by Mark Gimenez
"In Texas?"
"In the U.S. This is a national poll. I've never seen anything like it. You're blowing everyone else away across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. The other Republicans are road kill in your rearview. And you're up on Obama by a million Twitter followers and twelve points in the polls. We're talking Reagan-over-Carter landslide."
"Jesus, Jim Bob, they tried to kill my daughter."
"No. They tried to kill you. She was just there."
"Still."
"Are you a 'glass-half-full' kind of guy or a 'glass-half-empty' kind of guy?"
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means, you and Becca survived an assassination attempt. You can sit back and pout about it, or you can move forward and make the best of it."
"Darcy and Hank are dead."
"You didn't kill them. The Mexicans did."
Jim Bob's phone rang. He answered.
"John Ed… yeah, he's right here. Hold on, I'll put you on the speaker."
Jim Bob activated the speakerphone.
"You're on with Bode."
"Governor," John Ed Johnson's voice boomed from the speakerphone, "glad you ain't dead."
''Well, thanks, John Ed. I appreciate your-"
" 'Cause I need your help on my bill."
— "concern."
"So where do things stand? You got the votes lined up?"
"Goddamnit, John Ed, I've been a little fucking busy lately, shooting Mexican assassins, burying my daughter's roommate and my Ranger bodyguard. I told you I'd work your bill, and I will."
"No reason to get testy."
Bode exhaled. "Sorry, John Ed, it's been a little stressful around here."
"Yeah, okay. You boys have a good day."
The line went dead. Jim Bob chuckled.
"John Ed ain't exactly the touchy-feely type."
"He ain't exactly the human being type."
The Professor leaned back in his chair and smiled.
"No one can stop you now."
"There's a Mexican trying to."
"Kill the governor for me, por favor."
"We could kill his wife and daughter very easily," Hector Garcia said.
"No. His wife and daughter did not murder my son. We do not kill women or children or innocents. We have already killed one innocent, the college girl."
"And the Ranger."
"Rangers are not innocents."
"My men, they were careless, with machine guns."
"Yes, careless and now dead."
Enrique looked Hector in the eye.
"Will you do that small favor for me?"
" Si, mi jefe, I will send-"
"No. Do not send anyone. I want you to go north of the river. I want you to go into Tejas. I want you to kill the governor."
" Si, mi jefe. I will leave tomorrow."
" Bueno. But first, Hector, bring my son home."
TWENTY-THREE
"You gave me no father, you took my mother, and now you take the only woman I have ever loved. You should not be so cruel. But then, why do I talk to you? You are not here to listen. There is no god on the border."
Jesse and Pancho ran the river at dawn. He tried to run out his anger and his disappointment, his sadness and his longing, his loneliness and his broken heart. The sun just now peeked above the horizon and brought light to the borderlands. It had been one week since the governor's wife had left. It seemed as if forever.
Pancho barked.
He faced south as the river flowed. In the distance, two black objects appeared in the sky. They quickly grew in size. They came closer. Fast. And then that same WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP sound became louder and louder until two sleek black helicopters flying low and fast just above the river blew past in a rush of wind, weaving left and right with the course of the river.
Hector Garcia glanced out the window of the helicopter at the man and his dog. He once had a dog. Back when he was a captain in the special forces. A commando. Employed by the Mexican Army and trained by the U.S. Army. To fight the drug cartels. But his entire unit had hired out to the Guadalajara cartel as enforcers. Everyone except Hector Garcia.
He had hired out to Enrique de la Garza.
El jefe was different than the other cartel heads. He was educated and sophisticated. Religious and generous. A faithful husband and a family man. He even had a code of honor: Los Muertos do not use drugs, do not sell drugs to Mexicans, do not kill women, children, or innocents, and always tithe twenty percent to charity and church. They never initiated gun battles with other cartels; they only killed in self-defense or in the pursuit of justice; they killed corrupt politicians or policia only as a last resort, preferring instead to put them on the payroll; they were not wanton killers who hung corpses from overpasses to frighten the people or rolled heads into nightclubs or set fire to casinos to kill innocent Mexicans. They were not animals like the other cartels. They were civilized, like their leader. Hector had been twenty-five at the time, and after six years in the corrupt Mexican military, he yearned for order and discipline and honor. He had been Enrique de la Garza's right-hand man for seven years now. He would give his life for el jefe. He owed that much to him.
Because Hector had killed his wife.
