From two hundred fifty yards out, Bode Bonner sighted in a feral hog. A big one, at least three hundred pounds, feeding at dawn. One of three million roaming wild in the State of Texas. Nasty creatures, a nuisance to ranchers and farmers, rutting up pastures and crops. Consequently, the state authorized year-round hunting for feral hogs, even from helicopters. Feral entrepreneurs trapped and sold them to the Japanese, who considered wild boar meat a delicacy. Texans considered it coyote bait. Bode exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The hog dropped like a sack of potatoes when the. 375-caliber bullet impacted its head.
"Good shot," Jim Bob said.
The Professor was smoking one of John Ed's Cuban cigars and spotting for Bode through high-powered binoculars. Ranger Hank stood behind them, as if on the lookout for a Comanche war party. Manuel held the horses.
"Easy shot, with the wind down and this rifle. Even with a hangover."
Bode had drunk too much bourbon with John Ed the night before. But Rosita's strong coffee and breakfast of migas and spicy salsa had slapped his mind clear. Not as clear as the blue sky, but sufficient to hunt. He leaned the rifle against a rock and drank more coffee from the thermos Rosita had filled. April mornings a mile up in the Davis Mountains still got down to freezing, so Bode wore a hunting jacket over a denim shirt and a western-style leather holster packing his matched set of Colt Walker. 44-caliber six-shooters just like Captain Augustus McCrae carried in Lonesome Dove. He couldn't strap on the six-shooters in the city, so he couldn't pass up the opportunity in the country. He loved being out of the city and in the country and on the back of a horse, only the smell of gunpowder and cigar smoke in his nostrils. They had gotten up at five, eaten breakfast, and met Manuel out back with the horses saddled and their guns loaded. Mandy was sleeping in.
John Ed Johnson wore only a bathrobe when he quietly opened the door to the guest bedroom. Across the spacious room he saw a mass of blonde hair emerging from the comforter on the king-sized bed. He walked over and dropped his bathrobe then lifted the comforter and climbed aboard. He sidled close to the naked backside of the governor's aide. She stirred.
"Bode?"
"Guess again, honey."
She jumped back against the headboard and clutched the comforter to her body.
"Mr. Johnson!"
"John Ed."
"Mr. Johnson-what are you doing?"
"I thought we might play while the governor's away."
"I'm not a plaything, Mr. Johnson!"
"Aw, I doubt Bode would mind."
"I mind. I love Bode, and he loves me. I would never cheat on him."
"Not even for a million dollars?"
"Not even for a million dollars!"
Odd. That usually worked.
"Well, hell, guess I'll go climb into Rosita's bed."
John Ed slid out of bed and put on his bathrobe.
"The governor's in a helluva lot more trouble than he knows, having a woman who's not his wife in love with him."
Lindsay Bonner opened her eyes onto a different world. She was waking up alone again, but not on the day bed in the sitting room in the Governor's Mansion in downtown Austin. She lay in a soft bed in a small guesthouse situated among a stand of palm trees only a few hundred feet from the Rio Grande and Mexico beyond.
Had she really done this?
She was a forty-four-year-old woman. She was the mother of an eighteen-year-old college student. She was a married woman and had been for the last twenty-two years. She was the governor's wife.
Whose husband was probably fit to be tied right about now.
But she had done it. She had escaped the crowds and cameras, the press and politics, the Governor's Mansion and the governor's wife. All of that was her husband's adventure. She had embarked on her own adventure. Her own life. A life that would have meaning.
Lindsay Bonner would make a difference.
She jumped out of bed and showered in the small bathroom. Then she dressed in her new clothes: the yellow peasant dress, green scarf, wide-brimmed hat, and pink Crocs. But no make-up. She looked at herself in the mirror. She barely recognized the woman looking back at her.
Here on the border, she was not the governor's wife.
Jesse Rincon ran the river, as he and Pancho did each morning. But that morning was unlike any before.
The governor's wife lay asleep in his guesthouse.
Five years now, he had resigned himself to a life without fame or fortune or love. He had never sought fame or fortune. Love was a different matter. He had often hoped for love. And now love was upon him. But for how long? How long would she sleep in his guesthouse? How long would she work with him in the colonias? How long before she left him? These questions threatened to darken his mind, but he refused them entry.
He stopped short.
Jesse Rincon vowed at that moment, standing in Texas and staring at Mexico as the sun rose over the Rio Grande, that he would not look beyond each day. He would live each day he had with her as if it would be his last, because one day it would be.
