Rancher's Law

Chapter Eight

Afew more days. A few more days! Amelia was frozen in place in absolute horror.

Valeria didn’t notice. She was leaning back with her eyes closed. “And Jasmine tea, none of that silly modern concoction. With one packet—only one—of that sweetener I like.” She sighed.

Amelia almost choked. “Yes. I’ll just...go make it.” She walked away stiff-legged, thinking hell must feel like this.

Her grandfather, reading her very well, sat with twinkling eyes, watching his sister. “It’s nice of you to extend your visit, especially considering the circumstances,” he said pleasantly.

Her eyes flew open. “Circumstances? What circumstances?”

“Our neighbor, the one who takes Amelia dancing, just came down with a nasty fever. And he was just over here the day before you came. Did you notice how flushed Amelia looks?” He frowned. “She was exposed. She might even have it...”

Valeria rocketed out of her chair. “How dare you both expose me to something infectious! You know how fragile I am! The very nerve...and that man is a hired killer. What is Amelia thinking? You let her go places with such a person? Think of the scandal if it ever gets out that my great-niece is dating a...a...hit man!”

“Valeria, he’s a soldier...”

“A hired killer!” she persisted. “The stain on our family name would never come off. People, common people, would gossip about us! The shame of it. Jacob, how could you?”

Amelia poked her head out of the kitchen door. “What’s going on?”

Valeria wheeled, her face red with rage. “You’re dating a hired killer. You’ll put the family name in the toilet, Amelia. You’ll shame us all over south Texas! And besides that, you’ve exposed me to a disease! How could you! How could both of you do this to me...? I am leaving!”

Valeria stomped down the hall to her room, still muttering.

Amelia looked at her grandfather with wide eyes.

He grinned and put his forefinger to his lips. She just nodded and smiled.

Fifteen minutes later, Valeria was headed back to Victoria.

“Brilliant,” Amelia applauded him. “Just brilliant.” She laughed. “I thought I’d go nuts. Sorry, Granddaddy, I know she’s your only living relative besides me. But she’s such a pain!”

“She’s always been a pain. She erupts,” he added. “She has rages. She lashes out. She pushed a waiter over a table one time and broke his arm. Her late husband had to pay damages in a civil suit, and she was lucky they didn’t prosecute it as attempted homicide.” He shook his head. “She’s always sorry later, but that doesn’t help much. She’s capable of anything in those moods.”

“I know. That’s why I bit my tongue.” She sighed. “She has issues.”

“Many.” He chuckled. “But she’s gone.”

“I’ll throw confetti. And I’m not giving up my lovely olive oil, whatever she says. Grease!” She threw up her hands. “It’s the best cooking oil in the world!”

“And tastes great,” he added.

“Thank you for braving the dragon,” she said. “If I had a medal, I’d give you one.”

“Thank you.”

“That was a nasty remark she made about Cal,” she muttered. “She’s very...” She waved her hand.

“Straitlaced?” He nodded. “Yes, she is. She has an overworked sense of family honor. The family name must never be besmirched!” He shook his head and laughed. “I wrote something naughty on the side of the principal’s car our senior year in high school. She pushed me down that sheer wall behind the school building. I broke my arm.”

“What?”

“She was very sorry afterward,” he said. “I’ve always thought she had some undiscovered mental issues, to be honest,” he told Amelia.

“What did your parents say?” she asked.

“They had a long talk with her about controlling her temper, but she was crying and apologizing and swearing she’d never do anything like it again. They just accepted that it was bad temper.”

“It doesn’t sound like bad temper,” she pointed out.

“I know.” He sighed. “They didn’t believe in mental health issues, you see. Back when they were growing up, it was a taboo subject in a small, rural town like Jacobsville.”

“She could have killed you!” Amelia pointed out.

“I did mention that.”

“And?”

“She cried harder and hugged me half to death.”

She sighed. “Still, they should have taken her to the nearest mental health clinic.”

“Bite your tongue, girl,” he teased. “And besmirch the family name by accusing her of being nuts?”

“It isn’t nuts if you have behavioral problems.”

