This Fierce Splendor

by Iris Johansen

  “Give him back,” Dominic said curtly. “No mules.”

  “I can’t give him back. I promised Rafael I would take him with us.”

  “Give him back.” Dominic had enunciated every word with deliberate precision.

  “You’re being most unreasonable,” she said sweetly. “And behaving atrociously, but I’ll forgive you. I know you must be feeling bad. You look quite ill.”

  “I have a headache.”

  She nodded solicitously. “You really shouldn’t drink so much. Look at the trouble it’s caused you. The last time you overindulged, you ended up with a bride.” She patted the mare’s neck. “Now, come along and stop arguing. It would be stupid to refuse a valuable gift like Azuquita.”

  “Azuquita,” Dominic repeated blankly. “Someone named that monster Little Sugar?”

  The mule he was looking at was a good seventeen hands high, black as the bottom of a well, with a face full of sin. A tiny gold loop earring pierced the top of his right ear. Azuquita stared back at Dominic with a blandness that caused the hair on Dominic’s nape to bristle.

  “Well, Rafael actually called him Sweetness,” Elspeth said. “Isn’t that a good sign he has a lovely nature? I put the saddlebags on him myself and I found him very gentle.”

  “He’s trying to fool you into thinking that. Then when you least expect it, he’ll pounce. I know mules.”

  “I’m sure every mule isn’t the same. You’ve merely had an unfortunate experience.”

  “We’re not taking that mule.”

  The smile on Elspeth’s lips wavered. “Of course we are. Rafael was most upset. Indino gave the mule to Rafael and the child loves Azuquita. But it seems the boy’s father drinks too much.” She inclined her head at Dominic. “You should sympathize with that failing. Anyway, when he overindulges he develops a violent dislike for Azuquita and beats him. He even threatened to shoot the poor mule the next time it annoyed him.”

  Dominic smiled sardonically. “I don’t suppose you inquired what Sweetness had done to annoy him?”

  “I’m sure it was something trifling. What could the animal have possibly done to deserve slaughter?”

  “What indeed.” Dominic said, his gaze on the mule.

  Azuquita’s lips suddenly pulled back to reveal yellow-white teeth.

  “My God, the damn mule is grinning at me,” Dominic whispered.

  “I told you he was good-tempered.”

  “If I remember my scriptures, Lucifer seemed that way too—before the fall.” He shook his head. “No, Elspeth.”

  Her smile vanished. “I didn’t ask your permission to bring him. I won’t have that animal brutalized or Rafael frightened or upset. I will care for him myself and you need have nothing to do with him.” She grabbed the lead reins of the mule. “Come along, Azuquita.” Elspeth’s mare trotted out of the corral with the mule ambling docilely at her heels.

  “Elspeth, there’s no way that you can have nothing to do with a mule on the trail,” he called after her. “They haunt you; they do things that drive you insane.”

  “Nonsense.” She didn’t look back.

  Dominic began to curse beneath his breath as he mounted his horse. The imprecations involved Elspeth’s soft heart, the mare and the donkey that had begot the mule, and the black entity that was Azuquita itself.

  The first day the mule behaved surprisingly well, clipping along at a brisk pace as they turned east and began to negotiate the foothills of the Sierra Madres.

  The second day Dominic’s watchful regard registered an imperceptible slowing as boredom began to fester. On the third day Little Sugar began to turn sour. Not toward Elspeth. He behaved with admirable obedience with her. It was with Dominic he attempted to lighten his boredom.

  It began with a light, almost playful nip whenever Dominic came within reach, then he began crowding Dominic’s horse into an occasional tree or the wall of a cliff. Dominic countered by moving the mule from behind Elspeth in the column and placing him with the burros bringing up the rear.

  On the fourth day Azuquita gnawed at the girth of the burro next to him until the saddlebag fell off his back. Since Dominic didn’t discover it for some time, it took two hours to backtrack and retrieve the saddlebag and another hour to mend the girth. Dominic moved the mule back to his former place behind Elspeth.

