Strong Rain Falling: A Caitlin Strong Novel (Caitlin Strong Novels)

by Land, Jon

  “I appreciate you meeting me out here,” Caitlin continued.

  “Well, Ranger, truth be told, I thought you might have an eye on the property,” he said with a smile, a bad attempt at humor that produced no response from Caitlin.

  “I believe there are some things you’ve been leaving out of your story about what happened here in nineteen-eighty.”

  The smile slipped from his face, his eyes darting back toward the hole digger in the hope he might be gone. But instead, he had seemed to redouble his efforts upon Tawls’s arrival. “And what things would those be?”

  “Well, sir, I did some back checking to the original investigation and reports,” Caitlin told him. “My dad was one of those investigating the theft and the fire in the fall of that year. You were very cooperative at first, full of information, clues, and even indications where you thought the likely culprits could be found.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me say ‘at first.’ When Jim Strong came back for follow-up, you clammed up. Suddenly had nothing to say, and you even retracted some of your earlier claims and insisted some of the information you’d furnished had been given in error. Have I got that right?”

  “Not to my recollection, Ranger. But you know how many years ago this was now?”

  “Yes, I do, sir, down to the day, and there are some things I can’t expect a man to forget, lying to the Texas Ranger investigating a theft from his farm and subsequent arson being one of them. Something like that tends to stick.”

  Tawls shrugged his already slumped shoulders. “Like I said—”

  “I know what you said, just like I know what you said all those years ago. Problem is, it doesn’t add up; or what it does add up to creates a significantly different picture from the one you’ve been sketching.”

  “Ranger, I—”

  “You see the news last night about what happened at St. Anthony’s High School?”

  “The lacrosse game shooting? It’s been on the air nonstop. It’s … horrible,” Tawls managed, immediately looking as if he wished he’d chosen a different word.

  “Sir, I believe whoever’s behind that incident, which included the kidnapping of a teenage boy, is very much connected to what happened on this farm of yours here in nineteen-eighty. I believe there’s plenty more you haven’t told me that you’re going to tell me now.”

  Tawls looked about the wasteland around him, hoping to see someone else about besides the hole digger. A hitchhiker, squatter, vagrant, potential buyer—anything. But there was no one. Just him, a hole digger, and a Texas Ranger known for planting more bodies in the ground than any gunfighter in Texas history.

  “You know what he’s digging?” Caitlin asked him, joining Tawls’s gaze toward the outer reaches of his former farm where the sour ground had taken on the texture of concrete.

  “I’d rather not speculate, Ranger.”

  “Let me put it this way, then, sir: do you have any idea how many bodies of Mexican bandits and Comanche are buried in this area, maybe right here on this very land?”

  “Quite a few I’ve heard told,” Tawls said, swallowing hard.

  “Many of them planted by the Texas Rangers and dumped in makeshift graves where they’ve yet to be found to this day.” Caitlin took a step closer to him, angling herself to block his view of the hole digger. “You know the Comanche could fire arrow after arrow without hardly a pause and those Mexican bandits often outnumbered the Rangers ten to one, but those Rangers prevailed. We’re still prevailing, Mr. Tawls, but it’s been a long time since we’ve been in the grave-digging business.” She turned sideways so he could see the hole digger again. “That changed last night. All bets are off now. On top of that kidnapping, we’ve got fifteen dead so far and five times that hospitalized, and it’s a miracle there weren’t more of both. I can’t tell you much more, but one thing I can tell you for sure is anyone who stops me from doing the job I’m sworn as a Ranger to do might as well be six feet under for all I care. And I won’t give it any more thought than the Rangers who preceded me with bullets as well as shovels. Are we clear so far?”

  Tawls shielded his eyes to better see into the sun, to where the bare-chested hole digger had stopped his toils and was now leaning against the shovel, seeming to look right back at him.

  “I asked if we were clear,” Caitlin repeated.

  Tawls barely managed a nod. “I promised never to breathe a word of this. Not then, not now, not ever.”

  “Promised who?”

  “This young Mexican cop who paid me a visit a few weeks after the fire.”

  “You tell him your story?”

  “I didn’t have to. He already knew it. Said the fact I’d been burned out gave it away.”

  “Wait a minute, this cop came up from Mexico?”

  Tawls nodded. “Said he was part of some new task force or something. Said there wasn’t much he could do for me, other than help me gain the justice I deserved. Said they’d likely already dumped my crop by then and were likely hiding out down in Mexico. He wanted to know everything I could tell him about Enrique Cantú and Mateo Torres. He promised me justice in return for me clamming up to anyone else in on the investigation. That included your father.”

  “And you went along with him?”

  “He made it plain I didn’t have a choice, threatened me with extradition to face charges in Mexico if I didn’t do everything he asked.”

  “It didn’t occur to you to share this during our last conversation?”

  “I don’t recall you asking me about it. I answered your questions then, just like I’m answering them now. Don’t pin this on me. I’m sorry about the people who were killed or hurt last night, and I’m sorry about that kidnapped boy, okay?”

  “So long as you can assure me you’re telling me everything this time.”

