The Rattlesnake Season

by Larry D. Sweazy

  “Very well,” Pedro said, handing the rope halter to Josiah. “I trust you, and agree the horse should not perish.”

  Josiah breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.” He ran his hand up Fat Susie’s long neck, then scratched her behind the ear. The horse began to relax almost immediately.

  Without saying anything else, Josiah swung around at the quickest speed he could muster and jumped up on the horse’s bare back.

  Fat Susie didn’t seemed to mind. Josiah nudged her with his boots, pulled back on the halter slightly, then let it go, giving her her head.

  It had been a long time since he’d been on a horse without a saddle, but there was a time when he’d ridden almost every day that way. When he was a boy, and saddles were too costly. Only his father had one. The unbidden skills came back quickly, and he was more comfortable than he’d imagined he would be.

  As odd as it was, his youth had seemed to come back and revisit him regularly since arriving at the captain’s estate. The memories did not act as a salve, easing his concerns of the day. They only confused him even more.

  Given a large dose of freedom, Fat Susie took quick advantage and tore away from the barn with great speed.

  Josiah glanced over his shoulder. Pedro had already vanished in the darkness.

  Every window in the house was well lit, a glowing fortress in the night. It was easy to see how a man could become a prisoner in such a place, lose his soul to the responsibility of maintenance and stature. Josiah understood the captain’s spirit, realized what it was that they’d shared. But in that realization, he also understood that a woman like Pearl could not be courted by him in any way, but only by a man whose spirit in no way resembled that of her father’s. Her rejection of Feders was apparent proof. What more could a man like himself offer a woman like her, but more of the same—loneliness and worry?

  He didn’t know what he was thinking in the first place. He was no more ready to court Pearl than she was ready to be courted.

  Fat Susie ran at a full gallop. Josiah was hanging on without a struggle, controlling her very little. He did not care where they went . . . he just wanted to go, and fast.

  Josiah tied up Fat Susie on a post and stood staring at the entrance of the saloon. Rarely had he ever felt the need or desire for a drink of whiskey, but this night had proven to be the exception.

  The horse had navigated the quickest, shortest route into the heart of Austin. Josiah surmised that Fat Susie would know her way to the saloon blindfolded. This one looked to offer every form of entertainment that the captain was fond of: gambling, whiskey, and women.

  Happy music was playing inside, carrying outside on the cool night air, where it matched with another bit of music, coming from another saloon, just as raucous, down the street.

  The music was not the normal solo piano player offering a string of lively dancing numbers and ballads, but rather a mix of string and wind instruments, violins, and pitos, with a flavor that was less Anglo and more Mexican than Josiah could ever remember hearing. He believed it was called Tejano music, but he wasn’t sure.

  There was singing coming from inside the saloon, too, all in Spanish, and even though he understood very little of the words, Josiah understood the intent. Enjoy the good times. Forget the past.

  People, mostly Mexicans, were still milling about on the street even after the fall of darkness, walking along the boardwalk, with horses and wagons coming and going.

  He was not far from the jail block, where a large crowd had gathered earlier, upon their arrival.

  From where he stood now, Josiah could see four saloons in full operation, all throbbing with life, each with a different kind of music spilling outside, adding more laughter and shouting to the mix.

  Austin was a lively place.

  The street was like the pond on the captain’s land, the beat of the music so similar to the demands of the frogs that Josiah thought he most certainly could hear them over everything else.

  It was the season when everything came out of the darkness to celebrate the long sunny days and the even shorter nights. It was the season of change, what his father used to refer to as rattlesnake season. You had to be careful where you stepped.

  The inside of the saloon was lit like it was day.

  Bright light spilled out of the windows and onto the street. A few boys just shy of being men, like Scrap, who were most assuredly coming off the trail from pushing cows, walked by happily, almost giddy, and strode into the saloon, backslapping one another, paying Josiah no mind at all. They didn’t look like they had a care in the world. They were on an adventure, drinking up life and everything it had to offer.

