Through the years, the couple had remained childless, but it had not been a surprise. Betsy Rose had been sickly her whole life and her barrenness had been concluded to be another extension of that. It hadn’t mattered to the couple, however, because at the end of the day, they had each other. When old Ephraim himself had taken sick, Thornway had delighted to himself. He knew that once the old man was dead, he and Betsy Rose would return to their rightful place in the big house flush with cash. Even though there would be her lay-about brother to contend with, it all seemed to be worth the wait.
Corky! The man had led a pampered life as a result of his accident. As a boy, Ephraim had brought him aboard ship on one of their whale hunts and a freak accident had occurred with the main sail. Part of it was sent crashing to the deck, crushing young Corky’s leg, leading to its partial amputation. Ephraim had been beside himself and wracked with guilt. As a result, he had spoiled the lad from that moment on right up until he took his dying breath.
The dirt had barely been thrown on Ephraim’s casket when Thornway urged Betsy to get the lawyer to open the man’s will. Crushing shock had rained down upon him when it was revealed that while he loved his daughter, he had left all his money to Corky with the stipulation that if Betsy Rose ever needed anything, Corky was to see to it, as long as it didn’t benefit Thaddeus. The icing on the cake was they were forbidden to move back into the Lakeview terrace manor. Torn and bitterly disappointed, Betsy had defended her husband and had questioned the lawyer.
The man had advised her that Ephraim had considered Thornway as nothing more than a Fagan poised at the gates of their fortune and he would see that he would never get his hands on it, even if he had to do so from the grave. Betsy had accepted her fate and decided that she didn’t really need the old man’s wealth. But then, soon afterwards, Betsy Rose had relapsed into one of her sick periods. It had lasted longer than all the others before it. Even though she carried on with the same hopefulness, this was one from which there was to be no recovery. She died in his arms a frail shadow of the woman she had been.
As he stood inconsolable at her grave, he knew two truths. For someone claiming to love his daughter, what Ephraim had done was cruel and had hastened her journey to the afterlife. The second thing he knew was the inescapable fact that if she had inherited the money due her, he would be a very rich man indeed at that moment.
With Betsy Rose gone, the subsidies had dried up immediately from Corky and year after year, Thornway’s position had grown worse. To maintain the lifestyle that he had started to build for himself based on the expectation of the old man’s death, he began an endless sale of almost everything of value that he had owned. The darkest days had come when he even had to sell Betsy Rose’s remarkable stained-glass windows that she had created for their much more modest home than the one on the hill crowning Lakeview Terrace.
Using his position as the postmaster, he had sought out men that he knew could help him keep income flowing his way. Bit by bit, they would pilfer things of value they were responsible for delivering from the larger post offices in the Arizona territory. It had been easy. There would always be fools that sent valuables by post including cash money.
Unfortunately, this was only a stopgap measure and he knew that eventually, someone was going to figure out that there had been thefts and perhaps trace them back to him. So at long last, his desperation had reached a pinnacle. He was less than a year from even losing the home itself. That was when he knew it was time to help himself to the Blake family money that was rightfully his.
He would relieve Corky of the fortune the man kept in the safe out of a fear of the many bank robberies that plagued the west. After a respectable time, during which he would have to remain in Lake Bliss as to not raise suspicion, he would transfer to another post office, probably beyond the territory and eventually leave the service all together. Then he would spend the rest of his life enjoying the money that should have gone to Betsy Rose.
Now his carefully laid plan was spinning out of control and he felt he was going insane due to the fact that he didn’t even know why. When Marla showed up at the post office, he had flat out refused to believe what he was hearing. Who was this woman standing there, claiming to be the same person he had sent to Lakeview Terrace?!
He had grabbed the charlatan Marla by her throat and shaken her till she became white with terror.
“Tell me what happened right away, bitch!” he had yelled in her face and she had quickly relayed a tale of being arrested in Cloverfield on a slew of past crimes. By her good fortune, she had been hauled into the sheriff’s office at the exact same moment a judge she was most familiar with had stopped by. The man had lost all color from his face upon seeing Marla. Once she was in her cell, the judge had made up an excuse to send the Sherriff out of the office temporarily.
In the privacy of the jail, through the bars, she had threatened the judge that if he didn’t get her out of there, at her trial, she would entertain the courtroom with tales that involved the nice payment she had received from the judge for activities that involved ropes, bullwhips, and various other colorful props that he enjoyed having used upon him by her. The embarrassment would only be the appetizer, the main course being the end of the man’s judicial career.
Over the protests of the annoying sheriff who liked to use ten-dollar words, the judge held an impromptu adjudication and ordered her released. The stunned sheriff was left simmering as she walked out a free woman. She suspected the lawman was going to be looking at the judge very, very closely, but that was not her concern. Getting to Bliss was since she still hoped to fulfill the job she was already a day late for. Marla had also made the judge promise to get her there as quickly as possible.
Thornway, at the end of her tale had demanded to know “Who is impersonating you and why?”
Marla shook her head ruefully. “I have no idea why, but based on your description, the woman sounds an awful lot like the woman at the stage office who had lost out on getting a ticket. Maybe after I was arrested, the woman must have taken my place on the stage.”
