Spy ah-4 Page 12

  Above these, smaller circular structures housed officers of sufficient rank to warrant private quarters. Near the river, a sick bay was adjacent to a small room for special prisoners to be interrogated.

  Viewed from this position high above, the village resembled, he had always thought, a bizarre flowering, a profusion of manmade silver mushrooms, growing in the thick fragrant air amongst the towering dark trunks of the Amazonian trees. Poisonous mushrooms, he liked to think, yes, poisonous to be sure. To the core.

  In the beginning, when all the magic spread out below him was but a vision, he had chosen a simple Spanish name for his hidden refuge in the rain forest, La Selva Negra. It was, he decided, the perfect name for an empire erected in dark hatred.

  The Black Jungle.

  19

  WEST TEXAS

  Y ou think that phone will ring if you just stare at it long enough?”

  “No, I don’t, Daisy. It was a crazy idea, going down there and talking to that Mexican boy. I could have easily gotten us both killed. I don’t know what I was thinking. Plain stupid, I guess.”

  “Well, stop staring at it then. Listen, why don’t you go on outdoors, honey? Take a nice long walk. Go riding or something. You haven’t ridden Rocket in a month or more now. He could use a little giddy-up and go and so could you. For Pete’s sake, Franklin.”

  “I don’t want to even look at a damn horse.”

  “Is something wrong, darlin’? You’ve been acting funny all week.”

  “No. Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Listen. Those boys that rode down to Mexico were volunteers. Every last one of them. They all wanted to go. Their families wanted them to go! Look for their sisters or their girlfriends or whatever. All you did was swear them in. You thought you were doing the right thing and you did your duty. That’s all anyone can ask of a body.”

  “Yep.”

  “You think you should have gone with them. Well, you couldn’t. You’ve got an obligation to protect this town. And God knows it needs protecting. You went down there and tried to do something for those girls and it didn’t work. You’ll think of something else.”

  “Yep.”

  “You don’t want to talk. Fine. Go do something then. Turn on the television. Read a book. Dance a jig. You’ll go flat crazy sitting around here all afternoon staring at a telephone for lord knows what reason. Or, I will.”

  “I am sorry to be such a bother to you,” Franklin said, getting slowly up from his armchair. “I reckon I’ll go on into the office now. Got some work to do.”

  He plucked his short brim off the rack and started for the front door.

  “Franklin, it’s Sunday afternoon. This is time you should be with your family.”

  “I was trying.”

  “I ain’t never seen you like this, honey. Don’t say hi to anybody at church. Don’t smile when you shake hands with the preacher. These are your friends, Franklin. Folks who love and admire you.”

  “I’ll see you later on then, Daisy. I’ll take the pickup in case you decide to go on over to your sister’s in the good car.”

  “You planning on being home for supper?”

  “I can’t rightly say at the moment.”

  “What can you say?”

  “That’s all I can say.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, baby girl.”

  FRANKLIN DROVE slowly into town. Wasn’t any traffic to speak of, it being Sunday. Just a couple of good old boys heading out to the Wagon Wheel to catch the second half of the Cowboys on the wide screen. The sun still had a ways to go before it set down and that gave him a little lift. He’d do some deskwork, take his mind off things. Keep his eye off the clock.

  He figured he’d try and get that report done, a short version of the one they had asked him to write up here about a month ago. It had been sitting on his desk, staring at him long enough. Just like high school papers, wait till the day before something’s due to write it. Most folks never got out of high school their whole lives he thought, but that was just his opinion.

  Some time ago, he’d written what they called a White Paper. It was on illegal immigration. This he’d done at the request of the Texas Sheriff’s Association. He wasn’t special, everybody got asked to write the same thing and send it to some bureaucrat in Austin, whether they lived near the border or not. Well, he sent his in. Next thing you knew, somebody or other up in Washington had called up the governor’s office about his report.

  The lady in Austin who’d called him here back in November had said something about how they were fixing to have a big government terrorism pow-wow down in Key West, Florida. State Department, CIA, Border Patrol, and who knows who all else was supposed to be there. Part of the program or presentation or whatever you want to call it was going to be about border problems with Mexico apparently.

