Ranger: Book 1: A Humble Beginning Read online

  RANGER

  Book 1:

  A Humble Beginning

  By Darrell Maloney

  This is a work of fiction. All persons depicted in this book are fictional characters. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Copyright 2016 by Darrell Maloney

  This book is dedicated to my brother, Randy Maloney, who passed away a few months ago.

  Randy was strong and forthright, like the character in this book who shares his name.

  He was also one of the finest men I’ve ever known. I miss him and love him so very much.

  You’d have loved him too.

  Randy, this is for you.

  For the latest information about this book and the author’s other works, please visit

  darrellmaloney.com

  Chapter 1

  He was born Randall, but came to hate the name. As a youngster, he implored his friends to call him Randy. Randy had a certain zing to it, he said. A certain flair. To him, Randall was just the sissified version. It was a name assigned with one who wore fancy clothing and drank hot tea.

  Randy hated hot tea.

  When he grew a little older he took to writing Randy on his school papers, and on those rare “official” forms he had to fill out. An application to join the Cub Scouts. Another form to mark his advance to the Webelos, and yet another when he became a Boy Scout.

  After awhile, he pretty much forgot he even had a formal given name, despite his Grandma Maloney’s insistence on calling him Randall at all family gatherings. And to the other little old ladies at the family’s church who always pinched his cheeks and told him how cute he was.

  It wasn’t until he had the application for the Texas Rangers in front of him that he finally faced a major dilemma regarding the name. And he wasn’t sure what to do.

  To most people it seemed such a simple thing. To most people a name was a name was a name.

  But Randy wasn’t like most people. The name issue was a big thing to him. A major thing, in fact.

  He had a choice.

  The form said, in Block 1, “Given Name.”

  Try as he might, he couldn’t see any wiggle room. No way to legally fail to complete the block as requested and still, with good conscience, sign the bottom of the form.

  In Block 34.

  The one that said, “Under penalty of perjury I attest that all information on this form is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.”

  He couldn’t start his career in the premier law enforcement agency of the Great State of Texas under the cloud of a lie.

  In fact, Randy seldom lied at all. Others lied at the drop of a hat, but Randy could count on one hand the number of times he’d ever told one. He felt that bad about each one. The last one, when he told a girlfriend she was beautiful when she looked like a ran-over possum with a hangover, was over three years before.

  He didn’t like to lie.

  But he didn’t want anyone at the Ranger School, or in the ranks after he won his five-pointed star, to call him Randall.

  He shuddered at the thought of his training instructors finding out he hated the name, and using it every chance they got to try to make him lose his cool.

  For two full minutes he looked at the form, debating which way to go.

  The administrative specialist on the other side of the counter grew concerned.

  “Is your pen out of ink, sir? I can get you another one.”

  “Huh? Oh… no. It’s fine.”

  The clerk’s brother was afflicted with a form of epilepsy, and suffered from frequent “blank moments” when he would freeze and stare out into space for a minute or two.

  She was convinced that this strapping young man standing at the counter was afflicted with the same ailment, and that the stress of filling out the form had sent him into a blank moment.

  She pitied him, for she knew that such an ailment would disqualify him during the mandatory physical examination later in the process.

  But she wasn’t going to tell him that. She didn’t have the heart to.

  She watched him as he suddenly began to write, sure that his blank moment had ended and that he was back among the rest of them, now conscious of his surroundings again.

  She wasn’t too far off the mark, for Randy had indeed snapped out of the sorry state he’d been in. But it had nothing at all to do with epilepsy or blank moments.

  It had everything to do with the epiphany Randy had. A solution to his problem. The answer to his dilemma.

  Luckily, Block 1 was fairly good sized. And Randy could write fairly small when he printed in block letters. And it helped that the administrative clerk had the forethought to give him a fine-tip pen.

  He stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth as he wrote. He always did that when he focused on something. His mom thought it was cute and told him so. He tried his best over the years to stop doing it, until he discovered that other women thought it cute as well. Then he learned to embrace it.

  In small letters in Block 1 he answered the question, and then some.

  “Randall (But I go by Randy please).”

  That should do it.

  Only it didn’t.

  What it did do was open a door for the instructors at the Texas Ranger Academy. They reviewed his application after he was accepted into the training program. And they decided to find out exactly how sensitive he was to his formal first name.

  “Get your ass out of bed, Randall,” they’d yell at the top of their lungs. “You’re wasting my time, Randall. You should have been dressed ten minutes ago, Randall. And what’s with those shoes? What happened to the shine? Did you shine those shoes with a Hershey bar, Randall?”

  He took it all in stride. He had no choice. And after the first three weeks of the twelve week course, they laid off a bit.

  The Texas Ranger Academy wasn’t very different from Marine Corps boot camp. One of the primary jobs of the training instructors was to try to break the men down into quivering puddles of jelly. The thinking was, if they couldn’t take being yelled at, if they couldn’t take being insulted and chided and ridiculed in a controlled situation… then they couldn’t stand the rigors of real life police work.

