“There he goes boys, splashing for the other side! If the current doesn’t get him, we will!” Kincaid shouted.
***
A minute earlier and at the overlook, Catalina, Ruth Anne, and Blue River had watched the dramatic scene that unfolded before them. One moment they were watching the departing Wilde sisters’ carriage pass by them and out of view, and the next they were witnessing a wild pursuit by a posse. It was obvious something bad was happening, but the three were oblivious to the details.
Abruptly Ruth had gone still out of shock, but Catalina didn’t notice. She stared intently at the scene below them far off to the right and pointed to the area where the entire action was taking place. They watched as a man in a bright red shirt was making a dash for the river.
Suddenly Catalina felt Ruth Anne yanking on her arm violently, and she spun around looking stunned.
"It's Jackson, my Jackson! I'd recognize that red shirt anywhere! I got it for him for Christmas last year! Oh no! They'll kill him. They are going to kill my Jackson. Please, Catalina, do something, anything!" Ruth cried as the sound of a shot rang out and the man on the horse was thrown into the tall reeds along the riverside.
It was all the prompting that Catalina needed. She had no idea what was going on but that wasn’t going to stop her from intervening in whatever madness this was transpiring on Wilde family land.
“I’ll try!” Catalina said, already wrapping her head around the entire scene and calculating all the possible loops and solutions.
“Looks like your man made it to the Rock River! Ruth Anne, you get up to the ranch house,” She instructed quickly, already making her way back to the barn behind them. Blue River was beside her ready to aid her in any way she asked. The pair had always had a particularly close bond given that Blue River had been Catalina’s one and only chance to assume the role of big sister, and she had relished in it.
“Good thing I got this wheel back on. I need your help with this wagon, Blue River. We’ve got to move it right quick!” Catalina told her brother.
She heard the shouts of the posse floating up from near the river as Blue River joined her, helping her to get the wagon off from the blocks and moving.
Sometimes, desperate circumstances called for desperate measures, Catalina thought. If Jackson was trying to swim the river, all that posse had to do was keep going up the road and the bridge was right there. They would bag him on the other side just as easily as shooting fish in a barrel. At the edge of the hill, she gave Blue River a look that he returned with one that all but said, are you sure you want to do this? Catalina may not have wanted to, but she had to, and the pair gave it one last push over the lip of the hill. As the wagon started to roll down the hill she jumped aboard.
***
“Yonder he goes, still trying for the other side of the Rock River. If he makes it, he’s got five hundred square miles of Cedar Ledge Ranch to lose himself in! We cannot let that happen, boys! To that bridge up there! We’ll nab that jasper on the other bank!” the sheriff screeched at the top of his voice, determined to catch the man they chased by all means.
Urgently, he spurred his horse to ride faster, oblivious to the hurtling wagon bucking its way down the hill as they dug in to make their dash for the bridge.
“Hold on, Sheriff! I hear something!” Kincaid called, and then in the next instant shouted, “Look out!”
Sheriff Knox and the posse glanced up in time to see the cause of Kincaid’s warning. The sheriff’s eyes widened as he noticed that the wagon was hurtling into the posse’s path. Urgently, he clutched the reins of his horse, praying fervently that the beast would slide to a halt before it was too late. The others did the same. Aboard the out of control wagon rushing down the hill towards them was none other than Catalina Wilde!
“She’s running wild! I can’t stop it!” Catalina cried out.
They all saw Catalina Wilde leap from the out-of-control wagon. The sheriff hurried to get himself and his horse away from the madness. His horse spooked at the sudden reaction finally jerked to a halt but throwing his rider to the ground in the process. Before they knew what happened, Kincaid and Drummond followed him to the ground as well.
The other men in the posse behind them managed to stay on horseback. Lying on his back, Knox heard the wagon crash into some boulders downslope along the river's edge with a loud crunching sound that spelled doom for the wagon. In another instant, Catalina knelt at his side to help him up, while a blonde man she didn't' recognize ran in the direction where their target had entered the river.
