The Gila Wars

by Larry D. Sweazy

  “Yes, sir.” There was no enthusiasm in Josiah’s voice, and it was noted by the sharp look that crossed McNelly’s face.

  The captain climbed up on his horse and looked down at Scrap. “You’re riding with us, Elliot. I suggest you find your mount and join us. Doesn’t look like being left behind is in your best interest.”

  Scrap didn’t object, just tossed a hateful glare at Josiah, rubbed his check, then stalked off, looking for Missy.

  CHAPTER 40

  The steamer broke in two unceremoniously, weakened by the fire that had completely consumed it as it was tossed to and fro on the rocks just beyond the shore. There was a great cracking sound, like an egg dropped to the ground, that echoed across the beach then vanished out to sea, like chunks of the boat itself. The sky was filled with black smoke, and now that the company had moved on, the only sounds surrounding Josiah, beyond the crackling of the remaining fire, were the calls of seabirds scouring the ground for any opportunity that showed itself.

  Juan Carlos’s tired old horse had made its way off into the grass, grazing alongside Clipper like it didn’t have a care in the world, like it had found a new friend, instead of losing a master. Expecting realization of another’s death from a horse was silly, but oddly, Josiah did expect some kind of show of sorrow from the horse. He felt it himself.

  It was hard telling how long Juan Carlos had been in ownership of the shaggy horse. Josiah had never seen it before. The old Mexican had showed no loyalty to any animal for as long as Josiah had known him. Juan Carlos was not a mean horse owner, he didn’t flog his ride like Josiah had seen a lot of men do, but he wasn’t a soft or caring owner, either. So it may have been for a very good reason that the horse showed no emotion. That or it was plain-out impossible for a horse to realize that its owner had been killed.

  Feeling a little safer now that he knew the company was returning to camp, Josiah allowed himself to relax just a little bit. He was still alert, his hands ready to pull his gun if the need arose, but now only a little more than he normally was when he was out alone. McNelly would have a ring of men at watch, too, all on edge, expecting retaliation from Cortina and his men. The battle was over, but not the war—not if Cortina lived on. And he did, according to the captain. So the end to this fight was not imminent. South Texas would still have to live with the real threat of violence and theft. Even more so now. Cortina wouldn’t just whimper away, lick his wounds, and change his ways. The loss to McNelly would only fuel Cortina’s rage, Josiah was certain of that.

  The first thing Josiah did was make his way to Clipper. He dug out the canteen from his saddlebag and gulped down a solid drink of water. Then he poured some of the warm water into his hand and wiped it across his face, being gentle on the scattershot wounds. The water spread the dirt, blood, and his sweat, and it stung under the scabs of the wound, but Josiah persisted. He feared more infection, especially in his face, now that he had time to think of such a thing. Surviving the battle was never certain, especially in his condition.

  His face was as clean as it could be for the moment. Josiah gathered up Clipper and the black horse and made his way to the blanket that covered Juan Carlos’s body. He ignored the gunshot in his shoulder. He could feel that it was wet, was seeping, that it had most likely been torn apart. Oddly, it didn’t hurt. Just felt tender and raw. Once he was back in camp, he’d have it looked at. One of the boys they rode with, Verlyn Tinker, the one they all called Doc, had a way of healing things even though he wasn’t a schooled doctor.

  Josiah stood over Juan Carlos’s covered body for a long time, minutes that seemed to stop, and reflected back on his time with the man. He felt an overwhelming sorrow growing inside of him. He didn’t need Scrap to blame him for Juan Carlos’s death. He was already blaming himself. And something told him that he always would, that he would forever remember the deckhand driving the knife into Juan Carlos’s chest, and the surprised look on the old Mexican’s face. It was a dark memory that would rest alongside others that ended in death. This one, the most recent, seemed to hurt more than others had, even Lily’s, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

  He had properly met Juan Carlos in San Antonio on his first mission with the Frontier Battalion when Captain Fikes, Juan Carlos’s half brother, was still alive and had called on him to help bring Charlie Langdon, an outlaw that Josiah had a history with, to justice. Charlie was in a jail in San Antonio, and his gang was desperate to break him out. One of the outlaws tracked Josiah down to the Menger Hotel, and it was his good fortune that Captain Fikes had put Juan Carlos in the hotel to watch out for such an attack.

