Instead, DeVries was fixated on the fruition of his revenge plan. In a matter of moments, they would be at the cabin, and then the fun would truly begin. The fearsome Stalking Wolf had served Black Hawk faithfully for nearly half a decade now, and the renegade chief had granted him a great boon. Black Hawk was content in having only Cassandra, and Lijuan Wilde delivered to him. DeVries wasn't sure if he should ask why but the curiosity got the better of him, and so he had.
As Whip's eldest child the chief placed a higher value on Cassandra and as for Lijuan he said was known to be the most ferocious of the sisters. He intended to enjoy great satisfaction breaking the two with all manners of torture to the point where they would be so broken that he would falsely promise to spare one of them. The condition would be that he would force them to fight to the death and whoever won would be led to believe they would be allowed to live.
DeVries said nothing about this plan. It was not his place to tell the Omega chief he was underestimating the women and one would never kill the other for a chance to live. The warrior's hatred of this family went back nearly two decades, and yet it seemed to DeVries as he didn't really know them. Pushing such thoughts aside he was happy that as a reward for Stalking Wolf's service the black and Latina woman was to be Stalking Wolf's to do with as he pleased. Nursing some old grudge against one of the two brothers in the Wilde family Stalking Wolf decided it would give the cavalry officer great pain to know two of his sisters had been burned alive at the stake. This pleased DeVries because he would be fortunate enough to bear witness to it as the plan was to immediately kill the pair when they arrived at the cabin and make Cassandra and Lijuan watch.
This was truly cause to celebrate. Everything was unfolding to the plan. The four bitches had ruined his life. Yes, what he had done was wrong, but no one had physically been hurt by it. He had grown up the son of a poor dirt farmer in Illinois, and by god, he had made something of his life at the company, and it had all been undone by the Wildes.
To DeVries, his crimes surely didn't warrant the lengthy sentence that had been handed down to him. DeVries had no proof, but he was confident that the judge was likely a friend or acquaintance of their father Judge Wilde and at the sister's urging, probably spearheaded by that treacherous chink, Wilde may have asked for a favor in getting him a lengthy sentence. Were it not for the Omegas he would at this very moment be doing back-breaking work on a road gang or worse being raped by a filthy cowboy doing time for some violent crime.
At the top of the rise, still smiling, he brought his horse to a stop and looked down at the buckboard and the dead team of horses. On either side of him passing his own men rode Stalking Wolf and Swift Elk, the Indian who had spared him the day of the attack, who came to a stop next to him. Reaching back into his saddlebag he produced a clear glass bottle filled with liquor.
"Friends! I was saving this for the moment of our arrival! It's a special batch, the proof of liquor on this is so high that hell, you could use it to set fire to those half-breeds when you burn ‘em. Yes sir, this is mighty fine stuff. I propose we all have a swig in celebration of what is to come…the death of the Wildes!" he held the bottle up in the air and looked at the warriors next to him, then his men and finally the rest of the band of Omegas. Four of them had traveled on foot because they had been tasked with carrying the two posts with the pointed ends of them that were to be driven into the ground. The two brown-skinned sisters would then be lashed to them and set ablaze.
No one was smiling, not even his men who wisely feared their temporary allies. Both Stalking Wolf and Swift Elk were no strangers to English so when the Omega's second in command spoke; his words came off very clear and very chilling.
"Put your firewater away white man. You think all Indians are stupid enough to fall under its spell. It is a weapon used by you whites, a weapon that will fail against an Omega. I care nothing of your spirits. I only care to see these women die."
Stalking Wolf's eyes were dark and narrow, and DeVries felt his heartbeat quicken. The Indian renegade was a striking man with his long flowing black hair that was as black as his eyes. Beneath his copper skin, his bulging muscles betrayed his strength. Offending such a dangerous man was the last thing he ever wanted to do. Quickly he returned the liquor back to his saddlebag.
“Yes, of course. Now to the business at hand!” he called out forcing merriment back in his voice as he jerked his mount’s rein and dug in with his spurs beginning to make his way down the incline. Returning to his silence Stalking Wolf followed, shadowed by Swift Elk with the others close behind.