"Are you alright, Sheriff? Sorry about that, wagon slipped off its blocks," Catalina said, looking appropriately contrite while catching sight out of the corner of her eye of one of the men who had been ejected to the ground slowly picking himself up and dusting himself off.
To her surprise, it was none other than Percival Drummond whom Ruth Anne had just been speaking of. Catalina ignored him and turned to the sheriff, relief in her eyes that he was uninjured. It had been a risky maneuver, but she had felt confident the posse could halt before being hit by the wagon. She was just glad that Knox hadn’t been injured.
Behind her however, she was unaware Drummond wasn't buying her story. He was a few feet away from Catalina and the sheriff as he glared at the woman in fury. He fumed angrily as he began to march towards Catalina's back with rage in his eyes.
“You did that on purpose, Catalina Wilde! Old Percival ain’t gonna take it!” he yelled. “No, you wild woman, I will not accept such jeopardy from you or anyone else! I’ll wring your pretty neck!”
“Behind you, Catalina. Polecat beware!”
Drummond hadn’t taken his third step when he heard the voice. It was the Wilde woman’s half-breed brother running down the sloping hill. He was distracted by his sudden appearance, and by the time he turned to Catalina Wilde again, she had drawn her gun on him. Drummond had to stop right in his tracks.
Momentarily, they were all distracted by a man swearing up a blue streak down by the side of the river. Catalina brought her attention back to the men before her, ignoring the stranger.
“Thanks, Blue River,” she said to her brother who was grinning from ear to ear. “Back off, Percival Drummond, go on. Find what your compadre is yappin’ about down there on the bank. That’s it, light off,” The woman said waving her pistol, and Drummond swallowed his pride and turned away, going down to the river bank. A moment later he was at his lawyer’s side.
“Blast it! Where’s Campbell? You think he managed to make it to the other side and lose himself?” He asked the attorney. Their target was nowhere in sight and Kincaid did not answer; he was busy staring down the river. They were soon joined by the sheriff who took one look at his surroundings, shook his head and took a turn back the way he came to speak with Catalina again. Catalina was still waiting upslope, and her voice along with that of the Sheriff carried down to the two men by the river. She was still apologizing for the near miss before asking him what the pursuit was all about.
“It looks like we lost him, Percival, and we can thank that little she-demon and her Injun brother for that. A cunning little thing, isn’t she? Distracting our attention away from the river with that wagon. She’s got to be one of those Wildes right? We better find out what she is telling the sheriff,” Kincaid said and promptly turned and began trudging up to the road. Drummond followed, gritting his teeth in great vexation.
"Campbell robbed the stagecoach he was drivin' of four thousand in gold nuggets. They were Drummond's, Catalina," the Sheriff was telling her.
“That’s right,” Drummond interrupted, waving an angry fist in the air “and that’s not all. He also turned in a chest full of rocks to give him time to get a fast horse and … Ruth Anne!” Drummond finished in surprise as he noticed the approach of Ruth Anne.
The woman had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and Drummond seemed to temporary lose his power of speech.
Catalina frowned at her friend for disobeying her order to
go to the ranch house, but there was nothing she could do about it now. The worry in Ruth Anne’s eyes was evident and Catalina did not blame her for wanting to know what was happening with her lover.
“Reckon you heard it,” Drummond continued. He seemed to have regained the use of his tongue and couldn’t wait to tell it all to Ruth Anne. “Jackson turned rogue. I’m mighty sorry about that for your sake. You’re a good woman and deserved better to have given your heart to the wrong sort of man, Ruth Anne. Come along, I’ll see you back to Alamieda,” Drummond told her.
Catalina was amused at the sudden change in the man when only seconds ago, he had been threatening to rain down fire on Catalina. She shared a look with Blue River, who only grinned at her. Her half-brother was never one to talk too much. In this case, he needn’t say a word; she knew he also saw what she saw.
