He stopped for a moment and looked back at the hilltop compound. Flames and smoke climbed high into the sky above it. “Well, you raised hell, Stark,” he said. “Hope you got what you wanted out of it. And I hope that one of these days, you and I cross paths again.”
That thought brought a smile of anticipation to Ryan’s hawklike face. He might have been able to kill Stark tonight, but both of them were wounded and it just hadn’t felt right. Ryan had always followed his instincts, and tonight they had told him to walk away.
But one of these days . . . yes, one of these days . . .
Silencio Ryan moved on, and soon was swallowed up by the night.
Epilogue
Stark had spent more time in hospitals lately than he ever had in his life, and he didn’t much like it. The only good thing was that he had friends here, too, and since he was ambulatory, he’d been able to walk down the hall and see Devery Small and Nat Van Linh. Devery was out of intensive care, but he’d be laid up for a long time. Nat, who had been found unconscious under the body of one of the guards at Ramirez’s compound, would need even longer to recuperate, not to mention several surgeries to implant steel rods in his leg to replace the bullet-shattered bones. But the doctors thought there was a good chance he would walk fairly normally again, eventually.
There would certainly be enough money to pay for the best doctors in the world. The trust fund that Jack Finnegan had left to Stark would take care of that. Finnegan’s lawyer had shown up the next morning after the battle at the Vulture’s nest and gone right to work browbeating all the local authorities.
He hadn’t been able to do anything about the feds, though. There were heavily armed guards within ten feet of Stark at all times, even when he was taking a leak. Federal marshals had taken charge of him when the Mexican police turned him over at the International Bridge, and he was still officially in their custody even though he’d been held in the hospital a couple of nights for observation.
The bandage around his neck was uncomfortable, but Doug Huddleston had warned him to leave it alone. “That’s a pretty nasty scratch you’ve got there, John Howard. You don’t want to get it infected.”
After all he’d been through, Stark wasn’t too worried about such things, but Doug was a friend, so he humored him.
Most of the past forty-eight hours had been spent talking to various law enforcement agents. Stark didn’t think he had slept much in that time. Whenever he asked what was going to happen, the feds just shook their heads solemnly.
He was going to spend the rest of his life in prison, Stark thought. Well, so be it. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. It was an old, corny line, but there was a lot of truth in it, by God.
When he was alone for too long, he was haunted by thoughts of everything he had lost. Elaine, of course . . . that was the worst. But he couldn’t escape the grief he felt over Jack Finnegan and Henry Macon, either. Macon had never made it out of that generator room. The Mexican authorities had let the U.S. agents examine the scene, and as best they could piece it together, the bomb Macon had been carrying had gone off while he was still in the room. Probably an accident. . .
Or not, Stark thought.
He was sitting on the hospital bed, with the TV on even though he wasn’t seeing or hearing what was on it, when a man he had never seen before walked into the room. The guards outside had allowed him in, so he had to be a fed of some sort. He was about sixty, with graying dark hair and deep-set blue eyes. When he said, “Mr. Stark?” his voice had a Texas twang to it, although it was faint enough so that most people who didn’t live down here wouldn’t have heard it.
“Who else would be in here?” Stark asked.
The stranger pursed his lips. “Don’t get all uppity with me, son,” he said, sounding more Texas than ever. “You don’t know it yet, but I’m here to give you a hand.”
“You’re from the government, and you’re here to help? I’ve heard that song and dance before.”
The man shook his head. “No song and dance this time, just some plain ol’ truths. You have given Uncle Sam one helluva black eye.”
Stark looked away, not wanting to have this argument again.
“You don’t care about that, do you?” the stranger went on. “Somebody killed your friend, and you had to do something about it. Then it just grew from there until you had a damn war on your hands, you and your buddies. Oh, we know about the other two, don’t think we don’t.”
Stark felt a pang of alarm and sat up straighter in the bed.
“Don’t worry, we’re not interested in goin’ after them. They’ve gone back to their lives. Threadgill’s stayin’ with Sheffield in Tennessee. We got no real reason to bother ’em.”
“Or Nat Van Linh, either,” Stark said.
The man nodded. “As soon as Mr. Van Linh is able to travel, he can go back to Rockport. His part in this is over.” The stranger looked squarely at Stark. “So is yours.”
Stark grunted. “Other than the hundred and fifty years or so that I’ll have to serve in a federal penitentiary.”
