Cougar's Prey (9781101544846) (33 page)

“That's good, right?”

“ 'Felia, I'm hungry,” Lyle said, wrapping his arms around her neck. “Papa's home. Papa's home.” A smile grew on the boy's face, and his eyes locked onto Josiah, promising not to leave. “I dreamed him, 'Felia. I did.”

Ofelia smiled, reached over to the small table next to the bed, grabbed a rag that had been used for a compress, and began to wipe the sweat from Lyle's face. “You did, Lyle. I tell him to hold a picture of you in his mind before going to sleep every night.
Le prometí a él hay magia
. I promised him no magic.”

“It is
magia
,” Lyle said. “I made Papa come home in my dreams.” Lyle struggled one last time, pulled his arms out from under the blanket, and thrust them up in the air, begging Josiah to pick him up.

Josiah wasn't sure what to think. “That's good news, right? He's going to be okay, Ofelia?”

“The doctor says if the fever breaks, that is good. But it can come back.
Niño
is still weak, and the sickness may not be gone. I have seen this happen many times before, do not get your hopes up.”

“When the girls got sick, the fevers never left. Lily, too.”

“I remember,” Ofelia said, a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

“So maybe Lyle is better? This is different?”

Ofelia smiled, then nodded, yes. “I hope so. By all that is
ponderoso
—um, mighty, I hope so.”

Josiah matched her smile then, a wave of relief washing over him. He turned away from Lyle, not wanting his son to see the tears welling in his eyes. There would be no burial, no death to consider, no madness to face, not today anyway, and hopefully, not anytime soon.

Then just as quickly, he wiped away his tears, turned around, and pulled Lyle up from the bed and into his arms. He hugged the boy as hard as he could without squeezing the air out of him. Lyle did the same.

There was no question that Josiah's mood was lighter. The sight of Lyle—though clearly not up to the usual gregariousness of a boy his age—returning to health pushed all of Josiah's concerns and worries to the back of his mind. Still, once the day wore on, and with Ofelia hovering over Lyle like a happy but overly concerned mother, Josiah felt he was ready to face one more uncertainty that awaited him.

He wanted to see Pearl.

Not one to take another man's words for the truth, especially a man like Paul Hoagland, Josiah fetched Clipper, who was well rested now, and made his way to the Fikes estate.

The ride was slow, as Josiah wanted to take in the day, get a sense of the city since he had been gone. He had noticed the continued growth upon arriving, the new buildings going up, and now that it was later in the day, the hammers pounded furiously, trying to outlast the daylight. As he passed St. David's, an Episcopal church with Tiffany stained glass windows glittering in the sun, the bells in the tower rang out, striking three times.

Josiah urged Clipper on, taking no notice of passersby, if they stared at him, recognized him, or not.

Lyle was alive, and the fevers were gone. There was nothing that could take away the relief he felt. What other people thought, what had happened in the past, before he left for Corpus Christi, were the least of his concerns. He rode down the street, sitting square in the saddle, his back straight, his shoulders pointed to the sky, like any other man with nary a care in the world.

It didn't take long to arrive at the estate. He had to pass the governor's mansion on the way, and he barely paid any attention to the traffic around it or the Old Stone Capitol building not too far away—horses, buggies, wagons, all hitched or waiting for something or other. Voices rose into the air, and they mixed together in a loud mumble, one that Josiah could not decipher, nor did he care to.

He was at a slow trot, and at the first glance of the lane that led down to the grand house that was the heart of the Fikes estate, Josiah knew that Paul Hoagland had told him the truth.

The house was vacant. Weeds sprouted from the fertile ground and lined the lane, growing haphazardly, without worry or care, promising to overtake the entrance given time and half a chance.

Ivy vines and bindweed flourished, taking fence posts as their own. The fences that surrounded the estate normally saw a fresh coat of whitewash every spring, but they had not been tended to recently. The sun and winter had faded and flaked the wood, showing bare and gray spots in a myriad of places.

Josiah rode up to the house anyway.

A sash was broken, hanging cockeyed off the window above the double front doors that led inside. The entryway was worthy of grandness. The doors were heavy, the wood mahogany, hand-carved with intricate designs that had seen the likes of governors, captains, and maybe even kings, for all Josiah knew. But now the doors were covered with boards, crisscrossed, barring entry of any kind, to man or beast.

Josiah stopped Clipper and eased off the horse, leaving him to his own volition, not hitching him up.

Clipper, of course, found a fresh patch of wild clover and made a snack out of the misfortune of the Fikeses and what remained of their once beautiful home.

A slight wind skirted across the open paddock to the south, drawing Josiah's attention to the pond that lay just opposite the house, just beyond where Clipper grazed. The spot in between had been used for any guests to park their wagons or hitch their horses, and was already dotted with weeds and wildflowers, all struggling for their rightful place.

The pond was where he and Pearl had had their first kiss. It was a fine memory, as clumsy as it had been, and at that moment, Josiah realized that he had no idea in the world where Pearl was, or even where to begin to look for her. But he knew he had to find her. He had to see her again . . . if that was even possible.

Josiah made his way back to the governor's mansion, hoping to find someone he recognized, or at the very least someone who could tell him what had happened to Pearl once she left the estate. It was the only place he knew to go.

