Hawke's Target

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “None of you ever really talked to me before.”

  They rode for more than a mile in silence. Mike tapped a cigarette loose and lipped it from a crumpled pack. He was reaching for a lighter when Boone spoke.

  “Open your window if you’re going to smoke that.”

  While Mike thumbed the switch to lower the window, Boone remained perfectly still, as he had since he marked his place in the book. It was his way.

  Now steering with both hands, Mike mulled that statement over in his mind. “I thought everybody died when Koresh burned that Mt. Carmel place to the ground.”

  “David burned them up.”

  “That’s not what I heard on television.”

  “The reporters weren’t in there. I was, at least until David made me leave a few days before he lit it.”

  “Just you? What about your parents?”

  “They were incinerated. He forced them to send me away. He didn’t like the way I questioned his declarations and faith. He pronounced me the spawn of Satan. I was banished.”

  The GMC plowed a hole in the wind, following the curving highway that alternately led through pastures, then around low, mesquite- and cedar-covered mesas. They passed a cedar cutter’s house surrounded by stacks of trimmed and split posts. The home-grown business looked almost serene under the heavy clouds but would feel like a blast furnace in the summer when the temperatures reached as high as 110 in the shade.

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten when they made me leave.”

  “Wait a minute, that happened in nineteen what?”

  “Nineteen ninety-three.”

  “So you’re how old, thirty-three?”

  “You weren’t good in math, were you? I’m thirty-five.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “That’s because I don’t have any frown lines or worry lines.”

  Mike had other questions, but was afraid to voice them.

  “Just like I’m not worried about killing Alonzo. You know that’s why I’m here, don’t you?”

  A cold knot formed in Mike’s stomach. “Nobody told me that.”

  “Because you’re the driver.”

  “I don’t want Alonzo hurt.”

  “Don’t care. Daddy said.”

  Mike could feel the bald man staring at him. “He’s Daddy Frank’s grandson.”

  “It don’t pay to cross the old man.”

  “Look. Were you planning to use that razor of yours?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then would you let me do it? Let me shoot him and make it fast. It ain’t right for you to cut him. He don’t deserve that.”

  “None of us deserve our end.”

  “So would you let me do it?”

  “As long as he’s dead, Daddy won’t care.”

  Trying to get the deed off his mind, Mike needed to change the conversation. “Good. Let me ask you this. What happened to make you get those tattoos?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Mike cut his eyes, expecting to see something that would tell him that Boone was pulling his leg at the same time the strange man, with the cold eyes of a diamondback, opened his mouth to emit an expressionless guttural laugh at his own joke. “I’m just kidding.”

  Bile rose in Mike’s throat, and the smoke suddenly tasted like the ashes it produced. Feeling like a mouse dropped into a snake tank, Mike couldn’t wait to get into Alonzo’s truck so he could get away from that lunatic.

  Chapter 21

  Parked alone in front of Dan’s Burger Stand in Jasper, Tanner waited for his breakfast sandwich to arrive. He scrolled through a long list of phone numbers in his cell phone and made a call. It rang three times before his uncle answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Uncle Alonzo. This is Tanner.”

  The voice on the other end went flat. “What’s wrong?”

  His eyes burned and the young man struggled not to cry. “Uh, look, like we know Aunt Betty died and you’re in some kind of trouble. I don’t want anything to happen to you, so you better not come back. Where are you?”

  “In Comanche. What happened?”

  “A lot, and I’m afraid there’s more on the way. There was some federal agents here and now they’re dead. Daddy Frank’s like, gone out of his mind and he’s thinking there are more following you all the way back here to the porch.”

  The line was silent and Tanner waited. A mockingbird went through its repertoire of calls. A carload of high school kids pulled under the overhang beside his sedan, their radio up loud with modern country music.

  Tanner turned up the air-conditioning and rolled up all the windows. “You still there?”

  “Thinking.”

  “ ’Bout what?”

