The Most Dangerous Game: The Alexander Legacy, #3

By Sophronia Belle Lyon

Ten years make for a mighty cold trail but Sluefoot Sue still finds a clue on the backtrack that fuels her desperate hunt for the deadliest quarry of all. Sue needs to fire up the Clockwork Catfish and find allies no one expected if she means to solve the secret of Treasure Island's Black Spot. 

Having the lifelong love and respect of husband and family hasn't prepared her for the deadly agenda of women determined to end inequality by savage means. She suspects a private girls' school goes far beyond teaching social graces. 

Even this fearless cowgirl dreads the consequences of re-uniting with a bitter foster child carrying a horrifying grudge. Climb to the Aether on a lunar quest to stop a deadly threat at home -- Just don't count on making it back. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Findley Family Video
• Release date: Aug 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516390687

Book preview

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Praise for The Alexander Legacy Series

Favorite characters, young and old, from all around the world, … together with their families … mysterious hotel … I am visually overwhelmed … exciting and there is always something happening on every page.

…Wondering what will happen in the next installment … Delightful addition to the body of Christian fiction, and will be a very… fun read for anyone who enjoys that genre.

…The inventions are fun, the characters memorable, the mystery engaging and the writing enjoyable. … Illustrated edition full of vintage images and neat little Victorian touches.

The Most Dangerous Game:

The Alexander Legacy Book Three

A Steampunk Literary Tribute Adventure

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by

Sophronia Belle Lyon

© 2015 Findley Family Video Publications

The Most Dangerous Game: The Alexander Legacy Book Three by Sophronia Belle Lyon

© 2015 Findley Family Video Publications

No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. Exception is made for short excerpts used in reviews.

Findley Family Video

Speaking the truth in love.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is coincidental

Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: The King James Version, public domain.

Cover includes images from Depositphotos and Pixabay

Foreword by Sluefoot Sue

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That Sophronia Belle Lyon, she’s a hard lady to deal with when it comes to writing and storytelling. She started up this Alexander Legacy Company series with the idea that each one of us members would have a shot at telling about the adventures – to be the narrator of one of the books. There are eight of us – Florizel of Bohemia and Ollie Twist done had their chances. It worked out that in the first book Twist kinda came up a lot, so it seemed natural to turn the story over to him in the next book.

In the second book Twist and I got paired up a few times, since we both have an interest in all things mechanical. That made it a logical choice to have me, Sluefoot Sue, be the narrator for the third book in the series, the one you’re reading right now.

Well, that’s where the fur began to fly. You see, Miz Sophronia, she’s a lady of culture and refinement. Me, I’m just a cowgirl. My life ain’t been the smoothest or the cleanest, and neither has my writing. I don’t spend a lot of time on grammar and spelling and all that folderall and fiddle-dee-dee. I write like I talk. She objected to having a whole book of cowgirl talk. I said she could do what she wanted with it once I got it writ, and I reckon she’ll do it up nice and proper. Hope it’ll still be worth a read when it’s done.

Part One: Ten Years Earlier

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Chapter One

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My story’s just a little different from them others from the first two books. I didn’t have an uncle who chased me out of my own country like Florrie. I didn’t lose my parents and grow up in deep trouble like Ollie. Besides, I was born in the U-S– of A, more specifically, in Texas, where everything’s naturally bigger and more friendly-like. At least, I found it to be so.

I had a ma, a pa, and twelve brothers and sisters. We lived in a part of Texas that had a whole bunch of minerals and metals, but not a lot of fertile land. So instead of being a farmer or rancher like many Texans, Pa was a prospector and mine operator at first. He was an artist at making just the right mix of tin and nickel and copper for a fine quality bronze people really had a hankering to use. When he got that enterprise going to the point where it paid the bills, he became an inventor who made stuff for anybody who could prove they would use it for a good purpose. Everybody in the family helped in some way, practically from the time we were born. Kids in Texas grow up fast, and even if something happened to slow a body down along the way, we picked ourselves up and kept on going.

That’s how it was when I lost my leg. By the time it healed up pa had designed my bronze steam-powered model, and I was right back into the thick of it, helping the family. I was about fourteen when that happened, and it took pa about a year to get the leg just right.

