The Wildest Heart (29 page)

On this particular afternoon, however, I had persuaded Luz to take the noon meal out to the men and warned her not to pay too much attention to Lucas, if she saw him.

“The only way you will make him notice you is if he thinks you are becoming indifferent to him,” I warned her. And I had even cajoled Ramon into accompanying her.

“Are you matchmaking?” he teased me. “You seem so cold and so unconcerned with all of us sometimes, and then…”

“I think you should pay some compliments to Luz in your brother's presence,” I said primly. “For heaven's sake, it's high time you all began treating her as if she was a woman, instead of a slave!”

“And so you will slave instead, in the kitchen?” I know that he attributed my attitude to a soft heart instead of a designing mind, and I almost disliked myself for being so calculating. But Ramon, as Elena had already noticed, was well on the way to imagining himself in love with me, and it was not hard to persuade him to do whatever I asked of him.

He rode out with Luz and I found myself alone—a not unpleasant feeling, for I could think best when I was by myself.

Elena kept to the habit of taking a siesta every afternoon, and Paquita slept away most of the day. I did not know where Fernando was, but I guessed that he too was asleep somewhere. I enjoyed the feeling of solitude, while I soaked beans and chopped up meat for dinner. I would surprise Luz by showing her I could cook too, if I had to.

And then Julio found me. I had not heard him come in and I turned around to see him leaning against the wall, watching me with the same closed, inscrutable look I remembered from so long ago, when I had first been brought as a prisoner to the Apache camp.

I suppose that I must have gasped and he gave that strange twist of his lips that would have passed for a smile on any other man.

“Surely I do not make you nervous? I saw Ramon and Luz ride out with food for the others, but since I had already decided to come back to the house for my meal, I hoped that you would not mind preparing it for me.”

“I'm sorry that I did not hear you come in. It won't take long, the stove's still lighted, and all I need is more wood.”

I had to pass him to go outside for more wood, and he reached out lazily to grasp my arm.

“Julio! I thought you were hungry.”

“Not so much for food as for some talk with you,
nidee
.”

I had to will myself to pull away.

“You can always talk with me. But if you wish to eat…”

“Surely you are not afraid of me?”

Somehow, I found that my back was against the wall, and he, still holding my arm, was leaning far too close.

“Julio.”

“I think it is my turn now. I have seen you with my brother Ramon, and before that, it was Lucas who kept me from you. I saw the way your eyes caught mine that first night, when the warriors brought you into our camp. Yes, and afterwards too, little sister. I know what my mother plans, but she forgets that my father's name was Kordes too, and that I am her son. You saw how angry she became when I reminded her of this fact? It is not only for the reasons that she and your father thought of that I speak now. I am Apache—the land does matter as much to me as it does to the others, who value this staying in one place. It is you I desire, and I think you already know that too, but like the women of my people, you were modest, and cast your eyes down. And now your eyes look straight into mine.”

All I could think of to say at that instant was, stupidly: “But you are married already! And I like Little Bird. If you think that I am the kind of woman who would…”

He shook my arm exasperatedly. “Did you think I meant anything less than marriage? You are a virgin, and since my grandfather adopted you into our tribe, I would not meddle with you if I had not intended an honorable offer of marriage. If you had lived with us longer, I would have tied the best ponies I had outside the shaman's lodge as a sign of my intentions. But as it is, I'm left with no other choice but to tell you what is in my mind. I have seen you accept calmly what my mother has told you, and I have seen that you do not love Ramon. So…

I had regained my wits by this time, and although I was not foolish enough to attempt to twist out of his grasp I continued to look boldly into his eyes.

“Your grandfather told me that I would be allowed to make up my own mind, and although I have grown to respect you, I see you only as a brother, who is already married. It is true that I have learned to accept the ways and the wisdom of the Apache, Julio, but I am still a stubborn woman. When I choose a husband I will not be able to share him. I hope you can understand this, for I would not like to lose your friendship.”

