Road to Justice

by Glenn Trust

  When she finished explaining things, Claire waited while Jacinta stared out into the yard, seeing nothing, drying her eyes with her sleeve from time to time. It would take time she knew, for the young woman to accept the reality of her new life. They had plenty of time.

  Minutes passed before Jacinta turned to Claire. “How long have you been here? Is there really no hope?”

  “Eighteen years.” Claire watched the horror spread across Jacinta’s face.

  “So long?”

  “Yes.” Claire nodded and reached to pat Jacinta’s hand. “Yes, so long to live a life that is good for me.” She rose from the chair. “Come. I’ll show you your new home. We can talk, have something to eat. If you need to cry some more, we can sit together, and I will put my arms around you and let you use my shoulder for your tears.”

  Claire took Jacinta by the hand and led her into the house. It was beautiful, spacious, every room clean and fresh with flowers from the garden in the vases and sparkling glass in the windows. It was the most beautiful prison, Jacinta could have imagined.

  29.

  Everything Returned to Normal

  “What the fuck!” It was an exclamation of panic, not a question.

  The van veered toward the truck from the oncoming lane. Marty Slocum jerked the wheel hard to the right, sending the K and Z truck careening into the roadside ditch on its side. Screams and cries rose from the passengers concealed behind the interior walls.

  Sliding sideways across the highway to block the road, the approaching van skidded to a halt. Figures dressed in dark clothes and face shields jumped from the van and fanned out around the truck lying on its side now, wheels spinning and engine revving.

  “Get off me!” Chesty Miller, the security man for this trip, was pinned down in the passenger seat by Slocum who had fallen onto him as the truck turned over on its right side.

  Slocum shook the cobwebs from his head and took his foot off the accelerator. The engine quieted, although the muffled cries of pain and terror coming from the back of the truck remained audible in the night air.

  “Get the fuck off me!” Miller could see the men outside surrounding the truck, moving into firing positions. Pinned under Slocum’s weight, the Remington 870 twelve-gauge shotgun still clenched in Miller’s fists was useless. He thought of taking a shot through the windshield to scatter the attackers, but he couldn’t bring it up in the cramped space.

  Slocum took hold of the steering wheel and pulled himself up. First one hand and then the other found the open driver’s window. He pulled himself up and pushed his head out.

  From twenty feet away, a man lifted an automatic rifle and pointed the muzzle at his face. The rifle jerked three times in the man’s arms, and three rounds crashed into Slocum’s head and neck. It happened so quickly, and the range was so near that Slocum never heard the shots and never knew he had been killed. He dropped back through the open window to land on top of his companion.

  Chesty Miller had the unpleasant fortune to see everything that was happening as he struggled to find a way to use the shotgun. Head swiveling from side to side at the figures just feet away outside the truck now, the frustrating futility of his predicament became apparent.

  He made one final, massive effort to bring the shotgun up to defend himself and the cargo he was paid to protect. The roar of the shotgun inside the confined space of the truck was deafening. The result was a hole blown through the roof of the truck cab, sending the 00 buckshot harmlessly into the roadside ditch. The man outside laughed and slid the charging bolt back on the rifle.

  Miller could only watch as he approached, the grin visible through the cloth shield covering his face. Their eyes met for an instant. The rifle bucked, and thirty .762 rounds crashed through the window, riddling Miller’s body. Unlike Slocum, he survived for several seconds, dimly aware that he was dying and that the man outside didn’t care enough to even finish the job with a single bullet to the head to put him out of his misery.

  “Quick. Move!” Benito Diaz stood at the back of the truck while two of his sons worked to open the truck’s rear cargo door.

  It took several minutes to move the load of avocados out of the way. Two men climbed in and began throwing the crates toward the door. Two others outside grabbed them and threw them to the side of the road. When they had cleared a path to the panel door concealing the passengers, they all climbed aboard.

  Panic-stricken wails from the back had continued throughout the attack on the truck and unloading the crates. Now, as the panel was pulled off, the cries ceased. One by one, the hidden passengers emerged, wide-eyed and terror-stricken. They had heard the shots that eliminated the driver and security guard.

  They whispered among themselves, supposing that they were next. All expected to be lined up beside the road and gunned down, their bodies left in the ditch for the vultures and coyotes. Several collapsed to their knees in the dirt, crossed themselves, and began praying. Others, men and women, sobbed and looked into the eyes of Benito Diaz, pleading for their lives.

  The men with the guns gathered around. The passengers were lined up in two rows along the side of the road. Another truck approached and stopped alongside the gathering in the road. Prodding and shoving with the muzzles of their rifles, Diaz’s men forced them into the truck.

  A minute later, the truck disappeared with the passengers in a cloud of dust. Benito Diaz turned with his sons to the van and departed in the opposite direction.

  Silence ensued. The creeping, living things of the desert made their way to the wrecked truck and began feeding on the carcasses of the dead Americans. Everything returned to normal.

  30.

  Be the Hawk

  The sun jumped up over the horizon with enthusiasm, climbing eagerly into the morning sky. In a moment, the Texas brush land was awash in its orange-pink glow. John Sole smiled and thought the words that always came to him at moments like this.

