Strong to the Bone--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

  J. Edgar Hoover stopped just short of a smile. Earl realized he had a perfectly round face and a tiny mouth with teeth that looked no bigger than a child’s first set.

  “You think your sleep is haunted by not going to Europe to fight the Nazis, Ranger?” the director of the FBI asked him. “Well, after you hear what I have to say, you may never sleep again.…”

  * * *

  “Is he telling the truth, Captain?” Earl asked Druce, spinning his truck back onto the pavement and pushing the engine harder than he ever had before.

  “He is indeed, Ranger, at least according to the best available intelligence.”

  Earl shook his head, wished he had some tobacco to spit like his own dad, William Ray Strong, but he’d never developed a taste for it. “You boys are a true piece of work. Know the difference between spies, secret agents, and real lawmen? Real lawmen know what it takes to work together.”

  “Really, Ranger Strong?” snapped Hoover. “I pulled your file in the aftermath of our initial meeting, and that wouldn’t appear to describe you at all. You’re no more a team player than every other Western gunfighter who thought he could clean up the world on his own, the difference being the world has passed you by.”

  “Has it now? Well, Director, I’m not really interested in cleaning up the whole world, just my own little part of it you boys traipsed into like you owned it. You think you’re the first to show up in Texas thinking we were a bunch of local yokel cowboys who needed schooling on life beyond the great frontier? Bullshit. And the thing all of you have in common is that when you leave, it’s always with your tails between your legs, on account of you found something bigger than you were. You’re a fool, Mr. Hoover.”

  Earl could see the man’s neck redden beneath the collar of his topcoat, his eyes opening so wide they glistened in the thin light of the truck’s interior. “A fool who can make life extremely difficult for you, once this is over, Ranger.”

  “Yeah? And maybe then I’d get the opportunity to spill my guts that, in spite of everything you knew and who you were up against, you let your men walk straight through a minefield to attack a bunch of corpses. I’m locked and loaded, sir. Sometimes you need a good bar fight, but I don’t suppose you’d know much on that count.”

  “Just get us to that train station, Ranger.”

  “You a praying man, Mr. Hoover? ’Cause if you are, you better start praying that train is late.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t. Upon reaching the station, they learned the train had departed for Fort Worth on time forty-five minutes earlier.

  “They still got a couple hours before they get there,” Earl told J. Edgar Hoover and Captain Henry Druce. “Any chance of rustling up a plane?”

  Hoover shook his head, seeming to resist the motion as if hating to show weakness of any kind.

  “Well, then, I guess we better get back on the road and burn some rubber. Your FBI’s gonna owe me a new set of tires when this is over, Mr. Director, but first I’ve got a phone call to make.”

  FORT WORTH, TEXAS; 1944

  Ranger Big Bill Kennedy was waiting for them outside the Fort Worth train station when they arrived two hours later. He’d just gotten back to his parents’ home from an extended patrol when Earl’s labored call from Abilene reached him, repeating his orders twice to make sure the young Ranger had heard him straight.

  “You are not to approach them under any circumstances, son. Repeat that for me.”

  “You already told me twice.”

  “Then it should be easy for you to repeat it.”

  “I won’t approach them no matter what.”

  “Don’t wear your star or your gun,” Earl resumed. “Nothing that might spook them. You got one job and one job only: follow them to wherever they go and report their whereabouts when we arrive at the station.”

  Having now arrived, Earl could see that Kennedy’s nickname was well earned; he wasn’t very broad, but was just as tall as any basketball player Earl had ever seen.

  Kennedy approached Earl’s truck and laid his hands on the open window ledge, breathing hard from nerves more than exertion.

  “They checked into the Hotel Texas just down Main Street a ways.”

  “Must be waiting for another train come morning,” Earl surmised, “or maybe something faster. How many are we looking at?”

  “Six: five big, one smaller.”

  Druce and J. Edgar Hoover exchanged a glance.

  “Any weapons?” Hoover asked the young Ranger.

  Big Bill Kennedy met his gaze for the first time and seemed to recognize him immediately. “No rifles or Tommy Guns I could see on their persons, sir, but I’d bet my britches they were packing pistols from the bulges in their jackets. And they were carrying some pretty hefty valises holding God knows what.”

