“I like a cup of coffee now and again, myself.” Josiah took a sip. “For not drinking it, you sure know how to make a good pot of it.”
“Sheriff gets cranky if it’s too thick. I learn quick.”
Josiah exhaled. He was glad Juan Carlos was still alive, but knew he and Scrap needed to get moving on, so he turned and started to walk back to the cell he’d spent the night in.
“You gonna meet up with those other Rangers?” Roy asked.
Josiah stopped in his tracks and turned around. “What other Rangers?”
“About ten of them rode in yesterday afternoon, ’bout three or four hours before Juan Carlos came through the door.”
“They stopped here?” Josiah asked. He could feel his entire body tensing up.
“Nope, rode right on by.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before now?”
“I figured you knew. Rangers bein’ Rangers and all.”
“Did you get a good look at them, know who was leading them?”
“Sure did. A man I never saw before. He had a big ugly scar on his forehead and a hard, angry look in his eyes.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Josiah said.
CHAPTER 39
The gate to Fort Clark stood wide open. As Josiah and Scrap strode through on their respective horses, it looked to Josiah like most all of the buildings had risen up out of the limestone ground and shaped themselves accordingly, with windows and fancy wood doors.
The buildings were the same sandy yellowish color as the ground, and there was hardly a tree or stretch of green vegetation to be seen inside the fort.
A mockingbird sat on the nearest rooftop, spouting a mixture of hawk calls and bluebird and sparrow songs.
“Used to have one of them birds that lived in a scrub tree next to our house when I was a young’un,” Scrap said. “Drove me crazy then, but I kind of like listenin’ to’em, now. They remind me of home.”
“That can’t be all bad then,” Josiah answered, his eyes searching for familiar signs in the fort. Being on army ground provoked old memories for him, too, but he was not as fond of his military memories as Scrap was of his bird memories.
Josiah eased Clipper to a slow trot and pointed the horse toward the open door of a building that Josiah was almost sure held the duty sergeant. Scrap followed right alongside him, not questioning him at all. It was still morning, the drills over, and the fort was relatively quiet. A few men looked up as Josiah and Scrap entered, but the men didn’t seem the least bit concerned about their presence. Fort Clark was a long way from the troubles with the Comanche and Kiowa up north at the Red River. Still, Josiah found the openness of the fort a little curious.
“Bad thing is,” Scrap said, “you can’t never go home when it ain’t there no more, but you know how that goes.”
“I do,” Josiah said, bringing Clipper to a stop in front of another clean, recently constructed limestone building. “Wherever Lyle is, is home for me now.”
Scrap smirked. “Last I heard he was down in Little Mexico forgettin’ how to speak English.”
“He’s safe there,” Josiah said, his voice hard and void of any emotion.
The mockingbird fluttered off, the white on its wings flapping like thin rags spiraling off in the wind.
“Stay here,” Josiah said as he tied Clipper to the hitching post. “If you speak to anyone, make sure and say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir.’ ”
“I ain’t no child, Wolfe.”
“You’re no soldier either. This is their world. Respect it.”
Scrap scrunched up his mouth and fought back saying the first thing that came to mind. “Yes, sir.”
Josiah shook his head and walked inside the building.
The duty sergeant, a middle-aged man with thick black hair, a fair complexion, and a hairless face, looked up from some serious writing. There were scads of papers scattered all across the desk.
“What can I do for you?” There was a lilt to the man’s voice, Irish or Scot, Josiah wasn’t sure which.
“I’m looking for a man named Dixie Jim.”
The sergeant set down the pen he was writing with and looked at Josiah curiously, cocking a thick black eyebrow. “Dixie Jim, you say? You’re sure about that?”
“I am,” Josiah said.
“Well then, ya might find him out there cleanin’ the stables. He’s a horseman when he shows up. Likes to take more than a nip now and again. Can’t blame a man for that. Especially one like Dixie Jim.”
Josiah shrugged. “Don’t know the man myself.”
“Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you so, but ’tisn’t too reliable.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” Josiah said. He turned to go, but hesitated, then turned back. “There hasn’t been a troop of Rangers come through here in the last day or two, has there?”
Josiah had yet to figure out what Feders was doing in this part of the country—Roy’s description of a captain with a well-defined scar had to be Pete.
It was entirely possible that the company was involved in McNelly’s plan to stop Cortina and O’Reilly, but something just didn’t feel right. Especially with Juan Carlos getting shot and taken out of the picture. Surely the two things couldn’t be linked, but they sure seemed to be . . . somehow. The presence of the Ranger company helped explain why Juan Carlos had brought them to Brackett. He had to know he was on Feders’s tail. Josiah found it interesting that Feders was on O’Reilly’s tail, unless he had been sent by Major Jones to make sure the union with Cortina could never be formally bound. But why would Jones send another company, when McNelly wanted the small troop—Josiah, Scrap, and Juan Carlos—to act in secret? Unless there was more that Juan Carlos was unable to tell him.
The sergeant shook his head no to Josiah’s question about Feders’s company. “Not that I can say. I haven’t seen any Rangers come through, but I was off duty for a few days, spent a little time in Brackett blowin’ off a wee bit of stream, myself, if you know what I mean.”
Josiah smiled. “I know what you mean. Thanks.”
The answer didn’t help him relax and didn’t clear anything up. At the very least, he would have thought that Feders would have stopped at the fort to resupply the boys, get them freshened up for the ride to Laredo—if that’s where they were heading. But the fact there had been no sign of them added to the uncomfortable gnaw that was growing in Josiah’s stomach and didn’t promise to go away anytime soon.
The stable was easy to find, it was down the road about a hundred yards, on the opposite side from the duty sergeant’s office.
“Wait here,” Josiah said to Scrap as he slid off the saddle and planted his feet solidly on the ground.
“Why do I always have to wait?”
Josiah didn’t answer Scrap, he just plodded off inside the stable, a large wood-frame barn capable of holding at least a hundred horses. Just inside, he stopped to look around, to see if there was anyone moving about. There was a new smell to some of the wood, but the rafters were full of swallow’s nests made of mud, empty now since winter was coming on. For the most part, the barn looked empty, until he heard a loud snore rumble out of one of the tack rooms.
He went to investigate and found a Negro settled in the corner, lying on a bed of straw, sleeping away even though it was nearing noon.
“Excuse me,” Josiah said, standing at the door.
The man continued to snore.
Josiah walked into the room and kicked the man’s boot. “Excuse me, are you Dixie Jim?” He asked louder this time.
The man roused, rolled off his side, opened his eyes, then sprang up, reaching for his gun—which wasn’t there since he didn’t have a gun belt on. It was only then that Josiah noticed that he only had one foot. A crutch was propped up in the corner.
“Whoa,” Josiah said, throwing up both hands like he was getting held up. “I don’t mean you any harm. Juan Carlos sent me.”
The man was about half a head shorter than J
osiah and maybe ten years older, it was hard to tell, but there was white starting to mix in his wavy black hair. His skin was ten times darker than any Mexican Josiah had ever seen, and he assumed the man was one of the Negro-Seminole scouts that worked out of Fort Clark. His face, with a bold straight nose and blue eyes, was more Indian than Negro. The clothes the man wore were little more than rags. It looked like he had lost his foot just above the ankle, and his pant leg was tied in a knot, just barely raking the ground when he moved.
“Are you Dixie Jim?” Josiah asked, again.
The man nodded, realizing that he didn’t have a gun. He slapped his hand to his side, gave Josiah a snarl, then hopped over to get his crutch. “I am. What you want? Ain’t you got no manners seeing a man sleeping, you leave him alone?”
The room smelled like Josiah had walked inside a whiskey barrel. “Sorry about that, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“You say Juan Carlos sent you? You a friend?”
“I am. We’re on a mission for Captain McNelly.”
“Don’t know no McNelly. Where’s Juan Carlos?”
“He was shot in town. When we left him, he wasn’t doing so good, couldn’t continue on with us. The last words he spoke to me were about you. I’m hoping you can help me.”
