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No Turning Back

By H. L. Wegley

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June 14th, Big Bend National Park, Texas, 6:00 a.m.
Elizabeth Alicia Sanchez stopped on the dusty trail lining the north side of the river.
The Rio Grande flowed out of the shadowy Santa Elena Canyon like a wedge, splitting the desert in two and separating her two worlds and her two lives.
Her group of hikers had moved down the trail toward the canyon, but Elizabeth took a moment to look across the river.
Her seven-year-old world across the river assaulted her with brutal images. Flames lighting the smoke-filled night, the foul air carrying the stench of death. Her stomach roiled and she looked away.
People crossed the turbid Rio Grande for many reasons. Some fled poverty for what they hoped would be a better life. Others crossed it with criminal intent, bringing drugs, horror, and depravity with them.
Elizabeth had crossed the river for amnesty and found it in the nation that had given her freedom, citizenship, an MBA, the opportunity to pursue her dreams.
“I love you, America.” She smiled.
“Yeah. Me too.” It was the twentysomething guy who had sat near her on the van ride to the trailhead.
How had she not noticed him standing only a few feet away, invading her pers—
“Ms. Sanchez? Elizabeth?”
“Just call me Beth.” She adjusted the daypack on her back.
“Alright, Beth. Are you okay? You looked sort of …” His frown wrinkled a forehead crowning a face that drew her gaze like a magnet.
Girl, it’s time to reverse polarity.
She chose not to reply to him. Right now, that was better than either lying or telling the truth. And she also chose to ignore the obnoxious voice in her head, because reversing polarity wasn’t something Beth wanted to do.
“Uh … our guide says if we want to make it to the end of the trail for lunch, we need to go.” He waited for her, thumbs hooked in his backpack straps.
What was the name that went with that face? Drew something … “I’m coming. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve seen the Rio Grande in seven years.”
Drew something waved her on and then waited until she came alongside him on this wide portion of the trail. He glanced her way. “Seven years?” His steel-blue eyes looked down from several inches above her head. “So, did you grow up in Texas?”
“No, I—” Her right foot slid on pebbles acting like ball bearings. She tried to shift weight to her other foot, but the sliding jerked to a stop. Her ankle rolled until the bone on the outside hit the ground.
A pulse of pain shot through her ankle and into her lower leg.
She fell forward, headed for a face plant on the trail.
The straps of Beth’s pack bit into her shoulders and pulled her upright onto her feet. That placed weight on her right foot and brought another sharp pain, sending the muscles of her lower leg spasming.
An arm slid under her right shoulder and took the weight off her foot.
Beth gritted her teeth but couldn’t suppress a small groan.
“We need to take a look at that ankle. Looked to me like you rolled it about ninety degrees.”
Before she could protest, Drew scooped up her one hundred and twenty-five pounds, as if he were lifting a small child, then carried her to a waist-high boulder and set her on it.
“Hold it, Hunter!” Drew called out to their guide leading the procession of fifteen hikers. “We’ve got a sprained ankle here.” Drew unslung his pack and dropped to one knee at Beth’s feet.
He untied the laces on one of her cross trainers. “You know, if you’d been wearing hiking boots, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Of all the—“Who are you to be telling me how to dress?”
“I’m the person who’s telling you your sprained ankle is swelling. I’ve seen worse, but this is going to hobble you up for a few days, depending on …”
“Depending on what?” She managed to force out the words through her clenched teeth.
“Depending on how good of shape you’re in.” His gaze scanned her from her ankle to her waist, eventually reaching her face. He took his time.
“Are you through with your inventory, Mr. Know-It-All?”
“Yep. All done. And you’re in great shape. You’ll be hiking again in a few days, but not today.” He grinned until he saw the expression on her face.
She was mad because she hurt and even madder that Mr. Know-It-All had lectured her, grinned about it, then checked her out. “You are the most—”
“How bad is it?” Hunter stopped a few feet away, his gaze darting between Beth’s ankle and Drew’s face.