  “Heavier firepower will be waiting for them at the hotel, anyway,” said Earl. “They had this planned out. By my figuring, they’ll make their break at dawn or thereabouts.”

  “I can have plenty of men here by then,” said Hoover, the cracking gone from his voice.

  “You can, sir, but you won’t, because these boys have been a step ahead of us all along. I’m not saying they’ve got a pipeline into Washington, but it’s a chance we can’t afford to take now. That means it’s us four and that’s it.”

  Hoover swallowed hard. “Ranger, you may see this as the chance to kill Nazis you were denied in Europe, but this is not the kind of decision a man of your station is equipped to make.”

  “Oh yeah? This coming from somebody who got several of his men killed in a minefield a few hours back. We’re doing this my way, Mr. Hoover, and you will go along or you can ride this out bound and gagged in the back of my truck. Your call, sir.”

  “This is a tall order, even for three men of your abilities,” Hoover said flatly, making no bones about his own effectiveness in a gunfight.

  “Oh, didn’t I mention the reinforcements I got coming?”

  Hoover and Druce looked at each other. “You didn’t mention the arrival of more men in the offing,” Druce said.

  “Who said anything about men, Captain?”

  * * *

  Certain the Nazis inside the Texas Hotel would have posted one of their number in the lobby through the entire night, Earl parked his truck just down the street, but out of sight from the windows. He cut the engine and rapped a hand atop the roof to roust Big Bill Kennedy from the truck’s bed.

  “You’re in charge,” he told the young Ranger, who stole a glance inside the truck at J. Edgar Hoover and a decorated British war hero. “Neither one of them makes a move unless you say to make it. That clear?”

  Big Bill nodded and Earl turned his gaze inside the truck. “Is that clear to you boys?”

  Both Hoover and Druce nodded, too.

  “Then we got ourselves a plan,” Earl said, climbing out of the truck. “Now, I’m gonna go see about those reinforcements.”

  * * *

  “You’re alone,” Hoover said groggily, straightening his tie and trying to wet his hair into place, when Earl returned over an hour later, maybe closer to two.

  “Yes, I am, and you ain’t going to a wedding, sir, you’re going to a gunfight.”

  “But you said you were going to get—”

  “Yes, I did,” Earl interrupted, leaving it there, until a tight smirk crossed his expression. “Did a whole bunch of deputizing, so much deputizing I could never have rounded up enough badges.”

  To a man, none of them had any idea what he was talking about and were too tired, and anxious, to ask. Then Big Bill Kennedy climbed out from behind the wheel to cede the driver’s seat back to him.

  Dawn broke four hours after Earl Strong’s return, and almost six from the time he’d parked his truck. The sun struggled to burn through a fog that had lifted off nearby Lake Worth. Big Bill had fetched coffee from a diner and passed the cups out from a wobbly cardboard box, dripping liquid from its underside from some overspill.

  T
he men were barely into their initial sips when the front door of the Texas Hotel opened through the fog and a man wearing a buttoned-up overcoat emerged to check the street, as casually as he could manage. Earl felt sure he was the lookout the Nazis had posted in the lobby through the night, low man on the totem pole, since if anyone was out here lying in wait, he’d be the first one shot.

  “Time to go to work, boys.”

  “Er, Ranger,” said J. Edgar Hoover, “you wouldn’t happen to have a spare gun, would you?”

  “I do indeed, Mr. Director, but you’re gonna sit this one out.” He continued, before Hoover could protest, “I can’t be worried about protecting you on top of everything else, especially given who the real target is here. I’m in charge and that’s the way we’re doing it,” he added firmly, to help the head of the FBI save face.

  Everything had fallen into place for Earl Strong, once he’d learned Gunther Haut’s true identity. What the bunkmates he’d murdered must’ve learned about him. Why all bets were off on the part of the Nazis committed to preserving as much of the Third Reich as they could, in terms of springing Haut from the POW camp and getting him out of Texas. Why men like Abner Dunbar and Witchell Long were just bit players in all this, discarded once their minor roles were completed.

  True to form, Hoover nodded after Earl laid things out for him. “This is a more important fight than any you would’ve fought in Europe, Ranger.”