I tried to sound reasonable and calm, but I do not think that Julio, at the moment, was capable of either emotion.

I had borrowed some of Luz's clothes that afternoon—a full, ankle-length skirt and low-cut blouse, and my feet were bare for coolness. His eyes traveled over me.

“I hear your voice speaking to me,
nidee,
and it says one thing, but your eyes and the fast beating of your heart tell me another story. I think you are afraid of being possessed by a man, and your fear makes you seem cold. But I think that your senses call out for it. It was so with my grandmother, the Spanish woman captive that my grandfather made his third wife. In time…”

“No!” He held me against the wall, and the suddenly open look of desire I saw on his face, usually so expressionless, made me too angry for caution. “I tell you that when the time comes I will know it, and I will make my own choice! And is this how you keep your promise to the shaman of your tribe, to treat me as a sister?”

“It is not as a sister I see you, but as a woman! I wanted you when I first saw you standing there so proudly, with your head thrown back, meeting my eyes without fear, and I would have bought you…”

“But you did not. Your brother did. Have you asked his permission to approach me?”

I saw Julio's brown eyes, so like Ramon's, narrow into slits.

“My brother, eh? Perhaps he did more than lie beside you on all those nights! And is your dislike for him merely a pretense, or jealousy?” His laughter sounded harshly in my ears. “If it is Lucas you want,
nidee,
you will wait a long time—like Luz! Or haven't you noticed yet how things are with him? To my brother, all women but one are merely instruments of pleasure, to be used and thrown aside. You have sharp eyes, or have you deliberately tried to blind yourself to the truth in this instance? Perhaps you do not want to admit that my brother Lucas is in love with my mother!”

“I don't think you know what you are saying!” I stared into his dark, angry face, and felt that my lips had suddenly become stiff and cold.

“Do you not? Then I shall say it again, little sister, and try to make my meaning clearer. My brother and my mother are lovers.”

I gasped in shock and Julio smiled cruelly.

“I have shocked you? But there is no need to be too shocked, after all. Lucas is my father's bastard, so they say. My mother was my father's wife. Do you see now?”

“But—she is so much older than he is!”

“Older, you say? But you have seen my mother, how beautiful she is, how young she looks. And in
his
presence she looks even younger, eh? I remember the day they rode into our camp, and we were told, Lucas and I, that our parents had come. Parents! I looked on my grandfather as my father, by then. They had abandoned us, and now at last they came, looking for their sons! I would not go with them. Lucas was older than I, and even more determined to stay, at first. And then he saw her, and she smiled, and her voice was soft and wheedling. I was watching his eyes, and I knew then that he would go, because of
her.
I saw, and my grandfather saw too, after a while. And there came a time when they could not hide the fact that they were lovers from my father… Do you want to know what happened then?”

Julio's fingers were still closed painfully around my arms, but I hardly noticed the discomfort any longer. I did not want to hear more, and yet I had to—and I think Julio read all this in my face, for he nodded slowly, as if satisfied.

“So you are curious. I was curious too, when one day Lucas came back to our camp, looking like a man in a daze. I was curious enough to sit outside the shaman's lodge and listen, while he told our grandfather of the quarrel he had had with his father. ‘I cannot go back,' he said, and his voice held such anguish that I could hardly recognize it. But later that same night my mother, Elena, came herself; her hair flying behind her in the stormwind, and her face haggard—as haggard as
his
had been! ‘He is dead!' How can I forget the way she cried it out? ‘Shannon has killed him,' she cried, ‘he or his men! And if there is not one who is man enough among you to revenge him, I will do it myself!'” Julio paused meaningfully, as if he expected me to say something, but I could only stare back at him silently. “You know the rest of it, I think,” he said quietly. “He revenged my father's death, but was it the law of blood for blood or his own guilt that made him risk his life so carelessly?”

