Tanner stood.
“Your man was the last, and thanks for that, I’m not sure I would have shot him in time, and I also owe thanks to Pablo for giving me a chance to reload.”
Cody came out of his crouch and saw the other man lying dead past the truck.
“There were two of them?” Cody said, as Pablo came over to join them.
“Four,” Tanner said. “I killed two of them while they were still coming down the driveway.”
“I only heard one gun, and that ringing noise.”
“Their weapons had suppressors, the damn things barely made a sound.”
The front door flew open and Frank Parker stepped out holding a large revolver. Like his son, he was dressed only in a pair of boxers, and the sound of the baby crying carried from inside the house.
“Tanner, what’s going on?”
“Four armed men attacked, Mr. Parker, but don’t worry, they’re all dead.”
Parker spotted his son.
“Are you all right? And how did you beat me downstairs?”
“I left by the window in my bedroom, and that last man over there was mine.”
“But you’re all right?”
“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine.”
“How about Pablo there, and Tanner?”
“We’re good, Frank,” Tanner said, and then he tousled Pablo’s hair, causing the boy to grin. “And Pablo helped too. If he hadn’t distracted that last shooter I might be dead.”
“I’ll go call the sheriff, and Tanner, thank you.”
“You’re welcome, but I don’t think this is over. McKay is insane and needs to be put down.”
Frank paused before entering the house.
“We’ll talk later.”
***
The sheriff showed up just before four a.m.
He was out of uniform and wearing jeans that looked like they’d spent a week in a clothes hamper. His face grew paler with each body he viewed.
“These dudes are all Mexican by the look of them, and my brother doesn’t have any damn Mexicans working for him.”
“He hired them, just like he tried to hire me,” Tanner said.
“That’s a goddamn lie! I tell you my brother isn’t fool enough to do something like this. Frank, you must have made another enemy somewhere, maybe a Mexican?”
“I have one enemy, Sheriff, and that’s your brother. At least, he thinks he’s my enemy, but as far as I’m concerned the man can go to hell.”
The sheriff waved his hands in the air as if to signal the end of the discussion.
“Enough, my people will clean-up this nightmare and then I’ll post a deputy out front for the next few nights, after that, well, we’ll see.”
When the sheriff walked off, Cody shook his head.
“Mr. McKay has to go, or we’ll never be safe.”
Tanner silently agreed, and while the sheriff had his deputy guarding the Parkers, Tanner planned to pay a visit to McKay and put an end to things, the law be damned.
“It’ll all work out, Cody, trust me.”
However, Tanner’s words couldn’t have been more wrong.
CHAPTER 21 - Home is where the heart is
The next “accident” at the Reyes Ranch occurred the following morning, when the housekeeper, Mrs. Salgado, opened a cabinet door and a butcher knife fell out and sliced open her forearm just above the wrist.
The knife had been poised on a slanted cutting board in such a way as to make it fall.
The cut was a deep gash that hit the vein and sent blood spurting.
Maria had been coming down the hall, and after hearing the old woman cry out in shock and pain, she rushed into the kitchen.
“Madre de Dios!”
She grabbed a dishtowel that was hanging nearby and tried to put pressure on the flow of blood, as she cried out for someone to help, while watching the white towel turn red.
Tanner and Doc rushed in from where they had been seated on the porch. Their guns were at the ready, but when Doc saw what was happening, he put his gun down, took off his belt and wrapped it tightly around Mrs. Salgado’s arm, which he elevated above her head.
The blood flow lessened immediately and Doc used a second dishtowel to apply pressure to the cut.
Romina appeared wearing a blue bath towel. She had been in the shower when all the shouting started and her hair still dripped shampoo. When she was told what had happened to Mrs. Salgado, she looked over at the cabinet with a puzzled expression.
“How could that happen?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” Tanner said, as he dialed for an ambulance.
Mrs. Salgado, with her face looking very pale, murmured that it was an accident.
However, the knife had fallen from the cabinet above the stove, when it should have been in its slot inside the knife set atop the counter.
***
Before she climbed aboard the ambulance to ride to the hospital with Mrs. Salgado, Maria gave Doc a hug.
“Oh thank God you were here, or I think she might have bled to death.”
“I was happy to help,” Doc said.
Maria smiled.
“You have a job here if you still want it. Hopefully, I won’t need security much longer, but there’s always work that needs doing.”
Doc grinned.
“Yes ma’am, that sounds fine.”
Maria climbed aboard the ambulance and Tanner watched it drive off, as Romina and Doc stood beside him.
Romina had changed into her clothes, but still needed to do her hair, which was hidden beneath a kerchief. When she checked her phone, she looked startled.
“Oh, look at the time; I have to leave for school soon.”
“I’ll be here when you’re ready, and we’ll stop and get you breakfast on the way,” Tanner said.
“Okay.”
Romina took two steps, but came back and kissed Doc on the cheek.
“You’re not too old, and you’re my hero for saving Mrs. Salgado.”
Doc watched her go with a smile on his face.
