Amidst a cloud of dust and kerosene-soaked straw the two women were flailing wildly about. They rolled towards the far corner of the stable near the pen that had held Dale’s horse. As Lijuan took delight in pushing the side of Lettie’s head in a pile of manure as they thrashed about she was vaguely aware of the sound of breaking glass as one of their legs, she had no idea if it was hers or Lettie’s knocked over the lantern Lettie had set down. A second later the first cluster of kerosene straw blossomed in to a dancing orange flame and it would not be the last Lijuan knew as it caught her attention out of the corner of her eye.
Lettie too was momentarily distracted allowing Lijuan to break free and wriggle backward. Channeling her hatred of the woman who had turned a simple cattle buying trip into a life or death fight she thrust her legs forward into Lettie’s boobs knocking her back on her ass. In a heartbeat Lijuan had sprung back to her feet and nearby the flames were spreading and smoke was making its presence known.
Panting Lijuan rested for a moment, supporting her hands on her bent knees at Lettie lumbered to her feet. They stared at each other wordlessly as Lettie used the back of her hand to wipe away the blood coming from her mouth. Lijuan reached up and felt the soft surface of the bruise forming underneath her hair. A moment later the dark rivals were circling each other.
Lettie made the first move and managed to land another haymaker to Lijuan’s head staggering her, nearly causing her to lose her balance. However, she recovered quickly, and pile drove a blow directly into the wicked woman’s stomach, causing her to heave mightily. The result however served only to fuel Lettie’s murderous bent and once more the women charged at each other and it was truly on.
Fists found their marks as it turned in to a close quarters bout. The women pummeled each other wherever their fists could strike home. The blows between the hellion and hellcat were so evenly matched that it seemed like neither one of them were ever going to get the advantage over each other. Both were shaking their head in frustration as their womanly sweat flew in every direction, the pair frustrated they could not best the other even as the fire was branching out all around them. It was then Lijuan gritted her teeth as Lettie apparently made the decision the only way to end the stale mate was to fight unfairly.
Lettie grabbed a pitch fork, from where it had been hanging on a nearby wall and swung it at Lijuan. When that proved futile she jabbed the deadly prongs angrily at Lijuan but failed each time to make a hit. Lijuan pivoted so easily the third time, so the stab went by and her arms swung out, knocking it from Lettie’s hands, causing the pitch fork to disappear into a wall of flames. Lettie rolled away and Lijuan quickly went into a crouch as her adversary gained her footing once more, ready for a more furious attack. She blocked several punches from Lettie and connected one good one to the left side of her face, earning a groan from the pained woman.
Lettie still wouldn’t give up, despite that she screamed and jumped back several times in pain, getting Lijuan to grin in satisfaction. Feeling buoyed Lijuan felt it was time to unleash some of the same skills her mother had used that so impressed Whip that he had hired Mr. Chow so long ago to train her in them.
Lunging at Lettie she slipped her left arm all the way around the mad woman’s waist and then in an easy, sweeping motion she executed a pivot to the right leaving both women facing towards the ladder that lead up to Dale’s loft, the same ladder that flames were licking their way towards. Lijuan tried to put that out of her mind as she seized Lettie’s left wrist with her right hand.
Deftly she slid her left foot, so it was far on the outside of Lettie’s own extending her left hip a little past the left of the insanely jealous witch. In one rhythmic moment, that to this day never failed to impress the hell out of Catalina every time she saw Lijuan perform a hip toss, she bent forward to the right and threw the larger woman over her left hip. Lijuan pulled Lettie’s left wrist toward the right, twisting her enough so that she hit the ground hard and for her coupe de grace Lijuan delighted in landing a savage kick to Lettie’s ribcage causing the woman to cry out as Lijuan’s maneuver handily cracked one of her ribs.
As Lettie lay there trying to regain her senses, clutching her side, Lijuan’s eyes caught sight of a riding crop that hung from the nearby support beam. She had no way of knowing it once belong to Carson’s wife who had been English by birth before the widowed woman married the American naval officer and moved to America when Lettie was still a child. For only the briefest of seconds did she even wonder what an English riding crop was doing there before she snatched it from the beam and raised it menacingly.
