Free Castroville: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 7 by Darrell Maloney Page B

appreciated the effort.
         “You’re just trying to stay on my good side so I don’t give you a hard time about leaving me behind again.”
         He smiled, said “Yep,” and stole off into the night.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    -16-
     
         Randy worked his way through the woods, walking parallel to the narrow roadway and the range fence that stood just on the other side of it. He went about two hundred yards until he determined he was not only far out of sight of the two sentries. He was also out of the range of sound for anything less than a yell or a gunshot.
         And he didn’t plan on generating any gunshots on this particular night.
         Hopefully any yells either.
         Before the sun set he’d noticed several regal oak trees, each one a hundred years old or more, growing at regular intervals about ten yards or so inside the property line. It wasn’t an uncommon practice in Texas in the early nineteen hundreds, when fencing materials were expensive and scarce. At one time the oaks probably identified the property line from a distance long before the fence was installed.
         Now they just beautified the ranch and gave it a certain air of dignity during the daytime.
         During the night, or at least on this particular night, they would be Randy’s allies.
         And his hiding place.
         He found the nearest oak and stood behind it. Its trunk was wider than his shoulders, the lowest branches three feet over his head.
         He’d have easily hidden behind it even in broad daylight.
         And it was dark outside.
         But he needed it to be even darker.
         Standing up and leaning against the back side of the tree he closed his eyes and tried to clear his thoughts. Clearing his head made it easier to focus his full attention on the sounds around him.
         Randy had a very sharp sense of hearing anyway. But on a calm night, eyes closed and focusing, he could quite literally hear the gentle breeze. Hear a dried leaf tumbling along the ground. Hear a cricket chirping from fifty yards away.
         And hear the boots of a man as that man walked through ankle high prairie grass.
         Randy waited as the footsteps grew louder and louder, then quieted by half as the tree trunk blocked much of the rustling. He was directly on the opposite side of the tree, passing the tall Ranger by.
         In Randy’s hand was a long billy club, made of oak many years before from a tree not unlike the one he leaned upon. It had belonged to his father, who’d been a beat cop in Houston before becoming a Ranger himself. He gave it to Randy on the day his son graduated from Texas Ranger school.
         “You probably won’t have much call to use this. But it helped give me the upper hand against hoods and thugs a number of times. Even if you seldom use it, I’d feel comfortable with you having it. Make me proud, son.”
         The old man was right. Randy never once used the club in the modern Rangers: that organization which had cars and radios and backup officers.
         But these days, in what Randy sometimes called the “post-modern Rangers,” the club was a tool which came in handy quite often.
         Randy’s present line of work was vastly different than his old one. And with new types of missions and objectives came new tactics.
         As the footsteps drew away from him, the Ranger slipped around the tree and stole up behind the sentry. Since his eyes had been closed for several minutes, his pupils were completely dilated. He was able to clearly see the shadow of the man as he crept up behind him. Clearly enough to land a clean blow against the back of the man’s skull, just above the neck.
         He dropped like a rock without a sound.
         The sound the blow made, a healthy thunk , was almost thunderous in the calm of the night. But Randy knew it