The Last Honorable Man

by Vickie Taylor

  Blood roared in Del’s ears, drowning out everything but the woman’s cries and his pounding heart. He fell to his knees, his legs no longer capable of supporting him. Pure instinct forced him to press two fingers alongside the column of the man’s throat. He tried to recall the prayers he’d learned in childhood, but his brain would only form one word, over and over.

  Please, please, please…

  He held his fingers over the man’s carotid a moment, with the others looking down on him in silence, then shook his head.

  The woman raised her dark chocolate eyes, now glistening, to his, then to each of his companions in turn. To Del’s surprise, they showed no trace of the shock that usually accompanied a person’s first up close exposure to the vulgar reality of violence, but held instead the knowledge of one all too familiar with death. With loss.

  “Federales?” she whispered, her voice thick with tears close to the surface, but not shed.

  “No, ma’am.” Del let his hand fall away from the body she held. He met the woman’s gaze squarely, somehow holding his head high when everything inside him wanted to collapse. “Texas Rangers.”

  They buried Eduardo Garcia in a pleasant enough spot. There weren’t any trees close enough to shade him from the sun in summer, but a flagstone wall screened him from the strip mall next to the cemetery, and it was quiet. At least it was today, with the jets taking off to the south, the opposite direction from the graveyard, out of nearby Dallas/Fort Worth airport. Still, Del couldn’t help but wonder if the man didn’t deserve better.

  The answer came to him harshly. Of course he did; he deserved to still be alive.

  Del dug his fists into eyes gritty from lack of sleep and the dust blowing in from West Texas on an arid wind. His chest ached as if something was missing inside him.

  As if his soul was gone.

  Waiting in the negligible shade of a scrub mesquite on a knoll some hundred yards from the gravesite, he scanned the assemblage of mourners again, still not finding what—who—he was looking for.

  Vultures, mostly, had turned out for the service. Reporters. The investigation into exactly what happened at the warehouse was still ongoing. But no connection between Garcia and the gunmen or the confiscated weapons had been found. Word that an innocent man had been shot by one of the legendary Texas Rangers—especially word that an innocent Hispanic man had been shot by a Caucasian Texas Ranger—had the press on a witch-hunt.

  Unfortunately, Del was the witch.

  They were the reason he watched from up here, instead of bowing his head before the preacher. Lay low, Bull had told him. Let this blow over.

  At the time he’d thought Captain Matheson meant a day or two, until the inspectors from the Department of Public Safety—the state agency that oversaw the Rangers—finished grilling him about the incident and declared Garcia’s death a tragic but unavoidable accident. But five days had passed since the shooting. The medical examiner had released the body after performing a full autopsy, and still the DPS inspectors hadn’t made any ruling. The furor showed no signs of dying down any time soon.

  It didn’t matter. Let the system work its course, he told himself. He could pay his respects to Garcia later, after the press left. It wasn’t as if the man was going anywhere.

  What mattered today was that she wasn’t down there, either. Amazon woman. The lady whose cries echoed in his mind a thousand times a night, robbed him of his sleep. The one he’d come to see.

  There had been no question who had fired the shot that killed Garcia. Del was the only one carrying a shotgun. Within minutes of finding Garcia, Bull had ordered Del away from the crime scene, and rightly so. The death of a civilian—an innocent man—demanded an unbiased investigation. Del hadn’t had the chance to talk to the mystery woman with the dark chocolate eyes. He needed to know more about her. What Garcia had been to her. What Del had taken from her. He needed to know.

  He scanned the crowd huddled around the grave once again, skipping over the media with their tripods and film-at-ten television cameras, looking for her.

  Why hadn’t she come?

  Disappointed, he supposed the reporters had kept her away, too. So far, the press hadn’t caught on to the fact that Garcia had been involved with a woman. Del hoped it stayed that way. She would be going through enough right now without the press hounding her.

  On the plain below, those surrounding the grave, even most of the reporters, lowered their heads in prayer. This far away, Del couldn’t hear the words. He didn’t need to; he knew them all to well.

  Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

  He’d been walking through a valley of his own since the shooting. Five days of reliving the same two-second slice of life over and over.

  He crouches behind the car. Windows break in the warehouse across from him. Hayes is on the move, sprinting across the road. Inside the warehouse he sees the figure of a man through a window. The man raises a rifle, tracking Hayes.

  Del stands. Fires two rounds from the shotgun.

  And then hears the woman’s anguished cry, again and again.

  Del can’t remember ever seeing the hostage. But the windows were dirty. The sun glared off streaked panes then disappeared into the darkness beyond the jagged edges of glass.

  He’d had to fire. Done the only thing he could. If he hadn’t, Hayes would have been killed.

  That didn’t make being responsible for an innocent man’s death any easier to bear.

  Damn it, why hadn’t he seen Garcia?

  That wasn’t the only question that plagued Del. He had others. Like what was Garcia doing there in the first place? Had he been on duty? Who had called in the anonymous tip that had led the rangers to be there at the same time. And who was the woman? Why was she there?

  Del had been kept out of the loop in the investigation. The investigators wouldn’t tell him anything, except that the woman’s story seemed to check out. Elisa Reyes was from a small South American nation called San Ynez. She had only arrived in the U.S. a few hours before the shooting, had gone to Garcia’s apartment and then to his work address when she found he wasn’t home. She’d gotten to the warehouse just in time to see the gun battle. She didn’t seem to know anything about the deal that was supposed to have gone down there.

  Del had tried to get more out of the DPS inspectors, but they’d stonewalled him. Matheson hadn’t been much more forthcoming. Damn it, it had been nearly a week, and they hadn’t cleared him in the shooting yet. The press had declared him a vigilante racist, and no one official was saying anything different.

  He’d like to take those reporters to his farm up near Sherman and introduce them to his abuela, the grandmother who had raised him. She’d have a thing or two to say about Del’s supposed prejudice against Hispanics. Then again, what she would say about it wouldn’t likely be printable.

  He almost smiled, picturing her face in mother-hen mode, protecting her chick. Almost. Because as soon as she chased the reporters away, she’d have a thing or two to say to him.

  “You’re a good boy, Del Cooper, with a good name, an honorable name,” she’d always told him. “You do what’s right, pay your debts and you’ll keep it that way.”

  He’d tried. For the most part he thought he’d succeeded, until five days ago. He’d done the right thing by shooting. He was sure of it. But now he had a responsibility to the woman at the warehouse. A debt he wasn’t sure he could ever pay. He only knew he had to try. He had to pass on his respects for her loss, if nothing else. But first he had to find her.

  Down below, the crowd around the gravesite began to break up. Muttering to himself, Del walked back to his Land Rover. Inside, he shoved the car into gear and drove, his mind still on the woman.

  What would he have said to her if he had found her? I’m sorry I killed…who? An innocent man? Someone you cared about? But I had no choice. It was a righteous shoot. Righteous…

  His throat closing around that final word, Del headed to the b
ack road through the cemetery, winding down a gravel drive to avoid passing the media vultures. This part of the cemetery was older. Century oaks towered over moss-covered headstones and larger monuments. Gnarled branches seemed to shake their fingers at him. The rustle of leaves in the breeze accused him.

  Geez, he was really losing it.

  He pressed down on the accelerator, spotting a rear exit to the cemetery, then stomped even harder on the brake. Beneath an aperture in the canopy of boughs sat a weathered chapel, a flagstone path leading from the road to its entrance, where the half-open door had caught his attention. Shutting off the car’s engine, he craned his head for a closer look.

  Mortar crumbled between the rough-cut stones of the building’s facade. A peeling white steeple scraped against the lower branches of the trees, which shifted in the breeze, their rattle sounding less threatening and more inviting here, mixed with chipper birdsong and the scuttle of a lone squirrel pawing through old pine needles.

