Moments passed. “You really going to San Antonio?”
“Yes.”
She crossed her arms, sort of hugging herself. “You’d do that? Risk that for me? For us?”
I stared west. “A man I knew once withheld from me what I deserved, and gave me what I didn’t. Doing that changed the way I think about me and other people.”
“Who was that man?”
“My father.”
“Was he a Ranger, too?”
“One of the best.”
“Wish I could have met him.”
“A few more feet that way and you’ll be standing on his head.”
She jumped like she’d stepped on a snake. Dad’s grave lay behind her. She stepped around it, knelt and brushed her hands over the stone. An iron cross, with a cinco peso badge in the center, stood at the head. Below it, a marble stone read:
Dalton Steele
Texas Ranger. Company F.
He did not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day.
1949–1989
When she looked at me, a lightbulb clicked on. “When you said that he died of lead poisoning, you didn’t mean from something he ate, did you?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
I told her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I was a junior in high school. The five of us—Scrapper, Holes, Knuckles, Eyes, and me—had become friends. Given my dad’s occupation, we fell into the idea that we could do what we wanted. So long as we didn’t get caught. Holes had a thing with cars—could hot-wire anything. Stacey had an uncle who bought bootleg tequila off some Mexicans a good bit south. We’d steal a car, drive south on back roads never dipping below a hundred, fill the trunk with booze, then return to little towns along the way and sell it out of the back for a profit putting the car back where we got it before the owner knew it was missing. I didn’t drink the tequila but I soaked up the adventure. The rush. You might say I enjoyed the Kool-Aid. And they all knew I was pretty good in a scrap.
Harmless, right?
Wrong.
Saturday night, Dad was out all night, working a case.
Holes had found his dream car—a Smokey and the Bandit Pontiac Trans Am with a supercharged 400-cubic-inch engine. He quipped, “It’ll burn rubber in all four gears.” We broke into the man’s garage, pushed it out silently, and headed south. At one point in our drive, the dotted yellow line in the middle of the highway had become solid. Holes grinned and said calmly. “One forty.” We filled the trunk, sold most of it on the way home, and sold the rest when we got into town an hour before daylight. The trick was getting the car back where we’d found it before the owner discovered it missing. We filled it up, cut the engine and pushed it two blocks and back into the man’s drive and garage—only with a little less rubber. We left him a gallon of bootleg on the front seat to thank him for the use of his car. We didn’t normally do that but that car was something special.
What I didn’t know was that the Pontiac belonged to a judge who worked long hours. When he woke at two, let out his dog, and saw an empty spot in his garage where his car once sat, he called my dad.
The rest of this story doesn’t get any better.
My friends disappeared out the garage door, I laid the bottle on the front seat, and began making my way out when I heard his voice crack from the shadows. I nearly crapped in my shorts.
He said, “You ’bout done?”
I turned. “Sir?”
“I said are you about done?”
I figured the less I said the better. “With?”
He struck his Zippo. The flame cast a shadow across his face I did not like. He lit a cigarette. “With being an idiot.”
I was never very good at playing dumb but I had little choice. The fading sound of hurried footsteps and quick whispers told me the guys had vamoosed. I would face this one alone. “Sir?”
Until that point, my father had never hit me and never cussed at me. That night, all that would change. Although he did not hit me, I wished he would have. It would have been better than what he said, and the tone in which he said it.
He reached in the car, pulled out the bottle, and handed it to the judge who was staring down at me over my shoulder. “Your Honor.” The judge nodded and tucked the bottle under an arm. Dad continued, “He’ll start Monday, soon as school lets out. He’s yours for the rest of the school year.” I tried to swallow but couldn’t.
Dad walked up to me and raised his hand to backhand me but stopped midair. By then, I’d grown as tall as him so we were eye to eye. Spit had gathered in the corner of his mouth. His bottom lip was quivering and his right eye was twitching. “Get in the truck.”
He drove me to the morgue. Walked me in. The smell made me gag and I threw up a little in the back of my throat. Two tables lay in the center. Both covered with sheets. He walked around one and pulled the sheet off. A kid. An odd shade of pale bluish-white. I’d seen him before. Looked like Swiss cheese. Five holes center mass. Dad then turned around and pulled the second sheet off. A big, bearded man. Same shade of blue. Swollen. Bloated. A tag tied around his toe. I recognized him.
He had bought booze from us on more than one occasion.
My dad said, “Come stand here.” I walked between the two tables and he rolled each up next to my hip. One of the boy’s eyes was half cocked. Part of the man’s head was missing. Dad said, “Give me your right hand.” I did and he laid it on the chest of the boy. My index finger landed in one of the holes. “Now give me your left.” I hesitated. A strong combination of hurt and anger were blocking the words. He managed, “Give it.” I held it out and Dad laid it atop the man’s chest, spreading my fingers wide and pressing my palm flat.
He walked around the tables. His heels echoing on the concrete floor.