Bode slid the rifle into the leather scabbard secured to his saddle. They mounted their horses and rode off. They would leave the hog for the vultures that were already circling overhead. Hank and Manuel took the lead twenty yards ahead. Manuel Moreno was a short, wiry man, perhaps forty but possibly fifty. He carried a two-way radio linked to the lodge. Jim Bob carried a satellite phone. Bode Bonner was the governor of Texas, and he sure as hell didn't want to be lost and stranded on this ranch, twenty-five square miles of the most beautiful and brutal land in Texas.
"John Ed ambushed me with that eminent domain bill last night, said he talked to you about it."
"Yep."
"You knew he was gonna ask me for help getting it through the legislature?"
"Yep."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Would you have told John Ed no and forgone the twenty million if I had?"
"No."
"That's why I didn't tell you."
"He's giving us twenty-five."
"That'll put us over forty-five million. Good work."
"Still, Jim Bob-next time, tell me."
They rode on in silence. The air was cold, and the wind was down. The sky was big and blue, the mountains brown and low. Hawks and peregrine falcons soared on the currents above, and cool spring water bubbled out of the earth below. Named in honor of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, the Davis Mountains were part of the Chihuahuan Desert that extended up from Mexico. The lower elevations were in fact desert, hot and dry and dotted with prickly pear and cholla cactus and creosote bush and giant yuccas and enough agave plants to supply several tequila factories. But the climb into the higher elevations brought blue grama grass and clear spring creeks and forests of Ponderosa and Pinon pine and even silver aspen. They called this land a "sky island." Bode had made the journey to these mountains many summers; while the rest of Texas suffered the hundred-degree heat, the mountains offered a cool oasis. The clean air soon eased his irritation at his political strategist. He could never stay mad at Jim Bob Burnet. They had been inseparable since fifth grade. Bode had rescued Jim Bob from bullies, and Jim Bob had saved Bode from math and science. They needed each other back then, and they still did today.
"I asked John Ed if he'd support me if I made a run for the White House."
"And?"
"Said he couldn't afford it."
"He didn't lie. Supreme Court threw out the campaign finance law, so the next presidential campaign's going to cost each party a billion dollars, and that's real money, even for John Ed."
Jim Bob inhaled on his cigar and seemed to ponder the mountain sky. When he spoke, he was the Professor.
"A presidential run, Bode, it's brutal. Physically and mentally. Campaigning every day for two years, studying policy like you're cramming for a world history final so you don't come off an idiot in the debates, getting demonized by the left-wing media searching for every woman you ever dated to see if they'll claim sexual harassment… They're pit bulls with press passes. Why subject yourself to that?"
"It'd be a hell of an adventure."
"Could be a hell of a disaster."
"The thrill of victory or the agony of defeat… That's why we play the game."
The Professor puffed on his cigar.
"You're a full-blown type-T personality, you know that? T for thrills."
"Never denied it."
"We did a research study at the school, why men go into politics."
"So why do we?"
"Power, fame, money, thrills… and younger women, of course."
"Politics offers a man the complete package without the need for post-season knee surgery."
"If you win."
"One big play, Jim Bob."
The Professor exhaled cigar smoke.
"Bode, you've got a good thing going, governor-for-life. Don't fuck it up."
Bode responded with a grunt.
"Hell," the Professor said, "look at the upside. You couldn't shoot an African lion if you were president."
"True."
"And you sure as hell couldn't bring Mandy along, the press corps follows the president everywhere."
"Which would be a definite drawback, especially on the longer flights."
The Professor chuckled.
"I told her we'd drive into Marfa for lunch at the Paisano Hotel," Bode said. "She's dying to see where Elizabeth Taylor slept when she was out here to film Giant. And she wants to shop, says she gets the shakes if she goes more than twenty-four hours without buying something."
"Women."
Jim Bob shook his head.
"See, Lindsay's like us, that's why she went down to the border."
Bode had informed Jim Bob that Lindsay had gone down to the border to work as a nurse in the colonias — and that she knew about Mandy.
"But Peggy, she was just like Mandy… well, except for the looks… and liking sex."
Jim Bob and Peggy had married at twenty-five and divorced at thirty. She lived in California with their daughter. Bode's daughter was a lesbian who would never give him a grandson, but it could be worse: Jim Bob's daughter was a Californian.
"I tell you Fran got accepted to Stanford and Caltech? I'm trying to talk her into coming to UT. Be nice to have her around again. I miss that girl."
"Why the hell would she go to Stanford or Caltech if she can go to UT?"
Jim Bob shrugged. "An education?"
"But their football teams suck."
"She doesn't play."
"She could be a cheerleader."
"She wants to be an engineer."
"Train?"
"Environmental."
"See, that's what living in California does to kids."
Bode hoped for a laugh or at least a smile, but got neither. The Professor's expression turned down, as if he'd been denied tenure, and Bode knew that if he didn't get Jim Bob's mind off Fran, the melancholy would set up camp and dog him for days.