Angrily, Thornway eyed the bag he had noticed earlier left behind by the woman, but had given little thought to it. Snatching it up, he dumped the contents out. Astonishingly, two silver-plated pearl handled Colt .45’s in a twin holster crashed to his desk. Connor’s eyes lit up. He seized the weapons and tossed his own worn and ancient six-shooter onto the desk. One of the guns, he slipped into his holster and the other, he shoved into his belt, knowing the holster, built for a female, would never work for him.
Thornway had said nothing about the theft as he was too busy searching for some clue to the woman’s true identity. There was nothing in the bag but guns, clothes and a few stacks of bills in wrappers around them that proclaimed Boxhall Savings & Loan. He helped himself to the money and then looked at Miss Marla.
Her story had been a complete fit, but he was completely flummoxed as to why this woman was carrying on a masquerade. Whatever the reason, this development had changed everything. His backup plan had to be carried out. Thornway knew he had to get to Blake’s manor house and see the man dead along with whoever the bitch was who had been posing as Marla. With the fifty thousand in hand, he would pay off his men and then disappear forever into the vast Southwest.
As his carriage lurched to a stop, throwing the trio slightly forward from the sudden halt in momentum, he looked up to see the figure of the well-endowed woman with the golden hair peering down over the edge of the veranda that his selfish father–in-law used to love to call “the deck.” Thornway leapt out of the carriage and screamed at the top of his lungs to the men inside.
“Get her!!”
Inside the house, in Cornelius Blake’s study, Cornwall Corday was hunched in front of the safe. In his ears was a special device that he had crafted that allowed him to clearly hear the tumblers falling into place as he worked the dial, searching for the correct combination. He stopped his work for a moment and dabbed away perspiration
on his brow. He had been surprised to find the safe was proving far more difficult than he had imagined.
For a moment, he looked around at the three men. They were hardly the sort he rubbed elbows with. Their crudeness, he thought, could only be matched by their lack of any discernable hygiene, especially the one who stood over him, holding a Coleman lantern. The guy smelled like all sorts of filth put together in one. But he knew that he needed them.
Once he had accomplished his aim, he would be free of them and be on the move to the far side of the globe. The thought of this made their stinking company bearable for the meantime. Upon entering the study, they had found that Corky had let all the oil burn out of the pair of lamps in the room.
“He had probably been too busy with his whores to pay attention to such things,” one man grunted with disdain and raw jealousy in his voice.
“Well, his luck is surely running out right now!” another man said, as they worked to light up the room.
Quickly, they employed a lantern they had found hanging by the back door of the house where they had forced their entry.
The other two men stood anxiously at the door, burlap bags in their hands as they waited for him to finish his job. Corday returned his focus to the lock after he had one final thought that maybe the man who had joked about the whores wasn’t too far off. In the lantern light, he could see dust covered everything in the room and Corday wondered when the last time was that Blake had even been in there.
The safe and its difficulty had reminded him of one that he had encountered before on a job in the Pennsylvanian city of Pittsburgh.
My! What a dreadful place that had been. The beautiful trio of rivers had not been enough to make up for what he had found in the unpleasant surroundings, he thought, as he worked. Still, he had beaten that safe at the Three Rivers Savings and Loan building and he would beat this one as well. He subconsciously licked his lips in anticipation of the wealth that he was about to acquire.
Suddenly, all four men tensed at the sound of a carriage racing up the drive way. If Blake was receiving a surprise visitor, this caper was about to become a serious bust. They would have to flee. Corday glanced at Davenport who dashed across the room and looked out the window. He turned to them with a look of relief and confusion.
“It’s okay. It’s Thornway!” he said, with a sigh of thanks. Corday looked at him and shook his head.
“I sincerely doubt it’s okay if Mister Thornway has arrived here personally,” he said, with uncertainty in his voice. Davenport seemed to be about to say something back when as if to underscore that statement, the next thing they heard was Thornway shouting to “get her” which could only be the woman. Davenport creased his brow as to what could be happening and why Thornway wanted Miss Marla, but since he didn’t particularly like the bitch, he would be happy to oblige.
McCann and Tate looked at him to see what he wanted to do. McCann even started to move away with the lantern towards the door when Corday’s refined but angry voice cut through the air.
“If I am to open the safe, I am bloody unlikely to accomplish my task in pitch black. Kindly get your ass back here with that lantern!” There was silence for a minute. The men were fast losing their patience with him, but the thought of the money they were about to make made them more complacent to his insulting tones. Davenport shrugged his shoulder and turned to McCann and said gently, “Do as he says, McCann. I’m going to go out and see what’s going on.” Then he turned to Tate and said in a less patronizing voice, “Tate, go on upstairs and keep your gun on that pair until I see what’s going on. They won’t be any trouble. They’re just a woman and a cripple after all!”
***
Upstairs, Cassandra knew that there was going to be no time to get Corky Blake down the stairs and to safety, with his speed and mobility hampered. He would slow her down and they both would be caught and maybe killed. They had gotten as far as the door to the museum room into the hallway when she heard footsteps running towards the base of the stairs. She turned to Blake and saw he was attempting to nervously relight his cigar that had gone out. She snatched his lighter from his hand and threw it to the floor and roughly pushed him in the direction of the bedroom.