When Lettie had cheated by attempting to kill her with the pitchfork all bets were off when it came using weapons. Lijuan was fully prepared to use it to leave another scar on the undamaged side of Lettie’s face when the roar of the fire surrounding them grew exponentially louder and the choking smoke seemed to intensify. By now Lettie had regained her feet and snarled at Lijuan again, preparing to rush at her with every ounce of strength she had left despite her injury, when both women suddenly paused, realizing just how much trouble they were in.
While they fought, the barn had become an inferno and it was time put their death match on hold to get the hell out. Unfortunately, the door was completely engulfed in flames. Tossing aside the riding crop Lijuan picked up her hammer immediately and clipped it back on her belt, already scanning for a possible escape route.
“We can’t get out, Lijuan. The barn door is burning!” Lettie hollered, also scanning the flaming barn.
Lijuan turned to the window she had entered through in hopes of exiting that way, but the wall that held it, like the barn door, was now a solid sheet of fire too!
“The flames haven’t got to the loft yet, Lettie. There’s a window up there in Dale’s room. If we can make it, we can jump out of that to safety,” she told her enemy. Lettie wasn’t worth it, but it didn’t occur to her to not work with her to get out of the burning building for now. There was no way she was going to let a soulless fire deal with Lettie. If Lettie had to die it was going to be by her hand and hers alone. They could settle their fight to the death once and for all after they weren’t burned to death.
“We can’t, the ladder is burning too!” Lettie cried, and she was right. The wooden ladder was now just two twin columns of flames, the burning rungs, falling away in between.
Looking frantically around, Lijuan finally saw what they needed. She ran and yanked a lariat off a hook on a post and ran back through the growing smoke.
“I am going to lasso that peg,” she said, pointing up at the frame work above them. She twirled the rope and let it fly, without glancing to see if Lettie gave her support. Luckily, it dropped neatly over the peg and held. Fleetingly, she thought that was a lot easier than trying to rope a steer which she always found extremely difficult no matter how many times Cattie attempted to teach her the technique – which her younger sister excelled at. At least she wasn’t Honor who was so bad at it she had once lassoed herself. Putting such thoughts aside now, she began to climb immediately. It was an easy climb as her arms were strong from years of hefting her hammer in either hand. As different as the six Wilde siblings all were the one quirk they had in common was they were all ambidextrous.
“Once I am up, you follow, Lettie. We’ll get out of this yet,” she said encouragingly as she continued to climb until she reached the loft level.
“Hurry, Lettie before you burn to death!” she called down to her adversary who was climbing after her.
“I’m coming, I’m coming. It’s my damn ribs slowing me down. You did a number on me!” The woman gasped in response. Serves you right Lijuan thought for trying to kill her multiple times.
Lettie was halfway up when the post that held the rope and peg gave a loud crack as it burned away at the floor level and collapsed. The whole floor of the loft shifted with the loss of support and Lijuan had to hold on for dear life as Lettie lost her grip on the rope and fell towards the fire with a scream.
&n
bsp; “Lettie!” Lijuan cried out, failing to see how she could help the woman. Though she could not see anything from her angle and through the smoke, she felt certain without a second thought that the woman was gone. Despite this certainty, she still had a hard time leaving. Something about the tragedy that was Lettie sank into her and it took her a moment and a cloud of smoke roiling over her to get her attention.
“I can’t stay or I’ll get burned alive too. The window! The window in Dale’s room. I can free him, and we can escape! I hope I can get there in time!” She thought to herself as she struggled to make her way to her lover’s room on the now slanted catwalk. She was no sooner through the door when what little support the structure still had gave away and tumbled into the inferno. Dale’s room would surely follow she knew as her heart began pounding. She turned her gaze into the smoky room.
