Savage Enchantment (18 page)

It was not yet dawn when Kathleen heard the first sound of distant cannonading, scarcely twenty-four hours after she had been returned to the compound.

Like the other women, she scrambled to the wall containing the single high window. One Indian woman scrambled atop another's back, grasping tightly at the wide sill of the window.

"Que pasa?"
a squat, stringy-haired woman asked.

"Mira!"
the one at the window answered. "The sky is bursting with lights -- there in the south, toward Buenaventura."

Kathleen hugged the opposite wall, its adobe warm to her icy hands, and saw flashes of light that periodically filled the tiny window. The revolution was under way. And where was Simon? Had he been released? Was he now leading his men into a battle that would end in death for some?

What if Simon were killed? Kathleen shuddered, hanging her head in despair. Wasn't that what she had wanted?

Restlessly she moved about the room, wringing her hands, wishing there was somthing she could do -- anything to take her mind from the shelling still going on. If only daylight would come. The old Mexican woman would bring bowls of
atole
-- perhaps she would know something.

But the morning sunlight filled the window, and the old Mexican woman did not come with the breakfast. The soldiers seemed to have deserted the fortress. With the onset of night an ominous siloence claimed Santa Barbara.

Kathleen lay on her bunk, listening to the other women conjecture. "It's French pirates," one declared. "They've attacked form the sea."

"Bah! You've been in here so long you've lost your mind," another said. "It's some kind of holiday. The soldiers are setting off fireworks."

And on it went through the long night.

Then, with the advent of morning and the mission bells pealing out the matins, there came the clanking of keys outside the wooden door. Slowly it swung open. A sailor stood there, a muzzle-loader clutched in one hand and a brass ring of keys in the other. He looked as stunned as Kathleen.

"Nathan!" Kathleen cried out, and pushed among the women until she was at his side.

Nathan dropped the ring of keys and caught the young woman up to him. "You all right, lassie?" he asked gruffly.

Kathleen shook her head affirmatively and moved away to see his face. It was as ruddy as ever, but there was a pallor beneath the skin and fatigue in the crinkly sea-bright eyes.

She looked around her at the sailors in their striped red shirts, holding pistols on the few remaining soldiers lined up agains the wall. "The revolt?" she asked. "It succeeded?"

A broad smile broke out on Nathan's face. "Aye, lassie."

As he led her toward the captain's now-vacated quarters, he related to her the events of the past two days. "... And after Simon slipped free yesterday, he made his way to the
Tempest.
He charged me with holding Santa Barbara, while he joined Renaldo and Castro at Buenaventura. They finally defeated Micheltorena and Sutter at Cahuenga, a place a few miles north of the pueblo of Los Angeles. Simon's with Micheltorena now, drawing up the list of demands by the Californios."

Kathleen took a sip of wine from the glass Nathan then handed her to still her trembling lips. No doubt Gemma was at Simon's side ... as she promised she would be. Wearily, she leaned back in Mejia's high-backed chair. "So Simon's won -- and I'm no longer a threat to him. What does he plan to dow ith me now?"

Nathan's brows knitted. "Simon doesn't know you're here -- or else ... Well, he thinks you betrayed him to Micheltorena. I've never seen anger get such a hold on him. The mention of your name makes those eyes look like green glames. I didn't even know you were here until I opened that --"

Kathleen shot up in the seat, spilling her wine. "He thinks
I
betrayed him?" she sputtered. "He -- and that whore of his -- betrayed
me!
That's why you found me here!"

Nathan frowned and sucked on his briar pipe. "Kathleen, I don't know what's all between you and Simon. He's my friend. But you're -- well ... The
Tempest
is taking Micheltorena and his men back to Mexico next week ... and I'd like to take you with me -- to be my bride -- if it's over between you and Simon."

Kathleen twirled the stem of her blass between her fingers.
Why not?
she thought.
At last, here's someone who cares about me, a New Englander like myself. Someone I can understand, who understands me.

She put out her free hand. "I'm tired, Nathan. I could sleep a week. Will you take me to the mission?"

"Ah, so you've finally awakened, my daughter."

Kathleen raised her eyes from her reflection in the well water to watch Father Marcos cross the sun-dappled courtyard. "I didn't know I was so exhausted, Father. I was tempted to sleep another twenty-four hours."

The gaunt padre perched on the stone rim opposite the young woman and tucked his hands in the wide sleeves of his habit. "A lot has happened the last twenty-four hours to risk sleeping another day through."

