Lost DMB Files, Ep1: Reefer Ranger
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Greetings From the Editor: A Note About the Ranger
History has been unkind to John Tilly McCutchen III. Remembered as J.T. Flat Top, The Branding Iron, Johnny McDeath and other more colorful nicknames, the infamous Texas Ranger turned chief of Texicas Homeland Security undoubtedly played a central role in the early expansion and stabilization of the infant nation.
What is less certain is the nature of his influence. While common mythology has held McCutchen was a brutal strongman, dishing out unmetered violence efficiently and punitively to any and all opponents of the early Texicas, the Lost DMB Files paint a more complex portrait. At times he’s portrayed as righteous, loyal, and even sympathetic. Some would go so far to claim him a subversive and opponent to the early expansionism of Texicas despite his prominent position.
Throughout his pulp fiction career, David Mark Brown’s published works uniformly referred to McCutchen as McCormick. Not until my recent discovery of a field journal kept by Brown was McCormick’s identity matched with the historical McCutchen. This critical find has accelerated the authentication of Brown’s stories as historical accounts in disguise.
Reefer Ranger, an early lost file (#9), is believed to be Brown’s first depiction of McCutchen. Set in Matamoros, Tamaulipas during early 1914, the historic background of the gory tale depicts, among other things, a Germany more heavily involved in North America than currently believed by most. But Brown’s vivid use of detail demands the possibility be considered.
On an obscure note, I should also mention Brown’s use of ‘reefer’ appears to be the earliest on record, casting even further doubt upon its etymology, but favoring the idea of Mexican Spanish origins. It must be remarked that Brown’s depiction (and in fact highlighting) of McCutchen smoking marihuana strikes a bold contrast with everything else known about the man.
In my humble opinion I should think this an appropriate instance to apply the old saying, truth is stranger than fiction. Since marihuana was not yet well known in much of North America and the American era of “Reefer Madness” remained a dozen years away, it seems strange indeed that Brown should focus on such a detail lest it serve some historical significance. What that significance may be, we are left to merely speculate. (Oh, the professorial sport!)
For any student of history or seeker of truth, I recommend beginning your journey into the complicated mind of John Tilly McCutchen III with Reefer Ranger. Whatever you decide about the “goodness” or “badness” of this immoveable human force, let me introduce you to a central figure in the lost file universe. Reader, meet J.T. McCutchen.
Earnestly,
Professor Jim “Buck” Buckner
Reefer Ranger
Dark fell quickly and without contest during late winter in Matamoros. Striding across an alley ripe with urine and decay, Ranger J.T. McCutchen leaned against an adobe wall. Once situated, he stilled his breathing and listened for the echoing voices of the three men he’d tracked to this unmarked cantina. Soon he heard a familiar chorus buoyed into the night air by shots of cloudy mescal.
“La cucaracha, la cucaracha, ya no puede caminar porque no tiene, porque le falta marihuana pa' fumar.”
It was a revolutionary verse, one he had heard before. Unclear about the reference to marihuana, he knew the song to be sung often by Poncho Villa supporters. The following verse could indicate something important about the men he sought.
“Cuando uno quiere a una y esta una no lo quiere, es lo mismo como si un calvo en calle encuentra un peine.”
It was nonsense, a farce. Something about unrequited love being as ridiculous as a bald man with a comb. No matter, he hadn’t suspected these men were Villistas anyhow, nor the rivaling Huertistas. The actions of Villa and Huerta only mattered to him when they spilled across the border, which after three years of revolution was happening more often.
These were most likely simple bandits, cattle rustlers, but he hadn’t followed them across the border for a good night kiss. He sniffed the air, the end of his nose curling. As his eyes adjusted to the scant light, he spotted a crate of rotting cabbages across the way. Covering his nose with the crook of his elbow, he breathed deeply.
It seemed unlikely he’d take the men into custody without bloodshed. For a second he regretted not jumping them before they reached town.
Realizing the singing had stopped, he instinctively reached for one of his Colt .45 Flat Tops. The crunch of a boot on gravel sparked the silence. He spun to confront it, but for the first time during his ten years of service with the Texas Rangers, he was too slow. The business end of a shovel struck his brow, his skull compacting with the force of the blow. Popping lights blinded him. Spasming, he dropped his .45.
Strange, but he thought first about the condition of his hat, rather than his head. He listed and would have fallen, but another attacker shoved him hard against the adobe wall. He smacked the back of his head against the mud brick, bracing himself and wondering where his hat had gone. His vision rolled left and right as if he pitched on a boat.
“Un rinche solitario. Usted debe haber permanecido el hogar, el diablo tejano.”
McCutchen steeled himself against the coming onslaught. Bloodshed was a certainty now, most likely his own. “Wherever I’m standing is my home, you dirty Mexican bastard.”
With that a fist shot out of the shadows, connecting with his jaw. Briefly he thanked God for the support of the adobe wall. Stay on your feet, he thought. Reaching beneath his duster with his left, he drew his second Colt Flat Top. Now or never. Before he could focus and aim, the shovel swept back into view. As the shovel smashed into his hand, he forced off a round early. Then he forgot about God altogether.
