Strong Vengeance

by Jon Land

  But later Galveston would be formally named for Bernardo de Gálvez, a Spanish colonial governor and general. Gálvez sent José de Evia to chart the Gulf of Mexico from the Texas coast to New Orleans, and on July 23, 1786, de Evia charted an area near the mouth of a river and named it Galveston Bay. Later, the island and city took the same name. Bernardo de Gálvez died the same year, never once setting foot on his namesake island.

  But history hadn’t always treated the beautiful island so well. In September of 1900, Galveston was struck hard and fast by what became known as the Great Storm. At the time the island had a population of 37,000 and was the fourth largest city in Texas following Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. One-third of the city was completely destroyed, including over 3,600 buildings. More than 6,000 people were killed, far too many for conventional burials. At first, they were weighted and buried at sea. When the corpses started washing ashore, they were instead burned on funeral pyres all over the city.

  The Great Storm might have sounded the final death knell for the island were it not for Prohibition. Thanks in large part to that era’s bootlegging, Galveston evolved into a gambling and drinking mecca, giving it a second life and bringing back enough commerce to keep its residents afloat. But that era came to a sudden end on June 10, 1957, when Texas Rangers under Earl Strong’s command raided the city to serve injunctions against the gambling joints and took axes to the slot machines, sending Galveston into yet another economic and social tailspin.

  The once sparkling island languished for years but a revival had been undertaken when investors saw a potential gold mine in Galveston’s sun-drenched shoreline and pristine landscape. Their goal was nothing less than to turn it into an island resort that would become the envy of the Northern Gulf. Earl hadn’t kept much track of things there since his own raid, although Jim had told him the island elders, some of whose Galveston bloodlines dated back centuries, were planning to enact a New Orleans–like Mardi Gras to kick the process off. Besides that, and tourists perusing the remnants of the famed pirate Jean Lafitte’s Campeche base camp, for all Earl knew he’d been returning to a world of slot parlors and strip joints.

  “Should I bring my ax?” he’d asked Jim with a smile when the younger Strong picked him up.

  * * *

  Sheriff Mugsy Plantaine met their launch at the main pier. Plantaine, who neither Earl nor Jim could remember not showing dark splotches of sweat through his uniform top, looked about as bad as D. W. Tepper; even more pale, in fact, while not quite as yellow.

  “What’s got you looking like a raccoon staring down a semi, Mugsy?” Jim Strong asked him.

  “And why all the secrecy about what got us called here?” Earl added, as D. W. Tepper coughed up some stray spittle and joined them on the pier.

  “We don’t want or need any press on this, boys, and by the way it’s good to see you too.”

  “You don’t look like it’s good to see us,” said Jim.

  “Let me correct that impression: it’s great to see you on the island; it’s the circumstances that’ll make you puke.”

  Earl took off his hat and looked up at the sky as if to study the sun. “Only need one Ranger for a riot, Mugs. Seems a lot to have three of us for a killing.”

  “Killing, Ranger? I only wish.”

  * * *

  Sheriff Plantaine drove the three Rangers along a road that rimmed the coast of Galveston Island, showing off the beauty of a shoreline dominated by winglets, gulls, and terns buzzing the sky in search of their next meal. The island didn’t boast many residents in comparison to modern-day standards, but the sand was alive with strollers and joggers who almost surely didn’t appreciate the pristine beauty that would soon be violated by all manner of tourist and vacationer. All three Rangers found themselves smirking at the wild hairstyles worn by men and women, the shorts and bathing suits of the men so tight they seemed to be crushing the private parts contained within.

  “What’s that music?” Earl Strong asked, hearing hammering riffs drifting with the wind.

  “Disco,” Jim Strong told him.

  “What the hell’s disco?”

  “You know,” said Jim, “I really can’t say. I guess you’d call it dance music.”

  “People dance to that these days?” Earl could only shake his head. “Well, I’ll be glad to be back somewheres the words got some sense to them and you can actually hear what’s being sung.”

