Hawke's War

by Reavis Z. Wortham

“It means he’s still inside, or something else. I’m voting for something else. While I was watching all this down below, I checked out the houses and buildings on the poor side of town.”

  She grinned at the reference. One of Perry Hale’s favorite songs was Johnny Rivers’ “Poor Side of Town,” and she immediately knew he meant the hardscrabble cluster of buildings in Mexico that made up the Paso La Carmen ghost town. “That’s politically incorrect, tonto.”

  “You just spoke my middle name, and it ain’t dummy. There’s a locked metal building over there when I first looked at it. Called Camiones Cisternas, River Bend Trucking. An open business in a ghost town. An hour after Sonny shot up all the gangsters on our side of the river, a pickup pulled up and left a few minutes later with a tarped load.”

  A knot formed in her stomach and Yolanda turned so those in the lobby couldn’t see her face. “You’re leading up to something.”

  “Yep, but the truck over there didn’t go far. I figured they’d take off south and we’d never see it again, but I watched it follow a dirt road east along the river and stop at a nasty-looking little bar I can see from here. They pulled Sonny and a woman out of the back and walked them inside. That boy has more lives than Carter has little liver pills. When it gets full dark, I’m going in after him.”

  “The soldiers are still there, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “You need me, then.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Chapter 65

  It was early evening when six men living in the trailer within sight of Gary Collins’ house outside of Ballard received a phone call at the same moment Perry Hale and Yolanda were talking. Three of them were slouched in front of a tube television, watching an snowy, overacted Mexican soap opera with scantily dressed women.

  Two others were asleep in the bedroom, and Tiburón was on lookout. He snatched the phone off the 1960sera coffee table and answered, scratching at the tattoo on his bull neck. “Yes.”

  “Is it all quiet?” The question in Spanish was code for those waiting in the house for the next load of cocaine.

  “Of course it is.” The response allowed both men to relax.

  “Is everyone with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a job. Miguel failed. The Ranger’s family is alive and at the Posada Real Hotel. Chatto wants this finished.”

  “When?”

  “By dawn.”

  “How?”

  “The way we took out the Alejandros.”

  “It will bring every policeman in Texas.”

  It wasn’t an overstatement. They’d killed the Alejandros family by simply walking into the Mexican restaurant in Progreso, just across the Texas border, before it closed one night, and gunning down everyone in the building. In addition to the family that had insulted Chatto by refusing to pay him for protection, they executed the staff, several customers in the family-owned restaurant, and two off-duty Mexican police officers who’d stopped by for a free meal.

  It was the murder of the officers that angered the Mexican officials the most and Chatto paid dearly to calm them down. It cost fifty thousand dollars and the lives of the four shooters to soothe the hurt feelings of the Mexican police. The shooters were given to El Molinillo, the Grinder, in apology for the attack.

  Tiburón peered out the fly-spotted window. It wasn’t raining at the moment, but puddles of water were scattered across the rugged landscape. Clouds almost seemed to rest on the roof of the Collins’ house in the distance. “We will have to leave.”

  “Yes. I chose you because I want people there who know the area. Chatto wanted twenty men, but you and the others can do it.”

  “We are worth more than twenty men.” Tiburón stuck out his chest. His pride had always gotten him into trouble.

  “When you are finished, go to El Paso. We will send fresh brothers to take your place in Ballard.”

  A smile split Tiburón’s face. He was tired of being cooped up a house in the middle of the desert. The only excitement they had was when the sheriff and an old man came to the trailer after their dogs attacked an old woman walking down the road.

  Guns in hand with the safeties off, Tiburón and his men sat motionless in the trailer as the sheriff banged on the door. When he received no response, they watched him and the old man through cracks in the plastic Venetian blinds as they circled the house to check the dog pen. Tiburón expected the sheriff to shoot the guard dogs. He would have, but instead, the old man blocked the hole and left them alone.

