The Rattlesnake Season Read online

  “That’ll be room 210. We usually ask our guests to check their weapons at the desk, but I understand that you’re a Ranger.” The man looked over his shoulder, then leaned in and whispered, “I voted against that snake Edmund Davis in hopes he’d be run out of the state. In all that commotion, we’ve all been wondering where the Rangers were.” The clerk smiled and squared his shoulders. “Welcome to the Menger Hotel, sir. I hope your stay is a pleasant one.”

  Josiah smirked, even though he didn’t mean to, and took the key. He was more than a little uncomfortable with public discussions about politics, but the recent fracas in Austin obviously had everyone talking.

  The election of Richard Coke was a good thing for the Rangers, and Josiah was more than enthused about the formation of the Frontier Battalion, but his political views were privately held. Even though he agreed with the clerk, he wasn’t about to let on to a stranger that he was happy to see Governor Coke take office.

  Davis’s loss signaled the end of Reconstruction, and honestly, Josiah hoped the final curtain was about to fall on the War Between the States.

  Those scars needed healing, just like his own, though he wouldn’t admit that the war had scarred him . . . but it had had an affect on every man who picked up a weapon and left home to fight for a cause he believed in. Or, like him, fought because it was a duty to his family and to his state.

  The only strong feeling Josiah had about slavery was simple: A man was a man, regardless of his skin color, and how he lived was more important than where he lived. One man owning another had always seemed odd to him, and his family had never had the wealth to engage in such an idea, so it had never been an issue of true consideration for them, never mattered one way or the other. Folks had been forced to take a public stand on something private.

  Some men still carried a torch for the Confederacy, but Josiah wasn’t in that crowd. And neither, obviously, was Governor Richard Coke.

  Josiah made quick arrangements for a bath, then headed up the ornate staircase in search of his room. It had been a long time since he’d made the trip to San Antonio, so he was a tad bit saddle sore, and could still taste the trail grit between his teeth. He had a fresh set of clothes wrapped in his bedroll and was anxious to soak in a tub of hot, steaming water and get the stubble shaved from his face.

  The room Captain Fikes had reserved for him was easy enough to find.

  It was like walking into a palace suite. A brass bed with fresh linens took up only part of the room. A sitting chair, upholstered in thick red material that looked soft as a short-haired cat, sat regally in the corner. A writing desk and chair sat next to the bed. A pitcher with chunks of ice in it sat in a porcelain bowl with designs glazed onto it that looked like the lobby floor. A large hand-carved mirror was centered above the bowl and pitcher, reflecting a version of Josiah, and the room, back at him.

  Josiah favored his father, tall, lanky, a head full of hair the color of summer wheat, and eyes the color of blueberries. He had always walked in the shadow of his father, from his gait, to his quiet beliefs, to his perception of good old right and wrong. But he was more similar in looks than any other way he could think of.

  He did not recognize himself so much anymore. His face had gone gaunt, sunk in with grief, his eyes trail-worn, and his skin looked like it lacked elasticity, or the properties that exhibited a good diet—and that would be true. Since Lily’s death, he had taken little pleasure in food. It was only sustenance, something to burn in the fires of the daily chores.

  Josiah decided a bath and a bit of rest in a fancy hotel would do him some good.

  There was a hint of lavender in the air. The room was almost too pretty to step foot in, to muck up with his filth. Josiah was glad the window looked out over the street. He could see Feders in his spot on the roof, his Winchester propped against the false front of the dry goods store, in the direction of the jail. The Alamo was out of view, but at only a scant twenty or so steps from the Menger, it was always on the mind of even the least reverent Texans when they visited San Antonio.

  Evening was coming fast as the sun set in the west, the sky on the horizon a deep red, with pink fingers reaching into the gray sky over the hotel. Josiah was still tense, but starting to relax. He dropped his bedroll on the floor, left the beauty of the room, and headed for the bath.

  An attendant, a wiry old Mexican with hair as white as a roll of fresh cotton, nodded. “Señor Wolfe?”