  A similar song came on the radio in Plantaine’s truck.

  “Believe that’s the Bee Gees,” said Tepper. “My daughter’s got all their records.”

  “Now I think I’m gonna be sick,” moaned Earl.

  Plantaine shut the radio off. “Strange thing about Galveston,” he began. “Only part of the island the Great Storm didn’t beat to hell was the remaining wild part, last remnants of Jean Lafitte’s Campeche colony where his pirates made camp and kept their stolen slaves prior to sale. Jim Bowie was a Ranger when he ran those slaves into Texas for him, wasn’t he?”

  “Nope,” said Earl. “Rangers didn’t exist yet back then. Bowie was a prime Texas landowner who took a Mexican wife. He was at the Alamo to protect his own acres as much as anything.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be any way to talk about a Texas legend.”

  “You heard some of the stuff that’s been said about me?” Earl asked him.

  “Anyway,” Plantaine started again, his cheeks flushed red and his eyes too small and narrow for the rest of his round face, “the crime scene is located smack dab in the middle of Campeche country. Fraternity brothers from the University of Texas at Austin.”

  “Plural?”

  The sheriff of Galveston Island simply nodded, swallowing hard.

  * * *

  His deputies had secured the crime scene located at the mouth of a cave camouflaged by moss and weeds, the entrance nearly invisible. The ravaged bodies of the five fraternity brothers remained undisturbed or touched, exactly as they’d been found lying amid streams of their own entrails on ground darkened by blood.

  D. W. Tepper inspected the bodies more closely while Jim and Earl Strong walked the perimeter of a clearing where Jean Lafitte himself had likely bedded down before he’d fled to South America around 1820.

  “Tracks are every which way,” Earl noted.

  “Got no expended shells or blood trail,” Jim added, crouching to better study the overgrown ground as he moved. “I don’t see a lot of signs of a struggle. When this happen exactly?”

  “Last night sometime, as near as we can figure. Couple of locals found them. Think they may be ready to put their homes on the market after seeing all this.”

  “Got a couple head wounds here that make me think these boys got taken by surprise, likely from the rear,” Tepper reported. “But I got no idea what did all the rest of this damage. Looks like they’ve been gutted. I can see some wounds that are multiple, shallow, and jagged, like the blades were old and fit more for skinning game than killing. Seems to me the gut spilling came afterwards, maybe even postmortem, for effect as much as anything it could be.”

  “Toward what end?” asked Sheriff Plantaine.

  “Divert attention from a brutal murder by making it seem it’s something it’s not.”

  “Like what?”

  “Can’t say yet.”

  “Look,” Plantaine said, his shirt considerably more sweat-soaked than it had been when they set out from the dock, “Galveston is about to burst onto the scene in a big way. We don’t get this resolved pretty quick, there’s gonna be some serious hell to pay from the money behind those new hotels, resorts, and marina we passed on the way out here.”

  “Not to mention all them golf courses,” Earl Strong added.

  “Glad you understand the stakes here.”

  “Only steaks I know are the kind you grill over charcoal, Sheriff, and I don’t give a hoot about the political pressure you’re under here. What me, Jim, and D.W. over there care about is finding whoever sliced up these boys for no apparent re
ason. And the only ones behind anything we care about are these boys’ folks. We’re going to do right by them. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

  “Did I suggest anything otherwise?” Plantaine asked.

  “It seemed you were fixing to. Might be the way local law enforcement works but there’s nothing local about Rangers.”

  “Well, it’s hard for me to envision anyone local to the island doing something like this. Hell, I know practically everyone by sight.”

  “That include all the workmen it takes to build this resort community of yours?” Jim Strong asked him.

  Plantaine gulped down some air in response.

  “Yeah,” Jim added, “that’s what I figured.”

  “The point being,” Earl picked up, “that we got suspects coming out the wazoo and who knows what these dead boys might’ve walked in on them doing.”

  Earl and Jim both moved to the cave mouth, gazing inside in tandem before turning back toward Plantaine. “Tell us about this,” Jim said.

