Everything Changed

By Ken Cates

About the Book
Everything Changed is a story about the wild, violent early days of southwest desert dope smuggling via the then innovative use of light aircraft. It depicts how huge profits were used to corrupt some cops, particularly local cops stuck in a dead-end job. The story also explores how the federal special agents of the then U.S. Customs Service worked clandestinely to disrupt and dismantle smuggling enterprises. The book is set in barren southern New Mexico right on the dangerous international border and it showcases how air smuggling and money transportation actually worked, how Mexican traffickers and their enforcers operated, and how a local family facing marriage problems could become unintended players and victims in the damage that narcotics trafficking always brings. This story is unique in that much of it is reality that has been gleaned from many different narcotics and dirty money and firearms trafficking cases that the author, a retired US Customs Special Agent, actually witnessed and investigated. The smuggling, trafficking and investigative techniques are genuine, and the story, although completely fiction, is realistic as it’s built and compiled from the author’s (and his colleagues’) experiences and participation.

About the Author
Ken Cates is the retired Special Agent in Charge, Department of Homeland Security-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, having served 34 years as a criminal investigator with ICE, U.S. Customs and ATF. His personal knowledge of firearms, narcotics and currency smuggling cases from Los Angeles to the Caribbean and up and down the U.S./Mexico border
have made him a recognized expert in international cross-border contraband smuggling casework. Ken also served as a U.S. Army-Military Intelligence Specialist and as an Operational
Law Enforcement/Border Ops Subject Matter Expert with a U.S. Army Special Missions Unit in the Global War on Terror. These days, he writes fiction, lives in the country outside of Dallas, with his Nurse Practitioner wife and his five daughters nearby. He also ranches, does specialty trial consulting, and assesses internal security matters for a variety of corporate clients.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889256533

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Camel Mountain Ranch

Southern New Mexico

Thanksgiving Day, 1991

Will could feel the comfort and security his home drew around him, a cloak against a cold night wind. His chiseled rock house brought needed solitude and peaceful reflection. It was an exact replica of the house and barns he envisioned as a boy while growing up on his father’s huge southern New Mexico ranch. He’d have his own place; he’d nestle it against the big upheaval of basalt rock and red sand on the eastern down-slope of his family’s Camel Mountain Ranch. Those big dreams carry a tremendous cost, as Young Will would learn soon enough. The piper must be paid. The toll must be exacted for such a life, especially the hard life in the high Chihuahuan Desert country on the Mexican border. He and his father, Charlie Montgomery, the true patriarch of the family, knew that truth well, had lived it many times.

Will closed his eyes, leaned back in his tooled leather desk chair, inhaled deeply the aroma from the strong black coffee he drank each morning from the old silver Army canteen cup that he still used. The cup and a few other trinkets and treasures helped him stay grounded, reminded him of the lessons of the past. Will’s thoughts crept backward; I wish that I had…He shook his head. Jesus! Don’t go there, dumbass, he said aloud to himself.

Minutes later his reverie was interrupted by the sound of his children spilling out onto the veranda, calling out, "Come on, Dad! Let’s go! While we’re young." Amanda’s and Sam’s voices seemed to blend; their shrieks almost euphonic. Lately, they never cut him any slack, insisting on visiting the old restored Mesilla Hotel several times a year. They had healed well. The visits had helped. He wanted his kids to have a deep connection with the flourishing Women’s Sanctuary and Retreat in Old Mesilla, to grasp its inner workings and its abiding contributions, so they’d always understand and appreciate what their family’s sacrifice had yielded.

Back in 1987, Will’s off-shore Ton-Ton Foundation had bought and restored the historic Hotel. It filled the region’s need for a Women’s Shelter and Residential Retreat. The purchase included its grounds and neglected gardens, paying cash for the place, as dictated by the seller—a requirement that suited all involved—neither wanted anything to do with a check transaction for good reason. No need of a paper trail for the wealthy Mexican seller or the cautious buyer. The bulk of Will’s suddenly acquired windfall in any traditional bank this side of the Cayman Islands couldn’t be risked. Didn’t want his benevolent foundation to be called upon to explain to some G-Man the source of that enormous cache of cash.

