The Endicotts were still not convinced, but Cassandra, doing her best to hold her temper, told them there was no point in debating it. If the current could carry them past the relief station unobserved by whatever Indians were amassing there, then they might just get away further downstream. Their faces told her what she had already acknowledged to herself, the odds of not being seen were almost zero, but for every other option, the odds were less than zero.
The couple from Texas paled even further than she would have thought possible when Montana had stepped up and told them there was more danger than just the Omegas. They would have to hope the current pushed them to the opposite shore before they were carried to what he called The Chute. It seemed that not far past where the station was, the river suddenly narrowed into a violent quarter-mile-long gorge before it widened out and became relatively more placid before merging with the nearby Colorado River. If they didn't exit the stage before The Chute, the coach would be smashed to matchsticks taking them with it as it went to its destruction.
"That's if we don't drown first," Endicott muttered, "This is a stagecoach, for God's sake, not a boat!"
Even Cassie had to admit that he had a point; for all she knew, the thing could capsize and take them down with it as soon as they hit the water. Montana, however, was like a ray of sunshine encouraging them.
"These are well-built coaches. The owner wouldn't have it any other way. In his early days in the business, he had folks complaining about water coming in around the doors and up from below on the occasions where the stages had to ford shallow rivers. When he has new ones built, he builds them watertight. It won't come through the door seams, and as long as the water line stays above the windows, we should be all right. We do need to lighten the load as much as possible, though," he encouraged.
They had worked feverishly after that to chop away the tongue and throw out everything in the baggage area, and this time, the Endicotts hadn't protested. Even the seats inside where hastily chopped out. When they were ready, the couple climbed inside, and Cassandra and Montana slapped the horses into motion sending them down the road towards the station. She paused for a moment to bundle her long hair up into her flat-brimmed hat, never having liked the feeling of wet hair before they strained to push the stage down the slight incline leading to the river. Quickly, they followed it into the water that just a couple feet from the shore was up to their necks and seized a rope they had tied to the coach and played out from it and pulled themselves to the stage. Once aboard, Montana untied the rope and coiled it around his arm, and they climbed up onto the roof. Cassandra looked down at the dark water flowing past them, amazed at just how deep the river had been almost from the very edge. She appreciated that it had lived up to its name.
To the group's relief, they had been swept around and out of sight of the road just as their shepherds trotted by at a leisurely pace, unaware that the stage they had urged on previously was now waterborne. Cassandra and Montana had positioned themselves on the roof, untying the rifle and his six-shooter they had secured before launching their makeshift watercraft. As they traveled away from the launching point, they could hear bewildered cries from the Omegas having discovered the cluster of debris from the stage. Then a new sound filled their ears as below them, they could hear Millie yelping every time the current swayed the wagon about. Her cries had grown louder at one point when the stage tipped precariously to one side, threatening to dip the open windows below the surface of the water. If that happened, the stage would fill with water, and Endicott's prediction of drowning would become a horrifying reality. Thankfully, it righted itself and spun around in an eddy and seemed to be drifting towards the opposite shore.
Everyone had held their breath hoping against hope that they would be pushed in that direction and be able to make their escape in the dense terrain on the other side of the river. Unfortunately, just as it appeared to be the case, they were swept back out into the center of the river, being carried ever forward downstream, their speed increasing. A few more times, their ark carried them toward one bank and then the other.
For a stretch, the coach floated along smack center in the mid-channel, and as it drifted, Cassandra kept her eyes focused on the shoreline. From time to time, the road would fade in an out of view blocked by mounds of rocks, groves of trees, and other natural obstructions. With keen interest she noticed numerous trees bent and knocked over into the river. One stuck out so far into the water the stage barely missed striking it. Seeing her puzzlement, Montana explained that a week earlier, a dreadful cloudburst had unleashed atop the Heidelberg Escarpment. Water had streamed down one side of it swelling the river with a flash flood. As the surging water jumped its banks, it had knocked over the trees that she was seeing and tumbled boulders into the river.
Cassandra consoled herself that at least they didn't have to worry about the danger of a flash flood this day; the skies above were clear, almost mockingly so. Above them seemed as beautiful and normal as any other day, the few puffy clouds traveling across the sky oblivious to the danger her group faced below. She brought her eyes earthward again and looked once more toward the shore. Knots formed in all their stomachs every time the road came into view from the river. They were desperate not to be spotted by the Omegas before they got past the station.
Now the moment had come that the relief station was coming into view, and the tale would be told if their luck had deserted them. Cassandra took in the sight before her. As Montana said, the relief station was closely bracketed by two walls of a canyon and sat on a slight rise back away from the road. The horrific sight of a gaggle of captured conveyances and a few scattered bodies on the incline leading up to the station made Cassandra's heart sink. It was just as she had suspected. The only unknown now was whether all the passengers were already dead, their bodies likely staining the ground in the canyon beyond the station. She prayed they still lived, and she was angry that there was no way she could rescue them if they were. It went against every fiber of her being to be so helpless when there were those in need.
