Strong Cold Dead

by Jon Land

  Click.

  Before Caitlin could finish that thought, the slide of her SIG locked open and the blanket of black, broken only by glowing eyes and flashing teeth, swept toward her anew in dark waves. She thought about taking refuge in the shallow greenish waters of the underground stream, then recalled the goo-like residue collected on the surface and—

  Caitlin’s thinking froze there. “Cort Wesley, your lighter!”

  It was his late father, Boone’s, cigarette lighter actually, tucked in a drawer and forgotten until Cort Wesley had learned the truth about his father’s nature and his heroism. Now he carried it with him all the time, the last thing he had to remember his father by, a man he’d once done his best to forget.

  Caitlin snatched the lighter out of the air when he tossed it, and yanked a can of mace-like repellent from its clasp on her belt. She’d never used it on a suspect, not even once, and she hoped the pressurized contents hadn’t degraded over however many years she’d been carrying it.

  She popped the top off and pressed down on the tiny nozzle at the same time that she flicked Boone Masters’s cigarette lighter, embossed with an eagle, to life. The aerosol stream touched the flame and ignited in a ribbon of fire, stretching a yard forward, aimed downward toward the surface of the water.

  Poof!

  The flame burst blew upward, climbing for the swarming bats, who fled from its path, their collective squeals turning deafening. In that moment, the bright glow captured their gaping mouths and enraged eyes, extended snouts making them look like monsters lifted from some horror movie. Their wings flapped so hard, as they sought escape from the fiery air, that they actually fanned the flames further. They moved in what looked like a circle, then a figure eight, before speeding out of the cave in a vast, unbroken mass, into the night beyond.

  Caitlin found herself sitting on the cave floor with no memory of dropping down. She kicked at the body of one of the bats, felled by a bullet, maintaining the presence of mind to put her plastic evidence gloves back on before reaching for it.

  Cort Wesley brushed off his clothes. The battle they’d just fought and the heat of the flames had left a sheen of perspiration over his features. “You want to venture a guess as to what all this is about, Ranger?”

  “What Steeldust Jack faced here in 1874, same thing we’re facing now, Cort Wesley,” Caitlin told him. “Monsters.”

  PART SEVEN

  Prohibition passed in 1918. The Texas oil boom exploded two years later. Rangers spent a lot of time smashing stills, intercepting bootleg liquor from Mexico, and handcuffing criminals to telephone poles when the jails were too full. It was during this time that Ranger Captain Manuel “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas cemented his legend as a one-man law enforcement agency along the Texas border. In the 1950s, he became an advisor for the TV show Tales of the Texas Rangers.

  —Bullock Texas State History Museum, “The Story of Texas”

  69

  BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS

  “Is there anyone you ever listen to, Ranger? ’Cause if there is, I’d like to meet them.”

  Caitlin squeezed her cell phone tighter. “Maybe you didn’t hear what I just said, Jones.”

  “Oh, I heard you just fine, especially the part about you disobeying a direct order from me.”

  “I don’t work for you. I work for the state of Texas.”

  “Well, last time I checked anyway, Texas was still part of the United States. Maybe you haven’t heard of Homeland Security?”

  Caitlin spoke with her eyes on Cort Wesley, while rain from a fresh storm dappled the windshield of his truck, where he’d left it, just off the Comanche reservation. “Why don’t I just let you know when I’ve got a better idea of what we’re facing here?”

  “Hold on, I want to hear more about what you found in that cave.”

  “Sorry, Jones. I never listen to anybody, remember?”

  * * *

  After dropping off the bat carcass with Doc Whatley at the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s office, Caitlin and Cort Wesley continued back to Cort Wesley’s home in Shavano Park. They sat on the front porch swing, the night quiet and still around them. Nothing seemed to be moving at all, not even the air.

