Savage Enchantment (10 page)

The fiesta was at last over. Kathleen slammed the door of her bedroom. Wringing her hands in restless thought, she began to pace the floor. The fury in her built to a boiling rage.

To think that even for a brief moment she had credit Simon with an impeccable act of unselfish consideration! Knowing with how little esteem he held her, she had been more than justified in her suspicions of Simon's noble sacrifice to protect her by giving her his name. It was she who had been sacrificed! Simon Reyes had wedded with her in order to protect
himself!

So engrossed was she in her loathing contemplation of the man that she did not hear him enter the room in that lithe, animal-like way of his. His hands gripped her shoulders from behind and spun her around to face him.

"All right, you little schemer, you've got my name to protect you now from whatever crimes you're involved in with this Woodsworth. Now I want to know what your game is! And I want a straight answer -- if you can manage the truth."

"Your name to protect
me!
she raged.

Her feelings of fear and anger had accumulated that night to the point where she could no longer contain them, and she frenziedly beat her fists against him. "To protect
yourself,
you mean, Simon Reyes! Ohh! How dare you call
me
a schemer. You'd out-finesse Machiavelli himself. You married me to protect yourself. So that I couldn't give testimony against you -- whoever you are. Whatever you are -- Indian, vaquero, ranchero -- you're contemptible!"

Simon waited until her anger was spent, his square jawline rigid with tightly curbed impatience. Then he caught her wrists in his hands. "I've business to discuss with Nathan, my dear wife. But when I return ..." He looked at Kathleen with a mocking curve to his lips and the burning light of desire in his eyes, and a shiver of apprehension rippled up Kathleen's spine. "When I return, I plan to claim the rights due a husband."

He thrust her from him and stalked to the door, and Kathleen cried out, "Damn your heathen soul to Hell!"

But when the door shut, she threw herself on the bed and pounded the mattress with determined strokes, like a judge pounding his gavel. No! It couldn't have happened to her. Not Kathleen Whatley, who had sworn she'd never be a slave of the passions of a man -- unconsidered and ignored, lowered to the level of an animal. And here she was -- married to a man who was little better than an animal himself.

Dear God, she was wed to an Indian; a dirty native, as her father had called the peons of Spain ... as he had called her mother's lover. "Like mother, like daughter," she could imagine him saying with a distasteful grimace.

She had escaped one trap only to be ensnared in another. Trapped -- powerless and defenseless in the same house with the man, waiting to claim what he had brutally taken once before. The thought of his touch, hands stained with the blood of countless victims, made her nauseated with disgust.

Kathleen rolled to her back, stuffing her fist in her mouth, not believing that this one man could break the courage that had brought her through dangers without the merest flinch. Yet it was inevitable. She had experienced his crushing strength, his callous disregard. She could fight and struggle, but it would make little difference. She was alone against him. And outside there were a hundred vaqueros to obey the snap of his fingers. How few seconds were left before he would come to claim his rights?

But all power of action was not gone. She had escaped once, and she would do it again. She bounded from the bed and yanked out a bureau drawer, where she found the
camisa
and
calzones.
The white satin gown slipped down about her ankles, and Kathleen stood poised for a moment as the irony of the situation struck her. Tonight she had wedded -- dressed as any elegant bride -- all in white satin. But it was not a handsome knight from
Ivanhoe
that would take her in his arms with a gentle kiss, but a disfigured savage that with a grunt would satisfy his lust.

Spurred by fear, she kicked the satin gown across the tiles and quickly donned the peon clothing. She paused only long enough to braid her hair before quietly slipping out through her terrace doors onto the veranda. She glanced down its empty corridors. No one watched. The guests had long since gone, and apparently old Diego had already deserted his bench for the rawhide bed. In the distance she could see the campfires of the vaqueros and hear their plaintive songs.

From the veranda it was only a quick dash in the inky blackness of the night to the stables around back of the hacienda. Still, at the stable door, kathleen paused to look behind her, to ascertain no one had followed her flight. And she listened. But no sounds came from within the stable except the occasional whinny of one of the horses. Her heart pounded so loudly she thought it would surely betray her, but when no one raised a hand to halt her escape, she entered the stable. The smell of dusty hay filled her nostrils. She felt blindly along the rough boards until she came to the tack room. When she found a saddle, she half carried, half dragged it to Estrellita's stall.

