The pair strode into the center of the sleeping men. They would be rousting them momentarily to prepare to move the herd to the canyon country in Palomino County that Ma Fenwick had spoken of. The time was at hand, the two sisters knew, for the Daughters of Half Breed Haven to do what they did best.
Chet Fenwick had just been shaken awake by Bill Meechum, whom his brother, Donnie had assigned sentry duty along with Rich Powell the night before when he heard a voice shouting his name and that of his brother, Donnie.
Scrambling to his feet, he witnessed his brother, Foster, emerging from behind a cluster of huge boulders by the gully wall and making his way down. He had his hands in the air. That was enough for the other newly roused bandits to shake off their sleepiness and reach for their weapons, be it pistols or rifles.
Once reaching the level ground, Foster came to a halt. As far apart as they were, Chet could just make out what appeared to be dried blood on his brother’s face.
“What’s goin’ on here, Foster?”
“They sent me to tell you that you got to surrender! Come back with them to Cavendish and face the law!”
“Who is they?” Chet asked with snicker.
“The two brown skins we had back at the hideout!”
“The hell kind of joke is that?”
Foster shook his head vigorously.
“No joke! They escaped. Got Ma tied up back at the old hideout! Those witches said that we got a choice; surrender and take our chances with the law or wind up part of the canyon’s legend by never leavin’ here alive!”
Chet looked at the men and the canyon echoed with unrestrained belly laughs.
“The legend is bullshit, and so is this! What’s really going on here?!”
“The Wilde sisters say for us to take some rope and start cutting it into pieces, then we is supposed to tie each other’s hands up! After that, they are gonna lead us back into the valley and wait for some other posse that’s headin’ this way.”
Again, the men roared with laughter at the notion.
“So all of us, over a dozen men strong, are just supposed to give ourselves up to a pair of half-breed bitches?”
The laughter died immediately as they heard Catalina’s voice from behind the boulders.
“That’s right! If you want to live!” She said in a warning voice.
Honor added her own notice as well, “Last chance to surrender or assuredly court your own destruction!”
“What you talkin’ about?” Chet asked
Foster, still fearful from his previous experience said.
“You best listen to them, Chet. You’re fixin’ to get us all killed.”
Chet snickered again and ignored his brother.
“Show yourselves, you wenches!” He said out loud.
From behind the boulders, Catalina and Honor Elizabeth exchanged grins.
Catalina murmured to her sister. “I thought he would never ask.”
Carver put a staying hand on her arm. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“It will be fine. Just remember to duck quickly and stand ready!” Honor said with a determined smile.
The trio suddenly leapt up from where they were crouched behind one of the boulders. The outlaw’s head whipped in their direction as he screamed at the top of his voice, “Blast them!!!”
The command came too late, as the three were already ducking down as a barrage of gunfire shattered the calmness of the emerging dawn.
“Just like I knew they would! Now you two!” Catalina said.
With their guns, straight up into the air, they unleashed their own volley, adding to the cacophony of the outlaws’ gunfire. Like music to her ears, Catalina heard the first plaintive cry of a frightened steer, quickly followed by a second and third until the cries built into a wall of panicked bellows.
By the time the rustler’s guns fell silent, it was too late. A lifetime around cattle had taught Catalina their nature, and she knew what would happen. As she had predicted, they were putting hoofs to dirt and charging. With stone walls jutting around them on what amounted to three sides to the frenzied creatures, there seemed only to be one true direction to go—towards the fence that stretched across the chasm, the only thing standing between them and the perceived safety that lied beyond it.
The rustled livestock weren’t the only parties in The Gourd awash in the pre-dawn panic. Several of the men were already turning to flee, but one man ran undaunted towards the gate as the cattle charged towards it.
“You durn fools! Don’t be runnin’! I designed this fence! It can take whatever them steers can throw at it!” The man was screaming, but the men ignored him.
He had just reached in front of the gate when he heard Foster Fenwick cry out over his shoulder as he began to run.
