Savage Enchantment

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Simon kicked open the bedroom door with one booted foot and unceremoniously dropped Kathleen on the four-poster bed. At the same moment that Kathleen gasped in outrage, she heard smothered words from the other side of the room and turned to see Nathan frowning and behind him Padre Marcos.

  Padre Marcos moved past Nathan. "Are you ready, my children?" he asked Simon. "We must hurry with the ceremony!"

  "The ceremony?" Kathleen asked.

  "I had Nathan tell the father that we wished to be united in holy matrimony."

  Kathleen bounded to her feet. Her eyes blazed as hotly as mountain brush fires. "I'll not be wed with you!"

  Simon folded his arms akimbo. "As I see it, Kathleen, you only have one choice ... Edmund Woodsworth or myself. Which is it going to be?"

  "That's no choice. Either way, it's a sentence of living death!"

  Simon shrugged. "Do as you wish, then."

  Kathleen's eyes narrowed to purple slits. "I don't trust you, Simon! You dislike me as heartily as I do you. Why are you doing this?"

  "That's my business," Simon replied. He took her wrist and pulled her toward the padre. "If you will, Father Marcos, we are ready to be wed. Nathan, you'll be our witness."

  "Even for you, my son," Father Marcos said, "I cannot bless this marriage before God without her freely given consent."

  "Well?" Simon asked, facing Kathleen with his fists at his hips. "What's it to be?"

  Chapter 16

  Kathleen looked to Nathan. His ruddy face was bland. Numbed, she nodded with a submissive inclination of her head.

  "Do you have a ring?" Father Marcos asked Simon.

  "You should know, after all this time, Father, that I wear no jewelry. Nathan, you've a ring?"

  Nathan shook his head. "Nay, Simon."

  The whole situation seemed ludicrous to Kathleen but for the sudden smile of irony that curved Simon's long lips.

  He crossed to the tastero that sat on the bureau. Opening the cupboard's door, he reached into a small drawer. When he returned, there lay in the palm of his hand a ring-shaped object.

  As he passed it to Nathan, the gleam of copper caught Kathleen's eye. The earring Simon had worn that night at La Palacia!

  "No!" she spat. But Simon was already taking her hand, his skin warm against Kathleen's frozen fingers. This can't be happening, she kept thinking. This can't be happening!

  But it did, the simple ceremony being short -- with only one pause, when Father Marcos asked her, "Do you, Kathleen Whatley, take Simon Reyes for your husband ... forever?" -- and the word "forever" rang in her mind like the repetitive call of the mission bells.

  As Father Marcos went to the bureau to write out the marriage papers, Simon's hands grasped her by the shoulders, and his dark head bent low over hers. "No!" she whispered fiercely and turned her face away so that his lips lightly brushed her ear instead.

  "My blushing bride is unduly modest."

  Her head swept upwards, her gaze as intense as his. "I'll make you sorry you ever took me as your wife!"

  "So you're always threatening me -- Señora Reyes," he replied with a wicked grin.

  "Ohhh!" Kathleen stamped a satin-slippered foot, feeling as helpless as a child.

  Nathan cleared his throat. "They're waiting outside, Simon."

  Father Marcos sanded the papers and held out a pen freshly dipped in ink. "If you'll sign these papers, my children."

  Simon took the pen and affixed his signature before handing the pen to her, "Kathleen?"

  Kathleen hesitated for a moment, looked to Father Marcos. The compassion she saw on the gaunt face told her what she already knew. She had no recourse. Silently she took the pen and wrote her name beneath the heavy scrawl of her husband's. A drop of ink fell from the pen and splotched the parchment. She stared at it, wondering if, like the marriage paper, her life would be splotched from that moment forward.

  Simon took the documents and slid them inside one of the bureau drawers. "I'll convey to our guests," he told Kathleen with a thin smile, "your regrets at missing the rest of the fiesta."

  "No," she said, as he opened the bedroom door to leave.

  She did not trust Simon. Nor Edmund and him together. The curtain, she was certain, had yet to fall on the final act of the night's performance.

  "I'll come with you," she said, crossing to him.

  "Have it your way," he said with a shrug, though his eyes watched her closely as he stepped back, allowing her to precede him.

  When the two of them, followed by Nathan and Father Marcos, reached the sala, they found that all the guests had gathered there as if anticipating something unexpected. The atmosphere was electric with the tension that ushers in a storm.

  Edmund and Aguila stood in the foreground together, talking with intensity. Behind them Kathleen saw Dimitri and Francesca. The Spanish beauty's face mirrored both disbelief and bitterness, and Kathleen thought with her own bitter resentment how gladly she would change places with Francesca.

