Nothing made any sense.
Clearly defined tread marks in the fine sand near the highway told me someone had recently driven an ATV down the trail. The National Park Service has definite rules against those annoying little machines, so I steered off the highway and followed still another two-lane track that wound into the mountains.
It petered out into a bumpy, barely defined clear space through the scattered brush that was once a ranch road, way back when the settlers did their best to scratch a living from the desert. My sense of urgency increased and I pushed the foot-feed closer to the floorboards. The trailer rattled along behind me. “Sorry Red! Hang on back there.”
The gunfire came again, but I still wasn’t gaining.
It must be a running gun battle.
The phone still said No Service. Five years ago, I would have thrown it out the window in frustration, but I’ve learned to control some of my strongest impulses because my son Jerry has the same failings. I was trying to be a good bad example, but sometimes I’d forget and have to bear Kelly’s wrath.
Instead, I bounced it off the seat so hard it ricocheted off the passenger door and into the floorboard full of dirt, stickers, work papers, and maps. Feeling better now that it was out of reach and not a factor in raising my blood pressure, I checked the radio again. “Ethan!”
Garbled sounds like a space invader gargling razor blades punched through the static only to be replaced by occasional ear-splitting squeals followed by nothing but static.
It seemed like I’d been driving for miles before the trail became too narrow for my dually at the foot of a steep, rocky ridge. I killed the engine and waited for the cloud of dust my tires had raised to blow past while I studied the tracks of at least two ATVs heading east.
Those noisy little machines are going to make the park rangers mad.
A single distant pop made me prick my ears forward just like ol’ Red.
Dammit. I need to get help and come back.
But it’d be too late. Not happy about having to back the trailer into a narrow gap between two large patches of prickly pear, I glanced out the window and saw enough open space to make a circle.
Another shot.
Two more.
Once again, my impulses got the better of me. I killed the engine and backed Red out of the trailer. Thunder rolled across the Chihuahuan Desert as I stuffed my Winchester into the saddle scabbard and swung aboard. I rationalized that at least he would get me across the rough landscape until I could get a peek at what was ahead. It might be something I could handle alone, or at the very least, I might get high enough for that damned cell phone to work.
If somebody got after me, Red was the perfect way to cut through the country and get gone. I pointed his nose toward a 50,000-foot mountain of clouds pulsing with electricity and the resulting fractures of lightning. We took off at a lope as a cool breeze washed over me from the collapsing thunderstorm. Red pricked his ears forward. I let him have his head and we went to see what was going on.
The trail we followed wound through a rocky incline leading toward the top of a mesa overlooking several tiers rising to the craggy horizon and another vein of mountains. Red’s hooves made powdery explosions in the dry terrain. Thinking that the different mesas, arroyos, and cuts in the desert landscape looked like they had been created by a giant hand, I let him pick his own way around the boulders and dozens of prickly, sharp-edged plants that could cut or injure his legs.
It seemed like an hour later before the ATV tracks brought me to the edge of a steep, high-desert canyon. There hadn’t been any gunshots in more than thirty minutes, and I wondered if it was over. Maybe everyone was dead and all I’d have to do was count the bodies.
The air was rich with a blend of damp earth, short-lived desert greenery, piñon, juniper, and sage. Red kept testing the wind with his sensitive nose and blowing with satisfaction. He loved the idea of a coming storm as much as I did, but I hoped it would wait until we identified the issue ahead and got our butts back to the truck.
We rounded a lacy honey mesquite and Red almost stepped on a well-worn, bright orange ball cap surrounded by several dozen gleaming brass hulls scattered around a thick clump of cactus. I reined in and stayed in the saddle, checking the area. Nothing but the cooing of a white-wing dove broke the silence, not even the hint of thunder from the distant storm. I figured no one else was around, so I swung to the ground.
Red sniffed at a clump of bunchgrass, unconcerned. I’d learned long ago to trust the horse’s instincts. His ears told me there was nothing of interest within hearing distance, so I relaxed and scanned the edge of the mesa above. A white-wing dove sailed along the crest and whiffled down to land out of sight on the ground.
