Bois d'Arc: Apache County, #5

By John F. Mullins

Sheriff Carmichael stops a car, only to see the face of a man he killed six years ago, very much alive.  Wounded in the encounter, he has to recover as quickly as possible and go on the hunt for a terrorist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Mullins
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393043010

John F. Mullins

John F. Mullins joined the U.S. Army in 1960 and served three tours in Vietnam with the Special Forces, initially as a medic and then as an "A" Team XO and CO, and as a SOG Operative after being commissioned in 1964. After retiring in 1981, he has worked as a "for-hire soldier," conducting security and antiterrorism operations in such hot spots as Bogota, Colombia, Beirut, and Belfast. He lives in Oklahoma.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

For once all was good.

The spring weather spoke of heat to come, but not just yet.  The wheat swayed in the wind, just now turning slightly golden.  There had been no crime to speak of in Apache County for two weeks.  The sole case had been when Jethro Crouch had marched his twelve-year-old into Sheriff Carmichael’s office and told him to tell the sheriff what he had done.

After sniffling for a moment, young Daniel had confessed to stealing a pack of cigarettes from the convenience store in Big Tree. 

And what made you do that? Jim had asked.

All the other kids are smoking.  Dad said no way would he buy me cigarettes.  I thought I’d . . .

Take a pack and see what it was all about, the sheriff finished for him.  And . . .?

And I took a couple of puffs.  Didn’t see what it was all about.

And then you inhaled.

Daniel’s face turned red and he fixed his eyes on the threadbare rug in front of Sheriff Carmichael’s desk.

Yes sir.

Did you like it?

No sir!  I stubbed it out.  I would have returned the rest of them but I couldn’t cause the pack was open.  So I told Daddy what I’d done.

And did you feel better?

"More honest, anyway.  I was expectin’ a whuppin, but Daddy said he had a better idea.

A look of understanding had passed between the sheriff and Jethro Crouch.

Follow me, he had said.

The sheriff led him into the cell block, which was almost empty – all the better for the lesson.

Walk on in there, he had said, pointing to a cell.

A look of terror passed over Daniel’s face, but he bravely walked into the cell.

Carmichael shut the door with a clang.

"Now imagine yourself spending time in one of these.  See that rack over there?  Lie down on it.  Not too comfortable, is it?  The toilet.  Right out where everyone can see you doing your business.  The food?  Egg sandwich for breakfast, baloney sandwich for lunch, ‘nother baloney sandwich for dinner.   Wash it down with tap water.  Think you’d like to lead a life of crime?

Daniel shook his head so hard the sheriff worried he’d hurt his neck.

Then come on out of there.  Now here’s what’s gonna happen.  You got any money saved up?

A little bit.

Enough to pay for that pack of cigarettes?

Yes sir.

Then I want you to go down to that store, by yourself, and tell Joachim what you did.  Pay him what you owe him.  Tell him that you’ll never do it again.  You won’t, will you?

Now it was the frantic nodding of the head, accompanied by a sworn oath that he’d never even think about shoplifting again.

Then we’re done.  You go on out.  I’ll talk to your daddy.

If he’d been in a vehicle Daniel Crouch would have burned rubber getting out of there.

Jethro, you’ve got a good kid there, he said after Daniel was safely out of earshot.

It’s hard, these days.  The crap they see on television, the comic books, the parents that don’t give a shit what their kids do, as long as they don’t bother ‘em.  And with no mother . . .

Sheriff Carmichael, not ordinarily the touching type, placed his hand on Jethro’s shoulder and squeezed.

You done good.  Jim laughed at a memory.  "When I was just about his age I got hell  from my friends, just like I’m sure he did, about not smoking.  Sissy, they called me.  Back in those days we didn’t have all the laws we have now.  You could buy a pack of cigarettes if you were big enough to push your money over the counter.  I got a pack of menthol – TV advertising said how cool they were.  Went down to the pond where they couldn’t see me from the house, fired one up, took a long drag.  Coughed my guts out.  Threw that damned pack in the pond and haven’t smoked a cancer stick since.

