newborn baby. She was not that much different than he was now. Alone in the world with more responsibility than she should have had to handle. But something told Josiah that Billie could handle whatever came her way. Like him, she had no choice.
With images of Billie weighing heavily in his mind, Josiah quickly drifted off to sleep.
He sat straight up at the first sound.
The moon had fallen from the sky, and the room was totally black now. It was the middle of the night, silent beyond the sound that had woken him up. Any dream that may have pulled at Josiah slipped away, out of his grasp and memory, just like the images of Lily. He hadn’t been dreaming of her, he was sure of it—knew how that felt when he woke; like there was a hole in his chest and fire in his loins.
Out of instinct, his hand went to the empty side of the bed, always—still—checking for Lily to be there. The waste of time and motion could have proven costly since the thump that had woken him up in the first place happened again, only this time it was louder.
Josiah reached to the floor for the Colt Frontier, eased the hammer back, and aimed the barrel toward the door, all the while listening carefully for the next sound.
It only took a couple of heartbeats before the next thud came. Somebody was on the front porch.
As he eased out of bed, Lyle stirred. Josiah stopped, caught his breath, then slid past the boy’s bed and out into the front room. He hugged the wall and saw a shadow move across the window.
Two heavy footsteps stopped just outside the door.
The heavy knock on the door surprised Josiah. He wasn’t expecting it. He was expecting somebody to kick in the door and rush in, guns blazing.
“You in there, Wolfe!”
Josiah recognized the voice just as Lyle started to scream, startled out of his sleep in the middle of the night by the loud knock on the door. In a flash, Josiah went from protector, ready to kill, to angry as a bull—ready to kill.
“Come on, Wolfe. Wake up!” It was Scrap Elliot. And he was obviously as drunk as a cowboy fresh off the trail.
CHAPTER 24
Josiah lit a lamp, washing the house in a quick, bright light, then swung open the front door. He did not hesitate like he had with Juan Carlos, unsure and fearful that the Mexican was not alone. He didn’t care if Scrap wasn’t alone—didn’t care if the late night rousing was a trick and Scrap was O’Reilly’s ploy. The Colt was still in his hand, any fear lost, replaced with anger, close enough to erupt into an urge to kill. He couldn’t remember being so mad.
Scrap was leaning on the jamb, trying to hold himself up, smiling crookedly at Josiah. He smelled like he’d washed every part of his body in whiskey for the last week. He was pickled.
Lyle screamed at the top of his lungs from his bed.
“Get in here.” Josiah grabbed Scrap’s shirt collar and pulled him inside.
Scrap stumbled inside the door, crashing to the floor with a whoop, holler, and cackle. Lyle screamed even louder. Josiah looked out the door, up and down the street, and didn’t see hide nor hair of any living creature except Scrap’s blue roan mare, Missy, who was standing nervously in front of the house.
The damned horse wasn’t even tied to the post. A clue to how drunk Scrap really was. He never mistreated his horse, or any horse for that matter. Leaving an animal to fend for itself was a greater sin than killing a man in Scrap Elliot’s book.
Josiah rushed out of the house and quickly tied Missy to the hitching post.
He was aware of everything around him, still not certain that Scrap hadn’t been tricked into leading someone to the house. He had never seen Scrap so drunk, but mostly he was aware that his son was inside the house, screaming at the top of his lungs, afraid and unsure of what was happening. Ofelia was not there to calm the boy down. She would have had Lyle in her arms at the first whimper—now he was alone.
A light filled a neighbor’s house two houses down, and Josiah hurried back inside his own house, closing the door as gently as his anger would allow, but it was still a slam, and Lyle reacted in kind by screaming even louder.
Without saying a word, Josiah trudged past Scrap, who was on all fours, trying to pull himself up into a standing position. It looked like the floor beneath Scrap was made of ice for all the falling over he did. Seeing Scrap in such a state might have been funny in the right setting, but as it was, there was nothing funny about being awakened in the middle of the night by a drunken clown.
Lyle was standing up in his bed, tears rolling off his red cheeks, arms stretched out to Josiah as he made his way into the room.
“Ofelia, Ofelia!
Josiah swept Lyle up into his arms, unsure of what he’d just said—which made Josiah even angrier. Added to everything else, the fact that Lyle had peed himself made Josiah certain he was going to explode into a rage at any second.
“Where is Ofelia, Papa?” Lyle asked, trying to catch his breath, his chest lurching heavily in between every syllable.
“She is away.”
“Gone, gone?” Lyle wiped his face with his shirtsleeve, finally calming down, though tears still dripped out of both of his eyes.
Josiah shook his head no. “She’ll be back soon.”
Lyle whimpered, then looked over his shoulder. “Who that?” he said, pointing to Scrap, who had yet to make it up on two feet.
Josiah exhaled heavily. “A friend.”
“He’s funny.”
“Yes. Hysterical.” Josiah took another deep breath, then set about finding a set of fresh nightclothes for Lyle.
It didn’t take long to clean the boy up. By the time he was finished and had Lyle back in bed, Josiah found Scrap sprawled out on the floor, snoring like a newborn baby himself.
The sun beamed through the bedroom window, warming Josiah’s face. He woke up slowly, surprised that it was fully daylight outside. Lyle was sitting on the side of Josiah’s bed staring at him, smiling.
“What are you doing?” Josiah asked in a soft voice, wiping his eyes the rest of the way open.
“Nuttin’.”
Josiah smiled back at Lyle, and pulled him to him, giving him a big, hearty hug. Lyle giggled and tried to worm free, but Josiah wouldn’t let him go.
“Hungry, Papa.”
“Okay, okay.”
Josiah let loose of the boy and watched him scramble out of the room.
For a moment, the world felt like everything was right. He was home, had slept in his own bed, and Lyle was safe and sound. But it only took him a second to realize that everything was not right . . . that the days to come were going to be just as dangerous and uncertain as the days past.
Josiah expected to find Scrap Elliot still sleeping off his drunken state in the middle of the floor, but Scrap was nowhere to be seen. He was gone.
Lyle was sitting at the table, staring into an empty coffee cup. “Hungry, Papa.”
