Borderlands (Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series Book 6) Read online

  Borderlands

  A Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Novel

  Volume 6

  By JT Sawyer

  Copyright

  Copyright May 2017 by JT Sawyer

  No part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Join JT Sawyer’s Facebook page to follow his book research and to get updates on future releases. You can also receive information on survival tips by signing up for his email notices at http://www.jtsawyer.com

  Prologue

  Southeast Arizona

  Eighteen Years Earlier

  The steep walls of the narrow canyon seemed to muscle apart as they widened into a long valley filled with cottonwood trees. The green ribbon of foliage that wound its way along the rocky wash resembled an emerald snake, and was a familiar portend telling desert travelers that water was nearby.

  Spring had come early to the Sonoran Desert after a particularly lush rainy season during the cooler months, and the succulent cacti and cholla blanketing the countryside were in full bloom. It was the time of year before the temperatures spiked past a hundred degrees, and a lone bobcat was busy working a ridgeline for cottontails as three horseback riders ambled along a narrow trail that skirted below.

  It had been a long four-day trek surveying remote stretches of the Kearns ranch to repair water stock tanks. Mitch scratched at the sweaty peach fuzz on his chin, wanting nothing more than to return to his bunkhouse and comb through the mail that he knew would have arrived in his absence. Even though he only had four more weeks until high school graduation, he was eager to find out the date of his army enlistment.

  “Just two more miles to the line shack and then you can cook us up some grub tonight, Mitch,” said his uncle Doug, who rode behind him, followed by a weathered Mexican cowboy named Diego. The two older men were best friends and had served as Mitch’s main mentors in ranching and wilderness living since he had come to live full-time at the Kearns ranch following his parents’ untimely death five years earlier.

  “Diego is the only one here who should be cooking,” said Mitch with a grin as he turned slightly to peer over his shoulder before complimenting the man’s cooking. “Tu cocina es la mejor.”

  “Haven’t you learned anything about cooking fine food being with Nora this past year?” said Doug, referring to a nearby rancher’s daughter whom Mitch had been dating. “Her mother is one of the finest chefs I ever met.”

  “Yeah, too bad her old man is such an ornery bastard or we might eat over there more often,” said Diego with a heavy accent.

  Mitch clenched his jaw and exhaled. “I, uhm, you know.” He cleared his throat, trying to liberate the words, as if they were stuck between his ribs. “I broke it off with her last week.”

  Mitch heard a series of raspy exhales from behind him as the canyon grew silent. The other two men trotted up alongside Mitch; his uncle spoke first. “Wait, what now—you parted ways with Nora?”

  “Ooh, now we’re really never gonna get invited over there for dinner,” said Diego.

  Mitch shook his head, trying to avoid looking at the inquisitive eyes of the men on either side of him. “Look, I’m goin’ into the army soon, you know that—so did she.” He clenched the leather reins of his palomino tighter. “It was never going to work with me being gone. Plus, she was gettin’ too serious for me.”

  Doug chuckled, then leaned over and patted him on the shoulder. “But didn’t you just buy her that nice cowboy hat? Hell, I thought you were serious about her. That hat cost fifty dollars and you worked for weeks to get it for her.”

  Diego looked up at a red-tailed hawk flying overhead. “Now, Mitch has his whole life ahead of him and soon he’s gonna be seein’ a lot more of this world than what’s outside of these canyons.”

  “But did she give you the hat back?” said Doug.

  Mitch smirked, then trotted ahead, passing into the shade of a long row of cottonwood trees.

  Diego snapped his fingers, looking at his friend and shaking his head sideways, indicating he shouldn’t pry any further.

  A hundred yards up, they saw Mitch’s horse come to a sudden halt, dust kicking up from its rear hooves. The two men glanced at each other then quickly pushed ahead.

  Dangling from the end of a tattered manila rope was the body of a young man, his dark complexion accentuated by pale lips that were fluttering violently to suck in air. His hands were bound behind his back as he swung twenty feet below the branch of a large sycamore tree. Bits of white bark had gathered on his shoulders from the swaying action of the rope on the branch, making it look like he was covered in snowflakes.

  Mitch leapt off his horse and grasped the man’s sooty jeans while his uncle trotted to the tree trunk and deftly sliced the lashing. The limp figure collapsed into Mitch as he lowered him to the leaf-strewn ground.

  Diego came up alongside Mitch and removed the crudely tied lashing, which had abraded an inch-wide layer of skin from ear to ear.

  “He’s still alive—how’s that possible?” said Mitch, gently resting the man’s head on the ground.

  Diego peered up at the tree. “Probably just strung him up to die. If they’d dropped him, his neck would’ve snapped.”

  “Why—why would someone do this?” said Mitch, his eyes nearly filling his face.

  “He’s probably an immigrant who was slowing the rest of the party down, or maybe even a smuggler that another group caught.”

  “I didn’t think they were this far north of the border.” Mitch ran back to his horse to retrieve a canteen, then returned and began dousing the man’s face.

