The Wildes of the West #1: The Daughters of Half Breed Haven: Old west fiction of action adventure, romance & western family drama (The Wildes of the West/Half Breed Haven)

by A. M. Van Dorn

  Donovan instantly became pale, unaware that she had kept a gun so close the entire time. “You were perfectly in control of yourself, except for when I needed you not to be,” telling him almost casually the reason she had kept it with her.

  Donovan quickly finished knotting his tie and cleared his throat. “Well, yes. I suppose I need to press on to the office. There is a lot of paper work on our little caper that will still need filling out. You do not look like you are about to accompany me,” he said.

  “I will be along later,” Cassandra said, dismissing him.

  Donovan nodded and stared at the walls of the large room for a while. “Strange, you living here in this big old house.”

  “It was my family’s home since before the days of the revolution. I lived here when I was a very little girl before we moved west,” Cassandra’s distant voice replied, staring around the room too, transported back to the early 1840’s.

  Returning to the present day her eyes fell on her derringer and then to Donovan afterwards, reminding him that he was overstaying his welcome in the room. As if he got the message, he nodded one last time and headed out of the bedroom.

  Cassandra watched him leave, smiling inwardly at the adrenaline-charged fun she had overnight with him.

  *****

  Outside the carriage pulled up, dropping off Honor Elizabeth and Lijuan exactly in front of the porch of the house they had described to the carriage driver.

  “You are going to have to pay the man, Lannie, since I lost all of my money searching Chinatown for you,” Honor informed her as soon as they stepped out of the carriage. “Actually, you pay him to wait too, in case she is not here.”

  Lijuan rolled her eyes at her sister as she paid the driver. “Anything else, your highness?” she asked sarcastically.

  Honor ignored her and crossed the porch to the door of the house while opening her parasol, despite the look on Lijuan’s face that questioned why she had to use her umbrella.

  “I don’t think you need that for the two feet to the door,” Lijuan shook her head.

  Honor spun the umbrella and stuck out her tongue at her sister. “I strongly disagree!” she pouted.

  Lijuan tried the doorknob. When it didn’t budge, she checked the mailbox to see if there would be a key into the house in it.

  “The key she hides here is not here. She must be inside.”

  Honor Elizabeth raised her fist to rap on the door and that was when a still-pale Donovan opened it, narrowly missing her fist coming down on his face.

  “Apologies.” Honor yelped, stepping back.

  “I do not know what you are selling, but I do not think the lady of the house will be interested,” Donovan warned sharply.

  Lijuan felt her anger rising to an apex without meaning to. She grabbed the umbrella from Honor’s hands, intending to give the man manners even if he intended to have none.

  “Lijuan!” Honor yelled, but Lijuan wasn’t listening. She went on to hit him with the umbrella, but Donovan grabbed it from her hand before it could make contact.

  “Now hold on, you little hellcat!” Donovan shouted in surprise. “Who do you think you women think you are?!”

  Both women were about to yell at him, but Cassandra’s head suddenly popped out of the window upstairs shouting out the word hey!

  “Cassie!” Honor yelled, looking up.

  “Honor Elizabeth? Lijuan? What are you doing here?” Cassandra frowned.

  Donovan stared up at Cassandra too, glancing at Lijuan and Honor as he spoke. “You know these ladies?” he asked.

  “Of course, I do. They are my sisters! Send them up, Mr. Donovan.”

  “What … I beg your pardon? Your sisters?” Donovan looked like hell, having such a confused look on his face combined with his rumpled hair.

  Lijuan, having an idea why he looked so confounded scowled at him, grabbing Honor’s umbrella from his hand. “My little sister says she never gets tired of that look, but I am.”

  Both women stepped into the house and a courteous Honor said, “Good day to you, Mr. Donovan, is it?” before shutting the door in his face.

  A puzzled Donovan turned to the carriage driver who just shrugged in empathy.

  Inside, Cassandra embraced Honor and Lijuan warmly as they stepped into her room.

  “I think it’s wonderful that you wanted to surprise me, but you should have told me. We could have planned out the most wonderful day in the city in advance,” Cassandra beamed at her sisters.

