“Typical Mexican. All piss and vinegar, but no brains! Who are you?”
Honor looked at the old woman and fought the reflex to spit back in her direction.
“You are addressing Catalina Wilde and I am Honor Elizabeth Wilde. We are from the Cedar Ledge Ranch. And obviously, you are Ma Fenwick. I cannot say it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Old bat,” Catalina added under her breath.
Ma’s laughter sounded like the screeching of a tortured animal. She then whistled breezily.
“Hot damn girl. Them words roll out of your mouth like you were some lily-white society woman instead of a house maid. Cleaning is what you birdies do at Cedar Ledge, yes?” the old woman asked with disdain.
“We own Cedar Ledge!” Catalina snapped at her.
“What?” Donnie almost shouted.
“Wait a minute now. I once laid with a whore who told me about that place. Called it Half Breed Haven on account of the place bein’ overrun by ‘em. Seems the old judge that owns the place managed to lay with every shade of woman he could find. Had a daughter by each one of them.”
“Could this be true?” Chet who had been quiet all along asked in a hoarse voice.
“A colored girl and a Mexican were supposed to be among ‘em. There’s more to what the soiled dove told me. Rumor has it the Mex one has been known to have a thing for the ladies.”
Ma Fenwick raised an eyebrow and walked over to Catalina who practically snarled at her all the way. Undaunted and still not believing what she had heard, she touched Catalina’s cheek, but the girl cringed away from her.
“Is that right?” she asked with a snide laugh. “I hears they put your kind in madhouses and throws away the key.”
“Aw, I don’t believe it,” Donnie cut in. “I mean … look at her. She’s too beautiful to be makin’ hay with other bitches.”
Ma shrugged and turned away again.
“Well, there is one thing she’s gonna be making and that’s money for us. Now we’d never dream of hitting a place like Cedar Ledge. We’d be a fool to take on an operation that size. But if these two are really the whelps of some rich old judge, he’ll pay to get them back,” she said with a decisiveness that told them that her say was final.
“There is not a price in the world that Daddy could affix for me,” Honor Elizabeth said as she looked at Catalina and winked. “I meant for all of us.”
Despite everything, Catalina shook her head and smiled inside. Honor Elizabeth, they all suspected was Whip’s favorite, but the notion didn’t bother them. There was enough love in their family to go around and Honor Elizabeth who suspected it as well never boasted about it growing up or used it to her advantage over the others.
“We got to take care of the cattle first, but in the morning,” Ma began, her voice turning in to one of unbridled delight. “We’ll send one of you or the men over to Alamieda to set terms with the Wildes if they want this pair back.”
Foster smiled and nuzzled Catalina’s neck and she turned her head and tried to spit at him.
“Gonna have me a night to remember first,” Foster said with a satisfied grunt.
Ma slammed down the butcher cleaver into the counter angrily and said in a voice that told them she was dead serious.
“No, you’re not! None of you all are! I ain’t gonna have no child of mine soiling himself with likes of a colored girl or Mexican. Besides, I told you! We got the cattle to attend to. Killing off the posse was only a stall for us. Once word gets out, everyone is gonna be looking for us. We need to be long gone. Chuck, Donnie, get the men together and get out to The Gourd. Camp out there for the rest of the night and be ready to move the cattle at first light. We’ll get them out of this valley and over to the canyon country in Palomino County. Should be easy enough to stash them there and set up a new hideout!”
Foster frowned and pouted babyishly. “What about me, Ma?”
“Take the colored bitch and throw her in the woodshed and then come back here. I’ll want you to start packing the wagon. Only take what we will need at our new hideout,” she said.
“What about the Mexican girl?” he asked.
“She’s gonna stay here with me. Got me use for her.”
Shortly after that, Honor had found herself in the woodshed. She didn’t even bother trying the door, but instead, looked around. On three sides of her, split wood was piled high. The wall behind the stacks had about a half inch gap in between allowing the moonlight to spill in.
As to not make undue noise, she slowly started hefting logs to the ground until she could touch the wall behind them. Pressing on it, she found it as solid as the day it was constructed. The wood was hard and thick and she doubted even Lijuan’s hammer could break through it very easily. There would be no getting out that way.
Honor turned her attention back to the door. At last, she gave into human nature and tried it, anyway, knowing full well it would be futile. It, of course, was. She stepped back and gave it her full attention. By now, her eyes had adjusted fairly well to the darkness and the moonlight aided somewhat. Up and down, back and forth, they scanned. Honor Elizabeth was about to abandon that tactic when her gaze froze on one of the two hinges.
Kneeling, Honor Elizabeth allowed her eyes to regard the lower hinge. She leaned in forward and could make out what she was looking for. With her right hand, she probed the hinge and her fingers found the screws and a warm feeling of satisfaction flowed over her.
Whoever had constructed the shed had done a fine job when it came to picking sturdy building materials, but when they had put the door on, they had made the choice for the hinges not to lay on the inside of the door frame. Instead, they were completely accessible. The shed had been made to house firewood not hold captives, so there would not have been any reason for whoever originally constructed it to have cared where the hinges were. Whoever they were, they had just given her a way out.