  “Every year, they keep pushing further up. When I first started working on your uncle’s ranch twenty years ago, it used to be the only smuggling that went on was of people who were looking for work on the pecan farms west of here. Now with the economy in Mexico so bad, everyone’s looking to head across the border.”

  Diego and Mitch glanced up as they heard a faint whistle from Doug, who had ridden a hundred yards up to the end of the grove. They saw him on foot, pointing to a nearby dirt road, then waving his hand for Diego to move up to his location.

  As Diego scurried ahead, Mitch dampened a bandanna then ran it over the man’s neck wound. The young man groaned, then turned on his side and started coughing up red-tainted saliva. Mitch could hear his uncle and Diego whispering in the distance, catching bits about how the perpetrators must have driven off an hour ago based upon Doug’s interpretation of the tracks.

  The man had garnered enough strength to sit up on one elbow and was still coughing, each raspy exhalation accompanied by a wince. His eyes were nervously scanning the trees and ridgelines.

  “My name’s Mitch,” he said, extending the water bottle forward.

  The man greedily drank, his bulbous trachea seeming as if it were going to burst with each strained gulp. He sat up and poured the rest over his chest, soaking his green shirt.

  “Why were you…?” Mitch paused, pointing to the branch. He noticed the man staring beyond his shoulder at the rifle mounted in a leather holster beside his saddle.

  “Coyotes,” the man said in a gravelly, barely audible voice which still betrayed a thick accent. “The coyotes I was working for—they said my carelessness in helping one of the old men in our group had led a border patrol unit towards
the route we use.”

  Mitch had heard the term coyotes used before in reference to the leaders of the smuggling rings that sneak people across the border but he never thought he’d come across traces of them out here.

  “Where are they now?” Mitch said.

  “Probably halfway back to the border—hopefully.” His eyes continued to dart along the edge of the canyon rim. The man looked back towards the older cowboys, who were still searching the area for any potential threats. He took a painful swallow then rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Our ranch isn’t far from here. A day’s hard ride—we can get you back there and then looked at by a doctor in town.”

  The man smirked. “No, no doctors. Estoy bien.” He looked nervously over his shoulder, down the wash. “Must leave now.”

  Mitch nodded towards the monotonous terrain before them, knowing there were no easy routes out of the region. “And go where? We’ve gotta report this—those guys can’t get away with this.”

  “Those men are shadows moving across this land every day since they was little boys.” The man emitted an amused smile then leaned forward to stand while extending his hand out to Mitch. “Me llamo Rafael—and I can never repay you for your help.” He placed his two hands together, facing the sky. “God has put you in my way for a reason and for that I am grateful.”

  The two gripped leathery hands as Mitch helped him up. The man paused to glance down at a star-shaped scar over the back of Mitch’s left hand, caused by putting his fist through a window when he was younger.

  “Looks like you are no stranger to adversity either.” Rafael brushed the bark flecks off his shirt. “Now, if you are as smart as you are kind, you will let me slip away—for both of our sakes. You bring me back to your ranch and that will just put a bullseye on your place by the smugglers, not to mention the border patrol, who will never leave you alone after this.”

  The man walked towards the horse but Mitch stepped between them, palming the sheath knife on his belt. Though he was unsure of the man’s intentions, he wasn’t going to risk putting his horse in harm’s way. “Did you think you’d take her?”

  “Hardly—I would never steal a man’s horse, or even his dog for that matter,” he said, reaching for another water bottle, whose top was protruding from the saddle bag. His hand paused as he gave a sideways glance to the butt of the rifle inches from him. Rafael ran his hand slowly along the horse’s side. “Este caballo es magnifico.”

  “She is. Her name is Sweet Face,” he said, thinking back on how his mom had named the horse for its gentle demeanor.

  Rafael’s breathing grew rapid and he glanced past Mitch’s shoulder at the sight of the two older men moving through the brush. He hastily replaced the water bottle in the saddlebag then turned and began to trot towards a thick tangle of saplings in the other direction. He paused before slipping into the foliage and nodded with his chin towards Mitch. “Muchas gracias, caballero. I will never forget what you did.”

  Chapter 1

  Seventeen Years Later

  Somewhere Along the Arizona Border

  Miguel and Tomas Valencia had been trekking in the searing heat for the past three hours and were nearly at their destination as indicated by the faint green screen of Miguel’s GPS unit. A steady stream of perspiration running down their faces from the considerable pack weight had soaked through their camouflage t-shirts. The two brothers were lead smugglers with the Culebra cartel out of Agua Prieta. They had been briefed earlier on the phone that this rugged, seldom-used route would be free of the prying eyes of the border patrol and militia groups. With only an hour to go before sunrise, they had made record time since leaving their truck earlier that night.

  “Mi espalda is delor,” whispered Tomas, complaining again that his back was sore from the excessive weight of the improvised pack containing compressed marijuana.

  “I heard you the first six times,” said his older brother, who kept his gaze fixed upon a set of distant headlights that he’d seen flash three times. “We are almost done—the transport truck is only about a half-mile away.”

  “Why the hell did we go this way? We’ve never used this section of the desert before.”

  “Those were the instructions I got. Said it was a special delivery and only you and I needed to be in the loop on this one.”

