The Mexican teen was crying and screaming in outrage, as he clawed at Martillo’s throat.
He had lied to the Parkers when he told them that his parents had been killed while on his father’s fishing boat. His father hadn’t been a fisherman, but a farmer, and when his father refused to grow poppies for the local drug lord, instead of the food the village desperately needed to survive, the man had him and his entire family murdered by men much like the ones who were killing the Parkers.
Only Pablo escaped the slaughter, and seeing it happen again had driven him mad with rage.
A single shot could be heard, partly muffled by a failing sound suppressor, but clearly audible, and Pablo arched his back with a face set in a rictus of pain, before sliding off Martillo to lay in the dirt.
Martillo rose up in a fury and emptied the rest of his weapon into the dying boy, reloaded, and then emptied it again, before kicking what was left of the body.
Martillo turned from Pablo’s mutilated corpse and shouted for his men to set the timer on the bomb, while running a hand over his thick throat, and the bloody gouges left there by Pablo’s hands.
“Vámonos!”
Martillo and his men dragged off their dead and wounded confederates, while leaving behind a nightmare of death, and yet, there was one survivor in the midst of the massacre.
A boy named Cody Parker, mortally wounded, and too weakened by his wounds to move, yet alive, alive.
***
Tanner nearly ran head-on into the departing tractor-trailer, as he made the final turn before reaching the Parker Ranch.
He skidded onto the shoulder, trampled sagebrush with his rear tires, and drove past the bullet-riddled police car with the dead deputy inside. He reached the other end of the driveway just as the bomb exploded and set the home ablaze.
“No!”
After leaving the highway, he had seen the glow of the fire at the McKay Ranch and knew that he had been right, and that Martillo was on the hunt for revenge that night.
Tanner skidded the car to a stop beside the porch, saw the savage flames emerging through the front door, and realized that anyone inside the house was gone.
He then turned and looked out at the yard, where over a thousand shell casings glistened in the firelight like gold, and he knew that Martillo had truly sent an army to the ranch.
That’s when he spotted Cody lying in the dirt.
Tanner moved the car beside him, stepped out of it, and felt as if he were inside a blast furnace, as hot air, smoke, and ash swirled about him.
He almost tripped over Pablo on his way to Cody, and saw what over four dozen rounds could do to a body. Pablo’s head was a bloody pulp with limbs shredded by multiple close-range wounds.
“Cody?”
There was no response and Tanner nearly thought the boy to be dead, but when he rested a hand on his chest, below the vicious wound, he felt movement.
“Hold on, Cody, hold on!”
Tanner lifted Cody and placed him across the rear seat, sighed in despair at the flaming house, and after a second of hesitation, he plucked Cody’s old Remington from the ground and placed it beside him.
He had gone barely fifty feet on his way towards the driveway when the explosion occurred, as the flames found the gas line. The blast caused the rear of the home to collapse, while the burning roof of the front porch tumbled into the yard to land atop the body of Pablo, crushing what was left of it, while acting as his funeral pyre.
The force of the explosion lifted the driver’s side of the car, but when the wheels touched ground again, Tanner raced out the driveway and away.
A mile later, When he spotted a phone in front of a closed gas station, he pulled over and made a call.
“I need to speak to Mr. Mastriani.”
“Who’s calling?” said a gruff voice.
“Tell him it’s Tanner.”
Two minutes later, a smooth male voice came on the line.
“Tanner, how are you, kid?”
“I need help. I have a wounded bird that needs mending.”
“I see, but you do understand that the vet doesn’t come cheaply?”
“I do, and the next time there’s a mess I’ll clean-up for free.”
A pause and then the voice spoke again.
“Two messes, agreed?”
Tanner closed his eyes; the bastard was going to milk him.
“Agreed,”
“And one more thing,”
“Yes?”
“Carlo’s boy, the one who wants to do what you do, do you know the one I mean?”
“I do, but what about him?”
“He tags along on the next clean-up; I believe he’s done that once before, no?”
“Yes, I took him along as a favor to Carlo and I’ll do it again, but this bird is very fragile, so I’ll need the vet right away.”
“He’ll be waiting for you; you know the place, right?”
“I do, and thank you, Mr. Mastriani.”
“My pleasure, Tanner, and good luck with your wounded bird.”
Tanner returned to the car and found that Cody was still breathing and still unconscious. He drove on, headed towards help, and thought about the Parkers, the ones beyond saving.
He pounded the steering wheel in anger.
“I should have been there!”
And he would have died; he knew it. The multitude of shell casings had told the tale of the force arrayed against the home. One more gun would have made little difference.
After glancing into the back seat at the boy he had come to care for, Tanner vowed that he would save him.
***
Cody awoke late the next day.
He was in the basement of a bordello where the San Antonio mob kept an illegal clinic. The space was also used on rare occasions to torture, as the room was soundproof.
Cody was still too weak to even sit up, but the doctor, a thoracic surgeon with an out of control gambling habit, assured him that he would make a full recovery, but that it would take time.