  The woman from the capital said they’d be real interested in a short version of what he’d put in his paper. The part about increased violence along the border and anti-Americanism. Border Patrol officers getting shot at, stoned on a daily basis by kids heaving rocks. Weapons coming across through tunnels. Drugs by the ton, above and below ground. And the outright lawlessness that prevailed in some of this territory just south of the border. How it was spreading this way.

  And, if you can believe this one, they wanted him to attend the conference and maybe even present his report if there was time enough on the schedule. He hadn’t even told Daisy about it, it was so preposterous.

  Somebody at the U.S. State Department had read his paper. If that didn’t beat all, he didn’t know what did. He hadn’t told anybody at all of course, even Homer or June. But, you couldn’t help but be a little, not proud of it, but gratified that somebody that high up in government was actually interested in what you had to say about things.

  The Prairie County Courthouse stood in the center of the town square. It was a four-story building dating from 1914, still all original right down to the doorknobs. Even the big sash windows. It was made out of yellow brick and had four doors, one set on each side. The parking was on the south side, the main entrance was on the north, facing Main Street. One of his predecessors as sheriff, an old man named Wyatt, was now working three days a week as an unpaid deputy. Wyatt had a thing about landscaping. He’d put in some walnut trees that had grown pretty big now. They gave a nice shade on hot days.

  His office, as well as Wyatt’s, was up on the second floor overlooking the main drag. There wasn’t much to see up there other than a spittoon, a hat rack, and a checkerboard. June and Homer spent a whole lot of time playing checkers most afternoons. When he walked in he was startled to see the place so empty and he realized he’d been so preoccupied he’d plain forgotten Daisy had reminded him it was Sunday. Then he saw June Weaver, who was sitting with her shoes propped up at a desk just outside his door.

  There was loud snoring coming from Wyatt’s office. He came in on Sundays to get away from the Cowboys game his wife always had cranked up full volume. Wyatt was a good man. He’d taken over as sheriff when Franklin’s daddy had been killed in the line of duty. His father and Wyatt had gotten into a shootout with some bank robbers and a stray bullet had nicked Franklin Sr.’s heart.

  June was a pretty little brunette gal. About Daisy’s age, she was in her early forties but looked younger. Always watching her weight, not that she needed to do that much. She had her nose deep in a movie magazine.

  “Hey, Junebug,” he said to her, trying not to spook her.

  “Hey, Sheriff. What are you doing here?”

  “Thought I’d try to finish that dang report.”

  “Well, it’s past due.”

  “Anything happen I should know about?”

  “Phone hasn’t rung once.”

  “Well, we figured on that, right?”

  “Yessir, I guess we did. I’m sorry.”

  “You want any coffee?”

  “I’ll bring you a cup.”

  “I ’preciate it, Sheriff.
”

  He’d brought June coffee and then stared out his office window for a while, just watching folks stroll by down below. Then he’d gotten going on his paper pretty good and an hour or more went by before he knew it. He looked up and saw June was standing in the doorway saying Homer was on the radio and needed him quick.

  “He say what the trouble was?”

  “He said there was a big bunch of ’em out at the Wagon Wheel raising hell. Liquored up and smashing furniture. Somebody’s firing his gun in the air out back.”

  “Cowboys must be losing pretty bad.”

  “He said they were calling for your head.”

  “Ain’t my fault the ’Boys are losing. All right. Tell him I’m heading on over there. Phone rings, some news about the girls, you let me know.”

  “I got operators standing by.”

  “Be good. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “You take care now.”

  The Wagon Wheel was five and a half miles south of Prairie. It was just about what you’d expect, the kind of place folks used to call a juke joint or a roadhouse. There was a lot full of dusty pickups when he turned in. A lot more than you’d normally see, unless it was the play-offs or there was live music like they sometimes had whenever the T-birds or some other band was passing through on the way to somewhere else.

