She had killed Victor Hernandez-Kelley when he had left her no choice, no, she had thought so many times since pulling the trigger. It was El Segador, The Reaper of the Rio Sangre, that she had killed. The Reaper who was a cold-blooded killer of entire families in a mad lust for power, prestige, and revenge. Victor, however, had been a charming and handsome older man who had loved her mother and perhaps had even come to love Catalina herself. How could two such different men have inhabited the same body?
It wasn't enough that he had made her care about him in the brief time they had known each other before forcing her to kill him when he had threatened Cassandra. No, he had made an audacious claim. A treasure of the Aztecs coveted by the pillaging conquistadors, and not just any treasure, but Montezuma’s treasure which had been ferried north and had lain buried on Cedar Ledge land for centuries when once it had been part of Mexico. Victor had even gone so far as to claim that her now dead grandfather had only let the land out of his family control because his daughter, Mercedes, would still have a claim on it after her marriage to his buyer William Henry Wilde. As a consequence, as her mother's only child she had become the custodian of this vast fortune.
It had seemed to her to be madness when she had first heard him speak these words. She didn’t know why he would have made this story up and yet she kept coming back to the fact that he had used his last breaths to do just two things: tell her of the treasure and profess his love. He had said that her uncle Hector also knew of this treasure and didn’t believe it, and Catalina was of the same mind as her uncle. Yet when she visited Hector the day before, he had been too drunk to carry on any conversation. It had been the family's ancient servant Diaz who had told her an incredible tale of treasure being smuggled into the remote mountains that one day would become Cedar Ledge, and as far as anyone knew, it was still there, but no one knew precisely where.
Natalia's laughter cut through the swirl of confusing emotions. She turned to look at the young woman who she had sweated next to by day picking grapes in the vineyard and brought to new heights of ecstasy whenever the pair had rendezvoused in that long-forgotten backroom of the winery. Natalia’s eyes seemed to be aglow.
“It’s been so wonderful to see you again, Cattie! It’s been too long since we have seen each other, eh?”
“Don’t I know it! I sure got to say I’d nearly forgotten just how much fun you could be! And that bit with the belts—thanks for showin’ me that. Now that was somethin’ else!”
“Nattie and Cattie together again!” the pair laughed, and various eyes fell upon them belonging to the good people of Natchez. Catalina’s own eyes casually scanned the townspeople around them.
“They know—about your interests?”
“Are you kidding! I have to ride clear over to beyond the river to San Sidero if I want to find myself a good time with a honey,” she said, lowering her voice as they continued to stroll down the street. Ahead of them, Catalina saw two men emerge from a café carrying some manner of food, and they began to walk diagonally down the street in the direction of the sheriff’s office.
"Got me a cute little dressmaker I like to dally with now and then. She got a fat ass, Cattie, but damn that bitch could tie knots with her tongue!” This elicited another burst of laughter from Catalina, but she grew thoughtful as Natalia said maybe she should come to visit her and see Cedar Ledge for the first time. This was not an unwelcome idea, but Catalina knew she would have to plan it for some time when Whip was away on one of his extended series of trials in the territory. All four sisters had taken a vow never to bring lovers under the roof of Cedar Ledge if their father was present in the house, as they would never disrespect him in that manner. As it was she felt a bit guilty having just barely skirted that rule recently by laying with a woman from Mexico City they had hired to decorate for the party the night before they left for Mexico. She had known Whip would be busy down at the barn hosting the party so in that window of time she indulged herself.
Her papacito, of course, knew about her romances with women just as he knew about all his daughters’ proclivity for recreational sex. That was a topic that was never discussed with him, and for certain her ability to switch back and forth between men and women was never going to be a discussion either one of them wished to see the light of day. She was forever mystified not knowing if his silence was tacit approval or if he was in denial that his baby girl, as he still liked to call her, was engaged in a lifestyle that ran contrary to the Quaker upbringing she knew he had as a boy. Part of her had wished to ask Cassie just what his views were because she knew that being his oldest child, Cassandra was something of a confidant when it came to Whip. If anyone knew his thoughts on the matter, it would be her but, in the end, she decided some things were best left unknown.
