River 0f Death: Cassandra Wilde Adult Western (Half Breed Haven Book 13)

by A. M. Van Dorn

  His men who had handled the driving of the white eyes forward on the road from Cabot had arrived only minutes ago with a stage filled with hapless travelers. Soon a final stage coming from the direction of the California border would arrive probably in just a few minutes based on a smoke signal off in the distance his fighters along the road had made to alert him the snare was about to claim its last victim.

  He strode off the back porch, accompanied by two fierce warriors who had stood scowling by his side. Their names were Red Owl and Stalks at Night. They approached a thin, bespectacled man who fidgeted nervously as he stood by his device. A boy somewhere between thirteen years and twenty, Stalking Wolf guessed, stood by as well shifting on his feet nervously. Stalks at Night had done well he thought, for the brave had made the unexpected and fortuitous discovery of the contraption in one of the wagons and had quickly corralled the two that could operate it … the pair standing before them now.

  The tall Indian's head dipped as he looked at the thin man facing him. He nodded his head towards the man's machine. "This … what you white men call … this camera. Is it ready?"

  The man said nothing but shook his head, yes. This pleased Stalking Wolf a great deal. Some Indians feared the camera captured the souls of those whose picture was taken. Stalking Wolf believed in no such fairy tales. This construct was merely another one of the white man's toys, one that would benefit him. He would have the massacre photographed. Pictures would be passed among the victorious Omegas, and others he would find some way to get to the white man and their Great White father and his servants would know the shame of not being able to stop the Omegas.

  “The time comes,” he said to the man. “You will be allowed to live to make the pictures come to life that you now take. Pictures of the death of your fellow white eyes and the victory of the Indian.”

  The man hung his head for a moment and then looked up and swallowed hard. “No, sir, I will not. I’ve set it up. You shall have to figure it out yourself. It’s ready, but God as my witness, I will not make plates of your savagery.”

  Stalking Wolf's eyes narrowed at the mention of the white man's deity. How could this man believe such a spirit existed that would allow him and his fellow travelers to have fallen into their hands. Doubts of late had crept into Stalking Wolf's own soul questioning if there really was a Great Spirit either. How could such a being continually allow for him to fail in the face of that … that family? First, years ago, he had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the pony soldier Lieutenant Wilde who he understood was now a captain. Then, only recently, he had held the officer's sisters in his very grasp, ready to present them to Black Hawk just to have them not only escape but kill all his warriors as well.

  It had brought great shame to him when he had to return to Black Hawk and admit that he had failed. The renegade chief had expressed his disappointment, but he had also sympathized. Their father, the white judge, was his oldest enemy and his offspring, even if some were nothing but squaws, were just as clever and cunning as the old man. That was behind him now. That was defeat … this would be a victory.

  His only regret was when he had learned one of his men had reported Captain Wilde was among troops brought into combat with them far from his own fort far to the southeast. Stalking Wolf would have liked nothing more than to meet him on the field of battle and slay the pony soldier once and for all. However, he could not take the chance of falling in battle when the real goal of the mission was yet to be accomplished.

  Stalking Wolf turned his attention back to the photographer. His hand tightened around his favored weapon, a war club that swung next to his side. He spoke quietly.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  "Yes, yes, I am. You've got all you are going to get out of me, redskin."

  Stalking Wolf looked at the young man and pointed at him. “Who are you?”

  “Billy,” the boy said trembling, “Billy Hays, sir. I am an apprentice with Mister Larch in his photography business. We’re traveling to a place called Los … Angle … let me see how you say it … Los Angeles. We … we are opening up a shop there.”

  The renegade’s eyes shifted between the two.

  “You know how the camera works then?”

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”

  "Then you shall live to see tomorrow so that these … photo … photographs land in the hands of your evil white brothers." His hand released his grip on the war club and let it fall preferring not to taint it with the blood of such an unworthy. Before it even thudded to the ground, he had yanked out a Remington .44 he wore on his belt since the day he had taken it from the body of a blue coat he had slain on the field of battle. With a simple squeeze of the trigger, he shot Larch in the face, right between the eyes snapping the man's glasses in two.

  Billy Hays went white and just stood there hyperventilating; his clothing splashed with his mentor's blood. Shouts and screams went up from the corrals holding the prisoners. One woman, in particular, wailed louder than the rest. Probably his squaw, Stalking Wolf thought, as he snatched up his war club. He ordered Red Owl and Stalks at Night to stand watch over Hays as he reentered the house.

  Inside the station, he opened the door to check on the four special prisoners he had in one of the bedrooms. He stopped for a moment and picked up a knife on the counter and made a quick cut into the object sitting on the window sill that had caught his attention. Scooping up his prize, he proceeded on. The brave watching over them said nothing as Stalking Wolf surveyed them with his eyes. They were not to be touched by anyone. They would be unique gifts to Black Hawk. They were not the real thing, but they would serve as stand-ins. These women would endure a special sort of hell before they died, but he knew Black Hawk would appreciate the symbolism of this token offering.