Without realizing it, Honor inserted a crooked index finger between the band of the choker she always wore and the skin of her neck, and began to move it back and forth. It was her way when she was nervous or in deep concentration. Tonight, it was both. She was so worried for Catalina and she needed to think hard how to free herself to come to her sister’s aid.
The interior of the shed offered absolutely nothing to help her work the screws holding the hinges in place. Still, she started looking around frantically on the walls, on the floor, anything. The darkness only made the task more difficult and finally, she conceded her efforts were in vain. In frustration, she exhaled, her breath blowing one of her curly ringlets that had fallen down in front of her face. She brushed it back into place and then jammed her hands into the side pockets of her dress in annoyance at her situation. That was when she found it.
Her eyes widened as her fingers touched a small object laying at the bottom her pocket, completely forgotten about. Quickly, she fished it out and held it up in front of her eyes with a smile that almost lit up the darkened shed.
Blue River’s coin for the licorice purchase that was to never be rested between her two fingers. For a moment, she strained her eyes and looked at the engraved image of a seated woman, clutching a flag with her shield proclaiming liberty emblazoned on it.
Honor’s eyes shown gratefully as she stared at the coin and said, “Ma’am, you are surely going to help grant me liberty this night!”
Without further hesitation, she dropped to her knees and fumbled for a moment as she tried to achieve alignment, and just like that, the coin slipped into the groove of the screw in a near perfect fit.
“Thank the heavens they chose not to use nails!" she exclaimed under breath.
Honor Elizabeth then fell silent and began to work on the screws in earnest.
***
In the kitchen, Ma Fenwick sat in a chair at the table with a gun in her hand and a self-satisfied look on her face as she watched Catalina frying the steaks on the stove. The chair creaked under her weight as she leaned back in it, tw
o the chair’s feet briefly leaving the ground before they reconnected with a thump, as the woman leaned forward to snarl at Catalina. Ma squeezed her face and bellowed savagely in Catalina’s direction.
“Hurry it up, you greaser! I told you I wanted mine rare! It shouldn’t be taking you this long!”
Catalina looked over her shoulder
“If I pull it out now, blood is still goin’ to be drippin’ from it,” she said with distaste.
Ma grumbled again. “That’s fine by me!”
Catalina ignored her and didn’t pull the steaks from the pan, but kept on frying them. Of course, the woman wouldn’t mind them being bloody! She was little more than an animal herself she thought as she turned over a steak. Catalina, however, knew what she was doing. She was stalling, trying to think of what her next best move would be. Fortuitously, Ma Fenwick herself gave her more time to think when she threw a question her way.
“Don’t you want to know why I’m making you my servant?”
Catalina chuckled lightly and replied. “Not really. I’m more interested in why you are eatin’ so late. It’s past the dinner hour.”
Ma snarled at the girl and said angrily. “I don’t keep no schedules! Now bullshit you don’t want to know! I’m doing it because I enjoy watching one of you waiting on me!”
Catalina wanted to laugh at the comical ugliness of the older woman’s face, but she didn’t.
“My pappy, he married one a you, a Mexican only a year after my ma died. God damn woman treated me like a slave. Had to wait on her hand and foot. Bitch liked to beat me, too, when Pappy wasn’t around. That wasn’t the only thing she liked to do. Had a thing going with a trapper, least ways, until pappy came home and caught them. Three people died that day. The trapper, the Mex, and my pappy who went and done killed himself after he blew their heads off!”
She paused and looked really satisfied with her own explanation as if it explained all the problems in the world.
“Anyway, I done hate Mexicans ever since!”
Catalina frowned lightly, “You think you are the only person with a sad story? My mother got murdered before I even got to know her,” she said.
Ma looked at her and chuckled. “Who done it? Your pappy? Was she screwing someone behind his back and he found out?”
Catalina whirled around, but Ma Fenwick brought the gun up, and angrily Cattie turned away and went back to tending the steaks. Behind her, she heard Ma Fenwick rise from her chair and a moment later, she could feel the woman’s breath prickling the back of her neck.
“So, tell me what’s it like?” the bad breath blew on her skin and Cattie cringed.
“What what’s like?”
“Smooching on another woman? Doing God knows what else in a place that was meant for men, and men alone,” the old woman spat.
Catalina spun around and was face to face with Ma Fenwick. She saw the woman’s eyes scanning her face, before lowering until they fell upon her full breasts. Catalina was never one to feel nauseous, but this made her feel like her stomach was doing flips. Her hand tightened on the fork still in her hand that she had been using to flip the steaks over.
“You think it’s so bad why are you lookin’ at me like that?” she snapped at the woman disgustedly.
“Maybe I ain’t never seen a scarlet woman before,” the woman growled.
Still trying to endure the woman’s disgusting breath, Catalina brought her free hand up and ran her index finger on the skin above her breasts.
“Or maybe you just like what you see”
Ma Fenwick brought her gun up and placed it against Catalina’s head.
“Don’t you think I don’t know you’re distracting me,” she said, with some of the spit in her mouth splashing all over Catalina.
“Wanna use that fork in your hand on me real bad, don’t you, girl?” she said, as she cocked the gun. “Two choices. You try and stab me with it before I pull the trigger or you use it to get me a steak. You pick.”
