Strong Justice

by Jon Land

  “No?”

  “This whole thing’s falling apart faster than a house in a tornado. You gotta help Caitlin Strong finish it.”

  “Precisely my intention, Captain.”

  “Then, pardon my French, but what the fuck you doing here?”

  “Helping Caitlin Strong.”

  “Come again?”

  “There’s one more piece of her story I’m missing. I thought I had it all when I found out her real grandmother was Mexican. But when I saw her in the church I realized I didn’t, that there was something else.” Paz walked around to the side of the bed. “Am I right or wrong, Captain?”

  “This is a place you don’t want to go, Colonel.”

  “I’m almost there already.”

  Tepper worked the bed controls to raise himself to a sitting position. “You need to trust me on this one. It’s for the girl’s own good.”

  “That’s for her to decide.”

  “It was already decided for her. By her dad and granddad.”

  Paz took a deep breath and let it out slowly, seeming to relent until his piercing gaze met Tepper’s. “This has something to do with Mexico, doesn’t it?”

  Tepper thought about going for the gun again, but when he glanced down the bed, it was gone with him having no memory of Paz having taken it back. “I told you to leave it alone, Colonel.”

  “After Earl Strong came back to raise his family,” Paz said, picking up his thought in midstream. “After Caitlin was already born . . .”

  “I’m getting the nurse,” Tepper said, feeling for the call button.

  Paz didn’t move. “She needs to know.”

  “No, sir, she doesn’t. I gave my word. I promised both Jim and Earl she’d never hear it from me.”

  Paz leaned over the bed, his huge eyes boring down on Tepper like twin tar pits. “And she won’t, Captain.”

  100

  SAN ANTONIO; THE PRESENT

  Cort Wesley was waiting when Caitlin emerged from Southwest General Hospital where Captain D. W. Tepper had been taken after the ambush. The day was hot and bright, a welcome change from the overly cooled dim air of the lobby where she’d spent most of the past ninety minutes.

  “How is he?” Cort Wesley asked.

  “They were changing his catheter and cleaning him up when I got here. Took nearly an hour. How can something like that take an hour?”

  “I never understood hospitals much. Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  Caitlin gazed over his shoulder at the illegally parked truck with Dylan, Luke, and Maria inside.

  “This is where they brought your husband too,” Cort Wesley continued.

  “Seems like a lifetime ago now.”

  “Is that why you didn’t bother calling me back, Ranger?”

  Caitlin glanced at his truck again. “Nope, that was something else.”

  Cort Wesley followed her gaze, nodding. “Fixing to finish this ride on your own?”

  “The thought did cross my mind.”

  Cort Wesley caught the meaning in Caitlin’s tone, as much as her words. “So, what, you figure I was just gonna sit the rest of it out?”

  “I figured I’d take the choice out of your hands.”

  “What makes you think you got the right?”

  “The two boys in that truck. Last time I checked you wanted to keep them.”

  Cort Wesley felt the sweat dripping into his eyes and sidestepped into the shade while Caitlin remained in the sun. “You wanna hear the funniest thing?”

  “I could use a laugh.”

  “All the way driving here, I’m thinking of ways to tell you I can’t push this any farther. That wondering if my kids were alive or dead was the worst hour of my life. Ended up pulling my truck over and puking my guts out ’til I reached Pearsall where those Rangers laid their lives on the line for no more than strangers.”

  “Not strangers to me and D. W., Cort Wesley, and that means not strangers to your boys either.”

  “Point being I was gonna tell you I was pulling out of this until I saw you walk out that revolving door. Look on your face told me I was a fool for even considering the possibility.”

  “What look is that?”

  “You being glad to see me, even gladder to see my sons. That’s worth more than I can say, too much to even think about letting you go the rest of this alone. I just can’t do that, Ranger, sons or no sons.”

  “How much of that is ’cause of last night?”

  “Tell you the truth, it’s tonight I’m thinking about now. Tomorrow too, and the day after.”

  Caitlin held Cort Wesley’s gaze, trying to look more confident than she actually felt. “You got social services to worry about, and I won’t be alone anyway. Jones, or whatever his name is, is scrambling an army to finish things in Juárez.”

  Cort Wesley wiped his brow with his sleeve. His face and arms were sun dried and darkened, which made Caitlin think of the colorless, ghostlike features that had plagued him for months after getting out of prison. It was as if his skin had forgotten how to accept the sun. Or maybe the sun had wanted no part of him. But something had changed.

  “Depend on others and they’ll always disappoint you.”

  “You just make that up, Cort Wesley?”

  “Comes from experience, Ranger. You go down there and don’t come back, nothing else I ever do in my life will mean a thing.”

  “Does that include living to raise your boys?”

  “If Marianna Silvaro stays true to her word, social services’ll be picking them up tomorrow. ’Less I shoot the bastards, of course. And right now there’s others I’d rather be shooting.”

  Caitlin shook her head. “This goes that way, they’ll be somebody else doing the shooting.”

  “Since when?” Cort Wesley asked her.

