The Wildest Heart (18 page)

Lucas Cord had come instead, using Mr. Bragg's name to gain my trust, using even the name of my dead father who had befriended him in order to excite my curiosity. “Out here we shoot rattlesnakes before they have a chance to bite,” Mark had said with a note of grimness unusual for him. I knew what he wanted me to do, but I would not discuss it.

“He'll never turn up,” I said. I repeated those same words during the last part of our long and tiring journey across the plains and mountains, past Santa Rita, and into Silver City which, as its name implied, was a prosperous mining town.

We had a cavalry escort from Fort Cummings for most of the journey, and when we stopped to rest at Santa Rita the SD men who had gone ahead of us with Todd Shannon took over.

I was surprised at their number, and the arsenal of weapons they seemed to carry.

“Pa's Texas gunslingers, that's who they are!” Flo Jeffords said with a sniff. With a look of contempt for me she added, “Did you think they were ordinary cowhands? You've only got to look closely at their clothes, and the way they wear their guns. Pa's own unofficial army!”

She gave a shrill laugh, and I wished, not for the first time, that I had not been forced to travel cooped up in this little carriage with her. Only when Mark, who preferred to ride outside, joined us occasionally did Flo fall silent, gazing sullenly out of the window and pretending that our conversation bored her. I wondered what she was thinking.

As we drew closer to Silver City, though, some of Flo's sullenness fell away and she displayed some animation, her eyes shining with excitement. “You've never seen a mining town? This one's bigger than most. The governor's here to help them celebrate finding the silver that gave the town its name. It's not exactly a
city,
of course, but for
this
dull part of the world it's got plenty of excitement to offer.” She gave me a slanting, sideways look. “There are gunfights almost every day, of course. Mostly between cowboys and miners, or cowboys and homesteaders. You seen a gunfight yet?”

The shine in her eyes took on an almost unnatural brilliance, and it flashed through my mind that she had once seen two men killed in a fight over her. Was she remembering the same thing?

“I hope I never have to see grown men fight each other with guns!” I said firmly.

She giggled again. “Stay in Silver City long enough and you're bound to, like it or not!”

It was shortly after this that Mark and I had our conversation, for Flo declared she had to stretch her legs, as the motion of the carriage was making her quite dizzy. Mark offered to let her ride his horse for part of the way.

I noticed that he was frowning as he stretched his long legs before him.

“I don't like the way Flo's been acting,” he said bluntly. “Did she strike you as being… well, overexcited?”

“I don't know her or her moods well enough to judge,” I said cautiously.

“But I do, unfortunately! I have the feeling she's up to some kind of mischief.” He rubbed at his clean-shaven jaw morosely. “Darn it, I wish I knew what to do! I don't dare drop a word of warning in my uncle's ear without betraying
your
confidence, and then he'd fly into one of his rages and we'd have a war on our hands.”

“A war? All Todd's Texas gunmen against one man?” I don't know what made me say it, but I caught Mark's sharp look.

“Don't forget that as part owner of the SD your money helps pay their wages too,” he reminded me.

“But why do we need a small army to protect us?” I was just as glad to get off the subject of Lucas Cord, and I'm sure Mark sensed it, for he gave me a reproachful glance as if he knew I was deliberately evading an issue.

“I thought you'd have realized by now that it's necessary. Why do you think even the Apaches hesitate to attack us? I've heard of other, smaller spreads being overrun and looted—if not by Indians, by the renegades this territory seems to attract.”

“A show of force?” I said thoughtfully, and Mark gave a pleased nod.

“Exactly! And the money spent is worth it, in terms of safety.”

“I think I see what you mean.” I sighed, and gave Mark a level glance. “I think I can guess what you are thinking too,” I said ruefully.

“Rowena, it's got to be faced! We have to be prepared, just in case. You do understand that, don't you?”

“I carry that little derringer you gave me in my purse at all times,” I reminded him, and laughed. “I even sleep with it tucked under my pillow.”

“You'll have a man guarding your door too!”

“And how will you explain that to your uncle?”

“He'll see to that himself, as a normal precaution. Silver City has a reputation for being a rough town.”

“Well, then, we have nothing to worry about, have we?”

“You don't know what men like Cord are capable of! Never forget that he's spent most of his life on the run and he knows all the tricks! If he said he'd see you in Silver City, it'd probably turn into a point of pride with him to make good his boast.”

“I don't think he was boasting, exactly,” I said slowly. “It was more like a… well, a casual statement of fact!”

Mark leaned forward, his voice urgent. “Then you
do
think he's going to be there.”