I felt a strange feeling of sickness in the pit of my stomach. An entry in my father's journal—the last one—that I had frowned over and then dismissed to be thought of later, came back to me then.

“I see the story of Oedipus enacted again,” he had written in a scrawling hand that told only too clearly of his condition when he had written it. “And it is too late… too late to change the pattern of tragedy now. Must we forever be haunted by old crimes—old guilts?”

I remember that I wondered if he had been referring to himself. How could I have understood then, knowing nothing of what I knew now?

With an effort I lifted my hands to Julio's wrists. “You are hurting my arms.”

“Is that all you have to say?” But he released me, and stood glowering down at me.

“You were mistaken if you thought I turned your offer down because of some secret passion I cherish for your half brother. I do not think I am capable of loving any man strongly enough to give up everything for him and be content to be his slave and bear his children. In fact I would choose not to marry at all if I could, but if I must, then it will be only to a man who would not ask such things of
me
.”

I managed a faint smile at his chagrined expression and added firmly: “You must not imagine that I am not appreciative of your concern for my future happiness, but when you think carefully about it I'm sure you'll realize what a disobedient wife I would make to any man!”

I could not be sure, for a few tense moments, whether Julio would accept my words or not. He stepped deliberately closer to me, until I could feel the heat of his body, and put a hand under my chin.

I refused to cringe, forcing myself to meet his darkly frowning gaze.

“It is true. I do not think you would be a submissive wife. You would make a better warrior, like the sister of Victorio, who fights as well as any of our young men.” His lips stretched in an unwilling smile and he said gruffly, “So—it seems you will remain my sister after all. And I am not to be the brother who saves your life.”

“Saves my life? What do you mean?” I frowned at him. He shook his head and moved casually to the great earthenware crock that was always kept full of cold, clear water for drinking.

“How fierce you can look,
nidee.
I can see that you have never learned proper respect in the presence of men!” His mood seemed to have changed like lightning from anger and resentment to light teasing, as he dipped up water and drank it.

“Julio!”

He shrugged carelessly. “It was only a dream my grandfather had. But the dreams of a shaman are never without some deeper significance. Perhaps it will be Ramon who saves your life someday, and you will marry him. He dreamed of a white bird pursued by hawks, who flew blindly into a hunter's net. Two of the hawks were clever enough to understand it was a trap and soared away, looking for other prey. But the other dropped down like an arrow from the sky and slashed at the hunter's face with his sharp beak and talons until he was blinded, and the white bird was free again and flew away under the shadow of the hawk's wings.”

“What a horrible dream! And if I were a bird I'm sure I'd be a hawk instead of a silly, frightened dove.”

But he only gave me a sardonic look, and went away as quietly as he had come, without another word to me. To tell the truth, the scene that had taken place between us had left me more shaken than I wanted to admit, and I was relieved to see Julio leave at last.

I went back to chopping meat into tiny cubes in a thoughtful frame of mind, still hearing the echo of Julio's voice beating against my ears.

“My mother… my bastard brother… they are lovers, or have you deliberately made yourself blind?”

This, then, was the reason for Luz's unhappiness, for the veiled resentment that both Julio and Ramon felt. And Elena herself, who was the center, the manipulator of all their lives. I thought I was beginning to know her, but I realized that I knew only as much as she permitted me to know. She exercised a subtle fascination, a subtle power and it seemed as if only Todd Shannon had been impervious to it.

Todd—his name came into my mind with a jolt. How long since I had thought of Todd? Had I deliberately tried to shut him out of my mind because I was afraid to think of him? If only I had listened to Todd, if only I had paid some attention to all of Mark's warnings! Unbidden came the memory of Todd crushing me in his arms until I was breathless, kissing my angry protests into silence. What was I doing here, in the middle of enough violence and dark intrigue to fill the pages of a volume of Greek or Roman tragedy?