  “About him blowing those oil lines and the refinery. I bet if I can get him to be where one of those charges are set, I can blow that old bastard straight to hell.”

  “It’d be the best thing that could happen, but Boone’s always watching.”

  “I’ll make sure he’s there with him. Ain’t that a kick?”

  Tanner’s scalp tingled. With Daddy Frank gone, it’d be clear sailing for him and Shi’Ann. They’d been slipping around for way too long. It would give them the opportunity they’d been waiting for to run off.

  His chest swelled with elation. Uncle Alonzo would punch the old man’s ticket, and he’d get out of the trap he’d fallen into. “Will you really do it?”

  “He sure as hell deserves it. You want to help?”

  Heart pounding, Tanner held the phone tight against his ear and watched the carhop come toward him with his breakfast. “You want me to help kill Daddy Frank?”

  “I might need you to help set it up. That’s all.”

  “Uncle Alonzo, what’re you doing, really?”

  “Son, they’re releasing felons left and right, and they’re getting back on the streets, killin’ and robbin’ and rapin’. . . .” His voice choked. “That’s what happened to my Betty, and I’m gonna make ’em all pay. I started with a guy in California while I was looking for the one who ran her down, then I got him in Arizona. I intend to send as many to hell as I can.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Ever’body’s gonna pay for what they’ve done, even our sorry-assed kinfolk. All ’cept you.”

  Tanner waited as the carhop hung a tray on the outside of his window. He passed her a ten-dollar bill and waved away the change. The girl near his age flashed him a wide grin and paused. She clicked the point out on a pen and wrote her phone number on the receipt. Handing it to him, she winked and walked away, twitching her rear to keep his attention until she got inside. Tanner swallowed and returned to the conversation. “Not Daddy! You ought not blow up the refinery, neither. Knocking out the pipeline in a couple of places is one thing, and I can do that seeing’s how they can just plow through your land, but there are innocent people in the refinery.”

  “Fine then. I’m gonna call and have the whole damn family meet me out at the fertilizer barn when I get there. Gonna tell ’em I got more money for the delivery than they expected and we can divvy it up right then and there, like it’s Christmas.

  “Ol’ Buck Henderson and Preacher’ll be there, too. The greedy bastards’ll all come a-runnin’. It’ll be a clean sweep, all except for you and your gal Donine. Y’all back me up to get ’em out there, then get gone so you won’t be around when it all goes up.”

  “The only way that plan will work is if you set it off while you’re there.” Tanner heard the rattle of pills in a plastic bottle and wondered what kind of drugs Uncle Alonzo was taking. “They won’t let you leave once you get home. You know that.”

  He took the cardboard cup of hot coffee off the tray with trembling fingers and spilled it on his jeans when he tried to open it with one hand.

  The sound of ice tinkling in a glass and a deep, horse-like gulp told Tanner his uncle had washed the pills down, and it probably wasn’t iced coffee.

  “T
hat’s the idea, son. I’ll clean my soul at the same time I wipe this miserable family off the planet. I’ll go straight to Heaven at the same time.”

  “That’s, like, insane. I don’t want you to die, Uncle Alonzo.”

  “We’re all gonna die at some point, and I’m talking about getting some payback for Betty, and me, and you, son. You’re the only one worth a damn in this family. You have a chance to make something of yourself. With the old man gone and the Business shut down, you can get free and start a new life with Donine. I’m gonna stop and put the money I have here into a bank deposit box under your name and mail you the information and the key. That way you can take a little bit out of it at a time and the government won’t know. Go to college and make something of yourself. Which one do you use?”

  “Tanner told her.”

  “It’ll be in there tomorrow morning. I’ll drive into town right now. I imagine this burg has a branch.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “I’ll call Jimmy Don and tell him to get ever’body together in the fertilizer barn to divvy up all this money. You let me know when they’re all together in there. You got that?”

  Tanner had to set the coffee cup into the holder on the console at the mention of his dad, Jimmy Don. In his mind, the idea of taking out the whole family didn’t include him. “Yessir.”