  It was a system which worked quite well for over a hundred years, both for military induction sites and for the Texas Rangers. Those who were weak were weeded out. Those who were strong enough to complete the training grew stronger from it.

  And for Randy, the whole name issue was minor in the grand scheme of things.

  He excelled in every facet of his training. The highest possible scores on the written tests as well as his personnel evaluations. The first to finish the daily four mile run, and the only man in the unit who went back to run beside the laggers.

  To encourage them not to give up.

  Giving up was not something Randy ever did. Or tolerated from his friends.

  Randy graduated at the top of his class from the Ranger Academy.

  His father, a retired Ranger himself, accepted an invitation from the Academy’s commandant to be present for Randy’s graduation.

  And to pin on his son’s first badge.

  Randy only wore his shiny new badge for one day, as was the minimum stated in the Ranger’s handbook.

  After that, he was given permission to replace it with a similar badge once worn by his great great grandfather, Wilford P. Maloney.

  For Randy wasn’t the first Texas Ranger in the family. Old Wilford P. had started the tradition back in 1895 when West Texas was still inhabited by bands of hostile Indians. He lied about his age and joined the Rangers at age fifteen. That was said to be the only lie he’d ever told.

  They jokingly ca
lled it the “family business,” the Maloneys did. Randy was the fifth Maloney in five successive generations to wear old Wilford P.’s badge.

  It was a bit more dented and tarnished than the day Wilford P. first pinned it on.

  But it had the same symbolism.

  Chapter 2

  Randy’s early days in the Rangers were easy ones. He was assigned to a training officer who was a very likeable guy. The life of the proverbial party, the class clown and the go-to guy all rolled up into one package.

  “Stick to Ranger Wagner like glue,” his lieutenant told him. “He’s the best we’ve got. He’ll show you everything you need to know.”

  And he did. After his ninety day probation period was up, Randy was called in to take a series of practical evaluations.

  They weren’t yes or no questions. No multiple choice either. They were scenarios, laid out in detail, for which there were several possible solutions.

  But only one that the evaluators considered ideal.

  There were two other probationers in the room with Randy, taking the same tests.

  Randy was the only one who passed. And he passed by such a large margin that one of the evaluators did something totally unprecedented.

  He found Randy before he left the building and shook his hand.

  “You’ll make a fine Ranger, Maloney. You can think on your feet. That’s a quality that’s getting harder and harder to find. You’ll do well in your family business.”

  Word had gotten around that Randy was fifth generation Ranger, and was proud of it. He was frequently asked about his badge, and why it was nicked and worn when other rookie Rangers’ badges were shiny and new.

  He’d always taken great pride in explaining how Wilford P. had worn the very same badge into battle. First against the Comanche and then against rustlers and killers and the worst that mankind had to offer. His great grandfather took the badge from Wilfred P. when the elder was forced to retire at ten years. It was Ranger policy back then, for the Rangers figured that any man who’d served ten years and survived was living on borrowed time.

  Wilford P. fought hard to stay, but the powers that be overruled him and forced him out to pasture.

  Randy’s dad told him it was the only fight Wilford P. ever lost.

  Randy did indeed have a family legacy to live up to.

  And it didn’t take long for him to have the chance to show his mettle.

  The very next day after he blew the evaluators away with his test scores… his first day off of probation and as a full-fledged Ranger, he saw something.

  His partner, Wagner, was at the wheel of a car leaving downtown Austin. The pair was headed to San Saba to do the preliminary groundwork on a new investigation. It was alleged that the sheriff of San Saba County was bought and paid for by a local real estate developer. And that he was doing everything in his power to squeeze the developer’s competition out of the county.

  As they cruised down Capitol Avenue on their way to Interstate 35, Randy saw a glint of light inside a local bank.

  It wasn’t much. Just a quick flash reflected off of something in a man’s hand as he entered the building.

  And in reality, it could have been anything. A silver cell phone reflecting the light from an overhead fluorescent bulb. A silver ink pen held by a man getting ready to endorse a check. A silver bracelet.

  But Randy had a hunch. And his father told him never to ignore a hunch. Sometimes they played out, sometimes they didn’t. But to ignore a hunch was to miss an opportunity. And frequently that opportunity was the only one a Ranger got.

  “Tony, pull around the corner and let me out, will you?”

  “What’s up, Randy? What ya got?”

  “I don’t know. Probably nothing. Just drop me off and circle the block a few times. There may be something going on in the First Union Bank.”

  It turned out that his partner was a big believer in hunches as well. No more words were necessary. Wagner turned the corner and stopped the car just long enough to let Randy out. Then he raced up the block and grabbed the first available parking space before exiting the car himself and following fifty yards behind his partner.