Holding the reins in one hand, I studied the empty brass at my feet. There was no blood, but that didn’t mean anything. Footprints in a clear sandy spot pointed toward the edge of the canyon. Stepping close, I peeked over the edge, thinking the cap’s owner might be down there.
I tensed at a sudden movement far below, but relaxed when I saw a whitetail deer working its way along the canyon floor. Being careful not to get too close to the edge because heights make my skin crawl, I carefully placed my boot on a solid rest at the edge of the drop-off and peeked over into the abyss. Dozens of shallow gorges and arroyos splintered from the huge fracture below my feet and spread like lightning bolts indicating random directions from which water flowed into the floodplain.
The light died behind the pulsing thunderstorm and I realized it was later than I thought. It’d be dark soon and I’d likely have to ride back without the aid of the stars or moon.
Uh oh. I’m supposed to be at the house for dinner.
Dang it. Perry Hale and Yolanda were supposed to come over for my favorite meal, homemade spaghetti. I glanced at my watch, torn between what I needed to do about the gunfire and family obligations. Remembering how many people had gone over the edges of canyons just like that one in the Big Bend, I stepped back and took my sunglasses off.
A flicker somewhere on the rocky incline leading up to the mesa caught my eye. That’s how the Old Man taught me to hunt, by being still and looking for any kind of moment that betrayed the game, like the flip of a squirrel’s tail, the flick of a deer’s ear, or the smooth rustle of quail gliding through the underbrush. Even though it figured to be another bird going to roost, I turned and glanced up at the ridgeline above at the exact moment a white-wing dove floating past caught the bullet meant for me.
The bird vaporized in an explosion of feathers about thirty yards from where I stood. The impact with the tiny body diverted the projectile enough that it wasn’t the center shot that would have blown out my chest. It still punched a hole through the big latissimus muscle under my left arm and staggered me backward.
A number of things happened at the same time the rifle’s crack reached my ears. Startled not by the gunshot, but by the unnatural sight of an exploding bird, Red yanked the reins out of my hand. He spun and took off like a striped-ass baboon at the same time my foot came down on nothing but air.
I screamed like a little girl for the first time in my adult life. Anyone would, knowing they were plummeting over the edge of a canyon rim. The breath caught in my chest and I fell back in time past the strata of millions of years. Horizontal, multicolored layers of rocky soil flashed by and a useless burst of information came to me from my geology classes in college that the rock layers are ordered with the oldest layers on the bottom, and the most recent layers on top.
Yeah, that really helped.
Images both blurred then came sharp as a tack as I fell. An upside-down glimpse of the rocky wall became my boots flashing past the heavy clouds off to the southwest. The next time I saw them, they were defined against the blue sky in the opposite direction.
A strobe-like image of the sun peeking between clouds and a sweeping gray curtain of falling rain became rocks and embedded fossils flashing by. A crisp crack inside my skull hurt worse than the bullet
wound when I slammed through a thick bush clinging to the side of a steep slope made up of sand and scree.
My hat cushioned the blow, but vanished as I slammed through another bush, then bounced off the hard surface of the canyon wall’s acute slope. Despite all that, I was lucky it wasn’t as steep as the virtually straight drop of the nearby Santa Elena Canyon.
I cut a flip and my shoulder smashed hard on the rocks, reversing the spin so that my hip took the next hard blow in an explosion of dirt and small rocks. I still had the presence of mind to try and stop my accelerating fall. It was probably a bad idea, but I spread my arms and legs to gain traction on the steep slope. The bottom of the canyon was still a long way down, and I sure didn’t want to roll all the way like a meat cannonball, knocking chunks and pieces of myself off on every rock and boulder all the way to the bottom.
It seemed like a month of Sundays before I managed to grab a tough little bush with one hand and slide to a stop. Rocks jarred loose by my fall continued to rattle within earshot. I waited until everything was quiet before taking a deep breath of relief.
