Strong Rain Falling: A Caitlin Strong Novel (Caitlin Strong Novels) (35 page)

“What’s the difference?”

“None at all,” Caitlin said, her stare holding all of its harsh intensity intact. “And if you misstated the facts about that, I wonder if you might also misstate the facts as they pertain to the murder of five Mexican children just across the Texas border who all happened to be offspring of those connected to your family’s past.”

Ana Guajardo refused to break Caitlin’s stare. “So you really didn’t come down here to warn me my life was in danger, did you?”

Caitlin ignored her question. “I’ve got no jurisdiction in Mexico, ma’am; you and I both know that. So whatever happened that day your father ended up in a wheelchair is of no concern to me.”

“But the murder of these five Mexican children is.”

“That’s right, ma’am.”

“Strange hearing that from a Texas Ranger.”

“They were killed in Texas, but, truth be told, I’d go after anyone anywhere who targets children.”

“You still haven’t told me what really brought you down here, Ranger.”

Caitlin started to put her Stetson back on, but stopped. “You’re a very powerful woman,
Señora
Guajardo. The most powerful woman in Mexico, and maybe the most powerful person period. I know you’ve earned most of that on your own, but the foundation your father laid was based on the drug distribution network he built north of the border, and that
is
within my jurisdiction. So you might say we got more business between us than either of us thought, and maybe more of a connection through a shared history too.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Not at the present time, no.”

Perhaps the intensity between them was what made the big male African rhino look up from his grazing and snort, his lazy-looking eyes suddenly tilted in their direction. Perhaps it was just coincidence.

“So you didn’t come down here to accuse me and you didn’t come down here to warn me,” said Guajardo. “Is there another option I’ve left out?”

“Maybe I just wanted to get the history between our families straight in my head, how my great-granddad and granddad ran your great-granddad out of Mexicali.”

Ana Guajardo’s features tightened so much, it looked as if her mouth had sealed up tight.

“They have television down here, ma’am?” Caitlin continued, taunting her now. “That lacrosse game last night was televised and the cameras went right on rolling when the bullets started flying. Means you can go to YouTube and watch a lot of innocent people being killed by your brother and the men he brought with him. Back in Texas we call that a massacre and we also call it cause to leave the badges and laws behind.”

“Massacres have happened on both sides of the border, Ranger,” Guajardo managed, growing composed again with each word as she sought to regain the upper hand. “Have you actually heard the story of how the Strongs brought down my great-grandfather?”

“Not the specifics, ma’am, no.”

“Then maybe it’s time you did.”

89

E
L
P
ASO,
T
EXAS; 1919

There was no point in leaving the city until the battle being waged by the American forces against Pancho Villa’s troops was over. Knowing as much as he knew about General Erwin, William Ray Strong didn’t think it would take very long either. And, in point of fact, it didn’t. He and Strong’s Raiders were saddling up for what all figured would be their last ride as a group when a Mexican spy taken prisoner right there in El Paso broke free long enough to push a note into William Ray’s hand.

“¡Apúrese, señor, apúrese!”

William Ray wondered what it was he was supposed to be hurrying about, but didn’t check out the note until the prisoner was dragged back into custody. Then he unfolded it and called Earl Strong over.

“Your Spanish is better than mine, son. Tell me what this says exactly?”

Earl read the note out loud in Spanish first.
“A nosotros también nos traicionaron. Nos encontramos en la cantina de la plaza central en la Ciudad Juárez, al otro lado de la frontera.”
Then he translated,
“We were betrayed too. Meet us at the cantina in the central square of Juárez across the border.”
At that he looked up at his father. “It’s signed
‘Los Generales.’
The Generals.”

“Now, that’s interesting.”

“You figure it’s a trap, Dad?”

Frank Hamer held up his Thompson, still oiled and ready. “I say we head down there and kill us some Mexes if it is.”

“Hell,” said old Bill McDonald, trying his best to stifle a cough, “I came this far to kill somebody.”

“There are many cantinas in Juárez
,
Ranger Strong,” said Manuel Gonzaullas. “How could the generals be sure you’d know the one they meant?”

