Elaine slipped an arm around Stark’s waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I don’t care. I’m almost ashamed to live in a country where the people running it care more about how things look than they do about standing up for what’s right.” She looked up at him. “It won’t always be that way, will it?”
“I’d like to think it won’t,” Stark said.
But he didn’t know anymore. Truly, he just didn’t know.
Twenty-six
It had been such a long time since Ramirez was his former cool, calm self that Ryan had almost forgotten what that was like. For a couple of months now, ever since Ramirez had first heard the name John Howard Stark, the drug lord had been getting more and more erratic. If Ryan hadn’t known better, he would have suspected that Ramirez was using some of his own product. Ramirez was on a natural high, though, brought on by rage and hatred. Time was, he had been gentle with the young girls he had brought to the compound; now they were always bruised and battered when they left the place. Ryan had even had to arrange for a discreet burial out in the desert after one of the girls had collapsed on her way out, bleeding from the nose and ears. She had died a short time later.
Ramirez had been really furious when he heard about the attack on Stark and his friends by the Mexican army. One of the commanders had been trying to curry favor with him, but the man had gone about it the wrong way, not knowing that Ramirez had already put Silencio Ryan in charge of tormenting Stark.
For Ryan’s part, he was eager to confront Stark again. His failure to kill the Texan in the hospital still rankled. Ryan hadn’t expected Stark to recognize him and react so quickly. They had talked only briefly in the dim, loud strip joint, and yet Stark had known who he was and realized that he was a threat. The man claimed to be just a simple rancher, but he had the skills and instincts of a seasoned warrior. It was all natural with Stark, too; Ryan had investigated him thoroughly and knew that Stark had lived a peaceful life for decades.
But that talent for violence had come back to him quickly, something that once learned was never forgotten.
Ryan came into Ramirez’s office and found the drug lord slouched behind the desk, unshaven, his white suit rumpled and sweat-stained. Ramirez was really letting himself go.
“What are you doing about Stark?” Ramirez asked without preamble.
“Just what you ordered,” Ryan replied coolly. “Making his life miserable before I finally kill him.”
Angrily, Ramirez slapped a palm down on the desk. “You are doing nothing!” he shouted. “It has been weeks since you made a move against Stark!”
Ryan kept a tight rein on his emotions. “It takes time to arrange things,” he said with a shrug. “You want this done right, I assume, not some crazy grandstand stunt like that army commander tried to pull.”
Ramirez sneered at him. “I think you are afraid of Stark.”
Ryan licked his lips and spent approximately three seconds thinking about how he could kill Ramirez and be miles away from the compound before anybody else knew that the Vulture was dead. It could be done easily . . .
But not yet, he decided. The pay was good, and Ryan had always felt a certain loyalty to his employers, even when they didn’t deserve it. That was just the way he was. Ramirez had better not push him much further, though.
“I’m not afraid of Stark,” he said. “I just want to do things properly, so that you’ll have a suitable vengeance on him. I ask for patience, Don Ernesto.”
Ramirez liked that “Don Ernesto” shit, Ryan knew. It made him sound like a noble, old-fashioned hacendado rather than the sleazy, drug-smuggling criminal that he really was. Somewhat mollified, Ramirez nodded and said, “All right. But I want action soon, Silencio. Understand?”
“As a matter of fact,” Ryan said, “I’m ready to launch the first phase of the new operation right now. Today.”
A wolfish smile tugged at Ramirez’s mouth. “Really? That is good, very good. And will it cause pain for that gringo bastard?”
“Yes,” Ryan said, not having to ask which gringo bastard Ramirez was talking about. “It will cause Stark much pain.”
In the wee hours of the morning following the firefight with the Mexican army, Stark and his friends had gone back out to the river road with some spare tires and replaced the shot-out ones on Hubie’s truck. Then they had towed the pickup back to Hubie’s ranch so the law wouldn’t be able to impound it as evidence. The vehicle was too shot up to ever be repaired, and since Hubie couldn’t very well file an insurance claim on it, it was a total loss.
