Warm blood ran down my side as the wound broke open still again, and I shook my head to clear the stars from in front of my eyes. Bile rose and I spat a yellow fluid onto the already filthy floor.
The general leaned forward and rested one elbow on the scarred, rickety table. “You, too, are a legend, guardabosque. Maybe one of real . . . substance. We have heard of you even over here, after you killed so many people when la nieve covered the ground.”
“If you mean when it snowed, yeah, I was cold and that made me crabby.”
A foot kicked me in the side again and I screamed. From a distant place, Chatto’s voice penetrated the pain. “Ranger. I would have them take your head now, but you have a date with El Molinillo. You will face him when he gets here, and will do it alive. I want you to look at him before my men cut your throat.”
The pain was so great I didn’t even try to think of another smart-ass comment. The beer signs spun, and I fell into darkness.
Chapter 67
It was dark when Kelly Hawke stood in the second-floor hotel room window overlooking the Posada courtyard. There were only two rooms on the top of that horseshoe shape with a western view of the courtyard lit by bare-bulb patio lights. Two dozen streamer flags crisscrossed the open area, fluttering in the breeze. The flagstone was still damp, but the skies overhead offered an occasional view of a flickering star.
Filled to the brim by the incessant rain, the fountain in the middle of the courtyard splashed unsuspecting people passing by. A uniformed sheriff’s deputy occupied a metal chair in a hidden corner beside the arched entrance. A pump shotgun leaned against the wall beside him.
“Mom, when are we going to hear something?” Mary was propped against the headboard, tapping endlessly on her phone’s screen.
Already almost ready to scream in frustration, Kelly forced herself not to turn from the deputy assigned to protect them. To do that would unleash a response the high school student hadn’t earned. Kelly was scared to death because no one had contacted her in the last hour. Her eyes flicked to the phone on the desk charger. It was dark.
“You know as much as I do.”
“Why do we have to stay here? Let’s go to Alpine at least. It’s closer if anything happens.”
“Because everyone who needs to get in touch with us knows we’re here.” Kelly paused. An itch somewhere in her subconscious told her she’d said something important, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. “This is where they can find us if they hear anything new. We don’t need to be running all over West Texas.”
“Well, I’d like to have someone with us. How about we call Evangelina and ask her to come over? Her dad’s downstairs. I bet Gabe’d like to have his daughter close so he could keep an eye on her, too.”
Experienced with manipulative high school students, Kelly ignored the convoluted logic and turned to her daughter. “If it’s dangerous for us, it would be just as bad for her.” She realized that since Gabe was downstairs with Herman, her daughter’s best friend might be home alone. “Where is Angie anyway?”
Mary rose and sat cross-legged, still tapping at her phone. Kelly remembered when she was that age, dating Sonny and talking endlessly on the house phone that had a cord just long enough to run under her closed door.
“Staying with Gillian. They’ve been texting me, asking if they can come over. Angie said we could keep each other company.”
Kelly wondered who was keeping an eye on the girls with Gillian’s dad, Sheriff Ethan Armstrong, out of pocket in Big Bend. “The answer is no.”
There was that niggle again. Something, but what?
Mary’s thumbs flew over the screen. It was the way their generation traded information and kept in contact. Social media was fast taking over face-to-face conversation and it worried Kelly and Sonny. They’d spent endless hours sitting on the porch, Kelly drinking red wine and Sonny with a Bombay Sapphire gin and tonic, discussing the trend where people conversed by text, even in the same house or sitting side-by-side on a couch.
Kelly glanced at her phone again. Maybe I need to check my Facebook and see if anyone is talking about the search. Maybe there’s something there . . .
She froze with a hand over her mouth.
“Mary, have you told any of your friends where we are?”
She didn’t glance up. “I haven’t called any of them, but I’ve posted on Snapchat, why?”
“But the girls are texting, too, about what’s going on, right?” Kelly’d seen how the kids interacted with several people at the same time. She’d tried it once, texting to her building principal Victor Hernandez about one subject and Sonny on another. That experience failed miserably when she signed off with Sonny, texting an “I love you” that went to the principal instead.
It took a while to explain how she’d made that mistake.
Mary nodded, barely listening. “Probably.” She listed six other friends by name.
Kelly snatched her phone off the table and thumbed it alive, suddenly realizing how the gangsters knew they were home alone, or thought they were. Social media. Their whole lives were wide open for anyone to see.
Her Facebook page showed over seventy comments on Kelly’s post that she and Mary were not at home, so don’t bother to come around. They were staying somewhere in town, she said, and she knew they were all concerned. All the comments were from friends who sent condolences or concerns.
She flicked the screen and gasped. Instead of posting “Private,” Mary had put it up for “Public” comments.
“Mary. Shut it down.”
“I will in a sec. I’m checking to see if Perry Hale got back to me. I can’t wait any longer. I sent him a text to see what he found out. Maybe he’ll tell us something.”
“Did you say anything about us being at the Posada?”
“Sure. Perry Hale won’t tell.”
