood that suddenly sprang up across his bare brown chest
I think he put his hand up almost instinctively, and there was shock and anger on his face. But the knife moved too fast, and blood oozed from a cut across his palm.
“No,” Ramon mocked, “you will not take the knife from me. Draw your own instead, if you dare. And then we will see.”
“Ramon, you’re crazy! You expect me to stand here and let you cut me up?”
I could not stop myself from crying out again when I saw the knife blade glimmer in another flash of lightning.
Lucas put his hand up to his face, staring at Ramon in disbelief.
“Damn you! Will you fight me now? How much does it take?”
This time the blade cut across his chest again. Two parallel lines, with the drops of blood already starting to run together.
I would have run between them, if Jesus Montoya’s firm grip had not held me at his side.
“Let them be!” His voice was soft, and meant only for my ears, but I could sense the steeliness in it, and it made me shiver. “Do you have no understanding of pride? What you see before you now has been a long time coming. Either stand here with me and be quiet, or go back to the house, as you should have done before.”
I stood there, not wanting to watch but unable to help myself. I saw Lucas move cautiously backwards, his eyes never leaving Ramon’s face; saw the knife blade flicker like a serpent’s tongue until his shirt was cut to ribbons and there were bloody cuts on his chest and arms. Why didn’t he defend himself? I was reminded of gladiators in a Roman circus, and every time the knife slashed and cut viciously and I heard Lucas gasp softly with shock and pain, I gasped too.
Ramon too was panting now. I saw how his face gleamed with sweat and his nostrils flared with the effort of breathing.
“
Why won’t you fight? For God’s sake, how much more will you take before you remember you’re a man?” There was almost a sob of rage and frustration in his voice. “Shall I start to carve your face up too, so that no woman will care to look at you again?”
There was already a thin cut along Lucas’s cheekbone, and now as Ramon slashed upward with the knife he moved his head instinctively sideways, bringing one arm up. The blade, dulled with blood now, left a wicked gash along his forearm.
It was then that his stubborn stoicism gave way to cold fury.
Once in India, I had watched a cobra and a mongoose fight. I remembered how the mongoose danced around its prey, darting in every now and then to bite, while the cobra, its hood spread, swayed back and forth, almost lethargically, waiting for the moment to strike. They had told me that a mongoose almost always won the contest, but on that particular occasion the mongoose must have been slow, or the cobra too wily. I shall never forget how quickly it struck…
And now, when Lucas moved, his whole body became as supple and as deadly as that of a coiled snake. He had seemed to sway backwards, his right arm shielding his face, but suddenly his body, whiplash-quick, swerved aside, and his left hand slashed upward. He used the heel of his hand against Ramon’s wrist. I had time to notice that before the knife went spinning away in an arc. Ramon was holding his wrist, looking dazed, and it was Lucas now who held the knife, drawn from behind his neck.
I heard Jesus Montoya expel his breath in what sounded like a long sigh. “Ah!” And I could not tell whether he sounded relieved or disappointed.
It was only then that I noticed the cold breeze that had sprung up—the distant, intermittent flashes of lightning that would light everything for an instant in an eerie, steely glimmer; and even, in the background, the ominous growl of faraway thunder. How suddenly the moon had disappeared!
“Ramon…” Lucas said, and his voice was taut, husky with tension, “it is enough!”
But Ramon, I think, was past the point of reason, half-wild with rage and a sense of humiliation. “No!” he cried. “By Christ, it isn’t over yet! You’ve got a weapon now, use it!” With a growing sense of horror I saw his hand move down towards his holstered gun. “Your knife—my gun. Throw it—and throw it fast, Lucas, because I will kill you anyway if you do not.”
With an almost contemptuous ease and swiftness, Lucas threw the knife. It quivered, point down in the ground between Ramon’s booted feet, a split second before Ramon drew his gun and fired.
Twenty-Six
Remembering that night is still nightmarish. I can see again the flash of lightning that made it all seem like a scene from Dante’s Inferno, and I can hear my own despairing cry of agonized horror. I wake up drenched with sweat and see again how Lucas spun around, miraculously staying on his feet, to stagger against the adobe wall and slump over it, still on his feet.
His voice seemed to come from a long way off.
“Jesus God, Ramon! You’re still a lousy shot when you get rattled!” And I was so relieved that he was still alive that I began to sob—dry, tearing sobs that came from the depth of my being.
What happened next is a blur, and part of the nightmare. I know I beat at Montoya’s restraining arm, and cried out, “Let me go to him, let me go to him!” But he pushed me instead against Ramon, who stood there staring, with the smoking gun still held loosely in his hand.
I beat at him too, until he dropped the gun and held me by the wrists, some semblance of sanity, and of anger coming back into his face.
“Monster… animal!” I cried. “You are all animals, all the same! You… he… every one of you! I hate you all!”
“She is, after all, only a woman, and obviously not used to violence.” It was Montoya’s voice I heard, and it sounded deep and calm.
I twisted around in Ramon’s grip and glared at him wildly. “He’s dying! Isn’t that what you wanted? Why don’t you finish it?” I looked back at Ramon then, and my words were still wild, spilling out before I could control them. “You! You started it—aren’t you going to kill him to prove you’re a man? To avenge my honor? What are you waiting for?”
