The Rattlesnake Season Read online

  The air was sweet, and a subtle taste of honey settled on Josiah’s tongue.

  A few clouds had puffed up in the sky as they rode through the hot afternoon. The vultures followed the three of them, disappearing now and again, but when visible the ugly red-faced birds kept a respectful distance, soaring just above the rising green hills and gray limestone outcroppings.

  Everywhere Josiah looked the vegetation was healthy, thriving, and vigorous. Spanish daggers dotted the rocky slopes on both sides of the trail, sharp spikes rising above prickly pear, neither offering a welcome climb into the hills.

  Some trees bore flowers—fruit trees the identity of which Josiah had no clue. Other trees, like the honey mesquite, were yet to bloom, their autumn beans little more than coyote food, yet to prosper. It didn’t matter. For a brief moment, Josiah allowed himself to enjoy the spring day, all the while missing the piney woods of home.

  It took his mind off the multitude of deaths and despair he’d encountered since leaving home.

  CHAPTER 12

  The sign on the stagecoach stop said “Wilkom men,” so Josiah knew they were getting close to Neu-Braunfels.

  The little settlement around the stop was called Stringtown and wasn’t on a whole lot of maps Josiah had ever seen. Mostly, the town was just a spot in the road. It could hardly even be called a town, since there was only a small mercantile, a few hand-hewn log cabins, and the stagecoach stop, which was located in yet another small cabin.

  Josiah was uncertain about a lot of things too far outside of Tyler and Seerville, but he knew a little German because his grandfather spoke the language, so he knew the sign on the stagecoach stop meant welcome.

  His heritage never seemed important, though he imagined there were traditions, and certain foods, that appealed to him because of how he was raised. But as far as Josiah’s father had been concerned, they were Texan, not German. He never knew why that was.

  The stagecoach stop rose up out of a blooming wildflower field as the limestone outcroppings subsided, and the freshly painted welcome sign was posted on the main cabin. Stringtown was small, but it did not look desperate or run-down.

  “See if you can get the horses watered,” Josiah said to Scrap, dismounting from Clipper. The horses had held up pretty well, but flies were buzzing over the captain’s body, and Fat Susie was swishing her tail madly. She looked like she could use more than a moment’s rest.

  Scrap started to say something, then just nodded, turning his attention quickly to the trough on the north side of the cabin. He had offered little in the way of conversation since Josiah had questioned him about Vi McClure’s involvement in the captain’s death. Maybe the kid was thinking things through . . . replaying the events over in his mind. Josiah hoped so. He’d like to believe McClure was innocent.

  After the dismount, Josiah settled his feet on firm ground and took stock of the area. It was late afternoon. Evening was approaching quickly, and any stagecoaches would have been well on their way by now.

  The mercantile door was still open, and probably would be until late into dusk.

  A lone horse, a big gray gelding, was tied up outside the store, looking unconcerned about anything. Somewhere in the distance Josiah could hear the keys of a piano tinkling clumsily, like a child practicing an unfamiliar set of scales. Music always reminded him of Lily, of his girls . . . and he wondered how he could give Lyle Lily’s gift of music, and worried that there would be no songs in his son’s life.

  Morning doves cooed back and forth, and crickets chirped. There was nothing unsettling, nothing to set him on edge, but for some reason Josiah felt the need to constantly look over his shoulder, scour the rooftops of Stringtown, and search the shadows for anything out of place, before going inside the stop.

  Cedar beams stretched out overhead, and the small interior of the cabin was filled with a pleasant aroma. The cabin also served as a home—a linen curtain behind the counter hid the living quarters of the stage master.

  On the far wall there was a window, just to the left of the solid oak counter. A breeze blew in, making its way out the door behind Josiah.

  An older woman stood behind the counter, stocky, a little taller and bigger around than Ofelia, gray hair tied tight on top of her head. Her bright blue eyes flickered, almost like she was startled, scared of something, when Josiah entered the room.

