Franks didn’t seem to get the implication of what she had just said, so he repeated.
“We’re all gonna die in here.”
Lijuan nodded this time. “True and false. You and Winston are going to, but not me,” she said nonchalantly.
Winston looked at her as if she had gone crazy.
“How you figure that? You’re trapped like us,” he said with a sneer.
Lijuan laughed again.
“Wrong.” She said simply, just before she shoved her hammer into her belt and turned to walk towards the water’s edge.
“Where the hell you going, you oriental witch?” Winston demanded to know.
Lijuan said over her shoulder “Somewhere you … gentlemen … can’t follow.”
She turned to the bandits and flashed them a cocky grin. “Winston! Give my regards to Fortunato! You two will have a lot to talk about in the afterlife.”
With that, she inhaled the deepest breath of her life, turned and dove into the pool. Down she swam into the depths of the pool, all thirty feet to the bottom. The water was frigid, but she wasn’t paying it any mind. Adrenaline surged through her body as she would soon find out if she had made the worst gamble possible, and the stipend would be her life.
Lijuan opened her eyes finding enjoyment at the sight of the faint greenish glow. It was just as she remembered it. Kicking vigorously, she made her way to one of the walls of the pool and arrived at the opening. Even underwater, with her vision distorted, she was taken aback on how much smaller the opening appeared from her youth. Her hair swayed about as she paused for only a moment before plunging through the hole.
Above, Frank’s mind was able to at last process things at a rapid pace when the survival instinct kicked in that had carried him through more scrapes than he could count in his thirty-four years. He raced to the edge of the water.
“She knows a way out!”
Winston looked on into the space that he had been looking into for minutes now.
“What?” he asked absentmindedly.
“There must be a tunnel down there or somethin’. That’s the only reason she would be cocky enough to trap herself in here with us! C’mon!” Franks yelled at him.
Winston shook his head ruefully.
“I don’t know if I can. I - I’ve never been that good a swimmer, then there’s my knee!”
Franks shrugged. “Suit yourself! I’m gettin’ out of here! When I do, I’ll off your buddy, Ping, and all that wealth is gonna be mine alone!”
Winston looked at the space between his legs as if there was some sort of special object there.
“That was probably your plan all along. Of course, Ping and I were going to do the same thing to you and your idiot brother in the end.”
Despite everything, Franks shrugged. Such double crosses were the name of the game in the world of those who walked on the other side of the law, so Franks didn’t bother to respond as he was already diving into the icy waters of the pool.
***
Stroking her way through the tunnel, Lijuan was aware just how much the tunnel was narrowing, but that wasn’t a surprise to her. It had always been that way. The difference now was that she was slower and bigger. She felt her hammer bump against her side and knew she would go a hair faster if she discarded it.
However, she couldn’t bring herself to drop it in the tunnel. Ever since the day in a stable in the town of Godspell where she had picked it up and thrown it at an enemy for the first time, it had almost become a part of her. No, she would not abandon it.
Lijuan’s eyes suddenly widened at the sight in the near total darkness of a pile of rubble that had collapsed into the narrow tunnel. Had it just happened from the very explosion she had caused? More likely, she reasoned, it had been years ago, when Alamieda had been rocked by the collapse of a quarter-mile stretch of Comanche Canyon, so named for a band of Comanches that had fled the plains to take up home amid the lands claimed by the Yavapai and the Apaches alike.
Her hand reached out and felt the rocks, and she knew it had likely been during the canyon collapse as they were covered in heavy growth of the same phosphorescent plants that lined the underwater tunnel, giving her what little light there was. It had been the glow from those plants that had first caught her and Dutch’s attention, leading them to discover the entrance to the tunnel during one of their swims in the pool. The stones were mercifully loose and not a solid wall.
As she started to feel a fire ignite in her lungs, she was suddenly glad she had not discarded her old friend. In the tight confines of the passageway, she struggled to yank her hammer free from her belt. Once she had freed it, she grasped it with both hands and thrust it forward repeatedly, knocking the barrier of rocks until they were scattered on the floor of the horizontal shaft. Lijuan swam over them, knowing that she had come to the point where the tunnel narrowed to less than the diameter of an over turned rain barrel.
