Strong Light of Day (11 page)

 

22

A
USTIN
C
OUNTY,
T
EXAS

“Here we are,” D. W. Tepper said, gazing out the helicopter at the sea of revolving lights churning through the late afternoon's fading sun. “This is a day for the ages, Ranger. If I had it to do all over again, I would've stayed in bed.

Caitlin followed his gaze as the chopper settled into a brief hover over a ranch belonging to one Karl Dakota. They had taken off from one crazed scene only to land in another—and worse, potentially, given that Dakota was currently walled up in his house threatening to kill his wife and four children. Local sheriff's deputies had been summoned by a cattle buyer who'd showed up for an appointment, only to have his tires and windows shot out when he was heading for the house. He'd called 9-1-1 from behind the cover of an old-fashioned well, right down to the rope and pail.

“Are you in immediate danger, sir?” the operator had asked him.

“If that's what you call getting shot at, you bet your ass.”

The deputies arrived to a similar greeting, screeching their shot-up cruisers in reverse to what seemed to be a safe zone before calling for backup, and lots of it. The hostage negotiator had gotten absolutely nowhere with Dakota, who claimed he needed to shoot his wife and kids in order to save them from a far more horrible death.

“Pick 'em to the bone they will, just like they did my cattle!” he ranted.

Neither the negotiator nor any of the deputies had any notion what the rancher was talking about. According to reports, he owned a stockpile of weapons and ammunition, accumulated when his survivalist leanings led him to build a shelter off the back of his house—until the backhoe busted a shovel, striking shale, and he postponed the effort. That was five years ago now and Dakota had chosen today, apparently, to put those weapons to use. In addition to traditional ordnance, he was rumored to have purchased hand grenades, a pair of fully automatic M16s, and a vintage .50-caliber machine gun from illegal dealers, who were as common in Texas as ice-cream trucks.

“How'd he come by that name, exactly?” Caitlin asked Tepper, as their chopper set down in a barren field across a thin dirt road from his farmhouse and surrounding land. “Karl Dakota.”

Tepper waited for a belch, spawned by his acid reflux, to surface before responding. “Legend has it that the man's great-grandmother was kidnapped by a Cheyenne Indian chief she ended up marrying, while insisting that their children maintain at least a semblance of their native German heritage. That's how his name came to combine German with the one the chief had taken, after the US Army finally conquered the plains and shipped the disenfranchised Indians out to settlements that became the reservation system, seen by them as a scourge and source of misery to this day.”

“Can't argue with them there, D.W.”

“I can't stomach any more kids getting hurt today,” Tepper said, his expression pained and uneasy, as if another belch was building. “Austin asked for you specifically after that police negotiator's family almost got early death benefits for his efforts.”

Caitlin also suspected her presence here was due to the proximity of Karl Dakota's farm to Lonesome Pines, a world-famous ranch resort and top tourist attraction, similarly located in the rolling hills of Austin County. It was among the most beautiful country Texas had to offer, lush and full and green. Viewing it from the air in the chopper almost made her think there was no way anything bad could happen down there.

And now it had, or was very close to.

Captain Tepper and Caitlin hurried up to the perimeter, erected clumsily by sheriff's deputies most concerned with not getting shot.

“We didn't call for any Rangers,” the local sheriff told Tepper, spitting a wad of tobacco juice close enough to Tepper's boot to make him pull it back.

“Then it's a good thing Austin did, Sheriff. We know our way around these sorts of things and we'll be running lead now.”

The sheriff took a long, sliding gaze about the rim his deputies formed, poised protectively behind their cars. “Maybe I'll just pull up stakes, then.”

“Feel free to take the rest of the day off, Sheriff. But your deputies are now under our command and ain't going nowhere.”

The sheriff fingered the big wad of tobacco from his mouth and tossed it behind him as far as he could. “Can't you see we know what we're doing here?”

“From what I can see,” Caitlin told him, “your men don't know what they're doing at all. If they did, they'd be well aware that the kind of load Karl Dakota is packing will cut straight through those car doors like they're Swiss cheese. But you take our advice and do what we say and they're liable to make it out of the day alive.”

