The Last Honorable Man

by Vickie Taylor

  The one thing missing was an official U.S. position on the happenings. The greatest advocate of peace and democracy on Earth had been conspicuously silent on the subject of San Ynez.

  Interesting.

  Straightening his tie, Del stopped outside the door to the offices of Texas Rangers Company G and pretended his stomach wasn’t about to turn itself inside out.

  The morning had been hell. He and Elisa had tiptoed around each other like worms at a pro fishermen’s convention.

  “You go ahead,” he’d said, standing outside the bathroom door.

  “No, you first.”

  “It’s okay. You go.”

  “After you.”

  Then the call from Captain Matheson had come in. Del was wanted at the office. The Bull hadn’t been told why, and he wasn’t happy about it.

  At precisely fifteen seconds before nine o’clock, the time he’d been ordered to report, he pulled open the door to conference room J-12. To his great surprise, there were no DPS investigators inside.

  To his even greater surprise, the director of the Texas Rangers himself, the honorable J. William Peters, commanded the head of the table. Del had never seen the man in Dallas before. When J. William wanted to see a ranger, he snapped his fingers and the ranger got himself to Ranger headquarters in Austin, pronto. If J. William was here, the news couldn’t be good.

  “Sit. I understand you’ve been briefed on the shoot team’s preliminary findings,” the director said, flipping pages in a folder on the table.

  Del scraped a chair back and lowered himself into it, fighting back anger and to his horror, moisture in his eyes. He’d done the only thing he could at the warehouse, damn it. And an innocent man had died because of it. “Yes, sir, I’ve seen the report. And I respectfully conclude it is a bunch of bunk. Sir.”

  “Del.” He looked up from his folder. “I can call you Del, can’t I? We’re informal here.”

  “Sure. As long as I can call you J. William.”

  Director Peters closed the folder. “Sarcasm is not going to help you, Ranger Cooper. I’m sure you know there is a lot to be considered in this investigation. The public is outraged at the death—”

  “I wasn’t aware the public conducted internal DPS investigations, sir.”

  “And I wasn’t aware you had such a disrespectful mouth.”

  “Sir, it’s just that—”

  The director waved him off. “Forget it, Cooper. I’m here on another matter, anyway.” Before Del asked what matter, Peters folded his hands into a spire atop Del’s case folder. “It’s come to my attention that you married recently.”

  Del’s blood ran cold. How the hell had he found out about that? It was a sure bet no one in Company G had told him.

  “And that your new…wife…is involved in this case.”

  “She’s been cleared of any wrongdoing, sir. She was just in the wrong place.”

  “I believe she was in the right place—paying a visit to her previous fiancé, if I’m not mistaken. The man you killed, Eduardo Garcia. A man who also happens to be the father of her child.”

  Del didn’t think confirmation was necessary.

  “I’m sure you can see how puzzling your sudden marriage appears, Ranger. One might even say it doesn’t seem real.”

  Damn, damn, damn. “The license was properly applied for, sir, and the ceremony legally noted.”

  The director kicked back in his chair and clunked a snakeskin boot onto the table. “But do you love each other?”

  Del’s jaw tightened. He couldn’t say yes. He wasn’t a liar. But he wasn’t the kind of man to go back on his promises, either, and if he said no, he could kiss Elisa goodbye. She would be deported.

  “Elisa and I share a strong bond,” he finally said, hedging as best he could. “Beyond that, our relationship is private.”

  “Let’s be blunt, son.” The director leaned forward. “Did you marry the girl to keep her in the country, or just because she’s got a nice ass?”

  Del’s chair clattered over backward. On his feet, he swiped his Stetson from the table and headed for the door.

  “I’m sure you can see how badly your marriage could reflect on this organization, Cooper. One of our own attempting to defraud the INS. Some might even say you were trying to influence a witness.”

  “There is nothing for me to influence. My wife has no information with any bearing on the case.”

  “Let her go, boy. It’s not too late to undo what you’ve done.”

  Well past his tolerance limit, Del spun toward the director. “Is that an order?”

  “It’s a choice. Let her go, or I’ll have to let you go.”

  A choice? His job or his wife? Break the vow he made at his wedding or the vow he made when he was sworn in as a Texas Ranger?

  The decision should have been difficult. An unsolvable conundrum. But all he had to do was picture Elisa, holding Eduardo’s body in her arms, to realize he had no choice at all.

  There had been rangers before him and there would be rangers when he was gone.

  There was only one Elisa.

  Hands steadier than he’d imagined they would be, he released the catch on the silver circle and star pinned over his heart and tossed the Texas Ranger emblem on the table next to the director’s boot heel.

  J. William Peters kicked the badge off the edge of the table and into his hand. “Delgado Cooper, your employment as a Texas Ranger is hereby terminated.”

  Chapter 10

  Del didn’t wait to be dismissed by the director. Why bother with protocol? He wasn’t a Texas Ranger anymore.

  He’d been thrown out. Disgraced.

  His face warmed and softened until it felt mushy. His throat shrank. Something cracked inside him, and shame oozed from the fissure.

  Laughter tumbled down the hall to him. The dispatcher telling water-cooler jokes on her break again, probably.