Thank God, I might just make it.
I closed my eyes as if that would help and rotated my numb left shoulder. Gunshot wound. Check, but nothing felt broken. My right hand was busy holding me still, so I wiggled the rest of my fingers and toes to make sure they were still functional and attached. Stuff ached, but all was still good.
One foot felt like it was hanging over a big rock, and I dug my other heel in. Stable for the moment and with a heart pounding like a jackhammer, I turned loose of the bush.
The scree stretching in all directions broke free and I slid again with the terrible realization my foot wasn’t over a rock. It was another drop. I grabbed at the bush again, but missed. The dry ground melted away as the dusty flow took me over the sheer edge like a leaf slipping over a waterfall.
“Well, hell.”
I dropped again. Nothing but luck kept me upright, and I fell feet first.
Kids love the feeling of stepping off a high diving board, but there wasn’t anything fun about looking down past the slope and seeing the long dark shadows stretching across most of the canyonland still far below.
There was enough of an angle that I landed in the soft river of fine dirt and rocks that poured into the tops of my boots. I went down again, this time on my rear, and it was another wild ride through the gathering dusk, hearing the snap of dry branches and hoping that’s really what it was, and not important bones.
There was no control, but I dug my heels into the loose ground, grabbing at everything grabbable. Material tore and my funny bone banged on a boulder. My arm went hot and numb.
I was upside down again before thumping off what felt like a rock big as a hall closet, then it was freefall city. The thought that a storm was coming and it wasn’t the one in the distance was the last thing I remembered.
Chapter 3
Lying prone and almost invisible in his desert camo fatigues and tan shemagh wrapped around his black hair, Syrian-born Mohamed Abdullah lowered the rifle and squinted past the scope at the empty ridge five hundred yards away. Instead of racking the long bolt on his stolen M24 sniper rifle, he clenched his jaw in frustration and waited for his temple to quit pounding.
Beside him two men whose names he didn’t know were jabbering like idiots in their barbaric language that seemed to Abdullah to have way too many words for what they were trying to say. The heavily tattooed members of the Coyotes Rabiosos, a ruthless Mexican gang from the rugged canyon country of Chihuahua, weren’t nearly as well camouflaged. Their dusty jeans and cast-off western shirts stood out in the earth-tone landscape.
Sitting cross-legged behind him, three more similarly dressed and tattooed gangsters were waiting silently to see what was about to happen. They were listening to the conversation between Yooko Ruiz and Javier Martinez, grinning at their sideshow discussion.
The Coyotes Rabiosos were headed by a bloodthirsty man with light skin and red highlights with one name, Chatto. He was rumored to be the direct descendant of Geronimo’s last band of fighters who raided across the border into the U.S. as late as 1924. It was said he was weaned from his mama’s tit on spilled blood. He lived in the Sierra Madre Occidental, a range of mountains far to the west.
Yooko and Javier continued their discussion in Spanish while Abdullah lowered his head as if to pray. A full minute passed, and his anger and frustration increased with every tick of the watch on his wrist. He felt that the only thing holding his skull together was his shemagh, and it would likely go flying at the detonation. Talking in conversational tones, they didn’t bother to lower their stupid voices. Military discipline wasn’t even on those idiots’ minds.
* * *
Beside Abdullah, Yooko Ruiz lowered the borrowed binoculars and spoke in Spanish to his brother in arms, Javier Martinez. “After all that, he shot through a damned bird! I bet the bullet missed the guardabosque. I hate this, this, what do the Americans call them, rag-head? I could have made a better shot than this rag-head.”
Javier snorted and rolled onto his back. His wide round face grimaced when a sharp rock jabbed through his western-cut shirt. “Do you think this idiot hit the Ranger at all?” He glanced along the length of his body and past his booted feet to his compadres waiting in the scant shade of a honey mesquite. All three shook their heads and grinned.
Yooko crossed his ankles as if they were lying on a soft bed, having a casual conversation. His name meant Tiger in Yaqui. His innocent-looking, boyish face belied the man’s ability to kill without remorse. “Probably not. It looked to me like he fell by accident.”