  Shaye would have loved this … and the children. Don’t forget Samantha and Bobby.

  He clung to the thought, letting it rest in his mind as the sunlight washed over his face. He could feel her hand in his, her head on his shoulder as she snuggled close, see the smiles on the faces of his children. It was a family moment, except there was no family any longer. There was only John Sole.

  He sat on the hood of his pickup and stretched back, leaning against the windshield and watched the world around him awake. It was his third sunrise since coming to southwest Texas and Creosote, but only the first he had witnessed.

  Gunfire on the Rio Grande had interrupted his sleep the first day and any interest he might have had in the rising sun. He slept through the second and taken a late breakfast with Isabella and Sherm and then spent the day on Isabella’s porch sipping lemonade and talking.

  Today, he had risen early, while it was still dark outside. There was something he wanted to do—had to do—but before that, he had to think. He drove ten miles along the dirt road out of Creosote. There was no hurry. He let the truck roll along just barely above idling speed.

  Once, his headlights picked up three coyotes on the side of the road. They looked like a mating pair with a juvenile, probably a yearling pup. The big male stood his ground and took up position in the middle of the road staring into the headlights. The female crossed the road and waited for the juvenile to follow. When they were safely in the brush on the other side, she gave out a yip, and the male backed away. His family safe and rear guard duties completed, he trotted off after them and disappeared into the prairie grass. Sole took his foot off the brake, letting the truck roll forward again.

  As the eastern sky lightened, and the sunrise approached, he found a hunters' turnout, a simple gravel trail disappearing in a straight line into the brush. A quarter-mile off the dirt road, he came to a small knoll. Blackened rocks circled to create fire rings marked the old hunt camp. He stopped the pickup, got out, and took a seat on the hood to watch the sunrise.

  Now, as the brief, fiery sunrise turne
d into full day, he considered what he was doing. For the first time, he questioned his motives and wondered why he questioned them.

  For more than a year he had moved in this direction, his mission clear, the end inevitable. But now, there was Isabella, and he hesitated.

  Three days ago, she had been nothing to him. Today she was—what?

  The image of her face came to him, her legs stretched out in the wicker chair beside him on the porch, her laugh, the straightforward way she had of speaking, letting him know that she sensed something between them but was not putting any requirements or expectations on him. She would let things happen naturally or not at all.

  Something inside stirred. He tried to push the feeling away, force it deep down because along with it came that other feeling—guilt.

  He had a mission. There was no time for stirrings, for feelings. There was Shaye and the children.

  We are gone.

  The voice whispered inside him. He sat up straight on the hood of the truck, and the guilt returned.

  We are gone, the voice repeated.

  No! He had a mission. He would see it through, or everything was wrong, out of balance. Without it, there was nothing, no purpose. Without it, everything became senseless loss and waste.

  That can’t be what the universe intended, indiscriminate, irrevocable loss, and waste. The mission—justice—gave everything purpose, made sense of things. Without that he would go mad. Perhaps, he was mad, he considered as the voice came back to him.

  We are gone. She could make you happy.

  The memory of Shaye’s voice whispered to him, reasoning.

  If things were reversed, how would you want us to live without you? Miserable, alone, unhappy for the rest of our lives?

  No. It’s not the same, he argued back. I should have been there. It should have been me, not you. That’s why. You were innocent.

  We are gone. Nothing you do will change that. This justice you seek is an empty thing. It will not make you happy.

  Happy? I don’t even know what that means anymore.

  Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Nothing is hurting us now. Be happy. Forget the past.

  I can’t. He shook his head and tears slid from the corners of his eyes across his face. Wiping at them with the back of his arm, he jumped to the ground.

  John, please.

  He shook his head. No. Maybe after, I will be able to do what you want but not yet.

  The voice was no more than a sigh now, whispering sadly in his ears.

  I’ll be here if you need to talk.

  I know. Because your voice comes from me, from every memory of you that fills my dreams. I will never escape your voice because I can’t escape my dreams. I don’t want to escape them.

  As you say.

  The voice faded away. He had won the argument, an argument with a memory. He shook his head. Admit it. You are insane.

  Overhead, a hawk circled in the sunlight. Sole squinted up at it, watching it bank and plunge toward the earth, focused on its prey, intent and undeterred by the presence of this puny human in the vast prairie.

  He climbed into the pickup and started the engine. Be the hawk, he told himself.

  31.

  Call it a Hunch

  They bumped off the asphalt onto the gravel lot at Krieg and Zabala Trucking and Imports. A reluctant Sheriff Paul Dermott drove. Seated on the passenger side, Emmett Brewer looked over the dozen trucks scattered around the lot. A few were backed up to the loading dock where crates of various Mexican produce were stacked.

  He’d seen the company’s trucks at border crossings on their trips out and back to the Mexican farms that supplied them with produce for their customers. The drivers were always cooperative and submitted willingly to the required vehicle inspection. The Border Patrol K-9 operators had never once detected narcotics or a whiff of explosives.

  Dermott steered for the office wing attached to the main warehouse. Two men standing beside one of the trucks eyed them as they passed. One held a shotgun. Brewer’s head swiveled to maintain visual contact with them.

