It worked as she hoped; the entangled pair lost their balance and fell backward. As she was going down sweeping past her eyes was the sight of Cassandra being thrown by Doyle who had managed to get a hold on one of her arms and spun her around. The last thing that she saw before she lost sight of her was Cassandra knocking over one of the plush chairs as she collided into it.
As for Rhodes, on instinct, he had let go of her in a futile attempt to regain balance and stop his fall to the floor. Unfortunately for him, there was something between him and the floor…the aquarium. His body slammed against the fish tank, and all three, Rhodes, the tank and the stand it was sitting on completed their journey to the floor accompanied by the sound of breaking glass, snapping of wood and the screams of a grievously injured man.
Catalina had struck the floor of the train as well, and all things considered, it hadn't been as bad a blow as she had been expecting, thanks to the plush carpet that filled the interior. She had landed on her back and quickly sat up and looked over at Rhodes. The man lay dazed amidst the shattered fish tank, copious amounts of blood bubbling out from his neck, from the cut artery he had received when he had the ill luck of having his head land amidst the tank as it shattered.
Around him laying with him in the water from the broken tank were two broken legs from the wooden table and the flopping, suffocating fish but what really caught her eye was her gun had landed next to him. His once sparkling and attractive eyes were now dull, but she thought she saw hatred in them as he went for it. He must have known he was dying but appeared he would content himself with taking her with him.
There was no way she would beat him to it, so Catalina scrambled to her knees and looked for cover. She had landed not far from the great potbellied stove. As the first shot from her Colt rang out, she rolled behind it and shrank herself up into as tiny a ball as possible. She squirmed as a second shot flew by her head, the back of which was pressed up against the stove pipe, barely concealed.
The air around her came alive with bullets a Rhodes fired away blindly in frustration emptying the chamber of the last four of the shots, two of them struck the front of the pot belly stove and ricocheted off. When the shooting stopped, she took in a deep breath and looked around the stove. Rhodes was no longer sitting up but flat on his back now, the spent gun in his hand. She didn't care about him, she was worried about Cassandra, but as it turned out, she needn't be.
Her eyes darted over to where Cassandra was emerging from behind the toppled chair, a six-shooter in hand. Evidently, she had landed next to her gun Doyle had tossed away in his surprise move earlier. The either reckless or crazy Doyle, she couldn't decide which, haphazardly charged at her and the gun bucked in her hand and spat fire. A hail of slugs stormed through the air; perforating his torso in geysers of red, save for the last of the six shots, that one Cassandra easily put through the tarrier's forehead. Doyle twisted hard as he struck the floor and opened sightless eyes to the sky visible through the now destroyed skylight.
“Cass! Cass! Are you alright?!”
Cassandra’s eyes blossomed wide, “Me? Cat look at your arm!”
Catalina looked down, and blood was dripping down in steady droplets, but she shook her head. "Don't worry! It looks worse than it is! I gotta stop Phoebe! She's gettin' away!"
"Okay!" she could tell that Cassie wasn't thrilled with the idea with her wounded, but Phoebe had to be caught, and Cassandra was already scrambling over to Rhodes checking his wounds to see if there was anything that she could do. Pulling out a silk handkerchief that was sticking out of his breast pocket she attempted to staunch the blood.
“If you can’t get Phoebe, I want him alive. He’s the only one that can clear up the murder!”
Catalina gave her head a quick shake in acknowledgment and dashed towards the door quickly unlocking it. Emerging out onto the observation platform she saw a cloud of dust retreating down the canyon, and Doyle's horse that had been tethered outside was no longer present. With the feel of her heart pounding against her chest, Catalina bolted off the platform to make her way around the back of the adjoining railroad car where they had hidden their horses on the far side of the currently unoccupied second car used by the project supervisor that Doyle said was away. Quickly mounting up she was ready to give chase.
“Don’t you worry Cassie! I’ll get her! She’s mine!” she cried as she swept past Rhodes’s car and set out down the canyon. The terrain they were encountering was one strewn with oversized boulders and scrub trees and to her delight that was working in her favor. An eastern girl was going to have a time of it attempting to navigate through such an environment, especially if she was not prone to riding horses.