  It was an odd reaction, and it didn’t go unnoticed. Josiah thought the woman would be happy to see a potential customer, if she, indeed, made her living selling passage on stagecoaches.

  The woman looked up and took in all of Josiah, running her eyes head to toe, sizing him up, for a long second before saying anything.

  “The stage haz already gone for dis day. If it’z a ride you seek, you vill have to wait until dah morn.” Her German accent was thick, and her inflection was sharp and precise at the end of each word.

  “We just need to rest a bit, water our horses, and get on to Neu-Braunfels before dark, I hope.”

  “It iz just directions you need, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The woman nodded. “It vill be close. There are many farms along the way. Gruene is about three-and-a-half miles down the road. The Schlitterbahn, um, the Comal River, is about three miles past that. You vill cross dat river and find Neu-Braunfels easy enough, heading north.”

  “Good. Thank you. You don’t mind if we water our horses?”

  The woman looked Josiah over again, then said, “Hilfe sich.” Still eyeing him carefully, she waited a second, and added, “Help yourself.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re not Unruhestifter, are you?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Um, troublemakers. You’re not troublemakers, are you?”

  Josiah smiled slightly, realizing that he must look a little less than presentable. Most lawmen had the requirement of a badge to make them stand out, identify themselves. Rangers didn’t wear badges. Never had, and he hoped they never would.

  “My apologies for concerning you, ma’am. No, we’re not troublemakers, we’re Rangers.”

  The woman nodded. “Rangers. Gute, gute.” She hesitated again before asking, “The new governor’s Rangers?”

  “Yes,” Josiah said. “The new governor’s Rangers.” He wondered why the woman seemed so on edge, why she was so worried about troublemakers. He wondered if Charlie and his gang had been through here recently.

  “Gute, gute.” A smile grew on the woman’s face.

  Josiah returned the smile. “Is there trouble here, ma’am? We really need to make Neu-Braunfels by dark, but if you are in need of help?”

  “No, no trouble. Not now. People come and go here every day. We have been, um, robbed, in the past. I am always just vorsichtig. . . . wary, these days. You are gute, yes? My husband was killed less than a year ago. Robbed. We vere never able to have children. So now I am alone. It iz easy to be afraid. But I have nothing else I can do. So I pass my days here, at the stagecoach stop.”

  “I’m sorry to hear your troubles. Were the men caught that killed your husband?”

  “No. They run with the wolves now.”

  “Indians? Here?”

  “No, no, no. Evil men ashamed to show their true faces. Justice will come to them, though. As there is, um, ein Gott im himmel, a God in heaven.”

  “There is nothing I can do for you then?”

  The woman shook her head no.

  “All right, we’ll be on our way. Thank you, again, ma’am.” Josiah forced a smile, then walked out of the cabin, the woman’s heavy German accent and words ringing in his ears. Ein Gott im himmel. A God in heaven.

  Josiah wished her belief in the delivery of justice were more easily justified. He felt bad for the woman.

  Scrap looked up when Josiah walked outside the cabin. “Well?”

  “We’re about six miles from Neu-Braunfels. There’s another town before then, Gruene. So we’ll have somewhere to spend the night if we don’t reach the mayor before n
ightfall.”

  Before Scrap could say anything, the German woman bustled out of the door, a fresh-baked loaf of bread cradled in her arms. She stopped just outside the cabin, the smile falling from her face when she saw the captain’s dead body slung over Fat Susie’s back. “Meine Gott.”

  “We’re not troublemakers, ma’am, I promise. Our captain was killed in an ambush. We’re carrying him home to be buried proper,” Josiah said, once the woman caught her breath.

  “Veer iz home?” she asked.

  “Austin. The captain hails from Austin, ma’am. We still have some traveling ahead of us.”

  “Yah,” she said. “Vat iz your captain’s name?” The woman’s eyes narrowed curiously as she perused the horse head to tail.

  “Hiram Fikes. Captain Hiram Fikes.”

  Scrap stood by Fat Susie, his head down, saying nothing, leaving the talking to Josiah.

