CHAPTER TWO

Cassandra Wilde fixed her gaze on the man across from the room from her. The wanted posters flattered him that she was sure of. In person, the too close together eyes, the spacious gap between his front teeth and his greasy black hair painted a very nasty picture indeed. He may have been one ugly cuss, but he was not a man to be underestimated. "Five Shot" McGivers had quite the reputation.

“The names Drew! Mrs. Sara Drew. Widow of Mr. Franklin Drew! That name ring a bell for you?!” she cried out, slipping into her carefully planned performance.

“Don’t reckon it does. Ya got something to say sister you best be saying it.” his arms dangled down near where his holster was securely strapped to his waist.

"Franklin Drew was a good man! A family man. Father to three young children. We come all the way out west from Ohio to make a life for ourselves, and you killed him! You killed him dead!"

McGivers smirked, “I kilt a lotta men. Don’t know who your man was. Don’t rightly care much either.”

"He was a teller up in Blairsville! You gunned him down in cold blood! He was cooperating! That's what all the witnesses said!" Cassandra shouted, her eyes scanning the room, watching some carefully choreographed movements taking place, pleased to see things were unfolding per her plan.

"I guess I shoulda kilt them too!" he laughed.

“You won’t be laughing for long! I’m calling you out. You ready to draw?”

McGivers jerked his head back in surprise before letting out a belly laugh that only he thought was funny. Everyone else was shifting nervously at the talk of gunplay in the air. Behind her, a few people rose and began slipping out.

"You're just a woman! Nothing but a pair a tits! Ya think ya can draw on me, lady? If ya know who I am, ya gotta know that I'm one of the fastest draws this side of the Big Muddy. Ya challenge me, and the next ride ya is gonna be taking is to the cemetery in a pine box!"

“What’s the matter McGivers you afraid of a woman showing you up?” Her eyes lowered, and she could see the fingers of his right hand begin to twitch.

"I ain't got no qualms about killing no woman. Ya should know that if ya keep pushing me, Mrs. Drew."

“The more you keep jawing, the more I think you’re nothing but a yellow-bellied owl hoot that couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a lantern!”

The bank robber once again broke out laughing, swiveling his head to the crowd of people. "Ya ever seen any more eager to die in all your born days?" No one answered; complete silence now reigned over the Lucky Seven. Still grinning he swiveled his head back around to face Cassandra and with speed that bordered on the supernatural his hand went for his gun.

Cassandra only managed to grip the butt of her six-shooter as he cleared leather and was raising the gun up straight in front of him. In the seconds before he fired, she could see the look of bewilderment on his face. She almost had an admiration for the fact that he was so in tune with his weapon that he could tell instantly something was wrong, but that didn't stop him from pulling the trigger.

Screams and shouts reverberated off the walls of the gambling hall as McGivers fired five times in rapid succession…each time the hammer falling on empty cylinders. He looked up astonished as Cassandra leveled her gun. Slowly he raised his hands.

“Jeremiah McGivers, by the power invested in me, Cassandra Wilde, by the territorial government, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Franklin Drew and a score of other folks as well as numerous bank robberies across the territory.”

“I woman lawman, what’s this here world coming to anyway.” McGivers let his gun clatter to the floor as he stared at her stonily.

“You don’t seem to have much respect for the gun that made you famous for your ability to kill with it while you’re robbing banks.”

"That ain't my gun my daddy gave me from his days fighting the Comanche, and you know it bitch. Switched it somehow, I know ya did. Could feel it was light on five shots as soon as I had it in my hand." His shit brown eyes locked on her and he smiled, the gap between his teeth in full view.

“Ya think you’re a smart one don’t cha whore. Think ya got me right where ya want me. The jokes on ya sister. Boys!! He shouted as he dropped his hands.

The sound of three chairs scraping harshly on the cedar planking that made up the floor of the gambling hall filled the air. Cassandra saw the two burly looking men to the right and a smaller looking man to the left. All three of them pulled back their dusters to reveal their pistols.

"Not feeling so smart now are ya lady law? Meet my gang, The Sage Brothers and Scrawny Pete. I was in town on a job, which is now off by the way since ya done drawn all this attention as to who I am, but the point is bitch is I ain't alone. Looks like old Governor Nate shoulda done his homework before sending you after me!"

Cassandra said nothing, merely continuing to eye the man who was quite enjoying himself.

"Now I reckon ya best drop that gun ya got on me right quick. I give the word, and my boys will cut ya down!"

“I can still kill you before they do.”

McGivers smacked his forehead, "My lord ya is a brassy one. I could almost get to like ya, but ya is likely dead. Just give me one good reason why I don't have my boys up and kill ya right now!"

“I’ll give you three,” She said calmly before allowing a smile of her own to grace her face, “Lijuan, Honor Elizabeth and my little Peppercorn Cattie.”

There wasn’t even a moment for the utter bewilderment to settle on McGivers’s face as Cassandra turned to her right to watch as Honor Elizabeth and Catalina who had positioned themselves behind the Sage Brothers while she was carrying out her ruse as Sara Drew leaped into action on cue.

Honor flipped the drinks off the serving tray that she had been holding and clutched it by its side and took a mighty swing in the direction of Gordon Sage’s head. Unseen a hairline crack stitched its way across the back of his skull from the blow he just received. As he pitched forward, she deftly gave him a kick to his back on the way down.

