“I was sent here on orders from Captain Leander McNelly to serve the state of Texas. If I die in that service, then so be it.”
“You are cavalier and stupid at the same time, Josiah Wolfe. Your life has no value to Leander McNelly or his battery of politicians that pose to protect us all. You are a mere pawn, easily disposed of for the purposes of commerce.”
Josiah forced his rising anger deeper down. Miguel was trying to convince him of something that was not, could not, be true. “I don’t need watching after. Where is Juan Carlos?”
“Close,” Maria said. “He will not be able to restrain himself to stay away.”
“Make no mistake, Juan Carlos is nothing more than a messenger,” Miguel said with an angry tone of his own. “There are those who know his past and trust him less than you trust us.”
Josiah stood firm, said nothing.
He was completely aware of Juan Carlos’s past, that he himself was, and had, acted in the capacity of a spy for the government of Texas. It had been that way since the beginning, since Josiah had come to know the Mexican—who really was only half-Mexican. The man was actually the half brother of the late Captain Hiram Fikes, a man Josiah had fought next to in the War Between the States and ridden with as a Texas Ranger, an original member of the Frontier Battalion. But only a select few knew the two were actual brothers. Josiah hadn’t discovered that information until after Captain Fikes had been killed.
Juan Carlos had saved Josiah’s life in San Antonio, when he began his duty with the Texas Rangers the previous year, and that act had created a bond between the two men. One that had grown into a deep and sincere friendship. As much as that was possible with a man like Juan Carlos.
“You are a known spy, Josiah Wolfe,” Miguel said. “And you have made a serious enemy of Cortina. Surely, you must know that? I will not stand by and watch this town fall into his hands. My allegiance is to freedom, not tyranny, do you understand that, Josiah Wolfe?”
Josiah nodded.
“We have been asked to get you out of Corpus Christi,” Miguel continued, “to make sure you are safely on your way back to Austin, but I fear it may be too late.” The guitar player peeked out the curtains again, this time a little more cautiously. He struggled not to shake the curtain and make their presence known to the outside world.
“Why is that?” Josiah asked.
Before Miguel could answer, Josiah heard gunshots in the distance, faint at first, then joined by others, like a battle breaking out and drawing closer. He instinctively reached for his own gun, a Colt Peacemaker.
“Because Cortina is already here,” Miguel said. “The battle for Corpus Christi has already started.”
CHAPTER 11
Josiah stood next to Miguel, his Peacemaker cocked, a bullet chambered. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or am I just supposed to shoot and ask questions later?”
“If what I have learned is correct, Cortina is planning to take Corpus Christi as his own. There was a rendezvous this morning outside of town. I have no idea how many men have joined his cause,” Miguel said. “But I believe it to be a powerful army, attacking now a population unaware of its full intention.”
An invasion by Juan “The Red Robber of the Rio Grande” Cortina did not take a lot of imagination to envision. He had tried to invade and take back parts of Texas before—most notably Brownsville, in 1859, when he swept into town and held firm control of it for the better part of two months. There were other incidents over the years, incursions by Cortina and his followers, that led all of those in power—government, military, and law enforcement, including the Rangers—to take any threat by him very seriously.
Maria slid a rifle out from under the bed, a Winchester Model ’73 like the one Josiah normally carried. She loaded and cocked the gun like she knew what she was doing, then went to the window, just to the left of the bed, and slid it open only enough to prop the rifle barrel on the sill. She had a clear shot straight down the street. “There will be a team of men coming here for you, Josiah Wolfe. I believe there is a debt to repay,” she said.
“I don’t owe Juan Cortina a thing.”
“From what I understand,” Miguel said, “two of his men are dead because of you. Important men with strong and powerful ties that reached all the way to Austin and beyond, even to Abilene. You owe Cortina the money he has lost because of your actions. He will want something for payment. Either your allegiance or your scalp.”
“He’ll get neither.”
“Just so you know,” Miguel said. “Who were the men?”