But for Will, each visit to the Mesilla was increasingly difficult. He’d worked hard at putting that cold night and its jagged memories behind him. He thought again of its senselessness. But the children loved the old Hotel’s restored grounds and he had to admit that once in a great while, sitting out on one of the sandstone boulders, he could feel…a peace, like a mist, a soothing spirit that seemed to envelope him. Between heaven and earth, some things linger…

"Today, Dad," His daughter’s voice commanded him back to the present. He smiled. You sound so much like your mother.

He grabbed his truck keys from the top drawer of his desk, and like always, before leaving the house, he turned and pulled open the oak gun cabinet on the back wall. He found his old Army .45, palmed it, worn smooth with the gray parkerized patina of time concealing its rugged history, stuck the loaded Colt in his waistband. Laying close in the bottom ammo tray, was the old, hard-as-nails leathered chunk, its color and texture like rawhide, withered and hardened by the dry desert air. Will wasn’t the first guy to have taken and kept a talisman, something from his enemy as a trophy, but he was probably the only man this side of Vietnam who kept an auricle, a dried shriveled human ear, to channel his memories and his rage. An enduring hatred of the evil that had been put down that howling night out on the desert floor. He squeezed the dried remains of the lawman’s ear, felt his eyes narrow, his shoulders, tensed, hardened by the touch. His jaw clenched, he tossed it up and caught it lightly in his palm, then dropped it back in the tray.

Hell isn’t hot enough for you, asshole…Gritar en el infierno más calientee, he said under his breath, then turned and headed out the front door, descending the stone steps, the curse fading from his mind. He called, "Let’s roll, you heathens…your Daddy’s new four-wheel drive pick-em-up truck is leaving. All aboard. Climb in and on the way to town, I’ll tell ‘bout the time your momma set our pecan tree on fire. You won’t believe it."

Not that one Pop…Aw, go ahead, tell it again, Amanda teased.

Yeah, Dad, that’s a good-un! Sam yelled, as he raced for the shotgun seat.

1

New Mexico, Along the Mexican Border

June 4, 1985 7:15 AM

They crossed from Arizona near Rodeo, New Mexico, turned south to the abandoned railroad track that followed the boundary line between the US and Mexico. After abandoning the old track bed, and removing the rails and ties, the old El Paso and Southwest Railroad Company deeded their right-of-way to the State of New Mexico that turned it into a state road.

The couple’s little Ford Bronco no more than got on the gravel road when a screaming DC-3 twin-engine airplane came up behind them and flew close overhead, not fifty feet off the deck. The roaring howl of the powerful engines pushing the workhorse cargo plane, the sand and grit that filled the air, their vehicle rocking back and forth, frightened Tonja, breathing out a startled gasp.

Will grinned. "Holy shit, you don’t see that every day. What the heck is that damn airplane doing, trying to land on the road or what? That jackass pilot is probably laughing his ass off right now after buzzing us."

"Will, damnit! Do you have any idea where we are, or where this washboard of a road is taking us? I don’t mind telling you, this desolate place gives me the willies." Tonja Montgomery liked the mountains and the city…but barren, isolated desert…not so much.

Now now, Ton-Ton, don’t get scared. But to answer your question, yeah, I know where this road will take us, and I know where we are. Remember, I grew up along this sandy border. We’re not lost, so rest easy, enjoy the view. This gravel road will take us due east to the new golf course at Santa Teresa, then just a few miles north to Las Cruces and home.

I’ve heard about too many bad things that can happen on isolated roads these days. We’re only a few miles from the Mexican border, and that country is completely at the mercy of gangsters and dope smugglers or the damn ‘coyotes’ leading bunches of poor Mexicans through this merciless desert. I don’t like it, Will. Not one bit. That damn plane is probably some dope smuggler or something worse.

