The Coyote Tracker Page 2

  He knew for sure then that coming home had been worth fighting for, no matter what lay ahead of him.

  CHAPTER 1

  May, 1875

  Josiah Wolfe stood outside of Robertson’s Mercantile on Congress Avenue, doing his best not to show his impatience. There was no way to pass the time—since he didn’t smoke cigarettes, or quirlies, as his fellow Texas Ranger Scrap Elliot called them—other than to just stand there watching people, and the horse traffic, come and go in the busy city of Austin.

  A streetcar lumbered up the street, garnering his attention, and nearly everyone else’s who was walking along the boardwalk.

  The use of streetcars was a recent development in the city. Josiah thought they were nothing more than fancy wagons with low wheels and eight benches, covered to protect the riders from the weather. The streetcar was pulled by a pair of fine-looking Springfield mules, barely lathering from the effort; the day was comfortable, cloudless, the sun not too hot—those days were coming, summer was near.

  The streetcar was packed full, smiles on all of the riders’ faces, like none of them had ever stepped foot on an open wagon before. You’d think they were en route to a carnival somewhere south of town, but none existed that Josiah knew of.

  Along with the recent installation of gas lamps and another railroad coming to the city, there was no denying progress had found its way to the capital once again.

  The Panic of ’73 was finally loosening its hold on the city’s financial resources. None of the recent improvements were much of a concern to Josiah, though there did seem to be something in the air that suggested more change was on the way—more than most people wanted, himself included, if truth be told.

  No one paid much attention to Josiah standing in wait, literally twiddling his thumbs.

  If any of the passersby did catch a direct look in the eye from him, they quickly looked away, casting their gaze down to the ground, as far away from him as possible, and didn’t even mumble a simple salutation or hello.

  It wasn’t as if Josiah were notorious. Not like the outlaws John Wesley Hardin or Sam Bass. But he was known in Austin now, recognizable to strangers and every lawman in town.

  Up until a few months prior, no one in Austin had known his name or what Josiah’s face looked like. He’d been just another emigrant to the city, hailing from no farther away than East Texas, from Seerville, a speck of a town a little south of Tyler. He hadn’t crossed an ocean or traveled across the country from the East, weary and in search of some unseen promised land. He had just left an old life in search of a new one, knowing full well that when he lit out from his childhood home, Austin was his destination. The lack of distance he’d traveled didn’t seem to matter; the desire, in the end, was the same as any man seeking to change his life.

  A quick series of incidents had decreased his anonymity recently, and honestly, an identity, or a degree of privacy, was not something Josiah had ever known he could lose.

  In a matter of a few short months, Josiah had killed Pete Feders, the captain of the Texas Ranger company he belonged to, then more recently, he’d killed a spy for Juan Cortina, a cattle rustler and Mexican criminal named Leathers, who had followed him up from Corpus Christi with no other intention than killing him. Both incidents were self-defense. Shoot or be shot.

  The way Josiah saw it, he was a lucky man to be standing anywhere, no less outside of a mercantile in Austin. He should have been toes up, six feet under in the local cemetery, and nobody knew that better than he did.

  From a distance, and through the narrow view of the local newspaper, the Austin Statesman, it looked to the general public like Josiah was nothing more than an outlaw himself, no better than Bass or Hardin. He also, according to the newspaper, was a renegade with an itchy trigger finger, hungry to make a name for himself, eager to cash in on any bit of fame that might come his way.

  Nothing could have been further from the truth—at least as far as Josiah was concerned.

  Still, he knew he was looked upon with great suspicion, which was why he had found himself with some extra time on his hands. Time enough to wait for a woman who was on a lazy afternoon trip to the mercantile to make a purchase of material and buttons for a variety of daily-wear dresses. Josiah shook his head at the thought.

  Josiah had not been furloughed from the Rangers; he was still on the payroll. But he had received orders to stay in town and wait for the return of Captain Leander McNelly, who would, one more time, decide on Josiah’s fate within the organization and the company of Rangers that McNelly headed up.

