Wild Desire

“Am I up to seeing Adam taken from the holding cell at Fort Defiance for a trial in Gallup?” she said, slowly raising her eyes to Runner. “I must confess I will get no pleasure from it.”

“And then the trial?” Runner said, drawing her into his embrace again, hugging her. “That might drag on for months, Stephanie. Will you be able to hold up under that sort of pressure? You will be questioned over and over again about your stepbrother. Will you be able to testify against him, as you must?”

Stephanie twined her arms around him and clung to him, wishing that Adam and the trial were not there to spoil this happiness that she had found with Runner. “I will do what I must,” she said, then eased from his arms again.

Hand in hand, they walked to their horses. “I wish Damon had been found,” Stephanie then said, dread in her voice. “How could he stay in hiding this long? I would think that the authorities would have found him long before now.”

“I am sure that he has fled the country,” Runner said, helping Stephanie into her saddle. He went to his own and mounted. “Yet we must not ever let down our guard.” He glanced at Stephanie’s holstered derringer at her waist. “It is good that you did not send your firearm back with your photography equipment. Until Damon is found and placed behind bars, or strung up in a noose, you must never be without protection when I am not with you.”

“I doubt that I could ever give up my firearm,” Stephanie said. “It seems to be a part of me, as though it were a third hand.”

They laughed and rode away, then grew solemn as they drew close to Fort Defiance. When they arrived, it was just in time to see Adam being taken toward a wagon, guards on each side, in a long line.

Word had spread that Adam was going to be taken away today, which had drawn a crowd of people, some Indians, some white settlers. They crowded around the soldiers, gawking and whispering and pointing as Adam was led roughly onward, the wagon now only a few feet away.

Stephanie and Runner dismounted and elbowed their way through the crowd and stopped only a few feet away from Adam. When he turned and his eyes locked with Stephanie’s, memories of her past with him once again flooded her. She fought back tears, not wanting him to see that she still held some feelings for him deep within her soul.

Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when a woman carrying a baby broke away from the crowd and rushed toward Adam. With a keen puzzlement in her eyes, Stephanie watched the lady holding the child out for Adam, screaming something in a Mexican dialect at him, which Stephanie could not understand.

When the brisk breeze of morning swept the blanket away from the child’s face and Stephanie recognized Jimmy, Sharon’s child, she emitted a sigh of relief that the child was alive, yet her eyes widened with wonder as the lady tried to push Jimmy into Adam’s arms.

It was impossible for Adam to take the child: his wrists were handcuffed behind him. And Stephanie could tell that seeing Jimmy caused him anguish. His eyes wavered as he stared over at Jimmy, then at Stephanie.

“Stephanie,” he cried out. “Get the child from this woman. Raise him as your own. Jimmy is my child. Please . . . please . . . watch over him.”

Knowing what this confession meant, that not only was he Jimmy’s father, but that Adam had to be responsible for Sharon’s death, caused Stephanie to feel suddenly faint.

Runner slung an arm around her waist and steadied her.

The woman followed the direction of Adam’s eyes and soon discovered who he was shouting at. She rushed to Stephanie and thrust Jimmy into her arms, then began speaking in broken English to her.

“When Adam brought Jimmy to me, to feed from my breasts, and paid me a good amount of money to mother the child until he was ready to return to Wichita, by train, I agreed,” the woman cried. “But today I was told that he would be taken to the jail in Gallup. That means he would not come and get Jimmy soon. I cannot continue feeding and caring for his child forever. The money he paid me has ran out. Si? Do you understand?”

Stephanie’s head was spinning, finding all of this too hard to comprehend and accept. She gazed down at Jimmy, whose eyes were looking trustingly up at her, and in them she saw Sharon, and what she and Runner had promised the unfortunate woman.

Everything had changed when Sharon had been murdered, the child stolen from her arms.

Stephanie looked slowly up at Adam. When their eyes locked, she saw a soft pleading in his, but most of all, she was seeing the eyes of a killer. She held Jimmy closer to her bosom. She would take Adam’s child and raise him as though she were his mother. But not for her brother: for Sharon.

“Stephanie?” Adam shouted as he was dragged onward, the wagon only a few feet away. “Will you, Stephanie? Will you be sure that Jimmy is cared for? I would have taken him from Sharon sooner, and seen to it that he had a clean, fine home. But I never knew about the child! Not until only recently! She was wicked to the core, Stephanie! She deserved to die!”

A sob lodged in Stephanie’s throat. She turned her eyes away from Adam, then grew cold inside when she saw someone rushing through the crowd, toward Adam, a pistol drawn from his holster. Although the man wore a hat low over his eyes, to disguise his identity, she knew who it must be: Damon Stout!

He was hell-bent on killing Adam. He had surely also found out who was responsible for his sister’s death.

Just as Damon got a steady aim, the wind whipped the hat from his head, revealing his identity to the soldiers. People scrambled as the soldiers turned their rifles on Damon and shot him.

But they did not shoot him quickly enough. He had already fired off one shot, which was enough to send Adam sprawling to the ground, a mortal gunshot wound in his chest.

Stephanie handed Jimmy to Runner. Sobbing, she pushed her way through the stunned crowd and fell to her knees beside Adam. Forgetting why she should hate him, she lifted his head and cradled it in her lap.

“Why, Adam?” she sobbed. “How did you change so much that your life should end in such a violent, tragic way?”

“Sis, I wanted too much,” Adam said, coughing as blood streamed from his chest and mouth. He clutched one of Stephanie’s hands. “My biggest regret is disappointing you. Can . . . you . . . forgive me?”

“Adam, what about your mother?” Stephanie cried, purposely eluding his plea of forgiveness, for she was not sure if she ever could. “Didn’t you think of Sally at all?”

“My mother never truly cared for me,” Adam said, his voice growing weaker. “She only cared for herself, and making sure she had a husband to keep her in her silken fineries. You are too fine a person to see my mother’s imperfections.”