Disclaimer: All the characters from the "Magnificent Seven" TV series are property of Trilogy Entertainment, The Mirisch Group, MGM Worldwide.
She was no more than a girl when he first saw her and knew, from that day on, that she would be his no matter how life may change her later on. There is a moment in time where the world stands still for a man, and in the milliseconds that make time speed past as pearls of tangible substance, he knew he had achieved the perfect clarity that would not come again. It was a revelation of almost biblical portions, often spoken about by poets and dreamed of by artists everywhere, when a man finds the woman destined for him and him alone.
The first time he had seen Alexandra Styles, Randall Mason had felt that purity of emotion.
She was sixteen years old then, little more than a slip of girl with the fire of a thousand suns burning beneath her breast. Even then, her ability to turn the head of every man who came across her, whether young or old, was great. Her father, the eminent but somewhat unorthodox Doctor William Styles, was immensely proud of his only child and had raised her with the belief that she had the intellect to do whatever she wanted with her life. Mason often objected to that encouragement, for the world was not a kind place and the reality of women was something Styles had kept hidden from his daughter. She was unprepared for what lay beyond the secluded world shared with her father.
Styles was conducting the research for a book Randall knew he would never publish, but used as an excuse to travel the world with his daughter. They had met the first time in the Caribbean Islands where the sixteen-year-old beauty ran with the natives in the crystal colored waters, basking in the freedom from propriety every other father would have enforced in the company of half naked heathens. Styles never cared about such things because his daughter was not like other girls.
She has a head on her shoulders, he used to say. She's not silly like other girls.
With that Randall could not disagree because Alex, as she preferred to be called, did not wish to make her debut into society and found all the womanly arts boring and trivial. Instead, she worked side by side with her father, watching him cut into bone, starting in wide eyed amazement at how he could reassure a patient with eye contact alone that an amputation would not ruin their lives but save it instead. Styles was not just her father, he was her mentor and she learnt from him with an insatiable lust for knowledge. Randall watched her unflinching as she stood by and watched her father sew skin and flesh, never shaken by the sight of blood and death.
At seventeen, there was more steel in her than any woman he knew and Randall decided that Alex would be his when the time was right.
They parted company when Styles moved on to England, deciding that his daughter had come of age. For the better part of the next decade William Styles opened a small practice in London, using his influence and family name to win his daughter a seat a local medical college. Randall had followed her progress carefully, knowing that as a woman of questionable background, there were bound to be prejudices. He watched in interest to see how she would handle them and was unsurprised when she graduated six years later.
As soon as Alex had become a doctor in her own right, Styles promptly abandoned his practice and they were off again, this time she was more than just a casual observer in his research work. She took part in the studies, assisted him with his writings, and made her father happier than he had ever been in his life. No one had been able to come between them, the relationship had been that close. Randall had suspected the bond would be difficult to break, but knew that Styles' love for his beautiful, intelligent daughter would make no sacrifice for her too great.
It was heart warming to see how close they were, and Randall felt a hint of envy knowing that his relationship with his very proper family had never even approached this kind of affection. Alex adored her father and they journeyed across the roof of the world into China before crossing the heat of the Gobi Desert and disappearing into the savage world of the Middle East. Randall had no doubt that this would have continued until one of them dropped dead had he not intervened first.
They met again in Cairo, where the Giza was being overrun by treasure hunters posing as archaeologists who had discovered the awesome plunder of the great pyramids. This time Randall was astonished by how womanhood had affected Alexandra Styles. The woman who now stood by her father's side as the ever-dutiful daughter was magnificent, where the young girl he had remembered had been merely breathtaking. Her ability to dazzle him was a fire inside his mind he could not shake and refused to.
He had waited a decade for her, and was unprepared to wait any longer. He wanted her at his side always, so that he could worship her like the Goddess she was. The madness that overtook him when he saw her again was all consuming, and though he was a great deal older than her, Randall was certain he could make her happy. He merely required the chance to prove it. The house that he had built for her awaited them both in England. Randall had constructed it almost four years before, certain that she would accept for he was known to her and had enjoyed her company on occasion.
When she had been in England, there had been dinner engagements and parties where Alex had arrived on his arm, and although the women hated her and said snide things about her parentage, every man in the room burned with envy. It had been the greatest honor of his life when she had chosen him to be her first lover, and the experience still warmed him at night, when the longing became so acute he could not sleep. When he approached William Styles for her hand, there had been no reason to believe that the old man would be anything but receptive of the offer.
