The Rattlesnake Season

by Larry D. Sweazy

  Nevertheless, questioning himself as they made their way through San Marcos was not the thing to do, and Josiah knew it. Doubt had been a constant companion in the last few days, and honestly, he was about as tired of its company as he was of Scrap Elliot’s.

  The lack of a railroad had prompted him to think of home, and he pushed thoughts of Charlie Langdon away—for the moment, always for the moment—and allowed his mind to return to Lyle, to Ofelia, to home.

  Josiah had not seen a post office in the small river town, so he halted Clipper and the rest of the ragged crew: Scrap, a new recruit, hungry for revenge, anxious to kill an Indian, any Indian, for the crimes committed against his family; Juan Carlos, a Mexican wanted by the sheriff of San Antonio for an act that was not a crime, but an act of bravery—the type of honor that Charlie Langdon lacked; and Vi McClure, a Ranger suspected of murdering Captain Hiram Fikes—who claimed innocence but had witnesses and actions piling up against his version of the truth. This band of men was surely a curious sight to most onlookers . . . though McClure, for all intents and purposes, was the only one of them that looked like a prisoner.

  A man passed by, who looked more like a banker than anything else, stopping only when Josiah bid him a good day and asked for directions to the nearest place to post a letter.

  “Onion Creek, just before you get to Austin,” the man said, then hurried off, looking over his shoulder as if the crew of men were inflicted with consumption, or a contagious disease of some other type.

  Sometime between San Marcos and Onion Creek, Josiah needed to draft a letter to Ofelia, to Lyle, who would not understand a word of it, but perhaps would have it in his possession later in life—if something happened to Josiah on the trail. Josiah had a strong desire to tell Lyle how much he meant to him. How much Josiah missed him—all the while knowing that what he was doing was the only thing in life he knew how to do. Someday, he hoped, his son would come to understand that fact.

  “Wolfe,” Vi McClure said, almost screamed, while they were sitting there. “I can’t make it any farther. Me legs are about to fall off. The infection is tearing my heart out with pain. A wee bit of whiskey, and a ride on the back of the wagon, would be appreciated.”

  Josiah stared at McClure, then turned to Scrap Elliot. “Give him a swig of water, Elliot. Then help him up on the buckboard.”

  “You sure have been acting a lot like a captain lately,” Scrap said, sliding off his saddle. He started to share his own water with McClure, then stopped, looked around, and saw a bucket and a ladle just outside the mercantile across the street. Scrap walked over to the store with an intentionally slow swagger, filled the ladle, then brought it back to McClure. “That’s all you get.”

  “You’re a wee wet behind the ears to start acting like a real Ranger.” McClure downed the water, but saved a bit and blew a spray of it out of his mouth at Scrap.

  “Dang it! I ought to let the horses trample you right here,” Scrap shouted, raising his fist and wiping his face with his other hand.

  “Elliot,” Josiah yelled. “Stop it. McClure. Get up on the back of the wagon, and keep your mouth shut. If I hear another word from you, I’ll let Ranger Elliot drag you into Austin behind his horse . . . and I doubt there’ll be one bit of sympathy for your wounds.”

  McClure slowly climbed up on the back of the wagon without saying anything—but it was obvious he was less than pleased, even though Josiah had done him a great favor by allowing him to ride into Austin, instead of forcing him to limp up and down all the hills in between.

  CHAPTER 17

  Reading and writing didn’t come easy to Josiah.

  He could remember struggling to make each letter of the alphabet legible under his mother’s constant tutelage—she was a firm believer that a child should be educated, as well as learn to work the land, feed himself, hunt, and prepare the animals that were there to be killed. Josiah preferred spending time with his father hunting, killing, and standing in the shadows, listening to tales about the Cherokee War and the Battle of Plum Creek, but over time, he’d become a competent writer of sorts and could read nearly anything. Maps were his favorite.

  He corresponded back home as often as he could when he was away as a young man, fighting with the Brigade. Courting Lily came at the tip of a pen in his absence. Those letters were bound with a white satin hair ribbon and tucked away in a hatbox under their bed.