Catalina fixed Fenwick with a murderous gaze and then slowly turned back around, flipping the steaks over again with the fork.
“Atta girl. Maybe you ain’t as thick as most of your amigos,” she growled. Catalina was still brooding her bad luck when Foster came into the room suddenly.
“What are you doing in here? You are supposed to be packing the wagon, Foster!” Ma asked with a scowl.
“That’s why I’m here. I figured it would go faster, Ma, if I get the black one to help me instead of lockin’ her up, and she just being there useless and all.”
“Fine! Use her, but lock her back up just as soon as you’re done! And remember, hands off her. I don’t want my first grandchild to be a little pickaninny like its mama.”
Catalina breathed deep. She wanted to strangle Ma Fenwick with her bare hands. Insulting her was one thing, but nothing got the hackles of a Wilde up more than someone making offensive remarks against another of their siblings.
Foster thanked his mother and turned and was gone as quickly as he had come in, as Ma Fenwick turned her attention back to Catalina.
“I want my steak now!”
She collapsed back into the chair and Catalina again heard the thumping sound of the two feet of the chair touching back to the floor as it righted itself.
“Comin’ right up!” she said with a small smile.
She stuck the fork in one of the steaks and grabbed the skillet by both hands. As she approached the woman, Ma rocked back in her chair and said, “‘Bout damn time!”
“Careful now, this skillet is hot,” Catalina said with mock concern.
Ma Fenwick leaned back and Catalina watched the two front legs lift into the air and she struck with a savage kick to the support between the front legs. Fenwick cried out as the chair started to fall over backwards. Even as she was falling, she fired a shot at Catalina, but Cattie had already brought up the skillet as protection and the round struck the skillet right near the edge. Less than an inch more, and Catalina would have taken the shot in her torso. The bullet ricocheted off and buried itself in the table, as Catalina fled for the door.
Ma Fenwick made a desperate grab for Cattie’s ankle, but the young Wilde was too quick for her and was out the door before the matronly woman could regain her feet.
Unfortunately, Catalina’s flight carried her right into the path of Foster Fenwick, who in response to the gunshot was racing up the front steps of the house at the same time Cattie burst through the front door. His dragoon revolver aimed directly at her brought her flight to halt. He stood there, looking at her with wide eyes and suddenly, he jumped to the side.
Catalina felt like she had been struck by a locomotive as her body was launched forward by the impact of Ma Fenwick barreling into her. She tumbled down the front steps and landed on her back by the wagon Foster was loading, one of her hands striking a butter churn of all things.
When she looked up, both Foster and Ma Fenwick had their guns drawn on her and worse yet, she could see the elder Fenwick’s hand with the gun was trembling from the rage.
“I swear if we weren’t gonna make a small fortune from your pappy for you and that coon you call a sister, I’d blow your little head off right now!” Ma said, still trembling with anger.
“Her name is Honor Elizabeth!” Catalina corrected.
Foster walked towards her and said commandingly, “On your feet!”
He yanked her up and she spat at him.
“What are we going to do with this one?” he asked his mother.
Ma looked around and spied the tree growing next to the porch.
“Find a rope and tie her to that tree. I’m gonna give her a little taste a what it was like growing up!” she said with determined savagery.
Foster chuckled with excitement. “You mean like them stories you used to tell us?”
Ma nodded grimly “That’s right, son!”
Foster brimmed with an evil happiness anticipating the spectacle to come.
“Well, then hold up a second
then. You’re gonna need one of these and the one I got is gonna be perfect.” He said as he ran back into the house and held up Catalina’s bullwhip.
“Donnie took it off from her earlier! She had the thing cinched to her waist,” he said, with satisfaction spreading across his face. His mother looked at him with a proud smile. If anything, the smile made her look uglier to Catalina.
“That’s good thinking, son!”
She then walked up to Catalina and sneered at her.
“Your last name is Wilde, huh? Well, you ain’t gonna be wild much longer because I aim to tame you, and I’m gonna use your own lash to do it!”
She uncoiled the bullwhip and gave it a crack. The sound of the whip cracking through the air made Catalina shudder inwardly.
“This is gonna be beautiful! Now get her tied up!” the old woman said happily.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
Franks stood off to the side, glowering as Winston who continued holding his gun fixed on Lijuan’s head knelt and scooped up the small derringer that he had spied on the ground near the edge of the pool.
“Lemme have that, Winston. Mine went down into the pool!” Franks said.
Winston shook his head.
“It’s worthless now. This was a single shot gun and it seems her one shot has been used up.”
Franks’ anger showed in his voice.
“Used up? That how ya put it that she blew my brother’s brains out?!”
Winston shrugged and looked at the woman in front of him.
“Damn clever, Miss Wilde. Damn clever,” he said, then he turned to Franks, “How did she get it past you?”
Franks recounted the event with murderous anger still in his body language. “Bitch had her hand all bandaged up to hide the gun. She said that she broke it falling from the stage on the way here.”
Wilde-Fire: Wonder Women 0f The Old West (Half Breed Haven Book 1) Page 22
