The Rattlesnake Season
Page 26
Josiah did as he was told. He was trembling, and he was afraid he was going to pee himself like a little baby, but he didn’t. He turned and faced the Indian. The Indian had shoulder-length black hair, a buckskin shirt, and a breech-cloth with leggings. There were streaks of paint on his face, black curvy lines trailing from his hard eyes, and Josiah didn’t know what they meant. All he knew about was war paint. But why would a lone Indian be here in war paint? he wondered. That would mean there were more Indians. He broke out in a sweat at the thought.
The Indian motioned for Josiah’s black-powder bag, and for his cartridges, too. Josiah instinctively shook his head no, and started to back up. He stopped when he was ankle-deep in the water, not taking his eyes off the Indian. It was then that he noticed the blood running down the Indian’s thigh, noticed the gaping bullet hole, and the scowl of pain that was marbled across the man’s face.
“Give,” the Indian demanded, motioning again for the ammunition.
Josiah shook his head no again, squared his shoulders, and stood firm, but before he realized what was happening, the Indian swung his father’s long gun at him. The butt crashed into the side of his head before he could move, before he could scream. He only felt a brief burst of pain before everything went black.
Josiah slowly came to a little while later, lying on the bank of the river. A loud sound had startled him awake, his head ached with pain, and he could taste a bit of blood. It was late afternoon now—the sky grayer than it was in the morning, with a cold rain sprinkling down and a fierce wind rattling the leaf canopy overhead. It sounded like a train was running over the tops of the trees. Josiah sat up, rubbing his head, his eyes searching at every turn for the Comanche.
But he was gone . . . along with his father’s long gun and the satchel of squirrels. Josiah stood up slowly, then gathered his bearings, made sure that he was correct—that everything was gone, including the Indian.
He began to run, run as fast as he could, toward home, toward his father and his ma, as far away from the woods, and the Indian, as possible.
He could only hope the Indian was alone, and not waiting for him, not waiting to follow him home. And then, fear upon fear broke loose in Josiah Wolfe’s twelve-year-old soul, when he realized that his mother could not protect herself any better than he could, or the Parkers had, when they were overwhelmed by angry, raiding Indians.
He ran faster than he had ever run before.
CHAPTER 1
July 1874
“Ofelia, have you seen my boots?” Josiah Wolfe demanded.
Morning light bathed the porch in a warm glow from the rising sun. It was a small comfort that the house faced east, toward Tyler, toward Seerville, toward what had been, until recently, home.
Ofelia Martinez smiled, and ignored Josiah. She was sitting on a porch swing holding Josiah’s two-year-old-son, Lyle, on her lap playing pat-a-cake. “Acariciar a una torta, acariciar a una torta, hombre del panadero.”
Breakfast had already been cooked, eaten, and cleaned up. There was still a lingering aroma of strong coffee and bacon wafting out from inside the small house.
Lyle squealed with laughter, then said, “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man!”
“Sí,” Ofelia said, giving Lyle a hearty hug.
“Ofelia!”
“¿Qué, señor? What?”
Josiah was standing in the doorway. His face was red, an odd contrast to his cornflower blue eyes and the thick shock of straw-colored hair that stood uncombed on the top of his head. He was tall and lanky, and his head nearly bumped the top of the door when he came and went. He had to watch his head when he had a hat on or he would knock it off. One more thing to get used to in this house.
“Where are my boots?”
Ofelia broke into a healthy laugh. She was short, what some might call squat, her dark brown Mexican face was lined with wrinkles, and her hair was grizzled and unruly, gray refusing to turn white, even though it probably should have years before.
Josiah had known Ofelia since he was a boy, and she was the closest thing to family he had left in his life. She had been a midwife in East Texas almost her entire life. Mostly to Mexicans like herself, but Josiah’s father and ma didn’t carry around much prejudice—Mexicans came and went frequently on their little farm, helping out for what wages they could earn, and what wages Josiah’s family could pay.
The Wolfes never owned a slave—his father found the practice distasteful, even though he never said so outside of the confines of his own home—but that did not stop Josiah from signing up with the Texas Brigade when the War Between the States came to Texas. He was a son of Texas, and there was an expectation that he fight, like the rest of the Wolfe family had before, in the skirmishes of the land, like the Cherokee War his father fought in, and became a hero in, before Josiah was born. Josiah had been more than happy to carry on the fighting tradition when the time came.
Ofelia had been with the family during happy times and sad. She had been there after the war, when Josiah returned broken, then was saved by Lily, the girl of his dreams, giving him a family, and new hope. She had been there, too, when both Josiah’s parents died and were buried on the back forty of the Seerville farm. Most importantly, and most recently, Ofelia had been there when the fevers came and took Josiah’s three little girls, and ultimately death claimed his wife, Lily, in childbirth, leaving a newborn baby, Lyle, in the arms of a man who knew nothing about child-rearing. Ofelia had been there through it all. So when Josiah decided to move to Austin, he was more than a little relieved that Ofelia agreed to come along and watch after Lyle while he continued on Rangering. He owed her the world.
“They are on your feet, Señor Josiah.” Ofelia laughed again, so much so, her whole body shook from head to toe.
Lyle joined in, even though it was obvious that the little boy, who favored his mother, with curly dark hair and brown eyes, didn’t know why he was laughing. He looked at Josiah and Ofelia quickly, from one to the other, trying to determine, it seemed, if he was causing the laughter. Lyle was too young to know the past, or understand the present, and Josiah was intent on keeping it that way for as long as possible.
Josiah burst into laughter then, once he looked down and found his boots exactly where he had put them. “Well, that figures, doesn’t it?”
“It does, señor, it surely does.”
“My apologies, Ofelia.”
“No need, señor, you know that.”
“It’s just hard . . . to leave so soon.”
