The Wildest Heart

“Huh! You don’t say much either, do you? Sizing me up, I guess, and that’s a good sign too. You’re going to be meeting a lot of new people who are strangers to you, and if you don’t mind a bit of advice from an old man, you’ll do best to carry on as you’re doing right now. Watch, listen, and say as little as possible.”

He paused for an instant and then shot at me, “Do you have a mind of your own, Lady Rowena?” If his sudden question had been designed to take me on guard, it did not succeed in doing so.

“Certainly I’ve a mind of my own, Mr. Bragg! I should hardly be here if I did not. But I do realize that there is a lot I’m going to have to learn before I travel to New Mexico, and that is why I’ve come to you. My father wrote of you, and I understand from Judge Fleming that you are one of the few persons who is eminently qualified to advise me.”

He chuckled at that. “So the judge recommended me, did he? Well, it’s true that I know more about Guy and Guy’s way of thinking than most others, including his partner, Todd Shannon. And so you think I might be able to give you some useful advice, eh?” He tugged at his moustache again, eyeing me thoughtfully. “That could be. Yes, it might be real interesting to see how you get on, at that. Did you have a business proposition in mind, then, Lady Rowena? You willing to hire my services?”

“If you are willing, of course,” I said smoothly, and could not resist adding, “You might even find it a challenge, don’t you think? Or is your retirement permanent?”

He snorted at that. “Permanent? Permanent hell, if you’ll pardon me for using the expression. And that old fox Fleming knows it too. No doubt he told you that when he advised you to see me. Retired, huh!” He grunted again. “Your father sent for me just before he died. That’s what took me so long gettin’ up here. And I’ve been keeping tabs on everything that’s been going on down there, as a kind of mental exercise, you might say. You’d be surprised at how much I know. For instance, did you know that Todd Shannon tried to contest your pa’s will? The part where he left you a half-share in the SD?”

I intercepted the sharp, sly look he gave me and nodded in assent.

“Yes. Judge Fleming informed me of it. But surely—”

“Ah!” Elmer Bragg waved his hand impatiently as if to brush aside what I had been about to say. “That’s what I meant earlier, when I said I knew more than some people realize. Shannon knew he didn’t have a chance. It was more a gesture of—well, let’s say he was registering a public, formal protest! He’d always taken it for granted that Guy would leave him the whole ranch, free and clear. And then, almost out of the blue, you turn up. What does he know about you, eh? A titled young Englishwoman, brought up as a fine lady. And what did Guy really know about you, except that you were his daughter? Believe me, if Todd had known when you were to arrive he’d have had his lawyer-nephew, young Mark, meet you right here in Boston with a very generous cash offer in return for your rights to the ranch. And no doubt he’d have instructed Mark to persuade you not to go down to New Mexico at all. It’s rough, rugged country there. Lots of violence, very little law except for the jungle kind. Survival of the strongest and the sneakiest. You understand?”

I couldn’t

help frowning, but his words had made me thoughtful, and I said slowly, “You mean that Todd Shannon resents my inheriting a share in the ranch? But why just that? Surely, as vast as I understand it is, the ranch is the least valuable of all the joint interests my father held with him. What about their shares in that silver mine? And the railroad shares? Does he feel that I have no right to any of those either?”

“You’ve hit the nail right on the head!” Mr. Bragg exclaimed. “No, Todd Shannon’s not a petty, greedy man by any means, although he can hate hard. He’s an Irishman, big on family ties. He doesn’t grudge you the money, even though the cattle business is booming right now and he’s making money hand over fist, enough so they’re calling him a cattle baron. No, the point is that he feels the SD is his. You take my meaning? Your pa put in the money to get it started, it’s true, but Shannon built the SD into an empire with his fists and his guts and his guns. It’s a symbol to him now, the symbol of the first piece of land he ever owned in his life, the symbol of his power. And in some ways, the SD is like a memorial to his wife. His first wife. Only woman he ever really loved. You’ve heard the story?”

Slowly I nodded, already puzzled by the complexity of Todd Shannon’s character. What kind of man was he really? My father had thought enough of him to become his partner. Corinne had told me that he had always frightened her a little, with his loud voice and the force of his personality. Judge Fleming had spoken of him with admiration, as a strong, stubborn man who had refused to admit defeat. Patently, he was a man capable of deep love, and capable of hating just as hard. A man who seemed to be haunted by tragedy. Corinne had told me that Todd Shannon had married again after my father had left for England to marry my mother. She was the widow of a schoolteacher who had been murdered by Indians, a woman with a young daughter, whom he had adopted as his own child. But this second wife too had died, in childbirth, and Todd Shannon had never married again.

“He’s a big, handsome man,” Corinne had told me. “A blond giant of an Irishman, the kind no woman can resist. But there’s something hard about him too. My mother used to say he was the kind of man who is only capable of loving once in his life.”

