Vengeance Is Mine

by William W. Johnstone

  “Now what do we do?” Everett asked between teeth gritted against the pain of his broken leg.

  “We try to hold out until help gets here,” Hubie said. “I’ll bet Devery and John Howard are on their way right now, maybe even some of the other boys.”

  W.R. fumbled in his pocket. “Maybe I can try callin’ ’em again . . . Shit! My phone’s busted all to pieces.”

  “So’s mine,” Everett said when he checked. And Hubie’s phone was up there in the cab somewhere, out of reach. Hubie looked through the open rear window of the cab, but he didn’t see the phone anywhere. Lord knew where it had gotten tossed to when the truck rolled over.

  “I just thought o’ somethin’,” W.R. said. “With the truck upside down like this, can’t they shoot right at the fuel tank?”

  Hubie went cold all the way through. What W.R. said was true. Sooner or later, one of those gunmen was bound to realize what a tempting target the gas tank was. Maybe they had already figured that out, and the only reason they hadn’t blown up the truck so far was that they were getting a kick out of keeping the Texans pinned down. He could just imagine the sons of bitches up there grinning and chuckling.

  Taking one of the rifles with him, he slid over closer to the edge of the protected area under the truck bed and risked a look out. He could see in both directions. The Humvee they had chased in here was still parked where it had been. The two Hummers that had boxed them in were stopped now, too. Hubie sighted on one of them with the rifle and pulled the trigger. He saw one of the headlights shatter.

  That just increased the rate of fire from the ambushers. Hubie pulled back, blinking rapidly from the grit that one of the bullets threw in his eyes when it hit the ground near him.

  “Now look what you did,” W.R. said. “You went an’ made ’em mad.”

  Hubie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Aw, shut up, you old walrus,” he said with a strained grin.

  “Fellas,” Everett said, “we ain’t gettin’ out o’ this, are we?”

  “Sure we are,” Hubie said. “Devery and John Howard—”

  “Ain’t gonna get here in time, and you know it. Those damn drug runners have got us this time.”

  W.R. wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Yeah, it sure looks like it.”

  Everett went on, “I just want y’all to know I’ve never known a better bunch o’ fellas than you. It’s been an honor to be your neighbor and your friend, and I’m sure glad I got to know you.”

  “Same here, old son,” W.R. said.

  Hubie grimaced. “I hope they rush us.”

  “Why?” Everett asked.

  “Because if they do, we got a chance to take some of ’em with us. If they just sit off yonder and take potshots at us, there ain’t nothin’ we can do about it.”

  “Yeah,” W.R. said with a slow nod. “I’d sure like to know I did for a couple of ’em.”

  It seemed that they weren’t going to get that chance, though. The shooting stopped, and a voice shouted, “Hey, gringos, look what we got for you!”

  “What in blazes?” W.R. muttered. Unwise though it might be, he and Hubie crawled to the edge of the protected area and looked out.

  Hubie’s eyes widened in horror as he saw a couple of men at one of the Humvees fooling with a long, thick tube. “That’s a goddamn rocket launcher!” Hubie cried.

  He brought up the rifle he still held and began firing as fast as he could. Beside him, W.R. did the same. Behind them, Everett whooped, “Give ’em hell, boys!”

  Suddenly, an explosion rocked the ground underneath them, and smoke and dust and rocks billowed up next to the Humvee. Hubie yelled, “We got the son of a bitch! We set off the rocket before they could shoot it at us!”

  Indeed, the Humvee had been blown over on its side and was burning. The blast must have wiped out several of the killers from below the border at the same time.

  “Look at it,” Hubie said as Everett painfully pulled himself up alongside him and W.R. “Ain’t that a pretty sight?”

  “Not as pretty as a Texas sunset,” W.R. said, “but I reckon it’ll do.”

  The three men lay there grinning at the burning Hummer, so they never saw the rocket that came from the other side of the canyon, struck the pickup, and blew it apart in an earthshaking explosion.

