Strong Rain Falling: A Caitlin Strong Novel (Caitlin Strong Novels)

by Land, Jon

  Castillo and Rojas looked at each other, then back at Caitlin, nodding simultaneously.

  “Mr. Sandoval,” she prompted.

  “There’s not a lot more to tell,” Sandoval sighed. “After the artillery shelling, Erwin sent his thirty-six hundred men across the Rio Grande to engage the drastically weakened Villistas. But that too was a trap meant to get Villa’s forces to stage a retreat that subjected them to relentless shelling by Erwin’s artillery. Salvo after salvo lobbed across the border, the shrapnel rounds wiping out entire sections of the Villistas at a time. When the Americans reconnoitered at daybreak, they found a host of adobe structures leveled where the resistance fighters had fled. There were bodies everywhere; weapons, ammunition, horses and mules left behind when the survivors fled to melt back into their everyday lives. For all intents and purposes the revolution ended that night. Villa managed to flee and muster what was left of his forces together again, but in their weakened state they were crushed in Durango.”

  “Leading ultimately to Villa’s surrender in nineteen-twenty,” Caitlin interjected.

  “He managed to stay alive for three more years until he was finally murdered in July of nineteen twenty-three by assassins likely dispatched by Alvaro Obregon, President Carranza’s successor, who had no interest in honoring the terms of Villa’s truce with his predecessor.”

  “Now we wish to hear from you, el diablo Tejano,” Castillo said to Caitlin, no longer bothering to hide the disdain in his voice. “We wish to hear what all this has to do with the murder of our children.”

  “I did some research before I came down here, sir,” Caitlin told them all, “research into some men who strolled through history anonymously with blood coating their hands. I believe the blood they caused to be spilled in nineteen-nineteen is what caused the deaths of your children today. All the times this story’s been told and their names never even get mentioned.”

  Rojas finally came all the way out of his chair and pressed his fingertips into the tabletop. “Who were these men?”

  “What were their names?” Castillo added, rising too.

  “You both need to be sitting down to hear this.”

  But neither moved an inch. “We’re fine as we are,” said Castillo.

  “Suit yourself,” Caitlin told them. “Turns out those three generals Strong’s Raiders joined forces with were the ones who betrayed Pancho Villa. They had their own reasons for doing so, reasons that ultimately brought down Esteban Cantú, at the hands of William Ray and Earl Strong, I figure.”

  “But who were these generals?” asked Sandoval.

  Caitlin hesitated, meeting the drug cartel leaders’ stares before resuming. “Their names were Rojas, Castillo, and Aguilar.”

  66

  TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER

  Caitlin’s SUV edged forward amid the line of cars waiting to make it through the border checkpoint. It was taking no more time than usual, but her impatience to get back to the case at hand made it seem interminably longer.

  Back in Nuevo Laredo, all three men had been speechless when she revealed what she believed they held in common, dating all the way back to 1919 and Strong’s Raiders.

  “What about me, Ranger?” Fernando Lorenzo Sandoval had asked. “Since my grandfather was not one of Pancho Villa’s generals.”

  “I’m still working on that, sir. There’s got to be something else connecting you to the group, just like there’s something connecting Maura Torres.”

  “You’re saying this is about revenge,” said Rojas, his tone more measured and less confrontational. “You’re saying someone’s getting back at us for something from a past we had nothing to do with.”

  “I suppose that’s not how whoever’s behind all this sees it, sir.”

  “What else is it you’re not telling us?” Castillo asked her.

  “I’m not telling you anything more until I’m sure.”

  * * *

  Caitlin needed to get back to San Antonio to pick up her investigation, so distracted that she barely noticed she’d finally reached the checkpoint.

  “Identification, please,” the border agent asked, after she eased the SUV into park.

  Caitlin routinely handed over her Texas Ranger ID and badge, thinking nothing more of it until the border agent stepped back and was almost immediately joined by two more, one of whom was considerably older.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the car, ma’am.”

