Strong from the Heart--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

“Colonel G?” he heard inside his head.

  Paz realized his charges had risen back from the puddles, bouncing with eagerness to start their turns on the obstacle course, the message to him effectively delivered.

  Something was coming, something bad. Close and getting closer, sure to be set upon the world before too much longer.

  “Now,” Paz said, shaking off the spell, “who wants to go first?”

  PART THREE

  BEN MCCULLOCH

  McCulloch followed his neighbor and family friend Davy Crockett from Tennessee out to Texas in 1835. He came down with the measles and didn’t make it to the Alamo before its fall, but joined Sam Houston’s army for the Battle of San Jacinto. After joining the Rangers, he fought courageously against Comanches at the Battle of Plum Creek and other engagements and was named Hays’ first lieutenant. During the Mexican War, McCulloch earned the distinction of chief scout for General Zachary Taylor’s army. In 1849, McCulloch joined many other fortune-seekers who headed to California during the Gold Rush. By the time the Civil War broke out, he was back in Texas, and in May 1861 became a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. Assigned to defend Indian Territory in Texas, he contributed greatly to the Confederate victory at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek in August 1861. In March 1862, McCulloch was killed in the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas.

  —Sarah Pruitt, “8 Famous Texas Rangers,” History.com

  27

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  “Hey, look who it is!”

  Caitlin stood in the doorway of D. W. Tepper’s office, looking at the man who’d just greeted her. He was seated, with his shiny cowboy boots propped up on the captain’s desk. “You my new boss, Jones?”

  “I work in the private sector now. It’s not ‘Jones’ anymore.”

  “Oh, what is it?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “And how’s the private sector treating you?”

  “Money’s great. Everything else sucks. Too much accountability.”

  “Meaning you can’t send Paz to kill somebody who gives you the stink eye at a board meeting.”

  The man Caitlin knew as Jones smirked. “I’ve been under the radar so long, it’s awfully tough living between the lines. First week I drew an actual paycheck, I realized I needed to open a bank account in my real name. There’s something to be said for cash and having credit cards you never have to pay down yourself.”

  “Right. Sounds like a regular utopia.”

  Jones had become a top operative for Homeland Security by way of stints with the Special Forces and then the CIA. Caitlin had first met him when his name was still “Smith” and he was attached to the American embassy in Bahrain. Enough of a relationship had formed for the two of them to remain in contact and to actually work together on several more occasions. Sometimes Jones surprised her, but mostly he could be relied on to live down to Caitlin’s expectations.

  Caitlin couldn’t say exactly what Jones had done during his years with Homeland Security, and she doubted that anybody else could either. He’d operated in the muck, among the dregs of society who were plotting to harm the country from the inside. Caitlin doubted he’d ever written a report or detailed the specifics of his operations in any way. He’d lived in the dark, calling on the likes of Guillermo Paz and the colonel’s henchmen to deal with matters, always out of view of the light. When those matters brought him to Texas, which seemed to be every other day, he’d seek out Caitlin the way he might a former classmate.

  The office’s dull lighting kept Jones’s face cloaked in the shadows with which he was most comfortable. Caitlin tried to remember the color of his eyes but couldn’t, as if he’d been trained to never look at anyone long enough for anything to register. He was wearing a sport jacket over a button-down shirt and pressed trousers, making him seem like a high school teacher. But he was back to the tightly cropped, military-style haircut that had been one of his signatures until he’d let it grow out. He had never seemed comfortable with so much more to comb.

  “Where’s Captain Tepper?” Caitlin asked him.

  “Said he needed to go out to pick something up. Said you’d know what.”

  “More cigarettes, on account of the fact that I found all of his hiding places over the weekend.”

  Jones pulled his boots off Tepper’s desk and rested them on the floor. “How do you wear these things, Ranger?”

  “It’s an acquired taste, but you need to break them in.”

  “Kind of like you and me.”

  “I have no idea what that means, Jones.”

  “You didn’t pick up my call,” he said, sounding genuinely hurt.

  “Maybe I was busy.”

  “That didn’t stop you before, when I enjoyed an official capacity.”

  “Doesn’t mean I enjoyed working with you,” Caitlin told him, hands planted firmly on her hips now.

  “Come on, Ranger, cut me a break. For old time’s sake.”

  “Did you really just say that?”

  “We don’t have enough history between us?”

  “Yours is the revisionist version.” She gave him a closer look. “You’re not carrying.”

  “That’s what the private sector will do to you,” Jones sighed. “Wearing a shoulder holster tends to make my colleagues uncomfortable. Sometimes you have to compromise.”

  “Unlike your days at Homeland.”

  The last time they worked together, a mistaken assessment of the situation had left Homeland looking for a fall guy, and Jones had found himself gone, just like that. With the explosion of private security operations, though, he wasn’t out of work for long. Caitlin couldn’t say exactly what he was doing in the private sector, but she figured it probably didn’t differ all that much from his work for the government, except for extra zeros in his yearly take-home pay.

  “Maybe I want back in with them, in which case I’ve got to prove myself all over again. Work my way back to the majors. You know how it is.”

