months.”
Victor nodded. “When he gets information on McHenry’s friends, pay him again.”
“Happy to. Beetle’ll probably be happy too.”
“Somebody thinks this jarhead is some kind of hero,” Victor grated.
“Guy’s been around,” Fat Mike said. “Pulled Iraq. A lot of special-ops assignments. He’s looked death in the face.”
Victor studied the Marine’s classic handsome face. “Pretty boy.”
“That he is.”
The dark, violent anger writhed inside Victor. He felt it moving, and he embraced it. When he had that, he could do anything.
Victor read through the bio on the man again. “McHenry. Where do I know that name?”
Fat Mike grinned. “Now that was the part I was waiting for you to remember.”
Victor put the papers down and looked back through all those years. “That skinny farm boy we ran into in Qui Nhon was named McHenry.”
“Yeah, he was.” Fat Mike rifled through the pages till he found the one he was looking for. He pushed it across to Victor. “Turns out maybe we should have killed him that night too.”
“We needed him to get us through the checkpoints.” Victor remembered that night like it had been yesterday. They’d sweltered in the truck as the kid, McHenry, drove along Highway 19 out of the coastal city. “If he hadn’t been along, we wouldn’t have gotten out of the city.”
“I know. And without him, we wouldn’t have gotten one of those guys that killed Tran’s family.” Fat Mike took in a breath and let it out. “Once we dumped that body off, I wanted to kill him. But you didn’t.”
“We needed him to get back into Qui Nhon.”
“We coulda walked back in,” Fat Mike said. “We did it plenty of times before.” He tapped the paper. “You read that report, you’ll see Shelton McHenry’s father is Tyrel McHenry.”
Victor couldn’t believe it. “That guy was the same grunt we jobbed in Qui Nhon?”
“Yeah. Ain’t that a kick in the head? Just proves how small this world is. If we’d killed Tyrel McHenry back then, he wouldn’t have had a boy that grew up to kill Bobby Lee.”
23
›› Rafter M Ranch
›› Outside Fort Davis, Texas
›› 2441 Hours (Central Time Zone)
The mare delivered her foal without any trouble, but Tyrel McHenry stood watch all night just in case. Since he’d laid the foundations of the ranch house, there hadn’t been a horse born on his ranch whose birth he hadn’t attended.
The same could be said, more or less, of the cows. When the calving season began in the winter and extended into the spring, it made for long days and long nights. Tyrel stayed horseback for days on end, making cold camps and watching over his flock. From time to time, he had to help out with the birthing. Sleeping on the ground when it was still holding on to winter temperatures had gotten harder over the years, but when the day came that he couldn’t do it anymore, he figured they could just cover him on over.
Sitting there on a bale of hay and watching the mare nudge her new baby to its feet, Tyrel reflected that maybe he wouldn’t have too many more years to watch miracles like the birth of a new animal. He was getting older. He could see it in the wrinkles on his face and the slackness and weathered cracks of his skin.
Growing old bothered him. He disliked the idea of infirmity. He’d seen people-some of them younger than him-who just couldn’t seem to take care of themselves anymore. If he ever reached that time in his life, he figured it would be better to just cash in his chips and get up from the table.
But it doesn’t really happen like that, does it? he told himself. You just keep right on drawing cards, even if you got a losing hand, because you just can’t stop yourself.
Death itself didn’t bother him. A good part of him had died in Qui Nhon all those years ago.
Grimly Tyrel turned his thoughts from that time. He’d promised himself that night while looking down on the dead man’s face that he wouldn’t think of what had happened ever again.
He had been unsuccessful. Even when he didn’t think of that terrible event, the weight of it rode him around like a determined bull rider. No matter what he did to shake that weight-drinking and fighting and just pure cussedness-it would never go away.
The only person who had ever been able to remove the old fear and gentle him down had been his wife. He missed her. Every minute of every day. There wasn’t a thing about the ranch that didn’t remind him of her. And he was trapped by everything that had happened in his life.
It would have been better for her if they’d never met. Or if he hadn’t fallen in love with her despite the fact that he knew better. But he hadn’t been able to help himself, no matter how much he felt that he hadn’t deserved her love.
If she hadn’t loved him back, he could have walked away from everything. Vanishing into the back roads would have been better than trying to pretend he was a normal person.
Because he hadn’t been normal since that night in Qui Nhon.
His wife had paid the price; he couldn’t talk to her about anything that had happened in the war. His sons had paid the price as well.
And now you got grandbabies paying that same price, you inconsiderate old fool.
Although he’d never admit it, Don’s words on Father’s Day had hurt him in ways he didn’t know he could still be hurt. When he’d put his wife into the cold, hard ground, he’d thought it would be the end of those feelings.
Life was like that, though. He’d never truly been able to figure out what it was he was supposed to do.
Or why.
Mostly it was the why of things that got to him and made everything difficult.
He reached for the insulated cup of coffee he’d brought out with him and took a sip. The coffee was cool now because he’d been out in the barn so long, but it was still strong. He liked his coffee strong. He made it the way his daddy had. Strong enough to put hair on a rock.
His daddy had been a tanker in World War II. That had been the last of the simple wars, where everything was black-and-white, and a man could fight for what he believed in and know that he was right for doing it. The same couldn’t have been said about Vietnam.
Tyrel sat there and thought thoughts he’d promised himself he’d never think again, and he didn’t know why he was thinking them. Nothing good could come of this.
Maybe, he mused, he was putting himself through his own particular hell again because he’d stayed at the ranch instead of going with Don to check on Shelton.
What kind of daddy wouldn’t go to the hospital to see his nearly shot-to-death son?
Your kind, that hard voice said in the back of his mind. The kind that’s scared of what’s lying out there for him.
But that wasn’t all of it, he knew. He didn’t go because he didn’t want Don or Shel-or the grandbabies-to think on him too hard. He couldn’t be there for them. He couldn’t ever be there for anybody.
He’d known that since Qui Nhon.
›› 0112 Hours
Satisfied that the mare and her new colt were going to be fine, Tyrel got up from the hay bale. His knees cracked in protest.
When he was standing, he walked over to where Ramon Sanchez lay. Ramon was fourteen years old, the oldest grandson of Miguel. He was a handsome boy and looked a lot like his granddaddy.
“Hey,” Tyrel said gruffly. He kicked Ramon’s boots hard enough to wake the boy.
Ramon came awake instantly and looked apologetic. “Sorry,” he said in Spanish. He rubbed his eyes. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“You were snoring so loud I thought you were gonna spook the horses,” Tyrel said. He spoke in Spanish, but
