“No, not at all,” he said giving an almost theatrical gesture with his arm showing her in. He took moment to pull down the shades on both of the double doors before following her.
Sam quickly took his place behind the counter that held the scale for weighing gold. Behind him she saw an old clock on the wall showing how she had missed closing time by only minutes. Next to it hung a pickaxe. Everyone in town knew that Old Man Treadwell purported it belong to James Wilson Marshall whose discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill had unleashed the California gold rush of ’49. Treadwell, also a forty-niner, had said he had bought it directly from a man at Sutter’s Mill. For the price he was asking for it, with no proof of its pedigree whatsoever, she was not surprised that it had been hanging un-purchased in the shop since the first day he had opened his doors. Leaving the wall behind Sam, Lijuan’s eyes traveled around the store. Nothing had changed since the last time she had been in the shop with Honor, Cassandra, and Catalina a few months ago.
At the time, they were cashing in a small amount of gold a man had given Cassandra after she had saved his family from a band of marauders out to jump his claim. It wasn’t even one of Cassandra’s assignments from their uncle, the governor of the territory. She had simply stumbled on it on her way back from a trip to Phoenix. Cassie had tried to refuse, but the man insisted she take the reward. A week later Lijuan had overheard talk of a nice anonymous donation to the orphanage in Carlyle Springs. Lijuan didn’t need to be the detective that Cassie was to know from where it had come.
Her mind returned to the present as she looked about the store. Old Man Treadwell that owned the shop was no fool. To the astute business woman that she was, it was blatantly obvious that assaying was only a side business for Treadwell. The shrewd man knew the money came from outfitting all the dreamers.
Shelf after shelf was filled with everything a would-be gold tycoon would need: panning equipment, expensive pickaxes, canteens, rockers, shovels of every variety, and so much more. She couldn’t help but respect the man, as she knew he had learned the hard way during the California gold rush of 1849 that the majority of the people who went home rich were the merchants. After years of back-breaking labor, Treadwell had thrown down his pick axe and moved to Arizona to open his own shop.
As she approached the counter she knew business was so good that Treadwell was hardly ever at the store anymore, having hired Stinson to run things most of the time. Reaching into her pocket she scooped out a small bag tied shut with twine and dropped it on the counter. One of the clerk’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“That, I would say, is a considerably larger bag than you ladies brought in here the last time.”
Lijuan shrugged before answering him, “You can credit Old Man Garcia for that. He’s one of our biggest customers across the border. Eccentric as hell, though. He sent the payment up for herd of cattle with these gold nuggets. Next time it will be our turn to journey down Mexico way, and he’s going to pay with a saddle bag of cash. He doesn’t believe in bank drafts.”
“Well, I suppose at the end of the day money is money in whatever form,” he said with a small smile while preparing his scale. As he did so, Lijuan’s eyes traveled over the man. He was not the type that usually attracted her, lacking the blonde hair and blue eyes that set her stomach to doing flip flops. However, his shoulders were broad, his chest wide and the fact he cared enough about his appearance to neatly trim his beard and mustache earned him many points in her book. She watched his hands at work placing the nuggets onto the scale quietly beginning to wonder what it would feel like to have them exploring her body.
With a shake of her head she abruptly turned away. This was a business trip, and not one of her pleasure outings. Lijuan let the man go about his business, and she began roaming about the small store looking at the wares. She let out a low whistle in appreciation for the markup Treadwell put on some of the tools. He was charging five dollars for one type of shovel that should cost no more than a dollar at most.
Suddenly her eyes were drawn to a bank of shelves that fell between the doors to the shop and a window looking out on Main Street. There was a row of canteens double the size of a normal one. Catalina, she knew was planning a cattle drive in a few weeks that would take the herd across a good-sized desert. Perhaps the ranch should outfit the men with these large canteens. The Wildes always prided themselves on taking care of those who worked hard for the family.
Crossing over to the shelf she was just reaching for one when the sound of a gunshot rang out from the street. Immediately the canteens were forgotten, and she leaned past the end of the shelf to peer out the window, not even hearing Sam’s utterance of the words, “What the heck?”