“You’re preaching to the choir. But not to Valeria. She was horrified that anyone would think she wasn’t mentally sound!”

“At least she doesn’t have to worry about it now, right? She was married...”

“She kept the family name and didn’t take her husband’s, have you forgotten?”

She pursed her lips and whistled.

“She said it was too much work to change all those documents, so she kept her family name. Her husband was an only child, and his father and mother were already dead. He was sort of a wimp,” he added, chuckling.

She smiled. “I barely remember him. He was funny.”

“Yes, he was, but Valeria told him how to do everything. He left her a fortune. Which I’m often reminded that she plans to leave to her dog, or her favorite charity of the week.”

“We do very well without a lot of money,” she pointed out.

“I saved when I was young and invested wisely,” he agreed. “So now the dividends keep us in grocery money and incidentals.”

“I could get a part-time job,” she began.

“What for? You’ve seen a fur coat you want to buy?” he teased.

She hugged him. “I feel like I’m not carrying my weight,” she said. “And besides, there’s college...”

“College is a public one, so no exorbitant fees,” she was reminded. “Books are the only real expense.”

“I only have two, and I got used ones,” she said. “And I get my degree next month.”

“So you do,” he said, smiling. “Then, on to school in San Antonio.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said. She was thinking of the expense. She couldn’t afford a car and there was barely enough money to manage as it was.

“Valeria values education,” he reminded her. “She’d probably be happy to pay for your expenses.”

“I think she might draw the line at helping fund me in learning how to blow up stuff,” she pointed out.

“We wouldn’t tell her that part,” he teased.

She laughed. “I’ve been looking into scholarships. My grades are good. It’s the transportation part of it,” she added on a sigh. “And I don’t want to live on campus. You don’t get to pick your roommate and I’m not living with some strange boy!”

He ground his teeth together. “Valeria would never go for that, modern times or not.”

“Exactly.”

“We might arrange for you to ride with someone,” he said.

She sighed. “There aren’t that many people who work in San Antonio and live here,” she said.

“Well, we’ll worry about it after you graduate. Did you invite our neighbor?” he added.

She smiled. “Cal’s going off on a mission in a couple of weeks. He won’t be here, so I didn’t ask.”

He cocked his head and studied her. “And...?”

He knew her too well. She shrugged. “Things got a little...complicated...while we were doing the tango at Fernando’s. So he said we needed a cooling-off period. Like he’s not coming around for a while, until we both forget it.”

He grew solemn. He nodded. “Considering his line of work, that was a wise decision. And I applaud his consideration for you.”

“Me, too, but...”

“He’s not ready to settle down,” he interrupted. “Don’t push. If you’re patient, things will work out.”

“Do you think so?” she asked.

He drew in a breath. “He was a policeman, which means he’s seen some pretty awful things. But combat is another thing altogether. Most men who survive it never want to go back.”

“But he was in the military,” she pointed out.

“He was in the unit that more or less cleared away the debris, not the one that did the hard fighting. I don’t think he’s yet seen the madness that overcomes men in killing situations.”

“You mean, he might give it up voluntarily one day?”

He nodded. “Time will tell.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said on a sigh. She forced a smile. “Meanwhile, I’m going to graduate and start working on scholarships and transportation.”

“That’s the spirit!”

She missed Cal. It was amazing that she missed him so much. She graduated, with her grandfather in the audience, cheering when she received her diploma and turned her tassel. She worked hard on scholarship requests.

“I’m so tired of filling out forms,” she wailed as they finished supper one night.

“It will be worth it,” he promised. He grimaced. “Sugar, will you get me a couple of those acid reflux tablets?”

“Heartburn again?” she asked, fetching the bottle. “You need to talk to your doctor. He might have a preventative that would help.”

“I go next month,” he reminded her. “Meanwhile, these work. Sort of,” he added as he chewed the tablets and swallowed them. The pain was pretty bad. He took deep breaths. Odd, how nauseated he felt. He was sweating. Of course, it was late summer. Even with air-conditioning, the house was hot.

“We haven’t talked about the house,” he said after the pain passed.

Her eyebrows arched.