  “Oh,” the woman said, again. “You vill hav to find Mayor Kessler, and make him avare of dis tragedy.”

  Josiah and Scrap exchanged a glance that was curious at the least. “Why is that, ma’am?” Josiah asked.

  “The mayor iz a couzin to the captain’z wife. They are family. Captain Fikes iz a legend in dis part of da world.”

  The woman’s bread came in handy, providing something to chew on as they made their way out of Stringtown toward Neu-Braunfels.

  The mayor being the captain’s wife’s cousin had come as a slight surprise to Josiah, but it didn’t concern him much that he hadn’t known about the relative.

  There was quite a bit about Hiram Fikes’s personal life that he did not know. But he hoped locating a member of the family this early on in the journey would make the rest of the trip, and ultimately the delivery of the body, easier.

  It had never occurred to Josiah that Fikes might be a German.

  He’d really never thought much about the captain’s ancestry. His own bloodline, other than being Texan, mattered little to him. Maybe when he returned home he would have to reconsider his lack of interest in his family’s past.

  Lyle had a right to know where he came from. What his blood was. There would be little or nothing of Lily to pass on . . . What family of hers remained was out east, detached and unheard from for ages.

  The boy deserved to know something . . . if he was interested.

  Josiah chewed on the bread as he and Scrap headed out of Stringtown, and chewed on the thought of giving Lyle a full life. Lyle was weighing on his mind heavily—and Josiah knew why. This trip had been dangerous, and it would be a long time before it was all said and done. Longer than he’d ever been away since Lyle had come into the world and Lily had left it. He was surprised to find himself so homesick.

  Pushing forward, Josiah started to pay closer attention to his surroundings.

  He had never been in this part of Texas before, and found it different from anyplace he had ever been. It was almost like he and Scrap had ridden straight into a foreign country.

  There was an unmistakable German influence on all of the buildings and land once they left the stagecoach stop. Every cabin they passed was neat and well cared for. Some had lattices carved on the eaves, and there was an equality to the freshly planted and abundant vegetable and flower gardens that looked measured, more perfect than Josiah had ever seen before.

  Hay mounds were rounded, perfect, too, so their arches matched the curve of the sun—it was as if the mounds had been molded like candles, for each looked the same.

  Even the milk cows looked scrubbed and brushed. Everything was clean and shiny . . . where the shine was demanded and even in some places where it was not.

  But one thing was unmistakable: Josiah and Scrap were viewed as men to be leery of by all they encountered on the trail into Neu-Braunfels. No one approached them, or even waved to them in the distance, not once the onlookers realized the bundle on Fat Susie’s back was a dead body. It was as if the stench of the captain’s body preceded them more and more the farther away from San Antonio they got.

  “Where do you think we’ll find the mayor?” Scrap asked, bringing his horse head-to-head with Clipper. The trail horses traipsed after Josiah at a steady pace, and Fat Susie was tied to Scrap’s horse. The flies were still annoying her.

  “This time of night? Hopefully at home.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I would imagine the sheriff will be in his office. Or at least one of his deputies will be. They’ll know where the mayor lives.”

  “I hope they ain’t like the lawmen in San Antonio.”

  Josiah didn’t respond, realizing that he didn’t know anything about Scrap Elliot’s life before they’d met in San Antonio. He had taken it on good faith, on the captain’s judgment, that Scrap had what it took to become a Ranger.

  It was not the first time in his life that he had left home and joined a group of strangers and put his life in their hands, but for some reason this time felt different to Josiah.

  Not only was Josiah’s youthful enthusiasm for adventure lacking, but his emotions, his heart, were being pulled in too many different directions. Upholding his duties felt as difficult as crossing the Guadalupe River.

  “I’m sure this town is different.”

  “Hope so.”

  Josiah hesitated. “How long had you been in San Antonio?”

  “Got there a few days before the captain went out after Charlie. I heard he was looking for Rangers, and I signed up right away.”