  “Not much to tell.”

  “Ever been inside?”

  “Far enough to tell you it doesn’t lead anywhere.”

  “What about Jean Lafitte’s lost treasure?” Earl picked up. “What exactly is it supposed to be?”

  “Don’t know. Nobody does. Legend’s got all kinds of things to say on the subject, but the one that’s got the most gumption to us locals was that Lafitte stole it off some dandy passenger on a slave ship called the Mother Mary in the company of Jim Bowie himself. Same legend claims that was the last ship Lafitte ever raided and that he sunk it for good measure.”

  “Nothing about what the treasure was exactly?”

  “Lots of things, from a chest full of gold doubloons to riches that were supposed to be transported back to some queen, maybe in Spain or maybe in England. I don’t know what to believe. Could all be bullshit.”

  “These five boys didn’t die for bullshit,” said Tepper, joining them near the cave.

  “We’re gonna need a list of all the workers on these construction crews,” Jim added.

  Plantaine’s eyes suddenly grew evasive. “Could be a problem there.”

  “How’s that?” Jim Strong asked him.

  “Well, the construction contracts for the buildup of Galveston came down the pipe of some of the biggest names in all of Texas.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’m talking about oil men, politicians, industrialists, bankers—you name it.”

  “Any Texas Rangers on that list?” Earl wondered.

  “I expect not.”

  “Well, there are now and we take precedence over all others.”

  “Companies may not see it that way.”

  Jim Strong took a step forward. “And how do you see it, Sheriff?”

  Plantaine hitched up his gun belt, which had slid gradually down his hips. “I’ve been mediating these kind of situations since the first boat unloaded their John Deeres.”

  “Then you’ve had multiple murders before?”

  “No, sir, we haven’t.”

  “Well, you do now,” reminded Earl. “So if there’s any question about your loyalties in the matter, just tell me who they’re to so I can shoot them.”

  “Disco music’s not the only thing to hate these days,” Plantaine said, face wrinkled as if he’d bitten down on a lemon.

  “This is our case now, Sheriff,” D. W. Tepper told him. “Any assistance you can provide would be much appreciated and duly noted. Any assistance you can’t, we’ll handle on our own.”

  “What the Ranger means,” followed Earl Strong, “is that we’d be glad to talk with whoever we need to ourselves if you don’t believe yourself to be up to the task.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Close enough from where I’m standing.”

  “You don’t wanna take these folks on, Ranger.”

  “Yeah,” Earl nodded, taking off his hat. “That’s what all those drug dealers, organized criminals, and Mexican bandits kept telling me. And I didn’t listen to them either, did I, son?”

  “No, sir,” Jim Strong replied.

  Earl swung toward Plantaine, hands planted on his hips. “Guess that means I’m not gonna start now, Sheriff. I learned a long time ago how to get people out of my way who weren’t of the same mind on such things. Tends to be a lot easier, and less painful, to stand by my side than end up under my boot. Anyway, it’s a free country, so the choice is yours.”

  Plantaine rotated his mouth, as if chewing on the insides of his own cheeks. “What chance we got of keeping a lid on this?”

  “Damn good one,” Earl said, throwing him a wink. “Until we solve it.”

  21

  NORTHERN GULF STREAM, THE PRESENT

  “But you, Earl, and Jim never did solve it,” Caitlin said to D. W. Tepper after he stopped.

  “I’m starting to feel sick,” Tepper said, instead of responding.

  “How about the rest of the story? What else happened that day on Galveston Island?”

  “Don’t make me regret loosening that chain hitching you to a desk, Ranger.”

  “Not ready to cut it yet?”

  “You keep bothering me about Galveston Island, I might just lose the key for good.”

  Before Caitlin could respond, a Coast Guard captain named Lauderdale approached looking dour and unsettled.

  “We’d like permission to start off-loading the bodies, Captain,” he said to Tepper. “They’ve all been positively identified now.”

  “Make sure we cover the victim on the escape raft.”

  “Already done.”