Except that he was refused.
He was too old for Alexandra, Styles had said, and more importantly, Alex did not love him. Randall remembered listening in growing rage as Styles made some obligatory speech to accompany the refusal, claiming that he wished something better for his daughter. He wanted the same kind of love that he had felt for Alex's mother to reflect in her eyes when Styles finally chose a suitor for her hand. There would be no convenient couplings for Alex, Styles was adamant on that point. Randall was then given the indignity of the news that Alex merely saw him as a friend, no more than that.
Certainly not someone to whom she could give her heart.
Randall had come away from the meeting like a man possessed, knowing that Alex could love him if she was pried away from her father. Even as he left the suite of rooms occupied by father and daughter, dark thoughts were already starting to filter into his intense humiliation and his all-consuming desire for Alex. He believed that she could love him. After all, she had allowed him to take her maidenhead, did that not mean that she cared for him? Randall was certain that the refusal was based on her father's selfish desire to keep his beloved daughter close instead of how Alex really felt. Randall became incensed by Styles' callousness, to hide such a flower in the dark. It became his mission to free Alex from this captivity so that she could take her place at his side, in the house built for her, where his children could grow inside her. The vision was almost beautiful in its perfection.
It had been a simple matter arranging it, a wad of money to an upturned palm and a quiet whisper in the right ear. Cairo at that time was for the buying, and there was enough villainy in its bazaars and meandering streets to satisfy any desire, no matter how dark the intention. Randall was unaware of the specifics of the actual process, he was only aware of the end result. He knew nothing about the poison or when it might be administered, he only knew that within three days of his meeting with Styles, the man was dead.
Randall had been on hand to console Alexandra, who had been nothing short of devastated by the loss of her beloved father. He remained close by, taking care of the arrangements to have the body returned to England and all the other unpleasant chores that followed a death. For the first few days, she had walked around in a stupor of grief, unable to believe that Styles was dead. Randall felt remorse for her sorrow but knew that she was freed now and perhaps some day he might tell her of how he had delivered her from her slavery.
Then the most curious thing happened.
The night before they were to return to England together, she vacated the suite at the hotel and disappeared. Randall searched Cairo for days before learning that she had jumped a steamship back to Europe. He spent the next few months pursuing her across the continent, always arriving there a few days after she had left. Eventually, he learnt that her father had left her a sizeable inheritance but could not assure her a position in any medical facility in Europe. Randall had been correct in assuming that her background would keep her from gaining employment anywhere, despite her considerable skills.
In truth, he preferred it that way. Alex was to be his wife and nothing else. He wanted her to adore him and worship him as she had done her father. Randall would not tolerate patients stealing the time she should be spending with him. It was one thing to indulge her fantasies as a doctor, but another thing entirely when it came to her role as his wife. He was aware that this, among other things, would require putting an end to when he found her, but there was plenty enough time for that later.
Suddenly, the letters of inquiry across the various medical establishments around Europe came to an abrupt halt. Randall was almost beside himself as he searched everywhere for the elusive Alexandra Styles. Finally, out of desperation, he learnt the name of her father's solicitors in London and demanded to know where she was, using his family's considerable influence to wrestle the truth from her solicitors. The man had been reluctant to give the information but Randall could see there was concern in his eyes as well, concern for Alex's well being. The solicitor did not know where she had gone. However, the bulk of liquid assets in her inheritance had been wired across the Atlantic, to America.
Randall has been astonished that Alex would travel to the one continent she had never set foot upon. Contacting the notable Pinkerton Agency in New York, he invested considerable money tracing where in the United States Alex might have disappeared. After almost two months of silence, he was finally rewarded with the information in his hotel room at the Wardorf Astoria. Alexandra Styles was currently practicing medicine in a small town out west, in a particularly unsavory part of it called the Territory.
Alex had bought a home and established a clinic, and was doing what she always wanted. He supposed her father would have been proud. Styles always like practicing his vocation to the primitive masses. No doubt, the man would have delighted in knowing that his daughter had followed the same path.
Randall Mason glanced out the window of his train compartment, watching the herds of cattle in the distance grazing on the dry grass of the sparse landscape while the mountains stared with indifference. Eagle Bend was only an hour away, and after that it would be merely a stagecoach journey to the town of Four Corners. He had no doubt that Alex would be happy to see him, although he questioned why she would hide herself in such a remote location. In any case, Randall hoped she was not too attached to anything in this provincial village.
It would only make it so much harder when she was forced to leave it behind.