by Land, Jon
Her father had made his initial fortune building an elaborate marijuana distribution network through the United States following his release from prison just after her tenth birthday. She had made herself far richer, on the order of billions, by using the vast stores of laundered drug money she controlled to buy herself the entire country of Mexico. And soon, very soon, she would sit back and watch while the country she had despised for as long as she could remember became the very same backward and desperate land Mexico had so long been perceived to be.
“Why do you hate the United States so much?”
It was a question posed to her on numerous occasions, one to which Ana Guajardo had no precise answer. Every time she contemplated one, she felt a tugging on her brain, a curtain of haze trying to lift on something she could not clearly see. It couldn’t be just the rape of her mother at the hands of the new work foreman Locaro had sliced to pieces with his machete as a ten-year-old boy in the Rio Grande Valley. She remembered the hose stinging her skin as her mother washed away the blood that had sprayed her. But the haze always returned before she could recall something else from that day, some lost truth that forever eluded her and perhaps held at least part of the answer others sought that she couldn’t provide.
Upon learning of the moves she had made to divest their interests from American holdings five years ago, her father had summoned her to his fourth-floor office in their hacienda.
“This is business, Ana,” he had scolded. “You must never let your personal prejudices interfere with business.”
He had turned away, a clear sign he considered the matter finished.
“When did kissing the Americans’ feet become part of our business?” Ana had challenged instead of leaving.
“You would have us sacrifice profits?”
“I would have us do business in a way that serves Mexico’s interests instead of those of our American investors.”
Her father had shaken his head, his look of disappointment profound. “You’ve made my decision easy, at last,” he sighed.
“What decision?” she asked him, starting forward.
“You are not fit to succeed me. I’ve tried so hard to teach you, and yet you are no different from your brother. You are even worse for having squandered the chance I gave you to do great things. Now, like him, you will be nothing because you can’t set aside your hate even for one moment. No matter how many times I warn you, you persist. Tell me why, Ana. Tell me why so I can help you.”
But Ana couldn’t, because she didn’t know.
“We are done here,” she remembered her father saying. “Leave me.”
But Ana held her ground, risking more of her father’s wrath and temper.
“Tu estás muy débil,” he charged. “You are weak and no longer fit to work with me. You are no better than your mother, just not a puta like she was, sleeping with every man she could find while I was in prison.”
Ana felt herself begin to shake.
“You bring me no grandchildren because you are empty inside.”
That’s when Ana felt something snap. She recalled picking up her pace but nothing beyond that. The haze that had enveloped her after the rape of her mother returned, clearing to find her father lying broken on the concrete drive four stories down while gardeners and security men alike looked up at her.
“I’m sorry, Papá,” she said now to the figure hunched in the wheelchair that barely resembled the strong, vibrant man she remembered. “I’m sorry you did not share my vision for the future.”
Guajardo felt a buzzing on her hip. She stopped her father’s wheelchair and jerked the walkie-talkie from her belt, raising it to her ear.
“I told you I was not to be disturbed,” she snapped at whoever was on the other end. Rancho Enrique offered no cell phone service and she never walked the property without a reliable alternative.
“Señora,” said the voice she now recognized as belonging to a guard at the front gate, “there is someone here who insists on seeing you. A Texas Ranger.”
“A Texas Ranger?” she said, wondering if she’d heard the man right. What could they possibly want with her? How could they have known she’d be here? “Tell him to make an appointment with my office. Give him the number.”
“But señora, she is already on her way.”
“She?”
“Sí, a woman.”
“And you let her in?”
“Ella no me dio ninguna opción. She did not give me much choice, jefa. Ella me dijo que me iba a patear los huevos.”
“I should kick you there myself for letting her in.”
“There’s something else, jefa. The Ranger told me she came here because your life may be in danger.”
88
LOS MOCHIS, MEXICO
“You can see my reason for concern, ma’am,” Caitlin Strong explained to Ana Callas Guajardo minutes later, after finding her in the enclosure set before an area where two African white rhinos were grazing comfortably in a field. Their tiny tails waved side to side in rhythm with the wind that blew the scents of animal musk and stale feces straight into the two women. Caitlin noticed a shriveled figure in a wheelchair huddled in the shade of a large oak tree. “I felt it was my duty to come down here and warn you personally.”
“And this is because…”
“The same killers who may be after you came after a pair of teenage boys up in Texas. They’re your twin sister’s boys, ma’am, your nephews,” Caitlin said, comparing Ana Guajardo to pictures she’d seen of Maura Torres. Clearly, they weren’t identical twins, but the resemblance between them remained striking.
“Well, Ranger, your coming all this way is a much appreciated yet altogether unnecessary gesture,” Guajardo told her, having to ungrit her teeth to manage the effort and fighting not to show her shock at the Ranger’s knowledge of her background. Caitlin Strong had wielded that knowledge like a blow, waiting for Ana’s reaction to see if it had landed. “I’m very well protected.”
