Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family)

by Georgina Gentry

Young Romeros did not miss her. She had always blamed him for the loss of her looks, the thickening of her waist, and ultimately the loss of the don’s affections.

  The boy grew strong and tall. He heard people around the ranch whisper of how much he looked like his tall, gaunt father. He was fiercely proud and hopeful as he toiled like a peon as a cowhand. After all, wouldn’t he own all this somehow as the bastard son? Surely the old man would acknowledge him, make him his heir?

  Romeros sighed, remembering the past as he stared up at the ceiling of the small bunkhouse room. Each time el patrón came to the southern California ranch, his son followed him about, lighting his cigars, quick to do his bidding. Now that the boy was half-grown, he had come to realize there were other bastard children on Romeros’s giant spread. Like a stud bull, the owner had mounted every nubile female on the spread. The vaqueros secretly cursed him, but no one had dared stand up to him when he’d demanded the favors of their sweethearts and daughters.

  An old Yaqui uncle had tried to warn the boy over the years as he’d taught him the Indian skills with a dagger. You will be a vaquero on this ranch forever, the uncle had said as they’d practiced throwing knives. El patrón already has a family by his legal wife whom he married for her money. Do not think he will acknowledge you or make you his heir just because you are a mirror of him in his younger days.

  But Romeros’s heart would not listen. El patrón loved himself so much. How could he not love the bastard son who looked just like him?

  So the boy waited hopefully for each visit, followed the old bull around, lit his cigars with the matches he kept always ready. El patrón smiled agreeably and let the lad accompany him around the spread on his rare visits to the ranch.

  Sí, Romeros thought, he will acknowledge me, he will make me his heir. It isn’t right that his son, in whom the blood of Spanish nobility flows, should work as a common vaquero. The boy craved acceptance, wealth, and position. These should be his by right. But he was sixteen and in love with a pretty Mexican girl on the spread before he finally had the nerve to think about confronting his father.

  El patrón had come to the ranch that day, and he was in a foul mood as the boy hurried to light his cigar.

  Romeros took a deep breath. His hand trembled as he shook out the match. “Señor, Papa, I must speak with you.”

  “Papá, is it? You have more nerve than brains to speak to me so familiarly.” The older man’s bushy brows knitted together across his beaked nose as he blew out smoke. “I don’t even remember which one of my women was your mother.”

  “The Yaqui.” The boy drew himself up proudly. “But I am a Romeros clear to my bones. Everyone says it is so.”

  El patrón guffawed and leaned against the corral fence. “Sí, I will not deny it. You look just as I did at your age, and that’s a fact.” He winked boldly. “And are you also the devil with the ladies like your sire?”

  Romeros colored. He had not taken the girl’s virginity yet. She would not let him, not without a marriage in the church. After all, he had no wealth, no position. “I—I hope to marry the cobbler’s daughter. The one who works as a cook in your kitchen.”

  “Ah, Sí, that one. The one who colors her hair with henna I had forgotten how lovely she was until I saw her serving breakfast this morning. She’s grown up since last time I was here.”

  “Sir,” Romeros began boldly, “it’s common gossip here at the ranch that I am your son.”

  The old man sneered and gestured with his cigar. “Half the vaqueros here are my sons.”

  The boy took the match from his mouth, and drew himself up proudly. “El patrón, I had hoped you might acknowledge me, give me my proper place.”

  “Is that a fact? Perhaps you are a great deal like me after all.” The crafty old Spaniard grinned and his bushy eyebrows met again across his beaked nose. “Maybe a great deal more like me than my legitimate heir.”

  “Sir?”

  The man’s eyes gleamed as if he relished causing pain. He took a puff of his cigar, and the pungent smoke floated on the still air. “Do you not realize, stupid bastard, that I have a family in town?”

  Romeros had realized that, but he had never thought he would not finally be legitimized, appreciated, restored to his proper place in el patrón’s life. “But am I not as much like you as your own reflection in the mirror? Surely, Señor Romeros, that must mean something to you!”

  “I wonder if you are like me deep inside.” The man smoked and studied the boy with a cold stare. “I built my empire by sheer ruthlessness, by being willing and able to take what I wanted, to destroy anyone who got in my way.”