  Twenty-seven

  Stark and Elaine were just sitting down to lunch when the cell phone in Stark’s pocket rang. Stark answered it and heard Devery Small’s excited voice on the other end.

  “John Howard, Hubie and W.R. and Everett are chasin’ some drug smugglers over on Hubie’s ranch! I just got a call from W.R.! You reckon we oughtta go help ’em?”

  “What? Slow down, Devery,” Stark said.

  Devery took an audible breath. “W.R. called me on his cell phone. The connection was bad, so I could only hear part of what he was sayin’. And I don’t think he heard a word I said, even though I was yellin’ my head off into the damn phone.”

  “Where were they?”

  “The other side of Comanche Ridge, I think. I ain’t sure. And I thought I heard W.R. say somethin’ about Solomon Wash.”

  Stark knew where those places were on Hubie’s ranch. He said, “I’ll head over there right now. Ought to take me about thirty minutes to get there.”

  “I’m in Del Rio and got Kate with me, so it’ll take me a mite longer. But I’m on my way!”

  Elaine was already on her feet. “You want me to go with you, John Howard?”

  He shook his head. “Not this time. I’d feel better if you stayed here where it’s safe.”

  “You know I can take care of myself,” she protested.

  He kissed her quickly on the forehead as he went past. “I know. But not this time.”

  He knew she wanted to argue with him, but she just sighed and nodded. He got his hat and one of the rifles and went out the door. He had taken to wearing the Colt .45 Model 1911A all the time now, so it was on his hip.

  A feeling of annoyance gnawed at him. He had just gotten back to the ranch house after spending the morning out checking his own fences, and he had been looking forward to a good lunch and then some time spent with Elaine. Instead he had to go see what sort of trouble Hubie and W.R. and Everett had gotten into.

  Stark frowned guiltily as he got into the pickup. He didn’t have any right to feel that way, he told himself. Hubie and the others were just doing the job they had all set out to do, and they might be in real trouble.

  Stark’s worry grew stronger as he drove toward Hubie’s ranch. It was unusual for the drug runners to try anything during the day; their business was more of a nocturnal one. Maybe they had some special operation going on. Special, and dangerous.

  When he reached the ranch, he was stopped at the gate by a couple of Hubie’s hands armed with shotguns. “How you doin’, Mr. Stark?” one of the men asked.

  “All right,” Stark said curtly. “You boys heard any shooting from over toward Comanche Ridge?”

  The cowboys frowned. “No,” said the one who had greeted Stark. “But that’s a good ways over northwest. Thought we heard a couple o’ peals of thunder from off in that direction a while ago, but you can see for yourself there ain’t a cloud in the sky.”

  “We figured we just imagined it,” the other hand put in.

  Stark’s concern grew. He didn’t like the sound of what he had just heard. “I think there might be some trouble up there involving your boss. Can you call the ranch house and send some men that way?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Stark.” The men looked at each other worriedly. “You reckon Hubie’s in trouble?”

  “Could be,” Stark said. “I’m on my way to find out now. When Devery Small comes up, tell him where I’ve gone and for him to come right on.”

  He drove past the guards and took a small dirt road that was little more than a pair of ruts. He knew it was the quickest way to Comanche Ridge and Solomon Wash beyond. By going this way he would bypass the ranch headquarters.

&nb
sp; It seemed to take forever to reach Comanche Ridge. Before he got there, he spotted a column of black smoke rising on the far side of the ridge. When he saw it, his hands tightened on the steering wheel and he muttered, “Damn it, boys, what did you run into?”

  Doggedly, Stark pressed on. He reached the gap in the ridge, drove through it, and turned to the left, toward Solomon Wash. He saw the smoke rising directly in front of him now. That wasn’t a good sign.

  A few minutes later, he was close enough to see that the smoke came from a burning vehicle that was lying on its top, upside down. Stark’s heart thudded heavily in his chest. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was Hubie’s new pickup. What the hell had happened? Had the pickup wrecked somehow, rolling over and catching fire? The damage seemed to be too much for that. It looked more like the pickup had been blown to pieces in an explosion. Of course, the gas tank could have gone up . . .

