“It is good to see you again, Ranger Wolfe,” Pedro said.
The manservant was an inch or two taller than Josiah and was one of the most refined Mexicans that Josiah had ever encountered. He was dressed in traditional garb, a black frock coat over a highly starched white shirt, black string tie with perfectly equal bows, and flawless black pants void of lint or creases. Pedro looked like a mortician, except that he wore white gloves.
The Mexican spoke without much of an accent, and Josiah had learned previously that the Widow Fikes had sent Pedro back east to some highfalutin college for an education before assigning him permanently to his manservant duties. Pedro essentially ran the house and most all of the business activities on the estate, as far as Josiah knew.
It had been less than a year since the death of her husband, so the Widow Fikes was still officially in mourning, still wearing the heavy dress some women called weeds. Word was, the widow barely left her bed on most days, and when she did, it seemed her goal in life was to make everyone who crossed her path as miserable as she was.
“Yes, it’s good to see you again, too,” Josiah answered.
“The chance of your survival seemed grim,” Pedro said.
Pearl stood silently by Josiah’s side. Lyle was sitting in the buggy. A tall windup grandfather clock ticked behind Pedro. Somewhere in the distance a campfire burned on the estate, the smell of fresh cooked steak wafting on the breeze. Probably one of the hands that worked for the Widow Fikes.
Josiah nodded. “I assure you that my survival was in serious question, Pedro. I feel lucky to be standing here on your doorstep.”
“Miss Pearl, your mother has been worried about your absence,” Pedro said. “She was going to send for you, but I convinced her to allow for more time.”
“She noticed I was gone?” Pearl’s tone was sharper than normal, and Josiah recognized and remembered the tension that existed between Pearl and her mother. Pearl favored Captain Fikes in demeanor and attitude, which meant, unfortunately for her mother, that she had a mind of her own.
Josiah looked over his shoulder and checked on Lyle. The boy was sitting stiff as a board in the buggy, just like he had been instructed to do. Satisfied, Josiah turned his attention back to Pearl. “Thank you for looking after Lyle, after all the trouble I’ve caused you. I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”
Pearl locked her gaze on his and would not look away. She had an expectant look on her face. “Well,” she said, “perhaps you can come for dinner once you get settled at home. Pedro, see that it gets done. We have a party planned for tomorrow. Set another place.”
“But your mother . . .” Josiah protested.
“My mother will be on her best behavior. Trust me. It is time we had some life in this house. Being away from it has done me a world of good. Visitors for Mother will be the tonic for what ails her, whether she knows it or not.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Josiah murmured.
Pearl smiled, then stepped away from Josiah and pushed inside the door, her eyes locked on Pedro this time with the same steely, demanding glare she had favored Josiah with.
“I am serious, Pedro. There will be no discussion with my mother—she will not cancel this invitation without my knowledge, do you understand?” Pearl said.
“Yes, Miss Pearl, I do.”
Pearl nodded in approval and disappeared behind Pedro, into the flickering shadows of a grand entrance, without another word or glance toward Josiah.
Josiah’s mouth went dry.
Pedro exhaled. “I will have the buggy tended to, Ranger Wolfe. There is no need for you to keep your son out in the night air any longer.”
“I’ll be on my way then.”
“I will send word when all of the proper arrangements for this dinner have been made.”
“I would rather you didn’t.”
Pedro cocked his thick black right eyebrow at Josiah. “You do not find Miss Pearl attractive?”
“The fields between us are broad,” Josiah said. “Our lives are very different. I’m just a common man, and I really don’t know the ways of her world. Or yours for that matter.”
“Miss Pearl is more common than you think, Ranger Wolfe.”
“There’s nothing common about Pearl Fikes,” Josiah said.
Pedro chuckled. “Perhaps you are right. But nonetheless, I will expect to see you in attendance at the dinner. I do not wish to encounter Miss Pearl’s wrath anytime soon.”