  Americans had no guts for doing what was necessary. The cowards hadn’t been back since. He’d hoped to someday kill the sheriff with the thick mustache, who walked around like he owned the country. The old man wouldn’t have been any trouble at all. He felt old men should sit in the shade and talk about life gone past instead of irritating younger people trying to make a living.

  Well, the death of the alguacil would be someone else’s pleasure.

  “We will go there after dark.”

  “Sí.”

  Tiburón punched the receiver icon and ended the call. “Amigos! Levantate! Get up. We are going to kill some traidores! Get your belongings. We aren’t coming back.”

  He pointed at the back door. “Let the dogs out, too. Those lazy perros need some exercise.”

  Maybe they’d finish the old woman off this time.

  * * *

  Just south of the Galleria shopping mall in Houston, a lowered silver Nissan Sentra filled with young career gangbangers from the Barrio Mafia pulled out of the Latino neighborhood. A second car, this one a maroon Nissan Altima, followed closely. Long shadows from blooming crepe myrtles and apartment buildings stretched across the street.

  A light breeze shook blue, white, and red petals on the cars as they cruised down the once-bustling neighborhood with the Latino song “Ginza” filling the air. Thirty years earlier, the suburb was called Swinglesville, an up-and-coming area full of career-oriented Anglos looking to make their mark on the world.

  Now the cars passed decaying apartment complexes with huge banners advertising free move-in specials. Old men sitting in cast-off plastic chairs and drinking beer watched cars go past. As the sun went down, women gathered in the courtyards beside cracked and empty swimming pools, holding babies and chatting in the cooling air.

  The tattooed young men in those same cars were dressed alike in starched pants, either jeans or khakis, T-shirts, bandanas in their pockets, and crosses or rosaries. All wore short, dark hair. None of them expected to reach thirty years of age.

  Angel was driving the lead car. His hand rested across the silver Nissan’s steering wheel, revealing the gang tattoo on his wrist of five small wavy lines. “Where are we going?”

  In the back seat, Margarita, a young Latino girl with big dark eyes, elbowed the men on either side of her. “Maybe to the Galleria? I need to get a new rosary for my mother.”

  They smiled, because Margarita was always talking about her gangster mother who’d been killed in a drive-by when she was only two. It was a joke only she understood.

  Ricardo, the oldest and their leader, watched out the side window, his head bobbing to the loud music they had to almost shout over. “We have a job in River Oaks.”

  Everyone in the car laughed at the thought of the most affluent neighborhood in Houston.

  Angel kept his eyes on a police car that passed going the opposite direction. “It will be the only job we ever have there.”

  Ricardo thought about the machetes, baseball bats, knives, and two semi-automatic handguns in the trunk that had come dearly. “It will be one everybody will remember.” He crossed himself and touched the gold cross hanging around his neck.

  * * *

  Marc Chavez waited impatiently in his sprawling River Oaks home for the escort service’s representative to arrive. He’d learned his lesson months earlier when his much older live-in companion left after taking more than a quarter of his money with
her. Now he paid for companionship provided by high-end escort services who never advertised, but came highly recommended by satisfied clients.

  Chavez never knew who would arrive at his door after he called. The young women varied in size, appearance, and hair color. Sometimes they looked like housewives, one time a rodeo girl, and once an innocent-looking black woman whose specialty was role playing. They stayed all night, leaving the next morning with a thick envelope full of cash.

  He paced the house as he waited, worrying over the progress of Chatto’s assignment. Frustrated that his hopes had been pinned on Abdullah, who was now feeding the carnivorous wildlife in Big Bend National Park, he couldn’t stand the wait for word of the Ranger’s death.

  He smoothed his perfectly combed black hair and talked to himself. “This is too much, too much, too much. I should have waited until Chatto contacted me that the deed was done. Maybe if I’d told her to arrive at nine tonight it would have been better, much better, better.”

