Cougar's Prey (9781101544846) (18 page)

It was like the moment when he realized that Lily was dead, that all he had built after surviving everything he had in the War Between the States was gone. Just gone. He'd cursed God then. Wanted to die himself. Could not feel anything but rage.

Now the rage was directed at himself . . . for making a bad decision, a choice that had resulted in the death of a fine woman. He wanted time to stop or to be able to turn back time, but he knew that was impossible. Even now, in his current state, Josiah knew he could not undo what had been done.

Clipper rode directly behind Scrap and Missy, keeping a steady and consistent horse length between them. The horse seemed to sense that Josiah had lost the ability to control anything in the present moment, but Clipper continued to handle himself with surety and confidence. That was one of the reasons Josiah had refused to leave the Appaloosa behind; they knew how to communicate, how to survive with each other. He trusted the horse with his life, and Clipper in return obviously felt the same way. At least there was still that.

Josiah and Scrap skirted the ocean, never straying from it. The moon hung over them, finally reaching its apex, continuing to light the way as they rode hard, farther and farther away from the village of shacks and the unstable city of Corpus Christi.

The salt air had lost its ability to soothe Josiah like a tonic; now it stung his nose, smelled putrid and dead. The night had cooled dramatically, and the steady breeze blowing in off the water was turning cold—a sensation Josiah was not accustomed to. He ignored the discomfort, instead focusing on the darkness that lay ahead, pushing off nightmares of the past as quickly as they popped into his head. This was no time to revisit the war, his loss of Lily and the girls, or any other tragedy, and he knew it. Still, it was difficult not to get caught up in the pain he felt.

Clipper pushed on, trailing after Scrap and Missy. The creak of the saddle was familiar and much more calming than the crash of the ocean waves rising up out of the darkness.

They drew close to a town, mostly dark, but a few bonfires still blazed on the shore, reflecting back on a main street lined with several single-storey buildings. Distant music met Josiah's ears, a sudden, but dim, distraction from the silent conversation he was having with himself.

Somewhere in the town there was a saloon, still alive into the night, drawing wayward men like himself to the light. For a moment, Josiah thought about protesting, about rushing up to Scrap and taking the lead. The last thing he wanted to do was ride into another town and deal with strangers.

But . . . there was still duty to think about. If there was a saloon, there was a telegraph operator. The trick would be to rouse one at this time of night. Hopefully, the currency Josiah and Scrap carried by being Texas Rangers would serve the cause.

The need was not lost, just jumbled in with the emotional torment unleashed by Juan Carlos's actions and the death of Maria Villareal. Captain McNelly needed to be made aware of the seriousness of the situation in Corpus, that the state of war was real and not created by small groups of anxious cattlemen. The governor and General Steele needed to be made aware, too. It would take all of their powers jointly to put an end to Cortina and his raiders once and for all. And Josiah still wanted to be a part of that battle.

With a gentle push and a couple of loud clicks with his tongue, Josiah told Clipper to speed up, to catch up with Scrap and Missy. Just as he thought, the Appaloosa was holding back, waiting for him to tell him what to do.

“You know where we're going?” Josiah asked, riding up alongside Scrap.

Scrap nodded. “Ingleside. We can get word out to Austin, then ease in the rest of the way. I, for one, am darn glad to be free of Corpus and that spy business. I like bein' a Ranger with a company a heck of a lot more than I like playin' like I'm somebody else.”

Josiah didn't respond, he just settled back, giving Scrap the lead again, and watched the little village come into full sight.

He wasn't so sure the spy business was over with . . . at least for him.

Ingleside was a much bigger town than it looked from the distance. It sat inland, not right on the shore, but close enough to enjoy the gentle night breeze off the water. Three wide streets, cut off with intermittent alleyways, made up the commercial district. Simple frame houses made up the rest of the town, situated under canopies of live oaks and the occasional palm tree. Most of the houses were dark, as were most of the businesses.

A dim lamp sat burning in the sheriff's window, a small white stone building with heavy bars on all of the windows.

Scrap pulled Missy up to the hitching post, tied her off, dismounted, and stood in wait. “You comin' in, Wolfe?”

Josiah sat solidly in the saddle, staring down the street at the brightly lit saloon. Music and laughter flooded out into the street, along with a good deal of light, cutting into the night like a flare set high in the sky. In an odd way, a way that was unusual for Josiah, he was drawn to the light, to the liveliness. He knew if there was one place to numb his mind and body, he was looking at it.

“No, I'll wait. Things didn't go so well with Sheriff McLane. You tell him what you need to. Maybe he can rustle up the telegraph operator and make the morning in Austin a lively one.”

Scrap stared at Josiah with a curious look on his face. Innocence still showed on the boy's face, even at night, but there was a knowing consideration in his eyes that was surprising. “You're gonna wait for me, right, Wolfe?”

Josiah ignored the question. “Go on, now. Do what you came to do.”

Scrap shrugged and loped inside the jail, checking over his shoulder twice before disappearing behind a closed door.

Josiah waited until he heard voices before easing Clipper down the street. The saloon was two blocks south.