“That would be Liam O’Reilly, a low-life outlaw who was true to no cause but his own. I did not kill him. Feders did.”
“The Texas Ranger captain who betrayed you?” Maria asked.
Josiah took a deep breath, listened to the distant shots grow in number, grow closer. An explosion echoed from about six or seven blocks away. Cortina’s men were coming in from the outlying districts and working their way to the center of town. There was nothing to shoot at. Yet.
“Pete Feders was a tortured soul,” Josiah answered softly. “He rode with Juan Carlos, Captain Fikes, and myself for many a year. I thought I could trust him, until the captain was killed, then he became unpredictable. It seems Feders had taken a shine to the captain’s daughter, and the money that was bequeathed her—all lost in the Panic of ’73. He wanted her hand in marriage, but the daughter, Pearl, would have nothing of it, even though her mother was desperate for the marriage to happen. Feders and his stolen money were going to save everything she had to lose.”
“Why would the daughter have nothing of it?” Maria asked with a wry smile.
“She did not love him,” Josiah answered.
There was more to that story, but Josiah was not going to tell Maria Villareal that he had his own tangled feelings for Pearl Fikes, that the two of them had been intimate the night Pete Feders proposed to Pearl publicly and was turned down just as publicly. The embarrassment Feders must have felt had to have been immense, and Josiah had felt sorry for him at the time, regardless of his own feelings for Pearl.
“Pete was desperate to prove himself to Pearl’s mother,” Josiah continued. “He made a deal with the devil—Cortina in this case—to enrich both of their pockets from the proceeds of stolen cattle driven north, and in the end, it cost him his life.”
“You killed him.”
“I did.”
It was a hard thing for Josiah to admit out loud to strangers, killing Pete Feders, a man he’d once considered a friend, but there was no way around admitting the truth.
Even though he had been cleared of any wrongdoing by General Steele, Captain McNelly, and Major Jones, Josiah had replayed the event over and over in his mind a million times. The killing still haunted his dreams, and his waking hours as well.
“Your face shows regret,” Maria said.
Josiah did not answer her, did not acknowledge her observation as true, even though she had read his emotions correctly. “Feders and O’Reilly were on their way to seal the deal with Cortina. I had to stop them.”
“And you do not think it is a coincidence that your new captain, this tubercular man, McNelly, has sent you here, only miles away from Cortina’s lair?” Miguel asked. “What do you know of his connections? His political desires, Josiah Wolfe?”
“McNelly has more spies than just me placed here in Corpus. There is pressure coming directly from the governor’s office. It’s important for all of Texas to end the thievery and uncertainty that Cortina is set on inflicting on our citizens,” Josiah said.
He was not accustomed to spewing political hyperbole, but Miguel’s accusations against Captain McNelly and the Texas Rangers had caught him completely off guard.
At the moment, he wasn’t sure what was going on—except that he was in more danger than he’d previously realized—and the political machinations of Corpus Christi were as foreign to him as the jittery seagull perched on the rooftop across the street.
�
��If you are loyal to Juan Carlos, how can you question the intentions of any Texas Ranger?” Josiah asked.
“Do not be so blind, Josiah Wolfe,” Miguel demanded angrily. “You must know that Juan Carlos operates as much outside of the law as inside it. He is no stranger to the halls of power, either. You have never been safe here in Corpus Christi. Not as Zeb Teter or as Josiah Wolfe. You must leave at once. There are two horses tied up behind the livery waiting for you. Maria will keep you safe.”
“Shouldn’t that be the other way around?”
Miguel’s face twisted into a smile, but his eyes were cold as ice. “If only that were true. Now go. Before it is too late.”
Maria Villareal insisted on taking the lead out of the door. Josiah followed close behind, his Peacemaker raised and ready to fire.