  “In that case, permission granted.”

  Lauderdale took his leave, Tepper still reluctant to meet Caitlin’s gaze, but she spoke anyway.

  “You think the Mother Mary’s why these men were killed, don’t you, sir?”

  Tepper finally looked at her again. “I think I wanna get back to San Antonio and have a look at that video footage,” Tepper said, finally looking at her again. “See exactly what it was they found.”

  PART THREE

  Over the next three decades the Rangers’ prominence and prestige waned, although they continued to occasionally intercept cattle rustlers, contended with Mexican and Indian marauders along the Rio Grande River, and at times protected blacks from white lynch mobs. By the turn of the century, critics began to urge the curtailment or abandonment of the Texas Rangers. As a result the Frontier Battalion was abolished in 1901 and the Ranger force was cut to four law enforcement companies of twenty men each.

  —Legends of America:

  Texas Legends: The Texas Rangers—Order Out of Chaos

  22

  NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO; THE PRESENT

  After Cort Wesley pulled his prison jumpsuit back on, two guards escorted him outside and across the yard to the administrative building housing the visitor’s center. They bypassed the large open space lined with wooden tables and a children’s play area, where families came on Sundays, in favor of the windowless holding rooms where inmates met either with their lawyers or mules from the outside in need of orders. The rooms all stank of dried sweat mixed uneasily with stale perfume. They were hot and poorly ventilated with heavy grates over the windows that also left the light exclusively to a single dome fixture hanging loose from the ceiling in more cases than not.

  Only his attorney had been able to see him, since Caitlin Strong had mixed it up with some guards who tried to cut their time short by five minutes just when she was showing Cort Wesley a story Luke had written for school. It was science fiction, about a boy who wakes up one morning to find everyone else in the world has turned to something like ash and he begins a journey to find others still alive.

  “It’s me,” Cort Wesley had said.

  “Huh?”

  “The boy in the story, like a projection or something. Alone, all by himself in the world trying to find his way.”

  “I had a different interpretation.”

  “What’s that?”


  “The way Luke feels about things from his own perspective since you’ve been gone.”

  “Kid’s fine in your hands. Dylan too.”

  “I’m not their father.”

  Cort Wesley folded his hands before him on the chipped wood. Nearby a Mexican toddler kicked a ball that settled under their table. He retrieved it, casting them a smile.

  “Dylan still talking about taking a year off after high school?”

  “It’s not a year off, it’s a prep year.”

  “What’s that mean exactly?”

  “He’d be going to school to better ready himself for college.”

  Cort Wesley frowned, as the toddler’s ball slid past their table this time. “Kid doesn’t even know what he wants to study yet.”

  “He’s talking about some facet of law enforcement.”

  “You put that in his head, Ranger?”

  “Nobody puts anything in Dylan’s head. You know that as well as I do.”

  Cort Wesley leaned forward and started to take Caitlin’s hands in his when a guard slid over.

  “Se acabó tu tiempo.”

  “No,” Caitlin told him, tapping her watch, “I still have five minutes left.”

  “Se acabó tu tiempo,” the guard repeated, his tone a bit firmer.

  Caitlin tapped her watch again. The guard reached for her chair to pull it back and Caitlin swept his legs out, dropping him to the ground.

  That was the last time the prison had let her visit, Cort Wesley wishing she had another chance to swap those five minutes for all the visits they’d lost as a result. But he knew he would’ve done exactly the same thing, the two of them so used to living in the moment that sometimes long-term concerns and rational thinking got left in the cold.

  So Cort Wesley figured it must be his aged lawyer, R. Lee Shine, come to pay him a visit, hopefully with good news about his continuing efforts to have the U.S. authorities extradite him back to Texas. Something he was working on. A long shot, but better than nothing.

  The guard opened the door and bid Cort Wesley to enter the holding room. But it didn’t smell of sweat or stale perfume today, but hair oil and musty clothes.

  “Buenos dias, outlaw,” said Guillermo Paz from behind the single small table.