  Randy walked into the bank and took his place in line behind a woman of about fifty in a blue paisley dress and the ugliest flowered hat Randy had seen in a very long time.

  In front of the lady in the ugly hat was a man in his early twenties, dressed in jeans and a gray hoodie. Both hands were in his pockets.

  As the man waited his turn, the newly minted Ranger behind him sized him up.

  The man was nervous. Although Randy couldn’t see his face, he could see the man’s head moving slightly from side to side. Randy imagined his eyeballs flitting back and forth rapidly as he constantly checked out his surroundings.

  The man couldn’t stand still. He rocked back and forth, shifting his weight from his left foot to his right and back again.

  Two minutes ticked slowly by.

  The nervous man continued to rock. The lady’s hat continued to be ugly. Randy continued to wait for the right moment to make his move.

  Tony Wagner, Randy’s partner, took up a position just inside the bank’s door and surveyed everyone else in the lobby. His hand rested on the firearm beneath his jacket as he tried to assess whether the nervous man might have an accomplice in the bank.

  Finally, the second teller on the right motioned for the man to approach her window.

  As he walked toward her, his right hand came out of his pocket. It held what appeared to be a note.

  His left hand remained in his pocket, but Randy could clearly see the butt of a handgun. It appeared to be a chrome revolver, probably a .38.

  Randy could easily see the sense of alarm on the Teller’s face as she read the note. A middle-aged woman with fair skin, she flushed bright red when she realized she was being robbed.

  The man pulled out his weapon just far enough to show the teller he was for real.

  “Do what the note says and you won’t get hurt,” he whispered.

  At that moment, the robber felt the hard grip of Randy’s left hand on the back of his arm, just above the elbow, forcing his arm downward into his jacket’s pocket.

  He could not pull the gun from his pocket with his arm being forced downward. He couldn’t wiggle free because Randy had the full force of his tall and muscular frame pressing the bandit into the counter in front of him. He started to yell out and start cursing whoever had him pinned, but then felt cold hard steel on his neck, just below and behind his ear.

  That got his attention rather quickly.

  Randy said in a very calm, almost soothing voice, “That cold metal you feel is the receiving end of my service weapon. You have a choice to make, my friend. If you continue to struggle, a nine millimeter slug is going to make a big mess of the inside of your head. Or, you can relax and cooperate and save your own life today.

  “It doesn’t matter to me. Either way, I’m going home tonight. The only question is whether you’re going to the jail or to the morgue.”

  Randy felt the man relax, then start to whimper.

  “I’m sorry. I just needed a fix, that’s all. All my family and friends have deserted me. Nobody will help me anymore. I’m desperate.”

  “The help they were giving you was no help at all, my friend. Every time they gave you money for that junk they walked you a few steps closer to your grave. The kind of help you need is in jail, where they can make you get clean, then teach you some things to help you stay that way.”

  Chapter 3

  The would-be robber wasn’t the only one sobbing. The teller almost passed out when she saw Randy come up behind the thief and pull out his gun.

  The lady in the ugly hat gasped when she saw the gun and waddled toward the door. She decided she’d do her banking business another day.

  Randy could see the state the teller was in and tried to calm her nerves.

  “Texas Ranger, ma’am. I’d show you my badge but I’m kind of busy at the mom
ent. Have you pressed the alarm yet?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good. Please get yourself and the rest of the tellers down and in a safe place. He still has his finger on the trigger of his gun. If he twitches, he might just get off a shot before I have to knock him cold. Chances are it’ll go right into his foot, but it might miss and ricochet somewhere else. I’d prefer it if nobody got accidentally shot today.”

  Ranger Wagner called out from the door.

  “I’ll run interference for you, Randy, if you’ve got him under control.”

  “I’ve got him. Thanks, Tony.”

  Tony had his weapon pointed at the floor when two Austin police cars came around opposite corners and braked to a halt in front of the bank.

  Three officers rushed into the bank, guns drawn, to find Tony brandishing his Texas Ranger badge in front of him.

  “Texas Rangers. The man with the gun is a good guy.”

  One APD officer guarded the door, in case he was being had. The other two rushed over to Randy and the gunman.

  “Be careful,” Randy told them. “He’s got his hand on a gun in his left pocket.”

  The two policemen took up positions on either side of the man and at slightly different angles so neither would be in the line of fire. Their weapons were aimed just beneath the man’s shoulder blades.

  Randy asked, “You got ‘im?”

  “We got ‘im.”

  Randy backed away, leveling his weapon at the back of the man’s head. He prayed he wouldn’t have to pull the trigger.

  The officer on the robber’s left commanded, “Don’t do anything stupid. Take your hand, and your hand only, out of your pocket, very slowly. Do it now.”

  The man complied. His hand was shaking almost uncontrollably.

  “Now, both hands on the counter. Do it now.”

  The officer stepped behind the man and kicked his feet apart with his boot. Then he placed him in cuffs and patted him down.