by Land, Jon
Man oh man, is this really my kid?
The night before he’d gone downstairs as soon as Leroy Epps was gone to find Caitlin sleeping by the window in front of which she’d moved an old upholstered armchair. Instead of rousing her, Cort Wesley had covered Caitlin with a blanket and smoothed her hair.
“I’m taking Dylan with me tomorrow,” he said softly. “Figured it’s time the boy sees how the world works.” Or maybe he’d said “how I work,” his actual words blunted by memory.
Cort Wesley was glad Caitlin was asleep so she couldn’t argue the point with him any more than his mother had when Boone Masters took Cort Wesley on his first job, where he’d watched his father pick the lock on a storage depot overhead door and boost a bunch of major appliances.
“Reason we pick instead of cut, son,” his father had explained, “is on account of the fact the owners won’t know they been robbed right away. And by the time they do, these fridges, ranges, washers, and dryers’ll be in people’s homes at a serious discount. Hell, we might be back another couple times before they notice anything’s missing at all.”
Cort Wesley had to ride atop the big boxes piled into the truck bed on the way to the dusty warehouse where Boone Masters stored his merchandise. Maybe today he’d tell Dylan all about that. Something to pass the time on the hundred-thirty-mile drive that couldn’t pass slowly enough.
Except Dylan lost himself in iTunes playing through earbuds that tuned him out to the rest of the world, including Cort Wesley. His eyes were closed five minutes after they hit the 101 going south, and Cort Wesley couldn’t tell whether he was asleep or awake, since the earbuds shut out pretty much all ambient sound that included anything even remotely passing for a conversation.
Once, after stealing another glance toward his oldest son, Cort Wesley caught a glimpse of Leroy Epps in the backseat.
“Bright idea I had, champ,” he said, shaking his head, “real bright.”
Epps shrugged, just about to respond when Dylan opened his eyes and plucked the buds from his ears. “You say something, Dad?”
Cort Wesley checked the rearview mirror to find Leroy gone. “Just thinking out loud, son.”
Dylan nodded and glanced into the backseat. “Hey,” he said, holding up his iPhone, “you want me to play this over the Bluetooth?”
63
NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO
“… you’ve been looking in the wrong place.”
The eyes of all three men remained fixed on Caitlin after she said that.
“Which assumes you’ve been looking in the right one, Ranger,” said Castillo, his hooded eyes still trying to size her and her intentions up.
“I believe I’ve got a notion, sir, yes. I believe this is about revenge for something you gentlemen had nothing to do with yourselves.”
Rojas and Castillo started to look at each other and then stopped, the bond between them broken momentarily by a sudden awareness of their violent rivalry.
“¡Eso no tiene sentido!”
“No, Señor Rojas, it doesn’t make any sense, at least no more than murdering innocent children.”
“You really think you need to keep reminding us of that?”
“Yes, yes, I do, given that priorities could change in a hurry otherwise.”
“So if it was not something we did…”
Caitlin looked toward Sandoval. “You remember telling me what you knew about the formation of Strong’s Raiders back at the Four Seasons in Austin?”
“Of course.”
“Most important being the part about those three generals from Pancho Villa’s army William Ray Strong, my granddad, and the others met over the border not far from this very spot. They gathered around a campfire to figure out how they were going to defeat esos Demonios,” Caitlin said. “Hatched a plan to flush them across the border and take them down in El Paso. But I’m guessing things didn’t go as planned, did they?”
“No, Ranger,” Sandoval said, while the cartel leaders exchanged a wary glance, curious as to where this was going. “Not at all.”
Caitlin finally took the chair set at the head of the table. “Why don’t you tell us why, sir? Why don’t you tell us what went wrong?”
64
EL PASO, TEXAS; 1919
“What the hell is this?” William Ray Strong wondered, as soon as Strong’s Raiders pulled into El Paso just after dark on the evening of June 14, the day before the plan to take the fight to esos Demonios was to happen.
Pancho Villa’s three generals, who had spoken only through Major Lava, would marshal all their forces in mounting a daring attack on the esos Demonios stronghold in Juárez. The object of the raid was to force the enemy to retreat in the only direction available: north, over the International Bridge into El Paso, where Strong’s Raiders would be waiting. At that point Villa’s troops would hold their position on the Mexican side of the bridge to prevent esos Demonios from staging a return or retreat, boxing them in and leaving the rest of the battle in the hands of the Rangers.
“Six against a hundred, maybe twice that number if we’re lucky,” William Ray mused to Earl Strong, as they rode into El Paso in a boxy Ford with two rows of seats inside and one on the out. “Lousy odds … for them.”
Earl had smiled back at him. The trailing car, being driven by Monroe Fox with Manuel Gonzaullas riding shotgun, had its backseat occupied by four Thompson machine guns and three Browning automatic rifles. The plan was for Fox and Frank Hamer to set up two of the BARs on rooftops at the south end of El Paso’s main drag, a stone’s throw from the International Bridge, while Gonzaullas and old Bill McDonald aimed Thompsons out fifth-story windows on both sides of the street nearer the center. The Strongs, for their part, would be on the ground, ready with both their twelve-gauge pumps and Thompsons slung from their shoulders by thick leather straps.