  PART TEN

  If all the books written about the Rangers were put on top of the other, the resulting pile would be almost as tall as some of the tales that they contain. The Rangers have been pictured as a fearless, almost superhuman breed of men, capable of incredible feats. It may take a company of militia to quell a riot, but one Ranger was said to be enough for one mob. Evildoers, especially Mexican ones, were said to quail at the mere mention of the name.

  —Américo Paredes, With His Pistol in His Hand

  101

  JUÁREZ; THE PRESENT

  Guillermo Paz heard the door to the other side of the confessional in Mission de Guadalupe slide open and found himself staring at an older priest with jet black hair showing its true gray color at the roots.

  “You’re on the wrong side of the box today, Padre,” Paz told him. “Because I’ve come to hear your confession.”

  “Do you know where you are?” the priest challenged obstinately.

  “I was going to ask you the same question after you switch places with me.”

  “What? I’ll do no such thing.”

  “Yes, you will,” Paz continued, sliding out of the confessional. “One way or another.”

  “I don’t think you know who I am.”

  “Yes, Padre, I do. You’re name is Pena and you’re a disgrace.”

  “Watch your tongue!”

  “I don’t think you know who I am.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “Around here, they call me Ángel de la Guarda.”

  Paz could see the priest’s eyes widen, the man weighing his options, soon to realize he had only one.

  “Let’s go, Padre. Switch places.”

  Stiffly, the priest emerged from the other side of the confessional.

  He slid around the door to the adjoining cubicle, entered, and closed it behind him. He felt the heat the big man had left behind as his huge figure settled into the priest’s side of the box.

  “Why are you doing this, my son?”

  “I’m not your son, Padre. We’re not related at all, because you’re a traitor to the people you’re supposed to be tending. No amount of Hail Marys can get you out of the mess you’re in.�
�

  “Perhaps you have the wrong man, my son.”

  “Call me that again and I’ll cut off one of your fingers. Let’s do this the right way, Father. Why don’t you get things started?”

  Through the screen, Paz could see the old priest cross himself.

  “Bless me, Fa— . . . for I have sinned.”

  “Don’t stop there.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. I’m here to hear all about those sins, Padre, and offer my own kind of absolution.”

  “Please, if you could just be more—”

  “That statue in front of the mission.”

  “Señor?”

  “The statue of this place’s founder, Fray Garcia de San Francisco. Quite a man, wasn’t he?”

  Father Pena remained silent, his breathing the loudest of any man Paz had ever heard, like he had an amplifier built into his throat and mouth.

  “He came here from Spain in 1629 and established the Mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe among the Manso Indians at the Pass of the North along El Camino Real. Not an easy task considering those Indians were very accomplished warriors themselves who had no use for outsiders. But he got his point across and baptized every single one of them out of a church made from branches and mud with a straw roof. That became the forerunner to this place, a fort as much as a mission that formed the northern-most outpost of colonial Spain. During the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 this is where the refugees came for help and Fray Garcia de San Francisco saved twenty-five hundred of them.”

  “Please, señor, I—”

  “You’re a disgrace to his memory, to this place he built solely with adobe. I like it here. It reminds me of home in Venezuela where a priest taught me how to read and write.”

  “You are a religious man, then,” Father Pena said, a touch of hope creeping into his voice.

  “Not for a long time, but still more than you. What would you have done with the desperate travelers who came to El Camino Real running from men who would have slaughtered them? Offered refuge and then sold them out would be my guess, just as you’ve done here in modern times.”

  Paz heard the priest steady himself with a deep chortling breath. “You should leave for your own good.”

  “My own good?”

  “I am protected.”

  “Glad we’ve finally got to the point, because that’s who I’m looking for: the men who are protecting you, the men who’ve turned the root cellars dug beneath this church to hide those who came to Fray Garcia de San Francisco for refuge into storage dumps for their heroine and weapons. The men who’ve turned this city into a shooting gallery, led by a man named Montoya.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I already told you what I want, Padre: your confession.”

  “I have only tried to do good for my people!”

  “Estás lleno de mierda. And when I say you’re full of shit, I mean it with all due respect. You’ve sold your people out. Say it.”

  “I cannot—”

  “Last chance to confess on your own before I make you.”

  The priest made a low, whimpering sound.

  “Padre?”

  “I have sold my people out,” he said, barely loud enough for Paz to hear.

  “You’ve borne silent witness to murder. You are a party to the crime that has eaten this city to the bone.” Paz listened to the priest’s noisy breathing. “Say it,” he ordered.

  “My words will change nothing.”

  “No, that’s for me to do. Now say it anyway.”

  “I am a party to the crime that has eaten this city to the bone. I have borne witness to murder.”

  Paz felt himself starting to relax. “Back home that priest who taught me how to read and write was gunned down for standing up to the street gangs. I was just a boy then. Couldn’t do a damn thing about it. That’s what today’s all about. The circle finally closing.”

  “Please,” the priest whined, “I will do anything. Just tell me what I must do.”

  “Tell them I’m here. And something else.”

