The Territory A Novel

TWELVE



Josie sat in her squad car with the air-conditioning blowing on her face and stared at her front door for a long time. It wasn’t fear so much as dread. The smell of smoke and gunpowder and the image of the guns pointed at Dillon’s chest, at her face, would stay with her for many years to come. The spray of debris, the shattered glass, splintered pieces of wood trim and pockmarked walls awaited her. The sick knowledge that these men had come into her life with their guns and ruined her chance at a normal, loving relationship made her breathless and light-headed. Blood rushed to her head, and she gripped her steering wheel and let herself cry, the silent tears eventually giving way to sobs for the pathetic excuse of a life she was leading.

Eventually, cried out, she entered her house and found Chester asleep on the kitchen floor beside his dog dish. She had called Dell the night before and arranged for the dog to stay at Dell’s house. Dell called her cell phone that morning and said Chester had whined all night until Dell brought him home that morning. She knelt beside Chester and buried her face in his neck and talked to him, grateful for his big, brown, nonjudgmental eyes. He’d been through hell, too, and she felt lousy for leaving him the night before. One more living being to let down, she thought.

She gave Chester a hot dog out of the refrigerator and fresh water, and then let him out to run. She gathered broom and dustpan and the large plastic garbage can from outside. As she walked down the hallway, she heard a car pull into the driveway and felt her pulse race. She dropped the broom and pulled the gun out of her ankle holster, then looked through the crack in the living room curtain to find Otto and his wife, Delores, getting out of their car and walking up the front path.

Otto and Delores were both dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Even when Otto was out of his uniform, Josie rarely saw the sixty-year-old in anything but dress pants and button-down shirt or Delores in anything but print dresses. Otto carried a large duffel bag and a home-baked pie. When Josie opened the door, Delores came at her, smiling, with both arms extended. She pulled Josie against her soft body and spoke quietly into her ear about how good it was to see her safe and how she had a bed ready with fresh sheets for her.

“We’ll get your place cleaned up like new, and you can pack a bag and move in tonight. No excuses or fussing. This is the way it’s going to be,” Delores said.

“Dell called this morning and said he would come down this afternoon and patch the plaster in the walls from the bullet holes. It looks pretty bad right now,” Josie said.

Josie took the pie into the kitchen as Delores wandered back into the bedroom with her bag of cleaning supplies. Otto motioned to the couch and Josie sat down. She noticed him staring at her and she realized how bad she must look. She hadn’t showered since the day before, and her eyes and nose were still red and swollen.

“You holding up okay?” Otto asked.

She shrugged and smiled. The answer was obvious.

“Dillon called me. He said you were staying by yourself at Manny’s. I told him not to worry, that I had plans to cart you home with me.”

“Let me ask you something. If I were a man, would we be having this same conversation?”

“Absolutely. Except I would probably tell you to quit acting like a hero, to pack your bags, and get your ass over to the house. I can turn up the language if it makes you feel any better.”

She smiled and tipped her head to acknowledge his point.

“So you’ll come with us?”

“I’m worried about tonight,” she said. “It’s not about having a place to stay; it’s about what’s going to happen with the Medranos. I don’t think the mayor understands the magnitude of what’s happening. I’ve called him twice today about the prisoner transfer. He told me he was working on it the first time. When I called back, he claimed Monday is the earliest he could arrange it.”

“Which probably means two days from now, once the paperwork gets jammed up some bureaucrat’s hind end. Who’s taking the prisoners?”

“Houston. The federal detention center takes pretrial inmates. Moss has supposedly arranged everything, but I don’t know if I trust him enough to follow through on the details. At this point, I don’t know if I trust him on anything.”

Otto’s expression was fierce. “Don’t you know the warden at the detention center?”

Josie nodded. “Remi Escobedo. I worked with him a few years ago on a federal indictment. He’s a good man.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“Chain of command? Moss would stroke out if I went around him to check details with the warden.”

“So, let him,” Otto said. “You’ve got good instincts. You need to start there. Clean up the politics later.”

After a few calls, Josie tracked down Escobedo at his home in Presidio. As soon as he discovered it was Josie on the phone, he said he was sorry for her troubles and asked about her safety.

“I’d like to ask you a question in confidence,” Josie said.

“Of course.”

“It’s about the prisoner transfer. You’ve talked to Mayor Moss about the four prisoners moving to the federal prison?” she asked.

“Yes, I spoke with him by phone this morning. You’ve got the shooter from the Trauma Center, and the three guys you stopped at the river with the explosives. Right?”