  “Not really.”

  Jones gave her a long look, as if trying to reacquaint himself with their relationship—or lack thereof. “I heard about Camino Pass, Ranger.”

  “What’s that?”

  Jones snickered. “Border town where the residents went to sleep and never woke up a couple nights back, save for one survivor you paid a visit to at University Hospital a few hours ago.”

  Caitlin held to her calm, not wanting to appear riled by Jones’s intimate knowledge of her movements.

  “You following me?” she asked him.

  “I’m following whatever it is you’re after, as in what killed that town.”

  “You want to keep playing dumb, we can end this meeting now, Jones.”

  “All right, all right. I know all about the cyanide gas. There was a reason why hydrogen cyanide was the primary killing agent used in gas chamber executions, but last time I checked, nobody executed nearly three hundred people at once in Camino Pass. That definitely piqued my curiosity.”

  “So, what, you register on Google Alerts for mass deaths?”

  Jones didn’t answer, which Caitlin took for an answer in itself.

  “How’s Paz?” he asked instead.

  “You mean you’re not keeping tabs on him too?”

  “I heard he’s working as an elementary school gym teacher.”

  “Next step in his spiritual transformation.”

  “I also heard there was an incident involving ICE at the same school yesterday. Nice way to treat a fellow law enforcement body, Ranger.”

  “Rangers don’t enjoy a cooperative agreement with ICE, Jones. We like to keep to ourselves.”

  “Guess I’m lucky you made an exception in the case of Homeland Security.”

  “Don’t make me regret it.”

  Jones rose to his feet, standing on his toes to stretch out his feet in yet another new pair of boots. Caitlin figured he swapped them out every time one got a scuff mark.

  “However that cyanide gas got de
ployed could be my ticket back to Homeland.”

  “Deployed? This was an accident, not hostile action.”

  “That’s a matter of perspective.”

  Caitlin met his focused stare, starting to increase in intensity. “You already know everything I do, Jones. What do you need me for?”

  “Thought we could ride on this one together, like the old days.”

  “You ever even been on a horse?”

  “It was a metaphor, Ranger.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, do we have a deal?”

  “Not even close.”

  Jones studied her briefly, like a card player who knew he had a winning hand. “How about if I sweeten the pot a bit?”

  “How’s that?”

  Smiling now, the way the same player flips over his cards before claiming the pot, he said, “I happen to know you’re not the first member of the Strong family associated with Camino Pass.”

  “You’re talking about my great-grandfather, William Ray, and how he ended up riding with Pancho Villa.”

  Jones nodded. “And I also happen to know where your captain left off in the story…”

  28

  MEXICO; 1898

  “You make a run for it, I’ll shoot you ’fore you finish your next thought,” William Ray said, mounting his horse after helping Pancho Villa atop one he’d borrowed from the local stable, leaving a hastily scrawled note in its place.

  “You haven’t asked me why I’m doing this, Ranger,” Villa said, the sun already heating up the iron lashing his wrists together with maybe a foot of links between them.

  “Maybe I don’t care.”

  “But you’re curious.”

  “I figure you’re gonna try pulling something and that I’ll shoot you when you do.”

  Villa’s expression turned pained, bordering on disappointment. “It’s because of my sister.”

  “The one who got raped.”

  Villa nodded. “The man who did it, the one I killed, worked for the same man as those kidnappers. He’s the one I had to go on the run on account of. We find those kids, maybe I get my chance at him, too.” He turned to the front, then swung from the sun back around. “How many Mexicans you killed in your time, Ranger?”

  “Got a feeling the tally’s about to rise a bit, muchacho.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “At least by one, if you don’t shut your trap.”

  * * *

  William Ray Strong and Pancho Villa came upon the bodies three hours into their ride, attracted by the buzzards circling overhead.

  “Looks like they been dead around a couple days now,” the Ranger pronounced, kneeling downwind over another of the bodies.

  “Then the ambush would correspond to the time the posse rode out of Camino Pass after the kidnapped children.”

  William Ray looked up at Villa, who was still seated atop his horse with irons lacing his wrists together. “You talk pretty good for a bandit. Best English I ever heard a Mexican speak.”

  “Like I told you, I became a bandit by necessity, not choice. I assure you, I have far grander ambitions for both myself and my country.”

  “This little trip we’re going on have anything to do with that?”

  “I guess we’ll see, Ranger,” Villa said evasively.

  “Well, amigo, here’s something I can’t see: tracks, anywhere in the vicinity. An ambush by the bandits in question would have left plenty of them. And you ever seen an ambush where no horses got themselves shot dead too?”

  “I don’t have a lot of experience in ambushes. Like I said—”

  “I know what you said,” William Ray interrupted. “And the jury’s still out on how much I believe of it. I’ve got a sense you’re holding plenty back.”

  He stood up, knees cracking, and walked about the perimeter in which the dead had fallen. An even dozen by his count, a number of whom had managed to crawl behind rock formations and natural boulders before death claimed them.

  “How many you figure set out in this posse?” the Ranger asked Villa.

  “The same number of dead we’re looking at here.”

