Not long ago, she had sent her sister the signal and yet Catalina had still not returned from completing her mission. Everything depended on her accomplishing her goal, and the cloak of darkness made it possible. Honor could only shake her head, making her curls bob up and down for the briefest moment, and sigh. It had truly been a long night.
***
After Catalina had taken pleasure in binding Ma Fenwick to the tree in the very same manner that that head of the rustling family had done to her, the two Wildes, Carver and their prisoner, Foster, had made their way to the Fenwicks’ horse corral, off to the side of the building. The pair of sisters had rejoiced to find Nina and Pretty Feet amongst the captured horses. Carver’s horse had been among those that had run off at the height of the ambush, but he found a suitable mount among the collection.
The bound Foster had been tied into his saddle and a rope run between Carver’s horse and Foster’s. The man was to be pulled along behind them. With that accomplished, the group set out in the direction in which lay The Gourd, which turned out to be a crucial piece of the Fenwick’s smuggling operation, as Foster had been forced to tell.
As they rode through the night, the sisters gave serious thought about what their small group was going to do in the face of a force triple their number strong. A straight up firefight was out of the question, so they knew they had to think of something else. From time to time in the moonlight, Honor had looked over at her sister to see if she had come up with anything, but her younger sister continued to be staring straight ahead in deep concentration.
Around the time when Foster told them they were about an hour from The Gourd, Honor had been delighted to see a sly smile come across Catalina’s face. With a smile of her own, Honor Elizabeth had turned to her and asked her what their play was going to be.
Face alit, Catalina had told her:
“We’re gonna use The Gourd against the Fenwick gang.”
After Catalina outlined what her plan was, it had made perfect sense with what Foster had told them about The Gourd. As the outlaw had revealed, The Gourd was a canyon cut deep into one of the walls of the Twin Butte valley. It was so named because if one were standing on the edge of the valley rim and looked down into it, they would have seen a circular canyon with a smaller narrow canyon curving out from it that at its end opened into the valley, truly resembling the shape of gourd.
The legend in the valley held that a great battle had been fought in the heart of The Gourd by two mighty Indian war parties. So fierce was the fight and so evenly matched were the two tribes that the factions had killed each other to the last man, the battle ending as the chief of each tribes drove knives into each other’s hearts simultaneously.
The lore ended with the warning that the spirits of the warriors still haunted the canyon, continuing their perpetual fight in spirit form and any who dared enter would forfeit their life as none may leave the canyon alive.
Few ever ventured into The Gourd and those that did failed to ever return. The Fenwicks, of course, hearing these tales immediately disregarded them as superstitious myth. Ma Fenwick was looking for a good place to hide the cattle rustled by her gang until they could sell it to buyers who were quite content to look the other way at a herd made up of so many different breeds. What better place than one shunned by all?
To that end, they had erected a fence across the neck of the area where the circular part of the canyon opened into the curving “stem” of the gourd, leading out to the valley beyond. It had served the criminals well for over a year now. In that entire time, only one person had stumbled upon their hiding place, an old prospector in search of the always elusive gold strike. Ma Fenwick herself had gunned him down and told the others that his disappearance would be in keeping with the legend.
When the group arrived, they left their horses tied in the valley and stealthily made their way down the quarter-mile bowed ravine. They took refuge behind a group of large boulders that had long ago broken off from one side of the chasm and toppled to the floor.
Honor Elizabeth shared Catalina’s joy at the sight of about a dozen men in their bedrolls. They had set up their impromptu camp just before the fifty-foot fence that separated the main canyon from the gully. That had delighted Catalina, as it would absolutely play into her plan perfectly.
Still, their happiness was tempered when they spied one man sitting against the wheel of a Conestoga wagon. In the starlight, they could just make out the long shape of what had to be a rifle draped across his lap. Carver asked if the man was sleeping, but neither of the sisters could say for sure. A second sentry was certainly awake, as he was making rounds, his rifle held in his hands with purpose.
Taking no chances Foster might cry out, they gagged the man, Honor Elizabeth berating herself for not thinking of that sooner. Once that danger was resolved, they watched the man for a good half hour. His circuit was always the same. He would walk past the fence, loop back around, circle the group and then repeat. However, twice in his rotation, he would stop by the covered wagon and smoke a cigarette. The two Wildes agreed that the man’s tobacco habit would give them the window they needed and they just hoped he wasn’t about to run out.
There was no discussion as to who was going to have to undertake the riskiest part of the plan. Honor knew that Cattie was still blaming herself for their predicament and no amount of arguing would ever persuade her sister to let her make the climb. Truthfully, Catalina was also far more agile, so that was another consideration, but Honor Elizabeth appreciated that Catalina did not come out and say that. Staying behind, though, Honor knew that would leave her fraught with worry.
Both sisters recognized that there was good reason for apprehension. Such a climb would be difficult and dangerous even in the daylight, let alone having to carry it out depending on only the moon and the stars for illumination. However, they accepted the fact that it was what had to be done and quickly because on the eastern horizon, they could just make out a subtle difference in the pitch-black sky.
