The Territory A Novel - By Tricia Fields Page 0,98
uncomplicated. You and I, we can have a mutually acceptable agreement. I provide you with security, with the tools to keep your town safe. You need guns and weapons, a new jail? I provide that. You need a house with security, a place where you go home at night and feel secure? I provide that. Everyone benefits.”
Josie stared at him and wondered how easily Hack Bloster had sacrificed his principles for this man. How long had it taken Bloster to sign away his career for a pile of blood money?
“Mr. Medrano, you may have bargained with others in my town, but you won’t bargain with me. I abide by the rules, and I enforce them. I won’t negotiate with you. You can cross the border legally in Presidio, just like all the other Mexicans.”
He smiled with condescension and wiped a handkerchief across his forehead. “You give up your town’s security, just like that? No thought to what this could mean to your citizens? Life can be a very dangerous proposition when you have no protection.”
“This may work in Mexico, the veiled threats and intimidation, but it doesn’t work here. I have the United States government, the Border Patrol, the Department of Public Safety, ICE, ATF, and every law enforcement agency along the border ready to provide us protection. How many of your clan did you lose this past week to us? Two killed, how many in jail? A dozen now?” She paused and stared at him through the glass. “Turn your car around and head south. We don’t want you here.”
He tensed. The men flanking him seemed to recognize the insult and shuffled their feet, all taking a step forward. It was like watching a pack of dogs react to the alpha male.
Medrano leaned to one side and spit on the ground. “To see your animal go missing, your man friend disappear. To watch your house in flames. These would be tragedies for you to experience like you have already cursed my family. You killed my father in your hospital—allowed a man to shoot his body to unrecognizable pieces of meat as you personally watched and did nothing. You killed a friend. Shot him in cold blood in your hospital.”
She lowered her voice to little more than a whisper as she tried to calm the anger in her throat. “I want you out of here. Now.” Josie knew she could do little in response to his threats. Lou had told her Border Patrol was thirty minutes away, Otto another five to ten minutes. She was outnumbered.
“You are a beautiful woman. You are wasting yourself on this small drama. You have eyes made for bigger dreams than this.” His expression had tightened; his words didn’t match the vicious look on his face.
She closed the phone.
The Bishop turned from her and raised both arms in the air to the men standing behind him and walked toward the car. Josie turned, tripped over a stool by the door, and ducked as gunfire exploded onto the door. After several seconds, it stopped. The glass, unbelievably, was still intact.
From the kitchen, Josie could still see the men outside. Medrano said something in Spanish and laughed. The men behind him laughed as well and shouted something toward the house that she was glad she couldn’t interpret.
Medrano pointed a finger at her and yelled, “You will regret this day, Ms. Gray. Have no doubt about your mistake.”
SIXTEEN
After the latest threat from the Medrano clan, Otto convinced Josie to take an early supper break at the Hot Tamale to cool off and regroup. Border Patrol had met her and Otto at Red’s house, and they were writing up the report and processing the scene. Otto stopped to talk with a retired schoolteacher who wanted to gripe about a parking ticket while Josie ordered and found a table in the corner. If she had laid her head down on the table, she would have been asleep within minutes.
Vie Blessings sat down across from Josie, squinted her eyes, and winced. “You don’t look so good.”
Josie shrugged.
“Things calmed down any?”
Josie found that everywhere she went lately, people asked for an update, which usually translated to a request for assurance that the violence was over.
She shrugged again. “Not enough.”
Vie leaned into the table, and Josie could tell something else was on her mind. “I hate to ask this. I know how busy you all are right now, but someone has set up a camper back behind our place. Smokey told me to