  In the adjoining cubicle, the priest sank to his knees, head bowed in a position of prayer. “Anything! Just spare my life, I beg you!”

  “Show me where the weapons are stored,” Paz told him.

  102

  JUÁREZ; THE PRESENT

  Caitlin and Cort Wesley crossed the border into Juárez in silence, the air around them seeming instantly hotter and harder to breathe in, as if all the gun smoke and blood had sucked the oxygen out of it. Minutes later the old city center came into view with sidewalks teeming with people dodging kiosks selling water and flavored ice. Farther forward, buildings that looked a half-century older than the rest of the city proper jammed the landscape with hand-painted signs draped from their overhangs, battling for attention. Old men smoked cigarettes in the shade while the sun roasted the cracked pavement. One of the ancient cars cluttering the streets before them backfired, sending every pedestrian in view scurrying for cover.

  “Well,” said Cort Wesley, “here we are.”

  Back in San Antonio, he’d left her long enough to return to his truck and hand Dylan the keys.

  “You as good a driver as you say?” Caitlin heard Cort Wesley ask his oldest son.

  The boy tossed the hair from his face with a flip of his head, then combed a hand through it. “As good as you taught me.”

  “You think you can find your way back to Pearsall and that ranch?”

  “Yup. Where you headed?”

  Cort Wesley focused his next words on Luke as well. “Men who came after you today aren’t about to quit unless we take the choice away. Sometimes, boys, you gotta take it to them.”

  Luke uttered a deep sigh, almost like a sob.

  “I know you don’t understand why I gotta do this now,” Cort Wesley said softly, “but you will someday. I ever lie to you, son?”

  Luke swiped the tears from his face and shook his head.

  “And I’m not lying to you now when I say I’ll be back straightaway.”

  “Is it gonna be like the last time?” Luke managed through trembling lips.

  Cort Wesley reached into the backseat and cupped a hand around his son’s hair. “I hope so, since we came out of that scrape just fine.”

  “Dylan’s just like you,” Caitlin said, her SUV approaching the center of Juárez in a series of maddening stops and starts.

  “I know.”

  “You proud of that, Cort Wesley?”

  “I’m proud he doesn’t run from his true nature. That he gives into instinct and impulses, the kind that kept himself, his brother, and that girl alive.”

  “He got lucky.”

  “You don’t think the same can be said for us, Ranger?”

  “It runs out—that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Did it run out for your grandfather? All those years of rangering and killing—he was, what, near ninety when he died?”

  “It took its toll. Now that I’ve finally heard the rest of his story, I can see that. His secrets nearly ate him up, left him empty when they were finished with him.”

  Cort Wesley laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You talked the same way when we were driving to Casa del Diablo.”

  “This is different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re just spotting for Jones and his men.”

  Caitlin’s phone rang. “It’s him,” she said, checking the Caller ID.

  103

  JUÁREZ; THE PRESENT

  “We got problems,” Jones said.

  “I don’t like your tone,” Caitlin told him.

  “You’re gonna like what I got to say even less. Where are you?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “Right, stupid question,” Jones said, his voice so perturbed it sounded like he was speaking through a mouthful of sand.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  Caitlin continued to inch f
orward in her SUV. The sister cities of Juárez and El Paso shared a common border and little else. Joined together by a bridge that many Texans would prefer be blown up to stop the passage of violence across the border. On bad nights, those living on the southwest side of El Paso went to sleep often enough to the staccato crackle of gunfire, sounding like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. On worse nights, some swore they could see the incandescent flare of muzzle flashes scorching the night air. A number had relocated their bedrooms on the chance a stray bullet might find a window. Others had simply up and moved.

  “A new administration is what happened,” Jones explained. “Us losing carte blanche to play things the way we want is what happened.”

  “Guess you’re gonna miss waterboarding, Jones.”

  “That was Smith, remember? And I didn’t hear you complaining when I was bringing the cavalry along for the ride.”

  “This is different. Hollis Tyree figures he pulled enough uranium salt out of Tunga County to set off a dozen dirty bombs in U.S. cities.”

  “Tell it to the president, Ranger.”

  “You got his number handy?”

  “Even if I did, it won’t change the fact that Mexico is a sovereign nation and what I was planning amounted to an invasion. People like me don’t own the helicopter gunships and the boots on the ground anymore; we only rent them. You probably passed our staging ground on your drive. We were hoping to bring the rain. Now the storm’s gonna have to wait.”

  Caitlin felt prickles of heat building beneath her skin. “Juárez is just a way station, Jones. The contents of those dump trucks will be gone from here even if Montoya has to carry them in plastic beach pails. Then the storm won’t matter a lick.”

  “Turn around, Ranger. Head home. Give me more time to make this happen for you and get it done right.”

  Caitlin gazed across the seat at Cort Wesley. “Why am I not reassured here?”

  “I’m just trying to keep you alive. It’s like the goddamn wild west in Juárez, Ranger, that’s all I’m saying.”

  Caitlin thought of her grandfather leading the charge in this very place another time for another reason. “Then I should feel right at home,” she told Jones.