For all my self-confidence, I found myself wondering how such a man would react to my sudden arrival on the scene. No doubt he would resent me, and, in a way, I could hardly blame him for it.

I had been aware, while I was thinking all this, of Mr. Bragg’s eyes upon me as he sat in silence chewing on the end of his cigar.

I caught his eye, and spoke aloud. “But, knowing all this, why did my father insist on leaving me his share in the ranch? He was a rich man without it, and certainly I don’t need more money than I find myself with now. He must have had a reason.”

“So you’ve asked yourself that too?” Elmer Bragg’s shrewd eyes seemed to twinkle approvingly at me for a moment. “Well, I did too. I asked Guy about it. ‘Why leave her trouble?’ I said. ‘Why insist she has to live in New Mexico for a whole year before she can inherit the ranch free and clear, in any case?’”

“So he did have a reason?”

“Your pa was a thinking man. After he came back from England, he was never quite the same again. And towards the end, he lived like a recluse. Reading. Writing in his journals. Yes, he had a reason for giving you a half-interest in the ranch. A challenge, he called it. ‘I think, Elmer—no, I feel that my daughter will grow up to be the kind of woman my mother was. Strong. Compassionate. I’m hoping, once she understands everything, that she’ll be the one to end this senseless feud.’ I’m an ex-lawman, Lady Rowena, and I’ve a good memory. Many’s the time I’ve had to depend upon it. That, and my instincts. Some instinct tells me you’re going to do what your pa wanted. You’ve already made up your mind to go to New Mexico, haven’t you?”

I could not help smiling at his air of assurance.

“It’s my turn to compliment you, Mr. Bragg. You’re a very discerning man. My father has left me enough money to satisfy all my material needs, but I think I’ve inherited some of his curiosity about people. Perhaps what I really need is a challenge of some kind. Yes, I think I will go to New Mexico, if only to discover what kind of man this Todd Shannon really is.”

“So it’s Todd Shannon who’s the challenge, Lady Rowena?” He saw my look and waved his hand impatiently. “Oh, come! Best get used to my rough manners and blunt speech. I’m going to help you, remember? Before you meet Todd Shannon, you have to understand him better. Tell me—” he paused to relight his cigar, “how much do you know of the rest of the story? I mean, what happened while your father was away in England, and after that.”

“That ridiculous feud started up again,” I said quickly, wondering what he was getting at.

“Ridiculous, you call it?” Elmer Bragg’s voice had hardened. “It’s hardly that, I’m afraid. If you’re determined to go to New Mexico, it’s something you’ll have to live with. Every moment of every day. Todd Shannon is a man who has hated a long time, and that hate has eaten into him. While your father lived, he prevented really bad trouble, because he had earned the respect of the Kordes clan too. But now he’s gone you’ll be the one caught in the middle, Lady Rowena. You, a little English gal who knows nothing of our Western ways. Gently brought up, too, from the look of you and your clothes. Maybe you’re intrigued by all the stories you’ve been hearing, but that’s not enough. Do you know what you’ll be getting into?”

“Mr. Bragg!” He had finally succeeded in making me angry, and I could not help letting some of my annoyance show. “I may not know exactly what I’m getting into, as you put it, but that is exactly why I have come to you. And, although I may not look it, the life I have led before I came here has not exactly been sheltered.” In a more controlled voice, I continued, “I was brought up in India, and we had our troubles there too. Not only from the wild hill tribes, but from the elements as well. And I have had the opportunity to study people, too. Perhaps there is more of my father in me than you think, Mr. Bragg, and you might as well learn that I can be stubborn!”

To my surprise, he had begun to chuckle, and pull at his moustache again. “So you have a temper as well! Good, good. I was beginning to wonder if you were all cool composure. But you know what, Lady Rowena? I think you’ll do. Yep! I think that maybe Todd Shannon will find he’s met his match in you!” His chuckle became a laugh. “By God, I’d like to see his face when he meets up with you and realizes he has no milk-and-water English miss to contend with, but a fighter! And you are that, aren’t you?”

It would be some time before I would meet Todd Shannon, and then under circumstances that were hardly conducive to his thinking of me as an adversary worthy of his notice. But in the meantime, I had made two friends in America, Corinne Davidson and Elmer Bragg, for our strange association had grown into a grudging kind of friendship by the time we parted again, he to go his way on some mysterious errand he would tell me nothing about, and I on my way to New Mexico to claim the rest of my inheritance.

Neither Corinne nor her aunt, Mrs. Shannon, approved of my determination to travel alone and unchaperoned.

“I do wish you would wait until my son gets here,” Katherine Shannon said in her quiet voice. “Mark would know what to do. And I’m sure my brother-in-law would never approve of my having let you travel alone, through that awful, Indian-infested country!”