  Josiah had been cleared of killing Leathers, but the notoriety of the previous event involving Captain Feders had not entirely escaped the public’s mind or the Stateman’s printing presses. The entire Ranger organization was being brought into question because of Josiah’s actions.

  The noise from the street subsided as the streetcar angled south, away from the capitol building.

  It was mid-afternoon, the sun high overhead, bright enough to force Josiah to cock his wool Stetson down a bit deeper to shade his eyes.

  Josiah was a tall, lanky man with a head full of hair the color of summer wheat and eyes the color of blueberries. Most days he wore a day or two of whiskers on his face, but recently, since he’d been off the trail and away from duty and in the company of Pearl Fikes, the woman he was waiting on and was courting as properly as possible, his face was clean-shaven. There was no way to keep the mud from his boots, but he tried to keep them as clean as possible, too.

  At the moment, his impatience was intent on getting the better of him. Courting was a recent development in Josiah’s life, a matter of weeks actually. He felt a little out of sorts, wet behind the ears. He’d been married before. His wife, Lily, had borne him four children: three girls and a boy. Lily and the girls had died, taken by the flu, a little over four years prior. His son, Lyle, survived, and was most likely the only reason, along with the Rangers, that Josiah had pulled himself out of the depths of his grief and found himself in the company of another woman.

  Josiah sensed the presence of someone staring at him; a passerby had stopped a few feet from him, just off to his right.

  “Is that you, Wolfe?”

  Josiah immediately recognized the voice. It was that of Rory Farnsworth, the sheriff of Travis County, which included the whole town of Austin and beyond.

  Farnsworth was about half a head shorter than Josiah and dressed more like a dandy Yankee than a Texas sheriff. He sported a fine tailored suit that was more fitting for a politician to wear than a lawman. His finely waxed mustache seemed to glow in the sunlight, even though it was shielded slightly by a black bowler hat that matched the color of his fancy suit. Only the silver star on his chest gave any hint to his true position—that and the air of authority he carried with him. The man strutted about like he was the only rooster in Austin.

  “It is, Sheriff,” Josiah said, pushing away from the wall of the mercantile, tipping up his hat so he could look Farnsworth in the eye.

  “Not a place I’d expect to see you,” the sheriff said.

  “The saloon owner kicked me out. Said I brought in the riffraff looking to make a name for themselves with a gunfight.”

  Farnsworth cocked his right eye quizzically. “You’re kidding, of course?”

  “I am,” Josiah said, his voice remaining deadpan, his facial expression unmoved. “I’m actually waiting on Pearl Fikes.”

  Rory Farnsworth’s chest heaved, and his upper lip trembled slightly before he said anything, like a thought got caught crossways between his brain and his throat. “I see.”

  The sheriff had been in attendance at the Fikes estate when Pete Feders, prior to his death at Josiah’s hand, had publicly proposed to Pearl—a proposal which she refused by running out of the dining hall in a ball of sobs.

  All of the movers and shakers of Aust
in had been in attendance at the dinner, too, including Richard Coke, the governor himself. The social pages had made a great drama out of the incident, and it only got worse when Josiah was left with no choice but to shoot Pete Feders.

  It was not clear to Josiah if Farnsworth had ever had any designs on Pearl; as far as he knew, the sheriff was a confirmed bachelor. He had never seen the man in the company of a woman and had not lived in Austin long enough to know the scuttlebutt concerning the sheriff’s social life. Even if Josiah had heard anything, he wouldn’t have taken it to heart. If he’d learned anything from his own set of troubles, it was that gossip was just gossip and usually not to be believed.

  “What brings you out on this fine day?” Josiah asked, hoping to veer the conversation away from Pearl. He regretted mentioning her name the moment it had slipped from his lips.

  “Do you really think courting Pearl Fikes is the proper thing to do, Wolfe? I mean, really? After everything that’s happened?”