Drew had her sock off and was running his fingers around the outside of her ankle.
If a doctor had been doing that, it would have seemed appropriate. But a tall, twentysomething man, lean but well-muscled, one who was slightly on the rugged side of handsome, feeling her ankle and lower leg was highly—
“She can’t walk on it.”
“Would you two quit cutting me off.” She glared at both of them.
Hunter raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know we were, Ms. Sanchez.”
They had been, but it was her thoughts they were interrupting. What must Drew think after her outburst.
Why do you care?
“I don’t.” Had she said that out loud?
Drew looked at Hunter and shrugged. “She don’t. Hope I didn’t just cut her off.”
Beth blew out a sharp sigh that sounded more like a growl.
Drew glanced at her then focused on Hunter. “But one thing is certain, she can’t walk on that ankle. It’s barely six o’clock. You wanted to eat lunch with the group at the far end of the trail. Why don’t you take them and go on? I can stay with Ms. Sanch—uh, Beth, until you get back. Her day’s ruined anyway after—”
“You can say that again.” She looked down the trail toward the canyon. “Don’t I have any say about what happens to me?”
“As I was saying, Hunter. I can stay and make her completely miserable until you get back and there’s not a thing she can do about it. Then a couple of us guys can grab her arms and legs and drag her down the trail to the van.”
Beth stifled the urge to stick her tongue out at Mr. Know-It-All. But he’d already treated her like a child, so she wouldn’t justify it by doing something juvenile.
Hunter’s eyebrows pinched. “You’re staying with her? I’m responsible for the safety of everyone in this group. So I—”
“She’ll be safe, Hunter. You know that I’m probably the best person here to ensure that.”
Beth looked at Drew and raised her eyebrows. Mr. Know-It-All probably was the best person to stay with her. And he’s the one she would have picked, but Beth wasn’t about to tell him that.
Hunter dipped his head. “But I’m the one who’s sticking his neck out here, Drew. I’m counting on you, bro. I don’t want any of your drama or dramatics today. And no fights.”
“That depends on Ms. Sanchez.” One corner of Drew’s mouth turned upward.
She would not take whatever bait he was feeding her.
Hunter looked Beth’s way. “Sorry about your boring day, Ms. Sanchez. Guess we’ll have to give you a rain check.”
Drew chuckled. “Except that when it rains in canyon country, you don’t want to be here. See you about two o’clock.”
Hunter nodded and trotted down the trail toward the group of hikers standing fifty yards away on the bank of the river.
After Hunter left, Drew remained on one knee studying her ankle.
“You know, Mr. … uh … Drew—”
“It’s Drew West.”
“Mr. West. Staring at a woman’s bare ankle was scandalous behavior a few years ago. Do that to a lady and it could get you shot.”
“A few years ago? Try a hundred and twenty. Let’s keep things in perspective, Ms. Sanchez.”
“It’s Beth. And, yes, let’s keep things in perspective. This is going to be a long, boring, sweltering day.”
“So, I’m babysitting an optimist.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
Drew cut her off. “Sweltering is part of the problem. Your ankle is swelling. We don’t have any ice, but we do have the Rio Grande. Thirty minutes in the water then thirty minutes elevated. How about it? There’ll be less swelling, and you’ll heal faster.”
“So you’ve got my whole boring day planned for me. What do they call men like you? Alpha or beta something-or-others?”
“Not me. I’m just somebody who wants to help and who would jump at the chance to spend a little time with you.”
The direct approach. At least he was honest. “And why, pray tell, would you want to spend time with me?”
He cleared his throat. “Besides the obvious reasons …” His eyes studied her face then stopped on her eyes. “… I’m a writer, and from the little bit you’ve told me, I think you have a story.”
An icy chill shook her shoulders despite the warm early morning sun. She had a story. One no one must know, because then no one could tell the wrong person.
The danger hadn’t disappeared. It remained a few hundred miles and a border crossing away. Beth needed to make sure it stayed that way.