“I am staying, Mr. Drummond,” Anne Ruth was telling Percival. “I have to know what’s happened to him. No matter what you say, you’ll never make me believe he’s a thief!” She returned bravely.
Drummond’s face seemed to droop with each word of refusal out of Ruth Anne’s mouth. In fact, he looked as if he would like to say more, but the sheriff shook his head and went for his horse.
“We’re leaving, boys! We need to get over that bridge and check out the other side of the river,” Knox called.
Drummond and Kincaid stared down at the river some more before hurrying to their horses, too.
“I thought you were going to blast him when you drew your gun right there,” Blue River said to Catalina.
“You’ve got me confused with Lijuan,” she said with a chuckle. “But he didn’t draw like I was hopin’ he would when I pulled mine out. Then I might have had a reason!”
Silently now they watched as the posse made its way across the bridge and disappeared from view into the terrain on the opposite side of the river.
Suddenly her eyes narrowed at something in the distance not far downstream. "Hey, what's that?" She was already running down the slope and towards the river again.
Blue River and Anne Ruth followed closely.
Much to Ruth Anne’s delight, they saw a man coming out of the brush. It was Jackson, soaking wet, but otherwise seeming okay. Catalina ran down to meet him to give him a hand out of the bush. He looked tired.
“I thought you were gone!” Ruth Anne cried.
“After I fell off the horse, I made it to the middle of the river before the current dragged me downstream until I could get a hold of a rock. I swam from one rock to the next till I could hide in the weeds. I don’t know how they could have missed seeing me,” Jackson explained.
“You can thank Catalina for that. She managed the perfect distraction!” she said glowingly as she looked at her friend.
“Then I owe you a mighty big thank you. You saved me.”
Catalina nodded at the praise as Ruth Anne put her arms around her lover.
“I am glad you are alive,” Ruth Anne beamed at Jackson and he nodded gratefully at Catalina and Blue River. Catalina was already thinking far ahead of their situation.
"We have to get you out of sight, Jackson," she said to the couple, "and I know just the place to hole you up in until we're sure everything is settled down," she told them.
They began to move towards the slope below the barn and when they passed the wagon, Catalina shook her head.
“I’m going to get a couple of extra hands and clean up this mess that used to be our wagon,” Blue River said, and then he raised one of his eyebrows. “Destroying two wagons in as many days. That must be some type of record Cattie.”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute!” her eyes crinkling as she agreed.
“I wonder how we are going to explain this to Lijuan, though,” Blue River said as Catalina grinned and winked at him.
“Well, sugar Blue River! I’ve been pressin’ her to buy a new wagon for some time now, so we don’t always have to keep repairin’ this one. But you know Lijuan—always pinched with the money. This afternoon just kinda sped that up a might. I’ll admit though, that it’s not gonna put any sort of smile on Lijuan’s face,” she told him.
“That I believe,” Blue River answered with a brief nod.
***
"You know, Percival, I've been thinking I may have been wrong," Kincaid was staring pensively ahead from where the group had come to a stop in the clearing. "If a ladylike Ruth Anne was waiting for me back there, I don't know if I'd necessarily want to lose myself in five hundred square miles of thicket, and wild animals. Not to mention the renegade injun Black Hawk and his Omegas possibly roaming around out there, too. We may want to turn back,” he added. An unspoken chill hung in the air for a moment at the mention of the infamous renegade. The entire territory knew the name of Black Hawk and his so-called Omegas, named after the last letter of the Greek alphabet for the Yavapai’s vow to fight to his last man to cleanse Arizona of the last of the white men.
Percival jumped at the suggestion very quickly.
“Maybe you hit on something there, lawyer. It’s possible he never got to this side while we were dealing with that damn wagon,” he said quickly and turned to the sheriff. “Sheriff, we’ll allow them some time, just in case, and then double back to the Cedar Ledge ranch house. If Catalina sent that wagon down on purpose, she could well be harboring Campbell if he turned up after we left!” Drummond said.