  Franklin pulled up and parked next to Homer’s cruiser. He noticed the front door was open and the motor was still running. Looked like he’d been in a hurry and felt the need of bringing the Mossburg shotgun too. He made his way through a covey of big Harleys parked near the entrance, taking note of a couple of bikes he’d not seen before. New Mexico tags.

  His boots crunched on broken glass when he walked through the door. He saw Homer with his back up against the bar, blood on his face. Two men were holding his arms out to the sides while another one worked on his midsection with the butt end of a busted pool cue, shouting at the top of his lungs, his voice full of rage and spittle. The man with the cue stick was Mr. J.T.Rawls. His face was bright red and his eyes were blazing in the miraculously unbroken mirror behind the bar.

  “Why didn’t you shoot me when you had the chance, you little fuckin’ shitbritches?” J.T. asked. “Huh? Answer me! You want some more? Awright, you—”

  “That’s enough of that,” Franklin said, raising his voice just enough to be heard above all the TV football noise and the music and shouting going on inside. Every head swiveled in his direction and he was conscious of how he must look to them. He was wearing what he wore every day of his life including Sundays. Dress trousers, a starched white shirt, and a necktie representing Old Glory. His badge was clipped to one side of his belt, his sidearm clipped to the other.

  “Enough of what?” Rawls said, turning drunkenly toward the doorway on one heel of his boot.

  It got quiet fast.

  “J.T., put down that stick. You two boys let Homer go.”

  “Or, what?” Rawls said.

  “Yeah!” somebody shouted. “Or, what?”

  It became a kind of a liquor chant, “Or, what?” did, everybody focused on him now, saying it over and over, and Homer slumping to the floor. Homer’s shotgun, Franklin saw, was lying on top of the bar in a puddle of beer. There was movement now, as the men formed up close on J.T.’s flanks. A couple of men he didn’t recognize stepped in, putting themselves between him and the rancher. They were the motorcycle owners, wearing leather chaps and vests. Big fellas with prison tats on their biceps.

  “I got to see about my deputy,” Franklin said, walking toward them so they had to step aside.

  He waded through the mess of angry men toward Rawls and his deputy, resisting the temptation to put his hand on his sidearm. He was just determined to keep moving forward and that’s what he did. Suddenly a hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder and hung on.

  “Let me go, Davis,” he said to the wild-eyed man. There were tears in the man’s eyes. Davis Pike’s son Tyler had been a member of the posse. After a couple of seconds of staring at each other, the man looked away and let go. He just looked broken and lost.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Franklin said, and kept moving.

  Franklin figured there was about fifty of them in the place. Most if not all of them were drunk as skunks and past all caring which way this thing went. And a lot of them had weapons. He saw some .357s stuck in the waistbands of jeans and a couple of rifles here and there.

  When he got to J.T., he stopped about two feet in front of the man. Rawls’s chest was heaving, shallowlike, and his eyes had a methamphetamine glitter to them. Suddenly Rawls reached around behind him and grabbed Homer’s shotgun off the bar.

  “Give me that gun, J.T.,” Franklin said softly.

  “Yeah. Both barrels, killer,” he said, too wasted to notice the Mossburg was a single.

  “I am not a killer. I never did kill anybody didn’t need killing.”

  “No? What about my son? What about all them poor boys you sent to their deaths? What about them? You got ’em scalped! What about all the daughters of men here? You know? They’re gone, ain’t they? Might as well be dead! You know what I think? I think we’ll have us a trial by jury right here. I think we can find twelve angry men in this room.”

  “Good one, J.T.!” someone said.

  “Who wants to be on the jury? Say ‘aye.’ ”

  A chorus of “ayes” rang out. The men pressed forward making a tight circle around Rawls and the sheriff and the downed deputy.

  “Put the gun down now,” Franklin said, taking a step forward.

  Rawls backed off and raised the gun to his shoulder and aimed it square at Franklin’s heart. Franklin thought he was going to pull the trigger right then. Then he stepped forward until the muzzle of the gun was pressed against the sheriff’s breastbone.

