Strong Vengeance

by Jon Land

  “Guess Doc Whatley’s gonna have his hands full with this one,” from Earl.

  A stiff wind came up and Sheriff Plantaine backed off, suddenly clenching his hand over his nose, the stench slamming into him hard. “What exactly you boys figure did this?”

  “You mean as in weapon?” Earl asked him.

  “If it wasn’t this Rougarou thing, of course,” said Jim.

  “As in weapon,” Plantaine affirmed.

  Earl took a quick glance at the nearest body, then turned back grimacing, as if he’d had enough of the sight. “I’m thinking something like the fork hoe I use to cultivate my seed beds.”

  “A garden tool?”

  “’Nother possibility would be a hand cultivator. Reason I say one of those is because the cuts and tears are jagged. So whatever did this to these boys was sharp enough, but not in the razor or weapons sense of the word.”

  “Goes along perfectly with what I was figuring, Dad.”

  “And what’s that, son?”

  Tepper watched his mentor on the left and best friend in the Texas Rangers on the right standing face-to-face, two true legends who along with him likely made up the last of a breed.

  “That whoever killed these boys didn’t plan it. That the victims just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Random as opposed to premeditated.”

  “From where I’m standing.”

  Earl Strong took off his Stetson and mopped his brow, the smell of his own sweat infinitely preferable over that of the bodies sprawled in the clearing. “They surprised somebody who’d come here for the same purpose.”

  “Maybe Jean Lafitte’s treasure,” added Jim.

  “Rangers,” said Sheriff Plantaine, “I’ve had my fill of Cajun monsters and treasure talk for the day. What say I call in my team to get these poor boys ready to travel?”

  * * *

  Plantaine did just that, a deputy assisting a nervous paramedic calling out to him when they got one of the bodies straightened out.

  “What is it, Tyrell?”

  “There’s something over here on the ground. I think it fell out of the dead kid’s hand when we turned him.”

  Plantaine joined the Strongs and D. W. Tepper in crouching over the body.

  “Looks like a crucifix,” the sheriff noted. “Not regular like, but a cross all the same. Poor kid must have been the religious type, holding fast to it as he was dying.”

  “Everything else suggests they were taken by surprise, remember?” said Jim Strong, using a gloved hand to slide the crosslike pendant into a small evidence bag. “Can’t have it both ways.”

  “So if he wasn’t clutching it as he went to meet his maker, what then?”

  “Don’t know,” Jim answered. “Guess we’ll have to wait to find out what exactly.”

  * * *

  Frank Dean Whatley’s initial examination of the bodies well after dark that night confirmed pretty much all of the initial conclusions reached in the field.

  “So you agree with me it was either a fork hoe or hand cultivator?” Earl raised.

  “Which of them has three prongs again?”

  “Fork hoe.”

  “That’d be the one.”

  “Tool used on raised beds and flower gardens,” said Jim Strong.

  “Or, in this case, maybe hoeing the ground for missing treasure.”

  “Except according to legend,” interjected Earl, “Lafitte’s legendary treasure’s somewhere in the Louisiana bayou, not Galveston Island.”

  “What about that cross?” Jim asked Frank Whatley.

  “Haven’t gotten to it yet.”

  “You’re too young to start slowing down like me, Doc,” Earl told him.

  “Except for that one quick coffee run, you boys have been shadowing me since you brought the bodies in. You see me wasting any time along the way?”

  “Take all you need,” Earl said, starting for the door with his eyes on his son. “Three of us are gonna trace this back to where it all started while you putter around.”

  “Oh, there is one other thing,” Whatley remembered. “That substance on the soles of their boots, what you called clay.”

  “What about it?”

  “Wasn’t clay at all, but fill. The kind used in swamp lands to shore up levies and shorelines.”

  “Like in the Louisiana bayou?” Jim Strong asked him.

  “It’s a swamp, the last time I checked.”