"So you were saying about Peggy?"
Jim Bob had loved Peggy with the desperation of a man who had had few opportunities for love, but she had left him for a richer man, a man who could give her the life she wanted. Bode knew that talking about Peggy would only get Jim Bob pissed off, a more favorable mood on a hunting trip than melancholy.
"Oh, yeah. So I asked Peggy one day-this was back when I was in grad school and already plotting the Republican takeover of Texas-before Rove beat me to it-and we were living in that little rent house just off campus-I said, 'Honey, what do you want to do with your life?' She said, 'I want a big house on the lake, a Mercedes coupe, a country-club membership, a…' I said, 'No. That's what you want in life. But what do you want to do with your life?' Well, she looked at me like I was fucking crazy, and she said, 'That is what I want to do with my life. I want to live in a big house on the lake, drive a Mercedes coupe, play tennis at a country club…' "
"What's your point, Jim Bob?"
"My point is, that's the basic biological difference between men and women: Men want to do things. Women want to have things. Which is why men and women don't understand each other, don't get along with each other, and don't stay married to each other. For us, it's all about the doing. Achieving something. Leaving our mark on the world. For them, it's all about the having. Acquiring something. Making their girlfriends jealous." Jim Bob puffed on his cigar and blew out smoke rings like a fucking Indian sending smoke signals. "We want to kill a big furry creature; they want to buy a fur coat."
"So what's all that got to do with Lindsay going down to the border?"
"She's not a normal woman like Peggy or Mandy. She's more like a man than most men. She doesn't give a damn about having things, she wants to do things. She wants her life to have meaning."
"What, you're an expert on my wife?"
"I've known her as long as you have."
Jim Bob pointed his cigar to the distant sky.
"Look-an eagle." He stared a moment then said, "Still, I can't believe Lindsay went down to the border by herself. That's fucking crazy. And nursing in the colonias, s hit, she might bring something back."
"What, like a Mexican?"
"Like a disease."
"She's got all her shots."
"She ain't a heifer, Bode."
"She's a stray."
"You knew that when you married her, a liberal from Boston."
"Why can't she be happy shopping at Neiman Marcus like other women?"
"Because she's not like other women."
"Most women want desperately to escape the border," the doctor said. "But you come to work here."
"I don't shop," Lindsay said.
"Ah. That explains it."
"I could never go out in public like this in Austin-these clothes, no make-up, no Ranger Roy."
"But why? You look very pretty. And your clothes, it will be nice to have some color in the colonia."
"The cameras. They're my constant companion, so I have to look perfect. The press thinks everything I do is for the cameras, that my life is scripted for a political purpose, that I'm not just getting coffee or going to the gym or teaching kids to read. I'm campaigning. Most politicians' wives live for the cameras. But I hate the cameras."
"There are no cameras in the colonias."
They had eaten breakfast tacos-scrambled eggs, refried beans, and salsa wrapped in wheat tortillas-in the doctor's kitchen and were now driving to Colonia Angeles in his old pickup truck. Pancho rode in the back. It was Saturday.
"Doctor-"
"Please. If we are going to work together, you must call me Jesse."
"Jesse. And I'm Lindsay Byrne from Boston. So you work weekends?"
"I do not play golf." He smiled a moment but the smile didn't last long. "The truth is, I have nothing else to do."
They soon turned off Mines Road and onto the dirt road that led to the border wall. When they arrived at the big gate, no Border Patrol agents were in sight.
"They're not here to let us in," Lindsay said. "How will we get through?"
"Key code."
Jesse got out. She fought the wind and followed him to the gate. On the wall was a key pad.
"Wait," she said. "An American citizen has to enter a key code to travel from this side of the wall to the other side? From this America to that America?"
"Uh… yes."
"How does that work?"
"It is easy. See, I punch in the code-six, three, one, nine-"
"No. How does it work when the police need to come to the colonias? They have to get out and punch in the key code?"
"Oh. The police do not come to the colonias."
"What about ambulances?"
"They also do not come."
"Fire trucks?"
"No."
"Oh. Well then, I guess a key code works just fine."
"You love her?"
"I'll always love Lindsay."
"Mandy."
" Mandy? I'm old enough to be her… It's not like that."
"She know that?"
Bode assumed she did. Why would a gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old girl fall in love with an older man? An older man had an affair with a younger woman for one reason.
"My wife doesn't want to have sex with me."
"Hell, Bode, if you wanted sex, why'd you get married?"
Jim Bob was amused by his own words.
"When I vetoed that children's health insurance program," Bode said, "she moved out of our bedroom, sleeps on the day bed in the sitting room."
