TABLE OF CONTENTS
SING THE DEATH SONG
FOREWORD
PART I:THE 4:10 TO HELL
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
PART II: WHEN THE WAR DRUMS SOUND
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
EPILOGUE
SING THE DEATH SONG
A DUTCH WILDE & BRIGHT FEATHER ADULT WESTERN
By
A.M. VAN DORN
Copyright © 2018
Cedar Ledge Publishing
All Rights Reserved
OTHER BOOKS IN THE WILDES OF THE WEST SERIES
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THE WILDES OF THE WEST #1: THE DAUGHTERS OF HALF BREED HAVEN
HALF BREED HAVEN #1: WILDE-FIRE
HALF BREED HAVEN #2: IN DANGER’S SHADOW
HALF BREED HAVEN #3: DARK RIVALS
HALF BREED HAVEN #4: SILVER, GOLD & DECEPTION
HALF BREED HAVEN#5: THE FORBIDDEN RANCH
HALF BREED HAVEN#6: SING THE DEATH SONG
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Author’s Note
Thank you for joining the Wilde sisters on one of their adventures. Just a quick note regarding what you are about to read.
Please be advised the Wilde sisters are all grownups and therefore they engage in very adult escapades and situations that include their romantic encounters as well as the sudden violence that can occur in their continued fight against assorted bad guys of the Old West.
So, in short, these stories are recommended only for mature readers of 18+ years of age.
With that said, it’s time to saddle up and dive into the world of Half Breed Haven!
A.M. VAN DORN
Contact Information can be found at [email protected]
or
www.thewildesofthewest.com
Dedicated to H.H. aka Wylee-Farmher- The truest fan one could ask for.
From the journal of Captain Dutch Wilde
1873
All aboard the 4:10 to hell!
I can still hear my sister Lijuan’s words, and I can corroborate here in this journal, that those six words summed up the start of our journey to hell and back quite accurately indeed.
Now, I’ve never lived in one of those big cities like New York or San Francisco, and I am sure those places pose dangers of their own, but I am of the opinion that there is no more dangerous place in all the world to live than in the West.
Death quite often lurks around every boulder, every cactus, and can take many forms. On that day it took the form of a rampaging, stampeding mass of muscle, sinew, hooves, and horns. In its path men, women, and children. An entire town on the cusp of a violent, terrifying pain-filled exit of what I’ve heard called this mortal coil.
Live or die, Lijuan and I weren’t prepared to let Stanton’s Gap fall to calamity, not even if it meant a suicide mission even to try. Let me record here for posterity that my other three sisters also stepped up in their own way to do what they could when catastrophe threatened, they and, of course, the brave and beautiful Bright Feather as well. The love of my life. She was right there in the thick of things along with the rest of us just like a Wilde, and I swear as I write this the day will come will I will give her the Wilde name.
Know this—I would never judge my four sisters for their numerous dalliances. They all deserve whatever happiness that comes their way and with whomever they wish. They’ve earned it for all the good they do. As for me, with conviction, I write that when Blue Feather and I first came together, I knew immediately that she was the only woman I would ever want again.
She’s my best friend and lover rolled all into one lovely package who knows how to make my blood heat up in a way that lasts forever. Long ago she captured my heart when mine met hers, and since then we have matched one another, step for step, in our love. When Bright Feather’s flesh touches mine, it is all I can do not to be consumed with my lustful desires, and I can always see the matching passion in her incredible, expressive eyes. Together, we will always be stronger than apart, two halves to a whole, partners to the end.
Recently, during a night at our fort honoring Bright Feather, I had a chance to recall the very first time we worked together in our partnership. Not unlike the harrowing events in Stanton’s Gap, the stakes then had been high as well.
The life of a fellow officer, even if he was a son of a bitch, along with the threat of an all-out tribal warfare at the gates of the very fort that was trying to broker a lasting peace among the disparate bands of Apaches, hung in the balance. It all came down to a deadly challenge, one my beautiful Indian had painfully proposed as the only conceivable way out of the dire straits the actions of one renegade brave had put us in … the same brave who was determined to see me dead and plunge our corner of Arizona into total tribal war awash with the blood of those willing to fight to the death!
FOREWORD
* * *
My name is Allie Mastluehr, and in the spring of 1913, I stumbled upon some of the most remarkable but forgotten tales of the old American West. These tales were narrated to me in the desolate ruins of Cedar Ledge—a once mighty Arizona ranch—and I promise that everything I was told wasn’t just tales; they were history, almost lost to the unpromising winds of time.