Kelly whirled and looked out onto the courtyard. It seemed the same at first glance, and then she saw the deputy leaning back in his chair, arms hanging limp by his side. His face was turned toward the sky, a huge gash across his throat. The blood had already stopped pumping and covered the front of his shirt, running down into a dark pool at his feet.
She lunged across the bed, knocking the phone from Mary’s hand, and rolled to her feet on the other side. She slapped the lights off and grabbed her purse containing a Ladysmith .38 revolver just as the shadow of someone’s feet broke the beam of light coming under the door.
Chapter 68
Marc Chavez’s doorbell rang at half past midnight. He started upright, stomach clenched in anticipation. He’d turned down all the lights and lit candles throughout the house, giving it a soft ambiance that the young lady would surely appreciate.
Already in silk pajamas covered by a soft robe, he answered the door with a crystal glass of wine in his hand. “Good evening. I’m glad to have you here with me to celebrate.”
The dark-eyed young woman standing on his doorstep didn’t look like anything he expected. Instead of the soft, voluptuous type of woman he typically hired, she was a lean, hard-looking Latino. Chavez’s heart flipped at the sight. This was something new, exotic, and exciting.
He held out the glass. “This is for you. Come in and let’s get acquainted.”
She blinked for a moment before her white teeth flashed in the candlelight spilling through the door. “Seguro, mi amor.”
My sweetheart.
Chavez’s insides went soft and he fell instantly in love. He stepped back for her to enter and spoke in fluent Spanish. “El baño está a la vuelta de la esquina. Estoy seguro de que querrás lavarte antes de empezar. Lo siento, pero soy exigente con la limpieza. I’m sorry, but I’m picky about cleanliness.”
She threw her head back and laughed at the mention of the bathroom and her need to wash up before they start. “I’ll need it more when we’re finished.”
His heart fluttered at the sound, a sensation he hadn’t experienced in months. “Hablas English?”
“Sure do.”
“Good, I won’t have to concentrate so hard on my Spanish.”
The young woman stepped inside and Chavez got a good look at her, immediately recognizing the gangster clothing and the bright blue bandana hanging from her back pocket. “What’s this, a little role-playing game you must have in mind?”
His ardor as well as his blood went cold when a crowd of young, hard-looking gangsters materialized behind her with edged weapons and guns.
Chapter 69
The soft tap outside Kelly Hawke’s hotel room was as startling as a gunshot. Her eyes flicked from the shadow under the door, then back up to the peephole. She knew better. If someone heard her speak, the obvious place for her eye to be was behind the tiny round lens.
Mary rolled off the bed to answer the second knock. Kelly went cold. Her voice was nothing more than a hiss. “Mary, no!”
With the maddening stubbornness of a high school junior, the young woman argued as she stepped into the small vestibule. “Why not?”
Kelly grabbed her daughter’s arm and yanked her back at the same time Mary saw the pistol in her mother’s hand. Her eyes widened and she allowed herself to be pulled back around the corner. “What is it?”
“It’s bad.”
The soft rap came again, this time accompanied by a familiar voice. “Kelly. Mary. It’s Herman.”
Weak with relief, Kelly held her daughter against the wall with one hand. She whispered. “Stay here. There still may be trouble.” Her palm was sweaty on the pistol butt. Just in case Herman had a gun to his head, she cracked the door, leaving the brass hasp in place. She peeked through the one-inch gap.
Herman held up a pump shotgun so she could see he was armed and not a hostage. “S’okay.”
She closed the door and removed the hasp. “Herman, the deputy is dead out there!”
“Yep. Saw it myself.” He stayed where he was, watching the elevators to his left. “Y’all come with me.”
Knowing better than to ask questions, Kelly waved to her daughter. “Mary, let’s go.”
Once in the hall, she glanced around and saw Gabe positioned where he could watch the elevator and stairwell. He held a black poly pump shotgun and she knew why at once. Shotgun pellets are less likely to penetrate walls and doors in the event of a fight.
She reached back and took Mary’s hand. “Where?”
Herman pointed. “Back there’s another staircase. It goes down to the kitchen.”
“Where are the other deputies?”
“Don’t know, and that’s why we’re gettin’ out of here.” Herman took her arm, and Kelly allowed him to guide her away from the elevators.
She carried the little .38 with the muzzle pointed toward the floor. Mary followed with her retrieved cell phone. “What about the other people staying here?”
“Nobody’s after them.” Herman released Kelly’s arm and cracked a door marked “Employees Only.” After making sure the room was empty, he urged them inside and positioned himself half in and out of the utility closet. He rapped the wall, the sound just loud enough to be heard down the hall. “Gabe.”
Instead of the answer Kelly expected to hear, Gabe’s shotgun hammered the still air with a hard thump followed by the immediately recognizable sound of another round shucking into the chamber. He fired twice more, fast.
Herman backed into the tiny room and shut the door. He pushed past the women and yanked open a skinny door partially hidden by shelves jutting from the wall on their left.
“Come . . .”
A man wielding a large knife lunged from the darkness of the stairwell. Herman instinctively blocked the thrust with his left arm, earning a deep cut above his elbow. He grunted and fell back, yanking the Colt 1911 from the holster on his hip. The big .45 came to life, spitting out three quick rounds that deadened Kelly’s hearing in the small room. Their assailant vanished into the darkness, tumbling downward.