Tanner sat by his bed, as Cody relayed the details of Martillo’s attack, ending with Pablo’s brave attempt to save him.
“He did save you,” Tanner said. “If not for him, you wouldn’t be here.”
Tanner held up a newspaper, whose headline declared that the Parker family had been slain, Cody included.
“They think I’m dead?”
“It’s Pablo. He’s been misidentified as being you. I’m not surprised, between the bullets and the flames, there couldn’t have been much left for an autopsy, and it’s a logical assumption.”
Cody closed his eyes and Tanner thought he had drifted off to sleep, but then the boy spoke.
“If I come forward, they won’t let me live, will they?”
“No, the cartel never forgets and they know that you killed several of their men.”
“What if when I’m better, what if then I kill this guy Martillo?”
“Then, they would want you for that. Cody Parker is on their radar, or he was, but now they think he’s dead.”
“And I have to stay dead?”
“It’s the only way to stay safe.”
“I don’t want to stay safe. I want revenge.”
The heart monitor attached to Cody began to beep loudly, and Tanner laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Just get better, that’s all you have to do.”
“And then what? Contact the cops and enter Witness Protection?”
Tanner shook his head.
“If I thought that was safe, you’d be in a real hospital right now, but with the reach the cartel has, I figured it was a fifty-fifty chance that you’d be hit before you ever saw a Fed. You’re a witness to a massacre, one that already has the country up in arms over illegal immigration and the failure of the drug war. If the cartel didn’t kill you, someone in DC might order it done.”
Cody wiped at tears.
“They’re gone, Tanner. Jill, Jessie, my dad, Claire... and the baby, little James
, they’re all dead... all dead.”
When the boy’s tears dried, Tanner spoke.
“You’re not alone, Cody, you’ve got me. You know, on the day we found out that Pablo had been hiding in the barn, I told your father that he had done a good thing in taking the boy in and feeding him, giving him a job, a chance. Frank said that he prayed that someone would return the favor if one of his children was left all alone. I know I’m not much and I’m hardly a father figure, but I’ll look out for you if you’d let me, I think we both know that I owe you at least that much.”
“You don’t owe me a thing, Tanner. If you had been there, nothing would have changed, there were just too many of them.”
“Still, what do you say to my offer?”
“Yes, but I want to learn to do what you do. I want to become the best there is at killing, and then someday it won’t matter how many they send, because I’ll just kill them all.”
“It’s a tough life, a lonely life.”
Eyes that had been filled with tears turned to stone before Tanner’s gaze, and he realized that the tough boy’s soul had just hardened a little more.
“I’ve got nothing left, and any life I live will be less than the one I lost.”
“True,” Tanner said.
He stayed with Cody until the boy drifted off to sleep, and after leaving him a note, he left to prepare for his trip to Mexico, to kill Martillo.
CHAPTER 37 - It’s good to be home
Tonya gazed down at the grave of Cody Parker.
“So Pablo is in your grave?”
“Yes, and a few weeks later, Tanner and I left the area.”
“And you took his name, and now you do what he did, you guard people?”
Knowing that the truth would only upset Tonya and spawn more questions, so Tanner just nodded his head in answer.
“I see, but why take his name?”
“It’s a tradition, one passed down from mentor to apprentice. He was the sixth Tanner and I’m the seventh.”
“Would the cartel still harm you after all this time?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ve also no reason to step forward.”
“Why did you come back now?”
“Circumstances placed me in the area and curiosity brought me back here. When I learned that there was trouble again, I stayed.”
“You were afraid that history would repeat itself, weren’t you?”
“Yes, and I was going to make certain the Reyes family stayed safe.”
“Which they are thanks to you, does that mean you’ll be leaving soon?”
“I leave tomorrow morning.”
“So soon?”
“I have business in New York City that I need to see to, a certain debt to repay.”
“And will you ever come back?”
Tanner opened his mouth to say no, but equivocated instead.
“Who’s to say?”
***
They left the graveyard, and were walking across a sunlit meadow towards the house, when Tonya stopped and grabbed Tanner by the arm.
“The wound to your chest... can I see it?”
Tanner removed his T-shirt and Tonya studied the scar, then, she noticed the fresh one below his left collarbone.
“This one looks new, was it as bad as the other one?”
“No.”
She moved closer.
“Let me kiss it and make it better.”
Her lips brushed against the scar, then moved up to find his, and within seconds, they were lying atop the grass and kissing passionately.
Tanner slipped a hand beneath the dress and soon Tonya was moaning with pleasure, as her own hands went to work on his jeans.
They made love atop the meadow, upon the land his family once owned, in the place where he was born and where he was believed to have died.
Tonya the woman was fulfilling a fantasy that Tonya the girl could have scarcely imagined, as the boy of her dreams, Cody Parker, made love to her, and she wanted nothing more from him than to have this memory, and to take joy from the fact that he was alive.
“Ooohh, Cody.”
Tonya was straddling him, riding him, and Tanner reached up and caressed her cheek.
“Call me Tanner.”
“Yes,” she whispered, “Our little secret.”