  He toured his house, adjusting a perfectly straight photo on the wall, mumbling in frustration that the carpet in the bedroom revealed his footsteps from an hour earlier, and debating on whether or not to get out the vacuum. Waiting for the doorbell to ring, he moved a book to just the right position on the shelf beside the fireplace. “Maybe it’ll be another Latino.” His breath caught at the memory of the last time. “Yes. A slender Latino girl with big dark eyes.”

  * * *

  Dusk arrived in La Carmen and so did Yolanda Rodriguez. She met Perry Hale at his room high above the Rio Grande and dropped her backpack on the bed. “This place looks closed.”

  “It is.”

  “How’d you get in?”

  “Experience. Remember, I grew up in South Oak Cliff.”

  She grinned at the reference to a rough, primarily African-American, Dallas suburb.

  Perry Hale wrapped his arms around her. “You don’t have to come with me.”

  She smiled with her eyes, and his stomach clenched as it always did. “You need me.”

  “More than you know.”

  “How are we doing this?” She gave him a squeeze and stepped back.

  He pointed at the river and the crumbling bridge she couldn’t see. “They’ve blocked the bridge with Jersey barriers. Those are the easy part. Then comes a nine-foot-tall steel wall topped by another six feet of bars that look like what you’d find in a jail cell. But above that is how we get in. There’s another barrier angling toward the Mexican side made of chain link. We cut through that and we’re in.”

  “We could get caught.” Her words were a warning but the twinkle in her eyes told him she was looking forward to getting across and finding Sonny.

  “We won’t.”

  “Why?”

  He cut his eyes toward the bed covered with his equipment and weapons. “Because I won’t let that happen.”

  Chapter 66

  The truck stopped suddenly and rocked on its springs. We hadn’t gone more than half a mile from the metal building, maybe less. Phoebe and I lay face-to-face in the truck bed under a tarp that smelled like carrion, our hands duct taped behind us. I had a good idea what was going on.

  The gunfight at the house across the river had attracted attention from both sides. Anyone who heard the gunshots would have drifted down to watch the action and see if it had any chance of spilling across the river.

  Folks all over the world are drawn to accidents and violence and gawk at the slightest incident. I was always one of those highway patrol officers who went nuts when onlookers created traffic jams to eye car wrecks, large or small, looking for bodies under sheets. I’d written more than one ticket for impeding traffic, interfering in an investigation, and generally being a dumbass. Well, that last one wasn’t real, but I always wanted to write it.

  Heightened awareness by the local law increased the danger of transporting kidnap victims in the open, unless the law was paid off, so moving us to an alternate location until things settled down only made sense.

  There was a lot of conversation beside the tailgate after we stopped. My limited Spanish was useless because they were talking so fast. Lucky for me, I was lying on my right side or I don’t think I could have taken it. Someone finally yanked on the handle and let the tailgate down. Hands grabbed our feet, and they drug us out like deer carcasses. I couldn’t help but groan, and Phoebe gasped at the rough handling. Two mean-looking characters used our shirts to pull us upright.

  “Levantate.”

  We wriggled around to get our legs over the tailgate and stood up like the thick guy with a shaved head told us. From what I could tell, we were on a dirt road in front of the Americana Bar de Vista, halfway up a ridge overlooking the Rio Grande. Any other time I would have snorted at the name. Some American vista, just that house I’d been in and another on the ridge above, but hell, what’s in a name?

  Bars in rural Mexico were far from fancy, but in a ghost town, this one was downright creepy. It was a mix of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and that Quentin Tarantino vampire movie From Dusk Till Dawn, only much, much worse.

  Not even a neon sign glowed in the gathering dusk, just a faded, painted plank with the bar’s name. A bare bulb on a single wire dangled over the sign, the only illumination.

  I’d been in some rough places in my life, including honky-tonks with sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood, but the American Vista Bar was downright nasty looking, and that was from its good side, the exterior.

  “Caminen.” The thick guy shoved us toward the door.

  The neon lights were inside, and I wondered if it was to avoid gaining attention from our side of the Rio. The multicolored lights, some in Spanish, advertised Corona, Modelo, and Sol mostly, with a few for Patrón and Jose Cuervo tequilas.

