Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. Darkness, once gazed upon, can never be lost.
—John Milton
Kohl Ranch
Texas High Plains
It had been at least a week since Garrett Kohl had spotted the trespasser’s tracks on the ranch. The first time he’d seen them hadn’t rung any alarm bells. But with the second occurrence came a trail of blood. He had no problem if a deer was taken in hunger or desperation. In this case though, the poacher had killed three bucks, cut off their antlers, and left the meat there to rot.
As a former Green Beret, DEA special agent, and, more recently, an undercover operative for the CIA, Garrett had spent the better part of his life hunting people who didn’t want to be found. For that reason, and a natural instinct for tracking, he was damn good at finding them. He’d hoped those days were behind him, but apparently he wasn’t done just yet.
His new area of operations was the place his forefathers had settled back in 1893 and his family had lived on ever since. His particular piece of heaven was seventeen thousand acres of ranchland, roughly twenty-six square miles of prairie that ran north of the Canadian River and beyond the majestic ridgeline that towered above their farmhouse.
This two-hundred-mile stretch of caliche cliffs, known as the Caprock Escarpment, spanned from New Mexico to Oklahoma and jutted up from the vast plains over a thousand feet high in places. It divided the ranch nearly perfectly, marking upper and lower grazing areas of windswept heights of open savanna, and river bottom pasture plentiful with cottonwoods.
Garrett turned to his son, Asadi, who was riding beside him on a red roan quarter horse named Scamp, and pointed at the footsteps in the snow. “Well, what’s your assessment, Outlaw? When were those tracks made?”
Asadi dropped from the saddle and led the gelding up to the trail. He knelt and studied the prints for a good ten seconds. “Late last night or early morning hours.”
“And what makes you think that?” Garrett always pressed for a reason that would rule out any lucky guesses. “Seems like kind of a narrow time frame, don’t you think?”
Asadi took off a glove, reached into the divot, and let his fingertips glide along the powder. “We got a few inches of snow yesterday afternoon. But there’s a light dusting on top of the tracks. Probably from what blew in today before dawn. Means he was here in between then.”
“And how do you know it was a he?” Garrett had never heard of a female poacher, but that wasn’t the point. The point was never to make claim that you couldn’t back up. “Sounds like you’re weeding out about fifty percent of the population without any evidence.”
Asadi eyeballed the tracks for a moment and then turned back. “Boots are at least a size twelve. D width. And the tracks are deep. Whoever made them was big and heavy.”
“I’ve met some big ol’ gals in my time.” Garrett shot his son a wink to let him know that he was having a little fun. “Some of them wearing clodhoppers too. Maybe it was one of them?”
Asadi rose from his crouch and stuck out his hand to shake on it. “Wanna bet?”
Seeing dollar signs in Asadi’s eyes, Garrett moved on from a wager he was sure to lose. “So, where do you think he or she might be headed?”
It was a bit of
a difficult question. Whoever made the tracks had clearly tried to hide them. They’d taken a circuitous route back to the barbed-wire fence that separated Kohl property from the neighboring Mescalero Ranch. The poacher was more than likely hunting deer from a vehicle. But given all the oilfield traffic in the area, there was no way to narrow it down.
Garrett hadn’t expected to catch anyone in the act. Rather his end goal of the outing was a little uninterrupted father-son bonding. If he had broached the idea of a heart-to-heart talk, his increasingly aloof teenager would’ve certainly balked. But a sunrise mission to hunt down a poacher on horseback had all the makings of a really badass time.
Since starting up his own oil and gas exploration company nine months earlier, Garrett had been preoccupied at best, and borderline absentee. Asadi wasn’t neglected by any stretch of the imagination. His surrogate grandad, Butch, was a constant fixture in his life. And the kid was just plain busy like most his age. Between school, ranch work, and the rodeo team, Asadi had his own thing going. In fact, he seemed to love his newfound independence.
A recent breakup, however, with this girlfriend, Savanah, had left him a bit on the mopey side. Garrett wanted to visit with his son one-on-one uninterrupted, just to make sure he wasn’t trying to hide his pain.
As Asadi climbed back into the saddle, Garrett eased over on Sadie, a buckskin mare he’d trained the year before. He flashed a guilty smile that forewarned a ruse. “Want to talk a sec?”
Asadi looked over, clearly skeptical of the overture. “Talk about what?”
“Nothing specific. Checking in, that’s all. While it’s just you and me.”
A slow nod came from Asadi, who was probably terrified it was going to be a follow-up to the birds and the bees conversation they’d had a couple of years ago. “Okay . . . I guess.”