“¡Dammit, el tiro híbrido yo!”
A din of angry voices rattled in his head like bees in a tin can before a fury of blows broke against him. Desperately he tried to whistle, to call, anything, but his jaw had swollen shut. He covered his face the best he could. Finally someone pulled him from the wall and threw him to the ground, where a boot to his temple ended the nightmare.
Two gun shots brought a sudden end to the violence.
“La prisa, el Villistas está viniendo. ¡De nuevo a la hacienda! ¡Viva Huerta!”
Men scurried down the darkened alley echoing the refrain, “¡Viva Huerta!” But the man who gave the orders paused at McCutchen’s body, limp and lifeless. He holstered his gun before stooping to pick up a single Colt .45, the second smothered by the Ranger’s body.
“¡Rápidamente!” He followed the others, leaving a stillness behind.
Filthy water trickled down the center of the alley mixing with McCutchen’s blood. A black cat pounced from a stack of crates, chasing cockroaches past where he lay face down in the dirt. An hour later a slumped, old lady exited the cantina carrying a table cloth full of rags slung over her shoulder like a sack. So diminutive was her stature, the bundle settled behind her knees. When she turned, there in her path lay the rinche.
“Ay, dios mio,” the lady whispered as she bent to check for a pulse. Her wrinkled face, round eyes peering from deep furrowed caves, was dark and ruddy like blood and chocolate. She straightened. Muttering to herself, her sack still over her shoulder, she scuttled away.
Thirty minutes later she returned with two goats dragging a litter. Grunting, she rolled his upper body into the makeshift basket of rope and clicked her tongue. The goats obediently tugged the limp body of the Ranger, cowboy hat now resting on his chest, to her house on the edge of town. Without slowing, they pushed through the heavy fabric hanging over her doorway.
Glancing over her shoulder, the old woman followed them in. Amidst the stillness a chill settled into the trough of night beneath winking stars. Moments later the goats reemerged to scavenge for scraps of garbage.
Slits of greasy light poured into the street from around the curtain door. Inside, the bent lady wrung a rag into a basin of water. Humming to herself, she dabbed crusted dirt and blood from the Ranger’s face. Unconscious, he rested upright in the basket of the litter. In the flickering light of an oil lamp the woman crossed herself in the Catholic manner while growing more rhythmic in her tune.
She lifted McCutchen’s eyelids. His eyes had rolled back into his head. She bent close to his face to block the wavering light. His eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched. She pulled down on his chin to open his airway and listened intently as his breath came in raspy, labored draws punctuated with irregular shudders. Finally she massaged his face and neck before feeling again for his pulse.
Instead of beating slow as it should, it increased in tempo, his muscles tensing. Nimbly she jumped onto the bed and rummaged on a high shelf tucked under the thatched roof. On finding a small bowl of crushed leaves, she returned to McCutchen’s side. Transferring flame from the lamp to the leaves, she breathed it briefly to life before allowing the fire to turn to smoke.
She placed the Ranger’s hat on his forehead and draped a wet rag over its brim to cover his entire face and chest. She sat close to him, holding the bowl, allowing the smoke to rise alongside his neck up into the tent she had created. The Ranger snorted and coughed. As she kept the smoke rising steadily with her breath, his quaking muscles relaxed.
“Ah, marihuana sagrada.” Sacred marijuana.
McCutchen groaned. He felt he'd awoken in the back of a dark, pulsing cave. He wrestled with his senses until he heard a soft chittering, like quail hiding in brush. The sounds were incoherent.
He focused on smells, quickly wishing he hadn’t—manure and smoke the only two odors he could distinguish. What the hell? He tried to open his eyes. At first they refused, as if sewn together. Gradually a thick crust cracked and broke.
For several blinks, he saw nothing but a flickering blur. Finally the scales fell away, and he recognized his surroundings as the inside of a chink house. Plaster had fallen in several areas, revealing the wooden structure packed with gravel and mud. It wasn’t a jacal or adobe, common housing for poor Tejanos and Mexicans. It was the traditional housing for Indians.
The realization seized him with panic. He jerked, reaching for his Colts, but they were gone. Pieces of memory returned in random order. He remembered hearing the chorus to La Cucaracha, discovering the trail of two horse thieves at the edge of a thicket, and finally the dark shape of a shovel cracking him in the skull. He remembered the scrape but had no way of knowing a full 24 hours had passed.
The chittering sounds returned. Lurching, he realized his arms were tangled, or tied down. He swore, his eye and mouth twitching. His headache throbbed with his increasing pulse.
“Usted no debe maldecir tanto, cursing no good por tu health.”
He flinched as an old woman, bearing no signs of fear or menace on her ancient face, pushed through a curtain that served as a front door. He flashed his eyes around the room. Nothing jumped out at him. Nothing seemed to indicate any sort of danger. His arms had only been laced through the ropes of a rudimentary litter, which, upon closer inspection appeared to be the source of the manure smell infusing him.