“That’s right. Did he also explain that two more gunmen came to my house yesterday, shot up my house, and threatened me? Said that if the prisoners weren’t released by tonight that I would be killed?”

Escobedo paused. “He did not.”

“Is there a reason why the prisoners can’t be moved today?”

“I specifically offered to set transfer up myself this morning, as soon as I heard from the mayor.” His voice was measured and steely. “He told me he was working in tandem with the sheriff. The mayor did not tell me anything about the threat to your life. He explained the shooting and said we needed the prisoners moved to a more secure location. But he set up the transfer for Monday at four P.M. He chose the time. He said local law enforcement had the jail secured tonight, and a National Guard contingent was scheduled this weekend. I offered to have a transport van there by two o’clock today.”

Josie rubbed the back of her neck and sat down on the couch. She stared at Otto as she spoke, trying to make some sense of what she had just heard. “It’s not just my own safety; it’s every officer at that jail. Medrano has a personal score to settle with his cousin, and he intends to take care of it on his own terms. This won’t end until Gutiérrez is dead.”

Josie heard Escobedo breathing heavily on the other end of the phone. “I don’t like this. What do you know about Moss?”

“He’s arrogant. He doesn’t like women in authority. He’s either loved or hated by everyone in Artemis, no in between. He’s a control freak with designs on a senator’s seat. This, though?”

“Think he’s in with Medrano?”

“I don’t know. There’s a deputy I have my doubts about. He’s scammed money from the department. Probably ten to twenty thousand from the county, and there is a fair chance it’s connected to La Bestia. Gun sales.”

Otto threw his hands up in the air and gave her a look that said, Why the hell didn’t I know any of this?

“You don’t suppose the mayor is playing La Bestia against Medrano, do you? There’s serious cash to be had there,” Escobedo said.

“La Bestia’s been silent through this. I think their concern is in Piedra. It’s the drug route they’re after. They couldn’t care less about losing Gutiérrez to a jail cell. He’s a throwaway pawn. They’ve already got any information from him they were going to get. Now he’s just leverage against Medrano and not much else.”

“Do you have any other law enforcement in the county that knows what’s going on? Prosecutor? Sheriff?” he asked.

“The sheriff knows some. I think he’s square, but with one of his deputies possibly involved, I haven’t confided much. I haven’t talked to the prosecutor yet, because I don’t have my facts in order. Right now, you know as much as anybody outside my own department.”

“Your top priority right now has to be getting those prisoners out of town safely and immediately.”

Josie sighed, frustrated, and rolled her eyes at Otto, who was staring at her intently from the couch. “I’ve been telling the mayor that, but I can’t get him to take me seriously. Can you make that call?”

Escobedo breathed out heavily. “I don’t think we want to do that just yet.”

* * *

At one o’clock that afternoon, Josie and Otto met Escobedo at the Arroyo County Jail. At the suggestion of Escobedo, Josie had called Sheriff Martínez and asked if she and Otto could use the interrogation room to talk with Gutiérrez. It was Saturday, and Martínez had the day off. He agreed and told Josie to ask the intake officer to show them up to a room per his order. Josie did not mention that Warden Escobedo from the federal penitentiary would also be meeting with the prisoner in the sheriff’s jail. She felt guilty about the omission, but Escobedo made it clear that Martínez was to be kept out of the loop. Escobedo viewed Martínez as an unknown at this point and didn’t want to risk the chance that Martínez might blow the operation. Because Gutiérrez had already been remanded into the federal prison system, Escobedo was in the jail in his official capacity as warden.

The jailer, Maria Santiago, set the three up in an interrogation room and asked one of the guards to escort the prisoner from his cell. Ten minutes later, the jailer brought in Miguel Gutiérrez, shackled and handcuffed, wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. His arm was still in a sling from the gunshot wound at the Trauma Center, and he winced as the guard chained the handcuffs to a bar that ran the length of the metal interrogation table. Escobedo and Otto both pulled their chairs back away from the table several feet to signify that Josie was in charge.

Gutiérrez had been in custody for six days, and he appeared as if he had not eaten. His face was gaunt and ashen, his thick black hair brittle and dry. Slumped forward in his seat, he looked like an old man on the verge of dying.

“I came to fill you in on the latest bad news with your former family. As you might imagine, they want you dead. Three of them crossed the river illegally with a horse trailer filled with enough explosives to blow this jail sky high. Fortunately for you, we caught them at the river. You had a half ton of TNT designated specifically for you. Your uncle wants to blow your body parts all over West Texas,” she said. “And that pisses me off to no end. That puts every employee in this jail in jeopardy every second you spend in my country.”