She was just about to propel herself forward in a surge, knowing it was the home stretch that would allow her to break free and emerge beneath the waterfall when she felt something clamp onto her left ankle. Looking back in darkness, she could make out a hulking form that had its iron grip on her.
Franks!
She didn’t know whether to be impressed or dumbfounded that a brute that size had made it this far. Quickly, her thoughts returned to her fight in the water tower. Tosh had also been gripping her in a desperate bid to save his life. This was different. The killer must have known he wasn’t going to make it and was determined to take her with him by preventing her escape.
Well, what had worked on Tosh would work just as easily here, she thought and she gave a savage kick to his face with her right leg. What little air his lungs possessed escaped from the man’s body in a gasp, as he let go of her. A bright light was beginning to explode in Lijuan’s mind, so despite her earlier desire to watch Franks pass into hell, she didn’t look back. If she had, she would have seen Franks make a desperate bid to grab her again only to become hopelessly stuck at the narrowing point. His last moments were spent in a frenzy of thrashing until his large bulk became still in death.
Close to blacking out, Lijuan could hear the thunder of the water striking the surface as the river made its thirty-foot fall into the pool before it continued its flow through the Comanche Canyon further down the stream. The young woman shot out from the wall and swam underneath the churning water and headed for the surface. It was only a few feet above her, but it looked like a mile. To drown now with salvation in sight was not how she intended to leave this world and she summoned a final burst of strength and pierced the surface.
As she was coughing and flailing about trying to inhale air as much as she could into her starving lungs, she was vaguely aware of activity at the edge of the pool. Figures were gathered around low to the ground, with one of them standing over the others, holding a lantern. Her eyes also took in the sight of two or three lanterns, she was not sure how many; her vision was blurred and felt unreliable due to her oxygen-starved mind, bobbing in the night up where the trail led to the entrance to the cave.
Lijuan struggled to paddle towards the edge and as the waterfall’s roar quieted somewhat, she was vaguely aware of a splash as someone had dove into the water and was swimming towards her. An instant later, a strong arm looped around her waist and was pulling her towards the edge. She tilted her head and seeing everything, she experienced shock and delight at the same moment. Foregoing the self-proclaimed nickname, he had given himself when he was only five years old, Lijuan shouted Dutch’s given name as was her custom.
“David!”
“Not fair swimming here without me, sis!” He said with a trembling voice that betrayed his emotion despite his banter.
“What are you doing here? I thought your troop was up in Utah?” she asked as she tried to calm down.
“Things wrapped up early and we returned to Fort McAllister yesterday. Col. Caine gave me leave, so we decided to surprise everyone with a visit. W
e arrived just as Dad and Blue River were about to head out to the Double J to collect Mr. Jamison.”
Lijuan’s jubilation momentarily cooled at the word “we” as she cast her eyes to shore and spied, to no surprise, holding the lantern was Bright Feather, lover to one of her brothers and half-sister to the other. Despite her annoyance at seeing the Indian woman, her heart leapt when she saw through her clearing vision that the figures Bright Feather was holding the lantern over were the Huangs and Jamison. Shuen Yi had her arm around her father’s shoulder as he sat on the ground. Jamison was wrapping up some type of wound on the man’s arm.
As Dutch helped her up from the water, Lijuan saw that it had indeed been two lanterns and now the holders were racing down the trail. Gently, Dutch guided her to a seated position next to Mister Huang and she looked at Dutch with a bashful grin.
“Thanks, David,” she said gently.
Dutch looked down at her, his blond hair was matted with the dampness and she guessed his Calvary uniform weighed nothing short of a ton, but still, he gave her that roguish smile she knew so well and his blue eyes maintained their twinkle in the moonlight. Her half-brother squeezed her hand. Being the only one in the family ever to use the meaning of her Chinese name, he spoke softly.