  “The same thing I’m telling ’em, that I have a truckload of cash, like I said. Now get everything in place, ’cause I’m-a comin’.”

  Tanner hung up, both elated and terrified. He didn’t want to be part of killing his family, even though he hated them all. He didn’t want the blood of innocent people at the refinery on his hands. His heart pounded with the idea of both his Dad and Daddy Frank dying, no matter how much he hated them.

  But even with the thought of all that money in his hands, he couldn’t stomach Alonzo’s plan.

  He was so confused.

  Chapter 22

  It was only five hours from Dimmit to Comanche, Texas, but I was so wrung out that I stopped at the first place I came to after crossing I-27 and took a room. Not a destination hot spot for tourists, the little 1950s-era American Inn motel in Floydada was just what I needed.

  It had a bed and a shower.

  The next morning I pulled up beside the Fleming Oak on the Comanche town square. That old town near the geographic center of the state was bigger than it looked on a map. I’d been there as a kid with the Old Man, who wanted to show me the ancient live oak tree. Dad loved the story of ten-year-old Martin Fleming and his dad, who used the tree growing in the middle of a grove in 1853 as cover when a band of Comanches attacked their campsite.

  They survived, and a settlement sprung up on the site. Named after the warring band who claimed the territory as their own, Comanche grew around the tree that remained untouched for decades. When the town council decided it was in the way in 1911, since it was on the town square, they ordered it cut down to pave the area in front of the courthouse. The boy, by then an old man known as Uncle Martin, showed up with a shotgun to protect the oak that once saved his life.

  My dad felt it was a glowing story of Texas pride, and made sure I saw the tree for myself. The town hadn’t changed much since I was a teenager, though unlike many small Texas towns, Comanche wasn’t dying, but maintaining a tenuous hold on life.

  The morning air was already getting warm, but the sky was heavy and dark. The radio said the weather was about to change. The phone rang. It was Yolanda.

  “I told you never to call me at this number.”

  “Funny guy. You in Comanche yet?”

  “Yep. What do you have?”

  She became all business. “The guy you need to check on there is forty-six-year-old Dewane Mundy, who was sentenced to more than three hundred years for child sex crimes and was freed from prison less than a month ago. He was convicted of molesting at least eight boys and girls.”

  “Then how’d he get out?”

  “He appealed, saying pretrial delays violated the state’s speedy trial statutes. In February, the Texas Court of Appeals agreed, throwing out the conviction and ruling he couldn’t be retried. The D.A. there in Brownwood County appealed, but the state Supreme Court decided not to take up the case. They upheld the court’s ruling.” Yolanda finished up. “I’m not an attorney, so that’s all I have.”

  I returned a rancher’s wave as he passed in a dirty white pickup. “All right. I’ll call you in a little bit.” I strolled across the parking lot to the courthouse. The sheriff wasn’t in, but a hatless deputy was sitting behind a desk, drinking coffee from a stained cup reading WEAKLEY-WATSON HARDWARE, BROWNWOOD, TEXAS.

  I nodded good morning. “One of my favorite hardware stores.”

  The deputy almost blew coffee through his nose when he saw me. I guess they don’t see many Rangers in Comanche. “What?”

  I pointed. “Your cup. I have one like it at home, says ‘36th Annual TOWA Dove Hunt, Weakley-Watson.’ Got it from a friend who’s an outdoor writer.”

  He still didn’t know what I was talking about, but he sat the cup on a stack of papers. Spilled coffee soaked in to form a ring. “I hope that’s not a formal report.”

  “Huh?” The deputy glanced down at the paper. “Shit!” He snatched the cup up by the handle, spilling even more on the top page. He held it aloft with one hand and looked for something to blot the paper.

  “Here.” I took his cup so he wouldn’t destroy any more official reports.

  The deputy snatched tissues from a Kleenex box and dabbed at what hadn’t soaked in. Seeing the coffee was steaming hot, I took a sip, and that unnerved the poor guy even more. I figured it was time to help him. “I’m Sonny Hawke.”