The wine-colored eyes widened with forced interest. "Such as what, Father?"

"The talk of Baja California -- Francesca Escandón has run off to join that Russian officer that was courting her."

"Dimitri Karamazan?" A genuine smile lightened Kathleen's face. "The man doesn't give up! But you, Father -- I'm surprised at your gossiping. Still, tell me more."

Father Marcos watched the lovely face across from him. "Gemma Chavez has wisely chosen to return to Mexico with Micheltorena and his troops. You know that she, and not Simon, was responsible for your imprisonment at the presidio?"

Kathleen's hand gripped one of the wooden posts that bridged the well. "I don't want to hear about Simon!"

"Then you're being willfully blind, my daughter. Selfish and narrow-minded. You're refusing to see Simon's side, but only your own, dwelling on your own hurts. If I sound harsh, it's because I care too much about you two to watch you foolishly throw away something precious. And, while I'm at it, I might remind you that you two are married in the eyes of God -- and what God has joined together, no man may divorce."

"Then you know about Nathan's request?"

"Yes."

"Let me put your worried soul at rest, Father. I dispatched a note to Nathan an hour ago. I told him I couldn't be his wife. I'm returning to Boston tomorrow on another brig, the
Yankee Gull."

"And Simon?"

"How can you defend him! No, don't tell me I'm being unfair. We won't talk about what's happened between myself and Simon. But that still leaves the kind of man he is. A man the Church would certainly frown upon. Or is killing now condoned? And waht about deceit? Or isn't taking over the land belonging to Andrew King's widow -- Doña Delores, or whatever -- a fraudulent scheme? And what --"

"My daughter, why must you be so perverse in seeing the truth? What is the surname King, translated into Spanish?"

"Rey,"
Kathleen answered slowly.

"Or, plural --
Reyes.
Simon is Andrew's son by an Indian woman. I know -- I baptized Simon at Andrew's request. Thereby making Valle Del Bravo rightfully his."

"Oh, no," Kathleen whispered. "Then --"

"Kathleen, child, Simon is but a man. He sometimes makes mistakes. Don't you? Will you make one now by leaving him, by returning to Boston?"

Kathleen looked down at her left hand. It lay in her lap in a tightly balled fist. "I don't know, Father. So much has happened between us. We've both changed. I'm not the same person I was six months ago. I don't know if I can erase the bitterness .. And then there's Simon's side, which you insist I see. Since the moment we first met, Simon's willfully chosen to think the worst of me. And I guess he has reason to. I just don't think anything can be done to change what has happened."

"Love can do anything. But this is a decision I can't make for you. I'll leave you to think on it, Kathleen."

The mist had cleared from the Santa Barbara Channel, so that the "queen of the missions" once more shone splendidly in th emorning sun.

Kathleen watched from the deck as an oarboat rowed toward the
Yankee Gull
the last of the boarding passengers ... and her oppression grew with each wave that receded behind the small oarboat.

She had what she wanted, she told herself fiercely. She was free -- free from her father, from Edmund -- from all male domination. She could now go her own way, independent at last. And Simon? Her attorneys in Boston could arrange some sort of annulment.

They could change the law, but they couldn't change her heart, her feelings, her love for the one man who didn't want her ... the one an that was everything to her.

Unshed tears finally spilled over while there was no one to see them; to splash on her hands that clutched the railing with such an aching longing. A yearning that was as sharp as a knife thrust.

There was only the ridiculous copper earring shining on her third finger, to remind her that she was still legally bound to Simon.

Kathleen began to work the ring off. It would stay in that land at the end of the world, where she should never have come in the first place. She raised her hand to hurl the ring into the wave-tossed Pacific.

A brown hand gripped her fist.

Kathleen turned to find Simon, once more dressed as the elegant ranchero, the flat-crowned hat set low over cactus-green eyes that gleamed wickedly.

"Do you think, Catalina, that by ridding yourself of the ring, you rid yourself of me?"

Then, before the curious eyes of the sailors and passengers, Simon swept the startled young woman up into his arms.

"Where are you taking me this time, Simon Reyes?" Kathleen demanded, with an equally wicked gleam in her eyes, as he moved among the people to the boarding ladder.

"To bed,
mi vida.
To bed."

In spite of the laughter that rippled among the people there on deck and the ribald remarks among the hands, Hathleen pulled Simon's dark head down to hers and kissed the long lips with a passion that would last through the years.