  He swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. He was not going to let them see him like this. He was not going to fall apart.

  He turned the corner out of the break room. The sunshine pouring through the outside door at the end of the hall beckoned like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Then the train hit him.

  Captain Matheson stepped out of his office and caught Del by the shoulder. The look in the Bull’s eyes told Del he didn’t need to brief his boss—former boss—on the latest turn of events.

  “Cooper, I want you to know I didn’t—”

  “Forget it, I know.” Del brushed him off and tried to pass, but Bull hooked his elbow.

  “Come on,” he nodded into his office. “Sit down. I’ll buy you a cup of bad coffee.”

  Del couldn’t do this. Couldn’t dissect the end of his career, or talk about his feelings, or whatever the hell the captain wanted him to do. The wound was too fresh. Too deep. “Another time.”

  He tried to pull loose, but the captain’s grip held. It was Del’s temper that snapped. He brought his free arm around, latched his hand in Bull’s collar and shoved him back. “Damn it, I said not now!”

  The pity in Bull’s eyes piqued both Del’s anger and his shame. His heart felt as if it was trying to beat out of his chest and being ripped in two at the same time. He wanted to say something to the captain, something to let him know he was sorry, but he couldn’t find the words.

  He struck out for the door again, but Clint and Kat beat him to it. They were just coming in, blocking his way.

  “Hey, Coop,” Kat said, her perfect smile on high wattage. “What’re you do—”

  “Leaving, if you’d get the hell out of my way.” Shouldering past his former partners, he slapped the bar that opened the door so hard the glass rattled.

  The heat rising from the pavement outside felt good on his clammy skin. The blinding sun helped dry his eyes. He stood for a moment, soaking in the sights and sounds of the city he’d spent the greater part of his adult life protecting from harm.

  He angled his head up to look at the green
glass spire of the Bank One Building, the ball atop Reunion Tower. “You’re on your own now, guys,” he said.

  “How sentimental,” a man seated on a stone bench in the grass said. The speaker’s back was to Del, but when he rose and turned, Del recognized Mr. Baseball—without the trench coat. Today he wore a charcoal business suit with a blue-and-red-striped tie.

  The man crushed out a cigarette with his heel and strolled toward Del as if they were old friends.

  “Who the hell are you?” Del’s fingers itched for the Heckler and Koch .45 he’d left lying in the top drawer of his dresser.

  “Call me a concerned citizen. Someone who believes in the same things you do. Which is why I hate to see you throwing your life away for someone who doesn’t.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “Your wife.”

  Now this was getting good. The man was talking himself right into a fight, and Del was just looking for something to break.

  Casually he positioned himself on the opposite side of the man, putting the sun at his own back—and in his opponent’s eyes. “How would you know what my wife believes in?”

  “I know a good deal about Elisa Reyes. Perhaps more than you.”

  “Why don’t you enlighten me?” Del wanted to hear what he had to say before he busted the man’s face.

  “She is a member of a revolutionary faction in San Ynez.”

  “Good guess. Now tell me something I don’t know.”

  “How about the real reason she came to the United States?” The man pulled a folded square of paper from his breast pocket, opened it and handed it to Del. “Do you recognize that man?”

  Del studied the grainy head shot, and the name and personal data below it. According to the sheet, he was Guillermo Santiago, of San Ynez.

  He was also the man who had pointed a rifle at Clint Hayes from inside the warehouse, and who Del had killed to protect his fellow ranger, unknowingly hitting Eduardo Garcia as well.

  “The gun buyer,” Del said.

  “That man is a member of the same revolutionary faction.”

  Del looked at the picture again, then back at the man who had given it to him. He knew what the man was implying—that Elisa had been part of the interrupted gun deal. He didn’t believe it. Couldn’t. And yet his heart sat in his chest like a lump of ice. “You got any proof, or you expect me to believe this fairy tale on your say-so?”

  “I have nothing to prove to you, Mr. Cooper.”

  “No? Then what are you doing here?”

  “Trying to convince you to cooperate, for your own sake.”

  “I’m not in a very cooperative mood right now.”

  “Let her go. Dissolve your marriage and send her home before you end up on the short end of the stick on this thing.”

  Del laughed harshly. “Too late.”

  “You think losing your job is the worst that can happen to you?”

  How the hell did he know that already?

  “Think again,” the man continued. “Think about the term negligent homicide. Think about prison time. And while you’re at it, think about me scaring up a few of poor Eduardo Garcia’s long-lost relatives to file a civil suit for wrongful death. I understand your family owns a farm in Van Zandt county. It’d be a shame if they had to sell it to pay your court judgments.”

  “Son of a bitch. Who are you?”

  “With one phone call I can have the shooting board’s final report in my hands.” He paused just long enough to make it clear the report would say exactly what he wanted it to say, too. “Five minutes after that, I’ll have an arrest warrant made out in your name. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to change your mind. At twenty-four-oh-one you’ll be a wanted man.”

  Del was stunned speechless.

  “Things can get worse, Mr. Cooper,” he said as he turned and strolled away. “Things can always get worse.”

