"Mandy! These kids are running around the Mansion like they're at a goddamned McDonald's."
"Bo- de," Mandy said, her face contorted in that familiar pretend frown. "Don't talk like that in front of the kids."
The Mexican children had brought out the mother in Mandy. She was prepping them for the cameras, smoothing the boys' hair and fixing their clothes, wiping syrup from their pancake breakfast off their faces, and generally having one hell of time corralling the kids into their positions on the floor around Bode. She bribed them with donuts.
It was just after seven the following Monday morning, and Bode Bonner sat on a stool in the living room of the family quarters in the Governor's Mansion surrounded by the thirteen kids. The last forty-eight hours had been a whirlwind. They had remained in West Texas Saturday night. Bode gave statements at the scene that ran on the network evening news and cable outlets. With the majestic Davis Mountains as the backdrop and the governor of Texas holding a high-powered rifle and standing over three dead Mexicans-political candidates always established their manly bona fides by taking reporters on hunting trips, but they only shot ducks-his first national media exposure had garnered the Professor's approval.
"Hell of an introduction to America," Jim Bob had said.
They wrapped up their post-shooting interviews at the scene with the FBI and the DEA and the Texas Rangers and even the Jeff Davis County Sheriff, a good ol' boy named Roscoe Lee whose county morgue now held the three Mexican hombres on ice. The on-the-ground ruling was "defense of a third person"; the killings had been justified in order to save another person's life, being little Josefina. No criminal charges would be filed against the governor of Texas. Point a gun at another human being and pull the trigger, and you're either a murderer or a hero. It's a fine line.
Bode Bonner was on the hero side of the line.
After the interviews, they transported the children back to John Ed's lodge in the Hummer like school kids on a class outing. Mandy the madre sat them around the big dining room table, and Rosita fed them beef tacos, refried beans, and guacamole. They ate as if they hadn't eaten in months-until federal agents with "ICE" in bold white letters on black jackets and big guns on their hips arrived to take them into custody pending deportation. The kids-like every Mexican-knew ICE meant Inmigracion, so the appearance of the agents threw them into a frenzy. They screamed"?Corren! "
— then tossed their tacos at the agents and bolted from the dining room table and scattered about the lodge looking for hiding places; Bode later found little Josefina curled up in a small cabinet beneath a bathroom sink. He had tried to get the ICE agents to calm down, but refried beans and guacamole splattered across their black jackets didn't sit well with the Feds.
"We're taking these Mexicans into custody!"
Bode got in the head ICE-hole's face.
"The hell you are! I found them! They're in Texas-and I'm the goddamned governor of Texas!"
"I don't care if you're the fucking king of Canada! Those kids are coming with us!"
"Prime minister," the Professor said. "Canada has a prime minister, not a king."
The ICE agent gave Jim Bob a "fuck you" look then said to Bode, "These kids belong to the federal government."
"The hell they do," Bode said.
Governors of the fifty states hate natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes and wildfires that tear a swath of destruction across the land, and man-made disasters like an offshore oil rig blowout that dumps millions of barrels of oil into pristine waters, and Wall Street gamblers who play high-risk games with the world's economy and lose, busting state budgets in the process; but they reserve their highest degree of hatred for the most arrogant, self-righteous, and overbearing bastards to walk God's green earth.
"Fucking Feds," Bode said.
Texas Governor Bode Bonner and Texas Ranger Hank Williams put their big bodies between the Feds and the kids. They remained in a Mexican stand-off until Jim Bob made a few calls to Washington. The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security worked for a politician, so she sided with politics. The last thing her Democratic president (who wanted Latino votes in the next election) needed was thirteen Mexican kids shown on the national news being perp-walked out of the lodge like criminals by ICE agents under her command. She ordered the agents to stand down. They weren't pleased, particularly when Bode gave the head agent a parting, "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on." ICE departed in defeat, Bode, Jim Bob, and Hank shared high-fives all around, and Rosita and Pedro searched the lodge calling out to the kids in Spanish: "Please come out, children. ICE is not going to take you away. The governor is going to take you on the airplane to Austin. You will live in the Governor's Mansion. La mansion del gobernador de Tejas."
Legal custody of thirteen Mexican children was now vested in the governor of Texas.