His grip on my wrists tightened until I almost screamed, but he looked over my head at Montoya, and his voice sounded flat and dead.
“I did not mean to go as far as I did! And yet I feel as if I had been urged to it for half of my life.”
Lucas had turned, and the patch of blood was spreading on what remained of his shirt. He clung to the top of the wall with one arm, until he was able to lean his back against it. He did not speak, I don’t think he was capable of speech at that moment, but his eyes caught the gleam of the lightning, and I thought they looked as green and pain-glazed as the eyes of a tiger I had shot once.
Jesus Montoya spoke, instead. “Take your novia back to the house, Ramon. There is a bad storm coming up, and I think we will have a cloudburst that will keep us all in the valley for some days to come. I will see to your brother.”
“You mean that you will kill him. You will finish what he started, will you now?”
I could hardly recognize my own voice, it was so flat and drained of emotion.
Montoya’s glittering black eyes looked into mine for a moment. “Once Lucas was closer to me than the son I never had. If I kill him, it will not be like this. Go now, you two. You are to marry and your place is with each other.”
I went with Ramon. It seemed there was nothing else for me to do. His painful grip on my wrists did not slacken, and he almost dragged me for part of the way to the house.
Elena met us in the hallway, and she had changed her velvet dress for a silken wrapper; her cloud of dark hair was down over her shoulders, her face pale and haggard.
“For God’s sake! What happened to you all? I heard shots, and I sent Jesus to find you… where is Lucas?”
“It was nothing, madre. We were having some target practice. And now Rowena and I have some things to talk about with each other.”
“Where is Lucas?” She almost screamed the words, and Ramon gave a travesty of a smile, his lips pulling back from his teeth.
“Lucas is with Montoya. I think that they have things to talk about too. For once, my mother, will you go to bed and stop interfering? Leave Lucas alone… leave me alone! When will a mother learn to hold back when her sons are grown up?”
She paled as if she had been struck, but her back stiffened. I had to admire the way she stood so straight, her voice becoming stronger.
“And where are you taking Rowena? I want to talk with her.”
Sensing an ally, I tried to pull away from Ramon, but he held me fast. I was learning things I had not realized about the Kordes males, it seemed.
“I am afraid you will have to put off your conversation until tomorrow. Tonight Rowena will talk with me.”
“Ramon! Do not forget that you aren’t married yet!” Elena’s voice was sharp with anger.
“I forget nothing, mamacita. But I would advise you not to come knocking at my door, filled with hypocritical morality!” He tugged me forward by my wrists as if I had been bound, so that I fell against him. “You have heard how Lucas bought her, as a captive from the Apaches? Well, tonight, I took her from him. And, as I have said, we have talking to do—perhaps more than that.”
“Ramon! If I did not know you better I’d say that you were drunk. You forget yourself!”
He laughed. “Mother, if it is your other son, who is not your son, that you are concerned about, I suggest you go outdoors and find him!”
We left her staring after us as if she had been turned into a statue of stone. I stumbled on the stairs, and Ramon lifted me up in his arms, in spite of my feeble, half-dazed protests.
It was, I think, the way he kicked the door of his room shut behind him that brought me back to my senses. That, and the way he carefully bolted the door behind him, having flung me across his bed like an unwanted package. I watched him turn the lamp up slightly, and then turn back to me, casually unbuttoning his jacke
t.
“What’s got into you?” I flung the words at him, but they sounded breathless and uncertain. He smiled, his mouth twisting mirthlessly under his neat moustache, and I realized that I did not know him at all. This was the man I had planned to play with, hoped to manage. The “gentleman of the family,” and he turned out to be even worse than his brother.
“Nothing’s got into me,” he said calmly, and added, in the same tone of voice, “I would think that you’d be glad to see me turn into a man. It was the insult to you that did it, of course. And now, my sweet bride-to-be, I think that you should follow my example, and take your clothes off. Or would you prefer me to help you? Perhaps you’re shy. I’m sure tonight must have been a shocking experience for you, and you must need some comfort.” In the face of my stunned silence he raised an eyebrow. “Surely I don’t shock you? After all, we are engaged to be married, what difference will it make if we are… how shall I put it… a trifle impatient? You will notice that my experienced brother did not let such small matters stand in his way. What surprises me is that having bought you, and had you to himself, he did not take advantage of such glorious bounty! Or did he?”
I drew what remnants of pride and aloofness I had left in me about myself like an invisible cloak, and looked coldly into his eyes.
“If you thought that, then you should not have acted the hypocrite, Ramon. I suggest that you let me go back to my room, and we can talk more calmly and reasonably in the morning.”
He flung his jacket away from him, so that it landed on the floor. “In the morning, you say? My sweet, practical Rowena! Why should we wait until the morning? After all, we are engaged to be married, what difference will it make if I make you my bride tonight? I defended your honor… doesn’t that make you feel differently towards me? I almost lolled my brother over you—surely that must mean something? And at least, my intentions are completely honest, and honorable. You were Shannon’s fiancée for a short time—surely you did not hold back when he took you in his arms?”
He came to me, leaned over me, and I felt myself pressed backward onto the bed. Suddenly, he had thrown his body over mine, his hands gripping my wrists, pulling them over my head.
The Wildest Heart Page 36