“My foot is swelling and starting to throb. Can you help me to the river?” She looked away from his intense, penetrating gaze.
He knew she was changing the subject. But would he drop the subject? If not, this would be an unpleasant day with too many nightmares and too many ghosts. And, at the end of it, he would classify her as rude.
Or psycho.
She squelched the irritating voice inside that had turned even more obnoxious.
“Stand on your good foot. We’ll go arms-around-shoulders like two buddies.”
“You need to understand something. Girls don’t have buddies.”
“Okay. You can be my buddy, but I won’t be yours. I’ll just be your crutch while we walk to the river.” He paused while she stood. “Too bad we can’t sit you in the water, so your leg can be elevated while we’re cooling it.”
“No way am I sitting in that muddy river. It’s probably full of little parasites, parasites that do terrible things to bodily functions.” She stood and put her right arm on a shoulder that felt like a rock.
Drew shook his head. “We wouldn’t want that out here, would we. Speaking of bodily functions … the outhouse at the trailhead is a quarter of a—I guess we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Beth blew out a blast of air to empty her frustration. No facilities was another reason this day would be a disaster. She shook her head and took a step with her left foot.
Drew moved with her and his left arm, like a bar of steel, bore her weight when she raised her left foot.
Thanks to Drew’s strength, they walked in tandem to the river at near normal walking speed.
He led her to a flat spot on the bank, where the murky water swirled about a foot below her. He bent down to help her sit.
She lowered her injured ankle into the chilly water and grimaced when it felt like ice on the hot, sensitized skin stretched tight around her puffy ankle.
Drew stood. “Be right back. Watch out for those parasites. I wouldn’t want to have to pack you back to the trailhead.”
How long would he keep up his string of irritating comments?
Drew ran back and grabbed his pack where he had dropped it beside the boulder.
While her ankle cooled, Beth scanned the wilderness around her. At only a little after 6:00 a.m. in the middle of the Big Bend National Park, this was an isolated area with no one around but the hikers. They were probably a half mile down the trail by now. There had been no other vehicles at the trailhead.
She was alone with Mr. Know-It-All, Drew West. If it wasn’t for her throbbing, swollen ankle, she might have enjoyed getting to know him better … provided he didn’t start probing into her past.
The canyon was narrow and magnificent with its towering vertical walls. Morning shadows darkened the depths of the canyon. It would be cool in the canyon all morning. But the heat of the early morning sun provided a precursor to what mid-day would bring, the scorching, West-Texas sun.
Drew returned with his pack and dropped it beside a bush.
Beth studied the vegetation around them. Nothing big enough to be called a tree. “It’s too bad we don’t have any shade trees.”
“These scrubby bushes—we’d have to lie down under them to get any shade.”
She shot him a sharp glance. “I hope you’re not proposing—”
“No. But you really are paranoid, you know.” The look Drew gave her wasn’t angry, just weird.
Maybe she was being paranoid, or pessimistic. But trust of other people, especially men, was not her strong suit.
“Beth, I’ve got a small plastic tarp in my pack. Maybe I can use it to give us some shade.”
Beth looked up the river into the shadows of the canyon. “Too bad we can’t go in there to get—”
She drew a sharp breath when two rubber rafts emerged from the darkness deep inside the canyon and floated into the light at the east end.
Two people in each boat. The bearing and dress of the men in the back of each raft had a familiar, ominous look.
Her heart rate accelerated until she had a driving percussion solo playing in her chest.
Cartel drug runners.
She pulled her foot from the water. “Drew, we need to hide, now.”
* * *
Drew saw terror in Beth’s wide eyes and his defenses went to high alert, DEFCON 2.
He pushed her pack behind some bushes then scooped up both Beth and his pack and scurried back into the thickest bushes lining the river.
Beth clung to him even after he set her down, out of sight of anyone in the rafts.
“Who are they?”
“Two of the men are cartel drug runners. They also traffic people in several ways. The other two men have no idea what’s waiting for them at the end of their trip. But nine times out of ten, it’s not good.”
