Josiah could hardly believe what he was thinking. He took a deep breath and looked out into the darkness. Something moved. Or at least he thought it had. It could have been a shadow swimming on the limestone, reflecting back off the running creek. Or smoke fading upward, caught by a breeze, then blown back to the edge of darkness. Or it could have been a cougar or a bear, attracted by the smell of what remained of the rabbit roasting next to the fire.
He grabbed up the rifle, eased it into his left hand, and unholstered the six-shooter.
“Don’t go gettin’ all trigger-happy, Wolfe, it’s just me,” Scrap said, appearing out of the black of night, leading Missy closely by the halter. It was clear that she’d thrown a shoe.
Josiah relaxed. “You about got your head shot off.”
Scrap nodded, tying Missy to a nearby oak. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
The anger had gone from Scrap’s face. Interpreting Scrap’s feelings didn’t take a medicine man; they were etched clearly on his features. Now he was just tired and about to give out after the long ride.
“Won’t be the last time, either,” Josiah said. He tried not to smile. He wasn’t really that surprised to see Elliot walk into camp, his head down in defeat and resignation.
“Suppose not. Is that rabbit I smell?”
Josiah nodded. “My specialty.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“Sometimes, but not now. Come on in.”
“Thanks, Wolfe. I couldn’t go on. Didn’t want to hurt Missy running at night.”
“I understand. We need to talk about some things, anyway,” Josiah said.
“Yeah, I think we do,” Scrap answered as he pulled a tin plate and fork from his saddlebag.
Josiah let his hand slide off the Colt Frontier, but he held on to the rifle. “You wouldn’t have any reason to see me dead, would you, Elliot?”
CHAPTER 17
Scrap didn’t answer until he’d filled his plate with meat and sat down next to the fire, opposite Josiah. “Why in tarnation would I want to see you dead, Wolfe? That’s the silliest thing I’ve heard all day.”
“Just sitting here thinking about everything, and a lot of things don’t add up, that’s all.” Josiah toyed with a piece of the rabbit. It tasted good to him, but he’d had about enough.
Scrap grabbed up a leg and tore a chunk of meat off, barely chewing it. “Tastes like summer grass.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
Josiah let the silence of the night push into the camp. He stared at Scrap Elliot, glad to see him but still uncertain if he would ever call him his friend. There was no doubt that the kid had true intentions—that he wanted to be a good Ranger and an honest man. But there was also the fact that he was young and wily, unpredictable as an unbroken mustang. Tragedy of one kind or another had shaped them both. Josiah was well aware of that. War had left its mark on him, and death and disease had afflicted him in a hidden manner. Some men lost an arm or a leg in the war. Josiah had lost the ability to trust—among other things.
For Scrap, the utter violence and rage employed by the Comanche had taken away the comfort that had previously existed his young life. Murder had poured hate into his heart, and it coursed through his veins every day. The Indians had killed his parents outright, and that left Scrap and his younger sister, Myra Lynn, orphans. Myra Lynn lived with the Ursuline nuns in Dallas, while Scrap was left to fend for himself. His body might have kept on growing, but it sure seemed to Josiah that everything else, the things that mattered on the inside of Scrap, had stopped dead in their tracks when his folks were killed.
Josiah had seen the nuns once or twice on his travels. They wore long black dresses, black sleeveless cloaks, a headdress with a white veil and another veil that was black, too. It was hard to tell if the women were in mourning or practicing religion. He knew nothing about either, at least openly.
Still, Scrap rarely talked about his sister or family. Any bond that was shared by Josiah and Scrap would be the adventures they had experienced together since the forming of the Frontier Battalion back in the spring. And that had been a short time. Not time enough for a true friendship to grow as far as Josiah was concerned.
“What?” Scrap said, rabbit grease trailing out of the corner of his mouth. “Ain’t you never seen a hungry man before?”
“Sure I have.”
“Then why are you starin’ at me?”
“Why’d you say I left you?”
“You did.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You let yourself get captured,” Scrap said, setting his plate down next to the fire.
The air shifted, and the smoke enveloped Scrap like it had been called to him. The boy coughed, stood up, and moved away from the fire. The smoke followed him. “Damn it.”
Josiah stood up, too, angered by Scrap’s accusation. “You were the first one the Comanche took. You were captured.”
“They tricked me. Overmeyer said there was only one.”
Josiah sighed. Their voices were raised, echoing off the limestone bluffs. Anger had invaded the silence of the peaceful November night.
“I would have never left you or Overmeyer by choice. You know that, right? Feders put me in charge, and I failed to keep you and Red safe. I brought trouble to the whole company, and I lost a man. He’s dead because of what I failed to see, what I failed to do. I don’t know if Rangering will ever be the same . . . if they’ll even want to keep me on—if I even want to stay on with all that’s happened.”
“You or the rest of us,” Scrap said.
“What do you mean?”
“The governor’s put out an order to cut the Battalion down in size. Ain’t enough money to pay everybody the wages they promised. I figure the pay I get in Austin will be my last.”
“How many men are being cut?”