  The boy put his foot up on the fence, put his hand on the stiletto in his boot. “I, too, could be ruthless, cruel, señor.”

  His father laughed and threw away his cigar. “Sí, maybe you could at that. You may be more like me than either one of us realize.” He sighed regretfully. “But the fact is I have a legitimate heir by a stupid but high-born and rich wife in town.”

  “Does that mean you will not acknowledge me after I have worked so very hard helping to build this ranch?”

  “It means, bastardo, that when I die, you and all my other bastard children will work on as you do now for my legitimate heir.”

  Romeros’s heart twisted within him as he watched el patrón toss away his cigar, then stride back to the ranch house. It wasn’t fair. He had worked hard, and for nothing. He stood staring after his father, his emotions in turmoil. From love, his feelings twisted into the reverse, and he had never hated a man so much as he now hated el patrón.

  The boy stood there a long time, shuddering because of his deep feelings. He had been rejected. No matter what he did, how hard he worked, how faithful to el patrón, he had been, he was being sneered at, passed over.

  He must break the news to the pretty girl.

  Regretfully, he walked toward the house. He could imagine the laughter, the scorn on her face, on the faces of all those who had warned him.

  He went to the kitchen. She was not there. Maybe she was helping a maid somewhere in the big hacienda. Romeros ascended the stairs, went from room to room in the sprawling house. It was when he opened the door of el patrón’s room that he found her, naked beneath the humping body of old Romeros himself, who rode her from behind like the great bulls of his herds.

  He would never forget the sight of her on her hands and knees in the big, white bed, her fine, naked breasts swinging like a heifer’s udders, the crucifix around her neck jangling on its chain.

  The boy caught the doorknob to keep from falling in shock at his discovery. But his father only looked up, withdrew, slapped her familiarly across her naked hip, and grinned. “You look surprised, my son! I had forgotten this beauty was available as part of my ranch ownership until you reminded me of her.”

  He stood up, his cojones hanging big as a bull’s, his erect manhood engorged with desire. He flipped it proudly and it thumped against his belly just as a bull’s does when it is ready for mating. “You may look like me, bastardo, but you don’t have the cojones I do or you would have already taken this puta.”

  Wrapped in a sheet, the girl grinned at el patrón, sure of her place in the household now, not realizing, foolish thing, that next week or next month, she would be cast aside.

  The boy was too heartsick to say anything. He only stared.

  El patrón sat up on the edge of the bed, his manhood still erect. His face showed his pleasure in humiliating his son. “Now that I’ve enjoyed her, don’t be hesitant to take her yourself. After all, it’s a fact that that’s all women are for, to give pleasure to men.”

  Romeros shook his head slowly to clear it. The girl ran her fingers through her hennaed hair, her ripe breasts fully visible above the twisted sheet, the crucifix dangling between them. “You think I want you?” She sneered. “When I can have el patrón himself?”

  His father reached over to the night table for a cigar, propped himself up in bed with a pillow. Then he frowned an
d snapped his fingers. “A match, boy, light my cigar. I’ll smoke it, and then I’ll finish enjoying your señorita.”

  Numbly, Romeros reached into his pocket, stumbled across the floor toward the bed.

  The old man poured himself a glass of tequila from the bottle on the bedside table. Holding it and the cigar in one hand, he cupped the girl’s breast with the other, fingered her nipple.

  The boy stood looking down at the grinning pair, the match trembling in his hand.

  El patrón looked up at him. “Come on! Come on!” he said irritably. “You think you are much like me, bastardo? You are not! You are not cruel and ruthless enough to be like me!”

  Romeros struck the match on the tiny silver match box. He stood there in growing fury, holding it in his hand, staring at the leering pair on the bed, all tangled in the sheets.

  Oh, sí, Papa, I can be every bit as cruel! With his free hand, he struck the man across his arrogant face, spilling the tequila on the sheets.

  Then he grabbed the bottle, splashing the liquor across the bed as the girl screamed and tried to untangle her naked body from the linens. Quickly he tossed the lighted match onto the tequila-soaked bed.

