The Wildest Heart

Today—today I have found the missing codicil to his will, fallen behind the drawer where he kept his journals. This is what Mark looked for, knowing what was to be in it. Perhaps it is another one of the reasons why he put the overdose of laudanum in the half-empty bottle of brandy that always sat at my father’s elbow… and paid a hired killer to murder Mr. Bragg in case he had found it. Just as he paid Pardee to kill Todd—

But instead, it was I, tugging angrily at the drawer which was stuck, who found the folded piece of paper that my father must have carelessly pushed into it—perhaps when he felt himself becoming sleepy.

I have read it over and over again. How much agony and heartbreak would have been saved if only I had discovered it earlier! My father had indeed learned from the shaman that Lucas was Todd Shannon’s son—but he had been sworn to secrecy. I could easily guess who had spilled ink all over the vital parts of his journals, even tearing out some pages—leaving only those entries which sounded particularly damning where Lucas was concerned.

Of course he must be stopped from killing his own father! And there was Elena, whom my father still loved, in spite of all the disillusionment of learning what she had done.

He spent some time explaining his motives in changing his will—for my benefit, of course. He begged my understanding. For I was not to inherit half of the SD after all; but this share would go to my husband if I married either Lucas or Ramon—with a large bequest of money to the one I did not choose. If I decided to marry neither one, then my father’s half of the ranch was to have been divided equally between Ramon and Lucas—his way of righting old wrongs, I supposed!

And Elena—yes, my father knew Elena! Perhaps he had tried to end what he saw happening between her and Lucas.

“To Elena Kordes, with my undying love and devotion—fifty thousand dollars and a reasonable income for life (I leave this to my daughter’s discretion) on condition that she leave New Mexico Territory forever…” He had added—for her I think—“A jewel needs a setting worthy of it. I think you will take Europe by storm…”

There were other, smaller bequests. A deed to some fertile land in the mountains, for Julio—money to buy horses and cattle. Legacies to Jules and Marta, and one to his old friend Elmer Bragg.

So this—and I felt I had rediscovered him—was the man who had been my father! The man I was cheated of seeing, but who I have come to know through his writings as my children some day might want to know me.

I fold the codicil away and wait. It’s time. Marta, standing by me, follows the direction of my eyes to the clock, and puts my half-frightened thoughts into words.

“The trial, it must be over now. Have faith, patrona. You will have your husband back soon.” And the silver medal of St. Christopher that Todd once gave to Alma and Lucas gave to me hangs coldly between my breasts—as cold as the hours that must still pass before I will know.

Epilogue

Silver City—1878

They might have been any prosperous rancher and his wife—their blond-headed son sitting between them in the buckboard, hardly able to keep still for excitement. And yet the sight of them together, and in town, was always enough to set the gossips’ tongues wagging.

Madame Fleur, standing talking with a customer in the doorway of her small establishment, gave a gasp as she saw them pass on their way to the State Depot.

“Oh my! Did you see them? And he, the other one, is already at the Depot!”

“You mean Mr. Shannon? Mr. Todd Shannon?” Mrs. Vickery, whose husband owned the local dry-goods store, echoed the plump milliner’s gasp. “My goodness—” her voice dropped. “Is it true…?”

“All true, all of it! Ah, such a scandal it was! I remember her—she has not changed much. There was always an air of—such haughtiness in her. And she has it still.”

“But—”

Madame Fleur was determined not to have her story spoiled by interruptions.

“All you have heard is the truth,” she repeated. “One of my customers went all the way to Santa Fe for the trial, and she told me everything. They acquitted him in the end, and everyone expected him to come back and live on that ranch—but instead he went off into the mountains, and his wife, she followed him. I’ve heard they own a small ranch there, but just where nobody knows for sure. Of course…” and Madame’s voice became a whisper, “he was brought up by the Indians, you know. And it is true that he has been in prison, and was an outlaw.”

It still felt strange to be riding

into a town quite openly like this. And towns, especially bustling, brawling ones like this, always had given him a closed-in feeling.

Lucas met his wife’s raised eyebrow and grimaced.

“I still ain’t sure how in hell you talked me into this. I don’t even know these friends of yours.”

“Corinne and Jack are nice people,” Rowena said evenly. And then, smiling faintly: “Besides I’m proud of you. What’s wrong with a woman wanting to show her husband off to her friends?”

He looked into violet blue eyes, shadowed by the longest, blackest lashes he had ever seen, and suddenly he was remembering her at other times—sitting up in bed, staring at him—brown-faced, with braided hair, eyes spitting hate at him. And still later, her warm, sweet lips; her voice calling his name…

It was the last thing he could remember before the pain, and the terrible choking as the breath was slowly, very slowly strangled in his throat. And after that there had been more, worse pain, making him clamp his jaws together so that he wouldn’t cry out—and crying out anyway and finding his voice only a whisper. And Rowena’s tears falling on his face, her voice saying his name again, over and over.

He couldn’t talk above a whisper for weeks afterward. Lucas thought later, wryly, that it was just as well, maybe. Else he would have done a lot more arguing, and a lot more swearing. And there had been times when he didn’t want to talk to anyone at all, not even to Rowena, until the day she came storming into his room, calling him a selfish bastard, reaching out to claw at him before he grabbed her wrists.

The colonel had married them two days later, and two weeks after that they took him to Santa Fe to be tried for murdering Mark Shannon.