Nope.  Don’t think you’re gonna have to worry about Danny.

He was thinking about that and smiling as he headed back to the office.  He’d spent the morning on the range with half of his deputies, doing a quarterly requalification.  All had passed.

When he’d first taken the job there had not even been a yearly requal.  Not only that, but the deputies had been allowed to bring whatever pistol they wanted to use as their service weapon.  He’d put a halt to that, had standardized weapons, and had insisted upon not only marksmanship, but marksmanship under duress.  Wearing what he called full battle-rattle – duty belt with weapon, two extra magazines, handcuffs, radio, a small aid kit with tourniquet and pressure bandage, baton.  And after he’d browbeaten the county commissioners into buying them, body armor.

Several hadn’t made the cut and he’d replaced them with those who could.  And he’d drilled into them the mantra – be polite, be professional, but stand ready to use all appropriate force when called for.

Just as he was walking up the sidewalk to the office he saw a stretch limo coming down the street. 

Limo?  Apache County?  Not exactly an everyday occurrence.

He checked it as it passed.  Tulsa tags.  Probably a rental.  Someone down here with a vision of drilling for oil?  Good luck on that.  Many had tried.  Many had been defeated trying to get through the granite dome upon which the county sat.

Curiosity piqued, Carmichael went back to his vehicle, pulled out and followed.  He came up alongside and tried to look inside the vehicle.

Windows heavily tinted.  Can’t see inside.  A violation in itself.

The limo speeded up.  Another violation.  Ten miles over the speed limit and climbing.  He turned on his flashers and the limo put the coals to it and was out of town quickly, barely avoiding a collision with a pickup truck towing a load of round bales of hay. 

Now it’s a chase. 

On the radio, calling for backup.  Clovis Ruddy, the undersheriff, is soon talking to him, asking for location, cautioning him to be careful.

He glances at the speedometer.  Eighty-five in a sixty-five-speed limit road and still accelerating.  Do a bump stop?  Come up on the side and nudge the rear fender, throwing it into a spin?

No.  With my luck it’s some damned movie star, out here to see how the unwashed live.  Or worse.  A politician.  Probably doesn’t have his seat belt on – laws aren’t for the likes of him, are they? 

He smiled.  The limo has just turned off the paved road and is headed down a newly-graveled secondary road.  Better yet, unless they slewed into a turn somewhere they’re headed right for the North Fork.  And there are no bridges on this road.

He slows down slightly. There’s no way they can evade him – the rooster tail of dust spun up by the tires will tell him where they are even if they do make a turn.

They don’t turn.  The vegetation changes from Johnson Grass to Salt Cedar, speaking of the river not far away.  He tries to call the dispatcher and tell her where they are but all he can get is garble.

Too late the limo driver sees the end of the road, marked by a flimsy barbed wire fence.  He hits the brakes, and for a minute the sheriff envisions pulling some very wet and banged up people out of the river. 

The limo finally stops, the grille kissing the barbed wire.  Carmichael twists the wheel, taps the brakes and skids sideways, thoroughly blocking the road.

He tries the radio again.

So much for backup.  Have to handle this one myself.

He waits, expecting someone to get out of the car.  Probably ranting and raving and threatening lawsuits.  He cuts his engine and sits there listening to the tick of cooling metal.  Five minutes, ten.

Dammit!  This goes against everything I’ve tried to teach the deputies.

With a great sigh he opens his door, moves to the front fender where, should things go to mud, he can take cover behind the engine block.  Still nothing from the sedan.

You in there!  Show yourself.  Come out slowly.

Nothing from the limo.

Well, it’s either go up there, or stand here with your dick in your hand.  Neither one sounds good.

He unsnaps the Level IV retention holster, touches the Sig.  He has absolute faith that if someone pops out of the limo offering a threat he can put an end to it.  Has done.  May have to do again someday.  He and the deputies have practiced this again and again.  Move and shoot at the same time.  Don’t worry about hitting someone – all you’re doing is spoiling their aim until you can get behind cover.  Then well-aimed shots.  Center mass, and if that doesn’t do the job you assume they’re wearing body armor so your next shot goes to the head.