“Pardon my French,” he said as he freed himself and sat up.
“Français?” The woman looked puzzled.
“No, no. Never you mind. English will be fine. Now if you don’t mind me asking, where the hell am I? And what happened?”
“En mi casa. Los bandidos le dejaron para los muertos, pero dios sonrió en usted. ¿Entienda?” The old woman paused to let him catch up.
“Bandits. Yeah, I understand.” He slowly looked himself over. Everything appeared to be intact. He was cut, bruised and bloodied, but not so bad off, considering. His left hand had swollen stiff, most of his face an ill-fitting mask. Two thoughts occurred to him. “My hat? My guns?” She nodded her head, but stood there silently. He tried again, “Mi pistolas? Ah, sombrero?”
“Si.” She pointed with her lips to his right side.
He looked down. His hat, his grandfather’s Stetson, rested beside him. Crushed in the front and dirty, it was no worse off than him. He popped his neck, reached down and took the hat to straighten it. A cockroach scurried from beneath the brim.
“Mi pistolas?”
The woman smiled and nodded in the affirmative.
Before he could try again he caught a whiff of something strange coming from his hat. “What’s that smell?”
“Marihuana.”
He narrowed his eyes at the old woman and waited for her to continue.
“Marihuana para sus asimientos y su asma. Le ayudó a curar. Marihuana, good medicine.”
McCutchen bolted upright, pain shooting along his spine. “You pumped me full of loco weed? To make me better?”
“Si.”
“You crazy old hag! What the hell did you do that for?” He could hear his grandfather’s words echoing in his brain, lecturing him about the limitations of men who depend on stimulants and alcohol for courage.
He’d taken a vow when he first became a Ranger that nothing stronger than a good glass of wine would violate the sanctity of his body—temperance seeming more reasonable than prohibition considering his Scotch-Irish, Presbyterian upbringing. His father may have been a spineless, religious nut, but he made a dang good wine.
As he tore into the woman again, the muscles in his face jerked and twitched worse than before. “Not now.” He pressed his fingers to his face, breathing deep. Nervous tics had affected him since youth and were intensified by stress. While studying the latest criminal justice methods in Austin he’d developed successful means to discipline and control his body. He lost them among his alien surroundings.
He tried to stand. “Look, woman. I need my damn guns, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
The woman clucked softly and shook her head, positioning herself to support him. Struggling to fend the old woman off and stand without her help, McCutchen flopped backward into the litter. Suddenly she shushed him with a slashing gesture across her throat. He didn’t argue. He heard it too.
Stilling himself, he struggled to slow his heart rate and control the spasms in his face and throat. Swallowing came hard while a humming rose in his ears. Relax, dammit. But it was no use. The old woman reached under the mattress to pull out a slick Winchester rifle, lever action. She eased a bullet into the chamber.
“What the—”
She held a single finger to her lips.
He heard it again, the sound of boots scuffling in the dirt outside the chink house. He gestured for the woman’s attention, mouthing the same question from before, “pistolas?” But she stared intently at the heavy curtain hanging in her doorway, as a shallow bleat from a goat ended in gurgling.
“Santa María, Madre de Dios.” She kissed an amulet hanging from her neck and steadied the rifle. It would’ve been comedic, if his life hadn’t depended on this shriveled old woman leveling a rifle longer than she was tall.
Still trying to regulate his breathing, McCutchen scanned the room for his pistols. He heard more movement outside. The edge of the curtain bulged inward. This is crazy, he thought. I’m being hunted by bandits in Mexico with only a raisin and some goats to protect me. The only thing he could find within reach to fight with was a kettle. Cast iron, it would have to do. The curtain moved again.
A goat poked his head through the opening and bleated, blood dripping from its muzzle. A roar and flash ripped the stillness in two as the old woman pulled the trigger on the .30-30, working the lever action to reload.
“¡Diablo en infierno!”
The shack danced with the impact of hot lead. McCutchen slammed onto the earthen floor, abandoning the idea of the kettle. Plaster ripped off the walls and shattered in clouds of rock and dust in the air above him. “Son of a bitch!”
The old woman still stood in the middle of the room. “¡Dios en cielo, trae su fuego para quemar Huerta y a sus diablos!” She shoved the barrel of the rifle into a hole in the wall and worked the lever, burning the night air with gunpowder and lead.
McCutchen dragged himself through an increasing pile of rubble, searching for his Colts while his throat continued to tighten. His right eye twitched so rapidly he could barely use it. Smoke filled the upper half of the room, the thatched roof on fire. In another few minutes the fight would be over one way or the other.
The woman stomped next to his right hand, and he looked up. “¡Pistola!” She pulled one of his Colt .45’s out from under her skirts, handing it to him.
“I’ll be a son of a—” He spun the cylinder. It was fully loaded. Outside, the gunfire lulled as the bandits waited for the flames to do their work. With nimble fingers the old woman reloaded the Winchester. She pulled a tin out from under rubble on her bed and threw it to McCutchen.
“You take. Good medicine.”