“I gotta say I ain’t liking this. Judge William Henry Wilde is one of the most respected men in the territory. I don’t know if I like nosing around his home and casting unfounded suspicions on his daughter,” the sheriff responded.
“He ain’t got everybody’s respect, Sheriff” Percival scoffed. “I know a whole lot of folks who think Whip is the devil’s spawn for laying with every stripe of woman so that he’s got a family made up of whites, a colored girl, a China woman, an injun, and of course, our little Mexican that sent that wagon at us!” Percival told the lawman.
“We don’t know that for sure,” the Sheriff said frowning.
“Too much of a coincidence, Sheriff. It is just too much of a coincidence. I could probably prove it in a court of law,” Kincaid said.
"Without an eyewitness or proof? I know you've got a slick reputation in your private practice, and you've done a hell of a job with both prosecution and defense, Kincaid. But I would like to see you pull off pinning that on Miss Wilde," the sheriff responded.
“Nonetheless, we will cross back to Cedar Ledge!” Percival Drummond insisted firmly.
The sheriff could only nod. It was, after all, Drummond's gold—all four thousand dollars' worth of nuggets that were involved.
CHAPTER 6
* * *
Jackson’s eyes were as round as saucers, but Ruth Anne could also see the excitement in them. What she suggested was at best outrageous, but this was Jackson. He was up for anything, and that was why she could open up to him about Catalina.
She discarded his wet clothes in a pile in a corner of the room and joined him on the bed. He was wearing a large towel around his waist and he stared at her doubtfully.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked her.
“Yes.” Ruth Anne nodded firmly. “Catalina is risking a lot by keeping us safe, and you have been through so much today. I want to reward her by doing something she likes. I know this will take your mind off what you’ve been through today, even if it’s just for a little while,” Ruth Anne told him honestly. After the story he had just relayed to her about the bewildering circumstances that he turned him into a wanted man she knew he deserved a respite from this madness. Catalina would eventually expect to her hear his full story but she knew her friend well enough to know beforehand she wouldn’t mind what she was going to suggest.
“You are the most amazing woman, Ruth Anne. But do you think she’ll say yes?” Jackson asked.
Ruth Anne grinned crookedly.
"Holy Mary and Joseph! You must not know Catalina if you really had to ask that. She's a Wilde, after all. E
veryone in town knows they take what they want when it comes to matters of, shall we say, an intimate nature. Catalina is not shy about what she wants. Cattie, I can attest, probably enjoys herself the most because she doesn't limit herself to just …"
Ruth was interrupted when Catalina entered, carrying some clothes.
“I have some clothes for you. They’re my brother Dutch’s. He keeps civilian clothes here for when he comes home on furlough from the fort. I think they will fit well enough,” her friend told Jackson.
“Thanks. So, what is this place, Catalina?” Jackson asked, looking so red in the face that Ruth Anne almost wondered if she should go through with asking Cattie. Quickly, she resolved that she would. She would have to convince him that Catalina wouldn’t mind and she knew just how to go about it.
“This little cabin is where my family first lived when they moved out west,” Catalina explained. “They stayed here while Papa built the Cedar Ledge ranch house. I never lived here myself since I was born when they moved into the big house,” she told them.
“It’s very cozy. Thanks for starting the fire to help Jackson dry off,” Ruth Anne thanked her.
“Always obliged to help my friends,” Catalina replied with a genuine smile.
With a smile for Jackson, Ruth Anne walked over to Catalina.
“We wanted to thank you, for what you are doing for us,” she said, eyes twinkling with mischief and promise. “In a special way,” she said, meaningfully.
Just like she knew, Ruth Anne could see the eager curiosity in her friend’s gaze. She chuckled and winked at Jackson who beamed back. He was starting to feel more confident.
Silver, Gold And Deception: Catalina Wilde Western Adventure (Half Breed Haven Book 4) Page 6