Strong Justice

by Jon Land

  First time I ever been in a gunfight where every man hit ended up dying, three of them taking their sweet time to do it and not in a pretty way. Chicago himself, we found him alive inside the car, squeezed underneath a couple seats. It took both me and Sandman to yank him free amid all the blood and guts spilled in that car.

  “I ain’t gonna kill you,” I says to him, “ ’cause then there’d be no one to take the word back to Chicago that the Texas Rangers are not to be messed with. Any more of you come following, they gonna go back the same way as these. You tell that to Mr. Al Capone and anybody else in The Outfit needs to hear it.”

  Right then I heard a whistle blow.

  “Believe that’s your train, Chicago,” I told him, lighting up my cigar. “Things here are as done as they’re gonna get. I’d get a move on if I was you.”

  He boarded that train in his skivvies, Captain, never looking back at Sandman and me even once, and I don’t expect he’ll be filing any police report or complaint once he gets back home.

  That’s the way it happened, Captain. It wasn’t pretty or fun or anything worth a dime novel someday. And, truth be told, the whole fight was over in not much more than thirty seconds, so if there is a dime novel they might have to make it a penny. I got no more to say on the subject and you can consider this—

  Oh yeah, I need to add one more thing. By the time this reaches you I will have set off on a journey south into Mexico, little town called Majahual inside Costa Maya, to bring Juanita Rojas home. I’m leaving Sweetwater in the able hands of Sandman Sanchez and Constable Hollis Tyree. I’m gonna leave the rest of the paid women here with them that brought them, since it’s easier to control a town full of men when they can have their fun, once the local doc checks the girls out. Better making use of their private parts than taking out their aggressions elsewhere, least ways that’s always been my experience.

  I will report in as soon as I’m back from my journey to resume my post here or any other where you feel I’m needed.

  Until then, I remain

  Earl Strong, Texas Ranger

  Sweetwater, Texas, 1931

  Guillermo Paz studied the signature at the letter’s bottom in the dim light of the damp cab, trying to know the man better from it. He sensed deep down in a place he didn’t quite understand himself that he was getting very close to a terrible truth that would cost Caitlin Strong her life unless he uncovered it in time.

  He checked both the truck’s mirrors, hoping to see the approaching headlights of the Mexicans’ car. Paz would have liked nothing better than to wait here as long as it took for them to find him. The Mexicans needed to pay for killing an innocent woman who’d died because she tried to help him. But not now, not today.

  Tomorrow, when he reached the village of Majahual inside Costa Maya.

  50

  TUNGA COUNTY; THE PRESENT

  “It’s worse than we thought originally,” Hollis Tyree said to Meeks, sounding sad and drained. He held the newspaper open to the article in question for both he and Meeks to see in the office’s light. The article featured a photo of a Texas Ranger conferring with the local sheriff in the aftermath of a hostage situation inside an H.E.B. supermarket. Outside the trailer office the sounds of machinery had dulled, while the smell of lubrication oil and baked earth remained strong even through the air-conditioning. “Texas Ranger saved the day this time.”

  Meeks’s face wrinkled in displeasure.

  Tyree’s brow furrowed at that. “Texas Ranger named Earl Strong saved Sweetwater, Meeks. Take him out of the equation and my grandfather would’ve likely been gunned down and left in the gutter to die.” His gaze drifted, all at once somewhere else entirely. “The Texas Ranger who saved those lives yesterday in Albion was Earl Strong’s granddaughter, if that doesn’t beat all.”

  Meeks’s gaze drifted out the window before he could respond. “You say the Ranger in Albion was a woman?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because I think she’s here.”

  The first sight of the sea of drilling rigs that claimed the landscape and stretched to the horizon had made Caitlin figure for the first time in her life she knew what her grandfather felt when he stepped off that train in Sweetwater. But these fields had been erected over finds of water instead of oil, and the apparatus were high-tech steel instead of wood-frame structures that rocked in the wind.