“I haven’t been quite honest with you. I guess I need to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know those reverse mortgages you hear about on television? Well, I did that. I mean, I do have some investments, but they wouldn’t keep us for a week.” He shrugged. “It seemed the best thing to do, so that we didn’t have to worry about money, you know?”

Her sense of security took a nosedive. “They aren’t going to repossess the house or anything?”

“Of course not,” he said, and patted her hand where it lay on the tablecloth. “But when I kick the bucket, they’ll take possession, is what I mean.”

“You’re not doing that until I’m old, too,” she said firmly.

He chuckled. “Well, I’m not planning to go, you know,” he told her. “I’m just mentioning it. You’ll get the stocks and bonds. They aren’t worth much, I’m afraid.”

“I’d rather have you than any of it,” she said, and she smiled.

He smiled back. “You’ve been a joy to live with, sugar,” he said. “I’m sorry you lost your parents, but I’m happy that I still have you.”

“I’ve loved living here,” she said. “And you’re not leaving. Got that?” she asked firmly.

He chuckled. “Yes. I’ve got it.”

It worried her, that her grandfather was sharing financial stuff with her. He’d never done that before. And he was eating that acid reflux medicine like candy. It couldn’t be good for him. At least he did have an appointment to see his doctor. Maybe there was a stronger medicine. Meanwhile, she cooked nothing that was spicy.

Cal had stopped by just long enough to say goodbye, on his way overseas, a few days before she’d graduated. He wouldn’t tell them where he was going, but he said it wouldn’t be a lengthy stay.

“Take care of my friend, here,” he told Jacob, shaking hands as he nodded toward Amelia. “Keep her out of mischief.”

“Not to worry, she doesn’t have anything explosive around here,” her grandfather assured him.

He grinned. “See that you behave,” he told her firmly, and hugged her just for a few seconds. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

She nodded, choking back tears with a big smile. “You be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” he drawled. He stared at her for just a few seconds longer than he should have and then dragged his eyes away. “I’ll see you both.”

They waved him off. Amelia swiped at a tear that escaped.

“He’s fighting it, but he feels something,” her grandfather said softly. “It shows.”

“Really?” She turned to him, her eyes brimming with hope and anguish.

He nodded. He smiled. “Patience.”

She swallowed. “Patience,” she agreed.

“And day after tomorrow is graduation,” he pointed out with a grin. “Got everything laid out?”

“Oh, yes. I forgot to tell Cal,” she added with a grimace. “Well, he was leaving anyway, so he couldn’t have come.”

“He realized that. He left you something.”

“What?” she asked excitedly.

“After graduation, he said, and that’s when you’ll get it,” he replied with a smug look.

“Granddaddy!”

“Threats and intimidation won’t work. You’ll have to wait.”

She sighed. “I know. Patience.”

He grinned from ear to ear. “Exactly!”

Cal got off the plane with the rest of his small group. Eb was with them on this mission, because it was the most important one of all. This battle would decide the future of the small country they were trying to save.

Cy Parks was bending over a radiant Juba, handing him a Bowie knife in a beautiful, beaded rawhide sheath dripping fringe.

“That’s some knife,” Cal remarked to Eb Scott.

He chuckled. “Nobody knows more about knives than Cy.”

“I noticed. He’s deadly.”

“One of my oldest friends,” Eb added. He glanced at Micah Steele, who was broody. “Micah’s having some family issues,” he said. “I hope he’ll keep his mind on what we’re doing.”

“He usually does. Or seems to,” Cal added, because he still didn’t know the group that well. “There’s Eduardo,” he said, waving to a big, smiling man with long black hair unbound. “I met him a few years ago. He likes to go to Fernando’s in San Antonio and watch the dancers.”

“He’s a good man.”

“One of the best. But those,” he indicated Laremos, Archer and Dutch, “are the real legends.”

“Headed for retirement after this,” Eb confided. “They have other interests now.” He studied the other man. “Are you sure this is the kind of life you want to live?” he asked abruptly.

Cal frowned. “Well, yes...”

