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her bank account.”
    â€œAnd that’s the only reason?” Jones pushed forward, and stood up. “There was no other reason?” he demanded.
    â€œI believe I am that other reason, Major Jones. Pearl Fikes has made no secret of her feelings for me.”
    â€œSo, let me get this straight,” Steele said. “You were a hundred miles from nowhere, and it was Pete Feders, you, and Ranger Elliot, and you, sir, have a motive yourself to kill Pete Feders, to get him out of your way . . . and Feders ends up dead? Can you see the problem we have here, Wolfe?”
    The intensity of Steele’s question and his change from friendly to angry took Josiah aback.
    â€œYes, sir, I can. But I promise you, I only fired my weapon when I feared for my own life, for Elliot’s life.”
    William Steele stood up, joining Jones. McNelly remained seated, his attention solely focused on Josiah.
    â€œThat’ll be all, Wolfe. I would suggest you wait until the crowd has dispersed before you leave. We will be in touch,” Steele said, gathering up the papers in front of him. “Oh, one other thing, do not leave town under any circumstances. If you run, I will be under the assumption that you have lied to us all, that you are guilty, and I will have you hunted down like an animal. Is that clear?”

CHAPTER 4

    Fellow Ranger Scrap Elliot was standing in the hall, waiting to go in next to face the trio of men. Scrap was the only witness to the killing of Pete Feders, and Josiah had expected all along that they both would be called in to account for the incident.
    â€œWolfe.” Scrap nodded sheepishly. “How’d it go in there?”
    Josiah stopped, a slight smile crossing his face. Scrap, too, had dressed in his finest clothes: black pants, a white shirt similar to Steele’s, in serious need of the touch of an iron, and a dark brown jacket that rode up his wrists about two inches.
    â€œWhat are you smilin’ at? These are the best britches I got since I spend most of my time on the trail. No need for nothin’ fancy as far as I’m concerned,” Scrap said.
    â€œI appreciate the effort, Elliot, I’m not laughing at you.”
    â€œOh.” Scrap flashed a smile back, then let it fade away quickly. He was slightly shorter than Josiah, with a head full of solid black hair and eyes that never stopped searching. From a distance, Elliot could look bony, but his muscles were tight, and he was rangy, a quick-handed fighter, too, which was where his nickname most likely originated. He and Josiah had never discussed the origin of the name. Josiah thought it was fitting and had just accepted Scrap as being Scrap.
    From the time Josiah joined up with the Frontier Battalion, it seemed as if the two of them were being paired together. Never by choice, but always by duty or fate. It was an unlikely partnership.
    Scrap, whose real name was Robert Earl Elliot, was young—hardly twenty years old—impetuous, immature, and one of the best rifle shots Josiah had ever come across. The boy was a damn fine horseman, too.
    Scrap’s parents were killed in a Comanche raid when the boy was young. He and his younger sister, Myra Lynn, had survived the attack. Myra Lynn had joined a convent in Dallas and lived as an Ursuline nun. Scrap fueled his anger with the hope of becoming an Indian hunter with the Rangers. That same anger almost got Josiah killed in Lost Valley a few months back, when the Rangers had their first violent encounter with a band of Comanche and Kiowa—the same conflict Jones led and spoke of during the interrogation.
    Trust and understanding were hard enough for Josiah to endow a stranger with—but especially a boy who had put Josiah’s life at risk. He would carry the Lost Valley scar for the rest of his life. Still, Scrap had earned a bit of the treasure of friendship that Josiah doled out sparingly, and some respect, as well. But none of that meant