Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(78)
When his stomach settled, the Ranger made it a point to check the pools of blood for residual footprints, but he found none. Neither did he find any trace whatsoever in the hallway. Bullet holes stitched the walls of all three rooms in jagged designs, indicative of wild shooting absent of aim. A few of those holes, more like chasms dug out of wood, wallpaper, and plaster, looked to be made by shotgun shells, which were unlikely to miss anything they’d been pointed at from so close a distance.
None of it made a damn bit of sense.
Just after Steeldust Jack’s cursory inspection of the rooms was complete, John D. Rockefeller came striding down the hall, within a protective circle of gunmen armed to the teeth.
“I didn’t want this to go to guns, Ranger,” Rockefeller told him, his voice groggy and his gaze uncertain. “I truly didn’t. But now that it has…”
He let his thought trail off, the intent of his words hanging there between them with more meaning than any he could have spoken.
“I don’t know what killed your men, sir,” Steeldust Jack told him, “but it wasn’t guns.”
“Say that again, Ranger?”
“I checked the bodies as best I could,” the Ranger explained, his hand still hot from holding the lantern before him. “I know a bullet wound when I see one, and I didn’t see one. No, sir, not even close. And I’ll tell you something else, Mr. Rockefeller. From what I heard and seen, the men in all three rooms were attacked at pretty much the same time.”
“What are you telling me, Ranger?”
“That maybe this time you’re up against something you can’t beat. Maybe it’s time to leave town, and Texas too.”
Rockefeller’s lips quivered, making his mustache seem like it was fluttering. “I don’t scare easy.”
“I suppose not. You hired soldiers to fight in your stead in the Civil War,” the Ranger continued. “Buying out the Clark brothers positioned you to make your fortune off the backs of men like me, coming home to try and pick up our lives. You have a reputation for destroying your competition and just about anyone who gets in your way. Just ask Charles Pratt and Henry Rogers. The horse that plowed their company over was really your Standard Oil, and I believe you came to Texas intending to employ the same strategy here.”
Rockefeller’s thin smile glinted in the flickering light. “You been checking up on me, Ranger?”
“Local library got its share of newspapers, for any man willing to look.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
Jack Strong watched John D. Rockefeller close the distance between them, until he was close enough to smell the stale aftershave clinging to the man’s clothes, mixing with stale sweat.
“You tell those Comanche I won’t be scared off, Ranger. You tell them if it’s a war they want over their oil, then they’ve got it.”
Steeldust Jack cocked his gaze briefly back toward the blood-soaked rooms. “I believe they’re already aware of that, sir.”
74
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
“I assume all that jibes with your recollection,” White Eagle said, upon finishing his tale.
“Close enough. And you know something? It doesn’t change a thing. I’m not Steeldust Jack and you’re not Isa-tai, no matter what you want to lead people to believe.”
“People believe whatever they want. John D. Rockefeller crossed my people back then, just like Cray Rawls has crossed my people today.”
“I don’t know. It sounds to me like Rawls and Sam Bob Jackson have bought their way onto Comanche land with the promise of scholarships and gainful employment. How’d you make out in that deal, sir?”
White Eagle moved his gaze back to Captain Tepper. “This conversation was a waste of time,” he said. “We’ll be filing a complaint directly with the Department of Public Safety.”
Caitlin looked him right in the eyes, which suddenly appeared clear and sharp. “Whatever you’re involved in here isn’t going to come to a good end for any of those involved, especially you.”
“I’m too old to care about your threats. Nothing much scares me anymore, least of all the Texas Rangers.”
“I’d rethink that, if I were you, sir.”
*
D. W. Tepper closed the door to the conference room after White Eagle and the other two men had left.
“Could you refresh my memory as to what century this is? Because you sure talk like the nineteenth never ended at all. Aw hell, forget it. There’s someone else here you need to speak to, someone who might actually be able to serve our cause.”
“Who’s that?”
“A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who’s got information he says he’ll share only with you.”
75
HOUSTON, TEXAS
Cray Rawls hadn’t slept much the night before. It reminded him of the nights he had spent huddled outside his mother’s room while the floorboards shook in rhythm with the bed inside. How he’d tucked his arms around his knees, trying to make himself as small as possible, even invisible, to whatever man eventually emerged from inside, smelling salty and something like the odor that hung in the air in his elementary school gymnasium.
Accompanied by his pair of hulking bodyguards, Rawls arrived at the west Houston offices of Jackson Whole Mineral to review plans for the operation about to commence on the Comanche Indian reservation outside of Austin. An auspicious day, indeed, given the stakes and potential profits involved, but all Rawls felt was trepidation and anxiety. A little boy again, huddled against the wall in the cold, fearful of what was to come.