  The orange Day-Glo rigs were mounted on the rear of massive double-axle trucks. When fully extended, they rose a hundred feet into the air, affixed with black tubing laced to armlike appendages that made it look like Texas was under siege by mechanical monsters from outer space. The rigs stretched as far as Caitlin’s sightline could follow, a long movable line of them thunking deep into the ground in search of the aquifers Hollis Tyree’s geologists had discovered here amid arid desert land.

  Caitlin wondered if her grandfather’s first view of the wooden derricks cluttered through Sweetwater had left him similarly overwhelmed. Unlike Earl Strong, though, she made no effort to disguise her presence and hide her badge and gun as she stepped down from the air-conditioned cool of Captain Tepper’s truck into the sun-baked heat of the desert day.

  The sky held threat of the same storm that had descended upon San Antonio, but so far anyway it was keeping its distance besides a few dark clouds looking like scouts in the sky. Strangely, no one approached her as she walked toward the collection of trailers that must have served as the site’s offices. The trailers had their external engines firing to push cool air through their hotbox interiors. Outside the air was so dry, Caitlin’s skin felt like it was about to crack, giving her fresh respect for the generations before her grandfather whose labor in impossible conditions had built the state of Texas from the ground up.

  She passed a fenced, makeshift depot lot containing an assortment of massive yellow loaders, excavators, and conveyors. There were also other pieces of equipment she didn’t recognize that looked like huge cylindrical vacuum cleaners with steel instead of rubber tubing, powerful enough to suck up the world.

  She continued on to the nearest trailer and was about to climb the steps when the door to the next one down opened and none other than Hollis Tyree III himself emerged, accompanied by a broad-shouldered man who had military written all over him. They both approached Caitlin, the bigger man positioned so he could stay between her and Tyree at all times.

  “Mr. Tyree,” Caitlin said, extending her hand, “I’m—”

  “I know who you are, Ranger Strong,” Tyree said, taking it enthusiastically. “This is the head of my security team, Meeks. Meeks, meet Caitlin Strong, who I understand is becoming quite a legend in her own right. You ever hear of a Mexican drug lord named Emiliato Valdez Garza?”

  “Can’t say that I have, sir,” Meeks told him.

  “And you never will, since word is this Ranger here shot it out with his men down in Mexico and ended up killing Garza herself. She’s a genuine hero. Isn’t that right, Ranger?”

  “Well, sir, what you said about Garza is right enough. The hero stuff I don’t pay much attention to.”

  “It’s a true pleasure to meet you in any event. I noticed you admiring our setup.”

  “I’m not sure if admiring is the right word, but it’s certainly impressive.”

  Tyree cast his gaze out toward the fields where workers continued to align the drill heads of the massive apparatus with the ground in search of the elusive water deep below the surface. “We had the rigs custom manufactured by the Dando Corporation. What you’re looking at is the Watertec 100, capable of drilling nearly a mile below the surface, twice as deep as any previous water drilling rig.”

  “I’m sure that made Dando’s shareholders pretty happy.”

  Tyree grinned at her, the folds of his sun-darkened face crinkling. “That would be primarily me at this point. What you’re looking at is the means to preserve the future of this country as we know it. And believe me when I tell you, I am not exaggerating.”

  “Neither
am I when I tell you your good intentions carry considerable weight, but not enough to balance some concerns I’ve got.”

  “I’m listening, Ranger.”

  Caitlin’s eyes sought out Meeks and held his stare. “Might be best if we spoke in private, Mr. Tyree.”

  “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of Meeks.”

  Caitlin took off her Stetson and flopped it in the air to toss the dry dust that soaked the air from it. “Then I’ll speak as plainly as I can. Rangers have reason to believe three days ago a panel truck dropped off a dozen or so girls here. These girls had been kidnapped in Mexico to be sold into prostitution, which, I suspect, was their intended purpose at this site.”