Women were his weakness, and Liliana de la Garza made him weak. Her beauty was breathtaking and unparalleled among women. When Hector hired on and first met her, the lust ignited inside him. Over two years the fire grew and grew until his desire burned out of control. Until he thought he would go insane if he did not have her. One night, when el jefe was out of town, he drank the whiskey then went to her suite. He knocked on her door. When she answered, he pushed his way in.
He raped her.
She said Enrique would kill him when he returned. Hector knew his fate. The machete. He also knew that Liliana would attend mass at seven the next morning. She would travel in a caravan of Mercedes-Benzes to the cathedral. So he tipped off the gringos at the DEA in Laredo; he told them El Diablo would be in the caravan.
They killed Liliana de la Garza instead.
The Italian helicopter cruised at one hundred seventy-five miles per hour. They hugged the Rio Bravo, running below radar; and with the Predator drone gone from the sky, the U.S. Border Patrol could not see the two helicopters flying west along the border.
They were invisible.
They cleared Laredo and Nuevo Laredo and the maquiladoras where the gringos enslaved the Mexicanos and the wretched colonias that lined both sides of the river on the western outskirts and veered northwest over the vast Chihuahuan Desert. They would cut the corner and pick up the Rio Bravo again where it made the big bend. They flew low enough to see the jackrabbits and the roadrunners and the peasants heading north across the desert; they would most likely die before they reached the river. They soon passed over Sabinas and Nueva Rosita and the impressive Rio Conchos. Hector sat up front with the pilot as he did back in the military. But this chopper was not as it had been flying old Hueys in the army. El jefe had spared no cost when he purchased the fleet of six helicopters. So they traveled in air-conditioned comfort, and the men sat in the back cabin in leather seats and played video games on the flat-screen monitor; their AK-47s lay at their feet on the carpeted cabin floor.
Hector's thoughts returned to el jefe. He had always viewed killing as part of the business. He did not take it personally. Not even when the gringos killed his wife. But his son's death-that he had taken personally. Jesus de la Garza had been a mean, cruel, undisciplined boy. Of course, his father could not see the true boy. He saw only the boy he wanted his son to be. Hector had not been disappointed when the governor of Texas had killed him. But el jefe had become obsessed with venganza.
So Hector Garcia would seek el jefe 's revenge.
They rejoined the Rio Bravo at the big bend. They dropped down to just above the river surface and followed its course, veering right and left, through the steep rock canyons the water had carved into the rugged land over millions of years. The rock walls
rose five hundred meters on both sides; brown water lay below and blue sky above. They flew so low that when they came upon two rafts of gringos floating down the river, the rafters bailed out for fear the helicopters would hit them. Hector and the pilot shared a laugh. It was a magnificent journey, but a short one. They soon emerged from the big bend and turned north into Tejas.
"Ten minutes," the pilot said over the radio.
Hector checked his AK-47. They followed a narrow highway that cut through the lower portions of the Davis Mountains and passed through the little town of Marfa. They flew over cattle grazing and land that once belonged to Mexico.
"Two minutes."
His soldados got ready. Hector had brought a dozen men, even though he expected no resistance.
"In and out," he said over the radio. "No shooting except on my order. A Team makes entry, B Team secures the perimeter."
Six men would go in; six men would stay out.
"Thirty seconds," the pilot said.
A small town came into view. The streets remained vacant. They flew in low and fast searching for the red roof with the clock tower. Hector pointed.
"There!"
The courthouse. The sheriff's office, jail, and morgue occupied the basement of the two-story courthouse that sat on a grassy block surrounded by trees, apparently the only trees in town. The pilot pulled the nose up, and Hector and his men were out the doors-"?Vaya, vaya, vaya! "-before the wheels touched State Street.
Fort Davis served as the county seat of Jeff Davis County. Both city and county were named in honor of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America. But the Civil War was not on Deputy Sheriff Boone Huggins' mind at 5:45 A.M. that Tuesday morning. In fact, nothing was on his mind.
He was sleeping.
On duty. Sheriff Roscoe Lee worked the day shift; his deputy worked the night shift. The total population in the entire county was just over one thousand, so it wasn't as if they needed a SWAT team on stand-by. The biggest crime in the county was underage kids drinking beer at the fairgrounds on Saturday nights. So Boone made up a cell bed and caught six or seven hours of shut-eye every night.
What they call "easy money."
Consequently, Boone damn near shit his uniform pants when he opened his eyes to the business end of an AK-47 and six men dressed in black paramilitary uniforms.