“That girl is gold, and nothing like that brother of hers. By the way, where is he?”
“He left out of here just after first light,” Tanner said.
“The kid is lazy, seems like all he does is sit in that room of his and play video games, that is, when he’s not off riding that motorcycle.”
“I’m going to run a little errand today and won’t be back right away.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to locate the Harvey brothers and find out what they know. If that knife had hit the old woman’s throat she’d be dead, and it could just have easily been Romina who opened that cabinet.”
“You want me to come with you? I’m not much with a gun, but I could back you up.”
“Thanks, but I’ll go alone. Things could get... messy.”
“I hear you, and speaking of messes, I’ll clean-up the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee for when Maria gets back.”
“It looks like you’ve found a home here.”
“You could probably make one here too if you wanted to.”
“What?”
“A home, you could probably make a home here too.”
“Home,” Tanner said, and as he looked around, his mind traveled backwards in time, to when the land he stood upon was owned by the Parkers, and he became lost in thought.
“Tanner?”
Tanner snapped out of his reverie and was surprised to see Romina standing before him.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine, are you ready?”
“Um-hmm, bye Doc,”
“Have a good day at school, sweetie, and Tanner, take care.”
Tanner drove away from the ranch with the girl, Romina, seated beside him, but it was a boy named Cody Parker that rode along with him, and who would stay with him the rest of his life.
CHAPTER 22 - Many pawns
The McKay Ranch, September 1997
After learnin
g about the slaughter of Martillo’s men, Jack Sheer informed McKay that there would be consequences, but after contacting Martillo by phone using a number he’d been given, they learned how expensive those consequences would be.
McKay leaned over his desk and glared at Sheer, who sat in a chair in front of it with his crutches leaning against his legs.
The two men had been in San Antonio so that they would have an alibi, only to return and find that things didn’t go as planned.
“A hundred grand? Is this beaner insane?”
“Two of the men that died were his nephews, but on the bright side, he now wants the Parkers dead more than you do,”
“Big deal, that’s what I paid him for, and if this Hammer asshole thinks I’m paying him another cent he can go fuck himself.”
“I know it’s a lot of money, Andy, but Martillo, he’s part of a cartel down there, and those bastards don’t mess around.”
“Cartel? So what? This is America, and I’ll be damn if I’m going to pay a man more money for screwing up a job. Those men that got killed must not have been very good. If he wants to send more of those losers against me, let him, I’ll have a dozen men guarding me at all times.”
“That’s expensive.”
“Hell yeah, but it don’t cost a hundred grand, and if he does attack, it’ll make me look innocent of the attack on Parker,”
“You really want me to tell him no?”
McKay grabbed the receiver off the phone on his desk, but then remembered that phone records could be traced.
“Go back into town and make the call. Tell that bastard that I said he can fuck himself.”
Sheer let out a sigh, stood with the aid of his crutches, and grabbed his hat off the desk.
“I think you’re making a mistake, but you’re the boss.”
“Damn right I am, and send Whit in here, I’ll have him and some of the boys work overtime as guards starting tonight, and if that Mex tries anything, we’ll be ready.”
***
Sheer cursed and then winced in pain, as he accidentally slammed the door of the phone booth on his cast.
When he was finally settled inside the cramp enclosure, he took the strip of paper with the phone number from his pocket and dialed the bar in Mexico. He had filled his pockets with change before leaving the ranch, but the call still ate up most of it and only a quarter remained by the time he finished feeding the phone.
The money bought him three minutes of talk time, and he grew nervous when two minutes passed and Martillo had still not come on the line. But with less than thirty seconds left, he heard a scraping sound, as if the phone was being moved across a surface, followed by Martillo’s soft voice.
“Jack, what answer does your king have for me?”
“He won’t pay. He says it’s not his fault that your men failed.”
“I will come with many pawns, Jack, and the board will be swept clean.”
“This isn’t me, Martillo, you know? You and I are still cool.”
“You’re a pawn, Jack, and if you stand near your king, you’ll leave the board too.”
There was a click and the phone went dead.
Sheer took the final quarter from his pocket and fed it into the phone and after a few seconds, McKay answered his call.
“Andy, about those guards, you might want to add as many as you can; Martillo is definitely coming.”
“Let him come,” McKay snarled, and afterwards, Sheer heard the phone slam down.
He stood inside the phone booth with its little fan whirring overhead above its dim light, and two words kept passing through his mind.
Many pawns,
Sheer sighed in resignation to his fate, and left the booth to return to his king’s side.
CHAPTER 23 - Hard or easy?
Tanner found the Harvey brothers sitting inside their truck outside Stark Lake Park. After watching them for only a few minutes, he could tell that they were selling pot.
The law enforcement in the town was never good, and it looked like the tradition continued, either that, or the cops that patrolled the park were being paid to look the other way.
Stark Lake Park was a new addition to the town since Tanner had last been there. It was only about ten acres of land, while the lake was man-made and about three times the size of a swimming pool. However, there was a running track, along with basketball and tennis courts.