“Frank Jones.” He nodded. “A drunk.” He paused. “Came home yesterday morning, heard something rustling in his closet. A burglar breaking into his house. Frank grabbed his Smith and went to work. Emptied the cylinder. What he didn’t know was that”—he glanced at the boy—“Justin was home, skipping school. Went to a movie with some friends. A new Disney movie. Had the Jujubes in his back pocket to prove it.” Dad paused, swallowed, stared at the man. “With the gun still smoking, Frank opened the closet door and found this. So, he swallowed the end of his twelve-gauge, which explains why the top of his head is missing.”
Dad stood staring at me. “Frank was drunk on… tequila.” He drew deeply on his cigarette—the end glowing like a ruby, or the eye of Satan. When he’d reduced it to a stub, he dropped it and twisted it beneath his toe. I could feel blood on my hands. He stared at me. His eyes red and wet. The Marlboro man incarnate. He spoke through gritted teeth. “I been telling you my whole life that there are consequences to the choices you make, now you’re gonna see what they look like.” His finger was shaking as he told me to get in the truck. It was the first time he’d ever cussed at me. “ ’Cause I’ve got to go find Roberta and tell her how her husband shot their son.”
I can still see that lady’s face.
Dad didn’t speak to me for a week. That following weekend, he took a rare day off. I can count the few on one hand. He walked me out back of the house to two saddled horses. His and mine. It was Easter weekend. Bluebonnets everywhere. The pasture was a sea of blue. We mounted and rode several hours, giving rein to the horses. Next to me, the Bar S was the thing that meant the most to him in this world. It was where he found peace and it was the only home I’d ever known. Toward evening, we circled back and stared at our house from a half mile off. The wedding tree was a sprawling cottonwood that sat alone, its branches falling over the river.
He hooked his right leg around the saddle horn. “Your mother left us when you were quite young. I know you have few memories of her.” He fiddled with the end of his reins. “I have not… I know I have not been the best of fathers. I’ve been married to the law and you have often, rather most all of the time, played se
cond fiddle to my being a lawman. In truth, I haven’t known how to be anything else.” He glanced downriver. “I taught you to shoot down there and, well, you shoot better than most. Maybe better than me. Certainly with a long gun. But, I do regret things.” He swallowed. “Me and Frank aren’t… weren’t all that different. He was addicted to liquor. Me to this.” He tapped his chest. Ranger tradition holds that after 1947 or 1948, Rangers had their stars cut from Mexican cinco pesos, which were 99.9 percent pure silver. Dad’s was one such peso. “Being a lawman was all I ever wanted. A Ranger. A dream come true.” His voice rose. “To be a part of, counted as a member of, the most storied law enforcement agency this country’s ever known. Maybe ever. To be one of a hundred men chosen to guard Texas.” He shook his head. “I dove in. Gave Texas all of me—and God knows I do love her. Gave her the parts you never got. I learned right quick that to do this job and do it well, and hopefully not die in the doing, I had to be ‘on’ all the time. Never let my guard down. Never, for one second, clock out because if I did, I give the upper hand to the bad guys… the evil I am, was, chasing.” He nodded. “That meant that I never gave you me. Not really. Not like I should.” He shook his head. Stared a long way away. “I’ve lived my life looking for something worth dying for.” He looked at me. “I just forgot to look at home.”
For the first time in my life, my father was crying. Tears pouring down off his cheeks. He took his hat off, turning it in his hands. “I have been angry about Frank and his son and am disappointed, but not at you. For the record, Frank was not drunk on your tequila. We confirmed that with the bartender who sold him somewhere north of a dozen shots of pure agave.” He spit. “I have spent the last week realizing that if I’m not careful, I will do the same to you that Frank did to Justin.” He shook his head. “Not with a wheel gun. Not shooting blindly through a closet. But, with the absence of time. With alienation.” He trailed off, shook his head. “I’ve done that to you enough already. So, I thought I’d tell you before I told anyone else. I’m resigning the force next week.” My jaw cracked open. “Was wondering if maybe you’d like to go into business with me. Maybe we’d—” He ranged his hand again across the sea of blue. “Raise cattle together.” I couldn’t swallow. My heart was stuck in my throat. He turned in the saddle, and wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “Was wondering if maybe you’d like that, too.”
A breeze washed over us. It was the conversation I’d been wanting to have with my dad for most of my life. I squeaked out a broken and cracked, “Yes, sir.”
We sat a long time. The river rolling beneath us. He was about to start toward home when he stopped. Spent several minutes staring down across the water. Finally, he rolled a cigarette, got off Blue, and laid that cigarette on the limb of a tree then saddled up and pulled down on the brim of his hat. He said, “Want you to promise me something.”
“Sir?”
“When I’m old, and, I leave this earth, I want you to bury me in the Brazos.”
It was a good wish.
“Right there.” He rested his hands on the pommel. “Right there, in the arms of God.”
“Yes, sir.”
He spurred old Blue, turned toward the house and said over his shoulder, “You’ve got a birthday coming up. Right?”
“Yes, sir.”
I followed. His tone of voice told me he was smiling. “Seventeen, I believe.”
I rode up alongside. “Eighteen.”