  “And now it looks like our frat boys made a stop there as well.”

  44

  SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT

  “So we all went up to the University of Texas at Austin,” Tepper finished.

  He sucked in as deep a breath as his ragged lungs allowed. Caitlin had to admit his color and energy were better when he smoked than when he didn’t, though she couldn’t even begin to explain why.

  “It won’t work, you know, Ranger.”

  “What?”

  “Trying to distract me from the matter at hand, you being a political Claymore mine blowing up anyone who gets close to you. When you gonna learn to dial it down with people who carry power in their pocket like it’s a wallet?”

  “I don’t recall either Jim or Earl providing much counseling on that subject.”

  “Politics are everywhere now, and Hurricane Caitlin seems determined to blow through every last bit of them.”

  “Braga is dirty, Captain. There’s something all wrong about him. And I don’t buy this migrant worker, American Dream, self-made man crap for a minute.”

  “Even though all those descriptions seem to fit him to a T.”

  “I’m gonna follow the trail of those missing barrels, see where it takes me.”

  “Teofilo Braga’s trail, you mean.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “I’d say choose your steps wisely and be discreet for once, if I thought it would do any good.”

  Caitlin stood up. “How much you know on the subject of waste management, D.W.?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Neither do I. Very few do, and that’s the point. Braga can get away with anything he wants because there’s a general ignorance of what he’s doing in the first place. Other than the EPA, I don’t think there’s a single law enforcement body that gives one hoot about what might be inside those barrels spotted underneath the Mariah.”

  Tepper weighed her words in between puffs. “My question is what’s so important about them that they’d make Braga risk alienating the army of officials, elected and otherwise, he’s got watching his back?”

  “I’m thinking more along the lines of how those barrels connect with two dozen oil rig workers murdered directly overhead,” Caitlin said, flipping her cell phone back on and freezing as her latest voice mail started to play.

  “Ranger?”

  “Oh, shit,” she said, listening to Dylan’s message.

  PART FIVE

  In 1914, during the early days of World War I, the Rangers had the daunting task of identifying and rounding up numerous spies, conspirators, saboteurs, and draft dodgers. In 1916, Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico, intensified already harsh feelings between the United States and Mexico. As a result, the regular Rangers, along with hundreds of special Rangers appointed by Texas governors, killed approximately 5,000 Hispanics between 1914 and 1919, which soon became a source of scandal and embarrassment.

  —Legends of America:

  Texas Legends: The Texas Rangers—Order Out of Chaos

  45

  HOUSTON, THE PRESENT

  “No sign of Paz,” Cort Wesley said, manning the binoculars now.

  Jones smirked. “That’s why he’s here. You too.”

  “I’m not like him. Nobody is. Wouldn’t surprise me if he opened his coat one day and wings sprouted out. Maybe those Mexican peasants had it right when they called him Ángel de la Guarda.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing he’s on our side.”

  Cort Wesley thought he might have gli
mpsed old Leroy Epps seated up in the van’s cab, as he often did when worry and overthinking threatened to consume him. He didn’t fancy the notion of going into an enclosed space to face a potential firefight without any idea of the precise logistics, much less having not fired or even held a gun for a year now.

  “Not a bad deal, eh?” Jones raised suddenly. “Get your life back in exchange for one night’s work.”

  “It’s never that simple.”

  “You still don’t trust me?”

  “Not for one goddamn minute.”

  Jones looked at Cort Wesley with the same intensity he’d been focusing on the mosque. “Problem is you’ve got something to lose.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Nope. Not a thing. Not a steady woman, not a close relative. And you wanna talk about friends? The Ranger’s as close as it gets.”

  “She’s not your friend, Jones.”

  “My point exactly.”

  With evening prayers having ended, and the long line of mosque members gone, the plan was for Paz and his men to secure the main floor of the building, after which he’d make the call that he was ready for them.