The Harvey brothers were situated on a corner with a line of parked cars behind them, and so when Tanner pulled his pickup truck in front of them on an angle, the boys were essentially blocked in, and Tanner reached the driver’s side window before either of them could react.
“Relax, all I want is information.”
“Fuck you,” Rich said, as Ernie gazed at him with fear in his eyes, while remembering how it felt not to be able to breathe. Tanner saw that his throat was still bruised from where he had struck him.
“You can tell me what I want to know, or you can play dumb. If you play dumb, I’ll come at you again when you’re not expecting it and then I’ll ask my questions in a way you won’t like. What’s it going to be?”
Rich glared at him, but Ernie spoke up.
“What do you want to know?”
“Who hired you to intimidate the Reyes family?”
“It was the kid.”
“What kid?”
“You know, Javier, Javier Reyes.”
“Javier hired you to give his own mother grief?”
Rich spoke up.
“It probably wasn’t his idea. He runs with those motorcycle punks, but all I know is that he paid us two bills a day to run off anybody looking for work there.”
“Where did he get the money? Is he selling drugs?”
“Those dudes, they transport, but not here, they do a little business up in San Antonio, but they’re nothing.”
“What’s the name of the gang?”
Rich laughed.
“You know how those pricks roll, the name probably has the word Devil or Diablo in it somewhere, but they hang out over by the railroad tracks on the other side of Highway 16. It’s a place that used to be a Taco Queen.”
“You’re not still working for him, are you?”
“No man, it sucked sitting out on that road all day, at least when we’re here we get to see some ladies jogging by.”
“And nobody kicks your ass.”
“That too, so are we done?”
“We’re done, but if I see you at the Reyes Ranch again you won’t like what comes next.”
“Yeah, tough guy, we hear you, but hey, you want to buy some weed? We got good shit.”
“Maybe next time,”
Tanner drove away from the park, but had more questions than when he arrived there.
CHAPTER 24 - A rat abandons his ship
The McKay Ranch, September 1997
Tanner had traveled on foot to kill McKay and found that the man had upped his security considerably.
There were two armed guards doing crisscrossing circuits around the ranch house, while four stood on the porch holding rifles, and two more guarded the entrance to the driveway.
Tanner moved closer to the house by staying in the shadows and hunkered down at the base of a wide tree, which was twenty feet from the home.
Beyond the house, light spilled from the stables, and Tanner heard the sound of several voices amid the clinking of what sounded like poker chips. That meant that there would be still more men to deal with.
The level of security puzzled Tanner.
If McKay was expecting an attack, then why not involve his brother the sheriff and have deputies guarding him, such as the one assigned to guard the entrance to the Parker ranch.
By not involving the law, it meant that McKay was hiding something from his brother, and Tanner could guess what that something was.
The shooters had all been Mexican, and were affiliated with a gang in Mexico that was known to be involved in the drug trade as security for couriers.
&n
bsp; McKay must have hired those men to kill the Parkers, and their employers weren’t happy about losing four soldiers.
Tanner smirked.
McKay’s insane quest for vengeance had made him a bigger target for revenge than the Parkers had ever been.
A door at the side of the house opened and Jack Sheer hobbled out on his crutches. Sheer was dragging a big duffel bag behind him, the type that had a thick strap so that you could sling it across your back.
After looking about to see if anyone was watching, Sheer headed towards a car parked near the door. After some difficulty due to his bad foot, and the size of the huge green bag, Sheer managed to wedge the duffel in the trunk.
One of the guards came around the corner of the house and called to Sheer, just as the ranch foreman slammed the lid on the trunk shut.
“Jack!”
Tanner saw Sheer nearly jump out of his skin and knew the man was up to something.
If the guard noticed, he didn’t let on, and smiled as he approached Sheer. The guard was young, about Tanner’s age, with straw-colored hair and a big gap-toothed grin.
“What’s up, Jack?”
“Nothing, Ray, how are things with you?”
“I’m liking this easy overtime with another baby on the way, but what do you think the odds are that we’ll see any trouble?”
Sheer said nothing, but Tanner saw that his right hand had begun to twitch.
“Jack?”
“Um, no trouble, this is just a precaution because a deal that Mr. McKay was involved in went wrong, and besides, if anything happens the boss can always call in his brother the sheriff, right?”
The guard, Ray, seemed to relax at those words.
“Yeah, that’s right, the cops will back us up, but what kind of people was the boss dealing with?”
“Legitimate, or so he thought, until the man threatened him on the phone,”
Ray shook his head sadly.
“It takes all kinds, but that’s enough yakking, I have to keep moving or the other guard, Ed, will report me, you know what a prick that guy is.”
“Right, see you around Ray.”
When the guard was out of sight, Sheer opened the car door to get in, but then banged a fist on the roof of the vehicle while muttering something to himself, as if recalling that he’d forgotten something.
The TANNER Series - Books 4-6 (Tanner Box Set Book 2) Page 19