“Nope,” the man said with a shake of his head. “There are no charges against you, Stark, local, state, or federal. All the cases have been dropped.”
Stark stared at him in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You ever hear of cuttin’ your losses, Stark? You’re a hero, son. You’re Davy Crockett and James Bond and Spider-Man all rolled up into one. Oh, hell, the press and the liberal fringe in Washington may call you a crazed vigilante, but even they know better. They’re just puttin’ on a show because it’s expected of ’em. They know that to most of the folks in this country, you’re the man who went up against the drug lords and won. That’s what really matters, that somebody did the right thing for once.”
“Won,” Stark repeated hollowly. “I don’t feel much like a winner right now.”
The stranger shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’re bigger than life. What you feel or don’t feel doesn’t matter a hoot in hell anymore.”
Stark frowned narrow-eyed at the man. “What about that fella Kelso from the DEA?”
“Reassigned.”
“Calhoun?”
“Retired from the National Security Council. He’s going back to teaching political science at Georgetown . . . God help those poor kids who wind up in his class.”
“The IRS seized my ranch,” Stark said.
The stranger chuckled. “Now, here’s how you can tell that you really got friends in high places, son, or at least people who want you to go away and be quiet: the Internal Revenue Service has admitted that it made a mistake. You never owed those back taxes. The Diamond S is yours again, free and clear.”
Stark rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hands. He looked up and said, “So you’re saying it’s all over, like none of it ever happened?”
The stranger nodded gravely. “Like none of it ever happened. Except, of course, for the tragic losses of your wife, your uncle, and your friends. And for those you have the government’s deepest sympathy.”
Stark took a deep breath. “I don’t know whether to believe you or not. I don’t even know who you are.”
The stranger smiled. “I’m the fella who cleans up the messes that other folks should’ve had more sense than to make. I reckon that’s all you need to know.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“One more thing. You got some visitors waitin’ outside. Actually, they’ve come to take you home. The doctors say they don’t need to keep you here anymore.”
The man went to the door and opened it, and Stark saw his sons standing there, tall and proud in their uniforms, and as they came in he felt the tears springing to life in his eyes. As they rushed in and hugged him and the back-slapping and carrying-on started, the stranger paused at the door and added one more thing before he slipped out of the room.
“Go home and live your life, John Howard Stark. No need to look back.”
At sunset, he stood a
lone beside the grave on the hillside, hands in the hip pockets of his jeans, Stetson cocked back on his head. David and Pete had come up here with him earlier, and they had cried and prayed, prayed and cried, together. Now the boys were back down at the mobile home that had been moved onto the property until the ranch house could be rebuilt, along with everything else that was needed to make the Diamond S a working ranch again.
Everything but Elaine.
He took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry. I got you and Newt and all the others into this, and you died because of it. I never meant for it to happen, but it did and I can’t change it. I’ve . . . felt you with me since then. I know you’re not mad at me. But I have to ask myself . . . was the price too high? Did it cost too much to do the right thing?”
Stark took off his hat. He told himself that he wasn’t hoping for an answer, a sign of some kind to tell him that everything was all right, but he knew deep down that was exactly what he was waiting for.
Only it didn’t come. The hot breeze blew and the sun began to sink behind the mountains across the river and a mockingbird sang somewhere in the cottonwoods, but none of those things was a sign. They were just . . . life going on.
Maybe that was the closest thing to it he was going to get, Stark thought.
“I tell you one thing,” he said. “I’m the same man I’ve always been, but I’m changed, too. I followed along right behind death for too long. I risked everything, and I lost most of it. But I learned, too, and now I know that the world’s a dangerous place. I think I’d forgotten that. I know it’s got a lot of evil in it, and somebody has to stand up to it, stand up for what’s right. I can do that. I can fight the battles that most folks can’t. In the end, though, I’ll really just be fighting for one thing, and I don’t think I’ll ever get it back.”
He didn’t have to say it. She would know. His real battle now was for one thing, one small and lonely thing . . .
His own soul.
John Howard Stark put on his hat and went down the hill toward home, and behind him the leaves of the cottonwoods stirred in the breeze and a voice seemed to whisper, Oh, John Howard, you never really lost it. It’s still there inside you. You just don’t know it yet.
But Stark didn’t hear . . .
This time.
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Vengeance Is Mine Page 41