I got my muscles working and went.
In west Texas, Joe Bob Hays’ hired man stood in the yard of the ranch house and watched the helicopter approach. It came from the east and slowed as it descended. It touched down in a cloud of dust and, after the sound of the engine subsided, the rotors slowly wound down.
A man in a suit but without a tie climbed out. A state trooper got out with him. They came walking over.
“I found him this morning, Governor, down by the arroyo trail. They killed him and cut the fence early Saturday, it looks like.”
Governor Jack Hays was Joe Bob’s nephew. He had grown up on the ranch back in the cattle days, and had gone on to law school, then into politics.
“The sheriff and his men are down there taking pictures and whatnot. I think the body is still there.”
“Let’s go. I want to see him.”
“They shot him in the head, Governor. Executed him. Blew the top half of his head clean off.”
“I want to see him. Let’s go.”
They went by jeep. In the late afternoon sun, the blood and bits of brain had turned black. Ants had gathered, and bugs…
The county sheriff was there, Manuel Tejada, and he shook hands with the governor. “I’m sorry, sir,” the sheriff said. “You know about this trail. He complained for years, and I did what I could, but I only got so many men and this is a damn big county…”
“I know.”
“They came up the trail, at least ten of them. Judging by their tracks, at least eight of them were carrying a heavy load going north, but not when all ten of them went back south. One man came up the hill here and executed Joe Bob. He would probably have died anyway from that bleeding hole in his chest, but… shit!”
“Yeah.”
“The first bullet was fired from the other side—” the lawman pointed “—over there. We found a spent .223 cartridge. Probably one of them ARs. Tracks. The tracks went through the hole and up here to where Joe Bob is, and here’s the second cartridge.”
He opened his hand for the governor’s inspection. Jack Hays merely glanced at the open hand, then said, “He’s lain out here long enough. You got your photos?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get him out of here. Take him to the funeral home in Sanderson.”
“Yes, sir,” Sheriff Tejada said to the governor’s back, for he was walking away, trying not to look again at his uncle’s remains.
Back at the ranch there was a trim, fit man in his early forties waiting beside a large pickup. His name was Joseph Robert Hays Junior, but everyone called him JR.
“They’re bringing him out of there now, JR,” the governor said, after he hugged the younger man. “Better stay here. You don’t want to see him like that. He wouldn’t have wanted you to.”
JR nodded. His eyes were dry. He had seen his share of bodies in Iraq and Afghanistan and had not the slightest desire to see his father’s remains.
The governor continued, telling his cousin what he knew. JR had just retired after twenty years in the army, retired as a lieutenant colonel, and was working as a consultant for a military contractor in El Paso, one supplying state-of-the-art night-vision equipment to the army. After he got the news, JR threw some things in his pickup and drove east.
“He was trying to protect his fence,” Jack Hays said. “They killed him and cut it.”
“I told him to put a gate in that damn fence,” JR said, “but he wouldn’t.”
“No…” the governor said thoughtfully. “That wasn’t him. There was no backup in him.” He eyed his cousin. He suspected there was no backup in Joe Bob’s son, either.
“They’ll be back,” JR said matter-of-factly.
“You going to wait for them?”
“Hunting assholes in the desert was my business for a lot of years. I suspect I know more about it than Sheriff Tejada and his deputies do.”
Jack Hays didn’t try to talk him out of it. All he could hope for was that JR didn’t get shot or caught. But JR was JR, and Joe Bob was his dad. And this was Texas. If JR shot some Mexican drug smugglers who had killed his dad, no Texas jury was going to convict him of anything.
“Fred coming down?” Fred was the younger brother, teaching school somewhere in the Dallas area.
“For the funeral. He and his wife can’t get off just now.”
“Call me when you get the funeral scheduled,” the governor said. “Nadine and I will want to be there.”
“I will, Jack.”
Jack Hays hugged JR again, then went to the helicopter and climbed in. “Let’s go,” he told the pilot.
TWO
Martial law! Rule by decree from the White House! Barry Soetoro, emperor of the United States. People had been whispering for years about the possibility, but like most folks, I dismissed the whisperers as alarmist crackpots. Now, according to Sal Molina, the president’s longtime guru, the crackpots were oracles.
I sat at my desk in my cubbyhole and thought about things. I wondered if there was any truth to Grafton’s crack that Soetoro and company had been waiting for a terrorist incident so they could declare martial law. Well, why not? The nation was fed up with the Democrats. Seniors and the white middle class had deserted the party by the millions. Cynthia Hinton didn’t have a chance. The Republicans were going to take over the government in November if there was an election.
I felt hot all over. Suddenly the room was stifling. It looked as if the nation I had grown up in, the crazy, diverse republic of three hundred million people all trying to make a living and raise the next generation, was going on the rocks. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men weren’t going to be able to put it back together again. That must have been the thrust of Grafton’s remark before Molina arrived.
I felt as if I were on the edge of the abyss, like Dante’s hero, staring down into the fiery pit. What next?
Grafton would be gone. Like tomorrow. The agency would become another arm of Soetoro’s Gestapo. Molina had implied that much.
I opened the locked drawer where I kept my stuff. I had a shoulder holster and a little Walther in .380 ACP in there. Since I did bodyguard duty for Grafton, I had a permit for it signed by the director, who was Grafton. I took off my jacket, put on the shoulder holster, checked the pistol, and made sure I had a round in the chamber and the safety engaged. Put the pistol in the holster and put my coat back on.
I stood there looking around. There was nothing else in my office I wanted. Not the CIA coffee cup, the free pens, the photo of me and the guys on a big campout in Africa that hung on the wall… none of it. I locked the drawer and cabinets, left the room and made sure the door locked behind me, then headed for the parking lot.
Driving out of the lot was surreal. There were still some cars there, and people trickling out, just as there were every evening. The streetlights were on; traffic went up and down the streets obeying the traffic laws; news, music, sports, and talk emanated from my car radio… and it was all coming to an end.
As I drove I took mental inventory of my arsenal. If you live in America, you gotta have some guns, so when the political contract falls apart… yeah!
I drove over to a gun store I had had prior dealings with. A few people in the store, about as usual. I bought two more boxes of Number Four buckshot for the shotgun, another box of .380 ACP for my Walther, and four boxes of .45 ACP for my Kimber 1911, which was in my apartment. Three boxes of .30-30s for my old Model 94 Winchester.
“Expecting a war?” the clerk asked.
“Comes the revolution, I want to be ready,” I replied.
I used a credit card to pay for the stuff. If the future went down the way I suspected, in a few days no one would be able to buy guns or ammo for love or money. Soetoro would shut down the gun stores. Screw the Second Amendment.