"Naw, it’s probably the Border Patrol, or maybe Customs checking us out. See, look south there—we’re not a few miles from Mexico like you think, fact is, that’s Mexico right over there on the other side of that barbed wire fence that’s damn near buried in blow sand. But, Honey, don’t get yourself all worked up, besides, I have my little travelling .380 Walther pistol in my coat pocket, and there’s my old Army .45-auto in the glove box right there in front of you. I’ve had that gun for years, mailed it back from overseas before I left Da Nang. Named that ol’ 1911 Colt, ToTron, means Big Round in Vietnamese. You can shoot ol’ ToTron as good as me, so fear not my wife, just relax and enjoy the view. His laugh was tinged with an emptiness that he hadn’t felt in a long time, almost felt strange referring to her as his wife. Enjoy the view, honey."

What view? It’s been one caliche bed after another, the same half-dead greasewood and catclaw and cholla since we left Arizona. We haven’t seen a car in over two hours.

"Okay, okay, but getting back to matters at hand—I guess I’m not sure what, if anything, we figured out these past three days. Where are we with each other? At times this weekend, the hiking and soaking in the hot springs made me think that things hadn’t happened, hadn’t changed. But I don’t know, I just don’t understand how you could have done this to us. It hurts—hurts my heart, hurts my head if I think about it too much. I can still feel that gut-punch of finding out about you and that fucking Carson. How could you? How did that happen? What the hell did I do wrong? I still need you to tell me. Don’t you see, I need to understand?"

She choked back the tears that were welling up in her eyes. She wished she had the answers that Will needed, that they both needed. She knew what had happened. If she really admitted it to herself, she knew that she had just shrugged and let it occur, let Carson kiss her that first time at the teacher’s workshop at her school. She knew the risk, both of someone walking in on her and the principal in his office, and of course the risk to her marriage. Well maybe not to her marriage so much as risk to her sanity, to her ability to hold it all together, to keep being the loving wife and good mother. To keep being the partner that she and Will had promised to always be to each other, and to keep being the resurrected good daughter that her strict Catholic parents had needed.

"Talk to me goddamn it, Tonja. We’re on the way back home to our kids, to our family, to our life, and I’m not sure if you even want that stuff anymore. I’m not sure if I even want you to still want it. It was a good weekend, like we used to be, so I know we still have something. I know that somewhere, down deep, we are still the same people that went from that horrible scene of telling your folks you were pregnant to the couple that has built a good life, a good home, a good family…aren’t we, Ton-Ton, aren’t we the same people?"

"I don’t know what to say, Will. But again, I’m responsible; I’m the one that did it. I let you and the kids down. Its cliché but it was me, not you. You know I never intended to stay in Las Cruces after college, never saw myself as the schoolmarm, motherly type…so see, it is me. I blinked or stumbled or fell…I fucked up…me. You’re a good man, a good husband and for sure a great dad. Hell, you’re even great in bed. I just—I just don’t have the words. I know how hard you work at the Power Company. I see that you strive and push to move up, and you have, and believe me, I know you do it for me and for the kids. I admit that I never envisioned being married to a High-Line Pole Climber and I know you became a supervisor to please me, and I really, really appreciate you and what you do for us all. I just—damn it, Will, I just lost my way. Just let my focus slip, got overwhelmed by Carson’s stories of trekking around Europe after college, of skiing the Alps, of seeing the Coliseum. Aw hell, it’s not even about Carson. He’s married. He’s got a family. He really just got caught up in me and the whole damn affair out of boredom or insecurity or who knows why…if I have to be honest."

She turned to the side window, watched the desolation fly by. "I just know that I do love you, love our home and our babies. I know I probably have ruined it for us, but I would be lying to say I didn’t know what I was doing with Carson. For what it’s worth—Will, for God’s sake, it was just sex, just a change, a difference somehow, I thought I needed. But I did it, I let it happen, let it creep into our life. Dear God, I am so ashamed. Hell, maybe I’m going crazy. I want to work it out, but I want it to be like it never happened and if it can’t be, then I don’t know what I want. And yet, I know that it can never be like it didn’t happen…it’s a shitty, perhaps hopeless circle I’ve dragged us into. I just don’t have a clue what to do or what’s next. I guess that’s up to you…even as unfair to you as it is, it’s all up to you."

Will gripped the steering wheel, his hands tingling from the loss of circulation, gritted his teeth. Tonja, I know you never liked that I was a just a common lineman with the electric company, but it’s a good job, pay’s more than decent, and I am moving up. We live well on our salaries and if we watch expenses, we’ll be able to see the Coliseum one day.

