The Wildest Heart

“How clever you are with your flattery.”

He smiled, as if I had satisfied him in some way, showing white teeth.

“So you are Guy Dangerfield’s daughter—and you are to marry Ramon. It is what your father would have wished, of course.”

“And you too knew my father?”

“Not closely, alas. But I have met him. You have his eyes. But as for the rest… perhaps you have been told the same thing before, but it is of Elena that you remind me most. I think you are a strong woman, and not entirely the charmingly guileless girl you appear to be. Have I made you angry?”

“Why should honesty make me angry?”

“Ah! That is a good question. But it makes many people angry, as I’m sure you know. Shall I go even further, since you are a woman who appreciates directness, and tell you that you are one of the reasons for my coming here?”

I had to tilt my head back to look at him.

“I had no idea that news could travel so far, and from such an isolated spot.”

“Ah, but I have my ways of obtaining such information that others do not. I am what others call a comanchero. I see from the flicker in your eyes that you try to hide that you have heard of us. And, no doubt, it has all been very bad. But I will not have you think that I am also guilty of evading the truth. I was curious, you see. Here is a young Englishwoman, lately come to this country. One would expect… what? Certainly not what I find here. A woman who survived capture by the Apaches. A woman who, I am told, captured even Todd Shannon’s heart. Did you know that he has an enormous reward posted for any news of your whereabouts?”

His sudden question was abrupt, and yet I did not show him if it had startled me.

“Do you hope to claim it, señor?”

At last I had made him laugh. He threw his head back, but his laughter was strangely soft, almost soundless.

“And if I did, what would you tell me? You are to be married to Ramon Kordes, I find, and not to Todd Shannon. Frankly, I have no great love for your former fiancé, or his like! And, whether you choose to believe it or not, I do feel a certain loyalty toward my friends. So I will let you answer that question for yourself, señorita! And add one of my own. Do you wish to be rescued?”

His coal-dark eyes looked into mine, and I found that I could not answer him. But I refused to resort to subterfuge either.

“Perhaps, at the moment, I am not certain. And again… I’m not certain of your real motives either. Did you really come here to make sure that I was here? Or was it to settle old debts?”

I thought his arm around my waist tightened a trifle. “You are indeed a clever woman, Rowena Dangerfield. You answer my question with questions of your own. You will give away nothing, eh? But you wish me to admit to… what? I think you have heard the whole story already, and as a tribute to your intelligence, I will not lie. Yes, my motives for coming here were many. And before my visit is ended, perhaps we will both find answers to our questions.”

I thought I had the answers to everything that evening. I even thought that I could almost like Jesus Montoya, because he was honest with me. He was a clever man. He danced with me and acted the perfect gentleman. He danced with Elena, and I saw his head bending close to hers, his smile, faintly derisive, and hers in return. And he danced with Luz, and his manner was almost fatherly. I watched it all. The food was brought out—spiced roast beef, the inevitable beans. Steaming hot tortillas and chili; even a salad made of avocados, which tasted delicious. And there was wine, and tequila for those who wanted stronger. I tasted it, when Ramon, laughing, insisted, and it had no taste, but burned all the way down to my stomach. And all this time Lucas had not approached me; nor had I spoken to him.

I danced with him for the first time only after we had eaten, and after I had danced again with Jesus Montoya.

This time the wine made me bold enough to ask what was on my mind. “Have you made friends at last, you and Lucas?”

He smiled down at me in an amused fashion, but under his moustache I thought his mouth looked crooked. “Why should we be enemies? Always, it is a woman who can drive men apart. But women come and go, si? With Luz, her padre was my friend, an old friend. And I desired her, why should I lie about it? I spoke to him when he knew he was dying, he knew I wanted her, and it might have been arranged, if Lucas had not come back. Young—yes, he must have seemed so young to her! Young and hard and swaggering. She looked at him, and he looked at her. Soon it began to seem that she needed rescuing, and he was the one to do it. And there was the question of his proving something to me—a matter of manhood. Of a time when he was very young, and he went with us when we raided a certain village in Mexico. You are shocked? But I think you have heard of the comancheros. That we are worse than bandits, worse even than our Apache brothers whom the Anglos have learned to fear, and to respect. There was a woman, that time. A girl, you might call her. And Lucas, who was like my own son, had found her. He did not know what to do with her. It was a game of pursuit and capture. She expected to be raped… do I shock you? But he did not know how to go about it. And so—so I took her from him. ‘When you are man enough to fight me for a woman we both want and win, then I will grant you the prize of war, niño,’ I told him. And the time came when we fought again over Luz, and he won. It surprises you? It surprised me too. I would have killed him, if I could, but he had learned certain ways of fighting from the Chinese. Have you seen Lucas fight? He learned it in prison, and from the time he worked on the railroads in Kansas, and in Utah, working side by side with Chinamen. He does not use their style of fighting often, for he told me once that it was a secret, that he had sworn never to use his skill unless it was in self-defense. I was angry when we fought, and I had a knife—I suppose it gave him an excuse. Nevertheless, though it might surprise you, I too, in my way, am a man of honor. ‘You owe me a woman, Montoya,’ he said, and it was true. He left me lying senseless in the dust, when he might have killed me instead, and he took Luz with him when he left. Brought her here. By now, I would have thought he’d have married her. I could have forgiven him more easily if he had!”

“So you haven’t forgiven him at all, have you?” I whispered. In spite of myself, his impassioned speech had caught my mind, making me wonder what else lay under the surface here. “And what of Elena?” I hadn’t realized that I had put my thought into words, until I saw Montoya smile his crooked smile at me again.

“Ah, so you’ve noticed that too? Elena is like a distant star, the goddess all men crave for. I have always wanted her. Even when she was married to my closest friend. Even later, when I knew what killed him. And now… I do not know. Perhaps it is habit. Perhaps we are really friends at last, after all the years that have gone by, and the understanding we have gained of each other. I have a tremendous admiration for Elena. I respect her, as I have been able to respect no other woman. More than that, you will not get from me! I have told you more than I should. I wonder why.”

He looked down at me thoughtfully. And it was at that moment that the music stopped for a few seconds, while Chato held a bottle of tequila to his mouth and drank thirstily from it.

When he turned back to his guitar again, one of the vaqueros accompanying him on the mouth-harp, it was Lucas who held me in his arms, while Elena, laughing, danced with Jesus Montoya.

How it had happened, I could never be quite sure. I had time to notice how well Luz and Ramon danced together, and then, because I became stiff, and my feet seemed to stumble of their own accord, he took me off into a corner of the patio, and lifted me up by the waist, so that I found myself sitting on the wide adobe wall.

I had had no time to struggle, nor even to protest. I remember that the moon was behind him, and I could not see his face clearl

y, only the bronze glints in his hair as he continued to hold me, his hands still on either side of my waist.

“You have a way of making men open their minds to you, without your feelin’ a damn thing yourself, don’t you, Rowena?”

I started to say furiously, “You have no right to question me…” when he cut me off, his husky voice curiously harsh.