She stood, knocking her chair over behind her, walked around the table, and punched Gutiérrez square in the jaw.

He slumped back, but the handcuffs held him in his seat. Once he’d recovered, he pulled himself upright in his chair, his expression shocked and angry, his face finally animated. He looked from Otto to Escobedo, who turned their heads in unison away from the table.

Josie hit him again, but he ducked and the punch landed across the top of his head. The handcuffs slid across the metal bar as he tried to cover himself. He screamed for a guard, and Josie scowled at him.

“Look around. See any cameras? Any two-way glass? We’re soundproof and secure. The jail is made for guys like you. I could beat the life out of you and claim a pretty hefty bounty. I’d be a hero to the Bishop himself.”

Gutiérrez leaned away from Josie, who stood directly over him.

“The way I see it, you have one chance at making it through this mess. You can’t go back to Mexico. You’d be dead by nightfall. You can’t stay here. Your only chance is a transfer to solitary maximum security.”

His eyes widened, and he looked to Otto and Escobedo as if they might be ready to escort him out of the jail.

Josie pointed to Escobedo. “This is Warden Escobedo of the federal penitentiary in Houston.”

Escobedo nodded. He was wearing a navy suit, white shirt, and red tie with a flag tie pin: polished, neat, and trim. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at Gutiérrez. “We need a reason to get you out of here. We need an actual attempt on your life before the prison system will make the move.”

His eyes wide, Gutiérrez pointed at Josie. “She just said those explosives were aimed for me!”

Escobedo rubbed at his jaw. “Trouble is, we can’t prove that load was intended for you. We suspect it, but that’s not the same as proof. See what I’m getting at?”

Gutiérrez looked confused and desperate. Escobedo’s story was just that: a story. They had already arranged transport for all four prisoners, but they hoped to use Gutiérrez’s knowledge of the Medrano cartel in the process.

“Here’s what we do, then.” Escobedo went on, “You work for me. I’ll bend the rules to get you out of here.”

Gutiérrez’s expression changed. He looked expectantly to Escobedo, who now appeared to hold the keys to his life. “Tell me what you want.”

Josie said, “You’re going to pretend to be a Medrano today.”

* * *

Hack Bloster received the cell phone call from underneath his pickup truck, where he was draining oil into a metal bucket. He continued unscrewing the bolt on the oil pan and fished his phone out from his shirt pocket with his free hand. The male voice on the other line said nothing more than, “Landline in ten minutes.” Bloster flipped the phone shut and laid his head back on the concrete floor. It was the code phrase. It was the Medranos, and they wanted to deal. He had hoped the phone calls would end after Red’s death.

He watched the black oil flow and remembered being stretched out with his dad under his first car. He wondered how his life had spun so far out of control. Five years ago, he had been a man with a clear sense of right and wrong: someone who acted morally, regardless the consequences. He had been proud to wear the badge, but he never allowed a rule book or code to keep him from doing the right thing. It was why he had joined the Gunners. Rules and laws were not keeping the border safe. Guns and people would see to that. He had personally vowed it.

Then Red came to him with a business proposition. He had a contact, a broker, who needed someone on the border to make a quick exchange of guns for money. Red started out as the mule, moving the guns from a contact in New Orleans to an unnamed runner from Mexico who met him once every two weeks to receive a shipment. Eventually, Red figured out what the New Orleans dealer was selling, and figured out he could buy off the Internet and sell even cheaper, so Red broke from the supplier to start his own business. It was at this point that Red involved Bloster. Red needed someone to help him buy the weapons; he didn’t have enough experience and knowledge about the computer and Internet sales and auctions to get the best deals. Bloster had developed the Web site for the Gunners. He was a natural partner.

The profit was more than Hack had ever dreamed he was capable of making, and in the beginning, the end user was nameless. He hadn’t even known Red was working with the Mexicans at first. By the time Bloster discovered how involved Red was with Medrano, it was too late to pull out. He was a partner, a very well paid one. But it didn’t mean that he supported the idea that the Gunners were now in partnership with a cartel. He had never intended for Medrano to have any association with Artemis. The cartel had been looking for a safe route into the country, and Red had provided it right through his front yard.

Bloster wiped his hands on a shop rag and answered the secure phone on his kitchen counter. Bloster knew how easy it was to trace cell phone calls, so he talked business only on a landline. His mouth was so dry, he could barely speak.