Sure, enough the distance between the pursued and the pursuer tapered as Catalina chased Phoebe relentlessly as she struggled to dodge around the obstacles that littered the landscape. To Catalina's cheer, she had drawn so close now that she was no longer chasing a plume of dust but through the cloud, she could make out the horse and rider kicking up sand. Her pleasure was short lived when she saw Phoebe take one hand off from one of the reins and reach for something she had jammed near her saddle horn.
The explosive crack of a bullet speeding through the air joined the sound of the pounding hooves of the pair of horses. Catalina jerked Pretty Feet to one side and fell back. Where the heck did she get a gun? She thought when it suddenly dawned on her. Phoebe must have found Cassandra’s pistol that had crashed through the window when she was bolting to commandeer Doyle’s horse.
Now the air hummed with the angry buzz of bullets whizzing back at her as Phoebe emptied the gun hoping for a lucky shot as Catalina could tell she wasn't even trying to target her. When the hammer reached the moment that it fell on the empty cylinder, Phoebe threw the Colt at her in frustration before returning both hands the reins shouting yah!yah!yah! in a desperate bid to coax more speed out of the mare.
With the danger now gone Catalina easily fell back in line with her quarry and used the time to consider her takedown of the woman from back east. She hadn't bothered attempting to reload her pistol back at the train because she had several options open to her, not the least of which was the repeater rifle housed in its scabbard on Pretty Feet's side. Her other choices included a lariat and of course her custom-made bullwhip cinched at her waist.
Immediately she ruled out the rifle, Cassandra wanted this one alive, and she didn't want to risk even shooting to wound Phoebe as anything could go wrong and the woman could wind up dead. Her entire life Catalina had admired her oldest sister, and she didn't want to let her down by having to report back that she accidentally killed the woman. No, she would use the lariat.
She reached down with her hand that was slick with the blood from her arm wound and loosened the coil of rope as she watched Phoebe momentarily disappear as her mad dash to the right of a boulder the size of a small house carried her from view.
As Catalina cut to the right also avoiding the boulder, Phoebe came back into sight. Catalina was practically on top of her, so she slapped her stirrups against the palomino’s side to get a final burst of speed and veered slightly to the left and behind Phoebe. The rope was now in her hand and twirling above her head as Phoebe glanced back over her shoulder and saw her. They were so close she could see the tendons standing out in Phoebe’s neck as she tossed the loop.
"Hell yeah!" she shouted as it dropped around the fleeing woman's shoulders and she yanked back tightening the noose. With a mighty pull, Phoebe came off the horse and smacked to the ground, making two complete spins as she tumbled before coming to a stop.
"Now I bet that hurt!" Catalina heckled gleefully as she brought her horse to a standstill and slid off it. She gave Phoebe an ounce of respect for the fact that the woman was groggily picking herself off the ground instead of being down for the count. "Let me help you!" With a not so gentle tug, Catalina yanked Phoebe to her feet with the lasso.
She stood there; her dress ripped, splotches of red all over her dirty, dusty cl
othing from the cuts she had received in her mad tumble and her grimy hair hung down in front of her eyes. Trying to pull together some shred of dignity she shook her head, clearing the hair from her eyes and glared at Catalina with something akin to pure hatred.
“Amigo, you can drop that evil eye! That’s no way to be lookin’ at the person who just saved your life?”
“Saved my life!” Phoebe barked. “You could have gotten me killed with your little cowgirl stunt!” she finished, rolling her neck and shoulders.
"Now hold on a mite. You just stop and think. What was your plan? It'll be one hundred degrees by afternoon. After you'd come out of this here canyon, there wouldn't be a hint of shade because it opens out onto the Los Mochis Flats! Think about that for a hot minute. You lost in the desert without a lick a water to get you through. I’d lay odds you’d be dead by the second day.”