  Caitlin didn’t budge. “What’s this about?”

  “Step out of the car, please.”

  With that, another pair of agents came up on the passenger side of her SUV, studying her through the windows.

  “Ma’am?” the older man prodded.

  “It’s Ranger, sir,” Caitlin said, easing the door open and stepping out.

  “I’m going to need you to surrender your firearm too,” he said next.

  Caitlin did so slowly, making sure her intentions could not be confused. “What’s this about, sir?”

  “National security,” he told Caitlin, as the four younger agents moved up to enclose her.

  67

  RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS

  “Cort Wesley Masters? No shit!”

  “And this is my son Dylan. Seems like you’ve heard of me.”

  “I have indeed,” said Jan McClellan-Townsend, the older woman who now ran the McClellan family farm. She’d married an Easterner and moved to Massachusetts, of all places, until her husband died. Around the same time no one else in the family was interested in continuing to run the farm’s day-to-day operations, so Jan had returned home to take over the business in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley, followed in rapid succession by three of her four kids, who’d all sworn off ever even looking at the fields near which they’d been born again. That kind of stuff, she explained, was in the blood like it or not. “I believe my father and your grandfather did some business together.”

  Cort Wesley looked toward Dylan, who’d removed the earbuds he’d worn through the duration of the drive from San Antonio and now looked genuinely interested. “True enough. My grandfather broke plenty of bones on behalf of men like your father back during the farmworkers strike of sixty-six, maybe sixty-seven. Mixed it up with more than his share of Texas Rangers at the time.”

  “Maybe so, but that’s not how my dad knew him. My dad knew him for the same reason I know you: the drug business.”

  * * *

  “You worked for the Branca crime family out of New Orleans,” Jan McClellan-Townsend continued, making Cort Wesley briefly regret that he’d dragged Dylan along for the ride.

  She was a rangy, tall woman, wearing baggy blue jeans and cowboy boots that looked as old as she did. Her radiant blue eyes made Cort Wesley figure she’d been quite a catch in her time and remained attractive considering the wear of running a farm and her sixty-plus years. Her skin was sun-darkened bronze and boasted nary a wrinkle. She had ash-gray hair she’d never colored and didn’t bother much with based on the way it fell limply past her shoulders.

  “Am I talking to you or your father, Mrs. Townsend?”

  “Call me Jan, please.” Her eyes fell on Dylan. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “My dad figured this trip might be educational in itself.”

  She studied the boy closer. “Believe I’ve heard of you too, at least read about you in the paper.”

  “I’ve been in my share of scrapes, ma’am, but I’m going to college next year.”

  “Where?”

  “Brown I hope. To play football.”

  Jan McClellan-Townsend’s eyes glistened. “Brown University? I’ve got a grandson there. He’s gonna be a sophomore. I’ll give you his e-mail address.” She looked back toward Cort Wesley. “Used to be phone numbers.” On Dylan again now. “When I grew up, phones had cords and rotary dials and the word ‘texting’ didn’t exist yet. Now when my grandkids come to visit, I can’t get them to look up from their damn phones. Threw my grandson’s in a horse troug
h a few years back. Then I felt bad about it so I bought him one of those I-whatevers.”

  “Like this,” Dylan said, flashing his iPhone 5.

  “Don’t put it too close to me, son, or it may go a-flying.”

  “We were talking about how your dad knew my grandfather,” Cort Wesley said, returning to the matter at hand.

  “We weren’t—you were. I was talking about other stuff with your boy here,” she said with a wink cast Dylan’s way.

  “Then let me put it this way, Jan: how was your father mixed up in the drug business?”

  “You still with that Texas Ranger, Cort Wesley?”

  “Our relationship make the society columns again?”

  “When the most famous gunfighter in Texas takes up with the most famous outlaw in Texas, it tends to cause a stir.”

  “You’re only half right on that, Mrs. Townsend.”

  “Jan. Remember?”