I experienced countless series of shocks as the ranch's last inhabitant, old Cattie Wilde, relayed to me the true story of the heroics of the most improbable of mixed race families, of which she had been a member. She quickly immersed me in all the action, adventure, romance, and family drama that came with being one-quarter of the formidable foursome known to friends and foes alike as THE DAUGHTERS OF HALF BREED HAVEN. In short, I learned of this stunning multiracial quartet whose bravery, thirst for justice and love for each other were matched only by their unbridled appetite for the most casual and sizzling encounters with the opposite (or in Catalina's case, the same) sex.
The Mexican Catalina along with the fair-skinned blonde Cassandra, mulatto Honor Elizabeth and Asian Lijuan, all half-sisters were the proud daughters of Judge William Henry “Whip” Wilde. The interracial sisters along with their sibling, cavalry officer Dutch and his Indian love Bright Feather, and their young
est brother, the Yavapai brave Blue River, the WILDES OF THE WEST upheld the law and aided those in need amidst the pristine beauty and natural wonders that was their corner of 1870s Arizona.
Though I have only had the privilege of knowing Catalina, through her stories and the significant volume of diaries and journals mercifully saved by Cattie the rest of the Wilde sisters have become as alive to me as if they were standing before me as I write this.
Catalina, my courteous host and now for all practical purposes becoming the mother I never had, also provided me with her brother’s writings and I quickly learned her steadfast brothers were every bit as daunting as the four sisters.
Dutch Wilde was a captain in the cavalry at a nearby fort. When he wasn’t carrying out his sworn duties the dashing blond-haired, blue-eyed officer frequently aided his stalwart sisters whenever they had need of him. And always at his side could be found the woman he loved—Bright Feather—a Yavapai Indian who through her love for Dutch trained with the Wilde sisters and was every bit as capable as her sisters in spirit.
Yes, Catalina has graciously made available to me all her family’s writings so that I may pen the definitive tale of this unique and exceptional family and the adversity they faced. The more I read of them the greater my amazement and respect for them grows as I follow their adventures in vanquishing villains and bedding whatever conquest happens to come their way.
Together the Wilde sisters could be nearly unstoppable, but whenever alone or in pairs they still proved to be a force to be reckoned with.
The same could easily be said about their brother, Dutch, as bravery was in the Wilde blood be they male or female, and his kindred spirit, Bright Feather, shared that same bravery.
Thanks to the journals supplied to me by Catalina, I learned how the pair’s first adventure helped cement in stone their lifelong love. A love that would last right up until Dutch’s death on the Titanic where he penned the fateful letter that led me to the ruins of Cedar Ledge so that I might deliver it. Reading through the journals I saw what a team they made, whether it be working to save a town in peril, or as they fought to bring peace among warring tribes. In that last instance when Dutch put his life on the line were he to fail, it would mean all-out tribal warfare, leaving Bright Feather behind to … SING THE DEATH SONG
PART I
THE 4:10 TO HELL
* * *
PROLOGUE
* * *
STANTON’S GAP
ARIZONA TERRITORY
1873
With a weary sigh Cavalry Captain David “Dutch” Wilde pulled himself into the back of the waiting coach, drawing close to his lover Bright Feather, whom only a moment before he had helped up into the back seat of Honor Elizabeth’s buggy. She lost no time placing her hand within his and leaning in to rest her head on his chest.
“Are you sure you want to do that? I am feeling more than a little ripe just about now between the sweat and the soot.”
“There is no place in all the world I would rather be. Besides this whole town smells like soot,” she purred.
With his free hand, he stroked the long black tresses of her native hair and looked around him. It was true as a cloud of hazy smoke hung in the air, but it was slowly dissipating now. None of the fires had been very large save for the one that had burned the newly erected stage and podium at the far end of the street to the ground, but being a temporary structure none of the townsfolk had cared. The important thing was that the fires touched off earlier by the flames falling from the sky had been extinguished.
The crowds still milled about the street, the gay celebration of earlier in the day just a memory but all things considered, there seemed to be a fair amount of cheer mixed in with the shock of the day's events that still lingered. There was certainly a feeling of goodwill towards the Wilde family of Cedar Ledge as he watched the multitudes gathered around Cassandra, Honor Elizabeth, and Catalina on the street near the carriage. All of his sisters were gathered around with one notable exception.
Craning his neck, he looked out the side of the open carriage and up at the verandah of the hotel. His brilliant blue eyes fixed on a petite figure that stood with her hands on the railing looking down, just a silhouette in the gathering darkness. As he turned his attention back to Bright Feather, he knew the silhouette only appeared solitary at the moment when in truth she was far from alone.