  “Why now?” Cort Wesley posed. “What brings someone as big as al-Awlaki back to his hated homeland after faking his death.”

  “Because we’ve cracked his armor; his, al-Qaeda’s, and its various offshoots. You know why they’re moving today? Because they might not be able to move the day after or the day after that. Because we’re winning. We’ve got them on the run and they’re desperate.”

  “You know what they say about wounded animals, Jones.”

  “You just made my point for me, cowboy.”

  “Because I’m wondering if this plant who supplied your intel was playing you, Jones. It’s happened before.”

  They both heard Paz’s voice at the same time in their earpieces.

  “We’re ready for you” was all he said.

  46

  SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT

  Caitlin spotted Jalbert Thoms the moment she entered the Red Stripe bar on the edge of East San Antonio. She moved across the warped, knotty pine floor, bumping into two customers on her way. She had no idea really what she was going to do when she reached Thoms, until she got to his table and fastened a hand on his throat.

  “You wanted to see me, Mr. Thoms?”

  She felt the cartilage contract under the force of her grasp, Thoms’s hands fluttering in the air before finally locking on her wrist as if prepared to pry her fingers from his throat.

  “Well, here I am, sir.”

  He tried to smile at her through the gurgling sounds his mouth was making, failed there, but managed to tip his hat in the last moment before Caitlin released him.

  “I heard you had something for me.”

  Thoms hocked up some spittle and let it fall to the bar floor, strings of saliva left dangling from both sides of his mouth he wiped clean with a cocktail napkin. His spurs clanged as he uncrossed his legs and left both of them under the table. He removed the envelope from the pocket of his suit jacket, his other hand remaining in his lap.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Ranger?” he said, still trying to clear his throat. “I’ll order you something from the bar. My treat.”

  Caitlin took the envelope but didn’t open it. “You’re delivering this on behalf of Teofilo Braga.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You think he understands the leash law in San Antonio?”

  “Don’t think I quite follow you, ma’am.”

  Caitlin held his stare, feeling her eyes tear up slightly from the rage building inside her. Dylan’s description of Jalbert Thoms didn’t do the man justice. He was like a human stick figure, his dark suit swimming on him, his spurs making him look like a reject from a past century. Even that, though, was nothing compared to the way his skin fit his body, as if somebody had poured too much on him in the mold.

  “Law says all animals have to be leashed and that the owner is responsible for their actions if they’re set loose, Mr. Thoms. That means everything you said to Dylan Torres might as well have come up out of Mr. Braga’s mouth.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him that.”

  “I’m surprised he doesn’t run background checks on all the people who work for him.”

  “’Cept I don’t work for him, Ranger. I’m more the freelance type, kind of like a hired gun,” Thoms said, his eyes twinkling.

  Caitlin brushed back her jacket, revealing her SIG-Sauer. “Is that a fact?”

  * * *

  Dylan had still been shaking when Caitlin screeched to a halt in the driveway.

  “I swear that man was more liquid than solid,” the boy said once they got inside. He tried to drink some water, then changed his mind and laid the plastic bottle back on the table. “I thought he was going to melt right into the grass. A hundred degrees in the sun and he wasn’t even sweating. I don’t even think he was breathing.”

  “You protected your brother, Dylan. You did good, real good.”

  “The way he looked at me was like…”

  “I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I think we should leave it for now.”

  Dylan’s shaking stilled. He leaned forward. “I don’t.”

  Caitlin sat down on the couch next to him. “Among other things, Jalbert Thoms is a pedophile. He did seven years in Huntsville for raping a fifteen-year-old boy.”

  Dylan looked down. “Kid should’ve defended himself.”

  Caitlin slid closer to Dylan on the couch. “It’s not always easy with men like Thoms. He’s a human monster who knows how to use words as a weapon.”

  Dylan finally looked at her again. “What other things?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said ‘among other things.’ What else has Thoms done, kill boys as well as rape them?”