Phoebe fell silent as the truth swept over her. Catalina could see it in her face the woman hadn’t considered at all the consequences of her flight from the railroad cars.
“I figure you owes me somethin’ fierce. I aint askin’ for much though. I just wanna know why did you do it? Cass and I know he was done murdered. We discovered that Doyle’s story was Grade A bullshit.”
The angry eyes looking at her betrayed a hint of curiosity, and she turned up her sweaty face and looked up at Catalina.
“How did you know?”
"Doyle might not have been able to find that detective's horse, but we did. It must have doubled back, plenty thirsty and found one of the streams running through a ravine. We got there just in time, a mountain lion was about to kill it, but we chased it off. Thing was…" she paused to pull her rifle out of its sheave and took advantage of the one quirk all six of Whip Wilde's children had in common, and that was being ambidextrous. She looped her end of the lariat to her saddle horn and trained the gun on Phoebe.
"Thing was, we scared off that overgrown alley cat. The big cat panicked though and fell into the ravine and ran away. Funny thing about that though it brought a bunch of rocks down along with it. Fallin' rocks, guns blastin' away and that horse didn't even flinch! Cassie and I went down to it, and she unloaded one of her six guns right behind its ears and you know what Phoebe? It still didn't flinch! That horse is stone deaf! Weren't startled by any dynamite goin' off throwin' that feller to his death!"
The slump of Phoebe's shoulders told Catalina that the woman had reached that moment that many of the bad people she and her sister went up against often reach, the realization that she was defeated. Phoebe, however, did something she hadn't expected, she burst into tears. Catalina cocked her rifle as Phoebe suddenly jammed her hand into one of her dress pockets, but she relaxed when she failed to pull out some sort of hidden weapon like a derringer. It was only some kind of wadded-up ball. It looked like telegram paper to her.
"All these years sleeping with that feeble old man just because I wanted something better in my life. But no! That can't happen for me! Bennet's children made my life a living hell when he cut them out of his will in favor of me. They just wouldn't leave me alone. It turns out they had that detective tailing Prescott and me to learn things about us that they shouldn't."
Catalina leaned slightly forward in her saddle, “Like that you’re a cheatin’ trollop?” She didn’t answer but continued sniffling. “Go on now; you might as well let me hear the rest of it.”
A type of lethargy came over Phoebe as her tear-filled eyes now fell half closed as she continued her confession.
"They had us. That detective showed up yesterday afternoon showing us copies of all the proof he had presented to Bennet's kids weeks ago, and he had a document. If I waived all the rights to the Belafonte fortune after Bennet dies, then they wouldn't show him the proof. They would let me live my comfortable life for whatever time Bennet had left," She sniffled deeper now, her face red and blotchy as she said, "and I had to agree to stop sleeping with Prescott as well.”
“So why kill the detective after you signed the document that we found in the saddlebags of his horse?”
“Because fate is cruel, oh, so cruel. Only minutes after I signed it and he left Mister Doyle arrived with an urgent telegram someone from town raced out to us. Bennet died yesterday morning!”
Catalina shook her head as she put away the rifle, it was all clear to her now. Phoebe needn’t have signed that document now that she was entitled to all the old man’s money. The woman could have it all including Prescott Rhodes if the document didn’t’ make it back to the Belafonte family.
“So, you couldn’t let that document leave Arizona or the man who witnessed you signin’ it.” It was a statement, rather than a question.
“Prescott is brilliant! He immediately knew what to do. Many of the miscreants working the railroad are criminals actually trying to make an honest living for once, but a leopard never changes its spots Prescott said. He was aware of rumors that Doyle fled Ireland to avoid a murder charge. Right on the spot, he offered the man a small fortune to see that the detective never made it back and to make it look like an accident. He caught up with the man and took a sledgehammer…a sledgehammer to his head."
At last, she fell silent, but that was fine with Catalina. She had heard enough from this gold digger. "C'mon, its high time I was gettin' you back to the railroad camp."