Finding a spot for Clipper was difficult, but Josiah squeezed the Appaloosa in at the very end of the hitching board. Certain the horse was secure, he headed up to the mansion, past a teamster steadying a four-horse team of heavy-footed draft horses. Sweat on the animals' backs gleamed in the sunlight, the lather suggesting the load of the now empty wagon had been heavier than normal.

“Sure is a lot of activity for such an ordinary day,” Josiah said to the teamster as he passed by.

The teamster was a plump man with a short gray beard, floppy felt hat, and droopy eyes that reminded Josiah of a lazy cat's. “Gettin' ready for the Spring Ball or some such thing. I don't know what they call it. I just deliver their kegs and bundles of goods. A comin' out for the girls, or some such event. Don't know nothin' about such fancy doin's myself. How about you? Got a delivery to make yourself? You're empty-handed.”

Somewhere in the distance a crow called. It was an unusual sound in the city, and it unconsciously drew Josiah's attention to the sky, but he saw nothing of concern. “No, just looking for somebody,” he said, continuing on past the teamster.

The teamster said something that sounded like “Good luck,” but Josiah couldn't be sure, nor did he think the teamster could help him find Pearl, so he didn't bother to ask.

An open set of ten steps, about ten feet wide, led up to the front door of the governor's mansion. The house, a Greek Revival–style place, bore a flat roof and was fronted by six massive pillars. The pillars were pine timbers hauled up from Brastop, a reminder to Josiah of the heavily wooded forests of his boyhood home, and how tall the trees were there. There were no such trees in and around Austin. It was a forest of buildings, none of them too tall, all host to critters, but mostly unseen. Maybe it hadn't been a crow call after all.

The mansion was white with black shutters on both sides of the tall windows. Unlike the Fikes house, it looked fresh and well kept. The glass windows gleamed in the sunlight, with the odd swirls of thinness even more apparent in the glare of the day. Gas lighting had been recently installed in the house, a modern convenience that seemed worrisome to Josiah, but he understood the desire for immediate light, and the disregard for the smell, residue, and trouble offered by the use of coal oil.

Caged birds were kept in the kitchens, songbirds mostly, caught in the wild and sold as warning alarms. If a bird was found dead on the floor of the cage, a gas leak was the first suspect in the death.

The door to the mansion stood wide open, and a tall, older black man, dressed from head to toe like he was about attend to a funeral, nodded at Josiah. “May I hep you, misser?” There was no distinction in the man's tone—Josiah could have been the most important man in the world for all it mattered to the manservant, who was obviously on door duty, to direct the deliveries of the day. He stood square in front of the door, barring entry.

“I'm looking for someone,” Josiah said.

“Does you have an appointment or a delivery to make, misser? I needs to see papers either way, you unnerstand.”

“No, no, I was just wondering if you could tell me what became of the Fikeses. You know, the house down the way. It's empty now, and I'd like to get in contact with them, check on their circumstances, you might say.”

The black man studied Josiah curiously. He wore a goatee, and it was pure white, like a thick hedge had sprouted on his strong chin and been dusted with a heavy snow. The contrast of the white, curly but finely groomed facial hair against the man's skin was so stark that he almost glowed.

The servant glanced quickly down the street, toward the Fikes' estate. “You got bizness with them folks, the Fikeses, misser?”

“I'm a friend. At least I think I was.”

“You looks familiar to me.”

“I don't think we've ever met.”

“What's your name, misser?”

Josiah hesitated, then looked the man directly in the eye, searching for malice, or contempt. He answered when he was certain he saw neither. “Josiah Wolfe, sir. I doubt you know me. I'm just a simple man, greatly concerned about the loss of the Fikeses. Now, if you could just tell me the fate of the women who once lived in that grand house, I'd be mighty grateful. Then I'll be on my way. Looks like you have a busy day going on here.”

“Oh, I know who you is, yes, I do. You's that Texas Ranger that kilt the other Ranger some months back, aren't you?”

Josiah didn't flinch, didn't move, didn't imply one way or the other if the servant was right. He had hoped that time would wash away the notoriety he'd gained by killing a captain in the Texas Rangers. But, from his meeting with Paul Hoagland, and now this mention and recognition of the act, it looked like that had not happened. His reputation preceded him wherever he went. It was something to keep in mind.

The black man shivered, or shimmied, or trembled, Josiah wasn't sure which, from head to toe. Whatever the reaction, Josiah was certain he didn't like it much.

“You waits right there, Misser Wolfe. You jus' waits right there.” The old black man vanished inside the mansion like he was on a predetermined mission and would stop at nothing to reach his destination. Josiah knew that kind of determination when he saw it.

The street behind Josiah was busy with traffic, and the noise was growing by the minute, something he was not too accustomed to. He'd spent most of his time in Corpus Christi in Agusto's cantina, and there were not as many people in the seaside town as there were here in Austin. At least, it hadn't seemed so. Silence suited him more so than he'd remembered.

He stood stiffly at the door, growing more nervous by the second, waiting, with no idea what the black man was up to, whether it was good or bad, and who he went after. If that was it at all. He just didn't know.