  Farnsworth traveled constantly in the social circles of Austin. His father, Myron, was the president of the First Bank of Austin and, by luck, chance, or hard work, was one of the wealthiest men in town.

  It came as no surprise to Josiah that his relationship with Pearl appeared as bad form, but he had no immediate response to Farnsworth’s query. He shrugged his shoulders. “Matters of the heart seem best left to those involved if you ask me, Sheriff. I mean, I surely wouldn’t pretend to think I could have any influence on your daily life with my opinions. Or should I?”

  “I would suspect not, Wolfe.”

  Josiah nodded. “You never answered my question.”

  “Oh, yes. I am out and about. Nothing of note. Are your boys in town?” He was referring to the company of McNelly’s Rangers that Josiah belonged to.

  “No, still south as far as I know. My son took ill, which is how I found myself back in Austin without the ranks of the Ranger company to join.”

  “He is better, I assume?”

  “He is. Thank you for asking.”

  “And that business of Cortina’s spy has detained you?”

  “It has. I was not in the wrong.”

  “Rangers have a growing reputation of shooting first and asking questions later. Your actions are not making a positive contribution to the organization. You realize that, don’t you, Wolfe?”

  “You’re the last person I would think I would have to defend the organization, or my actions, to.”

  The sheriff’s granite facial expression didn’t change. “Are you sure Austin is the right place for you, Wolfe?”

  The question felt like a punch to the gut. Austin had never felt like home, but Josiah figured it would just take time. Obviously, it was going to take a lot more time than he’d given it if a man like Farnsworth could detect his discomfort with city life.

  “Are you suggesting I leave town?”

  Farnsworth hunched his shoulders, then looked away without answering Josiah directly.

  Three wagons loaded with fresh-cut lumber passed by, heading up Congress Avenue toward the capitol building. There was no way to know for sure where the wagons were going, but the smell of fresh-cut wood reached Josiah’s nose and mixed with the other hopeful reminders that spring had fully arrived. But any sign of optimism was lost on him at the moment.

  “Maybe it is something you should consider, Wolfe.”

  “I’ve just recently returned from Corpus after spending more months there than I care to count, Sheriff. Am I in danger?”

  “Only what you bring unto yourself.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Some rowdy cowboy would see no difference between taking your hide and John Wesley Hardin’s. It won’t be long before I’m collecting another dead body from the street, will it, Wolfe? You joked about it, but there is truth at the foundation of all good humor, isn’t there?”

  “I’m no gunslinger.”

  “So you say, Wolfe. So you say.”

  Before Josiah could respond, Pearl Fikes exited the mercantile, a small bag in her hand and a curious look on her face. “Gentlemen,” she said, slipping her arm around Josiah’s.

  “Ma’am,” Farnsworth answered with a doff of his bowler. He flashed a quick, angled leer at Josiah, then departed quickly down the boardwalk, never looking back.

  “What was that all about?” Pearl asked.

  “Nothing. He just stopped to say hello,” Josiah said. He took a step forward, then turned, guiding Pearl in the opposite direction of Farnsworth, not sure where he was going next.

  CHAPTER 2

  Pearl Fikes was dressed properly for a public stroll down Congress Avenue. She wore a white outdoor dress with the overskirts caught up with black buckled ribbons. A jacket bodice made of the same expensive-looking material, with a high neckline and cuffs, was layered over the dress. The dress shimmered in the bright sunshine of the day. Pearl wore a flat-crowned straw hat tipped forward, adorned with ribbons that matched those on her dress. To the uninformed, Pearl Fikes still looked like a woman of wealth, of high social standing, an important person to step aside for. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

  What Pearl wore was a remnant of her past, of a time when she was the only daughter of a Texas Ranger captain, a debutante, whose mother’s main goal in life was to see her marry well and maintain the large estate they lived on and the large house they lived in.

  Now the estate and the house were gone, a consequence of the Panic of ’73, the death of Hiram Fikes, and a series of bad decisions and bad investments on her mother’s part.

