Next to her, Cassandra was calling out to Lily to coax more speed out of the Missouri Trotter. The murdering robber, Hudson, had a good head start on them, but Cassandra was certain they could catch up to him. She was more worried about these Sanchez cousins. There was no way to know where they were going to lay their trap for the lawyer along the route to what was the Mexican equivalent of the county seat where prosecutors worked who had brokered the deal.
No sooner had the duo crested the hill when they found out as their eyes were greeted to a shocking sight. Jerking their rides to a stop, they looked down. With the wind having shifted and blowing away from them, they had not detected the billowing smoke. A quarter mile ahead they could see both ends of the wooden bridge ablaze. On the far side of the river, three men stood by their horses. Faint laughter carried across the distance mingled with the desperate cries of a man shouting for help. A gust of wind momentarily revealed the center of the bridge and the attorney's big black carriage sat in the dead center of the lane.
"Oh no!" she groaned as Cassandra shouted at her to get moving and pour on the speed. Down the draw they flew, kicking up all manner of small rocks and dust as they charged towards the bridge. As they drew closer, the laughing men suddenly became aware of them and began shouting.
“That’s Hudson there in the gray duster! He caught up with them!”
Catalina watched as the man her sister had identified ran closer to the edge of the river even as his two companions were mounting up on their horses.
"I owe this bitch a piece of ear!" the man shouted and began firing. The others were screaming at him that he was wasting time and bullets as they were too far away. They were right, of course, and return fire was equally useless, but still, the women didn't like getting fired at, and each of them let loose several rounds in the direction of the man. That was enough for him to turn and leap onto his horse to make yet another getaway behind his already fleeing amigos.
Reaching the water's edge, both women launched themselves off their horses and began running towards the end of the bridge.
“They’re gettin’ away!”
“Forget about them for now! Out on the bridge. That man is still alive!”
A blistering heat from the fully involved end of the bridge halted them in their tracks and forced them to retreat away from air that had become a close cousin to a blast furnace. Through the flames they saw the lawyer had been lashed to one of the large wheels on the front of his fancy carriage, his face bloodied and battered.
“What do we do, Cass? We can’t get across to him, and that fire is spreadin' from both ends!" Cassandra's eyes swept up and down the river, taking everything in, seeing what available and what options they had. It was her way; it was what made her their true leader. She was as competent as they came. The blonde woman nodded her head in some type of internal satisfaction as to what she had come up with, and she hurriedly relayed the plan to Catalina saying it was their best bet, and Catalina agreed. With no further delays, the oldest and the youngest sisters of the Wildes sprang into action.
Cassandra was already grasping a coil of rope that she had lashed to the side of her horse, and she ordered Catalina to get the similar one she had on Pretty Feet, shouting that they would tie them together. In no time at all, they had done just that. Quickly, Cassandra double-checked the knot to be sure, but it was about as tight of a knot one a person could possibly tie. As a younger man their father had been an officer in the Navy, and one summer he had taught all the children the array of knots he had learned in the service.
Catalina’s hand shot out and grabbed Cassandra’s wrist as she moved to unbuckle the holster carrying her twin pistols.
“Change of plans! I’m gonna do this! Don’t you try and argue either! We both know that I’m the strongest swimmer from my swim every mornin’ in the Rock River! Besides I already I survived that little plunge I took in a river the other day!” She saw Cassandra’s eyes shift towards the river. This was no lazy circuitous river like the Rock that flowed through the heart of Cedar Ledge. It was also about ten times swifter than the one The Reaper’s men had tossed her into to get her out of the way while Victor—no, El Segador—attempted to kill Cassie for the first time.
“You sure about this, Cat?”
“Time’s wastin’! That hombre is gonna get fried like one of them green tomatoes Honor Elizabeth likes to eat! C’mon!”
Giving in to reason, the women ran upstream from the rapidly flowing San Sidero River with Lily pulled behind them by Cassandra. Stopping, Cassandra started her frantic efforts to tie one end of the rope to the Trotter while Catalina busied herself stripping out of the clothes that would only weigh her down in the water.
After her gun belt and her beloved bullwhip attached to one side of it dropped into the sand, she busied herself undoing all the buttons of her blouse and just for a second the memory of Natalia doing it for her earlier flashed through her mind. In record time she yanked the blouse down around her shoulders leaving her bare-chested, as she usually preferred to forgo any cumbersome support that got in the way of her life work of roping steers and everything else that came as part of overseeing the physical operation of the Wilde family cattle ranching empire.
Her ball-like breasts swung like pendulums as she bent over and slipped her jeans over the ample curves of her hips quickly followed by her underpants. Her copper skin glistened under the rays of the sun, and there were no tan lines on her body thanks to her love for nude sunbathing next to the sisters’ hot springs hidden in the rocky ledges behind the grand Cedar Ledge ranch house. Catalina cinched the end of her rope around her waist, pulling it tight against the well-defined set of six abdominal muscles that she was so proud of and just above the thick thatch of black hair above her sex.
For a moment she turned and looked at the churning water and then turned and faced Cassandra. She had been born with a natural cheer, but in this instance, she forced a smile.
