Strong Cold Dead

by Jon Land

  He looked up from his magazine, without saying a word, and pointed Caitlin toward a man working a heavy bag.

  Rawls’s age and grooming left him looking out of place. He looked like a classic car someone kept meticulously polished to disguise the rust and rot festering just beneath the surface. More fit for a high-end health club than this no-frills boxing gym that smelled of a combination of stale sweat and glove leather, mixed with the processed air circulated by floor fans. She spotted two younger boxers doing interval training on matching treadmills, and two more working with a trainer inside an old-fashioned ring complete with resin-stained canvas discolored in more places than it wasn’t.

  “I’m Caitlin Strong, Mr. Rawls,” Caitlin greeted him.

  “Yeah,” Rawls said back to her, breathing hard and barely looking up from pounding the bag, “Sam Bob Jackson told me all about you.”

  “I doubt that, since we only met a few days ago.”

  Rawls didn’t miss a beat with his blows. “You know how many hits I got when I Googled your name?”

  “Believe me when I say that tells only a small part of the story,” Caitlin told him, grasping the bag on the opposite side to hold it steady.

  “Does it now?”

  Rawls stopped his pounding, annoyed by the break in his punching rhythm. He tapped his gloves lightly together and looked at Caitlin closer, breathing already steadying.

  “Mr. Jackson informs me you had some questions about my operation in the Balcones Canyonlands.”

  “The Comanche Indian reservation, specifically, sir.”

  “Because that’s only a small part of my work here, you know,” Rawls said, punching the bag lightly now.

  “What work is that, sir?”

  “Oil—what else?”

  “I did notice a number of leases that had been taken out under your company, REPCO, but that reservation is the only parcel where you got permits up and running.”

  “A lot of good that’s been doing me. As you’re well aware, we’ve had some issues with protesters.”

  “I am aware of that, yes, sir.”

  “Then you’ll be happy to know they’ve been resolved, as of this afternoon.”

  “Really?”

  Rawls started hitting the bag with a precision one-two motion, the smacks of impact sounding to Caitlin like a medicine ball hitting the floor. “Protesters had a list of demands, and we met each and every one of the reasonable ones. We agreed to fund the construction of two new schools on the reservation, in addition to providing both college and secondary school scholarships to deserving students.”

  “At the Village School, maybe,” Caitlin said, something pulling the words up out of her to see how Rawls responded.

  One-two … One two … One-two …

  “Top-notch college prep academy, right here in Houston,” she continued, when he failed to acknowledge her point.

  “I’ll check with the people I’ve got handling that end of things for me,” Rawls said finally. “Mr. Jackson also mentioned you raised the issue that we aren’t actually drilling for oil on that land.”

  “An anomaly showed up in the construction equipment, which caught a few eyes, yes.”

  “Another consolation to the tribal elders, Ranger. How much you know about oil drilling?”

  “As much as anybody from Texas, I suppose.”

  “And a lot more than me, I’m guessing, until a few months back. One of the conditions we agreed to, in order to secure the mineral rights, was that we avoid the typical deep-drilling exploratory operation. Picture jabbing a sword in a dark room until you pop a balloon; that’s essentially what exploratory drilling is. We know the oil’s down there, but not necessarily the best way to reach it. What we agreed to do in the Balcones was to use a pin instead of a sword. Not wise, from a cost, time, or labor perspective, but a lot less intrusive and significantly less destructive to the environment.”

  “That didn’t seem to matter much to those protesters, sir. Guess the point of all your efforts was lost on them.”

  “Not all, just enough. Those kids schooled themselves on what happened up in North Dakota, on the Fort Berthold reservation, and figured that was what was coming here. A bit overblown, in my mind.”

  “Only if you call murder, corruption, and causing a few earthquakes overblown, sir. But it wouldn’t be the first time that reservation in the Balcones came under fire.”

  “Oh no?”

  “Similar kind of thing happened before. An ancestor of mine was involved back then, going up against a man who, I’m guessing, must’ve sounded a lot like you.”