Garrett feigned nonchalance. “Anything pressing on your mind these days?”
Asadi glanced back at the footsteps in the snow. He was either totally uninterested or pretending to be uninterested. Either way, it was a solid showing. “Ah, no. Not really.”
“Nothing at all?” Garrett pressed. “You can talk to me about anything, you know.”
Asadi looked up and narrowed his eyes. “You mean about Faraz?”
The mention of that name hit Garrett hard, although it probably shouldn’t have. It was only natural that Asadi would bring up his brother in Afghanistan, who they’d once falsely believed was executed by the Taliban at the same time as his parents. Where Faraz was located or what he was doing was anyone’s guess, and the not knowing made it a whole lot worse.
Asadi could neither give up and grieve nor dare to dream of a day when they would be reunited. It was an odd purgatory. Although it wasn’t the topic Garrett had been aiming for, it was obviously on Asadi’s mind. So, he decided to fake it and keep
going.
“Still think about him a lot?”
Asadi looked out at the blanket of powdery white plains, seeming to stare at the nothingness on the baby blue horizon, with its sunrise streaks of pink and orange. “Every day I think about Faraz. My parents too.”
“That’s good,” Garrett reminded him. “You should always keep them close to your heart.”
“That’s the problem, I guess.” Asadi turned back. “I’m starting to forget everything. How they looked. How they talked. And I’m worried that one day there’ll be no memories at all.”
Garrett had also lost his mother tragically at an early age, but he at least had his father and brother with whom to reminisce. Even his sister, Grace, bore a striking resemblance to Mena Kohl. But Asadi had none of that. There was no evidence that his family even existed. He’d fled his village in the Hindu Kush with nothing but the clothes on his back.
“Well, don’t give up. Keep Faraz in your prayers. Because he might still be out there.”
Asadi brightened. “You really think so?”
Garrett didn’t really believe it to be true, but this wasn’t the time to admit it. The kid needed a little lift in his spirits, even if it came from false hope. “You remember what Kim said?”
Asadi didn’t miss a beat. “That she’d never ever stop looking for him. Ever.”
“That’s exactly right. And that woman is a bloodhound. Once she gets on the scent, she won’t let go. We just need to give her some more time. Okay?”
If anybody could track someone down to the far ends of the earth, it would be CIA operations officer Kim Manning. But Garrett hadn’t heard from her in months. He only knew that she was leading a task force to track down a network of Iranian Quds Force operatives. Having done his share of deep cover work with Kim and her deputy chief, a paramilitary officer named Mario Contreras, Garrett suspected it would be a while before the duo resurfaced again. With no real idea if they would ever get resolution on the Faraz situation, Garrett opted for a subject change.
“Aside from all that, everything else okay?”
“Why?” Asadi looked a little nervous. “Did Butch say something?”
It was actually Garrett’s girlfriend, Lacey, who had spilled the beans. “Nope. Just noticed you haven’t been spending as much time with Savanah as you used to.”
Asadi’s face fell. “Well, we’re not together anymore.”
“Really?” Garrett feigned surprise. “What on earth happened?”
There was a moment of silence before Asadi answered. It was as if he were still thinking through it, struggling to come to an answer that made sense. “It’s like we started talking less and less. And now we don’t talk at all. Or she doesn’t want to for
some reason. I just don’t get it.”
Savanah had lived out at the Kohl Ranch a few months prior. But when her dad, Ray Smitty, was offered a job as foreman out at the Mescalero, they moved and she started going to a new school. Although vast and expansive, the Texas Panhandle could be the smallest of worlds. Garrett would never say it, but he suspected that she’d found a new boyfriend.
“Well, sometimes things sort of fizzle out. You’ll find someone else though. I’m sure of it.”
Asadi shrugged. “But I don’t want anyone else.”
Garrett was just gearing up for the old plenty of fish in the sea conversation when a thundering BOOM came from behind. His thoughts turned to the obvious culprit—the poacher on the prowl. But this was no crack of a rifle. It was the rumbling thunder of an explosion. It was on a scale that he’d not heard since his war zone days in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As his horse tried to bolt, Garrett pulled the reins to bring the spooked Sadie back under control and turned to the horizon, where a plume of black smoke rose into the sky about a half-mile away. Although he couldn’t see the origin, for the line of mesquite brush on the fence blocking his view, he knew what it was.
Asadi, who was working hard to get Scamp settled, stared in awe at the billowing cloud. “That from the Kaiser place?”