"Aw damn, Will. For fucks sake, it’s not just the freaking Coliseum. And, it’s not so much that I don’t like you working as a lineman, it’s your god-awful hours that kill me. Gone all the time, often days at a time. Why can’t somebody else watch those isolated high-tension lines? I guess I was a lot lonelier and maybe even more bored than I ever realized. Not an excuse, I just really became such a dull knife, kind of unfeeling with so many days alone. Sleeping with Carson, it was just something to do to fill space."

"Lonely, huh? Well guess what? Me too. Cheap motels or sleeping in my goddamn truck, nodding off driving down some dirt trail-of-a-road, now that’s lonesome. But I never once thought about fucking my boss out of boredom. And by the way, nobody—nobody knows the desert and those lines like I do. I’ve lived this dry desert under those power lines, stretching away off to the horizon all my days, except those two years in the Army. Getting drafted and off to Nam for a year. That was my world tour, the 7th Cavalry-Air-Assault became my new horizon and damned proud of it…until I met you. You and the baby changed it all, changed me, maybe saved me, ‘cause I’d of probably gone back for a second tour. I just hope you haven’t killed me, killed us with this cheating bullshit."

"Yeah, I know, you’ve told me that Army story and the lone lineman song a thousand times. Get off it. That’s not really the point."

He turned to her, thought about stopping the car, slapping the shit out of her. "What is the point? Mind clueing me in?"

For starters, you’re never around, never in my bed, never there to love me, to tangle the sheets, screw my brains out once in a while. It’s no wonder that I—

"No wonder you took up with the elementary school principal. That what you were going to say? How goddamn continental can you get? You had a good life, a good home, a husband and beautiful kids, but you were willing to shoot the fucking dice all for a roll in the infidelity hay with that goddamned Carson."

He took a deep breath, gripped the steering wheel tight. "You may be tired of hearing about the 7th Cav, or tired of hearing my phone ring when the wind or the snow puts 10,000 people out of service, but not near as tired as I am hearing about that bastard principal, Mr.Yale grad, traveled the world over, sailed the ocean blue, so sophisticated, worldly Mr. Jack Shit Carson Sanders. Screwing my wife on his well-educated, slimy-ass desk. Shit. If that don’t beat all hell I don’t know what does. Fuck it!"

They drove on in silence, Tonja looking out the side window, Will’s thoughts straying back to that DC-3. Wonder what that old workhorse was doing flying so low? Has to be dope smuggling probably? Guys out on a desert High-Wire Line Crew tell me things, see and hear things from time to time…maybe it was a Mexican doper or one of those Sky-Cowboys I’ve read about. Wonder how much he’s haulin’. Has to be a million bucks worth or more. Has to be…

As they approached the long-abandoned water tower at Hermanas 15 minutes later, Will’s gaze caught sight of that same DC-3 parked far off the road at a place the ancients called, La Playa, a tremendous dry lakebed, useless except for racing land-based sail cars. Those wind driven, typically homemade three-wheel vehicles, racing along on bicycle tires with the sail pushing them at sixty or seventy miles an hour. Two vehicles were close by the old silver DC-3…Too far away to recognize either of them, but the red one, the one parked closest to the plane…could the red one be an old Volkswagen Bus?

Will punched the accelerator. I don’t like the looks of that shit. Has to be a drug deal way the hell out here where damn few eyes see what’s going down.

Ten minutes later, he glanced in his rearview mirror; saw a vehicle top the hill in back of him, blowing dust, traveling fast. Will punched Tonja out of her daze. Tonja, if the site of a car will put you at ease, that black and white sheriff patrol car coming over the hill behind us should do the trick.

The patrol car came on fast, heading east toward El Paso, just like their old Bronco. Again, Will’s mind flashed back to the old DC-3 parked off to the side of the road—strange. Maybe he’s coming from that DC-3…maybe arrested its crew.

Will watched the dust of the patrol car in the rearview mirror. Wonder why he’s coming on so fast? We’re not speeding. He’s probably a county deputy sheriff. Got to be at the edge of his territory.