  52

  BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS; 1874

  “We don’t need your help, Ranger,” Isa-tai told Jack Strong, a few hours after Strong had left John D. Rockefeller in his Austin hotel.

  “You got it, all the same. On account of the fact that the state of Texas don’t need a range war in these parts.”

  “Leaving dead Comanche in their wake is nothing new for the Texas Rangers.”

  “Funny, Rockefeller said almost the very same thing to me,” Steeldust Jack said, glancing around at the tribe going about its daily chores. “But I don’t see any of your Comanche marauding over settlers and ranchers and making war on the plains.”

  Steeldust Jack noticed a number of Comanche women carrying huge sacks of corn, harvested from the nearby fields, on their backs. One stumbled, lost her balance, and the sack went flying. Ears of corn, wrapped in thick husks, scattered in all directions. Impact with the ground split some of those husks, enough for the Ranger to glimpse moldy spots, as brown and ugly as warts, growing on the kernels.

  “I wouldn’t eat those, if I were you,” he advised Isa-tai, stopping short of helping the Indian girl gather up her spilled sack, since none of the other Comanche did, either.

  “But you’re not me,” said Isa-tai, “and you’re not us, either, are you, Ranger?”

  Isa-tai followed Jack Strong’s lingering gaze to the corn that, at first glance anyway, clearly looked infested by some kind of vegetable rot, or worse.

  “A matter of perspective, taibo,” the tribe’s young medicine man told him, using the less-than-friendly Comanche word for a white man. “You see only the ugliness of the fungus, what happens when rain seeps into the cornstalks and rots the kernels. Our Aztec brothers called it cuitlacoche, and we consider it a delicacy.”

  “It’s still a fungus to me,” Steeldust Jack said.

  “Sometimes our Mother Earth makes ugly what is truly beautiful.”

  The Ranger took off his hat and put it right back on. “That’s all well and good. But the fact is, Rockefeller and his men are coming. I’m just advising you of that fact, along with my intention to hold the sumbitch off, even if I have to arrest or shoot him.”

  Isa-tai frowned, his smooth complexion furrowing. “I’ve known you for only a day more than this Rockefeller. And we are fully capable of taking care of ourselves.”

  “You mean, like you took care of that gunman who trespassed on your land a couple nights back.”

  Isa-tai’s spine stiffened, seeming to make him taller.

  “What I didn’t have time to tell you yesterday,” Steeldust Jack continued, “was that the man had black mud caked inside his boots. Kind you’ve got all over your land, thanks to the very oil Rockefeller wants to yank out of it. No such mud to be found anywhere else otherwise in these immediate parts. That means the victim was trespassing on this reservation almost for sure. Could be somebody spotted him and followed him off it.”

  “You taibo speak a lot without saying much.”

  “I’m just trying to do right by you here, Isa-tai. Catching me a murderer is one thing; protecting your land from trespass by outsiders with no call to be on it is another. Right now, John D. Rockefeller is commanding the bulk of my attention when it comes to the latter.”

  “Then do what you have to do to keep him off our land, Ranger, but once he crosses it, he’s our problem.”

  Steeldust J
ack looked about at the Comanche braves who’d gathered during the course of their conversation. “In the meantime,” he said, “if you could lend me a few of these boys, I just might be able to stop that from happening.”

  * * *

  Jack Strong sat on his horse at the head of the only road big enough to handle the kind of equipment John D. Rockefeller would be toting along to the reservation.

  His position in the relative clear, looking down over a pass snaking through the grasslands and trees, allowed Steeldust Jack to spot an endless procession of the biggest wagons he’d ever seen. They were hauling pipes, tubing, drums of water and sand, and the disassembled parts of massive steam engines to power the actual drilling apparatus, which would be erected utilizing the lead wagons’ load of lumber. The wagons carrying the heavy steel were outfitted with double-thick wooden wheels, their extra-large cargo beds boasting three sets, with an extra pair riding the center. Lugging these required four horses—and in some cases, unless the Ranger’s vision was deceiving him, six horses—instead of two.