“One of them bitches pulled the bolts out of the gates, Rusty!”
To his horror, Rusty turned and saw it was true. The way he had designed the gates, they were locked shut by dropping a six-inch steel bolt into the locking mechanism. Unlike a typical slide bolt that slid horizontally, these pins were dropped in from above.
Rusty’s heart beat like a jack hammer as he also thought how he had designed the gates to swing outward. The bandit never had a chance to even turn and run as the first of the cattle hit the gates and the pair swung violently open.
The left gate hit him straight on, and the force knocked him back, crushing him between the gate and the fence. His ribs were broken, for certain, and one of them had surely punctured one of his lungs. As he writhed in agony in the dirt, fighting for his final breath, his eyes dully saw the body of the herd bolting through the now open gates.
As the cattle began to engulf the hapless rustlers, the once sleepy Rich Powell, who earlier unwittingly claimed Cattie’s hat as his own, was now wide awake and frantically scrambling to get out of the way of death on hooves. He made a frantic leap towards a boulder, hoping to gain safety atop it, but he was too late. A panicking steer veered off in his direction and as it passed over him, he felt the weight of the brown Hereford crush his right foot. He didn’t have time to scream, and his adrenaline became his enemy. The man used his arms to push himself up, and as he stood, he put pressure on his right foot. And then he heard the snapping of his own bones.
The pain shot up straight to his soul as he started to fall back down. Rich looked towards the direction of where Foster had been standing, trying to warn them, but all he saw were the back ends of the steers. He started to crawl, the morning dew mixed with dirt was caking his face. Not far along one of the canyon walls was the enclave holding the horses. If he could avoid more oncoming cattle, he could crawl to a horse and get safely away.
With his plan set, he positioned himself to the right of the gate so the animals coming out were to his left. He had barely started his desperate gambit when he saw a huge longhorn running at full speed; it was the last beast held within the fence. Rich started to look towards the heavens, and then as the steer came to the gate, as if it knew of everything Rich had done in his worthless life, the longhorn stopped and connected eyes with the man.
The bull turned his head towards where all the other herd had gone. Why it paused at the brink of freedom was known only to itself, but seemingly having made its decision, it bolted through the open gate with a ferocity, and it turned towards the terrified Powell. Screaming in agony, he rose to his feet and began to run on his broken foot towards the boulder. A second later, the sensation of flying came over his body as he was borne aloft by the angry bull that had head-butted his body, sending it airborne. Powell made it to the boulder, but not as he intended. His head drove into the side of the rock, snapping his neck instantly.
Watching the man’s death as she peered over the top of the boulders they hid behind, Catalina thought the man’s demise was a mercy compared to the others that had failed to heed their warning. Her eyes shifted to more of the carnage unfolding below, as she listened to the screaming of the men like they were trapped by an Indian tribe, gett
ing slaughtered.
One of the rustlers who had been with the Fenwicks for only a short while ran up next to Chet, seizing his arm, desperate for one of the Fenwicks to save him from this unfolding nightmare. Chet looked at the man, knowing he had been something of a mentor to the younger man in the ways of rustling. In a way, he knew he was as green as some of that posse they had sent to early graves.
“What do we do?” the young man asked desperately.
“Escape. We escape, Benson!” Chet said.
As Chet looked at the young man, he saw a group of steers going wild and running in circles towards their immediate area. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed Benson as a steer broke off from the circle with its horns down, thundering toward the pair. Chet latched onto the man and spun him around in front of him like human shield, just as the animal collided with them.
The momentum pushed both men back, and as Chet looked down, he saw a horn sticking out of the rustler’s stomach. Benson rocked with a pain he’d never known and wasn’t even able to form a scream. Chet quickly let go of the doomed man, and he looked at him eye to eye as he prepared to run in the opposite direction.
“…or I will escape! Sorry, it was either you or me, and it had to be you,” he said to the dying man.