The two rafts floated out of the canyon and were now only seventy-five yards upstream.
Drew reached into his pack and fished through one pocket until his hand clamped onto cool steel. He pulled out his Governor. He’d loaded this potent little handgun with Winchester PDX1 Defender shotgun shells, basically a mixture of slugs and ball bearings. This ammo was powerful, but most effective out to only ten yards, about the distance from their hiding place to the river.
“Any idea what guns these guys use?”
“AK-47s. The cartel’s weapon of choice.” Beth’s gaze locked onto his handgun. She gripped his wrist. “No, Drew. You try to take them on with that and we’re dead.”
“Sorry. I’ll have to disagree with you. You don’t understand what ‘that’ is.”
“It’s a revolver. A handgun. Drew, I’ve been with people who—”
It was the second time Beth had avoided revealing something about her past.
“Beth, I trusted you to identify them. You need to trust me to indemnify us.”
The wild-eyed look she gave him was short on trust and long on fear.
Drew wanted to hear about Beth’s past, especially the part she was reluctant to disclose. But he needed to focus on the source of danger, the two swarthy men each sitting in the back of a raft.
As if on cue, the two men grabbed paddles. They could have given Olympic synchronized swimmers a run for a medal as they paddled in synch toward the river bank. And they paddled toward the spot where Beth had been sitting a few moments ago, a spot ten yards away.
Drew sat on the ground behind the short bush, hunched over to stay out of sight. He leaned toward Beth. “These bushes won’t stop their bullets, so be still and—”
A soft rattle nearby turned to a loud buzz.
He turned his head and his gaze locked on the source of the noise. A rattlesnake, coiled and agitated, lay about six feet from his head. Maybe five feet from Beth’s.
Though Beth tried to cover her mouth, a sharp cry escaped.
Drew’s left hand held his gun, but his right hand had found a two-pound rock. He needed to make his choice before the snake lost all patience.
He couldn’t shoot the snake and then shoot two men at their current distance before the men in the boat could unleash their weapons.
Drew launched a short prayer, then he launched the rock. He threw as hard as he could from his sitting position.
The stone struck the snake’s neck and then drove into its coiled body, knocking it several feet away from them. The viper writhed on the ground for a few seconds, then slithered away toward some rocks.
When Drew looked back toward the river, the rafts bumped against the bank and both cartel men, with packs on their backs, held their AK-47s in a ready position. They had heard Beth and the snake. Now the gunmen were also at DEFCON 2.
The vexing question was, when does it become self-defense if you shoot someone? When you know they will shoot you if they see you? But what if they don’t see you and might shoot anyway?
One of the gunmen stepped into the shallow water beside his raft and raised his gun.
Drew’s answer about when to shoot came in a flash.
Right now.
He gripped his gun with both hands, sitting in firing position, and squeezed the trigger.
The man about to shoot fell backward onto the raft, nearly turning it over. The pop from the Governor’s two-and-a-half-inch shotgun shell echoed off the canyon walls leaving Drew’s ears ringing.
Beth’s hand on his ankle squeezed with surprising strength, but she kept her head out of his way.
The second gunman now stood on the bank. He fired a burst, mowing down bushes three feet to Drew’s left.
Drew pushed Beth’s head to the ground to protect her, then shot again.
The second man spun around and fell on the bank, half in and half out of the water. His pack landed on the shore.
Drew must have hit him in the shoulder.
One man floated in the water near the bank. Odds were he was dead.
The two immigrants began paddling their rafts for the opposite shore.
Drew let them escape.
He and Beth were in no danger now.
Beth’s hand, still gripping his ankle, was trembling.
“It’s okay, Beth. Both gunmen are down, and their guns are in the water. One’s likely dead. But I need to check out the wounded guy.”
“But how did—”
“Let’s just say they got on the wrong side of the Governor.” He popped open the cylinder and pulled out an empty shotgun shell.
Beth’s forehead creased with twin frown lines. “A shotgun?”
“Sort of.”