  Juan Carlos saved Josiah’s life, and from that moment on, the two had shared a bond that seemed unbreakable. But there were limits to their friendship. Partly because Juan Carlos was seen entirely as a Mexican, not half-Anglo like Josiah knew him to be, and partly because of Josiah’s lack of understanding of the Spanish language and Mexican customs.

  It hadn’t been that long ago, after Juan Carlos was wounded and sought refuge in the fishing village, that their relationship had thoroughly been tested.

  Josiah had made a mistake that ended up costing the life of the woman Juan Carlos had long loved, Maria Villareal. The episode still haunted Josiah, and now it felt like it had happened again, that he had caused the loss of another life by a choice he had made—or not made.

  Josiah knew Juan Carlos would argue with him, that what had happened was just how their lives had turned out. Fate had interceded. But there was no way he could not feel responsible, like a failure, like an unreliable sergeant with too little knowledge to lead—making him dangerous, not only to himself but to the men he was responsible for.

  Blood had soaked through the blanket that covered Juan Carlos, making the death even more real, more certain.

  Josiah hesitated before he pulled the blanket off, then took a deep breath and went ahead with the task. He knew he had to follow McNelly’s orders and return Juan Carlos’s body to the camp, but he was in no hurry. It seemed more like a punishment than a duty.

  Juan Carlos lay on his back, faceup, his eyes closed like he was sleeping. There was no pain on his face. He looked serenely peaceful. The only evidence of trauma was the wound in his chest. The blood had started to dry. Other than that, and the grime of the battle, Juan Carlos hardly looked any different than he ever did.

  It was, however, the touch to Juan Carlos’s skin that confirmed to Josiah that death had really came and taken his friend. He was cold and starting to get stiff.

  Josiah rolled Juan Carlos in the blanket, fighting off a regiment of sand flies the whole time. In return, they attacked any visible skin on Josiah they could. He felt nothing. Their bites were common now. Common, and he was numb. He didn’t go to combat with them. He knew he would lose.

  With as much ease as he could, Josiah lifted Juan Carlos’s lifeless body with the intent of securing it over the back of the shaggy black horse.

  The horse grunted and groaned, seemed immediately uncomfortable, and tried to skitter away. It was a reaction that Josiah hadn’t counted on, but had hoped for from the beginning, some sign of recognition—and he nearly dropped the body before finally getting it settled in place.

  Maybe the horse knew something was wrong after all. Maybe there was a smell to death that humans couldn’t detect—or a lack of smell, vanished with the last breath of the man. Or maybe the horse just knew what death was, after all.

  Clipper eased up alongside the horse and nudged it with his nose. It was as much a show of emotion as any man could expect from two beasts void of voices or sense.

  Josiah gently and respectfully tied Juan Carlos’s body down over the saddle, then tied the reins of the horse to his own saddle.

  He stared out to the sea for a long moment afterward and watched the waves wash in and out. He wished he had a way to take the body out into the water and dump it there for burial. Juan Carlos would have liked th
at. He loved the ocean. But that was not to be. There was no boat to afford such a journey. The only one in sight was now in two pieces, burning from end to end. The flames had started to die as the fire ran out of fresh, dry wood, and it wouldn’t be long before there was nothing left but a broken skeleton, lying wrecked on the beach for wanderers-by, who would speculate what had happened and why.

  If there had been any men onboard the steamer after the deckhand showed himself, they were definitely dead. There was no way any man could have survived the fire.

  As for the deckhand, Josiah decided to just leave him where he was, riddled with bullets, the waves washing his blood out to sea. Josiah hoped the birds would come along and peck his eyes out. The only thing that would have been better was if the deckhand had still been alive and could feel the pain and terror of the attack. But there was no hoping for that. The deckhand was as dead as Juan Carlos.

