Chapter 1

“But wildlife experts say a black panther in east Texas is near-impossible.” — report from KLTV News regarding black panther sighting in Upshur County, Texas

Sam

Tree limbs scraped the paint of my Ford Expedition as I navigated a backwoods trail in the dark. The SUV pancaked into an axle-deep rut then bunny-hopped out; all four wheels churned sand. The seat belt saved me from a concussion by cutting me in half. Hashtag, grateful for small mercies.

“Oof,” Reyes grunted from the passenger seat. “Are we there yet?”

“Do you see the fossilized remains of an Airstream trailer sunk up to its windows in weeds?”

Ferdinand Reyes, a detective from the Gregg County Sheriff’s Department, peered through the windshield and shrugged. “I saw the Boggy Creek monster a ways back. He was seven feet tall. Taller than you, even.”

“Really? They made a movie about the Boggy Creek monster. Not a good one.”

“This one was better looking than you too.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

Reyes tapped out a Marlboro Red and rolled down the window. Muggy night air huffed into the cab. Engine noise and dust came with it, followed by the smell of pine trees and weeds.

My nose twitched, anticipating a sneeze. High beams white-washed the narrow tunnel of vegetation lining the track. Grasshoppers flickered through the light, buzzing away or ticking against the grill. Other night bugs kamikazed into the windshield. I smeared their greenish remains with the wipers every once in a while.

I caught a whiff of acrid back draft when Reyes lit his cigarette off a disposable lighter and blew smoke toward the open window.

“At least tell me you know where you’re going, Ranger Cable.”

We rocked and swayed through another series of dips before I answered, “Mostly.” It was my turn to shrug. “Beaver said the Thigpen brothers have taken up an old trailer on Ten Mile Creek. The only abandoned trailer I know of is back down here somewhere. I saw it about two years ago, pokin’ around.”

Reyes’s cigarette flared, and he nodded.

“Unless he meant the Ten Mile Creek in Rusk County, in which case, that’s a whole different trailer, and we’re way ’n hell gone the wrong direction.”

Smoke snorted from Reyes’s nose. “Middle of the night, I should be in bed with my wife.”

“And ruin her sex life?”

“You know what today is?”

“Laundry day?”

“Friday the thirteenth, man.”

I grunted a laugh. “You’re not superstitious, are you?”

“No, not me.” Reyes shook his head. “Besides, I got on my lucky socks.”

A low-hanging limb slapped the windshield and squealed across the roof. Beyond it, the headlights picked out a jumble of rotted barbwire fence posts—part of a gate built before man discovered fire. Arcs of rusted wire twisted around the gap in the trail, just begging to give someone a bad case of tetanus.

“This is as far as we go by car. Any farther, they’ll hear us for sure, or see the headlights.” I shut off the motor and killed the lights.

“Holy shit,” Reyes said, “it got dark out here.”

“Did you bring your blankie?”

Reyes’s teeth gleamed, and the metallic sound of a slide action clattered in the dark. “Yes, I did. Mr. Glock is all the blankie I need.”

“You say that now.” I stepped out of the SUV and settled my Stetson. “Junior and Ray Thigpen are poison mean and lower than armadillo shit. They belong to the infamous club of crazy-ass gun nuts. You may want something heavier than a puny nine-mil if things go to hell.”

Reyes joined me at the tailgate. He was built on an R2-D2 frame, so his flattop haircut came to my shoulder.

“Take this.” I handed him a Rock River Arms LAR-8. “Three-oh-eight caliber, two-stage trigger, twenty-round mag, and a red dot sight.”

“Holy mackerel,” Reyes whispered, taking the weight of the rifle.

“Safety is on the left. Bolt is here. The mag is full, chamber empty.”

“I’m feeling warmer already.” Reyes used the same voice he would for a full Hail Mary. “What’s that?”

I held up the weapon I’d removed from my gun locker. “My new toy: an HK G36C. Seven pounds of space-age fire stick.”

“What was that about gun nuts?”

“Hey!” I fitted one of the HK’s translucent magazines in place and seated it with a slap. “I’m not a gun nut. I’m an enthusiast. C’mon, Rambo, let’s go find some Thigpens.”

I flashed my Maglite to negotiate the gutted remains of the gate then switched it off.

Two days ago, Ray and Junior Thigpen had held up a convenience store bait shop near Cherokee Lake, on the border of Gregg County, Texas. They’d shot and killed the owner, a Pakistani immigrant named Tarik Bhatti, for reasons unknown. The silent security video footage showed a lot of shouting and gesturing by Bhatti and the Thigpen brothers. Then they crashed their way out—two bowling balls in a china factory—with seventy-eight dollars and a case of Michelob Ultra. A snitch—Mason “Beaver” Cleaver—had given up a potential nesting ground: a rusty trailer on a mosquito-ridden bank of God’s sewer line, a trickle of snake-infested muddy water known as Ten Mile Creek.