The Professor's idea. He said the political lesson learned from Kennedy was that if you surround a handsome politician with cute children the voting public will form a favorable impression of him even if he's screwing Marilyn Monroe on the side. The man didn't have a Ph. D. in politics for nothing. So they had all flown back to Austin Sunday morning in the Gulfstream. They put the kids in the spare bedrooms in the Mansion, but the boys kept running outside to pee on the south lawn. Turns out, they had never before used an indoor bathroom. Bode gave them a Toilet 101 lesson; fortunately, there were no bidets in the Mansion. Once the boys discovered the kitchen-"?Cocina interior! "-and learned that the chef would cook whatever they wanted upon request, they had eaten around the clock while watching Mexican futbol on cable. Mandy signed on as camp counselor, and Lupe adopted them like the children she never had. They laughed and smiled and seemed like normal kids who didn't speak English, not kids who had been held captive for a year on a remote marijuana farm in West Texas.
Except Josefina. She did not laugh or smile.
They were now scrubbed clean and sporting new clothes from the Gap. Mandy and Hank had taken them shopping the day before and charged $3,000 on the campaign credit card. But the kids would look nice on national TV. Because the governor of Texas was about to do what you do in America when you win the lottery or lose a reality show or claim a politician sexually harassed you or get banned from the prom for being a same-sex couple or kill three bad-ass hombres in West Texas: you go on television and tell the nation how you "feel," that being critical information all of America needed to know before breakfast-along with that Kardashian girl's latest love fiasco, of course. Bode had always experienced the urge to puke his oatmeal at the pathetic people parading their emotions on the network morning shows, desperate for their fifteen minutes.
Now he was about to join the parade.
The local station's producer came over and said, "George is wrapping up his interview with the couple that got kicked off Dancing with the Stars last night. You're up next." He sized Bode up then turned and shouted, "Make-up!" Back to Bode: "New York will run a setup piece then you'll go live with George."
The make-up lady arrived and gave Bode a once-over through her red reading glasses. She then patted a powdery pad on his forehead.
"That'll keep the glare down. Not much I can do about the hair."
Lupe had brushed and sprayed his hair to perfection that morning. The make-up lady stepped away, leaving Bode to stare at Jim Bob in the corner fiddling with his phone. Texting. Twitting. Tweetering. Whatever. Immediately after the shooting on Saturday, the Professor had commenced orchestrating a nonstop media blitz for the coming week. The shooting had made front-page headlines in every major newspaper in the country on Sunday-they called him an "American Hero"-and the Mansion switchboard had been overloaded with calls from media outlets across the country and around the world. Everyone wanted a piece of Bode Bonner. Jim Bob Burnet held the hottest news story in America in his hands, and he was using it to Bode's best advantage-because in the 24/7 news cycle that was life in America today, anyone could become someone in twenty-four hours.
Bode Bonner was now someone.
Jim Bob stepped over to Bode with the phone held high and said, "You got over two hundred thousand followers now, more than Romney. Course, he's a Mormon. How exciting could his life be? Oh, you made the nationals."
"I did?"
"You did. The Rasmussen tracking poll puts you at ten percent among Republican voters, Gallup at twelve. You're in the game now, Bode. America saw you for the first time this weekend and they liked what they saw-a rugged, handsome, action-hero."
He paused as if pondering the mysteries of the universe.
"What are the odds? We go out to John Ed's ranch that day, we're on that ridge and you're already sighted in at the exact moment the girl tries to escape-right place, right time, right gun. If I were a religious man, I'd say it was God's will. But I'm not, so I'd say you are one lucky SOB. And one thing I've learned from gambling in Vegas-when you're on a lucky streak, don't quit."
"Ride the wave."
"All the way to the White House. The 'Bode Bonner for President' campaign starts right now. I've plotted out a media tour for the next seven days, starting with the network morning shows. After that, we fly back out to John Ed's ranch for the 60 Minutes profile. Tomorrow we fly to L.A., then Chicago, New York, and wrap up the week in D.C. on Fox News Sunday. One week from today, you'll be the presumptive Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. If you don't fuck it up."
"How?"
"By saying something stupid on national TV."
"No. How will I be the Republican presidential candidate in one week?"
"Because you're fixing to catch the biggest wave in politics since Reagan in eighty. He was bigger than life, and you're about to be. This is a game changer, Bode. The sort of thing that can put a Texan back in the White House."
