Hawke's Fury

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  I relaxed a little once we reached the canyon floor and put some distance between us and them. You’d think it’d be bare, and some are, but this one was grown up more than most. The route led through scraggly bushes scattered as far as we could see, along with clumps of desert grasses, thick growths of ever-present prickly pear cactus, bunch grasses, and other scrub I couldn’t identify on a bet.

  All we could hear was the thud of our feet on the hardpack and our own heavy breathing. We’d gone a good long ways before Villarreal finally whirled, hair plastered across her sweaty face. “Cut this damn cord off my wrists. I can’t run like this.”

  “You did a great job, and no, I’m not gonna give you one single chance that don’t involve your feet.”

  “I’m barefoot! I can’t go much further. The bottom of one foot is already cut.” She stood on one leg and showed me her wound that welled blood.

  I hadn’t really thought of that part, and in a way I felt sorry for her. I’d been on the run through the desert in bare feet once and still had the scars to prove it. “Sorry, but this trail’s wide. Stay in the middle and watch your step.”

  “You bastard!”

  “You may be right, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.” I pushed her shoulder. “Get going.”

  Cussing under her breath, she turned and led the way, stepping carefully in the widest, sandiest places she could find. I took a quick look over my shoulder to make sure no one was within shooting distance, and then followed, pushing her again to pick up the pace.

  Somewhere behind us and high above, a rifle cracked three quick times. That would be Perry Hale. He liked triple taps. He’d cover for us a little while longer, and be along after that.

  There was little air movement in the canyon, and it got hot pretty damn quick. The wide path full of footprints would have been easy to follow, even if it hadn’t been strewn with trash. Plastic water bottles, empty gallon plastic jugs, and all sorts of food wrappings were scattered where they’d been dropped. Some of the trash was half buried in the sand. A lot was fresh, lying loose, or blown against the brush.

  Resigned, Villarreal plodded ahead despite her bare feet.

  More shots echoed behind us, and then quiet.

  Chapter 54

  Downstream in Chalk Canyon, Yolanda Rodriguez kept up a fast, steady pace northward until Perry Hale radioed that he’d found Sonny. Now she was looking for a good place to set up and wait for them. It wasn’t easy. A clear field of fire was foremost, but with so much scrub and brush growing in the canyon bottom of varying widths, she had to keep looking.

  She passed a pile of cast-off garbage under the thin shade of a very old mesquite. The area was beaten clear, and the smell of human feces that followed her everywhere was too much. She jogged past cast-off clothing and used diapers ripped open by scavengers. Clouds of flies made a steady, audible hum.

  A coat draped over a sun-bleached log.

  Dead trees high overhead.

  Scattered bones of some large animal.

  The canyon rose steep on both sides, offering no place for concealment.

  Finally, when she was about to give up and make do with what she found, Yolanda found what she was looking for. Waving the flies out of her face, she peered upward. The canyon bent, and ahead was a tumbledown of boulders and long-dead, silver-gray tree trunks washed into a tangle by a long-past flood. A similar tangle almost fifteen feet above her head defined the high-water mark of a massive flood.

  Relieved that she didn’t have to go any farther, she scrambled up the slope, starting crumbling rivers of sand and loose stones with each footstep. The sun-bleached detritus provided better footholds and with the crackling and popping of dry branches beneath her shoes, she wriggled into a natural lookout resembling the ragged nest of a giant, mythical eagle.

  From that vantage point free of flies, she could see down the canyon and cover Perry Hale and Sonny as they came through. If the pressure became too much, the slope behind the position was swept clear, offering a quick retreat back to the canyon floor.

  She settled in, moving smaller branches to make her position more comfortable. A thick, twisted cedar log was the perfect place to rest her AR-15.

  Her side of the canyon was still in shade, making it harder for those down on the floor to see her. The sun wouldn’t get high enough to throw light on the tangle for another hour or more.

  Satisfied, she keyed her radio. “I’m in position.”

  Perry Hale answered, breathing hard. “Moving.”

  Yolanda swept the scope from side to side, familiarizing herself with the floor. Satisfied that she had a fairly clear field of fire despite the dried grasses and sun-scorched plants, she relaxed.

  A faint odor of wood smoke reached her, and she wondered how close the people were who’d built a campfire.

  Chapter 55

  Eyes fixed on the hard ground so that she could avoid as many sharp rocks and cactus as possible, Tish Villarreal, the Devil Woman of Coahuila, trudged forward in the now-stifling canyon, furious at the indignity of being taken from her home against her will and tied up with lamp cord, and now chased by her own men who intended to kill her.

  Sweat trickled down the sides of her face, making her angrier still. Usually calm and calculating, her head was buzzing enough that she couldn’t concentrate clearly. She was the leader of one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, and the only woman who’d reached such a position of power. Not bad for a middle-class girl who grew up in the U.S.

  Up until the moment Esteban shot at her, she’d been confident a massive machine was gearing up to get her back from the Ranger who had simply walked into her ranchero and took her without a warrant or any legal documents at all.