  “Something I didn’t tell you about Daniel Cross, Cort Wesley,” Caitlin said suddenly. “Ten years ago, he didn’t go to court or jail, because of my intervention. Hell, I even made sure the arrest report went away, all on my say-so.”

  “Let it go, Ranger.”

  “I really did believe I could save him. I believed he was worth saving.”

  “A bullied kid—you felt bad for him. Don’t make it more than it really was.”

  “But it was more. It was me ten years ago, thinking I had the world right and nobody could tell me different.”

  “You weren’t much more than a kid yourself, then, not much older than Daniel Cross is right now. Stop beating yourself up.”

  “I want to think I’m different now,” Caitlin said, without looking at him. “You want to know why I’m beating myself up? Because I’m afraid I’m not different. I’m afraid maybe the nickname ‘Hurricane’ suits me too well and that the phrase ‘strong cold dead’ isn’t a joke so much as a warning I’ve been missing for too long.”

  Cort Wesley said nothing, because there was nothing to say. He felt her nod off against him, and was being careful not to disturb her, when the scent of fresh talcum powder drew his gaze to the side, where the ghost of Leroy Epps was leaning against the porch railing.

  “Wouldn’t happen to have another of those root beers in the fridge, would you, bubba?”

  “Sh-h-h,” Cort Wesley cautioned, gesturing toward Caitlin.

  “She can’t hear me none anyway, so I got no call to lower my voice,” Leroy told him. “Man, you got yourself in a real pickle this time, don’t you? One boy kidnapped, the other … well, let’s just say he’s seen better days.”

  “What is it you’re not telling me, champ?”

  “Don’t fret on that for the present, and stop your stewing.”

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me. You done got yourself in save-the-world mode, as like you’re the only one who can.”

  “Sometimes, that seems accurate enough.”

  “And sometimes it makes you do dumb-ass things, like driving a Caterpillar through a car showroom.”

  “It was a John Deere, champ.”

  “I ever tell you about my Vietnam experience, bubba?”

  “I didn’t know you went.”

  “I didn’t, ’cause the army wouldn’t have me. There they are, hard up as hell for soldiers, and they wouldn’t even consider my enlistment. Guess I had a touch of the sugar already messing with my eyes, and there was something they didn’t like about my feet, which didn’t stop me from squeezing them into my boxing shoes enough to fight for the middleweight title. Army must’ve gotten a kick out of that.”

  Cort Wesley glanced down at Caitlin, still nuzzled against his shoulder. “There a point I’m missing somewhere?”

  “Nope, ’cause I haven’t gotten to it yet,” Leroy told him, picking at his teeth with a branch stem. “Thing about the ring is, it’s you, the other guy, and nobody else—’cept the referee, who doesn’t count, even when he’s fixing the odds against you. You got nobody to rely on but yourself once that bell rings. But for you, bubba, the rounds never stopped. You just keep coming out to answer the bell all by your lonesome, no matter who’s in the opposite corner. And the problem is your thinking’s always the same. Doesn’t matter who you’re up against, how big, strong, or quick they might be, you’re going in the same way you did with that car showroom.”

  “These people crossed a line.”

  “That an explanation or an excuse?” Old Leroy shot him a disparaging glance from the railing, his mottled flesh creasing like the folds in an origami design. “I’d say I know you pretty damn well—better than anyone, save for that Ranger there—and I’ve seen you playing this game for too long without the mere con
sideration you might lose. That’s another thing about the ring. It should be clear cut, a winner and a loser, but I had the title swiped from me twice, and the only thing that kept my wits together was understanding there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.”

  “That what you’re trying to tell me, champ?”

  Leroy took a few steps from the rail, the porch light framing him like a shroud. “Listen up good here, bubba. All I’m saying is, your own being harmed is surely cause to do hurt, but it’s a lot harder to win a fixed fight. You don’t catch yourself, you’re playing by their rules, just like I was, those times the belt should have been mine and I ended up holding my own pants up. You getting the point here, bubba?”