The Mescalero Compressor Station, which pushed natural gas through pipelines across the surrounding ranches, had become a permanent fixture and largely went unnoticed. But accidents at places like these happened on occasion, and when they did, they could spark an inferno straight from Hell. It was rare for anyone in the near vicinity to survive that kind of blaze.
Garrett didn’t even want to mention the first thought that came to mind. But his best friend’s son worked there. “Yeah, that’s on the Kaiser side.” After a few seconds of contemplating a plan, he turned back to Asadi. “This is gonna be real bad. We need to get over there now.”
Although Asadi had become a capable rider since his transition from Afghanistan to Texas, he was still nowhere near the skill level of his dad. Trailing right behind Garrett, he was in awe at how deftly he maneuvered Sadie through and around clumps of mesquite brush at nearly a full sprint. Fortunately, there was no guesswork as to where they were headed.
Beyond the billowing black cloud rising high into the ice-blue sky, he could hear the hissing shriek of the gas leak, even over the rumbling four-beat pattern of Scamp’s hooves as they pounded the earth. Asadi broke the line of mesquite trees to find the pumping station in worse condition than he’d imagined. The facility, which was a football-field-sized hodgepodge of silver tubing, industrial machinery, and steel tanks, wasn’t only
spewing flames from a ruptured shaft, the fire had spread to the main building that housed the control center.
By the time he was at the back exit on the security fence, Garrett was already off his buckskin and kneeling beside someone on the ground. Looking away from the horribly burned body, Asadi locked eyes with his dad. “Is he still alive?”
“Barely.” Garrett pointed to a dip in the terrain about forty yards back. “Need you to move him out of here. Could be another big explosion coming.”
Asadi nodded but couldn’t really wrap his head around the calamity. It was almost too much to process. It wasn’t the first time he’d been near a fire of this magnitude, but it was the first time he’d been so close to one that was being artificially fed by an unlimited supply of fuel. It reminded him of the footage of the Hindenburg disaster he’d watched in his social studies class.
“Wait, what are you going to do?” Asadi followed his dad’s gaze and saw the familiar red Toyota Tundra that belonged to a close family friend, then looked over at the building, which was engulfed in flames. “You think David’s inside there?”
“I don’t know. But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to find out.”
Garrett removed the lariat from his saddle, shook out the loop, and slid it over the unconscious man. He tightened it beneath his underarms, yanked out the slack, and handed the rope to Asadi. “Okay, now dally it off on your saddle horn and pull him away from here as gentle as you can.”
By the time Asadi was mounted again and had the rope secured, his dad was already loping onto the facility grounds. Asadi nudged his horse onward but they had made it no more than a few feet when heard the WHUMPH, and then felt the shock wave of another thundering BOOM.
Garrett maneuvered through the compressor unit compound around burning piles of rubble, pulse racing, as his thoughts turned to the charred body he’d seen only seconds before. He had experienced his share of life-or-death situations, in some of the most dangerous places on earth. But those were not nearly as frightening as the wall of flames that now hemmed him in.
Spying a tiny gap in the blaze as he spun in a circle to the left, Garrett eased the reins to the right and aimed at an opening in the barrier. Sadie sprinted through the scorching heat of the tiny breach, where they found safety on the other side. Garrett pulled the reins, brought the mare to a halt, and did his best to survey the grounds through the wafting smoke, stinging his eyes.
Psyching himself up for another charge into the flames, Garrett spun Sadie around, pointed her at the front door of the control center, and gave her a little prod with the spurs. She went from a walk to a lope until building into full-on sprint. But within thirty yards of the burning structure she balked, came to an abrupt halt, and slid a few feet across the melting snow.
Between the suffocating smoke, leaping flames, and a howling shriek from the busted lines, every bit of the disaster was an assault on the senses. As Sadie stomped, stamped, and snorted, Garrett suspected that she’d done all she would do. He dropped from the saddle, wrapped the reins around the horn, and gave a slap on the rear. In a matter of seconds, she was at the front gate and bolting toward safety in the wide-open pasture.
Garrett turned and sprinted to the office, but nearly ten feet from the front door his arms shot up reflexively to shield his face from the scorching heat. Reasoning that if it were too hot for him to handle on the outside, then there was no way anyone was alive within, he decided to escape while he still could. He was getting ready to make a run for it when something caught his eye. On the ground, at the front door, just breaking the threshold, was what appeared to be a hand.
Garrett twirled around in search of something that could help him to withstand the heat. But between the flames and smoke, he couldn’t find anything of much use. Then he noticed several sheets of corrugated tin that had blown from the rooftop during the blast. It wouldn’t be perfect, but he reasoned that the three-foot by four-foot panel could work as a makeshift shield.