  “Got them all, then.”

  He continued his survey, doing a fresh reconnoiter of the bodies and focusing on the weapons this time.

  “At least half never even drew their weapons. And, except for those four shotguns, not a single one of them managed to get their carbines or Winchesters out of their saddle holsters. What’s that tell you, amigo?”

  “That the ambush hit them fast.”

  “I already told you, this was no ambush.”

  “Then what was it?”

  William Ray gazed up at the mesas and hillsides looking down on the flat clearing from the east. “What say we take that there trail up a ways and see what we can see.”

  * * *

  “Ever seen one of these before?” the Ranger asked Pancho Villa, holding up a big brass shell casing for a rifle bullet.

  Villa squinted from atop his horse. “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Comes from a carbine rifle called the Gewehr 98, made by Mauser and manufactured in Germany. But don’t let that fool you, because it’s been shipping all over the world, though I never seen an indication that included Mexico. Takes a five-round stripper clip loaded into an internal box magazine and comes complete with iron sights that makes it the best shooting weapon in the world for distance.”

  “Tiradore,” Villa said under his breath.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Sharpshooter.”

  William Ray kicked at one pile of expended shells and then another. “Better make that plural, amigo, because by my count we got a half dozen ter-doors.”

  “That’s tiradore, Ranger.”

  “What’s the goddamn difference? They made camp here and had a grand old time while waiting for the posse coming after the kidnapped children to ride right into range.”

  “I don’t know about these rifles making their way to Mexico or not. But I’ve never come across a single Mexican sharpshooter in my life,” Villa noted.

  “Me neither. And next time you gaze off into the distance contemplating making a run for it, I’ll strap irons on your ankles too and make you ride sidesaddle.”

  “I was looking for some sign of the shooters, Ranger.”

  “And I’m a monkey’s uncle. I know you got your share of secrets, amigo, but I got no intention of prying them out of you so long as you stay true to your word and lead me to the sumbitches who took those kids. Them being killers now, too.”

  “You plan on bringing them back to Texas?”

  “Haven’t got that far in my thinking yet, just like you’re not gonna get much farther down this trail unless you find me something worthy of the effort soon.”

  Pancho Villa gazed into the distance again, ignoring William Ray’s warning. “We’ve got two more hours of riding ahead of us, Ranger.”

  “’Til we reach what, exactly?”

  “A town where you don’t want to be seen.”

  “What’s this town called, Pancho? Maybe I’ve heard of it.”

  “Sal Si Puede.”

  “That’s beyond the limits of my Spanish, son.”

  “It means ‘Exit if you can.’”

  “This the place where we’re gonna find the kidnappers, like you told me?”

  Villa looked at William Ray as if the Ranger were speaking to somebody else. “Did I say that?”

  “You said it.”

  “I meant we’d find clues to where we could find them. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”

  “Next time we have a misunderstanding, amigo, I’m gonna leave you tied to a tree for the buzzards.”

  * * *

  The two hours turned out to be closer to four, and the sun was starting to bleed out of the sky when they reached the outskirts of Sal Si Puede. There was no way they could have handled the chore of burying all the bodies of the dead posse from Camino Pass, or even covering them with rocks. The best they could do unde
r the circumstances was drag them to the shade provided by the nearest boulders and rock formations. Then William Ray could either cable Austin about what he’d found or deliver the news to the town personally upon his return from Mexico.

  Sal Si Puede was situated in what would have been the middle of nowhere, if not for the train depot a mile to the west. The town owed the bulk of its business to the fact that it was often the first stop for those getting off the train. That kept its hotel and restaurant open, along with a sprawling saloon that featured gambling.

  But the town had gained its name, and infamy, from the days prior to the railroad moving in nearby. It was one of the first vestiges of civilization Mexican bandits and bushwhackers would encounter upon crossing the border and fleeing whatever pursuit was coming from the Rangers, the army, or somebody else. So it had enjoyed a well-earned reputation as a place to be avoided for ordinary, law-abiding Mexicans. While that had changed somewhat with the coming of the railroad, Sal Si Puede still laid claim to being a respite for any number of bad hombres. Their number, though, was mostly limited to the south side of town and a nameless cantina that was rumored to be frequented by the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.

  The dirt streets were sand colored and darker in patches where thick puddles from a storm the day before hadn’t yet dried. The flat-roofed buildings were constructed of adobe that had once been uniformly white but now was stained an ugly urine color in the worn areas that drew the most sun. Some of these stains had been covered by colorful paintings or tapestries hung from the eaves, where canvas awnings set over doors didn’t get in the way.

  Rolling hills rose to the east, the combination of their beauty and rugged, imposing nature forming an odd juxtaposition that made them look painted over the scene. The main road that cut through the center of Sal Si Puede stretched on beyond the town itself, seeming to reach into the foothills before shrinking from sight amid earth that looked red and scorched in the glow of the setting sun.

  At the center of Sal Si Puede, a fence post rose from the ground, topped with the impaled head of what William Ray at first thought was a man. Drawing closer, he realized it actually was a wild boar, which was some comfort.