  “If you’d known the fights were fixed in advance, would it have made any difference?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “That’s my point, champ. The fight I intend to have tomorrow is something different altogether.”

  “You’re talking about the minerals guy, looks like somebody glued some extra flesh on him?”

  “And the man he’s working for, who’s hiding so much shit, he probably forgot where he put it all. Whatever I do to them won’t be enough, champ.”

  Leroy Epps turned his empty gaze down the street an instant before Cort Wesley spotted the truck coming, slowing as it drew up to his mailbox before pulling into the driveway.

  Cort Wesley realized Leroy Epps was gone and Caitlin was starting to stir, her eyes peeling groggily open and fastening on the truck just as the driver’s side door snapped open.

  “Looks like we got company, Ranger,” Cort Wesley said, rising, as Ela Nocona climbed out of the driver’s seat of the truck and then dragged Dylan out of the back.

  70

  SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS

  Cort Wesley had carried Dylan upstairs to put him to bed, after a terse explanation from Ela.

  “You want to be a bit more specific?” Caitlin said to her, listening to the sounds coming from upstairs.

  “He got himself in a scrape with some of my cousins,” Ela explained.

  “Involving drugs again? Peyote?”

  “I think they maybe forced him to take some, yes.” Ela eyed the door. “I really should be getting back.”

  “That would be back to the place where Dylan was assaulted and tied to a tree with baling wire, according to what you’ve just told me.”

  “I can’t talk to you about this,” Ela said, reluctant to meet Caitlin’s gaze.

  “Well, then, can you talk to me about why his assailants, these cousins of yours, left him out there, what they expected to happen next, exactly?”

  Ela continued to avoid Caitlin’s gaze. “He was snooping around where he didn’t belong. They just wanted to teach him a lesson, maybe scare him a little.”

  “Does that include forcing him to ingest a dangerous drug?” Caitlin felt her thinking veer, midsentence. “Oh, that’s right—you’d already forced him to do pretty much the same thing.”

  “I didn’t force him to do anything.”

  “And what about that Miraculous Medal of his that we found near the body of that construction worker?”

  “What about it?”

  “You think it got up and walked out of wherever the two of you were prior to that time?”

  “I think Dylan lost the medal earlier in the day. I can’t explain how it ended up where it did.”

  Caitlin could feel the heat rising behind her cheeks, a dull ache in her teeth from clenching her jaw. “And what do you suppose he was doing in the woods tonight, when he got jumped?”

  “I have no idea. He snuck out after I fell asleep.”

  “You do drugs when you’re at school, Ela?”

  “Peyote isn’t a drug.”

  “Oh no?”

  “Not the way you mean it.”

  “And how do I mean it? Or let me put it another way: How would you feel if those disabled kids you came back here to teach knew you were using?”

  Ela had moved almost imperceptibly toward the door, putting distance between her and Caitlin. “Could you ask Dylan to call me tomorrow, please?”

  “I don’t believe he’ll need me to remind him. And I’d like you to answer my question before you leave. Serious mind-altering drugs weren’t in Dylan’s vocabulary until last week, as far as I know. Would you like to tell me different?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ela said, sounding as if she had to pull the words up her throat. “I’m sorry about all this. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “How about that you’ve decided to tell Dylan to reenroll at Brown, now that the protest is over?”

  “That’s up to him, not me.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, when I stop by to sort out whatever happened on the rez tonight.”

  “You’ve got no authority there, Ranger.”

  “That didn’t stop my great-great-granddad, and it’s not about to stop me, either, not anymore. How about I start with those cousins of yours Dylan calls the Lost Boys? On account of the fact that I’m guessing they take their marching orders from you.”

  Ela shook her head, looking almost bemused as she headed the rest of the way to the door. “Why would I tell them to tie Dylan to a tree in the middle of a peyote trip, only to let him go and bring him home?”