The idea, as William Ray explained it, was to catch esos Demonios in a classic crossfire. By the time they recovered their wits, he and Earl would move in from the head of the street and treat the enemy with the same consideration with which they had treated the residents of Willow Creek.
“You okay with this?” William Ray asked the newest Texas Ranger before they’d set out, struggling not to mix too much worry with his words.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“’Cause it means killing lots of men.”
Earl fished William Ray’s chewing tobacco pouch from his lapel pocket and packed a wad into his mouth. “These stopped being men when they gunned down women and children. Shooting them ought to be no different from shooting a rabid dog.”
William Ray slapped his son in the back, sending the wad of tobacco jetting from his mouth and leaving Earl spitting out the leftover juice.
“That’s what I needed to hear, boy. Just like ducks on a pond.”
Earl was still trying to rid his mouth of the awful taste, hocking up more and more spittle to little effect. “Except in the daylight we’ll be ducks too.”
William Ray winked at him. “Didn’t tell you what else I got planned, did I?”
The “what else” turned out to be “smoke candles” of the sort invented by Robert Yale in 1848 and based on the principles of seventeenth-century Chinese fireworks. The smoke candles he and Bill McDonald had mixed up the night before were simple enough contraptions consisting of cylindrical cardboard topped with an inch-long fuse. A Comanche Indian chief with whom William Ray had made peace had taught him how to make a slightly different version, calling them “magic balls” because they were round in shape. William Ray improvised on that, but not the relatively simple ingredients that included sugar, sodium bicarbonate, and a chemical called potassium chlorate.
When the time came, he explained to Earl, the four Rangers with the high ground would light and hurl them into the cluster of esos Demonios already reeling from the heavy onslaught of fire. William Ray and Earl would then use the camouflage provided by the smoke to take the fight to the Mexicans, while the other Rangers mowed down any who esc
aped the death circle.
But all that had gone to shit as soon as they reached the outskirts of El Paso and glimpsed what awaited them there.
* * *
“What the hell you mean?” William Ray said to the first army officer brave enough to approach the leader of Strong’s Raiders when he reached the head of Central Square in El Paso.
Before them the entire area—streets, rooftops, plazas—had been taken over by elements of the United States Army. And not just the relatively token force assigned to guard the city from any possible intrusion or attack from across the nearby border. From the look of things, this was a major detachment of troops and ordnance that included artillery out of Fort Bliss, seeming to William Ray like preparations for a full-scale war.
“We’ve got our orders—that’s what I mean, sir.”
“Well, son, so do we. From the governor of Texas himself.”
“Well, ours come from the president of the United States. I believe he outranks your governor.”
“Who’s in charge here, son? I need to give him a piece of mind and find out what the hell is going on.”
* * *
The officer in charge was Brigadier General James B. Erwin, who’d set up his field headquarters in a makeshift command post to the rear of the Eighty-Second Field Artillery regiment in El Paso’s Union Stockyards.
“I was told to expect you, Ranger,” Erwin said, extending a hand instead of bothering with the gesture of a salute.
William Ray didn’t take the hand at first, then finally did out of respect for the man’s service. They must’ve been about the same age with the battle scars and weary eyes to prove it. “Told by who exactly, General?”
Erwin smiled like a man used to being in charge, just as William Ray was. “Let’s just say the people responsible for your orders.”
“Which have plainly changed by the look of things.”
“You’ve done your part,” Erwin said, leading William Ray aside and then moving to steer him away. “Now let us do the rest.”
He reached for the Ranger’s elbow to better do the leading, but William Ray snapped it away and Erwin looked down to see his own elbow grasped instead. “My part, sir, is to have at it with a few hundred monsters pretending to be men. Since you’re here I’m gonna assume you’ve heard of them. Esos Demonios.”
“Let go of my elbow, please, Ranger.”
“I’d like an answer to my question.”
“You mean, assumption. And I’ll thank you to release my arm first.”
William Ray finally did.
“Yes, I’ve heard of esos Demonios.”
“That it?”
“It’s more than you’re entitled to know. This mission is being undertaken on the orders of the president himself, who, by the way, has authorized me to thank you for your service on his behalf.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“We owe all this to you, Ranger.”
“Owe all what to me, General?”
Erwin stiffened slightly and didn’t answer William Ray’s question.
“How ’bout I take a crack at things, then? Way I see it, if you’re stopping our plan to wipe out these monsters, it’s because you’re fighting on the same side; with Carranza and Cantú against Pancho Villa and his fighters.”
“I don’t know anyone by the name of Cantú,” Erwin said smugly, not bothering to deny the rest.
“Then let me shed some light for you. Esteban Cantú is the cousin of President Carranza and the provincial governor of Mexicali, a position he’s used to build his own personal opium smuggling route into California. Now he’s moved his opium business east to Ranger country, forging a second major entry into the country with esos Demonios killing anyone in their path to build a distribution network. That killing includes the entire population of a town called Willow Creek.”
Erwin just stood there, maybe listening but maybe not.