  John D. Rockefeller led the way himself, on horseback, centered between two groups of the gunmen Jack Strong recognized from the hotel restaurant. He gave no quarter, just held his ground as the convoy ground to a halt on Rockefeller’s signal, when they saw the Ranger blocking their way. To Steeldust Jack, it looked like a staged military march. The line of wagons and men was so vast that he could barely see the end.

  “I knew I’d be seeing you again, Ranger,” Rockefeller said from thirty feet away, his voice booming as if he were giving a speech. “I just didn’t think it’d be this soon.”

  “You’re in Texas now, sir. Biggest little state you ever did see.”

  “Speaking of which, I’ve got a letter here from Governor Richard Coke himself, granting me permission to drill for oil on Comanche land and—”

  “That’s all well and good,” Steeldust Jack interrupted, “except the actual authority, as far as the treaty goes, is the nation’s capital, not Austin. That would be Washington, last time I checked.”

  “You didn’t let me finish, Ranger. I was going to say my men have all been appointed deputy U.S. marshals, under the command of Marshal Brocius here.”

  “Congratulations, Curly Bill,” Jack Strong said, tipping his hat, before stealing a glance at young Jimmy Miller, the one rider not wearing a big silver badge, since he was too young to be officially deputized.

  “So I would ask that you respect the wishes of the governor of your state, and the authority vested in these marshals by the United States government, and stand aside, Ranger.”

  “Why don’t you ride up here and show me that letter first, Mr. Rockefeller.”

  Steeldust Jack had enjoyed issuing the challenge, and was only half surprised when John D. Rockefeller accepted it. He stretched his mustache straight to both sides, signaled his newly appointed lawmen to hold in place, and then rode forward to Jack Strong’s position in the road.

  “It does seem to be in order,” the Ranger said, handing the letter back to the man, who smelled freshly shaved and barbered, in spite of what must have been an arduous ride from Austin for the convoy. “How much it cost you?”

  “I don’t think I follow you.”

  “I believe you do, sir. I was just wondering what you had to promise Governor Coke for him to take a stand against what I know him to believe. I was just wondering the price a man’s conscience is going for these days. You cut him in on the deal, give him a percentage of the oil you expect to find, or was it strictly cash?”

  Rockefeller sat straight in his saddle, his expression not changing in the least. “Everywhere else in this country, you Texas Rangers are considered a joke.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Your time’s coming to an end. There’s not even going to be a frontier anymore, before you know it. The transcontinental railroad’s going to finish it for good, because where there’s open land there’s opportunity for people like me to make something out of it. Industry’s coming, business is coming, the future is coming. Only place you and the Rangers will exist soon will be in a museum.”

  “But I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  “And I expect you to do your duty and stand aside, to yield the road, Ranger.”

  Jack Strong took off his hat in a feigned show of respect. “I will do that for sure, sir,” he said, pulling his horse off to the grasslands strewn with all manner of pebbles and rocks. “The road is yours.”

  He then watched as the procession of horsemen rode on ahead, the wagons following, with the heaviest of the lot bringing up the rear. But the road gave away under the initial phalanx of wagons laden with both men and supplies. Cavities appeared where the bed had been just moments before, the road seeming to splinter and collapse, swallowing whole wagons—or at least half, if only the front or back wheels hit a sweet spot.

  To Steeldust Jack, it looked as if the front portion of the convoy was being sucked down into hell itself. Wheels splintered and wagon frames cracked, shedding their contents. Guards both on horseback and manning the wagons drew their sidearms or steadied their shotguns. He knew the fear on their faces from that of Union soldiers caught in a Confederate ambush, the difference being the confusion that blossomed in its stead, with the realization that no ambush was coming. Still, a smattering of shots erupted, flashing through the haze of the dirt cloud rising from the collapsed roadbed, but hitting nothing.

  John D. Rockefeller bucked his own horse around to face Jack Strong, but the Texas Ranger was already gone, his horse galloping through the grasslands and kicking up gravel in its wake.