Catalina took her hand and gave it a squeeze of encouragement as if Honor Elizabeth was to be the one to make the ascent. With that, the young half-Mexican inhaled a deep breath and found her first hand hold on the wall and began to climb in the attempt to skirt above the sleeping men and reach their fence.
***
The threat of dawn had not been lost on Catalina and she breathed a sigh of relief as her boots once more touched down onto good old Mother Earth. For a moment, she looked back up at the way she had come, the black of the rock now clearly distinguished from that of the night sky. What a traverse it had been!
Catalina had climbed before in the nearby Comanche Canyon by the ranch. But with her time constraints and everyone depending on her, she wished that they could have simply rushed in, guns blazing, but the arduous climb had been their best bet and now, hopefully, it would pay off.
A short way into her efforts, her arms had already begun feeling the pressure. She had looked down and saw that she was still close enough to where she could just jump down and confer with Honor to re-think their plans. Knowing there were no better options, she had looked up, spying the edges above her and figuring if she got going, she could power through it.
She had bowed her head before continuing and thought to herself, I double dog dare you to go and quit now!
Catalina had raised her right hand, grabbing what was available, slowly taking one move at a time. Despite the coolness of the early morning, she had found herself sweating as if it was going out of style. A glance downward had told her she was about twenty feet up.
Her breath had started to shorten and she had wished to remain quiet and not make any noise. However, she had known from fighting and training all those years, that not breathing meant no oxygen to the muscles. A light head had assailed her on the cliff side and her attempt to counter it was to breathe slowly. Catalina had had to remind herself that nobody was near her to hear her breathe as if she was out of shape.
Catalina
had expelled a huge breath, quickly inhaling another and while doing so, she turned her gaze to above her. Though the sky was noticeably lighter, it was still dark enough to make it hard to see what she wanted to see, but at last, she had seen what she had been looking for. Quickly, she had made her way up onto a ledge she had sought out to rest and find a game plan for the rest of her climb. She had leaned against the rock. Her hands and feet barely fit on the ledge she was on, and both arms had been spread out and pressed against the mountain side.
She had made a quick study of the area to her left and spotted a couple of strong rocks she could advance to. The young woman had slowly slid her feet against the make-shift platform, and then brought her back leg first, so she could swing her body around and change positions. She had accomplished all of that in one motion, very elegant, and before she knew it, her face rested against the mountainside. Cautiously, she had begun to move horizontally towards the spot on the canyon wall that would put her near where the Fenwicks’ durable looking fence met the canyon’s stone wall.
Midway to her destination, she had felt things were looking fairly good and stopped to rest. In the faint light, she had seen there were not a lot of hand holds, so she estimated she would have to go up about another ten more feet to start inching her way along again, where more were prevalent. While she had rested, she used it as an opportunity to look down to take note of where her enemies were. She saw the outline of the sentry, but she also noticed the fading blackness in the eastern sky meant the sun was ever nearing its goal to burst above the horizon across the flat plain that she could see beyond the opposite canyon wall that was much lower than the one she had been traversing.
Clearly, she had thought she needed to get down to the fence, take care of business and get back to the others before the sun won their race and she was spotlighted against the canyon wall as the main attraction. After shaking her arms and taking deep breaths, she scaled the ten feet and had begun moving again. It had not been long before she came to a tree that had seen better days, improbably jutting out of the side of the canyon wall, some of its roots exposed.
She had inched her way towards it until she had been able to grab one of the roots and bring herself to rest once more. Catalina experienced a touch of pride as she had hung there seeing she was twenty feet or so from the point where she could begin her descent. Looking down, she saw that her position was above where some of the rustlers slept. She then had leaned back over the sure to be lethal fifty-foot drop to the ground and surveyed the path ahead.
Excitement had mushroomed inside of her as she spied a series of rocks that would make excellent handholds to make her way down and put her close to the fence, she just needed to cross that last twenty. Catalina had swung herself back in from the void, placing her head very near to the exposed roots she had been clinging to when her senses detected movement.
The woman had been unsure what it was, so she had concentrated on the roots and brought her face closer, her eyes searching. That was when she had felt something on her right hand—nothing less than a palm-sized scorpion crawling towards her sleeve. Catalina Wilde was as tough as they came, but insects and creepy crawly things, in general, was a weakness that got to her every time.
Without thinking, she nearly let out a girlish scream. Her body shook from almost making a disastrous mistake. Swallowing her irritation, she shifted her focus to getting rid of the unwanted visitor. Holding on to the roots with her left hand, she had shaken her right arm until the scorpion fell off into space.
The raised hairs on her arms and neck, and the goosebumps that had tickled her spine didn’t have a chance to recede as the scorpion turned out to be just the opening act. She had then looked back into the tree roots, but was unable to see anything, but it was then that she had heard the rattle. Cattie’s eyes had flown wide open and as they did, they locked with another pair, a reptilian pair. The rattling became more intense, freezing Catalina into place, though she had desperately wanted to move, but she was unable to break her gaze from the hypnotic eyes. Finally, her sensible side had reasserted itself.