Soon they were passing the Wilde's buckboard and the grim sight of the flies already gathering over the fallen black and white team. Cord Stevens paid the view of the carnage no mind, but suddenly his eyes narrowed. On the ground where earlier they had left the personalized weapons of the Wilde sisters, the ground was empty. He turned his head to call out to Cafferty who rode in front of him when suddenly his horse collided with Cafferty's. Startled Cord looked up and saw that four riders in front of him had unexpectedly come to a complete halt and were staring ahead at the cabin beyond the gully.
"Jesus H. Christ!" he heard Cafferty spit out between clenched teeth. This caught Cord's attention. He had no problem killing a man in cold blood but he and Bull's late mama, god rest her soul, had always taught them not to take the Lord's name in vain.
All that was forgotten as Cafferty and DeVries simultaneously yanked on their reins drawing their mounts aside parting a clear view. Ahead a large body lay on its back. Cord swallowed deep, his eyes blinking faster than he thought possible as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. A second later he was bolting between the two Indians and the two white men and was at his brother’s side.
Slowly he rode circles around the corpse as the others slowly trotted forward and dismounted, picketing their horses at the side of the cabin. As he climbed down from his horse and stood over his brother, he barely heard the sound of the braves dropping the stakes by the small stream leading over the edge of the cliff. His brother was dead. His partner and last remaining relative in his entire world lay with a bloody, savaged hole where his heart should be. In astonished wonder, his eyes fell on something that looked like a spear. Its tip was bloody, and tissue clung to it, Bull's tissue. With that Cord Stevens dropped to his knees in the mud and let out an anguished cry.
With a stone face and impassive eyes, Stalking Wolf turned and looked at the open door to the cabin.
“Gone.”
“No, no! This can’t be!” Cafferty called out as he and J.J. ran through the open door. A few moments later they returned with slumped shoulders holding up the ropes that had bound the sisters. “God, dang it! How can this be?!” Cafferty said as he angrily threw the ropes down into a puddle.
"They're the god damn Wildes! That's how!" DeVries cried out angrily as he watched Stalking Wolf say something in his language. A moment later a brave went to one of their horses and retrieved a small shovel that he been tied in place. Beads of sweat broke out on DeVries forehead, and his hands turned clammy as he watched the brave commence digging a hole alongside the stream. Two more of the braves who had carried the sacrificial post reached down and brought it up vertically in anticipation of planting it in the finished hole.
“What…what’s going on here?” DeVries said slowly.
Suddenly, Swift Elk was at his side, the knife he wore at his side no longer in its sheath but the flat of its blade pressed against DeVries neck. The young warrior began shouting at him, the two braids shaking as they hung from his head.
"I spare you! I make deal on your behalf! I bring this to plan to Stalking Wolf, and I bring him all the way here and what is there to show for it, white man? Some pistols and one worthless dead white eye!"
"That's my brother you're talking about you red devil!" Cord shouted suddenly leaping to his feet. His sorrow and anger needed to be channeled somewhere, but a second later he discovered he had chosen unwisely as Swift Elk's blade was
no longer pressed against DeVries neck but instead was flying through the air. Its momentum stopped only as it entered Cord's right eye and buried itself deep in his brain.
DeVries face turned ashen, and his knees suddenly felt as if they were made of the rubber that Goodyear fellow back east had come up with. He lowered his voice to a whisper.
"Now listen. I want them sisters just as dead as you all do." Swift Elk didn't answer, instead with both of his hands-free he now grabbed DeVries's arms and pinned them behind his back. Trembling he saw the Braves had one pole mounted and were busy digging the hole for the second.
"Two bodies were to burn this day. Two bodies now will burn!" Swift Elk shouted. Cafferty and Jefferies went for their guns, but they didn't even get their hands to the handles when two of the Omega braves raised their bows and aimed directly at them. The two men eased their hands away from their guns.