  The place reminded him of the little church near his abuela’s farm, only smaller yet. He’d spent many hours there as a child, on his knees at her side, and the sudden longing for that simpler time drew him closer. It wasn’t until he got to the door that he saw the drawstring backpack on the floor—the same olive green backpack the woman had been carrying at the warehouse.

  It appeared he wasn’t the only one drawn by the peacefulness of the place.

  Elisa Reyes fingered her rosary beads, her lips moving in silent prayer, and inhaled the scent of old, polished wood, wet stone and candle wax. A single flame flickered from a votive on the stone wall beside her. The muted light set the stained-glass image of Christ on a the cross above the altar aglow.

  Elisa had come into the chapel seeking a much-needed respite from the heat. Since she had arrived in Texas five days ago, Elisa felt as if she had been consigned to hell. The sun seemed to burn right through her. She was hot. So hot…and dry.

  She paused in her prayers a moment to lick her parched lips. A wave of dizziness shook her, and she had to steady herself with a hand on the back of the pew in front of her until the lightheadedness passed. Grateful for the return of her strength, she took comfort in the silence and reverence of the tiny chapel for another second, then bowed her head again to finish her rosary. This place was the first she had found in this country that reminded her of home.

  The first place she had found peace.

  Until the squeak of hinges announced that she wasn’t alone.

  Ever so slightly she cocked her head and looked over her shoulder. Through the black lace veil that covered her eyes, she saw the silhouette of a man in the doorway. He was large and dark, seemingly made more of shadow than flesh and bone. If it were not for the bright halo of daylight behind him giving shape to his form, she might not have believed there was a man there at all, no substance. Just a trick of the light. Dark energy.

  Then he stepped down the aisle. His boot heels scuffed the worn wood floor. “Ma’am, I’m Del Coo—”

  Elisa’s back stiffened. Suddenly she was not hot, but cold to the marrow. “I know who you are. Have you come here seeking absolution, Ranger Cooper?”

  His throat convulsed. His hands crushed the brim of the Western hat he carried in front of him like a shield. “No, ma’am. I came here seeking you.”

  Quickly she crossed herself and rose without meeting his eyes. Icy rage lent strength to her weakened body. “Then you have wasted your time. I am not your confessor.”

  “I have no intention of burdening you with my sins.”

  She tried to pass him in the aisle, but his muscular mass blocked the narrow passage.

  “You weren’t at the service,” he said. She did not mean to look at him. Had not intended to acknowledge his presence any further. But something in what he said, some pain beneath the words, beneath the throaty baritone voice, called to her, and she looked at him.

  His hair was cropped military short. So short that she could not call it brown or black—just dark. He had a broad forehead, but his brows were not overly heavy, and his strong, square jaw compensated. His nose looked as though it had been broken a time or two, and his gaze was not as cold as one might expect from gray eyes, but instead threw her pale reflection back at her like warm, polished pewter.

  He had a dependable face, she decided. Sturdy. The kind of face people would trust.

  It was too bad she knew it to be a mask. He was no stalwart defender of humanity. He was a cold-blooded killer.

  And yet he had been at Eduardo’s funeral when she had not. She had lacked the courage to face the newsmen, as well as the strength to walk the last half mile.

  The injustice of it enraged her. She raised her chin, digging her nails into her palms to keep her hands from shaking. “I do not have to be at God’s side for Him to hear my words. Nor, thanks to you, do I have to be so near to Eduardo now.”

  The ranger jerked as if he had been slapped. She tried to shoulder past, but he let go of his hat with one hand and captured her arm. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

  The breath whooshed out of her. Up this close, she could see the deep lines of strain that channeled out from the corners of his eyes and mouth. What worries weighed on him? The death of an innocent man? Surely not. He was policía. Heartless.

  So what did he want with her?

  “How do you know about my baby?” she asked.

  “I felt it,” he ground out as if his jaw were frozen. “When we were wrestling at the warehouse.”