  Law enforcement officers from the U.S. couldn’t do that! They had to obey the strict laws that, up to then, kept their hands tied. With every step down that hot, still canyon, she fumed because this man yelled and threatened her! He’d threatened to take her pants down like a spanked child.

  No one threatened the Devil Woman of Coahuila.

  Though no one would dare use the name in her presence, she knew that’s how they often referred to her, and she liked it. Villarreal carefully cultivated that persona to ensure that everyone feared her and obeyed without question. Those who hadn’t wound up in her garden.

  She rolled it over and over in her mind. It must have been one of her men who’d turned her over to this rinche. The security system she’d paid hundreds of thousands to install should have picked him up, especially after the original assault by the American team triggered all her alarms.

  The drones, her extended eyes and ears had failed also. It had to be an inside job, and that’s why she could so easily believe that an organized coup was taking place, possibly with Esteban at the helm. Once she was free, those two idiotas who were in charge of security would soon be rotting in the ground with the handles twisted around their spines growing hot in the summer sun.

  Esteban would be a special treat. She wouldn’t kill him. She’d personally bury him alive with his own handle protruding above the ground. She’d make sure he’d have access to air in some way to prolong his suffering. Maybe she’d stop by every hour or so to make sure he was suffering enough.

  Could she hear him scream from below the ground?

  That maddening shove on her shoulder by that damned rinche brought her back to the present, making her realize she’d unconsciously slowed, walking along empanado, slow and absent-minded.

  This was her country! He had no right to be there, dragging her along with people shooting at them. He’d gotten in so easily that her mind went down another rabbit hole at the thought that it might be someone else. Someone closer.

  It could be Incencio, too! Up until then he’d been her right hand, her primary sicario. Could it be that he’d designed the aborted hit on the Nelson women from the start? He’d never failed before, but two little old ladies with revolveres shouldn’t have killed three of her best men. He must
have done it, laying the groundwork to take out those who were loyal to her, to shave the odds in his favor.

  If it was him, she would watch as Geronimo ran the wires through his partner’s living back while he screamed for mercy until his voice tore.

  Her nose ran and she sniffed, then regretted the sound. The Ranger would think she was weak and crying like those pampered, soft women from across the border. The Mujer Malvada never cried. She never wept. She was as strong as any man.

  In her mind’s eye, Geronimo held Incencio to the ground while she personally worked the wire around his spine . . . wait! Could it be Geronimo who’d orchestrated this whole disaster? Was he alone? Maybe Incencio and Geronimo together?

  It made sense. They’d been gone far too long, and the two spent so much time together that they could have planned the entire operation to take the cartel for their own. She was in the way, and a woman to boot. Most would wait until the leader was arrested or dead. It would happen. It happened all the time, but she was smarter than the other cartel leaders.

  No one could take her down. Not the Mexican government who wasn’t on her payroll. Not the Americans, and for sure not the other cartel leaders who stayed in their own territories.

  And those three, Incencio, Geronimo, and Esteban, knew it, so they planned everything down to the last detail to assume her position. After all, she was a woman wielding power in a world of machismo.

  That was it. The three of them had arranged for her murder by the team of American operatives who failed, so now they were forced in the open, running her to ground like a dog.

  But she couldn’t figure how this infuriating man behind her fit in. He sounded like the Texas Rangers she’d studied back in her El Paso middle school, men who relished in following the law and couldn’t be bought. Maybe this was the one odd man out, one who went out on his own, a renegade like Lone Wolf Mc-Quade, but she hadn’t seen the distinctly recognizable badge, either.

  And then there was that loud Hawaiian shirt under his vest.

  No matter. She had an idea. She’d use him to get to the river and across. She knew all the major smuggling routes along the fourteen contiguous Texas counties bordering the 1,254-mile-long Rio Grande. One came in near Laredo, and another south of Del Rio. Farther to the northwest, the routes entered Texas in the Big Bend Region and the last, El Paso.

  All those routes were familiar, because she used them to move drugs and people. The newest route, and one that was only becoming familiar to those outside law enforcement was where they were headed. For the past couple of years, the weather had been wet enough to pump the Rio Grande to near historic levels. Reports coming back from her coyotes said the crossing was difficult.

  There the game would change. He’d have to free her hands so she wouldn’t drown. When he did, she’d slip underwater and swim downstream for all she was worth. The Ranger couldn’t have known she was a competitive swimmer in high school, and that she swam laps every morning in the ranchero’s Olympic-size pool.

  It would be easy to evade capture in the water, and by that time her rescuers would be on the way. At the moment she set foot on American soil, she’d slip away and call people whose loyalty she could absolutely count on.

  Her family.

  All she needed to do was activate the tiny locator taped under her breast. The brainchild of Carlos, who was in charge of the drones, it was a last, desperate homing device in the event she was ever taken by a rival cartel. None of them ever expected that she’d be arrested by anyone.

  Once activated by squeezing the thin device that looked similar to a tiny allergy pill in a blister pack, the locator would send a powerful signal to those who would be waiting on the other side. One was a half-brother Miguel Villarreal, who worked for the Texas Border Patrol. The other was his partner, who would help, because he was the first one they turned nearly eighteen months ago.