  It went up like a torch, both its occupants screaming and clawing to get away. El patrón was wrapped in flames, fighting to escape. The girl shrieked and struggled to get out of the burning bed, and then her long, hennaed hair caught fire, too.

  The boy’s eyes widened with horror at the sight as he backed toward the door. El patrón shrieked in agony, as he fought his way out of the flaming sheets and staggered across the room, his hair and skin aflame. He grabbed for the pistol hanging over the chair with his clothes. But at that moment, the boy threw his dagger as his Indian uncle had taught him, and it caught his father in the belly.

  El patrón screamed in agony and fury, grasped the blade in his flesh, then fell to the floor writhing.

  Coldly, the boy strode over, pulled the dagger out, wiped the blood on the old man’s arm, and stuck the knife back in his boot.

  The screaming girl staggered toward Romeros, her hair a mass of scarlet flames. Right at his feet, she collapsed on the carpet, which began to smolder. Her clawing hands reached up in appeal, but he laughed and stood there, staring down at her.

  Her lips moved as she looked up at him. “. . . Satan will come for you,” she got out. “You will hear his chains rattle as he comes to drag you down to hell . . . he’ll come for you. . . . ”

  Romeros had a sudden, eerie vision of the Lord of Darkness dressed in a black cape, horns gleaming, hooves where feet should have been, a long, forked tail.

  The scent of acrid smoke, of burned flesh, made him gasp, made his eyes water. The boy laughed crazily, turned to run from the room as the flames spread along the carpet. He staggered outside, caught a horse, saddled it, and rode out. He paused on the crest of a hill, looking back. The whole hacienda was ablaze now, orange and red flames leaping against the black night sky.

  He felt a thrill. So this was what it felt like to kill. Why it was even more exciting, more exhilarating than topping a woman.

  He stared at the roaring inferno, reached absently to feel the lucifer matches in his pocket, smiled. “You were wrong, el patrón,” he said softly to himself. “I am more like you than even I myself realized.” With a bitter laugh, he turned his horse southeast and rode down into Mexico.

  That had been a long time ago, more than twenty-five years. Romeros sat up on the edge of his narrow bunkhouse bed. Surely everyone in the house was asleep by now, even that stupid Texas cowboy.

  The moonlight gleamed on the faded bull-fighter posters. Sí, he would have loved to be a matador, stick long swords into the backs of big, snorting bulls. When he went to the bullfights in Monterrey, he always thought of his father snorting and humping the girl. He thrilled as the sword was driven in when el toro finally lowered his head.

  Romeros relived that scene in his father’s bedroom as he reached for a match, stuck it between his teeth, chewed it thoughtfully. The image of the man humping the girl from behind like a great stud bull, the memory of their violent deaths, aroused his desire, made him need a woman. He seemed to smell the blood and sperm, the smoke and flames. He stood up, paced restlessly. He wanted a woman badly enough to take the risk.

  Romeros went over, paused before a faded poster—“The Moment of Truth.” That split second between life and death before the matador plunged the sword up to the hilt into the great black body. He fantasized about it, making the killing gesture over and over as he imagined driving the sword home. It was not unlike ramming his manhood into a quivering woman. Except one gesture gave Death; the other, Life.

  Romeros stared at the bull-fighting poster, becoming more aroused. When he finally controlled both ranches, he would have that elegant Amethyst Durango, even if she were married to the stupid Texan. Women had no rights, they did what their husbands told them. And Bandit would be powerless to refuse to share her, not with what Romeros held over him. . . .

  When Romeros had found his way to this ranch after he had killed the pair in California, Antonio Falcon was newly dead and the old man had no heirs. Romeros hoped he might work his way into the couple’s affections and their will. Then, late in life, they had a baby son of their own.

  As Romeros watched the boy grow, he knew it was going to be like it had been the other ranch. Always, Romeros would be a vaquero, a servant, while another inherited the money and power. And Romeros had one other passion besides the bullfights—gambling. He could never keep his debts paid on his salary, even though it was generous.