Walking up to the limo his nerves are like taut wires, ready to fight or flee as the occasion demands. 

He hears nothing but the soft idle of the limo.  No windows being rolled down, no doors being cracked open. 

Probably shit-scared.  They’ve heard the stories about these country bumpkin cops who shoot first and ask questions never.

For that reason he leaves the Sig in its holster and taps on the window with his expandable baton.  He can see virtually nothing through the overly tinted windows – nobody seems to be moving, however.

The window cracks, and then slowly rolls down.

Carmichael briefly wonders if he has entered a nightmare.  That face!  He knows that face.  He drops the baton and reaches for his gun, only to take a three-round burst to the chest from the MP-5 submachinegun.

He goes down hard, smacking his head against a rock, vaguely aware that he is bleeding from that and other wounds. 

So this is it.  Killed by the sonofabitch I killed six years ago.

Then the world turns black.

Six men exit the limo.  In Arabic one asks should I shoot him again?

To what purpose? Achmed Hussein Waziri asks.  Even out here people will ask questions about automatic weapons fire.

Waziri gives one of his rare smiles, exposing the scar that draws back one of his cheeks into a gargoyle’s grin.  Frankly, I hope he does live.  And know forever just how badly he failed.  Come, get his vehicle off the road and turn around.  We must be out of here.  Glory awaits.

Insh Allah, his bodyguard prays.

I’ve told you a thousand times, you pitiful goat herder, Allah only helps those who seize the moment and help themselves.

CHAPTER 2

Carmichael swims back to consciousness when he feels someone beating on him.  What the hell?  Wasn’t it enough that they shot me?  Now they want to beat me to death?

The face he sees when he can finally open his eyes, which seem to be resisting the effort, is that of Clovis Ruddy.  And tears are running freely down that face.

Clovis, he croaks.  Enough with the chest compressions.  I think I’ve got a broken rib.  Or two.  Or maybe four.

The memory of a long-ago battlefield swims through his head.  The Viet Cong had detonated a homemade claymore just as he and his patrol had emerged from the triple-canopy.  The first three men had been chewed to pieces by shrapnel, the fourth and fifth had later died from wounds.

He’d been the sixth man, literally blown off his feet by the blast.  He remembered staring up at the sky, the things going on around him ghostlike, unreal.

So I must be dead, he had thought.  He could hear nothing, feel nothing.  He was somewhat relieved.  This isn’t so bad.

Then he’d felt pain, only in one spot at first and then spreading all over his body.  He pulled up enough energy to raise his head, look at his body.

He was bleeding in what seemed like a hundred places.

Nope.  Not dead.  You don’t hurt when you’re dead.  And you sure as hell don’t bleed.  Heart stops pumping, there’s nothing to push the blood out.

Later in the field hospital he learned that most, but certainly not all, of the blood was blown onto him from the men who’d taken the brunt of the explosion.

Sorry, boss, Clovis said.  But when I first got here it looked like you weren’t breathing.

I was just resting.  Conserving strength.

Clovis grins.  Sure ‘nuff.  And the Pope just took a wife, too.

The sheriff makes to get up, but it doesn’t take much of a push for Clovis to put him back on the ground.

Lay your ass down.  Ambulance ‘ll be here in a minute.

Don’t need an ambulance.  Need to catch those bastards.

Clovis shakes his head.  Sorry, boss.  Nobody knew where you were.  All we had was some garbled radio traffic.  I finally called Dieter Berg, had him fire up the crop duster.  He came back over, waggled his wings for us to follow, led us here.  Hadn’t been for that we might not have found you for another couple of hours.  As it was, it took three.  Whoever it was that shot you is long gone.

I’ll have to thank Dieter.  Dieter Berg had been a Luftwaffe pilot flying Stukas, bombing the hell out of American and British troops in North Africa.  Shot down, he’d been interned in one of the many prisoners of war camps that had sprung up all over the United States.  Several of those had been in Oklahoma.  Dieter had fallen in love with the American way of life, the easy friendliness of its people, and after repatriation had applied for permission to return.  He’d never gone back to Germany, even for a visit.  Aside from the accent he’d never managed to shake you’d never be able to tell he wasn’t born and bred.