So I was seventeen when he finished the Catfish submarine. I was a middle child, so about half the other kids had already growed up and gone off about their lives. I was the oldest one still at home, and I begged pa to let me test it.

That’s how I came to be riding a giant Catfish down the Rio Grande when Pecos Bill happened by on his black stallion Widowmaker. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and that was that. Ma and Pa were scandalized by the lack of courtship but happy to have a feller who wasn’t afraid of nothing to test out all the gadgets.

Now, I expect you’ve heard a lot about Pecos Bill, but I’m here to tell you that certain embellishments upon the tale of his life are nothing but sloshing hogwash. I’ll deal with that later on in its proper place. The truth is that the tall tales told about my husband and even myself don’t compare to what we really did in our service to my pa, our country, and its people. Unfortunately a lot of it’s still classified, besides the fact that pa never liked people blabbing about his secrets, patents applied for, pending, and granted, so I’ll just say that we had an interesting life. We consider our finest achievement to be adding five more members to the family, teaching them the Scriptures, and seeing them grow up straight for the sky like a pine tree pointing to the Good Lord above.

Twenty years into a marriage is no time to get around to having a honeymoon, I suppose, but that’s how it worked out for Bill and me. We were so busy working as trackers and explorers, first for the Army, then for Pinkerton, and betweenwhiles building devices with pa and carrying on his work after he passed away, it was all we could do to raise the five offspring and get them off into good marriages, honest work, or training toward gainful employment.

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We finally stopped to take a breath and look around us when Catherine, the youngest, finally accepted young Rattlesnake Roy Ormsby’s proposal and was hitched up proper. Bill looked at the backside of the train taking them away to their honeymoon in the Colorado Mountains, covered with festooning, shoes, tin cans, and Just Married signs. He looked down at me.

Do you realize we never had us a honeymoon, Sue m’girl? he asked.

You’re right, I answered. We never did.

Get the latest Pecos Bill story right here! shouted a voice. We swung around and saw that our preacher and the rest of the folks who had come to the wedding had scattered and we were by ourselves. A fellow dressed up in loud clothes with a box strapped around his neck sauntered along the railway platform, hollering my husband’s name and waving books in the air.

I got all the Pecos Bill stories! Read about all his adventures, all his escapades, all his women, right here!

All his women? I echoed, giving Bill a sidelong glance.

Well … Bill counted on his fingers. There was ma, and my sister Rosie, and my Aunt Beulah, and you, and Faith, and Lydia, and Catherine, and all your sisters. That is a lot of women.

I’ve got a notion those are not the women that fellow is going on about, I muttered, and sashayed on over to him. Excuse me, sir, but just who are you? I asked the book peddler.

Me? Why, ma’am, I am Edward S. O’Reilly, but you can call me Tex, he replied.

Well, Tex, I said, as sweetly as I could muster through gritted teeth, Just what is it you think qualifies you to write about Pecos Bill?

Why, I know everything about him, exclaimed the fellow. I know about the sad tale of his falling out of the wagon of his pioneer parents by the Pecos River. I know how he was raised by coyotes and thought of himself as one of them, until his brother found him howling at the moon and persuaded him to return to civilization.

Is that so? Bill asked mildly. I stuffed both fists in my mouth and still couldn’t stop snorting.

Indeed! I know how he tamed snakes, and even made them serve his turn as lassos and whips, using them to control the elements. He even furthered the development of Texas by his epic deeds.

Huh, said Bill. You don’t say. Now, I thought I heard you mention women?

Oh, my dear sir, you have touched upon the biggest selling point of my books, O’Reilly cried. I cannot give away the secrets entirely or no one would buy them. But I will whet your appetite with the story of Sluefoot Sue, the woman Bill loved best of all.

My dear, you’ll want to hear this, Bill called out to me, since I had withdrawn a stone’s throw or so to try to contain my mirth. I got myself under control and drew near again.

You will think me the greatest liar on the planet when I tell you how the two of them met, O’Reilly confided. Sluefoot Sue – I have no idea how she acquired that absurd nickname, but so she was called – rode down the Rio Grande on a giant catfish. Bill rode alongside the river on his fearsome stallion Widowmaker. Their eyes met, and it was love at first sight.

