Cougar's Prey (9781101544846) (2 page)

Josiah was numbed by duty, by the marching and drills, the regularity of soldiering life. So far, he found life in the army suited him. He liked every minute of the day, filled by someone else's orders, and the camaraderie was a welcome change in his life, since he had been an only child, raised alone with no brothers, sisters, or even nearby cousins.

His stomach was full. There'd been a mess of bacon, beans, and biscuits to start the day. The musket he'd been assigned was cleaned and ready to go, empty of a load, since the command had yet to be given. If anything was lacking in his preparedness, it may have been the courage that was hiding deep in Josiah's spirit.

He was most certainly afraid of what was coming, but he didn't dare show it to any of the fellas around him. They were afraid, too. Josiah could smell the aroma of fear in the air through the smoke.

Killing had never come easily to him, even when it was a squirrel, though he'd gotten used to that pretty quickly. But killing another man was something else—even without a strong basis of religion like some of the boys that had joined up in Tyler—killing would be a hard task to face. But he knew he'd have to kill a Yankee, whether he truly believed in the cause or not. Politics were left to smarter men than him, and though he said nothing, Josiah was not sure he completely understood, or condoned, the reasons for war. But . . . he was a son of Texas, and he had chosen to stand and fight with the side the politicians had decided on.

A few days before, General Joseph E. Johnston had unexpectedly withdrawn his Confederate troops from the Warwick Line during the night, at a battle in Yorktown. The move caught the Union by surprise, and they couldn't mount a pursuit quick enough. Johnston was headed toward Richmond, by way of West Point, traveling up the York River. He stopped to regroup in Barhamsville. The Yankees had caught up, coming ashore on light pontoon boats. They'd even built a long wharf that floated, bringing in heavy artillery.

But still there'd been some small rounds of fire from the pickets set up on the bluffs, shooting down at the Yankees as they prepared for battle.

Josiah served under General John Bell Hood.

Hood's reputation as a brave man was unequaled, and he was aggressive to the point of recklessness, as far as some of the men were concerned. Not Josiah. He'd watched the general and found his style of leadership inspiring. Hood knew the area around the small town they'd lit into; he'd studied at West Point, nearby, albeit with a modest record, according to the gossip Josiah had been privy to. Hood was a tall, slender man, with a chest-length beard, a high forehead, and a thick head of dark brown hair, and he rode a horse of the same color, sitting high in the saddle, a proud, stiff man, certain in his rank and manners.

The call to assembly came quickly after the sun broke over the bluffs. A brigade had been sent up to protect the road into Barhamsville, but the Texas Brigade was being sent to the skirmish line on the north side of the landing road.

Hood rode up and down the line, his horse prancing in front of the troops. “I don't want a man to load his weapon until the command is given, is that understood?”

“Yes sir!” the troops said resoundingly.

Josiah was three rows back, craning his neck, as subtly as he could, so he could clearly see what was going on.

“Ain't that crazy.”

Josiah glanced over and saw standing next to him an unusually skinny boy of no more than eighteen, who spit and then scowled at the general. “Why's that?” Josiah whispered.

“General's afeared of a man taking a shot at one of his own across the way. You's can see the gray caps clear as a candlelight in a cave. I'm already loaded.”

Josiah looked to the woods. It was full of brush and bramble, covered by a tall canopy of tender new leaves that barely let any sunlight hit the ground. He felt a cold chill run up his spine. The boy, John Deal, was a corporal just like him, and he was openly disobeying General Hood's order.

“I'd load up, too, Wolfe, if'n I was you.”

Josiah shook his head no. He understood Hood's order, knew how hard it was to see in the woods on a calm day. He couldn't imagine the difficulty of seeing the right target during a battle.

“Suit yourself then,” Deal said. “I ain't gonna die today.”

Hood gave the command to march, and the brigade headed into the woods.

Marching came easy to Josiah, his musket in hand, ready to load. His hand was sweating, making the gun slick in his grip, and his heart was beating so loudly he thought everyone within earshot could hear it. There was no turning back now.

About fifteen paces into the woods, they encountered an enemy picket line.

A Yankee jumped up and drew General Hood into his bead as he advanced. John Deal must have seen the gunman, because he pushed through the rank, stepped firm once he was clear, and fired at the Yankee just in time, killing him with one sure shot.

General Hood could hardly scold the boy since he'd just saved his life. The command to load was quickly given, and the infantry prepared to engage the Yankees.

Josiah couldn't believe what he was seeing. If John Deal hadn't disobeyed orders, the general would have been dead before the battle even began. It was something he wouldn't soon forget.

The air was quickly full of gunpowder, and the clear sky reverberated with the thunder of firing shots. He realized then that he could die at any second. And life at any rate would never be the same.

Josiah followed the general's order, loaded his musket, then took his position.

It was only a matter of seconds before he sighted a target, a blue cap easing along the picket, a glimmer off the Union bayonet giving away his position.

Josiah eased his finger onto the trigger, took a deep breath, waited, then waited another second, until he saw flesh, the blink of a blue eye and a forehead, then pulled the trigger with all his might.

He did not wait to see if the shot was successful. He knew it was. The Yankee was dead, or dying, and Josiah Wolfe had fully joined the War Between the States.

March 1875

 

Josiah Wolfe sat outside the cantina on a hardwood chair, a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

The smell of the cigarette didn't entice Josiah, since he'd never acquired a taste for tobacco. Beer either, as far as that went. But at the moment, what enticed Josiah Wolfe didn't matter, nor did the taste or implication of vices that he'd never picked up—but he held them in his hands and touched them to his lips anyway.