***
A few minutes earlier Lijuan Wilde had walked out onto the balcony of the third-floor room of the hotel. When she had indicated she would be staying over, the mayor had gone out of his way to see that she got a room in the best hotel in the town. With a sigh, she was experiencing weariness like her brother Dutch, but of a different kind. It was not of body but of soul. A frustration burned inside of her and it was consuming her. The beautiful half-Asian gripped the railing of the balcony and worked to keep her eyes averted from the carriage and the occupants assembled next to it below by immersing herself in the sights and sounds of the panoramic view from the balcony.
The sun had long since set and the skies were at their deepest shade of blue before they gave way to black but to the west of the town where the most light remained, she looked out at the column of smoke rising from the desert floor, highlighted against the backdrop of a dying day. It had been hours now but the smoldering twisted wreckage still burned.
Shifting her eyes closer to home the harrowing events she had lived through were brought back to her at the sight of men hard at work, their muscles straining while removing the last of the dead cattle. A group of young Mexican boys had been hired; she was sure at meager wages, to clean the blood from the sides of the dark shapes that now sat silently on the railroad tracks. The sounds of the mewling cattle reached her ears from the stockyards where the herd now mingled amidst hundreds of other steers, indistinguishable save for their brands marking them from having come from the Calico Ranch. Perhaps, she thought, many of them had been branded by the very man standing at the foot of the bed behind her, no doubt looking at her expectantly. She could hear him shifting back and forth on his feet in anticipation.
Lijuan was no stranger to being the object of a man’s lust. Her mix of Chinese and European blood had gifted her with pale yellow and supple skin that made her easily noticeable in any gathering instantly sparking interest in her. Besides her skin and curvaceous hour-glass figure, she had small brown eyes that were as captivating as her lush-looking red lips. Her narrow face perfected her look, surrounded at both sides by long hair that seemed neither black nor brown but a combination of both. All these attributes usually elicited the desire of many a man and now tonight Jim Cauley could be counted among them.
Ignoring him, her eyes traveled beyond the town. With the sun having set nearly an hour ago the two stunted mountains situated on either side of the gap that had given the town its name were being lost in the shadows of the approaching night. Her eyes followed the curve of the rail bed as it looped and then straightened to head out in the direction of the gap itself where the tracks quickly became lost from sight in the gloom.
Inevitably these things could not distract her from her losing battle to keep her eyes from falling to the street below. How could they not, she had thought in irritation as the crowd was letting loose with a burst of enthusiastic goodbyes. Just like that her almond eyes dropped downward and watched.
They were all there. The green-eyed, blond-haired beauty that was Cassandra, Honor Elizabeth, an elegantly beautiful mixture of their father’s white race and her mother’s black one with her mocha skin, curly ringlets of hair and bright hazel eyes, and finally the effervescent half Mexican Catalina, with her mane of wavy black hair who always had a smile on her oblong face and a twinkle in her nearly black eyes.
Finally, her eyes fell on the tall blonde man who was gallantly helping his Indian love Bright Feather into the carriage, and to no surprise, he quickly slipped in beside her. Joined at the hip, she mused, just as they had been ever since 1868 when Bright Feather had retur
ned from her sojourn in the lands far beyond the Arizona Territory. With a fair amount of bitterness, she thought those at the Wilde family ranch now seemed to speak of them as one long word … Dutch and Bright Feather. Long ago the pair had become inseparable in work, love, and play.
Bright Feather! Lover to one of her brothers and half-sister to the other and adored by the entire family. The quandary never failed to amaze Lijuan as she shook her head in frustration. They were the smartest people she knew, and yet why couldn’t they see Bright Feather the way she did?
Lijuan was denied the opportunity to think further on the matter when Jim Cauley cleared his throat and his voice broke through her thoughts.
“I believe I am a might ready for some of that payback you promised me before.”
She glanced over her shoulder into the room through the double doors she had left open when she had gone out on the balcony. He stood with head cocked and thumbs hooked into his belt with a rakish smile. Damn, he was handsome, she thought. Wistfully she turned her head back to the carriage below and saw her brother looking up in her direction for a moment and then he turned his head away, no doubt distracted by his lady love.
Shaking her head, she didn’t wish to think about him and the disenchantment he had heaped on her, or the seemingly omnipresent Bright Feather, or any of the arduous ordeals she had just lived through. Death had stalked her a good portion of the day, it seemed, and now all she wanted to do was sweep it from her mind. There would be no better way to do so than in the arms of this man whom she didn’t even know existed when she had awoken in her comfortable bed early that morning to a day that had been so full of promise only to give away to disappointments and dangers.
Sing The Death Song: Dutch Wilde & Bright Feather Western Adventure (Half Breed Haven Book 6) Page 1