After sprinting back to the parking lot, Garrett grabbed the thin metal pane and flipped it over. Using the shattered beam still attached as a handle, he raised it in front of his body and hurried to the door. Garrett felt the same blistering burn, but he persisted, pushing through a heat so intense that he cried out in pain.
Reeling back, Garrett hid his face behind the tin and forced himself onward. He was about to look around the side when he slammed into the outside wall of the office and the armor slipped from his grip. He threw his hand to his face and clamped his eyes shut, as he dropped to his knees, grasping and groping for his shield in a pure state of terror.
A quick look back at safety, and Garrett rose to flee. But a glimpse of the hand caught the corner of his eye. He dove for the threshold and gripped the wrist tight. Rare, if ever, was there an occasion where he would’ve spouted the merits of panic or losing control. But his body’s desperation to escape the burn seemed to have given him what felt like a supernatural strength.
One swift tug and the body was through the door. Another hard yank got him some relief. And a third big pull got them far enough out where he could breathe. A giant inhalation of smoky air and
Garrett rose to his feet. He didn’t think. He just hauled. Over and over again, he dragged the body until they were in the middle of the open parking lot, where he collapsed in the frozen mud.
Lying prostrate on the snow-covered caliche ground, Garrett turned back to the inferno to find he’d made it at least forty yards. Mustering what little strength he had left, he rolled over to check on the one by his side. Although he had unfortunately been overseas for most of the big benchmark moments of his godson’s life, he recognized David the instant he saw him.
As the sirens grew close, Garrett leaned over to check for a pulse. But if there was any sign of life, it was too faint to detect. What wasn’t hard to find were the severe burns from the blast. As he did his best to wipe the soot from David’s face, his heart broke for Tony and his family, and at the thought of what horrible suffering was still yet to come.
Asadi arrived back at the barn with the horses a half hour later, still feeling a bit numb. The stranger, whose hand he’d held while he died, didn’t pass on to the next world in any memorable way. His breathing just stopped and that was that. But for some reason, Asadi just couldn’t shake the image of that burned body. He saw it everywhere. Even when he closed his eyes.
“You okay, sonny?” Butch called from the porch. “Would’ve met you out there, but I figured by the time I got saddled you’d already be back.” He marched from their farmhouse to the barn and took Sadie’s reins. “Looks like I was right. You made it here in record time.”
“I’m fine, I guess.” Asadi could see a look of genuine concern in Butch’s eyes and thought he’d better reassure him there was no need to worry. “Once I knew Garrett was safe, it wasn’t too bad. Just took a couple of minutes to find Sadie. But she came right up to us.”
A soft smile raised on Butch’s face. “Guess you got a little more than you bargained for when you went looking for that poacher this morning, huh?”
Butch was the kind of man who was all business. Although as goodhearted as they come, the old rancher was as rough and tough as the land he’d worked his entire life. The softened demeanor made Asadi wonder if there was other bad news. “Is David going to make it?”
“Don’t know yet. He’s in the ICU up in Canadian.” Butch shook his head. “Time will tell.”
Asadi hated expressions like “time will tell.” It had always been that way when it came to his brother. While he appreciated Garrett’s attempts to keep his hopes up, he suspected there was no real chance that he’d ever see Faraz again. “When is Dad coming home?”
“Don’t know for sure. Said he didn’t want to leave until he got a chance to talk to Tony.” Butch grimaced. “I expect that’s going to be a hard conversation. Maybe one of the hardest. And that’s saying a lot for someone like Garrett.”
Asadi didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he suspected it had to do with the war in Afghanistan. Garrett had made references to a big loss over there that had sent him spiraling. Of course, he never revealed much about his time in Special Forces beyond the most general details, but it was obvious he’d experienced something that he’d not gotten over.
Before Asadi could ask any more questions about his dad or David’s condition, Butch offered a hand to help him down from the saddle. “How you feeling about what happened?”
The question about feelings was rarer than the gesture of helping him down. The old man was all about self-reliance in every sense. Of course, he’d had to be. He’d run the whole ranch alone for most of his life. Independence for him meant survival.
Asadi followed behind Butch, who was already pulling Scamp back to the barn. “Really wish we could’ve done something for that guy. The one who died. But I didn’t know what to do. Just held his hand. Talked to him.”
Butch spoke as he walked. “You did more than you think. Won’t be easy for his family. But it’ll be no small comfort for them to know you were with him. To know that he wasn’t alone in the end. Believe it or not, it’ll help with their grief.”
