“Yes, sir.”
They didn’t teach mindreading in the Ranger Academy. Ranger Randy wasn’t very adept at it. But he got the sense his host wanted to say more.
He patiently waited.
Bryant seemed to be debating. As though he had a favor to ask, but didn’t know whether it would be appropriate.
Finally it seemed to occur to him that a favor asked could only be refused. But a favor not asked had no chance at all.
“Randy, you’ll be passing right by a little town called Blanco on your way to Victoria. Have you ever heard of it?”
“No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“I know you’re a busy man with a lot of responsibility on your hands,” Bryant said. “And I wouldn’t want to ask you to deviate from your assigned mission. I was in the military for many years and I know the mission always comes first.”
“But…”
“But if you happen to pass Blanco toward the end of the day, would you do me a favor and set up camp there? I mean you have to sleep somewhere. If it would be possible for you to make an appearance in Blanco, just make an appearance, I’d really appreciate it.”
He suddenly had the Ranger’s full attention.
“Why? What’s going on in Blanco?”
Bryant chose his words carefully, for he felt he’d given his word to Red he wouldn’t interfere in her plan for vengeance.
Still, he was conflicted, for he knew her father Butch much better and for much longer than he’d known Red.
His true loyalty lied not with Red, but with her father.
And if he thought Red might be in danger, Butch would want his old friend to try to help out in some manner.
“I have no specifics for you,” he told the Ranger. “But I heard the police chief is corrupt. As bad as they come.”
“Usually when a police chief goes bad, the mayor and city council get rid of him. Or sometimes the police force itself rebels and finds a way to overthrow him.”
“That’s true, Ranger. But in this case that’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I understand he’s got too much power for that. And there’s only three people on the city council. And the police chief is one of them. How in hell that ever happened, I don’t know. You’d think that would be a big conflict of interest. In most cities and towns it wouldn’t be allowed to happen. The rumor I heard is that he coerced the other members to appoint him as the police chief so he could cover up his other crimes.”
“Any chance the other members of the police department could rise up against him? Have the courage to arrest him, then work with the district attorney to indict him?”
“There are no other members of the police department, Ranger. He’s it. Just the chief. A one man PD.”
“You mentioned crimes. What kind of crimes is he committing?”
“Murder for hire. He hired two hit men to kill some of the town’s citizens he saw as threats. And he’s been kicking people out of their homes and taking their property away from them to build his own personal empire. He’s also the town banker, you see, and he’s been using some really unethical means of building that empire.”
“Unethical isn’t the same as illegal, Mr. Bryant. If it were every politician in Washington would be in prison by now.”
“I know, Ranger. But in this case there’s plenty of illegal stuff going on too.”
“I take it you have informants in Blanco who are feeding you information?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you give me their names so I can talk to them?”
“Well, that’s just it. You see, these… informants. I sorta told them I’d keep their names out of it.”
“So they’re afraid of their personal safety for blowing the whistle?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Bryant. I’ll ride into Blanco and ask around. But I’ll tell you up front that unless someone is willing to come forward to speak up against the man, it’ll be hard finding evidence to arrest him.”
“I understand that, Ranger. What I’m hoping is that some of the town’s residents will speak to you and share what they know. And that we can avoid a situation where… others might be harmed.”
“Very well. I’ll check it out and see if there’s anything I can do to make the situation better. What, may I ask, is the chief’s name?”
“Savage. And, from what I’ve been told, it’s a very appropriate name.”
That changed things a bit. The big Ranger asked to use Bryant’s radio once again.
This time he asked for, and received, permission to deviate from his original mission. He’d still head to Victoria, for there was a problem there which needed to be rectified.
But on his way to Victoria he’d take the time to check out a potential police corruption case in the tiny hamlet of Blanco.
-21-
On highway 281, not too far north of Blanco, a thug named Gomez lay in the back of a GMC tractor’s cab, in the sleeper compartment.
He was stretched across a thin mattress, a little over six feet long and a mere twenty six inches wide. It was the bunk where an over the road trucker named Willie once ferried goods from Walmart distribution centers to stores throughout Walmart’s Region 5. From Jackson, Mississippi to Phoenix, and as far north as Albuquerque, New Mexico, Willie once roamed these highways. They were his home, his livelihood, his retirement plan.
But Willie was gone now. Shot to death while walking home to Arkansas, on another lonely highway not much different than this one.
Shot dead for the backpack full of water thrown over his shoulder, and any gold or silver he might be carrying.
The world had become a very dangerous place, seemingly devoid of compassion and humanity.
But this place, this cramped sleeper cab in which Willie once laid his head to sleep most nights, this was different.
This place was a sanctuary.
As safe a place, once locked from the inside, as really any other in the post-apocalyptic world.
It was as cozy as a mother’s womb. An occasional highway drifter might try the lock to see if it was occupied. And once realizing it was, would move on to another truck like it.