  “Same old Cassandra … having to plan out everything,” Lijuan grimly said in a voice rich in sarcasm. “This isn’t a social call.”

  “Yes, it’s about this,” Honor said rather nervously. She held up a telegram, showing the content to Cassandra. “I just found it lying in the entrance hall when I came in. Western Union must have slid it under the door. It will be from Catalina.”

  Cassandra grew alarmed at the sight of the piece of paper. “I didn’t see this when I came home last night.”

  “Clearly in the company of Mr. Donovan,” Lijuan scowled.

  “So, Mr. Lee and his … friend were not the only gentlemen enjoying the company of a Wilde last night,” Honor grimaced at Lijuan too.

  “Enough!” Cassandra dismissed both of them with a wave of her hand. “What is going on?” she snatched the telegram, intending to read the contents.

  “You don’t need to read it as it will probably say that we are coming to meet you so we can all get on the railroad to head west,” Lijuan said.

  “What has happened at Cedar Ledge?” Cassandra began to ask no one in particular, as she read the rest of the telegram, confirming that it was a request to await the sister’s arrival, “Is it Pop? Blue River? Dutch? Please tell me that Black Hawk hasn’t made good on his threats.”

  “It’s Daddy. He has been terribly hurt when the bridge to the north pasture gave out as he was riding over it. Oh, Cassandra, he could die. I could never live without him. You know that!” Honor began to sniffle with her nose.

  Cassandra turned to her younger sister, taking her into a warm embrace. Everyone knew Honor was their father’s favorite and she would be the most heartbroken if anything ever happened to him.

  “Believe that he will be fine. I’ll get packing!”

  She let go of Honor and quickly dragged a suitcase out of her wardrobe.

  “Bring money for train tickets,” Lijuan commanded as soon as Cassandra started throwing clothes into the suitcase. “Honor got robbed and I used most of what I had on me for our tickets from New York to here and for the carriage out front.”

  Cassandra paused and glanced at Honor for a moment, knowing she would inquire about this robbery later. As for now, she nodded and continued packing her clothes.

  “I don’t understand this accident, though,” Cassandra said, mystified “You say the bridge collapsed? That bridge has been solid for years. It makes no sense for it to suddenly give away.”

  “Maybe we just thought it was solid. Are you a detective or a carpenter? What does it matter? We would be going to a funeral if it weren’t for Old Gray. According to Catalina, the horse landed first and broke his fall,” Lijuan said.

  “Poor Gray,” Cassandra said before she slammed the suitcase shut. “That should do it.”

  She stared up at her sisters with a gritty smile and said, “Come on, girls … it’s time for the Wilde sisters to go home!”

  CHAPTER 5

  * * *

  The Present

  State of Arizona

  May 1913

  “… and so, they were on their way home to us. In those days, it was a lot slower and much more difficult than you would have found in your travels here.”

  The passage of time over the past hour that Cattie spoke would have gone unnoticed if Allie weren’t sitting close to the window. As she concentrated on Cattie’s tale, she was also aware of the gradual pace of the sun as it rose in the sky, brightening the large meadows beneath it and slithering rays of afternoon light into the
small sitting room through the wooden-framed windows. The rays sometimes tilted in the room, as the sun kept moving, initially setting on Cattie’s silver hair. For a moment, as the old woman continued to narrate her tale, Allie imagined her as an Egyptian demi goddess speaking of unimaginable travel and conquest.

  Allie couldn’t stop wanting to hear it all. She wanted to know how everything had ended the way it was for the beguiling and daunting sisters. She needed to ask important questions. Details, Allie thought, ask for every detail.

  “The railroad did not come close to here then, I assume?” Allie finally inferred from Cattie’s last statement.

  “Yes, sweetheart, that’s right,” Cattie affirmed as her mind rolled back to long ago.

  “The spur line to Alamieda was under construction in 1868, but it wouldn’t be finished for another year. Back then, the closest it came was about 20 miles from here when it veers south to pass through Coyote Canyon, but then it veers again northward. The girls had to take a series of stagecoaches to get back here and what an ordeal that proved to be.”