“I imagine that’s what the parents of those children we found in Willow Creek last week thought. Got them packed off safely to school, just like they did every day, only this time they never came home.”
“And you believe I’m in danger because of that?”
“Ma’am, I believe you’re in danger because of what I’ve managed to learn about your past. You had a twin sister who was raised by your real parents. Whoever was behind the murders of those kids in Willow Creek hired professional gunmen to kill your twin sister’s sons too. Mexicans. That mean anything to you?”
“Why should Mexican gunmen, hired killers, mean anything to me?”
“Because you’re so well protected. I just figured you’ve come to make the acquaintance of plenty of men who fit that description down here.”
“Down here,” Guajardo repeated, trying to capture the obvious disparagement in the woman Ranger’s voice. “As in Mexico, you mean.”
“Or hell, ma’am. Take your pick.”
Guajardo noted an expression that might have been confused for smugness rode the female Ranger’s countenance, as if she practiced it in front of a mirror. The Stetson looked too big for her tight, angular features and hint of Mexican descent in the thick portions of her hair that pushed out from the hat’s confinement. She’d removed it politely as soon as she reached Ana, holstered pistol riding her hip like a steel appendage.
“Get back to why you think I may be in danger,” Guajardo told Caitlin Strong.
“I wish I could tell you for sure, Señora Guajardo, but I believe it’s about revenge for something that happened a long time ago involving my own grandfather and great-grandfather.”
“A student of history are you, Ranger?” Guajardo asked with her head tilted slightly to the side, tight expression indicating that she knew Caitlin was holding something, maybe plenty, back. She wet her lips with her tongue, reveling in the challenge the way someone not accustomed to losing does. Hanging on Caitlin Strong’s every word, as if ready to snap the cord con
necting them at any moment, letting the Ranger think she was in control when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.
“I believe in the past, ma’am, just as much as I believe we don’t understand it any better than we understand the present.”
“Then I’m sure you’re aware that vengeance is the purest, strongest emotion, the most powerful motivator of all.”
“Especially when its roots lie somewhere back in history,” Caitlin told her. “In this case to that stretch your father did in Huntsville on those drug and arson charges.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Ana Guajardo snapped, fighting the rage building inside her, summoning all her reserves to keep herself calm.
“I was hoping you could tell me, ma’am, since your brother and his men shot up a lacrosse game in San Antonio last night and kidnapped one of your nephews.”
Guajardo let Caitlin Strong see her stiffen. “My brother is dead to me.”
“Because he pushed your father off a balcony.”
“Threw him, you mean.”
“Your brother was released from Cereso Prison, you know.”
“Maybe he had served his time.”
“This was a pardon signed by President Villarreal himself. Interesting that the president of Mexico would bother intervening, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think anything,” Guajardo told her. “It’s not my concern.”
“Your own brother?”
“I told you he’s—”
“Dead to you, I know.” Caitlin took a step closer to Ana Guajardo, out of the sun now so both of them were trapped in the shadows cast by the thick tree line. “But there’s this problem I was hoping you could help me with. See, ma’am, your brother was under surveillance by undercover Mexican drug operatives at the time of your father’s unfortunate fall. Those operatives can place him several hundred miles away at the time he supposedly pushed—pardon me, threw—your father off that fourth-story balcony. I was hoping you could help me reconcile the discrepancy.”
“There is no discrepancy.”
“My sources indicate otherwise.”
“Then your sources are wrong. And they’re wrong about me being in danger too. Please accept my assurances of that.”
Caitlin hesitated, making a show of seeming to study the woman before her without responding until, “Where were you on the day your father was nearly killed?”
“You already know the answer to that: I was home. I was the one who found him broken on the pavement four stories down on the circular drive he’d only just installed.”
“You also said you saw your brother on the balcony afterward. You said that to the police.”
“If you say so, Ranger.”
“I do, ma’am, and I also say that was either a lie or a misstatement.”
“What’s the difference?”
“None at all,” Caitlin said, her stare holding all of its harsh intensity intact. “And if you misstated the facts about that, I wonder if you might also misstate the facts as they pertain to the murder of five Mexican children just across the Texas border who all happened to be offspring of those connected to your family’s past.”
Ana Guajardo refused to break Caitlin’s stare. “So you really didn’t come down here to warn me my life was in danger, did you?”
Caitlin ignored her question. “I’ve got no jurisdiction in Mexico, ma’am; you and I both know that. So whatever happened that day your father ended up in a wheelchair is of no concern to me.”
“But the murder of these five Mexican children is.”
“That’s right, ma’am.”
“Strange hearing that from a Texas Ranger.”
“They were killed in Texas, but, truth be told, I’d go after anyone anywhere who targets children.”
“You still haven’t told me what really brought you down here, Ranger.”
Caitlin started to put her Stetson back on, but stopped. “You’re a very powerful woman, Señora Guajardo. The most powerful woman in Mexico, and maybe the most powerful person period. I know you’ve earned most of that on your own, but the foundation your father laid was based on the drug distribution network he built north of the border, and that is within my jurisdiction. So you might say we got more business between us than either of us thought, and maybe more of a connection through a shared history too.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“Not at the present time, no.”
