Bright Feather watched Dutch, and Hardcastle grab each other, and each tried to land punches on the other man. Soon they were on the ground, each still trying to get the upper hand on the other. Bright Feather attempted to get a bead on them with her bow, but they were rolling around too much for her to get a clear shot at Hardcastle. She tossed her bow aside and drew her own pistol, running down the hill to cross the stream to aid Dutch.
Hardcastle kicked Dutch off him and he landed next to a still screaming Salazar. Dutch could see Hardcastle get to his feet and began rushing towards him. Dutch grabbed the only weapon available and ripped the arrow out of Salazar's arm causing him to shriek with the new pain. Lunging upward with the arrow he sank it deep into Hardcastle's stomach with vigor. As the man shrieked in his pain, Dutch smiled and yanked the shaft out of the stomach, doing as much damage on the way out as going in.
Hardcastle stumbled backward and landed on his ass in agony, looking down at all the blood bubbling from his wound. To one side he saw the gun he had dropped and reached for it as Dutch rushed him. He swung the weapon up, but it was just a second too late as Dutch plunged the arrow into his chest. Dutch left it there, and Hardcastle fell backward and lay with the arrow sticking straight up, his mouth fighting to form words but unable to. Exhausted, Dutch slowly rose to his feet, picking up the gun Hardcastle dropped. He looked over and saw Salazar had fought through his pain and had found a knife on his person. The killer was preparing to send it airborne to skewer Dutch where he stood, but he had missed his chance. Bright Feather ran up then pointing her gun at Salazar and snarling about someone threatening her man.
“Drop it now!” she demanded.
“If I don’t, squaw?” Salazar asked gasping.
“Keep holding it and find out,” Bright Feather said with a grim tone to her voice.
Salazar was not stupid enough to argue and dropped the gun with a grimace. They were all startled by a scream of rage and turning once more they saw Hardcastle had regained his feet along with his voice and was rushing them. Bright Feather raised her six-shooter and emptied it into the man without a pause. He was stopped in his tracks and danced like a puppet on a string as the bullets riddled his body. Then he slowly fell backward, a bloody corpse. Salazar tried to use the distraction to get away, but Dutch wasn’t having that and tackled him next to the stream. He pushed the man’s face into the mud before he yanked him back around and pressed the gun he took from Hardcastle to Salazar’s temple.
“I should pull this trigger right now for everyone you robbed of their life.”
He cocked the gun, and the face of the man under him was screwed up in abject fear. Dutch un-cocked the weapon then. The coward.
"Orders are orders, however. Now you are the one who needs to get to their feet, amigo!" Dutch snarled at him and jerked him upright. After tying him up, Dutch held his gun on him while Bright Feather made a bandage for the man's bicep. Once he was secured, they walked to the stream together, and Dutch felt relieved and grateful to be with his wonderful woman again.
“I must get my horse from where I hid it, so I could sneak up on you,” Bright Feather told him.
“That can wait a minute. I think I should thank you properly for saving my life,” Dutch said, and she smiled up at him.
“Go ahead. But I saved both of our lives. Since I could not live without you, it worked out better this way, don’t you think?” she asked mischievously. He laughed and leaned down over her, and they kissed. It was a long and passionate kiss that they both needed after this most recent brush with death.
"You must tell me how you got to the hill there," Dutch requested after they at last, broke their kiss.
“I had help. I shall tell you all about it on the ride to Fort Campbell,” she said, glancing up at the sunlight filtering through the trees.
“If we leave now we can be there by nightfall,” she said and began moving to go retrieve her horse. He grabbed her hand again, pulled her to him, and they kissed once more, reveling in their togetherness.
Unseen up on the hill, Snow Bird watched from the back of her horse with a gentle smile. After a moment of watching she turned her stallion and quietly disappeared into the forest.