The patrol car came up close behind them, then settled back a quarter mile, staying well back from the cloud of dust their Bronco was boiling up, matching their pace for another mile.

Tonja turned around to get a better look. What do you suppose he wants?

I don’t know, but we’re getting ready to find out. He just turned on his flashing lights.

Will pulled the car over to the side of the road and stepped out.

The patrol car skidded to a halt; a deputy opened the door but remained behind it. Get back in your car! he commanded through his grill mounted loudspeaker. "Put your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them. Do it now."

Will complied, flashed his wife a thin smile. He watched the officer approach them through the side mirror, a tall, gaunt figure in his tan Sheriff’s Office uniform, a scarred lip, covered by a sparse mustache. The deputy’s hand was close to the big silver revolver strapped to his side, fingers twitching at its wooden grip, his eyes hidden behind bright yellow-mirrored sunglasses.

Let me see your registration and proof of insurance. Tonja rummaged through the glovebox, keeping Will’s .45 pushed to the rear and hidden by maps and papers, found those requested and handed them to Will.

The officer threw his Stetson down on the dirt, spit, pushed his mirrored glasses back up on the forehead, looked over the documents, then jerked his head back, his glasses sliding back onto his sweat-streaked nose. "William Montgomery, huh? What are you doing out here on this particular road? The only ones who use it are folks avoiding the law—truckers carrying overweight loads, druggies, narco-trafficantes, maybe people smugglers, that sorta shit. Why are you traveling this road?"

I was unaware that a citizen had to have a reason to drive on any public road he chooses. If there’s a law against—

You get smart with me, pal, I’ll drag your ass out of that car and throw you in the cage behind my seat. You don’t want to go back to the station with me, ‘cause it’s not a nice place.

Officer, I was not trying to get smart with you, just curious why you would ask such a question.

I ask the questions in this county and you’d do well to answer them. Otherwise keep your damn yammer shut. The Deputy bent down to take a long look at the Bronco’s interior…and at Tonja…nice. He handed the proof of insurance back to Will but slipped the vehicle registration in his shirt pocket. Where you people coming from? What was your business while there?

We spent a long weekend at a little bed and breakfast in Arizona, and—

Rich yuppies, huh? Think you’re pretty high and mighty, huh?

He pushed his glasses back up his nose, looked over their car, stepped back to check the license plate tag to see that it was current, came back around to the driver’s side. He yanked the door open. Step out here, mister and be damn quick about it.

Tonja asked, What’s wrong, Officer. Our paperwork is good. We haven’t done anything wrong, and you can’t say we were speeding.

Oh, I can’t, huh? I say you were traveling at ninety-miles-an-hour on this gravel road. A State road that’s posted at thirty. What do you think of that, pretty lady? What’s your name?

"Tonja, Mrs. Will Montgomery to you."

"Well Tonja, sass me again and I’ll drag your tight little ass outta this vehicle too, understand? He grinned like a vulture. Might pat down that cute little butt of yours just for good measure." Tonja didn’t reply but saw her husband tense.

The deputy pointed at Will, You getting froggy with me boy? I asked you a question. Why are you on this road? The glare in his eyes showed rage far beyond what the circumstances warranted, and something more. What worried Will was the officer’s hand still twitching at the revolver at his hip. Get your ass out of that car.

Will stepped out on the road. "Turn around." Will stood with his back to the officer, not knowing what would come next. The officer pushed him to the fender, kicked his feet apart, grasped his neck, holding him spread-eagle against the Bronco. Will glanced at Tonja through the window who was looking back at her husband, her eyes wide as saucers. Will was mouthing the word, ToTron, through the window at Tonja, repeatedly mouthing the word, ToTron, ToTron, his eyes darting to the glovebox.

Will watched the officer in the reflection of the side window, watched him pull his revolver, thinking, This is it! Will’s hand slowly crept toward his jacket pocket for the small Walther PPK he kept there while travelling but was still reluctant to draw the pistol. The officer’s head jerked around, peering back down the road past his patrol car. Will heard a vehicle approaching from the west. It slowed as it went past—three men in an old red and white VW Bus, the same Bus parked by the DC-3. The front seat passenger turned in his seat as they went by. No doubt he saw the officer’s drawn firearm.