"How do you know?"
"Because this is what I do."
What he did was make Bode give up the Armani suits. "Italian suits and French cuffs won't sell in Iowa and New Hampshire." So the governor of Texas was wearing a starched, buttoned-down, long-sleeved, pearl-white shirt with the athletic cut to accentuate his impressive physique, jeans, a black cowboy belt with a sterling silver Great Seal of Texas buckle, and black cowboy boots. The Professor was frowning.
"Did Lupe spray your hair this morning?"
"Of course."
"Well, don't do it anymore. Man using hair spray, evokes vanity and femininity. Voters don't want their president to be vain or their commander-in-chief to have a feminine side."
"You never complained before."
"You never had a chance to be president before."
His eyes hadn't left Bode's hair, and the frown hadn't left his face. He reached his hand up with his fingers spread wide to Bode's head-but he froze in midair.
"Where's Mandy?"
Bode nodded toward the back corner where Mandy stood with little Josefina, whose arms were wrapped tightly around herself. She was only twelve and slight of build and looked more like a skinny boy than a girl. When Mandy reached out to touch her shoulder, she recoiled. Jim Bob called out to Bode's aide and mistress.
"Mandy!"
She broke away from Josefina and arrived with a frown.
"Josefina's terrified of being touched by anyone. We need to get her a therapist. I'll ask mine if he counsels children."
"You have a therapist?"
She shrugged a yes.
"I'm taking the kids to the pediatrician this afternoon," she said.
"Check their eyesight. A couple of the boys sit two feet from the TV. And take them to the dentist, their teeth are terrible. Take Lupe to translate."
"Can I use the campaign credit card?"
"Sure."
The Professor's eyes had returned to Bode's head.
"Mandy, run your fingers through Bode's hair."
She eyed his hair then Jim Bob.
"But his hair looks perfect."
"Exactly."
She shrugged and stepped close enough to Bode that he could inhale her scent. He felt a stirring, then he felt guilty. His wife knew about his mistress, but he still felt guilty. His mistress now ran her fingers through his hair. Jim Bob observed the result in his professorial mode.
"Again."
She repeated the maneuver. This time Bode felt strands of hair fall onto his forehead. Jim Bob framed Bode's face with his fingers.
"Audience for these morning shows is female, so you've got to appeal to women. Mandy, look at this man. As a woman-and God knows, you are a woman-do you want this man?"
"Every day. Every time I see him. In fact, right now. God, I love it when he wears those tight jeans."
Her face flushed as her body temperature spiked, and she licked her red lips then took a step toward Bode as if to embrace him.
"Downshift your engine, girl," Jim Bob said. "We got cameras in the room."
"Oh… yeah."
She blew out a breath and shook her head at the opportunity lost then returned to the kids. Bode and Jim Bob looked after her-her firm bottom encased in the tight form-fitting knit dress-and Jim Bob said, "Naturally horizontal."
"We're live in ten seconds!" the TV producer said. "Children, quiet down."
They were chattering muy rapido in Spanish.
"I feel like I'm at a bullfight in Juarez," Jim Bob said.
"Mandy, give them some more donuts."
She passed out donuts, and the kids quieted down. Jim Bob went back to the corner, and Josefina took her place at Bode's feet.
"We're live!" the producer said.
On the monitor, Bode saw the anchor in New York addressing the camera.
"As all of America knows by now, this past Saturday Texas Governor Bode Bonner went on what he thought would be just another hunting trip on an isolated game ranch in the desolate Davis Mountains of West Texas-but unbeknownst to him, he was about to stumble upon a scene straight out of an action movie."
The setup piece played on the monitor, a rehash of the shooting with video of the ranch and the valley where he had shot the Mexicans, the dead bodies splayed on the ground, and the children looking filthy and pitiful in ragged clothes at the marijuana camp. The video lingered a long moment on Bode surrounded by the kids almost clinging to him, and then the screen switched to Bode surrounded by the kids in the living room of the Governor's Mansion.
"Now, live from Austin, Texas, we're joined by Governor Bode Bonner and the children he rescued. Welcome, Governor."
Bode tousled the hair of the nearest boy-he thought that'd be nice touch on national TV-then smiled into the camera and said, "Morning, George."
"Governor, you look like you're having fun."