“There a problem with your hearing, General?”
Erwin realized William Ray had raised his voice just enough to attract the attention of some junior officers standing close to them. “I’ll thank you to address me in a more respectful tone, Ranger.”
“And I’ll thank you to kiss my ass!”
Erwin started to move closer to William Ray, but stopped when he felt the heat radiating from within the Ranger’s flannel shirt.
“You used me and my men, General.”
“I did no such thing.”
“The people you represent, then.”
“I represent the same people you do.”
“No, sir, that is not the case at all. See, me and my men represent the dead folk of Willow Creek. We speak for them on account of nobody else seems to give a shit. So the way I figure it, you used the opportunity of Pancho Villa risking an attack in Juárez to flush esos Demonios toward us here in El Paso to finish Villa and the threat he poses to your friend Carranza off once and for all.”
Erwin neither confirmed nor denied his assertion, his gaze remaining flat and noncommittal in the light of lanterns strung from poles.
“You wanna tell me what I’m missing here, General?” William Ray asked, sensing there was something else going on.
“That isn’t your concern. And this isn’t your fight anymore. Take your men and leave the fighting to mine.”
“What am I missing?” William Ray repeated, holding his ground as a gesture from Erwin drew a host of infantrymen to both sides of him, hands too close to the triggers of their carbines for comfort. “Who exactly was it let you know what we were up to?”
The night’s heat was already oppressive before factoring in the fires that pumped more of it through the air, making the stockyards feel to William Ray Strong like he’d entered hell itself. All manner of insects and mosquitoes buzzed the air, thirsty for blood and, maybe, sensing its spill coming. The stench of a different spill from fresh slaughter in these very yards hung like a cloud, impervious to the wind as if it formed more of a wall.
“You know why they call a certain species of beetle June bugs, General?”
“Because I assume they come in June.”
“That’s the thing of it—they don’t; they come in July. Next month, not this.”
“What’s your point, Ranger?”
William Ray got right up in Erwin’s face before responding, the infantrymen enclosing the general tensing but still frozen in place. “That whoever called them June bugs to begin with was full of shit. Just like you.”
65
NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO
“Pancho Villa reached the outskirts of Juárez about the same time your great-grandfather reached El Paso, Ranger,” Sandoval continued.
“In keeping with his part of the plan,” Caitlin followed, “having no idea he’d already been betrayed, sold out.”
“I always assumed the Americans were behind that. A change in priorities. They saw the plan Strong’s Raiders had put into place as the means to help President Carranza crush the Villistas once and for all.”
“That wasn’t the case at all, sir—at least, I don’t believe it was.” Caitlin held her gaze on Alejandro Luis Rojas and Juan Ramon Castillo, the cartel leaders. “And I believe that betrayal is the reason we’re all here today … and why your children were murdered.”
Rojas swallowed hard while Castillo’s stare grew more rigid and hateful, aimed at no one in particular.
“What you’re suggesting,” Sandoval started, seeming to lose his train of thought in mid-sentence. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Finish your story, Mr. Sandoval,” Caitlin prompted. “Then I’ll explain what I’m getting at.”
Sandoval needed to collect his thoughts before resuming. “Villa launched his initial attack on Juárez not long after midnight on June fifteenth. His troops cut through barbed-wire barricades with wire cutters provided by Strong’s Raiders and entered the city, the advance done in a way to keep their bullets from flying across the border into America.”
“But Villa didn’t lead the battle himself, did he?”
“No, it was led by his godson, General Martin Lopez, because Villa was sick.”
“He was sick all right, sir, sick after he was tipped off about the betrayal. Just because he’d come too far to retreat doesn’t mean he was ready to sacrifice himself in the battle.”
“I never thought of that.…”
“But you’ve thought about what happened next.”
“The Villistas made progress initially, until General Erwin ordered his troops into action,” Sandoval expounded. “He’d cobbled together forces from the Twelfth Infantry and Eighty-Second Field Artillery, along with regiments from the Fifth and Seventh Cavalries. His attack began with the shelling of Juárez Racetrack, where Villa’s forces were concentrated.”
“And by that time,” Caitlin recalled, “the Mexican troops had returned to their fort, leaving it strictly to the American forces to put down the Villistas. Suggests a lot of coordination, doesn’t it? Suggests that the battle was over before it even began. Esos Demonios weren’t even in Juárez at the time. Villa’s men had walked straight into a trap.”
“All very interesting,” said Castillo, each word measured and pronounced in perfect English. “But what does all this have to do with the child I lost in your country?”
“I’m getting to that, sir,” Caitlin told him.
Rojas leaned so far forward in his chair, it seemed he was about to stand up and Caitlin was pretty certain his gaze had darted out beyond the bead curtain to make sure no one was laying in wait beyond. “And how do we know you haven’t lured us here on a similar pretext? How can we be sure this isn’t a trap as well?”
“Because if I’d set that trap, señores, it would’ve sprung already.” She hesitated long enough to let them weigh her words. “We need to listen to the rest of what Mr. Sandoval has to say to fully understand why what happened in that battle in nineteen-nineteen ended up getting your children killed almost a century later.”