  Josiah returned the nod, and the Mexican jangled a ring of brass skeleton keys, found the lock, and opened the door to the bath.

  Steam met Josiah as he walked into the small room. A tub full of hot, vaporous water sat in the middle of the room. It was a welcome sight. Just the stay in the hotel almost made the long trip worth it.

  “I will be right outside if there is anything you need,” the Mexican attendant said in English, but with a thick Spanish accent. “Here is soap, fresh towels, and a variety of sundries that are gifts of the hotel. You will need a shave afterward?”

  Josiah took a deep breath. “Yes, sí,” he said. Using Spanish came unnaturally to him, even though Ofelia chattered away constantly at home and he understood more of the language than he cared to admit. “Thank you.”

  The Mexican stared at Josiah expectantly, and it took him a moment to realize that the man was waiting for a tip. He handed him a single bit, then waited for him to leave before he deposited his Peacemaker and Bowie knife, a gift from his father when he went off to war so long ago, on a shelf within reach of the tub. But the Mexican did not leave.

  “For the shave, señor?”

  Josiah handed the man another coin. This time the old Mexican smiled and hurried off, firmly closing the door behind him.

  The sole window in the tiny room was barely cracked open. Josiah could hear piano music from across the street. Wagons were still coming and going, but not as frequently now that evening had set in. A horse whinnied, then trotted away on the hard dirt road. Voices were dim, mostly male, and unthreatening.

  He disrobed, glad to get the dirty clothes off his skin, and climbed into the tub, gently at first, then fully, deciding to get the shock of the hot water over with as quickly as possible.

  It did not take him too long to relax. Josiah rested his head against the rim of the tub, closed his eyes, and fell asleep before the tips of his fingers began to prune.

  A loud blast woke Josiah out of his deep sleep.

  Water lapped over the side of the tub as he jumped up, reaching for his gun. It was gone from the shelf, as was his knife.

  Panicked, he immediately sought to dry himself, peering out the side of the window as he did.

  Smoke roiled from the front of the jail. Feders was still in his spot, the Winchester aimed tensely at the heavy wood door of the adobe building, but Elliot was nowhere to be seen.

  The door to the jail was standing wide open, and Josiah could see two men standing just inside, the light too dim to tell much of what was going on. It was not quite dark, the light of the day gasping gray, fading quickly from the sky as night quickly approached.

  Elliot walked out of the alley and across the street, holding a blazing torch with one hand, his six-shooter in the other.

  Josiah could see inside the door now. Captain Fikes just under the arch, the barrel of his gun pressed against Charlie Langdon’s temple. He could see the glitter off the pearl handles of the captain’s gun in the light of Elliot’s torch. It was the first time he’d seen Charlie Langdon in years. The sight made his stomach tumble, tie up in knots, and it was impossible to restrain the distaste he felt.

  There was a group of men, across the street, engaged in a scrap of some kind, and Josiah figured it was Langdon’s men going at it with some of his fellow Rangers and the local deputies. He was anxious to join the fight, and a little relieved to see that the captain had Charlie in his grasp.

  Shouts rose from the crowd, from the mob, a mix of definable noise, punches being landed. No horses or wagons were running throug
h the street now. The only evening commerce in San Antonio was blood, explosives, and anger. Everything else had come to a full stop.

  Obviously, Fikes had been right about the jailbreak attempt, and the card playing was likely a ruse, along with Feders and Elliot’s coy attempt at boredom, to convince Langdon’s men that the captain didn’t take the job of overseeing the outlaw too seriously. Bad choice on their part, not to see through Captain Fikes’s wiliness and trap setting.

  For a second, Josiah almost smiled—until he remembered that his own gun and knife were missing, and he was standing naked and unarmed in a hotel bath without any way to signal for reinforcements if they were needed.

  He quickly gathered up his clothes, put on his pants, made sure he had not overlooked his weapons, then cracked open the door of the bath, slightly—and came face-to-face with the barrel of his own gun.