Through the panes she was just in time to see the good people of Alamieda scattering in all directions. In the street, either dead or dying, was the old prospector. No, dead for sure, she thought at the sight of the vicious wound to his head. A man in dirty leather duster and a dark hat was just straightening up and placing the roll of bills into one of the pockets and was turning his gaze towards the assayer’s shop. In a heartbeat, his boots were pounding their way in a beeline for the door.
Lijuan rolled her eyes. Fuck! Why couldn’t Alamieda be one of those sleepy and peaceful towns that dotted the Arizona landscape that they often encountered on their cattle drives? She squared her shoulders as she accepted that for one thing Alamieda wasn’t a little town. It was a fair size attracting many due to its unique geographical location. It had been blessed to be situated between rugged mountains, rolling hills and ranchland as well as the forbidding Los Mochis Flats desert.
She just wished it would get a permanent sheriff again, but it seemed like being the sheriff in this town equated to a death sentence. More and more it appeared like the town relied on the Wildes. Cassie might have enjoyed being the unofficial law around town, but Lijuan had a five-hundred-square-mile spread to run, and that was her passion. But there was no use complaining about it … this was happening, and she would have to handle it.
Her stride took her just past the shelf as the door flew open, and the killer stood in the doorway with the door still open. Lijuan was thankful that Sam had pulled the shades down earlier allowing her to remain hidden from view. From her vantage point she could just see the outlaw’s outstretched hand gripping a Smith and Wesson.
“Hands in the air! I’m getting me a two for one special today! That wad of cash I just stole from that old Cactus tells me he just lit out of here after leaving you a mother lode! You wanna live, then you get me that and whatever other gold you got here!”
From where she stood she eyed Sam and she didn’t like the look on his face. It was terror mixed with a defiance. His palms rested on the counter top and she saw his right-hand twitch. With dread, she knew he was likely going to go for the shotgun old man Treadwell was rumored to keep behind the counter. There was no way she knew he would ever be able to draw it out in time without getting shot dead for his attempt. Lijuan planted her feet in a wide stance and prepared to strike just as he heard the bandit cry out having just seen the mound of gold on Sam’s scale.
“Holy shit!”
Whatever he was going to follow it up with died in his throat as Lijuan threw her shoulder against the open door slamming it into the bandit with a bone jarring impact. The gun roared in the man’s hand just as he lost his grip on it and it flew through the air disappearing into a rack of pickaxes that Lijuan knew were chained together on a rack by Treadwell as being the most popular item in the store and most likely to be stolen if the clerk was distracted. The damage was already done, however, as the shot struck the clock on the wall behind the counter launching it free from the wall. Reeling backward at that moment, Sam, unfortunately, was directly underneath it as it struck his head knocking him out cold.
The usually steely Lijuan let a gasp slip from her lips at how quickly the killer was able to leap to his feet. She was still in the middle of drawing her Colt .45 from her holster when he leaped a
t her, seizing an iron grip on her wrist that held the pistol. Lijuan’s eyes locked with that of the robber and she saw his brown irises were surrounded by a spider’s web of redness. She felt her teeth grind together in anger. In her mind, she saw the same type of eyes in a couple of ranch hands she had fired her first year running the ranch. Just like them, this filth was an opium addict. The prospector lay dead in the street no doubt for this man’s quest for his next fix. Worthless son of a bitch!
Worthless or not he was strong, and he managed to slam her wrist against a nearby shelving unit sending her Colt flying through one of the window panes at the front of the shop. Losing one’s pistol might have sent panic coursing through an ordinary person’s body, but not Lijuan. A glow shone in her eyes as she began reaching for her foot-long blacksmith’s hammer that on almost any given day was clipped to the opposite side of her gun belt. It had long been her weapon of choice. Lijuan always preferred using it for swinging it against an enemy. It allowed her to channel the deep anger that held her soul in its grip for so many years now. It was an anger fueled by other emotions that included her deepest and darkest desires.