  It was that partnership that gave her the idea to create even more teams under her control so that she could eventually run most of the drug and human trafficking into her home state.

  “Faster!” That damned Ranger pushed her again. She picked up the pace and focused on following the trail to the river. The sooner, the better.

  Chapter 56

  The canyon was stifling, another reason coyotes moved their people at night. Sweat ran in a steady stream under my tactical vest, soaking the back waistband of my jeans. People voluntarily hike through canyons like that in the Big Bend, admiring the rough, dangerous country that could injure or kill you in a variety of ways, but right at that moment, I couldn’t figure out why.

  The rising sun still shaded the steep wall on our right, but it was growing thinner by the minute. I glanced up to see the sky was quickly changing from blue to white, bringing blistering heat to the canyon floor.

  The idea that her own people were after her inspired Villarreal to move as fast as possible. Not used to that much exercise, she was sucking wind and I knew we’d have to stop soon. We both needed water.

  Not that we were really running. No one can operate at maximum speed with both hands tied behind their backs, but she was game. The ground under our feet changed from hardpan, to soft sand for a good long while, giving her bare feet some relief, and then back to hardpan.

  Every so often I’d swing around, checking our back trail, but it stayed empty. There was no more gunfire behind us. Perry Hale either had ’em pinned down, or maybe even killed them all. Now we were far enough away I didn’t hear anything except the rustle of my clothing and our feet pounding on the ground.

  It was an easy trail to keep up with. I felt like we were following a trash truck distributing its contents like a fertilizer spreader. The people who’d traipsed the canyon floor before us must have carried way more than they needed or figured everything on them was disposable.

  I would have laughed at some point, despite the pain in my bruised chest or the pain in my head. Fate dropped doubt in Villarreal’s mind at just the right moment, and those figurative dominoes were now falling in her mind. At least I didn’t have to drag her along.

  I finally took pity on her bare feet. “Hold up there in the shade. We need water, and you need something on those hooves of yours.”

  Hair damp against her face, the Devil Queen looked much less regal than when I found her back at the ranch. She slowed and finally stopped in what sparse shade she could find. “Yes. Water, please.”

  For the first time I noticed the swarms of flies buzzing in and out of the shade. Waving them out of my face, I angled myself to see back from where we came from. Satisfied that no one was close, I dropped a man’s shoe and a carpet remnant on the ground. We’d passed a ton of broken flip flops and blown out sneakers along the way and I’d wondered how anyone on a trail would abandon shoes. “I’m gonna put these on you.”

  “That one’s too big, and I’m not a drug mule. I’m not going to wear carpet shoes.”

  The cheap shoes are a simple, ingenious trick that cartel members came up with over in Arizona, but we hadn’t seen it much in Texas. The soft rug soles from carpet remnants leave few scuffs for Border Patrol agents to use when they’re tracking. They can’t figure out which way the drug runners are traveling or even which way they’re going.

  We’d long ago figured out that the drug runners were using the low-tech footwear to move drugs. That was a given and confirmed by a rancher in Arizona who’d found dozens of pairs of multi-colored carpet shoes. He even took photos on his game camera of the drug mules passing with backpacks full of what we knew were narcotics.

  The mystery wasn’t that they used carpet shoes to cover their tracks, but why they leave them in random piles, or scattered behind?

  She kept giving her alibis away, not that I’d bought it in the first place. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of the people in my country would have no idea how this piece of carpet is used by drug runners. I have no doubt about who you are, and at this point, I really don’t care if you strip all the skin off those feet because of wha
t you’ve done. But we can’t move fast if you’re completely hobbled. Neither one of us wants to die here in this godforsaken place.”

  I twirled a finger. “Turn around and let me check to make sure that cord hasn’t gotten too tight.”

  She was too tired to fight, and we were far too deep into the canyon for her to try and run away. Even if she got past me and went back the way we’d come, Perry Hale was back there somewhere, and he’d be along pretty quick.

  Without a word, she turned around. The wrap around her wrists hadn’t been so tight it cut off the circulation. “Looks good. I’m gonna kneel down and put these on you. If you try to kick me, I’ll bust your nose. Understood?”

  She nodded because she believed me.

  Her feet were bleeding from a dozen small cuts, but only one looked bad. We’d stopped in time. She could still walk. The sneaker was only a couple of sizes too large. I pulled the laces tight and double knotted them so they wouldn’t come loose. Crude laces on two sides of the carpet allowed me to wrap it around the other foot and I pulled it tight.

  “This will probably be better. It won’t wear a blister like that tenny shoe will. You’re lucky we don’t have much futher to go.”

  I swung Victim’s pack off my shoulder and dug around inside and came out with three bottles of water. I twisted the cap off one and held it so she could drink. She sucked down the contents in a series of long swallows. I drank one, and then we shared the third.

  Feeling a little better, I fired up the Sat phone, but the canyon walls blocked the signal. I put it back and crushed the bottles to cap and put back in my pack. A slight breeze brought the faint scent of a campfire.

  She snorted. “You’re carrying those out? With all this around us.”

  “I’m not adding to the trash here.” We’d been there way too long and now I was worried that people were too close. “All right. Let’s go.”