by Jon Land
The problem was that such a charge would be suicide for all of them if the Gatlings were still up and running. Taking one out of the picture was doable, but William Ray still hadn’t settled on a plan do take both down. That was the thing about plans, in his experience. The more they were rooted in your mind, the more up shit’s creek you’d be if something unexpected entered the mix. He preferred to let his instincts guide him, convinced that his own father, Civil War and Ranger hero Steeldust Jack Strong, was among those putting stuff in his head.
William Ray figured this would be as close as he’d ever come to the kind of battle Steeldust Jack had experienced as part of the much-celebrated Texas Brigade during the Civil War—hopelessly outgunned and outmanned while walking straight into a hornet’s nest.
He heard voices spouting off rapidly in Chinese as soon as he reached the outskirts of the mine, passing by the tents, lean-tos, and bedrolls tucked tight until night fell. He figured those bedrolls were likely intended for the enslaved children, and he was angered all the more by the thought of them being left to fend for themselves when the desert nights grew cold.
Jessabelle faithfully strode right up to the edge of the mine itself. The voices were louder in his ear. He couldn’t understand shit, but he imagined they were discussing or arguing over what to do with the dead or wounded man whose horse had wandered into camp. William Ray felt strong hands seek purchase on his frame and then dump him to the ground. He landed hard, his face breaking his fall, leaving him dazed and bloodied where some rocks had split the flesh over his right cheekbone. The Ranger still hadn’t determined his next move precisely, figuring that he needed to respond to whatever the Chinese did.
In this case, one of them grabbed hold of him, high on his right side near his shoulder, and worked to turn him over so he’d be face up to the sky. He was ready with one of the two Colts Pancho Villa had provided him, when he opened his eyes to the blinding sun and a trio of figures silhouetted by its glow.
He shot the man standing over him, then the ones on either side of him. He drew his second Colt in the same breath’s length it took to lurch to his feet, firing both pistols as he angled for the nearer of the two Gatlings. He’d left seven men dead behind him by the time he’d drained both pistols. He held one by the trigger guard, with his teeth, while he reloaded the other Colt, then repeated the process, when more of the Chinese guards finally opened fire behind him.
This was where he was most vulnerable, where the whole plan could go to shit in a hurry. But William Ray managed to half leap and half climb over the mounds of earth protecting the nearer of the two Gatlings, already opening up with the fresh loads in his twin Colts at two Chinese guards who were mounting a bull rush for his position, the big gun they’d been manning forgotten.
At the edge of his consciousness, the Ranger heard the heavy thump of charging horses, indicating that Villa and his men were launching their attack. He’d taken out one of the big guns, but the other remained steady—that, and far more armed Chinese than he’d anticipated were coming from everywhere at once. No way he could get them all, given the time it would take to reload the Colts while drawing fire, leaving him only one option, which he hadn’t fully considered until that moment.
As the thundering of Villa’s riders made him feel like air bubbles were bursting inside his head, William Ray lunged behind the Gatling and grabbed hold of its dual handles, spinning the gun toward the center of the camp lying between the dug-out veins of the mine being worked.
The fact that the Rangers often found themselves working alongside cavalry regiments that toted Gatlings along by wagon had left William Ray familiar with the big gun’s general workings and controls. The Gatling gun’s operation centered on a cyclic multibarrel design that facilitated cooling and synchronized the firing–reloading sequence. Each barrel fired a single shot when it reached a certain point in the cycle, after which it ejected the spent cartridge, loaded a new round, and, in the process, allowed the barrel to cool somewhat.
This 1895 model featured an olive drab gun housing with the barrel and front components left blued. William Ray made sure the hopper was slammed home and then hit the trigger while clinging tight to the gun’s handles.
He may have been familiar with its workings, but he had never actually fired a Gatling before, and the sensation was like nothing he had ever experienced. All his insides seemed to be shaking, as the big thirty-caliber shells exploded in a constant stream through the rotating barrels, each burst depressing the expanded thirty-round hopper further, until the distinctive click signaled it was time to slam another into place.
William Ray yanked a fresh hopper from the ammo box at his feet, ejected the spent one to ram it home, locked the bolt back in, and drew the slide toward him. Then he was firing again, finding an awkward, pounding rhythm to the effort that left his teeth clacking. The reports were deafening, drowning out all but the clang of the most recently expended shells smacking against those that had already scattered across the hard-packed gravel at his feet.
The gun’s power literally launched Chinese gunmen airborne on impact. Something felt like it was kicking the Ranger’s stomach from the inside as he continued to spray thirty-caliber shells toward targets who were eviscerated under their force. That left William Ray figuring he now knew what God Himself must have felt like on a particularly wrath-filled day.
With the field cleared of all but a gravelly mix kicked up into the air by the Gatling’s fire, he rotated the heavy mount sideways, in line with the second gun, which was just then sighting in on Villa’s oncoming riders. He had less than half the hopper left, which had to be good enough, since no way there’d be time to jam a fresh one home from the ammo box at his feet. So he sighted in on the gunner opposite him and let the Gatling rip again, imagining what it must have been like for those who had worked the original models with a hand crank. The rest of the hopper’s shells not only blew the opposing pair of gunners apart but also tore the second Gatling from its mounts and dropped it out of sight before the Ranger both heard and felt the gun click empty.
