Miss Harriet gasped when a shadow flicked across the ghostly white stove. “Well, shit.”
“Sister! Your language.” Miss Ruby realized that she hadn’t breathed in a good long while and inhaled at the same time a heavily tattooed man with a shaved head appeared in the hallway with a machete in his hand. An armed stranger in her house called for only one action. Shooting with both hands in her lap, the report of her .38 was startling and loud.
Miss Harriet’s pistol thundered over and over, not four feet away, as fast as she could squeeze the well-oiled trigger.
The small living room was full of people as scrawny, tattooed men charged the sisters from across the room. The deafening concussion of gunshots filled the house.
* * *
Mejia didn’t want to use firearms, wanting to keep the murder as quiet as possible and to have plenty of time to mutilate the corpses for maximum impact. They were there to make the point to anyone who failed the Hidalgo in any way would pay with the deaths of their entire family.
So what else would he need against two old anglo mujeres? He looked for the fear in their eyes as he leaped across the living room to slash with the razor-sharp blade in his hand.
What happened in the next second was something he could never have anticipated. The moment the soon-to-be-carrion gangster came into full view of the tiny, gray-haired abuela sitting beside the window, a hard object knocked the breath out of the sicario. His breath oofed from his lungs.
Mejia didn’t feel the second round that punched through the upper lobe of his right lung from less than five feet away. His legs buckled and his face slammed into the oak floor at the same time his own gray-haired abuela and a family of recently dead Mexican children gathered in a shimmering glow to watch his soul slip from the man’s body and seep through the floorboards.
* * *
The first gunshot startled Martinez, one of the near-twin gangsters, when he raced through the kitchen door, the razor-sharp knife still in his hand. Because the tiny old woman sitting in a rocker hesitated, he almost made it to her chair before her little pistol barked over and over. He hadn’t noticed what she held in her hand until the last second, but strangely, he didn’t feel the impact of the rounds.
Instead, he was suddenly tired beyond description. Everything in the man’s body refused to respond to any of his brain’s commands. His legs refused to cooperate any further and he sat heavily at the woman’s feet, finding just enough energy to wave the blade like a soft flower.
He blinked twice, staring at the wicker basket full of brightly colored yarn before she shot again.
Head aching from a continuing roll of gunshots in their small living room, Miss Ruby barely registered the first Hispanic man lying on their oak floor. Another dropped at Miss Harriet’s feet, slashing feebly with a big knife at the basket of yarn while she continued to pull the trigger on the double action revolver until the hammer clicked over and over on dead caps.
There was no time to wonder at the room full of gore, because still another tattooed man popped from the kitchen and charged forward with a three-foot machete raised like a baseball bat.
Instinct kicked in. Miss Harriet needed to protect her sister. The arthritis in her hands forgotten, her pistol bucked with each squeeze of the double-action trigger. The man deflated, and three men bled out on their polished and once clean floor.
* * *
Outside in the Barracuda, Esteban saw flashes strobe through the open windows like a string of firecrackers ripping off. Thunder from the house followed, and he waited with rising anxiety as lights flicked on in homes on both sides of the street.
His men didn’t have firearms.
Neighbors in bath robes and a few shirtless men stepped out on their tiny porches, looking both ways to see what had caused the commotion.
Still he sat behind the wheel, expecting to see his blood-covered brothers rush from the house.
The dark muscle car idling in front of the house drew notice as the neighbors realized a strange car was in the neighborhood. Esteban finally decided it was time to flee the scene. He pulled to the corner and turned right as sirens wailed in the distance.
Half a mile away, he flashed past the Cadillac they’d seen earlier. It was parked outside of a local convenience store. The occupants were inside and never knew he was on their turf.
His men had failed, and the chances were good that the Devil Woman would have Incencio or Geronimo put a bullet in his brain for it. Choking down rising panic, he turned south to cross into Ciudad Acuna and drove to the Mujer Malvada’s rancho in Coahuila.
* * *
Shaking with terror, and despite the grinding arthritis in her left shoulder, Miss Ruby twisted around, picked up the receiver from its cradle, and punched three numbers with a shaking finger.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency.”
Her voice quavered. “My sister and I just shot three men who broke into our house.”
“Is this a joke?”
“I hope not. All three of ’em are dead.”
Miss Harriet laid the pistol in her lap and turned both corners of her mouth downward. “And they’ve bled all over our clean floor.”
Chapter 7
I was back on desk duty once again, standard procedure after an officer involved in a shooting. It seemed like I spent most of my time on administrative leave.
I was getting pretty good at it.
The media circus was in full swing after the attack on the set of The Mexican Pipeline they were calling the Movie Lot Massacre, taking up considerable time on the news channels and filling several hours of radio talk shows. I was in a meeting with Major Chase Parker, my commander of the Texas Rangers Special Unit, just off the third floor Grand Jury Room in the Ballard Courthouse.