EPILOGUE
***
VERDE ABUNDANTE VALLEY
MEXICO
Many miles to the south Catalina and Cassandra sat astride their mounts oblivious to all the struggles their siblings had just endured, unaware they themselves were enjoying the calm before the storm. Looking before them the road branched into three different directions, the one straight ahead would head towards the Corderro Crest Vineyard; the branch to the right would lead to Rancho Gordillo and the one to the left to Natchez.
"You sure you don't want me to come and be with you when you tell your uncle about the deaths of Suarez and The Reap-Victor's?"
Catalina smiled appreciatively at her older sister, “Nah, I reckon this is somethin’ I best do myself. Besides, I know you’re hell-bent on findin’ that wagon and its team that we rented and done lost.”
Cassandra tilted her head, setting her golden blonde hair to swaying slightly and grinned, “As I recall, it was your idea this morning to find it so Lijuan wouldn’t have a fit.”
“That’s right, but we both know you’d never be fixin’ to leave this valley without settlin’ our obligation. You ain’t got it in you to do otherwise, Cassie!”
Her sister only shrugged, her deep green eyes twinkling, she couldn’t deny the truth. Cattie reached up and gave a quick rub to Pretty Feet’s head. “Still, I wish we hadn’t rushed off down here to Mexico without takin’ more money. But I guess it’s not like we could have known we’d wind up havin’ to pay for a whole wagon if we can’t find it.”
"That's why we've got to find it. Hopefully, it will turn up in Rancho Gordillo."
“I’m sure I could ask my uncle for a temporary loan to cover it.”
"No, honey. This is our doing, and we've got to see to it ourselves. Now go on; you best go see him. Meet me in Rancho Gordillo after you're done. We'll stay the night there. If I don't find it, we'll ride to Natchez in the morning. Rancho and Natchez are the two closest towns to where we lost the wagon going into the Rio Sangre; hopefully it will be at one of those places."
The pair waved goodbye and went their separate ways. When they met up later in Rancho Gordillo she’d found Cassandra had no luck in her search. She had questioned Cattie how it went with her uncle and she’d told the truth. As was his custom these days he was drunk when she showed up, and he was still drunk when she told him about his friends’ deaths. The man’s solution to the somber news had been to crack open another bottle from one of their very best vintages and begin to drink to the memory of his lost friends.
Cattie had tried to ask him about Victor’s claim regarding the treasure, remembering the Reaper had told her that Hector had never believed the family legend that it lay buried on the land they had once owned now called Cedar Ledge. For a moment it looked as if he would talk but instead simply brought the bottle to his mouth and stumbled off the back patio of the hacienda where they had been sitting, saying nothing.
She was about to mount up and leave as there was no point in staying around. Her cousins weren’t there at the moment, preferring to spend less and less time at the Vineyard as their father plunged further into alcoholism and ruination of their family legacy. Before she could leave the patio, a shadowy figure had slipped out through one of the doorways leading to the hacienda.
It was Diaz. The man was a walking Methuselah, seemingly having been alive forever, having worked for the Corderros since the time her late grandfather had been a young man. He had always been old to her when she was a child living the summers at the vineyards fulfilling Whip’s desire that she know the family of her late mother. However, it was as if he had stopped aging during the time she blossomed from a child to a teen to the young woman that she was now. He was old, always had been old, and always would be old.
Catalina
had absolutely adored him and the feeling had been mutual. Quickly, she made her way to him as his gait was painfully slow now and gently embraced him. His duties were light to non-existent now, but he was part of the family and would remain so in these few years that he had left.
The pair caught up and laughed and shared stories and drank cool glasses of water that the young servant girl CoCo had fetched for them. The hours flew by, and Hector had never reappeared, no doubt having passed out. She had shared her speculation on that happening with old Diaz. That had been when he had surprised her. Earlier he had said he had overheard her ask about Montezuma's treasure. She shouldn't have been surprised as when she had been young he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time to overhear matters or catch her and her cousins in mischief.