He ignored her. Twitching, he leveled his Colt toward the door where the torn curtain dangled in the opening. But it was little use. He couldn’t steady his aim. His face and neck yanked to the left. He’d be able to kill a man at ten feet, maybe. At least it was night. But the fire would make it easy for the bandits to see him and the old woman when they stepped from the burning house.
The woman bent down and took the tin. She shoved it into McCutchen’s chest. “Okay, Okay.” He tucked the tin into an inner pocket of his duster.
Without waiting longer, she surged through the curtain and into the night air before McCutchen could respond. Gunfire blazed from all around. McCutchen lurched toward the opening, chapped he was following an old woman’s lead. But a bullet struck the door post.
As shards of wood and rock knocked him off balance, he hit the jam hard. Quaking, the remains of the burning roof collapsed inward.
In a shower of sparks, a roof support struck him on the shoulder and drove him to the ground. The smoldering support pinned his left hand, cooking the flesh. Smoke burned his lungs. Rolling onto his back, he heaved the beam off. Above, he saw night sky where the roof had been.
Unbelievably, gunshots continued as the old woman called down fire from heaven while the Winchester delivered it. He pulled himself into the chill night air on his belly, bear-crawling away from the illumination of the flames. A hot slug struck him in the thigh like a hornet. He gritted his teeth and rolled onto his back.
A flash, followed quickly by a pop, originated from the brush beyond the clearing the goats had grazed. Dirt kicked up next to the Ranger’s boot. He steadied his aim toward the source of the flash and let his Colt roar. After tearing off three quick shots, he continued toward the shadow of a cement trough.
He threw his back against the cold cement, gasping for breath. His head spun. Lights danced and popped in his vision as the night suddenly fell quiet. The gunfire ceased, but he couldn’t stop the spasms. Finally, overwhelmed by pain and unable to breath, he passed out.
McCutchen awoke to several sensations at once. Scattered drops of rain chilled his exposed skin and hissed among the burning embers of rubble. Numbness alternated with electricity throughout his extremities. An orange sun brushed the belly of the clouds on the horizon. Finally, a snuffling beside his head jerked him totally awake.
A goat, one of the twins belonging to the old woman, nuzzled at the crusted blood in his hair. Snorting along his shoulder, the animal tugged his duster open and sniffed the tin in his pocket.
“Alright, that’s enough. Shoo.” Lying flat on his back, McCutchen tried to wave the animal off, but even the slightest movement was difficult. He found his hat lying next to his head, brim down and relatively dry. Well that’s a stroke of luck. He propped himself up and discovered his Colt digging into his back. “Hello pretty.”
He checked the cylinder. Three bullets. No sooner than the blood returned to its normal circuits, his nervous tics began. He could breathe, but his right eye flickered as his neck jerked his whole head to the left worse than as a child. A crackling sensation returned in his shoulder and hand, like his frame had been shoved into skin three sizes too small.
He’d forgotten about the burn. Picking at the charred edges of his duster, he glimpsed the white puss forming in and around the wound. His left hand had swollen and cracked, first degree burns covering the back of it. The flesh trapped under his ring blistered and continued to cook. He tried to spin it, but it stuck fast, his meaty hand much too swollen. He shook his head. Elizabeth, why can’t I let you go?
Finally he remembered the gun shot to his thigh. Cringing, he checked behind the torn flap of bloodied denim. “Hot damn, I’ll live yet.” It had merely scratched him, taking nothing more than a bite of flesh. Coming full circle, he remembered what had brought him to Mexico in the first place. Grinding his teeth, the poison of the night’s events flowed through his veins, strengthening him with hatred.
The goat lapped water from the trough, and the need of drink gave McCutchen immediate purpose. “Mind if I join you?” Sweeping flotsam aside, he cupped his hands. After several scoops he steeled himself against the pain and rose to his full 6’3” height. He had some killing to attend to, but first.
He scanned the senseless carnage around him. A warm slice of sun burned the gap between cloud and horizon, blinding him as he peered toward the remains of the old woman’s house. He shaded his eyes and moved closer. Remnants of a pool of blood and drag marks in the dirt indicated where the old croon’s first shot had struck home, most likely a kill.
He refused to think about the woman herself. There could’ve been only one outcome for her, and thinking about it made his eye spasm.
He skirted the edge of the rubble into the clearing between the woman’s house and the wilderness beyond. The first grisly sight he encountered was the companion goat, throat slit from ear to ear, his side half charred. Pattering rain drops dappled the thick dust, disguising the blood trails. But he found one that started in the center of the clearing and worked its way toward the brush.
He didn’t want to finish analyzing the scene, but he had no choice. He owed her that much and more. Drawing his Colt, he left the blood trail and swung wide to search the edge of the brush. He recognized the prickly pear he’d loosed three rounds into the night before. At least one of the slugs had not been wasted. Blood spatter covered several pads. The trail led south toward a cluster of large mesquites, probably where the horses had been tied up. He would check that later.
Moving more quickly, he steeled himself for the inevitable.