  On the fifth night a raucous bray woke Dominic in the middle of the night and he opened his eyes to see Azuquita’s hindquarters descending on his face!

  “What the hell?” He had time to roll only a few inches before he received the mule’s bushy tail in his face. “You ornery eunuch.” He brushed the tail from his face. “You loco fiend from hell. You evil son of a—” He broke off as he heard Elspeth’s choked laughter. She was sitting up in her blankets across the fire, laughing helplessly. “This is not funny.”

  “I know. It’s very serious.” She immediately began laughing again. “He could have smothered you with his tail.”

  Dominic sat up and moved gingerly away from the mule, now sitting placidly and ignoring them, warming his broad backside in front of the fire. “He also could have crushed my skull if I hadn’t moved fast.”

  “I think he was just being playful.” Elspeth wiped her eyes on the corner of the blanket. “He did warn you. That bray would have raised Lazarus.”

  “Playful! He’s trying to murder me.”

  “How did he get free?”

  Dominic motioned to the gnawed and shredded rope dangling around Azuquita’s neck. “I don’t mind him breaking loose, but why the hell couldn’t he have run away?”

  Elspeth grinned. “He likes you.”

  Dominic gazed at her as if she had gone mad.

  “No, I believe he really does like you,” she insisted. “He only tolerates me, but I think he regards you as a true challenge.”

  “He tried to knock me off a cliff yesterday, tonight he tried to smother me. I hate to think what he has in mind for me tomorrow.”

  Elspeth’s smile faded. “I have a confession to make. One of the reasons I brought Sweetness along was that I was a little annoyed with you.”

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I admit I found Azuquita’s pranks very amusing, but I realize now it wasn’t fair of me to burden you with him.” She lowered her gaze to the fire. “Perhaps we could find someone to leave Azuquita with until we return.”

  “The only people in these hills are bandits and their women. If we gave Sweetness to them, I don’t know if we’d get out of the hills alive.”

  Elspeth’s hand reached up to comb through her loosened hair, causing the material of her blouse to tauten over the soft swell of her breasts. Dominic was suddenly conscious of her grace, her supple litheness. He felt a stirring heat and tried to blot it out before it could become the painful desire he had lived with for so long.

  Azuquita turned his head and looked at them as if he had understood every word they had spoken. The son of a bitch probably had, Dominic thought crossly, he wouldn’t put it past the hybrid warlock.

  The torment of lust had lessened, Dominic realized with a jolt of shock. It had not disappeared entirely, he was still conscious of a nagging ache within him, but his annoyance with Sweetness had at least made him think of something else beside Elspeth. Now that he thought about it, for the past five days the mule had kept his mind so occupied, he hadn’t had the opportunity to think of anything else.

  An ironic smile flitted across his lips at the thought of how disappointed Azuquita would be if he realized his downright ugliness was acting in Dominic’s best interest.

  “Why are you smiling?” Elspeth asked, puzzled.

  “I was just thinking that bringing Azuquita wasn’t such a bad idea.”

  She looked relieved. “You’re not upset about it any longer? Sweetness is very strong. I surely hope his behavior will improve once he gets to know you.”

  The mule’s lips pulled back from his yellow-white teeth.

  Dominic smiled back at him, mirror
ing the same toothy menace. “We’ll see if your hope pans out.” He got to his feet and grabbed hold of the shredded rope. Sweetness immediately tried to bury his teeth in Dominic’s hand. “I think I’ll be the one to take care of him from now on. As you say, we have to get to know each other.”

  Elspeth blinked. “If you’re sure that’s what you wish.”

  Dominic tugged at the rope. Azuquita didn’t move. “On your feet, my little sugar.” His tone was almost affectionate. “It’s back to the other animals with you. You’ve done enough damage for one night.”

  It took him thirty minutes to get Azuquita off his haunches and tethered with the other animals. By that time Dominic was annoyed and exhausted enough almost to forget the silken warmth of Elspeth waiting for him only a few yards across the fire, and he fell asleep in minutes.