  Even though he had been tempted to burn the letters, in the end death could not force him to part with the words he’d written so long ago—it would have been like cutting out part of himself.

  He could not bring himself to rid the cabin of anything that had belonged to Lily, even now, two years after her passing. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to part with the dresses, the blankets they’d slept on. It was all he had of his old life, all he had to remember when he was once happy and optimistic about the future, no matter how brief that time really was.

  As he handed Lyle’s letter to the postmaster in Onion Creek, it occurred to Josiah that he did not know if Ofelia could read English. And then he realized it didn’t matter. What would a two-year-old boy remember of his father if the unthinkable should occur? The words he had written by a tiny candle flame on his watch were for later. Not for now.

  There had been little drama as they all made their way out of San Marcos and on to Austin. The stop in Onion Creek was brief, just long enough to post the letter to Lyle and Ofelia.

  The captain’s coffin garnered immediate attention as they made their way north, and it was becoming widely known that Captain Fikes had been killed, cut down at the most inappropriate time imaginable in the history of the Texas Rangers.

  The reemergence of the Rangers was more and more welcome, the closer to the capital city they got. Governor Coke’s decision, and passage of the new legislation, was on nearly everyone’s mind . . . the long awaited return of a force of men that could be trusted to protect all of Texas. But when people realized it was Captain Fikes’s body the coffin bore, his demise, at the start of something so important, made everyone a little melancholy and thoughtful about what might have been.

  Josiah knew the murmurs and whispers would grow in the coming days, as the funeral march became a reality, through the streets of Austin. He wasn’t sure if he could bear it himself, but orders were orders, and he knew he had no choice but to push on. It was what he always did—push on. It was all he knew to do.

  Night passed, came and went peacefully, and they were well within reach of Austin by midday. After leaving Onion Creek, Josiah had avoided Vi McClure as much as possible. He had fallen into the trap of the man’s musical tongue outside of San Antonio, fooled like the rest of them by the big man’s affability and obvious talent with rabbits, carrots, and a bit of water from the stream. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

  Feders was right in the letter. McClure’s guilt or innocence was not for him to decide, and he did not want to place himself in that position . . . even though he had defended the Scot early on. Now he just wanted to be in the heart of the capital and free of responsibility for the captive.

  Which, of course, meant his next duty would be delivering the captain’s body and facing his family for the first time. No matter how he looked at it, Josiah was not looking forward to the coming day.

  But there were a few things he wanted to settle in his mind before turning Vi McClure over to the local authorities.

  Bearing the physical proof of the bad news, preceded by a telegraph from Mayor Kessler to the captain’s grieving, waiting family, would come much easier if he was certain of what had really happened the night the captain was killed.

  If there was the slightest chance that Vi McClure was innocent, then it was Josiah’s duty to find out, his duty to bring the truth to the surface, no matter how much he disliked participating in the effort.

  He had been riding steadily alongside the wagon, alongside Juan Carlos, allowing the landscape to unfold, keeping his mind as occupied as possi
ble. Then, without warning, he slowed and eased Clipper back so he was at pace with the rear of the wagon . . . within a reasonable talking distance of McClure.

  The trail horses and Fat Susie followed between the wagon and Scrap, who was about fifteen feet behind the last horse.

  Vi McClure was resting on the farthest side of the wagon, leaning against the sideboard, his left arm slung over the side, his right arm shading his eyes. His face was pale, a stricken look twisting almost permanently down across his mouth. The Scot’s stark white skin almost glowed bright against his coal black shoulder-length hair—a sickness had set in deeper than Josiah had suspected it might. Now there was no question that a bad infection had taken hold in the man’s leg.

  The wound might not have been a threat to his life at first, but as Josiah had seen in the war, there were unseen entities waiting anxiously for the advantage of a cut or wound.