  A coyote howled somewhere outside in the night, startling Romeros from his musings. The lonely cry echoed and reechoed through the purple hills around Falcon’s Lair. Romeros felt his groin tighten, and remembered that he needed a woman. There were plenty of women he could force himself on at this ranch; he’d done it often enough. The girls were ashamed and embarrassed to complain to the Falcons, and somewhat afraid since he was the foreman of this spread. But tonight he wanted a forbidden woman. One that was the property of a powerful patrón.The danger of discovery increased his ardor.

  Quiet as his stealthy Yaqui kinsmen, Romeros sneaked out of the house, went to the stable. The hay smelled sweetly fragrant as he reached for a saddle. Should he take his own black gelding? Did he dare ride the prized stallion? He had done it before.

  In its stall, the blue-eyed pinto snorted and stamped its hooves. Romeros knew that Señor Falcon planned to give the stallion to his newly found son. He frowned. It wasn’t fair. He deserved that stallion for all he’d done for the old man, and that was a fact.

  Defiantly, Romeros led the horse out, saddled it. It snorted, reared, and stamped its feet, not liking him. He cursed it, hit it with a quirt. “That damned Texan is too kind to you!” he growled.

  Stealthily, he led the stallion away from the corral, then mounted up. Upon its back, Romeros truly felt like the heir to Falcon’s Lair.

  He put his spurs to the pinto’s sides, took off at an easy lope for the Durango spread. Romeros enjoyed the ride through the darkness. The scent of leather and horse, the slight creak of the saddle, the steady rhythm of the pinto’s hooves along the trail were enjoyable. Tomorrow the stallion might be given to that damned Texan, but tonight Romeros could still pretend that he was the old man’s heir. They would probably all sleep late in the morning, being tired from the party, and Romeros would get the horse groomed early. No one need ever know.

  The coyote howled again, and the sound echoed and reechoed through the shadowy hills. Romeros took a deep breath of the warm May night, the mesquite, the cactus blooms. The stallion’s long legs ate up the miles as Romeros urged him on.

  He entered the gates of the Durango ranch, paused. The pasture where they kept El Satanás Negro was out of his way. Did he have time to torment the beast?

  Romeros grinned with relish. He’d make time. The woman could wait. He rode to the pasture and dismounted, looking through the sturdy fence.
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  Behind it, the giant old bull grazed. The beast raised its head, standing blackly silhouetted in the moonlight, twitching its tail. The light reflected off the ivory-colored sharp horns. It snorted as it seemed to recognize the horse, pawed the turf with its sharp hooves. A ring gleamed in its nose and a short length of chain jangled from the ring, to be used when anyone led the beast.

  Romeros laughed with anticipation, as he stared at the old scars on the great bull’s withers. It had taken many pics and banderillas that long-ago day. And many times when no one else was around, he’d come here to torment and torture this huge beast.

  “You black devil,” he muttered under his breath, “you cheated me of seeing you die in the ring, but I’ve made up for it.”

  In his mind’s eye, he saw the Mexico City arena where he and Señors Falcon and Durango had gone to attend the bullfight. How many years ago? Eight? Ten? He didn’t remember. But this was an old bull now, graying around the muzzle.

  Romeros leaned against the fence, remembering. The arena had been hot and crowded that day. Falcon and Durango had not really wanted to attend las corridas de toros, the bullfights—they were in Mexico City on ranch business—but Romeros had insisted. If there was the smallest bullfight in a nearby village, Romeros always attended. And that day, there had been several great bulls, and the white sand was stained scarlet with blood of man and beast.

  The president, from his box, waved the green handkerchief, signaling the oxen to come in and drag away the dead bull.

  Señor Falcon said, “Let’s go home. Bullfighting seems useless and cruel.”

  Fat old Durango stood up. “I think so too, amigo. We wouldn’t even be here if your foreman hadn’t insisted—”

  “We’re not leaving yet?” Romeros was aghast, “The main event, the best bull, is just coming into the arena. Please, I would like so much to stay.”

  The two ranchers looked at each other uncertainly.

  Then Romeros said, “Señor Durango, this bull is from the ranch of one of your friends, see?” He pointed to the program. “You will offend him if he sees you leaving as his bull comes in.”