Slowly he began to talk, to tell her of the legend about what he knew to be true and what could only be guessed and or conjectured. As she rode away from the ranch that afternoon to find Cassandra she had been astonished that maybe—just maybe—it could all be true. Soon however there would be no time to ponder the wonders of a lost treasure as their arrival in Natchez would once more thrust them face to face with danger, deception and death.
***
THANK YOU FOR READING!
PLEASE ENJOY A SNEAK PEAK AT AN EXCERPT FROM THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS OF THE NEXT BOOK IN THE TRILOGY:
THE WILDES OF THE WEST #4
THE BOOT HILL EXPRESS
(PART 3 OF THE DANGER DOWN MEXICO WAY TRILOGY)
(A WILDES OF THE WEST ADULT WESTERN ADVENTURE)
***
A strong wind was at their backs as they crossed an old wooden bridge over the San Sidero River and rode towards Natchez. As they made their way, it had lifted Cassandra’s heart to hear her sister giggle as she told how Natalia Vega had been one of her first flings after she had at long last stopped fighting the fact that she was just as attracted to women as she was to men if not more so. It did Cassandra good to see her laugh, and anything that could put Victor out of Cattie’s mind was good as far as she was concerned. She had seen the brutally murdered victims of The Reaper’s reign of terror, and the world was a better place without him. Catalina had seen the man’s handiwork as well, but it was as if the man was two completely different men in one body—one good and one evil. Someone ought to write a book with a character like that, she had thought grimly. It would make gripping if not scary reading.
Catalina had finished her story by saying their summer of passion had come to an end when her uncle Hector had fired the woman. While she may have been an overachiever in a bedroom, her work ethic out in the hot fields of grapes had been the opposite. The girl had returned to her home in Natchez and the last time Catalina had seen her a couple of years ago she was clerking at the feed store.
That had been exactly where the pair had found her when they had ridden into Natchez. Vega had thrown her arms around Catalina in pure delight when they had entered the store. From what Cassandra could tell the ensuing years had not altered the woman’s purported work ethic as she had told the owner she was taking the rest of the day off. The bespectacled older gentleman had nodded meekly and hadn’t protested. Cassandra didn’t need to be the detective that she was to know the pretty young thing had the man eating out her hand. Not that she could blame him as Señorita Vega was quite the fetching young woman.
Introductions had been made, and Catalina said she was hoping she could “catch up” with Natalia. The look that passed between the two telegraphed exactly what catching up would mean. Diplomatically, Cassandra had excused herself as the pair of giggling beauties had hurried off in the direction of the rooming house on the main street where Natalia said that she lived. Pleased that Catalina would find some happiness on this trip down to Mexico, she had been quite content to be left to her own devices.
It wasn’t like there hadn’t been plenty to do.The women had tethered their horses in front of the feed store, so Cassandra had elected to do a quick sweep of the town on foot hoping to perhaps spot the wagon if someone had found it and brought it back to the town. If she didn’t see it, then she would then check the livery. It was possible if someone had found the wagon and the horse that had been pulling it they might have sold the wagon to someone and perhaps sold the animal to the town’s livery.
Before she went to the livery, however, she was eager to stop by the sheriff's office. A couple of days back when they had been on their journey to the Rio Sangre just outside of Natchez, they had chanced upon Sheriff Santiago. He had been alongside the road conducting target practice, and the pair had stopped to say hello. Two things had caught Cassandra's attention upon meeting the man. First was that it was no ordinary six-shooter he was firing with, but rather some type of antique gun. The second thing was how handsome the Mexican lawman was with his soulful eyes, neatly cropped black hair, and a sturdy frame that must have set plenty a señorita's hearts a-thumping.
Striking up a conversation, Cassandra and the sheriff had immediately bonded over their love for firearms. It turned out the man was shooting a two-hundred-year-old blunderbuss that he said was favored by the pirates plying the Gulf of Mexico. The business in the Rio Sangre was urgent, and they had to move on, but the sheriff graciously had invited them to stop in on their way back, and he would show her some more of his antique guns from his collection.