  In his memory, gangrene was a common sight to Josiah, mostly in the aftermath of battle. Almost every injury he’d witnessed once he returned home after the War Between the States would take him right back to the battlefield, where the surgeon’s saw always remained sharp, and piles of legs and arms grew like firewood in autumn. Old war veterans hobbled on one leg or wore an empty sleeve pinned to the side of their shirts. Seeing them always brought memories of the war flooding back. It was amazing how many amputees had survived such surgery.

  “It won’t be long now, McClure,” Josiah said. He meant the ride into Austin, though he might have meant that death was waiting in the shadows of the trail. It sure looked that way.

  “Why don’t you just shoot me now? Put me out of the misery of living,” McClure said.

  “I suppose I could let Elliot have a go at you. He’s more than willing.”

  “Makes no difference to me. I just want the pain to cease.”

  “That bad?”

  “You’ve never been shot, have you?”

  “I’ve got my wounds, thank you.”

  McClure took a long, deep breath, narrowed his eyes, and glared at Josiah. “I’ve not the strength for your taunting, Wolfe. What is it that you want?”

  Josiah looked over his shoulder. Scrap was eyeing him closely, but keeping his original pace and distance.

  “I have some questions I want to ask of you before I turn you over, before we reach Austin.”

  “Why should I tell you anything? You’ve made up your mind, just like me friend Sam, Sergeant Feders, and that greenhorn trailin’ after us. I’m a cold-blooded killer. You tell me, what can change that? Three Rangers saying you’re guilty of killing one of the greatest heroes of Texas?”

  “Austin’s on the horizon. You’ll not likely have another chance to tell another Ranger your version of the truth.”

  “ ’ Tis true.”

  “If you have proof that you’re innocent, then now’s the time to convince me.” Josiah hesitated and lowered his voice, realizing that Scrap was trying to listen to every word spoken. “I didn’t want to believe that you shot the captain, that you were riding with us just to set Charlie Langdon free. I didn’t want to believe that you really weren’t one of us, a Ranger through and through. That’s how you seemed to me. But I was wrong if I am to believe Feders’s and Elliot’s account.”

  Vi McClure shook his head no. “Me leg is really hurtin’, Wolfe.”

  “There’s nothing I can do for you but get you to Austin and let the sheriff take over from there. He’ll either call in the doctor or make you suffer. I don’t know what kind of a man he is.”

  “Quick to remember, or slow to forgive like the rest of you?”

  “Could go either way. Tell me what happened,” Josiah insisted.

  “All right. It’s not all that clear.”

  “It’s not for any of us that were there.” Josiah edged Clipper a little closer to the buckboard.

  Juan Carlos plodded ahead, keeping his eyes forward, acting like he was a fly on the wall, or at the very least unseen, uninterested, even though that was doubtful. The Mexican had not been shy about his feelings concerning McClure.

  Josiah was careful not to leave the two alone, for fear Juan Carlos would put his knife to use, avenging the captain’s death and granting McClure’s request in one full, bloody swoop.

  Scrap pushed as far forward as he could come, but the trail horses and Fat Susie were in the way, a measurable distance, so he was only allowed a bit closer. Not close enough to hear everything that was being said.

  Both Josiah and McClure were aware that they were being regarded in ways they probably wouldn’t appreciate or even want to know about—either as a traitor or an interrogator, neither of which was an appealing title. But Josiah didn’t care. He wanted to hear McClure’s side of the story.

  McClure cleared his throat and looked back at Scrap, then to Josiah. “The night was fair, and I was glad to be tending to supper. Always did wonder why I got cook’s duty, but after servin’ up my stew, I seen a lot of content faces. The captain included.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me on that note.”

  A brief smile flashed across McClure’s face, then disappeared just as quickly as it came. “I cleaned up the pots and dishes as everyone settled in for the night. Elliot had first watch if I remember right.”

  “He did.” Josiah looked over his shoulder again.

  Scrap glared at him, assuming they were talking about him.

  “Is there anything to worry about here, Elliot?” Josiah asked.