  Kathleen looked up into Simon's expressionless face as he came to stand beside her, resting one arm lightly about her waist in such a way that clearly proclaimed she belonged to him.

  "My wife is feeling somewhat better," he told the crowd, "and insists the fiesta continue."

  Edmund's lipless mouth stretched downward in a sneer. "I don't believe Kathleen's your wife, Reyes. Why else did no one know of your wedding?"

  "That's really no longer your business, Woodsworth," Simon replied coolly.

  He turned to the crowd of expectant faces. "But, for the benefit of my guests," he told them, "this was to be a double celebration tonight. Kathleen and I were married in secret by Padre Marcos some time ago. We planned to make the announcement tonight."

  Simon's smile was tender as, pulling Kathleen closer to his side, he gazed down at her. But she alone saw the mockery in his eyes. "Our love," Simon said, addressing the guests again, "was too great to wait for the roundup fiesta."

  "Do you have any proof of this so-called marriage?" Edmund snarled.

  "Do you think I'd be so careless?" Simon's lids lowered lazily, as if he were bored by the discussion. "However, if your curiosity is not satisfied, Woodsworth, I'll have my majordomo bring the marriage documents."

  "That shouldn't be necessary," Don Pio Pico told Edmund, his hooked nose wrinkling in disgust. "Padre Marcos can easily confirm our host's statement and cler up this boorish matter. Can you not, Father?"

  The padre nodded at Don Pio with a twinkle in his eye that faded to a benign gaze as he turned to Edmund. "What Simon says is the truth."

  "There," Don Pio said. "As an ex-gobernador, I find this untidy matter settled from a legal standpoint -- and that should satisfy all concerned." His hawklike eyes beneath the great bushy brows looked pointedly at Edmund before coming to rest on Simon. "Shall we go on with the celebration, Simon?"

  "No yet," Aguila said, stepping forward. "There are other matters to see to first."

  "I was wondering what the Mexican military was doing in my home uninvited," Simon said dryly. "I'm sure you'll soon enlighten me, Lieutenant."

  "My pleasure, Señor Reyes," Aguila snapped. "My men and I are here to search for a band of insurrectionists." His scorning smile turned on Simon. "And in particular their leader -- the renegade Indian known as El Cóndor."

  There were gasps of fear from several of the guests. The wife of General Castro, Doña Modeste, looked as if she would swoon. "You think that murderous band is near here?" she cried.

  "You want to tell us what makes you believe this El Cóndor is at del Bravo?" Simon asked in a soft, lazy voice that did not match the watchful glint in the narrowed eyes.

  "Merely that several weeks ago one of my men wounded the band's leader in the shoulder. We're inspecting every hacienda in the vicinity."

  There ws a sharp intake of breath, and Aguila's scrutiny switched to Kathleen, whose hand clutched at her throat. "What is it, señora?" he asked, stressing the proper form of address with a sneer. "Do you kno
w of this man's presence?"

  Kathleen's eyes flickered upwards to meet Simon's hard green gaze. She saw something there she had never been before. A purpose -- a single purpose -- that would brook no interference, that would let nothing stand in its way. She shuddered. And by her silence acknowledged the precedence of that steely purpose -- as the tree acknowledges the precedence of the wind.

  Aguila watched the silent exchange between the two. "Reyes is El Cóndor, isn't he?" he said with a triumphant grin.

  Simon laughed lightly, taking Kathleen's hand in his, in an affectionate gesture. But Kathleen knew the slight pressure of his fingertips was not a sign of husbandly adoration but one of clear warning. "You should know, Lieutenant, that even if your preposterous claim were true, a wife can't give evidence against her husband."

  "You go too far, Reyes!" Aguila thundered, his confidence gone.

  "No, Lieutenant. You do. To enter my house without a warrant may be permissible under our Mexican government. But to accuse me without proof is another matter ... a personal one -- which I shall be more than glad to answer at another time. Nathan Plummer will serve as my second. Choose your weapon and send him word of the time and place."

  Edmund's eyes glittered with the opportunity presente dhim. "If I may," he said smoothly, "I shall be more than glad to represent Lieutenant Aguila in the duel -- my choice of weapons, of course, being the sword."

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Don Pio Pico cried. "You know that dueling is forbidden." He fixed Aguila and Edmund with a reproachful look. "This is a party, señores. Certainly you can conduct your business at a later time!"

  Aguila's jaw clenched in impotent fury, and he wheeled about to leave. But Edmund's pale gaze claimed Kathleen. "My business is not finished with you," he said in an icy calm that Kathleen did not doubt.

  Chapter 17

  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 para
lleled 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."