Strong from the Heart--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

  He knew that he’d done his job, done it well and he took pride in it. “I was an active officer in the oldest and most legendary law enforcement agency in the United States,” he said. “As a Texas Ranger, I have always understood that I was part of a rich, proud tradition. I’d drain the last drop of blood from my body to uphold it.”

  —Mark Boardman, “The Lasting Influence of Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson,” True West, November 18, 2016

  103

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  “You’re blocking my sun, Ranger.”

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  Jones took off his sunglasses. “It was either you or the manager of this place telling me I’ve been evicted.”

  “Knowing the way Washington works, you’ll be able to retire here.”

  “Back so soon?”

  “You were right, Jones.”

  “You came all the way back to tell me that?”

  “I thought it made for a good conversation starter. See, you were right about nothing being built beneath the Texas desert within spitting distance of Camino Pass. You were right because it was already there and had been since the Cold War.”

  Jones sat up, his once flat stomach rolling out over his bathing suit, his voice lowering to a whisper. “You’re talking about the underground railroad.”

  “Is there a reason why you’re whispering?”

  “Force of habit, Ranger. There was time when speaking of the mere existence of the underground railroad could have gotten you sent to Guantanamo—or something comparable for the time.”

  “I’m guessing there’s a reason for that.”

  “That reason being the government spent the equivalent of a hundred billion dollars today fulfilling a paranoid fantasy. A roughly thirty-year project that began in the 1950s and picked up speed again under Reagan. Forget the Star Wars lasers-in-space project, Ranger. This one was the ultimate boondoggle.”

  Caitlin remained standing. “Keep talking, Jones.”

  He pulled his feet off the chaise longue and set them on the concrete. “Picture a nationwide, interconnected, underground network of railroad tunnels connected to department store–sized command and control centers where chosen elites could ride out a nuclear holocaust for a century or so. Moronic minds—the same minds who had students practicing to hide under their desks to survive a nuclear blast—actually saw this as a viable plan to maintain the government so it could ride herd on the survivors above ground. I’ve seen the studies, Ranger. Know how many Americans would survive an all-out nuclear war with all major population centers attacked?”

  “No.”

  “Want to take a guess?”

  “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Somewhere between fifty and seventy-five million, though some estimates were in excess of a hundred million. Between a quarter and a third of the total population, generally. The same studies reported that the biggest problem at that point would be governmental infrastructure. Who’d be in charge exactly? Not answering that question would be to accept The Road Warrior or The Walking Dead as the state of things, pretty much.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been watching a lot of television, Jones.”

  Jones put his sunglasses back on. “My new job doesn’t come with the demands of the old ones.”

  “Or the gym time, obviously,” she said, looking at his stomach. “So they build this underground railroad to maintain command and control.”

  “They never finished it, of course. The project died with JFK, was reborn with Nixon, and then was pursued full-bore by Reagan before George H. W. Bush killed it for good when it had already gone wildly over budget.”

  “There’s a surprise,” Caitlin frowned.

  “In the end, they got maybe a third of the thing done. Care to guess where most of that was?”

  “How about right under our feet?”

  Jones glanced down at the polished concrete at his feet. “Maybe not literally, but Texas for sure.”

  “I talked to a highway patrol captain who claims he used to hear an invisible train regularly.”

  “Invisible only because it was probably rumbling a hundred feet or so beneath his feet, carrying men and supplies to one of the command and control bunkers they were building.”

  Caitlin took a step closer to Jones, angling to the side so the sun reached Jones again. “I think the people we’re after turned one of those command and control centers into a drug manufacturing facility that belongs in the Guinness Book of World Records, and I’m betting it’s a stone’s throw from Camino Pass.”

  “And who might these people be, Ranger?” he asked her, clearly interested.

  “You take them down and you can write your ticket back to Washington. You’d be a hero, Jones. Homeland would welcome you back with a red carpet.”

  Jones weighed the prospects of that, nodding. “And what about you?”

  “I’m a federal fugitive, remember? Better I lay low and let you take the credit.”

  “And who would I be getting the credit for taking down?”

  “Among others, Senator Lee Eckles. Know him?”

  “He was always quick with a buck when it came to national security. The kind of man, after he shakes your hand you go looking for Purell.”

  “That much hasn’t changed, although a shower might be more appropriate.”

  Jones nodded again. “You nail him and I get the credit.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “And what do you need from me in return, Ranger?”

  “The original plans for this underground railroad. And something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How the story of my great-grandfather, Pancho Villa, and Felipe Wong ended.”

  “What makes you think I know?”

  “The way you were gloating after you told me a part of it, Jones. Even a blind man could read you.”

  Jones slid a neighboring chaise longue closer to his. “Take a load off and make yourself comfortable, Ranger. This may take a while…”

  104

  CAMINO PASS, TEXAS; 1898

  “You’re welcome to ride along, amigo, but we’ve had our fill already and I wouldn’t ask you to do any more than you’ve done.”

  Pancho Villa smiled at him. “What are friends for?”