“Good God.” In an opening surrounded by acacia shrubs McCutchen found the remains of the old woman’s body. She hadn’t just been killed. She had been desecrated. He swallowed and took a deep breath before bending over the grisly scene. The woman had been shot several times. By the looks of it, more than a few of them before she fell, and some after. In anger, one of the bandits had carved her with a knife.
He coughed, finding it harder to breathe. About to stand, he noticed something clenched in the woman’s hand. Prying back her fingers revealed the amulet she had kissed the night before. Too much unfinished business, he thought, as he rubbed the amulet between his thumb and finger. It looked Aztec. He recognized the grotesque face of the sun god at the center.
On wobbly legs he stood while slipping the amulet inside his duster next to the tin. He reached the smoldering chink house and the blood stained dirt at its entrance before his curiosity got the better of him. After confirming all tracks led toward the stand of mesquites, he opened the rusty tin.
“Crazy old bitty.” The tin contained a dozen tightly rolled marihuana cigarettes. He clenched the busted and swollen fingers of his left hand, listening to the voices of his grandfather and the old woman in competition. But his grandfather, a Ranger to the end, had gone to rest a long time ago. This woman’s body was barely cold, and she had died, in part, because of him. “Good medicine.” It was the least he could do for a woman whose name he would never know.
He pulled out a single cigarette. Stooping over the burning coals of a roof beam, he puffed it to life and took a slow drag. He coughed at first, hacking up a loogie, then settled into the familiar routine of inspecting the scene. By the time he reached the mesquites where the horses had been tied, his breathing came easier.
There had been five of them. One dead, one wounded. Out of the three remaining, one was heavy while the other two where slight. They rode away toward the south. The woman had mentioned Huerta. If these were Huertistas operating this far north they needed protection against the roving Villistas, the infamous peon cavalry of Pancho Villa. Only one place for twenty miles could provide that sort of protection. First he had to fetch his horse.
The remaining goat followed him half way to the cantina before turning around. He felt affection for the little loner, but a half-chewed up gringo rinche wandering Matamoros by himself was conspicuous enough without a goat trailing him. On the other hand, there was no point in being furtive now. No longer quietly tracking prey, his next move would be offensive. Soon enough his enemies would know exactly where he was.
By the time he reached the northern edge of town, his gate had quickened and his tic had completely gone. “I’ll be damned.” He patted the tin in his duster.
After reaching the riverbank of the Rio Grande, he pursed his lips and pierced the morning air with a sharp two-toned whistle. He bent the pitch upward and added a trill at the end. Repeating it twice, he crouched behind a yucca. It didn’t pay to be a visible target anywhere along the river these days, on either bank. In less than a minute he heard a familiar whinny as his horse, Chester the IV, trotted up from the river bottom.
Sleek and happy, Chester snorted. Not in the least perturbed it had been thirty-six hours since McCutchen left him by the river, he mulled green grass around the bit in his mouth.
“No, no. I’m fine. You?” McCutchen gritted his teeth as he swung himself into the saddle. In no hurry, and not particularly desirous of agitating his wounds further, he led Chester at a comfortable walk around the western edge of town. Having been spotted heading north toward the river, he carefully remained out of view. He wanted watching eyes to assume he had returned to Texas soil. Good riddance. But he wasn’t going home yet. He had work to do.
The two-story stone hacienda jutted from the horizon, visible from miles away. Dismounting on the backside of a knob, he indicated for Chester to stay close. With his Colt reloaded, he carried jerky, dried apricots and a canteen to the top of the rise. After making himself comfortable, he watched the comings and goings while devising his night raid.
The property for miles around belonged to Hacienda Nuevo Santander. As well, the hacienda operated over seventy acres of farmland and a mill. It wasn’t cotton, but McCutchen couldn’t tell from his perch what the mill processed. A cluster of low adobe houses crouched at the near corner of the fields. That would be the first place he’d be spotted, if he wasn’t careful.
On a slight rise to the east perched the hacienda proper. The lessor brick buildings surrounding the original stone mansion included a store, cantina, blacksmith, kitchen and whatever else the hacendado deemed necessary to live according to proper standards.
A damn waste. Extravagance leading to laziness and weakness, as far as McCutchen was concerned. Many of the Mexicans felt the same way, disassembling or crushing most of the haciendas at the beginning of the revolution.
The fact this one still prospered fit with the notion that Huerta had taken a liking to it personally. But that was none of his business. His concern was that vaqueros from this hacienda had rustled cattle from Texas ranches, including the Corona, and had recently tried to kill him, twice.
Stealing cattle and threatening the life of a Ranger were both killing offenses. That meant the law stated he could kill them twice, and he intended to. Justice was coming, but it would have to wait until nightfall. Only one thing troubled him. He’d never gotten a good look at the men, neither at the cantina nor at the old woman’s.
Gambling, an affliction of the pathetic, was beneath him. All the same, McCutchen reckoned it a safe bet the bastard that carved the woman had the Winchester. That was something. And with any luck, he’d reclaim his lost Colt too. His .45 would no doubt be gripped by the man who organized the ambush at the cantina. He’d put down whichever hijo de puta he found with his pistola, and be doing the world some good.
