The Wildest Heart (39 page)

“Hmm?” He had been squinting into the flames, and seemed to drag his attention back to me with an effort. I saw his eyes narrow, and then focus on mine, the fire bringing out the strange, greenish lights in their depths. “You talking of Gil Pardee? That Texas gunslick that works for Shannon?”

“Used to work for him.” I had to moisten my lips before I went on. “I killed him, Lucas. It was just before I left the ranch for Fort Selden. I was riding out alone, and he tried to stop me. He seemed to think…” My mind went back to that day, and I seemed to hear Gil Pardee's sneering insinuating voice in my ears all over again.

“Mebbe you think I don't know enough to please a lady. But that little Flo gal didn't think so! Came after me, askin' for more…”

Pardee had been outside the hotel when I left Flo on the morning Todd was shot. I hadn't noticed him afterwards. But if he had been Flo's lover, and he knew that both Mark and I had left and she was likely to be alone…

“Maybe it doesn't mean anything,” I whispered. “Why should Pardee, of all people, want to kill Todd? But some man had been with Flo, in that room, on that bed! And she looked so guilty, she told so many lies, all contradicting each other.”

Flo, running down the hotel corridor with her flimsy wrapper held carelessly under her breasts—Flo, her eyes shining peculiarly as she cried out to me: “Is he dead? Is Pa dead?” Flo, who knew that Lucas was in Silver City, and would be blamed. But why, why? It all came back to that.

Lucas's face had taken on a frowning, withdrawn look that seemed to shut me out. “That all of it?”

“I told you it probably doesn't mean anything!” I cried out defensively. “But if Flo thought I was going to marry Todd and she'd be cut out of his will, and
you'd
already told her you were going away…”

“Only trouble is, Flo's dead. And so is Pardee. An' even if they weren't, who'd believe that I wasn't the guilty one?” There was neither anger nor self-pity in his voice, but something in its inflection made me shiver. “Lucas…”

“Let it be, Ro. I didn't kill Bragg, an' I didn't shoot Shannon. But that don't mean I might not have, if things had been different. I've hired my gun out for pay too many times to start feelin' queasy about some of the things I've had to do. And as for Todd Shannon—I made myself
that
promise a long time ago. I mean to kill him, but not through any damn window, or from behind a clump of mesquite. I'm goin' to come face to face with him someday, and then…”

“No, no! Can't you see how pointless it would be? Todd's always surrounded by armed men, and even if you
did
kill him, you'd end up being killed yourself.”

“Haven't I told you before that you talk too much, Ro?”

I opened my mouth, to cry out in protest, only to find my angry arguments stilled by his kiss. For a while, my mind went on protesting, but as his body moved over mine, reclaiming it, I found my senses taking over, leading me to passion, to need, and from there to oblivion.

In spite of all the questions that still went unanswered I could have stayed there forever, but for the gradual, inevitable diminishing of all the sounds that had surrounded us for so long. I half-woke when I felt Lucas pull one of the blankets over us; sleepily becoming aware that the fire that had burned so strongly had subsided into a red glow. The wind no longer seemed to push against the door with a frustrated rattle, and the rain had faded from an angry chattering to a muted whisper. Why must happiness always carry with it the burden of fear? The pleasure we had taken in each other suddenly seemed fragile, like a thin crystal—too easily shattered by the pain that must surely follow. My arms held my love, and I pressed closer to him, seeking comfort; but already, insidiously, I had started to feel within myself the beginnings of apprehension, and a kind of sadness. Without quite knowing how, I had already begun to suffer.

The storm died, hissing and grumbling into a silence broken only by the slow, monotonous dripping of water from the edge of the roof. The outside world pushed its way obtrusively under the door with the first groping finger of pale sunlight. Where before time had seemed of no consequence, now it appeared we had not enough left.