Like the other ranchers struggling to make ends meet with the current market conditions, Hubie wasn’t exactly rolling in the dough. However, when Stark put out the word that donations were needed, enough money came in from the citizens of Val Verde County so that Hubie’s friends were able to buy him another good, used pickup. Plenty of folks in Del Rio and the surrounding vicinity supported what Stark and the others were doing. They knew that in the long run, this stretch of the border would be safer than it had been before.
On this day, Hubie planned to patrol a section of his ranch, and he had asked Devery, W.R., and Everett to come along, as much to show off his new pickup as anything else. The four of them gathered at Hubie’s ranch house, but before they set out to drive across the rugged landscape along the river, Devery begged off on that part of it.
“My missus has got a doctor’s appointment today,” he explained. “She likes for me to go with her.”
“Nothin’ serious, I hope,” W.R. said.
Devery shook his head. “No, just, you know, female stuff.”
The other three men said, “Oh,” and nodded sagely, even W.R., who wasn’t married. None of them wanted to discuss the subject any further.
“Y’all go on,” Devery continued, “and I’ll see you later, maybe tonight.”
“Sure thing,” Hubie said. “Tell Kate we, uh, hope everything, uh, goes all right.”
“Sure.” Devery nodded, knowing good and well that he wouldn’t even tell her he’d mentioned the doctor’s appointment to the fellas. In Devery’s experience, ladies liked to be discreet about that sort of thing.
He got back in his own pickup and drove off, while behind him Hubie, W.R., and Everett piled into Hubie’s truck.
They headed northwest on a dirt road about a mile from the river. They didn’t expect to encounter any trouble in the middle of the afternoon like this, but that didn’t mean they were being careless. Three rifles hung in the rack behind the seat, and each man was armed with a pistol as well. They were ready to deal with any problems they might run into.
“You boys hear about the visit John Howard got from a government man?” Hubie asked as he drove.
“You mean the fella who came to see him in the hospital?” Everett asked.
Hubie shook his head. “No, this was just yesterday. He told me about it on the phone last night. Seems somebody from the National Security Council came to see him.”
“What’d he want?” W.R. asked.
“He offered John Howard a job in Washington.”
The other two men stared at Hubie. “Lord have mercy!” W.R. exclaimed. “He ain’t gonna take it, is he?”
Hubie snorted and replied, “Hell no. Come to find out, all the fella really wanted to do was to get John Howard to put a stop to our patrols. He wanted John Howard to speak out against what we’ve been doin’. The impression I got is that we’ve been embarrassin’ the government because we’ve done so much more to slow down the drug traffic than they ever did.”
“Bunch o’ pencil-pushin’ pissants,” Everett said. “I hope John Howard told the bastard to go sit on a stump.”
“Pretty much,” Hubie said. “He won’t be goin’ off to take no job in Washington any time soon, let’s put it that way.”
He drove on, and it was only a few minutes later when Everett suddenly said, “Hey, look over yonder on that ridge! Who’s that?”
Hubie and W.R. looked off to the right,
where Everett was pointing, and saw a vehicle driving along the top of a ridge that paralleled the road, about three hundred yards away. Dust boiled up from its tires.
“That’s one o’ them damn Hummers, ain’t it?” W.R. said.
Hubie slowed the pickup to a stop and leaned forward to peer through the windshield. “Looks like it to me,” he agreed. “Son of a bitch! I’ll bet Ramirez is tryin’ to run some drugs across here in broad daylight, thinkin’ that we won’t be keepin’ as close an eye on the place durin’ the day.”
“I’ll bet you’re right, Hubie,” Everett said excitedly. “Are we goin’ after ’em?”
“Damn straight,” Hubie said as he pressed down on the gas and turned the wheel of his new pickup. The vehicle shot off the trail and started across open country toward the ridge. The terrain here was flat and the driving was almost as easy as on the road.
Whoever was driving the Humvee must have seen them coming. The boxy, heavy-duty vehicle swerved and disappeared on the far side of the ridge. “He’s runnin’!” W.R. whooped. “Can you climb that ridge in this truck, Hubie?”
“I know a way through to the other side,” Hubie said. “There’s a gap comin’ up.”