Asadi didn’t see how that would make any difference but didn’t feel the need to argue. “Who was it? I’d never seen him before.”
“Sounds strange to say it, but maybe that’s the good news. Wasn’t from around here. Was an inspector out of Houston just visiting from out of town.” Butch glanced back and gave a shrug. “Wrong
place at the wrong time it seems.”
Asadi wouldn’t exactly classify it as good news, but he knew what Butch meant. Somehow it was less painful if they didn’t have to watch the family mourn. But someone somewhere was living a nightmare. And “wrong place at the wrong time” wouldn’t ease their pain. Like his parents and brother, this inspector was just another poor soul who would also be forgotten.
After getting a thorough checkout from the doctors in the ER, Garrett was cleared and free to go. Having been in a lot worse before, he’d assumed as much. But to make his girlfriend happy he succumbed to a full overview. Despite a few coughing fits and an unquenchable thirst, he was feeling back to his old self. At least physically speaking. The fact that Tony’s son, David, was hanging on by a thread cast a dark shadow that he just couldn’t shake.
Garrett suspected that much of it had to do with a favor he owed his best friend from a couple of years past. When a foreign rare earth minerals mining company had set the ranch ablaze and attempted to gun down his family, his best friend, Tony Sanchez, a Hemphill County sheriff’s deputy, had put his own life on the line to save Asadi.
Now that there was an opportunity for Garrett to return the favor, it was starting to look a lot like he’d failed. He had enough of ghosts haunting him without adding yet another. Of course, feeling sorry for himself was pointless, especially when Tony was heartbroken. Garrett had just walked out of the ICU and rounded the corner in search of him when they came face-to-face.
It was clear from Tony’s puffy red eyes that he’d been crying. And it occurred to Garrett that in all his adult life, he’d never seen this battle-hardened former Marine get emotional. He cleared his throat, buying a little time to try and think of the right words. “Hey, man, I was just coming to find you. Can’t tell you how sorry I am. Just don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s all right.” Tony raised his hand, looking as if he was about to break down. “Is what it is, I guess.”
Garrett found it difficult to meet Tony’s eyes. “Just wish I could’ve found him sooner.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered,” Tony answered, his voice sounding a bit raspy as he fought to compose himself. “Most of his burns came from the first blast.” He reached out, gripped Garrett’s shoulder, and squeezed. “If you hadn’t gone in after him, he’d have no chance at all. Whole building collapsed, they told me. Came crashing down in flames.”
At risk of taking the conversation to a gloomier place, Garrett moved on to a subject that they might be able to do something about.
“Do they know what caused the explosion? Heard the one who didn’t make it was an inspector. Assume he was out there for a reason.”
Tony shook his head. “Inspection was on the books for months. This was just a routine visit.”
“So, it was just an accident.”
Tony’s face tightened. “I don’t know about that.”
“What else could it be?”
Tony looked over his shoulder to make sure that no one else was around, then turned back. “Before David went into surgery, he regained consciousness for a couple of minutes. And he told me that they saw someone else out there.”
Garrett looked over his own shoulder too, although he wasn’t sure why. “Like who? You mean another employee?”
“No. It was no one he knew. Big guy, he said.”
“Was he wearing a uniform? Maybe he was a contractor. Was there a vehicle around?”
Tony shrugged. “He didn’t say.”
“Well, I need more details. What exactly did he see?”
“I don’t know, Garrett. My son wasn’t exactly in good enough shape to interrogate just yet.”
Garrett threw up a hand, palm out. “Sorry, man. Sorry. Just an old habit of the trade. The fact that he was able to get that out says a lot. But that intel takes this to another level. If there was someone out there trespassing before the explosion then we need to know who it was.”
Tony gave a nod. “That’s why I’m telling you this.”
Garrett didn’t need any plea for help. He was all over it. “It’s got me thinking. We’ve had someone sneaking onto our ranch, poaching pretty close to the compressor station. Doesn’t mean there’s a connection between the two, but it’s at least a place to start.”
Tony glanced around again, this time as if he was expecting someone. “Look, Silvia will be wondering where I am. She’s a mess. Kids are too. I just can’t leave them right now. But knowing this information I feel the need to—”
“Tony, you just be here for your family. Don’t worry about anything else. I’m on it. I’ll head over to the Mescalero and track down Smitty and Bo. Maybe they’ve seen something around the ranch that doesn’t fit. Someone who shouldn’t be out there. They keep a close watch.”
A weak smile raised on Tony’s face. “Knew I could count on you, brother.”
As his friend turned and walked back toward the ICU, ...
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