“I didn't say that! Perhaps he intended to, but I'm sure he will have changed his mind. He won't turn up. He won't dare!”

“He dared slip into your bedroom! He's taken worse risks before. Look at the risk he took merely in bluffing you into believing that Elmer Bragg had sent him?”

I felt my hands get clammy inside my cotton gloves.

“Oh, Mark, don't! I can't bear to think of that poor old man…”

“But you have to! You have to be practical and realistic!” He leaned back in his seat with a sigh. “I won't press you any further now, Rowena, but I beg you to think about it. If you will leave things in my hands I feel sure I can handle it. I'm acquainted with the town marshal and the judge.”

“How will you handle it, Mark? By having him killed if he's found? By putting him jail to await lynching?”

“Rowena!” Mark sounded as shocked by my outburst as I was myself. “I don't understand you! I thought you trust my judgment. I thought you realized that we are dealing with a killer just as dangerous as those mad dogs in India you were telling me of. But you sound as if you actually feel sorry for him!”

“I just do not like the thought of violence, Mark! We can't be
certain
that Mr. Bragg is dead, or that Lucas Cord killed him. And if we took the law into our own hands, acting on an
assumption,
then we'd be just as guilty. Don't you understand? You're a lawyer.”

“
You
should have been the lawyer, Rowena!” Mark shook his head at me gently, but his voice remained hard. “All right, but suppose he commits some violent act? And I've already dispatched some wires to various places, trying to trace Mr. Bragg's whereabouts. Suppose, when we arrive in Silver City, the marshal is able to confirm my worst suspicions?”

I said flatly, “Then, of course, I agree that he should be hunted down and killed like the wild animal you compared him to!”

I had been in Silver City for two days, and during that time everyone I was introduced to kept assuring me that it was not only bigger but friendlier than most of the other big mining towns. My attention was proudly drawn to the grand new opera house, where the ball to honor the governor's visit would be held, to the white-painted courthouse with a cellarlike jail forming its basement, the three churches.

I'm sure the good citizens of the town would have preferred me not to notice the innumerable saloons and gambling halls that lined the main street, nor the red lamp over the door of a tall, two-story building that sat a little way back off one end of the street.

Sir Edgar, in an effort to excite me out of my coldness, had once taken me on what he termed a grand tour of one of Paris's most exclusive bordellos. Everything I had witnessed there had left me faintly disgusted, but otherwise unmoved. So Silver City's house of ill repute did not arouse my curiosity, although Flo whispered to me, in an attempt to shock, that she would dearly like to see what went on in there.

“Personally,” I murmured idly, my fingers playing with the cord that held apart the draperies of the room we shared, “I would much rather see what the inside of one of those saloons looks like! They must be delightfully sordid, don't you think?”

We had been forced into proximity once again because the one decent hotel that Silver City boasted of was filled to capacity. This particular afternoon was too hot to warrant our venturing outside, so we engaged in desultory conversation.

“I've heard what they are like!” Flo said. Too restless to sit still for long, she continued to walk about the room. “There would be a long bar, of course. Mahogany, in one of the better places. And a mirror behind it, so a man can see who comes up behind him. Sometimes there might even be a large picture of a naked woman hung there.”

She glanced at me to see if I was shocked, and I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what else?”

“Well, there'd be tables for the card players, of course. And females to wait on them.” She gave one of her high-pitched giggles. “I understand they don't wear very much! And of course there would be rooms upstairs, in case one of the men wanted to pay for female company after he had done his drinking!”

I grimaced. “Those poor women could hardly lead a very pleasant life!”

“Oh, I don't know! Of course
they
wouldn't, but I've heard that in big cities like San Francisco and New York—and in Europe, of course—some of the most beautiful and charming women one sees are courtesans! They change lovers as they please, and of course I expect they're simply showered with expensive gifts! It must be an interesting, exciting way to live—to have the power to make men your adoring slaves.”

“I would think it was the other way around!” I said dryly. “Do you think those women give nothing in return?”

“Oh, well, how would
you
know?”

Flo turned away sulkily and began fiddling with the toilet things she had laid out on top of the dresser. Changing the subject with her usual abruptness, she said, “Oh, Lord, but I'm bored! I wish something would happen! To think that silly old ball is all of three days away. I might easily go mad with boredom before then!”

“Well, who knows? Perhaps you'll get your wish and there will be a gunfight or two,” I murmured, deliberately keeping my voice expressionless. “And perhaps they might have some really vicious criminals locked up in the local jail!”