Before she could give Natalia an answer, she heard the sound of two faint pops that she instantly recognized as gunfire. She wasn’t the only one who had identified it either. Food trays dropped from their hands clattering to the street and water spilled from clay mugs as the men began bolting towards the sheriff’s office even as the sound of a third shot only louder echoed through the open door of the jail.
“Catalina! What’s going on! What …” Natalia’s words gave way to a scream as a man raced out of the jail. The pair failed to draw on him fast enough as the man’s weapon belched flame striking both men as he yanked the tether of one of two horses hitched up just outside the building free and leaped up onto his mount. As the men spun around and crashed to the ground, the sun glinted off a pair of badges. They had been deputies!
Catalina began to reach for her Colt .45 when suddenly she found herself being yanked sideways. Incredulously she spun around to see it was Natalia Vega pulling on her arm.
“Nattie! What the hell are you doin’?!”
“What am I doing? What are you doing? Are you going to shoot at that man!” Natalia shouted back even as she began to tug harder on Catalina’s arm, but she would have had an easier time trying to move an oak tree as Cattie dug her heels in. This wasn’t some kind of over the top sex game where Catalina could be commanded about.
“Si, I am! What you think I’m carryin’ this sidearm for? Decoration?” she snapped, immediately regretting it because she suddenly realized it made sense that Nattie would be acting this way. The last time they had been together had been before Cassandra had trained Catalina, her other sisters, and even Dutch’s girlfriend Bright Feather in all manner of defensive and offensive fighting as well as how to improve their weaponry skills.
There was no time to argue further because the gunman had been stampeding in their direction as people scattered in all directions. Catalina had just enough time to turn the tables on Natalia and grab her arm and fling her out of the path of the rampaging outlaw. She was strong from all her years of working the ranch, perhaps a little too strong, and Natalia landed harder than she had intended. The outlaw thundered by her and by the time she had decided as to whether to bring him down or check on her friend who lay on the ground moaning, he'd managed to put a reasonable distance between himself and the women. Still, she had to try! Catalina whipped out her gun and then laid both hands on it and steadied herself attempting to blast the man right out of the saddle.
All six shots she had emptied at him, but none of them found their mark before he turned the corner and vanished leaving behind a rapidly dissipating cloud of dust. Annoyed but unable to do anything about it, she pivoted around and dropped to her knees to reach for Natalia. As she was reaching for her, Catalina's eyes caught sight of Cassandra running towards the two injured men in the street. In English, Cassandra began shouting for a doctor.
Instantly, Catalina mimicked the same cries in Spanish knowing in her excitement Cassandra probably hadn’t even thought twice about using English in a predominantly Spanish-speaking town. Cassandra called out a thanks to Catalina even as Cattie was pulling Natalia up into a sitting position.
“I’m sorry about that, Natalia. Didn’t ever mean to thro
w you that hard. Just didn’t wanna see you get ground up under that there horse!”
Natalia smiled weakly as Catalina helped her up to her feet, "No, it is I that is sorry. I did not think. You were right. Of course, if you carry a gun like that, you are going to know how to put it to good use."
A crowd was already gathering around the fallen men as the pair of women pushed their way through it. Natalia dropped down and began tending to the second man while Cassandra was doing her best to help the other man with the arm wound.
“I can help. My papacito was a doctor before the fever took him!” she said as she knelt and began using a piece of cloth that she tore from her sleeve to staunch the blood bubbling from the man’s leg. Both men were quietly moaning from the burning pain of the gunshot wounds.
“The doctor is on his way!” someone shouted, and another older man knelt to help Cassandra. He said something in Spanish that Catalina quickly translated meaning he had been a field medic in the great war to try and save Texas from being stolen from the Mexican state.