“Now look here!” Cafferty called out. “Them bitches couldn’t have gone too far! You Omegas are trackers, right? Shouldn’t take too much to find them, round them up and get them back here to burn two of them and turn the ones you want over to your leader!”
For a moment Stalking Wolf and Swift Elk looked at each other, apparently in consideration of Cafferty's proposal. DeVries looked on with pleading eyes trembling as he awaited their decision. Stalking Wolf opened his mouth to say something when suddenly the sound of a shot rang out. Its echo was reverberating away as all eyes turned back the way they had come.
To the right of the gully that held the buckboard, there was the other gully, a much steeper and rockier ravine that the stream wound its way down from before eventually reaching the flat land by the cabin before ultimately plummeting over the edge of the cliff. In the distance near the top of the gorge, a small figure of a woman could be seen. A second later more gunshots rang out, fired by the distant blond-haired woman.
"Come on! We can do this! They’re still nearby!" Cafferty shouted jumping over the bodies of the Stevens brothers and charging towards the ravine, followed by Jefferies, both with their guns now drawn. Stalking Wolf nodded and the entirety of his war party, six braves, save for he and Swift Elk followed the outlaws in their charge up the gully.
Slowly, Swift Elk released his grip on DeVries and released the man but turned to him, a cold smile on his lips. "You had best pray to your god that the Wildes are recaptured.” The warrior's mocking smile faded as Stalking Wolf placed his hand on Swift Elk's shoulder.
"And it is you brother who should pray to the Great Spirit that they are as well. Should I have to journey to our camp with news that we have failed to bring Black Hawk his most hated enemies and beg his forgiveness…I will be going back alone."
Swift Elk could only avert his eyes and lower his head in understanding. Failure meant he would never see the rest of the Omegas again, including his beloved Meadow Flower. Behind him, he did not see DeVries body shaking in terror as he watched the posse of men, white and red, racing up the steep gorge.
DeVries knew the Wildes, and he knew they would not have hung around without a reason, much less draw the attention of the Omegas if they were not up to something. Something deadly. These women were unlike any other in the territory. Elanie had told him several stories as they had l laid in bed together. One particularly fantastical one in his mind was how they had managed to kill or capture an entire gang of bank robbers while a ghost town deep in the Hell's Kitchen desert burned down around them.
Whatever they were doing he found himself dumbfounded to realize he now had to root for the sisters. If they were planning to eliminate the Omegas that would leave only the two with him. They both were stone cold killers, but perhaps he could escape them. His eyes casually went to where they had all tied their horses at a hitching post that ran along the side of the cabin. If there were a distraction how quickly could he untie his horse and flee from the savages? He did not know but one thing was certain, his life might depend on it.
***
High up in the gully Cassandra watched with a broad smile on her face. Their foes had taken the bait and were running directly into her clever and inventive trap. She fired another shot or two, but she wasn't really aiming because at the distance the men were still far from her she knew there was no chance at hitting them, but she wanted to keep the illusion up.
For what seemed like the hundredth time she looked down at the long rope they had found in a small shed near the cabin. It had been perfect for the plan that she had come up with. One end of the rope was tied securely around her waist, and her eyes followed it as it rose high into the air slung over a tree limb that jutted out over the gorge. The other end trailed down to the base of the mighty tree where Honor Elizabeth and Catalina each held it in their grip, looking at her with anxious eyes.
Cassie gave them a reassuring nod and turned to look behind her. She was standing below the beaver dam and about thirty feet away from it on a flat rock that jutted out of the flowing water. Her eyes traveled up to the right, and she saw Lijuan standing near the edge of the dam next to the totem rock. Her sister gave her a nod that all was ready, and Cassandra returned her signal.
She then turned her gaze back to the gully. The men were near now, and the outlaws were firing at her, but they were still out of range but would not be for long. Several arrows also were careening through the air. They completed their arcs and began to fall earthward striking the water not far in front of the boulder she stood on. In less than a minute they would be in range, and she would feel either their lead or the piercing of the Omega's arrows. Cassandra turned towards the dam again for a final time and shoved one of her guns back into her holster and raised her right hand to the side of her mouth.