“You think I don't know who you are, Ranger?”

“I hadn't given it much consideration, sir.”

The sheriff stepped forward, close enough for Caitlin to smell the stale tobacco odor lacing his breath. “Well, let me share some truth with you, little lady. Any mess you make here, I'm gonna have to clean up. But you won't find me nearly as hospitable as all those other towns you left with blood drying on your boots.”

“I'll keep that in mind, Sheriff. Now tell me where we're at here.”

The sheriff's expression crinkled, reducing his eyes to mere slits. “Where are we at? A crazy man's got his family held hostage and all he talked about when our negotiator got him on the phone is aliens eating his cattle to the bone.”

“Aliens?”

“Yes, ma'am, as in from outer space, not illegals.”

“I'm familiar with the term.”

The sheriff pulled a pack of tobacco from his pocket and worked the flap open, packing a fresh wad in his mouth. “Dakota said he had to kill his wife and kids to keep them from the same fate of getting eaten to the bone.”

“That's what he said, in those words?”

“Close enough, for Pete's sake. Jeez, it's hard to hear clearly when you know there's a rifle barrel bearing down on you.”

“That depends on who's doing the listening, Sheriff.”

Caitlin couldn't tell if the sheriff's snarl spread in reaction to her comment or to the wad of tobacco that was too big to fit in either cheek.

“You want an excuse to gun somebody down?” he said. “Just walk straight ahead toward that house and wait for Karl to start shooting.”

“You know,” Caitlin said, glancing toward Tepper, “that's not a bad idea.”

 

23

A
USTIN
C
OUNTY,
T
EXAS

Caitlin moved in front of the haphazardly arranged police cruisers, into a clearing set between them and the farmhouse where Dakota and his family lived. She approached, keeping herself between two centrally placed windows on the first floor, expecting Dakota and one of his rifles likely to be poised behind one of them.

Drawing close to what she judged to be comfortable shooting range for any reasonable gunman, Caitlin eased her SIG Sauer from its holster and placed it on the ground between a flatbed and a pickup truck. She kept her hands in the air as she addressed whoever was listening inside.

“I'm a Texas Ranger, Mr. Dakota, and I just want to talk. Listen up, sir. I understand until this point nobody's been hurt, most of all your own family. Why don't you let me help keep it that way?”

“How do I know you're real?” a muffled voice called through a window opened barely a slit.

“A real Texas Ranger?”

“A real
person,
as in not one of the space aliens that picked my cows down to the bone like they was chicken. I figure they must look like us to have been getting away with this with nobody knowing.”

“I'd like to come inside, sir, so you can tell me more about what happened to your cows, while we're looking at each other. That okay?”

Silence followed; the only sound was the wind whistling through the open space between the bevy of police cars and the farmhouse.

“What do you say, Mr. Dakota? How about you let me help you out here?”

More silence, and Caitlin had started to figure the rancher was done talking, when his voice returned.

“You got handcuffs?”

Caitlin yanked them from her belt. “Right here, sir.”

“Snap them on. In front of you, so I can see.”

Caitlin did as she was told, imagining D. W. Tepper cursing her out for it, back behind the perimeter.

“Now come forward,” Dakota's voice cracked. “But keep your hands where I can see them.”

She started walking.

*   *   *

Caitlin sized up the scene as soon as Dakota kicked the door closed behind her, shoulders pressed against a slab of wall between the door and the window opened just a crack. He came around in front of her, lugging a .30-06 hunting rifle with sight, careful to avoid the drawn drapes. A dog, some pit bull mix, rode his right side like an extra appendage, baring its teeth at Caitlin and growling in a low rumble that seemed to come from deep inside it.

“Easy, boy,” Dakota said, in a tone more fit for a lover than a dog.

The dog closed its mouth, but Caitlin continued to hear the low rattle of its growl, which sounded a bit like a car caught in first gear. By that time, she'd accounted for the man's wife and all his kids. It wasn't hard, given that they were huddled together on the plank floor, hands and feet both bound, the youngest kids sobbing. Her problem was she now had a dog and a rifle to contend with while she was handcuffed and weaponless. Not a good scenario if Caitlin couldn't talk Karl Dakota back off the ledge.