Well, at least he’s got that right, I murmured. Our eyes met again, and we almost wandered away without hearing any more of this fascinating tale. Bill was determined, however, so we pulled ourselves out of that pool of desire and returned our attention to this O’Reilly character.

But their love was star-crossed, sighed O’Reilly. Sluefoot Sue demanded as a wedding present a chance to ride Widowmaker. No one but Bill had ever ridden that horse and lived. Bill’s pleas fell on deaf ears and right after saying ‘I do’, that plucky cowgirl proceeded to mount the great black stallion Indian fashion. She was immediately thrown, landing on her bustle and bouncing up into the sky. Bill tried to lasso her with Shake the Snake, his longest and best-trained reptile, but she continued to bounce up and down until she landed on the moon, never to be seen again on earth. Bill was heartbroken and reverted to his coyote tribe, where he taught them all to howl at the moon a special song of mourning for his lost love.

Huh, Bill said, elbowing me as my spluttering got too loud again. Say it ain’t so.

Why sir, I say it is so! exclaimed O’Reilly. You can read all this and so much more in my book. It is a mere thirty-eight cents per copy. You cannot pass up this chance to own a piece of history.

Indeed, I must agree with you, Bill said in a solemn tone. How many books do you have there, my good man?

I have forty-three left in my first edition. Will you take more than one, then?

I will take them all, Bill replied.

All! It was O’Reilly’s turn to splutter. Bill dug a twenty-dollar gold piece out of his pocket and handed it over. The fellow began to fumble for change and Bill and I kindly helped him unlimber the strap box. Our eyes met again and I took it in my hands.

Ready, darlin’? he asked.

I am, Honey bunch. Bill let out a whistle of epic proportions. I tossed the box into the air.

Around the corner of the train station came Widowmaker at full gallop. He did an arc in a cloud of dust and kicked his heels into the air. They connected with the box and it sailed into the sky.

Bill and I both unlimbered our weapons and fired at the targets. It was better than a skeet shoot. Book after book exploded and nary a one touched the ground. Finally we shot the box itself to kindling.

Bill turned to O’Reilly and tipped his dangling jaw shut for him. Keep the change, son, to compensate you for the loss of your box.

Who – how – why – ? babbled O’Reilly.

I am Pecos Bill, my husband responded, and this lovely lady is my wife, Sluefoot Sue. That answers the who. We have been shooting all our lives, which answers the how. As to the why, let me just suggest that you stick to writing the truth and quit making up nonsense about respectable people.

B-but – O’Reilly stuttered. He said it a good many more times but I didn’t bother to record them all.

Bill unwound Shake from Widowmaker’s saddlehorn. The bronze mechanical snake-lasso swung through the air, landed around the white-faced writer, and pulled him right up to Bill’s chest.

There are no buts, Bill said. We understand each other, correct?

O’Reilly nodded like a woodpecker on a grub-filled log. Bill released the bronze mechanical snake-lasso and he staggered away without another word, walking backward, unable to stop staring at us. I gave out with a whistle of my own. Out of the river on the other side of the train tracks rose the Catfish, our steam-powered sub. Its mouth clanked open onto the dirt bank and Bill, Widowmaker, my horse Moonmaiden, and I headed into the gaping maw. We glanced back just once, to see O’Reilly fall on his backside into the Texas dust, his jaw pretty much unhinged this time.

Where shall we go on our honeymoon, darlin’? Bill asked as we closed the Catfish up and prepared to submerge.

What about up northern California way?

That’s mighty pretty country, Bill agreed. Widowmaker and Moonmaiden bobbed their heads in agreement, and I set the Catfish’s course.

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Chapter Two

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If you haven’t seen Northern California in June, it’s worth a look. We were of a mind to explore and the big rivers only went so far. The Catfish can walk on its fins a might, but that’s kind of bumpy. Accordingly we locked down the vessel and sank it into the bottom of the center of a channel where nobody was likely to bother it.

Widowmaker and my Moonmaiden took us a long ways up into some very rocky country. They could both climb nigh as well as mountain goats. We rode and led and scrabbled and eventually a glorious sunset let us know it was time to make camp. We found a most amazing shelter of beautiful glittering pillars, complete with a hot spring snuggled out of anybody’s sight, and there we laid out our bedrolls.

