“Why did you say both?”
“Because he has a house on both sides.”
“Mierda!”
The man’s eyes lost focus.
A highway patrol car skidded around the corner and slid to a stop.
“You got about sixty seconds.” Herman left his shotgun leaning against the wall, turned, and raised both hands. He stepped around the corner of the house. His Ranger badge flashed in the blue and yellow wigwag lights reflecting in the puddles of water standing on the blacktop street. “It’s me, Cloyce! Herman Hawke. Take it easy.”
Cloyce Miller rolled out of the car with a Beretta M-9 in his right hand. An army veteran, he’d known the Hawkes for years. Herman moved to the front steps, taking the officer’s attention from the side porch. He didn’t think Cloyce could see Gabe kneeling beside the wounded gangster.
“I see you, Herman. Keep ’em up and tell me what the hell’s going on around here. Who’s shooting who?”
Herman stayed where he was on the porch. “It was an ambush, Cloyce. Gangsters from across the river. You know this is where Sonny lives. He’s disappeared in the Big Bend and it looks like bad business, but I don’t know what it’s all about. Some men came here after Kelly and the kids, it looks like.”
“Are there any more?”
“Not that I can see.”
“Where’s Kelly and the twins?”
“I can’t tell you that right now, but they’re fine. We’ve got ’em hid.” Herman kept his hands still until Cloyce could gather his thoughts.
Uncertain, the stocky officer stayed where he was beside the car. “Who was shooting?”
“I was, and Gabe Nakai over on the other side here with a wounded prisoner. There’s two more dead ’uns on this side.” He jerked a thumb to his right. “And from what I heard inside, Yolanda Rodriguez got another one or two. I don’t know for sure. If you want to look to your right, you’ll see their car still settin’ there at the corner.”
Keeping his eyes on the house, Cloyce spoke into the microphone on his shoulder. “All right, I want all your people where I can see ’em. No weapons, until I can figure this out.”
“That’ll be fine. I got a shotgun leaning over yonder around the corner, and my pistol’s on my hip here. Gabe! Yolanda. Y’all put your guns down and come on out now. I ’magine they’re both still wearing their sidearms.”
“You were waiting for this?” Cloyce holstered his pistol, but kept his hand on the butt.
“Had a hunch. We didn’t know what we were waiting for. We just needed to be ready.”
The front door opened, and Yolanda stepped outside with both hands in the air. Cloyce’s eyes widened at the attractive woman in jeans and a tactical vest. “Howdy, Cloyce.”
Gabe appeared around the corner at the same time, both hands raised, and bloody. “Right here.”
Herman watched the deputy take in the blood on Gabe’s hands and clothes. He frowned. “You hurt, Gabe?”
“No. It’s not my blood. It belongs to that dead cow’s ass back there.”
Cloyce frowned, and Herman spoke up. “He means horse’s ass.”
“Sí. What he said.”
“Fine.” Cloyce relaxed, but was still on point. More sirens sounded in the distance. “Y’all have a seat there on the step until we get all this sorted out. Is there anyone else alive around here?”
The trio sat on the steps and exchanged raised eyebrows. All three shook their heads. Herman spoke for them. “Looks like that’s a no.”
Gabe chinned toward the sedan at the corner. “I think there may be a dead one in that car. I hit him and he ran back there and got in.”
That announcement wound Cloyce up again and he went back to the radio. Cars arrived only a minute later and boxed in the sedan. Officers emerged, guns drawn. The radio crackled alive with the news that another gangster had bled out in the front seat.
Herman sat in the middle. He spoke to Gabe in a soft voice. He flicked his eyes over their shoulder. “He dead?”
“Sí.”
“You get what you wanted?”
“Sí. We need to call Perry Hale as soon as we can. I have an address in La Carmen that he needs to check out. And there’s very bad news. It was an . . . ambush. They were to kill Sonny, but took him instead.”
“Fine then. And it’s piece of shit.”
