Chapter One - Honest Injun

Willy looked more haggard than usual.  Long thin wisps of grayish brown hair had escaped his cap
and straggled over his ears and eyes.  A thin, sharp nose protruded from unshaven, sunken cheeks
with thin bloodless lips a mere gash under them.  Never a fashion plate, a much frayed greasy Levi
jacket draped his skeletal body like an empty shirt on a Chinese laundry's hanger. Agent Orange had
him in its unshakable, incurable, and final, fatal grasp. There was nothing he could do about it -- no
fad diets -- no new pills -- no magical treatments. There was nothing left for him;  just life's
inevitable bad ending come early

He'd spent the better  part of a half-hour in a rambling, disjointed, and drunken rant about people
who had bought ranches next to us two or three years ago at estate sales. The same San Antonio
lawyer had represented all three buyers and simply outbid everybody else.  He didn't quibble, just
kept raising the price until he had them.  We couldn't figure out what was going on; we still
couldn't because the ranches weren't being worked.  Recent dust clouds indicated some activity or
vehicles coming and going, but that was it.  The land lay fallow with new fences and no trespassing
signs everywhere.  We hadn't seen hide nor hair of the new owners.

"I'm telling you they are dangerous -- real dangerous.  We have to move fast.  I've got three names,
but they may be fronting for others.  I just don't know.  That's what you can find out in Santa Fe."  
He glared at me.  "You have to go there."

I shrugged and sipped a bit of José Cuervo.  "Why?"

"According to land records they live their."  He reached into his jacket for a fat envelope.  "Here's
five thousand to cover all your expenses.  Get all the background you can get on them.  Anything,
gossip, bull shit, whatever crap that can be found.  We don't know what can help us.  I swear there's
something going on.  We're going to need every bit of information we can get."

"Are you plumb loco? That's way too much money.  I won't need anything like that. fifteen
hundred, twenty five tops.  It shouldn't take more than two or three days, but right now I have
some cases to clean up.  I'll get a flight out on Thursday or Friday.  I promise."

He leaned forward and banged on the table.  "Go now!  Please!  Believe me you'll earn  the money.  
Besides, it's not all my money; others have kicked into the pot.  If I'm right this is as dangerous a
job as you have ever had, including  the Patrol and Nam. Yes, you'll earn it all right.  I found out
that the three of them are trustees of something called the Creemec Realty Trust."

I nodded.  "Yeah."

"Write it down for Christ's sake!"

I decided to please him and grabbed a pen and pencil.  "Go ahead."

"One's named Estevan Guerra, another is Timoteo Patino, and the other is a Michael Veron. I think
he's Russian, and, if I'm right, dangerous.  I asked some friends to check on them.  They said they
get back to me.  But, I don't think  we can wait so you better go as soon as possible, please."

I shook my head.  "Are you out of your cotton picking mind?  First of all, you gave me too much
money, and what do you mean a dangerous Russian?  I don't want to go on a dog and pony show.  
And, what else do you know that you're not telling me?

He shook his head slowly. He seemed even more haggard in the last few minutes. His bony hands
trembled."I've been doing a little bit of checking at the county courthouse.  That's where I got their
names.  You know as well as I do that those places were snapped up as fast as the wills could be
filed. Like somebody was going to make a real estate killing. They forked over almost two million in
cash; no liens; no mortgages. You'd think this was prime land with  water rights.  I can't figure out
why they'd think that way.  It doesn't make any sense. Out here it's nothing but dryland farming or
a cow to two acres. Hell, none of us do more than survive and pay taxes.  Nobody's ever seen them.  
But, I think they have already made a killing."

"How's that?"

"Our neighbors that's how.  Some way or other they got to Luke Destry, Max Turnbull, and Pie Eyed
Jones."

Because of his condition I hated to point out to him that those departed neighbors had been in their
70s and 80s when death knocked at their doors.  What the hell did he expect?  That they were going
to live for ever?  They had lived alone as their families or what was left of them, had fled to the big
cities.  I respected the fact that if anybody knew death it was Willie.  I suspect that from Nam to
now death had been all around him

Willy Waxman's ranch adjoined mine.  He was a fellow Nam veteran and bachelor which made our
bonds tighter.  I knew he'd been a "door kicker" or loadmaster on a C 130 throwing Agent Orange
out on the HoChiMinh trail. He'd also done some time on Puff the Magic Dragon, an AC-47 gunship,
and other, very dangerous, and quite probably, illegal acts for the old red, white, and blue.I
understood because in years past I also been on a few "unsanctioned" and "unauthorized"
operations with the border patrol and a high intensity drug area task force.  Not all of our wiretaps
had been with a federal magistrate's blessing.

I figured Willy's work had been done for an alphabet agency.  Take your pick, CIA, FBI, NSA,
DOD,Christ may be all of them.  It was just a suspicion of mine based on a few drunken indiscreet
remarks over the years.  And, in one very drunken bout, a reference to time spent with Air
America, the well-known front airline for the CIA in Nam. That coupled with his in-depth
knowledge of the bars and whore houses of Chiang Mai in the Golden triangle -- the heart of the
Southeast Asia opium trade, and a known CIA listening Post.  Plus his many month long
unexplained, and undiscussed, disappearances over the years.  And, as cops would say, he had "no
visible means of support."

"Please go, Mike.  I can't.  I'm not in shape to travel."

His earnestness and despair got to me.  And, one other thing, as I've said, Willy had been around
danger for most of his life.  He knew it when he felt it.

"Mike, it's like being in Nam when we could smell the VC in the elephant grass.  I smell something
out in the monte, brush."

I could understand that, but one thing bothered me.  "I'll get the first plane out tomorrow. But,
what's this business about one of them being Russian.  How do you know?"

He looked away.  "We'll talk about that when you get back."

I shrugged.  "Can you drive?"

He nodded slowly with the studied carefulness of the drunk."Don't worry about me. Just don't get
tagged and bagged out there."  He reached across the table, shook my hand,tugged his Vietnam vets
baseball cap down over his eyes, and stumbled out of my office.

I had that feeling.  The one I had every time my PBR, river patrol boat, slipped out at night on the
Mekong, or one of its tributaries, drifting along looking for Viet Cong crossing, or junks and sampan
 that weren't supposed to be there.  Suddenly there'd be a cacophony of violent sound as flashes and
fireballs rent the night sky.  And like strings of obedient fire flies endless lines of tracers chased
each other across the darkness.  Then the old Chief Bosun would turn to me and say, "Guess what
boot?"

And I'd finish his statement.  "We're in the shit for fair."



                                      End of Chapter One



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