“We wasted all that time and ammunition and he misses.”
“First he says we can kill this guardabosque a week ago when he’s hiking with the others, then he isn’t there. Now we drew him in and this idiota misses.”
“He says the first chance was based on his daughter’s Facebook post, and that the target didn’t come after all.” Javier spoke slowly, as if trying to figure out what a Facebook post was at the same time he related the explanation.
Yooko was also in the dark about that one. “Well, I don’t know what that is, but it’s getting dark and I don’t want to try and find the body down in that damned canyon.”
“We won’t find him at all until in the morning. By then there’ll be a hundred la migra here.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too. I wish we were back in our mountains.”
* * *
Abdullah considered swinging the nasty little Mexican-produced Cobra Short submachine gun and hosing them until the magazine was empty. Unfortunately, all three of the other cold-blooded gangsters squatting behind him would have no trouble tearing him to shreds with the same kinds of weapon he carried.
They carried 9x19 machine pistols illegally purchased from a crooked captain named Perez in the Armería del Ejército Mexicano, Mexican Army armory, in Torreón, the city seat of Coahuila.
Regaining control of his anger, Abdullah finally spoke in English, the common language they used to communicate. “Will you two shut up! Gather your weapons and let’s go find the body. I am to bring his head to Chatto. If we don’t, he’ll drink from your skulls.”
Even though his Spanish was extremely limited, he knew they thought he’d missed the shot, and if the truth be known, he wasn’t sure he hadn’t. It was incredibly bad luck for the bird to fly into the “short-action” cartridge’s trajectory at that exact moment, but the way the Texas Ranger reacted, he was almost positive he’d hit him somewhere. Even if he’d only wounded the man, luck was on his side, because no one could survive a fall off that cliff. They’d been over every inch of it in the last several days, waiting for the opportunity to draw the Ranger in for the kill.
His employer Marc Chavez had been right, and the OCD-driven American terrorist’s research had paid off. Even if their first attempt at murdering the Texas Ranger failed when he didn’t join in the hike Chavez had learned about by monitoring the H
awke family’s social media pages, the madman understood Sonny Hawke’s need to work alone.
The Ranger’s, or guardabosque’s, independence had killed him.
Chapter 4
Two months earlier, Marc Chavez was sitting ramrod stiff in a chair positioned beside the large plate-glass window in his midcentury modern house in the upscale River Oaks section of Houston. “So it was your brother who was killed in Ballard back in November?” He absently sharpened the crease in his slacks with a thumb and forefinger.
Abdullah had only been in the U.S. for a week, after crossing the Rio Grande somewhere between Laredo and Brownsville, though he wasn’t new to Mexico. Before that, and like thousands of others before him, Abdullah paid $4,000 to a coyote with one dead eye to provide passage across the Rio Grande into Texas. The Mexican national came highly recommended from the Syrian’s employers, the Coyotes Rabiosos. The price was at least a thousand dollars more than other human smugglers charged, but Abdullah didn’t care, because it wasn’t his money.
The Islamic terrorist’s face remained stone blank, watching the OCD mastermind worry at the crease of his slacks. “Yes. Under your direction.”
Chavez shrugged. “I gave him the opportunity to rain death and destruction on one little West Texas town, and he failed because of his own greed and arrogance.”
“It doesn’t matter the cause. He was my brother, and I will avenge him by taking the head of the man who killed him. What do you get out of this?”
“It’s a twofold win for me.” Chavez ran his fingers over the crease again, obviously annoyed that the material refused to remain sharp. Chavez’s mental affliction was shifting into overtime in an effort to make them look as fresh as when he put them on that morning. “I get my revenge on the Texas Ranger who destroyed my operation, and his death . . . and dismemberment. . . will again show this country that there is no safe place to live, not safe, not safe. You come highly recommended by your employer, who, by the way, is under my employ. Don’t you love the circular beauty of that?”
Hawke's War Page 3