"Yep, that was a mistake. She's got a blind spot when it comes to kids."
"You told me I had to veto it, to stand up to Washington's unfunded mandates."
"True, but it was a mistake if you wanted sex with Lindsay. Course, Mandy's not a bad replacement player."
"I had lots of opportunities, but I never cheated on her, till she left our bed. Now I can't stop."
"It is habit forming."
"My wife stops having sex with me because of politics, but I'm not supposed to have sex with anyone else because I'm married? Why's that fair?"
"It's not."
"Why should I feel guilty?"
"You shouldn't."
"Then why do I?"
"Because that's what women do to men. But, hell, Bode, you don't have to feel guilty anymore-she knows about Mandy."
The man's twenty-seven-year-old mistress had been discovered by his wife, and she had run off to the border. What would happen when the politician's twenty-seven-billion-dollar budget deficit was discovered by the voters? Would they run off, too?
"Why would she do that over politics?"
Jim Bob puffed on his cigar. "It's the hero syndrome."
"The what?"
"Hero syndrome. You've been her hero since high school. Now you're not."
"I'm not?"
"Hate to be the one to break the news."
"Helluva lot easier to be a hero on the football field. Now she wants me to fix up the colonias for a bunch of Mexican squatters."
"You can't do that. You gotta take a hard line on immigration or that tea party wave will drown you."
"That's what I told her. She said it's not about politics, it's about the children. Can you believe that?"
"She's always been a bit naive."
"What if she doesn't come back?"
"She'll be back. She'll get tired of the border and come crawling back home."
"What if she doesn't come back because of Mandy?"
Jim Bob didn't answer for a time. Then he said in a soft voice, "Peggy had an affair… I still would've taken her back."
Bode did not look at his old friend. Instead, he felt old.
"My dad got prostate cancer at my age, died at fifty-five. Every year I get my physical, I sweat out the PSA results."
"All men do. I had a biopsy two years ago."
"On your prostate?"
"PSA was elevated. Turned out to be a false alarm."
"You never told me."
"Did you want to know?"
"Well, hell, yeah, I wanted to know. You're my best goddamn friend." He shook his head. "Shit, Jim Bob, you don't tell me nothing anymore-John Ed's bill, your biopsy… What was it like?"
The Professor puffed on his cigar.
"It wasn't the most fun I ever had."
"That's how it is for men-a finger up your butt, an elevated PSA, and all of a sudden you're pissing your pants and holding a limp dick the rest of your fucking life. Or the cancer kills you."
The two middle-aged men rode in silence for a time, pondering life and death, mistresses and wives, budget deficits and deceived voters, past infidelity and future impotence… until Jim Bob Burnet finally said, "Shit, let's kill something, see if that'll perk up our spirits."
The children stood in a circle in the middle of the main dirt road in the colonia. Lindsay and Jesse got out of the pickup and walked over. The children parted to reveal a coiled-up rattlesnake hissing and shaking its tail.
"?Aguas! " Jesse yelled."?Quitense de la vibora! "
He herded the children back. The snake slithered around on the hot dirt.
"There are many snakes in the colonias," he said. "I really hate snakes."
"We must kill it," Lindsay said. "Before it bites the kids."
"Yes. We must."
He put his hands on his hips and studied the snake, which hissed and spit at its tormentors.
"If I had a gun, I could shoot the snake, but I do not have a gun. Perhaps I could drop a cinder block on the snake, that would certainly kill it. Or perhaps I could drive the truck over it several times. Or perhaps I could…"
Lindsay looked around. She spotted a shovel leaning against a nearby shanty. She walked over, grabbed the shovel, and picked up a brick. She returned and threw the brick at the snake, striking it and giving her just enough time to raise the shovel and slam the sharp edge down on the snake, cutting its head off. The children squealed with delight. Jesse gave her a look.
"Yes, well, I suppose that is also an effective method."
"I grew up in the country."
Bode sighted in the African lion. It was a majestic creature, four hundred pounds of muscle and mane. He almost hated to kill it. Almost.
"What do you figure?"
They sat positioned on a ridge overlooking a low valley set against a tree line where a spring creek ran. Bode had propped the rifle on a rock formation; Jim Bob had the binoculars on the beast. Ranger Hank stood guard. Manuel again held the reins to the horses.
"Six hundred yards. We need to get closer."
"We'll spook him. With this scope, I can see the fly on his nose from here."
"But can you shoot him from here?"
"Reckon I'll find out."