Ofelia nodded, wiped the tears from her eyes that had accumulated from laughing so hard, and stood up, lugging Lyle up with her. She easily handled the boy, like he was a sack of potatoes, balanced on her hip like a commodity that fit perfectly against her body.
“It will be easier to get the house in order without you underfoot. Besides, it is best to get you back where you belong . . . among the living. I will be fine here. The city has much allure, and I have some distant relatives here as well. It is not like I will be all alone, señor.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”
Josiah held out his hands a few inches from Lyle. The boy eagerly jumped into his father’s arms.
“We have already discussed this, señor. I will stay until it is time for me to leave. We will settle up then.”
Josiah nodded. “It’s a deal. All right. No more of that, I promise.”
“Bueno.”
“Good!” Lyle shouted. “Good!”
Josiah and Ofelia both broke into a hearty round of laughter again.
One thing was for sure: Lyle would be much better at speaking more than one language than Josiah was. And all things considered, since he was obviously going to be raised a city boy instead of a country boy, it was a good thing for Lyle. The world was changing faster than Josiah could keep up with.
“Bueno. Bueno,” Lyle continued as, followed by Ofelia, Josiah walked back into the house, readying himself to finally leave.
&nbs
p; Josiah Wolfe had been in a new city more than once in his life, but it was still nearly impossible for him to conceive that his recent move to Austin was now a permanent one. He was no longer a visitor, or a Texas Ranger riding into town on business just to leave again when trouble was quelled or an arrest made.
The Texas capital was now his home. It was a far cry from living on the land he was born on in East Texas, where he knew exactly what to expect with the seasons and weather, where every step he took could be retraced to his boyhood, to his own painful—and joyful—memories. The new scenery was a relief from the tragedy he’d left behind.
City life was going to take some time to get accustomed to, but it was the choice he’d made and he knew he’d have to live with that decision.
It was for the best, he was sure of it, even though his heart caught in his throat as he tightened the saddle on his horse’s back.
Clipper, his Appaloosa stallion, stood firm. Josiah and the horse had been through a lot together. Outside of Ofelia, there was no other creature on earth Josiah trusted more than Clipper.
He climbed up on the horse, took a deep breath, settled himself in, then nodded solemnly at Ofelia, who was standing on the porch with Lyle still attached to her hip.
“Adiós, Papa. Adiós.”
Josiah waved, then turned and rode off slowly without saying good-bye. He had promised Lyle and Ofelia that he would be back soon. That was as close to saying good-bye as it came for Josiah Wolfe.
Austin was a crowded, noisy, town. Josiah missed the whip-poor-wills at night, even the baying of a lone coyote—all replaced with flat-out citified silence, at night anyway.
Daytime in Austin was louder than ever, day in, day out, people coming and going, horses whinnying, and train whistles blowing. It was the trains that unsettled Josiah the most. His house was less than a block away from the tracks, and it shook regularly.
He would be glad for the reprieve from the noise and from the shaking house, he thought as he made his way through town at an easy pace on Clipper’s back, taking in the coming day, in no huge hurry to get where he was going.
There was a lot to take in, a lot to learn about his new home, but Josiah knew enough to kind of understand what was happening around him, and that was important as far as he was concerned.
The Houston and Texas Central Railway had come to Austin in late 1871, a Christmas present to businessmen and those too eager to take advantage of the new opportunities the railway afforded. The capital city became the west ernmost railroad terminus in Texas. Construction boomed, and the population, helped along with an influx of freed slaves, had doubled since the first steam engine roared into town.
Along with the growing communities of Negroes, there were Mexicans living near Shoal Creek, and a healthy mix of Germans, Irish, and Europeans was scattered about the city in small enclaves.
A new governor, Richard Coke, had been elected and taken his seat in the capitol in January, and there seemed to have been a new leaf turned. The past, specifically Reconstruction, was thought to be over, but old social lines were still not crossed.
Very few Anglos dared venture into places like Little Mexico, the quadrant of streets and businesses just off Republic Square—even at midday. Josiah had visited there once, before moving to Austin, and made the brief acquaintance of a woman, Suzanne del Toro, but he had not visited her since moving to Austin permanently. He didn’t have the courage to make the visit. Though he did search the crowds for her face, hoping to get a glimpse of her—no matter how guilty the search for or thought of her made him feel.
The Anglos had their own section of town, just across the river, that was just as dangerous as Little Mexico and was certainly off-limits to the majority of polite folk in the city. Most big cities had their own version of Hell’s Half Acre, and Austin was no exception.
Even a Yankee had his place in the city . . . on the outside of the proper social circles, which constituted the hardest enclave to penetrate, if that were ever achieved. Money or fame usually broke down those doors, at least wore them down, opened them if there was enough of both. Josiah had neither.
The only thing he had going for him was his Texan birthright, his stature as a Texas Ranger, installed as a sergeant in the newly formed Frontier Battalion. He had connections to the powerful, but was reluctant to use them, or even acknowledge them in public.
There was no mistaking that he was welcome in the home of the now-deceased Captain Hiram Fikes—at least by the captain’s daughter, Pearl, if not by the captain’s widow. Pearl’s mother feared Josiah as a potential suitor of her daughter, and though she may have been right, Josiah was well aware that the new captain of his company, Pete Feders, had asked Pearl to marry him. She had used her grief and mourning to hold the decision at bay, and Josiah was glad of that . . . but he knew he stood no chance of winning the girl’s heart, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to try . . . though he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the living world.
Josiah eased Clipper to a stop near the center of the capital city, a few blocks away from the Democratic operations of Richard Coke. He could have easily taken another route to the Red River camp, where his company of fellow Rangers was assembled for training, but he hadn’t.
He had one last stop to make before leaving town.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
EPILOGUE
Teaser chapter