  Josiah couldn’t help but notice their youthful exuberance, and the sight of the boys almost pushed him back up on Fat Susie.

  He was like that once . . . before the war, and some after it, before he lost Lily and the girls. He was not giddy now, far from it. All he wanted to do was dull the pain he felt deep in his soul and kill the hunger that was raging in his belly . . . and in his heart.

  It was, finally, the lure of food, the spicy, familiar, smell of steaming vegetables and beef, that pulled Josiah inside the saloon. His eyes had to adjust to the brightness as he stopped just inside the batwing doors, taking in the view, searching for a path to the closest empty table. There was none, so he eased his way to the bar. A lone stool sat at the far corner, meaning he would have to walk all the way across the cavernous room.

  Josiah’s entrance had garnered quite a bit of attention. The crowd was mostly Mexican, the exception being a few cowboys, including the ones that Josiah had watched go inside. They were sitting at a table with a few vaqueros, lost in a conversation, speaking Spanish themselves.

  A quick hush occurred, a drop in the loudness of the happy Tejano music . . . but once it was determined Josiah was not a threat, and had no intent to disrupt the gay mood of the saloon, the noise and music returned with renewed vigor.

  He had jumped into the middle of the pond, joined the uninhibited mood, and was in no hurry to leave. The saloon was so loud he couldn’t hear himself think.

  The spot at the bar was still open, and Josiah eased onto the stool between the wall and a Mexican who had obviously been drinking for a while.

  The man’s head was hung down, hands on top of his head propping himself up, eyes open, but bloodshot. He was fresh off the trail, wet mud and cow shit still on his pointed-toed boots, and he smelled like the bottom of a tequila bottle. He nodded at Josiah, and Josiah returned the gesture, but quickly looked away. He was in no mood to make a new friend.

  “A whiskey, mi amigo,” Josiah said to the barkeep.

  The barkeep, a short, rotund man with a pitted face and drooping mustache, nodded knowingly. He plopped a glass in front of Josiah, grasped a whiskey bottle with his stubby but sure fingers, and filled the glass to the brim. He held out his other hand for payment. The barkeep’s left hand was missing a thumb.

  Josiah laid two bits in the man’s hand, then slugged down the drink. “Another.” He had seen more than one missing finger in his life. Puzzling over another man’s misfortune on this night was not on his duty roster.

  He could feel the whiskey burning all the way to the pit of his empty stomach. Since he wasn’t a man who drank whiskey regularly, the drink had an almost immediate effect on him, numbing him from the top of his head to his toes.

  The barkeep smiled, and poured another drink.

  Josiah dug in his pocket and found that he had not replenished the new pants provided to him at the bath with all of his money. His remaining coins were back at the captain’s house.

  He handed the barkeep his remaining two bits and let the whiskey sit in front of him, intent on making it last longer than the one before.

  The bar was nearly twenty feet long, ornately carved, and cut out of fine cherrywood. Another barkeep worked the other end of it, keeping up with the constant demand. A woman sat just inside the bar directing the barkeeps and girls who were coming and going
to her with whispers, appearing and disappearing up a staircase just past the end of the bar.

  The woman was not old by any means, maybe Josiah’s age, or a little older. Her skin was bronze and lustrous, and she had shiny, fine black hair piled high on top her head, bound by expensive-looking gold and silver combs. She wore a plain white linen top dotted with gold buttons, the neckline open to the top of her chest, exposing a deep crevice, offering more than a hint of full, moon-shaped breasts. She was one of the most beautiful Mexican women, Josiah thought, that he had ever seen.

  Nothing escaped the woman’s attention. Her deep brown eyes continuously perused the crowd, searching for any sign of trouble. Two hulking, well-armed men stood at each of side of the batwinged entrance, watching the woman for any silent command to quell the first sign of gunplay or brawling.