As expected, he was tied to a chair and appeared unconscious. It seemed to Lijuan that trying to cut the bonds holding him would take too long, so she shoved the chair over to the window. She was beginning to cough, and her eyes were smarting from the heat and the smoke. Throwing the window open she turned and look down at her new lover.
“Sorry, Dale. It is either risking you in the fall or your die in this inferno!” She cried right before she put her foot against his chest and shoved him back as hard as she could. His chair tilted right out the window and she raced to peer out. Dale and the chair toppled a couple of feet until they crashed to a stop on the flat roof of the porch outside. Lijuan leapt out the window next, landing in a crouch next to Dale, who was lying on his side. She was shocked to still find him unconscious as the jarring impact had failed to wake him. Lettie must have really gone to an extreme just to incapacitate him. Quickly her hand traveled over his head and found a welt the size of an egg. When she pulled her hand away it was covered in blood.
She was dreading the thought of having to throw him off the porch too, but she didn’t see any quicker way to get him down when she saw her father, Catalina, Carson and a bunch of cowhands running up with buckets of water to battle the fire. She began to untie Dale knowing now she would have help getting him down as Carson, as well as the others, stared around, trying to figure out what was going on.
“What the blazes is happening on my ranch! First dynamite explodes the supply house and now a fire!” Carson was shouting in frustration.
“Look, it’s Lijuan!” Whip yelled as his eyes caught sight of her on the porch roof, a happy grin spreading over his face when he saw that she was alright. The men below had already begun to hastily stack nearby boxes of feed at Catalina’s directions as a way for her to get down. Lijuan helped Dale down to the waiting arms first and then climbed down herself.
Seeing that it was a lost cause Carson ordered the bucket brigade to abandon their efforts. Quickly they all moved away from the intense heat emanating from barn, which was now a pillar of fire in the night. Lijuan ran to Carson once she was got to the ground and put her hands on his shoulders to hold his attention.
“Lettie started this!” she told him. “She caused the explosion and started the fire, but she was trapped inside!” She shouted over the roar of the flames as everyone turned to the barn, looking on in horror as it collapsed in on itself.
“It’s too late to save her now,” Catalina said in a low voice, as Lijuan nodded.
Carson, saddened by the news, wiped his eyes and stepped forward, his gaze lingering on the burning flame for a long while. The others remained silent out of respect.
“I hope you are free from whatever the demons were that drove you, child. I’ll always love you,” he finally said with a sigh.
Lijuan left him and went over to Dale. Catalina had already fetched a canteen to try and revive him and both of them strode over to him, determined to make him feel as comfortable as possible. Whip on the other hand, went over to his friend and stood with him in support of losing his daughter. It was a horror of a possibility that the judge had to face daily with his girls given the lives that they led and the silent support he gave his friend was the only way he could show that he understood his pain.
It was amidst this silence that Dale came to. He glanced around at everyone’s faces first, totally oblivious of the tragedy that Lijuan had just helped him out of. When he glanced behind him and saw the burning fire, he sighed, finally getting an idea of the fate that might have befallen him. Everyone joined in as they kept watching the barn burn away to nothing as a sign of respect for the fallen.
Even if she was crazy, Lijuan thought darkly, the dead should be mourned.
Epilogue
Their business at Circle B Ranch reached its end a few days later. They got ready to leave for Cedar Ledge. Peace at last seemed to have returned to the ranch following the upheaval caused by Lettie’s reign of terror, which had given away to much more trivial matters such as the Irish housekeeper having apparently run off with Mick Caldwell when he had vacated Saddle Gap. Carson had also discovered a copious amount of gold missing from the safe as well, suspecting it was related to the two departures.
Once the Wildes were all settled in their carriage that morning, Carson came out to say goodbye, his eyes revealing sadness and gratitude at the same time.
“Catalina and some of my boys will be back in a few weeks for the cattle,” Whip told him. “I hope you will consider coming back with them for a visit. You could use some time away from here, and the memories,” he told his friend.