“They want twenty men to a company. You still got a chance to make the cut, Wolfe. You’ve known Feders a lot longer than I have. Rode with him and Captain Fikes. I figure you’ll be fine in the end. I can do some cattle punchin’, ain’t like I’ll be left out in the cold. I got skills. Horse skills. But I sure would like to stay a Ranger,” Scrap said.
“You can’t know anything for sure. They might keep you on.” Josiah shifted his weight uncomfortably, standing back from the fire.
If the future had been uncertain before, it certainly was even more so now. He understood little about politics, or government for that matter. But he understood the lack of money in the state coffers. Since the Panic of ’73 took hold a year prior, and nearly all the banking and railroad businessmen had lost their shirts, life had been hard going for most all of the United States and the territories beyond.
Governor Coke had gotten himself elected as the savior of democracy, promising a certain and final end to Reconstruction and all that had come along with it since the War Between the States had ended in 1865. Funding the Rangers had been a major initiative, promising to rid the state of the constant threat of Indian attacks and do away with the underfunded and corrupt State Police force. But Coke had obviously found out that funding a full battalion of Rangers was an expensive proposition. It was too expensive to sustain his original vision. No wonder Pete Feders seemed so strained when he arrived in Comanche. This was one more strike against his company, when his leadership was already fragile. Josiah’s recent failures were surely just one more thing to make the company stand out as a bad example of Coke’s original vision of the Rangers.
Josiah wondered if Pete knew more about the cuts and how they were going to occur. If so, then he probably wasn’t able to say yet, adding to Feders’s frustration.
“I don’t think they’ll keep me on,” Scrap said. “There’s men with more experience than me.”
“You have a reputation as a great shot, and you’re right, you’ve got horse skills. An exceptional sense that I’ve hardly ever been witness to. That’ll go a long way. I wouldn’t worry too much about staying on if I were
you.”
“You really think so?”
“I do. It’ll be me that’ll face the cut before you do. Feders isn’t too fond of me.”
“You know why?”
“I have an idea, even though I’ve tried real hard to stay out of his personal business, but I haven’t been able to.”
“Has to do with Captain Fikes’s daughter, don’t it?”
“It might. I don’t know.” Josiah sat back down in front of the fire and motioned for Scrap to follow suit. He did know, though—at least his gut did. Pete Feders blamed him for Pearl Fikes’s reluctance to be courted and ultimately to marry him, even though Josiah had stayed as far away from Pearl as was humanly possible. Early in the spring, Josiah had witnessed a full proposal, Pete on his knees in front of Pearl, and Pearl had turned him down flat. Josiah was hidden in the shadows, but he suspected Pete knew he’d been there. The man had treated him differently ever since.
“This whole trip turned ugly,” Josiah continued. “I’d take back every decision I made since leaving Austin if I could. Change a lot of things. But life doesn’t work that way. You know that as well as I do.”
“You can’t bring Overmeyer back.” Scrap was still standing, pushing the toe of his boot into the sandy loam.
“Sit down. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I know that, but I’m still sore at you.”
“Not anymore than I am at myself.”
“I suppose not.” Scrap sat down and picked his plate back up. The smoke snaked upward, leaving Scrap alone. The breeze died, as if it had never existed in the first place. “I suppose if there’s any consolation, Overmeyer didn’t suffer much.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I couldn’t see clearly, I was on the other side of that big ole tree, but that damned Indian was a good shot.”
“I saw it. Thought surely you were next.”
Scrap looked down at the ground. “I nearly peed myself. I figured sure as there is a Hell and a Heaven that the Comanche was gonna jump off his horse and scalp Red Overmeyer, then come for me, too.”
Josiah was quietly surprised by Scrap’s declaration of faith. The boy had never mentioned much about his Christian beliefs, other than making note of his sister’s life with nuns.
“That does seem odd, doesn’t it?” Josiah asked.
“What?”
“That the Comanche didn’t scalp Red, that they left you there . . . alive?”
“I wondered about it, but I sure didn’t dwell on it. I was just glad to be free.”
“How’d you get loose? Did you wiggle out of those ropes?” Josiah asked. “They looked awful tight.” His tone was curious, and soft. He figured the memory was fresh, and being so close to Red in death, seeing and smelling his blood, had probably provoked a reaction from Scrap’s emotional past. There was no need to get the boy all riled up again.
Scrap shook his head no. “No way I could have got out of that binding.”
“Then how?”
“Feders. He rode up with the company right near dark. I thought I was dreamin’, havin’ a hallucination. But sure enough, it was our company that rescued me . . . and you, too,” Scrap said, a satisfied smile growing on his face.
Josiah caught his words before he said them out loud. He swallowed the question that nearly escaped his lips and let it settle deep inside him. But he couldn’t let it go, couldn’t keep from wondering why Pete Feders had been just a couple of hours behind them on the same day he had sent them out on a mission that Josiah thought was all his own.
CHAPTER 18
Austin came into view as Josiah and Scrap crested the rise of a hill. Josiah gently pulled in Lady Mead’s reins and brought the palomino to an easy stop after a long, hard ride. Scrap followed suit, looking at Josiah curiously, but remained silent and didn’t question the decision.