“You were a cop. That’s conventional. This,” he said, indicating their surroundings, “isn’t.” His eyes bored into Cal’s. “So far, you’ve seen logistics. You’ve never seen war the way it’s waged here.”

Cal just smiled. “You see a lot in police work. And I was in the military.”

“You weren’t a front-line soldier, were you?” he asked wisely.

Cal grimaced. “Well, no.”

“You don’t see this kind of warfare other places,” Eb replied. “It’s not too late to turn back.”

Cal’s eyebrows arched.

Eb knew a lost cause when he saw one. He laughed shortly. “Okay. I’m convinced. Just keep close to us when the shooting starts, all right? It’s easy to lose track of where your comrades are. Ngawa isn’t like other places, other wars.”

Cal nodded. “I’ve read about that.”

Yes, read about it, not experienced it, Eb was thinking. This kind of warfare had left many a man either drowning the memories in alcohol or, sometimes, eating bullets. Cal had a soft heart, and that could be a liability. He’d do what he could to shield him. But it might not be enough.

“And here we are again,” Rodrigo Ramirez said with a grin as he joined them.

“How can the DEA spare you?” Eb teased, shaking hands.

“Because they don’t know I’m here, compadre,” he whispered loudly. “Surveillance is a misery I try to avoid. Six days in a parked car, trying to look unobtrusive,” he groaned.

“At least I hope the cars were changed daily.”

“Twice daily, and it did not help,” Ramirez muttered.

“Well, this will make you long for it.”

“You think?” Ramirez flashed him a grin and went to speak to the others.

Cal had seen horrible things. He thought they were horrible. In retrospect, after he returned to the States much later, he realized that those things in the past were only minor disturbances.

Juba, the Ngawan child the group of Americans had adopted as part of their contingent, ran toward a nearby building for cover, just as the worst of the firefight began. A ragged soldier behind a machine gun had just thrown a small pack into the doorway. He aimed and shot it the instant Juba jumped over it. Cy Parks had yelled and yelled, but Juba hadn’t stopped. Not until the explosion. Not until Juba screamed and the world went up in a rain of straw and pieces of lumber and pieces of Juba.

“Oh, God,” Cy groaned when they managed to get to what was left of the little boy. The band of AK ammo around his thin body was lying in pieces around him. He was missing an arm and a leg and there was a huge gash in his small belly from which matter exuded.

They knew there was no power on earth that would save him.

They used pain medication from their packs to stop the screaming. Then Cy sat with the agonized child in his arms, held close, wrapped in the woven blanket Juba wore, talking softly to him in a broken voice, until he, mercifully, died. While the soldiers who had set the trap lounged in a nearby machine-gun nest that held the whole unit at bay, catcalling that the kid was a waste of skin and soon they’d do the same thing to his so-called friends.

Nobody spoke. Cy gently laid the little boy down, closed his eyes. When he looked up, his green eyes were like emerald flames. The fury inside him was visible. He got up, his .45 cocked and ready, his attention fixed on the machine-gun nest from which the explosives had been thrown. From where the catcalls were still coming.

“Cy, no!” Eb Scott yelled above the gunfire.

But they were pinned down. There was almost no cover. They lay flat in the dirt of the small village, bullets hitting around them like hail.

Cy didn’t hear, didn’t answer. His furious gaze was fixed on the machine gunner who’d made, and set, the explosive that had killed Juba. The man had been bragging loudly about his talent while Juba died in Cy’s arms.

Cy plowed right toward the nest, cursing every step of the way, ignoring the shouts of his comrades.

The gunner laughed as he turned the machine gun on the man approaching. Cy walked right into the gunfire, oblivious to the bullets that, amazingly, mostly missed, until he reached the gunner and emptied the .45 into him at point-blank range.

“Look out!” Cal yelled as two men started toward him from behind.

Cy reacted immediately, whirling. Two knives flew from under the loose sleeves of his jacket, burying themselves up to the hilt in the approaching insurgents. Cal had never seen anything like it.

Cy whirled, bleeding, and started toward the rest of the men firing at them from cover where the dead machine gunner lay.

“Bring him down!” Eb yelled over the gunfire.