“Aye, Lieutenant. I may take you up on that. It is a kind offer,” Carson said, saluting him humorously to show he was on the road to healing.
“Wonderful, dismissed!” Whip said, Lijuan and Catalina rolling their eyes as the two men laughed at their own manly interplay.
Once they were through with all the pleasantries, the coach finally started its journey home, the Wilde family already looking forward to the comfortable confines of Cedar Ledge and being reunited with their beloved family.
“I didn’t see Dale there to say goodbye to us. What do you suppose that was about?” Catalina suddenly asked.
“I asked him not to. We said goodbye in private,” Lijuan told her sister nonchalantly. She rested her back to the soft cushion seats and closed her eyes, thoughts sifting through her mind.
Catalina leaned forward to speak softly though. “One of those goodbyes, huh?” She asked with a wink, but Lijuan shook her head, having no need to open her eyes as she knew there would be grin on her sister’s face.
“No, not like that. He wanted me to come back and see him often. Except I never want to see this place again. So, I had to let him down. I like him and all and I could have invited him down to Alamieda, but he would be a reminder of this hell;” she admitted with a sigh, finally fluttering her eyes open.
“Oh, I guess I understand. With everything that has happened with Lettie…” Catalina trailed off, realizing that Lijuan did not want to discuss it. So, she left her sister alone and turned to their father, asking about which men would be good for the cattle drive they had to plan.
Lijuan stared out the window in thought as they spoke, her mind already distant from their current situation. As they journeyed down the long lonely road that led out of Circle B Ranch, she stared at the surrounding hills absentmindedly, her eyes finally settling on the top of one of the hills that marked the entrance to Carson’s ranch. A white cross adorned it marking the newly set grave of Lettie Bell and as they drove past it, she could almost hear the woman’s voice in her head.
“I see something wrong behind your eyes too, Lijuan. I don’t know what it is, but it is there. You can’t hide it from me,” she had said to Lijuan.
Sighing, Lijuan turned away from the grave, thinking to herself, you were so right, Lettie. But it won’t consume me like it did you. I swear to myself and to everyone that loves me, I will not let it destroy me. I’ll just find some way to keep living with the frustration of this terribly wrong love I can never know…that makes me so angry… just as it has all these years. I’ll never let i
t destroy me. Never,” she said to the ghost of Lettie.
Sadly, she could almost hear the insane woman’s rickety laugh as she responded, “Do you think I let it destroy me? Did I have a choice?”
The carriage continued its way down the road home and Lijuan became further lost, deep within her thoughts. Even if she had not been she would still have failed to notice the hooded figure standing behind a tree on the hill opposite the gravesite watching through eyes that were barely slits as the plush carriage rolled on its way home to distant Cedar Ledge.
Making sure no one else was about slowly the woman pulled back her hood and shook her dark hair, her eyes continuing to follow the Wildes departing coach until it vanished from sight. Slowly she turned back and looked at the ranch that had been her home for so many years. Lettie Bell knew she could never return there.
All the world thought her dead and she preferred it that way. Across the way she looked at “her” grave marker and remembered the look of surprise on the face of the young Irish servant who she had chanced upon in the store room in the barn. Women who smoked were frowned upon by Carson Bell and the maid had often retreated there to indulge in her vice out of sight of all. To her misfortune she had been in the room when Lettie arrived to retrieve the kerosene. Not wishing to waste time with her Lettie had cold cocked her with the gun and locked her in the room as she went about spreading the kerosene.
Now she remembered the noise she had heard prior to Lijuan’s arrival. Perhaps the maid had been in the process of coming to? Lettie didn’t know or care. She was just thankful that not only when she had hit the floor of the barn she had landed in a spot free of fire, but also when the loft had crashed part of it had gone flying and knocked a hole in the wall that she had just managed to squeeze through and escape unseen. Unlike the poor unfortunate girl who had burned to death and whose burned beyond recognition body had been mistaken for her own.
Dark Rivals: Lijuan Wilde Tale 0f Suspense (Half Breed Haven Book 3) Page 10