“Qué?”
“You said ‘amount of shit’ when you were choking that feller around there. It’s piece of shit. I swanny, you’ll never learn to cuss right.”
Yolanda covered her mouth as she gave a yelp of nervous laughter.
Chapter 50
My mind went to another place as we made our way across the desert, and by the time we came to the base of a butte, I was wrung out. I snapped back to the world when the others stopped. The air was soft and damp, and there was no way to tell what time it was.
Javier pointed at the ground. “Sit.”
“I’ll get muddy.”
His eyes lit for a moment, then hardened. “Sit or fall.”
I sat, but not before seeing a thin ribbon of a two-lane highway in the distance.
They moved a short distance away and Javier dug a phone from his pack. The beefy, old-fashioned style told me it was a satellite phone, and I knew I was right when it connected without a glitch. Most people in the park spend half their time worrying at the reception bars on their iPhones, and waving them around in the air in the hopes of better reception.
This guy simply dialed and started talking, and it gored my ox when it was so easy for a gangster to communicate with his crooked friends and my phone wouldn’t even connect.
His eyes flicked to me several times, and I knew I was the subject of discussion. His voice rose more than once, and he made several points by jabbing one forefinger at the muddy ground. I couldn’t understand more than two or three words of the exchange, and they didn’t help at all.
The other two made suggestions that Javier ignored. When they tired of interrupting him, they settled down to stare at me like I was a monkey in a zoo. I didn’t really like the idea of being their focus, but there was nothing I could do but wait.
When Javier punched the phone and ended the call, I couldn’t help myself.
“Did you order fries for me, too?”
He frowned and stepped closer. I tensed, ready for another attack, but he squatted a couple of feet away. “That was about you.”
“I figured.”
“Abdullah had orders to bring Chatto your head.”
“I don’t believe he’s still in charge anymore, is he? And Chatto is someone I should know?”
“No, amigo. He is someone you don’t want to know. But you won’t be with him for long.”
He paused and the others tensed when a pickup appeared on the highway. It moved as slowly as an ant, but only because of the distance. It didn’t speed up or slow. It might have been a search vehicle, but I allowed it was someone else.
It was the first vehicle to pass and I suspected it was either because we were on one of the less traveled roads, or the weather. With all the rain that had fallen, some areas of the national park would likely be closed due to flash flooding that covered some roads, trails, and facilities. I’d had experiences with rainy weather in the park when the family and I visited in the past. We’d taken one short hike to the scenic drive south of the Mule Ears viewpoint and I recalled thinking that the runoff there after a hard rain would be impressive.
In addition, the wet, muddy conditions on the dirt backroads would give ground searchers fits. All the main park entrances were open for business. The truck proved that. I still didn’t know where I was, but the sight of pavement was encouraging. They watched the truck as if were a snake until it was past.
Only then did Javier continue. “He is angry that you are still alive. He wanted to know why I wasn’t bringing just your head, but I told him you are a fine fighter, and that he should look into your blinking eyes before you die.”
The guy’
s speech patterns reminded me of the Indians I’ve known through the years. They didn’t use the phrase Native Americans. I figured I’d better not bring that up right then.
“Chatto was angry at first when I told him you’d killed three of our brothers. But then I said we’d give you to El Molinillo and he laughed.”
I translated and came up with The Grinder.
“El Molinillo is an expert in . . .” He searched for the word and started again. “We give him the bodies of our enemies and traitors, and he makes them disappear forever. Tomorrow we will give him a living, breathing Texas Ranger, and when he is done, you will be nothing but gone.”
He looked into my eyes, and when I refused to say anything, he nodded
“He works outside in a leather apron some say is made of human skin. You will feel everything El Molinillo does until he tires of toying with you. Then he will take what is left of your body and wire it to iron rods hammered into the desert ground. Your meat will rot and be consumed by aves de carroña. How do you say, oh, buitres, vultures. They will eat what is left and shit it all over the desert.