Sure enough, the ridge shelved down into a saddle a short distance farther on. Hubie’s pickup climbed the slope without any trouble and shot through the gap. The Humvee was still ahead of them, barreling along a flat that gradually dropped down while the sides rose to form a shallow canyon.
“Get the rifles down,” Hubie directed W.R. and Everett. “They’re liable to put up a fight.”
“They might outnumber us,” Everett said, “and them Hummers are built like a damn armored car. Maybe we oughtta call for some reinforcements, Hubie.”
“No time for that,” Hubie argued. “The way they’re runnin’, they’ll be long gone before anybody but us could catch up to ’em. We better call and let somebody else know what’s goin’ on, though.”
W.R. nodded in grim agreement with that suggestion and took his cell phone out of his shirt pocket. He opened it, looked at the display, and said, “Damn it, we’re cuttin’ in and out of the service area. I don’t know if I can get through or not.”
“Try Devery and John Howard anyway,” Everett said.
W.R. thumbed in a number. “I’ll try John Howard first. Devery’s got his wife to tend to.” After a moment he said disgustedly, “It ain’t goin’ through. Reckon I’ll see if I can get hold of Devery.”
While W.R. was making the call, Hubie continued following the fleeing Humvee. He knew from the way the other driver had taken off and was still driving recklessly that whoever was in the Hummer was up to no good. Folks just out joyriding wouldn’t act so guilty, he thought, even if they were trespassing to do it.
“Devery!” W.R. said abruptly into the phone. “Devery, can you hear me? Damn it . . . I got a connection, but it’s still cuttin’ in and out . . . Devery, me an’ Hubie an’ Everett are chasin’ some drug runners in a Hummer along . . . where the hell are we, Hubie?”
“The other side of Comanche Ridge!” Hubie said. “We’re goin’ down the valley toward Solomon Wash!”
“Past Comanche Ridge headin’ toward Solomon Wash!” W.R. relayed into the phone. “Damn it, Devery, if you’re talkin’ to me, I can’t hear you. I hope you can hear me. Devery? Devery!” Grimacing in disgust, W.R. looked at the others and said, “He’s gone. The damn thing’s dead as it can be.”
“But he heard you, didn’t he?” Everett said.
“I hope so, but I don’t know. I never heard more than a word or two he said.”
“Well, try again in a minute,” Hubie suggested. “Maybe we’ll come to a spot where the phone works better.”
“Down in this canyon? I don’t think so.”
By now the trail had led them into a canyon about fifty yards wide, with a relatively level sandy floor and red sandstone walls that jutted straight up about twenty feet. The Humvee was still in front of them, only about a hundred yards ahead now. And it couldn’t go anywhere except straight ahead; not even a Hummer could climb those sheer walls on either side.
But of course, neither could the pickup, Hubie suddenly realized.
Alarm bells went off in the back of his head. If the Humvee was trapped down here, so were they. He tapped the brakes, unsure what to do.
“What’s wrong?” W.R. asked.
“I dunno. Boys, I got me a bad feelin’ about this . . .”
Up ahead, the Humvee suddenly whipped into a turn and then came to a stop so that it was sideways in the path of the pursuing pickup. Men carrying automatic weapons leaped out of the vehicle and took cover behind it.
“Oh, shit!” Hubie exclaimed. “It’s a trap!”
And he had waltzed right into it, he thought bitterly, taking the bait and swallowing it without the least hesitation. John Howard never would have allowed himself to get into a fix like this.
There wasn’t time for that, he told himself. They were in for a fight, so they had to concentrate on that.
He hit the brakes and brought the pickup to a skidding, sliding, dust-billowing stop. Even over the sound of the engine, he heard the popping and ripping sounds of gunfire. “Give us some cover while I try to get us out of here!” he said to W.R. and Everett as he spun the wheel and hit the gas again.
He felt the pickup shivering under the onslaught of lead as he tried to turn it around. So far none of the tires had gone, but that might not last. W.R. and Everett fired their rifles out the rear and side windows. When the nose of the pickup was pointed back up the canyon, Hubie stomped on the accelerator again.
They had barely gotten started when he saw the twin pillars of dust coming toward them. At the base of each of those pillars was another Humvee. Hubie felt his heart sinking as he realized they were well and truly trapped.