The officer watched them stop in the middle of the road about a hundred yards up. Those bastards best get a move-on if they know what’s good for them. The backup lights on the red Bus came on, then a single brake light on the right side. The men appeared to be talking, arguing. The man in the back seat waving his arms at the driver. When the brake light went off, the Bus slowly began backing up toward the Bronco and the deputy.

The Bus was now within twenty-five yards. The officer pushed Will hard against the car. "Stay there. Don’t move, then turned and trotted toward the Bus, his revolver in his right hand, pointed at them. It stopped, the backup light went off, then sped forward ten or fifteen feet, then stopped again. The officer yelled, George, you better get the hell out of here!" He aimed and snapped off three rounds toward the back of the bus. Will thought he heard one of occupants scream as the VW accelerated and sped off over the hill to the east.

The officer hurried back, glancing over his shoulder at the fleeing Bus. He grabbed Will by the collar and dragged him around to the front of their car, pushed his face down on the hood, cocked his pistol.

Will made a move to turn, trying to get to his pistol. The officer pushed his face down hard. You turn around and you’re a dead man.

You shoot my husband and you’ll damn certain join him on this gravel road!

The Deputy looked up to see Tonja standing beside the Bronco with the Colt 1911 firmly grasped in both hands, cocked and aimed at his chest. He was stunned.

Drop that damn gun and do it now, Tonja screamed with her left eye closed in dead aim. She stepped forward.

Will spun around, drawing his .380 just as the officer turned as well, swinging his revolver toward Tonja. She fired two quick shots from the .45 as Will fired his pocket pistol. Tonja’s two rounds hit the Deputy dead center. Will’s one shot struck the officer in the temple as he was jolted back and sideways by the impact of the twin 230-grain .45-auto slugs. The deputy was history in less than two seconds.

The couple was speechless, standing in the morning heat and the dead quiet, gazing at the lifeless deputy sheriff at their feet, the red splatter on the car and the cop still pumping life-blood out into a dull black pool in the dust of the road.

"Good God Almighty, Will. What? What do we do?"

"I don’t know. This is fucking unbelievable. Killing a lawman—holy shit! That is serious bad business. I—I don’t know. I just don’t know. We need to settle down, calm the shit down. Think this out."

Tonja said, "We didn’t do anything wrong. He’s the one who was going to kill you. We’ll just tell the sheriff what happened. Or the State Police…They’ll believe us…won’t they?"

"Not fucking likely. How can we prove he was going to kill me, shoot you, and no telling what else? Two .45s to the chest and my .380 to the head…that looks bad—real bad." Will had seen plenty of dead men before and he had no doubt that this one was added to that heap without even checking the Deputy’s body.

Will kicked the deputy’s .357 revolver in the ditch. Let’s get him off the road. He grabbed the cop by his feet and dragged him in the bar ditch, rummaged through his pockets, retrieved their document that he had stuffed there. The deputy’s wallet had fallen loose. Will reflexively grabbed it up, looked it over, turned away from Tonja and put it in his own pants pocket. He fingered the deputy’s name bar pinned to his tan uniform shirt—KELSO in black engraved block letters. A name that Will would never forget. He stepped back, heard a crunch, glanced down to see Kelso’s yellow-mirrored-shades partially crushed at his feet, kicked them into the brush.

Let’s dust away our footprints and get the hell out of here. Grab those two ejected .45 shell casings, I’ll get my shell…we don’t have a choice. Take our chances on down the road.

What do you mean, ‘We don’t have a choice,’ then you turn around and say, ‘Take our chances’? You’re not making any sense.

She turned back to the patrol car. What about his car? They’ll find it. Find him in the ditch. What about—

"No time for ‘what about.’ Let’s go."

They sped away, their brains and hair on fire, their wits at an end, both visibly shaking, got almost to the town of Columbus, when Will skidded to a stop. We’ve got to go back and hide that patrol car and his body. I don’t know how or where, but we’ve got to get them hidden. Maybe give us a few days before they’re found and time to think this through. In agreement, they turned around, raced back to where they left the officer and his cruiser.