Happy Honeymoon, Honey bunch, I whispered to Bill. Are you ready for a little Cowpoke in the Bathtub?

Those big black eyes of his lit up like stars. Indeed I am, darlin’. Indeed I am. And we don’t even need to worry about spoiling the rugs in the Catfish.

Nor mopping up afterwards, I grinned. All we have to do is make sure to lay the clothes out of harm’s way.

I reckon there will be some splashing. We scoped out a safe spot for the duds.

Ahhhh. Bill breathed in deep as he started shrugging out of his gear. There’s going to be one mighty happy cowpoke in this-here bunkhouse tonight, Sue m’girl.

We aim to please. I smiled, slipping off my gunbelt.

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We’d had too long a day, too steep a hike, and too good a time in the hot spring. That’s all there was to it. Normally we’d have heard the horse thief come into the camp, but, snuggled up in that heavenly state of exhaustion and bliss like we was, we just slept too deep, is all.

Widowmaker giving out with a scream a banshee would have admired to possess woke us up finally, and Bill bolted up out of our love nest and into his pants before the stallion’s hind legs finished coming down. He grabbed for the horse’s headstall, but Widowmaker didn’t calm down at his touch like he always had before. He screamed again and reared up, front hooves pawing for the sky. That’s when he clipped Bill on the side of the head and my husband went down like a steer under a steam-hammer.

It took me a few seconds to get some semblance of a decent outfit on. Widowmaker kept on bucking and screaming like a mad thing. I got hold of his broken tether when it sailed past me the third time but there was no hanging onto it. For all his screaming and lurching that horse trembled like a rabbit in a headlamp glare, as if he was scared witless of something. I had strapped on the Gatler with that sad thought in the back of my mind, that I might have to put Widowmaker down before I could get to Bill and the thief. So down the big stallion went with one quick burst. Moonmaiden bolted, kicking and screaming bad as Widowmaker had done, and I only had a half second to ponder how lightly people used the word possessed. Seemed like that was truly what had happened to those horses, given that I could feel evil like a hand clamped down on me even after the horses were no longer a factor.

I glanced over at Bill, but I knew I had to go to that crumpled, shadowy mess behind Widowmaker’s heels first. Bill had one rule about Widowmaker – if he ever was responsible for hurting anybody, we had to do our best to save that life, no matter what else happened. But the man, a youngish Indian buck, was long past saving. I had no time to wonder why the fellow appeared to be newborn naked, except for a gray wolf skin tied by the front legs around his neck. I turned my attention to Bill.

The full moon had turned everything silver-white and coal black. Bill lay there flat on his back, his eyes wide open, just a little line of blood across the right side of his forehead. He seemed to be trying to get a breath, but it seemed to be too hard a thing for him to do. I found the spot where the bones in his neck just didn’t seem to set right anymore, and I made up my mind I wasn’t going to cry like a baby. I was going to somehow manage to say good-bye to my husband without tears.

Voices? Yes, I did in fact hear that a crowd seemed to have entered our camp behind me. They got so loud I had to look away from him. Torches blazed around me, carried by a group of Indians. I’d never quite seen getups like they had, and Bill and I had seen a good many tribes.

These fellows wore the oddest assortment of skins laced to pieces of metal, and more metal bits here and there that looked like nothing so much as leftovers from some kind of armor that had got real old and about wore out. Their weapons were nothing but sticks and stones to my eyes, and it sorely puzzled me to know where the metal bits, things that surely looked forged and weren’t the least bit rusted, had come from.

They spotted the dead Indian right off and a lot of weapons got pointed my way. Happily I still had the Gatler strapped on, so I wasn’t particularly scared of a bunch of stone-headed spears and bone clubs. I slung the gun into shooting position and they backed up sharp. A couple of them knelt by their dead one and a lot of chattering commenced.

I kept one hand light and soft on Bill’s chest as I faced the tribal representatives. He seemed to have got a sort of rhythmic method of getting air in and out, not what most folk would call breathing, but I drew some comfort from it all the same. It looked as if I was going to have to parlay with these folks both to get help for Bill and to avoid getting sentenced without trial for killing their clansman.

We settled on a combination of signs and grunts and a word here and there that we seemed to have in common. The word honor flew around a lot and I knew I had to be very careful. If this buck was on a quest the tribe would not condemn him as a thief. It was an honor to steal from an enemy. Frankly, that wasn’t so far from our own thinking.