With both men being tended to, Cassandra surprised her by shouting, “Cat, you’re with me! And tell them when that doctor gets here there are more men at the jail that need his help!” With the message relayed to the crowd, the two sisters dashed towards the jail.
Inside Catalina was shocked to see a dead man lying in a pool of his own blood, antique-looking firearms scattered everywhere. On the table, the sheriff called Santiago lay moaning which caused Cassandra to break out in a wide grin.
“He’s alive!”
Gently they rolled him over and helped him into the chair at his desk. His hair was matted with blood, but Cassandra’s probing fingers quickly discovered that the bullet had only creased him. The blood made it look far worse than it actually was.
“Thank God for lousy shots,” she murmured. Once her sister was certain that the man was okay, her boots slapped the floor as she charged down the short hallway to the holding area with Catalina in tow. The coppery smell of blood hung in the air befitting the carnage that the two women from Cedar Ledge were forced to confront.
The door to the cell was still open, the ring of keys hanging limply from the locking mechanism. Sprawled across the bed lay the body of a thin, almost skeletal man, his shirt a deep purple from all the blood that had soaked up. Catalina felt her stomach heave. As strong as she was and with all the death she had seen, she still never got used to it, mainly thanks to a scene like this one. All the blood saturating the man's shirt had come from his head, where one-quarter of his skull had been blown off taking his left eye with it.
Kitty corner to the bed with the body on it was a second bed. A man was sitting up on this one with his back pressed against the hard adobe wall. His hair was soaked with sweat, and he was breathing heavily. One of his hands was plastered against his abdomen where blood flowed liberally between his fingers. Eyes that were having difficulty focusing looked out towards the pair of siblings from his stubble-covered face.
“That-that bastard-he shot me. We had a deal.”
Cassandra drew close and began peppering him with questions that left Catalina bewildered as to just what in the world she was talking about.
“They did this because of the money, right? They found out that you were back out of hiding and were going to give it up, yes? Get revenge on you for skipping out on them a year ago, Pike! Is that what this is all about?”
“Pike?! Lady, I ain’t Pike!” he labored to bring his arm up and point towards the corpse with the blown apart skull. “That’s Pike! I am Pasqual …” his voice trailed off as he squinted at them. Catalina watched as a look of surprise spread over her sister’s face.
“Hang on. A doctor will be here soon! Now if you’re not Pike, what did you mean just now about a deal?” Cassandra questioned.
“That son bitch said he don’t like to leave witnesses, eh. After he killed Pike, he put down that double barrel, pulled out his iron. But I told him if he let me live then, I wouldn't say nothin'. He said sure, and then-then he shoots me anyway.” The man seemed to grow paler even before their eyes.
“I hope that doctor hurries up and gets here!” she said, but she caught a look in Cassandra’s eyes that told her what she already suspected. Pasqual wasn’t going to make it.
“Pasqual, I know it’s hard, but can you tell me what went down here?”
“Yeah, I can. That jasper burst in here saying Pike was gonna pay for leaving them in the lurch a year ago and for now cutting a deal to turn the money over to the law." He swallowed hard, and Cassandra gently urged him to go on.
“Pike, though, he was just smiling telling him he was too late. He’d said the lawyer was on his way to turn the map over to the law and give a girl some papers clearing her, and she was going to be able to walk free and clear from the church he stashed her in.” They waited several moments while he struggled to find words again.
“Funny it don’t hurt. I always heard being gut shot was painful. Damn, I should have stayed in Quebec. It was just too damn, too damn cold back at home eh?” Cassandra smiled and gripped his shoulder.
