It was not long before they were tying up in front of the hotel and crossing the creaking boardwalk veering off to a decrepit-looking café that adjoined the hotel, deciding to get a bite to eat first. After finishing off a meal of tamales that were surprisingly good for having been made in such a dive, they headed over to the hotel. As they entered the light streaming through the windows caught the endless swirl of dust in the air giving them a clue as to just how poor the accommodations were going to prove to be.
"Hello, Ma'am, got a spare room?" Dutch asked as they walked through the lobby. A rough looking Mexican woman stood behind the desk. Her hair had streaks of silver sprinkled throughout the black, and it was tied at the nape of her neck in a long ponytail. Her clothes were faded reds and yellows, tattered and old. The matron looked out at them through hardened dark eyes that were more than a little intimidating.
“Si, Senior. Twenty dollars Americano, up front,” she told them, her palms lying flat across the desk.
“Twenty dollars?” Dutch asked in surprise as he tipped the brim of his Stetson upward with one of his index fingers.
“This is a good hotel. The best in Palmarez! A man can rest and is not asked any questions. You understand what I mean, Señor?” she returned firmly.
"I do, perfectly. It's just what we’re looking for," Dutch capitulated as he got the feeling that she was studying them was with an expectation of violence and would be ready for anything they might try. He casually leaned forward slightly and caught the sight of the butt of a shotgun sticking out from underneath the counter at the ready.
“Your names, Señor? You can use any you wish. Joe, Bill, Mary, Carol, any of them Anglo names will do,” she told them as she suddenly mashed a fly to death that had landed on the counter near her palm. Dutch and Bright Feather glanced at each other and shrugged.
“Bill and Yellow Bird will work just fine, thanks,” Dutch told her, and Bright Feather nodded as he signed the ragged register on the countertop. They paid up for two days. “We will be going up to our room now, and later we’d like a bath drawn,” Dutch finished.
“Si. Enjoy your stay with us,” she said without feeling.
Bright Feather went with Dutch up to their room and got their things put away with Bright Feather remarking that if this were the best hotel in Palmarez, she would absolutely dread seeing the worst. They were fully aware of the number of thieves in the town and were careful with what they left around. Once they felt settled, it was time to get to work.
“Are you ready to find Salazar and get this mission over with?” Dutch said with a smile. He was happy to be focusing on the task at hand rather than the nagging guilt he was feeling about his falling out with Lijuan back in Alamieda.
“I am ready, love. Let’s go. We’ll get this guy,” she said confidently as she returned his smile. Despite the danger, Bright Feather always seemed to have the same self-assurance that his sisters had. It was just another reason that he had loved her so.
***
Now, this second search of the day was proving to be as unproductive as the one they had conducted just after they had checked in, having still not located Salazar. They didn't want to have to consider that perhaps the bandit hadn't gone either to his hometown or here but was rather somewhere else in the badlands. He might have even continued to the Canebraro Valley for all they knew. Undaunted and determined, Dutch gave his lover a quick squeeze of her hand and the pair made their way through the next set of batwing doors. If Salazar were indeed in Palmarez, they would find him. Suspecting that it had indeed been Quillan Dodge the outlaw had attempted to murder, this was beyond just bringing the man to justice for the troops he had slain; it was now personal as well.
CHAPTER 15
HORSESHOE VALLEY
Arizona Territory
Side by side Lijuan and Blue River galloped down the well-worn wagon trail from Horseshoe. The full moon glowing orange in the sky cast an illumination over the countryside leaving the surroundings visible in what would have been pitch blackness on a moonless night.
Blue River was once again astride Rainbow, and Rosalee's borrowed horse had proved to be a chestnut brown mare. It felt strange not to be riding her own horse Kong who was no doubt bedded down in the roomy stables behind the Cedar Ledge ranch house. Thinking of him led her thoughts to return to her home. Unlike Cassandra who delighted in the opportunity to go to new places in the line of duty, Lijuan was never one who enjoyed travel, preferring to stick close to the ranch and the security that it cloaked her in.
She held the power at Cedar Ledge, and all who worked for the Wildes knew this fact and respected it. Her beloved father Whip was the only one she deferred to when it came to matters regarding the ranch, but he rarely ever countermanded her on her decisions as he had one hundred percent confidence in his daughter. The prosperity of the ranch served as the testament to her skills at running the business side of Cedar Ledge. Together with Cattie firmly operating the physical side to their ranching operations and now Blue River doing tremendously with their timber operations it was a winning team.
So, it came to be that she felt out of her element whenever venturing too far away from the ranch. Being bereft of her power base, she felt a type of nakedness without it. Away from Cedar Ledge where she was not known, people were quick to dismiss her due to her petite stature and being a Chinese woman. Those who weren't enthralled by her beauty she knew, likely quickly wrote her off as just some immigrant peasant like one of the suspects had earlier.Anyone that spent a few minutes with her quickly was disabused of that notion after getting a dose of her forceful personality as the son of a bitch found out during his interrogation.
