As the man swept into the room passing under her, she let her legs drop and wrapped them around his neck. With all her might, she began squeezing. The startled man instantly dropped the six-shooter he was clutching, and it fell to the floor, spinning underneath one of the display cases. With both hands free, he began clawing at Cassie’s legs, desperate to break free even as his lungs began to burn.
For her part, Cassie was trying to hold onto the oars for dear life, but the violent upheavals that was causing was making it virtually impossible. First, her right hand lost its grasp and then her left followed suit in a sympathetic slip. Involuntarily, she let the pressure off of his neck and the pair teetered for a moment like some sort of drunken totem pole before they fell sideways. Tate’s body crashed into one of the long display cases, knocking it over. Cassie was pelted by bits of glass where she landed a foot or so away from where the case shattered. The tools of the whaling trade clattered about her. She crab-walked backwards for a moment and looked at Tate slumped on the overturned display case.
For a brief second, she thought maybe he had been knocked unconscious, but her luck didn’t extend that far. It was actually the opposite. The man seemed already nearly recovered from her attempt to choke him and was scrambling over the display case that lay on its side. She saw one of his hands land on a shard of glass that had to have cut him badly, but it didn’t stop him and she saw why. The man had a look of rage on his face that she knew only her death would mollify.
Cassie saw Tate grab a hatchet that once had been in service in a whaleboat as she squeezed her right hand, making a fist. She quickly looked around the area to grab something, the choices were all overwhelming. Tate was about six feet away, but closing in fast. He swung with the boat hatchet, but she feinted to her left as she circled the enraged man. He quickly turned and as he did, Cassie backed up, and before she knew it, she found herself backed against a wall.
Tate quickly reversed his body and charged at her again. She had never seen an opponent move that fast and the look on his face was that of a man possessed. His red face and skinny body moved as if he was from another world. Tate brought the hatchet over his head and swung down as he reached Cassie. She, again, quickly dodged to the left and as she did, she grabbed a blubber hook that was hanging on the wall above her head even as the hatchet buried itself in the wall.
With the hatchet stuck, Cassie moved away from Tate as he yanked to pull it free. She grabbed the hook in her right hand and quickly looked down, trying to ascertain the best way to hold the hook so it became an extension of her hand. The handle fit across her palm and felt comfortable. The hook faced down, and she felt as if this hook was a good fit and a good weapon. Tate turned, as he finally freed the hatchet from the wall. He took two breaths, and with intent, he charged her. He swung down, and as he did, she moved back, and then she threw a punch with the hook, the round part of the top of the hook connected to his mouth.
Tate felt the metal hit his teeth, knocking one of his two front teeth to the back of his mouth. For a split second, he started choking on it before coughing it out leaving his fury to increase exponentially as it always did when he got in fight mode, and nothing ever stopped him. The hatchet arced through the air towards Cassie and the swing came close, but this time, as his hand went past her, he swung it back and struck Cassie in the thigh.
The blow enlightened her to the power of the wiry man. The hatchet didn’t cut her, fortunately, because he hit her with the blunt end but it did hurt her. She almost fell, but quickly regained her balance. Cassandra wanted to keep her distance from him because Tate seemed to have too much energy to engage him in a close quarters fight. Cassie held the hook up, and as he was within arm’s reach, she swung down and struck him in the right forearm. The hook dug deep into the man’s bicep and the impact was accompanied by a shriek of pain and the sound of the hatchet striking the floor as he lost his grip.
Cassie tried to pull the hook out, but was horrified to find it stuck and what she saw startled even her. Tate’s arm was cut open with warm blood bubbling up around the base of the hook. The man was swaying and shaking from the pain of having a blubber hook in his arm. Lashing out, he hit Cassie in the face with his own head. Water rushed to her eyes and she felt a sharp pain reverberate through her skull. God damn! She just wanted to come to town to sing!
