A HOT TIME AT THE OL’ LUCKY SEVEN

FOREWORD

My name is Allie Mastluehr, and in the spring of 1913, I stumbled upon some of the most remarkable but forgotten tales of the American Old West. These accounts were narrated to me in the desolate ruins of Cedar Ledge—a once mighty Arizona ranch—and I promise that everything I was told was not the stuff of legend; it was one remarkable family’s real history, almost lost to the unforgiving winds of time.

I experienced a countless series of shocks as the ranch's last inhabitant, aging Cattie Wilde, relayed to me the true story of the heroics of the most improbable of mixed race families, of which she had been a member. She quickly immersed me in all the action, adventure, romance, and family drama that came with being one-quarter of the formidable foursome known to friends and foes alike as THE DAUGHTERS OF HALF BREED HAVEN. In short, I learned of this stunning multiracial quartet whose bravery, thirst for justice and love for each other was matched only by their unbridled appetite for the most casual and sizzling encounters with the opposite (or in Catalina's case, the same) sex.

The Mexican Catalina along with the fair-skinned, blonde Cassandra, mulatto Honor Elizabeth, and Asian Lijuan, all half-sisters, were the proud daughters of Judge William Henry “Whip” Wilde. The interracial sisters along with their sibling—cavalry officer Dutch and his Indian love Bright Feather, and their youngest brother, the Yavapai brave Blue River, the WILDES OF THE WEST upheld the law and aided those in need amidst the pristine beauty and natural wonders that was their corner of 1870s Arizona.

Though I have only had the privilege of knowing Catalina through her stories and the significant volume of diaries and journals mercifully saved by Cattie the rest of the Wildes, have become as alive to me as if they were standing before me as I write this.

Cassandra Wilde-The oldest and brilliant leader of a tough as nails group of women you would ever find. Once she had been the protégé of the first ever female Pinkerton, Cassie returned to the west with her two guns strapped to her waist when her family needed her the most. Using everything she had learned from her time with the fabled detective agency she trained her younger sisters into being some of the most competent and dangerous women the west would ever know.

Lijuan Wilde-She was said to be the most petite of the Wilde sisters, but she was the most dangerous. Lijuan was half Chinese from a time in their father's life when he was shipwrecked in that far off and mysterious country. Equipped with deadly fighting skills from that ancient land and driven by the frustration of a hopelessly forbidden love that fueled a darkness within her that even her family tried to convince themselves was not there Lijuan was an at times and untamed force.

Honor Elizabeth Wilde-As a mulatto this sister was trapped between two worlds, but she knew she was the equal of any full white or black woman in the west and never acted any different. An unabashed Daddy’s girl and even a bit of a debutant Honor was at all times 100% as capable as her sisters whenever they found themselves up against those who sought to sow chaos and evil in the Arizona territory.

Catalina Wilde-My gracious host and now for all practical purposes becoming the mother I never had. From what I can tell she has not changed one bit from her youth. An impetuous, fun loving woman who enthusiastically engaged in her romances that flew in the face of what society deems acceptable. Come what may little ever stifled her good cheer, not even the dangers she faced against the countless robbers, rustlers, polecats, and jaspers the west kept throwing at them. Whoa to anyone that stood in the way of Catalina and her sisters.

Catalina has graciously made available to me all her family's writing so that I may pen the definitive tale of this unique and exceptional family and the adversity they faced. The more I read of them, the greater my amazement and respect for them grows as I follow their adventures in vanquishing villains and bedding whatever conquest happen to come their way.

This is but one of their tales.

Town of Hayward

Arizona Territory

1873

PROLOGUE

As Catalina took the stairs two at a time, she suddenly came to a halt midway up the staircase. Looking down onto the floor of the gambling house she saw a big clean-up was underway. There was a loud din from the heated patrons versus the owner and workers of the gambling den concerning the fate of their money. It was a jumbled mess as to what money belonged to whom and looked near impossible to sort out. She shook her head thinking back on the whole fracas… tonight had been a hot time at the ol' Lucky Seven.

Turning away, she continued up to the top and strode onto the landing. As she strolled down it, she stopped for a second time and checked herself in a mirror that hung on one of the walls. For just a moment or two, she rearranged her hair and proceeded down the hall. Normally one would have expected to hear the cries of passion and pleasure coming from behind these doors, but after the events of earlier as with any further games of chance, such activities were off for the night.

Still, a light burned from behind one door…her destination. Catalina gave a gentle knock, and a soothing voice invited her in. With no further hesitations, she swung the door open and stepped inside, elbowing it, so it swung shut behind her. With a smile, she looked at the nude figure sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed.

Catalina’s eyes took the deeply tanned skin and long dark tresses that flowed down over the breasts, though she could see one erect nipple protruding through the locks. Below the woman’s thin waist rose a black bush that rose invitingly.

The woman had a smile on her face that could only be matched by the one Catalina was making as her lips turned upward and she felt a tingle forming in the depths of her being. After the craziness she had just lived through, she was going to enjoy this…oh, how she was going to enjoy this!