There was no reason for anyone to try to force their way in, to attack the one inside it.
For there was always another one just like it just up the road.
Here was where Gomez felt most relaxed. Here was the only place on earth these days where he felt no need to watch his back.
Here was where he could read, or play solitaire from a well-worn deck of cards, or just close his eyes and daydream.
Here was where he could pull out the tiny notebook he’d taken from a man he’d killed, as he’d done dozens of times before, and try to decipher what the puzzling series of numbers and letters meant.
And here was where he could finally get some restful sleep, knowing he’d wake up several hours later without someone’s knife at his throat.
He lay peacefully, softly snoring and dreaming of a girl he once danced with at his high school prom. Back when the world was sane and a vastly different place.
Thirty yards away from Gomez, in a tent off the highway and just inside the tree line of a nearby stand of woods, lay his partner Duncan.
Duncan wasn’t quite so comfortable. He’d slept in the sleeper the previous night and had gotten a great night’s sleep.
On this night, though, it was his turn to sleep in somewhat more austere conditions.
The tent had a hole in it. They hadn’t been able to find it, despite their best efforts.
Apparently, though, they weren’t any brighter than the average insect.
For the mosquitoes didn’t seem to have any trouble finding the hole and making their nights miserable.
Duncan, knowing full well he’d be losing a lot of sleep to the pesky varmints, had spent half the previous day hiking to every truck within three miles, looking for a replacement tent.
The be
st he could do was some mosquito netting, which he wrapped himself in when he went to bed.
But Duncan was a restless sleeper. And by three in the morning the netting was mostly wadded up and beneath his body.
Still, he slept relatively peacefully until then. That wouldn’t last, for at three a.m. sharp, a mosquito the size of a dinner plate landed upon his nose and decided it was time for a tasty snack.
It was a very short battle which wasn’t good for either of them.
The mosquito lost the most, and wound up being crushed beneath Duncan’s meaty hand.
Duncan, though, paid dearly for the victory. He lashed out involuntarily while deep in slumber and bloodied his own nose in the process. The mosquito lost the war, it seemed. But Duncan suffered a self-inflicted battle injury.
He’d get no more sleep on this particular night.
About four a.m. Duncan thought he heard voices, but wrote it off as his imagination playing a prank on him.
Thirty yards away, in the mosquito-free comfort of the sleeper cab, Gomez didn’t hear a thing.
He was still sleeping like a baby.
The voices Duncan thought he heard weren’t his imagination. They were as real as he was, though very faint.
The voices belonged to a pair of riders, passing slowly by in the darkness some fifty yards or so to the west of the tent.
They were engaging in a friendly argument, about the merits of Star Wars versus Star Trek, and which was the better of the two.
Red argued for the Star Trek movies. She freely admitted, though, that it was partly because she’d had a major crush on the man who played Captain Kirk.
Although she somehow couldn’t remember his real name.
Jacob preferred the Star Wars movies.
“I don’t know why. I just do. That’s why.”
It was just the latest in a long series of inane conversations they’d had between them to while away the hours and the miles.
With each step their horses took, the distance between the riders and a wide-awake Duncan grew greater.
The riders’ words, carried in on a gentle breeze, grew softer.
And the chances that Duncan and Gomez would ever do battle with Red Poston, or to ambush her, grew ever less likely.
-22-
They arrived at the outskirts of Blanco not long before sunrise.
With a new topic of conversation.
“So, how are we gonna do this,” Jacob asked. “Are we gonna ride to Savage’s house and surprise him? Make him beg for his life before we shoot him in the head? Or do we drag him from his bed and hang him high in the town square, so your neighbors can enjoy it too?”
She eyed him and smiled, although he couldn’t see it in the dark.
“You’ve been watching too many old cowboy movies, Jacob.”
“Not lately I haven’t.”
“We’re going home, to my daddy’s place, to crawl into bed.”
He grinned broadly, also unseen in the darkness.
But it didn’t take Red long to regret her particular choice of words.
“Well damn, girl. It’s about time you decided to come around and realize I’m just the man to romp around with. To heck with Captain Kirk, whatever the actor’s name was.”
“Let me rephrase that, Bucko. We’re going to ride past Blanco and then ride due east to my father’s house. It should still be fairly dark when we arrive.
“We’ll put the ponies in the barn behind the house where they won’t be seen.
“And then we’re going into the house, to two different beds in two different rooms.”
She couldn’t see the look of disappointment on his face in the dimness of the pre-dawn. But she could sense it in the audible sigh.
She pretended not to hear it and continued.
“Once there we’re going to get a few hours sleep in a comfortable bed. That way we’re at the top of our game.”
“I thought you were a tough girl, Red. Since when do you need a mattress and box springs to get a good night’s sleep?”
“Even tough girls are still girls, Jacob. We all like the softness of a good bed now and then. It’s one of the few things I miss when I’m on the road.”
