Strong Cold Dead (44 page)

—Ranger Matt Cawthon, in
Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century,
edited by Bruce A. Glasrud and Harold J. Weiss, Jr. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2013)

 

 

H
OUSTON,
T
EXAS;
S
IX
W
EEKS
L
ATER

“I'm really proud to be addressing you today,” Caitlin said to the students and families gathered on the football field of the Village School, which was adorned with the Vikings logo and the school color, navy blue. “I'd like to talk to you about a lot of things, but mostly I'd like to talk about bravery.”

She focused on Dylan, Cort Wesley, and Luke, who were seated in the front row with the other dignitaries at the graduation ceremony. Beyond them was a sea of gowns, caps, and tassels, soon to be flipped from one side to the other before the caps were launched airborne. The warm air smelled fresh and clean, almost like incense. The scent of hope, Caitlin thought to herself, in stark contrast to skunk oil or, worse, the deadly
cuitlacoche
that had come ever so close to killing thousands, just a few miles away, beneath downtown Houston.

“There's a boy who goes to this school who's about the bravest person I know, because he's not afraid to be who he is. Folks like to think that gets easier as you get older, but it's really not true. It only seems that way because, by then, most have given up trying. The difference between someone special and someone ordinary is that the one who's special never gives up, no matter the odds. And the young man I'm talking about had the odds stacked against him, and it's a credit to you folks out there that he's been accepted here for who he is and has found a home.”

Cheers and applause interrupted her remarks. Caitlin was glad for that and, even more, for Luke's smile. She had no speech, just a few notes scribbled on some composition paper torn from a pad she'd bought at a drug store, the fringe fluttering atop the podium before her on the stage. She wore the clothes she always wore, because she figured that's what people expected from her and would feel most comfortable with. Jeans and a light-blue shirt, Texas Ranger badge pinned to her chest, holstered SIG Sauer clipped to her belt.

As the applause started to die down, she focused on Dylan and Cort Wesley, who were still clapping the hardest of anyone.

*   *   *

“I haven't decided if I'm going back to school,” Dylan had told Caitlin and Cort Wesley the week before, out of nowhere, while they sat on the front porch. “I'm going to need some more time.”

“Doesn't seem like a difficult decision to me,” Cort Wesley said.

“I've got some stuff I need to sort out, Dad.”

“Like what?”

“Stuff. I'm tired of getting involved with people who change me.”

“Ela?” Caitlin said to him.

“I go back there, she's all I'll think of. What's the point?”

Cort Wesley remained restrained. “Getting past it, son.”

“That's easy for you—for both of you—isn't it? But I'm not like that. I want to be, but I'm not.” Dylan swept the hair from his face and swallowed hard. “Why do you figure she changed her mind?”

“Because somebody finally changed her,” Caitlin told him.

*   *   *

“Texas is full of brave folks, now and in the past,” Caitlin resumed, after checking her notes, finally used to the garbled feedback of her own voice from the speakers. “I'm the fifth in my family to become a Texas Ranger. The first was named Steeldust Jack Strong, and he fought for anyone who was in the right, out of a sense of duty. The Comanche, for example, against none other than John D. Rockefeller. He witnessed the Comanche burn their own land to deny it to Standard Oil. Most figure that was the end of the story, but it wasn't. Rockefeller had a hatred for Texas that knew no bounds, and he saw his opportunity to get his revenge, once the first oil boom hit, with that strike in Corsicana in 1894. Figured he could move in and pretty much buy up the state. Turned out he didn't know Texas and he didn't know Texans, especially one named Steeldust Jack Strong.”

 

 

N
EW
Y
ORK; 1895

John D. Rockefeller was almost always the first one into Standard Oil headquarters on 26 Broadway, where it had moved from Cleveland a decade before. He liked nothing better than to see the sunrise from his office window. But, on this morning, he entered to see his chair already occupied by a grizzled, unshaven man smoking one of his cigars.

“'Morning, Mr. Rockefeller,” Jack Strong greeted him, lifting his boots up atop the man's desk. “I hope you don't mind me making myself comfortable while I was waiting for you.”