  Tawls sighed deeply, his squinting into the sun having folded the excess flesh around his eyes into layers. “Nineteen-eighty marked the official end of my tenure as a grower. Guess I just wasn’t cut out for that sort of thing.”

  “I imagine you made plenty before that day came.”

  “I was underinsured. Believe me when I tell you I came out on the short end of things.”

  “What about the Mexican cop?”

  “Never saw him again. You want to know what happened from that point, you’ll have to ask him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  And Caitlin felt her mouth drop as Tawls provided it.

  81

  MEDINA COUNTY, TEXAS

  Cort Wesley waited until Regent Tawls had driven off before pulling his arms back into his shirt and traipsing toward Caitlin. His hands were raw and he could feel the dull sting of blisters already forming from driving the shovel head into dead ground that felt like highway hardpan. But the discomfort felt better than the gnawing that had plagued him since Luke’s kidnapping the night before. For some reason he’d always thought his younger son was somehow immune to the shit he dragged behind him. It was always Dylan who suffered for his transgressions and his very being.

  Now all that had changed and Cort Wesley had a stale and bitter taste in his dry mouth ever since he’d realized Luke was gone the night before. No call had come yet, but it didn’t have to; the kidnapping was a message in itself, a message Cort Wesley wasn’t about to comply with.

  “Wish I could saddle up with you on this one, bubba,” said Leroy Epps, suddenly by his side. “Get that boy of yours back.”

  “Oh, we’ll get him back, champ. You can bet your life on that.”

  “It’s not worth much at this point, but I’ll see if I can check on him all the same.”

  Cort Wesley reached Caitlin without recalling the rest of the distance covered, certain the grim, determined look painted on her worn features matched his own.

  “We’re headed to Mexico, Cort Wesley, to follow up a lead you’re not going to believe.”

  He tossed the shovel into the overgrown weeds and brush, wan
ting everything it represented out of his life and Luke back in it. “Got another stop I’ve gotta make, Ranger. In the Rio Grande Valley.”

  “Jan McClellan-Townsend?”

  He nodded. “Regent Tawls isn’t the only one who’s not telling us everything he knows.”

  82

  SAN ANTONIO

  Guillermo Paz impatiently waited for the confessional window to open, drumming his fingers on the P-A-Z he’d carved on the armrest. Outside, thunder had been rumbling all morning in a sky divided between sun and clouds. No rain had fallen while its promise remained, the humidity continuing to climb with the temperature seeming to put the entire city in a foul mood that rode Paz like a layer of grease he couldn’t sponge off.

  Finally, he heard a creak and the familiar priest’s face appeared behind the screen. The whites of his eyes grew big with recognition as he settled himself in as comfortably as he could manage.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned and I mean really messed up this time. Forget our talk from the other day, this is the real deal.”

  “I’m listening, my son.”

  Paz regarded his carved name. “I wish I could fill these letters in. I’d like to break the wood up with my bare hands and build you a whole new confessional, since I’m not worthy to have my name displayed in a church.”

  “What changed?”

  “Not me, padre. I thought I had, but I guess I was fooling myself. Last night, my Texas Ranger caught me with my pants down.”

  “My son?” the priest raised, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the confession seemed to be taking.

  “No, nothing like that, just a figure of speech. I think I fooled myself into thinking I had everything figured out.”

  “Go on.”

  “Auditing college classes in search of some kind of enlightenment? Who I was fooling?” Paz hesitated, hands grasping the armrest and testing the strength of the brackets that attached it to the confessional wall. “You see what I’m getting at?”

  “You felt God no longer had the answers you sought.”

  “No, padre, that’s where I had it wrong. It was more like I figured I was beyond asking the questions, like I had all the answers. What a crock of shit, if you’ll excuse my English.”

  “You’re excused, my son.”

  Paz put more pressure on the armrest bearing his name, hearing a creak as it began to give. “Is fooling yourself a sin, padre?”

  “It can be, depending on what it leads to.”

  “Because I fooled myself into thinking I’d changed, but last night my Texas Ranger showed me how wrong I was.”

  “What happened last night?”

  “I’d rather not get into that,” Paz said, scratching at the wood now, as if to cover the carving of his name.

  “You must.”

  “You already know.”

  “How can that be?”

  “It’s front-page news.”

  “Lord in heaven,” the priest said, crossing himself as he realized.

  “Yup, I was there and so was my Texas Ranger. Guess that comes as no surprise to you.”

  “What did you do wrong, my son?” the priest asked haltingly, the words slow coming out of his mouth as if he dreaded the answer.

  “It’s not what I did wrong, so much as where I went wrong. That make any sense, padre?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “It’s like this. After it was over, my Texas Ranger made me realize that I wanted it to happen. I wanted it to happen, maybe so I could prove myself to her again.”

  The priest shifted uncomfortably on the other side of the window. “Haven’t you proved yourself enough?”

  “I said ‘maybe’ because I don’t think it’s about that at all anymore. I think it’s about me moving from one challenge to another to suit my own needs. My Texas Ranger made me realize I’m a selfish bastard, a real cabrón if you get my drift.”