“Now, Lijuan! Now!”
Above and about twenty feet from where the tall totem rock rested on the smaller boulder, Lijuan looked at the trail of black powder that lead to where they dumped the bulk of the can she had purchased for Dutch's bullet making hobby. Taking one of the Lucifers the late Bull Stevens had used to light his fine Virginia tobacco, Lijuan casually struck it to life and lit the end of the black powder trail before scrambling backward.
Below in the ravine, Cafferty and the others stopped in their tracks and looked up stunned at the sound of an explosion. They had finally reached high enough in the rocky gully to see that it ended at some sort of beaver dam behind where Cassandra Wilde had been firing at them. To the right, a towering vertical rock was being enveloped in a mushroom of smoke that roiled upwards into the sky.
They heard the blonde Wilde sister cheer as she too was looking up at the rock. The smoke had now ascended into the sky, and the men watched as the boulder teetered for a brief moment and then stopped moving. Unsure of what the hell was going on Cafferty elected to get back into motion, running in zigzags he began climbing again, followed by the others.
On the level rock and now almost in range, Cassie's cheering had stopped, and she frantically called out. "Lijuan!" No answer. She only took a second to look at the worried faces of her younger sisters by the tree and drew her guns. It seemed like her plan had failed, and she was going to have do this the old-fashioned way…with bullets and not a beaver dam. In earnest, she began firing on the dodging men, but she was completely exposed. If she didn't get them first, she was going to get picked off like she was in one of those carnival shooting galleries that sometimes came to Alamieda.
Up above Lijuan was swearing up a storm in frustration. Cassie's plan had been brilliant, but it seemed the black powder charge hadn't been enough. The small boulder the tall rock sat on was now a spider web of cracks, and a small chunk had blown off it when the black powder had exploded but that had been it. The Wildes had hoped enough damage would have been done to it to set the larger rock in motion. It had a natural lean to it in the direction of the dam below it, and that's the way it should have fallen.
Now everything had failed, and Cassie was in a terrible position below the dam. She yanked out her hammer and threw it in frustration at the smaller roc
k that had foiled everything. He hand was just closing around the butt of Bull's pistol shoved into her waistband when the hammer bounced off the rock with a loud thud, which was promptly followed by the sound of cracking rock.
Lijuan's hands dropped to her sides as she stepped back, wide-eyed her mouth taking a sharp intake of breath. Almost like petals of a flower opening the small boulder that had supported such weight for so many years began to part and suddenly the totem rock was no more as she watched the vertical column plummet into empty air.
Down below Cassie turned as the shots from her attackers suddenly ceased, her hunters watching the same thing she was seeing. With a mighty crash one half of the totem rock impacted with the already inundated beaver dam, shattering it. An immense wave rippled back into the pond which was about to enter its death throes.
As the dam disintegrated Cassie's face was a mixture of pleasure and fear as she shouted to her waiting sisters.
“Girls! Now!”
They didn't need to be told twice. Cassie had done her job staying at the top of the gully as long as she could to ensure that as many of their foes were drawn into it and now it was up to them to get her to safety. Lijuan had been given the duty of destroying the totem rock and they, because of their strength especially Cattie's, had been given the task of seeing their sister to safety once her job was done.
With muscles straining the two young women yanked with all their might on the rope. Cassie gave out a small gasp as she felt herself being jerked upward. She chose not to look at the wall of water that was sweeping in her direction behind her. Instead, she cast her gaze down the gully. As she rose, she saw the Omegas had turned and began a futile flight back down the gulch hoping to achieve the impossible.
One of the outlaws she recalled being named Jefferies began a mad scramble to try and exit the gorge by attempting to go up one of the sides, but it was an effort that stood no chance of success. Cassandra's mouth fell open as she saw one man, the outlaw named Cafferty had not stopped running forward! The man must have known he was dead and was going to try and take Cassandra with him. He stopped and steadied himself and was attempting to target her when the water reached her.
Renegades And Revenge: Daughters 0f HBH (Half Breed Haven Book 8) Page 12