Guided more by feel than sight, I led the way down the pitch-black tunnel of pine trees, squelching through the occasional mud puddle and stumbling into wheel ruts. Behind me, Reyes slapped at vampire mosquitoes and griped under his breath.

Thirty sweaty minutes later, a patch of lesser gloom ahead indicated a change in the trail. I slowed from a stumble to a creep then hissed at Reyes to stop.

“What is it?” he whispered. He sounded a little hoarse and out of breath.

I snuck back to where he was, nearly bumping into the deputy before I saw him. I put my head down next to his and murmured, “I think we’re close. Looks like a clearing up ahead. Fan out to my right and watch where you put your feet.”

“Booby traps?”

“Snakes.”

“Tu madre,” he breathed.

We split up, and I crept forward, rolling my steps from heel to toe, feeling for twigs with the sole of my boot. I wasn’t Deerslayer, but I could move a little more quietly than a gravel truck when I wanted. Reyes, not so much, though.

The end of the rutted track cut through a ring of high brush and weeds that tapered off to shorter grass covering an area the size of a high school stadium. On the far side, the weak light from a cloud-covered moon revealed the muted gleam of a silver Airstream trailer plonked down under a copse of trees. A nearly new Silverado pickup sat in front of it. The same type of vehicle used in the robbery.

I went to one knee, trying to see, hear, or smell any sign that Ray or Junior had sensed our catlike approach. To my right, Reyes found the edge of the field by stumbling into the high grass. He kept his voice down, but by the faint sounds of his cursing, I would’ve said Ferdinand wasn’t an experienced night stalker. He thrashed and muttered more Spanish curses.

Thwok!

“Mierda!” Reyes snapped. His voice wasn’t low anymore. More like extra volume with a side of hysteria. “Goddamn motherfucker!”

“Shh!” I stage whispered. “What happened?”

Reyes wasn’t having any part of shh.

“I’ve been bit! Goddamn snake. He bit me!”

“No way,” I hissed. “Are you jacking around with me right now?”

“Jack this, motherfucker! Fucking snake bit me!”

I could barely make out Reyes hopping around in the dark, right up until he tripped and fell on the road somewhere near the edge of the clearing. The clatter of metal made my skin shrink.

“Did you drop my rifle?” I kept my voice pitched low. If we were lucky, the Thigpens were heavy sleepers.

“I’m bit!”

“Calm down and stay put. I’m coming to you.”

Reyes grunted, and I could hear the rustle of clothing followed by a bright splash of light flaring by his huddled body. He twisted to see the outside of his right calf.

I duck-walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me see.”

“You gonna have to suck out the poison, Cable.”

“I’m not sucking your leg!”

“You have to! To get the poison out.”

“Will you shut up? Let me see.”

The whip-crack of a bullet passing overhead got my attention firmly fixed on something else.

“Who’s out there?” a voice yelled from the trailer.

“The Boy Scouts,” I shouted. “Now stop shooting a minute. I got a snake-bit man here.”

“Snake-bit?” The voice modulated from cantankerous to interested. “You better suck the poison out!”

“Shut up a minute,” I yelled back.

Reyes gripped his leg at the knee, trying to cut off the blood flow with a hand-held tourniquet. “You think it was a copperhead? It wasn’t no rattler; that’s for sure. It didn’t make no rattle at all.”

I huddled next to Reyes and flicked on my Maglite, holding it close to his bare calf. “You moron. There’s nothing there but a scratch. You probably stepped on a piece of fence post or something, and it popped you on the leg.”

Reyes took a shaky breath. “You sure?”

“You’d be feeling it by now if you were bit. The neurotoxin would hurt like hell. Here, take a look.”

A different Thigpen called from the trailer, “Is he dead?”

The stubby detective grunted with the effort but managed to contort himself enough to see the outside of his leg. “Well. Damn. It sure felt like a snakebite.”

“So much for our stealthy approach to the den of thieves and killers up ahead.”

Reyes huffed. “Huh. Been your leg, you’d-a done the same thing.”

“Better not have gummed up my rifle, Reyes.” I flashed my light around until I spotted the weapon a few feet away. I gave the barrel a quick check for blockage then handed him the LAR-8. I crabbed away from Reyes after patting him on the shoulder.

“Well?” Thigpen One shouted from somewhere left of the trailer. “You suck out the poison? Or what?”

At some point in the last few minutes, the brothers had separated and moved away from the Airstream. Thigpen Two shouted back from the far-right side of the trailer. “State your bidness.”

“Ray and Donald Thigpen, Junior,” I called out in my best cop voice. “This is Sam Cable of the Texas Rangers. Y’all are under arrest for the murder of Tarik Bhatti.”