It was hot in the kitchen, and I could feel the perspiration pouring down my back and between my breasts. I pushed a strand of damp hair off my forehead with the back of one hand impatiently, wishing that my fingers were not so slippery and my mind so active… and then it happened.

The knife slipped. All I can recall now is feeling a sharp, stinging sensation, and then I heard the knife clatter down onto the table, and I was staring down stupidly at my fingers as if they did not belong to me, and at the blood that spurted from the deep cut across two of them. I knew that I ought to do something about it. I could not stand here bleeding all over the meat I had been cutting up for dinner and the table and the floor. I suppose it was a combination of shock and annoyance at myself for having been so clumsy that held me there as if I had been paralyzed, disinterestedly watching the gushing of my own blood.

Suddenly the door was kicked open and I looked up in a daze, and saw the one person I had least wanted or expected to see.

“Luz? Where in hell is everyone?”

The doorway was low enough to make him duck his head when he came in, narrow enough so that he seemed to block out the bright sunlight that had streamed in for a moment, almost blinding me with its sudden brilliance.

I was dressed as Luz usually dressed and I think that during those first few moments, until his eyes became used to the dimness, he mistook me for Luz. “There are times when I think everyone around here goes a little crazy! Where's Ramon? And what in hell did you say to Julio to make him look so grim? I had to shoot one of the horses.” He turned away to the water crock and began to drink thirstily out of the dipper, grumbling all the while. “Of course it had to be the one
I
was riding, and then I had to walk all the way back here in the broiling sun. And Julio—you'd think he'd stop and give me a ride back, but no, he gave me a sullen answer instead and wouldn't stop. Why are you standin' there just staring at me, for God's sake?”

And then, over the rim of the tin dipper I saw his eyes widen very slightly, the green flecks coming alive in them when he recognized me at last as he turned back to face me.

“Rowena? To find
you
in the kitchen…”

I think I must already have been rather light-headed from loss of blood, for I began to back away from the look of surprise in his face, and felt suddenly weak, so that I almost fell and had to clutch at the table for support. I felt the sticky warmth of my own blood through the folds of my skirt, and then with an angry exclamation,
he
was there, clearing the room in a single stride.

He caught my wrist, and I cried out.

“Jesus Christ! What were you trying to do? Stand there and watch yourself bleed to death? If you can't chop meat without cutting your fingers off… come over here.”

He dragged me across the room with him by the wrist. Sheer weakness made me fall against him when he stopped, tearing the red bandanna from around his neck and dipping it into the water crock with no regard for hygiene or cleanliness.

“Don't do that!” I protested faintly, but he ignored me, as he began to mop at the blood that kept dripping steadily onto the floor.

“Jesus!” He swore again, making me wince as much from pain as from the sheer anger in his voice. “How did even you manage to do a fool thing like that? You've cut almost as deep as the bone across two fingers. Lucky you didn't manage to slice 'em both off!” I found that it was easier to stay on my feet if I closed both eyes.

“You better sit down. Here… now just hold still…” I heard the scrape of wood across the floor and felt myself pushed unceremoniously into a sitting position.

“Put your head down between your knees,” and he gave the back of my neck a shove. “Hold your hands—both hands—in front of you. Try holding your left wrist with your other hand if you can, an' for God's sake try not to fall out of the chair! I'll be right back. Where in hell is that darned Luz? And Ramon?”

“They—went out to take lunch to the rest of you—and you had no right to come back to the house so early! You never do!”

“Ah, Christ! Tryin' to argue with me already, an' you half-dead from losin' all that blood! I swear I never saw a more clumsy, stupid, stubborn female than you!”

“Oh!”

I tried to raise my head, but he pushed it down again… I gritted my teeth against the pain, and could not repress a shameful whimper when I felt him dab roughly at my wounded fingers again with a dripping wet cloth.

“You're bleedin' like a—” he bit the words off, swearing again, and then, in a harsh voice, “Only one thing to do, to stop that bleeding, and it's goin' to hurt like hell for a little while, so if you know how to faint, better do it now!”