  Now Pearl’s mother was in a sanatorium, and Pearl was staying in a nearby boardinghouse, intent on taking up studies at the local normal school to be a schoolteacher as a way to generate some income for herself. She barely had two bits to rub together, and if it weren’t for her uncle, Juan Carlos, Hiram Fikes’s half brother, she would be in even worse shape financially than she currently was.

  Pearl stared at Josiah with disbelief on her face. “Rory Farnsworth did not even look me in the eye before departing so quickly. Did you have words with the man, Josiah?” She seemed agitated and tense, something Josiah did not expect after a moment of shopping in the mercantile. Pearl was happy when she went in, happy to be out with him. Or so he’d thought.

  “No, no, everything is fine,” Josiah said, guiding Pearl down the boardwalk, away from the mercantile and Rory Farnsworth as quickly as possible.

  Pearl looked over her shoulder quickly, then sighed loudly when she faced forward. “I would like to go home.”

  “Now? We have the whole day ahead of us. I had planned for a picnic on the banks of the river. I know it’s one of your favorite places.”

  “Please, Josiah, just stop.”

  “Did something happen that I need to know about?” Josiah asked, as he ceased walking, promptly ending their departure from Farnsworth, doing as Pearl asked. He stood in the middle of the boardwalk, still as a statue, like he had just fulfilled a marching order.

  “I have been shopping in Robertson’s for years. My mother carried an account there and was a very, very good customer. I asked for my own account and was refused. Refused? Can you believe that?”

  Josiah looked away, then back to Pearl quickly. He wasn’t surprised by the news. “You can’t take the rejection personally, Pearl. The man has a business to run.”

  Pearl’s normally soft face grew hard. “Are you saying I’m a bad investment, Josiah Wolfe?”

  Without knowing it, Pearl had raised her voice and was drawing attention to herself—which was very much out of her character. Or, at least, it had been before her mother was carted off kicking and screaming to the sanatorium, from a house that now belonged to the bank and stood empty.

  Now that he thought about it, there had been a bit of obvious nervousness about Pearl when
Josiah called on her at the boardinghouse on Second Street, Miss Amelia Angle’s Home for Girls. But any discomfort seemed to have faded once they were beyond the confines of the house. Women, and their moods, had always been harder to read for Josiah than the weather, and just as unpredictable, so he wasn’t surprised that he might have been wrong.

  It was not the first time Josiah had met Amelia Angle or been to the house on a proper, chaperoned call, but this day was the first time he and Pearl had walked the boardwalks of Austin arm in arm, as a couple. It was less a coming out than what Pearl was accustomed to, but from all matters of form, Pearl had indicated that she was finished with the trappings of high society, with the demands her mother and the important women of Austin had placed on her previously. She relished her newfound freedom, or at least said she did.

  Maybe, Josiah thought to himself before answering Pearl’s question, she was rethinking her position on being a common woman, courted by a common man.

  After all, he was not a proper gentleman. He never had been, and had never indicated that he had the desire to behave in any manner that was less than comfortable to him. Perhaps she was embarrassed by him, dressed in his finest clothes, though far from the likes of Rory Farnsworth in his neat black bowler, with his fancy Dickens chain and gold watch and tailored black suit.

  “I think you are a fine investment, Pearl. How could you think otherwise?”

  Pearl’s cornflower blue eyes grew glassy, and she looked away from Josiah. “This is going to be harder than I thought.” It was almost a whisper.

  Josiah ushered Pearl to a bench in front of the shoemaker’s shop. The smell of wet leather wafted out of the door.

  They sat down, and Josiah took Pearl’s hand into his. If she was uncomfortable, Josiah was ten times more so. He drew his own looks from those who passed by and knew that anyone with regular reading skills who kept up with social pages knew that Pearl Fikes had fallen out of grace right along with him. And then there was the suspicion, seemingly fortified by the public show of affection between the two of them, that Josiah had actually killed Pete Feders because of his love and desire for her.