Still, if her sisters needed her or the business of Cedar Ledge called for it, she would willingly leave Alamieda behind and go where she was needed. Now here she was, a stone's throw away from the Mexican border and their final stop on their business trip, searching the moonlit countryside for a missing stagecoach. Life as a Wilde certainly was never lacking in its twists and turns she mused.
Blue River who had been silent for most of their ride looked over to her and with a grim expression said, “I’ve been thinking about them possibly taking prisoners.”
“Do you know why they might do that?”
“At The Settlement, the words were spoken that none who entered the basin were safe from their wrath. It's possible those who were taken prisoner are to be offered up as a sacrifice in hopes of being blessed with a successful raid on the town."
Lijuan felt the fine hair on her toned arms raise at the word “sacrifice” and all that it implied. “Where is this coming from, Blue River?”
"I didn't want to say anything back on the roof. Not in front of Rosalee, but I remembered something from way back when I was young and visiting their tribe on one of our trading missions. Crazy Elk and his friends, we were sitting around in a circle, and they were boasting of when they would grow and have many moons behind them and become great warriors. Then they would be able to revive the practices of the ancients such as one unsavory ritual. One of them said they would steal into their enemy's camp and capture some of them. Then when the moon was high, they would sacrifice them for the Great Spirit's blessing. When they would attack the bodies would be presented before their enemies as an omen of the death they would rain down on them."
“After all these years you remember that?”
"It stuck with me because I didn't agree with it. The Great Spirit I believe in is a kind and loving being. I didn't see Him condoning the outright murder of those stolen away in the night and asking Him to grant victory as a reward for spilling the blood of innocents. It seemed wrong, and it still does."
Lijuan scrunched up her face as she recoiled in her saddle. The West could be a dangerous and even barbaric place at times, and this was further proof that it was so. Before she could give her opinion on the matter before them on the trail, a dark shape came into view, sitting silently along the side of the trail. Moments later they drew up ne
xt to it, and their worst fears were confirmed.
The stage had partially gone off into a ditch along the trail, two of its wheels dropped down into it leaving the coach at a canted angle. Several arrows protruded from the wooden sides, and there was no sign of the team of horses that once pulled it. The pair silently slipped off their horses; with their guns drawn they went around to the far side of the stage and found the door swung open on its hinges. Blue River poked his head inside and withdrew it a second later and shook it.
“Empty.”
"No bodies around on the ground either. That means Lowell and the others aboard weren't killed on the spot. Your notion of what might be happening to them seems a hell of a lot more likely based on what we see here. They must have them back at The Settlement," she said softly.
“I’m afraid so.”
Lijuan holstered her weapon and balled her hands into fists and placed them on her curvaceous hips.
“At least there is still hope,” she said as she gazed up at the indifferent moon looming over some distant mountains. “The moon is not yet at the high point, so the hostages could still be alive. Which gives us a chance to stage a rescue—and that’s exactly what we’re going to do!
CHAPTER 16
After straining to pull the wagon up the hill, instead of being winded the team broke into a steady trot once the terrain leveled off. The swiftness of the horses impressed Lijuan, and they gave credence to Lane Scott's claim that they were his fastest. Earlier when they had returned to town and explained the situation, she had requested that anyone with a swift team turn them over. When Scott had stepped forward, she was relieved. Though cooperating, not all the townsfolk were still sold on being under the leadership of a Chinese woman, but she was glad it was a friendly face helping her obtain their getaway vehicle.
Soon a shimmering pool of moonlit water came in to view as their cross-country journey had come to an end. The wagon driven by Ross Tatum rolled to a stop and Blue River who had been riding alongside it gently pulled on his reins bringing Rainbow to a halt as well. At the far end of the small pond, a waterfall cascaded nearly forty feet into the pool. In the dark woods at the top of the waterfall, they had been told was a back trail that ran along the stream all the way to the side fence of The Settlement.
Their intel had come directly from Crow Woman. When the Wildes had been seeking any information on the landscape surrounding The Settlement hoping to find the best route for an escape with the hostages, the exiled Mescalero had proved to be a wealth of information. Lijuan had smiled inwardly as someone who appreciated one getting a measure of revenge as a sweet little payback while still doing something for the greater good. Hours ago, while Blue River had been at The Settlement, the Mescalero woman had opened up to her about why she now lived in Horseshoe, and it seemed she had quite the history with Crazy Elk.
Years earlier she had left with her brother who had been falsely accused of a crime against the tribe. Being a warrior had been the brave's dream his whole life, and despite his best efforts to try and assimilate to life in the town as Crow Woman had done such as learning English and wearing the clothes of the Arizonan settlers, he had failed. Following a ritual, he had taken his own life one evening at twilight at the moment the sun had slipped behind the mountains that had been his home.It had been Crazy Elk who had made the accusation against her man that had resulted in her beloved brother’s exile and his subsequent suicide. If sharing her knowledge could help derail her hated enemies’ plan and save lives, she was more than happy to share what she knew.
Now Lijuan turned to Ross.