  Then, for a brief moment, Josiah wished he was a religious man, a believer in God and all things from that realm. That way he could wish the deckhand a quick journey to hell. But that moment passed just as quickly as it came. Josiah had lost any faith he might have ever had on the battlefield, seeing the brutality of man and no intervention from an unseen force to stop it. And at the bedside of his dying daughters and his dying wife. If there was a God, that would have been the time for Him to show Himself. That hadn’t happened, and as Josiah led the shaggy black horse away from the beach, he was certain nothing like it ever would.

  The only fires of hell were the ones he was walking away from. The thought, and something else, stopped Josiah; a slight movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to bring Juan Carlos’s horse to a sudden halt.

  A lone rider sat up on the farthest hill, looking down at Josiah. Any man that was a decent shot could have taken him down in two breaths. Josiah reached for his own gun and eased behind the shaggy horse, set on using it for cover.

  The rider could’ve been Juan Cortina, come to survey what was left of his plan, or a scout, sent to report back on the defeat. It could’ve even been another Ranger, left behind to cover Josiah’s return to camp, but he doubted it. McNelly hadn’t said a word of such a thing. The battle was over, at least for the Rangers. That had been certain when the captain headed back to the camp.

  Josiah settled himself behind the horse and brought the unknown rider into his sights. He felt no fear, just the long-held desire that the rider be Cortina. He wanted to face the man and put an end the Mexican’s raids and tyranny. A bad taste washed through his mouth; the mystery of the man’s identity enraged him. He blinked, trying to get a better look, but when he cleared his vision, the rider was gone. He blinked again, making sure he was right, and he was. There was no sign of the rider at all—but that didn’t mean the danger of another man’s gun, or Juan Cortina, was gone, or satisfied with defeat. It meant the war continued.

  CHAPTER 41

  Before returning to camp, Josiah stopped and retrieved Pip Howerson’s body, bundling and tying it in a blanket like he had Juan Carlos’s, then loading it over Clipper’s saddle. There was no other choice. He was going to have to walk back to camp.

  It had been his hope to bury Pip along with his horse, and that still might be a possibility, but something told Josiah that it wouldn’t happen. McNelly wouldn’t want to waste the manpower, or energy, to dig a hole big enough and deep enough for both of them to fit in.

  The mare was a damn good horse, and she deserved better than to be left behind. But that was the way it was after a battle. A month from now there would only be a skeleton left behind, and rumors on the wind that something bad had happened on the surrounding grounds. So maybe it was best to leave the horse behind and let nature be nature—but still, Josiah hesitated. It felt like he was committing a crime of some sort, leaving the horse to the vultures and other meat eaters. Maybe, he thought, Pip would be offended. But Pip was dead. Deader than dead. Just like Juan Carlos. It didn’t matter what happened to the horse. But that didn’t make it right—or make it feel right, just leaving it all behind, but he had to, and he knew it.

  The heat of the day had not subsided, nor had the feeling that he was alone. A big orange dinner plate radiated in the sky and had started to slope down from its apex, easing slowly toward late afternoon. Dusk wasn’t that far off, and darkness would follow then, washing the day behind it, too. Time would march on. As it was, the sun beamed brightly, and there continued to be no clouds to be seen. Only the wind off the ocean made walking back to camp tolerable, and it was tainted with the smell of smoke and destruction. Escaping this battle was going to be difficult.

  Each step Josiah took was like walking in mud, even though the ground was dry. He was tired, sore, and sad from the turn of events of the day. It had been like that before for him after a long fight, sadness welling up under his skin—but somehow, this felt different. Like it was the end of something bigger.

  But it wasn’t the end of the fight; the sighting of the lone rider had reaffirmed that notion. Cortina was still alive, most likely planning another raid, or hatching another scheme to rustle and sell longhorns to the Cubans.

  What Josiah was feeling wasn’t about Cortina. It was about his life, about what was next. He wasn’t sure he would fully recover from what he’d just experienced, not like he had in the past.