Josiah knew that it was of little use to protest. “Thank you, Pedro,” he said, turning to leave.
“Ranger Wolfe,” Pedro said, in a deep, commanding tone. “You need to watch out for yourself. There are people who care about your well-being . . . as well as your demise.”
Before Josiah could respond, Pedro stepped back and closed the door solidly, almost in a slam. It echoed in Josiah’s ears like the first beat of a war drum.
The comment created more questions but also confirmed his suspicions that there was more to the events of the last few days than he understood.
He was tempted to go pound on the door and demand an explanation from Pedro, but decided that drawing attention from the Widow Fikes at such a late hour was probably not the best thing to do.
It was time to go home.
Josiah settled Lyle in front of him in Clipper’s saddle and eased away from the big house.
“Papa, I’m sleeping,” Lyle said.
Josiah chuckled, his mind immediately drawn away from the confusion that Pedro had created. He had missed Lyle more completely and thoroughly than he could ever have imagined. Being held captive by the two Comanche had most likely caused him to reconsider his own mortality, even though that was an old battle.
Josiah knew how fragile life was.
How could he not after all that he had witnessed in his years as a soldier, lawman, and Ranger? He could not, however, reconcile that knowledge of fragility and duty with a change in occupation, one that offered less danger and a consistent presence in his son’s life. The thought of Lyle being left alone in the world, left with strangers, was even more troubling now that Ofelia had been called home.
Juan Carlos had chosen well in bringing Pearl to the house to watch over the child, but it was not her place . . . not now, maybe not ever. It was even more important in the coming days for Josiah to decide about the direction of his life.
If Scrap had been correct, and there was no reason to doubt him, and the governor was ordering a reduction in the size of the companies of the Frontier Battalion, then perhaps it would not be a bad thing if Josiah was one of those men let go. Perhaps it would be the best thing to happen—forcing Josiah to find employment and a life more certain, closer to home.
It was something to consider, but that kind of change would not completely create a safe environment for Lyle to grow up in, and Josiah knew it.
There would always be danger and a threat, as long as Liam O’Reilly was free, on the run, able to turn a town and the law into his own. As long as that was the case, Josiah knew he would always be looking over his shoulder . . . and Lyle’s.
CHAPTER 21
The glow from the gaslights in the governor’s mansion caught Josiah’s attention again, as he rode slowly by.
Gaslights were a relatively new presence in Austin. The newspaper, the Austin Daily Statesman, had called the piping of gas to the governor’s mansion “a step toward modernization, fraught with peril.” And Josiah couldn’t have agreed more. A gas leak not only had the potential to silently kill every member of the household, but it could blow the place up, leave it in crumbles, like it had been struck by the most powerful bomb ever used in the War Between the States.
A bat chittered overhead, drawing Josiah’s gaze away from the house and back to the moment. Obviously there were some creatures that still showed favor to the city at night. Josiah pulled Lyle closer to him.
The demise of the mansion, and its occupants, was a distant concern for Josiah. It was his own demis
e that worried him, the echo of Pedro’s warning still ringing inside his head, flapping about just like the bat’s wings.
The warning could have meant nothing. Or it could have been intentional, an arrow pointed to a deeper meaning, or at someone who truly meant him harm. But who? Pete Feders? The Widow Fikes? Someone else in the ranks of the Frontier Battalion? Scrap? None of them made any sense, unless Pedro was somehow connected to Liam O’Reilly and knew of the outlaw’s intent. But that seemed unlikely. The comment was very confusing, and unsettling enough to keep him on high alert—even more so than he already was.
The night air was cool, and Lyle was snuggled up against Josiah. The bat had gone on, searching out whatever insects it could find at that time of night.
The boy’s head was cocked to the side, and there was no doubt that Clipper’s steady, even pace had lulled him quickly to sleep. Josiah had the reins in his right hand while his left hand and arm gently barred Lyle from moving at all. It would only take a second to sweep his hand to the left and reach the Colt Frontier if he had to.