“It's for their own good, me tying them up, so they stay put,” he explained to her. “What those aliens did to my cows, they could just as easily do to my kids if they catch 'em.”

“I'd like to see those cows, Mr. Dakota.”

He looked beyond her toward the covered windows, seeming to measure up the light beyond them. “Gonna be dark soon. That's when they come, after dark.”

“Then we better hurry.”

“Even the Texas Rangers can't win this one.”

“I don't know about that, sir. There's lots of Indians and Mexicans in the old days who fully believed that and went to their graves for it.”

“What ate my cattle ain't Mexicans or Indians.”

Caitlin kept her eyes off Karl Dakota's terrified wife and kids, nothing that might draw his attention to them as well. Instead, she eased her hands out straight before her.

“Mr. Dakota, the key to these cuffs is in my back pocket. Now why don't you take these off me so we can see about doing ourselves some good?”

“They'll shoot me.”

“Not if I tell them not to.”

“I grew up with that damn Sheriff Lee. He was born an asshole and his crack's only got wider with age. And we can't even be sure that really is Sheriff Lee.”

“Sir?”

“I think maybe these aliens walk among us. I believe they're able to replace human beings and pretend to be just like us. Sheriff Lee wants me dead because I've figured that out.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You could be one of them too. That's why I had you cuff your wrists.” He cocked a gaze back toward his wife and kids sitting on the kitchen floor, terrified. “I believe it may be too late for them, too. I need to do what I gotta do.”

“Take off these cuffs and let me help you, sir,” Caitlin said, and took a step closer to him, only to be chased back by the dog baring its teeth again.

“No way, no how,” Dakota told her, holding the rifle between her and his family now. “Can't take that chance. If you seen what's left of my cattle, you'd know why.”

“Then show me.”

“Nope. Could be a trap.”

Caitlin shook her head. “They've got you where they want you, sir. Not trusting anyone else to help, not even your own family.”

But Dakota didn't seem to hear her. His eyes fixed on nothing and his head canted oddly to the side as if he were hearing other voices.

“I need to do this,” he said, to no one in particular.

“Do what, sir?”

“What I gotta do. It's for their own good, so they can be at peace. Save their souls from the aliens, even if I can't save their bodies.”

He twisted toward his family, the dog backing up alongside him to keep Caitlin in its sights. Caitlin watched Dakota take a big step that placed him within a yard or so of his wife, as he steadied his rifle. He angled the barrel down toward her, seeming to have forgotten Caitlin was even there.

“I gotta do this,” he said to his wife, starting to sob. “For your own good. To save you all that pain later and save your soul while I still can. You and the kids. I got no choice. You may not feel it, but one of them's inside you, taking you over.”

Caitlin watched his finger paw the trigger. “Mr. Dakota? Karl? Look at me, Karl.”

He didn't seem to hear her.

“Close your eyes,” Dakota told his wife.

His oldest son and daughter began to beg and plead, wailing loud enough to batter Caitlin's eardrums. All the commotion had the dog swinging around that way as if to seek out the source, neglecting Caitlin in that moment, just as his master was.

So she sprang.

Caitlin lurched into a dash, with no idea exactly what she was going to do. But Dakota's trembling finger was curling inward on the trigger and his whimpering wife had ducked her head to stare at the floor.

The dog turned at the last moment before Caitlin slammed into its master. She looped the center of the chain cuffing her wrists together around the man's throat, twisting him before her as protective cover from the dog.

The hunting rifle roared, further bubbling her eardrums in the tight confines, the bullet blowing out a back window and taking some of the old wood frame with it. Caitlin jerked Karl Dakota backwards, the pit bull mix whipped into a frenzy, trying to reach her, with its master still pinned between them. She kept using Dakota as a shield and realized she was choking off his air at the same time. Her shoulders smacked the wall and she pulled tighter, certain the gunfire would have the deputies storming the farmhouse at any moment.