  Tyree looked honestly horrified, turning his attention to Meeks. “You know anything about that?”

  “Nothing at all, sir,” Meeks replied with his gaze still boring into Caitlin’s. “It’s an outrageous accusation.”

  “What led you to such a conclusion, Ranger?” Tyree asked. “One of the girls managed to get away when the truck pulled over maybe twenty miles from here.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Then I’d assume,” said Tyree, “that you’re checking all possible destinations in the area.”

  “That’s just it, sir,” Caitlin said, fitting her Stetson back on her head. “As far as possible destinations go, this site is about it. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I had a look around.”

  “Actually,” said Meeks, “we would.”

  “He speaking for you, Mr. Tyree?”

  “He is, Ranger,” Tyree said, with no hesitation at all.

  “Do you have a warrant?” Meeks asked her.

  “Guess you’re not from Texas, are you?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “ ’Cause the thing is, Mr. Meeks, only warrant Rangers normally need we carry in our gut. And right now mine’s telling me those girls are here for sure. Underage illegals brought in for the pleasure of your workers can buy you, and your noble intentions, the kind of trouble you don’t need.”

  “Which is why we’d never break the law, Ranger.”

  “That’s a good thing, being that the rest of the girls in the same bunch were targeted for killing down in Nuevo Laredo. I got to them just in time and now I’m here telling you the same thing is likely planned for the girls who came in that panel truck. So if they’re here, my advice would be to fess up now and let me do my job, no other questions asked.”

  Meeks lapsed into silence, Caitlin joining him without ever breaking his stare until Hollis Tyree laughed.

  “Man oh man,” he grinned. “I never got to meet Earl Strong but I feel like I’m looking at him right now. We got family history between us, you know, Ranger.”

  “I do indeed, sir.”

  “My grandfather lent yours his 1930 Plymouth Model U to take a Mexican girl the great Earl Strong had rescued from some Mob-supported pimps back home. Now here you are looking to help out Mexican girls too.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  Tyree’s eyes seemed to catch fire at that, his lips quivering in repressed rage. “Rangers couldn’t help me find my children a couple years ago.”

  “I read about that, Mr. Tyree, and I’m sorry.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be your job too?”

  “Happened in Mexico, as I recall. A bit out of our jurisdiction.”

  “Not your grandfather’s, Ranger. Man like him would’ve done something about it,” Tyree said, his eyes boring into hers now in place of Meeks’s, “no matter where that took him.”

  “That doesn’t give you an excuse to pack Mexican girls even younger than your son and daughter into a panel truck and smuggle them into the country.”

  Tyree’s features flared anew, the look on his face that of a man unused to the simmering rage he could barely contain. “As Mr. Meeks has told you, those girls aren’t here. I’m not questioning the righteousness of your pursuit, Ranger. I just think you need to take it elsewhere.”

  Caitlin sidestepped closer to Tyree, angling herself to leave Meeks no longer between them. “I’ll do that, Mr. Tyree, but truth be told you got other problems here it’s my duty to make you aware of. You’re doing a great thing here drilling for water to keep the Southwest from going thirsty and the whole damn country from going hungry. But there’s something else under this ground that’s bringing some old nightmares back to life. You ever hear how Tunga County got its name?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Has to do with a place called Deadman’s Creek where a bunch of folks got killed a long time ago. My great-grandfather William Ray Strong came upon the bodies when he was riding with Ranger captain George W. Arrington’s company of the Frontier Battalion back in 1881.”

  “A group of pioneers got themselves massacred by Indians on the bank of a creek bed, as I recall the story,” Tyree said.

  “Wasn’t Indians,” Caitlin told him. “Not according to Arrington anyway. And he had a scout with him who couldn’t find any tracks in or out.”

  “Where you going with this, Ranger?”

  “Deadman’s Creek would’ve been located in today’s Tunga County, pretty much smack dab where you’re drilling for water. Way my grandfather told it, the massacre stuck in Indian folklore. As a matter of fact, it’s where this county got its name; Tunga was shortened from Mishotunga, Comanche for evil spirit.”

