The Wildest Heart (34 page)

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.

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 jacket.

“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.

“Did I coerce you into telling me you'd marry me? You acted as if you were willing and eager. Was it all a game with you? Rowena, tonight I'm going to have proof of your real feelings. Are you capable of any real feelings? Kiss me then, as if you love me, as if you meant what you said, and I will not doubt you.”

I let my lips part under his, and I suffered his searching, encroaching tongue. Hadn't I learned from Edgar Cardon? And yet even Edgar had always accused me of coldness, and I had never been able to prevent a certain feeling of being stifled—buried alive—when I felt his weight above me. I felt the same way now. I let Ramon kiss me, but I could not respond. I suffered his body on mine, his hands on my breasts, and a voice in my mind kept telling me dully that this was something I must get used to.

I was to marry Ramon. It was the only sensible, logical way out of my dilemma. Not Lucas. Never Lucas, who loved another woman, who hated me as much as I hated him—who wanted me in the same way that I wanted him! Oh God, not Lucas, who might be dying even now; who was the only man who could kiss me past the point of thinking or of caring.

“Oh Rowena… Rowena!” Ramon was whispering. “You kiss like a whore… like an angel! You're so cold, so unapproachable to look at, and yet, when a man holds you close and your mouth opens under his, you're like one of the sirens the Greeks wrote about, the taste of your mouth so sweet you can drive a man out of his mind!”

I let Ramon kiss me, and I told myself that it didn't matter. Once we were out of the valley I would be able to manage him; he would be different, everything would be different.

Ramon's fingers were fumbling with the tiny buttons that held my gown together in front, opening it down to my waist. His lips moved against the skin of my neck, of my breasts. And I could feel—nothing. I lay there, unmoving, and I thought again of Sir Edgar Cardon, who had taken my cold, unresisting body so often, after that first time, and I wondered why it was that I had never been able to bring myself to pretend. With Todd I had come almost to the point of forgetfulness. Lucas had taken me beyond. Why did I have to think of Lucas?

I suddenly became aware that Ramon had raised himself up on his elbows and was staring down at me. He put his hand on one of my naked breasts, and I winced, not able to prevent my instinctive reaction.

“You'll let me take you, even if you obviously don't enjoy my touch?”

My voice sounded tired and unemotional. “I thought you said you wanted me. But if you've changed your mind, I could use some sleep.”

His face changed. I thought for a moment that he would strike me, and I didn't care.

His voice was disturbingly quiet, however. “Were you thinking only of sleep when you pressed yourself against my brother like a woman in ecstasy, and put your arms around his body? Do you think I am a blind man, that cannot see what is before his eyes?”

I looked into his eyes, startled and angry, and they were like shiny brown stones, without feeling or expression.

“No, I am not blind, Rowena! But sometimes a man in love does not want to admit the truth. I loved you. I think I was infatuated from the first moment I set eyes on you. There was something in your very coldness, in your reserve, that excited me, intrigued me. I dreamed of you, and I thought that I would never be lucky enough to see you again, until Lucas brought you here. And you were still beautiful, still strong, still so cold and so arrogant in spite of everything I knew you must have gone through! I loved you all the more. I tried to show you respect and gentleness, all the things I thought you needed and were your due. And Lucas swore he had not touched you, and even Julio said that it was so. I thought you hated him, despised him! But was it that? Was it really that, or something else?”

He shook me, catching my shoulders with fingers that bit into my flesh like iron claws. “Answer me, damn you! Why did you say you would marry me? Was it only to make him jealous? Did you come here with me tonight only to make sure I would not finish the job of killing him?”

I whispered, “Did you
want
to kill him? You could have, and you didn't. And was it only because of me that you were so angry? I think you have always been jealous of Lucas, you have always resented him… and I provided a convenient excuse, didn't I?”

Outside I could hear the sound of the rising wind, and the thunder sounded louder. Or was it thunder? I thought I heard voices; the sound of horses' hooves, and something of my sudden apprehension must have shown in my face, for Ramon suddenly became still as he watched me narrowly.

He put his face close to mine, and I smelled the wine on his breath. This time I would not answer him; I made myself stare coldly up at him, and his laugh was an ugly sound.

“A short while ago you were hysterical. Do you realize that it was the first time you have ever showed any real emotion? But it was not for me, it was for my brother. Even when he slapped your face, and then took you in his arms… even when you struck him there was
feeling
there, was there not? And to me you have never showed more than a condescending tolerance. Even now. Why is it you have not struggled or screamed? Why did you pretend to kiss me back a few moments ago?”

I was stung into replying. “Why did you drag me in here? If it was only to hurl abuse at me, I wish that you would say whatever else you have to say, and let me go!”

“As easily as that, eh? And you think that everything will be all right in the morning. Would you still marry me after all that has happened?”

“That is up to you, isn't it?” I countered. “I think you are not yourself tonight, Ramon. In the morning…”

“In the morning! You think the rising of the sun will make things different? My God, how cold and how calm you are! You lie here in bed with me, and you speak of tomorrow. Do you think I cannot see the calculation in your eyes? ‘Tomorrow Ramon will be himself again; he will apologize for his bad behavior, and things will go on as they were.' How easy to manipulate you must have thought me! You and my mother and Lucas! Well, I tell you that I am not finished with you yet. After the way you have behaved, I have a right to find out what I am getting. A block of ice, or a woman!”