It was an unusually open confession for Josiah, but he knew he needed to disarm Feders, convince him that a fight wouldn’t solve anything, wouldn’t make Pearl accept his marriage proposal, or make what had just happened in the dining hall disappear from everyone’s mind.
Feders glared at Josiah, his teeth clenched hard, then he drew a deep breath and looked away quickly. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“That’s your right.” Josiah drew a deep breath of his own, preparing to take a chance. “You’ve known me for a long time, Pete. I’ve never double-crossed you or anybody else before, why would I start now?”
Feders narrowed his eyes. “There aren’t too many women in this world that are as beautiful and smart as Pearl Fikes. She is a gracious prize. One worth losing everything to gain, or dying for, as far as I am concerned.”
Josiah wasn’t going to agree or disagree. “Maybe you’re tryin’ too hard, Pete.”
Feders exhaled loudly, then kicked the dirt, sending a heavy clump sailing into the darkness, soiling the shine on his boot. “I lose sight of myself every time I get within a mile of her.”
“I felt that way about Lily. I just had to give her some room. If you smother the sunlight from a bluebonnet, it’s not going to bloom, now is it?”
“I suppose not.”
Silence fell between the two men. They had a history together. Time spent riding together as Rangers before the Frontier Battalion was formed, and after, both of them devoted to Hiram Fikes. He’d known Feders while Lily and the girls were alive, when the whole world for Josiah existed on a small piece of acreage in East Texas.
He ached to return to that little piece of Heaven every minute he was out riding with Fikes and Feders—still did as far as that went.
Josiah and Feders had never been friends, but he trusted his back to Pete then—and he had ever since he joined up with the Frontier Battalion. It had only been recently—ever since Pete took on being a captain—that Josiah began to doubt the man, or at least doubted his leadership capabilities. Pete led by his mood, not his brain like Captain Fikes had. That changed everything.
“I have some news for you, Wolfe,” Feders said. “You have been resolved of any wrongdoing or crime in Comanche. I want you to know that. I want you to know what I did for you, putting my neck on the line and saving yours from the rope. Those folks got a taste of revenge when they hung John Wesley Hardin’s kin, and you’re just a lucky man we showed up when we did or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Your belly wouldn’t be full of good wine and beefsteak.”
Josiah didn’t show the sigh of relief he felt upon hearing the news and the fact that Feders had seemed to finally stand down.
The wine had made Josiah a little unruly inside the house, but he had not lost a lick of his senses when it came to seeing a fight heading his way.
“I appreciate that, Captain,” Josiah said, noting the stiff difference in Feders’s stance and tone.
“I’m sure you do. That was a fine mess you created.”
“I was just trying to stay alive.”
Feders let his fists fall open. “I probably wouldn’t go that way again for some time, if I were you.”
Josiah agreed silently with a nod. “How’d you know to find me in Comanche in the first place?” It was not a question that had occurred to Josiah previously, but when he thought about the arrival of Feders and the company in Comanche as lucky, the timing seemed almost too perfect. The release made him feel emboldened enough to ask.
“Where else would you have been, Wolfe?” There was a crack in Feders’s voice, and he looked away, then back directly at Josiah with a hard, accusatory glare. “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing. Just asking a question.” Josiah felt odd, like he had just verbally attacked his father, with no reason, no cause for suspicion, just curiosity. Pete’s reaction only made matters worse, but all things considered, Josiah chose not to pursue the question any further.
“I regret the loss of Red Overmeyer. He was a good man,” Josiah said, changing the subject. “I failed him.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Feders was still stiff, but he appeared to relax a bit. He drew a deep breath and took a step back, away from Josiah.
“What do you mean?”
“I had some concerns about Overmeyer’s allegiance. He was always a little mysterious and unpredictable when it came to Indians,” Feders said.
Josiah was curious and uncertain about Feders’s doubt regarding Red. It was the first he’d heard tell of any question of the man’s character. There was never any doubt in Josiah’s mind that Overmeyer was a fine Ranger, any more than Pete was a fine captain—albeit unpredictable. Now he was starting to doubt everything he’d ever believed.
“He stood and fought with us in Lost Valley against the Comanche and Kiowa,” Josiah said. “I’m not sure that you’re making sense to me, Captain.”
“He was out scouting at the start. It never crossed your mind that the whole troop went down in that valley and the mass of savages suddenly appeared out of nowhere? He gave the all clear to Jones, if I am not mistaken.”
“Jones led us into the valley. It was his decision.” Josiah was getting defensive, and a little annoyed. Feders was not at the Lost Valley fight; he had stayed back at the Ranger camp along the Red River because of a conflict with Major Jones. Josiah didn’t think much about it at the time.
“A scout worth his salt would have figured out it was a trap,” Feders said with a snarl.
“What are you saying? That Red Overmeyer was a spy for the Indians?” Josiah asked, incredulous. “That he intentionally sent innocent men to their deaths? I saw a man die in the worst way, captured and mutilated by the Kiowa like he was nothing more than a rabbit. I spent time with Overmeyer; he never gave me one reason to question his desire to be a Ranger.”
There was, though, perhaps some truth to what Feders was saying—at least enough to hear him out.
It was always obvious that Overmeyer had spent plenty of time among the Indians—mostly friendlies on the plains. But being a spy just didn’t make sense—or Josiah didn’t want to believe it. He had trusted Red Overmeyer.
What would there have been to gain by betraying his fellow Rangers in the Lost Valley? Nothing that Josiah could see. Still, there was no question that Overmeyer’s past was dim. He could have known some of the Indians or, at the very least, known how to trade with them.
“Maybe he was a spy for the Indians,” Feders said. “Or maybe he was a spy for Liam O’Reilly. Perhaps he intended to give you up all along. Collect O’Reilly’s bounty for himself. Maybe those two Comanche and him had a deal. You ever think of that?”
Josiah felt the air go out of his chest.
He had questioned how the Indians knew his name, how they knew he was going to be out along the San Sabine scouting with just Scrap and Overmeyer and no troop to back them up.
“If what you’re saying is true, then the Comanches would have had a reason to see Red Overmeyer dead,” Josiah said, coming to a conclusion he didn’t like, but was starting to make sense in a roundabout kind of way.
He still didn’t feel absolved of Overmeyer’s death. He wasn’t sure he ever would.
Feders nodded. “They were going to keep the bounty on your head for themselves.”