  Villa rode alongside William Ray Strong back to Camino Pass, the town where he’d been jailed just two days earlier. Delivering home the children Felipe Wong’s men had taken was joyous and bittersweet at the same time, given the massacre of so many fathers and brothers at the hands of Wong’s gunmen in the aftermath of the abduction.

  William Ray watched the reunions transpire under lanterns and torchlight in the center of town. Word spread fast, and more of the townsfolk rushed to be reunited with their children; pretty much everyone else gathered to join in the subdued celebration.

  “We could stay here tonight, Ranger,” Villa suggested. “Pick up more of my men and set out to make our move on Wong at first light.”

  “I’m not waiting until first light. There’s some work needs doing under darkness, and tonight’s as good a time for that as any.”

  Villa nodded, even though it was clear he didn’t agree with the strategy. “We’ll need to gather some supplies for the trip first.”

  William Ray nodded slightly. “Supplies and something else, amigo.”

  * * *

  The metal storage containers were normally used for cow’s milk. There were four of them, with two hanging from each man’s saddle. The extra weight slowed the ride south and necessitated an occasional dismount to allow the horses to regain their strength.

  “Don’t want to have a horse die on us in the middle of the desert night, do we?” William Ray challenged Villa, when he protested the time it cost them. “Now, I know you got yourself a revolution to run, but I believe it can wait until the sun’s burning up the sky tomorrow.”

  Villa eyed the four cow milk cans, which looked like giant rusty cylinders for a steam engine
. “When I was a boy, I flew kites.”

  “Glad to hear that, amigo.”

  “I’m getting to something here. You need to trust me.”

  “Last man I really trusted was Steeldust Jack Strong, and you don’t look nothing like Steeldust Jack.”

  “I’m not su padre, Ranger, but I’m still here, still with you.”

  “That warrants an exception,” William Ray said to Villa. “Now, tell me what you got in mind with these kites?”

  * * *

  They stopped in a town to which several of Villa’s men had fled with the gold ore and Gatling guns. The process of stitching the six kites Villa figured they needed took time, but not so much that they couldn’t reach the Las Bajadas territory claimed by Felipe Wong while there was still enough darkness left ahead of the dawn.

  “We could wait another day,” Villa suggested.

  William Ray shook his head. “He could regroup by then, amigo. I figure he’s already gotten word of what happened up at the border. On top of your boys riding herd over his, he’s gonna be scrambling to get things settled down. I figure, on top of everything, that he’s scared, and there’s no worse feeling than something a man hasn’t known before, at least not lately.”

  Villa nodded. “We’ll need to take a couple of my men with us.”

  “Suits me just fine, so long as they don’t mind dying.”

  “Like you?”

  “Some things are worth it. Plenty, in fact.”

  “Like this, Ranger? Why? Is it Wong himself? If that’s the case, it should be me doing the killing, not you.”

  “Not who he is as much as what he does. See, Pancho, you got your feeling about this revolution that’s coming to Mexico. Well, I got a feeling about this opium that’s coming to Texas and other places across the country. I done enough reading to know what it did in China, and now men like Wong and his compadres are fixing to do the same thing to your country and mine. I can’t abide that; I can’t allow it. That’s what makes what we’re doing worth it, and, if I haven’t told you already, I’m damn appreciative for your help.”

  The young man’s eyes glistened, looking in that moment more like a boy’s. “Wait until you see my kites in action, Ranger.”

  * * *

  Villa chose four men he trusted the most, men who’d also done the most soldiering and killing of any in his bandit bunch. They were still a three-hour ride from Wong’s stronghold in Las Bajadas, and William Ray figured dawn was five hours away, meaning they’d be cutting things close.

  The ride to Las Bajadas was made longer by the need to bypass the rolling hills and mountain range that held the actual camp of Felipe Wong and to keep to the fertile lands of his poppy fields instead. William Ray expected there’d be guards, and he accepted the notion that he’d have to take them out with the quiet of his knife; he was not about to expect anyone else to perform that task.

  Until Pancho Villa volunteered the men who’d accompanied them.

  “I chose them for a reason, Ranger. This is what they do,” the young revolutionary said flatly.

  William Ray nodded, scratching at his beard and believing for the first time that Villa might truly overthrow the Mexican government someday. His tone was that of a man as sure of his principles as he was of his actions, and also a man who forgot neither his friends nor his enemies. The Ranger had witnessed that firsthand numerous times in the days they’d been together. He was no kid, for sure, in any way besides age, enjoying both ambitious scope and the singular vision required to realize it.

  “Then let’s get to it, amigo,” William Ray told him.

  * * *

  He and Villa made their way into Felipe Wong’s fields, toting those milk cans of kerosene, two each, dangling from straps slung over their shoulders, as soon as Villa’s men returned, breathless and covered in the blood of the men they’d just killed. They took up guard posts of their own, against the chance that replacements for the dead men, or reinforcements, came down from Wong’s camp up in Las Bajadas.