But I had to make them see that the buck had no honor so they wouldn’t think they had to kill us to avenge him. I pointed out that we were friends of many tribes and had done this tribe no wrong. He had no call to think we were his enemies and therefore no cause to take from us. They could see the sense in that, and to them, the fact that we had lost two horses over this became more important than the fact that they had lost a brave. I was kinda shocked by that, hearing them value horses over a man, until I started catching the word cursed a few times.

I gathered there was something about this dead fellow that had made him an outcast. Seems like he had been trying to win back the favor of the tribe. That gave me some hope that they’d actually feel like they owed us something, since he’d brought disgrace on them by his failure.

Apparently they did because they started to rig up a stretcher, understanding that Bill was alive but unable to move on his own. Oh, what a twister of conflict welled up in my soul. I half-wished they’d just turn around and leave us in peace. I feared so much that moving Bill would clip that little thread of life he hung on by. But what was I going to do to mend him here by myself?

God, hold us in the hollow of Your hands, I muttered. I know You already do, but cup my Bill a little closer, please. Just a little closer.

They got Bill rigged up and we set off for wherever their village was. To my astonishment, they seemed to live in a crater surrounded by steam vents hissing and burping almost nonstop. It kept the place warm and comfy, I suppose, but besides being noisy it seemed dangerous. This was a volcano, and not an altogether extinct one, either.

They set Bill and the dead brave down in front of a pathetic little hut. Out came a withered old woman and a tiny, naked girl-child. The fellow who seemed to be the leader of the group that had come to our camp made quite a speech and that poor, bent old woman wrung her hands and bent lower as she listened. Could be she was younger than I was but she’d surely had one rough life. The little girl might have been five or six, bony as all get-out, just like the old woman. At first she clung to the old woman, but after a minute she sat down next to Bill’s stretcher and wound her little fingers into his hair, making cooing noises into his ear.

The village was made up of what seemed to be multi-family lodges, but this pathetic little hut stood all by itself. So the dead horse thief was related to this woman and the little girl, but they somehow seemed to have no ties to the rest of the village. I listened as hard as I could as the talk went on, and concluded that this woman had lost her husband long ago. The dead man was her son, a ne’er do well who had somehow managed to acquire a wife and father this skinny little girl.

His wife had also died, and all this hardship seemed to have made the tribe suspect they were cursed. That would explain the hut built apart from the others. The tribe was see-sawing between being afraid of the curse and trying to show a little compassion to what was left of the family.

Long and short of it was that the woman was ordered to help me nurse Bill, and if he recovered, that would be a sign that the curse on the family was broken. I knew it was terrible unfair, on account of there was a slim enough chance Bill would even live the night, much less truly recover. But the tribe was gung-ho to get on with the trial by ordeal, as I couldn’t help but call it. They moved the family into an empty lodge. That was a good thing, and another good thing was that everybody in the tribe brought presents.

They all wanted to help make amends for our losses, and assist the old woman in making us comfortable. That little scrap of a girl hardly let go of Bill. Starving as she had to be, she wanted to be the one to squeeze water and pasty nourishment into Bill’s throat. I made sure the two of them got a share of the plentiful food brought around by the tribe. Her grandmother, at my insistence, stitched together a little buckskin dress out of the heaps of skins and furs people piled on us.

I admit I didn’t have enough faith to go to sleep for about three days. I kept watching and praying and helping the little one squeeze drops of water and mushed up food into Bill. Finally I guess I just dropped down beside him and sorta passed out, thereby getting some shut-eye.

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Chapter Three

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Of course a big stir of noise had to wake me up. I got more sticky-eyed and sore than rested. The old woman and I poked our noses out of the lodge and tried to figure out what the ruckus was about. The little one, she curled herself up in a ball and seemed like she wanted no part of whatever was going on.

A procession seemed to be snaking itself around the outskirts of the village. A dozen people dressed as different kinds of animals stamped and shuffled and played flutes and different kinds of shaking, clacking, and beating instruments. I did take note that none of the people in the procession wore any of that pieced-together armor, just skins and paint and stuff that was downright backward even for traditional Indians we had seen. There was not a scrap of trade goods