The Rattlesnake Season by Larry D. Sweazy

Author:Larry D. Sweazy [Sweazy, Larry D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780425230640
Amazon: 0425230643
Barnesnoble: 0425230643
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2009-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

It did not take long before El Camino Real crossed the San Marcos River.

The town of San Marcos had only been settled by Anglos for about thirty years or so, and as in San Antonio, there was no railroad that serviced the town . . . yet. But with all of the ginning and milling that sustained the coffers of the town bank, it was only a question of time before the railroaders took notice and started laying track to connect San Marcos, and all of South Texas, with the rest of the state.

Josiah was not bitter about the railroad; he had just seen how it changed people’s lives for better and for worse. If the tracks had come through Seerville, he’d probably still be the marshal, still following in his father’s footsteps, still questioning himself about why he had ever trusted Charlie Langdon enough to appoint him as his deputy in the first place.

Still, after all these years, Josiah didn’t have an answer for that, for why he had trusted Charlie.

His mind was foggy for more than a few years after the war. Charlie had come home a hero, a survivor, a teller of tales, and Josiah had seen him commit acts of courage more than once. What was missing were acts of honor. Now that he thought about it, honor had always been hard to find among Charlie’s actions. The only thing that was consistent, the one thing that always accompanied Charlie Langdon, was blood—and death. Always. If honor was present, it was left on the battlefield, and the dead told no tales . . . at least that anyone cared to hear.

Nevertheless, questioning himself as they made their way through San Marcos was not the thing to do, and Josiah knew it. Doubt had been a constant companion in the last few days, and honestly, he was about as tired of its company as he was of Scrap Elliot’s.

The lack of a railroad had prompted him to think of home, and he pushed thoughts of Charlie Langdon away—for the moment, always for the moment—and allowed his mind to return to Lyle, to Ofelia, to home.

Josiah had not seen a post office in the small river town, so he halted Clipper and the rest of the ragged crew: Scrap, a new recruit, hungry for revenge, anxious to kill an Indian, any Indian, for the crimes committed against his family; Juan Carlos, a Mexican wanted by the sheriff of San Antonio for an act that was not a crime, but an act of bravery—the type of honor that Charlie Langdon lacked; and Vi McClure, a Ranger suspected of murdering Captain Hiram Fikes—who claimed innocence but had witnesses and actions piling up against his version of the truth. This band of men was surely a curious sight to most onlookers . . . though McClure, for all intents and purposes, was the only one of them that looked like a prisoner.

A man passed by, who looked more like a banker

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