  William Ray knew four cans and two men weren’t even close enough to cover the entire scope of Wong’s poppy fields. But the dry conditions meant the contents would catch quickly once the fires started. The night was moonless, an additional blessing, which, along with the camouflage provided by the endless rows of high-climbing red flowers, would keep them totally out of sight.

  In all, it took twenty minutes for the Ranger to drain his two cans of kerosene. Then he abandoned the cans and hurried through the fields toward the rendezvous point, where he found Pancho Villa already prepping the four kites. The smell in the air indicated that Villa had used one of the remaining cans of kerosene to soak the tightly knotted fabric strung between the thin sticks of wood that formed the frames of the kites. Villa had already strung spools of string to the ends of the kites, just enough to control their initial flight until he released them seconds later. By that time, it would be obvious to anyone looking down from the mountains and hills of Las Bajadas what was happening.

  They were racing the coming daylight by the time Villa, keeping one kite for himself, dispensed the other three to his men, who immediately fanned out to preselected positions around the field.

  “How do they know when to strike their match?” William Ray wondered.

  “When they see my kite rising.”

  “How’d you know there’d be enough wind tonight to pull this off, amigo?”

  Villa grinned broadly, looking like a boy again. “I didn’t.”

  The next few minutes left an indelible mark on William Ray Strong’s memory, which he was certain would remain vivid until the day he took his last breath.

  First, Pancho Villa’s kite rose into the air, already fluttering from the flames consuming it. It spun wildly, even as the three others followed its path into the air in a perfect rectangle around the perimeter of Felipe Wong’s poppy fields. The first kite to rise plummeted like a falling star moments ahead of the other three.

  Almost instantly, a huge plume of flames shot into the air, spreading faster than William Ray’s eyes could keep up with. A sound like crickets chirping resounded through the night as the flames climbed high toward the sky, even as a trio of more audible poofs sounded and curtains of flame sprang up from the three other corners of the field. They converged on each other rapidly, and the Ranger saw, in the bright amber glow superheating the night, that Felipe Wong’s entire field of poppies would be an inferno soon.

  A stench that was bitter and sweet at the same time filled the air, thickening to the point that William Ray had to soak his kerchief in water from his canteen and wrap it tightly over his nose and mouth to ward off the sickening odor. The crackling ebbed, sounding more like wood being eaten by a hearth fire, and the Ranger was silhouetted by the blistering flames, next to Pancho Villa.

  William Ray took off his Stetson and mopped the sweat from his brow and cheeks with a swipe of his sleeve.

  “Kites,” he said, his smile even broader than Villa’s had been. “I’m gonna remember that one, amigo,”

  The young revolutionary turned his way. “It’s just one field, Ranger. You can’t burn them all.”

  “Not in one night, anyway. Maybe when you’re running things in this country you’ll drop the likes of Felipe Wong into the ground and plant daisies over their graves, amigo.”

  “He’ll be coming after you, Ranger,” Villa said, as the sun peeked over the horizon. “You know that.”

  “You bet I do. Matter of fact, I’m counting on it.”

  * * *

  William Ray was standing in the middle of the trail he knew Wong and his men would be taking to give chase. The sun was high enough to burn the sky by then, shining in the eyes of the riders who ground to a halt and squinted to see the man ahead of them. He was holding in one hand a twelve-gauge shotgun, provided by Pancho Villa; the other hand was clenched into a loose fist.

  Felipe Wong rode at the head of the group, a mix of befuddlement and amusement stretched over his features, as
if he was unsure what to make of finding the man whom he sought lying in wait for him, instead.

  “You killed my men. You took my gold, my guns. And then you burned my fields. Tell me, Ranger, was that worth dying for, all this that was none of your concern?”

  “Why don’t you ask those children I returned to their homes, Mr. Wong? You can do anything you damn well please down here or in China or on the moon, for all I care. The mistake you made was crossing into Texas. That made it my concern. And if you set even one foot over the border again, the Texas Rangers will be waiting.”

  “But not you, William Ray Strong, because you’ll be dead.”

  “We’ll see about that, sir. Right now, I’m going to give you a chance you never gave all those kids you been stealing. Tell your men to turn tail and get gone from here so you and me can finish this between us.”

  The riders clacked thirty guns into position, all trained on the Ranger.

  “I think I’d rather watch them gun you down instead.”

  “Suit yourself, Mr. Wong,” said William Ray, opening his fist and, in the same motion, flicking the cigarette lighter he was holding.

  The flame fluttered in the breeze as he dropped the lighter, igniting the line of kerosene that darkened the ground at his feet. The fire caught like a fuse and ran toward the much thicker pool he’d left almost directly where the riders were stopped. Horses reared in panic and weapons that only a moment before had been ready to fire launched into the air as the riders struggled for control.

  William Ray had never heard worse screams than the ones that came from the men tossed from their saddles into the flames. Their horses burst from the fire, the pounding of hooves on the hardpan sounding like thunder. A second crescendo of piercing shrieks followed, as the fire caught some of the desperate horses ablaze. The scene of flaming riders galloping atop fiery steeds made the Ranger think of something bred of hell itself—the ultimate destination of the men who were dying before him.