  “I speak Spanish, my son.”

  Paz found himself feeling better, his breaths coming easier, yet still detached from the man he thought he’d become. “I’ve shared a lot with you, and I still don’t know your name.”

  “Father.”

  Paz almost laughed, suddenly thinking of his boyhood in the slums. Of fending for himself and his family while growing up, stealing the food they ate until his mother found out and threw everything out, insisting she’d rather they go hungry.

  “Wanna hear something, Father? Last night, the way my Texas Ranger looked at me reminded me of how disappointed my mother was when she caught me stealing bread,” he continued, shaking his head even as his eyes misted up. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in my life. Until last night when my Texas Ranger looked at me the same way.”

  “Your point, my son?”

  “What if a man can’t change no matter how much he tries, padre?”

  “His actions can be changed, but not the circumstances that brought him to be. You search for answers to find the path you’re already on.”

  Paz had trouble forming his next question for the old priest, as if dreading the answer. “Was last night a misstep on that path?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “I think I need to start the process over, from scratch.”

  “It’s something different now,” the priest told him. “After last night.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What every man who comes to question his actions seeks: redemption.”

  “To win my Texas Ranger over again? To win over God?”

  “Neither: to win over yourself.”

  Paz leaned back against the wall, his breaths coming easier, the mist gone from his eyes as if the past had never happened at all. “Know something, padre? You remind me of that old priest back home when I was a boy. Carrying a bag full of food, gunned down in the street by the gangs he wouldn’t give in to. I watched it happen, I watched it happen and there was nothing I could do. But you know what, padre?”

  “What, my son?”

  “I can do something now.”

  83

  CIUDAD MIER, MEXICO

  Caitlin Strong waited by the old train tracks in a town that no longer existed. The roots of Ciudad Mier dated back to the Spanish colonial era, but those roots were dead now, along with everything else associated with the town.

  The once thriving ranches that formed the backbone of the town had been abandoned, empty save for overgrown weeds and bramble and the rotting bones of livestock picked clean by carrion birds and rodents. The rural roads where children once walked from the center of town lugging groceries back home were empty save for shell casings left behind by the armed drug cartel soldiers who began kidnapping those children for sport as much as money. They’d use them to practice with their latest weapons, leaving their unburied bodies behind to be picked at just like the livestock.

  The residents had fled the violent onslaught, owed as much as anything to the town’s location on the U.S.-Mexico border just south of Laredo. Strategic in the sense that it offered convenient access to any number of lucrative drug smuggling routes north into the United States. The once thriving town had fallen as collateral damage to an endless war, in this case between the Gulf cartel and the Zetas for control of those new rutas. First, firefights led to the shutdown of schools and public services. Then public officials were murdered by one side for siding with the other, creating an endless circle of death that turned the town utterly lawless and sent its residents fleeing in the night with only what they could pack in their vehicles.

  For their part, the train tracks looked like the town’s spine: half-buried, bent and broken. But this was where Caitlin had been directed to wait, on a bench beneath a crumbling wooden overhang that creaked behind each blow of a hot breeze that left dust mixing with perspiration on her face.

  Suddenly she felt a vibration under her feet, followed by a rumbling that shook the decaying wood of the unused station that otherwise featured only a burned-out building with a sign still intact reading
TAQUILLA, or ticket office. Then, from out of the wasteland to the south, a dust cloud appeared accompanied by the repetitive mechanical wheeze of what could only be an old, steam-powered locomotive.

  Rising to her feet, Caitlin actually felt chilled by what seemed like the very real possibility that this was one of the fabled ghost trains of lore, thundering toward the station only to speed right past it with the souls of the damned peering out the windows in search of their lives. But this train slowed as it approached, its brakes grinding into a lingering squeal as it huffed and snorted to a stop directly before her.

  Seconds later the door before her opened and Fernando Lorenzo Sandoval stepped out onto the stoop. “Come inside, Ranger.”

  84

  CIUDAD MIER, MEXICO

  “Your hand,” Sandoval said, noticing the bandage. “That happened last night?”

  “I’m afraid it didn’t do us much good, sir.”

  Inside was cool, the interior plush, the old steam-driven train having been retrofitted and rebuilt with equal measures of security and luxury. Sandoval’s personal security forces were omnipresent, and it looked as if he could have fought a war with the ordnance that had been packed on board.

  They sat opposite each other in a sitting area inside a train car that served as his office and the operations center for the Mexican government’s all-out war against the cartels. All the furniture, including their chairs, was bolted to the floor. The tinted, bulletproof windows made it impossible for anyone to see in from the outside, and there was an armed guard posted outside either end of the car.

  “I was sorry to hear about the Torres boy’s kidnapping,” Sandoval said, his expression honestly pained and looking much like it had back in Austin after Caitlin had broken the news to him about his own son.

  “Something I didn’t tell you back in Austin, sir,” Caitlin told him. “Near as we can tell, your son tried to protect the others. Says a lot about the kind of father you are and the kind of boy you raised, in spite of the obstacles you’ve faced. You need to keep that with you.”