  Allie had been so enthralled by Cattie’s narration that she wasn’t sure she noticed when the old woman finally picked up her cup and drained it of all its content. The small mug was on the table in front of her now, beside the journal. Her eyes rested on the flower patterns on it before she glanced up with a tired smile, as soon as Allie began to drop a comment about her sisters.

  “Well, I must say, your other sisters are proving to be just as fascinating as Cassandra,” Allie said. “From what you’ve told me, this Lijuan doesn’t sound like someone you want to cross.”

  “Indeed, you would not,” Cattie laughed, “She was the tiniest of us all and I think that’s what made her what EVERYONE was always calling her: A hellcat! And how she could fight! She had these skills …” Catalina tightly clutched her fingers together to demonstrate how good Lijuan was. “She later taught them to us at Cassandra’s insistence, but none of us could hold a candle to her.”

  “Skills?”

  “Fightin’ methods from the Far East. The home of a mother she never knew,” Cattie explained. “The woman had these skills and my father witnessed them first hand durin’ the time they shared. Soon after resettlin’ to the West, he hired Mr. and Mrs. Chow as our cook and handyman, but the real reason he hired them was for Mr. Chow to teach Lijuan those fightin’ skills when she was just knee high to a grasshopper and Mrs. Chow to instruct Lijuan in other aspects of her heritage. He felt it was important for her to have ties to her native land, as she was the only one of us that was foreign born.”

  Cattie gave a wry smile after she finished explaining. Allie had a feeling that she might be getting tired of talking, but she still pressed on, determined to keep listening.

  “So, you weren’t born in Mexico?” she asked her.

  “My mother was, but Papa brought her back to Arizona and married her after he bought from her family the original piece of land that would become Half Breed Haven.” Cattie replied instantly, exhaling loudly as she stood and crossed over to lay a hand on Allie’s shoulder.

  “I can see it in your eyes. I’ve said too much about our mothers and you want to know more about them and how we wound up as half-sisters. People around here knew bits and pieces of it, but my father was very private when it came to the time he shared with his wives and only spoke of them to a very few select people.”

  “So, you still won’t tell me?” Allie slightly pouted with a long sigh of her own.

  “I can tell you anything about my siblings as I already have, but out of respect, I should follow his example,” Cattie’s tone implied she was firm in her intentions.

  “I understand … especially since we just met. I consider it a boon that you are sharing with me as much as you have.” Allie admitted.

  For a while, Cattie just stood there, staring down at her. Finally, she nodded and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, dear. This here is the most I’ve heard of my own voice since Rachel died. I think I need to give it a wee bit of a rest,” she said. “Would you care to go for a walk?”

  “I would love that. I am sorry for pressing you.” Allie quickly blurted out as she stood.

  Cattie nodded and turned away, already walking towards the exit door. “No apologies … I am so enjoyin’ your company!”

  Shortly, they exited the bunkhouse into the breeze, which seemed warmer now than when she had first arrived. Allie again noticed the changing position of the sun in the sky. She calculated in her head the time that she left her hotel that morning and the minutes they had spent on the road to get to Cedar Ledge. Coupled with the entire time she had spent listening to Catalina, it was possible that she had spent over three hours since she woke up and what she had to show for it was an exhilarating and yet incomplete tale of four daunting sisters.

  “Since I am takin’ this as a chance to rest my voice, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

  Allie blinked twice, totally unaware of the route they had taken to the dirt road that they were walking on now. She had been quiet and lost in her own thought for a while and, at the moment, a smiling Cattie was glancing sideways at her with inquisitive eyes.

  “Oh, really, there is nothing all that interesting about me, Miss Catalina,” Allie ducked evasively.

  “Honey, I’m over sixty years old, leadin’ me to have built up a whole chunk of time readin’ people, so I know when someone is tryin’ to dodge.” Cattie laughed, her curious eyes still fixed on Allie.

  “Truly, there is not much to tell.” Allie’s eyes flew to her dusty feet as she tried to escape the insistence of the older woman’s glare.

  “Oh, so there isn’t, huh?” Cattie finally looked away. “You told me before that you were tryin’ to be a writer, but your books were always gettin’ tossed into the outhouse, wasn’t it? I reckon they just plain weren’t any good.”