Next, to her Catalina who had been holding two large bottles of Kentucky Whisky in her hands brought them together at the same time, each crashing into either side of Lester Sage's head. There were cries from some of the ladies as his eyes rolled up showing their whites before he dropped to the ground. Catalina flipped her head forward and caught her flat-brimmed hat in her hand and pulled out a concealed derringer using it to cover the fallen men.

Seeing two of his men go down, McGivers jerked his head fixing his eyes on his last remaining man. Scrawny Pete fumbled to draw out his gun and had just raised it when an object streaked through the air and smashed into his hand holding the gun. As he howled in exquisite agony, in Cassandra's imagination, she could hear the bones of his fingers being obliterated by the blow from the head of a foot-long blacksmith's hammer. As the gun began to fall, his trigger finger twitched and it fired off a single shot with the slug harmlessly burrowing itself into the floor. Nonetheless, it set off a panic as everyone in the gambling hall abandoned the place, chips, stacks of money and all as they surged towards the batwing doors.

As people swept all around her and McGivers, Cassandra took a great deal of satisfaction to see the shock on McGivers’s face as he stood there gaping at the petite figure that was just straightening up from the stance she had taken to hurl the hammer.

“Sun Ye!” McGivers cried out in utter wonder.

"Actually, it's Lijuan. It means Beautiful and Graceful" she snorted in his direction with a smirk on her face. If possible, the man's already gaping mouth dropped even further at his realization that the broken English and the accent had vanished. Slowly he raised his hands back up in the air, responding to Cassandra's casual wave of her gun skyward.

“Well done girls!” she called out, beaming in satisfaction as she looked around the now empty gambling hall. All that remained were she and her three sisters, McGivers and his men and one man seemingly passed out drunk at the bar.

"Of course, it was! Why else would you have asked us along if you didn't want that outcome!" Lijuan heckled as she scooped up Scrawny Pete's gun, keeping it trained on him as he rocked back and forth on his knees, his left hand clutching the wrist just below his shattered right hand. The man was nearly whimpering, but she ignored it, looking rather pleased with herself.

Cassandra didn't mind her sister's jibe. The truth was she was happy that she had been able to enlist the aid of her sisters in the operation when their uncle, the governor of the territory, had assigned her the task of bringing McGivers to justice. It seemed Nathaniel Duvalier had a personal stake in the matter when one of those killed alongside the real Sara Drew's husband was the son of one of the governor's old friends.

She had been more than happy to land this assignment, but she knew that it was going to require more than a run of the mill takedown. Few were better with a gun than she was but among those ranks "Five Shot" McGivers could be counted in that number. Disarming him seemed like the best play, and that called for a great deal of trickery and stagecraft.

“Honor Elizabeth, please collect their guns!”

“I shall endeavor to do just that.” She crossed over to a table and picked up a bag she had placed there earlier just for that occasion while Catalina kept her gun trained on the Sage Brothers. One was still out cold, but the one Honor had hit with the tray was stirring. Quickly the lovely mulatto had their weapons and Lijuan dropped Pete’s in the bag as well.

Catalina turned the derringer over to Honor and went about retrieving some manacles she had stashed in the saloon earlier telling the others she would see to the gang being cuffed starting with Scrawny Pete.

McGivers turned to Cassandra, his mouth little more than a tight line.

“Ya bitches had to know you’d never take me when I was armed. How did ya do it? How’d you make the switch?”

“I can answer that!”

As one everyone eyes shifted to the stairs where a figure leaned over the balcony that overlooked the gambling hall. They watched as she walked to the top of the stairs and stopped midway down the staircase. The Indian working girl waved his pistol in one of her hands,

“It was close. I thought I was going to fail when you wouldn’t take your eyes off me. But at the last minute when you went to the window, that was my chance. Made the switch from where I had it hid under the mattress.”

The outlaw turned his head around to face Cassandra.

“This is one hell of a show you put together.” He looked over at Lijuan and scowled at her, “Ancient Chinese custom huh?” The small woman only shrugged with a look of total indifference on her face and turned up her nose at him.

"Thing is you made it all possible. The little falling out you had with one of your gang back in Flagstaff, the one you left for dead after you shot him because he felt he should have the same size share of the loot as you the leader? Guess you should have checked closer. You only left him for dead. He struck a nice deal to avoid the noose. Sang like a canary, telling about how you were going to hide out in the Mescalero desert until your next job. Even provided us the day that you were going to pull it, tomorrow to take advantage of the payroll coming in for the workers building that rail line. Gave us enough time to get here ahead of time and set all this up to trap you. Gotta say the hardest part was finding someone who had an identical five-shot Colt Paterson that you like to kill with. They stopped making them twelve-inch barrel monstrosities the year I was born mind you, 1840. Give me a Colt .45 any day."

"Damn that girl sure can talk!" Catalina laughed as she nudged Honor Elizabeth's arm with her elbow. It was something of a joke among the quartet of Cedar Ledge sisters on how once Cassie launched into one of her explanations there was time to do the laundry, hang it out to dry and fold it before she was done talking. As always Cassandra took the good-natured ribbing in stride. She loved her sisters and was always grateful when they came together to help her as they had this night.

“To conclude- “she began, eyeing the still chuckling Cattie with a grin. “Our father is a judge who has a friend who luckily for us had one in his gun collection.” She finished as she watched the Indian dove come the rest of the way down the stairs, giving Catalina, who was slapping the manacles on Scrawny Pete, a wink before she dropped the antique gun into the bag Honor Elizabeth held open.

“Your father? As in all of you?” his bewilderment was complete.