Lijuan had just felt the familiar and assuring feeling of the wooden shaft of the hammer close within her fingers when the bandit let go of her other wrist and shoved her to the ground. She pulled it free as she was falling and lost her grip on it, and it skidded away somewhere behind her.
She hit the floor with a bone-rattling thud. Weaponless, but far from defenseless Lijuan bounced back to her feet, whirled, and caught her attacker on his left hip with her booted foot. Surprised but better prepared, he sidestepped a jab she threw with her right hand.
He ducked around a free-standing wooden shelving unit that was full of foodstuffs that Old Man Treadwell stocked to sell to the prospectors that patronized his store. Giving it a shove, the shelving teetered and then toppled. He had intended it to fall on Lijuan and crush her beneath its weight. But she was small and quick, and dropped to the floor, while the shelving unit didn’t quite make it to the floor. Its top lodged on a pickle barrel nearby, but the contents of the shelving flew everywhere. Tin cans of sardines, baking powder, ketchup, boxes of spices and oats, and glass bottles of wine and liquor pelted Lijuan as she hovered on the floor.
The glass bottles shattered, spilling their contents. Lijuan grabbed a glass shard to use for a weapon. Scooting out from under the shelving unit and scrambling to her feet, she had to look around to see where her assailant was. He came at her again intending to knock her senseless with one blow. Instead, she lashed out at him using the bit of broken glass and taking advantage of his open duster, to cut a jagged gash in the big man’s chest. Hollering in rage and pain, he lunged, but she was quicker. As she darted out of the way of his swinging fist, she quickly looked around for her hammer.
She danced around the enraged man as he turned this way and that trying to land a direct hit on her but finding it much more difficult than he expected. She finally spotted her hammer near the row of overpriced shovels against the far wall. She assessed the distance she had to cover to retrieve it against the man’s current location and decided that she could make it before he had a chance to realize what she was doing if she distracted him for a few seconds.
Reaching down, she picked up a tin of sardines and hurled it at him. As he was deflecting the flying missile, she dashed over and swooped up her hammer. Just as she straightened up, she saw that he had grabbed the gold scale from the counter and launched it through the air at her. Just in time, she threw the hammer, knocking the scale off its course. As the scale had left his hand, he had already taken a couple of long strides toward the row of pickaxes and was reaching for a one to finish off this little Asian tiger but was frustrated to discover they were chained to the display unit.
Then he spotted a gleam on the floor and realized it was gold that had been scattered when he hastily had snatched the scale to employ as a weapon. As the greedy man bent to snatch up about half dozen gold nuggets that had fallen off the scales, Lijuan grabbed a couple of the canteens and smashed his head between them. Her blow was powerful enough and well-aimed to render him unconscious. He fell backward through the open door.
Seeing her opponent go down, Lijuan rushed behind the counter to check on Sam. She found him trying to open his eyes as he slowly regained consciousness. He moved, trying to raise himself up.
“Just be still a minute, Sam,” Lijuan told him. “I’ll get the doctor.”
As she stood up to go fetch the doctor, her eyes opened wide to see the outlaw coming through the door again, this time with her pistol in his hand. He had come to while she was seeing to Sam, found her gun, and was on his way back in to send Lijuan to her grave.
Lijuan knew there wasn’t any time to try and locate the shot gun she believed was under the counter. In a flash her hand locked onto Treadwell’s prized pickaxe and yanked it from the wall and hurled it at the man. His eyes bugged out and his jaw went slack as the point of the pickaxe sank deep into his chest accompanied by a geyser of blood. The impact of the weapon sent him catapulting back out the door for a second, final time landing him in the street where he hit the dirt and lay still, his dirty grey shirt turning a deep crimson.
Lijuan turned back to Sam and found him sitting up and trying to get to his feet.
“Just help me up,” he said. “I don’t need the doctor.”
She pulled him to his feet and they walked out the door to see a small crowd gathering around the two bodies that lay in the street. A tall, gaunt man with a pencil-thin moustache, wearing a long frock coat and a top hat made his way through the crowd to where Sam and Lijuan stood.