Ingleside shared a lot of the same construction techniques as Corpus—most of the buildings were made of shellcrete or wood; the hard shell made the buildings more durable and able to withstand the massive storms that billowed ashore in the summer and fall of the year. There was only one two-storey building that Josiah could see, a hotel, welcoming even in the dark. It was whitewashed, and the sign over the double doors was gilded with gold lettering and fancy leaves, announcing that the Stratford House was a place of fine comfort. Most all of the windows were dark, but a few, the ones closest to the saloon, still burned.

The buildings in between the hotel and the saloon consisted of a hat maker, a mercantile, and a newspaper office. Josiah could see a clock on the wall in the newspaper office, from the light emitting out of the saloon. It was nearly midnight.

There had to be a livery close, but Josiah decided to wait to stable Clipper. He hitched up the Appaloosa and patted the horse's neck. “Don't go causing any trouble now, you hear.”

Clipper didn't respond, just stood motionless, his nose pointed toward the batwings of the saloon.

The ground under Josiah's boots was soft, pliable, but not muddy. He'd had trouble getting his footing on sand from the day he arrived in Corpus Christi. It just seemed harder to walk on, to get where he was going.

He gladly made his way to the boardwalk, hopped up on it, then walked into the saloon without a second thought. Elliot would have no trouble figuring out where he'd gone—even though he didn't know Wolfe as a drinking man, or a man who partook in libations on a regular basis. Now that he thought of it, the boy had never seen him smoke, cuss, or take enough whiskey to his tongue to make him the least bit . . . drunk.

The noise and light were overwhelming, and it took Josiah a second to adjust his vision and get his bearings. He stopped just inside the door.

It was a long, narrow, single-level room, and every lamp was burning as brightly as possible. The bar took up a whole wall, a mirror reflecting the action on the floor. Bottles were heavily stocked, and there wasn't an empty stool to be had. Cowboys mixed with ranch hands. Gentlemen gamblers sat at the tables, which were jam-packed tight in the room so that it was difficult to navigate the floor without rubbing or bumping into someone. Women, brightly and provocatively dressed, flittered about, pouring beer, hanging on to men, hoping to bring some luck or a customer after the last faro card had been dealt.

Smoke hung in the air like storm clouds forming on a spring day, the bite of the tobacco stinging Josiah's nose. There were other smells—whiskey, perfume—mixed in with the smoke, the business of rowdiness and relief creating an aroma all its own.

Josiah pushed his way to the bar and stood patiently behind a man already waiting his turn for a refill of beer.

“You're off da trail awful late. You pushin' in dem woollies?” The man was short, wore a grizzled beard that was gray, like his eyes, and was dressed in shepherd's clothes, a loose-fitting sack shirt, tied at the waist with a rope. He wore a black felt hat with a hawk feather stuck in the band.

Josiah shook his head no. “Just coming in for a drink, that's all.”

“You see any of dem damn Meshicans?”

“No.”

“Two fellas traded shots earlier. Won't be long and dat der trouble will make its way here, I tell you.”

“Maybe.”

Josiah watched the barkeep, a thin rail of a man, his black hair thick with pomade, move behind the bar with grace and purpose. There was not a wasted move to be witnessed. The pull of a draft with one hand brought the other hand around to an empty glass in anticipation of the next drink to fill. Obviously, the saloon was consistently busy. That or the man was a dancer of some kind; he orchestrated drinks for a thirsty crowd like a performer on a stage.

Josiah was leery of barkeeps. Had reason to be. He knew of their shooting skills firsthand. He was sure there was a cache of weapons under the bar, within quick reach of the talented barkeep.

A beer and an open hand appeared almost out of nowhere, taking the shepherd by surprise. The barkeep's demanding eyes were close behind. Time was being wasted.

“Der, der, you go . . .” the short man said, dropping his coins into the barkeep's outstretched hand. “You watch out for dem damn Meshicans, now.”

The barkeep scowled at the shepherd, as the hand with the money in it disappeared behind a short apron. He pointed at Josiah with the other hand. “What is it for you, mister?”

The shepherd quickly disappeared into the crowd, leaving the smell of wet wool to linger a bit longer just behind him.

“Whiskey,” Josiah said. “Rye whiskey. And make it two.”

A stool emptied at the opposite end of the bar, and Josiah made his way through the crowd of men. He'd downed the whiskeys one right after the other. His nostrils flared, his throat burned, but he didn't feel invigorated. The problem was, he still felt every bit of the guilt and anger that he'd tried to rid himself of in the first place. There was no immediate numbing of his heart or memory, and that unsettled him more than his inability to move through the saloon without bumping into someone or catching an elbow in the side himself.

He'd drunk more whiskey since arriving in Corpus than any other time in his life. Being young and away from home, when he'd first gone off to fight in the War Between the States, had presented many temptations. Drinking whiskey was one of them, and women, of course, was another. But the enjoyment of drunkenness had never taken hold with Josiah. Whiskey left him feeling sick, made his head hammer with pain even before the anguish of the next day set in. Losing all sense of his common faculties was not something that appealed to him, either, even at a young age.

Over time, as his life changed, and the reality of drinking whiskey made itself known to him, there would be months in between a swig of the alcohol, then years, especially after he married Lily. There was no desire to live a rowdy life then, if there ever had been before. There was no temptation to avoid because the desire was just not there.