  “Not boys,” Caitlin said, leaving it at that. “He’s a strongman for hire who specializes in intimidation. Since getting out of Huntsville, we believe he’s connected to as many as three murders.”

  “Do I have to start carrying my dad’s Glock in the front yard?”

  Caitlin eased her arm around the boy’s shoulder. “You let me handle this.”

  “I wanna tell him, my dad I mean.”

  “You know what he’d do if you did.”

  Dylan looked at her, his gaze wide and fearful. A vulnerable teenage boy again, however briefly. “That’s why I want to tell him.”

  Caitlin stood up. “What was the name of that bar again?”

  * * *

  It was a seedy place with sticky floors coated in cigarette ash and beer stains painting the walls. The air-conditioning was either broken or left off, and of the three ceiling fans, only one was spinning in wobbly fashion with a slight creak every second or so. The bar itself was chipped and discolored, and several veinlike cracks adorned a mirror before which bottles both house and higher-end brands were stacked.

  Jalbert Thoms slid his chair backward a bit. “Why don’t you take a load off, Ranger? Open up that envelope and peruse its contents. What can I get you from the bar?”

  Caitlin sat down in the chair directly across from him. “You holding a gun on me under the table, Mr. Thoms?”

  “Now, Ranger, you know as well as I that threatening a law enforcement official that way would surely get me sent back to Huntsville.”

  “All the same, the boy you assaulted earlier today says he saw a gun under your jacket.”

  Thoms grinned. “I didn’t assault anyone.”

  “Words can be a powerful weapon too, sir.”

  “You gonna arrest me for what I said?”

  “Felons aren’t allowed to carry guns, even in Texas.” Caitlin let him see the harshness building in her eyes. “Then again, I suppose it was the use of a different weapon that got you jammed up in the first place. Pretty low caliber without much stopping power would be my guess.”

  Jalbert Thoms grinned broadly. “You wanna find out for s
ure?”

  “I’m the wrong age. And gender.” She held her eyes on him until his grin disappeared. “So how long you been sick?”

  “Come again?”

  “What is it, a case of AIDS you picked up in prison? Hepatitis? Maybe some of the younger meat there came already contaminated. Now that would be ironic. See, I worked at Brooke Memorial for a time, long enough to recognize what a man looks like when his muscles shrivel up but his skin stays the same. I saw what happened to those patients as they degraded. It wasn’t pretty. Hope you can handle a high degree of pain and suffering, Mr. Thoms.”

  Some of the excess skin along Thoms’s jowls puckered. He leaned forward, leaving that same hand beneath the table. “Know how I survived Huntsville, Ranger?”

  “You mean when most child molesters leave with their bodies in a box or missing their private parts?”

  Thoms flashed his toothy grin again, bright even in the bar’s dull lighting. The air itself inside the Red Stripe stank to high heaven; Caitlin had never known air itself to smell so bad before, wondered if it wasn’t the odor of old sweat and urine from the prison’s halls clinging to Jalbert Thoms’s gaunt frame like talcum powder. His grin might have been radiant white, but his skin color was milk-pale. With his sunken cheekbones and eyes set too far back in his skull, he looked like a corpse complete with a pasty, made-up face and formaldehyde for blood. Maybe that was what she smelled.

  “Just take the envelope and leave, Ranger,” Thoms said, the grin sliding off his face.

  “We’ve come too far for that.”

  Thoms looked only slightly surprised. “You realize you’re playing right into my hands.”

  “Mistake I’ve been known to make in the past. And I don’t believe you’re a match for me, gun under the table or not.”

  Thoms’s grin returned. “Explains why I didn’t come alone.”

  Something scratched at Caitlin’s spine.

  “Yup,” Thoms continued, “what we got here is a genuine ambush. My advice is to take that there letter and be gone, leaving me to my whiskey. Your choice, Ranger, whether to walk out of here or be carried.”