By then, Villa and his men were firing their Colts on the remaining Chinese gunmen from horseback, taking plenty of fire in return. William Ray charged into the maelstrom with both Colts freshly loaded and blasting away. He hoped all those kids would have the presence of mind to seek cover, or at least to drop low beneath the sprays of gunfire.
With the gunfight still raging around him, William Ray rushed down into the warren of cratered earth, into the labyrinthine veins of the mine itself, gathering up terrified children and shooting the gunmen who impeded his path as he went. There was a twisted beauty to it all, and though he had long been a man who professed a distinct distaste for killing, something about these moments made him feel more alive than any other time he could recall.
The declining rate and frequency of return fire from above told the Ranger the battle was ebbing. Judging by the steady, regular thudding of hoof beats, Villa’s bandits were on the verge of cleaning up what he’d left for them.
He shot two more Chinese and was down to his last ten shells when the final kids fell in behind him, grasping just enough of his instructions to get in line. William Ray then swung around and retraced his steps back to ground level, encountering not a single other gunman in his path, but more fearful than ever on account of having maybe four dozen kids in his charge. He emerged and reclaimed the surface with them tight on his heels, where he found Villa and his men rounding up and executing the surviving Chinese guards and work foremen. His first thought was to make the kids turn away, but then he figured they had a right to see retribution being enacted upon the men who’d so victimized them.
A handful of Mexican peasant workers had dropped to their knees, terrified and uncertain of the bandits’ intentions for them. William Ray pictured Villa enlisting them in his cause, building that revolutionary army he figured to need someday. More of his men, meanwhile, were loading both Gatlings into separate wagons, and others had
charged past the Ranger to gather whatever gold ore or nuggets had already been pulled from the walls or fished from the groundwater the trench had unearthed. William Ray caught the scent of almonds heavy on the air but didn’t know why, unless it was the residue of some lost memories or senses thrown askew by the intensity of the past few minutes.
“What now, Ranger?” Villa asked, walking his horse up close to William Ray.
The Ranger realized that working the Gatling had scraped or burned both his hands raw, the skin already beginning to blister. “I take these kids back home.”
“And then?”
William Ray held Villa’s stare. “I think you know, amigo.”
“Not a job for a man on his own.”
“I suppose. But that doesn’t mean I won’t finish it or die trying.”
“I don’t like the ‘dying’ part. I’d like to do something about that, if I can.”
“You’re welcome to ride along,” the Ranger told him, “but we’ve had our fill now, and I wouldn’t ask you to do any more than you’ve already done.”
Pancho Villa smiled at him. “What are friends for?”
97
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
“You see my point?” Nola asked, once she had finished.
“Why don’t you spell it out for me?”
“Spilling blood is part of our heritage. We were born this way. All the Strongs were, and that includes a half Strong like me. When William Ray was firing away with that Gatling gun, you don’t think he was loving every minute of watching the bodies drop in front of him? And beyond that, how many Indians did he bury in the desert? How many Mexican bandits did he put in a box? Compared to him, we’re Sunday school teachers, sis.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Me stopping won’t make it any less true. And I’m guessing, from those federal marshals showing up at the medical examiner’s office, that you can use all the friends you can get right now.”
“You’re not my friend, either.”
Nola nodded, as if she’d already made her point. “You want to deny the truth, go ahead. It’s still the truth. We are what we are because we were born that way.”
“Your mother raised you to be a killer, Nola.”
“Because she knew I had it in me, was born with it in my blood, just like you were. You should be grateful—proud even. I figure people like us are as rare as Einstein, except we deal in bullets instead of numbers.”
Caitlin was left shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s scarier, hearing you say that or the fact that you believe it.”
“Bodies fall wherever we go; that’s our nature, sis. You can try to change that or temper it, but when the time and the need comes we go to guns the way some people go for a breath mint. Who we are is what we do. It’s time you accepted that. You’ll be happier, trust me.”
Caitlin was about to respond when what felt like a lightning bolt struck her head, dead center, a throb settling behind her eyeballs that was too painful to disguise.
“Headache, sis?”
“It comes and goes.”
“Don’t forget, I was there when it started. A blast percussion like that one scrambles your brains worse than dumping them in a blender. I’ve got another beer in my car, if you want to take a pill or something.”
“I’ll pass.”
“On the beer or the pill?”
“Both.” Caitlin grimaced, fighting down a wave of nausea. “Maybe I should arrest you for public drinking,” she managed, hoping to change the subject.
“Better make it fast.”
“Why?”
Nola Delgado frowned. “Federal marshals just stormed your medical examiner’s office. Do you really think it stops there, sis?”
As if on cue, Caitlin’s phone rang with a call from D. W. Tepper.
“I’ll be there shortly, Captain,” Caitlin greeted, having lost all track of time.