There was tension between us that we both tried to pretend didn't exist. Lucas prowled restlessly about the cabin, pushing things around on shelves, opening boxes, and swearing when he couldn't immediately find what he was looking for. His beard-stubbled face wore a forbidding look that made me keep silent even when he began, clumsily, to pull on the bloodstained pair of pants he had worn on that evening of the fiesta, with a tear in it where Ramon's bullet had grazed his thigh. I could tell that the wound in his shoulder was still painful, from the stiff way in which he moved his arm, but I turned my back on him and made myself busy preparing a makeshift meal. Everything was running low, even the tequila with which we had fortified ourselves against the cold. Another reason why we must return… but to what?

I was determined that he should not see how I agonized inside myself, and I took refuge behind cool politeness, my mask of reserve slipping only for a moment when I saw that he had buckled on a gunbelt. He caught my eye at that moment, and I thought I detected a slight, sardonic twist of his lips.

He was deliberately reminding me, of course, of the argument that had kept us awake for most of the previous night—an argument ended in the usual way, with Lucas kissing me angrily and desperately into silence, making love to me as if it were the last time ever. When we had both fallen asleep, exhausted and drained, it had been dawn.

And now it was sometime in the afternoon, and the sun was shining again, and nothing had been resolved.

I gave him a cold, level look that I hoped would tell him nothing.

“I'm goin' outside for a while.”

Well, this time at least I would not call him back. We both needed space—a short time to be alone, to think.

“All right,” I said, and was surprised that my voice sounded cool and emotionless.

Our eyes clashed, and then he was gone, leaving the door open behind him so that the sunlight streamed in. Another reminder, I thought angrily, brushing tendrils of hair off my face. The world was back with us again, and last night it had been Lucas, and not I, who had talked of being practical. God, how I hated that word!

“For Christ's sake! Why isn't it in a woman to be sensible?” He had paced up and down the tiny space like a trapped mountain lion while he spoke to me. “Ro, you don't know what you're saying. I can't live in your world, and you can't live in mine. An' before the damned storm trapped us here together you saw that for yourself. I can't take you with me where I've got to go.” His voice had hardened. “You'd slow me down, get in the way. What would I do with you?”

“What did you do with Flo? You told me you'd begun to hate her, and yet you…”

“Flo! My God, do you think she meant anything more to me than a woman to keep me warm in bed and a weapon against Shannon? Do you think I could risk the same thing happenin' to you that happened to her? Look, half the bounty hunters and lawmen in the territory are after me. Everywhere I go, there's always the chance someone will be shooting at me, and with you along…”

“We could go somewhere else, Lucas, listen to me! We could go away—anywhere you wanted to go. California, Mexico, even Europe, until things died down.”

“No. It won't work. I ain't gonna run away, an' I ain't gonna be no kept man.”

“But you're running now!”

“That's different.”

“You said this was what my father wanted. To end the feud. You wanted me to marry Ramon.”

“Ramon's not wanted by the law.”

Stalemate.

The silence between us was like a sword, until I broke it.

“You didn't kill Elmer Bragg, and you didn't fire that shot at Todd. Don't you even care that everyone says you did? Don't you wonder who arranged so carefully for you to take the blame?”

“That's somethin' I mean to find out. But I still aim to kill Shannon. An' you don't like hearing that, do you?”

“No I don't. Because it's not for yourself you feel you have to do it, is it? It's for Elena—because of what happened years and years ago, before you were born, before I was born! And you don't like hearing that either, but I'll say it anyhow! Elena—Elena! Every time I say her name your face changes. How old were you when you first discovered you loved her? How long have you waited, and for what? How much does she love you? Or are there conditions you have to fulfill first, like killing Todd Shannon?”

“Don't say any more!” His voice was threatening, but I had gone too far to turn back now.

“If she loved you, nothing else would have mattered. She would have gone away with you, gone anywhere. And you would have done something about it! Why haven't you, Lucas? What have you been waiting for?”

His hands were on my shoulders, bruising, hurtful.

“That's enough!”