As good as it was to be home, Josiah felt just as uncertain as he had been when he was on the run from the Comanche brothers, not knowing what was coming, if he would survive one minute to the next.
Those concerns were dimmer now, of course, but this was the first time in recent memory that Josiah had been wholly responsible for Lyle’s well-being, and that was such a different kind of survival that Josiah could hardly process the scope of it.
Ofelia was hardly ever more than two feet away from the boy.
It was frightening for Josiah to fully consider that he would have to continue to act as both mother and father to Lyle.
At that moment, Josiah realized how much he had depended on Ofelia and taken for granted that she would always look after Lyle, when in reality, she had no reason to stay other than her own love of the boy. Josiah paid her what he could and made sure she had everything that she needed, within reason. Thankfully, Ofelia didn’t require much to make her happy, or to keep her well tended.
Josiah knew it was wrong of him to even have thought that Ofelia would stay with him forever. But he had.
Lost in his own grief, in his own need for a bit of adventure, for life to continue on, he had let his responsibilities to his son fall to someone outside of his blood family. Ofelia wasn’t a stranger, but she also wasn’t bound to either of them.
One way or another, Josiah knew that everything he had taken for granted would have to change.
The inside of the house was silent.
The floor creaked when Josiah eased open the front door and stepped inside. Josiah barely knew his way around in the dark in his own house. The creak gave Josiah sudden cause to stop and take a deep breath.
He didn’t sense another presence in the house or see anything that would suggest malevolent entry, but there was no use in being foolhardy. As far as he knew, there was still a price on his head, put there by the outlaw Liam O’Reilly, not by any real enforcers of the law. Still, that money would be enough of a pull for those walking on the darker side of life to consider cashing in on the bounty. Whether it could ever be collected was another matter, one that held little to no consequence for Josiah. Some men went after a bounty more for the challenge than the payoff.
He let his eyes adjust to the darkness inside the house. It only took him a minute to make out the familiar cupboard, wash sink, table, and two chairs that he had brought from his pine cabin in East Texas.
An open interior door led into the room where Lyle’s bed sat waiting, the darkness deeper inside the room. It was a sparse house. One so small it probably could have fit inside the foyer of the Fikes estate. And that was one of the rubs that Josiah carried with him . . . still turning over the thought about Pearl’s demand that he attend a dinner, and perhaps something more, at the mansion. His house was hardly a house befitting a woman such as Pearl. Somehow, he had to convince her of that.
Josiah made his way to the room and to the small child-sized bed and gently laid Lyle in it. He took off his son’s simple leather shoes, unfurled his socks, then covered the boy up with a lightweight blanket.
Lyle was completely asleep, off in a dreamland, bearing little knowledge of his physical location, just that he was safe, or so Josiah hoped, under the watchful eye of his father.
A window hung open just to the left of the bed, and Josiah closed and locked it as quietly as he could.
The window looked out over an alleyway that separated two long rows of houses very much the same size and simple style as Josiah’s. The houses stood close to each other, and most shared space for tool sheds, gardens, outhouses, and chicken coops. It could be a noisy area, even more so when the train was moving through. It was like living on top of a thundercloud most of the time.
Lyle hardly moved at the sound of the closing window. There was nothing to see in the alleyway, so Josiah backed out of the room easily, as certain as he could be that the boy was safely tucked into bed.
He lit a coal oil lamp that sat on the table where most of the meals were shared when he was home. Ofelia usually sat on a stool that was tucked in the corner—on her own accord—rarely sitting at the table with Josiah and Lyle. It was like she felt out of place, though Josiah had never considered such a thing until now.
The room immediately came alive in the light.
Josiah flicked his eyes, adjusting again to the brightness. As he’d thought, the room was empty, and he immediately allowed himself to relax. He could hardly believe he was home. It seemed like he had been gone a lifetime, when in fact it had only been a few days.