"It's only me," she told the mare, as she shoved the silver-worked saddle on the horse's back.

Those next few minutes, as she cautiously walked the mare from the stables and out of the hacienda grounds, seemed like hours. Only when she was safely down the road, and out of sight and sound of the flickering campfires, did Kathleen feel free to mount the nervous horse.

Then she was on her way. Where, she did not know. But it was enough to feel the wind against her face, streaming her braids behind her; to feel the touch of the powerful horse between her knees; to feel the delicious taste of absolute freedom rush through her veins.

It was an exhilarating feeling. For it was not just an abhorrent marriage she was escaping. It was also the constant threat of life incarceration in some place for lunatics, which had hung over her head since that first glimpse of her mother slumped listlessly in the corner of an asylum cell.

For a good while Kathleen let Estrellita follow the faint depressions grooved by wagons and buckboards. But she knew the Indian in Simon -- or El Cóndor -- would easily follow her tail. She looked up at the gray clouds that scurried like frightened rabbits across the sliver of a moon. No, there wasn't enough rain in the clouds to wash away her tracks. She would have to cover her trail another way.

At the point where the wagon path paralleled a shallow creek, Kathleen reined the horse off through the buffalo grass and into the stream, leaving it several hundred yards further east at a stony creek bed. From there she headed south along a rocky path that climbed upward to what she hoped was a pass in the mountain.

The thought of Simon's harsh face, his mocking lips and bold eyes, pursued her through the night, so that as each hour passed Kathleen mercilessly urged Estrellita to a faster pace along the perilous ridges. The howling wind laughed at her, and the thick twisted chaparral tore with gnarled hands at her clothing.

Lightning streaked the sky, illuminating the drastic change of landscape that had occurred in the span f one night. As she neared the backbone of the mountain the barren ridges gave way to dense forests of juniper and pine. But the promise of the thunderstorm rushed onward to the west, and in the east the purple streaks of a new day threatened. What new horrors would it bring? As if in answer to her black thoughts, a coyote yipped its lonesome cry on the plains somewhere far below, and Estrellita danced nervously in response. Kathleen's knees hugged the mare's sides reassuringly. "It's all right, Estrellita," she whispered. "Everything's all right."

But in the growing light of day Kathleen could see, beyond the cactus-dotted plains, the white expanse of desert looming like a gigantic furnace. When she had ridden out so precipitously, she had not given thought to where she would go, what she would do. Now she faced scorching sands that it was rumored men had died trying to cross.

Yet the idea of the Mojave desert appealed to her. If she could elude Simon, she knew the dandified Edmund would never think of, nor want to search for her in, that burning wilderness. Surely, if she kept to the desert's rim, she could leave its edge farther south and turn west again in the direction of the coastal town of Los Angeles. From there her own whim would dictate where she would go.

But she had to get there first. And Estrellita was spent. "Only a little farther," she told the animal as it scrambled down a narrow path. "We'll rest when we're out of the foothills."

But was there time to stop? she wondered. And was it safe? And what about food for herself? Silently she cursed her foolishness at not planning her escape but fleeing headlong into the night. When faced with the prospect of marriage with Edmund, she had been cunning and patient. What was wrong with her now, that she would behave so stupidly?

As if aware of Kathleen's indecision. Estrellita paused near an alkali mudhole rimmed by scraggly mesquite trees and sagebrush, awaiting her mistress's bidding. But Kathleen was as weary as the horse, too weary to make a decision now. She slid from the saddle and tied the reins to the nearest mesquite. Dropping to the ground beneath the sparse protection of its straggly branches, she closed her eyes just as the sun scattered the last patches of pink and gray from the horizon.

It was a restless dream, as Simon's face relentlessly pursued her. Simon ... the vaquero; El Cóndor ... the Indian; Simon ... the
hacendado.
But she awakened to find another face peering down at her. A horrifying face with one eye seamed closed by scars, and yellowed, misshapen teeth grinning in an ugly leer.

"Ha!
Amigos,
it's not a
muchacho,
but a
mujer."
His small eyes ran over her.
"Por Dios,
what a
mujer!"