She swung around sharply, and I thought I saw her eyes widen a trifle.

“Do you think so?” And then, as if afraid she had given something away, she lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “If there really
had
been, of course, we would have heard Pa and Mark talk about it. But all they seem to be able to talk about at mealtimes is business. Men are so dull when they all get together and begin talking. At least women find some interest in gossip!” Her look was slightly malicious and I gave her a sugary smile.

“I'm sure
you
do.”

“And you, no doubt, are the kind of woman who would rather create gossip!” she flashed back at me, and I could not help laughing.

“Touché!”

She had another lightning change of mood. “It's even becoming a bore to stand here exchanging catty remarks with you!”

Still standing at the window, I said aimlessly, “It might be an interesting experience if we could persuade one of the gentlemen to take us on a tour of the courthouse—and the jail, of course. I wonder if the one they have here is anything like the dungeons I have seen in our English castles!”

“That is the first really clever idea you've had since we've been here!” Flo's voice sounded excited, and the gleam was back in her blue eyes. “Do you really think they would let us?”

It was Mark I asked, of course. Flo seemed to have her heart set on it, and to myself I had to
confess a rather morbid curiosity.

“The jail? I can see your wanting to flatter the good townspeople by asking to see their courthouse, but…”

Todd Shannon was far more outspoken, when he discovered what Flo and I meant to do with our spare time. “You two females gone loco? Filthy hole in the ground. I can tell you what it looks like—yeah, and probably smells like, too! Ain't no place for ladies to visit.” He lifted an eyebrow at me. “You happen to know any outlaws you want to visit in there?”

I felt guilty color stain my cheeks, and feigned anger. “Todd Shannon, you have an odd sense of humor! If you hadn't been a cattle baron, you'd probably have ended up as an outlaw yourself!”

He gave a roar of laughter. Why did all my attempts to cut him down to size seem to amuse him? “Aha! Miss has her claws out again, huh? Well, I'll tell you what, if you gals are really bored, you come over here and I'll teach you how to play poker after dinner, how's that?”

Flo pouted angrily. I merely shrugged. I had actually become cowardly enough to let Todd Shannon dictate to me occasionally just to keep the peace, although I was still determined that he would never talk me into marrying him.

The subject seemed closed for the moment and Flo continued to sulk, but the next morning, after we had finished breakfast, Mark made an opportunity to speak to me for a moment. His face was unusually serious.

“I have to speak to you in private, Rowena! What had you planned to do this morning?”

I looked at him thoughtfully. “Flo and I had planned to go back to the milliner's shop, to try on the new bonnets we ordered. But she's been in a particularly vile mood since yesterday, of course, and it's more than likely shell change her mind.”

“I'll meet you outside the store then—say in an hour's time,” he said hurriedly. “If Flo's with you, then well just have to think up some other opportunity. Believe me, it is important!”

I went back upstairs feeling unaccountably tense and nervous. What on earth could have happened to make Mark look so stern?

Flo was sitting in a chair by the window, her eyes fixed on something that was happening down in the street. When she heard me come in she gave an almost guilty start, but grumbled immediately.

“Oh, it's you! You gave me a shock, coming in so quietly! And if you've come to ask me to go out, well, I've changed my mind. I have a terrible headache—all those cigars that Pa's friends smoke!”

“Suit yourself!”

I was in no mood to trade barbs with her this morning, and her reference to cigars, moreover, did not fail to remind me that Todd had certainly been keeping himself busy with his friends of late. I hardly saw him during the day, and at night we usually dined with several of the men he knew, and their wives. Except for giving me meaningful glances from time to time he had been, for
him,
remarkably discreet.

Ignoring my presence, Flo had turned back to the window, and I started to tidy my hair before the mirror.

It was strange how gazing at my own reflection in a glass always started me thinking backwards. How many other images of myself had I seen? A plain, suspicious-looking girl in unbecoming clothes, preparing to disembark in London. An Indian princess wrapped in a gold-encrusted sari. A naked whore with diamonds about her neck, feeling nothing, thinking nothing. And later, a coldly determined young woman, elegantly dressed, with a face that showed no emotion.

Now, my fingers fumbling with hairpins, I stared, searching at myself. I had not changed very much. The bone structure of my face remained the same, my mouth was still the mouth that men called sensuous. I had merely learned to dress my hair differently and wear clothes that suited me, and
voilà!
I had been transformed from ugly duckling into swan.