  And where were Hubie, W.R., and Everett?

  Stark had the horrible feeling that he already knew the answer to that question.

  He drove almost all the way to the burning wreck before he stopped some twenty yards away. The worst of the fire was over. The pickup was nothing more than a blackened, broken hulk by now. Carrying his rifle, Stark got out of his pickup and approached the wreck carefully. The flames had died down, but a lot of heat still came from it.

  Stark bent over and tried to peer underneath what was left of the truck, but he couldn’t see anything. Everything was twisted and melted and burned. It was going to take some professionals to get in there and find out exactly what had happened. Stark straightened and shouted, “Hubie! W.R.! Everett! Anybody around?”

  No answer came back to him except the echoes of his own voice from the sandstone walls of the canyon.

  Stark had been hoping against hope that his friends had gotten out of the wreck somehow and walked off, looking for help. If that were the case, they ought to still be in earshot. Maybe they weren’t, though. He pointed the rifle at the sky and fired three times, working the lever between each shot. That was a universal distress signal, and the sound of the shots would carry for a couple of miles. Surely Hubie and the others hadn’t gone any farther than that.

  Hoping that he would hear some answering shots, Stark listened intently for several minutes. Again, echoes were his only answer.

  He bit back a curse, tried not to give in to despair just yet, and started looking around. Some distance off, maybe an eighth of a mile, he saw a black smudge on the ground that looked like a burned spot. He walked over there and saw that some of the brush had indeed been on fire recently. There was also a little crater in the ground, as if an explosive had been detonated here. But that was all. He didn’t find any other evidence of anything odd and violent having gone on.

  With his face locked in grim lines, Stark turned and went back to the destroyed pickup. The heat coming from it had diminished. Stark was able to get close enough to hunker on his heels and poke the barrel of his rifle through an opening underneath the wreckage. He raked it back and forth until the front sight caught on something. Stark pulled it toward him.

  He let out a startled yell and jerked back, sitting down hard on the sandy ground as horror coursed through him. The sight at the end of the rifle barrel had caught inside the empty eye socket of a blackened skull. Stark dropped the rifle and scuttled backward, staring at the skull.

  And the worst part of it was, the skull seemed to be staring back at him.

  Stark knew he was looking at part of what remained of one of his friends.

  With an effort, Stark fought off the horrified reaction. He wasn’t ashamed of it, but this wasn’t the time or place for it. He got to his feet, drew his pistol, and looked around. Whoever was responsible for this slaughter might still be around.

  That seemed unlikely, though. Everything was quiet again, now that the echoes of Stark’s yell had died away. The killers had probably done their grim work and then left. Stark wondered if all three of his friends were under that wrecked pickup. He was afraid that would turn out to be the case.

  The sound of an engine made him turn his head. He saw several vehicles coming through the gap in Comanche Ridge. He was expecting Devery and some of the hands from the ranch, but instead he saw that the vehicles coming toward him had flashing lights on their roofs.

  Someone had called the authorities.

  Stark holstered his pistol and went back to his pickup to wait. There were three vehicles approaching him, two sheriff’s office cars and the black Blazer that Norval Lee Hammond himself drove. Hammond was leading the way.

  Anger bubbled up inside Stark as he looked at the Blazer. Hammond’s boss Ramirez was responsible for what had happened here today. Stark was sure of it. The destroyed pickup must have been hit by a rocket or something like that. A drug lord like Ramirez would have access to weapons like that. He probably had plenty of contacts among the shadowy underworld of illicit arms dealers.

  The Blazer rocked to a stop. The door swung open and Hammond climbed out. The sheriff had always been a little ponderous, as athletes gone to seed usually are, but now he moved like an old man. His face was haggard and his eyes were sunk deeper than usual in his head. He looked like a man who hadn’t been sleeping much lately. Stark didn’t feel sorry for him, though. Hammond’s worries were his own doing. And nobody would sleep very well after deliberately crawling into bed with a vulture.