When she had arrived at the Natchez sheriff's office, she had found a stylish looking black carriage parked in front of it. The horse tasked with pulling it was of an excellent stock with strong looking legs that she suspected didn't tire easily. She had just been approaching the door when a smiling Santiago suddenly slipped out into the sunlight. He had seen her through the window as she was walking up and had been delighted. Holding his hat in both of his hands in front of him he had been apologetic, asking her if she might come back in a little while as he was right in the middle of tying up some important business.
Cassandra, of course, had said that she understood and to think nothing of it. She would be more than happy to come back later as especially this would give her a chance to check out the livery and see if the owner had recently come into possession of a new horse. Unfortunately, Mister Lopez, the proprietor, could only shrug his shoulders and tell her that no one had come to him with a horse to sell in many a day. With that done she had returned to the main street and had begun walking back towards the sheriff’s office when she had taken her glance up at the second story of the rooming house and thought of Catalina and Natalia “catching up.”
Now her eyes were straight ahead as she walked. Around her, the street bustled with Mexican families going about their business. A stray dog was running down the street yelping, and Cassandra had done a double take to see that a cat was chasing it! How that came about she had no idea, but the cat made her think about Mister Muffins back at Cedar Ledge, and Mister Muffins had put her mind on the large orange tabby's owner—Lijuan.
It was funny, she thought, knowing that Lijuan herself was going to be in Mexico this day. Her sister along with her youngest brother Blue River were going to be completing some business for the ranch in the Canebraro Valley which made up the first of the three valleys known as Los Valles de Tres or the Valleys Three. Currently, she was standing in the second of them, the Verde Abundante, and she had just come from the final valley, the Rio Sangre.
She hoped things had gone well for them, but she couldn’t help but worry. The pair had to cross the same ten mile stretch of land between the Arizona border and the first valley that they had, and that area had more than earned its name as the badlands. She and Catalina had passed without incident, and her two siblings were more than capable of taking care of themselves, but as the oldest, there would always be a part of her that would be the mother hen. It was a role she had to assume throughout the years as the often-motherless younger children grew up.
She thought back to the last time she had seen Lijuan at the party for the local leaders of the Alamieda area Whip had hosted in their new barn
. Cassandra had been cross with her sister when she had moved to come between their brother Dutch and his lady love Bright Feather. Of all the family, only Lijuan did not care for Bright Feather, and to Cassandra’s deep worry and frustration she knew fully why that was. It was a situation that she had repeatedly told herself that someday she was going to have to confront, and yet she continually put it off. She couldn’t blame herself because it wasn’t going to be a pleasant day for anyone involved, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could delay.
Her thoughts lifted from that dark cloud by the sound of a carriage bucking along the street and she saw that it was the same carriage that had been in front of Santiago's office. As it passed she spied a dignified looking man wearing finery and a bowler hat at the reins. Next to him was some type of case. With a smile, she quickened her pace because if this man were leaving, then Santiago would be free to see her. With the carriage behind her, she did not see the two riders emerge from an alley between the saloon and the assayer's office and fall in behind the carriage before suddenly dodging around it and bolting down the street heading out of town, their horses in full gallop. Nor did she see the pair of eyes that were glued onto the entrance to the sheriff's office, whose door she was now heading directly for.
CHAPTER 2
On the second floor of the rooming house, Catalina Wilde was ready, more than ready she knew. Seeing her old friend and lover had brought back so many pleasant memories. Natalia Vega had only been the second woman she had ever slept with when they had first gotten together. It was embarrassing now how clumsy and unskilled she had been in the art of making love to women, but Natalia had been kind and patience and as Catalina now liked to say with a laugh, had “shown her the ropes.”
The Town 0f No Return: Special Edition (Half Breed Haven Book 11) Page 23