He took off the gun belt that had once belonged to Charlie Webb, gave its origin very little thought, and set it on the table.
All he wanted to do was pull his boots off, clean himself up the best he could at the moment, have a bite to eat, and sleep under a roof that was familiar and safe.
It looked like he was going to be able to do just that. He had one boot completely off and the other halfway, when he head footsteps approach outside the door and climb up the porch steps.
Josiah froze for a second, listened for voices, for more than one set of footsteps, then stumbled back over to the table and unholstered the Colt.
The door slowly pushed open, the hinges protesting slightly, the creak drawn out by the deliberateness of the person opening the door.
“If you want to live to take another breath, I would suggest you stop right where you are,” Josiah said. He was standing flat-footed now, the six-shooter aimed squarely at the door, the hammer cocked, his finger firmly on the trigger.
The movement of the door stopped.
“Don’t shoot, Señor Wolfe. It is me. Juan Carlos. Juan Carlos Montegné.”
Josiah took a deep breath, took his finger off the trigger, and headed for the door. He’d been through way too much in his life to be completely relieved. There was no way to tell if Juan Carlos was totally alone. For all Josiah knew, his friend had a gun to his back, and someone was using their friendship as a ruse.
“Are you alone, Juan Carlos?” Josiah stopped at the door and stood off to the side.
“Sí, señor. It is just me.”
Josiah wedged the barrel of the Colt into the crack of the door, then swung the door open with all of his might—catching it with his other hand, so it would not slam into the wall and wake up Lyle.
The color had drained from Juan Carlos’s face. In the dim light, it was easy to see that Josiah’s actions had frightened the old man.
Juan Carlos was only half-Mexican, but his skin was still dark, leathery from years spent under the sun. He had deep wrinkles in his face, crevices that looked like limestone cut by the wind and water. His hair was white as a cloud and just as thick as cotton. He was skin and bones, spindly, like his half brother, Captain Fikes.
“I am serious, señor. I am alone.” Juan Carlos put up his hands.
Josiah swept out of the doorway, his eyes searching for any sign of movement on the street
that would indicate Juan Carlos was lying. Satisfied, he grabbed the old man by the shoulder, pulled him inside, and locked the door quickly.
“What is the matter, señor? What have I done?”
“Nothing.” Josiah edged over to the window, pushed the curtain back slightly, and checked again to make sure the street was quiet. “It is good to see you, old friend.”
Juan Carlos cocked his eyebrow. “How come I do not believe you, mi amigo? What has happened since I have left that you do not feel safe in your own home?”
“You don’t know?” Josiah asked, pulling back from the window, facing Juan Carlos fully for the first time.
“No, señor, I don’t. We have much to talk about.”
“Yes, we do,” Josiah said. “Yes, we do.”
CHAPTER 22
The two men sat facing each other, waiting for a pot of Arbuckle’s to come to a boil on the small woodstove in the corner. For a long moment, the two of them said nothing. Josiah was glad for the company, glad to see his friend, and even gladder that Juan Carlos was alone. One more confrontation would have likely done him in. He would have fought to the death to protect his house, and Lyle.
It did not take long for the comforting aroma of the coffee to complete the task of relaxing Josiah. Hopefully any kind of confrontation would wait until another day.
The ride into Austin had been long and finding Pearl standing on his porch an uncomfortable surprise. He wondered what had become of Scrap, but didn’t dwell on the boy’s whereabouts too much. Scrap had gone off in a hotheaded rage more than once since they had been riding together, and would turn up sooner or later with some wild tale to bestow on Josiah’s unwilling ears.
The rest of Josiah’s concerns—Pete Feders’s luck and accomplishments in Comanche and the fate of the company—were distant at best. Now that he was home, all in one piece, his own life a matter of uncertainty, he wasn’t about to venture too far, too soon.
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