Chet had tripped over a coffee pot, battered beyond any recognizable form almost as soon as he had begun to run, but only managed to get a few scrapes as he pulled himself back on his feet. He looked at the wagon, unsure of if Donnie had made it out, knowing just how much of a deep sleeper he was. Even the loudest of thunderstorms always failed to wake the man.
He bolted towards the wagon and promptly found himself running with the cattle. The wagon loomed with a tantalizing closeness when he collided with two of his men fleeing for their own lives. As Chet fell, he unleashed a string of curses that would have mortified even the most seasoned longshoreman he remembered from his days of visiting whorehouses near the docks in New Orleans. Striking the dusty earth, he found himself face to face with one of the two rustlers who had also tumbled in the collision.
In horror, he saw the rustler was unrecognizable. His eye was missing and Chet saw hoof prints on the man’s face. Chet scrambled back to his feet, resuming his mad dash towards the wagon. Safety beckoned, as well as the chance to save Donnie who he had little doubt was still sound asleep. Two steps and a heartbeat was all he got when a sharp pain exploded in his left shoulder. Jerking his head sideways, he felt himself sway in shock as he saw the point of a horn thrust through his bicep.
He tried to shake his shoulder free, but the pain intensified, and the horn stuck out a little further. That was when he lost his balance and found himself almost hanging from the horn as he started to be dragged like a rag-doll. The steer violently shook its head, and Chet felt each and every movement in undulating waves of agony. Donnie’s wagon before him seemed but a mirage, a dream. Then with one jerk, he was off the horns and in mid-air. He landed behind the stampede, his mind whirling as he fought to gather his wits about him. He almost rejoiced as, though hurting, he had survived. Suddenly, he heard the cry of a voice from a rustler lying next to the wagon.
“Chet! Help!”
Chet turned to see who was calling him. Through his still-addled mind, he thought perhaps it was Donnie awake, after all. He looked over to see more bulls and cows alike that were making their way towards the wagon. God damn, he managed to think, if only we hadn’t rustled so damn many!
By the wagon, the man, sentry Bill Meechum who only, minutes earlier, had been patrolling a peaceful canyon, saw Chet turn to him.
“Chet, over here!”
Then what Meechum saw next was horrifying as a split second later, a horn burst through the Fenwick brother’s chest. The same almighty brown longhorn that had killed Powell, picked Chet up with its horn and shook him brutally. The rustler laid there in shock atop a smaller calf that had been trampled and watched Chet dying a most horrific death. Closing his eyes, he started to pray to a God he knew he’d long turned his back on. Before he could finish, he felt the weight of three cattle land on top of him.
The sentry opened his eyes as he started to suffocate, screaming silently and as his sight was leaving, he saw the animals struggling to get up, and it seemed as if the ones that were on top of him were going through the same suffering he was. A moment later, everything went dark and his last sensation on earth was the taste of tobacco smoke, blood, and fur.
Across the way, Chet was heaved free of the beast’s horn and thrown to the ground, and his last thought was of Ma Fenwick. He, deep down, loved her and loved his family. They might not have been the best, but they were family and he felt at home with them. He closed his eyes and as his life’s blood seeped away from him, his last thought was that he hoped to see them again.
Donnie rolled in his sleep. He could feel the ground shaking, and the calls of the steers finally penetrating through his deep slumber. With effort, he pried his eyes open, knowing something wasn’t right in The Gourd. Within a second of his eyes opening, the world seemed to explode around him.
Outside the wagon, in the mad rush to escape the bottleneck of the canyon, the larger steers with no regard of their trampled brethren, ran over them as if their life depended on it. A small rise of trampled smaller cattle and rustlers alike had formed, creating almost a ramp of sorts, leading up to the side of the wagon. Watching from above, Honor was taken aback. She’d never seen anything like it. As the stampede continued, the cattle charged their way up the makeshift ramp and careened through the canvas canopy of the Conestoga, carrying it away.