“Like your smile, honey. Tell you who wasn’t smiling anymore though—Pike when that gunman said the government would tear up that deal when there was no money to be found. Said the Sanchez boys were on their way to get their hands on the lawyer with the map. That they had it all planned out. That set something fierce off in Pike; he went for the gun. There was a struggle, and Pike had to kiss part of his face goodbye. After that, he shot me with his six-gun. Probably didn’t want to reload his shotgun and waste any more shells on the likes of me—just some town drunk. I am what I am. Sure could use one last drink though …”
Pity grew in Catalina’s eyes, and she reached into her pocket and plucked out her flask. It was a ritual of hers to have a daily toast to her late mother she never knew with a drink of Corderro Crest wine from the flask. Cassandra watched silently as she held it out to the man who seemed to have life flicker back into his eyes as he took it.
“I thank you.”
“We have to go after them, Cattie. That attorney is in grave danger, and we can’t let them get away with all this mayhem and the stolen money.”
Pasqual let out a sigh after he drained the entire contents of the flask and looked at the women. “Good stuff. Real good stuff. Nothing you can do about the dead and dying now ladies, but that Luciana can tell you where the money is. Maybe you can beat them, beat them … to … it.”
“Yes, but we don’t know where she is other than what you said about a church. That could be anywhere. No way to know which one it is.”
Both women went on high alert when he simply said, “I know.”
Cassandra, of course, asked him how that was possible, and he said Pike was talking in his sleep one night—dreaming about this woman as near as he could tell. For a moment the dying man fought to recall exactly what Pike had murmured, but then he remembered.
“Doc said the cancer is gone, Luciana … I’m gonna ride out to St. Inez Holy and pull you right out of there, and you and I is gonna ride off, and this life of crime is gonna be behind us."
Pasqual looked at them now through his rheumy eyes. “Just a man’s wishful thinking. He had the cancer bad … knew he was … dying … just like I … knows I am too.”
Now both women kneeled next to him, Cassandra reached out and took the bloody hand that had been pressed over the frothing wound, and Catalina took the other. They each gently squeezed his hands and hoped he had some comfort that he didn’t die alone as he passed into oblivion.
***
The rooftops of Natchez were rapidly shrinking behind the Wilde sisters as Lily and Pretty Feet carried their riders down the road. Unlike the ride in, the wind was now against them and seemed to be kicking up again, but the pair rode on undaunted.
Back in town, they had only been able to spare enough time to access the outcome of the past hour's carnage. Pasqual, Pike, and Herrera were all dead, and the two deputies, while wo
unded, were fortunate not to have life-threatening wounds. The best news was the doctor saying that Santiago was going to be just fine, but at the moment he was not any condition to join their two-woman posse. The sheriff had protested, but the old doctor and Santiago’s grandfather had shut him down quickly.
Catalina had double checked that Natalia Vega was okay and was heartened when the woman said despite the frightening experience, she would be fine. She said she would continue helping the doctor tend to the injured men while Catalina went after the gang. She felt a small touch of pride in her friend. Yes, Uncle Hector had been correct about her laziness, she exploited her good looks to her advantage with people like the store owner and may not always have a kind word to say about people like her lady lover with the generous ass, but deep-down Natalia Vega had a good heart.
As they had been mounting up and had first left the town, Cassandra had taken the time to fill in the missing pieces as to what was going on in and around Natchez this day. As on many occasions before this one, she was amazed once more something as simple as looking for a lost wagon had swept them up into yet another situation fraught with danger. Oh, well, she thought, just one more thing for her journals, and when all was said and done it would all make for some exciting reading years from now—as long as they didn’t wind up stopping lead on one of their adventures.
A few minutes earlier the pair had parted to pass on either side of an excruciatingly slow-moving cart drawn along behind an ancient-looking donkey. The driver had tipped his sombrero back in surprise as they surged past him and drew back together side by side. Now they were nearly to the bridge over the San Sidero River and were able to pick up speed when the wind suddenly shifted and was now at their backs. Ahead of them, the road began moving upward on an incline. Catalina remembered coming up the other side earlier in the morning, so she knew that once they started down the opposite side, it would be a quarter mile to the bridge.
The Boot Hill Express: Special Edition HBH Version (Half Breed Haven Book 12) Page 4