  “Where you from, then?”

  “Cooke County. A little ranch in the middle of nowhere.”

  “But nowhere near a hanging tree?”

  “No, sir. Nowhere near that tree. My pa saw that day come and pass. Says it was one of the ugliest days in his life. It was a long time ago—more than ten years since a hanging has been held at the tree.”

  “I know,” Josiah said flatly.

  The Great Hanging of 1862 had occurred just outside of Gainesville. Forty Unionists were hanged, considered traitors . . . even though there was little to no proof the men had conspired against the Confederacy.

  Some folks thought the hangings were a crime, mostly abolitionists. Josiah was fighting in the Deep South at the time, but news of the mass hanging got back to the Brigade. Charlie Langdon celebrated the hangings with a rash of whiskey drinking and a whole lot of whooping and hollering. Then again, Charlie was always looking for a reason to celebrate, rile the troops, and death was usually his way.

  As far as Josiah was concerned, there was nothing to celebrate . . . especially when he returned home and found out it was suspected that most of the men hanged in Cooke County were innocent.

  The judgment had been a matter of single-minded violence, a taste for blood because of the times, the hate in the air, nothing else but urges pushed by war. The thought of the hangings, and the cause, saddened Josiah. He didn’t ask any more questions, and Scrap became unsettlingly quiet again.

  It was nearly two hours later when Josiah stopped Clipper a few feet from the bank of the river. Josiah stared across it at the town rising up on the other side. Clean, pristine, whitewashed clapboard buildings seemed to glow in the late dusk.

  It was not quite dark, the stars overhead dim, too far away to twinkle and burn silver-hot holes in the solid black fabric of night.

  Neu-Braunfels was quiet and peaceful, candles and lamps flickering in a few windows, no saloon noise competing with the insects, birds, and other critters welcoming the coolness of night.

  “I sure do hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I ’spect that’s the way it’s got to be,” Josiah said out loud, but not necessarily to Scrap. Then he eased Clipper into the river, toward the waiting town.

  CHAPTER 13

  A. L. Kessler did not look too happy to have a stranger knock on his door at so late an hour. The man’s face was narrow, wrinkled with deep crevices, covered in day-old gray stubble, and his eyes were weary, bloo
dshot. Kessler wore a mustache as well, and it was in need of a trim. He had thrown his pants on, and his day shirt was only half-buttoned. Disruption looked to be an irritant that occurred on a regular basis—the mayor eyed Josiah angrily; he was almost seething as he gripped the door, which was only open a crack.

  “There had better be a good reason for this.” Like the woman at the stagecoach stop, Kessler’s words bore a German accent, but it was not quite as thick, and easier to understand.

  “I apologize for the late night call, sir,” Josiah said, standing back off the stoop. “But I have some bad news that I did not think could wait until a proper time.”

  “Who are you?” Kessler demanded, running his hand through his hair trying to straighten it, all the while looking over Josiah’s shoulder, as if to see what lay in wait outside the iron fence that surrounded the tall two-story house that the mayor called home.

  Darkness had completely fallen by the time Josiah and Scrap had found the mayor. It had been difficult for them to see two feet in front of themselves. There was no moon, hardly any light at all to guide their way. Even in the town of Neu-Braunfels, the victory of night had been won yet again, and darkness was nearly total.

  Josiah had not been entirely sure he could find the correct house in the first place, but the woman in Stringtown had told him it was the biggest house on Main Street, just south of the town square—and it couldn’t be missed. There were other houses. But the woman was right. This was a grand house, one that looked to be of Yankee design. Josiah had seen houses of the type, with turrets and cantilevers, in Virginia.

  “I beg your pardon. I’m Josiah Wolfe. I’m a Ranger.”

  A freshly lit lamp burned on a table behind Kessler, flickering, casting shadows on a wall adorned with pink, red, and white flowered wallpaper. A clock ticked loudly in the distance, probably in the parlor. There was no question that the house was filled with finery that Josiah could hardly imagine.