The late afternoon sun had tilted west, creating pockets of deep gray shadows in the alleyway that separated the buildings that were packed into the district Josiah had taken up residence in. Shouting and gunfire were drawing closer. There was a smell in the air, smoke mixed with dust and gunpowder, that betrayed any idea that a natural storm was coming. Any thunder to be heard was man-made, and any rain that fell to the ground would be droplets of blood. The only thing that could cleanse a rebel uprising was a direct battle. Josiah hoped that those who wielded power in Corpus Christi were ready for the fight that had come to their city.
Maria stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “The livery is two blocks to the south.”
Josiah shook his head no. “I know that livery, but my horse is in a stall near the boardinghouse I was staying at.”
“Where?”
“The Hassit-Lee Boardinghouse.”
“Are you a fool? That is right in the midst of the shooting,” Maria said.
“I can hear that.”
“And you insist on walking straight into this battle, knowing full well that there are men who are seeking you out to kill you?”
“I’ve been in that position before.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“You are welcome to stay here,” Josiah said. “I’d just as soon that you would, but I’m not leaving my horse.”
“You are willing to die for a horse?”
“Yes.”
“You are a strange, stubborn, man, Josiah Wolfe,” Maria Villareal said, stepping away from him, easing alongside the building, and heading north toward the Hassit-Lee Boardinghouse instead of south to the preappointed livery.
“I’ve been called worse,” Josiah said, pushing past her, giving her no time to protest, as he took the lead.
CHAPTER 12
A dead man lay in the street, his hand out-stretched, a fairly new Colt Single-Action Army, much like Josiah’s Peacemaker, just inches from his grasp.
The man lay squarely in the middle of the intersection of Artesian and Antelope streets, blood still oozing out of the deadly wound in his chest. Black smoke filled the air as a small wood-frame house sat blazing half a block to the south.
The day was hot already, but with the fire and the tension, Josiah could feel sweat breaking out all over his body. The smells of the battle were bitter enough to overwhelm all of his senses, including the common sense he’d used time after time when he was faced with making decisions in a dangerous, or warlike, situation. He wasn’t proud of the killing experience he carried, hardly ever gave it a thought these days, but was glad the skills were there when he needed to call on them.
Shots tore into the corner of the building he had stopped at, a two-storey affair made of shellcrete, concrete made of oyster shells fished out of the bay, crushed and used as a building material. The walls were two feet thick, and the bullets were fully embedded, a puff of dust exiting with each shot.
Josiah was not afraid for his own life, but he was unsure of who was doing the shooting, and which side they belonged to: Cortina’s or the defenders of Corpus. Either way, it appeared he and Maria Villareal were targets. He’d expected that, from what Miguel had told him, but still, he would’ve liked to have known for sure that the shooters were Cortina’s men. He didn’t want to kill a man who was mistaken in his shooting, just doing his job, and fighting on the right side of the law.
The shots appeared to be coming from a window on the second floor, across the street.
“We did not have to face this,” Maria said, with a sneer. “I think we are pinned in between both factions.”
“I expected more men, an army,” Josiah said.
“Cortina talks big, you must know that by now. If the town trembles in fear, he could take it over with thirty men or a thousand. It does not matter.”
“Why?”
Maria smirked. “Not only is Corpus a trade center for cattle, but for sheep as well. Imagine the power a man would have if he controlled beef, wool, and the harbor. If he is not rich already, he will be muy potente.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak your language.”
Maria stared at Josiah, incredulous, about to say something, when a bullet struck the building about six inches from her head. Dust exploded outward, raining into her hair and onto her shoulder.
“Very powerful,” Maria said, spitting, cleaning her lips, and pushing the dust off her shoulder. “While we end up dead because of a horse.”
“He’s a good horse.”
Maria rolled her eyes, angled the Winchester up at the window, and fired off two shots before Josiah could protest.
“What are you shooting at?” he demanded.
“Those who shoot at us.” Maria fired off three more rounds, then waited.
“I hope they’re Cortina’s men.”
“It does not matter to me. They can see us plainly. How many decent men do you know that would shoot at a woman with no questions asked?”