  Josiah missed Lyle, missed the normalcy of everyday life—even in Austin, a city that still felt foreign to him. Still, even though it didn’t feel like home to him, he would have given anything to crest the rise he was trudging up and see Austin spread out before him, instead of the Ranger camp.

  He hungered for Ofelia’s menudo, and as odd as it was, he longed for the smell of Pearl’s toilet water . . . and her touch, even if she no longer desired his touch—or presence in her life.

  The fight had taken a lot out of him. Losing Juan Carlos would be hard to swallow, but he knew he would have to deal with it somehow, put the man’s death in perspective and accept blame or find redemption from the cause, one or the other. But what he was feeling was as much about the living as the dead.

  Regret and guilt, the rawest of uncontrolled human emotions, always sneaked in after battle, after killing a man. Some men fought it off with heavy doses of whiskey, or in the arms of a welcoming whore. Neither appealed to Josiah. Like always, he would think his way through it, occupy himself with a puzzling exercise or some other task to take his mind off the immediate past. That was what had worked for him before.

  He knew he shouldn’t have lost his temper with Scrap, punched him as hard as he had—but the fact was he had, and he couldn’t take it back. Whether Scrap would see that it was nothing more than a reaction to the day, to the fight, to the loss, was yet to be seen. It was hard to say if there was any forgiveness left in the boy’s heart—or the desire in Josiah’s to seek it. From what Josiah had seen, from what he knew about Scrap, he was left with his doubts. The boy’s heart could be cold as a winter day in the Dakotas. Seeing your parents killed senselessly by the Comanche would do that to any man. It had angered Scrap, hurt him in a way that very few people would, or could, ever understand. That event stunted him, too. He’d stopped maturing, stopped feeling compassion for other folks. Josiah knew what he was dealing with. He and Scrap shared more in common than either one of them was willing to admit.

  After a long, winding walk that seemed to pass more quickly than he had expected it to, Josiah led the two horses into camp solemnly, not having to say a word to the men on watch. They had obviously been told to expect him.

  Josiah was happy to see the camp throbbing with life. It was a distraction from his troubled mind.

  There was smoke in the air from freshly built fires, overwhelmed by the smell of cooking beef—Scrap’s wish for a killed cow had come true. Someone was playing a fiddle at a fast, happy pace, and it echoed off the rocks that surrounded the camp, making it seem louder than it really was. Tents were aglow, and every face he saw
had a smile on it—at least until they made eye contact with him and realized what cargo the two horses carried. It wasn’t only the Mexicans who had paid a price that day. So had the Rangers. Most everyone scurried by Josiah, busy and eager to be as far away from the cost of war as possible.

  Josiah kept his head down, his shame and regret impermeable. The horses followed close behind, the reins lose in his hand.

  He made his way slowly to Verlyn Tinker’s tent, not in any hurry to part with the bodies.

  Tinker was as close to a doctor as the camp had. There was no saving Pip or Juan Carlos, but Tinker also had the unfortunate job of preparing the dead for burial if such an event occurred, as well as looking after cuts and scrapes and such. Josiah wanted his shoulder looked at as well. He’d felt a tear in it earlier.

  The flap to Tinker’s tent was pegged open, and the inside was fully lit with several coal lamps burning brightly. Josiah tied the horses to a sprawling live oak just to the north of the tent’s entrance.

  Josiah made his way to the tent, his head down, each step still difficult. He stopped before entering, clearing his throat to garner Tinker’s attention.

  Verlyn Tinker was probably ten years older than Josiah, maybe fifteen, making him nearly fifty years old. He was a tall man with stooped shoulders and a narrow face. Put a beard and stovepipe on the man and he would have looked a lot like Abe Lincoln. He was dressed simply in black trousers and a white linen shirt that was dotted with blotches of blood—just like his hands.

  Tinker stood over a shirtless young Ranger that on second look turned out to be Tom Darkson, blotting a wound just above his ribs dry.