  “You’re scaring me.” Del had been with Elisa, and yet not with her, all afternoon. She had seen others with the same distant look in their eyes, villagers whose homes had been shelled by the soldiers. They stumbled around in the rubble for hours, sometimes days, sifting through the broken shards of what used to be their lives.

  But what had caused the ranger to feel as though his world had been destroyed, Elisa did not know. He had been this way since he came back from his meeting, but he would not tell her what happened. She knew only that he had pulled her from a pile of baby wallpaper samples and paint chips, insisting she help him run a few errands.

  So far they had visited his insurance agent to have her listed as beneficiary on his policies, his bank to add her name to his accounts, his lawyer to draw up power of attorney for her and to change his will. Now he wanted to take her to apply for a driver’s license.

  He helped her into the Land Rover. “Just a few more stops, I promise.”

  “I am tired.”

  “You need to be able to get around town without depending on me.”

  “I am sorry to be such a burden to you,” she snapped. She was not a nice person when she was tired, and these past few weeks she had not been able to function beyond 3:00 p.m. without a nap. It was now a quarter to four. “But do you think this could wait until tomorrow? I do not think I will score well on the driving test if I fall asleep behind the wheel.”

  Del braced himself against the top of the car. For a moment she almost thought he was going to insist she get her license today. “All right,” he said, then sighed and shook his head. “You’re right. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

  He made it no easier to rest at home, though. He stalked from room to room, showing her where to find spare keys, bank statements, vehicle maintenance records. Finally she settled onto the couch and refused to move another inch. Del disappeared into the bedroom. When he returned, he held a pistol.

  “I assume you know how to use one of these,” he said, and she tried not to read any accusation into the words. The propensity for violence he assumed her to have was still a sore subject between them.

  “Fifteen-round semiautomatic, thumb safety, barrel sights,” she said. Her brothers had insisted she learn to shoot, though she never carried a weapon. Didn’t own one. “I think I can manage.”

  “Good.” He slammed a loaded magazine into the grip and pulled the slide back to inject a round into the chamber before handing her the gun. “Take this until I get back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To finish those errands.”

  “I am supposed to sit here with a gun under my pillow while you go buy groceries?”

  “I’d rather you kept it out, where you can get to it faster.” He picked up his keys from the coffee table. “And we have plenty of groceries.”

  “Then where are you going?”

  “To rattle some bushes and see what jumps out.”

  “Bushes…?” Elisa shook her head, confused by the mental image she created from the literal translation of his words.

  He paused at the front door and must have recognized her bewilderment. “I’m going to see what I can find out about our visitor at the ballpark last night.”

  Now Elisa was really worried. She had a bad feeling about this. “Why? Has something happened?”

  The way he shifted his gaze told her it had—and that he didn’t want to talk about it. He shook the doorknob. “Lock this when I leave. Don’t let anyone in but me.”

  She opened her mouth to argue but changed her mind. Some problems had to be worked out on one’s own. She had a feeling whatever was bothering the ranger was one of them. Besides, judging from the anger smoldering in those gray eyes of his, ready to explode into flames with the tiniest puff of encouragement, arguing wouldn’t have done any good.

  Instead she simply nodded.

  When he was gone, she set the .45 on the coffee table, pulled her legs onto the couch and curled herself around a throw pillow. Yet tired as she was, she could not rest. Thoughts of the ranger circled her mind like a captured jaguar pacing the per
imeter of his cage.

  He could have rejected her when he found out about her connection with the resistance movement. She had expected him to. If not last night, then this morning, after he had a chance to think about it.

  He had lain here in the solitary hours before dawn, she realized. Right in this spot where she now lay. She could still smell his faint trace in the pillow—sandalwood and mint toothpaste.

  At some point as he stared into the darkness, he must have hated her. She represented everything he loathed. She reminded him that his brother had died for nothing—a collateral casualty in someone else’s cause.

  She wondered if he still hated her. And if he did, why he was trying so hard to protect her.

  Because he had promised?

  If so, he was a fool. Promises were an outdated notion. Honor a thing of the past. The world was fluid today. Situations changed. People reciprocated.

  Eduardo had promised her a life in America, too, hadn’t he? Look what had happened to him.

  Elisa burrowed her cheek into the pillow. She didn’t want to think of the ranger meeting the same end as Eduardo, but the awful imagery filled her mind anyway. He was out chasing the shadowy man who had been watching them last night. And when a man chased shadows, who knew what danger he would find in the dark?

  “Have a beer, Chuckie.” After all, Del had already had several. Since he wasn’t a drinker, the alcohol hit his bloodstream hard and fast.

  Charles Wellesey pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his hawkish nose and scruffed his kinky red hair. Charles worked in the Department of Public Safety communications office. Del had tried asking questions of his other sources, but nothing had panned out, so he’d called Chuckie. Those comm guys knew everything before it happened, from budget cuts among the office staff to pissing contests among the brass.

  “Look, no offense, man,” Charles said. “But I don’t want to be seen with you.”

  Del took a hit from his longneck. “Word’s already out, huh?”

  “Word was out before you left the office.”

  Bastards. That meant they’d known before he went in what the outcome would be.