CHAPTER ONE

EARLIER THAT NIGHT

Her legs squeezed around his torso as he gave a last mighty thrust before he pulled out and watched as he painted the woman’s caramel skin milky white all over her heaving stomach.

Satisfied he rolled off the bed and jerked his underwear and trousers back on as he looked down at the soiled dove. There was no mistaking her for the Indian that she was. Apache, Yavapai who knew…they all seemed the same to him. Still, this beauty wasn’t content to sit in some tipi skinning deer but rather was turning good coin lying on her back in the upstairs of the gambling hall.

"Thank ya." He mumbled as he turned away from where she was cleaning herself and walked towards the window. It was in need of a good cleaning, but most windows in the West were in its company. Snatching the curtain that hung near it, he wiped at it and then peered down at the street.

The elaborate black coach still sat there, almost gleaming in the illuminations from the different buildings up and down the streets of Hayward. He moved his eyes from the carriage and stared out into the blackness beyond the town. Out there come morning the dregs of Arizona and a shitload of Chinese coolies would break their backs once more laying down a rail line towards its ultimate destination of Phoenix. That was their problem he thought as he began to whistle good-naturedly.

Jeremiah "Five Shot" McGivers turned from the window to see the whore slipping a dress back on and concealing her small tits. They had been a disappointment of course. He liked ‘em big…just like the ones he couldn't help but notice on his benefactor who had just paid for his romp with the Injun whore. Now that bitch he would love to see on all fours on a bed in front of him. She was so god damn beautiful for an oriental that was.

If she was still down there maybe he should make a play for her, he considered. Nah, he thought. Things were going too good, almost too good. He’d made a killing fleecing the idiot miners of Hayward. You would think any of the illiterate prospectors that actually found gold would do more with their newfound wealth than blow it in a gambling hall. Unlike him, they were an ignorant lot.

All the money he made robbing banks was carefully counted and three-fourths of it he redeposited…into a bank of his choice and one not likely to be robbed. Another year or so and he'd cash it all out and head south of the border and spend the rest of his life swilling Mexican beer in a lush hacienda banging tight as a drum eighteen-year-old Latina pussy.

McGivers crossed over to the bed and snatched his shirt from where he had draped it over a chair and pulled it on. After that, he plucked his holster with his notorious five shot pistol on the post where it had hung while he pounded away at the dove the China woman had gifted him. Lastly, he donned his battered Stetson. It was time to go downstairs and cheat some more of the hardscrabble losers out of either what little money they had or clean out those who had struck it big.

He pulled open the door and took a last look at the Injun. She had a strange smile on her face now which struck him as odd. He hadn't liked how she had just laid there while he pumped away at her…hardly a trace of an expression on her face. She had been silent too, disappointing him in that he liked to hear them moan. Still, he couldn't complain, she had been tight, and that had given him immense pleasure, and as he noted earlier, she was good to look at. But what was this smile now? Shrugging his shoulders, he figured she was just happy to be onto the next John to keep the money flowing from the ace between her legs.

A moment later he was clomping down the stairs to the smoke-filled main floor. Nothing had changed from before. Off to the right at the bottom of the stairs, the chain was still stretched across a little alcove room, reserving it for later activities. Upon his first night at this particular gambling establishment, he had learned that this area was reserved for a special tournament held each night amongst the gamblers with the most money to spend. There was a carpet in that area, and the table and chairs looked like they had some value to them, and lush green curtains covered the window hiding the view of the alleyway. Folks in the gambling hall had said that the poker game for high rollers only was called "The Midnight Stakes" as the game got underway at the stroke of midnight each evening.

He had even thought about sitting in on one of the games, but he figured there would be far more scrutiny to his game play with the large pot that was involved, and his cheating would likely be uncovered. There was no point in drawing attention to himself being caught as a cheater. Being a card shark was just a pass time for him and a source for amusement. The real money lay in knocking over banks and what better place to do it than in a town like Hayward? A month earlier he had caught wind that the place was without any current law enforcement. It would be ripe for his picking.

As he began walking down the steps, he saw a man in a long gray duster slumped over passed out at the bar. McGivers snickered knowing the man had used the last of his money not swindled out of him by McGivers in a card game earlier to drink his sorrows away. The man had been in stunned disbelief he had lost all his earnings.

Almost to the bottom, he noted the place was bustling. Several card games were in full swing. So much so that the piano player had temporarily ceased playing as two dealers moved his piano on wheels, apparently just for this purpose, out of the way and placed it near a support beam as two more dealers hustled a table and chairs out of the back room and set them up in the vacated space. Hopeful cheers drifted up to him from men leaning forward at a roulette table as the ball had just started its next spin. Always bet on black he thought as he stepped off the final stair and right into the path…of her.

The Chinese woman was short but well put together. She was wearing a dress he understood to be native to her home country, and it hugged her curves well, almost too well as he felt a stirring below his belt. The woman looked up at him and smiled and then said something in Chinese. He shook his head and then she smiled bashfully.

“Forgive. Easy to slip into own tongue. How go with girl? She give good time?” she asked in her clipped, broken English as she appeared to be struggling to find the right words.

