The Wildest Heart

It was strange, Lucas thought, how suddenly some little thing could bring back a whole flood of memories, flashing across the mind in just the short time it took to maneuver the buckboard around a wagon that almost blocked off the street.

A hat in a window, and two women, turning to stare. The hat reminded him of Elena—and that thought was still pain, although it was fading. Elena, the dream every man has and clings to. Smiling, beckoning, giving just enough to make him keep wanting her, and in the strangest way, hating her at the same time. But Elena was over and gone forever, and in her place Ro, who was flesh rather than substance: strength and sweetness and giving. Following him into loneliness in the mountains and facing the ghosts in the house in the valley. Having her child there, with only him and an old midwife to help her—and in the end he’d sent the old woman out of the room and done everything that needed to be done himself, remembering everything she had told him before. Hot water, clean sheets, everything boiled that would touch her or the baby, even the knife.

He had been truly horrified. “My God, Ro! I didn’t know what women have to go through, havin’ a child.” And she, smiling, eyes like purple bruises in the whiteness of her face, saying: “I didn’t either. But I’d go through it again, if you will.” And as a matter of fact he had felt almost faint himself, when it was all over, although he’d never have admitted it to her. But it had made his son all the more his—had brought Rowena closer, and sent the memory of Elena even further away.

Elena—strange that he should think of her today. Perhaps it was seeing the jail across the street that had brought her back as she had stood there in the dark, windowless cell under the courthouse in Sante Fe, filling it with her particular fragrance; the hat he bought her in El Paso worn forward over her forehead.

“So you couldn’t do it after all! You let him almost kill you instead—and all because of that white-faced bitch you married. Married!” Her laughter had been sharp as thrown knives, making him wince. “Was it to give that brat she’s carrying a name? Were you being noble, Lucas mio? Or has she really made you as weak as her own father was? I had to see for myself, you see.”

“And now you have seen.”

Her high heels clicked on the stone floor as she walked impatiently up and down before the barred door.

“Is that really your voice, sounding so cold? What are you trying to hide behind it?” And then, her voice dropping, becoming low and slightly husky: “Do you really think you will ever forget me? You’ll get over her, just as you got over all the others—she’ll begin to bore you.”

“Elena—why are you really here?” Lucas’s voice sounded tired.

“Why isn’t she here? No—I came to see for myself. And I wanted to see his face. It will be the first time, you know, since…” For the first time he heard some agitation under the smooth, cutting voice, and meeting her eyes, wide and shining with a liquid brilliance, he could almost see her as she had been then. Young, and uncertain of herself. Lovely, even then.

“So he’s decided to accept you as his son, has he? I am almost surprised…”

“Am I his son?”

Brows arching, she shrugged. “I suppose so. Alejandro said so. But it was only for Alma’s sake, and because of his guilt, that he saved you. He could never love you, for all his talk of duty—but you knew that, didn’t you? My poor Lucas, you were starved for love, until we found each other, you and I. And now—” again her laugh, “even now I think that you long to take me in your arms, isn’t that right? There is that between us, mio, that no other woman can change or take away. Remember that.”

Elena’s exotic, perfumed presence in the courtroom had only added another touch of drama into an event that had already been magnified out of proportion. Lucas had not been able to decide if he felt more like an audience of one or a freak on exhibition. Certainly, he had seemed to be the only person who had not come out of curiosity, or to play some role to the hilt. There had been times when, either lying in his cell or sitting in that overcrowded room beside his attorney, he had begun to wonder who he was. All his life before there had been two things. His love for Elena and his hate for Todd Shannon. And then, suddenly, he was adrift. Not even knowing himself.

When he came back from Santa Fe to tell Ro what he planned to do he had half-expected that she would stay where she was and wait for him to come back to her later. This was what Elena would have done.

“I just don’t know where I’m goin’ yet. Or what I’m going to do or even who the hell I am an’ what I want. Do you understand that, Ro? I’ve got to find my own answers—mine.”

“All right, Lucas. When do you want to leave? I can be ready whenever you are.”

He had argued with her, tried threatening, even tried picking a quarrel with her. But she had followed, gently rounding belly and all. And stayed.

“There they are.”

Back in the present Lucas’s sun-squinted eyes went from the laughing young man and woman who stood in front of the Depot, to the older man, towering above them both. He swore softly.

“I should have guessed.”

“Well? Did you expect to keep avoiding him for the rest of our lives? What are you afraid of, Lucas?”

He looked at her angrily, fingers going up involuntarily to tug at the black neckerchief that concealed a thin, red scar, circling his neck.

“Sometimes, woman, you push me a mite too far!”

He was annoyed at her, and more annoyed at himself. Did Shannon really think he’d been avoiding him for some damnfool reason like that? Strange, that he could never think about the man as his father. Just Shannon. Hated name he refused to bear.

The boy was standing up, eyes big with excitement.

“Mama…?”

Rowena looked over his head at Lucas, and after a second in which his mouth stayed taut and hard she saw one corner lift in a sheepish grin.

He hitched the buggy to the rail, ducking under it, and came around to lift her down. First her, and then the child. The usual knot of hangers-on had been enlarged, although all kept their distance, trying to keep their stares unobtrusive.

“Damned if that isn’t Todd Shannon and his son—they say they ain’t spoken a word to each other since the trial some years back.”