  “Yes, sir, I believe it is,” Earl said, as four other big men emerged from the hotel. They were enclosing a single smaller man he thought he recognized from the camp photo as Gunther Haut, but from this distance through the fog, he couldn’t be sure.

  And, with that, he pressed down on the truck’s horn three times.

  * * *

  The six men had just started moving toward the street in a tight cluster when they heard what sounded like thunder, the ground rumbling beneath their feet. Earl watched them seize up solid in uncertainty, a moment before the flood of cattle rounded Main Street from two blocks up. An endless, churning brown horde cutting through the fog and blowing curtains of steam from their nostrils.

  “Let’s go!” Earl shouted over the deafening roar.

  Big Bill Kennedy and Captain Henry Druce of the British SAS were on either side of him in the next moment, timing their advance from the opposite side of the street and the onrushing cattle. The cattle stole so much of the Nazis’ attention, Earl doubted they even noticed the three of them were there, until he opened up with his .45.

  The big bullet took one of the Nazis in the forehead, knocking him backward off his feet, blocked from Earl’s view by the thundering stampede of cattle down Main Street. He’d paid a visit to the local stockyards, where this very herd had just been brought in for auction the previous day, the owner all too happy to cooperate with the Texas Rangers. He’d insisted that Earl deputize him first, which Earl did, though he stopped short of deputizing all the cattle rolling in the brown, mist-shrouded wave before him.

  Big Bill was wielding a twelve-gauge shotgun that looked tiny in his grasp. He pumped out all six shells in the chamber in rapid succession, his first five missing badly, but a sixth taking a leg out from a Nazi who’d begun to push his way through the slowing herd. The man disappeared and Earl thought he heard the man’s screams as he was crushed beneath the pounding hooves.

  Earl detected the distinctive clack of Henry Druce’s Enfield No. 2 Mk1 pistol now as well, the captain nowhere to be seen, having melted into the night in the fashion of the British commando that he was. What the Ranger did see, though, was a third Nazi going down from behind the cover of a mailbox Druce had either shot through or managed a miraculous shot at a shape exposed by no more than a few inches.

  Earl, meanwhile, crouched low and waded into the now meandering herd for cover. Three Nazis were down, by his count, leaving two more plus the man who called himself Gunther Haut, when he was really someone else entirely.

  No one’s ever gonna believe me, Earl thought.

  But he didn’t care, not since it wouldn’t matter if the man was dead, and there was no way Gunther Haut was getting out of this. Earl had lost track of him somehow, glad to see Big Bill pushing the last of the way through the cattle to take up a position closer to the Texas Hotel to stop the remaining Nazis from taking flight back inside the building.

  Earl watched Big Bill rise to sight in on one of the remaining gunmen, only to have a Nazi bullet take him in the side and spin him around. He didn’t go down, but the kid staggered and dropped lower to shield himself against getting hit again. The first time he’d been shot, in all likelihood, just as this was almost surely his first real gunfight. And Earl could tell by the flow of the herd where he’d last glimpsed Big Bill that the young Ranger was still on the move with the same intention in mind, once he reached the other side of the street.

  Earl watched a Nazi pop up out of nowhere amid the herd, spraying fire from his Thompson in all directions. At least one of the shots winged Captain Druce before he could dive behind a car for cover. Earl’s ears rang with the Tommy Gun’s powerful staccato roar, as its .45 caliber bullets made swiss cheese out of the vehicle behind which Druce had taken refuge.

  The herd, meanwhile, reacted to the sudden percussion by picking up its pace anew, the stench of animal hide and manure heavy on the air, mixing with the mist rising off Lake Worth. Earl thought he heard sirens screaming this way, but couldn’t be sure, given the high-pitched buzzing that clung to his ears from all the gunfire.

  He tried to sight in on the Nazi firing the Thompson, but a fresh spray from its barrel left him diving to the ground, shifting desperately atop the pavement to avoid being trampled. Earl figured the last Nazi in the group would be using the occasion to spirit Gunther Haut away from the maelstrom, now that Big Bill Kennedy had cut off their route back into the hotel lobby.