His plan more or less in place, he turned to his relaxation regimen to pass the time. Maybe later he’d take a nap before heading down for reconnaissance at dusk. He grunted as he crossed his legs and placed his feet on his thighs, careful to avoid the gunshot wound. Opening his palms upward, he cleared his mind.
McCutchen observed several sentinels setting up watch around the periphery of the hacienda, including one dang near the knob where he’d spent the heat of the day. When darkness fell, he slipped easily through the first line of defense.
Guessing they would switch the watch around midnight, and anxious to get the job done sooner rather than later, he moved quickly. He couldn’t have hoped for a better situation. Some of the hacendado’s men started a large bonfire to fend off the damp chill blowing inland from the Gulf of Mexico. McCutchen knew their line of sight would be diminished by the flames. The peons remained the only wildcard.
He and Chester steered clear of the fire and the buildings, choosing the spot safest from stray eyes. For several minutes McCutchen sat quietly in the saddle, observing the scene. Six to eight men sat on benches around the edge of the fire whooping and hollering while peons milled nervously across from them.
McCutchen shook his head. For amusement the vaqueros had chosen to humiliate peons by making them dance. The breeze shifted, carrying their voices toward him.
"This is some good stuff, yes?"
“Why don’t you have some?"
"Oh that’s right, I forgot.”
"You’re too busy dancing." The vaqueros cackled with laughter, firing off rounds in the air and at the peons’ feet. The raucous startled the horses tied up opposite McCutchen’s position. Dumb bastards. Villa could ride in with an army, and they’d never hear it. Finally they quieted down as the leader picked up where he’d left off.
“Besides, you’re too poor and ugly to smoke the General’s personal marihuana.” A vaquero choked and blew smoke, the others laughing at him.
Finally the pieces started to fit. The crop McCutchen had seen during the day was cañamo, marihuana. Even if Huerta smoked incessantly, the only reason to grow this much this far north was for trade along the border to obtain information, weapons and favors.
Whatever benefit McCutchen experienced from the plant, these men were obviously too boorish and undisciplined to enjoy. It spurred an evil inside them. Intoxicated and cruel, the jackals turned violent on the huddle of peons. A burst of gunfire scattered the workers toward the adobes. The image of the eviscerated old woman flashed in his mind. Marihuana had been responsible.
McCutchen thought a couple vaqueros had broken out in a scuffle until realizing the one who seemed to be el Jefe had snuggled up with a peon woman. She tried to defend herself, and he turned rough. Slapping her, she fell back, almost tumbling into the fire. A cry came from one of the adobes. So the were watching. If he could take out the first few vaqueros maybe the peons would help, or at least not get in the way.
El Jefe stood and spat on the girl while she squirmed on the ground. Then McCutchen noticed it. On the bench beside the man rested a rifle, the old woman’s Winchester. As el Jefe approached the girl, he chose to draw a knife, rather than a gun. He threatened her with it lewdly.
That left no more than six men against the six bullets in his Colt. He lashed Chester with the reins. The two of them, horse and rider, drew within yards of the fire before the vaqueros realized a terrible apparition bore down on them.
Gazing dumbly into the darkness they first spotted Chester’s flaring nostrils, then McCutchen, as he swung his right leg backwards over Chester’s rump. He spun around completely to make a running dismount. The Ranger needed every bullet to count.
With his momentum carrying him toward the vaqueros, McCutchen focused on the first among them to respond and squeezed the trigger. The cylinder rolled, the hammer fell, gunpowder ignited and a singular hole appeared in the man’s forehead. Again, McCutchen squeezed the trigger. Fire lit the end of his barrel. A second man fell with a sudden hole to the forehead.
Chester continued at full bore. Leaping over the fire, he clipped a burning branch and showered sparks on the retreating men. McCutchen slowed to a steady walk, mechanically working both hands as if he held the second .45 in his left. In reality the right had to work twice as fast. He pulled the trigger a third time, and a fourth. Two more men fell, skulls vented to the night. But it wasn’t enough.
A bullet whizzed past McCutchen’s head. The immediate crack, like axe on wood, meant it’d been all too close. He whistled for Chester and bolted toward the adobe buildings, putting the bonfire between him and the remaining vaqueros, including the son of a bitch with the knife.
Only two more rounds came close. Reaching for horn and stirrup, McCutchen snagged Chester at full gallop. But as he shifted his weight into the saddle, Chester slumped and dove headfirst into the ground. The sudden change of momentum flung McCutchen sprawling over the horse’s head.
He hit hard with no time for pain. Dirt pelted him in the face as a bullet missed low. To make things worse, he heard el Jefe ordering someone to go for help.
McCutchen scurried back to the fallen horse who rasped up a mixture of blood and foam with every labored breath. “Dammit. I’m sorry, boy.” He took shelter behind the horse and felt the animal’s warm body jerk with fresh bullet wounds. Now he was in for it. No horse, no element of surprise and only two more bullets.
