Caddo Cold (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 7)

by George Wier

  “No crap?”

  “None,” Hank intoned.

  “Where was he stationed?” I asked.

  “Fort Bliss. El Paso.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “You’re caught up in something big again, aren’t you?” Hank asked.

  “Not by choice. This was a standard financial deal that has gone south. But, then again, they do that sometimes, particularly when people get greedy.”

  Hank laughed. “Alright. I’m going to ask you to do something that I know you’re not going to do anyway, so I don’t know why I’m asking.”

  “Ask away,” I said.

  “Will you call me?” he said. “That is, if you need me?”

  “Of course,” I said. We both knew I wouldn’t.

  I hung up.

  *****

  “No,” General Todd said. “I don’t know of any Charles Renny from Fort Bliss. You’ll have to remember, I retired over twenty years ago. He may have been before my time. Besides, I didn’t recognize that fellow who was with you earlier. You say he’s the guy who’s been putting everything in my way.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The jury’s still out on him, but it’s not looking promising. We sure could use one of your helicopters right now.”

  General Todd stood in the open doorway of the trailer and regarded me. My feet were wet from the marshy soil. I would definitely need a new pair of shoes when I got home, if I ever got home.

  “The helicopter you saw was on loan from a friend at Fort Sam Houston, down in San Antonio,” General Todd said. “That was a one-shot deal, too. Anywhere we need to go, we’ll have to either walk or drive.”

  “Or swim,” Willett added.

  “Or swim,” Todd agreed. “But this trailer can sure drive.”

  “How did you get it over here, anyway?” Willett asked. “There are no roads back in here.”

  “This trailer is no slouch over rough terrain. It was an Army prototype that never went anywhere. The tires and the axles on this thing aren’t exactly standard issue.”

  “Let’s take it, then,” I said.

  “Where to?” Todd asked.

  “To the marina,” I said. “And to a boat.”

  *****

  General Todd had his two men inside and awake. They sat in the two chairs Holt and Todd had sat in before, and each man sported a shiner to the eye and a number of minor contusions. I’d had no previous idea that Willett could be such a scrapper, but he had held his own against men with training. I was impressed.

  “Sorry about that, fellahs,” Willett told them. “But I had to make sure you didn’t stop us.”

  The two men nodded.

  “Well, so much for security,” General Todd said, and shook his head slowly.

  “I hear something,” Willett said. He stepped to the door, opened it and peered out. “Aw, hell,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “We’ve got company.”

  *****

  At that moment a neat hole appeared in the door a foot away from Willett’s head and something panged into the inside roof of the driver’s seat of the motor coach. I could see the bright light of one of the lamps outside through the hole near Willett’s head.

  “Everybody down!” Willett shouted, and dove for the floor.

  *****

  I once saw an old shoot-‘em-up Western―I can never seem to remember the title―in which Jimmy Stewart takes on a whole town of bad men. One guy, made out of real flesh, blood, bone, and nerves of steel walks down the main street through town and shoots down about ten different men. And as I recalled, old Jimmy had about six or eight holes in himself as well.

  I decided, abruptly, that Julie wouldn’t like patching holes in me and feeding me medicine for six weeks, and she damned sure would be mad as hell if she had to lay my body in a box and put it in the ground.

  “To hell with this!” I said as a window caved inward and glass flew across the room.

  I scrambled toward the front of the motor coach and got into the driver's seat.

  Behind me people were scrambling.

  There was a deafening loud blast behind me that made me jump in the seat, and then I realized that Willett was returning fire. I glanced around and saw him standing at the window that had caved in and watched as the pistol bucked in his hands.

  “Who’s shooting at us?” I yelled at Willett.

  I looked down and saw the key was in the ignition. I turned the key and the engine came alive.

  There was a black, folding glare-shade over the windshield. I snatched it away and tossed it behind me. I released the park brake.

  I grabbed the gear-shift and levered it into reverse and stomped on the gas.

  Behind me people tumbled and bottles rolled across the floor.

  “I think it’s Mr. Sunglasses himself out there,” Willett said. “I’d say he doesn’t like us.”

  The motor coach pitched and yawed as I turned the wheel. We were rolling over a makeshift cinder block walkway that General Todd or one of his men had put there over the muck that was the soft earth around Caddo Lake.

  There was a crunch of metal and a shriek, and I got a picture in my head of something sharp scraping the length of the coach on the driver’s side. I looked to my left and was nearly blinded as one of the lamps outside passed within inches of my window and then fell over on the soggy earth with a wet slap. For a moment there were fuzzy, dark-blue spots in front of my eyes.

  “Sunglasses,” I said. “Dunross.”

  “Yeah,” Willett said. “Him.”

  “Ow! Shit that hurts!” It was General Todd.

  “I think he’s been hit,” Willett said.

  “Damn right,” Todd said from back in the coach. “I hit my head. Who’s driving this thing? Mario Andretti?”

  “He’s fine,” Holt called up to us. “Keep driving!”