Tanner smiled.
“But not the only one,”
“Trey can have me forever, but right now, I’m all yours.”
“Tonya.”
“Yes?”
Tanner ran his hands over her breasts.
“It’s good to be home.”
Tonya laughed, and it was followed by a whoop of joy, as Tanner flipped her onto her back, and the two of them became reacquainted.
CHAPTER 38 - Lost and found
Romina hugged Tanner so tightly that the ribs he thought were fully healed began to ache again. He reciprocated and embraced her with genuine affection.
They were outside the ranch house with Maria, Javier, and Doc, as Tanner prepared to leave in a rented car.
Romina wiped at tears.
“I’m going to miss you, Tanner.”
“I’ll miss you too, and remember what I said.”
“I will.”
Earlier, Tanner had given Romina a slip of paper with a phone number on it, along with a PO Box number, and told her that she was to call or write if she ever needed to contact him.
“A man named Tim will answer, or else leave a message and Tim will contact me. Now, that number doesn’t have to be used only for emergencies, but I also don’t want to gossip about the latest boy band.”
Romina had looked down at the paper in her hand.
“Who else has this number?”
“Only you,”
That made her grin, and she gave Tanner a peck on the lips.
She kissed him once more now, as tears fell from her eyes, and Tanner felt something for her that he had only felt for his sisters, and thought he would never feel again. It was a familial protectiveness, and despite the strangeness of it after so many years of absence, he liked the feeling.
Maria hugged him as she thanked him, and told him that he would always be welcome in her home.
“That means more than you know, Maria, thank you.”
Javier stepped forward with an offered hand. Tanner shook it while locking eyes with him.
“You don’t have to worry about me, dude, I’ll be cool.”
“Or else,” Tanner said, and Javier swallowed hard, released his hand, and took a step backwards, as Doc moved forward and pointed at the car.
“You’re leaving in better style than when you arrived.”
“You’re also doing better; and you’ve found that place to settle down that you were looking for.”
“That I did, but what about you, are you ever going to find a home?”
Tanner looked at the Reyes’ house, which occupied the very spot of the home he grew up in, and for just a moment, he could see it again, along with the people who had lived within it, including his long-dead mother.
“For now, I’m sustained by memories.”
A minute later and he was driving away with a sense of something lost, as well as a feeling of something gained, perhaps even reclaimed.
CHAPTER 39 - Shades of the future
The Parker Ranch, Stark, Texas, November 1997
On what would have been his seventeenth birthday, Cody Parker was given documents that gave him a new identity, and raised his age to nineteen.
He was now Xavier Zane. It was the first of many false identities he would use over the years, and the one he would be known by as he pursued his apprenticeship with Tanner.
He and Tanner stepped out of the car, the one taken from Jack Sheer, and both of them stood before the rubble that was all that remained of his home.
There were dead flowers everywhere, along with teddy bears left as remembrance for baby James. The community had held a memorial service for the Parkers weeks earlier, but now the wilted petals dri
fted in the breeze like withered memories, and the teddy bears, once bright with color, were faded from exposure to the sun, and streaked with sand and grime.
Cody just stood there in the light of a new day, as he thought about all he had lost. Taking his cue from the boy, Tanner remained silent as well.
After several minutes passed, Cody wiped at his eyes and then turned to Tanner.
“I’m ready to go.”
They picked up their bags and walked past Sheer’s car, abandoning it, as they would be using another vehicle, which was to be delivered to them by a young man.
It was part of the deal Tanner made with Mr. Mastriani, to let someone tag along to see how he worked. And so Tanner temporarily had two apprentices, and as he walked out to the road, he saw that the other one had arrived on time. A good sign,
What was also a good sign was that the kid had moved into the back seat after parking the car, knowing that Tanner would want to take the wheel.
One of Mr. Mastriani’s men in Dallas was skimming off the take and Tanner was going to make sure that it stopped, permanently.
After stowing their bags in the trunk, Tanner introduced the two teens.
“Xavier, say hello to Romeo.”
Cody looked into the back seat and saw a boy who was a little older than he was. He had spiked blond hair, mirrored sunglasses, and several tattoos on each arm.
“Hi, Romeo.”
“Hey dude, I’m glad you’re coming along, because Tanner is boring as shit, but he sure can shoot.”
“That he can,” Cody said, as he climbed into the passenger seat.
As they began the drive, Tanner loaded a CD. The compact disc didn’t hold music, but rather a language course to learn German.
Romeo groaned.
“Oh, not that shit again, hey Xavier, do you believe this dude? And that shit works too, Tanner speaks like three languages or something.”
“Four,” Tanner said. “And it wouldn’t hurt you to learn something.”
“Screw that shit, I got my Walkman and I’m gonna listen to some tunes.”
Cody looked into the back seat and saw Romeo with the headphones on. He was bopping in place to a tune that only he could hear.
The language disc seemed interesting, and Cody turned it up a little.
“Do you really speak four languages?”
The TANNER Series - Books 4-6 (Tanner Box Set Book 2) Page 24