getting Border Patrol on-site before two men turned into twenty. “Can you get me back across?”
“Ten minutes!” he yelled.
True to his word, ten minutes later he had rescued the kayak downstream, dragged it back, and paddled deftly across the river, just upstream from the cow, where the bank was slightly more sloped.
“You paddle back. I’ll swim. Slide on down the bank, and I’ll help you in.” Sauly looked up at her with a wide grin, half his teeth rotted out, his eyes bright. Josie cussed, checked that her gun and phone were secure, and started down the sandy bank, hanging on to a skinny tree to keep from sliding into the river. Sauly had already climbed out of the kayak and was waist deep, holding steady. Josie knew the river was about eight feet deep in the center.
“Let’s go, Chief. Have a little faith. I won’t let you get that pretty uniform wet.”
With an arm on Sauly’s shoulder, she managed a quick step into the boat. It rocked back and forth but held steady. Several minutes later, she was safe onshore, where Sauly smiled and handed her the cocaine she had left in the boat.
“You’re a good man,” she said.
While he hid his boat again in the weeds, she contacted the Marfa Border Sector on Sauly’s home phone and talked with a patrol officer.
“I’ve got ten packages. Probably a kilo each. The cow’s abdomen was sliced open. They took her organs out, stuck the coke in, and sewed her back up with what looks to be fishing line. When the cow got hung up, the fishing line snapped and her belly broke open.” The sector agent took off on a cynical rant against the kind of idiots who would route their drugs across the border in a dead cow. Josie didn’t recognize the agent, but he sounded fed up with the job. Josie finally broke in, “The Altagracia Ranch is about two miles upstream from here, Mexican side.” She provided directions to Sauly’s for the agent and said, “Shots were fired. If I hadn’t had a gun pointed in their direction, they’d have been more aggressive. They’ll be back.”
* * *
When Josie arrived back at the police department, a city council member was sitting on the wooden bench out front under the window. Smokey Blessings, married to Nurse Vie Blessings, was thirty-five. Smokey drove a county maintenance truck, and Josie both respected and liked him. A slightly overweight father of two, he had a calm disposition and plenty of common sense. Vie was five years older than Smokey, and ran his life like she did everything else—with bossy efficiency.
He squinted up at Josie and stood as she approached. The noon sun was in his face, and he looked sweaty and nervous. “Chief.”
“Smokey.”
“Can we talk a few minutes?” he asked.
Walking upstairs, they talked about how Vie was handling the stress from the shooting at the Trauma Center.
“I was out at the maintenance barn, and one of the guys came running in. Told me the Trauma Center was under attack. Wanted to know if Vie was working. I said, ‘Hell yes, she’s working!’ She’d just sent me a text saying she couldn’t meet me for lunch. She didn’t bother to mention she’d just lived through a gunfight.”
They reached the top of the stairs, and Josie opened the office door and flipped on the lights. She pulled out chairs at the conference table as Smokey continued.
“I told Frank I was going over there. I was hell-bent on pulling my wife out of that operating room. I knew she wouldn’t do it herself. She’d get herself shot before she walked out on a patient. Frank finally talked sense into me. Told me I’d get in the way. Get myself arrested, if not shot.”
Josie got them both a bottle of water and turned the fan to blow straight at them. The window air conditioner took the edge off, but it didn’t actually cool the room. Smokey sighed and seemed to relax a little.
“I don’t know anyone who handles stress any better than Vie does. She’s a perfect fit for her job. I know yesterday was over the top, but no one could have handled it any better than she did.”
Smokey shook his head. “She brushes that stuff off like lint. Nothing fazes the woman.” He paused and smiled. “Except Donny.”
Josie laughed. Donny was their fifteen-year-old son, who took Vie’s exuberance for life to the next level. Josie didn’t say so, but she was fairly certain