I had no more answers for him. We looked at each other for a moment longer, and then I got up from the bed, and he made no move to stop me. I was naked, the torn remnants of my clothes not worth picking up. And I was past the point of caring. I walked to the door and unbolted it, and Ramon said behind me, his voice flat and without expression, “I suppose you are going to find him. Don’t forget to try my mother’s bedroom first.”
I didn’t look back as I left his room, closing the door gently behind me. I think that by then my mind was a blank. I acted purely by instinct. I walked boldly down the gallery and pushed open the door of Lucas’s room. He wasn’t there, of course, but had I really expected to find him? He was hurt, wounded, no doubt he would turn to Elena for comfort.
Would I really have gone to her door, knocked on it, and demanded to see him? In the state of mind I was in at that time, I might have done so. All I knew was that I had to see Lucas, I had to find the answers to the strange yearning and weakness that consumed me whenever he touched me. I remembered the roughly efficient way in which he’d tended to my cut and blistered feet in the Apache camp; and later, the way he’d taken charge when I cut my fingers. Suddenly I remembered what my mind had been trying to shut out for the past hour, the way he had looked when I had let Ramon take me away. All that blood… Sudden panic took me. Perhaps he was badly hurt, perhaps he was dying, or dead by now.
I walked swiftly along the galena, my bare feet making no sound. Outside the thunder sounded much louder than before, and I thought I heard rain spattering against the roof in fitful spurts. Elena’s door was open, and surprisingly she came out of her room as I drew level with it, just as if she had heard me, or had expected me to come. She looked at me. We looked at each other. And the only sign of surprise she showed at my unconventional appearance was the slight narrowing of her eyes.
I spoke first, forestalling anything she might have said.
“Where is Lucas?”
She threw back her head, and her face might have been a mask, except for the slight flaring of her nostrils. Her voice was a hard, cutting whisper.
“You dare to ask me that? You, coming naked from Ramon’s bed? I should have listened to my instincts when you first came here! Your eyes were your father’s, and that is what deceived me, but I should have known that your nature was not like his. I should have known that for all your talk of hate and dislike you wanted to take him from me. Did you plan everything that happened tonight, you and Ramon? Did you?”
All the smoothness and self-assurance had gone from her voice, and I could see that her fingers were like claws at her sides, longing to rake at my face.
I said contemptuously, “Did you plan, just so, to take Todd Shannon from his wife?” and I heard the hissing of her breath. I looked beyond her into her room and saw only her empty bed, with rumpled sheets that told of her restlessness, and she saw my look.
“You thought he’d be here? Did you think that if he was I would let him come to you? I underestimated you, Rowena Dangerfield, but I do not underestimate the love that Lucas has for me. Yes. He loves me; neither you, nor any other woman will ever have more than his casual embraces!”
“In that case, it should not worry you if I want to see him, should it?” I said coldly. “Where is he?”
/> We measured each other again in that moment, and at last, she shrugged, although her eyes remained hard and cold.
“He’s gone. That Montoya—he let him go, with a storm coming up, and he’s wounded, with a bullet still in him. Do you think, if he was here, that he would not be with me!”
I turned from her without another word and went down the gallery to my room. Luz was not there, but even if she had been, I would not have cared. The windows had been left open, and the wind had put the lamp out, but the lightning that streaked across the sky gave its eerie, occasional light, and I found my clothes. A blouse, high-necked in the Apache style. A full, ankle-length skirt. Moccasins for my feet. I did not bother to wear anything else underneath.
Elena had followed me.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“I think you know.”
“You stupid fool! You’ll never find him! He’s probably out of the valley by now. Go out in this storm and you’ll drown. And you’re wasting your time, I tell you! Lucas hates you. Why don’t you go back to the warmth and safety of Ramon’s bed?”
“Is that what you would do in my place? You told me once that I was too much like you. Perhaps I’m just as unscrupulous. Does that make you less sure of yourself?”
She stood back to let me pass her, her mouth twisted. “Go then! And if the storm does not kill you, perhaps Lucas will.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “At least, you see, I am willing to take a chance.”
I went down the stairs, not looking back to see if she followed me or not. I heard voices in the dining room. Montoya’s deep, sardonic drawl and Luz’s high, hysterical crying.
I pushed open the door, and they turned to face me. She was huddled in a chair, her hands over her face, and he had his back to the fireplace, facing her.
Luz raised her head, staring at me. Jesus Montoya’s eyes narrowed speculatively.
“I thought you were with Ramon!” she cried accusingly. And then, when she saw how I was dressed, “What are you doing here? Don’t you know what has happened?”
“Of course she knows. She was there when it all happened.” He looked at me and his lips smiled, although his eyes remained opaque.
“Luz and I are to be married, as we should have been a long time ago. I will be taking her away as soon as the storm slackens. Don’t you agree that it’s a shame such beauty and youth should be wasted? I’m not much of a bargain, I’ll admit, but I am better than some I could name.”
“No—no! I am not a piece of merchandise, to be bargained for! You forced Lucas to say what he did when he was wounded and might have bled to death without a bandage. He would have married me in the end. I know it!”
“Do you really think so? I do not, and it was for your sake that I persuaded Lucas to speak the truth for once. You heard him say he felt nothing but a brotherly affection for you. That he would never marry you. Don’t worry, muchacha, I will soon make you forget him. And the children I will give you will keep you too busy for regrets.”