“Hello, Victor,” Sam said. “You know Lijuan Wilde yes?”
“I do know Miss Wilde indeed,” Victor Landon said, smiling. “She and her sisters are very good for my business.” He mused while Lijuan bent over to retrieve her gun from the dead man’s hand.
“Oh, yeah?” Sam queried, one eyebrow raised.
“Certainly, what with me being the town mortician and all. One or the other, or all of them together, seem to be able to eliminate trouble whenever they find it,” Victor told him. “They have something of a reputation as crime fighters here in southern Arizona.”
Sam looked at Lijuan with continued respect. Her handling of the murdering thief was testimony to everything the man had just said.
“If you’ll please take care of these bodies, Mr. Landon, I’ll appreciate it,” Lijuan said.
“It will be my dubious pleasure,” Victor replied, touching the brim of his hat.
“Now, you get back inside and let me have a look at that head wound,” Lijuan ordered Sam. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go for the doctor?”
“Wouldn’t do you any good, no how,” Sam replied. “He’s out to the Jones’ ranch delivering Wanda Jones’s baby. Mac Jones was in this morning to fetch him.”
“Sit down here and let me look at it then,” Lijuan said.
She gently touched around the nasty gash on Sam’s forehead. It was still bleeding and she couldn’t quite tell how deep the cut was. She spotted a rag under the counter and used it to dab the blood away from the cut. It was bad enough, but she thought that it probably wasn’t life-threatening, if it would only stop bleeding.
After several minutes of wiping the blood away, she tied a clean rag around his head to soak up the blood and hoped it would stop soon.
“Thanks,” he said as she stood back to survey him. “Looks like you have several skills—fighting and doctoring both. Guess if you’re good at one, you have to learn the other.”
He reached out and took her hand in his and said, “You’re quite a woman!”
Lijuan looked into his eyes. Even though he still had a spot or two of blood on his face and was bandaged up, she still found him very attractive.
“Is it true,” she asked with an alluring smile, “that you keep a room over the store?”
“It is true,” he admitted. “Would you like to see it?�
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“Only if you show it to me,” she said coyly.
“Come on, then.” He got up, took her hand, and led the way.
***
With Lijuan now over him once more Sam put all thoughts of the events that had led them to this moment aside. It was time to enjoy himself once more. These Wilde sisters had a reputation that few would dare mention to their faces. When it came to their ability to dispensing justice the only thing that could match it were their swiftness when it came to menfolk and even a few women folk as well if the rumors he had heard about Catalina Wilde were true.
The Wilde’s loved ‘em and left ‘em just as quickly but Sam wasn’t going to complain. He was going to enjoy every last moment he could squeeze out of this encounter with this dark haired Asian beauty.
Lijuan trailed her small fingers over the broad expanse of his chest and tickled his sides. Sam made to pull himself up, but she held him back down, "stay still!" She said in a tone that was enticing but final. He relaxed his breathing and stilled himself, of course, she knew what she was doing, he thought to himself and remembered their earlier encounter. The thought and anticipation of what was to come sent jolting waves of pleasure through his body.
Lijuan shook her hair behind her and lowered her lips towards his left nipple. She flicked her tongue around it and nibbled it gently. Sam winced slightly as he felt her teeth on his nipple, causing her to look up at him and smile, before resuming and making soft slopping noises as she nibbled on his nipple then she kissed it ever so slightly and twisted it.
"You like that?"
Sam nodded without a word, he loved it.
She transferred her lips slowly to his right nipple, giving it the same treatment and pulling on it longer. Sam ran his hands the length of her short thighs and over those curvy Wilde sister hips and stopped at her slim waist–she felt so deceptively frail in his hands.
The lovely woman from Cedar Ledge began to plant small kisses on his chest, her hair falling forward over her face and her considerable breasts heaving as she moved her lips. Those breasts, as soft as they were big, were kneading his chest like a soft cushion, sending bolts of excitement along his body.
Dark Rivals: Lijuan Wilde Tale 0f Suspense (Half Breed Haven Book 3) Page 2