  “Guilty,” Rawls said, trying to shove Franklin backwards with the Mossburg. But suddenly, Rawls was going down hard like he didn’t have legs anymore. Homer, still on the ground, had somehow managed to kick J.T.’s feet out from under him.

  Franklin knocked the shotgun barrel aside and knelt beside Homer. The boy’s eyelids were fluttering and he looked up and smiled.

  “I appreciate that, son,” the sheriff said to his deputy. “You got a little kick left in you.”

  “Howdy, Sheriff. Glad you made it.”

  “Yeah. Come on. We’re going to take you over to the emergency at Southwest Medical.”

  “You ain’t going nowhere but Hell,” Rawls said from the floor. He fired the weapon about six inches above the sheriff’s head and blew a jagged hole in the veneer of the bar about a pie plate wide.

  Franklin grabbed the muzzle and swung it away before the man could fire again. He tried to pull it downward so that if J.T. fired again he wouldn’t hit anybody and then there was a muzzle flash and he felt a searing pain in his forearm. He ripped the gun from the man’s hands and swung on him. Rawls caught it on the side of his head and fell back, blood pouring from the wound. He tried to stay sitting upright but he went down. Out cold by the look of him.

  The sheriff threw the gun behind the bar and turned toward the mob pressing in on him now, all around him, sensing blood.

  Dixon stood his ground.

  “It’s all over, boys. Time for everybody to go home.”

  “Hell if it’s all over,” one of the big Harley fellas said, coming right up in Franklin’s face. “I’ll be damned if it’s all over, you sonofabitch. Why, I’m going to kick your—”

  “Sheriff, come quick!” a man said above the murmurs and angry cries. He was standing in the doorway, just a silhouette with the blazing sun falling to the ridge behind him. Something about the way he called out made them all stop, freeze in fact, and look at him. It was Joe Beers. He stepped inside a bit, looking at the mess and Homer on the floor and all, taking the whole of it in and immediately understanding what was going on.

  He stepped forward, pushing men aside, and took Sheriff Dixon’s hand, pumping it up and down. The
man was laughing and crying at the same time.

  “I seen your car out there on my way into town, Sheriff. Lord, I’m glad to find you here. I was going to the courthouse. Everbody’s there, the whole town. They all want to thank you for getting all our little girls back home safe.”

  “You mean to say they’re all back?” one of the semidrunk fellas nearest the door said.

  The bar went dead quiet.

  “He’s lying,” Rawls said. “Don’t believe a word of it.”

  “All of them. Ever last one. Heck, my wife just called my cell and told me. An old moving van pulled up at the courthouse here not ten minutes ago and dropped them off. All five of ’em is what I hear. It’s a miracle is what it is. My wife Sherry’s there with Charlotte already. I got to go hug my daughter.”

  “Are they all right?” Franklin said. “Unharmed?”

  “Yes, sir. I asked. Sherry says they’re all physically unharmed as far as she can tell. She already called the Southwestern EMS and it’s on the way. Check everybody out, make sure they’re all right.”

  “They just brought ’em back?” Davis Pike said, crossing over to where Joe Beers was standing. “Just like that? I find that hard to believe, Joe.”

  “Well, they sure did. Way I understand the thing, what I hear is the sheriff here went on down there to Nuevo Laredo and had a little talk with them Mexicans. He and Homer there, just the two of them. Took a lot of guts, you ask me. You can thank your sheriff and his deputy now, any you people got any damn manners.”

  Davis Pike knelt and cradled Homer in his arms, wiping off some of the blood running from his nose and mouth.

  “Homer?” Franklin said, kneeling also. “Can you walk?”

  “I believe I can, yessir.”

  Franklin and Davis managed to get Homer on his feet. They each got an arm around him, supporting him, and they started for the door. Men were falling all over each other getting out of their way, looking stunned and averting their eyes.

  “You killed my boy, you son of a bitch!” Rawls cried out. “I’m going to get you, you hear me?”