She made a series of motions with her hands and fingers, waving them back and forth, but none of it made any sense to him. He gave up trying to decipher it all.
“Well, next time, just stay put like I told you,” he chastised her. “Orders are orders from now on. Do we understand each other? What if you’d gotten caught … or hurt? I can’t protect you if I dunno where you are.”
She rolled her eyes as she broke open the shotgun and took the shells out. It was enough to let him know she didn’t think he was being too appreciative of her for saving his ass.
“Don’t give me that look,” he fussed. “If you would’ve done like you were told, I wouldn’t have been in the lurch.”
“Hell, son! Don’t be so hard on the pretty li’l thing!” Support for Amber came from an unexpected ally as the old man chimed in on her behalf. “Gotta give credit where credit’s due. Not just anybody can sneak up on ol’ Thaddeus Pettigrew. You can call me Tex, though. Everybody else does.”
She jutted her chin out and gave a smile of validation, while at the same time, pointing to the pulse rife slung over her shoulder.
Tiger was almost at a loss for words. He was almost afraid to ask, “Where did you get that?”
She started gesturing again, but this time he cut her off before frustration set in. “Never mind. I don’t even wanna know!”
“Pull those horns in,” Tex decided to put his two cents worth in. “Cut her some rope. Seems she was making herself useful.”
“Oh? Well, I was making myself useful, too,” Tiger’s brow raised in curiosity. “But you were gonna shoot me.”
“Nawww, I wasn’t gonna shoot ya. Not unless you did something really stupid. I was just gonna call the police.”
“I see. I would suggest your opinions are slightly biased there,” Tiger’s lips pursed. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with pretty tits and a bodacious ass would it … Tex?”
The old man grinned; the same grin a sixteen-year-old boy might have at this point. “Hell, son,” he shrugged sheepishly. “There might be some snow on the roof but that don’t mean the fire’s out in the furnace. I’m old but I ain’t blind and I sure ain’t dead!”
She lifted the Stetson off his head and put it on hers. She thrust one hip out, putting a hand on it as she moved her head from side to side, modelling for him. He gave her an approving smile. “Well, don’t you make a fine-lookin’ cowgirl!”
Tiger rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well … I really hate to break up the mutual admiration society, Tex. But we still gotta take your hover. I wasn’t bullshitting you. There are people who want to kill us.”
“Why? ‘Cause of her?”
Tiger couldn’t help but give a smartass smirk. “You win the prize, pard.”
“What for?”
“Your guess would be as good as mine.”
“‘Cause of what she is?”
“Probably. If I was a bettin’ man, I’m sure that’s got something to do with it. I don’t know exactly why, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not gonna let it happen if I can help it.”
“Who’s after you? Gangsters? Smugglers? Dirty cops?”
“ARA operatives. Some seriously bad dudes.”
“I see,” Tex nodded. “Cold-blooded, hired guns.” A look crossed his face similar to one resulting from ingesting a three-day-old burrito. “Goddamn manhunters.”
“You sound like you got something personal against them.”
“Nah, I just saw some of ‘em up close and personal back in my day. Wasn’t much impressed.”
“You were a cop?”
“I was a Texas Ranger, by God!” The old man thrust his chest out like a peacock preening for a mate. “Assigned to the San Jacinto Rocket Troop.” He suddenly deflated, as his countenance darkened. “At least I was before the Nationalists and the Seceshs finally got enough power to secede my beloved State from the Union and reform the Republic of Texas all over again.”
“I take it you didn’t cotton to that move,” Tiger remarked.
“I’m an American first and Texan second!” The old man unconsciously stood straight, his pride manifesting itself though his posture. “Besides, extremists scare me. Folks too far right or left tend to have a tendency to kill others who don’t cater to their opinion. As such, I resigned my commission, packed up my bride, Cella, and we moved east.”
“You seem like a scrapper. You wished you’d stayed and fought?” The ink hadn’t dried on the Texan Declaration of Independence before Mexico saw the opportunity to settle a centuries-old score, one that had long stuck in their national craw. That same day, Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande at points all along the river from Brownsville to El Paso.
“You mean do I ever feel like a coward for running out when I did?”
“That’s not what I mean, Pops,” Tiger could tell he’d ruffled the old man’s tail feathers. The Texas National Guard had been vastly outnumbered, but fought bravely, defending the home soil of their newly reformed Republic. After three years of heavy fighting, they’d finally turned the tide and pushed the Mexicans back across the border, but not before cities like El Paso, Odessa, and Corpus Christi lay in ruins. Since then, the lines had stabilized along the river. The U.N. had intervened, declaring the Rio Grande a DMZ, and sending in peacekeeping forces, but a state of war had existed for the last twenty years between the two countries.
“No.” He shook his head. “With all the Latinos in Texas when it went down, there was a lotta mistrust and suspicion. A lotta bad shit went down … on both sides. Things got nasty from what I heard.”
Tiger knew where he was coming from. Wars bring out the worst in people. All people. Behind the lines, some pro-Mexican factions waged guerilla warfare and