“Don’t move. Put your sort of shotgun down slowly. Comprende?” The raspy voice came from behind them, loud, authoritative, and threatening, hinting that the man would love for Drew to try something.
He wouldn’t. Not with Beth beside him.
“Comprende?” Impeccable Spanish. The guy could turn his accent on and off at will.
“Yes.” Drew laid his gun on the ground.
“Hands on your heads and turn around despacio, ever so slowly.”
Drew had only turned half way around when Beth gasped. “Suarez. He’ll kill me,” she whispered.
Suarez? Drew looked up into the barrel of an AK-47 held by a man who looked much like the two gunmen he’d shot. But this guy had the bearing of a leader, a guy who was used to giving commands.
Raspy voice scanned Beth then swore, part in English, part in Spanish. “Señorita Elizabeth Alicia Sanchez. Patience is one of my virtues. I have been waiting for this moment for seven years. What a pleasant surprise.”
“What’s he talking about, Beth?”
“Silence. No more talking, Señor. Be still and be quiet while I decide how you will die … and while I decide how to give Señorita Sanchez the fate she deserves.”
Drew glanced Beth’s way, and the look he saw on her drawn face was one he’d only seen on an actress’s face in some old horror flick right before the madman killed her. But Beth wasn’t acting.
“What is your name, Señor?” He pointed his gun at Drew’s head.
He tried not to flinch or to glare at the man. “Drew West.”
“No. Your name is Drew who-shot-my-baby-brother.”
Not good. Was his brother the dead guy or the wounded guy?
“It would be most appropriate for you to pray to your patron saint that Ricardo is not dead. If he is dead, you will die for two days. If he lives, maybe eight hours … or until I grow weary of your screaming.”
If Drew hadn’t fully understood the reason for Beth’s terror, he did now.
There were some mysteries to unravel here—how this man knew Beth, why he hated her. But Drew needed to study the end of that gun barrel pointed at him and find a second or two when it wasn’t pointed at either him or Beth.
In the meantime, Drew needed to appear frightened and subservient. The frightened part wasn’t difficult. Feigning subservience, when he wanted to kick the man’s head off … that was another matter.
“Señor and Señorita, keep your hands on your heads and stand up, slowly.”
“That’s a pretty good trick. Getting up slowly from a sitting position with our hands on our heads.”
“You do not listen well, Señor West.”
“What do you mean, Mr. uh …”
“Hector Suarez,” Beth said. “CEO of the Del Rio Cartel. The man who murdered my mother and father.”
The ugly picture came into focus, raising the stakes to the highest level. If Drew didn’t act quickly, they were dead.
“My two prisoners, they are deaf. Silence! The only reason I do not kill you now is I need you to tend to my little brother, Ricardo. See, he moves. Walk to him, slowly.”
Suarez jammed his gun barrel into Drew’s back, prodding him to walk toward Ricardo who lay moaning and holding his injured shoulder with his good hand.
Beth and Drew walked side-by-side to the edge of the river where Ricardo lay. His eyes were closed now, and his jaw clenched as he panted out his pain.
Drew studied the man’s right shoulder. The Winchester PDX1 had damaged the outer third of his shoulder. He needed the bleeding stopped and then needed to see an orthopedic surgeon, or he’d never regain full use of his arm.
Ricardo’s rifle was nowhere in sight. He must have dropped it in the river. That meant Drew’s only available weapon was his body.
He needed to draw Suarez in close and disable him with one well-placed blow or kick. But he must make sure Suarez’s rifle was not pointed at Beth when Drew made his move.
“We’ve got to stop the bleeding.” Drew knelt then looked up at Hector Suarez.
Hector dipped his head and motioned Drew toward Ricardo with the barrel of his rifle. That motion moved the gun barrel upward until it pointed over Drew’s head and toward the river.
Drew’s right leg exploded into motion, driving a powerful kick into the side of Hector’s left knee.
He screamed as his knee bent sideways.
Beth had dropped to the ground to Hector’s right.