Testosterone and adrenaline and the anticipation of the kill coursed through Bode Bonner's body. Hunting was almost as exciting as sex, and he never pulled the trigger too soon. He ran his hand over the smooth custom-fitted English walnut stock of the AHR Safari 550 DGR (Dangerous Game Rifle) as if it were Mandy's smooth thigh. He fingered the bolt then worked the controlled-feed action and chambered a 270-grain, 375-caliber H amp;H Magnum cartridge from the four-round magazine. He flicked off the safety. He touched his left index finger to the single-stage trigger set at exactly 3.5 pounds. When he squeezed the trigger the hammer would release and drive the firing pin into the back of the cartridge igniting the primer which in turn would ignite the gunpowder inside the cartridge which would create sufficient gas pressure to propel the bullet down the barrel, turning to the right two full twists before exiting the twenty-four-inch barrel, and through the air at 2,690 feet per second, closing the distance to the lion before Bode could blink, and, if his aim were true and the lion didn't move, slamming into the beast's head and boring through its brain and blowing out a chunk of skull on the other side, killing the creature instantly. The taxidermist would patch up the lion's skull and mount the head-or maybe Bode would get the entire lion stuffed, as if it were about to pounce on anyone entering the Governor's Office. That'd give a lobbyist a fucking heart attack. Bode inhaled then exhaled slowly and gently squeezed the trigger and "What the hell?"
The lion bolted-because something had bolted from the tree line. Bode looked up from the scope then back through the scope. He found the something in the cross hairs… only it wasn't a something… it was a someone… a young barefooted girl, her short dress ripped and torn, her face filled with fright, running across the open range.
"What's she doing out here?" Jim Bob said, the binoculars still to his face.
"Hauling ass," Bode said. "Like someone's after her."
"Someone is."
Bode swung the scope off the girl to three men on dirt bikes riding hard and fast behind her. After her. Chasing her as if they meant to catch her. The girl glanced back but kept running as if her life depended on it. But she wasn't fast enough. The men ran her to ground. They stopped and dropped the bikes then surrounded the girl. They looked Mexican and mean. They kicked the girl, grabbed her hair and yanked her up, then slapped her face, knocking her back down to the ground.
"Bad hombres, " Jim Bob said.
"She's just a kid."
The men now pointed guns at her. She held her hands up, pleading to them.
" Shit. They're gonna kill her."
Bode put his finger on the trigger.
"Not on my watch."
He aimed center mass and fired four times.
The doctor's assistant screamed-"Aah!" — and grabbed at her heart when she entered the clinic. She recoiled from the rattlesnake hanging by the door.
"Where did this serpiente come from?"
"Inez," Jesse said, "this is Senora Byrne. She killed the snake, with a shovel. She is a very skilled snake-killer. And nurse. She will be working with us. She is Irish."
Inez Quintanilla was a pretty young Latina about Becca's age. She wore too much make-up and perfume, she smacked her gum, and she seemed amused. She regarded the snake and then Lindsay.
"Why?"
"I didn't want the snake to hurt the children."
Lindsay spoke in her Irish accent.
"No. Why does an Anglo want to work here, in the colonias? "
"I want to care for the people."
Now Inez was more than amused.
"No one cares about us."
Inez maintained eye contact with Lindsay for a long moment then dropped her eyes to Lindsay's pink Crocs.
"I like your shoes."
They rode the horses down to the barefooted girl. Bode, Jim Bob, and Hank dismounted; Manuel held the reins. The girl sobbed hysterically on the ground and spoke fast in Spanish.
"?No me mate!?No me mate! "
"You killed them, Governor," Hank said.
Hank kicked the three men just to make sure they were dead. They were. The first one had a hole the size of a fist in his chest. The second one had returned fire, but they were out of range for his handgun; Bode had shot him in the chest as well. The third one had cut and run; Bode had shot him in the back. Twice. The blue grama grass turned red with the men's blood.
"Mexicans," Hank said. "Check out those tattoos. Gotta be a drug gang."
"What the hell are they doing out here?"
"Ask her," Jim Bob said.
"Like I know Spanish." Bode turned to Manuel to get him to translate. "Manuel-"
Manuel dropped the reins to their horses. He stared down at the dead bodies. When he looked back up at Bode, his expression had changed. In a quick movement, he yanked his reins then kicked his horse and galloped away as if the Border Patrol were chasing him.
"Manuel!"
Bode turned back.
"Think he knows something we don't?" Jim Bob said.
Bode pulled his Colt six-shooter and scanned the valley. There might be a more desolate place on the planet, but you'd have to search for it.
"Keep an eye out, Hank."
Hank drew his handgun. Bode squatted next to the girl and touched her shoulder. She now turned her face to him. She was in fact just a kid.
"?Mas hombres? "
She shook her head.
" No. No mas. "
"What's your name?" Her face was blank."?Nombre? "
"Josefina."