“I never faint!”

But my voice sounded curiously weak and unsteady, even in my own ears.

“Well, grit your teeth then.”

Before I was aware of what was happening he had picked me up—and dumped me on the floor.

“What…” I tried to sit up, my eyes opening to stare at him, and he was standing over me, with the knife in his hand, its tip glowing red-hot.

“Shut up and be still, or it'll be worse when I gotta do it over again.”

And then, before I had quite realized what he intended, he had grabbed my wrist, and I cried out as he drew the knife blade across my shrinking, agonized flesh.

He did it too quickly for me to have time to draw back, and the next moment he was wrapping the wet cloth around my fingers, working swiftly and efficiently.

I don't remember if I did faint then or not.

He had picked me up again and was carrying me somewhere… and I
do
remember that I tried to struggle and whispered angrily that I refused, I refused to let
him
be the one…

“What in hell are you muttering about, anyhow? And stop wiggling or I'll drop you, an' a broken neck won't be as easy to fix up as two cut fingers!”

“I don't see why
you
should be the one to be angry! And you didn't save my life. People don't die of a bleeding cut…”

“If that isn't just like a damned female! Listen, if I'd have thought stoppin' the bleedin' was saving your life, I'd have let you go on bleeding! Think I'd want to be saddled with a wife like you?”

“Of course not! It's Elena you want as your wife, isn't it?”

Before the words were out I regretted having said them. I felt the tightening of his arms and the sudden rigidity of his muscles against my cheek—and what was I doing, leaning my head against his shoulder so trustfully?

“Damned if I shouldn't throw you all the way down them stairs I just carried you up for that, you vicious-tongued little bitch!”

I opened my eyes and his were bleak and dangerous. His nostrils flared ever so slightly when he was angry, and at that moment I thought he might carry out his threat or strangle me. I don't know what else he might have said, or I might have said, but we were already upstairs, passing Elena's room, and at that moment, when he had stopped still and was glaring down at me, the door opened.

“Lucas? I thought I heard your voice.”

And suddenly I felt that I could not bear to see her face, nor his either, with that naked, curiously revealing look that always came to it when he looked at her. So I closed my eyes and bit my lip and pretended to go limp, although I'm sure I did not deceive him.

“She cut her fingers pretty badly. There was no one there, and I had to cauterize the cuts.”

“I suppose she fainted. Good heavens, Lucas, when I first saw you, I thought—”

He cut her off, and I know it was because he knew I was listening, and understood how things stood between them. He hated me for it; I could feel the hate emanating from him like a physical, tangible thing, in the way he held me.

“I am going to put her in her room, and then I will come back and tell you how it happened.”

“Lucas.”

I felt a kind of triumph when he walked past her without answering, but it did not last. I should not have said it—not yet. I should have had more sense than to blurt out aloud the thought that was uppermost in my mind, whether it was the truth or not.

He had pushed open the door to my room with a savage kick, and he roughly laid me down on my bed.

“Soon as Luz comes back, I'll send her up to you. And you—you learn to keep your mouth shut, an' to stop meddlin' in my life, askin' questions, or by God I'll…”

“You'll what? Kill me to get me out of the way? Sell me off to one of your friends as you did Flo? I said only what was true, and you know it! Why are you ashamed to admit it? You're in love with Elena. Do you think I'm blind? Do you think they are all blind, just because no one else has had the courage to speak the words aloud as I did?”

He was staring down at me, and his face had gone white under the sunburned skin. There was hate in it, and pain, and—was there guilt as well?

“I should never have brought you here,” he said, in the same flat, cold voice he had used on me before, in the Apache camp. “Should have guessed after the first time I talked to you, what you'd be like.”

I tried to sit up, but fell back again against the thin pillow. “You know nothing of what I really am, or how I feel. And you don't like the fact that I know
you
for what you are! Yes, you're right, you shouldn't have brought me here! I didn't want to come!”