There was no joy in the homecoming for Josiah. Very simply, Austin still did not feel like home to him. The city was crowded, noisy, smelly, and the shadows were uncertain and mostly unknown. Josiah had yet to get his footing as a city dweller even though he had moved there on a permanent basis nearly six months earlier. The reasons, at least at the time, had seemed clear: He needed to move on with his life, and leaving his son on a small farm while he was away Rangering didn’t feel right—especially after the outlaws—Charlie Langdon and Liam O’Reilly—had taken the boy hostage and used him as bait. It had nearly ended in tragedy. Lyle was no longer safe in the piney woods of East Texas. But it was more than that. For a brief moment, Josiah had felt his heart stir alive, and he thought that being in the city and being close to those that stirred his heart—specifically Pearl Fikes—would help him step forward into a life worth living. Being a Ranger helped, but the recovery from the wound that had occurred in Lost Valley had set him back, and taken a lot longer than he’d thought it would. And Pearl Fikes was a grand catch, being pursued by Pete Feders . . . and Major John B. Jones. Josiah knew he could not compete with the stature of either man, so he had tried to avoid her as much as possible in the last few months. If there was one quality about the city that Josiah liked, it was the ability to get lost in it.
“What’s the matter, Wolfe?” Scrap finally asked.
Josiah shook his head. “Nothing.”
“It’s a purty sight, ain’t it?”
Josiah exhaled deeply. “I suppose so.”
From their vantage point, they could see nearly straight down Congress Avenue. The Old Stone Capitol stood at the end of the road, a three-storey Greek Revival building, set in the middle of Capitol Square. The avenue was lined with buildings butted up next to each other, mostly two-storey, but some, including the hotels, were three stories.
The capitol building had a slight feel to it, and there were some who were demanding that a grander building be erected—but again the economic collapse had quelled any real momentum to rebuild. As it was, the election in 1850 had only named Austin the capital for twenty years, so there was a temporary feel to the building and what it stood for. Another election, in 1872, had settled the matter, making Austin the permanent capital of Texas.
It seemed there were buildings as far as the eye could see—churches and dry goods stores: Sampson & Hendrik’s groceries and hardware, more than one mercantile, competing liveries, the Opera House, a few theaters, Republic Square and the county courthouse, nestled close to “Little Mexico,” an enclave favored mostly by Mexicans and very few Anglos. Little Mexico was a rough section of town, but no more so than the section that served to provide entertainment for cowboys hot off the trail and looking for a good time in the bagnios, whorehouses, and saloons. That area, the first ward, was west of Congress Avenue and ran to just north of the Colorado River. It didn’t really have an Anglo name, like Little Mexico, other than Hell’s Half Acre—but that was a Dallas name, and most Austinites refused to call it that—most cities had spots that were called that or something similar. It was one place Josiah rarely visited, but he could see it from where he sat on the ridge.
Very few trees were mixed in among the buildings, hardly any in fact, and what wildlife existed in town was mostly the two-footed, human kind. Even birds seemed wary of Austin.
Occasionally Josiah would look to the sky and see a soaring hawk or buzzard, and his mood would be lightened for a moment, memories of his childhood home rushing to the forefront of his mind. Then he would grow sad, longing for the birdsongs in the woods instead of the rumble of the train, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, the hoots and hollers of teamsters, and the stagecoaches in a hurry to deliver their cargo, whatever it might be.
“If you don’t like the city, then why in tarnation did you move here, Wolfe?” Scrap asked.
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Still does for that matter. At least as long as I’m riding with the Rangers.”
“Your boy ain’t no more safe here than he was in Seerville.”
“Ofelia has family here. They’re not alone.”
“I’d
get rid of that Mexican woman if it was me. Your boy ain’t gonna know if he’s Anglo or a Mexican.”
Josiah shot Scrap a cold, hard look, and Scrap immediately looked away. He’d voiced his opinion before about Josiah’s choice to employ Ofelia as a wet nurse, a replacement mother, really, and Josiah had, in no uncertain terms, told Scrap to mind his own business. “If I was going to keep on Rangering, then I had to do something.”
“Find a wife like every other widow man I know. Might be a place to start.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Would be for me.”
“You need to . . .”
“. . . I know, mind my own damn business.”
“Something like that.”
Scrap shrugged his shoulders. “What are you gonna do if you don’t have to leave the city anymore?”
“I suppose if I’m cut from the company, then I’ll look to move back home.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Hard to say,” Josiah said. “Hard to say.”
They took the ride into the city slow. The only hurry Josiah was in boiled down to two things. He couldn’t wait to see Lyle, and more than anything, he wanted out of Charlie Webb’s clothes. It was hard not to be grateful to Billie for her generosity, but how he had come to accept that generosity in the first place was hard to swallow. And he could not get Billie out of his mind. Her fate was worrisome, a waif lost in plain sight in the midst of an angry town—but there was nothing he could do to help her at the moment except what he had done: leave.
It would be good to step into a pair of boots that were his own instead of wearing Charlie Webb’s and a shirt cut with his own scent and not a dead man’s.
Josiah picked up the pace a bit when they crossed over the train tracks. His home was less than a block away now.
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