“No, it's not enough. It's time you faced the truth, and it's time you were honest with me. What do I mean to you, Lucas? Just another woman to keep you warm? Another weapon to use against Todd Shannon? Or am I substitute for
her
!”

I remembered that he had held me against him; his lips against my hair, I held that memory like a talisman against my doubts.

“Will you stop it, Ro? Stop tormenting yourself an' me.” His voice had sounded muffled, as agonized as the beating of my own heart. “I'm not the kind of
man
you need. Remember you told me once you wanted all of a man? I can't give you anything like that. I can't make you any promises. You ask about Elena, and what you mean to me, an' all I can tell you is that lovin' can't be measured out. Think I've loved Elena about as long as I can remember—and I know that there's been no other woman I've wanted the way I want you. What do you need from me, Ro? You're the only woman I've been with who hasn't asked if I loved her. You've been like a nagging question in my mind I had to find an answer to. An' I don't have any answers for you—not the kind you need. I can't find the right words as easily as you can. I don't have the knack for taking feelings apart and weighing them.”

It was all he had to offer me, and I took it, afraid to probe for more. When Lucas kissed me, when his arms held me and his body claimed mine fiercely and possessively, I told myself that it was enough.

But now, with the sunlight making the fire seem weak and ineffectual, I wondered.

Lucas had come as close to admitting that he loved me as he dared, without putting himself in a position where I might demand that he make a choice. But I wanted all of him, and he offered me nothing except the meager knowledge that he cared enough for me to send me away.

“I won't go!” I breathed the words out loud. “I'll use every weapon, every despicable wile and tactic I can think of—and I'll win.
She
shan't have him!”

But for all my brave words, I was afraid. And when I met Elena Kordes's dark, inscrutable eyes again for the first time since I had rushed so blindly from her house into the storm, I almost felt sick to my stomach. Elena, Jesus Montoya, and his silent man Chato had started out to find us, and seeing her, she was as immaculately beautiful as always, the velvet of her riding habit forming a richly glowing contrast to the high-piled dark hair. It was difficult to imagine that this was the same woman who had watched me from the gallery as I left the house, whose haggard face and angry voice had taunted me with her possession of the man I loved. Was it only because she was so completely sure of her hold over him that she had let me go? Had she come to look for him, or only because she hoped to find what remained of me?

I couldn't see the expression on Lucas's face as we rode up to them, and I was almost glad of it. He held me before him in the saddle, with one arm around my waist to hold me closely against him, and until I saw Elena's eyes upon me, I hadn't been aware of my disheveled appearance. I was wearing a shabby pair of pants that Lucas had given me, held around my waist with a red bandanna; a shirt that was far too large and I was soaking wet.

“Lucas! Thank God! If you only knew how worried we have all been! I would have sent someone, or come myself before, but the flood—”

“The water was down far enough to where Diablo could keep his footing.” Lucas's voice was noncommittal, but he couldn't help the involuntary tightening of his arm around me, and I caught a small, triumphant flicker in Elena's eyes.

“But at least you're back, and you're safe—both of you.” Her inclusion of me was a deliberate afterthought, and I lifted my head defiantly, but Jesus Montoya smoothed over the awkward moment; a sardonic smile lifted one corner of his mouth under the narrow black moustache.

“It is not for me to play the host in your own
hacienda,
of course, but since we have all found each other, and you two are very wet, would it not be more sensible to continue this happy reunion in the house?”

I felt like a prisoner being escorted back to a cell, with Montoya and Elena riding on either side of us and Chato behind. A slight breeze swept down the valley, and I shivered.

“You poor child! Why, you must be cold. How thoughtless of me!” Elena's voice was all sweet consideration, but her eyes mocked me. “Here, you shall take my shawl. Lucas, what's the matter with you? You should have taken better care of her, she looks so pale and exhausted!”