  “What?” Dermott asked, noting Brewer’s scrutiny. “The one with the shotgun? Lots of people have shotguns. Probably showing it off to his friend, or trying to sell it. No law against that.”

  “Not, the shotgun,” Brewer replied. “The way they eyeballed us as we passed.”

  “What about it?”

  “I’ve been in law enforcement long enough to get a feeling for when someone is nervous about my presence.”

  “You mean a hunch?” Dermott laughed. “Hang on. I’ll pull out my crystal ball and see if I can get a quick reading on them.”

  Hunches are the stuff of Hollywood, and cops know it. Unless of course, it's their own personal hunch, in which case it becomes a sound, rational, cognitive theory, based on, experienced, deductive police work. Courts, however, are not impressed with hunches, and no law enforcement officer wants to stand in front of a judge and base his testimony on a hunch.

  Brewer understood Dermott’s skepticism. He’d been on the receiving end of a tirade from a judge once who made the point that police hunches were about as useful in proving a case as two farmers arguing about which sow’s teat gave the most milk. Forget the teat. The proof was in the fattest piglet.

  Dermott was right. The stares of the two men meant nothing … yet.

  Brewer accepted the jibe. “Maybe a hunch, but they were eyeballing us pretty hard.”

  “Just not used to seeing a sheriff department cruiser pull in.”

  “I expect not,” Brewer agreed.

  Brewer knew that Krieg and Zabala ruled their little Texas empire with a strong, hand. They kept it gloved mostly, but when pushed, they had a reputation for taking the glove off and using their iron fist to put down their competitors and critics hard and fast.

  It was clear that Dermott and the rest of the Salvia County Sheriff’s Department gave them a wide berth and for obvious reasons. They were voters, after all, and no doubt controlled, or at least heavily influenced, the voting decisions of a good many others around the county.

  Consequently, Brewer didn’t expect much assistance from Dermott in getting to the bottom of the shooting along the Rio Grande, but having him accompany him on the visit was a small victory in itself. It wasn’t that Dermott was a bad man or an incompetent sheriff. He was merely a politician, concerned, as most are, with being reelected. Brewer’s eyes were open to this fact and assumed that Dermott would sit back and watch while he handled the questioning and follow-up investigation.

  The sheriff slowed to a stop in front of the office, and they stepped out, conscious of more eyes—on the dock, in the lot, in the office—watching them. Dermott led the way through the door into the small reception room. A graying, smiling woman looked up.

  “Hello, Sheriff. Didn’t expect to see you here today.”

  “Ella.” Dermott nodded and leaned over the small reception counter, smiling. “Nice to see you.” He looked around. “Are they here?”

  He knew they were. Their pickups were in the lot outside, but it was the courteous thing to say.

  “They surely are. Shall I get them for you?”

  “Please, Ella.” Dermott turned, leaning his rump against the counter and smiled at Brewer. “Should just be a minute, while Ella rounds them up.”

  “That’s fine.” Brewer sat in one of the undersized chairs lining the wall to wait.

  They heard Ella on the phone. “Visitors to see you.” There was a pause, and then she said, “Yes, sir.”

  She looked up at Dermott, who twisted his head around toward her. “They’ll be just a moment, Sheriff.”

  “Thanks, Ella.” Dermott began whistling a favorite country tune by a new artist out of Austin.

  Brewer examined the small space. Everything seemed normal. Men at work in the lot and on the dock. Ella tapping a keyboard on her desk. Dermott whistling. Krieg and Zabala’s empire exuded peace, tranquility, and business as usual.

  Zabala�
��s eyes narrowed as had Krieg’s when Ella spoke the words, “Visitors to see you.”

  It was a code, a warning for them to be on the alert because there might be a problem. Otherwise, she would have just announced the name of the visitor. Ella was a valuable employee and always received a nice Christmas bonus.

  They turned from the monitor showing the room where their overnight guests were accommodated. All the beds were occupied. Eight young women sat on them chatting, munching food from the refrigerator, waiting for the next leg of their journey.

  Zabala pushed a button for another camera view and the reception lobby popped onto the screen.

  “Goddammit,” Krieg whispered.

  “Yeah,” Zabala concurred. “I was afraid this would happen.” He tried to put a positive spin on the view of the sheriff and Border Patrol agent waiting patiently in their lobby. “They don’t have warrants, or they’d be back here already. There’s nothing to worry about. Whatever it is … whatever they want or questions they ask … we don’t know anything.”

  “You know exactly what it is and what they are going to ask.”

  “Yes, and we don’t know anything, amigo,” Zabala reinforced. “Just don’t go losing that razor-edged temper of yours.”

  Krieg glared at the counsel from his partner but did not argue. He punched the intercom button on his desk phone. “Bring them in, Ella.”

  “This way.” Ella smiled and rose, leading them through a door at the back of the reception office, down a short hallway, and into another office.

  Krieg and Zabala rose from their desks as they entered. Zabala smiled and put out his hand to Dermott.

  “Sheriff! Damned good to see you!”

  “Raul,” Dermott said, taking his hand and giving it a friendly shake.