He’d never lost his love of flying, and when opportunity presented itself had bought an old crop duster, fixed it up, and became the go-to when you needed to kill the bugs out of your wheat, poison the pasture that had been taken over by mesquite trees, or if you just wanted a joy ride.

We’ll worry about that later.  Right now we need to get you into X-ray.  Two of the rounds you took were only fractions of an inch apart.  Your vest was almost breached.  And you took a cut from the jacket of one, right up under your chin.  Couple of inches over and it might have hit the carotid artery.

And it would have been bye-bye Jimmy Carmichael.  Funny.  I feel my ribs – God! Do I!  But not the cut.

’At’s ‘cause I gave you a syrette of morphine.  Clovis raises Jim’s collar so he can see the empty syrette pinned to it.  Just like you taught us.

Then Clovis stiffened, cocked his head and listened.

Yep, he said.  Siren.  We’ll get you on the wagon and off to the hospital.  Then the other deputies and I will go over this place in detail, see if we can find something, anything, that might point us in the right direction.  And I’ve already notified all the sister agencies – Highway Patrol, OSBI, FBI.

Jim groaned at the last.

Clovis had a sly smile.  Worried that you might get a visit from a certain agent, are ya?

Is there anything that goes on in this county that you don’t know about?

Not much.  But no worries.  She’s back east, visiting relatives is my understanding.

The woman in question, Special Agent Sarah Kickingbird, had worked a couple of cases with him.  They’d been attracted to one another from the beginning, but it wasn’t until the last case that they’d acted on it.  It had ended when both realized that there was no real chance of it lasting.  They were still friends.

But friends without benefits.

And he knew that, should she come back to Apache County for any length of time, there would be complications.  Complications he didn’t need right now.

Dieter refueled and is up doing a grid search, Clovis said, interrupting his train of thought.

Take some money out of the emergency fund and pay for his gas, Jim instructed.

And insult that big Kraut?  He might be a little long in the tooth, but I expect he could still do some damage.  Here’s the wagon.

Two EMTs popped out of the wagon and immediately got busy.  One checked his blood pressure while the other did his pulse. 

He’s alive, dammit, Clovis swore.  "Get him on the gurney and try to not hit every damned pothole in the county on the way to the hospital.  Damned chancre mechanics!

The younger one, Vick Tyson, looked at his partner Al Becker and asked What’s a chancre mechanic?

Something old people say, Al replied.

This old person is likely to kick your butt!

Blood pressure, Deputy, blood pressure.  Got to hold it down.  One, two, three, and Jim was lifted onto the gurney, which they quickly expanded and rolled to the rear of the ambulance where the wheels and struts retracted, allowing them to slide it in.

Al went up front to drive while Vick stayed with him.

Noise or not, sheriff? Al asked.

Not.  Let’s have a nice quiet ride.  Enough excitement for one day.

Then the morphine kicked in full-force and he faded into darkness.

My chest!  Someone’s standing on my chest!  What the . . .

He tried to move, get away.  Fight!  He clawed at whatever it was that sealed his eyes shut.

And realized that his eyelids were just gummed over.  He fingered them open.  Saw only a somewhat austere room, no one standing on his chest, no one in the room other than himself.  An IV pole hung with an almost empty bag of fluid, a tube snaking down and running something into his arm.

Hospital.  Shit!  No time for this.

He tried to sit up, but the pain in his chest put him right back down.

He searched for the call button, found it, pressed the button, and when no one showed up he pressed it again.

The nurse he’d nicknamed Ratchet came bustling into the room.  Keep your socks on! she said.  I heard you the first time.

The nurse, whose real name was Mildred Vought, was one of the nicest people in Garfield.  That is, if you met her in the grocery store, or passing on the street.  Always inquiring as to your health, and if you were a family man your wife’s wellbeing, and those kids!  How old was Alfred now?  My, how they grow.