“Then El Molinillo will put on his leather apron again and bring out his piedras de molar, his grinding stones, and will spend the next several days grinding your bones and teeth into meal that will feed the coyotes that hang around. They will lap you up like wet masa, the dough that is used to make tamales. That is what the remainder looks like when he is finished. You will then be nothing but a memory on the wind.”
I’d heard about that guy, and had seen photos of his work. He was a little, gray-haired peckerhead that looked like somebody’s granddaddy, but everyone south of the border knew his work.
Javier was right. If I got that far, I’d be nothing but molecules in a week.
Not much future for a guy with ambition.
Chapter 51
With their backs to the cold fireplace in the lobby of the art deco 1930s Posada Real Hotel, Herman, Gabe, and Mary listened as Kelly Hawke outlined what she’d do when she got her hands on Jerry for skipping school.
Andy Clark manned his registration counter where he could keep an eye on anyone coming into the historic hotel through the entry hall to his left, the main patio doors directly opposite, or through the lounge.
The odd proprietor with the habit of trailing off at the end of sentences with “. . . and ever’thing” kept one eye on the Hawke family gathered in front of the fireplace. A .45/4.10 caliber Judge handgun rested only a foot away, just in case anyone else tried to harm his friends.
Sitting ramrod straight, fingers laced in her lap, Kelly was in control of her emotions, but barely. “This is the wrong time for him to go string off down to Big Bend. Lordy mercy, as if I don’t have enough to worry about as it is,” she addressed her daughter, who refused to make eye contact, “and you, Sister Sue, are getting all this because he’s not here. You should have told me up front that he cut school.”
Chided, Mary studied the dark screen on her cell phone. “I didn’t want to be the one to rat him out.”
“And look where it got you. I’m going to pull his head off when I get my hands on that boy. He’s going to be the death of me.”
Herman chinned toward Andy Clark behind the registration counter. “Jerry’ll be just fine. And to be on the safe side, I think y’all oughta stay here for a while longer.”
Kelly nodded in agreement. Beside her on the leather couch, Mary woke her phone up and worried at the bright screen, running her fingers across the glass surface. Like so many young people with cell phones, her first response in any situation, benign or not, was to launch into a flurry of social media posts. The sight was so common the high school teacher didn’t notice.
Herman tugged on his ear. “We also have news about Sonny.”
Mary’s fingers stopped at the statement. Both sat straighter as if their posture would help them hear what they wanted.
“One of those guys gave us some information.” Herman didn’t go into details about how they’d gotten the info. “Searchers haven’t found him, but they told us that he’s in the hands of a gang and they’re probably taking him either to La Carmen or Paso La Carmen. He wasn’t for sure which.”
Sonny’s still alive. Kelly Hawke’s blood ran cold with the news that her husband was in the hands of Mexican gangsters. “How long ago was this?”
He glanced at his wristwatch and told her. “Why?”
“Because Perry Hale’s down there.”
“So are half of the police officers in this county.”
“They have to follow protocol and answer to their superiors.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow.
Mary returned to her phone in a flurry of thumb taps. Herman despised cell phones and often voiced his opinion that they were contributing to the coming downfall of society. “Honey, put down that phone until we’re finished here.”
Mary laid the phone in her lap. “I’m finished. Perry Hale knows.”
“How?” Herman frowned.
“I have his number and Yolanda’s. I just sent them a text. She says she’s on the way to meet him.”
“I reckon she was driving and texting.” Mary shrugged. “Y’all should do as you say, and not as you do.”
Kelly raised an eyebrow. “Careful there, Sis.”
“We need to contact Sonny’s commander with this news,” Herman said more to himself than the others, ignoring their near-constant struggle between mother and teenage daughter.
“Can you wait another hour or so?”
Herman tilted his hat back. He squinted at Kelly. “Why?”
“To give Perry Hale a running start, and for Yolanda to get there first.”
