Taylor had long since brought the stage to a stop as there was no going forward with the forces fighting all around it. From his high position, he had been taking potshots at the Apaches. Mistakenly, he had nearly shot Blue River’s number one man, Running Bear, but at the last second noticed the red bandana and jerked the gun to the left and quite by accident took down the young brave who had earlier captured Bright Feather. Now realizing he could accomplish more with the cannon, the big stage man turned, intent on climbing up to the cannon, but arrows now seemed to be falling everywhere around him. A tomahawk even buried itself in the seat where Carnahan had been sitting. Not wishing to make an easy target, he had no choice but to leap down into the throng of men and begin firing at any Apache he could see.
Nearby, the sheriff’s horse reared, causing the lawman to miss the shot he was taking at a brave charging towards him on horseback. As his horse’s front legs hit the ground, the brave jumped from his mount and tackled the sheriff off his roan, both crashing to the hard, dusty ground.
The Apache chief, a few feet away, had just finished felling a man with a rifle blast when he saw the unguarded roof of the stagecoach with the powerful fire stick. Aware of the deadly white man’s weapon, he wanted control of it. Whoever had the cannon, had the upper hand. He knew he didn’t know how the weapon worked, but if an ignorant white eye could figure it out, he should have no problem. As if in confirmation of what he must do, he quickly scanned the battlefield and to his dismay, he saw his men were now few and they were losing the battle. That sealed his decision to go for the stage and its cannon.
As he was about to run towards it, he saw a lone rider appear through the dust. Charging towards him was a curvaceous Mexican woman, looking like the death rider he saw in his visions long ago that he believed heralded his death. Her black hair looked as if it was a shadow waving in the air. The mesmerized chief locked onto her as if her beauty could almost cause a trance, temporarily forgetting about his quest for the white man's weapon.
Meanwhile, as the sheriff grappled with the brave that had knocked him from his horse, Taylor dispatched the Apache with a blast of his pistol. The sheriff climbed to his feet and quickly shook the man’s hand as they turned and looked at the battlefield around them and saw there was just a couple scattered braves and the posse was finishing them off. Taylor, from his end, briefly looked back at the stagecoach and suddenly saw the tall, statue-like figure of the chief standing, god-like against the backdrop of the canyon.
Hurriedly he exclaimed, “The stagecoach!”
The scream from the stage man shook the chief out of his trance. The red man decided the battle was lost, but he knew he could do a lot of damage to the posse with their own weapon. He threw the rifle away and bolted the rest of the way to the coach and climbed aboard.
Now only feet away from the stage, Catalina saw his plan in an instant. She spurred her horse so she could stop him before he could seize control of the cannon. As she pulled up next to it, she leaped onto the back of the coach and scrambled up. Now face to face with him, the cannon rested between them. Also, on the roof, she spied the unconscious Carnahan bleeding, but his six-shooter was still in his hand.
However, the wounded man wasn't the only person with something in his hand. The chief clutched the tomahawk he had snatched from the bench seat as he had scrambled to the rooftop and raised it with a deathly smile on his face. If this truly was his vision come to life he was going to re-write the ending of it and slay this angel of death. As she watched the malevolent grin blossom on his face, in that instant Benson's words came flooding back to Catalina.
“I was just about to fire the blasted thing when they got me!” she heard him say. With only seconds to spare, Cattie seized ahold of the cannon, swiveled it at the chief and yanked the lanyard.
To anyone watching the gory tableau that unfolded next, they were greeted with the sight of the chief exploding into pieces in a shower of crimson. The shell punched straight through his body but didn’t stop there. It continued its trajectory and subsequently exploded against the canyon wall.
Even Catalina was shocked and knew the image would probably haunt her the rest of her life. She could only stand there with the chief’s blood dripping off her, in mute astonishment of something she herself had done. Taylor cheering her at the top of his lungs was the thing that brought her back into the present, helping her mind to focus on what was important.