  The Ranger guessed they’d be moving against the grain of the herd and, sure enough, caught a glimpse of the biggest Nazi of all dragging Haut along with him. He was firing a German Mauser machine gun, likely lifted from the wall back at the Nazi stronghold in Abilene, orange flames flaring from its barrel chasing a limping Big Bill behind some trash cans hopefully full enough to keep more bullets from finding him.

  Earl got off a couple rounds to at least hold the Nazi at bay, a pause in fire following his shots that likely indicated the big Nazi was jamming a fresh magazine into the Mauser. Earl knew he owned those seconds and lurched upward from his spot at the edge of the stampede, the big Nazi stretching a hand out toward Gunther Haut who’d been swept into the steaming animal horde, his machine gun forgotten for the moment.

  Earl got the big Nazi in the chest with one of his last two rounds from the magazine in his .45, then heard an awful, high-pitched scream from the area where Haut had gone down. It lingered for a time, then turned into something more like a gurgle and, finally, shrill cries as the man’s final bout with freedom ended with him being trampled to death.

  Earl Strong waded into the horde of cattle again, trying to find the man who called himself Gunther Haut to make sure he was dead. But he was unable to push successfully against the grain, and ended up on the other side of the blur of cattle. He found himself standing over the big Nazi who lay on his back, his wheezing sounding as if it were coming from the hole the .45 shell had blown through his chest. He coughed blood into the air, his eyes fastening on Earl hatefully as he died.

  The Ranger looked toward Big Bill Kennedy pushing himself out from the cover of the trash cans, dragging the twelve-gauge with him. Captain Druce, meanwhile, rose from behind the shot-up car, blood leaking past the hand pressed against the wound on his torso.

  Moments later, Earl caught sight of J. Edgar Hoover moving down the street tentatively, clinging to the cover of streetlights that offered no cover at all. He spotted Earl and steered clear of the final vestiges of the stampede, the animals finally relinquishing their hold on the day’s dawn.

  “Did you get him?” Hoover shouted at
Earl. “Did you get Haut?”

  “See for yourself,” Earl said, pointing to the remains of a body revealed by clear pockets in the dwindling herd.

  Fort Worth police cars tore onto the scene from the head of street, following the same path the cattle had. There must have been a dozen of them, uniformed police starting to spill out with guns drawn.

  “I’ll handle this, Ranger,” Hoover said, spine straightening and looking once again like the director of the FBI.

  “You do that, Mr. Hoover,” Earl said, holstering his .45 and eyeing the crushed, barely recognizable form of Gunther Haut lying facedown on the street, his overcoat tattered and torn. “You do that.”

  89

  RED ROCK, TEXAS

  “Here’s the photo, Ranger,” Big Bill Kennedy said, producing a dog-eared, faded prison camp snapshot of Gunther Haut that had been folded in half from his wallet. “Your granddaddy gave it to me as a souvenir.”

  “That’s just like him. I still have the first Colt and Model 1911 forty-five he ever carried. He gave both of them to me on different birthdays.”

  Big Bill’s eyes grew misty. “I don’t think there’s a man I miss more in the world, Ranger.”

  “Me, either.”

  Caitlin hesitated. “The man who got trampled in the stampede, it wasn’t Gunther Haut, was it?”

  “I suspect it wasn’t. There wasn’t much to recognize, once all those cattle had their way with him, and your granddaddy got to thinking that maybe he didn’t see that big Nazi reaching out to save Haut, but pushing him down into the cattle instead, so we’d figure we got our man. Your granddaddy came to believe that Gunther Haut slipped out the rear of the Texas Hotel, while the Nazis, and that decoy who got crushed to death, came out the front.”

  “Did he ever find any evidence to support that?”

  “Just the fact that a hotel clerk thought he recalled the man who ended up getting crushed to death arriving ahead of the others who came on the train from Abilene. As for me, I never questioned Earl Strong, because I never knew him to be wrong. Hoover had the Fort Worth cops take Druce away and probably put him on a plane back to England after getting him stitched up, before either of us could say our good-byes. Then that sumbitch read us the riot act about keeping our mouths shut on what he’d told us, given that the man who called himself Gunther Haut was believed to be dead and no sense lay in letting out the truth nobody would’ve believed anyway.”