  “You saying this land’s cursed, Ranger?”

  “No, sir. I’m saying something in the water of Deadman’s Creek made those settlers crazy and they killed each other, the same thing that’s making the people of a town called Albion crazy.”

  “Our tests have confirmed you’re wrong.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I believe it’s your tests that are wrong. So if you want I’ll come back here with a warrant, the EPA, National Guard, and Sam Houston’s army if that’s what it takes to satisfy Mr. Meeks here. Be advisable, then, to stay on my good side by cooperating in every way possible, because if I find you got kidnapped girls serving men on the premises, I’ll shut you down and stop all the good you’re doing here and now.”

  Tyree still hadn’t taken his eyes off her, although the tilt of his gaze made Caitlin wonder exactly what it was he was seeing. “Ever hear how your grandfather put men on the chain?”

  “I have, sir.”

  “You’re just like him, aren’t you?”

  “Well, he taught me how to shoot, ride, and ranger, so I guess you could say yes.”

  “Think you could have found my children?”

  Caitlin shrugged. “I would’ve given it my best, just like my granddad.” She backed up slightly, keeping Meeks in her sights. “Difference, Mr. Tyree, is that the only backup Earl Strong had when he came to Sweetwater was his pearl-handled Colts and Winchester rifle, while I’ve got the whole state of Texas.”

  Tyree tilted his head to the side, half grinning. “Your grandfather only needed the backup he carried on his hip, Ranger. The backup you need doesn’t exist. Not in Texas, not anywhere. You’d be well advised to keep that in mind.”

  A tense silence settled between them, broken by the echoing clatter of gunshots coming from the fields beyond. Caitlin turned that way, catching wisps of gun smoke rising from the barrels of rifles wielded by men who were mere specks from this distance.

  “We got a pest problem here, Ranger, prairie dogs,” Hollis Tyree told her. “That’s how we deal with them.”

  Caitlin held his stare. “Lucky for you they can’t shoot back.”

  Hollis Tyree watched Caitlin Strong’s SUV head back down the road, disappearing into the distance.

  “How you want this handled, Mr. Tyree?” Meeks asked.

  Tyree finally turned away from the road toward him. “Albion’s the key. Button the town up, Meeks, whatever it takes.”

  PART FIVE

  If the Civil War emancipated the slaves, so did Reconstruction emancipate the Texans from dependence on the fe
deral arm, it made them ready at last to protect their own borders. The people, resenting the presence of federal troops and hating the “buffalo soldiers” in the army posts, were ready to call their Rangers and willing to pay them.

  —Walter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense

  51

  MARBLE FALLS, TEXAS; THE PRESENT

  “You stuck it right in Tyree’s face?” Captain D. W. Tepper asked Caitlin from across the table in the Blue Bonnet Café in Marble Falls, near his old farmhouse, where he’d met her the next morning for breakfast.

  “Figured the truth might provoke a rise in him.”

  “Except we don’t know it to be true yet.”

  “I figure we will soon enough. Frank Branca Jr. knows whatever’s under that land besides water, and Cort Wesley Masters intends to find out what we need to know from him.”

  “Why don’t we just deputize the son of a bitch?”

  “I was thinking about asking you to make a call to the Department of Public Safety on his behalf.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Social services is threatening to take away his kids. Papers are halfway drawn up.”

  “What’s public safety supposed to do about that?”

  “I was thinking you might get creative on account of Cort Wesley practically being deputized an’ all.”

  Tepper shook his head, frowning. “Jesus H. Christ, Ranger. What is it with the two of you?”

  “Not what you think.”

  “And what do I think?” Before Caitlin could answer him, Tepper shook his head. “This place has a pie happy hour every afternoon. Best slices you ever ate, priced two for one. Too bad life can’t be that simple.”