She fell back and as she did, she hit yet another display case. It didn’t break or fall over, but it helped both combatants stand upright. Tate was still screaming, but he started to reinstate the fight. He seized Cassie by her face, and his fingers were trying to gouge her eyes. He used both hands, both of which were filled with the rage and pain from within.
Cassie tried to move his hands away from her face, she could feel the scratches, and she could feel his nails digging into her skin as she moved her head back to escape the clawing fingers. She had moved her head right, and his hands slipped, but they slipped to her throat.
Tate’s teeth ground as he felt the whirlwind of crazy in his temples, he grabbed her throat and with immense pressure, he started to squeeze. Slowly and firmly while looking into her eyes, he squeezed and she knew that he had every intention of killing her with his bare hands.
Cassie didn’t know what do as she was losing oxygen. Her head was pounding, and she knew it wasn’t long before she fainted. She quickly felt her position, she knew his legs were spread and open, so she quickly threw a knee that hit him in his baby makers. His body jerked, but he still held on to her throat with an iron grip, pushing her head back. It truly felt as if he was going to snap her neck.
Quickly, she landed another blow with her knee and this time, she hurt him. He let loose of her throat and doubled over in a pain that only a man can know. Cassie took a second to gain her breath back. She leaned heavily against the display case, looking at the ceiling, trying to get over all of the damage her being just took. She sensed movement from Tate, bringing her back to reality. He was getting up, and she knew that he would be going all out for her if she let him recover. She shook her head as if to say, “not a chance” and then grabbed him by the back of the head and kneed him in the face.
Tate collapsed to the floor of Ephraim Blake’s makeshift museum and Cassie looked around the room for something to finish this crazy man off with. She had never been in a fight like this—this fast paced; this bloody. Of all her encounters, Cassie had never gone toe to toe with someone so determined to kill and fight like a wild animal. She knew he was going to have to die or he was going to kill her without a doubt.
Cassandra’s eyes fell on a set of tools. Each one braced on either side of the door to the room that she had not noticed before. She quickly ran to the one on the left. Its appearance was one of a shovel, but where the shovel head would be was a knife blade that was bent upward. It looked dangerous, and as she yanked it from its moorings, she noted a card affixed to the wall proclaiming in large bold print: “Blubber Pike from S. S. Blanchard.”
Cassie turned around and faced Tate, and what she saw amazed and scared her. The man stood there and he looked as if he was something from an Edgar Allen Poe inspired nightmare. He had blood pouring from his arm, the blubbering hook still impaled, and he was holding a tool that looked as if it was used for beheading.
Gripped in his hands was a mincing knife. It was a long knife with savage tooth-like blades with handles on each side. She could only imagine what that was used for and how quickly it could do its job. Cassie was beginning to have a feeling that on any normal day, was a stranger to her—terror. She had never been scared like this, fearing for her life. Her father had long warned her not to become too dependent on her six-shooters, and now she was thinking she shouldn’t have been so dismissive of Whip’s concerns.
She held the pike with both hands and brought it vertically to eye level, holding it in front of her. She looked at the end of the pike and noticed it shaking, and at the same time, she saw Tate’s eyes watching the pike shake as well. He didn’t say anything; he just looke
d up at her and grinning malevolently. She wanted to say something to deter his thoughts, but she respected his craziness too much.
If there was ever a time in her life she wanted help, it was now. Her wish was to have her trio of sisters at her side and most especially, she wanted Lijuan there with her reckless, devil-may-care confidence to bolster her up—that and her damned hammer she loved to dispense foes with. If not that, she just wanted to be anywhere else in the world. But she couldn’t be. She was here. Of all the fights in her life, she had never had to fight to the death with crazy, so she didn’t know what to do.
Letting her fear get the best of her, she launched herself at Tate, hoping to end this quickly. As she vaulted forward, she was screaming with all her might. She wanted the fear to leave her body and she thought if she screamed as loud as she could, and for as long as she could, it would leave her, but all it did was foreshadow her movements, and Tate was waiting. She came down with the pike, and he brought the mincing knife up to block her attack. She hit the knife losing control of her pike.