“How'd you get in here?”

“Why, I took the train, of course. My first time out of Texas since the Civil War.”

Recognition flashed in Rockefeller's eyes, along with the loathing stirred by the memories of their previous encounters. “Then you've never seen a Northern jail.”

“No, sir, I have not. Just like you've never seen the inside of a Texas jail—or any cell, for that matter. I don't do much rangering no more. Figure it's better left to younger folk like my own son, William Ray, who made this here trip with me, on account of he didn't want to miss the fun.”

“There's laws against carrying guns in New York, Ranger.”

Steeldust Jack lowered his boots from the desk, the effort clearly paining him, the years having treated his bad leg unkindly. “That's fine, 'cause I didn't bring one. Did bring this, though,” he said, sliding a set of trifold pages from his pants pocket.

Rockefeller took the document in hand tentatively, almost as if he expected it to burn his fingers. “What's this?”

“A writ signed by Texas governor Jim Hogg, serving notice of suspension of Standard Oil's business licenses in the State of Texas, subject to investigation for violations of the Sherman Antitrust statutes.”

“You have any idea what you just said, Ranger?”

“Not really, but it sounded mighty official, didn't it? It's the truth, too.”

Rockefeller gave the writ a quick read. “None of this makes any sense.”

“And we'll look forward to you proving that in a Texas court of law.”

Rockefeller tore the writ in two. “This will never stand up.”

“You can fight it all the way to the Supreme Court, but you'll have to go through Texas to do that—definitely something you may want to think twice about. You don't have a lot of friends where I come from. I've heard told workmen you've fired and small businessmen you've ruined use your picture for target practice.” Steeldust Jack pushed himself to his feet, using the desk for support. “I'm here today to tell you that the moment your train comes to a stop in Austin, all the men you wronged, white and Indian, will be waiting. Sounds like a one-way trip to me.”

“You and the goddamn Texas Rangers are nothing more than historical artifacts, no different than dinosaur bones. You just don't know it yet.”

“You're the one who'll soon be history, Mr. Rockefeller. I'm making it my mission to let the country know what kind of man you really are. A bully and a braggart who never waged a fight when he didn't have his hired guns backing him up. You know what's good for you, you'll start keeping a lower profile, given I heard there's a price on your head,” Steeldust Jack said, fitting his hat back on and hobbling for the door.

“You come here to collect it, Ranger?”

“No, sir. I'm the one who put up the cash.”

*   *   *

“John D. Rockefeller retired from Standard Oil the following year,” Caitlin finished, “and, according to legend, never set foot in the state of Texas again.”

Caitlin trained her gaze on Cort Wesley, Luke, and Dylan again. She noticed Captain Tepper standing in the back, not far from Jones and Guillermo Paz. She'd been a guest caller last week at a bingo game in the retirement community where Paz volunteered, and it was hard to say whether she felt any more gratified by this honor than by that one.

“But I guess I'm supposed to talk about the future,” Caitlin told the one hundred forty graduating seniors of the Village School and their families, along with hundreds more underclassmen and other invited guests. “The truth is, there was a time when I didn't think about it a whole lot. Then some people came into my life who changed all that in me, and plenty more. All of you are going on to college—every single one, I'm told—and plenty of you are going to some of the very best ones, and from there to great careers. I hope you find yourself loving what you do as much as I do, but it won't matter where you go if you don't have the right people with you when you get there, 'cause that's really what it's all about.”

The cheers and applause were much louder this time. Caitlin nodded toward Cort Wesley and the boys as it died down.

“There's mostly good in the world, but there's bad, too. John D. Rockefeller didn't set out to do bad, but he did plenty here in Texas, until Jack Strong stood up against him. Men like Steeldust Jack keep the bad down. They stand their ground against those fixed on doing harm to others. They do the right thing. I'm here talking to you today because people think I'm a hero, but I'm really not. The real heroes are that boy I mentioned earlier, who isn't ashamed of who he is, and his older brother, who's seen what true evil looks like, more times than I can count, and never let the sight change who he is. I hope you never see that sight, but I suspect you will. Don't let it change you, because that's how the bad wins and the good loses. You might not beat it, but don't let it beat you, either.”