  It was two days later that the heat that had followed them from Killara into Mexico appeared to be on the verge of breaking. Blue-black clouds rolled across the western horizon and in the afternoon the wind carried with it the bite of cool moisture.

  Elspeth took a deep breath, letting the pungent dampness flow through her. “Doesn’t it feel like a blessing? It rains frequently in Edinburgh, but I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated it. I feel as if my bones are made of sand. Do you think the storm will come this way?”

  “Yes.” Dominic swung off his horse, with practiced agility dodged Azuquita’s attempt to step on his boot, and grabbed the mule’s lead rope. “And we don’t have much time to build a shelter.”

  “We’re stopping now? We still have a few hours before sunset.”

  “The storm’s close enough. I like my comfort and I don’t have any intention of sleeping in the rain.” He was leading the stallion and mule into a pine grove at the side of the trail.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Build a lean-to. I saw some ocotillo shrubs about a quarter of a mile back.”

  Ocotillo. She hadn’t the faintest idea which bush he was talking about, but the word had a lovely musical sound. “How can I help?”

  “Unsaddle the animals and tether them to a tree that has a lot of protective foliage.” He reached into his saddlebags and drew out a pair of heavy leather gloves and a sheath containing a hunting knife. “I’ll be right back.”

  He was back in twenty minutes carrying a huge armload of narrow greenish-brown sticks from three to four feet in length.

  “Ocotillo?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You lay them close together and they form a pretty good roof for a lean-to. Pine branches are better for the supports though.”

  “Can we have a fire?”

  He didn’t look up. “A small one.”

  By the time the shelter was built, the grove was beginning to be inundated with the eerie golden light that sometimes precedes the darkness of a storm. The two gnarled support branches were nearly five feet tall; once the blankets were spread and a fire built, the tiny enclosure was reasonably cozy.

  The wind was swaying the tops of the tall pines and the golden light was disappearing. Now there was only a still purple gloom reflected from the storm clouds overhead. Elspeth’s head lifted, and she experienced a tiny thrill of excitement as if she, too, were mirroring the tempest about to be unleashed. The cool breeze lifted her hair from her forehead and she could smell the heady scent of rain, grass, and rich earth.

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” she asked softly.

  “It won’t be wonderful for long.” Dominic crawled under the lean-to. “In about a minute the sky is going to split wide open and you’re going to be drowned if you stay out there.”

  She didn’t seem to hear him. Her gaze was on the darkening sky and she gave a little shiver of anticipation. “It makes me feel strange. I don’t know … powerful. Do you know what I mean?”

  His expression softened as he looked at her glowing face, radiant in the dimness of the grove. “Yes, I know what you mean. Now, come in under the lean-to before you get wet.”

  She sighed and then reluctantly crawled under the shelter to sit beside him, settling back against the saddlebags Dominic had propped against the tree. “It would almost be worth it.”

  He shook his head. “You’d get chilled and we sure as the devil don’t want you ill again.”

  “I won’t become ill. I’ve never felt more healthy in my life.” It was difficult to remember a time when she hadn’t felt this strong and well, and yet it had been only a month ago that she had been bedridden at the hotel in Hell’s Bluff.

  The rain began to fall, at first sporadically, then in huge drops, and as Dominic had predicted, the heavens opened. Rain poured down with stunning force. She could hear it pounding the ocotillo roof, but surprisingly few drops managed to pierce the branches.

  The fire Dominic had built was small, but they managed to prepare a meal of beans and hardtack. After they had finished, there seemed nothing to do but sit and watch the rain.

  20

  Surrounded by the falling rain, gazing into the ever-changing brilliance of the leaping flames, was rather like being enclosed in a silver box holding a glowing ruby, Elspeth thought dreamily. It was not as exciting as the wildness that had preceded the storm but was still very satisfying.

  “I think it’s time to go to sleep.”