Once her pike hit his knife, he felt the pike bounce off, and as he brought the mincing knife down, he held on to the left handle with his left hand and turned in a complete circle, leading with his left hand and sliced her thigh as he completed the turn.
Cassie fell to the floor. She felt the sting and the burning of the cut. It had just been a glancing blow, but in her fight-addled mind, she wasn’t sure if her leg was cut off or how big of a gash she had. She just knew she was on the floor in pain. Tate stood above her. He looked down at her and a devilish grin came over his face. She laid there, almost waiting for him to finish her off. He grabbed both of the handles on the mincing knife before him at chest level, just before he jumped and landed on her. Cassie grabbed his wrists as the mincing knife came closer and closer to her neck.
Pushing with all her might, she felt the strength ebbing from her tired arms, which seemed to possess no force. The blade was now within an inch of her neck. She closed her eyes. This was it; she was going to die alone and worst of all, she now realized nobody knew she had come here. Her body would be dropped in an unmarked grave and her grieving sisters would spend the rest of their lives in agony, not knowing what had become of her. Nobody would ever find her. She felt the cold blade become one with her throat as the serrated edge caressed her neck.
Only a matter of seconds remained, and she felt as if she was ready to stop fighting and let him finish the job, and she would go be with her mother again. The exhausted woman was simply too tired and after fighting the good fight for so many years, perhaps it was time to surrender.
“Shhh. Shhhh. It’s your time,” he said, leering over her in a drool-filled whisper.
***
Outside, an anxious Thornway stood over Connors, who sat on the ground, clutching his ankle in agony, while Davenport knelt in an attempt to help him.
When they had first arrived and Thornway had shouted at the men inside to get Cassandra, he had then ordered Connors to join him. In his rush to obey, the man had vaulted from the driver’s seat of the carriage, and tripped over one half of a pair of small matching anchors that Blake had used to decorate the start of the walkway up to the house. The big man bellowed in agony.
Davenport, saying he had been a medic’s assistant in the Confederate Army during the war, took charge of his friend’s injury and ordered him to roll up his pant leg. Connor’s ankle, in that short time, had swollen up to a ghastly proportion. Davenport had just declared the best case was it was sprained and worst case, a full-blown break.
Thornway didn’t give a damn about any of that. His alarm was reserved for what was happening in the house. Miss Marla merely sat in the back seat of the carriage seemingly uninterested, but that was only a ruse. Once the woman who dared to pretend that she was her was brought out, she fully intended to take out a pound of flesh on her for the attempt to steal her job with Thornway. Clearly, the younger blonde was a fellow grifter to have latched on to Thornway’s mistake and attempt to take advantage of it.
The postmaster’s concerns were only heightened at the sound of a terrible crash coming from the upstairs. With a huff, he strode over to where Davenport was still aiding his friend.
He looked at Davenport and said, “Get your ass in there and see what’s going on!”
Davenport hesitated. “Connor’s hurt,” he said, to show his reluctance to leave his friend.
Thornway frowned deeply and snapped, “He’s still going to be hurt and poor if something ill happens to our plans. That woman in there is an imposter!”
Just then, Connors looked up and grimaced in pain. “John, he’s right. That soiled dove in the carriage is the real Miss Marla.”
“I beg your pardon!”
Connors ignored her and looked at the standing man. “Just go!” As the man started to retreat into the shadows, he hesitated briefly and removed a flask from his vest pocket, offering it to his wounded comrade.
“Here, take a swig of this! It’ll help!”
“Go! Go! Go!” Thornway screamed.
***
Her hands were about to let go when she opened her eyes for one final look at the world. Cassie was ready to slam them shut again because it had been a mistake. The last thing she wanted to see in her life was the maniacal face of her killer. She was just about to close them when her gaze shifted and her eyes fell on the sight of the blubbering hook still embedded in his arm. Maybe there was a way out of this, after all. She had forever told the girls that there were always possibilities … they just had to be found.