"Oh, we've kind of adopted the kids here at the Mansion, fixing them pancakes in the kitchen this morning, playing out on the lawn… and, boy, they love cable TV. And donuts. Like Carlos here."
He patted the boy's head again; the boy looked up and said, " Soy Miguel."
"Oh, Miguel. Sorry." To the camera: "Thirteen kids, I haven't gotten their names down yet."
George laughed. "You know, Governor, I knew very little about you before this weekend, and all I had seen of you was a tough-talking, tea-party Texan. But we're seeing a different side of you."
"I'm the governor, George, but I'm also a father. I can only imagine how much these kids' folks back home are worrying about them. We're working fast to get them back to their mamas in Mexico."
Bode's usual public voice was not twangy like a country singer or Deep South like the Mississippi governor, but just a soft drawl-of course, since Bush a Texas drawl had not proved popular anywhere but Texas.
The smallest boy turned to Bode and said, "?Mi madre? "
"Your mama's fine, Flaco."
" Yo soy Ruben."
"Governor, you're a staunch opponent of illegal immigration, yet you risked your life to save those Mexican children. Why?"
"Saving these kids wasn't about being a politician, George, it was about being a man. I wasn't about to let those cartel thugs kill little Josefina here."
Now it was time for the big question of the morning.
"Governor, when you shot those men, how did you feel?"
"Pretty damn good. They were dead and she wasn't."
Josefina turned her sweet face to him as if on cue and said, " Es el hombre. "
"You're the man, Governor," George said.
The scene was replayed on the other network morning shows. Little Josefina even repeated her " el hombre " line without prompting. On national TV. He needed to put her on the campaign payroll.
Two hundred thirty-five miles south, Jesse Rincon watched the governor's wife pack her black satchel with medicine and supplies and hard candy. He then looked back down at the Laredo newspaper spread across his desk. On the front page was a photo of the governor surrounded by the Mexican children he had rescued from the marijuana farm. Jesse read about the governor then again looked up at the governor's wife. Three days she had been in his life. To see her, to breathe her in, to begin and end each day with her-she had brought hope back to him. Hope for love in his life. But she was married to the governor of Texas.
"El Diablo, he will not be happy with your husband."
"Now he knows how I feel."
They kept their voices low so Inez at her desk could not hear them.
"You do not understand. He will seek venganza. Revenge."
"Against the governor of Texas?"
"They kill governors in Mexico every day."
"But this is America."
"Mexico or America, it is just a little river cutting through the land. El Diablo will not be deterred by such formalities."
"But that probably wasn't the same boy."
"No. That probably was not his son. But that was his marijuana."
Lindsay Bonner finished packing her satchel for her morning rounds. The residents did not want to bother the doctor with minor injuries and illnesses, so the Anglo nurse would now make house calls in Colonia Angeles.
It was her third day on the job.
They had worked over the weekend. They had eaten out Saturday evening and in Sunday evening. They had sat on the back porch overlooking the river both nights, and Jesse had told her stories of the borderlands. They had watched the news reports about the governor of Texas killing the three Mexican men in West Texas. No mention was made that one of the men might have been the son of El Diablo, the most notorious drug lord in Nuevo Laredo. The man had a Los Muertos tattoo on his left arm, just as El Diablo's son had; but so did the other two dead men, and so did thousands of other young men in Nuevo Laredo. The man's face had bloated after lying dead for hours in the hot sun, so she and Jesse hadn't been able to make a positive identification from the image they had seen on television or in the paper. But she had called Bode and warned him just the same; he was unfaithful, he was ambitious, he was a politician, but he was still her husband.
He had laughed it off.
She had put it out of her mind. What were the odds that the boy they had saved was the same man Bode had killed? What would El Diablo's son-the son of a billionaire drug lord in Nuevo Laredo-be doing at a marijuana farm on a remote ranch in West Texas? And even if he were the son of El Diablo, what could his father do? Bode Bonner was the governor of Texas, not a local politician in a small Mexican village. He lived in the Governor's Mansion in Austin behind a tall fence. He had a 24/7 security detail of Texas Rangers. He was safe.
But still…
The clinic door opened, and a pretty young woman and a burly man holding a video camera on his shoulder entered. Lindsay turned her back to them and pushed the wide-brimmed hat down on her head. Inez greeted the guests. She had dressed in her best clothes and done her hair and overdone her make-up. She hoped to be discovered and taken beyond the wall, like Cinderella of the colonias. She was a pretty girl, but not that pretty. She came over to Lindsay and Jesse.
