The Wildest Heart

“The only chance I’ll give you is if you’ll turn around and shoot that gun at my uncle. Maybe I’ll let Rowena live then…”

Almost without thinking I made myself go limp, kicking backwards only when I felt the man who held me let his grip slacken. I fell to the ground, hearing the now-familiar sound of a bullet wing past my ear and the man who had held me fell also, a grunting, burbling sound coming from his throat.

When I looked, Lucas was lying on his side, where he had flung himself, and he had just fired his gun. Mark was dead—and a second bullet, fired while I watched, made sure of it.

I was glad that I couldn’t see his face. Mark had fallen some distance, and the sunlight reflected off his blond hair, turning crimson in the slowly widening pool of blood that seeped from under his prone body. The gun that had been in his hand had fallen somewhere as he fell; but at least his face was turned away from me…

I had time to notice all this as I ran back down the slope toward Lucas, wondering why he stood so stiffly—but only until I saw all the rifles.

“You murderin’ bitch!” Todd Shannon’s harsh voice rang out. “I suppose this was what you planned on all along!”

Forty-Seven

“Why won’t you listen to me? Are you afraid of hearing the truth, afraid that for once in your life you might be proven wrong?”

“Shut up, an’ stop wastin’ your breath. I wouldn’t want you to m

iss it when that half-breed lover of yours starts screaming—if he don’t choke to death first.”

There was no mercy in Todd Shannon’s voice—none in his face. And I think that I would have tried to kill him myself if he hadn’t tied my wrists to his saddle horn.

“It was Mark, for God’s sake, I can prove it! Todd—if you’ll only take us to Fort Selden! I tell you that’s where we were going. Mr. Bragg—”

“Bragg can tell me whatever it is was so damn urgent after I’ve done what I should have done a long time ago. Look up, missy. That sun’s getting hotter now, ain’t it? Hot enough to shrink that green rawhide real fast.” I began to shudder weakly, and Shannon laughed. “Tell you what—I don’t want him to die too fast—not before he’s had a chance to suffer. So why don’t you take that canteen an’ go wet down that piece of hide he’s got wrapped round his neck? Mebbe you two can exchange some last words—while he can still talk, that is!”

Had it been an hour yet? Or longer? I had begun to wish that Todd, in his blind anger, had killed me or even beaten me unconscious as he had threatened to at first. Instead he had contented himself with forcing me to stand roped to his saddle, to watch…

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard Todd describe—his voice tight with rage and grief, of sorrow as he looked down at his nephew—what he intended to do.

“You murdering, woman-stealing ’breed. Your dying ain’t gonna be easy as his was, I promise you that. Because you’re gonna die real slow, Apache fashion. Boys, you see that cactus down there, just about the height of a man? You know what to do. An’ make sure you use green hides when you’re tyin’ him up.”

I had never been closer to madness than I was then. I must have screamed. The next thing I remembered clearly was reeling backward, the side of my face throbbing where Todd had struck me.

“Only cure for a hysterical bitch,” I heard him snarl, and then Lucas, who had remained impassive, up until then said: “Send her back. She’s got nothing to do with the hate that’s between us, Shannon, and you know it.”

“Is that why you run off with her—an’ had to kill my nephew to make her a widow?”

No—even now I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to and I must, Lucas and I. Each of us suffered a different form of agony, on that hot afternoon, when we all waited.

My hysteria and grief had turned into a kind of numbness. I had talked until my throat ached; trying to explain to Todd what Mark had really been like and what he had planned to do, but Todd would not listen. So now, when he handed me the canteen and untied my wrists, I said nothing more, merely looking at him with hatred in my eyes. He seemed to find this amusing.

“Go ahead! Mebbe you should rightly be the one who makes the choice whether your lover dies from strangulation or them cactus spines pushing their way into his flesh. Get up close an’ watch him suffer—I want you to carry that picture with you for the rest of your days, you treacherous, murdering bitch!” I said nothing—I told myself that if Lucas could be silent and stoical, then I could too. And I promised myself that I would kill Todd Shannon. Yes—suddenly I could understand why blood feuds could come into being!

They had stripped off his shirt to crucify him against that giant cactus, and beads of sweat stood out on his brown torso. His arms were tied above his head, and blood from the rawhide that had already cut into his wrists slowly trickled down them.

His eyes were closed, and I could see the corded muscles stand out as he fought for breath against the strip of rawhide that was tightening around his neck. I couldn’t help whispering his name. His eyes opened and looked into mine, but he didn’t know me.

I remembered Todd Shannon’s jeering voice when he had told me that I could make the choice—a slow, agonizing death, or one slightly less slow and almost as painful. God, God, how strong was I? How much could I stand? I heard a gasping noise escape from Lucas’s throat, and I couldn’t bear it. Not yet, I thought. Not like this, his life choked away with agonizing slowness while I was forced to watch.

I lifted the canteen, careful not to lean against his taut, strained body and poured most of the water on his neck, saturating the strip of hide that was strangling him with the life-giving fluid. Only a deferment…

I suddenly felt my arm seized and the canteen snatched away as Todd Shannon, coming up silently behind me, said harshly: “That’s enough! I don’t want to make it easy on him.” He began to drag me with him, laughing when I made a grab for his gun.

“Still got some fight in you, huh? I must say I didn’t figure on you having this much guts.” And then, his voice hardening, “Did he tame you? Too bad he ain’t gonna last long enough to see how tame you get when I’m through with you.”

He held my wrists in a cruel grip, obviously enjoying my struggles to get free.

“Ever seen such a wildcat, boys? Half-Apache herself, seems like—it comes from associating too much with Injuns, I guess. We’ll have to teach her how to act halfway civilized again, won’t we?” One of his men laughed, but the others, all standing by their horses watching, seemed unusually silent. I think they were remembering that I was after all a white woman, and still half owner of the SD, now that Mark was dead. Perhaps they were thinking of what might happen afterward.