“Help me get your man down, and then we’ve got to get this thing moving, Taylor!” Catalina finally screeched.
She made her way down from the stage and yelled again, “My brother and my best friend are still up there somewhere!”
***
Back at his vantage point, Greystone bitterly watched as everything was becoming undone. He turned towards Blue River and bemoaned in anguish, “We’re losing! But I’ll still see you die painfully, Blue River.”
He raced to the tree and began to untie one of the ropes holding one of the horses. Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot being fired close by made him jump with fright.
Swift Eagle’s head exploded as Catalina, on horseback with Carnahan’s pistol still smoking, rode up to where he had been holding Bright Feather. Silent Deer let go of the woman instantly and charged towards Catalina.
She jerked the reins just as he threw his tomahawk. The throw missed her but the spinning weapon carried off the tip of the horse’s ear. The animal instantly jerked in pain, throwing Catalina to the ground where she landed, dazed.
Bright Feather, meanwhile, swiftly pulled a knife from the belt of the dead Swift Eagle and rolled across the ground. She severed the rope just as the horse that Greystone had freed began to charge away, and then did the same to the other binding Blue River’s wrist. She looked up to see that Greystone was hurriedly mounting up on his horse, intent on making an escape from the ashes of his avarice-tainted dreams.
Silent Deer had snatched up his tomahawk as he had raced towards Catalina’s inert form. He raised the weapon over his head, a bloodcurdling war cry belting out from between his lips. Once again, the young Wilde faced death by tomahawk.
“Catalina!” Blue River shouted as he sighted the danger that was about to befall her. His scream drew the attention of Bright Feather, who charged towards Catalina’s direction.
“I’ll save her!” she screamed. “You get Greystone!”
Blue River paused for just a second before he raced off and ran to Catalina’s horse in an attempt to corral it for the pursuit of the fleeing railroad supervisor. It was pacing nearby, shaking its head from the blood dripping from its injured ear. He dashed to grab its reins but it bolted away instead.
Across the way, Bright Feather’s muscular legs catapulted her through the air landing on the back of Silent Deer and grabbed the tomahawk he was awkwardly wielding. His war cry fell silent, replaced by a strangled gurgling as she used the blade to slash across his throat. As he collapsed to the ground in his death throes, the stagecoach suddenly lurched alongside with Taylor at the reins. Pulling it to a stop, he laughed and looked down at Blue River and extended his right hand to him.
“Need a ride, Blue River of the Yavapai?” he inquired smartly.
Blue River grabbed Silent Deer’s tomahawk and accepted the hand up onto the bench seat.
“Taylor! I see any misgivings I may have had about recruiting you were foolish!” Blue River exclaimed with a wide grin on his face.
Taylor promptly responded as well. “Yeah. Well, there was no way I was going to sit this out when you came to town recruiting a posse!” He shared a smile with Blue River as he pressed further. “I’ve got a score to settle with Greystone for trying point a noose in my direction!”
Having a mutual interest, Blue River proposed, "He told me that indeed was his plan! Now, what say we settle this together!"
Once free of their end of the canyon, they followed Greystone who, instead of veering back into the hill country where the encampment had been, veered out onto an open expanse o
f sandy desert. Attempting a crossing without the benefit of a well-worn stagecoach trail was not an insurmountable challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. Still, the difficulty didn't stop the persistent men dogging after their quarry.
They continued to tail Greystone and ensure they didn't lose his tracks for a second. Whether the railroad man had a specific destination in mind or was fleeing blindly they did not know; all that mattered was catching him. As the stage bucked relentlessly along through the sands and rocks, the strength and tenacity of the vehicle were duly tested. Greystone was desperately riding for his safety, but Blue River and his companion were bent on bringing him to justice to pay for what he had done. Though he was far ahead of them and occasionally would vanish from sight, the dust cloud he was kicking up in his wake allowed them never to lose his trail.