Angry at himself for stupidly losing precious seconds, he reloaded his Colt with rounds from his belt. He tried to think. If one vaquero rode for help only two remained. If he could get them and find a horse…
A slug tore through the meat of his calf, interrupting his thoughts. His body hummed with pain. Every nerve fought to override his ability to reason. But he had to think. Something was wrong. He wasn’t in their line of fire. Like a shotgun blast, it came to him.
The glint of fire light on steel flickered in an adobe window. He rolled to his left as another flare revealed a rifle barrel spewing hot lead. The bullet struck Chester mercifully in the head. With no cover and no choice McCutchen pumped his good leg, hobbling toward a narrow opening between adobe homes.
Only a couple of stray shots pursued him, the vaqueros possibly reloading. He braced himself against the cold adobe and tried to think clearly, but he was losing the battle. The peons had turned against him. Stupid Mexicans were all alike—willing to shoot the guy helping them just because he’s a gringo. Or did they know he was a rinche? How could they know? But who the hell else would charge in here alone?
His line of thought wasn’t helping. Furious, he couldn’t stop. All the piss poor treatment he’d taken from Mexicans over the years. Even the children hissed, “Rinche, pinche, cara de chinche,” calling him a mean Ranger with the face of a bug.
He was only doing his job. And a damn fine job at that, protecting worthless, ungrateful trash. And now Chester. The best damn horse he had ridden, shot down by some snot-nosed peasant. Not even a hardened bandito, but a peon who couldn’t recognize help when he saw it—a peon growing marihuana and spreading it into his Texas! An encroaching darkness absorbed him.
The gravel crunched behind him. Faster than God, he spun and pulled the trigger.
“¡Maria! ¡No, Maria!” A woman’s wailing echoed off the adobe walls.
He inched closer to the body he'd just shot, now slumped on the ground. He kicked the head out of the shadows. It listed into a sliver of moonlight in the narrow alley. McCutchen made out the shape of a woman’s face, a woman’s hair. He knelt down. It was the girl el Jeffe had threatened with his knife, no more than 13 years old. Her dress torn, a dark stain spread across her chest.
“Jesus.” McCutchen stood woozily. He'd never shot a woman. Never in all his years of bringing justice to these God-forsaken borderlands. And only a girl at that. Sobs came from a nearby adobe.
“Shut up! Shut the hell up, you hear me? Comprende English?” McCutchen limped around the back of the adobe into the open night air. “I ain’t no bug. I ain’t no badman. I’m the God-damned law! You hear me?” He fired into an open window. “You caused this, not me!”
Something behind him caused him to turn. The hair on the back of his neck bristled. Something big moved in the dark a hundred yards off, or a lot of somethings. A single shot echoed from the direction of the sentry on the knoll. He flinched, but it hadn’t been aimed at him.
Suddenly the night air boiled with angry voices. “¡Viva la revolucion! ¡Viva Villa!”
“Son of a bitch.” Of all the nights for Villa to attack the Huerta stronghold, it had to be tonight. Of all the dumb luck. McCutchen limped as fast as he could toward the last adobe in the row of buildings, a large square structure standing thirty yards apart from the others. In the daylight it appeared to be the best built, and in this case, the most likely to stop bullets. It also had no windows, only huge double doors.
War whoops shattered the quiet like church bells on a Sunday morning. Momentarily he thought about bolting, simply running into the brush and letting the Mexicans kill each other. But he couldn’t do it. He wouldn't scurry into the desert like a bug. Sons a bitches, he still had a job to do.
He shot the lock off the heavy wooden doors and swung them open enough to see inside. A stack of kerosene lanterns sat next to a bucket of lighters. Good enough. He shut the heavy doors behind him, drowning in the pitch blackness. Shouts from outside grew louder. Groping in the dark, he found a four by four beam meant to barricade the doors from the inside, and dropped it into place just as bodies slammed against its callous surface.
He turned toward the lanterns, found one and lit it. “What in the name of all things holy?” He held the lantern high until it revealed an armored vehicle and crate upon crate of weapons. Several of the crates open, he didn’t even recognize some of what he saw. They were guns, he just hadn’t seen their sort before.
A large pile of rifles lay spilled at his feet. Behind and to the right, several boxes originally reading “Vasićka” had been scratched out and relabeled, “granada.” He pulled off one of the lids.
“Bombs.” The box was filled with handheld bombs. He'd heard of these, explosives with a fuse or that detonated on contact. He stepped away slowly. The auto loomed to his left. Beyond that, a stack of machine guns, like the ones the cavalry carried, but newer. German. Overwhelmingly, the crates where imprinted with German. He'd seen enough of the language in the hill country around Austin to recognize it without a doubt.
The pounding on the doors grew louder before coming to a stop. Gunshots splintered the wood. The heavy doors would take a battering, but they wouldn’t last forever. He jumped onto the runner of the truck.