“You’re welcome, Beautiful and Graceful one. Can’t you girls ever keep out of trouble?” he said with a small smirk.
His presence filled Lijuan with good cheer.
“Earlier, Honor Elizabeth told Blue River that trouble finds us. She’s right, David. All I was doing was going into Alamieda to pick up Miss Huang here!”
Lijuan turned her attention to the smiling Huangs and Jamison.
“So he did shoot you, Mr. Huang? Are you going to be all right?”
Huang looked at her with gratefulness in his eyes.
“When I was running down the trail, I encountered Winston. He shoot at me. Bullet graze arm, but I escape into woods. Your family and my daughter find me short while ago,” he said in a halting tone.
In Chinese, Shuen Yi began a barrage of “thank yous” to which Lijuan could only nod and tell her she was welcome.
Jamison turned to Lijuan and with his voice ringing with good cheer said, “That was brilliant of you to have Gabriella bring Miss Huang out to Cedar Ledge where the Chows were able to interpret everything to your father.”
Lijuan nodded “I felt fairly sure I could handle these kidnappers, but there was no reason not to send for back up … just in case.”
At that moment, Whip and Blue River emerged from the trail, setting their lanterns down. Her father knelt by her and hugged her.
“My little Daisy! Do you know how scared you had me when we were running up the trail and heard the explosion in that tunnel? I would have dug until my fingertips were raw to get my little girl out of there!” He said with a whole lot of emotion in his voice.
“And I as well!” Blue River added. “What happened in there, Miss Lijuan?”
Lijuan, looked over to see the Huangs animatedly engaged in conversation with each other as daughter fussed over father. Though confident they weren’t paying attention she lowered her voice nonetheless as Mr. Huang would know the truth. She stared up at the darkness towards the waterfall and shook her head.
“Winston and his henchmen were rigging the tunnel to explode. They were going to recapture Mister Huang and then seal us both in, but one of the henchmen was a half-wit and he accidently triggered the explosion, killing them all. Lucky for me, I remembered the tunnel David and I used to swim through, that led from the pool in the cave. It was a tight squeeze. I barely made it.”
As Whip helped Lijuan to her feet her mixture of half-truths bothered her not one bit. No need to complicate things. Knowing the honorable men her father and brothers were, they would want to mount a rescue just so Winston could face justice for his crimes. The man would have hung, anyway, so why waste a perfectly good rope, she thought.
Bright Feather drew close to her, still clutching her lantern and she smiled at Lijuan. Her long dark Indian hair brushed Lijuan’s face as she leaned in close and she said in a small voice.
“I'm glad you’re safe,” Lijuan nodded and locked her eyes on Bright Feather. Her beautiful oval face with the naturally tanned skin and shapely body reminded her of a few things. The way her brown eyes stood out and dilated when she said she was glad to see Lijuan safe told her that she meant it.
“Thank you,” Lijuan said gently, as her own dark hair was blown about in the evening breeze.
“I am relieved that the Great Spirit saw fit to guide you to safety, Lijuan.” At that point, she reached out and laid a hand on Dutch’s chest. “I know how much you mean to my beloved.” Dutch smiled and placed a hand on Bright Feather’s shoulder and gave it a loving squeeze.”
“Isn’t that the truth, my love?” he said, as he looked at his sister with gratitude that she was back and safe.
Lijuan’s eyes took on a cold glint as she stared at Bright Feather.
Miss perfect! She thought.
Blue River could be forgiven as she was his sister, after all, but her entire family adored and loved her so much … David loved her … how could they all be so wrong about her and she was the only one right? How could David not see this? The woman had ties to the renegade warrior Black Hawk, sworn enemy of the Wildes.
“She will only bring David grief someday,” she thought inside her. She was certain of it. It was what she told herself in justification for her animosity. She had been telling herself that for so long she now almost believed it over the truth. Locking away her annoyance surrounding Bright Feather, she turned to Blue River with a smile.