“Forget about that and get in your bedroom and lock the door! Don’t come out until I say so! No matter what you hear!”
It was not a request. It was a command and he knew he would have to obey her. But he couldn’t help but ask. “What about you? How will you survive out here on your own?”
He didn’t say it, but Cassandra knew that he was looking at her feminine features. She allowed her mouth to turn up slightly. “I’m about to get my exercise for the day!” Then she shoved him towards his room once more and he had no choice but to limp away in the dark and close the door behind him, sliding a bolt lock into place. As he was doing so, Cassie was wriggling out of her dress. She had to admit standing there in her corset and pantaloons was not her first choice, but she knew if she was going to be fighting, she needed her mobility.
Cassie turned towards the door. Despite the display of bravado, she had just given Blake, she was dreading if all three of them came into the room at once. She would be outnumbered and have less chances of defeating them. She was heartened by the sound of the footsteps pounding up the stairs. From experience, she could tell it was but a single man.
She looked up and her lips formed a tight smile knowing how she was going to open her latest showdown. Her whole life, it seemed she had been a fighter since her childhood—scrapes of hair-pulling and scratching with her siblings right up until her training with the Pinkertons. Most had assumed that it had been there that she had learned the skill of fighting, but she knew the truth. At the Pinkerton’s, she had honed skills she had already possessed. She had truly learned to fight elsewhere—somewhere none of her siblings would ever believe if she told them.
A look of fondness crept over her face as she recalled her days at finishing school. Being taught to be a lady by day, but at night was when in secret, she learned how to truly fight, how to use a weapon and how to make use of her body with speed and precision. She learned the art of patience and biding her time and how to take a look at situations and access them properly.
To this day, it amused her that her most bitter rival at the school had turned out to be the best friend she’d ever had or ever would have, and it had been through her friend and her friend’s family that she truly learned how to transcend from mere brawling into making it an art form.
Still, as good a fighter as she was, she knew she would never be as good at hand to hand as Lijuan, who was using the skills Mr. Chow had taught her from their mysterious homeland of China. Lijuan, in turn, had trained her siblings to various degrees of success, but she was simply the best at it.
Something made a sound at the other end of the hall, and she snapped back into the moment. Her heartbeat began to drown out the footfalls of her soon to be opponent who had reached the top of the stairs and was running towards the whaling room. She felt she didn’t need to be as good as Lijuan, given her lack of respect for the trio of men Thornway had sent to shepherd her on this robbery. Whether that was true or not, she was about to find out.
A tight grin formed on her face as she readied herself while hearing the quote Honor Elizabeth was so fond of saying whenever they were about to throw down with an enemy.
“Once more into the breach!”
CHAPTER 16
* * *
They hadn’t even bothered to tie Honor Elizabeth up before thrusting her into the small woodshed at the base of a hill behind the Fenwicks’ hideout. After all, what sort of threat could a mere colored woman carry? The forceful shove had sent her sprawling onto the split wood, knocking some of the cord wood to the floor and she tumbled with it.
Honor had gazed upward with a look of pure hatred at Foster Fenwick, as he closed the door, laughing and shouting he would be back later to check on her and maybe put her to work. The sound of a bolt sliding into place was
followed by the man’s retreating footstep and his call that he would be back to check on her later.
After their capture, the sisters had been brought to the gang’s hideout, which had surprised them to have been very close by. The posse had nearly set up camp on their doorstep.
The posse! Honor had thought with a shudder. The majority of them if not all were now likely dead, including her new lover, Carver, among them. He had been foolish but brave to race down to the aid of his fellows, but she wished he had believed her of what they were capable of and had enlisted their aid.
However, there was a far more pressing matter on her mind and that was the fate of Catalina! It had been a strange scene earlier when the three Fenwick brothers had prodded the women before their mother at gunpoint in the kitchen. When they had arrived, the heavyset and manly looking old woman was in the process of chopping slabs of cattle meat into steak-sized pieces. The woman had turned around and looked at them in bewilderment.
“What’s the meaning of this? Who are these two?” she had asked, as she tightened her grip on the meat carver. Donnie had been the one to answer her with his brow knit together.
“We just went to war against that posse like we said we were gonna, Ma, and these here are the spoils!” Ma had looked them up and down as if she was trying to determine if she should let them stand in her kitchen or throw them all out.
“I didn’t know a posse traveled with whores,” she said, instead, and turned her back on them just a little. Catalina was livid at the apparent disgust of the old woman. She wanted to scream and tear at the woman, but she controlled her anger and said instead,
“A whore? Could a whore do this?”
She stomped on Chet’s foot, who was standing behind her, holding her, and then spun around and belted him, but she was quickly subdued by the other two brothers who each held her arms. Chet recovered and went to stand behind Honor, grabbing her arms and holding them behind her. Ma shook her head and spat in her direction with even more disgust.
Wilde-Fire: Wonder Women 0f The Old West (Half Breed Haven Book 1) Page 21