A large machine gun had been mounted to its bed with coils of ammunition ready-fed through the device. He'd never driven an auto or fired a machine gun, but he'd driven a tractor since he was twelve and seen the military work the contraptions several times. “This is crazy."
Snatching two granadas, he scurried back to the truck. To his relief it started. He put out the lantern and stood behind the wheel, waiting for the doors to give way. Within seconds, the beam splintered and fell to the ground. As the two giant doors swung outward, the low rumble of the gasoline engine greeted the confused mob.
McCutchen chucked one granada and then the other as hard as he could. Both exploded simultaneously, knocking him back into the driver’s seat and deafening him. He jammed the truck into gear and shoved his foot down on the pedal. Spitting gravel against the back wall of the adobe, he shot out a short distance before slamming on the brakes as soon as he cleared the doors. Groans and swears filled the immediate darkness while shooting and yelling filled the further distances like coyotes calling to each other.
With his good leg he leapt into the back of the truck to wield the machine gun. Here goes. He depressed the trigger slightly. The recoil shook him to the bone. Holding on, he clinched his jaw to keep the teeth from rattling out of his head.
Anything that moved, he lit it up, until finally nothing moved. He released the trigger, giving the gun a chance to cool and taking the opportunity to untangle several more feet of ammunition. From his vantage he saw directly across the fields to the old hacienda.
Foolishly, every lamp in every room had been lit, or perhaps the lights were electric. The Huertistas had pulled back, retreating across the field toward the stone walls of the hacienda. The Villistas, on the other hand, had responded to the machine gun fire, thinking it was intended for them.
A cluster of horses pulled away from the main regiment, riding around the field toward McCutchen’s position. “Come and get me, boys." As the lead horses got within fifty yards, he opened it up. The pealing thunder of the gun erased all sounds of life. His eyes, rattling in their sockets, saw nothing but death.
Then a click and a whirring buzzed around his head as the barrel spun but the ammunition jammed. Amazed it had lasted this long, he jumped down and took one last granada from behind the seat. As several Villistas regrouped and bore down on him with guns blazing, he chucked the bomb into the yawning darkness of the munitions shed and worked his good leg as fast as he could toward the fields.
This time the explosion rippled like a chain of firecrackers, until eventually fumes from the kerosene combusted into a fireball that lit up the night like high noon. The concussion, followed by a wave of heat, launched him headlong into the furrows of marihuana.
“Santa Maria.” The lead rider, tossed by the explosion, landed yards away from McCutchen. Shock registered on the dazed revolutionary's face as he realized a chewed up gringo leveled a pistol directly at him.
Without another thought the Ranger dispatched him. “Mary can’t help you. The time for prayer is over. Judgment has come.”
McCutchen picked up a burning splinter of the wooden doors and limped around the edge of the field, lighting the last stalk of each row on fire as he went. He arrived at the bonfire, pleased to see the Winchester waiting for him. Holstering his Colt, he clutched the rifle in his hands.
“No gods. No prayers. Only justice.” He reached inside his duster and clutched the old woman’s amulet. He’d intended to throw it into the fire, but thought against it.
He continued his uneven progress through the blazing field of cañamo, a single, sinister silhouette cutout against the flames he left behind him. Halfway across the field the alarm sounded for retreat. The remaining Villistas gathered in clumps along the road and lashed their horses toward the west and south.
McCutchen reached the great stone gates as the surviving Huertistas scattered, gathering whatever horses they could. Right inside the gate, barking orders, stood the man the Ranger had hoped to find. While the man waited impatiently for his horse to be brought to him, McCutchen limped steadily forward.
His clouded thoughts could think only one thing. Justice demanded to be paid in blood. The marihuana-fueled lawlessness of Mexico would not reach Texas while he still drew breath, and he was breathing now.
At thirty paces, the bandit turned to face him. A charred rinche recently back from the grave several times over was the last thing he expected, and the sight clearly unnerved him. McCutchen wanted to be sure before he shot the man down, so he let him draw first.
Steel flashed and gunpowder flared, but the bullet went wide. More importantly, as McCutchen drew his .45 he knew with a certainty he'd been fired on with his own gun. From twenty-five paces he pulled the trigger, putting one bullet in the Mexican bandit’s eye.
He took his stolen Colt from the dead man’s grip, using it to shoot the man who finally delivered the ringleader’s horse. The horse snorted but didn’t bolt. McCutchen recognized a mutual spark burning in the beast’s eyes.
“Whoa there,” he calmed the animal. “You’ve got a new boss now.” Hoisting himself up with the horn until he could swing his injured leg over the horse’s rump, he stroked the animal's neck. “Chester V, that’s what I’ll call you. Now hyaw!” He lashed the animal with the reins and galloped out the front gate, heading toward home.
As he mounted the little knoll, he stopped to look back at the carnage outstretched below him. “La Cucaracha indeed. Everybody knows it’s the roach that lives in the end.” He spat and turned to go, now at a walk. The next day reports would reach Brownsville of a great battle at Nuevo Santander. Many dead and many wounded. But nobody would ever know a rinche had started it, or that a rinche had finished it.
END