The Border Convent at St. Peter’s Mission
March 1890
After nearly five years at the remote Nogales convent, Mary looked nothing like the wild, dirty savage who had been brought there by the Arizona Ranger captain. She had quickly blossomed into a beautiful young woman. Tall and slender, with long golden hair and enormous blue eyes, Mary was totally unaware of her striking good looks. Little attention was ever paid to her and she was almost as miserable at the convent as she had been with the Apache.
She was not a meek, quiet soul who fit in with convent life. A fiery, defiant woman, used to fending for herself—she’d have been dead otherwise—Mary often questioned authority and defied the nuns. Looked down on by the townsfolk, who considered her more savage Indian than civilized white, Mary had no friends.
A bright young woman who passed what little free time she had reading and daydreaming, Mary often wondered what awful deed she had done to deserve what the fates had handed her.
After several failed attempts to run away, she had given up and accepted her lonely lot in life. She would, she realized, spend the rest of her days at St. Peter’s. Those days consisted of being tutored in English, mathematics and history, followed by endless hours of helping tend ailing sisters, ironing stiffly starched clothes, washing stacks of dirty dishes and scrubbing acres of dusty stone floors.
But Mary’s fate and future were forever changed by a chance visit, early one spring afternoon, from an aged, ailing priest. Long retired, Father Fitzgerald had come to the convent to say goodbye to the sisters with whom he had once served. The frail priest saw Mary and was immediately struck by her strong resemblance to a woman who, years ago, had been one of his flock, in a little parish in the southwest Texas town of Regentville.
When Father Fitzgerald learned that Mary had been captured by the Apache as a child, he was certain he knew her true identity: Anna Regent Wright. The long-lost Regent heiress! The wealthy Regent family, owners of the state’s largest working cattle ranch, had lost a little girl to the Apache in the summer of ’73.
The child had been taken, along with the ranch foreman’s two young daughters, as they played at a spring near ranch headquarters. The girl’s frantic father and the foreman were killed in the ensuing melee.
The priest told the sisters what he suspected, and with their permission he spoke with Mary. Mary’s blue eyes grew wide with interest as she listened to him tell about the rich, powerful Texas clan he believed to be her family.
He told Mary that a year after she was captured and her father killed, her mother had married again, choosing a widower with a young son. Sadly, the newlyweds were killed on a European honeymoon—swept away by an alpine avalanche.
“Who is left?” Mary asked. “Are there no Regents still alive?”
The old priest smiled. “There is still one Regent very much alive. The indestructible matriarch, LaDextra Regent, your maternal grandmother.” He shook his graying head and added, “My, my, LaDextra’s going to be overjoyed!”
Mary was not convinced that she was Anna Regent Wright. But she was more than willing to let Father Fitzgerald—and others—believe it. A woman whipped by many and unwanted by anyone, suckled by hate and reared by neglect, Mary had few qualms about pretending to be the missing Regent heiress.
Lying on her narrow cot that night in a little alcove off the convent pantry, Mary pondered the possibility of a better life. The prospect made her heart pound with hope. Never had she had a sense of belonging. Never had she had anything to call her own. No money. No name. No family. No home.
Knowing that his days were numbered, Father Fitzgerald told the Mother Superior and Sister Catherine Elizabeth that they must contact the Regent family’s legal firm and express his strong belief that the missing Regent heiress was living at the convent in Nogales, Arizona.
The Mother Superior agreed to write the letter.
Father Fitzgerald then told the two nuns, “I am leaving what little money I have to Mary. She’ll need it to get to Texas.”
As the frail old priest’s health rapidly declined, Mary spent every free minute with him, asking countless questions about the Regent ranch and its occupants.
Father Fitzgerald was completely convinced that this pretty young woman was Anna Regent Wright. Hoping to stimulate memories of her Texas home, he patiently drew detailed pictures of the huge, two-story ranch house. The sickly old priest fashioned from memory a carefully delineated map of the huge west Texas spread, complete with varying terrain, the location of springs and water holes, and criss-crossing roads.
Mary studied the map, memorizing every land-mark the priest had so carefully diagrammed. She envisioned the big cattle ranch with its imposing mansion in the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains.
It was easy to picture herself inside that grand home.
The letter postmarked Nogales, Arizona, reached the William R. Davis Law Firm in Regentville, Texas, on the morning of April 18, 1890.
Will Davis was seated behind his mahogany desk in his Main Street office when his young law clerk popped in and handed him a stack of mail. On the very top of the stack was the letter from Nogales.
A puzzled expression crossed the face of the distinguished sixty-four-year-old, silver-haired attorney. He picked up an onyx-handled letter opener and swiftly slashed the envelope’s top edge. He withdrew the letter, unfolded it and began to read. His heavy silver eyebrows knitted and his green eyes narrowed as he read, then reread, the letter.
Suddenly Will realized he was holding his breath. He released it in a loud exhalation, then dropped the letter on his polished desktop. A lifelong friend of the Regents, as well as their legal counsel, Will Davis was stunned. And skeptical.
It was, in his opinion, highly unlikely that Anna Regent Wright had, after all this time, turned up in an Arizona convent. He had long ago written Anna off as dead.
Will Davis was tempted to burn the letter and tell no one of its existence. If he did burn it, everyone involved would be better off. But he didn’t dare. If he did and LaDextra ever found out… Will shuddered at the thought. He sighed heavily, ran a hand through his hair and rose from his chair.
He would do his duty.