  “Lord have mercy,” Hammond said as he looked at the burned-out pickup. “What happened here?”

  “You tell me,” Stark replied tautly.

  “How would I know? I just got here.”

  Stark started to say something about how maybe Ramirez had told Hammond what was going to happen today, but he managed to hold the comment back. Maybe Hammond was telling the truth for a change. He didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, but Stark would give it to him anyway . . . for a while.

  “I’m pretty sure that pickup belongs to Hubie Cornheiser,” Stark said. “He and W.R. Smathers and Everett Hatcher were out here today having a look around—”

  “Looking for drug smugglers, you mean?” There was a contemptuous edge to Hammond’s voice.

  “Having a look around,” Stark repeated stubbornly. “They saw something suspicious and were going to check it out. That’s all I know. I just got here not long ago myself.”

  “How did you find out what they were doing?”

  “They called Devery Small and tried to tell him about it. The connection was bad, and all he got for sure was that they were out by Comanche Ridge.” Stark inclined his head toward the ridge, just in case Hammond wasn’t familiar with the geography of the Cornheiser Ranch. “Devery called me, and we decided we’d both come out here, just in case the boys were in trouble.”

  “Where’s Small now?” Hammond asked sharply.

  “He hasn’t gotten here yet. He was in Del Rio when he talked to me, so he had farther to come.”

  Hammond nodded. “Well, he won’t be able to get in when he gets here, because I left a unit at the gate to keep anybody from going in or out until I found out what the trouble was.”

  “How did you hear about it?” Stark asked.

  He thought for a second that Hammond was going to tell him it was none of his business, but then the sheriff said, “I got an anonymous tip that some men had been killed out here. I figured it would be more of your vigilante work, Stark.”

  Stark kept his temper on a tight rein. “You’d better call in the Texas Rangers, Sheriff. I think this might be more than your office can handle. This pickup was hit by a rocket, or something like that.”

  “A rocket, eh?” Hammond walked closer to the wreck, then suddenly stopped short. “Shit!” he exclaimed. “Is that a skull?”

  Stark swallowed the sickness that threatened to well up in his throat. “I was poking around under there with my rifle, and that got caught on the barrel.”

  “Shit!” Hammond said again. He looked a little green around the gills as he turned awa
y from the wreckage. “Call back to headquarters,” he said to one of the deputies. “We’re gonna need Crime Scene and the coroner.”

  Stark opened the door of his truck and stepped up into the cab. As he sat behind the wheel, Hammond turned sharply toward him and snapped, “Hold on, Stark. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Wasn’t intending to,” Stark replied. “I just thought I’d get out of the sun while you do your work.”

  “Oh. Well, stay right there. I’m sure I’ll want to talk to you some more.”

  Stark sat in the pickup, sweating in the heat, as Hammond and one of the deputies walked around the burned-out truck. Hammond was talking and the deputy appeared to be taking notes, but Stark couldn’t hear what was being said. Then Hammond went back to the Blazer and shut himself up in it for a good while. The vehicle had tinted windows, so Stark couldn’t really see what Hammond was doing. He thought the sheriff was talking on the radio, though.

  More official vehicles arrived a while later, including a van that belonged to the sheriff’s Crime Scene team. Photographs were taken, measurements were made, diagrams were drawn. A couple of ambulances drove up, followed by the coroner’s car. The deputies and the EMTs started the grim work of recovering the remains from the pickup. Stark had to look away until they were finished with that.

  Hammond was in and out of his SUV, evidently burning up the airwaves. After a while he came over to Stark’s pickup and said, “We found the remains of three people under that pickup, Stark. It’ll take a while to identify them, of course, but we’re pretty sure they were male. Likely your three friends.”

  Stark nodded. “Likely,” he agreed, his voice thick with emotion. He pointed and said, “There’s a spot over there where it looks like there was another explosion.”

  “We’ll have a look, don’t worry.”

  “You still need me?” Stark wanted to get home so he could tell Elaine what had happened. She was going to have her work cut out for her, making sure that Hubie’s and Everett’s wives were taken care of.