The crutch securely under his arm, Dixie Jim stared at Josiah with focused uncertainty. “Was supposed to be waiting for Juan Carlos. Got tired of waiting, I did. You a drinkin’ man? What’s your name?”
“Josiah. Josiah Wolfe.”
Dixie Jim nodded, recognition lighting his eyes, and said, “Ah, you want me to help you track that Badger, that’s what they call him, eh? Liam O’Reilly. I’m no killer, are you?”
“I am if I have to be.”
CHAPTER 40
With the horses refreshed and the saddlebags restocked for another two-hundred-mile journey, Josiah, Scrap, and Dixie Jim made their way out of Fort Clark near evening.
The sun was setting off to the west, the sky promising to be clear of clouds or weather. Unlike the first morning out of Austin, there were no hints of red, no warnings that they were going to be traveling in any kind of inhospitable weather. Just the opposite, in fact. The world seemed quiet and comfortable, ready for night to fall and allow a bit of rest to those whose work was done for the day.
Josiah understood the need to ride at night, but he wasn’t crazy about the idea. If Juan Carlos had been leading the way, that would have been different, but he wasn’t.
There was no way to know whether the Mexican was alive or dead, and Josiah hadn’t worked up enough trust in Dixie Jim to wholly go along with the plan without some silent reservations—which he’d keep to himself for a while, watching the ground and the trail as closely as he could, employing his own tracking skills, such as they were.
They made their way along Las Moras Creek at a steady pace, and not long into the ride they passed a barren tree with about a hundred or so vultures that had come in to roost for the night. The sky was gray, and the tree was an old sycamore with white, peeling bark that made it look half-dead, or like bones sticking up high out of the soft, swampy ground.
The big black birds didn’t make a sound, nor did they seem the least bit disturbed by the travelers’ presence—they just watched the trio pass by, a few of the redheaded vultures bobbing their heads and blasting the ground with splats of white liquid excrement, flapping their six-foot wings casually.
“Nasty old birds, those buzzards. Friends on the wind, and food at night if you’re hungry enough,” Dixie Jim said. “Rather burn that meat so it don’t stink so bad on my tongue.”
“Good to know,” Josiah said.
He’d made a deal with Dixie Jim, promising to carry three bottles of whiskey and dole it out in bits at a time—after they made camp. In return, the scout promised to get them where they needed to go, by the safest, fastest way possible, and that meant a lot of traveling at night. Josiah had to do everything in his power to trust Dixie Jim, and withholding whiskey from the man was a good start. Scrap had to keep his mouth shut for two hundred miles. One task was going to be easier than the other.
Dixie Jim was in the lead, riding a small Indian paint mare and carrying very little with him. No rifle, his crutch instead stuffed into the scabbard. He only bore a gun on his hip, an old war model Colt with a little rust growing on the outside of the barrel. As far as Josiah was concerned, the gun was more for show than actual use.
Scrap brought up the rear, once again, with Josiah riding comfortably in the middle of the trio.
Josiah was glad to be on the trail, glad to be away from Brackett and the fort, but uncertain of how things were going to work out. If there was a larger plan that he had been unaware of when they set out from Austin, then the details had been left behind in the mind of Juan Carlos.
It was possible that Juan Carlos and Pete Feders knew of each other’s presence and movement toward Laredo to put an end to Liam O’Reilly’s freedom once and for all.
Feders had spent a lot of time riding with Captain Hiram Fikes, which, of course, meant he had spent a lot of time riding with Juan Carlos—who was never far from his half brother’s side while he was alive.
Juan Carlos knew Pete Feders better, or knew more about him, than anybody, including Josiah himself—at least, as far as Josiah knew.
Regardless, Josiah was determined to use Dixie Jim’s skills to ferret out Liam O’Reilly, then formulate a plan once they found him. It was not how Josiah liked to operate, but he was too far from home to turn back, and too close to Laredo not to finish the mission he’d been assigned by Captain McNelly, even though the charge itself had come through indirect channels.
