The Wildest Heart

She glared at me defiantly, and with a shrug I rose to my feet and started towards the door. She came after me.

“Where are you going? Damn you!”

“To fetch the marshal. Better get dressed before I return with him.”

“No! No you wouldn’t dare! Because I’d tell…”

“Tell what, Flo Jeffords? I think it is I who will tell the story.”

“No, wait!” Her fingers clutched at my sleeve. “Wait, I’ll tell you, but only if you promise you won’t tell them! You can’t! Pa won’t like it, anyhow! I think he’d rather die than have that old scandal dragged up.”

I paused, leaning back against the door because I didn’t want her to know that my knees were weak with tension.

“All right then, it is true, I’ve been seeing Luke. You’d already guessed that, hadn’t you? He told me you’d found that red silk, and he said we had to be more careful.”

“And today?”

She gave me a gleaming, resentful look. “Yes! He did come today! I knew he was going to be in town and I spoke to him but you weren’t clever enough to guess that, were you? We arranged another signal, and soon after you left, he came to me.” Her eyes taking on their old, wild brilliance she said, “He couldn’t stay away from me, you know! If you only knew all the risks he took, just to see me again! And he’s a man, do you hear me? You wouldn’t know what it’s like to have a real man, after having had to lie with a soft, potbellied slug with creeping hands and nothing much else!”

“I don’t want to hear the sordid details! It’s today that concerns me.”

Flo shrugged sullenly. “I don’t know! I was with Luke, but we had to hurry because you might come back. He left. And then later I heard that shot! I was telling the truth! I’d almost fallen asleep when I heard it, and I ran out, just as I told you!”

“You ran looking for him, didn’t you?” I accused. “You saw what had happened and you knew he’d done it!”

“Maybe I did go looking for him. Maybe I didn’t. You can guess till you’re blue in the face, but that’s all I know!”

She burst into a storm of hysterical weeping that seemed genuine enough.

I left the room, closing the door on the sound of her sobbing. And because I could think of nowhere else to go, I went upstairs to Mark’s room, feeling the door push open easily when I twisted the knob. Another lie, then, but I was too strained and exhausted to think about it just then. I sat in the chair by the window and waited.

Part III:

The Violent Peace

Fourteen

We returned to the SD in very different moods from the ones in which we had left it. Mark kept telling me that I had changed. His face was concerned and sad when he attempted to talk me out of what he c

alled my “frozen coldness.”

I was impatient with him.

“But I haven’t changed. Don’t you see, Mark? I had let myself grow lazy. I let my emotions rule me, and I allowed things to happen that should not have. I should have listened to my reason.”

“You’re a woman, Rowena!”

“Must that inescapable physical fact also make me weak?”

No one would ever be able to accuse me of weakness again. I had let myself go in this warm climate; let myself be coddled into relaxing my guard against people. And look what it had done! Todd was hurt, still forced to lie in loudly complaining inactivity in Silver City. And I, who had procrastinated and sat dreaming in the sun, waiting for something to happen, was the new manager of the SD. It was Todd himself who had insisted upon it.

“Mark will help you. He knows enough about ranching to tell you what has to be done. But you might as well learn the ropes, gal. Ain’t you always reminding me that you’re a full partner? Gonna be that way after we’re married too, except in the bedroom.”

“You’re in no condition to think about that now, Todd Shannon!” I said severely, but he had only laughed; the laugh turning into a cough that had sent the doctor hurrying in, with a quizzical glance for me.

“Didn’t I tell you this old goat was to be kept quiet? Look at him—laughing, with a bullet hole that grazed his lung! Out with you, miss. You two can talk over weddin’ plans later.”

Todd was jubilant, in a better mood than I had ever seen him in before, in spite of his wound. But I would not let myself think about a wedding yet. We would talk about that later, when Todd was well, and back at the SD. In the meantime, I would be able to show him how well I had managed. I was determined that nothing would go wrong.