Kathleen cringed against the ground as the man's foul-smelling breath assailed her, and he laughed even louder.

"La mujer
does not find me handsome. Maybe I should show her I have a way with women. Eh,
amigos?"

By then six or seven others, some dressed as vaqueros in what looked like blankets but most clothed only in the breechcloth of the Indian, gathered about Kathleen and the ugly man who crouched over her.

"You must share whatever you find, Angel," one laughed. "And since I'm the oldest, I get her first."

There was a lump of nausea in Kathleen's throat as the realization of their intentions seeped through her still-drowsy mind. The men seemed to press around her, stiffling her, and a hand was already at her shirt, pulling, fondling, when a voice burst out: "No!"

Above the heads of those hovering over her, Kathleen saw a young, beardless man with a scarlet scarf tied behind his head in the Gypsy fashion she had often seen in Spain. The young man's high brow bespoke of the only hope for intelligence in the motley group.

The others looked up also, irritation at his interference showing plainly on their faces. "Do you want to fight us for her yourself?" the one called Angel asked with a contemptuous snigger.

"Come on, Renaldo," another said. "You're nothing but a boy. Let us show you waht men can do."

"No!" Renaldo cried out, grabbing the shoulder of one man even as Kathleen felt the
camisa
rip open. Quickly she covered herself as Renaldo said,
"El jefe
should know about this first."

There was a perceptible stiffening among the men.

But the leader is not in camp," Angel pointed out.

"Then you had better wait," Renaldo warned. His thin, aesthetic face wore a grim expression.

Deprived of the appeasement of their lust, the men were rougher with Kathleen than they would have been had they had their own way. Under Renaldo's angry eyes, they bound her wrists and ankles with a leather riata and tossed her crosswise over Estrellita. Kathleen grunted with the pain. Before one of the grubbier looking men tied a dirty handkerchief about her eyes, she looked to the young Renaldo for aid. But it was obvious from the helpless look in his liquid brown eyes that, other than his intervention against the mass rape that would have occurred, there was little else he could do for her at the moment. She would just have to suffer the present discomfort and hope she could escape once the band reached the camp they spoke of.

But it was several hours, more than half the day, of torturous jogging on the horse, over what seemed to her to be shifting sand dunes, before she was even allowed to rest. Hands pulled her roughly from the horse's back and dropped her to the ground. After a moment, the handkerchief, now wet with her own perspiration, was gently removed, and Kathleen looked up into Renaldo's concerned eyes. He held a tin cup to her lips. Greedily she drank the stale water.

"Not so fast," Renaldo cautioned her.

"Where are they taking me?" she asked between gulps. "Can you help me? Please!"

Renaldo looked to the other men, who had squatted a little ways off to themselves. He shook his head mutely. "I can't tell you anything, señorita. Only do as they say -- and try not to draw attention to yourself."

The men were rising again, and Renaldo hastily retied the handkerchief about her head before she could ask further. Once more she was thrown across Estrellita on her stomach, and the ride resumed. When the boiling sun finally dropped behind the mountains, Renaldo was allowed to remove the handkerchief and the riata at her ankles so that she could ride astride. The coursing of blood back to her feet shot waves of pain up her legs, and she reeled dizzily in the saddle as she sat in an upright position for the first time in hours.

In the evening twilight, Kathleen noticed that they traveled in a westerly direction, steadily upward through narrow passes. In the sandstone cliffs of the canyon walls she glimpsed jumbles of caves carved by winds and rain.

"Robbers' Roost," Renaldo said, nodding at the faint outline of the caves as he dropped back to ride alongside of her.

"How much farther?" she asked. She had never felt so tired in all her life. It was an effort just to straighten her sagging shoulders.

"Only a few more hours. Just beyond Acton Pass. Then there will be rest and fod."

The rocking-chair moon hung high in the heavens when the party passed through a rocky enclosure that opened into a hidden Alpine-like valley. Below, nestled among the chestnut oaks and sycamores, Kathleen saw the
ranchería,
a crude assortment of beehive-shaped tule windbreakers that Renaldo told her were called wickiups. Their many campfires looked like lightning bugs, lending a paradoxical tranquility, Kathleen thought, to the camp of cutthroats.