Laremos and Dutch and Archer tackled him, and it took all three of them to stop him. They managed it just as three other insurgents opened fire directly at their grieving, furious comrade.

Cal was firing for all he was worth. He was usually one of the most accurate shooters. But all around him, men were screaming in pain. Insurgents on both sides were bleeding from wounds, everything from lost limbs to fatal hits in the body. It was a nightmare of sounds and smells. He was shaking. He hadn’t realized it. He was firing, firing, and the gun was empty, but he couldn’t stop. Despite his service on the police force, his time in the military, this was a type of gore he’d never experienced in his life.

Eb was yelling at him, but he was deaf to his comrade’s voice. All he could hear were the screams. All he could see was blood, blood, more blood...!

“Fall back!” Eb yelled again.

Eduardo grabbed him by his pant leg and dragged him backward with the retreating group. At the edge of his vision, he saw what was left of Juba. The little boy had been laughing with them, begging chocolate as they massed for the attack, carrying an AK that weighed almost as much as he did. The bullets were still flying as both sides tried to gain ground. But Cal was so disoriented that he wasn’t sure where his lines even were, and still Eduardo dragged him backward, flat on the ground, with dust filling his mouth, his vision, with bullets hitting all around them.

And even as reinforcements arrived, he was still lost in the horror of it.

Cal realized what Eb Scott had tried to spare him. This was unlike police work. Commando war was down and dirty, bloody, full of mangled, bleeding bodies, of people screaming from wounds that left them without arms or legs or both. It was a war where children carrying AKs and pistols and rocket launchers, hyped up on drugs, came at them in droves and were cut down. Children the age of Juba, who had known nothing except war.

They’d reloaded their weapons during a lull, and they were waiting for the signal to attack again. As they moved forward, Cal spotted one of the child combatants lying on the ground with his leg half off, screaming. Cal turned toward him, despite the fact that the child was with the enemy forces. He needed help.

Eb was yelling at him, yelling for all he was worth. Cal couldn’t make out the words buried in gunfire.

As he approached the child, the boy’s hand went to a .45 automatic that had been lying under him. He laughed as he shot at Cal, just one shot, before the loss of blood led him to unconsciousness and then death.

Cal felt the blow against his upper thigh, as if someone had beaten it with a fist. He was suddenly weak, and he couldn’t get up. How odd, he thought. Nothing was wrong with him. Why couldn’t he get to his feet?

Eb was standing over him, calling for medical supplies, his eyes wild.

He tried to ask why Eb looked so worried. He felt wetness under him. He looked down. He was bleeding. He was bleeding badly. Had he been shot? He was only trying to help the boy.

His eyes went to the child who’d shot him. The pistol was lying beside him. His eyes were open. His leg was in a pool of blood.

“The...child...” Cal could barely speak. How odd.

“Dead,” Eb said coldly.

“Still...bleeding,” he added. The boy couldn’t be dead because blood was still pumping out of him.

“You can’t save someone with a wound like that,” Eb said calmly as he started to apply bandages. “He’s dead. His body hasn’t realized it yet. He only has a minute or two left.”

Micah Steele was beside him now with a hypodermic needle. He shot it right into the vein at the crook of Cal’s elbow.

“What...?” he started to ask. Then the pain hit him. All at once. Fire. Blood. Anguish. He’d never felt anything so horrible. He wasn’t going to start yelling. Men didn’t do that. Except they did. He groaned aloud.

“Peace, compadre,” his friend Eduardo said from somewhere close by. “Be still. Let the medicine work.”

There was another shot. The pain began to recede, bit by bit. He was staring around at all the bodies. There were so many. Some were children, boys of grammar school age who would never grow up to be doctors or lawyers or even soldiers. Boys. Little boys. Torn to pieces by bullets, by bombs, by people, well-meaning people, who only wanted to save their government so that they could grow up in a safe place, with hope for the future. Bright ideals. Swimming in blood. So much blood...

“They’re bringing Cal home today,” Amelia’s grandfather told her when he came home from the post office.

She brightened. Until she chewed on the words he’d chosen. Not Cal’s coming home. Somebody was bringing him home. Whole other connotation.