“No, you won’t, Ranger. Headquarters and any other public space is off-limits to you for the foreseeable future.”
“Come again?”
“Federal marshals just arrested me. You’re my one phone call.”
“They did what?”
“You heard me. The charge is violation of the Alien and Sedition Act, kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, or some other made-up bullshit. I can’t even pronounce some of the shit they’re slinging, but it’s got something to do with your dressing down of ICE at that elementary school.”
“Like what?”
“Like obstruction of justice or some shit like that.”
“Eckles,” Caitlin hissed.
“I’m running out of time here, so I need to make this fast. Keep your head low and stay out of sight, Ranger, because Washington’s gunning for you.”
“They better check their aim, Captain.”
98
CAMINO PASS, TEXAS
Senator Lee Eckles initiated the call from his car, repeating the process that would once again conceal the identities of the call’s participants. Participants would speak into their phone and the app would transfer spoken words to text for all to follow.
“Things are under control,” Lee Eckles said into his phone, after confirming all participants were on the line and activating the app.
OH, IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL IT WHEN THE TEXAS RANGERS ARE COMING FOR US? came the first response, identified by a five-number sequence: two numerals followed by a hyphen, and then three more.
“They’re just cops who wear fancy hats.”
JUST COPS, from another, similarly unidentified participant. DOES THAT INCLUDE CAITLIN STRONG?
“She’s no longer a problem. Neither is Camino Pass. We’re going to make it like that never happened. Rangers don’t have shit anymore, because we just took it out of their hands.”
SO THINGS CAN CONTINUE AS PLANNED, from another five-number sequence.
“They can indeed,” the senator reported. “But another opportunity has presented itself, one I raised in our last call about how a large portion of the pills manufactured at our facility have been contaminated by the same toxin that wiped out the population of Camino Pass. I can now confirm that portion numbers in the area of several hundred million of sufficient toxicity to make the ingestion of one pill fatal.”
WHAT ARE YOU GETTING AT?
Eckles didn’t bother reading the number designation this time. “What I hinted at during our last call. There are two things too much of the world has in common: a desire for drugs and a hatred for America, at least on the part of foreign governments.”
THERE’S NOTHING NEW ABOUT THAT.
“What’s new is the ability these contaminated pills provide us to do something about it. Forget a couple hundred million. Picture two billion of these pills distributed through China, Russia, the Middle East—take your pick from our many enemies.”
WHAT YOU’RE DESCRIBING IS MONSTROUS.
“I’m not convinced that’s the case. What do you call dropping bombs? What do you call war in general? Because we’re at war now and we all know it, even if we don’t call it that.”
I HAVE NO DESIRE TO GO DOWN AS THE BIGGEST MASS MURDERER IN HUMAN HISTORY.
“Except no one will ever know it’s us. And by the time the cause of all the deaths is discovered, it’ll be too late to warn anyone. And remember, we’re dealing with multiple languages and, often, closed societies. Anybody want to hazard a guess as to what a billion deaths would do to our enemies?”
NOT ALL THOSE BILLION ARE OUR ENEMIES.
“Maybe not,” Eckles responded, glad the literal transmission of his words wouldn’t capture the impatience in his tone, “but their governments are. And are we really able, or in a position, to make that distinction? I don’t think so. We’re talking about the future, my friends. We’re talking about securing it. Forget running the country; we can own the world.”
There was a pause, so long that the senator wondered if the secure connection may have been broken.
AND ASSUMING WE DECIDE TO GO AHEAD WITH
THIS, 66-534 started, leaving it there.
“We’ll need to build networks, distribution channels. An ambitious effort, for sure, but we have the necessary resources and personnel to make this happen.”
WE STILL NEED TO GET THEM TO BUY THE PILLS.
“No, we don’t. Because we’re going to give them away.”
99
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
Caitlin couldn’t resist driving by Ranger Company F headquarters, feeling her skin tighten at the sight of the convoy of black, supersize SUVs rimming the front of the building. She wondered where the federal marshals, or whoever had come in those vehicles, had taken Captain Tepper. She imagined it was some intake center and resolved to find out for sure. She pictured Cort Wesley and her breaking him out in a blaze of guns and glory.
Maybe Nola Delgado’s right about me …
It was a strange thought to form, under the circumstances. But that said nothing about how watching the scene transpiring at company headquarters made her flesh crawl—almost as much as the mere consideration that a man like Lee Eckles, United States senator or not, could have orchestrated something like this. Clearly, he wasn’t alone in building the biggest drug operation in U.S. history. She imagined it likely was all aimed at lining plenty of pockets and securing or enhancing power. Money might not be the root of all evil, but in her experience it came pretty close.
Caitlin swallowed down two more aspirin with a lukewarm water lingering in the cup holder, hoping they’d make some dent in the pain in her head, which felt like a fault line had ruptured along her skull. With the outline of the Vicodin bottle still protruding from her jeans, she wished she’d insisted that Cort Wesley keep hold of them, to eliminate the temptation she was feeling now.