We asked the crew members and actors not to speak with the reporters who descended on the scene like vultures, shoving microphones in the traumatized victims’ faces both there and at the hospital, asking absurd questions. It wasn’t because we were trying to hide anything. Far from it. I simply wanted to steer the news crews toward the sheriff’s office so all the information they heard was correct and accurate while investigators worked their way through the process of gathering facts and evidence.
Those traumatized individuals didn’t need to hear idiotic questions such as “how do you feel,” or “what were you thinking at the time?”
That idea lasted about fifteen minutes, until after one of the healthy crew members arrived at the Chisos Regional Hospital in Ballard. While waiting for his friend in surgery, the shocky crewmember found himself staring into the glass eye of a camera and told what he remembered in graphic detail.
It was a feeding frenzy after that, with reporter after reporter interviewing the crew member riding the crest of sudden popularity. His story expanded with more detail and suppositions until it took on a life of its own. Within minutes the interview went national, and then international, attracting even more stations and outlets.
So as that cyclone continued to gain strength, the commander of Company E., Major Parker called us together in the third-floor corner office of the Ballard Courthouse, instead of holding our debriefing at Company Headquarters in El Paso where reporters might be waiting to speak to the Texas Ranger who was on the scene.
We were gathered around a rectangular conference table in the same small office where I’d killed two terrorists in self-defense several months earlier. I couldn’t help but look up at the freshly painted ceiling that had been destroyed that day, and out the window at the rooftops and scraggly trees in our little town that looked quiet and peaceful from such a height.
The Major and I weren’t alone in the debriefing. Sheriff Ethan Armstrong was there, along with my dad, retired Ranger Herman Hawke, and Gabe. He’d also invited our local FBI Agent, Landon McDowell. He was the only one in a suit and tie.
Agent McDowell was the Bureau’s liaison with the Ballard County Sheriff’s office. He’d worked with us in the past. Well, wo
rked might be stretching it a little. He reluctantly helped during what came to be known as the Ballard Incident in our home town when terrorists took over the courthouse. He’d also been involved in a little border fracas a few months earlier. Completely out of his comfort zone, the FBI Agent who cut his teeth in the department in Washington, D.C., still hadn’t acclimated to his West Texas assignment, but at least he now owned a pair of boots that went well with his suit and tie.
Five hats lay crown down in the center of the wooden table.
This time it wasn’t a formal debriefing, since the others were in the room, but a relaxed discussion with Major Parker. We began by recounting our versions of the shooting. With the exception of Gabe, we were all professional observers, a part of our training that evolved into almost a sixth sense over time, so that we could be accurate in our assessments of situations or events in the field.
Our recollections were the same, and that helped put the increasingly breathless news reports to rest in Parker’s mind. He leaned back in his chair when we were finished and smoothed his dark tie. “It’s good to get the real story, instead of what they’re saying on TV. I know, I’ve read your report, but I wanted to hear what happened straight from the horses’ mouths. I haven’t asked, but did any of y’all recognize any of the shooters that got away?”
Shrugs all around the table.
“Well, it looks to me like the Hidalgo cartel has now advertised they’re operating on our side of the river.”
“That ain’t news to nobody. They’ve been in and out over here for years.” My old man’s voice was sharp. “Hell, they cross the river as easy as it is for me to go to the store, and most of ’em have more ink on ’em than that tattooed man at the circus.”
“I know that, Herman, but this time they’ve crossed to operate a lot farther north, and don’t mind advertising it. This wasn’t anything we’ve seen in the past. It was a major operation to clear the way for future projects, and that tells me they aren’t afraid anymore. Chief Fitch agrees with me.”
Chief Marlon Fitch is head of the Texas Rangers Division of the DPS. He’s over all six Ranger companies in the state, and the Special Operations Groups or SOG, that’s charged to counter criminal organizations threats, terrorists, and drug trafficking organizations along the Rio Grande.
McDowell scribbled on a yellow pad. A man of few words, he was as out of place in our part of the world as a cat in a doghouse. He listened, nodding from time to time. Unlike how agents are portrayed on television, he was content to sit back and take notes.
Resting both elbows on the arms of the scarred wooden chair, Major Parker rocked back. The chair creaked. “They know something we don’t, which they feel gives them the confidence to just drive up and down our highways, shooting folks without worrying about getting caught.”
“They’ve always acted like that.” The Old Man frowned and laced his fingers on the table. “Bad guys don’t care about laws. Them damned liberals oughta understand that, they’re bad guys because they break the law.”
“Acted is right, Herman. But you’re not educating kids here. We’re all lawmen.”
“I know it, but I’m still mad about what happened. The thing is, now them people ain’t afraid of a stinkin’ thing, and that’s what scares the pee-waddlin out of me.”
“Given.” Major Parker tapped the tabletop with a forefinger. “Here’s a problem. I’ve made calls to all the alphabet government agencies I know of to find out who the dead undercover agent belonged to, and nobody fessed up.”
He glanced over at Agent McDowell who shrugged. “All I can say is that he isn’t . . . wasn’t ours.”
“Well, at this point, we have no idea who he might be, and that worries the piss out of me. Especially if there’s another man out there they won’t admit to. That’s a problem.”