Bode had exhausted his Spanish skills.
"What are you doing here?"
She shook her head again. " No habla. "
Bode tried to recall Lindsay's Spanish.
"?Que… usted… aqui? "
She jumped up and headed toward the tree line. She gestured for them to follow.
" Vengan. "
She led them into the trees and across a shallow spring creek and deep into a pine forest. Bode kept a keen eye out and his gun drawn, in case she was leading them into a trap. She wasn't. She led them into a clearing. They stopped and stared.
"Well, I'll be damned," Jim Bob said.
Stretched out in front of them were neat rows of green leafy plants standing fifteen feet tall. Dozens of rows. Thousands of plants. A farm.
"Marijuana," Hank said.
The girl nodded. " Si. Marihuana. Narcotraficantes. " She then called out, as if to the plants themselves: "?Salgan!?Ya estamos a salvo! "
Brown faces slowly emerged from among the plants.
"Viagra?"
The doctor's assistant held up a carton of the medicine. Lindsay and Inez were unpacking the boxes El Diablo had brought the day before and stocking the shelves. Jesse was working at his desk on the other side of the clinic. He now looked up with a smile.
"Erectile dysfunction, that is certainly not a problem in the colonias."
"All this was donated?" Inez said.
"Yes. From, uh… from Houston."
"That reporter, Kikki, she had the hots for you, Doctor."
Lindsay glanced at Jesse; he shrugged innocently. Lindsay turned back; Inez had caught their interplay.
"So, Senora," Inez said in a low voice, "the wedding ring-you are married?"
"Yes."
"That is a very unusual ring. May I look at it?"
Lindsay removed her wedding ring for the first time in twenty-two years. She placed it in Inez's open palm. The ring was one of a matched set handmade by James Avery in Kerrville, just up the road from the Bonner Ranch outside Comfort. The ring had two separate bands, one gold, one silver, with the ends twisted together to form a knot. A lovers' knot.
"It is beautiful," Inez said. "I dream of one day having such a ring. And a husband who will take me beyond the wall."
She handed the ring back to Lindsay, reluctantly it seemed.
"So, Senora, why are you not with your husband?"
"We're separated."
"But you still wear your wedding ring?"
"I'm still married."
"Does the doctor know this?"
"We got an all-points bulletin out on Manuel Moreno," DEA Agent Rey Gonzales said. "He must've been the inside man on this operation. Mexican cartels, they're setting up these farms in isolated areas-national and state parks, Indian reservations, remote ranches-from here to California. They send men north to grow the dope here, so they don't have to smuggle it across the border. The men live on the land, tend the plants, harvest and ship to the dealers. Low overhead, high profits, so to speak."
Hank had called in the Feds on the satellite phone. Federal agents from El Paso had arrived in helicopters and now swarmed the scene in black and blue windbreakers with white and yellow letters identifying their agencies: FBI… DEA… ICE… DHS. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Drug Enforcement Agency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Department of Homeland Security. Plus DPS troopers, Texas Rangers, and the Jeff Davis County Sheriff. They interviewed the Mexican children, took photos and collected evidence, examined the dead men, chopped and stacked the plants, and gathered a cache of high-powered weapons.
"Americans think all this shit stays south of the river," Agent Gonzales said. "But the cartels, they're here now."
"We should send the special forces into Mexico," Jim Bob said. "Kill the drug lords."
Agent Gonzales shook his head. "You kill one drug lord, another takes his place before the sun sets. Too much money to be made selling dope to the gringos. Last four years, we seized six thousand tons of dope coming across the river. But the DTOs-drug trafficking organizations-they shipped sixty thousand tons."
" Sixty thousand tons? "
"Metric."
"How?"
"How not? Trucks, trains, planes, automobiles, buses, boats, submarines, tunnels, ultralights… you name it, the DTOs do it. Even with all our interdiction efforts, they've got a ninety percent success rate."
"Is the drone helping?"
"Border Patrol's grabbed a few immigrants with the drone, but the DTOs got radar tracking it, so the drone don't slow down their shipments."
He waved a hand at the camp.
"Sophisticated operation-booby traps, tripwires, irrigation pipes running down from the spring, drip lines throughout the plants. Almost harvest time. The cartel won't be happy with you, Governor."
"That I killed their men?"
"That you found their dope. Street boys like these, they're a dime a dozen in Mexico. But that"-he gestured at the agents cutting and stacking the plants-"that's two hundred million bucks fixin' to go up in smoke."
"Two hundred million?" Jim Bob said.
Agent Gonzales nodded. "I figure this grow site for a hundred acres in production, maybe fifty thousand plants. Commercial grade, from seed to harvest in four months. Each plant produces a pound of dope, each pound is worth four thousand dollars wholesale. Ninety-nine percent profit margin."