Drew gripped the barrel of the AK-47 and ripped it from Suarez’s hands. “Get away from him, Beth.”
She rose and backed away.
Suarez stood on his right leg swearing in Spanish and glaring at Drew.
“Shut up and don’t move!” Drew pointed the gun at Hector’s mid-section.
Suarez sneered. “No green-behind-the-ears gringo tells Hector Suarez what to do.”
“It’s wet behind the ears. And anyone who gives up his gun so easily has no right say that to the man who took his gun away. Now down on your stomach and hands behind your back, or I’ll shoot your other knee, then maybe a shoulder like I did for Ricardo.”
Beth stuck a thumb out toward the Rio Grande. “Drew, the two, uh, immigrants paddled across the river.”
“Let them go. They’re probably going home. Maybe they’ve realized illegal entry isn’t such a good idea, especially when you go on a Del Rio Cartel cruise.”
Hector fell when he tried to lay down using only his one good knee. He stretched out on the ground on the bank where Beth had dangled her foot in the water.
“Don’t move, Suarez … Beth how’s that ankle feeling?”
“I can walk on it a little. It doesn’t hurt as much.”
“Good. I need you to go to the bushes and bring my gun and my pack. We need to make sure the Del Rio CEO sticks around for the next board meeting in District Court.”
Beth laid a hand on his shoulder. “Please, Drew, be careful. You don’t know what he’s capable of.” She limped away from the river toward the bushes.
“Right now, he needs to know what I’m capable of.” Drew worked the firing mechanism of the AK-47 to produce a metallic click.
Suarez’s body stiffened at the sound.
“Drew, Elizabeth! Are you okay?” The voice came from up river and was now accompanied by the sound of running feet.
Drew looked toward the canyon.
Hunter ran down the trail toward them. He came to a sliding stop fifty yards away when he saw the gun and the carnage. “We heard the shots and came back to—”
A splash came from the river.
Drew glanced down.
Hector Suarez was gone.
Drew jumped to the edge of the river and scanned the murky water.
Nothing.
He let his gaze rove over the Rio Grande, mostly downstream.
With a blown knee, Suarez wouldn’t be a strong swimmer. Regardless, he would have to come up for air soon.
“You’ll never catch him, gringo.” The pain-filled voice grunted out the words. Ricardo’s eyes were open now.
Beth returned and stopped beside Drew. “He’s probably right. Some call him Hector Houdini Suarez. He’s escaped from some impossible situations.”
Hunter approached them. “Does somebody want to tell me what’s going on here? I see a dead man and a wounded man and—what happened to the guy on the ground?”
“Hector Suarez got away,” Beth said.
“What the—Suarez? The Del Rio Cartel? You sure?”
“I’m sure. He wants to kill me and would have if Drew hadn’t stopped him.” She put her hand on his shoulder.
That was the first thing he could remember Beth doing that wasn’t done in opposition or as an argument. Maybe Suarez’s pain was Drew’s gain.
He glanced at Beth then looked down at Ricardo. “Suarez hasn’t gotten away yet. I’m going down the river to see if I can spot where he comes up.”
Beth’s hand slipped down to his arm and gripped it with more strength than a woman should have. “Don’t go, Drew. There were two AK-47s in that water where he went in.”
“Beth, I blew out the guy’s knee. He’s not going far, and he couldn’t afford to stop and look for a gun in muddy water. We need to tie up Ricardo’s free hand and then get some pressure on that shoulder wound to stop the bleeding. Here.” He handed Beth his Governor. “Hold this on him and let Hunter do the binding. Ricardo may be hurting, but he’s still dangerous. If he tries anything, shoot him. Those three slugs and the ball bearings in the shotgun shells will put an end to anything he tries.”
Beth took the gun, looked at Hunter, then back at Drew. Her eyes softened to an expression warmer than any she had shown him since they met this morning.
Maybe she liked guns.
Maybe she likes you, dude.
He doubted that just like he doubted he would find Hector Suarez in this jaunt down the river.

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