“I suppose you are admiring yourself!” Flo had sauntered over and stood behind me. She put her head on one side, tone deliberately critical. “Well, you are passable, I daresay, but black hair like yours is far too common in this part of the country to attract too much notice. And you must admit that
my
figure is better than yours!”

Adjusting my wide, flower-trimmed bonnet, I turned away with a mock curtsy in her direction. “In that case, let me leave you to admire yourself.”

As I left the room I heard her laughingly begin to recite: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?” Her giggle followed me down the narrow passageway.

It made me uneasy, for some odd reason. Suddenly I had the strangest, most peculiar feeling that something terrible and ominous was about to happen, and the feeling was so strong that my heart began to beat faster, and my hands went cold.

The feeling persisted when I walked out of the hotel. One of the Texans lounging outside straightened up when he saw me, his hooded, insolent eyes flickering over me in a lightning glance.

“Want me to have the buggy brought around for you, ma'am?”

Forcing a smile, I shook my head, telling him that I intended to walk only a short distance, that Mr. Shannon would be meeting me.

“The boss is across the way, in the Silver Dollar saloon.” Was he telling me that he disbelieved me? After a short, but deliberate, pause the man added, “I could tell him you're waiting. He wouldn't want to keep you waiting, I'm sure, ma'am.”

“I'm to meet Mr.
Mark
Shannon,” I said frostily. “After I finish my shopping.” I walked past him, not looking back, my lace-trimmed parasol held over my head.

He was one of the men I'd noticed Flo flirting with which, no doubt, accounted for his insolent manners. I wondered if he thought I was Todd's mistress, and that accounted for his measuring glance. Perhaps Flo had told him so.

“A woman has to be very careful of her reputation here,” she had said mendaciously. It was the day she had ridden over to “warn” me about allowing too many gentleman callers. “Men respect
nice
women, but if they think she's—well,
easygoing,
you'll see how fast their attitude changes!”

I had had to bite my lips in order not to make some comment about her rather unsavory past. But heavens, she was an aggravating baggage at times!

Deliberately, knowing that the gun-hung Texan was still watching me, I forced myself to walk slowly down the wooden sidewalk. It had already began to get quite hot, but the sidewalk seemed crowded, all the same. Miners in filthy clothes, some of them wearing only their red undershirts tucked into their pants, moved politely aside to let a woman pass. Cowboys strutted arrogantly, their enormous spurs jingling. I could see some young girls, giggling together, eye them covertly. Grim-looking homesteaders, trailed by their drab, work-worn wives and round-eyed children pretended to ignore the cowboys. I saw several serape-draped Mexicans, most of them sporting drooping moustaches, even one or two Chinese, who scurried along, trying to look unobtrusive. Even this remote frontier town was a good example of a statement I had heard, that America had become a melting pot of all the races.

I studied the faces I saw in the crowd, trying to take my mind off the uneasy feeling that persisted like a knot in the pit of my stomach. It was nothing, I chided myself. Only the mystery that Mark had created with his urgency, his secrecy. After I had talked with him, I would probably laugh at myself!

Nevertheless, I quickened my steps slightly.

A handsome, light-skinned Spaniard rode down the street within a few feet of me, just as I had reached the small shop with the lettering on the glass which read “Madame Fleur, Ladies' Milliner.” I might not have noticed him at all if it had not been for his horse, a really magnificent specimen of a Morgan stallion. I knew enough about horses to recognize good bloodlines, and this one was a beauty. His rider, who must have noticed my admiring glance, controlled the dancing animal easily with one hand, and raised his flat-crowned hat with a gallant, sweepingly Latin gesture.

“You like my Conde, no? It is unusual to see a pretty señorita who can recognize good horseflesh!” His teeth gleamed whitely under a thin moustache.

He was a magnificent horseman, but far too bold! I inclined my head coldly and walked into the shop without glancing backward.

Madame Fleur, who was a true Frenchwoman, left another customer to come bustling forward to greet me, her face wreathed in smiles.

“Ah, the
anglais
milady! I have your order ready, of course.”

“Please see to your other customer first. I shall enjoy looking around,” I said politely, and she bowed, finally leaving me alone after making clucking noises with her tongue to indicate how exasperating it was that she had someone else to serve when
I
had deigned to visit her little establishment.

I walked between crowded counters, pretending to study ribbons, feathers, and other pretty trims. I examined bolts of material on the shelves that lined the walls. From the low-voiced conversation I heard going on behind me I could guess that I was being discussed, so I moved to the far end of the tiny room, and began to leaf through the small collection of old pattern books that madame had brought with her from France some years ago, to judge from the rather outdated styles.