Fistful of Reefer

Fistful of Reefer: scene two

The wine lacked panache, made from mustang grapes despite the fifty-year-old lenoir vines rooted two miles from the stool where he sat. Shame, the rest of the establishment was respectable. McCutchen listened past the drunken blather of Special Ranger Ballinger for the conversations going on around him, mostly in Spanish. Increasingly, he felt their celebration of a job well done boded poorly with the locals. That was the life of a ranger in the borderlands.

He sighed, taking another swig of wine. The berries hadn’t even ripened—too vegetal, acidic. Then they got sloppy with the sugar, too much, too early in the fermentation, creating a bright red swill. He put down his glass and drummed his fingers on the bar. They were Texas-side in a town called Del Rio. But after eight straight years of Mexican revolution and a constant rabble of refugees spilling over the border, over a third of the saloon’s patrons were Mexicans.

Carranza’s presidency continued as illegitimately as Huerta’s, and shiftless Mexicans seemed to accept incompetent governance as an excuse for violent and criminal behavior. With gunrunning, goat rustling and general banditry driving reprisal killings to an all-time high, the general mood was such that Anglos hated Mexicans, Mexicans hated Anglos, and just to make things worse, a handful of old Tejanos resented both. McCutchen loathed laziness, helplessness and corruption, which most of the people surrounding him had in spades.

A clump of four Mexicans hovering over shots of mescal and tequila caught McCutchen’s attention. Over the next minute he heard mention of the dried leaves and buds of the Mexican cáñamo plant more than once. Locals knew it only as loco weed, but this broad label often included several noxious species that caused temporary madness in grazing livestock. Mexicans differentiated between the worthless weeds and the product they called marihuana. Unregulated and unnoticed, officially the U.S. had no stance on the narcotic, but McCutchen knew better.

He took another sip of wine before noticing that one of the Mexicans had gone. Before he could locate the missing man, Ballinger elbowed him nearly causing him to spill what was left of his fermented piss and grape juice onto his denim jacket. “Dammit, Ballinger. Wrap it up before you make more trouble than you resolve.”

“Loosen up, McCrutch.” Ballinger laughed at his own pun.

While sipping his wine and contemplating cracking Ballinger across the chops, a loud slap on the table behind McCutchen focused his attention. Through the corner of his eye he located his fourth Mexican, a wet-behind-the-ears sort embroiled in an argument with an ugly hombre who looked like he’d been born during a stampede.

He sighed, fully aware that a half-dozen illegal schemes were being hatched at this very moment in this one bar alone. At least experience had taught him that a certain Darwinian wisdom usually won the day as the criminal sort weeded themselves out by their own stupidity.

Reluctant to waste wine, even wine that smelled of wet hay, McCutchen drained his glass in a gulp. He dreaded the coming of prohibition state-wide. Ridiculous. Knowing marihuana to be the real threat, he had little time for draft dodgers and bootleggers, the spineless and pathetic. Yet, soon ranger resources would be called on in greater numbers to crack down on pancho-clad bootleggers moving moonshine via donkey under the cover of night. That too was the life of a ranger in the borderlands.

Speaking of pancho-clad bootleggers, the Mexican voices to his left grew louder. He turned to see one of them holding a familiar cigarette and knew it was time to move. Ballinger, belly up to the bar, was about to order his fifth shot of tequila when McCutchen decided the celebration was over. It was time to get back to work. But before he could enact his plan the fourth Mexican bolted out the back. He cursed his poor timing while taking Ballinger by the scruff, “That’s enough.”

“Like hell. I’ve just started,” Ballinger tried to resist. The steady din of noise surrounding them receded.

McCutchen backed him toward the table of Mexicans while barking in his face, “You’re already drunk as a Mexican whore.” Tension in the saloon crackled to the breaking point as he pushed the drunken Ballinger.

“Son of a—” Ballinger tripped over his own feet and stumbled. Trying to catch himself, he flipped the table where the Mexicans were seated. The rest went down pretty much as McCutchen had planned. At first, anyway.

Ballinger fell clean over, pinning the smallest Mexican beneath him. The two sitting on the far side jumped to their feet, reaching for their irons. One of them was fast, but McCutchen had killed plenty of fast before. By the time the Mexican flashed his metal, McCutchen had drawn both of his Colt .45s and dropped the hammers.

The roar ripped through the narrow saloon as the first man fell. The second dipped his shoulder and dodged to his right, extending his life for an instant. What happened next was pure bad luck.

The second Mexican committed too heavily to his lunge and lost his feet. As he fell, he finally loosed his pistola. McCutchen leveled both of his .45s and let him have it in the chest. By reflex, the dying Mexican squeezed off one slug that unfortunately channeled right through the top of Ballinger’s skull and out at the base of his neck. Falling limp, he draped over the third man who temporarily stopped squirming.

McCutchen noticed something metallic flash in the corner of his eye. This too was the life of a borderlands ranger. The shot came hot and premature, splintering the wood of the bar behind him. He lunged for the shelter of the overturned table and landed softly on the body he’d recently dispatched there. Another slug struck the edge of the table on his way down, too fast for a single shooter.

Two shooters remained, and the man pinned under Ballinger would free himself sooner rather than later. Three irons to his two would be poor odds without the tactical element of surprise, and he wanted the last man alive. The fresh burn of gunpowder tickled his nostrils. Now or never.

He inched back from the table so that it wouldn’t block his motion. With both arms outstretched and his Colt Flat Tops pointed in the directions of the loudest scuffling, he rose up on his knees. Thunder and lightning battered the bar as lead pounded the table in front of him. He steadied both hands, dropped the hammers and loosed heavenly elements of his own while binding two more Mexicans in the grip of death.

Nothing moved in the saloon but gently wafting smoke. McCutchen stood, his right hand trained on the Mexican who’d freed himself from under Ballinger’s dead body, his left hand roaming the narrow room from side to side. Breathing fast, a trickle of sweat ran down the cavity of his chest causing a stinging sensation.

He felt a pinch. Letting one eye flicker down to take a look, he saw a red stain spreading there. He relaxed, taking a deep breath. It burned, but not badly. He slowed his pulse, calmed his breathing. Humming gently, he relaxed his shoulders and cracked his neck. Finally, he looked the remaining Mexican in the eyes, “You’ve got the blood of a ranger on you, greaser.”

Walking around the table while holstering one of his .45s, he knelt where the man lay on the floor with his hands raised above his head. McCutchen sneered. Ballinger’s normal cologne of sweat and alcohol had been enriched with human defecation. He was riffraff, sure. But a ranger, nonetheless. McCutchen gripped his remaining Colt around the cylinder and clapped it against the side of the Mexican’s head.