  “That depends on where this conversation goes next.”

  She nodded, seeming to agree with him as she looked back at Dylan. “You remember playing show-and-tell in school, son?”

  “Sure.”

  “’Cause that’s what we’re gonna do now,” she said to both of them. “Play a little show-and-tell.”

  68

  LAREDO, TEXAS

  “I gotta hand it to you, Jones,” Caitlin said, when he finally showed up at the border crossing nearly two hours after she’d been detained by border agents. “Every time I forget all the reasons I’ve got to shoot you, you come up with another.”

  “Just trying to make you as miserable as you make me, Ranger,” he said, taking off a cowboy hat that was too small for his head and holding it before him. “Like it?”

  “It makes you look like Roy Rogers. A genuine fake cowboy.”

  “I thought old Roy was a real one.”

  “Not by my standards.”

  “Meaning he didn’t gun down enough people in the name of justice.”

  “We finished here? Because I’ve got a pressing engagement back in San Antonio,” Caitlin said, thinking of Dylan’s lacrosse game.

  “We’re just getting started, Ranger.” Jones spun a chair around and sat down straddling it. “I want to make sure I’m clear on everything here. You actually met with Sandoval and two of the top cartel leaders in Mexico. In the same room. At the same time.”

  “I believe I informed you of that intention.”

  “I didn’t think you were serious.”

  “You ever known me to be anything but?”

  Jones could only shake his head. “You managed to get two men we’ve been hunting out of hiding together with the proxy we’ve got hunting them.” He shook his head again.

  “Proxy,” Caitlin repeated. “That what you call all the men you almost get killed these days?”

  “What happened in Austin isn’t on me, Ranger.”

  “Oh no? And I seem to remember warning you there was more going on here than you were willing to accept.”

  “That’s because we’ve already got enough going on. And in the past seventy-two hours you compromised two of my assets, Ranger.”

  “I thought they were proxies.”

  “You have any idea how much we’ve got invested in Sandoval and Paz? No? I didn’t think so. Enough for me to give you this little demonstration of what life is like on the other side.”

  “Tell me something, Jones: do you ever actually listen to yourself talk?”

  “Enough to hear me tell you the shit you’ve been pulling has to stop.”

  “So all this, having me detained, is about showing your power.”

  Jones stepped aside so Caitlin could see the door. “You’re free to go, Ranger. But next time I might not arrive in such a timely manner.”

  Caitlin looked down dramatically, seeming to gaze at the floor.

  “Am I missing something here?” Jones asked.

  “No, sir, I was just checking to see if I was quaking in my boots.”

  “See this?” Jones held his palm even with Caitlin and then brought it upward over his head. “That’s called the upper hand. You’d be wise to remember that.”

  “Yeah? Well, the only thing that upper hand is good for is pulling on your pud.”

  “Am I not getting through to you here?”

  Caitlin looked toward the door again. “I think I’ll head off, since I’m free to go and all.”

  Jones stiffened as she neared him. “Your act’s wearing thin, Ranger. You had me for a while, but it’s all getting a bit tired now. Political realities don’t mean any more to you than rules, and I find it truly amazing that higher powers than me haven’t forced you into early retirement.”

  “With a gold watch or a bullet, Jones?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Actually, I don’t. Not at all. Not even close.”

  “You jeopardized two years of work when you decided to contact Sandoval on your own.”

  Caitlin let him see her weighing his words. “I don’t do exactly that, and he’s dead now. Or maybe that didn’t occur to you.”

  “And maybe the leak that gave up his identity originated in your Ranger Company office. Not that I’m accusing you; after all, your captain talks like he’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. Maybe he called to order a pizza and just happened to tell the delivery boy about the secret antidrug strategy meeting going on in Austin.”

  “Strategy meeting?”

  Jones nodded, his expression deadpan. “What they call it when you have a meeting to discuss strategy.”

  “I’ll be sure to let Captain Tepper know of the high esteem in which you hold him,” Caitlin said, fitting her Stetson back on.

