“How will you get to Texas so you can get back across the border?”-Johnny was really concerned about Ramon.-They truly had come to think of him as almost a member of the family.
“I will call a friend of mine in St. Louis and he will come to pick me up.”-Of course, Ramon had no intention of going home.-He would be afraid of putting his family in danger and he had no friend in Missouri—or anywhere else for that matter.-If Garcia and Norton did see him, he was putting the Wroes and O’Reillys, the only people he could possibly call ‘friends’, in grave danger by staying another night; but he would need the money desperately if he had any chance of getting away from Laquidera.
“Well, if I’m going to stay another night, we might as well get some more work done before bedtime.”-That had been right after lunch so they had all afternoon to work.
By three o'clock, it was afternoon break time and Chrissy had just taken some sugar cookies out of the oven.-The recipe was one of Grandmother Thorne’s from the beautiful cookbook she had fixed for Chrissy as a wedding gift.-They smelled delicious and Chrissy decided Johnny, Ed, Ramon and the other two workers would enjoy one while they were on break.-As she came down the steps from the front door, she noticed a big black car coming up the driveway they had built from her dad’s place to their new house site.-The men were sitting in the shade of a big old Beech tree just on the east side of the house and trailer.-The men were unaware of the car coming up the drive from the north until it was almost to the house site and the passengers in the car couldn’t see the men until they got almost to the end of the structure.-When they saw the men under the tree, the man on the passenger side stuck an assault rifle out the window and began shooting.-Ramon jumped up and began running, realizing immediately what was happening.-He started to run toward the trees at the other end of the house; but he suddenly realized that while that was his best chance of getting away, it would also put Chrissy in the direct line of fire.
“Chrissy, go back inside.-Quickly.-Quickly,” Ramon shouted.-He knew Jorge would not be the least bit bothered about shooting an innocent woman, not even a pregnant woman even though there wasn’t enough of a bulge yet for anyone to know she was pregnant.-So Ramon swerved immediately and ran toward the line of trees way up behind the trailer.-The shooting continued and in a moment they all saw Ramon pitch forward and lie perfectly still.-There were two more bursts of fire aimed at the motionless form that had been Ramon Mendez.-The car’s driver did a doughnut in the road and headed back out the way they had come.-Miraculously, nobody else was hurt but when Johnny and Ed reached the body, they could easily tell that Ramon was indeed dead.-Chrissy was on her way up there, too, and Johnny ran to her and headed her off wanting to spare her the horror of seeing Ramon’s mutilated body which had been cut almost in two by the vicious attack.
Chrissy screamed, “Oh, Johnny, is he alright?-Do I need to call nine-one-one?-What happened?-Why did those men just shoot him down in cold blood?-Tell me he’s going to be alright, Johnny!”-Chrissy sat down on the ground and cried.-Incredulously, she was still carrying the tray of cookies.-
“No, Christina, he’s dead, Baby.-But he saved your life by running the other direction.-If he had continued toward the trees on the west, there’s a thick enough grove there to have given him some protection, but he saw it would put you in danger so he went the other way.-I can’t figure why they would just come up here and start shooting at him and they were definitely shooting at him alone.-Ed and I and the others were sitting ducks, if they had chosen to shoot at us or you, either.-I owe Ramon a lot more than two weeks’ wages.”-Johnny held Chrissy tightly and in another minute Ed was beside them to be sure his daughter was alright.
They went back to the trailer and called the sheriff and he was there in fifteen minutes.-When Johnny told him one of his workers had been murdered, he realized he would need the coroner, too.-Sheriff Lampton called the coroner and when he arrived a few minutes later, they spent a lot of time at the scene.-Then the body was removed and the coroner took it back to Fordsville and eventually on to Hartford for processing there.-
The sheriff took statements from Ed, Johnny and Chrissy.-About all anybody could tell him about the car and its occupants was that the car was long and black and there seemed to be only the two men in it.-Ed did finally remember that the license plates weren’t local and that he thought they had a blue star in the background.
“I think it had some red on it, too.-I remember thinking about ‘Texas’ when I saw it.-Actually, though, I don’t know what Texas license plates look like.”
“Neither do I, but I’ll find out.-I’m thinking this could be a mob hit or something, Johnny, and I don’t know much about investigating something like that.-Of course, I'll do my best to find out who did this but we don't have much dealings with the mobs in this little town.-There’s this private eye over at Owensboro who would be a lot more likely to figure this out than I would.-If you can afford it, I’d suggest contacting him.”
“Well, Sheriff, I owed the man almost a thousand dollars in wages.-We can start with that and see where it gets us.-Will you call him and see if he’ll come out and at least talk to me?”
“Sure, Johnny, and I’ll help him in every way I can."