She could see the warriors poised and ready for their anticipated arrival, and for the briefest moment, she felt joy mushroom inside her at their confusion when the horses came around the bend with no coach. The Omegas rushed forward and brought the horses to a halt. Montana and Cassandra exchanged looks of hope the distraction combined with a rocky crest along the river bank would prevent them from being seen. However, the ridge worked both ways, and once they went past it, they could not see the warriors any longer, only the station itself on the slight rise.
As the current pushed the stage near the opposite side once more, it suddenly proved fickle just as quickly and propelled them towards the side of the river holding the station. Abruptly, they became aware of a commotion on the front porch. Their eyes took in the sight of a shouting brave, and a second later one of the warriors hidden from view was seen again as he charged up onto the porch. At the other man's urging, he turned towards the river. There was no question about it. They had just been made.
The Omegas’ sheer surprise worked in their favor, and they had passed by the station before one of the men on the porch seemed to overcome his shock and began bellowing orders. Cassandra gritted her teeth as the coach picked up speed in the swift current, and just before the station passed out of view, about a dozen braves could be seen clamoring over the rocky crest and began running along the shore.
"They aren't going to have an easy go of it!" Montana shouted, "That's some pretty rough terrain along the bank."
He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth before they saw two braves stumble, one hitting the ground amid a cry of pain and the other plunging into the river. He was quickly swept out into the current, his arms flailing about, and then he just disappeared under the water and failed to resurface.
"Don't celebrate too quickly, Montana, you can bet a bunch of them are going to try to intercept us downstream!" she shouted as the first arrows from the pursuers along the ba
nk began falling around the floating coach. Several smashed into the side with noisy thunking sounds. This time they were not pulling any punches now, these arrows were meant to kill, she knew.
"Two can play at that game!" she shouted out loud and nodded at Montana, and they opened fire. The distance between them and their pursuers was great, and most of their shots missed, but at least two braves jerked backward. They could just make out the plumes of red mist bursting from their bodies before they collapsed and fell into the river.
Below them, the Endicotts had joined in, and each unleashed a volley, two shots each from their guns. Only one of them connected as a brave took a blast to his shoulder. A tough man by all appearances, he continued to run after them and threw his tomahawk with all his might before dropping to his knees, clutching his bleeding shoulder. Its thrower was down, but the spinning weapon continued its trajectory; its sharp edge grazed Montana's bicep, and he grunted in pain.
“Montana!”
"It’s okay, it’s okay!" he said, clenching his jaw, refusing to divert his attention away from the pursuing band of braves. To the relief of everyone, the gap had widened, and they were now beyond the arrows that were falling harmlessly in their wake, accompanied by angry shouts and war cries from the Omegas. For a moment they were safe, but they all knew that was a temporary situation with other Omegas likely out there on the way, not to mention The Chute looming somewhere ahead. Cassandra knew they had to get off the stage and soon. Laying down the Winchester, she maneuvered over to Montana and looked at his arm.
“How bad is it?”
"Just a graze. I'll be fine. Hell, I once took a full-on stab from a Frenchie in the backstreets of Montreal. Compared to that this is nothing, eh. There I was bleeding like a fountain, but I was madder that he made his getaway. Don't worry about me. We need to start thinking about getting off this before The Chute."
As she watched the blood flowing freely, she knew with certainty he was downplaying it, but she also was aware that trying to call him on it would be to no avail. She would have done the same thing, and clearly, they were cut from the same cloth.
"Those were my thoughts exactly," she admitted as she reached for the coiled rope and began to form the end of it into a loop. Living on a ranch, it was second nature making such a thing. Actually lassoing something was another matter. As she worked, suddenly, the sound of Millie screaming at the top of her lungs blasted up from the interior, Cassandra poked her head over the side to see that Millie had her own head stuck out one of the windows and was looking forward. She snapped herself up on her knees to look ahead to see what Millie was seeing.
So focused on the making the lasso, she had not noted that coach was being propelled towards a sizeable vertical rock sticking up out of the middle of “The Big Deep” that looked to her amazed eyes for all the world like a gnarled, old witch’s finger thrusting up from below. Cassandra shouted to them to brace themselves and then drew in a deep breath. There was nothing they could do to alter their course. They were going to hit, and that was all there was to it.
CHAPTER 20
The sickening sound of splintering wood seemed to explode around them as their bones rattled from the impact of the stagecoach striking the outcropping head on. The driver's box that not so long ago she had been sitting on enjoying Montana's company before all hell had broken loose, shattered from the impact, the pieces falling away into the river. The impact swung the stage around, and it began tipping sharply to the left, driving the windows towards the surface of the river, accompanied by the screams of the Texans.
"To the right!" she shrieked as she scrambled as far to the right as possible just as the water began pouring inside the coach, but Montana took it a step further, swung over the side, and slid down on one of the large wheels that was rising well above the water. His weight acted as ballast, and when the husband and wife also reached the right side, the left was yanked back out of the water, and the flooding ceased. The strange vessel rocked a back and forth for a moment or two before it regained its equilibrium and leveled out. A relieved Montana scrambled back onto the roof, but now the coach rode much lower in the water, the river's surface barely an inch away from the windows.