“That’s one hell of a fast horse he’s got! My team’s starting to tucker out!” Taylor fretted when at last the frustration of not being able to close the gap began to take its toll. Some moments of silence passed before Blue River suddenly whipped his head around to look behind them. “Damn!”
“Besides not being able to catch this bastard, what’s got your dander up, Blue River?” Taylor asked just as the stagecoach began going up the slope of a rise in the terrain that stretched out before them.
Twisting himself around so that he was on his knees on the bench seat he frowned, “I should have thought of this sooner. The little cannon is slowing us down. We’ve got to lose it!”
He climbed up and used his captured tomahawk to started hacking one of the two ropes that had been used to secure the cannon to the roof on each side of it He moved to steady himself as the coach reached the top of the rise and began to go down the other side. Suddenly, his eyes went wide and he stood up straight on the roof and heard Taylor cursing at what filled both men with dread.
Stretching out before them was a ravine that ran as far as the eye could see in either direction, but the dust cloud from Greystone's horse was veering off to the left and they could see why. To that left lay, a small natural rock bridge connecting both sides of the gorge and nowhere in sight was there another like it. Greystone was heading towards the only means of escape! Perhaps he had known it was there, or maybe he had just gotten damn lucky. The only thing for certain was a horse and rider were going to be able to cross the bridge but not a stagecoach.
Taylor was bellowing now the same thoughts Blue River had, “If he gets across there he’s as good as gone, son!” Already losing hope, the stage operator appeared ready to wave the white flag. “We’ve got to veer off though!” he shouted as he let a cigar he had clenched between his teeth fall away.
Emboldened by a determination to see Greystone pay for the deaths of Carter Burnham and all the others, Blue River had not given up yet as he begun to nurture a plan within him. He instantly yelled at Taylor, “No! Get behind him! We’re picking up speed coming down the hill. We can close in on him! I’ll stop him!”
Surprised by the instruction as he no longer saw any possibility, Taylor shouted in confusion as to how he was going to accomplish that.
“Just do it!” Blue River yelled as he knew they were running out of time.
Taylor shook his head but whipped the reins and as Blue River had predicted, their speed was increasing and they drew up close behind Greystone but he was still tantalizingly out of reach.
“What I wouldn’t give for a fully loaded gun right now!” Taylor wailed, as earlier in the chase, he had given his gun to Blue River in an attempt to wing Greystone and get him to fall off from his horse, but the zigzagging fugitive had managed to evade all the shots.
In turn, Blue River, raised his hopes slightly, “We’ve got something better! You get ready to veer off, Taylor!”
Without another word, Blue River opened the box strapped to the roof with the shells and loaded one into the breach. Memories of the times he helped Whip prepare to fire their cannon at their Fourth of July celebrations flooded over him.
Swiveling the barrel around, he said a silent prayer to the Great Spirit and yanked the lanyard. Seconds later he went from praying to cursing as the shell missed the land bridge he had targeted. He knew it would be near impossible to hit it trying to aim from the top of bucking stagecoach but he had hoped the long shot would pay off. Instead, the shell impacted against the opposite side of the ravine below and to the left of the land bridge.
The explosion thundered up and down the ravine and to Blue River’s unexpected joy, part of the cliff wall gave way, taking the bridge-like formation with it. A great thundering noise drowned out the fading boom from the cannon at the debris splashed into the creek far below. With his avenue of escape reduced to a pile of rubble, Greystone frantically jerked his horse to a stop just before the edge of the abyss in front of him.
Taylor fought to veer the stage away from the same yawning chasm ahead of them. Just as the stage turned, Blue River leaped from the roof at Greystone who bellowed in pain at the collision of their two bodies as he was carried off from his horse. Free of her burden, the mare lost little time charging away now that it was riderless.
Along the edge of the ravine with its perilous drop, the two combatants rolled on the ground. Even as they tussled, Blue River watched in horror as the stage swung away from the lip of the gap, tilted and flipped over on its side. The horses frantically tried to pull the dead weight along the edge of the canyon. Unfortunately, as they did so half of the stage teetered out over the ravine.