If Feders was near, then they’d cross paths and go from there.
The Las Moras was in an easy mood since it was November. The water was still as a mirror, reflecting the first star of the evening as it appeared in the darkening eastern sky. Spring rains were long since a memory.
The creek still offered hope of a fish or two, if the need arose along the way—so that was an encouraging thought as far as Josiah was concerned. Chewing on jerky got old real fast.
“Keep it quiet, there, boys. Might be eyes on us even in the night. Apache or Kickapoo might mistake you for Lieutenant John Bullis or Colonel Mackenzie,” Dixie Jim said. “They’d love nuttin’ more than to rile the tribe with a scalp or two, regardless of us bein’ army or not.”
Josiah knew that Bullis was the commander of the scouts and knew the lieutenant was well respected by all of the Negro-Seminoles, but he had never met the man to personally know his character.
Mackenzie was a character in and of himself, since he had led raids into Mexico, punishing renegade Indians for the theft of cattle and other crimes they’d committed. Both men were reviled and hated by the Indians, and the shadows of their deeds fell over all white men, linking them with the rage that continued to fuel all of the tribes of Indians that were trying to hold on to the land in South Texas, and the Strip, as their own.
Scrap eased Missy up alongside Josiah so both of their horses were neck to neck, trotting along at an easy gait.
“Seems to me the only one of us that’s gonna alert the savages to our presence is that one there,” Scrap said in a whisper.
“Heard that there, young one,” Dixie Jim said. “You’d be best to carry a rifle and not a bout of foolishness with your tongue, sayin’ things you know nothin’ about. I may like the taste of whiskey, but this land speaks to me in ways you can never understand. The land owns me. You hear?”
“I don’t hear nothin,’ ” Scrap said.
“That there is exactly my point.”
With most of their traveling done at night, the following two days were spent resting in the shadows of canyons, sometimes in well-used caves that Dixie Jim seemed to know where to find in the places they were staying, like he knew in a town where a hotel was, without asking. Other times they camped under ledges of rock so high it would take the legs of a lizard to climb to the top.
But they never camped out in the open, never burned a fire big enough to reveal their location.
Dixie Jim rarely slept, or if he did, he did so away from Josiah and Scrap. Once camp had been made, Dixie Jim would wander off, surprisingly silent with his one foot and crutch, urging both men to rest. He would be the watch, offering no break for himself, or a shift for Josiah and Scrap.
There had been no signs of any Lipan Apache, Feders and the nine other Rangers, or Liam O’Reilly. They had not seen or heard anyone, and the lack of confrontation was a relief to Josiah, but he was starting to question his trust in Dixie Jim. They could be anywhere as far as Josiah knew—riding in circles in the middle of nowhere. All of the wild longhorns, circling buzzards, and hawks looked the same to him.
It was late in the afternoon, and rest had come, though fitfully, for Josiah. They were safe from the beaming sun in one of the caves that Dixie Jim knew, a hole in the wall of a thousand-foot mountain. It was cool inside and light enough to see your own two feet, the ground nothing but soft red dirt, the air dry and still. There was no depth to the cave, no long tunnel deep into the ground or the mountain. It was a wide open mouth of rock that bore no life other than an insect here or there, waiting in the shadows for the Rangers to drop a crumb of food.
Josiah was heating the coffeepot. Scrap had wandered outside to get a breath of fresh air and relieve himself. He had a frustrated look on his face when he returned to the cave.
“I’m gettin’ tired of waitin’ around for that half-breed,” Scrap said. “Ain’t nothin’ like it was with Red Overmeyer out and about.”
The mention of Red stopped Josiah, almost caused his heart to skip a beat. He still felt responsible for the man’s death.
Josiah looked up at Scrap, offered him a cup of Arbuckle’s. “Did Feders ever mention to you that he doubted Red Overmeyer’s allegiance to the Rangers?”
“What do you mean allegiance?”
“Feders seemed to think that Red was more loyal to Indians than us, that he had a deal with those two Comanche that we encountered up at the San Saba.”
The Badger's Revenge Page 24