  She yanked her arm free of his grip and smoothed her hand over her swelling abdomen. “Yes. I carry Eduardo’s child. So you see with your carelessness you took not one life, but three—the man, the husband and the father.”

  This time the ranger didn’t flinch. He frowned. “Husband? You were married?”

  “We were to be.”

  His shoulders sagged. He blinked slowly. “I’m sorry. If there was anything I could do…”

  She passed by him. This time she would not be stopped. Behind her, he cleared his throat. “I just want you to know you have my sympathy.”

  She turned in the chapel doorway. “Sympathy from the devil is little comfort, Ranger.” Then she stepped over the threshold, into a Texas heat surely hotter than hell.

  Del stood still as marble, a testament to the discipline ingrained in him by four years in the Army Special Forces and fourteen as a cop of one sort or another. It took every bit of will he had, and then some, not to place his fist through the pretty little stained-glass panel beside the door.

  This was why he’d wanted to see her, he realized. So she could lay him open. Maybe in that way he could honor his debt in one bloody stream instead of paying slowly, drop by drop.

  Only, it hadn’t worked. Instead of the anger he’d expected from her, he’d gotten only cold contempt, and instead of making payment, he’d found his debt tripled. She’d said he killed three men, and she’d been right. The sheer magnitude of what one pull of the trigger—his pull of the trigger—had cost her was incomprehensible.

  One thing he did comprehend, though. A debt like that could never be repaid. Never. He closed his eyes. God help him. Maybe he should find a confessional after all.

  He stood there for what seemed like a long time, fighting the invisible steel bands squeezing his chest with each breath he drew. He’d done what he had to do, he told himself. Saved Hayes’s life.

  So why did he feel like he’d committed a mortal sin?

  Feeling much older than his thirty-eight years, he finally sighed and managed to uncrimp his fingers from the ruined brim of his hat. He moved toward the door, but before he’d finished a step, a missile of a sharp-tongued woman crashed into his chest, her chocolate eyes wide with alarm.

  “What?” he asked, setting her back on her feet. Her shoulders jutted through the thin blouse beneath his hands. She felt frail. Broken inside. But her disdain was intact.

  She brushed off his touch as if he was an insect and pushed them both deeper into the s
tone chapel. “Reporters,” she said, checking over her shoulder.

  Del leaned around her, looked out the door and cursed. A van with a KDAL logo cruised down the gravel lane. “Where’s your car?”

  She clutched her pack to her chest. “I don’t have one.”

  Without looking down, he saw in his mind the dust rimming the hem of her black skirt. How far was it from wherever she was staying to the cemetery? The nearest hotel had to be four or five miles. “You walked?”

  She answered by narrowing her eyes, as if pregnant women always walked miles on the highway in 103-degree heat. Saving his disbelief for later, he pulled her back toward the door. “Come on.”

  Her hand was in his just long enough for him to register the clammy feel of her palm. Then she recoiled. He gritted his teeth, motioning for her to go first. “After you.”

  She didn’t budge.

  “That’s my Land Rover out front. We can get away before they make us.”

  “I will go nowhere with you.”

  The rebuke blew away another chunk of what was left of his self-respect. She needed his help, whether she realized it or not. So far, Garcia’s involvement with a woman had been held to speculation. He could only guess she wasn’t interested in publicity, otherwise all four local channels would have plastered the face of the grieving fiancée on the TV news every night this week.

  “Look,” he urged. “The press is still in a feeding frenzy over the shooting. Finding either one of us in here alone would provide a passable story for the bloodsuckers, but finding us here together will make for a regular tabloid extravaganza. Our pictures will be on sale at every grocery store checkout from here to Minnesota. They will hound us—you—night and day. Is that what you want?”

  Her face paled to the same light ivory as her blouse. “No.”

  He resisted the urge to steady her on her feet, doubting she’d appreciate the sentiment. Instead he pulled his own shoulders back, hardened his gaze to match hers. “Then what’s it going to be, lady? Ready to make a deal with the devil?”