Cougar's Prey (9781101544846) (25 page)

The moon was high and bright, the face sneering at him, so much so that Josiah looked away from it. The bright light was a great aid to him, though, helping him see far into the distance. Beyond the light, darkness stood waiting like a mysterious black curtain, hiding all of the world, its secrets safe, or at least unseen, for the moment.

Scrap was waiting for Josiah, standing in the shadows, against a tall slab of granite, just above the fire.

“You see anything?” Josiah asked in a hushed whisper.

Scrap nodded yes. His eyes held a story, an urge to say something, but he restrained himself. There had been an odd air about Scrap since the stampede, since they'd left the fellas of the drive. It was like he was glad to be back on the trail with just Josiah, being a Ranger instead of a cowboy. Which made sense—all Scrap ever talked about was being a Ranger. He knew he could find work punching cattle, and he'd shown that. There was just something about the life that didn't appeal to the boy. Either way, Josiah was glad to find Scrap a little more tolerable and less antagonistic.

“What is it?” Josiah asked.

“Up around the corner of that rock,” Scrap finally answered. “Two Mexicans with their hands and feet bound behind their backs, their necks both slit from ear to ear. Doesn't look like a shot was fired.”

“Somebody didn't want to spook the cattle again.”

“I 'spect so. Or else they was just killed because they was Mexicans. Maybe one of them minute groups did this?”

Josiah didn't flinch. “Could be. Show me.”

Scrap did as he was told and led Josiah around the rock he'd noted. Sure enough, it was just as Scrap said. Two men were lying faceup, their wounds both gaping. The blood was still wet, and looked black and vile in the shadows cast off from the moon. A pool of it surrounded the men, soaking into the ground. They were Mexicans all right. Even in their current state, there was no mistaking that.

Josiah walked around to the first man, a thin fellow with his eyes wide open and a pursed mouth that looked like it would explode if someone touched him. His clothes were ratty, and he hadn't been dead too long. Once daylight hit, the flies would surely make him a home for their eggs, and whatever else came along, critter-wise, would have themselves a feast. It was no secret to Josiah what a flock of buzzards could do to a man, how fast they could pick soft flesh off the bone. He'd seen his fair share of animals and insects helping themselves to the dead in the war.

“We're not going anywhere soon,” Josiah said. “We best get to digging.”

“Diggin'? I ain't doin no diggin' in the middle of the night,” Scrap said with a scowl Josiah had seen more than once. “Besides, I ain't breakin' no sweat buryin' Mexicans. They might have been two of them that sought to raid Corpus. I say, leave them to rot.”

“What do you suppose we ought to do with these two fellas? Prop them up by the fire and hope someone comes along and tells us what happened and who they are? They're meat. Food for more creatures than I'd like to think about. We don't have a choice but to bury them. It's the right thing to do.”

“Says you.”

“What should we do, Scrap? You tell me since all of a sudden you seem to have all of the answers.”

“Are you gonna go orderin' me around again? I sure as hell haven't missed that much. I was thinkin' maybe we could get along as equals one of these days. That trail sure would be much easier to ride, instead of your sourness ridin' between us all of the time.”

“Last time I checked I was still a sergeant.”

“See, that's what I mean. Why can't you just treat me like a friend instead of somethin' that's beneath you, Wolfe? I ain't stupid, and there's things I can do better than you.”

“Nobody said you were stupid.”

“You might as well, always remindin' me that you're my superior. I know what rank is, darn it. We ain't in no company, haven't been for months. Not much has changed if you ask me, 'cept there's two dead men starin' at us, and I don't like the idea of bein' around them much. It could be me layin' there just as easily as it is these two strangers.”

Josiah closed his eyes for a minute and held his tongue. There were times when he forgot just how young and untested Scrap really was. There had been no war experience to harden him, no relentless calendar of blood, day after day of looking into the eyes of dead men, even though some of them were still walking. Friends died all around him. Good boys. Soldiers who loved their mothers, who died instantly with a gunshot to the head.

Scrap still had a lot to get used to, a lot of death to see before he could see what it was. The worst part was the realization that your time could be up at any second. It was a violent, uncertain world they walked in. And it was growing more uncertain every day.

“I'm just asking you what we should do,” Josiah said, looking as calmly as he could at Scrap. “Take it for what it's worth, but I'm serious. What do you think we should do, Elliot? I'm listening.”

“I think we ought to wait till daylight. Poke around and see what we can, and try and figure out who these fellas are and what happened to them. Somebody had to sneak up on them to cut them like that.”

“Somebody slit their throats. Killed them. They're dead.”

“Then why didn't the person take these here longhorns? Round them up and ride off with them? And why is there just two men? Two men might've been able to round these cows, but they'd have to of been mighty good at the cut, and I ain't never seen Mexcians that good on a horse.”

Josiah didn't say anything right away. Scrap's face was red with anger, and he was as tense as a skunk about ready to squirt.

“All right,” Josiah finally said, “we'll wait until daylight. There's got to be some gear around here somewhere. We can cover them up with blankets. But once the light comes, we bury them, and we get these longhorns back to the herd. We've got to be in Goliad to meet up with Captain McNelly, and I swear, I'm not missing that rendezvous. Is that clear, Elliot?”

Scrap shrugged. “Clear enough. I'll go look for some blankets.”

“You do that.”

Scrap started off toward the horses, then stopped suddenly. “There's thunder, you hear that, Wolfe?”