Cassandra didn't even think, she just acted on impulse and wrapped her arms around him, and her lips crashed against his as the unspoken attraction between them bubbled over like a boiling cauldron. Finally, Cassandra broke the kiss and looked at him grinning. To her, there was nothing more attractive than a brave, daring, and resourceful man, someone she could consider an equal. Montana, the one-time Mountie, fit the bill to a tee.
“I could ask what that was for, but, honestly, it doesn’t matter. I don’t need a reason to have enjoyed that,” he laughed, his eyes taking on a shine.
“There’s more where that came from if we can get off this river and save our lives.”
Spoiling the moment, came an angry voice penetrating through the roof of the stage, “What’s going on up there? We’re sloshing around in ankle deep water in here!”
“Understood!” was her simple reply as she slapped Montana's shoulder with her hand and picked up the rope. As bad as the run-in with the rock had been, there had been a silver lining. The force of the impact had propelled them close to the opposite bank, well within reach of the length of rope that she had. Her eyes scanned the shore frantically looking for something, anything that she could lasso with the rope.
"There!" Montana pointed with his arm, wincing in pain as the sudden motion served to aggravate the cut from the tomahawk. She gave him a look of concern before her eyes focused ahead, and she saw what he was pointing at. Some years past, a rockslide had apparently occurred sending a number of boulders into the river at its very edge. A pointed rock thrust skyward that struck her as similar to the big one they had just smashed into. It was perfect. When they swept past it, she would have to lasso it.
"Oh, dear! We seem not to be alone." Millie cried out, and they all looked downstream towards the bank of the river. The rocky crest had long since fallen behind them, and now the stage road and river were visible to each other. Assembled were eight braves on horseback just coming to a stop. They recognized the animals as the former team they had set free and sent towards the station, their harness now removed. Each horse held two men who quickly dismounted save for one man who remained alone after his passenger slipped off the horse’s bare back.
Accompanied by whoops and cries four more fleet footed warriors finished the long run from the station. The seemingly leader on the horse gave and signal and bows were raised along with tomahawks that were poised, and even a couple of rifles all came at the ready. The speed of their horses had carried them far faster than the floating coach, and now downstream from them the Omegas were prepared for them, just waiting for them to be swept past them. Grimly, Cassandra thought they were going to get their turkey shoot after all. Their only hope lay in snagging that rock that was well before they got within range of the warriors.
Picking up the rope in her hand, she rose to her feet. Inside she could feel her heart pounding, this would be hard enough for someone standing stock still, but beneath her feet, the coach was rocking back and forth as it bobbed along, making her sway. At least, because she would be focusing on the other side of the river, she didn’t have to look at the assembled warriors, no doubt smiling smugly as they were carried ever closer to them. Cassandra focused on the jagged rock as it drew near. She knew if it were Catalina throwing this rope, success would be assured. Her sister ate, slept, and breathed cattle ranching and had just been eight when she lassoed her very first animal, a baby calf.
Above her in the air the lasso now twirled as Montana, on his knees to one side, watched. Her breathing came to a complete stop as she whipped the rope, but at the same moment, an eddy spun the coach. With a sickening splash, the lasso hit the water just shy of its mark. She didn't even hear the dismayed cries from the Endicotts. Instead, she furiously reeled the noose back to the stage in a vain attempt to ma
ke another throw. Montana's downcast eyes underscored what she knew … it was too late, they had swept past the protruding rock, and any wild toss of the rope back towards it would fail.
Across the water, she could hear faint laughter coming from the war party. It was the strangest sound she had ever heard given how many of her previous run-ins with them only resulted in battle cries. Angry that they were having a good laugh at their expense, she dropped flat down on the roof and picked up the rifle and Montana launched forward from his kneeling position to join her, his six-gun poised toward the band of braves.
Lying flat next, to her, he gave her a crooked smile. "A Canadian boy from Nova Scotia making a last stand in the Great Southwest. Never the exit I would have guessed for me back when I was playing along the ocean.”
“It’s almost poetic when you put it like that,” she said, returning his smile. They shared a moment of silence just looking at each other, and then they faced toward the shore again. “Mr. and Mrs. Endicott, when they start firing, empty everything you have at them. Do you understand?” There was only silence. “Do you understand?!”
"Yes!" Theodore Endicott called out, but there wasn't even a grain-sized bit of enthusiasm in his voice. She thought she heard gentle sobbing coming from his wife. It was no doubt the first time the pair had faced death, and she understood how hard it must be. Cassandra had faced it a good number of times before, sometimes alone and sometimes with her beloved sisters at her side, but it never got any easier. Silence fell over the river as the coach drifted along, their only bit of luck was they were still closer to the far side of the river, so the braves would have to work to kill them … but kill them they would, she accepted dourly.
River 0f Death: Cassandra Wilde Adult Western (Half Breed Haven Book 13) Page 15