  BLAM! BLAM!

  I glanced around again. It was Willett, returning fire.

  One of the guards Willett had disarmed piped in, “I wish you hadn’t thrown our guns away.”

  I heard pangs against the side of the coach and muffled thunder from outside.

  I glanced in the side view mirror as I backed on around and angled for the road out.

  “He’s out of my field of fire, now,” Willett said.

  I hit the brakes. Before throwing it into forward gear I realized how dark it was the direction we were pointing.

  I glanced down, found the stem for the headlights on the steering column and twisted it.

  A figure instantly resolved in stark clarity before us. He cast a shadow far behind himself that seemed to meld with the night in an odd fashion, as if he were some kind of supernatural beings out of a graphic novel or a horror flick. He held a pistol and the pistol barked flame.

  Next to me Willett’s gun bellowed.

  I threw us into forward gear and stepped hard on the gas pedal.

  Willett’s fingers dug into my shoulder for a moment to keep from losing his footing. It hurt like hell.

  “Sorry, Bill,” he said.

  “No problem,” I said.

  The motor coach had a good engine. We buffeted up and down over clumps of weeds and fallen branches that cracked beneath us as we gained momentum toward Dunross.

  A spot appeared on the windshield directly in front of my face. Dunross was trying to shoot me!

  A spider’s web of cracks blossomed before my eyes.

  “Goddamn!” Willett said. “Bullet-proof glass!”

  “Damn right!” General Todd yelled behind us.

  “Why ain’t the rest of this thing bullet-proof, then?” Willett yelled.

  “I had a budget. I’m retired, you know.”

  Dunross brought his gun down slowly. As I rapidly bore down on him, my headlights revealed a surprised face, complete with arched eyebrows and wide, staring eyes and pupils like little pin-pricks.

  At the last instant he threw himself flat in front of me.

  I ran right over t
he top of him. My stomach lurched inside me.

  I spun the trailer around in a wide arc and picked up Dunross’s form. He was climbing to his feet from his knees and I had him pinned again in my headlights.

  He had lost his gun.

  I gassed the engine and drove at him.

  At the last instant I slammed on the brakes and the trailer came to a stop mere inches from the man.

  Dunross’s face was perhaps three feet from my own.

  His face looked as though he had recently swallowed something very unpleasant. His breath came in pants.

  Willett regained his seat from having been thrown almost through the front window. He looked at me and shook his head.

  “Go get him,” I told Willett.

  Willett nodded.

  I put the trailer in park and killed the engine.

  Willett walked around in front, grabbed Dunross by the collar and pulled him back around to the side of the coach.

  I got up from the driver’s seat and stepped back into the coach.

  “You two okay?” I asked Holt and Todd. Todd’s security guards likewise seemed none the worse for wear.

  “We’re alright,” Holt said. They picked themselves up slowly from the floor.

  The coach door opened and Willett shoved Dunross inside.

  “You’re Colby Dunross,” I said.

  “You’re Bill Travis,” he said, “and you’ve screwed everything up.”

  “It’s what I do,” I said.

  Willett threw Dunross into the closest chair.

  “Now don’t move, numbnuts,” Willett said.

  Dunross put his hands in the air. “Okay,” he said. “No need to get huffy about it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  General Todd joined me up front and gave directions on driving out of the swamp, which wasn’t easy. Pretty soon I picked up the twin tracks where he’d driven in days days before, and after that it was a mere matter of traversing the same path. Still, it was no picnic.

  In the meantime, Willett grilled Dunross in the coach behind us.

  “I don’t care what anybody told you,” Dunross said. “All I’m saying is that Chuck Renny hired me to find two missing canisters from the old plane crash. That’s it. End of story.”

  “I’ve got half a mind to throw you to the alligators,” Willett said. There was venom in his voice.

  “I’m damn tired of this lake and this hick little town,” Dunross said. “And I haven’t been entirely paid yet, either.”

  “Well let me cry you a river,” Willett said. “You’re breakin’ my freakin’ heart in two.”

  “The explosives on Mr. Gatlin’s house weren’t even set up right. They never would have gone off!” Dunross exclaimed. “No one was ever in any danger. Would you please not point that damned thing at me?”

  “What about the C4 on Dane's truck?” Willett asked.

  “Fake,” Dunross said. “There was only one bomb that was real, and Chuck has that. Look, don't shoot me.”

  “Easy back there,” I said, raising my voice.

  The trailer jounced over a set of holes and everything and everyone inside had to grab something to keep from falling.

  “Hey, you go easy up there!” Willett said.

  “Holt,” I called back. “You alright?”

  “I'm fine,” he said. “Just get us home.”

  General Todd chuckled. “I think we’re almost to the road.”

  At that moment the front end of the truck became airborne for half a second and we bottomed out hard on the asphalt road through Uncertain. The back end did a similar free-fall trick and came down just as hard. This time I very nearly banged my head on the steering wheel.

  I brought us to a grinding halt astride the road. Our headlights pointed directly to the marina and Dane’s place.