But in the lapsed thirty minutes, everything had changed…there was no cruiser to be found. They stopped where they were certain it all went down…no patrol car. No dead patrolman in the ditch. No deputy’s cowboy hat or revolver. No yellow-mirrored-sunglasses in the brush. No nothing. They found one boot print in the dust, western, with a walking heel. That was the only indication anyone had been within fifty miles of the place in months.

"Holy shit!" Will shouted. "What the hell is going on?"

2

Off the Great Playa, unmarked double-track gravel road.

June 4, 1985

The Chief Deputy of Dona Ana County eased his Dodge patrol car along the caliche double-track road that bounded the dry lakebed. He hated to bring his car out here as there was no way to keep the talcum powder dust from invading every nook and cranny of his shiny new vehicle. Chief Deputy Vernon Richey had come to hate the dust and the dirt and the heat of southern New Mexico almost as much as he hated working for his boss, the High Sheriff Dade Foote. Old Dade was on his fourth term as the county sheriff, but he wasn’t much of a law man…at least as far as his Chief Deputy could see.

Richey had worked for the Sheriff for the last thirteen years, lucky thirteen he often thought. A couple more years of running the Department for the Sheriff and he might actually be electable himself when the old man retired. But Richey had bigger plans that didn’t include being the Sheriff in this dusty godforsaken county. No sir. Another year like the last two, running his side business with El Piña, the infamous Carlos Pinada Figueroa from the State of Chihuahua, and Richey would be rid of New Mexico and the heat and the dust for good. His banks in Mexico had no trouble accepting his cash deposits twice a month and for a mere one-percent, his side job funds would one day soon find their way to the ultimately safe and secure ITBC-Cayman Island Bank account. He had met with his Personal Confidential Banker during a stop over last year on his cruise from Galveston through the Caribbean with his fat wife. All he had to do was keep his current little group of helpers between the ditches for twelve more months and he was set for life.

Richey didn’t always make an appearance at the airplane landing, but on occasion he liked to cruise by to insure that his boys and the Mexicans respected that this was his gig, his turf and that things were to go the way he ordered. He and his passenger, Senor Sanchez had watched this morning’s exchange through binoculars from a dry wash three-hundred yards from where the DC-3 had settled with its props still turning swirling the powdery dust. They were pleased to see the off-loaded bundles make it securely into the red VW Bus, and to watch several black canvas bags of El Pina’s cash get safely onboard. All went like clockwork in his tight, crisp little operation with the exception of the lone vehicle that had driven past on the old State Road during the offloading. Not many cars ever used this road at this hour of the morning, so it most likely was transient tourists taking in the morning air, or perhaps some old desert rats making their way toward town for supplies. Richey had watched through his binoculars as the two people driving in the tan Bronco passed by and felt certain that they hadn’t taken any special notice of the ongoing operation. Border folks knew just enough to know that they best mind their own business out here right on the international fence.

He turned to Sanchez, "Todo es bueno. It’s all good."

Still, Richey thought it best to double-check, not wanting to risk his anticipated departure for cooler, tropical climates to chance. He picked up his Motorola microphone, radioed his pervert of a Deputy Pat Kelso, as he watched his county patrol cruiser begin to pull away from the airplane.

Unit 1454 this is DA-2 on Tac Channel 2. Come in. Using a designated tactical channel insured that no one but Kelso could hear the Chief Deputy’s radio call.

Go ahead DA-2 this is 54, Kelso replied, acknowledging his County Call Sign.

54, got a report of possible vehicular traffic in your vicinity heading east. If possible, check for Wants and Warrants. Routine inquiry based on a local observer. Richey relished the fact that Kelso had no idea that the Chief Deputy was anywhere in the vicinity, but still had the omniscient eye that knew about a lone car driving along the border road. Richey knew that he had Kelso by the proverbial short hairs, but he liked to keep that freak on a tight leash and under control.