“You’re going to be ready to go at a moment’s notice, yes? There is a good chance we’re going to be making what my sister Honor Elizabeth would probably say, a most hasty departure.”
"You've got my word I'll be alert and ready, Lijuan," he said as she took his hand and squeezed it. He saw her mouth form a small smile and looked into her exquisitely shaped eyes that held the promise of something still to come. A second later she hopped down and reached into the back of the wagon. Plucking a coil of rope, she looped it up her arm, so it rested on her shoulder. Then she pulled a second object from the bed of the wagon, a small satchel and swung the strap across her big breasts, leaving it to hang at her side. She approached Blue River and reached out and squeezed his hand as well.
"You be careful," she said firmly and with no small amount of apprehension. Her brother was going to be assuming a perilous role in this rescue mission. Even returning to The Settlement might be enough to land him among the ranks of the hostages and end up a possible sacrifice himself. If that happened, their carefully crafted plan would be over before it even began.
“And you as well, Miss Lijuan.”
With that, they parted company as Blue River turned his horse and peeled off in a diagonal direction back across the countryside that would eventually lead him to the wagon trail to The Settlement. Lijuan skirted the pond until she was near the base of the waterfall. Thankful for the full moon she scanned upwards looking for the best way to get to the top of the falls. With a sigh, she had to concede that with no sign of a trail, she would have to scale the forty feet straight up. Moving away from the falls so as not to have to be dealing with rocks made slippery from the splashing of water, she began to scale the cliff.
When she was nearly to the top, Lijuan paused and looked out onto the vista. She gazed from where Ross sat in the wagon to across the countryside where she could see the distant lights of Horseshoe. She reflected on how the last few nights had been such wildly different experiences. The night before, sleeping in the coach; the night before that relieving a boy who could not have been more than twenty, if that, of his virginity. His aroused breathing and cries of pleasure briefly drifted back into her ears. It had been fun, and she had no regrets.
There was no doubt that it was certainly more fun than the night prior to that when she had so angered David with her slip of a tongue. Where was he now, she wondered? Was he still mad at her? She knew she would be thankful when all their business was wrapped up and she could return to Alamieda and find out where things stood between them. The pair being estranged was not something she was used to at all and still left her unsettled.
She took a breath and returned her thoughts to the task at hand by climbing the rest of the way to the top. As she caught her breath on the precipice, she looked out again but this time towards the opening that led out of the Horseshoe basin. Lijuan hoped to hell they could somehow end this whole thing without a massacre because they could not depend on any help from beyond the basin. Earlier when Crow Woman was filling them in on a back way into the Indian’s camp, the flustered and half-drunk mayor had burst in and said that he had dire news from some townsfolk.
The group had listened to him recount that a family that had just been admitted through the barrier had come with very unwelcome news. The man said his wife had convinced him that they were best to forsake trying to find safety in the town but to get out of the valley altogether. When they had tried to exit the basin, they discovered that Summer Sky apparently had sent some braves to seal off the most straightforward route out of the basin. The family had been lucky to turn around without being spotted.
Lijuan had considered this development. The forces must have been put into place sometime after the stagecoach had entered. The agitated mayor was cursing that the Indians were out to trap them all. The only other way out of the basin would be an arduous and dangerous trek over the mountains that ringed the valley. Lijuan, however, suspected that basin had been closed off to prevent the lawmen from returning should they have given up their pursuit of the bank robbers.
There was nothing she could do about the lack of reinforcements, so she pivoted around on her boot heels and began searching for the path. Locating it took no time at all, as it proved to be just where Crow Woman had said it would be, running not more than five feet away from the rushing stream. According to the outcast, the path had been formed years ago by the tribe's c
hildren as the quickest way to reach the pool and the pleasure of frolicking in it under the hot Arizona sun.
As she began making her way up the trail, her eyes shifted nonstop from left to right searching endlessly. The further she got up the track the more she began to despair she wouldn't find what she was looking for. Suddenly Lijuan ground to a halt, her long hair swaying forward for a moment as she saw exactly what she was targeting. Cassandra always said the minute you give up on something is the minute before you succeed. Lijuan snorted and chuckled despite herself. Golden girl always has to be right in the end, doesn’t she?
Lijuan yanked the coil of rope down from where she had it looped by her shoulder and immediately set to work. As she did, she thought of Cassandra. Theirs had always been such a complex relationship. As a child, all she ever craved in the world was Cassie's love and acceptance. Her older sister, however, was jealous of the new arrival into their family and kept her at a distance for many years to come. In the earliest years, she hadn't even believed that the little girl who looked so different from her and Dutch was really their blood sister.
As she continued handling the rope, she thought of how she didn't blame Cassie. She had just been a child herself when Lijuan had been introduced to the family. If being an immature brat was a crime, then there were a lot of guilty parties walking the earth. Eventually, the day came—that day—when it had all come to a head. In the aftermath of the chaos, a healing slowly began. Now as adult women so much love passed between them that each would lay down their lives for the other if it came to who should live and who should die.
The Town 0f No Return: Special Edition (Half Breed Haven Book 11) Page 11