With a great calculated slowness, she had slowly moved her foot and tried to catch a piece of solid footing so she could move away, but her boot kept missing her step. Suddenly, the standoff came to an abrupt end with a split-second attack, featuring speed she had never seen before. The devilish sound and the venomous teeth had come at her and she had instinctively slammed her eyes shut, but to her surprise, all she had felt was her hat getting pushed off her head, as the snake had struck that instead of her. By chance, a fierce gust of wind blew along the canyon walls a second later.
In an impulsive move that now terrified her in retrospect, she quickly moved away from the root and even made a jump in the wind towards what appeared to be a fairly good handhold. Luck was with her, and her fingers had slipped once before gripping a lower handhold than the one she had aimed for, and she was safe again against the side of the canyon wall.
With the threat of the snake now ended, for a long moment, she had started laughing to herself, fighting not to unleash the sound of her mirth into the dawn. Now this, she thought, was going to make a hell of an entry into her journal. Quickly, she scampered to a good-sized ledge over where she would make her climb down. Turning to look out over The Gourd, she had been astonished by what she saw in the increasing light.
The wind was still swirling about, but was slowly dying out. But it had been strong enough to keep her hat aloft, blowing about over the sleeping men’s heads. In horror, she had watched as the dying wind began carrying it towards where the man dozed against the wagon, at last dropping to the ground close by. Making matters worse, she saw that it had fallen in the path of the approaching sentry.
It had been a miracle that he had his head hunched over lighting a cigarette for a much-needed smoke when the hat had fallen from the sky, but there was no way he was going to miss it if he kept on his path. She had checked her face and head again, still amazed at having avoided the bite, before she returned her attention back to her hat that was right in his pathway. Catalina had plastered her body flat and watched the man, hurling insults at herself for not taking it off in the first place. Cass would have declared that an amateur move and Catalina would not have disagreed with her. Still, it had proved to be a good target for the rattler.
The sentry had taken a deep drag on his smoke as he came upon on his sleeping compadre. He held the cigarette in his left hand and had his right gripped on his rifle as he walked up towards his fellow outlaw. As she had been certain he would, the man had looked down and spied the hat, snatching it up. Catalina could still hear the words in her head.
“What the hell?”
The man had looked at his sleeping friend and a moment later, it appeared he had been raising his head to look up at the canyon wall when his friend had stirred. The sentry had returned his attention to him and had softly kicked him.
“Hey wake up. This your hat?” he asked as he kicked his compatriot a few more times.
The man rolled, trying to get away from the kicking boot.
“Hey!” The man had finally pried opened his eyes and looked at the sentry in anger. “Look here, you wake me up again, I’m going to get up and slap the white off your teeth.”
The sentry almost laughed, especially since the man who had just threatened him was much smaller.
“I’d like to see you try. Now, is this here your hat?”
The groggy half-awake man had touched his head before his eyes fell closed again and did not reopen.
“Yeah, that’s my hat. Now let me sleep, boy!”
The sentry had thrown Catalina’s hat on the sleeping man and strode off to continue his patrol, angrily muttering something about idiots who slept too much.
“Looks like a bitch’s hat to me. You wouldn’t catch me wearin’ one like that.”
Catalina watched as the man continued on his way. She wondered just how many bullets she was going to have to dodge that night. She waited
until his loop brought him directly under her, and then started leading him back towards the wagon. That was when she, at last, had made the climb downward.
Once relatively safe on the ground with her back pressed against the canyon wall, she waited for Honor’s signal. The sentry was about due for his nicotine fix, but if for some reason he failed to stop by the wagon and have his smoke, she had to be prepared to scramble back up the wall and wait for him to make another pass.
That was not an outcome she wished to see play out. The man’s patrolling could best be described as ambling. With each passing moment of night seeping away, she feared she would be easily spotted clinging to the wall. Her eyes traveled across to where the sleeping outlaws laid and looked at the silhouette of the Conestoga. A cluster of boulders hid everything but the canvas canopy of the wagon. The man’s path took him behind a large house-sized boulder jutting from the canyon floor. If he kept to his routine, he should shortly emerge and head to the wagon. From her angle, however, she could not see what was going on by the wagon. Was the man approaching it? Was he already there?
Catalina snorted with laughter mixed with relief when she heard Honor Elizabeth’s feeble attempt to mimic the cry of Whippoorwill. Oh, how she was going to tease her when all this was over, but all that mattered at this second was that had been the signal she was waiting for, signifying the sentry’s halt in his patrol to enjoy some fine Virginia tobacco.
She sprang forward instantly and made her way to the fence. When it had been constructed, it was clear the Fenwicks had put some serious effort into making a sturdy structure that could withstand the sudden charging of a herd. However, any fence in the world was only as strong as its gates and Catalina went to work.
***
By the time she made the return climb back to where she started, the sky had transformed from black to a canopy of ever lightening blue. The Gourd seemed bathed in a curious half-light. The sentry had ceased his patrol and was using his hat to swat his less diligent partner leaning against the wagon wheel. The man rose and stretched.
Wilde-Fire: Wonder Women 0f The Old West (Half Breed Haven Book 1) Page 29