He nodded and led me to the barn. “Rangers never make much money. It’s not why we do what we do. You know that. But, I saved up a little and…” He stepped down off Blue and slung open the door. He pulled the sheet off the most beautiful rusted old car I’d ever seen. Torn ragtop, a dented quarter panel, missing left rear hubcap, cracked tires, sagging tail pipe. “It’s a ’sixty-seven. Needs a little work but I thought maybe at night, you and me, we’d fix her together. Put her back together.” He weighed his head side to side. “Maybe a bit faster than she once was.”
It was a convertible Corvette SS. I ran my fingers along the back of the fender wells. I could barely speak. I managed, “Didn’t know you had a thing for fast cars.”
“Son.” He smiled. “Every man has a thing for fast cars.”
I laughed. “Didn’t know you knew how to do all this.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Thought maybe this car could change that.” He stuck the key in the ignition. “Go ahead.” She cranked on the first turn. Rough. Timing was off. Plugs misfired. Needed work. “Give it some gas.” I did and the engine revved, popping and backfiring but the revolutions climbed. “Want to go for a spin?”
I shut the door, pushed the clutch to the floor. “Thought you’d never ask.”
It was one of the best hours we ever spent together.
That night, sitting at the dinner table, a call came in over the radio. A bank robbery gone bad. Dispatch said, “Dalton, the robbers shot Mr. Langston and they’re holding Betty Sue. They’re all jacked up on some Mexican hash and doing all sorts of bad stuff to her. You can hear screaming out the bank windows from down in the street. One of the witnesses escaped and he says she’s bleeding a good bit. Maybe don’t have long.” The bank sat in the center of town, just opposite the courthouse. Dad hopped up, gulped down his last sip of coffee, and said, “Be back directly.” I watched him sling gravel out the drive and head to town. One more call amidst the hundreds I’d witnessed in my life.
I sat there a few minutes. Then I hopped in that Corvette and broke the speed limit to town, parking alongside the courthouse. I heard the gunshots as soon as I stepped out of the car. People would later tell me at the burial that my father ran up the bank steps with his Remington 870 and shot it off the hinges. They were upstairs, looking down on him. The gunfight lasted several minutes.
I crept around the courthouse and knew Dad would be measured in his response, not just blasting away. I could see the reflection of the powder flash off the marble steps’ reflection. I listened as he methodically emptied all five rounds in the 870. I could see him in my mind’s eye running it empty, loading two more in the tube, running it empty again, then laying it down and going to work with his secondary. His .45.
A .45 has a distinctive sound. A sharp quick report. Different than a shotgun or rifle. I listened as he emptied a magazine—eight rounds. Back then, magazines carried seven rounds. The eighth sat in the chamber. A pregnant pause followed, which meant he was reloading. And most definitely moving. Another seven followed. I heard myself whispering, “Front site. Front site. Front site. Presssssss.” Another pause. Followed by two more. Then silence. The fight was over.
He’d finished it.
Flashing lights were everywhere. People standing around. They tried to stop me. “Don’t go in there.” When I got to him, he was fading. His face ghostly. Shotgun blast to the right side of his chest. Not much left. His body was lying over hers. The blast had been intended for her. He was sucking air through the hole. I took his hand. The tears coming down. I was shaking my head. He reached up, thumbed them away, and winked. “The price we pay.” The blood pooled on the marble. Circling my feet. Dark red. Almost black. The sucking sound stopped. Three men lay like pickup sticks at his feet—their legs folded at unnatural angles. Two more upstairs. One writhing on the stairwell. Another hanging over the banister. He eyed the seven bodies. Then the woman. He tried to breathe but couldn’t so he grabbed my hand and placed his badge into the center of it, closing my fingers around the edges. It was slippery. He nodded. “Something worth dying for.” He tried to say more but couldn’t and exhaled.
The girl lived.
The governor laid a wreath on his casket and flew the capitol flag at half mast.
I cried like a baby.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sam and I walked back to the house as headlights pulled down our road. She jumped again, grew rigid, started nervously looking at the house where Hope slept. She rose up on her toes, ready to pounce. I touched her arm. It was the first
time I touched her in comfort, and not out of necessity. “It’s my captain. I asked him to come.”
She exhaled. “Think I’d better get some sleep. Long day.” She turned, walked away. When she spoke, she wasn’t looking at me. “Don’t take him lightly. He prides himself at being very good at what he does.”
“I’m planning on that.” Captain Packer turned and parked. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
She still wasn’t looking at me. She spoke low, fear had crept back in. “You promise?”
I walked around in front of her, lifting her chin. “Yes.”
She walked inside and I met Captain Packer in the drive. He measured me, then pushed his cigar to the other side of his mouth. The end glowed a dull red reflecting off the wrinkles that made up the war map that was his face.
Captain John Packer Jr. had entered the Ranger service with my dad. He’d been at it some forty-plus years. One of the longest serving Rangers in existence. Highly decorated. An icon. Revered by every man that served with and under him. If he asked us to go to battle, every man in Company B would be standing in front of him.
Texas had changed a lot in his tenure. He’d pinned my dad’s badge on my chest after I’d been appointed to the Ranger service and sworn the oath. When he did, he said, “Cowboy, I’ve only known one chest big enough to carry this piece of silver.” He smiled. “But, I imagine yours will, too.”