Perhaps the intensity between them was what made the big male African rhino look up from his grazing and snort, his lazy-looking eyes suddenly tilted in their direction. Perhaps it was just coincidence.
“So you didn’t come down here to accuse me and you didn’t come down here to warn me,” said Guajardo. “Is there another option I’ve left out?”
“Maybe I just wanted to get the history between our families straight in my head, how my great-granddad and granddad ran your great-granddad out of Mexicali.”
Ana Guajardo’s features tightened so much, it looked as if her mouth had sealed up tight.
“They have television down here, ma’am?” Caitlin continued, taunting her now. “That lacrosse game last night was televised and the cameras went right on rolling when the bullets started flying. Means you can go to YouTube and watch a lot of innocent people being killed by your brother and the men he brought with him. Back in Texas we call that a massacre and we also call it cause to leave the badges and laws behind.”
“Massacres have happened on both sides of the border, Ranger,” Guajardo managed, growing composed again with each word as she sought to regain the upper hand. “Have you actually heard the story of how the Strongs brought down my great-grandfather?”
“Not the specifics, ma’am, no.”
“Then maybe it’s time you did.”
89
EL PASO, TEXAS; 1919
There was no point in leaving the city until the battle being waged by the American forces against Pancho Villa’s troops was over. Knowing as much as he knew about General Erwin, William Ray Strong didn’t think it would take very long either. And, in point of fact, it didn’t. He and Strong’s Raiders were saddling up for what all figured would be their last ride as a group when a Mexican spy taken prisoner right there in El Paso broke free long enough to push a note into William Ray’s hand.
“¡Apúrese, señor, apúrese!”
William Ray wondered what it was he was supposed to be hurrying about, but didn’t check out the note until the prisoner was dragged back into custody. Then he unfolded it and called Earl Strong over.
“Your Spanish is better than mine, son. Tell me what this says exactly?”
Earl read the note out loud in Spanish first. “A nosotros también nos traicionaron. Nos encontramos en la cantina de la plaza central en la Ciudad Juárez, al otro lado de la frontera.” Then he translated, “We were betrayed too. Meet us at the cantina in the central square of Juárez across the border.” At that he looked up at his father. “It’s signed ‘Los Generales.’ The Generals.”
“Now, that’s interesting.”
“You figure it’s a trap, Dad?”
Frank Hamer held up his Thompson, still oiled and ready. “I say we head down there and kill us some Mexes if it is.”
“Hell,” said old Bill McDonald, trying his best to stifle a cough, “I came this far to kill somebody.”
“There are many cantinas in Juárez, Ranger Strong,” said Manuel Gonzaullas. “How could the generals be sure you’d know the one they meant?”
“’Cause of something in the past, son. Details don’t matter a mite. What matters is this tells me the note came from them, all right.”
“Can’t trust their kind one bit’s what I say, Ranger,” noted Monroe Fox.
“Nobody’s asking you to come along, sir. You want to ride on home into infamy for your past indiscretions, be my guest. But I don’t expect this is a chance you’ll see again in your lifetime to hang up your guns the way they’re supposed
to be hung up.”
“Aw, hell,” whined Fox. “Count me in. But I’m killing the first one stares at me crossways or even looks at his pistol.”
“Son, if it comes down to that, all the shooting be over ’fore you even get your pistol drawn,” McDonald chided him.
“We’ll see about that, Captain Legend.”
The others laughed, then resumed mounting up.
“Guess we got a change in destination,” said William Ray Strong, as they started off.
* * *
Strong’s Raiders took to horseback for the short distance across the bridge into Juárez, still armed to the teeth and probably mistaken for a supplemental contingent of the American forces. The city remained a study in chaos with the aftereffects of the battle lingering in the form of ruptured walls, shattered glass, and stubborn smoke from the artillery shell explosions still rising. Most of the fires that had caught burned out of control with no one about to fight the flames.
But the three generals who’d requested this meeting—Rojas, Castillo, and Aguilar—must have known the cantina in question had been left whole and remained somehow opened. Actually, when the Rangers arrived they found the lights off, the door locked, and as many of the windows boarded up as the supply of lumber would allow.
“How is it those generals chose this cantina again?” William Ray heard his son Earl ask him, as he approached the door.
“Because a few years back I killed three men here in a gunfight after they refused to go peacefully across the border.”
William Ray rapped hard on the heavy wooden door and was about to do so again when the door opened to reveal Pancho Villa’s top generals disguised as peasants standing in darkness broken sporadically by lantern light. They had clearly opted not to join Villa when he fled south, pursued by the American forces.
“Come in,” Castillo said in English, “all of you.”
Inside, Strong’s Raiders shoved four round bar tables together and sat with their arms crossed upon the wobbly tops while the generals explained why they had summoned the Rangers here.