Tate saw the shift of her eyes and it confused him as he mistook her for attempting to look past him. Was there someone behind him? A rescuer for her perhaps. He lessened the force he was pushing down with and crooked his head, trying to get a look past his shoulder.
Cassie gambled then and let go of one of his wrists to grab the hook and yanked on it as hard as she could. She heard the bone crack and the squishy sound of skin being torn away. A gut-rattling scream burst from the mouth of Tate, which had morphed into a perfect “o” shape. She kept yanking on the hook until it tore free in an explosion of blood and tissue. Cassie felt the fine breakfast she had shared with Bennet Boxhall that morning rising in her throat, at the sight of it all.
A blood-curdling scream filled the room as he rolled off her. Holding his destroyed arm, the mincing knife fell onto her chest. She took a few breaths as the man laid next to her, rolling around in agony. Cassie quickly got up, her hand wrapping around the mincing knife. As she did so and turned to use it on Tate, the wounded man used his feet to trip her up, and she again fell to the ground.
The mincing tool spun away coming to a stop on a heating grate where it teetered for a moment and dropped from view. Cassie rolled over on her back, and as she did, she saw Tate struggle with one arm to get up. She then flipped over on her side to try and trip her injured opponent, and as she positioned herself, lying by her head was the two-and-three-quarters-inch Great White’s tooth. She snatched the tooth and positioned herself so she could quickly jump up. As she launched herself to her feet, she saw Tate once again had another object in his left hand. This time, he had plucked a four-hooked boat grappler from the mess that had been the display case. He wasn’t moving fast, so Cassie knew she could evade his attempts to strike her with it.
Tate tried to use his momentum, bringing the boat grappler from behind him, attempting a mighty swing, but Cassie, reinvigorated by her survival, this time, was too quick. She lunged forward and with the tooth clinched between her forefinger and her thumb, she slashed at Tate’s throat. Blood poured out of the jagged line the tooth had left, and his new weapon slipped from his hand as he staggered towards her. He yelled something unintelligible and as his voice left his body, he fell on to her. Having dropped the shark’s tooth, Cassie held him up as he looked at her eye to eye. Like a flame flickering out, she saw the life leave him, but the footsteps heading for the room distracted her.
She then
heard the door slam open, and as soon as Davenport entered the room, his six-shooter was letting bullets fly. Cassie quickly held Tate up as a shield. The bullets entered him one by one, mercifully, only one passing through him that missed her. Suddenly, she was heartened to hear the click of an empty gun and she peeked over the shoulder of the once living Tate and saw Davenport quickly trying to reload his gun. A window had opened to her and she took it as she pushed Tate’s corpse into Davenport, knocking him back out of the room as the empty gun flew from his hand.
Cassie once again looked for another weapon within her reach. She saw the blubber pike still lying nearby. As she snatched it up, she kicked Davenport’s empty Smith and Wesson and watched it spin underneath the ship’s wheel in the corner. Stepping back, she raised the pike ready for another battle. Davenport stood in the doorway. He looked at the lifeless body of Tate seeping blood from multiple wounds and astonishingly, his arm appeared to have been ripped nearly in two. He regarded Cassie, unable to help himself. He had to admit his surprise.
“Huh. He was a tough man,” he whistled. “I once saw him kill a man with his bare hands in Flagstaff. Figured he would have been chewing on your whore corpse by now.”
Cassie chuckled lightly. “You thought wrong, jackass,” she said, as she tried to catch her breath. “He was just a warm up.”
***
Downstairs, in Blake’s study, tension was continuously on the rise. They stood there in anticipation, as they listened to the ruckus going on above them.
McCann was the first to voice his fears. “You hear that? What in the hell is going on up there! She’s just a woman!”
Corday remained silent and said nothing. “How’s that comin’?” he asked, referring to the safe crack that was going on.
Wilde-Fire: Wonder Women 0f The Old West (Half Breed Haven Book 1) Page 24