Will wasted no time. He ordered his one-horse gig brought around, told his law clerk he might not be back all day, and left immediately on the six-mile journey to The Regent.
At the huge eight-columned mansion in the rocky foothills of the soaring Guadalupe Mountains, LaDextra Regent was informed by a servant that a carriage was coming up the front drive. LaDextra immediately rose from her chair and began awkwardly smoothing her upswept white hair. Then she made her way to the front parlor and settled herself on a long velvet sofa.
Will Davis was shown into the parlor, and LaDextra smiled when she saw him. “Come, Will,” she urged, patting the sofa cushion beside her, “sit here by me and let’s gossip awhile before lunch. You are staying for lunch?” Her pale eyes twinkled with merriment. Will was her pipeline to the outside world. For the past few years now, LaDextra rarely left the ranch. But Will knew everything that went on in Regentville and kept her well informed.
“This isn’t a social call, LaDextra,” Will said as he plucked at the creases in his gray suit trousers and sat down beside her.
“Oh?” Her thin white eyebrows shot up. “Is there some kind of legal problem? Are we being sued for—”
“No. No, nothing like that,” Will interrupted. He handed her the letter.
She looked at it; she looked at him. “What is this?”
“Read it.”
LaDextra’s eyeglasses, suspended on a heavy gold chain, rested on her billowy breasts. She lifted the glasses, settled them on her nose and began to read. By the time she had finished reading the letter, all the color had drained from her sun-wrinkled face. Overcome with emotion, she couldn’t speak for a moment.
Then she started to smile and said, “Dear Lord, can it be? Is my little Anna really alive? Is she coming home after all these years?”
“Now, LaDextra,” cautioned a concerned Will, “please don’t get your hopes up before we’ve even had a chance to meet this woman and check her out. Father Fitzgerald is old and dying. This may well be wishful thinking on his part. We have absolutely no reason to believe that the girl is actually Anna and I am not—”
“Get back to town, Will,” LaDextra snapped, “and fire off a telegram to Nogales. Tell my granddaughter to come home to me!”
A week later, Mary stepped off the train on The Regent’s private rail spur. Will Davis was there to meet her.
Mary wore a stylish traveling suit of crisp blue cotton and carried one small valise filled with new clothes she’d bought with the $278.27 that the late Father Fitzgerald had left her.
Tucked carefully among the folded dresses were the personal items from her captive days that she had not been allowed to see since they were taken from her that first day at the convent. When she was ready to leave, Sister Catherine Elizabeth had handed her the bundle containing her childhood treasures. The turquoise-handled knife. The faded bits of fabric. The baby teeth. The gold locket with the initials M.S.H. on its face.
Standing beside the parked carriage, Will Davis looked up, saw the young woman step out into the strong Texas sunshine, and felt his breath catch in his chest. She was stunningly beautiful, with pale blond hair. Fair porcelain skin. A tall, willowy body.
Will stepped forward, thrust out his right hand, smiled and said, “I’m Will Davis. LaDextra Regent sent me to meet you.”
Mary flashed Will a blinding smile, shook his hand firmly and said, as if there were no doubt about it, “I’m Anna Regent Wright, Mr. Davis. Thank you so much for coming.”
“You’re very welcome,” said Will as he put his hands to her small waist and lifted her off the wooden platform. He reached for her valise and guided her to the waiting carriage.
On the one-and-a-half-mile ride to the ranch, Will Davis learned that this charming young girl was more than just a pretty face. She was polite and friendly and intelligent and totally likable. Just as her mother had been. Enchanted, Will listened with interest to her earnest inquiries and forgot entirely that he was supposed to be the one asking the questions.
Mary looked around curiously as she talked. The long dirt road they traveled cut through fenced pastures where hundreds of cattle grazed.
“Do all these cattle belong to The Regent?”
“All these and more,” Will replied with a smile. “Presently there are approximately fifty thousand head of cattle on the ranch. They only keep a few hundred head here in the Tierra Verde pasture.”
Mary frowned. “Tierra Verde? Doesn’t that mean green land? It doesn’t look very green to me.”
Will smiled. “No, it doesn’t. We haven’t had a lot of rain this spring, but hopefully we’ll soon be getting some gully washers.”
“So there are other pastures as large as this one?”
“Many more. This ranch is a million acres of land under two thousand miles of fence.”
Mary started to comment, but the sprawling ranch house, now clearly in sight, arrested her full attention.
“Is that it?” Mary asked excitedly, pointing.
“Yes. That’s it. The Regent.”
Mary was overwhelmed. Since leaving the railroad spur they had been crossing the flat desert floor, moving steadily closer to a towering mountain range to the north. Now they were almost up into the Guadalupes, the road—graveled now—swiftly ascending into the rocky foothills.
A quarter of a mile ahead and a hundred feet above, a majestic white, two-story mansion with eight Doric columns rose to meet the blue Texas sky. Vast manicured grounds surrounded the huge house. Broad, hedge-trimmed terraces flanked the west side, and a completely level, velvety green lawn stretched out on the east, where a wishing well stood like a sentinel in the sun.
Mary stared at the enormous house, unable to believe that such an impressive dwelling actually belonged to one family. The house was so large and the grounds so immense, it brought to mind the pictures of European castles she had seen in books back at the convent. That’s what this ranch house looked like—a magnificent castle in the clouds.
“Lawyer Davis,” she said in awe, “the house…it’s a palace. Royalty should live here.”
Will Davis smiled and said, “Here in Texas, the Regents are royalty.”