  “I don’t know, Ela. Why don’t you tell me? Why don’t you tell me what your grandfather and everyone else on your reservation is hiding? Why don’t you tell me why there’s a secret chamber in a cave overlooking White Eagle’s land that looks like something from a horror movie?”

  Ela opened the door and stepped mostly out, leaving only a flicker of herself behind. “I think my cousins took Dylan’s phone. Please tell him I’ll try to get it back for him.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that. And if you don’t—”

  But Ela was out the door before Caitlin could finish her thought, slamming it so hard the whole house seemed to rattle.

  71

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  “You have been given a great honor,” Hatim Abd al-Aziz, supreme military commander of ISIS, said to Daniel Cross, “joining us in this most holy of missions.”

  Cross stood before him on the sixtieth-floor Sky Lobby, the observation deck in the JPMorgan Chase Tower. Zurif and Saflin were hanging back but within earshot, near the ISIS commander’s hulking bodyguard. Cross’s insides had turned to ice as soon as he stepped into the elevator, in anticipation of meeting the man behind so much of the unspeakable carnage that had dominated the news for years now. His breath had seized up in his throat when he reached the Sky Lobby and the bodyguard held Zurif and Saflin back so Cross could proceed alone.

  Sunlight framed al-Aziz’s shape like a shroud, blinding Cross as he drew closer, further unsettling him. Since going down this path, to once and for all escape the shadow of Diaper Dan, Cross had never once doubted his intentions or his actions, not even for a minute.

  Until now.

  What have I gotten myself into?

  Al-Aziz’s presence brought home the reality of what his actions had set off, even more starkly than the demonstration Cross had staged at Hoover’s Cooking. He had truly reached the point of no return; no going back now.

  “You are not Muslim,” al-Aziz said.

  Cross hadn’t even seen his mouth move, through the blinding sunlight. He drew close enough to al-Aziz to see a freshly trimmed beard darkening his gaunt face. His eyes looked too small for his face, dominated by grayish, languid pupils that seemed to have swallowed all the white. His hair, too, had been neatly coiffed, making him look like a businessman—an investment banker or something like that. He was shorter than Cross had expected, and al-Aziz’s frame was only slightly more muscular than his own.

  “No,” he heard himself say, in a voice that sounded like someone else’s. “I’m not Muslim.”

  “You know what alhamdulillah means?”

  “Praise to Allah.”

  “And ashokrulillah?”

  “Thanks to Allah.”


  Al-Aziz grinned slightly. “Alhamdulillah w ashokrulillah. Praise and thanks to Allah for your presence here. He has delivered you unto me, the nature of your faith irrelevant before the path He has set forth that has brought us together. So you need not be one with our fate, only one with our cause.”

  “I am,” Cross said, forcing the words up through what felt like a dust ball in his throat.

  “It is His will that has brought us here and His will that is certain to see this through to a blessed end.” Al-Aziz turned and swept his gaze about the whole of the city of Houston, left to right and then back again. “Do you know why we are meeting here?”

  Daniel Cross shook his head, following his own reflection in the window glass.

  “Stand on a hill of this height back in Iraq or Syria and there is nothing to see but wasteland. Nothing to rule, nothing to ravage and destroy.” The ISIS commander continued to stare straight ahead. Below, those pedestrians who were visible looked like creatures smaller than pencil tips, poised against a vast urban landscape. “Looking out over places like this fuels my vision, restores my faith in the great mission and calling to which I’ve been summoned. I was standing near the top of the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai when our bombs went off in the central train station. I was looking down from Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur when I conceived the idea of an attack on that nation’s subways. And I will be standing at the top of the International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong when the bombs go off in the city’s financial district, as Allah wills.”

  Al-Aziz turned his gaze back on Daniel Cross. “And now the forces that have laid in wait in this cursed land have assembled the next phase of Allah’s grand plan before us. You will tell me everything you know. I will hear it in your words, and then the great reckoning will commence, and you will thank me for making you a party to it.”