Josiah was impressed with Maria’s rationale and how she handled the rifle, but said nothing. Instead, he fired off a succession of shots with his six-shooter, then joined Maria, waiting to see what would happen next. Blind shots had their pitfalls and consequences.
The shooting in the distance continued, up the street and over a couple of blocks. The house still continued to burn unattended. Smoke roiled angrily into the sky like a rising signal set to summon some unseen general.
Across the street, in the building where the shooters had taken their perch, thin lace curtains flittered in the second-floor window, void of any shadows or other movement that would suggest an ongoing menacing presence. Either Maria had gotten a lucky shot, or the men were waiting for a better chance to take aim.
“I think we should go back,” Maria said.
“I think you should wait here.” Josiah didn’t give her a chance to answer. He sprinted across the street, dipping low enough in his run to pick up the dead man’s Colt. There was no sense in letting the gun lie there.
Maria did not have time to be angry, or show it if she was. Her instinct must have kicked in, and she started firing automatically to cover Josiah’s run. Bullets whizzed over his head, and he was glad that Maria Villareal was behind him, looking out for his best interest, instead of on the other side of the fight.
Josiah picked up speed and ran as fast as he could half a block down to the Hassit-Lee Boardinghouse, without looking back. He drew no fire, but continued to hear Maria shooting her rifle in an effort to draw the attention to her.
Miguel had been right. She looked after him and kept him safe. She was something else, that was for sure, Josiah thought, as he eased his run and turned the corner onto the property of the boardinghouse. He just wasn’t sure what that something was, and he didn’t think a thing about leaving a woman behind to defend herself—which surprised him even more than he’d have thought it would.
There was a four-stall barn behind the house. The boardinghouse was of recent construction—within the last year or so—barely showing any weathering at all. It was a grand house, with a multitude of rooms. Josiah had spent very little time there, preferring to become a regular face at the cantina, and knew very litt
le about the layout or the history of the house. The breakfasts were good and hearty, and the beds were clean and comfortable. That’s all he cared about.
He didn’t rush into the barn. Instead, Josiah slid in the back door, hoping to take advantage of the late-afternoon shadows.
A thirty-foot retama tree stood just outside the barn door, offering a graceful helping of shade. The leaves looked like long flowing fern fronds, dotted with small yellow flowers with orange throats. Thorns also lined the branches of the tree, and the first time Josiah had exited the barn, in a hurry, not paying any attention, he’d pushed through the branches, scratching his face so severely it looked like he had taken on a wildcat and lost, hands-down. He didn’t make the same mistake twice.
The barn was quiet, with the exception of the normal rustling around of the horses inside. Josiah quickly made his way to his horse—Clipper, a tall Appaloosa that had been his mount for more years than he cared to count. The two were trusted friends, rarely separated, and had the kind of relationship where a nudge could mean run or trot, depending on the situation.
Josiah set about saddling Clipper, conscious of every sound inside and outside of the barn. The gunfights in the distance could still be heard, and Clipper danced around a bit, nodding back and forth, until Josiah was able to calm him down with a bite of an apple he had left behind a few days ago.
“Shush, boy, it’ll be all right,” Josiah said. The horse snorted, finished chewing the apple, then stood still as a statue until Josiah had completely saddled him.
Josiah led Clipper to the doors, peered out, and decided it was safe before climbing into the saddle. There wasn’t time to go up to his room and retrieve his belongings. They amounted only to a few pair of underclothes, a change of pants, and a fresh shirt. Any mementos of any value were carried along every day, not left behind to tempt a thief in a boardinghouse.
Besides, Josiah had kept a bedroll and his gear stocked and ready to go in the tack room, just in case he had to flee in a hurry. He might have been new at being a spy for the Texas Rangers, but he’d had enough similar experience in the War Between the States, and since, to last a lifetime. The last thing he wanted to do was find himself in a situation unprepared.
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