“’Cause of something in the past, son. Details don’t matter a mite. What matters is this tells me the note came from them, all right.”

“Can’t trust their kind one bit’s what I say, Ranger,” noted Monroe Fox.

“Nobody’s asking you to come along, sir. You want to ride on home into infamy for your past indiscretions, be my guest. But I don’t expect this is a chance you’ll see again in your lifetime to hang up your guns the way they’re supposed to be hung up.”

“Aw, hell,” whined Fox. “Count me in. But I’m killing the first one stares at me crossways or even looks at his pistol.”

“Son, if it comes down to that, all the shooting be over ’fore you even get your pistol drawn,” McDonald chided him.

“We’ll see about that, Captain Legend.”

The others laughed, then resumed mounting up.

“Guess we got a change in destination,” said William Ray Strong, as they started off.

*   *   *

Strong’s Raiders took to horseback for the short distance across the bridge into Juárez, still armed to the teeth and probably mistaken for a supplemental contingent of the American forces. The city remained a study in chaos with the aftereffects of the battle lingering in the form of ruptured walls, shattered glass, and stubborn smoke from the artillery shell explosions still rising. Most of the fires that had caught burned out of control with no one about to fight the flames.

But the three generals who’d requested this meeting—Rojas, Castillo, and Aguilar—must have known the cantina in question had been left whole and remained somehow opened. Actually, when the Rangers arrived they found the lights off, the door locked, and as many of the windows boarded up as the supply of lumber would allow.

“How is it those generals chose this cantina again?” William Ray heard his son Earl ask him, as he approached the door.

“Because a few years back I killed three men here in a gunfight after they refused to go peacefully across the border.”

William Ray rapped hard on the heavy wooden door and was about to do so again when the door opened to reveal Pancho Villa’s top generals disguised as peasants standing in darkness broken sporadically by lantern light. They had clearly opted not to join Villa when he fled south, pursued by the American forces.

“Come in,” Castillo said in English, “all of you.”

Inside, Strong’s Raiders shoved four round bar tables together and sat with their arms crossed upon the wobbly tops while the generals explained why they had summoned the Rangers here.

“It is not too late,
señores,
” Castillo started. “There is still a way to rid the world of Esteban Cantú’s
esos Demonios
.”

“Two days from now,” Rojas picked up, “he has scheduled a military parade to honor the Mexican troops who bravely fought and defeated the forces of Pancho Villa in the battle of Juárez. Out of respect for his cousin, President Carranza,” he added with a smirk, not bothering to disguise the irony in his voice.

“It will take place in the central square of Mexicali,” the general named Aguilar explained, taking a tattered, hand-scrawled map from his pocket. “Cantú will surely lead the procession and all residents are required to attend. He will be accompanied by his soldiers—you know them as
esos Demonios
—and among them will be the very same men who were responsible for Willow Creek.”

With that Aguilar unfolded the map and handed it to William Ray Strong, who passed it on to Manuel Gonzaullas.

“I know this place,” Gonzaullas said.

“So can we do it, M.T.? Can we take out this many men at once?”

“The participants won’t be expecting anything but more tequila and sangria when the procession ends. It will be hot in the sun and by the end of the route, the effects of their first round of drink will have worn off and left them sluggish. So, yes, Ranger, we can do it.”

“The next question being,” William Ray said, moving his eyes from one general to the next, “what’s in it for the three of you exactly?”

“The war is lost,
señor
,” said Rojas. “The revolution is over.”

“Leaving all enterprising men like us,” added Castillo, “with a need to stake out the next stage of our lives.”

“You want to take over Cantú’s drug business,” Earl Strong realized.

“Only the business in Mexico,
señores,
” Aguilar told all of them. “That is more than enough to suit our needs once Cantú is out of the way, and the three of us intend to divide our interests through the country, separate groups responsible for different regions.”

“You’ve thought this thing out, haven’t you?”

“We wouldn’t have wasted your time if we hadn’t,
señor,
” Rojas said to William Ray.

