Cougar's Prey (9781101544846) Read Free

sweet nectar.
    The sea air was like a tonic to Josiah. He was surprised how much better it made him feel, sprier, his head clearer. He was only thirty-three years old, but until he came to the seashore, sometimes he felt like he’d lived a hundred years.
    It was late afternoon, and the sun was slowly scooting toward the horizon, inch by inch, it, too, seemingly content with the perfection of the calm spring day, not wanting it to come to an end or fall into the inescapable darkness that was destined to come.
    There wasn’t a cloud in the deep blue sky. Azure. That’s what Josiah had heard somebody call the color of this kind of sky once. He didn’t know what azure was—but he knew it now when he saw it, and was glad that there was no weather in the perfect sky to threaten the ease of the day. Waiting was a big part of being a spy; at least it had been so far.
    The cantina was small, a mere hole in the wall, on a block of buildings constructed of both limestone and wood frames, and most were one storey.
    A Mexican sat in the back corner plucking on a guitar, a soft song that was not meant for anything other than to exercise the man’s fingers.
    Josiah had heard the man play at night when the torches were lit, when the beer was flowing like a rushing stream in spring, and the man played fast and hard, the calluses on the tips of his fingers beet red. The loud music was like honey to flies, drawing in men looking for a good time.
    A band usually gathered at night in the cantina, four or five Mexicans playing for their dinner, a crock or two of beer here and there, and a coin or two from a happily drunk patron. Josiah didn’t know the guitar player’s name but watched him closely when he was in the cantina. He was sure the man was somehow connected to Juan Cortina—there’d been a few times when there were whispers exchanged with a stranger or two, followed by a quick disappearance of both men. Some kind of transaction obviously taking place.
    Josiah was the only customer in the establishment. The man behind the bar, Agusto, another Mexican, sat on a stool and stared outside, not paying any attention to Josiah.
    Agusto’s belly hung over his belt, and there was no gun on his hip, but there was a twelve-gauge shotgun under the bar and probably more firepower hidden about the cantina than Josiah was aware of.
    The whole front wall of the cantina opened up to the street, allowing tables to be pushed outside, protected from the sun overhead by long, extending eaves. There were seven rooms above the cantina, the entrance to the upstairs outside, at the back of the building, a rickety set of stairs that showed plenty of wear.
    Use of the rooms was less for sleeping than for private entertainment with one of the many women who worked the floor of the cantina when business was good. Agusto held the keys, charged a price, but did not manage the girls—someone else held control over them—a man Josiah didn’t know, or care to, unless he had to. Agusto was just the gatekeeper.
    Josiah had never had cause to inquire about the nightly entertainment. Whores were not a vice to Josiah or Zeb Teter, at least not yet. It would happen only if it needed to.
    Duty was full of fickle rules as far as Josiah was concerned. Especially spy duty.
    Josiah sat just outside the cantina, his attention drawn by the occasional horse or wagon traversing the street. Beyond the soft guitar music, there was not much noise in the surrounding town, no amount of traffic. It was the end of siesta time.
    He took a slow drink of the beer. The taste was not unpalatable, a hint of sweetness to offset the alcohol, but drinking beer was nothing that he sought to make a habit of, even if it was a requirement to convince people he was Zeb Teter. Josiah liked to keep his head about him.
    The glass of beer was still nearly full, and Josiah had been sitting for an hour, waiting.
    When he sat the glass down, Agusto looked up