  That put a spring in Allie’s steps. She stopped moving and frowned, intending to clarify why she never got the chance to publish yet. “They were excellent works!” she argued, having a weird urge to stamp her feet. “I have submitted completed works in the past to publishers, only to have the editors tell me that my stories aren’t gripping enough. I am sure that it is because I am a woman. You wouldn’t think those editors have ever heard of Mary Shelley!”

  “Who in the blue blazes is that?” Cattie chuckled.

  “The author who wrote Frankenstein.”

  “You mean that stack of pages about some monster?”

  “That is the one!” Allie, nodded. Spying the mischief glowing brightly in Cattie’s eyes, she realized the silver haired woman was only trying to unnerve her to talk.

  “Sugar! A person don’t need to read about any made-up monsters! My sisters and I met the real ones, and we met them as women … women that both men and other women looked down on because most of us were the wrong shade of color … and you know what? We always won! Always!” Cattie said, suddenly becoming serious.

  “Well, at least until the darkness fell on Half Breed Haven,” Cattie concluded with a sigh. She paused for a second before her cheerfulness returned and she smiled slyly at Allie who was already calming herself with a smile of her own.

  “My point is that I didn’t mean what I said before about your books bein’ bad,” Cattie confessed. “I just wanted to get you riled up in a way you need to be when dealin’ with a bunch of city slicker editors. If you believe in your writin’, you don’t take no for an answer. We sure as sugar never did!”

  “Oh, Miss Catalina, thank you! Where were you when I was getting soundly dismissed at McGraw-Hill? I wish I had met you before I went in there!” Allie said sheepishly, stepping towards Cattie in order to loop her arm through hers. “And you know something? After that big old speech, you just gave me, I think your voice didn’t really need a rest, after all. I think you were just trying to steer me away from asking about your father’s wives. I promise no more questions unless you allow it. You’ve shown me great kindness this day
.”

  “See, ya’ll is learnin’ to spot a dodger too!”

  Allie laughed with the older woman, feeling so warm and comfortable around her. The dirt road suddenly began rising the face of a small hill. Slowly and silently, they continued to walk on, their arms still looped together.

  “You asked in jest, a bit ago, where I was when you were tryin’ to peddle your book,” Cattie spoke after a while. “I was right here in the only home I’ve ever known. I was born here and I will die here. Lord! You should have seen this place in its heyday … all the cattle, the drives I use to go on. I was the trail boss you know! For me, there really is no place but Half …”

  Cattie’s voice trailed off as soon as they got to the crest of the hill. The frown on her face was terse and disobliging. Allie immediately focused on the scene before them below, noticing that two men were circling around a lone vertical structure in the middle of a pasture.

  “My word! Is that what I think it is?” There is oil in the green lands of Cedar Ledge!

  Cattie obviously wasn’t as excited. “If you are thinkin’ an oil well, then yeah, that’s what it is,” she muttered bleakly. “Couple of years ago, some hombre over in Chino Valley found oil, so the ants came swarmin’ down out of the hills lookin’ for that slimy stuff everywhere. Some dandy named Barthalomeau and his partner both from back east done got the government to grant them a lease to drill here on the north pasture.”

  “Petroleum is such a profitable business. It has done wonders back in Pennsylvania,” Allie whispered, unable to take away her eyes from the well or the men up ahead.

  Catalina plucked a reed, still nonchalant about the view in front of them, and began to chew on it. “Folks back east might be content rapin’ their own land and turnin’ it into a mockery of what it once was, but that doesn’t fly with me and I sure know it wouldn’t have with Lijuan!”

  Invoking her half-Asian sister’s name had an immediate nostalgic effect on Cattie. She chewed more of the reed in her mouth and spit out on the grasses. “As much as I miss Lijuan, this old timer is glad she isn’t here to see this sight on what was once prime Cedar Ledge property. I said before, I was about the cattle and the ranchin’, but for Lijuan, it was always about the land. The fact that she bears a mighty big piece of responsibility for this obscenity being possible would be an extra bitter pill for her to swallow.”