His eyes drop from my face to the belt at my waist. The cuffs are on one side, the loaded gun on the other. He knows he won’t be safe as long as I’m armed.
“Ain’t gonna happen, Ranger,” he says. “We’re gonna take us one of these pretty little customers. The kind that they’ll put all over the news, saying, ‘Those damn Texas Rangers fucked up and got that little girl killed.’”
He uses his assault rifle as a pointer. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” he says.
Each person cringes as the gun aims at them before moving on.
“You are it,” he says finally, aiming the rifle at the youngest person in the room, a pretty girl who can’t be eighteen. She lets out a sob, and her eyes swim with tears.
I have to do something.
And I have to do it now.
Mr. AR-15 bends his knees like he’s going to hop down off the counter, but my best chance—my only chance—depends on keeping him above the rest of the crowd. It will be safer for all of the bystanders if I’m shooting upward.
“Wait!” I yell as loudly as I can.
My shift in tone has caught everyone by surprise. Let’s see if I can surprise them again.
What happens next takes only a couple of seconds.
Three at the most.
I drop into a crouch, reaching for my gun as I do. My cowboy hat flies off my head as if yanked by a string, and only in that split second am I aware that Mr. Beretta has pulled the trigger and filled the silence with the roar of a gunshot.
I land on one knee, in a shooting stance, and raise my pistol. Mr. Beretta is closer, but Mr. AR-15 is more dangerous. I draw a bead on the center of his black mask as he’s bringing the assault rifle around. I squeeze the trigger and his head snaps back. Blood splatters the ceiling. His body leans and he starts to fall backward off the counter, but I’m already shifting, swinging my gun onto Mr. Beretta. It’s only been an instant since he fired his pistol. He’s moving fast, and in a fraction of a second, he’ll have his gun aimed between my eyes. But I don’t give him a fraction of a second. My sight is already locked on the black mask.
I squeeze the trigger.
His body hits the floor an instant after I hear the thump of Mr. AR-15 landing behind the counter.
The air is full of the acrid smell of gunpowder and screaming. I take a moment to verify both men are dead. Then I call out and ask if anyone is injured. People are crying, in shock—they’ll be traumatized for life—but no one is hurt.
My eyes drift to my cowboy hat, lying on the floor. There’s a dime-sized hole through the crown. An inch lower and the bullet would have punched a crater in the top of my skull. I’m in a trance for a few seconds, looking at the hat. Then I hear the door of the bank burst open. I whirl around with my SIG Sauer, but I pull up and point the barrel at the ceiling.
My lieutenant, Kyle, is at the door, out of breath and gun in hand. His face is a picture of absolute surprise. He takes in the scene and then adjusts his hat on his head.
“I’ll be damned,” he says. “What’d I miss?”
Chapter 4
THAT EVENING, AS the sun sits low on the horizon, I pull my F-150 into the driveway at my parents’ ranch. I live here, in a separate house that’s less than a year old. My place is on a small hill overlooking the spot where a bunkhouse for ranch hands used to be, back when hired cowboys lived on the property. I like the view from the little two-bedroom home that Willow and I briefly shared before she moved to Nashville.
I pass my parents’ house, the home I grew up in. Mom is out working in the garden, and Dad is on the porch, whittling a block of wood.
I pull to a stop but don’t get out.
“I’m okay,” I say as they approach the truck, their expressions revealing they’ve been sick with worry. They’ve already heard what happened.
We talk for a few minutes as I try to set their minds at ease. I’m still numb from the deadly events at the bank, and I just want to be alone. But it can’t be easy having a son who wears a tin star to work every day, so I try to reassure them.
One of the reasons I moved back to the property was that I wanted to be close so I could help out. Dad had a bout with cancer last year. He’s in remission now and doing great. Most of the time it feels like Mom and Dad are helping me out and not the other way around. Tonight is no different. Mom says she made extra for supper and brings me a plate wrapped in cellophane, a venison sirloin with fried okra and mashed potatoes on the side. When I get to my place, I set the plate on the table but don’t unwrap it.
I have no appetite.
I take a long, hot shower, then grab a Shiner Bock from the refrigerator and go sit on the porch. The pine boards feel good on my bare feet. It’s dusk, and there’s a hell of a Texas sunset in front of me. The whole landscape has a sharp golden hue, and the clouds in the sky look like they’re on fire.
I take one sip of the beer and it hits my empty stomach like acid. I dump the rest over the porch railing into the grass and set the empty bottle at my feet.
This isn’t my first time shooting someone, but it never gets easier. One minute, I feel like I could throw up. The next, I feel like I could break down crying. Instead, I just sit there and think. These were bad guys—identified as ex-felons with long rap sheets. Still, I took their lives to get the people in the bank out of harm’s way. But I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would have been okay watching those men take that teenage girl hostage.
I could not have let that happen.
I’ve had a complicated relationship with God—the violence I’ve seen can make me question God’s existence—but today I say a little prayer of thanks for the safety of the innocent folks in that bank. And I say thanks for the bullet that passed through my Stetson, that its path wasn’t any lower.
A faint orange glow remains on the horizon. Stars have begun to populate the darkening sky. I go inside to get my guitar, figuring if anything will clear my mind, playing will. Concentrating on the notes, focusing on the lyrics, doing something I love—that’s the medicine I need right now.
But when I get inside, I see my phone is full of missed calls and text messages. Family and friends are wanting to check on me, but I’m not in the mood to talk. There’s nothing from Willow. She’s on tour with Dierks Bentley, and she has a show in Sacramento tonight.
There is one message that catches my eye. My old lieutenant, Ted Creasy, sent me a text that says, Call me, partner.
I do.
“I’ve got bad news and bad news,” he says. “Which one do you want first?”
Chapter 5
“AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED to be retired?” I tell Creasy.
“Yeah,” he says, “but I still got my ear to the floor. People tell me stuff.”
As we’re talking, I step out into the grass, feel the cool blades on my bare feet. Fireflies light up around me in the dark. I can hear insects chirping in the distance. I could have died today—and that perspective makes it hard to be worried about whatever Creasy has to say.
He tells me that the higher-ups in the Texas Ranger Division are happy with my performance today. From the major who oversees my company to the chief of the whole division, everyone agrees I couldn’t have handled the situation any better.