"Doctor, she is Gaby Gomez, with the San Antonio TV station. They are here to tape your interview."
A Houston newspaper had run a story about Colonia Angeles that past Sunday, which had caught the attention of the San Antonio station. They had called Jesse at home and requested an interview, a human interest story for their morning show the following Sunday. Jesse agreed only because it would bring checks for the colonias.
"It is so exciting," Inez said. "The doctor, he is famous."
"Perhaps in a few poor counties along the border, Inez."
"I hope to be famous one day."
The poor thing.
"They said it is a 'day in the life of' profile," Inez said. "They will follow you around all day."
"Guess I'll be gone all day," Lindsay said.
She put two bottled waters and two granola bars in her satchel.
"Can I go with you?" Inez said.
"You want to come with me on my rounds?"
"Not with you, Senora. With the doctor and the cameras."
"Pancho!" Jesse said.
The dog rose from his position by the front door and trotted over.
"He will go with you."
Lindsay patted the dog's head and said, "You want to go on rounds with me?"
Inez watched as the nurse threw the black satchel over her shoulder and slipped out the back door followed by Pancho. She turned back to the doctor.
"The senora, she is shy with the cameras."
"Bode, you need a wife to win the White House."
"I know."
"It's a package deal. Voters size up the first lady candidates as much as the presidential candidates. You've got to get her back."
"I know… I just don't know how."
It was just before noon, and Bode and Jim Bob were strapped into their seats aboard the governor's jet for the final approach to John Ed Johnson's private airstrip. Ranger Hank was again up front with the pilots. Mandy had stayed behind to play camp counselor at the Mansion. Jim Bob fiddled with that fucking phone again.
"Your Twitter followers exploded after the morning shows. Over half a million now."
Bode responded with a grunt.
"Now, listen, Bode, whatever you do, don't talk politics with this reporter."
"Why not? It's an opportunity to share my political views with the American people."
"It's an opportunity to screw up on national TV. We've got to find out how the shooting went down with the Independent voters first."
"Why?"
"Because they're the swing votes. In a national election, the Independents decide who wins. So no politics until I get the poll results in."
"You're the boss, Professor."
"We'll meet the production crew at John Ed's lodge. They flew into El Paso from New York last night and were driving out this morning."
"Why didn't they fly into Austin and out with us?"
"And have all of America see you flying in a private jet on 60 Minutes when twenty million people are out of work?"
The Professor didn't have a Ph. D. in politics for nothing.
Back in the Governor's Mansion, Mandy Morgan walked into Jolene Curtis' office and shut the door behind her. Jo looked up. Mandy aimed a manicured finger at her.
"You stay away from Bode. He's mine."
Jo smiled. She was very pretty. Which meant there was one too many pretty young women in the Governor's Mansion.
"He's married," Jo said.
"Not for long."
"And you figure you can keep him from straying again?"
"I can keep him… and I can get you fired. Which won't look good on your resume. Which means you get to go back to pole dancing."
Mandy opened the door then turned back.
"I want you gone by the time we get back from the media tour."
Mandy left Jolene with a look of shock on her very pretty face.
Lindsay Bonner ducked her face against the dust blown by the dry wind and her nose from the foul smell of the river. The stench was savage when the wind blew from the south, and the wind always blew from the south. For an hour now, she had walked the narrow dirt roads accompanied by Pancho. She was the Anglo nurse, not the glamorous governor's wife. She wore a loose blue peasant dress under a white lab coat, the pink Crocs, a yellow scarf, and the wide-brimmed hat.
" Hola," she said to each woman and child she encountered. They washed and cooked and played outside their residences. Life in the colonias was lived out of doors. "I am the doctor's new nurse," she said in Spanish. "Are you ill? Are your children sick?"
"No, no," was the standard response.
She introduced herself and said she would make rounds each day and would be available at the clinic as well. She urged them to come to the clinic if they or their children fell ill or developed sores or suffered injuries. She knew it would take time for them to trust her. But she wasn't going anywhere.
" Senor gobernador, it is very good to see you back again."