“We got business, Mr. Bloster. You ready to do some business?”

His hands grew sweaty. “I don’t owe you anything. We got all deals squared up. You got your last shipment and we’re done.”

The man laughed. “You telling me we’re done? You think it works like that?”

“Red’s dead.”

“So what? No, we’re not done until I say so. Understood?”

Bloster stared at the .38 on the kitchen table and considered putting it to his temple. There would be no doubt in the bastard’s head that it was over then. No chance his mother and sister would be impacted by the evil that surrounded him on all sides. Bullet to the head. Just like Red.

“Fifty thousand dollars per man, Mr. Bloster. Four prisoners? Two hundred thousand dollars. You release them, stage a breakout, lose the key, I could not care less. Tonight, before midnight. No later. I won’t discuss consequences, but they won’t be good if the job isn’t done.”

Bloster felt the acid in his stomach rising to his throat. “The jail is too secure.”

“Figure it out. A white nine-passenger van will be located behind the jail by eight o’clock this evening. A driver will be in the back. It’s already received clearance from the jail. You get the prisoners to that van by midnight tonight, and you’re a wealthy man.”

* * *

Gutiérrez was escorted back to his cell by a sheriff’s deputy. Otto, Josie, and Escobedo remained in the conference room.

After the door shut, Josie leaned against the wall, bent over at the waist, and stretched her fingers toward the floor. Her back cracked and the relief was instant. She stood and unhooked her five-pound gun belt, then laid it on the table, her attention on Escobedo.

“I don’t feel good about this,” she said. “We’re setting up a sting in the sheriff’s jail without informing him. He’ll be furious, and I don’t blame him.”

“You don’t worry about Martínez,” Escobedo said. “This isn’t about a courtesy call; it’s about saving lives. I’ve got two case agents on their way. From here out, I take over. It’ll keep you out of hot water with the locals.”

Josie narrowed her eyes at Escobedo, annoyed at his condescension. “You know me better than that. I didn’t call you to get cut out of the investigation. I don’t make decisions based on how much hot water I might get in. I’ve worked hard to see Hack Bloster in handcuffs.”

“This is a federal investigation. I’m looking at a law officer who sold guns illegally across a national border. He’s in serious trouble, and I suspect your mayor is culpable as well. You have too much on the line to let emotion get involved.”

Josie’s face flushed. She knew she could be called a lot of things; emotional was not usually one of them.

“I’m not asking to be there when you take him in, but I’ve got knowledge of this jail, of operating procedures.”

Otto cleared his throat to cut her off, and gave her a single shake of his head. He obviously thought she was pushing too hard. She looked away and said no more, angry that she hadn’t set up parameters with Escobedo when she called him. The loss of control was always the risk in calling in other agencies. Bottom line, the feds held the trump card.

* * *

Josie and Otto left the jail, basically dismissed from the investigation. They walked outside into the warm evening air, and Josie let out a long sigh. Otto said he would follow her home.

“What for?”

“So you can pack a bag. One night, Josie. Stay at our house until those prisoners are out of our jail.”

Josie stood at her car and closed her eyes, so tired, she could have laid her head against the door and slept. “I’m going home. I’m tired. I’m angry, and I hate the world right now. I’m in no shape to see Delores.”

“Delores doesn’t care about your mental shape.”

“No, Otto. Thank you, but no.”

“Damn it! You’re acting irrationally. Stop playing the martyr! Does this really prove you’re tougher than them? That you can’t be bullied?”

“It doesn’t prove anything! They have invaded my home, shot up my bedroom, and could have killed the man I love. If I don’t fight back now, I lose all self-respect.” She lowered her voice, the fight gone out of her. “And at this point, that’s about all I have left.”

At sunset, Josie left her house to walk Chester back to Dell’s place. Following the dog’s meandering path, she watched him sniff and ignore a hundred different scents. She searched the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of a pair of aplomado falcons Dell claimed were nesting on the property. She’d been searching unsuccessfully for several months. She tried to turn her focus outward, to get out of her own head, but the tension and anger that pulled at her muscles did not ease on the walk.

Dell immediately recognized the look on her face when she approached him outside his barn. “Trouble?” he asked.

“I need you to keep Chester tonight.”

“You staying at your cop friend’s house tonight?”

“Most likely.”

“Liars go the same place as thieves.”