Nobody in the cantina, or in all of Corpus Christi for that matter, knew him as Josiah Wolfe. To everyone he encountered, Josiah was a lowly hide trader named Zeb Teter, a man who had a quick reputation for his inability to hold his liquor but knew how to cut a deal with the Mexicans like the hard bargainer he professed to be.

No one knew he was a Texas Ranger. Or at least he hoped no one did. He was on a special mission, assigned to him by Captain Leander McNelly, as a spy, his main job to cultivate a network of paid informants to report back on the movement of cattle, the raids, and anything else he could learn about the thefts that were leaving the local ranchers, and the ones to the north, with less profit and angry as hell. The anger was aimed mostly at a man named Juan Cortina, who was heading up the raids and making scads of money to fuel his political and military desires south of the border.

Josiah's face was covered with four days' worth of scruff, and it had been as many days since he'd had a quick bath. He had been gone from home for nearly four months and was fully involved as the new man he claimed to be, Zeb Teter, who had no family matters to consider in the middle of the night—or in the light of day, for that matter.

Josiah's hands smelled of hides, old and new. The tanning process was ingrained in his mind, under his fingernails, on his every breath. Josiah wondered if the dung paste the hides soaked in for two days would ever wash out of his skin. Most people avoided him, sat downwind of him when they could, and for that, he was glad. Less conversation meant less chance he'd slip up. Being a spy was new to him. This was his first mission alone, not riding with a company of Rangers, serving in the Frontier Battalion.

The cantina was on the north end of Corpus, and the ocean was several miles away. Still, a steady and soft wind blew off the waves and pushed a healthy dose of salt air inland, making the air as soothing as a sweet nectar.

The sea air was like a tonic to Josiah. He was surprised how much better it made him feel, sprier, his head clearer. He was only thirty-three years old, but until he came to the seashore, sometimes he felt like he'd lived a hundred years.

It was late afternoon, and the sun was slowly scooting toward the horizon, inch by inch, it, too, seemingly content with the perfection of the calm spring day, not wanting it to come to an end or fall into the inescapable darkness that was destined to come.

There wasn't a cloud in the deep blue sky. Azure. That's what Josiah had heard somebody call the color of this kind of sky once. He didn't know what azure was—but he knew it now when he saw it, and was glad that there was no weather in the perfect sky to threaten the ease of the day. Waiting was a big part of being a spy; at least it had been so far.

The cantina was small, a mere hole in the wall, on a block of buildings constructed of both limestone and wood frames, and most were one storey.

A Mexican sat in the back corner plucking on a guitar, a soft song that was not meant for anything other than to exercise the man's fingers.

Josiah had heard the man play at night when the torches were lit, when the beer was flowing like a rushing stream in spring, and the man played fast and hard, the calluses on the tips of his fingers beet red. The loud music was like honey to flies, drawing in men looking for a good time.

A band usually gathered at night in the cantina, four or five Mexicans playing for their dinner, a crock or two of beer here and there, and a coin or two from a happily drunk patron. Josiah didn't know the guitar player's name but watched him closely when he was in the cantina. He was sure the man was somehow connected to Juan Cortina—there'd been a few times when there were whispers exchanged with a stranger or two, followed by a quick disappearance of both men. Some kind of transaction obviously taking place.

Josiah was the only customer in the establishment. The man behind the bar, Agusto, another Mexican, sat on a stool and stared outside, not paying any attention to Josiah.

Agusto's belly hung over his belt, and there was no gun on his hip, but there was a twelve-gauge shotgun under the bar and probably more firepower hidden about the cantina than Josiah was aware of.

The whole front wall of the cantina opened up to the street, allowing tables to be pushed outside, protected from the sun overhead by long, extending eaves. There were seven rooms above the cantina, the entrance to the upstairs outside, at the back of the building, a rickety set of stairs that showed plenty of wear.

Use of the rooms was less for sleeping than for private entertainment with one of the many women who worked the floor of the cantina when business was good. Agusto held the keys, charged a price, but did not manage the girls—someone else held control over them—a man Josiah didn't know, or care to, unless he had to. Agusto was just the gatekeeper.

Josiah had never had cause to inquire about the nightly entertainment. Whores were not a vice to Josiah
or
Zeb Teter, at least not yet. It would happen only if it needed to.

Duty was full of fickle rules as far as Josiah was concerned. Especially spy duty.

Josiah sat just outside the cantina, his attention drawn by the occasional horse or wagon traversing the street. Beyond the soft guitar music, there was not much noise in the surrounding town, no amount of traffic. It was the end of siesta time.

He took a slow drink of the beer. The taste was not unpalatable, a hint of sweetness to offset the alcohol, but drinking beer was nothing that he sought to make a habit of, even if it was a requirement to convince people he was Zeb Teter. Josiah liked to keep his head about him.

The glass of beer was still nearly full, and Josiah had been sitting for an hour, waiting.

When he sat the glass down, Agusto looked up and made eye contact with him. “You take all day to drink that beer, Mr. Zeb, and I don't make no money.”

Josiah smiled slightly at being called Mr. Zeb. He had wanted to make sure the barkeep knew his name from the very beginning. Josiah had slid him an extra bit for the first couple of beers to make sure he was taken care of . . . and was remembered as Mr. Zeb, as a generous man.

“You'll make plenty of money once the sun goes down, Agusto. Traders should be coming in.”