John Ed Johnson had wired $25 million to the "Bode Bonner Reelection Campaign" that morning as he had promised then had flown up to the Panhandle to buy more water rights, so Pedro greeted them at the lodge.
"Been pretty exciting around here the last few days."
" Si. Mucho conmocion. The cameras, they are here."
Pedro grabbed their gear and led them inside. Jim Bob leaned into Bode.
"Okay, here's the deal. I negotiated an exclusive interview in exchange for another interview when your book comes out."
"What book?"
"Your memoir."
"What memoir?"
"The one I'm negotiating with publishers for right now. Every presidential candidate writes a book these days-Obama, Palin, Paul, Gingrich, Cain, even Bachmann… it's a campaign tool. Course, you've got to donate the money to charity."
"I don't want to."
"Give the money to charity?"
"Write a book."
"You don't have to. I'm going to write it. I'm thinking about calling it, 'Take this Government and Shove It.' "
"That has a nice ring to it."
"By the time I'm through with your memoirs, you'll be a regular Teddy Roosevelt."
"He was crippled."
"That'd be Franklin."
"Oh."
Jim Bob Burnet sighed. The boy got hit in the head on the football field one too many times for his own good. But, it wasn't as if political success required a genius intellect. In fact, smarts often proved an impediment to a political career, Obama being Exhibit A that you can be too damn smart to be a good president. You don't want to over-think the job. Which was not a worry with Bode Bonner.
" Buenos dias," Lindsay Bonner said to the children gathered around a chicken as if considering how to pluck it and cook it for lunch. The children and the chicken instinctively withdrew from the Anglo nurse. She reached into the satchel and found the hard candies. She squatted and opened her hand to reveal the colorful candies. The children eyed them then debated with each other. She unwrapped a candy, put it in her mouth, and made a yummy sound, as if trying to get little Becca to eat pureed squash. At least the sweet dispelled the taste of dirt. She held the candies out to the children. One little girl in a ratty red dress stepped forward bravely and snatched a piece. She put the candy in her mouth and smiled broadly.
" Dulce."
Sweet.
The others now stepped forward and took the candy. They did not withdraw. They gathered around her and petted Pancho. They smelled worse than the dog; they either bathed in the river or didn't bathe. Their hair appeared not to have been brushed in months; their faces were dirty and their feet bare. Open sores spotted their arms and legs. She reached into her satchel and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. She put them on then found the antibiotic cream and the "Dora the Explorer" Band-Aids.
"This will help your sores," she said in Spanish.
She squirted the antibiotic on a Band-Aid and applied it over one child's sore. The girl examined Dora and smiled.
" Es chula. "
"Yes, she is cute."
Lindsay soon had applied a half dozen Band-Aids to each child. Their mothers had come to see what the Anglo nurse was doing to their children. They had been suspicious at first, but now they were smiling. Several of the women were pregnant, so Lindsay discussed their prenatal care and recorded their names and expected due dates in her journal. Inez kept a notebook with medical histories of every patient. She now sat at an old picnic table with half a dozen Mexican women discussing their medical issues and drinking Kool-Aid from tall plastic fast-food glasses-even the clean water didn't taste clean, so they made Kool-Aid to mask the taste-as if they were suburban stay-at-home moms drinking mochas at a Starbucks. She had decided not to focus on the living conditions in the colonia but instead on the living. She was here for the people. She was here to make a difference in their lives. And in her life.
She heard a scream from down by the river.
"Governor, that's a long shot."
The network folks wanted to retrace Bode's every step that day, so they had driven out to the scene in John Ed's Hummer. Bode now sat perched on the same ridge with a camera focused on him. Jim Bob and Ranger Hank stood behind the camera. The female reporter sat next to him, close enough for him to catch the scent of her perfume. She was a good-looking broad with a twinkle in her blue eyes and her blonde hair blowing in the breeze like she didn't give a damn. Like she'd be fun on a camping trip on a cold night, building a fire, eating meat seared on a stick, drinking a few shots of bourbon, then climbing into a double-wide sleeping bag and "You must have a really big one."
"What?"
"Your rifle. It must be big."
"Oh. Yeah. It's a big rifle all right."
