Cougar's Prey (9781101544846) (36 page)

Josiah watched Pearl disappear into the house, then waited for her to appear in her window. She never did, but the light went off after a few minutes. He saw shadows in the room and was certain he saw her waving him off. She was probably trying not to be seen by anyone, coming, going, or motioning to him. After a few minutes he felt comfortable enough to leave.

He had hitched Clipper about a block east of Miss Amelia's, so he had a little jaunt down the alleyway, up a half block, then back to where he'd secured the horse. Hurrying was not in the cards. Josiah felt full and happy, like he'd just eaten the best dinner of his life.

Pearl wasn't angry with him and still wanted to see him. That was heartening, encouraging. Maybe with everything that had happened, he could court Pearl properly now. Maybe it would be easier since she was no longer gracing the society pages, or bound up in a world of manners and money that Josiah could never compete with.

It was difficult, even in his moment of euphoria, to be happy for someone else's misfortune. Especially if he concentrated on it long enough and saw his own hand in the demise of the Widow Fikes. There was an accounting to be had for killing Pete Feders, and Josiah felt he'd lived with it long enough. At least outwardly. He would hold on to his set of responsibilities for the act, privately, for the rest of his life. But even in his own mind, given the current economic state of Texas and the country, the lack of luck and the load of misfortune that had fallen on the Fikeses, he could reason that even if Pete Feders had married Pearl, the result might have been the same. There was no way to ever know, though.

Josiah turned north, off the alleyway, and was headed happily toward Clipper, when he heard a set of footsteps fall in behind him. His heart dropped. He was certain that Paul Hoagland, the newspaper reporter, had followed him, had seen the exchange between him and Pearl. The last thing Josiah wanted the entire city of Austin to know about was his continuing relationship. It was fragile enough. Notoriety might just be enough to wreck any chance he had to properly court Pearl.

The happiness he'd felt was obviously fleeting, and that riled Josiah to no end. Anger boiled from deep within his soul, and without missing a step, he spun around, ratcheted up the Peacemaker from the swivel holster, and aimed directly at the figure who was trailing him.

It only took a second to determine that he was wrong. There was most definitely a man following him, but it wasn't Paul Hoagland.

“Hey, there, brother, you look familiar.”

Josiah heard the voice and knew immediately it was Edgar Leatherby—Leathers, the ex–Trappist monk he'd met in Ingleside.

Leathers's thin, angular face came into full view then, as Josiah stood there, surprised and curious at the same time. He kept the Peacemaker trained on the man more out of habit than distrust.

The man stopped, and they were facing each other about fifteen feet apart. Leathers wore a black felt Stetson, to cover his bald head, and an open duster. The duster was black, too, and Josiah could barely see the man's pale white hands. They hovered to his sides, within easy reach of the guns on both hips. He was a thin man, his most remarkable feature how stark yellow his teeth were from all of the cigarettes he smoked.

“I knew a man by the name of Zeb Teter who looked an awful lot like you,” Leathers continued. “No, make that exactly like you.”

“Maybe you're mistaken,” Josiah answered. “Or maybe there's more than one man that looks like me.”

“So you're sayin' you're not a lowly hide trader from down Corpus way?”

“I'm not saying.”

“Too bad. Seems to me a Texas Ranger ought to be able to speak the truth about himself. Who he is and what he is, brother.”

Josiah shrugged. He inched his finger closer to the trigger. “You come here looking for trouble?”

“I came here lookin' for Josiah Wolfe.”

Tired of the charade, Josiah didn't hesitate to respond. “Well, you found him. How's that?”

“I know that, Wolfe. I knew it from the moment I saw you in Corpus Christi. I knew who, and what, you were.”

“So you say, Leathers, so you say.” Josiah had always gotten mixed signals from the man. Could never figure out if he was a friend or a foe. He'd had an inkling to consider the man a friend, but that inkling was running pretty thin at the moment.

Leathers returned the shrug. “You gonna keep holdin' that gun on me? No way to treat an old friend, is it?”

“I'm not feeling real friendly at the moment.”

“I don't imagine you are, brother. I never did believe your story.”

“You kept digging at me.”

“You didn't break, though, I'll give you that. You never smelled like a hide trader. You smelled like a spy.”

“How'd you find me?”

“Here? Or in Ingleside? I was outside the livery when the marshal suggested you join up with the cattle drive. I was a good spy, unlike you.”

Josiah remembered back to the moment Leathers spoke of, and he'd been sure he heard somebody, but hadn't seen anyone when he checked. He thought he was just overreacting at the time. “That was you?”

“That it was.”

“How'd you find me here?”

“Newspapers are a wonderful thing. It seems the folks in Austin find you interesting.”

Josiah caught his next words and didn't respond with any anger toward Hoagland, who surely didn't know what he had done by leading Leathers to him. “How would you know what a spy smelled like, Leathers? More to the point, why would you care?” he said, in an even tone, regretting that he only had one gun on his side, fully loaded. His only other weapon was the knife tucked in his right boot.

“Man's gotta make a livin', there, brother.”

“I'm not your brother. And, at the moment, I'm starting to think your story about being a monk who left the abbey is about as fictitious as my hide trader story.”

“Oh, it's the truth, all right. I
was
a monk. But I broke one of the commandments. There was no forgiveness after that.”

“Really, which one?”

“Thou shall not kill.”

Josiah nodded. “What are you doing here, Leathers? That is your name isn't it?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really.”

“I didn't think so.”

“So you want to tell me why you're here? You obviously had a reason to come to Austin.”