“Sure did! Ya got my gratitude again. Ya got any more Chinese customs I might enjoy?" she looked at him and threw back her head in laughter.

“Not like that. No, that special!”

McGivers didn’t know a damn thing about Chinese customs, but he liked the one he had just benefited from. Earlier he had been engaged in his card game and had been startled when the elegant looking woman entered the seedy gambling hall and asked to sit down at his table. She wished to join the game, and that surprised the hell out of him.

Initially, he had been dismissive asking her if she knew the first thing about playing cards. It was then that she had revealed she had learned to play on the long boat ride from Shanghai and was eager to try her hand at it having heard that it was a much-enjoyed activity in the American West.

A rookie card player who by the looks of her had plenty of money was just what the doctor had ordered. She would be easy picking if he ever saw it and he had been correct beyond his wildest dreams. As soon as she was dealt in, she began to lose immediately. The best part about this development was he wasn't even going to have to cheat she was so bad.

As she played losing hand after losing hand, he learned a lot about her. She was called Madam Sun Ye Dei, and she was newly arrived in America to check on her business interests which turned out that her father owned the company that was supplying the Chinese coolies that were slaving away to make the rail line a reality. The old man had sent her on a fact-finding mission to make sure the immigrants were performing up to task as he hoped to land another contract with the railroad, this time for a line up north Colorado way from Denver to Boulder.

The elder Dei had become ill recently and was too sick to travel, so he had sent Sun Ye in his place. McGivers had chuckled to himself thinking the old China man would never have dreamed how his money was being wasted by his attractive daughter on foolish games of chance in some dirty saloon.

When he had cleaned her out, she had been most gracious, and that was when she had revealed the ancient custom. In China, she said, when one is as humbled as she had been at the card table it was expected to fete the person who had been the one to humiliate them. At first, she was going to buy him a bottle of liquor, but then she had said that wasn't enough. He had watched as she waved towards the door and a woman who had been sitting at one of the tables rose and walked over to them.

McGivers had whistled in appreciation as the woman drew near. She was a young Mexican who seemed to be all curves in all the right places. The woman had an oblong face bracketed by wavy black hair that flowed out from underneath her round flat-brimmed hat and eyes so brown they appeared to be black. A look of good cheer was etched across her face.

“Ma’am?” she had asked.

He quickly learned that she was the driver that she had hired to bring her by coach all the way from San Francisco. Looking past them, above the batwing doors, McGivers could see a regal looking black coach parked out in front of the Lucky Seven Gambling Palace. Turning his attention back to the women he had admitted his surprise that she had hired a woman for the task.

“In China woman's place is to serve." had been her answer. He had no idea how things worked on the other side of the Pacific, but he wasn't concerned with that. He had been wondering why she called the woman over. McGivers quickly found out after the Mexican leaned down and the China woman had whispered something in her ear.

He had watched as the Latina turned on her heel and marched over to the bar where the working girls trolled for their prospects. A moment later she had returned with the Injun dove in tow.

“I honor your victory. Please enjoy.” She took out a handful of bills and pressed them into the Indian woman’s hand that quickly made them disappear down her cleavage. “You honor me if you accept.” She finished bowing before him.

“Hell yeah!” he had said, taking the Indian woman’s hand and dragging her behind him without even having said a thank you to the China woman. He had been in such a hurry that he nearly bumped into one of the waitresses that flitted about the hall in their colorful and tight dresses trying to entice men to buy more liquor.

The only thing he loved more than robbing banks and cheating at cards was women, so he paused just for a second to appraise her. The woman looked mixed to him, probably the product of some overseer’s romp in the slave quarters back in the day. That was when; the home he had fought for, Dixie was a proud and prosperous land, not a still recovering shell of what it had once been. The mulatto had creamy mocha skin, hazel eyes and curly black ringlets that bounced whenever she moved. Then there were her endowments to admire. First the Chinese woman, then the Mexican and now this colored girl…all had the most amazing figures he had seen in many a day. None of them were white, but he thought he would have happily lain with any of them.

Now it was the injun that had been tugging on him, so he had turned away from the waitress and followed her up to one of the rooms, especially for the purpose that he had just engaged in.

Here and now standing before the Chinese woman, he wondered if he shouldn't call it a night. He had a busy day before him after all, the reason he was in the town in the first place, the Hayward bank. Before he could think any more about it the two batwing doors were flung open and everyone's head seemed to pivot at once as the figure standing in the doorway shouted out "Five Shot McGivers!"

And what a figure it was. A statuesque woman with golden colored hair stepped into the gambling hall the doors swinging behind her. To his astonishment, she was yet another beauty with an hourglass figure. It seemed to be raining them tonight. His gaze lifted from the swell of her breasts up to her face. The emerald eyes were cool and yet sparking at the same time.

"Who wants to know?" he grumbled, annoyed that his cover had been blown as to date none had recognized him and that the way he wanted it so that the coming bank job would be a complete surprise.

She stepped deeper into the gambling hall, and a hush fell over the room as all playing ceased and countless pairs of eyes turned towards the woman, the only sound was that of the roulette ball coming to rest followed by the dealer meekly calling out "Black 29".