  “I’m just bringing up the rear.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “The captain,” McClure continued, ignoring Scrap’s intrusion, “seemed ready for a rest. He took his place next to the fire. And Feders wasn’t that far off. The two of them talked in low voices for a while, had a smoke, then called it a night. I had my spot on the other side of the fire. Sam was a bit down the hill, stretched out under a tree, about thirty feet from me. He always did that, never slept close, always wanted to be out a bit, so he could hear anything coming along outside of watch. He’s always been a distrustful sort.”

  “I could pretty much see everything up and around the camp once I took over watch,” Josiah said.

  “But there were shadows.” Vi McClure winced with pain; he grabbed his leg and groaned softly. “Damn it, you sure there’s not a spot of whiskey to share with a hurtin’ man?”

  Josiah shook his head no.

  “You’re a hard man, Wolfe.”

  “You were saying there were shadows.”

  “Ah,” McClure said, still exasperated by the pain. “There were, always were. After you relieved Elliot, he came back to camp searching for a bit of jerky to chew on before he went to sleep. I’ve never been a deep sleeper. Thought I saw something off behind the captain. Something lurkin’ around that shouldn’t be. I watched for a bit, saw nothing more, then decided I was wrong. I fell back to sleep, kind of.”

  Josiah nodded. “I shot a man on the trail, hard to say if it was the same one, but that’s my guess. He held me back, kept me pinned in, or I would have been right in the thick of things. Maybe seen a little more, instead of finding the captain in his dying moments. You were gone by the time I reached camp.”

  “You’re certain about shooting that man?” McClure asked.

  “Well,” Josiah said. “I didn’t see the shot hit him—it was too dark, too much going on—but I was shooting in that direction.”

  “I’m getting ahead of myself. I didn’t think much of the shadow then . . . just enough to think it might be a critter of some sort. Elliot was up and hovering by Charlie Langdon, who was wide awake, sittin’ up against a rock, his hands secure in the metal bracelets, settled in his lap. They were talking in low voices. Once they saw I was awake, Elliot took his bedroll and settled in about twenty feet away from Langdon—about noon on the circle around the fire. He was square in between me and the captain. I stayed awake for a little while after that. It seemed like I had just fallen asleep when the captain yelled . . . and Charlie Langdon�
�s hands were free.”

  Scrap had eased closer, and now he yelled, “He’s a liar. I wasn’t talkin’ to that weasel Charlie Langdon. He was goading me. Saying I was scared of my own shadow. I told him I’d stood up to Comanche and he was the last thing I was afraid of.”

  Josiah stared at Scrap and gritted his teeth. “You need to hush and let this man tell his story. You’ve been spouting your side of things to every man who would listen. Now it’s McClure’s turn.”

  “Ain’t nothing but lies.”

  “Might be,” Josiah said. “You’ve got Feders and Willis backing your side of things. Is there a reason for you to be worried?”

  “I ain’t no coward.”

  “Nobody said you were.”

  McClure stayed silent, grimacing in pain as Juan Carlos bounced the buckboard over a hole in the trail. The captain’s coffin jostled but stayed centered in the middle of the wagon.

  “Go on, McClure, finish it up,” Josiah said.

  The Scot took a deep breath and bit the corner of his lip. “I jumped up and Charlie Langdon was a free man. I saw the man you claim to have shot coming up behind the captain, so I didn’t hesitate. I pulled me gun out and fired. At about the same time a shot came from behind me. There was another man . . . a man who made it past Sam Willis, and I swear on my sweet mother’s grave he fired his gun about the same time I did, and hit the captain square in the chest. I took off after him, but Sam hollered at me to stop, screaming I’d shot the captain. He shot me in the leg. I kept running. I guess Charlie and the man who’d let him free figured I might be a bargaining chip. They took me up on a horse, and we rode off.”

  “Who was the man?” Josiah asked.

  “Not sure of his name, but he was playing cards with the captain at the Silver Dollar the night before. Captain Fikes took every coin the man had.”

  Josiah nodded. “I saw you in the distance meet up with another group of riders. Who were they?”