  Josiah looked away when her eyes fell on him, just as someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  He turned to face a young girl, dressed seductively, her wares mostly open to his gaze. She reminded him of the girl Ofelia used to help her midwife, the one with saucer-shaped brown eyes who was called only niña, girl.

  He knew this girl’s pursuit before she even said a word. She was thin and beautiful, with soft, inviting olive skin exposed in all the right places, but too young for him to even consider seriously.

  He would need far more whiskey than he could afford to set aside those ideals. Still, like the first sip of whiskey, the idea of a woman’s anxious touch, writhing underneath him, warmed him from the inside out.

  “¿Compañerismo, señor?”

  Josiah shook his head no at the offer for companionship.

  The girl smiled. “Estás cansado, y solo.”

  Josiah shook his head again. He didn’t understand what she’d said, and didn’t want to. “No, no. Please.” He shooed her away.

  A look of disappointment crossed the girl’s face. She drew a deep breath and walked off, snaking her way through the crowd of tables.

  Josiah turned away from the bar, watching her retreat in search of another man with more potential than him, and felt a tinge of regret. She was pretty enough, there was no question about that. He just couldn’t bring himself to go after her. Besides, he had no more money. She would have dropped her inviting smile as quick as anything once she found that out.

  “She said you must be tired and lonely.”

  Josiah turned around and came face-to-face with the woman who had been sitting just inside the far end of the bar, directing the girls and men at the door.

  He eyed her carefully, curious about her interest in him. Surely rejecting a girl wouldn’t get him thrown out of a saloon. He took a swig of his whiskey, leaving two-thirds of a glass. “Too tired, maybe,” he said.

  “And lonely?”

  “Well, there’s always that, isn’t there?” He finished off the glass, trying not to show his discomfort as the whiskey ripped down his throat.

  The woman chuckled. “You have come to the right place then.”

  “I was just leaving.”

  “You just arrived.”

  Josiah stood too quickly, unaccustomed to the whiskey. His head swam a bit. “No, I really think it’s time for me to go.”

  The woman reached out to him across the bar and grabbed his hand, pulling him back as he pushed himself off the stool. She stared him in the eye. “I saw you arrive. It must have been a long and dangerous journey delivering el capitán to his lugar de descanso final, um, to his final resting place.”

  Josiah thought the woman’s eyes had watered up, but when he blinked and looked again, he decided he was mistaken.

  Her eyes were fixed on him, soft, yet confident. “Please, señor, join me for a meal. It is the least I can do.”

  “I have no money,” he said quickly.

  The woman smiled, his hand still in hers. “It’s on the house. It is the least I can do for el capitán. He was a friend to many of us here.”

  He looked away, felt her warm touch, then looked back to the pleading in her eyes. To his surprise, he could not resist the woman, did not want to, and nodded yes.

  She smiled, and let go of his hand. “Follow me.”

  Josiah made his way to the end of the bar, weaving through tables, and men standing at the bar, always keeping the woman in his sight. She stopped, grabbed a full bottle of whiskey from underneath the bar, and met him at the bottom of the staircase.

  “You don’t mind if we have some quiet, some privacy?” the woman asked.

  “No,” Josiah said.

  He watched her make her way up the stairs, taking in the full length of her beauty. Before going up, he looked over his shoulder, saw a disappointed look on the face of the girl who had first propositioned him, and almost decided not to follow the woman.

  He wasn’t sure what he was getting himself into.

  It was like he was outside of himself, being driven by feelings and needs he did not want to understand. He didn’t know where he was or what was going to happen. And after sitting on the bench with Pearl, he didn’t care. Acting precariously was something new to him, or at least it was something that had been asleep, deep inside of him, for a lot of years.

  “Señor?” the woman said from the top of the stairs, waiting, looking even more inviting with a sulky glow coming from behind her.

  Josiah nodded, and bound up after her, leaving whatever uncertainty may have existed behind him.