He unpacked the big rifle, loaded a cartridge, and sighted in through the scope. Down below, the valley was vacant. The FBI, ICE, DEA, DPS, Texas Rangers, and Border Patrol had collected the evidence, removed the bodies, cut and burned the marijuana, and cleared out. Only a feral hog rooting around showed any signs of life in the valley. But not for long. The camera was running when Bode put the cross hairs on the hog's head and pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
"Oh, my God, that's so loud!" the reporter said, sounding girlish in a sexy way. "Did you hit the hog?"
Bode snorted. "Of course I hit the hog."
They drove the Hummer down past the dead hog and to the marijuana farm. The reporter set up the camera angle then gave an intro: "I'm standing in the desolate but starkly beautiful Davis Mountains of West Texas with Bode Bonner, the swaggering former college football star and"-a coy smile-"the charming governor of Texas."
She and the camera turned to him.
"So, Governor, the cowboy image isn't just an image?"
He wore the same jeans from that morning, but he had changed into a denim shirt and old work boots. He didn't want to clean crap off his handmade boots.
"I've been a cowboy all my life."
"I like cowboys."
"Do you now?"
Bode couldn't tell whether she was flirting with him or setting him up, but being male he naturally sided with flirting.
"Those poor children, living out here for a year. And the girl, getting raped and beaten."
Bode thought, Here it comes.
"Governor, how did you feel when you shot those men?"
"Pretty damn good. They were dead, and she was alive."
"Governor, it seems incredible that a Mexican drug cartel could operate a huge marijuana farm right here in Texas."
"They're not just here in Texas. The cartels are everywhere in America now. The drugs are here, and the violence is coming. We're outmanned and outgunned. The GAO says we have operational control over less than half of the border. That's like saying the NYPD has control over only half of New York City-how safe would that make you feel?"
"How do we stop them?"
"Secure the border."
"But the president went to El Paso just three months ago-he said the border is secure."
"We're standing a hundred seventy-five miles east of El Paso and eighty miles north of the Rio Grande in a marijuana farm operated by a Mexican drug cartel for the last year-that seem secure to you?"
"Governor, you're not worried that the cartel might seek revenge?"
"Against me? I'm the governor of Texas." He stood tall and aimed a finger at Ranger Hank. "They'd have to come through that big Ranger to get to me, and then they'd find out that I'm not much fun in a fight."
The reporter's eyes twinkled.
"Governor, the tea party sees this incident as supporting their anti-immigration position-do you agree?"
Bode stuck with Jim Bob's play.
"Look, I'm a politician, but everything I do isn't about politics. What I did out here two days ago wasn't about immigration policy-it was about little Josefina and those twelve boys. They didn't deserve to be abducted and held as slaves, whether they're Mexicans or Methodists. I'm the governor of Texas, and those cartel hombres, they were committing crimes in Texas. That made it my business, not my politics."
Lindsay cradled the child and cried. She had heard a scream, and then a boy had come running to her. The nurse was needed at the river.
"?Apurate! "
She hurried. At the river, a small child lay next to the water. Blood drenched the dirt. Other children had gathered around. Lindsay slipped and stumbled and got muddy going down the low bluff to the river below. When she arrived at the child, she knew immediately that the child needed more than a nurse.
"?Llamen al doctor! "
Get the doctor.
"That was a good line," Jim Bob said. " 'My business, not my politics.' "
They were back on the jet and drinking bourbon.
"I winged it."
"Well, it worked this time. But don't do it again, okay? Makes me nervous."
"You're the boss, Professor."
Jim Bob drank his bourbon and felt the warmth inside him. Eight years he had begged the networks to interview Governor Bode Bonner; now they were begging him for interviews. It felt good, tables turning and all. It felt good to have a stud horse he could ride right through the front door of the White House. This was his chance to escape Karl Rove's shadow. To make his own shadow. To prove to his ex-wife that she should've stuck with him for better or for worse-because it was fixing to get a hell of a lot better for James Robert Burnet.
Jesse had taken the camera crew for a brief tour of Colonia Angeles. They now stood at the farthest point from the river. The border wall was visible in the distance.
"We stand on land that America has abandoned in the drug and immigration war, a land that is neither here nor there, neither-"
A dog barked in the distance. Then he heard a boy's scream.
"?Doctor! "
A boy ran toward them, trying to keep up with Pancho. They both arrived out of breath.
"Doctor," the boy said in Spanish, "we have been searching for you! Come quickly! To the river! The nurse, she needs you!"