"Excellente, Jefe Richey, excellente. I know Senor Figueroa would appreciate your thoroughness." Sanchez was the Mexican moneyman from Las Cruces, a constant watcher for the Figueroa organization. Richey despised the slimy little bean-counting Mexican but hadn’t figured a way to send his ass packing back down south. The Mexicans trusted Richey to get the dope in and the money out, but not enough to handle the cash count and collection from the distribution side of their house.

10-4 Vern, understood. I’ll check it out, Kelso replied, wondering as Richey predicted, How the hell could that goddamn Richey know a car had driven down the border road…a car that I hadn’t even seen.

Kelso had a plan—to sling a single black bag of cash into his own cruiser without the rest of the crew seeing him do it and get that plane in the air with no one the wiser. He figured if that one of several bags of cash was even missed by those greasy Mexicans, they’d have no idea what happened to it…lots of hands had touched that money over the last few weeks, and he wouldn’t even be remotely suspected as responsible. It hadn’t been hard to light-finger the bag of cash, just pulled up, left his cruiser door slightly ajar, and started helping the hippies pull the bundles of Mexican brown heroin off the plane, then start grabbing the black bags of money and helped hump them through the open side-door of the plane. In the dust and roar of the still turning DC-3 props and all the commotion of the back and forth loading and unloading, he slung one of the several bags of money through his open car door, and onto the front passenger floor board, then shoving the door closed with his hip to insure no one saw anything. The hippies just wanted to get done and get down the road, get rid of the dope at the truck, and get paid. The two Mexican pilots were antsy and in a major rush to get wheels up and head back south, safely across the international border.

Kelso hadn’t planned the theft in much detail. It had occurred to him that it was do-able, and that while he wasn’t completely sure how much dope-cash was in each bag, he figured those knapsacks were plenty big to hold four or five hundred-thousand each—plenty enough to get him away from Las Cruces and away from that fucking Chief Deputy. He knew that Richey had the goods on him, somehow knew about that fucking Mexican bitch he yanked from a group of wets he had run upon out in the desert last year. That beautiful little senorita had been so scared, so terrified. If she had just cooperated even a little, it would have just been a friendly little piece of hot ass on a cold evening, but the little bitch tried to run. She was like all the other fucking whores he had run into over the years. Tease a man, disrespect his position, then think they can just go on their merry way…Uh-Uh. Not with Pat Kelso, they can’t. That little bitch had screamed and fought, but like always, she went down. But somehow, someway Richey found out. What kind of information, what physical evidence he had, Kelso didn’t know. But he did know that if he didn’t break free of Richey and vamoose from southern New Mexico he would be forever stuck as the Desert Patrol Deputy and he would be protecting these dirty Mexican dope runs until he got caught, or Richey dumped him in the bottom of a dry well some dark night. It was a shame—Las Cruces was his home and had lots of hot bitches that held his off-duty attention. Not like those long years in high school when girls wouldn’t give a harelip like him the time of day.

An added benefit of grabbing the money was that maybe The Pineapple, or his boys, would see the light and get rid of the Chief Deputy themselves, and all the way around it would be Winner-Winner Chicken Dinner for Kelso. He could just quit the Sheriff’s Office a few weeks after Richey turned up Mexican-Missing, and no one would ever be the wiser. It was just a rough plan but, in the dust, and wind and noise of the plane that morning, it all came together. Kelso was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. If the right woman or a bag full of money crossed his path…it was on.

Kelso headed west, taking the long route back to the gravel border road. He remembered the perfect spot to drop the bag for a few days. He couldn’t risk some bullshit encounter with the Chief Deputy or some other cop or citizen that might expose the overstuffed bag in his squad car to unwanted scrutiny. No one would be out on this part of the Playa for at least three weeks when the next sail car race gathering was scheduled…by then, he would have figured out a safer, more permanent place for the bag and the mountain of cash it contained. His old wrecked sail car would do in the short-term.

It took Kelso less than five minutes to find the last sail car race campsite, and to locate his crumpled and trashed homemade sail car. He recalled that he had been trying to scare a couple of college honeys driving in a sorority-built piece of shit sand sailer when his right bicycle wheel bearing shredded. He flew ass-over-over-teakettle just as he was approaching the girls head-on at over fifty miles an hour. Those bitches laughed their ass off as he pulled himself out of