The Rattlesnake Season Read Online Free

bust out of jail. He’s got a grudge against you a mile long, and I figure he’s marked you with his boys. I’d rather you be at my side than at the smoking end of the barrel of one of those scoundrels.”

CHAPTER 2

    Josiah left the captain at the Silver Dollar, the big pile of gambling chips getting bigger. He didn’t bother to introduce himself to Fikes’s card mates. Their identities were none of his business, and they looked like locals—but for all he knew, they could have been fellow Rangers that he did not know. Everything was changing pretty fast since Governor Coke took office. In any case, Captain Hiram Fikes was the last man in Texas who needed looking after.
    Josiah paused, and thought it was a little odd that the captain was wasting away the night while his men were standing guard outside the local jail, but he figured even an old Ranger needed to blow off steam.
    He made note of Feders and Elliot, one on the roof, one by the door, both about as inconspicuous as that skunk on the trail. He’d met Feders, a lanky true Texan like himself, before and ridden with him briefly on one of the early sojourns with Captain Fikes. He didn’t know Elliot at all. He was a new recruit. But they were both Rangers, and he was glad to see them, glad to know Fikes wasn’t just relying on the locals to keep an eye on Charlie Langdon.
    If Charlie Langdon did have a gang in town, they knew there were Rangers to contend with, too, and might think twice about busting Charlie out. Neither Feders nor Elliot noticed Josiah; they looked bored, none too concerned about Charlie Langdon, or much else for that matter. But for all he knew, that could have been a ruse.
    Josiah, on the other hand, was aware of every sound, of every man, woman, and child bustling about, and unsure of who was who since the captain told him he might be a marked man.
    Having to think about the safety of his own person was enough to give any man pause, but Josiah instantly thought of Lyle, and what would happen to his young son if Langdon’s men carried out their intent.
    Lyle would be an orphan—plain and simple. The boy would more than likely be pulled from the small pine cabin that had always been his home, out of Ofelia’s arms, and taken to the county orphanage. It was a thought Josiah could barely stand to consider, so he pushed the thought away and refused to consider it any further.
    He headed quickly to the Menger Hotel, and stopped once he stepped inside the grand lobby.
    It was a magnificent sight, three storeys of opulence—white tiled floors, with intricate geometric designs that looked like a sharp-edged number eight repeated over and over again, and ivory pillars, gilded with gold leaf paint, that held up a mezzanine and another floor. Plants of the like he had never seen before were scattered about the lobby, tall and jungle-like, as big as trees, but fragile-looking, adding to the expensive airs the hotel decorators had successfully put on.
    It would have been the highlight of his life if he could have brought Lily to a place like the Menger Hotel, all fine and fancy, just the two of them, holding each other’s hand like they did when they were courting.
    But that was not to be, and Josiah knew it.
    His heart ached for Lily every day, and he still forced himself to think of her as living and walking on the earth, bustling about at home, taking care of the girls and Lyle, while he was away. He knew it was a lie to himself, but the matters of love, and of the future, were subjects he’d desperately tried to avoid, until lately. He kept telling himself that he had a job to do, a son to look after—that was enough for any man to worry about.
    But for a brief moment, he allowed himself a glimpse into the past, into his imagination, and watched Lily, dressed in her Sunday best, stroll across the lobby floor of the Menger Hotel, like a queen.
    He shook his head, cleared his mind, and made his way to the registration desk.
    The clientele of