“And we’re supposed to take you at your word that you won’t spread your poison across the border into Texas just like Cantú did?” raised a skeptical William Ray Strong.

“
Sí,
” said Aguilar.

“You see, we’d rather keep you as
amigos,
rather than risk having you as enemies,” Castillo explained.

“Even though you’re not coming entirely clean?”

The three generals looked at one another.

“You’re the ones who betrayed Pancho Villa,” William Ray continued. “You had all this thought out and you used us to do your dirty work right from the start.”

None of the generals bothered denying the assertion, Rojas speaking for all of them. “We get what we want and you get what you want.”

William Ray Strong thought back to the scene in Willow Creek, feeling a grimace stretch across his lips. “You boys got yourself a deal,” he said, taking the map back from Manuel Gonzaullas.

*   *   *

“Those Mexican bastards done fucked us again,” said Frank Hamer once Strong’s Raiders reached Mexicali two days later.

They’d arrived to find the city overrun with soldiers and members of the
federal
police force. Armed men were everywhere, not just
esos Demonios
preparing for the procession at the head of the street.

“This ain’t good,” Monroe Fox added, dressed like the others in capes and sombreros to give the impression they were no more than visitors here to enjoy the festivities.

The three generals had failed to mention the Gatling guns poised in a church steeple at one end of the Mexicali central square and jerry-rigged upon a rooftop at the other. Those guns, combined with the abundance of additional armed troops, made the formidable supply of BARs, Thompsons, 12-gauges, and .45 caliber pistols scattered through the three cars the Rangers boarded to drive here pale by comparison.

All morning the square’s cantinas were packed with soldiers, locals, and tourists mixing easy among one another. William Ray dispatched Manuel Gonzaullas and Bill McDonald to hide a pair of Thompsons and scout out the remainder of the square for other potential surprises. But foremost in his mind remained the opportunity to slay those who had perpetrated the massacre at Willow Creek.
Esos Demonios
would fall hard and quick once the bullets started flying, that was for sure.

Or maybe not.

Because a few minutes later, Gonzaullas rushed up to William Ray, nearly out of breath.

“They’re moving on Captain Bill!” he managed, heaving for air in between breaths.

“Christ on a crutch! Where?”

“Another cantina. Somebody recognized him and wanted to make sure he wasn’t a ghost.”

William Ray looked to Monroe Fox and Frank Hamer. “We need those BARs set up in the high ground. That means—”

“I know what it means,” Hamer interrupted. “Taking out those Gatling guns.”

“Just give me a few minutes to get Captain Bill back,” William Ray Strong told him. “Then let’s show these bastards what happens when you cross the Texas Rangers.”

*   *   *

William Ray, Earl, and Manuel Gonzaullas reached the cantina just as Bill McDonald was being led out by
federal
police officers and the first beats of a drum began to pound, signaling the procession was about to start. At its very head was Mexico’s first engine-driven fire truck, purportedly a gift from the governor of California. The three Rangers moved to block the path of the
federales,
Manuel Gonzaullas stepping forward to do the talking.

“There must be some mistake. Why are you arresting our friend?”

The
federal
captain, who walked with a limp, grinned, his bravado reinforced by the half dozen officers he commanded and the bevy of well-armed soldiers filling the streets and bars. “If you are his friend, then you must be an
el Rinche
too, eh?”

He grinned again, wet eyes big in the sunlight, an instant before he and the other men went for their guns. But Earl and William Ray drew theirs first, Earl opening up with his Colt and William Ray with his .45 in a blistering crescendo that accompanied the now heavier rhythmic drumbeats of the procession. More band instruments joined in, stealing the sound of the gunfight from the street, but not the sight of the
federal
and his men straining to return the Rangers’ gunfire.

William Ray heard a gasp and saw Bill McDonald stagger, wincing and clasping his hand against a side leaking blood. Still firing, he moved to the Ranger legend and shielded him with his own body, supporting his weight.

“I’m okay, goddamnit!” McDonald said. “Just get me a goddamn gun!”