I would gladly have flung the fleecy white shawl back at her, but Lucas had already taken it, and was putting it around my shoulders. All this time, he had said nothing, but when he bent his head to mine I thought I felt the brush of his lips against my hair. Was it to give me reassurance, or because he needed it himself? I was surrounded by Elena's faint, sweet perfume as she had meant me to be. It was as if she had subtly put her presence between us, for how could Lucas fail to be reminded of her, even though it was my body he held within the circle of his arms?

Jesus Montoya carried me upstairs, followed by a sullen, tight-faced Luz. No doubt Elena herself would see to Lucas. The exertion of the climb down the slippery, narrow trail that wound down the side of the canyon, and the battle against the muddy, still-fiercely flowing stream had tired and unnerved us both, and I had noticed that Lucas's wounds had begun to ooze blood again. When we had arrived at the house he had helped me down from the horse, and it was only then, when I felt him stagger slightly, that I noticed how pale he had become.

“Lucas!”

He shook his head almost angrily, as if in negation of my half-uttered cry of concern.

“I'll be all right, Ro. You go get some rest, an' I'll see you later.”

I had ignored the others then. “We
have
to talk, don't you see that? I won't have you planning what's to be done with me without even…”

“You foolish, crazy children! Haven't you been reckless enough? You can quarrel later. Now I must insist that you both rest and change out of those wet clothes.” Elena scolded like a mother, but the contempt in her eyes was meant for me. She wanted me to see myself through her eyes, a pitiful creature picked up in a storm.

I looked away from her, back at Lucas, and there were beads of sweat standing out on his forehead as he leaned against the gallery pillar, his eyes half-closed. But how much of his pain was from his wounds, and how much because of Elena? Another wound reopened.

“I am not too old to play the gallant yet, I hope! Come, señorita Rowena. To bed with you, and Luz will come with us to take care of the properties, eh?”

I could almost imagine that Lucas had whispered, his voice husky and tired, “Stay here, Ro…” but perhaps that was only because I wanted to hear him say it, as he had that night when we had shared a blanket for the first time.

Whatever he had said, or meant to say, it was too late. Montoya had already picked me up into his arms, firmly and purposefully, and I was taken upstairs like an errant child, to be laid gently in bed while Luz began to strip me of my borrowed garments, exclaiming at bruises and scrapes I had forgotten.

“You should have a nice warm bath. You're shivering!” And then, as I shook my head wearily, “You could very easily have been killed, you know! As it is, Ramon…” and then she compressed her lip as if she had said too much. “I'll fetch some hot water, and sponge you down. And a hot drink. Please do not try to get up.”

“Ramon?” I remembered suddenly that he hadn't been downstairs to meet us. “Luz—what did you mean about Ramon?”

I had sat up in bed, and she turned at the door, her face suddenly carefully without expression.

“He went looking for you. There was guilt in him, I suppose. None of us knew, until the next day… oh, that was a terrible night, I can tell you! And the next day and night even worse. Elena was like a madwoman. She thought…”

“Luz!”

But I knew. “He had tried to cross the creek—you know how shallow and pretty it is. But Chato says it must have been a wall of water that came rushing down from the barracks—or perhaps a limb from the tree we found struck by lightning. I am sorry, Rowena, that I said anything. As usual, my tongue runs away with me. But I…”

She turned abruptly and went out of the room and I lay there, drained. Would Lucas blame me? And Elena—how could she have pretended so well? There had been no trace of grief in her face or her manner to betray the fact that she had lost a son, or did her love for Lucas, and her relief at finding him alive, blind her to everything else?

Suddenly I wanted to find Lucas again, to feel his arms close around me, and I half-sat up, then fell back again. Suppose his eyes looked at me in the same way Luz's had done? Suppose he had already begun to hate me? Elena would be with him, bending over him, and I felt I couldn't bear to see it. Perhaps his arms were around
her
at this very moment, comforting her, taking her back into that place in his mind that would always be hers. I was torturing myself, and I knew it. Oh, God, why had he brought me back here?