Chapter 52
Clouds thickened again two hours after we arrived. A late-model truck hitched to a bumper-pull aluminum camping trailer came into view and we watched him pass. Javier and his buddies kept an eye on the rig until it disappeared from sight. Dead tired and drained by the past several hours, I worried about Kelly and the kids instead of a passing tourist.
Worrying did nothing but increase the acid in my empty stomach, but I couldn’t help myself. Here I was sitting in the desert with three hardcore gangsters, doing nothing but waiting. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The storm was far from over and was causing problems for my little friends, who had a specific destination in mind.
It was coming down in buckets somewhere in the higher elevations. The guy pulling the RV needed to get his butt out of there before the road flooded. I knew from experience that more arroyos than the one we nearly swam across were already impassable, and floodwaters rushing over low-water crossings took people and their vehicles every year.
Squatting behind a creosote bush, Chino fired up a cigarette he selected from a Baggie and wrapped his arms around both knees. Ignoring his blank stare that focused on my face, I adjusted my position and thought about laying down when the gangsters tensed, staring in the direction the truck and trailer had disappeared.
It popped up again over a slight rise. Was a bridge washed out below, or did the guy change his mind and find a place to turn around? Whatever it was, he had their attention.
Are these guys going to stop those folks and take their rig? The murdering bastards are more than capable of that, or worse.
A chill washed down my back when I realized I’d be in the prime seat to watch a possible robbery and murder. It was the perfect way to get out of the park, in the back of just one more camping trailer. No one would stop them, because tourists and campers were as common as the rocky outcroppings all around us.
Javier would probably have to drive if they stole the truck and camper. He had fewer facial tattoos than the others, giving him a chance at driving the rig out of the park. The others wouldn’t be any use if they were stopped. The gang tattoos covering their arms, necks, and portions of their faces were neon signs to park personnel or law enforcement.
Old Javie wasn’t much better, but his tattoos weren’t as extensive. In the back of my mind I hope
d he’d give it a try. Politically correct or not, he didn’t look like the kind of guy who’d be driving a fairly new truck pulling a Jayco camping trailer. He simply didn’t fit the profile, and I hoped the first lawman or park official that passed would act on their instincts and pull us over.
But then again, I didn’t want to think about what the gangsters would do to those in the truck. I couldn’t let that happen, so I struggled to my knees to warn the driver as he steered into a wide pullout not far away. Maybe they had the windows down on that cool day and could hear me shout. At least those folks might get away, even if the Coyotes behind me cut my throat.
Instead of shoving or knocking me back down though, Pepito and Chino used that momentum to grab me under my arms, and as soon as I had my stems under me, we all took off down a thin trail in the direction of the parked rig.
The driver got out and waited, looking up the slope in our direction until he found us. He waved and my heart fell. I was partly right. They were going to use the rig to get out of the park.
At least they aren’t going to kill anyone to get it.
Unless they’d already done that earlier.
The closer we got, the clearer the driver became. My hopes that an officer would profile the driver went away when I got a closer look at him. The older guy had brown hair and was dressed in a nylon fishing shirt, shorts, and hiking boots. He could have blended in with any of the tourists in the park’s visitor center down in Panther Junction.
He waited until we were within fifty yards before he opened the trailer door. Javier got there first and slapped him on the shoulder. They exchanged pleasantries as I was manhandled out of the scrub and onto the highway shoulder.
I got a good look at the light-skinned, blue-eyed Hispanic driver, who fell somewhere in his sixties, before they shoved me up the metal steps and into the interior. My eyes slipped off his thick glasses to a woman of about the same age in the truck’s passenger seat, casually looking at one of the free park maps from the visitor center.
Just before they pushed me inside the trailer, I glanced around. A highway sign was almost hidden behind the trailer, FM 2617. We were out of the park, on the northeast side. It took me a second to figure out which way the truck was pointed.
Hawke's War Page 17