Mary screamed. Herman fired twice more and slammed the door. His left sleeve was already turning red. “Cut me with a big ol’ knife, dammit! Might’ve been another’n behind him, but I couldn’t tell, it was so dark in there. How the hell’d he find them stairs?”
Directly across from the doorway sat a gray metal utility shelf full of cleaning supplies. Herman yanked it away from the wall and the heavy shelf toppled at a forty-five-degree angle, spilling chemicals and blocking the doorway.
Kelly grabbed a thick hand towel from another set of shelves and pressed it over the wound. “It’s bleeding, but not pumping. He didn’t hit an artery. We don’t have time to do much more.” She picked up the shotgun he’d dropped.
His face white as a sheet, Herman holstered the .45 and held the improvised compression bandage against the wound at the same time Gabe rapped the door.
“Hell and damn. It’s me. They coming in here, too?”
Kelly opened the door, knowing good and well it was Gabe by his odd cussing. She held Herman’s shotgun across her chest. “Yep. Sounds like the same thing happened with you.”
“A cholo popped out of el hueco de la escalara with a machete, I mean the stairwell. He would have taken my head off if I’d been closer. There was another one behind him, but the first one got in his way. How many?”
Herman put himself between Mary and the door, turned so she couldn’t see the white hand towel turn red. “One. You?”
“Dos.”
“Wonder how many they sent?”
Gabe shrugged. “More than that.”
“I’m afraid you’re right.”
Kelly pulled Gabe’s shirtsleeve with two fingers. “Where are we going now?”
“I think back to your room.”
“That’s my think.” Herman licked his lips and shivered, either from pain or the thought of what could have happened if the man with the knife had been successful
Their options were limited. “We hole up there until more help arrives. With all this shootin’, it won’t be long.”
Chapter 70
Soaked by a hard, steady rain, Javier and Pepito arrived at the banks of the Rio Grande that rushed past with a force far beyond what they were expecting. Pepito flicked on a flashlight and skipped it across the roiling surface. A mesquite limb rose and submerged. “We can’t cross this.”
“You’re right, but the rain is on our side. We’re not far from the bridge. It’s just around the bend. We cross there.”
“But you said it was too dangerous.”
“It wasn’t raining when I said that. The soldiers are going to be inside where it’s dry, not watching a closed bridge in a storm.” He shrugged. “Once we’re over there, we wait inside the Americana Bar de Vista and I will call Chatto. They have a phone there.”
“What about the Ranger?”
Javier wiped at the rain in his face. “I don’t care anymore. This has been nothing more than death for us. We go home to our mountains and be done with this business as soon as the soldiers leave.”
“They will come for us. Chatto will never leave this alone. We failed him.”
“They will never find us. The norteamericanos couldn’t find our ancestors after Geronimo left them. Our country is too rough.” He touched the tattoo on his neck, exactly tracing the four wavy lines even though he couldn’t see them. “Our people won’t let anything happen to us anyway. Chatto knows better than to come into the Sierra Occidental. It is our home.”
Chapter 71
Also taking advantage of the heavy rain, Perry Hale and Yolanda knelt behind the thigh-high red-and-white-striped concrete Jersey barriers blocking the unused two-lane bridge. Both wore MOLLE packs they’d checked and rechecked before leaving.
“There’s four more of these, like hurdles on a track.” Perry Hale kept his voice low. “Then it’s a chain-link fence built against a steel wall.” He held up a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters. “We go through with these.”
Yolanda peeked over the barrier at the tall security fence high above, using a small flashlight with a red lens. “Tell me that�
�s all.”
“Yep. Then we just walk on across.”
“Getting back with Sonny might be an issue.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Funny.” She sighed. “You’re liking this wayyyy too much.”
“That glint in your eye tells me you’re glad to be back in action, too.”
“Yep. Let’s go get him.”
Holding the heavy two-foot bolt cutters in one hand, Perry Hale adjusted the AR battle-slung over his chest. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter 72
Jerry Hawke and Arturo passed Stillwell’s dark general store and kept going, though at a slower pace. The windshield wipers slapped hard and fast. Jerry checked the odometer. “We shut off the lights in fifteen miles.”
“Why?”
“Because the river is another five miles past that. I don’t want to drive up there with them on. They’ll see us.”
Arturo frowned at the pitch-black world beyond their dry car. “You won’t be able to see. It’s too dark.”
“We’ll drive slow and feel our way with the tires.”
“We’ll be screwed if we get struck.”
“We won’t.”
“Then what are we gonna do?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. I just want to be there before the Rangers show up. They’ll be less likely to make us leave than if we drive up behind them. They’ll probably close the road and won’t let anybody through.”
“You dad’s gonna blister our butts.”
Jerry checked the odometer again and did the math in his head. “I hope he gets the chance.”
Chapter 73
I woke up on the floor, laying with my hands cuffed around a scarred wooden post holding up the Americana Bar de Vista’s roof. The good news was that the cuffs were loose on my wrists. The bad news was there were too many people around for me to try and fish out the key I’d put back in my watch pocket.
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