Before Caitlin could finish that thought, the slide of her SIG locked open and the blanket of black, broken only by glowing eyes and flashing teeth, swept toward her anew in dark waves. She thought about taking refuge in the shallow greenish waters of the underground stream, then recalled the goo-like residue collected on the surface and—
Caitlin’s thinking froze there. “Cort Wesley, your lighter!”
It was his late father, Boone’s, cigarette lighter actually, tucked in a drawer and forgotten until Cort Wesley had learned the truth about his father’s nature and his heroism. Now he carried it with him all the time, the last thing he had to remember his father by, a man he’d once done his best to forget.
Caitlin snatched the lighter out of the air when he tossed it, and yanked a can of mace-like repellent from its clasp on her belt. She’d never used it on a suspect, not even once, and she hoped the pressurized contents hadn’t degraded over however many years she’d been carrying it.
She popped the top off and pressed down on the tiny nozzle at the same time that she flicked Boone Masters’s cigarette lighter, embossed with an eagle, to life. The aerosol stream touched the flame and ignited in a ribbon of fire, stretching a yard forward, aimed downward toward the surface of the water.
Poof!
The flame burst blew upward, climbing for the swarming bats, who fled from its path, their collective squeals turning deafening. In that moment, the bright glow captured their gaping mouths and enraged eyes, extended snouts making them look like monsters lifted from some horror movie. Their wings flapped so hard, as they sought escape from the fiery air, that they actually fanned the flames further. They moved in what looked like a circle, then a figure eight, before speeding out of the cave in a vast, unbroken mass, into the night beyond.
Caitlin found herself sitting on the cave floor with no memory of dropping down. She kicked at the body of one of the bats, felled by a bullet, maintaining the presence of mind to put her plastic evidence gloves back on before reaching for it.
Cort Wesley brushed off his clothes. The battle they’d just fought and the heat of the flames had left a sheen of perspiration over his features. “You want to venture a guess as to what all this is about, Ranger?”
“What Steeldust Jack faced here in 1874, same thing we’re facing now, Cort Wesley,” Caitlin told him. “Monsters.”
PART SEVEN
Prohibition passed in 1918. The Texas oil boom exploded two years later. Rangers spent a lot of time smashing stills, intercepting bootleg liquor from Mexico, and handcuffing criminals to telephone poles when the jails were too full. It was during this time that Ranger Captain Manuel “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas cemented his legend as a one-man law enforcement agency along the Texas border. In the 1950s, he became an advisor for the TV show Tales of the Texas Rangers.
—Bullock Texas State History Museum, “The Story of Texas”
69
BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS
“Is there anyone you ever listen to, Ranger? ’Cause if there is, I’d like to meet them.”
Caitlin squeezed her cell phone tighter. “Maybe you didn’t hear what I just said, Jones.”
“Oh, I heard you just fine, especially the part about you disobeying a direct order from me.”
“I don’t work for you. I work for the state of Texas.”
“Well, last time I checked anyway, Texas was still part of the United States. Maybe you haven’t heard of Homeland Security?”
Caitlin spoke with her eyes on Cort Wesley, while rain from a fresh storm dappled the windshield of his truck, where he’d left it, just off the Comanche reservation. “Why don’t I just let you know when I’ve got a better idea of what we’re facing here?”
“Hold on, I want to hear more about what you found in that cave.”
“Sorry, Jones. I never listen to anybody, remember?”
*
After dropping off the bat carcass with Doc Whatley at the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s office, Caitlin and Cort Wesley continued back to Cort Wesley’s home in Shavano Park. They sat on the front porch swing, the night quiet and still around them. Nothing seemed to be moving at all, not even the air.
“Something I didn’t tell you about Daniel Cross, Cort Wesley,” Caitlin said suddenly. “Ten years ago, he didn’t go to court or jail, because of my intervention. Hell, I even made sure the arrest report went away, all on my say-so.”
“Let it go, Ranger.”
“I really did believe I could save him. I believed he was worth saving.”
“A bullied kid—you felt bad for him. Don’t make it more than it really was.”
“But it was more. It was me ten years ago, thinking I had the world right and nobody could tell me different.”
“You weren’t much more than a kid yourself, then, not much older than Daniel Cross is right now. Stop beating yourself up.”