In the wagon, Donnie was struggling to stay alive after leaping to his feet. The cattle that had torn off the covering, narrowly missing him, shot off the other side into open air. Some snapped their necks as they hit the ground, but most staggered to their feet and kept running, bellowing madly.
As the beasts continued up the ramp into the wagon, hurtling themselves off the other side, the oldest Fenwick brother found he was able to roll and dodge the juggernauts as if he was doing a side show. He saw what he thought was the last steer blast through. Looking back towards the now empty pen further up the canyon, he didn’t see any heading his way. With his lifesaving jig at an end, he collapsed to his knees and gave thanks to be still alive.
Donnie started to rise once more and as he got up, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Around one of the house-sized boulders in the canyon, the longhorn that was making the rounds of redemption appeared. The behemoth charged up the ramp, heading straight for Donnie. It reached the top of the mountain of the dead and as it jumped, it landed next to him, the bull’s shoulder knocking into him, and he landed in the makeshift bed he was just in. His stunned eyes took in the sight of one of the animal’s horns stuck in one of the sheared off posts that once held the destroyed canopy.
As it struggled mightily to free itself, Donnie felt the wagon began to pivot and tilt underneath him, bending before the dual threats of the longhorn’s power and its weight. Still unable to get itself unstuck, the steer began to panic, thrashing about even more violently. Donnie knew he had only seconds to get out of the way of the bucking animal, but he was too late. A second later, he was hit by the rear legs and when the hooves came down, the left hoof pummeled Donnie’s head.
The first hit didn’t kill him, but he heard the cracking sound of his skull being fractured an instant before the explosion of pain. Donnie, through glassy eyes, watched as the back leg of the longhorn went to the air again, and then as quickly as it went up, it came down, crushing the undamaged portion of Donnie Fenwick’s head as if it was an egg being stepped on by an unaware predator.
In the crescendo of the violence that had swept through the cursed canyon, the longhorn bucked one final time and began to plummet over the side, causing two of the wagon’s wheels to rise in the air. As the steer’s neck snapped, the wagon overturned on its side. Donnie’s body was cast out like a rag doll and laid sprawled on the ground and for a moment, the wagon loo
ked like it would flip all the way over, but it came to a rest at precarious pitch. With its horn, finally having been dislodged from the post, the beast came to rest in a posture of death, lying next to its final victim … its unexplained mission of vengeance complete.
The Wildes had watched it all in silence. They would have preferred to have been able to take the men back to face the law, but they had made their choice. One way or the other, they knew the West always delivered justice. The Fenwicks had received theirs.
Carver climbed atop a nearby boulder that afforded the best view of the entire destruction that just took place and Honor trailed him. He held his hand out for the woman as she made her way up, and Catalina followed. They saw the last of the herd disappear down around the curve in the canyon and looked at each other.
“Excuse my language, ladies, but damn!” Carver muttered.
Catalina and Honor looked at each other and gave each other a knowing look. This man still had no idea what these women had been through, and the language they were used to hearing, a lot of it generally directed at them, but they appreciated the gesture.
“Yeah, well, we gave them a chance to surrender without bloodshed,” Catalina said with a shrug. “It’s more of a chance than they gave those in Cavendish and the Newell’s posse.”
Honor nodded in agreement. “Criminals truly shall never learn.”
Carver nodded too. “Well, I have learned something. You women are the real deal, and I apologize for not believing you.”
“It is not about believing us, Carver. It is more about respecting us,” Honor said.
“Oh, I respect you ladies, and I definitely respect you, Miss Honor Elizabeth. A strong black woman is a thing of beauty,” he said, his thoughts momentarily returning to his beloved mother who had kept him safe as a youngster on the plantation.
Carver took off his hat and bowed his head to the beautiful woman, as Honor playfully slapped at the man, her mocha face flushing slightly.
Wilde-Fire: Wonder Women 0f The Old West (Half Breed Haven Book 1) Page 30