She smiled. “For a person who has no family around here, I sure have a lot of people giving me advice on what I need to do.” Dell said nothing, just stared at her patiently and waited for her to come clean. “I’m going to the watchtower. I’ll be able to see our houses as well as the crossing the Medranos have been using across the river. If they so much as approach my house…” She let the thought hang in the air.

A strong gust of wind blew dirt around their feet, and a layer of dust she had heard called sand-flour coated her skin and the inside of her nose. Dell covered his nose with the crook of his arm and closed his eyes for a few seconds until it passed. The blistering heat of the day had mixed with a dry border wind from the south. The southern winds stirred up occasional dust storms in West Texas that would reduce visibility to nothing. The monsoon season, which usually ran from June 15 through September 30, still had not materialized, and the threat of dust storms was a weekly occurrence. The July wind was capable of stirring up fine sand particles that hung in the air and formed whirlwinds that tore across the desert, infiltrating every crack and crevice.

Josie looked at the strip of orange and red that spread across the horizon. “I want my town back,” she said. “I want my life back to normal. I want to clock off at four and take a hike in the evening with Chester. I want to quit worrying all the time about men who slink around our land at night with AK-47s slung over their shoulders.”

Dell snapped his fingers. “Give me ten minutes. I got a brisket in the fridge from last night. I’ll pack us a sandwich and grab my guns and my bedroll.”

After a halfhearted argument, Josie finally agreed to put the dog in Dell’s house and set up observation at the tower with Dell. Technically, she wasn’t on duty, and she could use the company. And she knew what grab my guns meant; he had a small arsenal he kept packed and at the ready in an old duffel bag that remained by his nightstand. He also smoked the best brisket in all of West Texas.

Josie changed into a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt and her uniform boots. Her badge was in her back pocket, and her ankle holster was strapped into place. Like Dell, she had packed her own arsenal in an Eddie Bauer duffel bag that Dillon had bought her for her birthday last year. They’d used it for camping gear during a weeklong hike through Big Bend National Park, a trip that was a buried memory for now, one she refused to dig up.

At about six o’clock, Josie and Dell loaded up her jeep and drove the three-mile stretch of gravel road to the watchtower. Josie evened out her backpack, bedroll, and duffel bag on her shoulders and back and started the climb. She kept an eye over her shoulder at Dell, who kept up with no problem, in better shape than most men she knew. Once on the observation deck, they both dropped their loads and leaned over the railing outside, enjoying the view as the burn in their legs subsided.

Josie opened two folding chairs on the deck while Dell carved up the brisket onto tin camping plates from his duffel bag. She contributed a pull-top can of fruit cocktail and convinced Dell to give it a heavy dollop of Tabasco sauce. Leaned back in their chairs, feet propped on the deck rail, they ate the brisket with chewy pieces of French bread they used to wipe up the leftover sauce on their plates. Glad for Dell’s quiet company, she checked for messages and put her cell phone on vibrate in her pocket. Otto had called earlier to ask her one more time to spend the evening with them and had seemed genuinely happy that she was outside the house with Dell for the night.

Josie had set her cell phone’s alarm clock for five in the morning to give her time to get home and shower before her morning shift. Warden Escobedo had promised to call when something broke loose at the jail, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could wait before placing the call herself. He had said he wanted the transport ready by 8 P.M., another hour. She felt the heavy thump of her heart pressing against her chest.

After she and Dell finished dinner and laid out their bedrolls on cots in the lookout room, they settled back into their chairs on the observation deck to watch for movement along the Rio to the south. Josie filled Dell in on the current drama, including the threat by Medrano to blow her house up if she didn’t release the prisoners by tonight at midnight, and the probable gun connection with Red, Bloster, and the Gunners.

“It’s guys like Bloster and Red you have to keep an eye on. Any man that has to join a club to protect his house or prove his manhood is a weak imitation. I don’t need a club to keep people off my land.”

“Who do you think killed Red?” Josie asked.

“That’s just the problem. Those gun nuts get so paranoid, they think the whole world is out to get them, when in reality, ninety-nine percent of us couldn’t give a rat hole less what they do in their little meetings. In the end, usually turns out to be one of their own that punches their clock, leaving the rest of us shaking our heads.”

Dell had turned his chair to face north and was sighting down the barrel of his shotgun toward Josie’s house. He tapped her on the thigh with the gun barrel to make a point he had made a hundred times.

“A man loses his common sense, his ability to think rationally, he loses his ability to survive. And, what’s the number one rule of the desert?” he asked.

“Survival of the fittest.”

“That’s why the good guys will always have the advantage.”