And of course she knew down to the last detail exactly how you and your wife were doing and knew Alfred’s age down to the hour and minute he’d been delivered because she’d been present.

In the hospital she was an absolute dictator.  You will stay in that bed until I tell you otherwise.  Take this pill.  Now!  Lie still!

Lie still! she demanded as she took his temperature, checked his blood pressure, ran an ophthalmic light over his eyes.

I didn’t get shot in the head, he protested.

Hmmff!  You go out there by yourself, decide to take on a full squad, get your ass shot for your efforts, I’ve got to suspect there’s some brain damage.  Before, if not after.

Mildred Vought had been an Army nurse at a field hospital in Vietnam and took no crap from anyone.  Not even the sheriff of Apache County.  Maybe especially the sheriff of Apache County.  Mildred had seen far too many young men risk everything and reap the rewards thereof.

Doctor Hackathorn bustled through the door, saw that his patient was awake.

And how is he?

Mildred hmmff’ed again.  Awake.  Alive.  Vital signs okay.  Still a dumbass.

The doctor busied himself with checking the chart.  Mildred leaned over her patient, ran an affectionate hand over his cheek.

We don’t want to lose you, Jim.  Be more careful, will you?  No.  Of course you won’t.  You’re Sheriff James NMI Carmichael, protector of the innocent, scourge of the bad guys.

To Jim’s immense surprise he saw tears welling in her eyes.  She brushed them away angrily.  Left the room like her tail feathers were on fire.

You have two broken ribs, Doctor Hackathorn told him.  Right over your heart.  If a third bullet had hit there it might have pushed the bone into your heart.  Then it would have been cardiac tamponade and the end of the story.

Guess it’s lucky for me the guy didn’t know how to compensate for muzzle rise, Jim said.

Always the wiseass.  Last time you were in here you were saying how you were lucky that woman cut your popliteal artery rather than the femoral, cause you wouldn’t have been able to stop the bleeding.  What’s it gonna be next?  Glad they used black powder for the bomb, because dynamite would have been so much worse?

Well, Harry, you know it would be.

Incorrigible.  And now you’re going to be asking me when you can get out of here.

They teach you to mind read in med school?

No.  They taught me that repetitive patterns of dangerous behavior are a sign of mental illness.

Touché.  Now, when are you gonna release me?  Or do I have to pull this i.v. out, walk down the hallway showing my old ugly butt, probably scarring people for life?

Now there’s an image, Doctor Hackathorn replied.  Then he gave Jim a little evil grin.

But you’ll probably want to see the guest list lined up outside your room first.

Clovis was first, detailing everything that had happened since the sheriff had been loaded on the ambulance.  Apache county had been thoroughly scoured.  Not only was there no sign of the limo, but no one had seen anyone even close to approaching the description Jim had given him of Waziri.  Or anyone else from the Middle East, for that matter, though one of the more zealous deputies had mistaken an Indian national for an Arab and had been thoroughly and completely schooled within five minutes on the difference between a Hindu and a Muslim.

Just one of those things, boss, Clovis said.  Passing through, keeping off the main roads.  Bad luck they came to Apache County.  For you, anyway.

Gonna be some worse luck for them, once I get out of here.  I’ve got phone calls to make.

To who?

For a moment he hesitated.  Exposing an operation that had been so far off the books there wasn’t even a font type for it was risky, at best.

Need to know.  That was the mantra.  You might have the highest security clearance given. Read into the deepest secrets, but you would inevitably run into something that was outside your need to know.

But if he couldn’t trust Clovis to keep his mouth shut, who could he trust?

I recognized him, Clovis.

You knew him from before?

"In knew him.  I followed him.  I tracked him down.  I directed a five-hundred-pound smart bomb on the house he was holed up in.  I killed him, Clovis.

And yet here he is.

Clovis just shakes his head.  Can’t even pretend to understand it.  Alls I know is it damned near got you killed.  I’m sure you’ll be talking to the folks with the secret handshake.  Let them handle it from now on.

You know better than that, don’t you?

"S’pose so.  That ain’t James NMI Carmichael,