She let her gaze drift over the crowd again, refreshed and recharged by the energy and hope radiating from these young people who, for this day anyway, were in complete ownership of their lives.

“Because, the thing is, evil exists. It's real and it's out there,” she said, thinking of ISIS, both homegrown elements and otherwise.

The remainder of the deadly strain of the corn fungus, the
cuitlacoche,
had been removed from the underground storage chamber, and a thorough search of the reservation land had turned up no additional hidden reserves. Jones had told Caitlin those reserves would be “dispatched appropriately”—his phrase, spoken with a smirk. As far as the water responsible for turning the corn fungus into a deadly toxin, seismic specialists were in the process of devising a strategy to seal the underground reserves as much as five miles down, render them inaccessible to the likes of both Daniel Cross and Cray Rawls. The opening to the cave with the still pond, found by Daniel Cross, had been sealed, and serious thought was being given to temporarily evacuating the entire population of the reservation.

New evidence, meanwhile, had mysteriously surfaced in cases involving Cray Rawls and his consortium of energy companies, leading a number of investigations to be reopened. That would ensure that the bulk of his time over the ensuing years would be spent in court or fretting over the eventual loss of the empire he'd built with his inheritance from the couple who had been roasted to death as payment for adopting him.

And he wasn't alone.

*   *   *

Jones had let Caitlin see Daniel Cross alone before he was placed in total isolation, save for his lawyers. She sat on the other side of a thick glass partition inside ADX Florence, the ultra–maximum security prison in Fremont County, Colorado, where Cross was being held, while two armed guards fixed manacles onto his arms and legs.

“I guess you remember me,” he said, voice weak and almost shy.

“Yes, Daniel. I do.”

“I don't suppose I should thank you for coming.”

“Actually, I wanted to apologize.”

His gaze narrowed, as if trying to gauge her intentions. “It wasn't your fault. You're not to blame.”

“Yes, I am,” Caitlin told him. “I'm to blame for not letting you do some time in juvie. Maybe if you'd spent the rest of your teen years there, we wouldn't be looking at each other right now. So, yes, I'm to blame for thinking a second chance would steer you clear of trouble.”

“I'll bet you wish you could take it back,” he said, looking identical in that moment to the fourteen-year-old boy, handcuffed to an interrogation table in an Austin jail, whom she'd met ten years before. Only this time, Caitlin felt no sympathy.

“I guess I do,” she told Daniel Cross. “I needed to come here just to see how I got things so wrong. And looking at you through this glass makes me think of somebody else, somebody a little younger than you, who believes he can save anybody too. Now I realize I should be listening to the same advice I gave him—that some people aren't worth the bother; the key is the ability to tell which is which.”

Cross's expression grew cold and flat. “Know what? I wish I had built that bomb. I wish I had blown up that school and killed all the assholes. Tell me the world wouldn't have been a better place with all of them in hell.”

Caitlin rose, having had enough. “Only if you got there first, Daniel.”

*   *   *

“I can't tell you exactly what evil is,” she continued, meeting Dylan's gaze down in the front row, “only that I know it when I see it, just like you need to do. Because evil is at its best when it's hiding among us, in places we least expect, in the hearts of people we expected better from. If I had one piece of advice to give you today, it would probably be to never disappoint anyone, least of all yourself. I think one of the things that sets evil people apart is that, while they hate a whole bunch of folks, mostly they hate themselves.

“I'm looking out over you today and I want to believe none of you will become like that, except the truth is I really can't say for sure—nobody can. What I can say for sure today is that fate is yours to control, and nobody else's. So I want you to remember this moment, remember this day. Keep it frozen in your mind so you never lose track of the way you feel right now. Because the day you stop feeling that way is the day you may find yourself becoming somebody you don't want to be.”