"That there not on that rope sure isn’t greasy or nothin’ because I'm sure gonna need you and your horse to reel me in if I miss the pillar and get pulled under?"
Cassandra assured her, and then they quickly went over the plan one more time before Catalina took her place at the edge of the water. The blowing wind was making her hair whip back and forth like a thing alive, but she knew that wasn’t going to be a problem the minute she hit the water. The young cowpuncher took a final glance over her shoulder before the power in her muscular legs launched her beneath the roiling river.
CHAPTER 5
Breaking the surface, Catalina inhaled nearly in shock at how cold the water was. She hadn’t been anywhere close to being this cold since several weeks ago when she and her sisters had joined Cassandra on her mission to capture a bank robber who had fled up the snow-covered Verde Grande Mountain back in the high peaks of Arizona. Maybe this river was fed from one of the distant mountain peaks, or maybe its source was a frigid underground river, she didn’t know which, but the important thing now was to aim for the center of the low-slung bridge.
The old structure had been made with six wooden pillars for support. Three were on one side and the other on the opposite side. All had been driven into the river bed at intervals starting with the far side of the bridge, one in the dead center and one on the side the sisters had arrived at. Tapping all the strength she had in her arms that rippled with toned, hard muscles from lassoing cattle nearly every day of her adult life, she began plowing through the chilly water.
As expected by going upstream she would be naturally carried back down, but it was up to her to guide herself towards the center. Complicating matters were rocks jutting out from below the surface here and there, some large and some small. Avoiding them, she continued her diagonal course towards the center of the bridge. Suddenly the current spun her, and she collided with a rock jutting above the water, that in the second before she was pushed underwater, reminded her of a pulpit found in a church.
Below the surface she spun about and
felt herself becoming entwined in the rope she was towing behind her. Fighting panic, she wriggled herself about until she had freed herself, thrusting her head above the water. Her chest heaved up and down as she raggedly gulped air back down into her lungs before she launched an attempt to re-orientate herself.
Her brief foray under the surface had cost her as the bridge loomed only ten feet in front her now, and she had been swept far closer to the side of the river she had started from. Making matter worse, that end of the bridge was so thoroughly involved that the fire was burning its way down the supports as if it were trying to merge with the surface of the water in some sort of elemental suicide. Stroking for all she was worth, she cut again towards the center. The middle bridge pier was so close, but it seemed a million miles away.
Just as it looked like she would be swept under the span, Catalina unleashed one last burst of energy, and her left hand made a grab for it. Her nails raked across its curved surface before her fingers found a handhold in the well-worn and eroded decades-old wood of the pilling. A burning sensation that had nothing do with fire coursed through the entire length of her arm as she pulled herself against the current.
Her liberal dose of curse words were drowned out in the gurgling river and the crackling of the flames as she strained, finally getting close enough to loop her right arm around the old piling. Then she let go of her handhold and her left arm also looped around it until she was bear hugging it. Clinging tightly, her ample boobs were crushed up against it, and her once wavy hair hung straight down her back, but she was secure, so she shook her head to get the water out of her eyes while she rested.
Looking back, she could see the line attached to her had almost no slack as it stretched toward the shore where it linked with Cassandra’s horse. Her sister was shouting for her to hurry as the old bridge was making groaning noises and she felt the wooden column she was holding on sway. She didn’t need any convincing after that to get moving again.
Catalina began to shinny up the piling. There were only five feet of the wooden shaft separating the bottom of the bridge from the water, but she was having difficulty wrapping her legs around the slippery algae-covered part of the piling below the water. Using the dwindling reserves of strength in her arms, she was able to pull her legs above the water where they found better purchase around the shaft as it rose above the water.
She sighed thankful at least that at least she hadn’t driven any slivers into her naked body as she made her way up the piling. Still, all and all Catalina found herself wishing she was back in Natalia Vega’s bed for another round of sexual bliss. Wishful thinking, cariño, she thought. Near the bed of the bridge now, she raised her hand and grabbed the edge of the wooden planking. She could feel the blazing heat while imagining what the man was going through. Catalina quickened her movements, and a moment later, she pulled herself up and rolled over on her side, landing just a few feet from the carriage.
Just for a second, she looked at the roaring inferno that was nearly to the buggy. Jumping to her feet her hands were a blur as she worked the knot on the rope until she had freed it from her waist. As they planned, she threw it back over the edge and Cassandra began reeling it in.
Darting around the opposite side of the carriage where the man was tied, she skidded to a halt. The man was mumbling incoherently, but suddenly came alert to her presence, and his eyes grew to the size of Old Mrs. Chow’s saucers from her tea set she had brought with her from China. It wasn’t like she could blame the man—nude women appearing out of nowhere to come to the rescue wasn’t something you encountered every day.
“Am I, am I already dead? Are you an angel?”
She laughed and replied to him in his native Spanish, “Angel or devil, depends on what day of the week it is and who’s the one talkin’ about me! C’mon now, it’s time I get you outta here! What do you say?”
“Please! Please!”