“You're my reason, Wolfe.”

“Really? Is there a bounty on my head? It wouldn't be the first time.”

“It'll be the last.”

Josiah didn't answer. He was in a much better position than Leathers was to win a shoot-out. At least, it appeared that way. The man was awful calm.

“Did you really think Cortina would come after you himself?” Leathers asked. “Once I knew you were joining up with the cattle drive, it gave me time to make a plan. I got myself hired on as the cookie to be closer to you, so I'd have a shot at killing you. I was low on money, too, and Cortina isn't much on bankrolling his hired help. The reward would be there when I finished the job, so with what little money I had left I hired a couple Mexicans I knew to help rustle the cows at the start of the drive. I knew I could stampede the cows by taking advantage of the messiness of the start; those cowboys were some of the lousiest greenhorns I've seen—including you. Then I'd catch up with my rustler friends after you were dead and finished, sell the cows to Cortina, and collect the reward all at once.”

“But you missed me.”

“I did, regretfully, and was nearly shot myself. That helped me stay in Bowman's good graces for a while, and gave them somebody to go after. I guess with me standing here, it all worked out. Just took longer than I thought it would.”

“How did you kill the rustlers?”

Leathers looked at Josiah curiously. “I don't know what you're talking about. I stayed with the drive until I reached Austin. Otherwise, Bowman would've known I was up to something. I much prefer being a religious man to a cook, Wolfe.”

“And you lost the cows.”

“Pity. But I can still get the reward for you.”

Josiah took a deep breath. Maybe he and Scrap had been right all along and the rustlers were killed by a minute group. It was the only explanation he had at the moment.

“I guess Cortina wouldn't come after me himself, would he?” Josiah said.

“He knew there were spies in Corpus. More than just you. Maria Villareal turned on him, and she paid the price.”

“You killed her?”

“This is not a moment of confession, Wolfe. Those days are over for me. I was hired to rid Corpus of spies and their ilk. You figure it out from there if I killed that female traitor or not. You were a slippery quarry. I've come to settle my claim. Cortina doesn't want you dead or alive. He wants you dead. Period. Takin' you alive was O'Reilly and Feders's mistake. It won't happen again.”

Now things were starting to make sense to Josiah. Leathers was a spy hunter for Cortina. He had taken advantage of Josiah's mistake when he'd gone after Clipper and shot Maria Villareal, then followed him and Scrap to Ingleside, and beyond, to the cattle drive. The last time Josiah had seen Leathers was right before the stampede.

He recalled Agusto's death, and it could have been at Leathers's hands, too, now that he thought about it. But the constancy of Miguel puzzled him. Miguel had disappeared before Maria was shot, only to reappear at the saloon in Ingleside, briefly. He was also the cause of the stampede, after shooting down into the herd. And then there were the two rustlers that Josiah and Scrap had found with their throats cut. Something told him Leathers was behind those killings, even though he couldn't quite figure out why at the moment.

“So it's just you and me?” Josiah said.

“I'm a hired killer, not a gambler, Wolfe,” Leathers said. “You got your finger on the trigger, but I promise you, you won't dare shoot me.”

“Why's that?”

“If I don't show up alive after this is all said and done, then your precious Pearl Fikes will be dead as dead can be. Be a pity to see such a pretty young thing flayed open at the gullet like a simple chicken. Either way, I win. Lower your gun, Wolfe. Lower it now,” Leathers commanded, calmly pulling two silver six-shooters out of their holsters and aiming them directly at Josiah.

Josiah eased his finger off the trigger of his Peacemaker. “If anything happens to Pearl Fikes, I promise you, Leathers . . .”

“Promise me what? You're a dead man, Wolfe. Don't you get it? This is it for you. The end of the line. I'm talkin' to a dead man.”

The grip of the Peacemaker slipped out of Josiah's hand. “You're like a cat, Leathers. Playing with your prey before you kill it?”

“I think I liked you better as Zeb Teter. You weren't so confident and mouthy. Pride is a sin, you know, there, brother.”

Josiah exhaled, thought about diving to the right or to the left, but either way he was still a clear shot for Leathers. At least he'd go down with a fighting chance, instead of just standing there, waiting for the man to pull the triggers of his two guns. If Pearl hadn't been involved, that was exactly what he would have done, taken his chances, at that very moment. But there was more to gamble on now that he knew that Pearl was, somehow, in danger.

“I think you're bluffing, Leathers.”

“Think what you want. I told you, I'm no gambler.”

There was only one thing Josiah could think to do, and that was dive straight toward Leathers, tuck into a roll, and come up shooting. Hopefully, the monk wouldn't expect that.

Piano music played furiously in the distance; the barkeep at the Easy Nickel Saloon had obviously been correct in his prediction that business would pick up once darkness fell. The piano player was on another round of “Camptown Races.”

Overhead, the moon slipped behind a cloud, a deeper darkness falling to the ground in a collection of shadows that were as dense as a midnight storm.

Leathers's cheek twitched. He was about to make a move.

Josiah took the twitch as a sign, the only chance he could see to save himself, and he dove forward, just like he had planned.

The dual explosion of Leathers's six-shooters going off at the same time was deafening as thunder, and in the midst of his tucked roll, Josiah was certain that he saw the quick release of bright orange light from the end of both barrels, directly toward him.

There was no pain, at least not yet, as Josiah came out of the dive, reaching for his own gun and sliding it upward. At that moment, he was certain his ploy had worked and he'd escaped without being shot. For the moment.