A bullet chopped weeds six inches from where I crouched. “Y’all ain’t takin’ us, goddamn it. Not for killin’ no camel jockey.”

I shifted a few feet to my left and shouted, “Give it up, boys. You got the Texas Rangers and the Gregg County Sheriff’s Department out here.”

“No way!” Thigpen Two said. “One’a y’all’s been snake bit!”

“Enough of this bullshit,” Reyes barked. “Let’s just shoot these motherfuckers and go home. I’m tired of this jungle shit.”

“You hear that, boys? The snake that bit my partner died. That’s how mean he is. You want to go up against him?”

The breezeless night carried the very faint sound of crackling grass between me and the trailer. I squinted and moved my head around until I caught the motion of a big man running from the corner of my eye. He was headed for the parked truck.

I snugged the HK against my shoulder and ripped off a couple of short bursts, aiming wide of the running man. The muzzle flare lashed out in two yellow-orange flickering tongues. Metal popped, and safety glass shattered on the Silverado. I lit up the pickup again, just for meanness.

In the strobing muzzle flash, I noticed Thigpen One throwing up an arm and juking left, toward the trailer entrance. His brother was already at the door, and a Thigpen collision created a traffic jam in the narrow opening. Spots danced in front of my eyes, and by the time I could see reasonably well again, the brothers were inside the Airstream.

“Ray? Junior?” I shifted position again, waiting for another bullet from the house. “I got an HK G36 fully automatic weapon out here, and y’all are holed up in a tuna can. You want to see what Thigpen soup looks like?”

Reyes had worked his way around the clearing to a position almost ninety degrees away from mine. He yelled, “And I gotta... I gotta damn big rifle with lotsa bullets. I’m gonna shoot whatever the Ranger misses.”

Silence from the trailer.

I took a breath and sighted high, above the Airstream’s windows, and stitched a sustained burst along the top of the trailer. Damn, but it was a fine weapon to shoot. Smoke curled from the HK’s muzzle as I swapped magazines. Maybe they would give me another chance to ventilate their trailer.

There came another moment of profound silence, followed by the muted sounds of two big men arguing. A thump rocked the trailer, followed by the sound of shattering dishes. Then, muffled from the inside the Airstream, came, “Stop shootin’. My brother and me give up.”

One big, round Thigpen came out, followed by one round, big Thigpen. Both had their hands up. Reyes pinned them with a flashlight while I stepped up and ordered the brothers down on their knees.

“What the hell?” I asked the bearded Ray after I had him on the ground. “I thought you said we wouldn’t take you alive. Why give up without a fight?”

Ray hemmed and hawed a bit.

“Tell him, Ray.” His brother had a knot forming over his left cheekbone. Apparently, his brother had been forced to convince Junior to surrender.

“I made a tatticle air,” Ray mumbled.

“What kind of tactical error did you make?”

“I... I left all our guns and ammo in the truck this afternoon.” Ray craned his neck to give me a look that said, Gee, ain’t I a dummy? “We were gonna take off this mornin’ and head for Georgia. We didn’t have nothin’ in the trailer but a couple’a huntin’ rifles. Five rounds each.”

“We holed up,” Junior spit the words at his brother, “in a refuge without any weapons.” Sprawled with his cheek on the ground, he glared at his sibling. “I was for fightin’ it out anyway, but Ray here...” He shook his head. “You always was a mama’s boy.”

Minutes later, Reyes had the cuffs on the brothers, both of them facedown in the weeds in front of their little slice of heaven in the Piney Woods of East Texas.

“I’ll go bring up the truck,” I said.

Reyes nodded and fired up another Marlboro. “No way I’m walking back there through the dark again. Not with the snakes and shit.” Reyes rubbed his leg and looked away.

“There’s a pant’er out there,” Ray claimed. “I saw it, plain as day.”

“A panther?” I snorted. “There aren’t any panthers in Texas. That’s an old wives’ tale.”

Using the flashlight, I made better time heading back than we had creeping up. It took me five minutes reach my SUV. The moon had come out, and the white vehicle almost glowed in the dark. It promised the relief of air conditioning, four-wheel drive, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Bone-tired from the aftermath of adrenaline and exercise, I didn’t really understand what I was looking at in the upswing of my flashlight beam. I took two more steps and froze, snapping the light onto the tire tracks in front of me. Two glowing green eyes fixed on mine, freezing my heart in my chest. The creature paused at the edge of the trail and studied me. I held my breath until it vanished into the brush.

The buzzing of night bugs and frogs pressed in from the surrounding forest, and sweat soaked my shirt collar. My good mood shriveled up and huddled in a dark corner. I sucked in a breath and let it out in a big whoosh. A shaky laugh dribbled out between my teeth. “I guess I owe Ray an apology.”

A black panther. Good God.

The biggest black cat in the world had just crossed my path. Good thing I wasn’t superstitious.