  “Uh, yessir. How can I help you, Ranger?”

  “Sheriff in?”

  “Nossir.” He dabbed at the page some more and finally decided he might oughta stand up. “He’ll be in directly. I think he’s across the street at the café on the corner. I’m filling in for Helen here, she’s our dispatcher.”

  “Well, a deputy oughta make a pretty good receptionist, too. Sounds like I should have gone for breakfast first then.”

  “Here he comes now.”

  The office door opened behind me, and I turned to see an old boy I’d run into a couple of times over the years. His wide smile showed a mouthful of white teeth. “Sonny!”

  I saluted him with the confiscated coffee. “Howdy, G.”

  His attention flicked from the cup, to the deputy, then back to me. “I see Daryl here loaned you my mug.”

  I kinda felt bad about calling him a receptionist. To make up for taking his coffee, I got him off the hook for using the sheriff’s mug. “I picked it up myself.” It wasn’t a lie.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Come on in my office.”

  I followed him inside a cramped room containing a metal desk, metal filing cabinet, and an extremely uncomfortable looking chair. A stained Mr. Coffee on a small table by the window looked as if it’d been there for years. The pot was half full, and there were no other cups in evidence.

  “You want this back?”

  He opened a desk drawer and took out a mate to the one in my hand. “Nope. I keep that old one out for Junior out there. He likes the handle and uses it when he thinks I’m gonna be late. I’m surprised he let you have it.”

  “I didn’t ask.” I took another sip, decided it was getting too cool, and added more from the pot.

  “You didn’t drive all the way out here for coffee.”

  “Nope. I’m chasing a guy.”

  “Who is he?” Gomez filled his own cup and sat down in his chair.

  I leaned against the file cabinet. “Don’t know.”

  When he raised his eyebrows, I told him the whole story, including the events in Dimmit the day before. “Damn, son.”

  Knowing exactly what he meant, I fought a heave in my stomach. “Ain’t that the truth? This guy’s twisting us in knots. There’s a chance he’s here looking for an individual named Dewane M
undy.”

  “I know that sonofabitch. His mama shoulda drowned him when he was born.”

  “Well, she didn’t, and I think this vigilante’s gonna try to do the job for her.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I’d like to stake his house out.”

  Gomez bit his lip in thought. “No can do. He lives out on the edge of town, and there’s no way we can put a car out there that won’t be seen.”

  I sipped the coffee as he clicked on a radio station playing big band music. I grinned at his choice of music. He grinned back. “Reminds me of when things were different and in my mind, more honorable. Besides, it keeps me calm.”

  “I’m more of a Dwight Yoakum kinda guy myself. Any other ideas then?”

  “How about waiting in the house with him?”

  “Naw, I don’t want to associate with the man.” I was sure he’d buck and snort at the idea of having a lawman in his house. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of going in and snowballing the guy to get what we needed.

  His desk phone rang. Instead of answering, he called through the half-open door. “Take a message.”

  Deputy Daryl appeared in the door a minute later. “You have to talk to this one right now.” Gomez raised his eyebrows in question. Daryl threw me a look and tilted his head in my direction. “You might want to put it on speaker.”

  It was a three-way glance-fest for a minute before the sheriff leaned forward and punched the blinking phone. “This is Sheriff Gomez. Who’s this?”

  “Uh, I, uh, need to tell you something.”

  We heard a woman’s voice, soft in the background and then it was gone.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Uh, I have an uncle who I think is there in your town with a load of plastic explosive.”

  Disgusted, Gomez learned forward to hang up. “Look kid, there’s laws against prank calling.”

  “This ain’t no prank. It’s Semtex.” He paused. “And there’s maybe four hundred pounds of the stuff, I imagine.”

  That was way too much detail for a prank call. Four hundred pounds of plastic explosive was impossible, but the specific name raised the hair on my neck.