“Comin’ up in front of us!” he called.
“Shit!” Everett said. “Look up on the sides o’ the canyon! They’re all around us!”
Indeed, two more Humvees had appeared on each wall of the canyon. Men scrambled out of them and began firing down at the bouncing, careening pickup. Just like the Comanches and Apaches who had hunted in this land more than a hundred years earlier, they had their quarry boxed in.
Hubie suddenly braked and spun the wheel again. W.R. and Everett were thrown to the side by the violence of the turn. “What’re you doin’?” W.R. yelled.
“There’s just one Hummer ahead of us the way we were goin’ to start with,” Hubie explained. “He can’t block the whole canyon. If we can get past him and get to Solomon Wash, we got a chance.”
“Give it a try,” Everett said.
Hubie sent the pickup roaring back toward the Humvee they had pursued into the canyon. It was still stopped where it had been. Hubie angled to the right, hoping to get around the vehicle on that side. Even in the bright sunlight, the flickers of gunfire from the muzzles of automatic weapons could be seen around the Humvee. Bullets hammered into the pickup. It kept going, though, its engine straining valiantly.
The left front tire blew as one of the flying slugs finally found it. As the rim dug into the sand and gravel, the steering wheel seemed to come alive and jump out of Hubie’s hands. He yelled as the pickup tipped to the side and started to go over. “Hang on!”
That was all they could do as the pickup rolled twice and finally came to a stop upside down. The cab hadn’t crumpled too much, and although Hubie was shaken and disoriented, he didn’t think he was hurt too bad, if at all. He was lying on the roof of the cab in a tangle with W.R. and Everett.
“Hey!” he said urgently. “Hey, are y’all all right? W.R.! Everett!”
One of the other men groaned. Hubie fumbled for the door handle and after a moment was able to shove the driver’s door open. It swung back with a screech of twisted, tortured hinges. He crawled out.
He saw blood dripping on the ground and realized it was coming from him. He reached up and found a gash on his forehead. No time to worry abo
ut that now. For the moment, the shooting had stopped, but it wouldn’t stay that way once the ambushers realized there were survivors in the wrecked pickup.
Hubie twisted around and peered into the cab. He could see the faces of both of his friends. Everett was conscious, but his features were twisted in pain. W.R. looked to be out cold.
“Everett! Everett, you hear me?”
Everett blinked and focused on Hubie. “Lord, Hubie!” he gasped. “I think my leg’s broke!”
“Can you crawl out of there?”
“I . . . I can try. Gimme a hand.”
Hubie reached in and grasped Everett’s hand. He hauled back on it as Everett crawled toward him. Dragging his injured leg behind him, Everett emerged from the wreck.
“What about W.R.?”
“I don’t know,” Hubie said worriedly. He reached in and searched for a pulse in W.R.’s thick, corded neck.
As if on cue, W.R. regained consciousness with a sputtering curse. “Wha . . . what the hell happened?”
Hubie saw a rifle barrel and reached into the cab to grab it. “Can you move, W.R.? Are you hurt bad?”
“I dunno . . . I think I’m okay . . .”
Hubie pulled out the rifle and reached into the truck for another one he had spotted. “We’ve gotta get under the truck bed. It’s the only cover we got.”
He knew the shooting could start again at any second. He was a little surprised that it hadn’t already. Then the sound of derisive laughter drifted to him through the scorching air, and he knew why the gunners weren’t shooting. They were having too much fun laughing at the gringos they had trapped.
A good shot at one or two of ’em, Hubie thought. Right now, that was all he asked.
W.R. crawled out of the pickup. He was scratched and bleeding like Hubie but seemed to be all right otherwise. He took one of Everett’s arms and Hubie took the other, and they started trying to drag their friend under the protection of the overturned truck bed.
Guns cracked and bullets kicked up dust only a few feet away from them. The firing increased. Hubie cried out as he felt a bullet burn his calf. But he didn’t let go of Everett, and a second later all three of the men were able to roll under the pickup bed. That shielded them from the men on the canyon walls, at least. They lay on their bellies, breathing heavily.
Vengeance Is Mine Page 27