DISCLAIMER: AS ALWAYS, I DO NOT CLAIM ANY OWNERSHIP OF ANY OF THE WALKER, TEXAS RANGER CHARACTERS, NOR IS ANY OWNERSHIP IMPLIED.
"Change in plans," Sydney Cooke announced, returning her cell phone to her pocket. "According to Walker, the Feds want us to take our friend to New Mexico. We're supposed to turn him over to the county sheriff at a border patrol office in Otero county and the Feds will pick him up and take things from there." She read off the route number and the exit Walker had given her. The breeze through the open passenger-side window tickled strands of her long dark hair across her face and she idly pushed them behind her ear.
"What happened to El Paso?" Francis Gage asked, puzzled.
"Yeah, what happened to El Paso? You can't do this, you know. I know my rights." Johnny Leftall, the prisoner in the back seat announced angrily.
"Apparently, the Feds have charges that trump what the rangers have. So, the Feds take priority and we get to go to New Mexico. I hear it's nice there this time of year." Sydney explained, her voice ringing with sarcasm.
"Yeah, nice and hot," Johnny Leftall announced.
"I'm sure they'll be happy to see him," her partner replied. Francis Gage gave the man in restraints in the back seat a glance in the rearview mirror. "I know I'll be happy to see him gone."
Hearing Gage's remarks, the man behind them began to protest loudly. Sydney turned in her seat and stared him down.
"I told you seventy-five miles ago to sit there and be quiet. I meant it. Now pipe down so I can enjoy my extended road trip," she commanded.
"Lady, I'm hungry. And I gotta take a whiz. You can't treat a prisoner like this. I got rights you know."
"We know, Johnny. Believe me. We know," Gage replied with a hint of snark to his voice. Gage nodded toward a roadside sign that announced food and fuel. "Looks like you're in luck, pal."
A few minutes later, they pulled into a truck stop that had seen better days. While Sydney filled up the gas tank and went inside to order sandwiches and Cokes, Gage escorted their prisoner to the men's room, waiting outside for him to finish his business.
"Why can't we eat inside?" Johnny Leftall whined. "I'm telling you, it's not fair to be treated like this. I got rights!"
"We're not eating inside because a man in handcuffs and leg restraints draws too much attention," Sydney pointed out. "And besides, the waitress was my partner's ex-wife," she added with a smirk, winking at Gage. "If she saw him, she'd know how to find him and then poof! There goes what's left of his paycheck in alimony and child support for his eight kids."
Gage spit the mouthful of Coke he was trying to swallow when he burst into laughter.
"Funny, real funny." Leftall groused. "I'm going to tell my attorney to file a complaint against you people. I got rights and you two clowns think you're Saturday Night Live."
"Johnny, shut up and eat your sandwich so we can get back on the road," Gage ordered. He looked at Sydney and grinned, shaking his head. Who would have thought the rookie whose first assignment as a ranger was going undercover with him for nine months would have turned out to be the best partner he'd ever worked with? Who would have thought she would have become the best friend he'd ever had, and was such a firecracker, too?
Gage stepped out of the Otero county border patrol office and squinted his eyes against the bright desert sunlight. He walked back to the car where Sydney was waiting.
"This was the right place?" Sydney asked. She doubted the dusty little town was even on the map and was surprised the Feds would pick up a wanted man in such an out-of-the-way place.
"This was it, believe it or not. The sheriff was waiting for him and had all the paperwork on him."
"Seems strange, doesn't it? They must have been desperate to get their hands on Johnny Leftall." Sydney shrugged her shoulders. While it was odd, it probably wasn't the oddest thing she'd seen as a ranger, and if this is what the Feds wanted, whatever. They ruled the roost.
"They must have. He's their problem now. Give the sheriff fifteen minutes with him and he'll be begging the Feds to hurry up and take that pain in the ass off his hands." In all his years as a Texas Ranger, and with all the suspects and prisoners he had ever dealt with, Gage couldn't recall one who had been more annoying than Johnny Leftall.
"I hear that," Sydney replied. Johnny Leftall and his constant reminders about his rights had begun to grate on her nerves not long after they'd left Dallas. Sydney called Walker to let him know they'd delivered Johnny to the sheriff's office to await the Feds' pickup and then checked their directions back to the highway.
"Gage, did you ask them if there was anywhere to get a tire fixed around here?"
The right front tire had gone flat about twenty miles outside of the dusty little collection of buildings that made up a town. They still had another almost thirty miles to drive to the nearest motel and the spare didn't look or feel like it would make it half that far.
Gage made a face that answered Sydney's question. "I'll be right back."
Gage walked back into the border patrol office, taking a moment for his eyes to adjust and enjoying the momentary coolness of the air from the overworked air-conditioning unit in the window. The sheriff that had been sitting at the desk in the office area just a few minutes ago was nowhere in sight.