  Elspeth lifted her gaze from the fire to look at Dominic in surprise. “It’s not even dark yet. Why would—” She stopped. She suddenly became conscious of how very small was their silver box, only a few feet separated her from Dominic and she could sense every action of his body: The rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the tension of his hand as it gripped the blanket, the slight hollow beneath the bones of his cheeks as his lips tightened. And his eyes …

  Dominic jerked his gaze away. “What the hell else can we do?” He shifted restlessly. “The rain doesn’t look like it’s going to let up. We may be stuck in here until morning.”

  “I see.” The scent of rain, earth, and burning pine surrounded them together with the warm, clean male fragrance that belonged to Dominic. She wanted to breathe in that aroma, have it in her nostrils, in her body. The pagan thought sent a ripple of shocked awareness through her.

  And that wasn’t all of him she wanted in her body, she realized. She wanted to be joined to Dominic in that same searing fashion she had known once before. She wanted to look at him without all those cumbersome clothes. She wanted to touch him as he had asked her to touch him before. She moistened her lips with her tongue as she experienced a hot melting sensation between her thighs. Lust. Strangely, she felt no shame. She had an idea that with Dominic lust could be almost as beautiful as love.

  “Well, then cover up and go to sleep.” Dominic didn’t look at her as he pulled off his boots and then took off his gunbelt.

  “We could play cards,” Elspeth offered tentatively. “You could teach me that game you played at the Nugget.”

  “Poker?” He crushed out the fire and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders. “I don’t seem to have the concentration tonight.”

  “I know piquet. Perhaps we could—”

  “Elspeth, I do not want to play cards.”

  She sighed. She didn’t want to play cards either, but she certainly didn’t want to go to sleep. If they played cards, she could have watched Dominic’s expressions, and perhaps he would smile his special smile that lit his face with warmth. She thought for a moment. “We can talk. Why does the ocotillo keep out the rain so well?”

  He closed his eyes and turned his back to her. “I don’t want to talk.”

  “You’re not being very sociable.”

  “I don’t feel sociable.”

  It was no use. She reluctantly scooted down and pulled the blanket around her. “You obviously don’t feel like being polite either.”

  Polite? He would have laughed out loud if he hadn’t been hurting so much. The good Lord knew what he was experiencing had no resemblance to anything as civilized as the desire to be polite. Just don’t talk to me, he pra
yed silently. Don’t let me hear you move, don’t make me look at you.

  Two hours later the rain was still falling and Elspeth was still wide awake. Dominic’s breathing was deep and even, and he hadn’t moved for a good twenty minutes. At least one of them was able to sleep, she thought ruefully as she stared into the darkness. She turned over on her back and looked up at the ocotillo sticks overhead. Perhaps if she counted them, it would lull her.

  One, two, three, four … When she reached twenty-five she turned onto her side, her gaze on the sticks above Dominic’s head. She forgot to count. She even forgot to breathe. One of the sticks was moving!

  It was the last stick on Dominic’s side of the lean-to. She stared in helpless fascination as the stick slid forward and then wound itself around the support post.

  A snake!

  Dear God in heaven, a snake! Curling slowly around the post, bonelessly gliding around and down toward Dominic’s feet.

  She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t utter a sound. No. Make it go away. Please make it go away. But the snake didn’t go away, it kept coming, gliding closer and closer to Dominic’s feet.

  “No!” She wasn’t aware of the scream that had torn from her lips. She reached for the stick with which Dominic had stoked the flames of their small fire. She rolled out onto the rain-soaked earth and jumped to her feet.

  “No!” She swung the stick and struck the snake on the support.

  “No!” She swung the stick again.

  “Elspeth, what the devil?”

  She struck the snake again. “No!”

  The support gave way and the ocotillo roof collapsed, landing on top of Dominic. She heard him cursing but paid no attention. The snake had fallen to the ground and she was hitting it again and again and again.

  “Elspeth, for God’s sake.…” Dominic had managed to crawl from the wreckage and was beside her, trying to take the stick away from her. “Elspeth, stop it.”

  “It’s a snake.” She jerked her arm away from him. “Don’t you understand? It’s a snake.”

  “It was a snake,” Dominic said. “It’s dead now. Stop hitting it, Elspeth.”