Catalina was at his side in seconds and was already beginning to work on the knots securing his wrists to the spokes of the carriage wheel. Working feverishly, she took only a second to throw a quick glance back towards shore to see Cassandra riding Lily downstream as they had planned. She began gritting her teeth at the heat she was feeling on her back from the encroaching fire.
“Please, angel, please!” the man pleaded, his broad face a study in terror. Hoping to allay his fears she winked at him. It seemed to calm him as best as it could. Just as she finally finished undoing the knot there came a terrible crashing noise startling her, and as brave as she was, she was not above letting out a scream to join the man’s shouts.
Next to them, the bridge supports had weakened under the Natchez side of the bridge to the point where they gave way, and the deck of the bridge on that end collapsed into the water as it tore away from the span. A plume of steam mushroomed into the air accompanied by a frightful hissing as the burning timbers plunged into the San Sidero.
Only five feet from where the coach rested now was empty space, and with no support, the deck of the bridge began tilting towards the water. One plank and then another dropped and were swept away, and Catalina felt her body become enveloped in dread.
The carriage was going to drop.
There would be no stopping it; a fact highlighted as the next plank splintered and plunged into the river. There were only five planks left before the rear wheels would have nothing under then but open air and would yank the coach right into the maelstrom.
She saw the terror in the lawyer’s eyes; he couldn’t even form words. There wasn’t even time to think. She had to do something, anything, or this man’s life would be lost on her watch, and Catalina wasn’t going to have that. Looking down, she dropped to the deck of the bridge and yanked off one of his boots.
He gave her a look of complete bewilderment as she jammed the boot on her foot. As she did a fleeting thought crossed her mind that at least her back wasn’t feeling any heat anymore with that side of the bridge gone. Now it was coming from the far side. Drawing back, she raised the boot and slammed it against the spoke that his wrist was tied to. For a second, she was elated at the sound of cracking wood, but it still held fast.
Again, her booted foot smashed against the spoke even as two more planks vanished into the churning water. She steeled herself for another try as the same groaning and creaking noise that had heralded the destruction of the Natchez side of the bridge could be heard coming from the far end.
Marshaling all the power she could put into it, she drove her foot against the spoke, splintering it into pieces. Eager to live, the man yanked his hand free, the piece of the spoke and the rope tied to still dangling. The bridge heaved under the pair as the last of the planks fell way, and the wheels of the man's expensive looking carriage dropped into a void.
Catalina grabbed the man by the lapels of his well-tailored suit and launched both of them over the side of the bridge as the front of the carriage sprang up like the upward-bound side of a see-saw, and then flipped into the air. The pair plunged beneath the water, but she could still hear the impact of the carriage as struck the water. She could only imagine what was going through Cassandra’s mind as she witnessed the chaos from the river bank.
Still beneath the surface, she groped blindly for the lawyer, hoping to seize hold of him, but she found only empty water. Then something bumped her arm, and she reached out and snatched it! Relief cascaded throughout her entire body as she realized it was the part of the wagon spoke still attached to the rope. In short order she thrust her head above the surface and began pulling on it, reeling the lawyer still attached to it in like a fish.
The man’s head shot above the surface, and he wheezed and gasped at the same time he was spitting water out of his mouth. He began flailing about but managed to get the words out.
“Can’t swim!”
Of course not! Catalina thought. Nothing about this had been easy. She drew him close and held his head above the water as they were swept downstream. Looking ahead she saw it then. Earlie
r when she and her sister had made their plan, this had been their end game.
A large flat rock rose out of the middle of the river. She was to make for that rock once she got the man off the bridge. The pair felt that they had a pretty good shot of her making it to the miniature island rather than being swept to either side of it. It was an even bigger target to shoot for now as pieces of the once burning Natchez side of the bridge were hung up on it.
“You! Wrap your arms around me! I’m warnin’ you though, you start pushin’ me under in a panic, and I’m gonna have to let you go, and if that happens you’re done for! You’ll be swept away, and I won’t be able to save you! You understand?” she shouted, not realizing she had slipped back into English.
"Si, Si! Do not worry!" the man replied in a mixture of the two languages as he slipped his arms around her waist. Looking back over her shoulder she once more tried to alleviate the man's fear by giving him another wink.
“And be sure to keep your hands to home, too!”
It was a fight like she’d never experienced before. Speed was not the problem as the current was pushing them forward at a clip. The real battle for the young woman was staying above the water with the burden she was carrying on her back. More than once as they shot towards their looming objective did her head go below the frothing water, but at least she managed to keep the man’s head free and clear from doing likewise.
Every time she resurfaced, she drew air into her lungs as if she were taking her very first breath as a newborn. Breast stroking furiously, she rotated herself and her human cargo when the current started to push them to the right of the flat rock. Her teeth ground together with each stroke of her arms that felt as if they were strapped with lead weights, but still, she fought on. They were very close now to where a section of the ruined bridge planking was wedged against the rock, and she was further encouraged when she saw Casandra shouting from the riverbank cheering her on.
The Boot Hill Express: Special Edition HBH Version (Half Breed Haven Book 12) Page 5