Phoebe looked up at her, and her voice trembled, "Catalina, Catalina will I hang for this?" She could tell the woman was holding out some hope, even perhaps looking for some signal of sympathy from the young Mexican. She was looking in the wrong place.
“I reckon so Senora. I reckon so.”
***
Catalina and Cassandra were riding at full gallop down the road heading towards the gate to Cedar Ledge. It had been a hectic two hours for them. Catalina had returned Phoebe to the railroad cars, stopping along the way to retrieve her hat along with Cassandra's prized pearl handled, silver-plated Colt .45 which her sister had dropped into the empty holster on the left side of her hip, happy to have the matched set once again.
Once reunited, Phoebe lost her composure for the second time that day when she learned from Cassie that Rhodes had bled out. Catalina wasn’t sure if it was for the loss of her lover or for the fact that she alone was going to be left holding the bag for the murder with all her co-conspirators dead.
They had sent a man from the railroad to fetch the sheriff in Crabwell Junction to take possession of Phoebe and as they waited for him to arrive Cassandra lovingly bandaged Catalina's arm, tending to her wound. When the sheriff came, Cassandra had briefed him on everything, and the pair had set out for home. As they rode away, Catalina had taken a final look at the pathetic figure of Phoebe Belafonte in handcuffs. Such a beautiful woman and such a waste she had thought.
Now as they raced for the ranch, Cassandra looked over at her with a grin. “You know I’ve been holding off asking right?”
“I know!” Catalina laughed, “So go ahead and do it!”
“What the hell were you thinking jumping through that glass skylight? Instead of getting that cut on your arm you could have wound up with a cut like Rhodes got bleeding to death!”
The wind was whipping both women's hair about, and Catalina's laughter carried on that wind. "I was just doin' what you always tell us! Think on your feet. Lucky for you, the end of the rail car you entered in was unlocked but that rascal Doyle must have locked the door behind him at my end when he went in to report to the others. Probably worried someone would walk in while they were schemin’. Too bad for him he didn't think about checkin' the other end of the car."
“The glass Peppercorn! The glass!”
"Like I just said, it was locked, and I was supposed to be there backin' you, up right? Was only way in. Problem was I couldn't get it open all the way from the outside. Jammed my fingers into where it was open a crack but weren't no use. Durn thing wouldn't budge! Then it started goin' to hell below me, so I jumped!"
Cassandra laughed and then looked at her lovingly, �
��And I love you for it! But I sure don’t ever want to see you get hurt on my account, or worse killed.”
"Shucks, Cassie I knew we weren't goin' to die today because if anyone is gonna kill us, it's gonna be Lijuan if we didn't get back in time for this afternoon's little takedown!"
“Speaking of which…do you see what I see?” They both looked ahead and saw Lijuan pacing back and forth in front of the gate. When she spied them, she halted and planted her hands on her hips.
“You ready for gettin’ our ears blistered somethin’ fierce?” Catalina chuckled even as Lijuan began shouting.
“Where the hell have you two been?!”
The pair looked at each other in amusement. Lijuan never disappointed.
CHAPTER 5
Cedar Ledge Ranch
Alamieda
Lijuan Wilde was everything Dixon DeVries wanted at the moment. Her long black hair glinted underneath the rays of the sun. Her lips – the supple soft-looking flesh pursed together as she looked behind her shoulder at him seductively. She excited him. The idea that they were about to spend a pleasure filled interlude together numbed any other thought in his head. All he could think about was her tender naked body underneath him as he rammed into her passionately. DeVries, however, had no idea he was falling into a well-planned trap that was set and waiting for him.
She was leading him slowly towards an old water tower on a sloping hill not far from her family home, the grand Cedar Ledge Ranch. The woman had told him earlier that as a child she did not get along with her older sister, so she had begged her father to let her set up a clubhouse of sorts in a water tower abandoned when the underground aquifer had been cut off. It had been one of the many consequences of an underground earthquake that included the collapse of a quarter mile section of the nearby Comanche Canyon.
Renegades And Revenge: Daughters 0f HBH (Half Breed Haven Book 8) Page 4