Josiah listened for a second, then scanned the sky. It was free of any storm clouds. “That's not thunder.”

“It's not is it? It's horses.”

“Sounds like six or seven,” Josiah said. “I knew those coyote yips weren't real.”

“Let's go . . .” Scrap ran up to the top of the ridge. “I can't see 'em.”

Josiah shook his head. “They'll be long gone before we catch up to them; besides, it's too dangerous.”

“Six or seven could have taken us, Wolfe. That don't make sense if they was rustlers.”

“Maybe the cows weren't what they were after.”

“You mean the Mexicans.”

“Maybe they were one of those minute groups. They don't have any interest in cows. They just want to kill every Mexican they can find in the state of Texas.”

Scrap exhaled loudly. “I 'spect it ain't right to let killers go, but you're right. It might be too dangerous.”

“That's what I think,” Josiah said, knowing full well that letting a group of Mexican-killers go free would be the easiest thing in the world for Scrap to do. His prejudice was loud and clear, even though he hadn't said anything of the kind. Somewhere in the distance, the coyote yipped again. Whether it was man or beast was a good question, but at the moment, it didn't matter to Josiah; if either came sauntering into the camp, he was going to shoot first and ask questions later. If it came to that.

Scrap took the first watch after finding a bundle of gear stuffed under a slight overhang in the rock. He and Josiah covered the two men with blankets, then chose a lookout spot that gave them a wide view of the moonlit landscape. The dead men were completely out of sight but not out of mind. Rest did not come easy for Josiah, as he struggled to make sense out of the situation they'd found themselves in.

He had fully expected to find Miguel with the rustled longhorns, and not any sign of a minute group. But now that he thought about it, the guitar player had been anything but predictable. Josiah still did not know what the man was up to, but it was becoming clearer and clearer that Miguel was up to something, had a plan, or orders, or both.

Revenge as a motive was familiar to Josiah, and he was not going to hold any certainty as to whether it was Miguel and a gang or the minute groups that were responsible for the deaths of the two Mexicans.

Liam O'Reilly had been set on evening the score for Charlie Langdon's hanging and had even set a bounty on Josiah's head—which had led to his capture by two Comanche brothers and nearly cost him his life. But Miguel was a stranger, his only link was to Cortina, and then that was only an assumption. Cortina surely had bigger ideas, more pressing engagements, like rallying an army to take over Corpus Christi, than to take the time, and money, to avenge Liam O'Reilly and Pete Feders's deaths. Miguel had said as much, that that was Cortina's intent, but there was no reason to believe anything the man said, or implied, at this point.

Still, the idea of revenge made sense if Cortina had suffered a monetary loss of some kind when the channels to Austin, and within the Texas Rangers, were cut.

The night wore on with Josiah sleeping very little, his mind captivated by Miguel, the two dead men, and what it all meant.

Morning came slowly with no resolution or new insights, and Josiah relieved Scrap a few hours before dawn, when the night was at its darkest.

“You see anything?” Josiah asked quietly.

“Don't you think I would've woke you?”

“You're still sore at me.”

Scrap looked away. “I'm gonna catch some shut-eye. We'll have our work cut out for us, getting all of these cows back to the herd, unless you want to track down that group of men we heard last night.”

“I think you're right. We need to gather up the cows and get them back to the drive. It ought to be less than a day's ride.”

“More like a full day, but I think we can make it.”

Josiah stared at Scrap, tempted to apologize for whatever it was that was troubling the boy, but he decided against the gesture.

Scrap walked off without saying another word, and left Josiah to settle into the same spot, and pick up his thinking about Miguel, home, what was coming next, and all that was before him.

The night air was chilly, and being without a fire left Josiah exposed to the breeze that kicked up now and again on top of the outcropping.

The coyotes, whether human or animal, had obviously decided that there was nothing to be had in the camp, and the herd seemed content.

Trouble is all the coyotes, real or otherwise, would have found, since Josiah was certain that Elliot was sleeping just outside of the fire with one eye open. Neither of them would rest until they returned the longhorns to the herd, and even then it would be questionable.

The upcoming meeting with McNelly weighed heavily on Josiah's mind. He did not want to return to Corpus Christi. He wanted to go home. He wanted to see Lyle and Ofelia. He wanted to be home more than any other time he could remember, with the exception, maybe, of when he had left for the war, gone on to Virginia, when the nightmare that was to come seemed like the Promised Land. Fighting man against man in the War Between the States was thought to be a train ticket to manhood, but it was less than that at times. Some days, Josiah felt like everything stopped for him the day he killed his first Union soldier. He froze from the inside out, learning nothing but how to forget the death he'd caused, had a hand in.

Josiah rarely thought about those times, but he had seen a little of himself in Scrap when the boy reacted to the two dead men the way he had.

There was no question that Josiah had become jaded, that death was no longer a surprise to him. But all things considered, the recent events with Maria Villareal and everything else, there was no way he could not feel a little more surprised by death than he thought he could, so maybe there was hope for him after all.

The full moon sank below the horizon, and the grayness of the new day began to creep up in the east, exposing a barren vista: rocky, dotted with scraggly mesquite trees and a herd of longhorns beginning to scavenge for anything green and tender they could find.

Certain that Scrap was still sleeping, Josiah decided to get a jump on the chore of burying the men. He eased away from the lookout spot down to the camp and found a small shovel in the gear.