“I’m afraid there won’t be any licorice tonight. Honor Elizabeth and Catalina saddled up on a fool’s errand with a posse of wet-behind-the-ears greenhorns,” she said derisively.
“Why yes, Jamison here mentioned that when we went to collect him, and we wanted to know how you came to be in Alamieda by yourself. What can you tell me about this posse that your sisters went and got themselves involved in?” Whip asked with concern.
“I’ll tell you what I know, but can we do it back at Cedar Ledge? I think Dutch and I would like a change of clothes!
Whip kissed her on the head and nodded.
“Of course. My carriage is at the trail head.”
He took her by the hand and led her away as something inside of her melted. A feeling of deep love for her father swept over and even displaced her lingering animosity for Bright Feather to the point where she didn’t even give her one of the frosty looks she was forever shooting at the constant intruder into their lives.
Instead, as she headed down the trail with the others following in her wake, feeling like she was a little girl again, walking hand in hand with her father through the wonders of the five-hundred-square-mile ranch that he said would forever stand as a lasting achievement of the Wilde family. Her joy would have turned into a despair and a sadness beyond all measure if she could see the future and know nothing could be further from the truth.
****
Gasping for breath, Winston broke the surface of the pool. The icy water had numbed the throbbing in his knee, but that didn’t even register on him. Despite his injury, he had decided to follow out of desperation. Neither of the pair that had proceeded him had reemerged into the pool.
“Perhaps they made it,” he had reasoned. Surely, the Asian wouldn’t have sealed herself in a tomb within the earth unless she was sure she could escape … would she?
Attracted by the green glow of the phosphorescent plants, he had found the tunnel when he reached the bottom of the pool. His swimming abilities were as bad as he remembered. He hadn’t dared to venture into a body of water in nearly fifteen years, but his life depended on it.
Winston had let out an agonized scream that could only be heard in his mind when he had made it through the tunnel, only to find the colossal form of Franks’ dead body hopelessly blocking the way. He had wasted several moments of frantic exertion
trying to tug the man’s body free, but to no avail. Unknown to him, Lijuan had nearly perished just shy of breaking the surface. By the thinnest of margins, he had managed to back out of the tunnel and make it back into the cave and now pulled his body up onto the shore, smearing himself in the same grayish clay that had helped give him away to Lijuan Wilde.
He laid on his back, fighting to catch his breath. Most of the lanterns had been destroyed when they hit the hard clay in the blast and in the short time he had been in the tunnel, two had burned out and only one remained lit and it was flickering.
As his mind began zigzagging down a slope into madness, Winston rolled himself over and crawled over to where the two bags of money laid in a pool of light from the lone lantern that sat on top of a boulder. Propping himself up against the boulder, he dragged one of the bags close to him. With no emotion, he pulled the bag open and grabbed out two sheaves of bills and looked at them. He threw them aside and pulled out three more, and then tossed them aside as well. The third time his hand reached in, it did not find any more sheaves. It came to rest on something soft.
Blankly, he peered inside the bag and yanked on what he was holding. A balled-up sheet came out in his hand and he stared at it dumbfounded. Something heavy was within the sheet. He hurriedly unwrapped the object to find a brick that had helped give heft to the bag. His eyes darted to the other bag and he ripped it open—the same. Several sheaves of bills and another brick wrapped in a sheet that he could not know came from the small bed Whip kept in his office in Alamieda on the nights he was working late and did not wish to make the ride back to Cedar Ledge.
Emotion returned to his face and it was of pure rage as a reddish cast flushed across his face. In anger, he began tearing up the bills and tossing them everywhere.
That bitch! Not only had she doomed him, but she had also duped the water-logged corpse that had been Franks’ into returning to the cave without the majority of the Huang’s money! The Chinese woman had outwitted them every step of the way!
As the last bit of oil was consumed and the flame in the lamp died away, he let out a primal scream vowing he would see Lijuan Wilde in hell as blackness enveloped the cave and insanity began devouring his mind.
Wilde-Fire: Wonder Women 0f The Old West (Half Breed Haven Book 1) Page 26
