As good as it was to be home, Josiah felt just as uncertain as he had been when he was on the run from the Comanche brothers, not knowing what was coming, if he would survive one minute to the next.
Those concerns were dimmer now, of course, but this was the first time in recent memory that Josiah had been wholly responsible for Lyle’s well-being, and that was such a different kind of survival that Josiah could hardly process the scope of it.
Ofelia was hardly ever more than two feet away from the boy.
It was frightening for Josiah to fully consider that he would have to continue to act as both mother and father to Lyle.
At that moment, Josiah realized how much he had depended on Ofelia and taken for granted that she would always look after Lyle, when in reality, she had no reason to stay other than her own love of the boy. Josiah paid her what he could and made sure she had everything that she needed, within reason. Thankfully, Ofelia didn’t require much to make her happy, or to keep her well tended.
Josiah knew it was wrong of him to even have thought that Ofelia would stay with him forever. But he had.
Lost in his own grief, in his own need for a bit of adventure, for life to continue on, he had let his responsibilities to his son fall to someone outside of his blood family. Ofelia wasn’t a stranger, but she also wasn’t bound to either of them.
One way or another, Josiah knew that everything he had taken for granted would have to change.
The inside of the house was silent.
The floor creaked when Josiah eased open the front door and stepped inside. Josiah barely knew his way around in the dark in his own house. The creak gave Josiah sudden cause to stop and take a deep breath.
He didn’t sense another presence in the house or see anything that would suggest malevolent entry, but there was no use in being foolhardy. As far as he knew, there was still a price on his head, put there by the outlaw Liam O’Reilly, not by any real enforcers of the law. Still, that money would be enough of a pull for those walking on the darker side of life to consider cashing in on the bounty. Whether it could ever be collected was another matter, one that held little to no consequence for Josiah. Some men went after a bounty more for the challenge than the payoff.
He let his eyes adjust to the darkness inside the house. It only took him a minute to make out the familiar cupboard, wash sink, table, and two chairs that he had brought from his pine cabin in East Texas.
An open interior door led into the room where Lyle’s bed sat waiting, the darkness deeper inside the room. It was a sparse house. One so small it probably could have fit inside the foyer of the Fikes estate. And that was one of the rubs that Josiah carried with him . . . still turning over the thought about Pearl’s demand that he attend a dinner, and perhaps something more, at the mansion. His house was hardly a house befitting a woman such as Pearl. Somehow, he had to convince her of that.
Josiah made his way to the room and to the small child-sized bed and gently laid Lyle in it. He took off his son’s simple leather shoes, unfurled his socks, then covered the boy up with a lightweight blanket.
Lyle was completely asleep, off in a dreamland, bearing little knowledge of his physical location, just that he was safe, or so Josiah hoped, under the watchful eye of his father.
A window hung open just to the left of the bed, and Josiah closed and locked it as quietly as he could.
The window looked out over an alleyway that separated two long rows of houses very much the same size and simple style as Josiah’s. The houses stood close to each other, and most shared space for tool sheds, gardens, outhouses, and chicken coops. It could be a noisy area, even more so when the train was moving through. It was like living on top of a thundercloud most of the time.
Lyle hardly moved at the sound of the closing window. There was nothing to see in the alleyway, so Josiah backed out of the room easily, as certain as he could be that the boy was safely tucked into bed.
He lit a coal oil lamp that sat on the table where most of the meals were shared when he was home. Ofelia usually sat on a stool that was tucked in the corner—on her own accord—rarely sitting at the table with Josiah and Lyle. It was like she felt out of place, though Josiah had never considered such a thing until now.
The room immediately came alive in the light.
Josiah flicked his eyes, adjusting again to the brightness. As he’d thought, the room was empty, and he immediately allowed himself to relax. He could hardly believe he was home. It seemed like he had been gone a lifetime, when in fact it had only been a few days.
He took off the gun belt that had once belonged to Charlie Webb, gave its origin very little thought, and set it on the table.
All he wanted to do was pull his boots off, clean himself up the best he could at the moment, have a bite to eat, and sleep under a roof that was familiar and safe.
It looked like he was going to be able to do just that. He had one boot completely off and the other halfway, when he head footsteps approach outside the door and climb up the porch steps.
Josiah froze for a second, listened for voices, for more than one set of footsteps, then stumbled back over to the table and unholstered the Colt.
The door slowly pushed open, the hinges protesting slightly, the creak drawn out by the deliberateness of the person opening the door.
“If you want to live to take another breath, I would suggest you stop right where you are,” Josiah said. He was standing flat-footed now, the six-shooter aimed squarely at the door, the hammer cocked, his finger firmly on the trigger.
The movement of the door stopped.
“Don’t shoot, Señor Wolfe. It is me. Juan Carlos. Juan Carlos Montegné.”
Josiah took a deep breath, took his finger off the trigger, and headed for the door. He’d been through way too much in his life to be completely relieved. There was no way to tell if Juan Carlos was totally alone. For all Josiah knew, his friend had a gun to his back, and someone was using their friendship as a ruse.
“Are you alone, Juan Carlos?” Josiah stopped at the door and stood off to the side.
“Sí, señor. It is just me.”
Josiah wedged the barrel of the Colt into the crack of the door, then swung the door open with all of his might—catching it with his other hand, so it would not slam into the wall and wake up Lyle.
The color had drained from Juan Carlos’s face. In the dim light, it was easy to see that Josiah’s actions had frightened the old man.
Juan Carlos was only half-Mexican, but his skin was still dark, leathery from years spent under the sun. He had deep wrinkles in his face, crevices that looked like limestone cut by the wind and water. His hair was white as a cloud and just as thick as cotton. He was skin and bones, spindly, like his half brother, Captain Fikes.
“I am serious, señor. I am alone.” Juan Carlos put up his hands.
Josiah swept out of the doorway, his eyes searching for any sign of movement on the street that would indicate Juan Carlos was lying. Satisfied, he grabbed the old man by the shoulder, pulled him inside, and locked the door quickly.
“What is the matter, señor? What have I done?”
“Nothing.” Josiah edged over to the window, pushed the curtain back slightly, and checked again to make sure the street was quiet. “It is good to see you, old friend.”
Juan Carlos cocked his eyebrow. “How come I do not believe you, mi amigo? What has happened since I have left that you do not feel safe in your own home?”