  All four of them had retreated to the corner in fear. He hadn't bothered having them bound. These weren't the real women he wished to see before him and didn't possess an iota of the threat the genuine Wilde sisters did. Tears streaked the eyes of the blond woman, the Mexican, and the one that was colored like the Buffalo soldiers. The fourth one was an Apache woman by the looks of her. She would have to do. There had been no Chinese among the captives, but this woman was petite and had the same long hair dark hair like the one known as Lijuan. To the woman's credit, she had remained stoic throughout the affair due to her Indian blood he knew, but his praise only went so far. She was the woman of one of the men held out back, and she was sullied. He took a moment to congratulate himself, getting three out of four that resembled the women who had so humiliated him when his plan to capture then had blown up in his face wasn't bad.

  He was about to leave when his eyes fell on the blond woman huddled behind the others, and she was no longer nude like when he had first seen her. The Mexican woman had removed her shirt, revealing her corset and had given it to the blond. His mind traveled back to when they had taken over the station that morning. It had been the first part of his plan before they began to capture the travelers on the road to have the relief station locked down. It was to be the site of the great slaughter after all.

  While his men had formed an unseen perimeter around it, he wished to handle the capture of the workers at the station himself. With stealth that was second nature to him, he had approached the rear of the station. In one hand he held a tomahawk while his prized war club was cinched to his waist as was a pistol jammed into his belt. Gently pushing on the back door, he was pleased that it opened without a sound. He had entered a kitchen that was deserted, but his ears immediately caught sounds coming from a room off the hallway leading out of the kitchen. Drawing near to the door where the sounds were coming from, he found it slightly ajar and peered in. Before him, the nude bodies of the husband and wife station agents romped on the bed, facing away from him.

  Without hesitation, he pushed the door open silently and slipped into the room, noiselessly pushing the door shut behind him before standing motionless near a dresser to one side of the door.
The room was faintly lit, the only sources of light coming from the rays of the morning sun that slithered through the edges of the closed shutters and the candlelight that helped to shimmer a bit of light on the lovers on the bed.

  He held his tomahawk close to his chest and shook his head as the man and woman kept on with their passionate sex, their backs to him, unaware of his presence. The man, a wide-shouldered hairy blonde, held the hands of the woman behind her back while she moaned out in pleasure, obviously gratified by the way he took her from the behind. With a steady rhythm, she had flapped her shapely rear raucously against his thighs, allowing him to penetrate her deeply while he grunted out loud like a satisfied animal.

  Stalking Wolf had been content taking his time before striking; it was what he did best anyway. He stood in the shadows and didn't let his gaze slip from them. From his position beside the door, he could see almost everything. He had noticed the little candle flame jolting intermittently as the nightstand it rested on was jostled by the shaking bed, striking it from the couple's frenzied movements. The walls of the room had echoed with the cries of passion from the man and the woman as he noticed the sweat gleaming from each of their skins. The man increased the pace of his thrusts, obviously losing every shred of control he had. His squaws' breasts had swung from side to side and her head arched backward as he plied her with his rod.

  “More!” he had heard the woman scream. “Damn it, Charles! I can’t breathe!”

  He shook his head. Of course, both were lost in their passion, oblivious that they were really going to lose their breaths for good when the day was over and he was through with them. He had thought it would be so easy if he wished to dispatch them now, the tomahawk could cleave the man’s head in two in a heartbeat and as for the woman, she probably would end her moans with him towering above her ready for the kill with his war club.

  “Oh Anna!”

  She had panted wildly saying that they had to hurry, the first stage would be along in an hour, but he ignored his wife but did appear to quicken his pace further. A new groan echoed from the man, as he had held the woman by her waist and had pushed her face down into a pillow. He adjusted himself, lying equivalently above her and shoving his shaft right back into her.

  “You complete me, woman.” He said. “Damn, if I can’t get enough of you.”

  Were they ever going to end the loving words they probably do not mean, Stalking Wolf thought to himself. The white eyes truly loved nothing but the land they coveted to steal from the Indian. Turning away from such thoughts, from his own experiences with the many squaws that fought amongst themselves to lay with him, he knew their climaxes were getting close. The man was grunting savagely now while the woman's body was shuddering violently beneath him. Her fingers had dug ardently into the edges of the bed while she muffled her cries into the pillow.

  “I am coming!” The man finally yelled.

  “Me too!” she had come her muffled pant.

  Stalking Wolf prepared himself. He had clasped the war club, once having belonged to the now-dead brother of Black Hawk and entrusted to him by the Omega’s leader, in his hands and prepared for the step out of the shadows. The time to do so was now, he had seen enough. With a few simple steps, he was at the edge of the bed and had given the club a mighty swing. The cracking of the man’s ribs was lost in the screams of the man’s wife as he crashed to the floor, and she spun around. As she cringed backward in terror pressing against the headboard of her bed, her hands had been everywhere trying to cover her breasts, but it had been to no avail, they were simply too large. He had looked down and had seen the man was unconscious, passed out by the sudden pain of his shattered ribs. Just like that the station agents, the Hallidays, were his.

  Putting his recollections of the events earlier aside, a moment later Stalking Wolf knew it was time to prepare for the final stage they would be capturing before the slaughter. He raised the slice of pie that he was eating that he had found on the windowsill and held it up as his eyes locked with the tear-stained ones of Anna Halliday.