  Above, a pressed-tin ceiling looked original, telling me the joint had been there a long, long time. The sagging pine floor was dark with filth, grease, spilled drinks, and what I suspected to be blood. There was something missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  Old Blackjack Pershing might have had a drink there way back when he crossed over to chase Pancho Villa, but the guy that met us sure wasn’t either of them. “Well, amigo. I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

  A shape sitting in the dark corner farthest from the door was all I could see. Waiting for my eyes to adjust, I moved around to relieve the stress on my side. Phoebe shifted closer and I felt her tremble. She was as terrified as me. But I wasn’t going to show it.

  The infection rose up hot and wet again, making my head reel. I broke out into another cold sweat, and it pissed me off because they’d think I was scared. My knees were weak all right, but not from fear. I’d ’bout reached the end of my rope, and I wanted nothing more than to sit down, or better yet, lay down and sleep for a week.

  The last time I was that bad off, I told Kelly I wanted to close my eyes and die, but that comment hit a little too close to home right then. I was fed up with being pushed around. “You Chatto?”

  “Sí.”

  “Like I told ol’ Javier back in the States, you’re under arrest. He still is, too, when I find his ass.”

  “I don’t find you amusing, Ranger, and to me, Javier is no longer a man. He is a ghost walking on this earth.”

  The voice made me shiver and I was glad I wasn’t in ol’ Javier’s shoes, but then again, the boots on my feet weren’t exactly in a convent and my future looked pretty bleak. “I can’t find you at all, hiding there in the shadows. Can someone turn on another beer sign or something?”

  “Release them.”

  A man with bad teeth in a pressed western shirt yanked us around and set us free. He grabbed Phoebe’s arm and shoved her toward the bar occupied by several others wearing Taco Hats who watched with blank faces. They were Mexican cowboys for the most part, locals who came in to spend their hard-earned pesos drinking skunky beer and listening to music. I didn’t think they were part of Chatto’s gang.

  The guys surrounding the cartel’s enforce
r were a different breed, shaved, tattooed, and looking mean as hungry rattlesnakes. None of them wore hats. There was a flat-brimmed cap or two, but the rest were uncovered. I couldn’t tell much about their clothes in the dim light, but that wasn’t important. We weren’t there for a fashion show.

  My eyes were becoming accustomed to the light and it was easier to make out Chatto’s features. The man had spent a lot in ink. His face and bald head were tatted in a confusion of words, symbols, swirls, and patterns.

  The words Coyotes Rabiosos started under his right ear, followed his jawline, and ended under the left. His hooded eyes were dead. There was nothing in there at all. Once you saw that guy, you’d remember him until the day you died, and I wasn’t sure how long that’d be for me.

  Chatto was one of those people who looked at you down his nose, like a man peering through the bottoms of bifocals. “I’m looking at more of you than I contracted for.”

  “Yeah, well, good men are hard to find.”

  He traded looks with a guy sitting beside him, and my eyes adjusted to the dimness to realize he was dressed in a Mexican soldier’s camo fatigues. Another soldier sat beside him, but he didn’t look as confident. I figured the first guy as a crooked officer, one of the many people in the Mexican military that Chatto had bought off.

  “Those Indios didn’t do their job. They are only, what do you call la leyenda in his country?”

  The general or whatever he was spoke so softly I could barely hear him. “Legend.”

  “Ah, sí, legend, with no true basis. The descendents of Geronimo are nothing more than weak kittens who couldn’t do their job, and now I have to do it for them.”

  Chatto inclined his head and Thick Guy punched me in the left kidney. The next second I was on my knees, gasping in pain. I’ve hurt before, but never from anything like that. I heard Phoebe yelp, but there was no strength in my legs to push upright. Blood roared in my ears and I couldn’t do anything but suck air.

  Beyond that, there was no other sound. That’s what was missing. I was in a bar with no band or jukebox. On one hand, it was positive because I hated their music, but it was eerie. Silent bars are not normal.