  CHAPTER 3

  The official name for the Peacemaker was Colt’s Single Action Army. Josiah had also heard it called the New Model Army. He didn’t call it the Peacemaker—it was just his gun. But he was proud of the gun, proud that he was able to purchase such a weapon a year after its introduction, with a little money he’d saved up. It had been bought just before the trip to San Antonio, in an attempt to excite himself about the prospects of the future—but that effort had failed at the time. The newness of the gun was just a reminder of what was lost to him.

  His Colt 1860 Army was retired, put away for Lyle, and that action had brought a rush of memories to the forefront of his mind that nearly crippled him for days. The old-timers called his affliction Soldier’s Heart, a sickness that followed many a man home from the war, but Josiah just called it regret, grief from seeing and being the cause of so much death and destruction. He was little more than a teenage boy when he joined up with the 1st Infantry, and now, as a man, he barely spoke of those days. Regardless of the victor, war was a nightmare he hoped never to see again.

  He was not sure how many men he had actually killed after he joined the Confederate cause, but he was sure it was quite a few. Sometimes at night, in his dreams, he saw men wandering in a foggy field, bandaged, bleeding, searching for help. The only way Josiah could end their suffering was to wake—but for him, he carried the dreams throughout the day, every day, combined with his grief for his family. There was no escape from the ghosts he’d left on the battlefield and in his marriage bed.

  The precision of the Peacemaker was not what Josiah had hoped it would be after the purchase from Ham Wilbur’s Dry Goods in Tyler.

  The weight was nearly perfect, and it felt comfortable in his hand, but after some practicing, he found that the maximum effective range was about seventy-five yards. The gun grouped its shots pretty well in a six-inch circle at fifty yards, but anything beyond that scattered wildly. A target at over two hundred yards would be a lucky shot, and the shooter would likely have had to aim several feet over the head of the target.

  He wasn’t quite sure yet how he felt about the new addition. The gun would never be his friend, but he would have to rely on it as a protector, a constant companion. Other than his horse, Clipper, the Peacemaker was nearly the only thing in his life he would allow himself to trust. And it would take time for the Peacemaker to earn that trust.

  None of that mattered, of course, dead-on, nose-to-nose, when you were looking down the barrel of a gun. Especially when it was your own.

  The point-blank range would splatter the back of Josiah Wolfe’s head throughout the fancy, lavender-smelling bath at the Menger Hotel, and his life’s journey would come to a sudden, unfulfilled end . . . if he just stood there and did nothing.

  It was impossible to see who was holding the gun. The barrel was aimed square at his forehead, and luckily Josiah had his wits about him, because he immediately pushed his bare foot against the bottom of the door, making it a little harder for the person on the other side to force it open.

  “Hands up, where I can see them,” came a shout from behind the door. The voice grumbled, determined and unrecognizable.

  The Peacemaker jiggled up and down, as if to make a point that the person holding it was serious.

  Josiah could see a hand, a shadow in the hall—somewhere close, a flame flickered in a hurricane lamp and he could smell the coal oil like the lamp had just been lit. The man was bigger than he was.

  “I’m moving them slowly now,” Josiah said.

  “Don’t try nothin’ funny.”

  Josiah shook his head no as he raised both hands slowly up his side. When they were even with his shoulders, he thrust forward as quick as he could, slamming the door and trapping the intruding hand and gun with as much force as he could muster.

  The thrust and slam were followed by a loud scream, and by the thud of metal falling onto the floor as the Peacemaker tumbled a few feet out of Josiah’s reach.

  When he let go, the door popped back, recoiled. He flung it open the rest of the way and threw a hard punch at the first thing he saw.

  Just as he’d thought, it was a face Josiah didn’t recognize, but that didn’t matter.

  The man, shaped like a boulder, was shaking his hand, cursing like he’d bit his tongue. The punch had surprised him, but it had hurt Josiah as much as it had the man. His fist stung, like he’d just punched a big rock. The man stumbled backward, reaching for his own weapon, a six-shooter dangling from his side.