"Money really does grow on trees," Jim Bob said.
"Three times a year. And this is a small operation compared to the grow sites we busted out west. Last year, we eradicated four and a half million plants on federal lands. Do the math, that comes to eighteen billion dollars worth of weed."
"Should've been a dope farmer."
"You and me both."
"What about the children?" Bode said.
They had found twelve Mexican boys and the girl, Josefina.
"Abducted in border towns, brought up here to work the plants. The boys, they're ten, eleven, twelve years old. Been out here almost a year now."
"What's going to happen to them?"
"ICE will take them into custody, try to locate their relatives."
"And if they don't?"
Agent Gonzales turned his palms up and shrugged.
"How's the girl?"
"Not so good. She was their sex slave. The men raped her regularly. But the one you shot in the back, she said he came to the camp only a few weeks ago. He raped her twice a day. And beat her bad." The agent's jaws clenched. "She's only twelve. You did the world a favor, Governor, shooting those Mexicans full of holes." The agent's face was stern and his skin brown. "Americans want to smoke dope, figure it ain't hurting no one. But someone always gets hurt."
A car horn interrupted them, and a black Hummer came crashing through the brush and over the creek and skidded to a stop. John Ed Johnson jumped out of the driver's seat and marched over, his head covered by a Stetson and his trouser legs tucked into tall boots, looking like LBJ himself pissed off at a congressman who had voted against him; Mandy followed behind, tiptoeing through the clearing in a dress and heels. John Ed arrived in a huff, glanced at the marijuana field, then addressed Agent Gonzales.
"These Mexicans growing dope on my land?"
"It was an inside job, Mr. Johnson. Your man Manuel."
" Manuel? "
"He rode off," Bode said. "Heading south. Making a run for the border."
John Ed seemed stunned. "Manuel did this? To me? "
"We'll catch him," Agent Gonzales said.
"Why the hell don't you people do your job and secure the goddamn border?"
Agent Gonzales held his ground.
"You want me to do my job, Mr. Johnson? Maybe I should check the immigration status of all the Mexicans working for you."
"You do, and I'll have your job."
"You don't want my job, Mr. Johnson."
John Ed stomped off in search of another federal employee who might show more respect for a billionaire. Agent Gonzales shook his head.
"That says it all about our immigration policies."
A WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP sound came from beyond the tree line and then over the trees came a half dozen helicopters, like a scene out of Apocalypse Now.
"Who the hell are they?" Agent Gonzales said.
"Network and cable TV," Jim Bob said.
"Who called them?"
"I did."
The DEA agent stared at Jim Bob as if he were nuts then walked off just as Mandy arrived and said, "Shit."
"What's wrong?"
She grabbed Bode's shoulder to steady herself then lifted her foot.
"I stepped in shit."
Bode turned to his political strategist but pointed up at the helicopters.
"Why'd you call the media?"
"Because this is it."
"This is what?"
"Your one big play. Your game changer. You wanted it-you got it."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
The Professor aimed a finger in the direction of the three men Bode had killed.
"Those dead Mexicans… they're your ticket to the White House."
Jesse held the dead rattlesnake high as they entered the small cafe.
"Luis! Look what I have brought for you."
Luis Escalera, the proprietor, came around from behind the bar.
"Jesse! Mi amigo. What have you there?"
Jesse gave the snake to Luis. He would fry the rattlesnake meat and make a fine belt from the skin. Jesse had brought his nurse into town on her first day for lunch at his favorite cafe, a small colorful place with good food and a large television on the wall above the bar showing the Houston Astros baseball game on cable. They sat at a table near the bar. Pancho lay at their feet.
"This afternoon," Jesse said, "I will take you around the colonia and introduce you to the residents. And perhaps this evening you would like to go to a restaurant, a place with music?" He lowered his voice. "We will leave Pancho at home."
She smiled, and it was a nice smile.
"I would like that very much."
The governor's wife gazed at him from across the table, but Jesse saw the governor's face. On the TV behind her.
"Look."
She turned in her chair to see the screen. "Breaking News" ran below the image of the governor standing in front of a clump of microphones and surrounded by Latino children. Lindsay stood and walked over to the bar. Jesse followed.
"Luis, please turn up the volume."
Luis did, and they heard the governor speaking.
"I was sighting in a feral hog from up on that ridge when a young girl ran from this tree line, chased by three men on dirt bikes. I could see through the scope that she was just a kid. They ran her down, slapped her, pointed guns at her. I figured they were gonna kill her, so I shot them before they could shoot her."
"He shot someone?" the governor's wife said.