There was no time to waste if he had any chance of saving Taylor. Blue River snatched up a nearby rock and landed a savage blow across the back of Greystone’s head, knocking him out cold. Springing to his feet, he sprinted after the stage and leaped up on its now horizontal side to find Taylor’s bulk dangling over the ravine, his legs kicking at the empty void below him as he held desperately onto the edge of the vertical bench seat.
“I’ve got you!!” Blue River cried out as his arms snaked down to grasp Taylor’s wrists before he yanked him up. Pausing only long enough to catch their breath before leaping off the stage, the two men went into action to feverishly to disconnect the team of horses from the stage. No sooner had they done that than the team bolted away.
At that moment, the rope Blue River had started hacking earlier, snapped. The cannon, still held by the rope on its left side, fell away and jerked on the stage like an anchor. Accompanying by an ear-splitting grinding sound, the remainder of the stage not teetering out over the edge lurched the rest of the way. With the thundering sound of splintering wood, the destruction of the stagecoach carried up to the ears of the two men who fell back to the ground, exhausted.
Gasping heavily where they laid, Taylor panted, “You know something, Blue River of the Yavapai? You’re alright. You got my thanks.”
Blue River only nodded to the compliments.
Reaching into his breast pocket, Taylor continued, “You know something else?” he asked as he pulled out another cigar and lit it.
“Yes?” Blue River murmured.
Taylor, puffing on the cigar, said, “It appears Grand Western Railroad owes me a new stagecoach.”
“And a cannon,” Blue River added.
Both men looked at each other and laughed for a long time until Blue River sat up and saw the welcoming sight of Catalina, Bright Feather, and some other members of the eclectic posse, off in the distance riding their way.
A great relief washed over him knowing with certainty they had put a permanent end to the menace that caused the disaster a Devil’s Canyon and all the other mayhem.
EPILOGUE
In the elaborate gazebo that graced the far corner of the well-kept lawn at the rear of the Cedar Ledge ranch house, Cassandra sat in one of the chairs, strumming on her guitar and singing a lovely western melody. On one of the bench seats, Whip sat with Marisol San Cristobel, his friend, and secretary. They had pushed aside the preparation papers they were working on for an upcoming trial to listen to Cassandra sing.
On another bench, Dutch relaxed with his arm around Bright Feather, under the watchful eye of Lijuan, who lounged in another chair with her cat Mister Muffins on her lap. The big tabby purred away as Lijuan dutifully stroked his head. Also, seated in the gazebo was Catalina and Honor Elizabeth. Honor was busy twisting Catalina's hair into two braids on each side of her head at Catalina's request. She wanted to try a new look as she was about to pay a call on a woman in a nearby valley named Nanna Bergendahl.
Catalina had recently befriended Nanna on one of her adventures. For now, they remained friends, but if Catalina had her way, their relationship would be heading in a much more exciting direction.
Cassandra stopped playing as Blue River approached them. He had a solemn look on his face and he held a letter. Setting the guitar aside she looked up at him, “Hey, baby brother, is everything alright?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “It’s just I finally heard back from Sadie Greystone.”
“Who’s that?” Honor asked curiously as she finished tying off the braid on the left side of Catalina’s head.
Catalina, the only one of the Wildes who had actually met the woman, started to turn her head around to answer, but Honor swiveled her sister’s head back straight.
“Hold still!”
“Sorry, but don’t you remember? She’s the daughter of the scoundrel that caused so much havoc at Devil’s Canyon.”
“Oh, yes, of course. You two did tell us all about her. Apologies; perhaps I am getting too much sun.”
One of Lijuan’s eyebrows instantly arched upward as she stopped her petting, unwilling to let the opportunity go by. “You’re in the gazebo, in the shade, Honor Elizabeth,” she said dryly, enjoying needling Honor Elizabeth as always.
Disaster At Devil's Canyon: Blue River Wilde Western Adventure (Half Breed Haven Book 7) Page 13