Josiah shrugged. “Don’t know the man myself.”
“Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you so, but ’tisn’t too reliable.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” Josiah said. He turned to go, but hesitated, then turned back. “There hasn’t been a troop of Rangers come through here in the last day or two, has there?”
Josiah had yet to figure out what Feders was doing in this part of the country—Roy’s description of a captain with a well-defined scar had to be Pete.
It was entirely possible that the company was involved in McNelly’s plan to stop Cortina and O’Reilly, but something just didn’t feel right. Especially with Juan Carlos getting shot and taken out of the picture. Surely the two things couldn’t be linked, but they sure seemed to be . . . somehow. The presence of the Ranger company helped explain why Juan Carlos had brought them to Brackett. He had to know he was on Feders’s tail. Josiah found it interesting that Feders was on O’Reilly’s tail, unless he had been sent by Major Jones to make sure the union with Cortina could never be formally bound. But why would Jones send another company, when McNelly wanted the small troop—Josiah, Scrap, and Juan Carlos—to act in secret? Unless there was more that Juan Carlos was unable to tell him.
The sergeant shook his head no to Josiah’s question about Feders’s company. “Not that I can say. I haven’t seen any Rangers come through, but I was off duty for a few days, spent a little time in Brackett blowin’ off a wee bit of stream, myself, if you know what I mean.”
Josiah smiled. “I know what you mean. Thanks.”
The answer didn’t help him relax and didn’t clear anything up. At the very least, he would have thought that Feders would have stopped at the fort to resupply the boys, get them freshened up for the ride to Laredo—if that’s where they were heading. But the fact there had been no sign of them added to the uncomfortable gnaw that was growing in Josiah’s stomach and didn’t promise to go away anytime soon.
The stable was easy to find, it was down the road about a hundred yards, on the opposite side from the duty sergeant’s office.
“Wait here,” Josiah said to Scrap as he slid off the saddle and planted his feet solidly on the ground.
“Why do I always have to wait?”
Josiah didn’t answer Scrap, he just plodded off inside the stable, a large wood-frame barn capable of holding at least a hundred horses. Just inside, he stopped to look around, to see if there was anyone moving about. There was a new smell to some of the wood, but the rafters were full of swallow’s nests made of mud, empty now since winter was coming on. For the most part, the barn looked empty, until he heard a loud snore rumble out of one of the tack rooms.
He went to investigate and found a Negro settled in the corner, lying on a bed of straw, sleeping away even though it was nearing noon.
“Excuse me,” Josiah said, standing at the door.
The man continued to snore.
Josiah walked into the room and kicked the man’s boot. “Excuse me, are you Dixie Jim?” He asked louder this time.
The man roused, rolled off his side, opened his eyes, then sprang up, reaching for his gun—which wasn’t there since he didn’t have a gun belt on. It was only then that Josiah noticed that he only had one foot. A crutch was propped up in the corner.
“Whoa,” Josiah said, throwing up both hands like he was getting held up. “I don’t mean you any harm. Juan Carlos sent me.”
The man was about half a head shorter than Josiah and maybe ten years older, it was hard to tell, but there was white starting to mix in his wavy black hair. His skin was ten times darker than any Mexican Josiah had ever seen, and he assumed the man was one of the Negro-Seminole scouts that worked out of Fort Clark. His face, with a bold straight nose and blue eyes, was more Indian than Negro. The clothes the man wore were little more than rags. It looked like he had lost his foot just above the ankle, and his pant leg was tied in a knot, just barely raking the ground when he moved.
“Are you Dixie Jim?” Josiah asked, again.
The man nodded, realizing that he didn’t have a gun. He slapped his hand to his side, gave Josiah a snarl, then hopped over to get his crutch. “I am. What you want? Ain’t you got no manners seeing a man sleeping, you leave him alone?”
The room smelled like Josiah had walked inside a whiskey barrel. “Sorry about that, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“You say Juan Carlos sent you? You a friend?”
“I am. We’re on a mission for Captain McNelly.”
“Don’t know no McNelly. Where’s Juan Carlos?”
“He was shot in town. When we left him, he wasn’t doing so good, couldn’t continue on with us. The last words he spoke to me were about you. I’m hoping you can help me.”
The crutch securely under his arm, Dixie Jim stared at Josiah with focused uncertainty. “Was supposed to be waiting for Juan Carlos. Got tired of waiting, I did. You a drinkin’ man? What’s your name?”
“Josiah. Josiah Wolfe.”
Dixie Jim nodded, recognition lighting his eyes, and said, “Ah, you want me to help you track that Badger, that’s what they call him, eh? Liam O’Reilly. I’m no killer, are you?”
“I am if I have to be.”
CHAPTER 40
With the horses refreshed and the saddlebags restocked for another two-hundred-mile journey, Josiah, Scrap, and Dixie Jim made their way out of Fort Clark near evening.
The sun was setting off to the west, the sky promising to be clear of clouds or weather. Unlike the first morning out of Austin, there were no hints of red, no warnings that they were going to be traveling in any kind of inhospitable weather. Just the opposite, in fact. The world seemed quiet and comfortable, ready for night to fall and allow a bit of rest to those whose work was done for the day.
Josiah understood the need to ride at night, but he wasn’t crazy about the idea. If Juan Carlos had been leading the way, that would have been different, but he wasn’t.
There was no way to know whether the Mexican was alive or dead, and Josiah hadn’t worked up enough trust in Dixie Jim to wholly go along with the plan without some silent reservations—which he’d keep to himself for a while, watching the ground and the trail as closely as he could, employing his own tracking skills, such as they were.
They made their way along Las Moras Creek at a steady pace, and not long into the ride they passed a barren tree with about a hundred or so vultures that had come in to roost for the night. The sky was gray, and the tree was an old sycamore with white, peeling bark that made it look half-dead, or like bones sticking up high out of the soft, swampy ground.
The big black birds didn’t make a sound, nor did they seem the least bit disturbed by the travelers’ presence—they just watched the trio pass by, a few of the redheaded vultures bobbing their heads and blasting the ground with splats of white liquid excrement, flapping their six-foot wings casually.
“Nasty old birds, those buzzards. Friends on the wind, and food at night if you’re hungry enough,” Dixie Jim said. “Rather burn that meat so it don’t stink so bad on my tongue.”
“Good to know,” Josiah said.
He’d made a deal with Dixie Jim, promising to carry three bottles of whiskey and dole it out in bits at a time—after they made camp. In return, the scout promised to get them where they needed to go, by the safest, fastest way possible, and that meant a lot of traveling at night. Josiah had to do everything in his power to trust Dixie Jim, and withholding whiskey from the man was a good start. Scrap had to keep his mouth shut for two hundred miles. One task was going to be easier than the other.