"Hello?" Gage called out tentatively. He walked down a narrow hallway painted an all-purpose, institutional shade of seafoam Sydney often referred to as "public restroom green." He chuckled to himself at the thought.
Voices at the end of the hall stopped him. Gage could see what looked to be a small area with a couple of holding cells. Johnny Leftall, still in cuffs and leg restraints, was kneeling on the floor. Gage opened his mouth to speak but before he could get a word out, the source of one of the voices raised a hand holding a gun with a silencer and shot Johnny in the back of the head. The man slumped forward and sideways onto the floor, his unseeing eyes staring back at Gage.
"Shit," Gage hissed. Something told him this was not something he wanted to get himself and Sydney involved in, being completely out of their jurisdiction and without any kind of guidance from Walker. He turned and bolted down the hallway and back out of the building.
Sydney saw her partner exit the building at a dead run. On instinct, she slid across the front seat of the car.
"Drive, Syd!" Gage yelled as he neared the vehicle. He yanked open the passenger door as gunshots rang out from behind him. Sydney cranked the engine as shots continued firing in their direction. Gage tumbled into the car and slammed the door, pulling his gun from the holster on his hip to fire back.
"Drive. Go. Go!"
"What's going on?" Sydney asked, confused.
"I have no idea. Damn, Syd. They shot Johnny."
"What? Who?" Sydney looked at Gage, her mouth agape, nearly running them off the road.
"Drive, Syd!"
Sydney got the car back under control, its fishtailing wheels leaving a cloud of dust behind them.
"They shot Johnny. We gotta call Walker." Gage dug in his pocket for his cell phone.
"Shit! My battery's dead. Where's your phone?"
"In my pocket."
"Front or back"
"My right hip pocket."
Gage reached over and tried to wiggle Sydney's phone from the pocket of her jeans. A sudden exploding sound when the passenger-side mirror shattered made them both jump. Sydney glanced in the rear view mirror to make out the shape of a car in the cloud of dust behind them, and the shape of a person leaning out the window.
"Look out," she warned, swerving wildly across the road. A bullet pinged off the corner of the trunk.
Gage gave up searching for Sydney's phone and instead fired a few shots out the window. Unable to see well enough through the rising dust, he decided to wait until he had a better sight on his target.
The chase continued until a sign appeared on the right announcing their entry into Doña Ana County. Sydney had only caught a glimpse of it, but she noticed that the moment she passed the sign, their pursuers vanished.
"They're gone," she announced, breathing a long sigh of relief.
"I noticed. They backed off when we crossed the county line."
"What the hell happened back there, Gage?"
"I went back in to ask about getting that tire fixed and there was nobody around and nobody answered when I called out, so I went looking to see where everyone went. Johnny was kneeling on the floor in this room at the end of the hall. Someone else was in the room and shot him execution-style, Syd, right in the back of the head," Gage recounted the story.
"Holy…"Sydney breathed.
"No kidding."
"The sheriff shot Johnny Leftall?" Sydney asked in disbelief.
"I don't know who shot him. All I saw was a hand and a gun. I didn't see the sheriff. For all we know, he could be dead, too. I just know that we don't have any jurisdiction here and this isn't anything we can get involved with. Whoever killed Johnny had to have heard me leaving. That's probably who was after us."
"We have to tell Walker, Gage. He has to get ahold of the Feds in case they're walking into a trap," Sydney dug her cell phone out of her pocket and handed it to her partner. "Gage, your shoulder! You're bleeding!"
Gage looked down at his shirt, which was now stained a bright red. In all the excitement, he hadn't felt any pain but now he realized the sharp, stinging sensation that radiated through his shoulder and down his arm.
"I need to look at that," Sydney said, concerned. She slowed to pull into an abandoned service station, the spare tire giving way with a loud pop the moment she pulled onto the dusty lot.
"Great," Sydney hissed. "There went the spare."
"It's no use, Syd. There's no signal out here," Gage had been trying to call Walker but the calls wouldn't go through.
"Maybe this place still has a pay phone," Sydney offered hopefully, trying to keep the alarm out of her voice when she noticed the sweat beaded on her partner's brow. "First, though, I'm going to take a look at that shoulder."
Sydney knelt on the seat next to Gage and started unbuttoning his gray button-down shirt. She carefully peeled the blood-soaked fabric away from his shoulder to reveal a deep gash. Sydney grimaced. That gash needed stitches, but there was no telling where the nearest hospital was and no way of getting there with a blown spare tire and no cell phone service.
"You know, Syd, in all my fantasies about you undressing me, none of them ever involved being in the parking lot of an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico," Gage cracked.
"Did they involve being grazed by a bullet?" Sydney retorted.
"No, can't say I ever fantasized about that, either. I'm not into that kinky pain stuff."
"Well, wiseass, you're lucky it was just a graze. Problem is, it needs stitched up. I can see what I can do with what's in the first aid kit, but we really need to get you to a doctor." Sydney gave Gage a serious look to let him know she was done joking around.