As the party rode into the camp, Kathleen was surprised at the populace. Everywhere there seemed to be people, mostly men -- Mexicans wearing dirt-stained sombreros and packing horse pistols at their hips, or Indians in breechcloth and leggings, with tomahawks belted to their waists.

Occasionally a woman was to be seen, usually dressed in white cotton blouse and brightly colored peasant skirt, though a few wore tunics of deerskin that reached to their knees. Here and there a few children played in front of open doorways while the women cooked over the open fires and the men cleaned their rifles or groomed their horses.

When the bandits came to a halt, Angel yanked Kathleen from the saddle. Renaldo stepped between her and the hulking man.

"La mujer
will stay in the wickiup of
el jefe."

Angel's massive hand went to the butt of his pistol. "She's mine, Renaldo. I spotted her first."

The slim young man did not back down. "I do not think
el jefe
will be pleased."

For a split second Angel's veined eyes glared their hostility, but wavered as Renaldo's warning sunk in. He whirled and lumbered off, and Kathleen breathed a sign of relief. Before further objections could be raised, Renaldo hustled her inside the wickiup that looked to be slightly larger than the rest.

Inside, part of the dirt-packed floor was below ground level, with a black-and-white
tiruta,
a woven blanket, laying in one corner. About the walls was a raised platform of willow wands, which was covered with pine needles and soft tanned skins. In the wickiup's center was the blackened earth of a firepit neatly lined with stones, and around the walls Kathleen saw baskets hung, in which were domestic utensils, clothing, and dried food.

"I'll see that hot food is sent to you," Renaldo told her in his soft, cultured voice. "Try and rest. I'll sleep outside."

"What will happen?" she asked, turning back to him as he lifted aside the curtain that hung in the doorway. Her large purple eyes glittered like a night creature's in the darkness. "What will they do to me?"

"I don't know, señorita. I honestly don't know. It will be up to
el jefe
what will be done with you."

Kathleen shrank further back into the darkness. "They'll -- he'll have me killed?"

Renaldo shrugged. The pity showed in his eyes. "The knowledge you have of us could be used to betray us. Please don't ask me what I can't tell you.
Buenas noches, señorita."

Kathleen sank to the platform with a feeling of dread as the doorway's curtain swished closed behind Renaldo. Good God, was this what it had come to? All her planning, the months of running and hiding -- only to be executed by some renegade band of outlaws? Her fingers rubbed her temples in disbelief, in incredulity that she should find her early death here in a remote valley at the end of the world, when she had planned returning one day to the comforts of Boston to live fully an independent life, eventually dying in contentment of old age.

A middle-aged woman with dark, tousled hair and lively eyes brought in a bowl of savory food. "Stew," she said, handing the bowl to kathleen. "I make the best in camp."

Kathleen took a tentative taste of the stew while the woman lit an oil lamp. She set the oil lamp down and turned to face Kathleen with her hands planted at her thick waist. "My name's Concha,
niña.
I'm Armand's woman."

"Armand?" Kathleen asked, bewildered by the turn of events that had culminated in her imprisonment in a wickiup and being waited on by this garrulous woman.

"Armand Devier. He's one of the mountain men. But you're new here. Tomorrow you'll understand more."

Kathleen wanted to ask more, but the feisty woman was gone before she could swallow her mouthful of stew.

How long before this leader returned? And what then? She looked around the wickiup but saw nothing with which to defend herself. Nothing except the wooden spoon. She put it in the bowl and set the bowl away from her. Her appetite was gone. Anger, mixed with anxiety at her helplessness, churned inside her.

She would not give in meekly to this scurvy band of men. If nothing else, her tongue would serve as a weapon. She would wait for the leader's arrival and cut the vile wretch to shreds, hurling every abuse upon him she had ever heard. She would scratch his eyes, tear his face to ribbons.

The oil-dip burned low as Kathleen wove plots that she knew were nothing more than foolish fantasies, but nevertheless, the inventive workings of her mind kept her fear at bay. Yet even as she planned how she would meet her foe, her haughty demeanor reducing the begger to abject humility, her eyes closed in weary slumber.