The camera caught three other people standing off to one side of the governor: a bald pudgy man, a big Texas Ranger, and a young blonde woman. She was very pretty. The governor's wife pointed at the woman's image on the screen.
"That's Mandy. He's having an affair with her."
Mandy Morgan gazed upon the governor of Texas. She had loved Bode Bonner from the first moment she had met him, in his office the day she hired on. He was tall, he was handsome, and he was twenty years older than her. All of her affairs had been with older men.
Was she seeking a father-figure, as her therapist had suggested?
Her father had died when she was only seven. He was not there when she was crowned homecoming queen or prom queen. He was not there when she graduated high school or college. He would not be there to give her away at her wedding. She could not remember a father's love or his arms around her.
She felt safe in Bode Bonner's arms.
She loved him, and he loved her. He hadn't said it, but she knew it. She wanted to be his wife, but he had a wife. But his wife had moved out of their bedroom, so Mandy had moved in-at least when his wife was out of town or they were. The governor's wife refused him sex, so she had stepped in to give the governor what he needed. She thought of it as her civic duty.
The satellite phone she was holding rang. She answered.
"This is the governor's wife. Put Bode on."
"Mrs. Bonner, he's giving a press conference. I'll have him call you back."
"I'll hold."
"Yes, ma'am."
Lindsay covered the phone with her hand.
" Ma'am. She calls me ma'am, like I'm old enough to be her mother." Lindsay sighed. "Maybe I am."
She turned back to the television. "DEA Agent Gonzales" now spoke into the microphones.
"These dead Mexicans, they were just teenagers, throwaways south of the border. The cartels recruit them off the streets because they've got nowhere else to go, train them as smugglers and assassins. No one's gonna miss these boys."
The camera captured close-up images of three bodies spread out on the ground like dead gunslingers in those old Western photos. They were young with tattoos on their arms. The camera panned slowly over their vacant faces. The last face seemed vaguely familiar, as did the LM tattoo in fancy script on his left arm. Lindsay pointed at the screen.
"Oh, my God! Jesse, is that-"
Jesus.
Enrique de la Garza reached up to the big television screen on the wall of his Nuevo Laredo office and gently touched his dead son's image. He had sent his first-born son to Tejas to become a man-but not a dead man. Not a man shot down like an animal in a big-game hunt by the governor of Texas. To be stuffed and displayed on a wall. No, that was not what he had intended when he sent his son across the Rio Bravo del Norte. Yet… there his son lay. Dead. Shot in the back. Twice. Like an animal. By the governor of Texas. Whose Anglo image now filled the screen. Who smiled broadly and held the rifle that he had used to murder Enrique's son. Who stood over the dead body of Jesus de la Garza for the cameras like a proud hunter showing off his trophy kill.
"I would very much like him dead," Enrique said.
Hector Garcia rose from the sofa and came over to Enrique.
"You want to kill the governor of Texas?"
"Yes. Very much."
"But, jefe, we have never before killed an American politician."
"We have killed Mexican politicians. We have dispensed justice to corrupt mayors, governors, police chiefs, federales… Why can we not kill an American governor? Why can we not dispense justice north of the river?"
"Oh, we can kill him. That will be easy. But the gringos, they will send troops to the border. They will seek venganza. They will demand justice."
"It is I who seek revenge. It is I who demand justice. They killed my wife, Hector, but I did not seek revenge then because it was a mistake. I did not kill the gringos then because that would not have been justice. But this… this was no mistake. He murdered my son."
Enrique de la Garza now addressed the governor of Texas on the television.
"You murder my son, but I am not to seek revenge? The Muslims, they murdered your sons and daughters on nine/eleven, and you sought revenge. You invaded their countries and killed tens of thousands of their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, spilling innocent blood to quench your thirst for revenge. Oh, but you are the Americans. You are the righteous avengers. The holy Anglos. They were only the unholy Muslims, and I am only the stupid Mexicano who feels not the sun on my back or the pain in my heart. Who is a manual laborer but not a man. Whose son's life is not worthy of revenge. Who does not deserve justice.
"Is that what you think, Governor?"
He stepped over to the wall rack and removed his prized machete. He returned and raised the blade to the governor's image on the screen.
"Am I not a father? Do I not love my son? Are your sons worthier of revenge and justice than mine? Because I am Mexican and not American? Because my skin is brown and not white? Because I speak Spanish and not English? Because I live south of the river and not north?
"Is that what you think, Governor?"
Enrique de la Garza, Mexican, father, dispenser of justice in Nuevo Laredo, and now seeker of venganza — the man known to the world as El Diablo, head of the notorious Los Muertos drug cartel-said only two more words to Hector Garcia.
"Kill him."