  *****

  “General Todd,” I said. “I’m want you to stay here. You and your men can hold Dunross until somebody can figure out what to do with him. Willett and I need to get back to that island.”

  We stood outside Todd’s trailer at the marina. All the lights were off and the town was buttoned up for the night. All except us night owls.

  “My island,” Todd said. “My plane.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I realize that. But if all you wanted was the bodies of your men, then you would foster a great deal of my trust by doing what I ask. The bodies will still be there when we’re done. But you didn’t sign up to stop Charles Renny.”

  “Neither did you,” General Todd stated.

  “He’s got a point,” Willett said.

  “I know,” I agreed. “It’s not about that. It’s about...” I realized my face must be flushed and red, and I didn’t know whether General Todd or Willett could tell it in the trailer’s headlights. I had to calm myself and begin to articulate. I took a deep breath.

  “Alright,” I said. “I’ll tell you what it’s about. It’s about being lied to. And it’s about an agenda that is probably deadly. I’m asking you to stay.”

  General Todd stood there for a moment, measuring, weighing. Finally he sighed and shook his head.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll have to admit, I’ve been looking my whole life for men with honesty. Men with initiative. I’d always thought you had to pay for that. But you’re not for sale, are you Mr. Travis?”

  “I never have been.”

  “Good,” he said. General Todd offered his hand and I shook it.

  “We’ll be back,” I said.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  Willett and I turned to the marina and the boats sheltered in the darkness beneath it.

  *****

  Willett navigated his boat in the dark by feel, the way I imagine the old Mississippi riverboat captains once did.

  I was tired, yet at the same time I felt a steadiness of resolve I have seldom ever known. Perhaps it was the cold and the quiet. The water ran down my face in small rivulets and dripped onto my jacket, which did a wonderful job of keeping me both dry and warm.

  I had remarked to myself what seemed like days before how the trees seemed to stand as silent sentinels. It was as if they watched and waited for something unknown and unknowable. Then I remembered. It was the Lost Pines forest in Central Texas. Jessica had been driving and I had peered as far as I could into the forest during our passing. That forest was much like this one. The trees of Caddo Lake were old. They were timeless. And they, too, waited.

  I unholstered Dane’s old French Apache combination gun and laid it in the bottom of the boat. I then transferred my brand new .357 magnum in the back of my belt over to the holster Dane had provided and found that it fit. Barely. It felt good to have it at my side instead of beneath my spare tire.

  The drizzle had gone from a fine mist to pregnant drops of rain. We were due for a soaker any minute.

  “We’re almost there,” Willett said. He cut the motor and let the boat glide along the bayou.

  We switched to oars after inertia took hold.

  “Ah,” Willett whispered. I looked back at him in the darkness. After a moment I could make out that he was pointing ahead of us. I turned to look and saw the light from a flashlight playing through the cypress.

  “Dane,” I whispered back.

  “Yep,” he agreed.

  I shipped my oar for a moment and Willett followed suit.

  “Listen,” I said. “Drop me off on one end of the island. You go around to the other. It would be better if we separate and come to him from two sides.”

  “Agreed,” Willett said.

  We dug back in to the rowing, but as quietly as we could manage.

  *****

  The man we had known as Dane Fitzbrough had set up a number of flashlights on the island, giving him enough of an area of illumination to set up what looked like a temporary base camp.

  I doffed my jacked and laid it quietly in the bottom of the boat. Then, fifty feet away from the little camp, I stepped out of the boat and sunk to my waist in frigid water. I
t felt instantly like a thousand little needles pricking my skin and it took every ounce of my will not to flounder hurriedly to the low embankment and the relative warmth above the waterline. Instead I moved slowly, feeling for footing in the silky, cottony mud of the bayou bottom. I grasped a cypress knee and used main strength to haul myself belly first onto the boggy island. It was slow going, but I managed it.

  I looked behind me to see that Willett was already gone into the darkness. I was alone.

  I watched ahead and crept forward. Dane was there between the cypress and the small forest of knees before my eyes, his hulking form moving about now no more than twenty feet away. One hand grasped a flashlight and the other held something else. I waited a moment until he passed into the cone of one of his own stationary flashlight beams and saw what it was. A metal detector. He must have had it in his boat all along.

  When his back was to me, I crept on my hands and knees behind the large trunk of a cypress and ever so slowly gained my feet. I peered around the tree to get a bearing again on Dane, but he had disappeared.

  I waited. Listened.

  I sensed the presence even before I heard it.

  The cold barrel of the gun pressed itself to my ear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Travis,” Dane chuckled softly. “Move very slowly, now. That’s it. Come on out into the light.”

  I moved, but taking his advice I moved at a ponderous pace.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  Dane stepped away from me and trained his flashlight on my face. I could see each individual drop of rain that fell through the beam.

  “You should have quit already,” he said. “There was no reason for you to come back here.”

  “You’re here,” I said. “And so is the other canister of nerve gas.”