  53

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  “It was an old trick my great-great-granddad learned in the Civil War,” Caitlin said, finishing up the story.

  The stale air of the gym seemed to have thickened through the course of her tale, the stink of sweat growing more pronounced in the process. It felt to her as if the air-conditioning had shut down, leaving her roasting inside her cotton shirt.

  “Confederate soldiers,” Caitlin continued, “would dig and disguise trenches in the road to slow supplies headed to the Northern troops, like guerrilla warfare. It almost worked well enough to tilt things in the South’s favor.”

  “Almost,” Cray Rawls repeated.

  “Even so, it slowed up Rockefeller’s wagons enough to delay him for a while.”

  “Well, Ranger, nobody’s ever compared me to John D. Rockefeller before,” Rawls said, lifting the gloves hanging limply by his sides and tapping at the heavy bag in preparation for resuming his pounding of it.

  “I wouldn’t take it as a compliment, sir.”

  “I guess it’s a matter of perspective again, isn’t it?”

  “But here’s the thing, Mr. Rawls. Back then, nobody had the resources to find out the truth behind John D. Rockefeller’s cutthroat business practices or how many lives he left trampled in his wake.”

  “Is that the comparison you’re drawing here?”

  “Not exactly, sir.”

  One-two … One two … One-two …

  Back to his punching again, Rawls seemed not to hear her.

  “Because I wonder,” Caitlin continued anyway, “how much the Comanche tribal elders know about your history in Texas?”

  One-two … One two … One-two …

  “I wasn’t aware I had much of one to speak of, really,” Rawls said, as casually as he could manage.

  But something had changed in the way he hit the heavy bag. Caitlin could feel the reduced intensity of his blows, which suddenly sounded hollow on impact.

  “It’s true, isn’t it, sir, that following the death of your mother in North Carolina, you were adopted by a couple from Texas?”

  Rawls forced himself to continue punching, just going through the motions now.

  “For a time,” he said.

  “Nine years is a long time.”

  Caitlin realized the man’s entire demeanor had changed. His shoulders were sagging and his wrists were
bending inward too much on impact. And he was breathing rapidly, mostly through his nose, the smooth and practiced cadence gone.

  “What I’m getting at, Mr. Rawls,” Caitlin resumed, “is whether you informed the tribal elders you’re doing business with about your criminal record in this state.”

  Rawls stopped punching altogether and held the bag steady with his gloves. “I was a juvenile at the time. Those records are sealed. Are we almost done here?”

  “You were charged with rape, and would’ve been charged as an adult if the charges had stuck. But the woman was a prostitute who never showed up to give her statement. Lucky for you. Along with the fact that the fire marshal never followed through much on the investigation into the fire that killed the couple that adopted you.”

  “Thank you for not calling them my parents,” Rawls said stiffly.

  “Religious types, I’m told. Real Bible thumpers.”

  “Are you finished, Ranger?”

  “Just one more question for now. You ever actually get in the ring, Mr. Rawls?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Just this, sir: I’ve known a lot of great shots on the range, some of the best. Champion target shooters who’ve never actually been in a gunfight. I never understood why anyone would shoot for sport, any more than I can understand why somebody would learn how to box and never get into the ring for a real bout.”

  “You didn’t let me answer the question.”

  “Your face gave it away,” Caitlin told him, “along with the way you’re hitting the bag. Boxers hold back when they’re practicing. It’s a necessary evil, so they can unleash themselves in the ring. But you aren’t holding back anything, like that bag is as close as you’ll ever come to a real opponent.”

  “Maybe you didn’t notice my nose.”

  “I did, sir, along with the lack of even a blotch anywhere else. I’m guessing you did some simple sparring that turned bad. Looks to me like somebody sucker punched you.”

  “I’m sure there’s a point to all this,” Rawls said, breathing faster and louder.

  “Only that an actual opponent is a whole different thing, either in the ring or in a gunfight. I just thought you should know that. Call it a little friendly advice.”