  “You’re to have no further contact with either Sandoval or Paz.”

  “You tell that to Paz?”

  “Look around you, Ranger,” Jones said, making a show of running his eyes around the cramped office that smelled vaguely of body odor and stale onions from fast-food meals. “There’s a million places like this I can put you in to make you disappear, for good if I want.”

  With that, he pulled her SIG Sauer from inside his jacket and handed it to her butt first, then followed up with the magazine. “I’ll ask you not to load your weapon until you’re back across the border. Just following procedure.”

  “Is that what you call it?” Caitlin asked, holstering her pistol and pocketing the magazine.

  “What would you call it?”

  “Waiting until you’re out of my range, Jones.”

  “You really that good a shot, Ranger?” he smirked.

  “You really want to find out?”

  69

  RIO GRANDE VALLEY

  “What is it exactly you want to show us, Jan?” Cort Wesley asked, as Jan McClellan-Townsend wound amid her orange and grapefruit groves in what felt like a turbo-charged golf cart. The air smelled of sweet citrus, somehow making it feel less hot.

  “My family built this farm up from nothing,” she said reflectively, ignoring his question. “Started with ten acres and built it to what you see now. For quite a time, people thought that old movie Giant was based on this spread. Maybe it was,” she added, jerking the cart to a sudden halt that jostled Dylan in the back. “Of course, I don’t believe Rock Hudson’s character ever grew marijuana on his land.”

  “You talking about your father?”

  But Jan was looking at Dylan again. “Why’d you bring him with you, Mr. Masters?”

  “That’s Cort Wesley, ma’am.”

  “You mean Jan.”

  “Jan.”

  “Stop avoiding my question, Cort Wesley.”

  “You ever plant or pick crops with your father, Jan?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you just answered your own question.”

  “Have I?”

  “A few nights back,” Dylan started, “a bunch of Mexican gunmen came after me.”

  “I take the fact that you’re still here to mean they weren’t successful.”

 
Dylan’s gaze moved to Cort Wesley. “I think my dad wants to let me play a part in finding out why before they come back.”

  “Sure,” Jan McClellan-Townsend said to Cort Wesley, “that’s just like picking oranges.”

  “Or marijuana,” Cort Wesley nodded.

  The woman turned her gaze on the fields of citrus that seemed to stretch on forever. “This was the patch of ground my father cleared to do it. Times were tough and he was overextended at the bank, three mortgages or at least two, thanks to devastating droughts that covered three straight seasons. It was either that or lose the property.” She looked back at Cort Wesley. “From my viewpoint, he made the right choice.”

  “I didn’t come here after that.”

  “Then why did you come here?”

  “To ask you about a couple migrant workers and their families from that same era: Mateo Torres and Enrique Cantú.”

  Jan McClellan-Townsend’s eyes narrowed in surprise and then she smiled. “You pulling my leg here, Cort Wesley?”

  “Not at all, Jan.”

  “You mention those names, but really don’t know?”

  “Know what, ma’am?”

  “When my father decided to branch out into marijuana farming, Torres and Cantú were the ones who grew it for him.”

  * * *

  “It was their specialty, as I recall,” she continued. “Rather specialized field at the time, but there were a host of specialists south of the border, and my father was lucky enough to have some contacts in that field from a business perspective.”

  “My grandfather,” Cort Wesley realized, “Boone Masters senior.”

  “Among others, but as I’ve heard it told it was indeed Boone senior who connected my dad up to Torres and Cantú. They were just starting up, dirt poor at the time with nothing to show for their expertise. That’s what drove them into Texas in the first place. In Mexico their skill growing cannabis was a dime a dozen. But Texas, good ole Texas, was a real emerging market. All this money being made from a true cash crop just a few miles away, what’d everybody think was going to happen? Texas was perfect for it. Local elected law was easy enough to buy off and there weren’t hardly enough Rangers to walk every field in the state.”