“Yeah, I remember that, all right.”

Suddenly, stupidly, I was staring at the closed door, feeling the reverberation of its slamming echoing in my ears. And for the second time in my life I felt the treacherous, hateful tears of sheer frustration and rage slipping down my face, until I turned it into the pillow.

I wanted to sleep, but pain kept me awake, and presently I heard the door open, and Luz was tiptoeing across the room to me, carrying a tray.

“Oh, Rowena! I am so sorry! And I have never seen Lucas so ornery, I think. Even Julio chooses to stay away from the house. Ramon wants to come up, but I told him to stay away until you feel better. Does it still hurt very much?”

I could hardly stand her kindness and her sympathy, nor the tenderness with which she untied the makeshift bandage that Lucas had put there before she began to place tiny poultices of some soothing, cooling stuff on my swollen, ugly-looking wounds.

“You might have bled to death, not knowing what to do to stop the bleeding, if Lucas had not come back.” There was an unconscious note of pride in her voice when she spoke of him. I must have made some involuntary movement, for she reminded me quickly that I must hold still.

“These herbs will prevent any infection, and take away the pain in a while. You will have some scars, of course, but they will not matter. You can wear gloves, if you do not like to look at them! And you must drink this broth—it will prevent fever, and help you to sleep. You are to rest… and I will never, never leave you alone in the kitchen again! It was all my fault.”

“Did
he
say that? It wasn't your fault. It was hot, and I was careless—clumsy.”

I thought Luz's voice sounded deliberately cheerful. “Well, in any case you are to rest, and I will be back again soon to see if you need anything.”

“I'm not an invalid! For heaven's sake! All I did was cut my fingers! It's no reason for my keeping to my bed.”

“But Lucas said you were to stay in bed. And if you were to get up, they would all be angry with me.”

“And I would be more angry than anyone!”

I had not heard Elena come in, but she was there, smiling at me, her expression impossible to read.

“Stay in bed—and rest. Later, if you feel up to it, you might want to come down to dinner. For the moment, in this heat, you might as well take a siesta.”

I didn't know whether she was mocking me or commiserating with me, and it infuriated me.

Luz had left quietly, and I put on an innocent, rather confused tone of voice when I said: “I want to see Lucas. I did not thank him for what he did. I'm afraid I was rather rude.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Lucas? And not Ramon?”

I looked her in the eye. “Lucas. Ramon was not here when I was—so stupid as to let the knife slip.”

“And Julio had just left. You cannot imagine how concerned
he
is too. I think you have bewitched all three of my sons, Rowena.”

“Oh, but I'm sure Lucas is by no means bewitched! He doesn't like me any more than I like him. But I do feel grateful toward him. I must have seemed ungrateful, I'm afraid. He hurt me, and at the time I did not realize that he did what he had to for my own good. I'm sure you understand how uncomfortable it makes me feel?”

She bent down to me, touching my hand lightly. “How much you remind me of myself, when I was younger! I always thought I wanted what I could not have. If Guy had been more like you… who knows? Everything might have been so different! But if it is Lucas you want to see, I will send him to you, at the risk of making my other sons angry.”

“You're very sure of him, aren't you?”

I couldn't resist the question. Her smile put me in my place. “Why shouldn't I be? I think you understand that already. But as I have said before, you have a choice. Marry Julio, and you will be his second wife, accepting the Apache way of life. Marry Ramon, and you will have a husband you can control. You may marry Lucas, who knows? I think your open dislike of him intrigues him, for the moment. But if you are clever enough to maneuver such a thing, you will share him with me, and I will always have the greater share. No, I do not think you will be like my poor, pretty little Luz, who waits—and hopes. Like me, you will want to make things happen. So we will see, and I will tell Lucas you wish to speak with him.”

“How good it is to feel indulged—and understood!”