  “So, this is some special ganja I’ve got on my back, eh? Maybe some of that mierda laced with angel dust that we handed off to those college kids on spring break last year.”

  Miguel’s eyebrows flared. “Let’s hope not; that was a bad deal. Most of those chicos ended up in the hospital in Tucson, I heard. And when that happens, business suffers.”

  “Yeah, I remember my take-home pay, or lack of it, that month—smuggling operations came to a standstill for a few weeks until the border patrol calmed down.”

  “This trip should be a good wad of cash in my pocket,” said Miguel. “With my wife expecting, we can use the extra funds. That’s why I jumped at this opportunity. The hazard pay alone for doing this lonely trek was worth three nights of work.” Miguel had been employed by the Culebra cartel since he was fifteen and had become one of the lead smugglers along the Arizona border. He was pleased to have gotten this assignment even though his body was frazzled from non-stop operations during the past two months. The spring and fall were always busy during the prime harvesting seasons for marijuana, and the temperatures in the Sonoran Desert were cool enough to make for successful deliveries through the grueling terrain. He was puzzled by the hasty undertaking and secrecy of this particular mission but the pay enabled him to submerge his curiosity.

  Tomas squinted at the headlights on the truck ahead, seeing a lone figure pacing back and forth. “Who we meeting here again?”

  “Hell if I know. I was just given the coordinates and told to be here by sunrise.” Miguel sighed then glanced over the low hills and columnar forms of the Saguaro cacti behind him. “Then we get to have fun humping back over the way we came.”

  “Hope there’s some spare water in this hombre’s truck—I’m nearly out,” he said, tapping a small water bottle in his pants pocket.

  “You whine too much, mi hermano. No sorprende that our madre kicked you out of the house when you were sixteen.”

  Tomas chuckled. “Yeah, unlike you who slept on the couch asking for handouts until you were twenty.”

  As they neared the truck, they saw the thin figure step between the headlights and wave. Miguel raised his arm up in a fist then pushed out his last few labored steps with a grunt, lowering the hefty weight on his back to the ground.

  Tomas did the same, plunking his canvas pack onto a small hedgehog cactus, whose juices spurted out onto his boots from the crushing force. “We made it.”

  Tomas looked around for others but only saw the short, lithe figure. The tan head wrap enclosed the entire face and a pair of sunglasses made it impossible to read any kind of expression. The person merely nodded profusely then patted each man on the back before kicking the packs to test their soundness.

  Miguel took a swig of water then poured the rest over his flushed face. “One of our best runs yet—thirteen miles in seven hours.”

  The lone figure said nothing and only went about flicking open a long folding knife then slicing the sides of the pack to reveal a two-foot-square bale of dope contained inside clear shrink-wrap. The cellophane covering was deftly slit open then the tip of the blade was used as a prying device to wrest apart the fine layers of dried marijuana. The breathing of the individual increased to match the frenetic pace of movement until the innards were revealed.

  Tomas and Miguel stopped their banter and stood with wide eyes at the sight of neatly arranged bundles of cash nestled inside the dope.

  “Madre de Dios,” said Tomas. “That’s what we were carrying all this time?”

  “Whew, must be a half a million dollars there,” said Miguel, stepping forward with his mouth hanging open.

  “More in the other pack, too, eh,”
said Tomas, squatting down beside his payload and smacking his hand on the surface, which sent fine sand particles glittering upward in the moonlight.

  Miguel went to help Tomas remove the contents when he heard a faint pop, then saw his younger brother fall backward as a glistening hole of frothing blood emerged from his stomach. Then he felt his own midsection painfully reverberate, as if a sledgehammer had just been smashed into his ribs. A third pop and a muzzle flash followed from under the arm of the shrouded figure leaning over the other backpack.

  Miguel saw a crimson spray on the sand behind Tomas as another exit wound erupted. His brother sprawled on his back, his chest spasming as his raspy breathing ceased. Miguel squinted at the lone figure moving towards him, appearing larger than before. His face contorted as he looked down at the seeping hole in his stomach, the nauseating odor of viscera and semi-digested food wafting upward. He struggled to reach for the folding blade in his pocket only to be met with a fierce kick in the chest which sent him sideways into a cactus. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and felt his throat swelling with coppery fluid as he struggled to stay conscious.

  Miguel saw the person remove their leather jacket and replace the suppressed pistol in its shoulder holster. He felt his chest heaving as his heart struggled to cope with the blood loss. Miguel reached a trembling hand out to his brother, whose glassy eyes remained fixed on the Big Dipper above. Then Miguel saw the head cleave apart from the neck as a machete sliced neatly through the spinal cord. Miguel gasped, coughing further as he saw the ghastly figure hack off both hands and place all three objects into a backpack.

  The vein in Miguel’s neck was throbbing as his eyes widened in horror. He tried to turn and crawl away but felt his ankles being pulled. Then he heard a faint whisper—an uncanny voice he’d heard before under more pleasant circumstances. It was normally a soothing voice but this time seemed laced with regret. He turned on his back as the figure before him removed its sweaty scarf and sunglasses.