"That bad, huh?"
"It could be worse." Sydney got out of the car and dug around in the trunk. She came back with their go-bags, a bottle of water, and the first aid kit.
"Let me see what I can do," she said, twisting the lid off the bottle. In a few minutes, she had the wound cleaned and bandaged as well as she could to try to hold the edges of the wound as closely together as possible.
"Well, Nurse Cooke, I'd say you did a fine job," Gage raised his arm up and down a few times, wincing at the pain that was still there.
"As long as your arm doesn't fall off, we'll be in good shape. But we're getting a doctor to look at it the first chance we get," Sydney admonished.
Gage looked around at their dismal surroundings. "You think this place has a pay phone?"
Sydney surveyed the view with a critical eye. "I doubt it." She dug around in the console for some change. "I'll look anyhow." She handed Gage what was left of the bottle of water she used to clean his wound. "Stay here. And drink that. I'll be right back." She gave Gage a stern look before she turned on her heel and headed toward the abandoned building.
The place looked like the land that time forgot, she thought. Weeds nearly as tall as she was had grown up through cracks in the pavement and sidewalk and around the pump islands where the pumps had long ago been removed. Across the lot, the ground was permanently tattooed with oil stains from cars that had been there and gone. Through the dirt-encrusted windows, she saw old signs that encouraged drivers to "Put a tiger in your tank!" So this had been an old Exxon station at one time, she noted. One half of the building looked to be a garage, while the other seemed to be a waiting area that offered vending machines, maps, and various travel sundries. A large framed map of New Mexico hung on the wall with what was probably once a brightly colored arrow proclaiming "You are here." A sign hanging haphazardly from a broken chain directed the way to the restrooms and vinyl chairs with the stuffing swelling out of rips and tears lined one wall.
Syd moved to the garage side of the building, hopeful. Maybe there might be a tire, and between her and Gage, they might be able to figure out how to get it mounted and on the car. One look through the window told her no luck. The garage had been stripped bare. She walked around the corner of the building and saw what she was looking for – a faded sign for a telephone. She nearly skipped and danced to the booth with its cracked and yellowed Plexiglas privacy enclosure only to find the phone had been removed.
"Damn it."
Sydney headed back to the car, dejected.
"No phone?" Gage asked.
"Well, there was one at one time. How's your shoulder?"
"It's not the worst pain I've been in, but I know it's there."
"I'm sorry, Gage. I tried."
"You did a good job, Syd. Don't worry about it. I'll be okay."
They sat in silence for several long moments, the only movement around them coming from the beginnings of a small tumbleweed's feeble attempts to cross the empty parking lot. Dusk was starting to settle over the stark landscape and the bright sunlight gave way to long shadows that stretched like menacing fingers toward their refuge.
"So what do we do now?" Sydney asked.
"I guess the best thing to do is stay here for the night. I doubt there's much traffic on this road as it is so there's probably less at night. I think we should try to move the car behind the building, though, just in case," Gage replied.
"Good idea." Sydney slid back into the driver's seat and limped the car around the dilapidated garage to where it would be out of sight from anyone passing by.
"I saw some maps in the building. They're old, but they'll be better than nothing. Maybe tomorrow morning, I can try to get inside and get one and see if we can't find our way back to civilization," Sydney said.
"Sounds good."
"For now, though, we should probably try to get some sleep." Gage looked tired, Sydney thought, and she was a little worried about him.
"Yeah." Gage sounded just as tired as he looked, which didn't ease Sydney's worry any.
Sydney got out of the car and rummaged through the trunk for a couple of minutes. She returned with another bottle of water, a handful of small packages of snacks, and a blanket. Gage looked at her in amazement.
"Where were you hiding all that? You have a QuikTrip in the trunk or something?" he asked, reaching for the package of peanut butter crackers she offered.
"I always have this stuff in the trunk," Sydney replied.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Never know when we're going to get sent on a stake-out and I'll be stuck for hours listening to your stomach growl!" Sydney giggled.
"Then why don't you offer up any of this buffet?" Gage asked.
"Because you always insist on driving."
"Oh. Makes sense." Gage nodded, munching on a cracker.
"We should probably take it easy on the water, though. I only have a few bottles left. And there's just one blanket."
"Is that a problem?" Gage asked, raising an eyebrow teasingly.
"No. You can have it. I'll be fine." Sydney opened up a package of granola bars and leaned her head against the window to look up at the sky which was now filling with stars.
"Wonder where we are, exactly?" she mused.
"Guess we'll find out tomorrow," Gage replied.
Sydney finished her granola bars and nestled into the seat and closed her eyes. In moments, she was asleep. Gage smiled to himself as he unfolded the blanket and tucked it around her.
"Goodnight, Syd," he whispered. He leaned back against the passenger-side window and watched Sydney sleep. It was a long time before he was able to fall asleep himself.