She’d never tell Jacob, but one of the biggest things she missed about the bed at her father’s house was a brown stuffed bear. It had been her son’s, little Rusty’s, and it stayed at Rusty’s grandpa’s house for when he occasionally spent the night there.
And even after all this time, it still smelled of Rusty.
From the time she was released from the hospital after the explosion which killed her husband and son, to the time she lit out after her father’s killer, Red had slept with that bear.
It seemed silly to admit, but the entire time she was on the trail she missed that bear.
It was one of the few ties to Rusty she had left, for nearly everything the three of them owned was destroyed in the fire.
For the three previous nights, she’d spent a considerable amount of time looking forward to falling asleep in her childhood bed, clutching the bear tightly and dreaming of better times.
It turned out that, as tough as Red was, she still had a little girl deep inside her that sometimes needed to be cuddled.
And reassured that as harsh as the world seemed to be, as mean as people were, that life was still worth living.
The sun broke free from the horizon as the pair rode into Butch’s barn.
Red looked around.
“Looks like nothing’s changed. Everything’s just the way I left it.”
“Do you think Savage has been here, messing with anything? Leaving booby traps?”
“Nope. He wouldn’t do anything here. He’d do it in the house. And I’ll know right away if he did.”
They walked over to the house Red grew up in, and she used a Bic lighter to inspect each window frame.
All the windows were still nailed shut. None of the nails had been tampered with or removed.
On the front porch she lay on her stomach and inspected the space between the door and the jamb.
It took her a minute to find it, because it was almost invisible to the naked eye. Finally, though, she reached up and pulled out a tiny piece of clear fishing line, no more than half an inch long, which had been wedged into the tight space.
“I told Lilly that under no circumstances was she to ever go into the house. That I couldn’t guarantee her safety if she did, and that I wouldn’t be able to tell whether anyone else had been in it.”
“Who’s Lilly?”
“She’s my best friend. She’s the one I left Bonnie with to care for in my absence.”
“Who’s Bonnie?”
“My horse. I told you about her.”
“Oh, yeah. So, is she single?”
“Who, Bonnie?”
“No, dummy. Lilly.”
“Yes, she’s single. At least she was when I left. And there aren’t a lot of single men around here to choose from. So I expect she still is.”
“Is she hot?”
“Who, Bonnie?”
“Sheesh. You know I’m talking about Lilly. Is Lilly hot?”
“I honestly don’t know. I mean, she’s a girl and I’m a girl so she’s not really my type. I guess if I was a guy I’d consider her hot. I’ll tell you what. When we see her later today I’ll tell her you asked if she was hot. We’ll get her opinion on the matter.”
“Don’t you dare tell her that.”
“Tell her what?”
“That I asked if she was hot.”
“But you did.”
“But I don’t want her to know that.”
He looked at her face and saw that she was toying with him.
“You weren’t really gonna tell her, were you?”
“No. And for the record, she’s extremely hot.”
He smiled but said no more about Lilly. Instead, he asked a question.
“Now what?”
“Now we walk around to the back door to see if it’s bee
n tampered with as well. If it hasn’t, we get some sleep. We both need it.”
“Then we go find Savage and kill him?”
“You seem to be in an awful big hurry to kill a man you never met.”
“You hate him, that’s all the character reference I need. I hate him too. You tell me he murdered your family, that’s good enough for me. He deserves to die. How hard is that for anybody to understand?”
“To answer your question, my original plan was to pick up Beth on the way here. But it occurred to me that I needed to ensure the house was safe first. That’s why we didn’t stop in Morgan on the way in.”
“I was wondering about that.”
“Once we verify the house is safe, we’ll go back after her, bring her here and get her settled. Then we’ll go after Savage.”
They checked the doorjamb on the back porch and found a second tiny piece of fishing line, in exactly the same place Red had left it.
“Neither door has been opened,” she explained. If they had, the line would have fallen unnoticed to the floor.”
She took a single key on a rawhide string from her pocket.
“Have you been carrying that the entire time?”
“Yes, no, yes.”
“Well, that clears it up.”
“I carried it in my pocket until we left Lubbock and I had a horse to ride. Then I put it in the saddlebag. Last night, as we prepared to mount up, I took it out of the saddlebag and put it back into my pocket. Yes, no, yes.”
“I’m sorry I asked.”
-23-
The house had a very distinctive musty smell. The smell of a house which hadn’t been lived in for awhile.
Other than that, there seemed nothing out of place. Everything was neat as a pin, save a very thin coating of dust on the wood furniture.
“Want me to sleep on the couch?”
“No. The guest room is at the top of the stairs and to the right. The bathroom is just past it on the left. Stay out of the other two rooms, though.”
“Why? Will the boogey man jump out at me if I go in them?”
“No. One of them is my daddy’s room. And nobody is allowed in there except me. I don’t want anything to be disturbed. Ever. I want it to remain just the way he left it.
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