“Bringing him...?” Her heart stopped in her chest.

He sat down at the table, dropping the few pieces of mail onto the tablecloth. “He was badly wounded,” he told her. “It’s going to be a long recuperation.”

“Oh, no!” She sat down, heavily. “But, he’s alive?” she added quickly.

He nodded. “Alive. Eb and his men, some of them, got back last night.” His face was hard. “I think it was a battle that none of them will ever forget. And some of them will never be the same. Cal, especially.”

“That bad?” she asked in a husky tone.

He nodded. “That bad.”

She drew in a long breath. “I can take care of him,” she said.

“Let’s wait and see if they send some of their own people,” her grandfather told her.

“You’re worried about gossip,” she said.

He smiled. “Really?”

She grimaced. “Sorry. I knew better.”

“Valeria, now, that’s another story.”

“What she doesn’t know won’t bother her,” she reminded him with a grin.

“I suppose so,” he conceded. He reached again for the bottle of acid reflux medicine.

“When is that doctor’s appointment?” she asked.

“Three weeks,” he said. “Not that long a wait.”

“You could see somebody sooner, at one of those walk-in clinics,” she suggested.

He shrugged. “I’d rather see my own doctor.”

“You can’t bully the people in the walk-in clinic,” she translated.

He chuckled. “I’m okay. Just heartburn. Now stop worrying!”

She gave in. “Okay.”

He patted her on the back on his way to get a Coke out of the fridge. “I’m glad you worry about me. Now stop doing it.”

She laughed, as she was meant to.

Cal came home in an ambulance. Eb Scott drove up just as Amelia came running from across the street.

She was terrified and unable to hide it. She followed the men with the gurney, and Eb, into Cal’s house and waited while they settled him on his bed.

“I’ll see about a private duty nurse,” Eb began.

“I don’t need a nurse,” Cal said through his teeth. “I’ll be fine. I can walk!”

“No, actually, you can’t,” Eb said, aware of Amelia hovering.

“I’ll take care of him,” she said quietly. “What do I need to do?”

“Get a rope,” Eb said curtly. “A strong one. We’ll tie him to the bed!”

“I said, I can walk!” Cal tried to get up.

“Aaaaaaah!” Amelia said, using the tone her grandmother had always used with her when she tried to do something stupid. She put her hands against his broad chest where his shirt was parted in front and pushed gently until he was horizontal. His eyes were wild. She’d never seen such an expression. “You aren’t going anywhere,” she said shortly.

“Thank God,” Eb said under his breath as Cal made one small effort to resist her and abruptly gave in and lay back down—not without a harsh glare.

“You have prescriptions,” Eb said. “I’ll go get them filled. You’ll need groceries. I’ll see if I can find somebody to cook for you...”

“I can cook,” Amelia said. “I even know how to bribe him with his favorite food,” she added.

Eb managed a short laugh. “Okay. Are you sure?” he added. “It’s not a pretty wound and it will need to be watched for signs of infection.”

“I can blow stuff up,” she said, and wondered why both men looked so traumatized when she said that. “I’m not squeamish.”

“All right, then,” Eb said gently. “I’ll go to the pharmacy and the grocery store.”

“Petty cash is in a jar on the kitchen table,” Cal said heavily.

“Not a problem.” Eb went out behind the ambulance guys and closed the door.

Amelia looked down at him, thankful that he was still alive, even if he was wounded. But the way he looked was troubling. She’d never seen that expression on his face in all the time she’d known him.

“It was bad, wasn’t it?” she asked.

His dark eyes were shimmery with pain. “You have no idea.”

“Well, you’re home and safe now,” she said. “I’ll take care of you,” she added quietly. “It’s all right.”

He was fighting horrible memories. Hearing things, seeing things he could never share except with a comrade who’d been there. He looked at Amelia, but he didn’t see her. He saw Juba, in pieces on the killing ground. It was a picture he was never going to get out of his mind.

His life was never going to be the same again. And this was just the beginning of the nightmare as he tried to adjust to life as it would be from now on. Eb had been right. He had no idea what he was letting himself in for. Now he had to try to live with it.