  “Is good,” he mocked before he turned away to make his way outside. A moment later, he stood on the front porch, and here he crossed his arms as well. A smile ranged from ear to ear as he surveyed the sight of three captured stage coaches, three covered wagons, and a buckboard off to the left. Looking straight ahead, the fast-flowing water of the river traveled ever onward, the sun glinting off it. Finally, his attention turned to the right. There was a large outcropping that formed a bend in the road leading from the California border. In a moment now, the last stage would come around it. He signaled to his squad of braves who stood ready with a mixture of weapons—bows arrows, tomahawks, and even the white man's own guns to secure this last prize. Scattered around, staining the ground red were the bodies of a few men and one woman who had made a valiant attempt to resist capture and had paid for it with their lives. Out of respect, he left them unscalped. The faint sound of hoofbeats traveled to his ear, and he nodded his head up and down in satisfaction.

  It would all be over soon, a great victory. It had not come without a cost, he admitted inwardly. Several braves had been lost with the clashes with the pony soldiers, either killed or captured. He held no fear whatsoever that those taken prisoner would talk under the white man's torture. Only the men, along with him now, his most trusted men, had been given the full scope of the mission. He had also lost two braves to drowning when they had crossed the nearby river. It had been the only way, as their horses could not get down the escarpment, and the braves could not be seen riding up the well-traveled road and lose their element of surprise. Despite whatever losses, they would all be worth it for the humiliation the whites of Arizona would suffer when word spread of their cunning victory.

  The thunder of the horse's hooves grew louder, and he dashed down from the porch, the river disappearing from his view, and out of the mouth of the snug canyon that housed the relief station and raised his club over his head, ready to shout out his demand for surrender when the stage rounded the outcropping. His men also tensed, prepared for their capture, having done so many of them earlier it would be with great ease. The heads of the horses appeared around the bend in the road, and suddenly, Stalking Wolf's world tilted inward.

  A flush swept over his body as his mind reeled trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Shouts from his braves rose into a din. Two of the warriors charged forward to corral the animals … but it was just horses. The Overland Express stage was gone! Regaining his wits, he charged over to where the horses stood, their hoofs occasionally stomping the ground, their heads shaking. Stopping at this station always meant oats and water, and they were ready for it. Stalking Wolf didn't know this and would not have cared if he had. His dark eyes flitted over the horses, noting they still wore their harnesses. All of the other braves that had been expecting to make their final capture drew forward and encircled the horses.

  His bronzed, muscular chest rose and fell with anger. The white man was attempting to bedevil him with this, but why? It made no sense. They should have continued at full speed, right into their trap. He had made sure that his braves made themselves be seen after each attack so going back wouldn't be an option. The stage and its riders could only go forward. There was nowhere else to go … unless, unless …

  Stalking Wolf's head whipped around at that moment at the sound of a frantic cry from the porch of the relief station. It was Stalks at Night frantically shouting his name and pointing in the direction of the river. Pivoting around he could see nothing, as a rocky crest separated the road from the river. His sturdy legs carried him up the incline leading to the station and joined Stalks at Night by his side.

  "My brother, one of the prisoners, tried to escape out of the back of the corral into the canyon. Red Owl was quick with his knife, and he hit him and stopped the white man's flight. I was coming to tell you of this and saw that!" the warrior's arm thrust out, and Stalking Wolf spun around. Being slightly elevated now that he was on the porch,
he was able to have a clear shot of the river again, and what he saw astounded him.

  From upriver bobbing like a cork was a stagecoach being swept along. Its trajectory was anything but smooth as the current whipped it about in the river, drawing near one bank and then being spun around and hurtled towards another. Atop it lay two figures, one had a rifle pointed at the ready and the other held a pistol. The sight was so improbable it seemed like something out of a vision when he took the pipe. This, however, was no peyote-induced hallucination. The white bastards had figured his game and were trying to bypass them and make an audacious escape.

  Suddenly Stalking Wolf began cursing, at himself, for having stood rooted staring at the spectacle for so long when he should be mobilizing his troops! By the time he came flying back down off from the porch shouting for his men to head for the river bank, the gyrating stage had already swept passed the station.

  CHAPTER 19

  Cassandra's gambit was going to either be their salvation or their suicide as Endicott had fumed when she laid down their only chance to escape. Going back would lead them right into their shepherds who were likely on their way to the station to take part in what she had guessed was going to be some sort of spectacular slaughter. Attempting to climb the sheer walls of the Heidelberg Escarpment would end only one of two ways, the group accidentally plunging to their deaths one by one or being picked off by the Omegas like sitting ducks. The river was their only option.

  On her orders, the Endicotts were to free the horses, and Montana was to use an ax carried on the stage for chopping firewood to cut the tongue off the wagon. Once free of that encumberment, they would roll the coach into the water. A frightened Millie had demanded to know why they needed to use the stage and not just swim across. Montana had said Cassandra was right about using the stage, the current in “The Big Deep” was too swift. He was a strong swimmer from his days growing up on the shores of Nova Scotia, but even he knew he couldn't make it the other side.