  Josiah jumped and tackled him headlong, sending them both crashing into the wall. The man was strong, and rolled them both over, punching Josiah so hard against the chin that his teeth felt like they’d been rattled out of place and then set firmly back where they belonged.

  He was no match for the big man, and he was in danger of being pinned, of being subdued to the point of fulfilling his attacker’s intention. He could only assume the man meant to kill him. He could only assume he was one of Charlie Langdon’s gang, come to claim his mark.

  That thought made him fight even harder, but the man responded by grabbing Josiah by the throat and ramming a knee into his chest.

  Josiah swung wildly, losing his breath, but oddly, he was never afraid . . . just numb and downright angry.

  His energy was falling away quickly. The man obviously had the upper hand in the fight, was stronger, more prepared. If there was a way out, Josiah couldn’t see it . . . All he knew was that he had no choice but to keep fighting.

  Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes seemed like hours. The man squeezed Josiah’s throat harder, completely blocking the airway. In one last attempt, Josiah focused all of his strength and energy below his waist, hoping to buck the man off of him. His right hand was pinned now by the big man’s ham-hock knees. His left hand was free, but his punches were like a flyswatter on the big man’s marble back. He stopped swinging, and lurched his chest forward with all his might.

  The man did not notice, did not seem to care.

  Just as the light was starting to dim, the big man heaved and tumbled off Josiah. A gasping sound filled the hallway. It was a sickening sound, a rasping, intruding sound, that Josiah had heard before. It was the sound of death reaching out to snatch someone away.

  That someone wasn’t him . . . this time.

  Confused, he sat up, and saw the old Mexican he had tipped for the bath and shave, standing over the big man with Josiah’s Bowie knife, fresh blood still on the blade.

  The big man was not dead yet . . . but he would be soon if someone didn’t help him. He was gasping like a fish out of water. The Mexican had been careful not to cut too deep . . . just deep enough to put an end to the fight. Left to his own devices, the man would surely bleed to death.

  “Are you all right, Señor Ranger?”

  Josiah rubbed his own throat, nodded yes, grabbed the big man’s gun, and looked up and down the hall. “He was alone?”

  “I think so, señor.”

  “All right. Run out and get the doctor. This man needs some attention.”

  “Señor, are you sure? He tried to kill you.”

  “
Justice is not ours to dole out, my friend. I appreciate what you did, but this man doesn’t answer to us. If we watch him die, then we are no better men than he is. I have enough to live with, don’t you?”

  The Mexican stared at Josiah like he had never heard such words before, smiled slightly, then hurried down the hallway.

  Josiah was left there alone, standing over the dying man, wondering how a person could come to disregard life so much that he would try to kill a man he did not know, for a reason that was not his own, as if it were just a job, just another task to be fulfilled.

  He hoped he would never come to understand that kind of reasoning.

  CHAPTER 4

  Captain Fikes was waiting for Josiah in the lobby. “Heard you had some commotion down here for yourself, Wolfe.”

  The upstairs was full of deputies. A doctor worked on the boulder-shaped attacker. The last Josiah had seen of the big man, it didn’t look promising.

  Josiah had very little time to get himself together. He cleaned up as quick as he could, anxious to flee the Menger and join the captain and the other Rangers at the jail. His long-overdue shave would have to wait.

  “It was one of Langdon’s men, I assume.”

  Fikes nodded. “Burly Smith. Sent to kill you, I expect. That Mexican did you a great favor.”

  “I’m indebted. The old Mexican saved my life. I told the deputies that, but I don’t think they heard me too well.”

  “I’ll take care of it. He’s an old friend. I asked him to keep an eye on you, for me. I was pretty certain Charlie would set somebody after you.”

  “Rightly appreciate that,” Josiah said. “The old man deserves a reward.” He wasn’t really surprised Fikes and an old Mexican were friends. There was a tale there that he would remember to ask the captain about someday, but today was not the day. In a world where Mexicans were reviled, thanks in part to the Cortina War, and Cortina’s continuing forays into South Texas to steal cattle, it was good to see the captain didn’t lump all Mexicans into a hated category because of the color of their skin.