At least he didn’t refer to “the dead undercover agent” as the man I’d shot. I didn’t need to hear that right then. His death weighted on my shoulders, even though we all knew it was justifiable.
There were deep scars in the tabletop, and it was everything I could do not to reach out and trace the nearest one with my finger. I helped put them there by strangling a terrorist to death on that exact spot after he dropped through the ceiling during their takeover of the courthouse. It was hard to concentrate on the conversation.
A wave of emotion washed over me, threatening to take me down in a dark swirl. I was thinking those scars weren’t nearly as deep as the ones in my soul.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the Old Man studying my posture. Just like when I was a kid, he could see straight into my heart. Keeping my expression blank, I took a deep breath and leaned forward with both forearms on the table, forcing my attention back on the issue at hand. “So what do you wanna do, Major?”
“I want to put an end to what I think’s going on . . . what you heard on the movie set.” Major Parker set his jaw. “I need you to arrest those responsible, if they’ll agree to handcuffs, if not, clean this nest of snakes out of my state.”
Ethan patted his shirt pocket and located a toothpick. Tucking it into the corner of his mouth under his thick mustache, he shifted into professional mode. “My deputies have increased their presence on the highways, and even though the Snowflakes in other parts of the world might get their panties in a wad, we’re committing the sin of profiling.”
Chuckles all around. Except for Gabe, we’d all been behind the wheel of a highway patrol car and understood what all cops know. We look for certain signs or “tells,” that indicate a variety of potential criminal offenses. We also operate on instinct, or a sixth sense that reveals to us when and if a person or situation looks wrong.
It’s an evolutionary holdover that rings a subconscious warning bell any time something looks or feels out of sorts. Law enforcement officers, or LEOs as we’re sometimes known, tap into that sense after being on the streets and dealing with all kinds of people and dangerous situations. We notice things regular folks don’t, like a certain look in a person’s eye, body language, or responses.
No one will admit it these days, but any LEO in the country can follow a car for only a short period of time before the driver commits an infraction. After that, well, one thing leads to another, such as drugs in the car, weapons violations, or warrants.
It’s usually warrants that get ’em back in the bracelets.
I don’t know of one single Ranger who won’t perk up at the mention of day-to-day police work. It’s in our roots. “Catching anything in that net?”
Ethan frowned. “Not so’s you’d notice. We’ve mostly caught the usual, with a couple of drug busts.”
“Catch many illegals?”
“Always. That’s near every day of every week, but right now most of those taken into custody come from the Border Patrol. The limited number of two-lanes leading out of here helps keep that down. It’s not like up toward I-20 and all that mess around Midland or Odessa where you can bet one out of a hundred cars and trucks are carrying something illegal or someone’s breaking the law.”
Even though our part of the state is vast and remote, what most folks don’t realize is that there’s a spiderweb of dirt roads expanding through some of the biggest ranches in the country out in West Texas. Most are accessed through gates and cattle guards, but once you’re on ’em, a person can drive for miles, oftentimes bypassing the highways and possible checkpoints by following the squiggly roads winding through the mountains and across some of the roughest terrain in the country.
You’ve got to know where you’re going, or you’ll meet yourself coming back around to where you started.
Ethan’s been called out a number of times in the middle of the night, when ranchers or hands see headlights far out in the country. Drug runners and human traffickers use them from time to time to miss Border Patrol check stations or avoid patrol cars on the highways.
The smart ones only use those skinny routes on occasion so as not to establish a pattern, driving through the d
eep night darkness. But drug mules and human traffickers are human, and will stick with what’s familiar, returning again and again to the same places for meets, as pick up points, or to exchange money for the drugs.
We drifted from one topic to another, all relating to the cartels and drug trafficking.
I was watching Major Parker. He was only half-listening, and I was getting the idea he was waiting for the right moment to tell us what was on his mind. He adjusted the dark tie knotted around his throat as if to ease the pressure before speaking.
He swiveled toward Agent McDowell. “You guys have any questions for us?”
“Not right now. We’re looking into it through our own channels, but nothing has come up so far. I’ll let you know what we find out.”
“All right.” The Major was done. “Here’s what I want you to do, Sonny.”
The tiny room grew silent.
“What’s that?”
“Find the head of this cartel snake and cut it off, and I want it done yesterday.”
The Old Man cleared his throat. “What I’m hearing you say is . . .”
“Don’t need to be said.”
Dad wouldn’t quit. “This is like them old westerns where they hire a sheriff to come in and clean up a town, and don’t care how he does it until the job’s done. And then they realize they’ve hired the same kind of person as they was afraid of, only now he’s wearing a badge and has authority. Y’all know how those stories always end.”
A door slammed somewhere downstairs and a light female voice laughed.
“Well, it won’t be like that. You’re the right person for this job, and I’ll handle the rest.”
“That’s what the Montana Cattleman’s Association told Tom Horn, and you see where that got him.”
“Horn was a murderer, not a lawman.” Major Parker studied my dad. “Herman, you don’t trust me?”
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