  They went down a long hall, lit dimly with sconces on the wall, flickering at eye level. There were several doors, all closed. The noise from downstairs muffled whatever activity was going on inside the rooms, but there was not a question that most, if not all of them, were full.

  There was another staircase that led up at the end of the hall. The woman made her way steadily up the last set of stairs, looking over her shoulder on occasion with a slight smile, to make sure Josiah was still behind her. He was close enough to smell a light floral fragrance on the back of her neck.

  There were only two doors on the third floor. The woman stopped, fished a gold skeleton key out of a hidden pocket in the tight-fitting full-length black skirt she was wearing, and opened the door farthest from the stairs. Standing firmly in the doorway, she motioned for him to enter.

  Josiah complied, pushing by the woman, grazing her full body as he did. The woman did not flinch, did not look away or appear to be insulted by the touch.

  A large bed sat in the center of the room, with a thick mattress, covered with lacy pillows and a velvet bedcover the color of a field of violets. There was a vacant fireplace on the far wall surrounded by a few fancy chairs and a table. A chest of drawers with a fine China bowl and pitcher on top of it sat on the opposite side of the bed.

  The woman set the whiskey bottle on the table in front of the fireplace, poured two glasses full, without asking anything of Josiah, and offered him one. He took it, clinked it to hers when she offered, and downed the drink in one gulp.

  He knew what was coming next, and as nervous, uncertain, and out of practice as he was, the one thing he wanted at the moment was to feel alive, to feel the heat of this woman beneath him.

  Pearl had set him on fire, brought him back to life with one grazing kiss. Even though he had just met her, he could only wish it were her with him, alone in a room with an inviting bed. But that was impossible, and would never—ever—happen. He needed to forget about Pearl, forget that she was available, favored by Pete Feders, but opposed to all Rangers. And the last thing he needed to think about was why he had been dead to desire in the first place, what dark sleep Pearl had woken him up from.

  His need to touch and be touched was so strong that it nearly knocked him from his feet as the whiskey spread through his entire body, joining the other drinks, pushing him as close to a drunken stupor as he’d been in a long time.

  The woman steadied him, opened her arms to him, and before he knew it, Josiah was on the bed, his eager hands knowing exactly what to do, parting her naked thighs with a hunger that he did not t
hink could ever be sated.

  CHAPTER 24

  They sat, eating by candlelight. Josiah had never tasted beef that was so tender, so delicious. Almost magically, a feast had appeared on a series of silver trays set outside the door in the middle of the night.

  The bed was a bundle of twisted linen, pillows scattered across the floor, boots and clothes mixed in. The room smelled of flowers and the woman’s musky scent. Hours had passed since they had journeyed up the stairs and into this world of their own making.

  The woman sat silently and watched Josiah eat, barely touching her own plate of food. “You must have been starved,” she finally said.

  Josiah looked up, enjoying some savory vegetables that seemed to melt on his tongue. “I can’t remember the last time I had a meal like this.”

  “Good.”

  “Thank you.” Josiah put down his fork, sat back in the high-backed chair, and wiped his face with a soft white cloth napkin. The food, and the expenditure of emotion and physical desire, had nearly sobered him up. “I will never forget this.”

  The woman watched every move he made, studying him, almost as if she were trying to anticipate what he was he going to say before he said it.

  There was no question that she knew a lot about what made a man happy. Her skills of anticipation and movement were greater than any woman Josiah had ever known.

  She was not the first woman of her type that he’d ever been with. It was a long war. But it had been a very, very long time—before he married Lily, never after, and never with a Mexican woman until now. He liked this woman, knew there was something different about her, and wanted to know about her.

  “You do not normally do this, do you?” he asked.

  “That’s not what I was expecting you to say.” She was wearing a thin floor-length robe, thrown over her shoulders, her body fully and comfortably exposed to him. The woman bit her lip, shook her head no. “I leave the business to my girls these days.”

  “The captain was more than a friend to you, wasn’t he?”