"Jesus de la Garza," the bald man pointing the gun said in a Mexican accent.
"No. I'm Boone Huggins."
"Where is Jesus de la Garza's body?"
Boone pointed to the back.
"Show me."
Boone led them to the morgue. Course, it wasn't really a morgue. It was just a walk-in freezer where the sheriff stored his deer during hunting season. But for the last month, it had stored three Mexican bodies wrapped in plastic, which creeped Boone out so he never went into the freezer. He unlocked the freezer door and stepped aside. The bald man went inside and checked the stiff bodies standing in the corner. He tapped one.
"This is Jesus."
Two other men went inside and carried the body out. The bald man came out and said to Boone, "Inside."
Boone stepped into the freezer. The bald man shut the door. Boone was already cold.
Two hours later, Hector Garcia walked into Enrique de la Garza's office.
"I have brought your son home."
" Gracias, Hector. Now, go to Austin and kill the governor."
Lindsay Bonner knocked on the closed door to the Governor's Office then entered. Ranger Roy stood guard outside. She found her husband at his desk.
"Bode, East Austin Elementary, that's my school. That's Graciela Rodriguez's school. You can't close her school."
"I'm not closing her school. Austin ISD is. Or they might."
"Because you're cutting K through twelve funding."
"Lindsay, the state is broke."
She exhaled. It was time to tell him.
"I voted Democrat."
"When?"
"Always."
"I thought you switched to Republican when I did?"
"I didn't."
"Don't mention that in public, okay?"
She gave him a look.
"Did you vote for me?"
"Yes."
"Appreciate the vote of confidence."
"You used to make me proud. Now I vote for you only because you're my husband."
"Well, it's a vote."
"It might not be this election."
"Are you ready to go back to school?"
"I think so."
Becca Bonner lied to her mother. She was not ready to go back to classes or volleyball practice. She might never be ready. But she knew her mother was ready to leave. She needed to leave. Her mother hated life in the Governor's Mansion. She hated being the governor's wife. Becca only hoped that her mother didn't hate the governor.
Jesse Rincon had gone into town to speak at a rotary luncheon. He arrived back at the clinic to find a network news truck with a satellite dish on top parked outside-no doubt another of Mayor Gutierrez's Mexican Mafia-and inside Inez dressed as if she were auditioning for American Idol. Perhaps she was.
"They are going to tape the interview," she said. "It will run tonight on the evening news. Their 'Difference Maker' segment. Do I look okay?"
Just before six, Lindsay sat alone in the master suite. She had a choice to make: the Governor's Mansion or Colonia Angeles. The governor's wife or the doctor's nurse. Bode Bonner or…
She picked up the remote and clicked on the television. She switched channels without conscious thought but stopped when she saw a byline: "From outside Laredo, Texas." The video showed a colonia. Her colonia.
She increased the volume.
"There are over two thousand colonias along the border in Texas," the reporter said over a byline that read NORA RAMOS. "What makes this colonia so unusual is that it is situated between the border wall and the border, a no man's land north of the Rio Grande but south of the wall that separates America from Mexico. Ninety-eight percent of the residents are Mexican nationals who…"
The segment continued with a voice-over video showing the wall and the river from the air above-she could almost smell the foul stench from the river-and the colonia situated between and then a ground-level view of the women and children living in conditions that seemed more desperate from afar, women and children Lindsay recognized. Little Lucia. And Teresa. And their madre, Sonia. The video ended with the reporter standing on the front steps of the clinic. She was young, she was Latina, and she was pretty. Jesse stood next to her.
"But while these people don't even have running water, sewer, or electricity, they do have one thing forty million Americans still dream of-a highly skilled doctor giving them medical care every day-for free. Colonia Angeles means community of angels, but the angel in this community is named Jesse Rincon, a young doctor who was born in this very colonia and who returned home after Harvard Medical School to care for his people. He built clinics from Laredo to Brownsville, he trained midwives to staff each clinic, and he travels down the border when he is needed. But most days you will find him here, in the clinic in Colonia Angeles."
She turned to Jesse.
"Dr. Rincon, you care for six thousand patients in this one colonia? Alone, without a nurse?"
"I had a nurse, but she left."
"Why?"
"A life on the border is a harsh life."
"Will she return?"
Jesse stared into the camera a moment-almost as if he were staring at Lindsay-then shook his head slowly.
"I do not think so."
TWENTY-FOUR
"Uh, Governor," Ranger Roy said. "I don't know how, but Mrs. Bonner, she, uh… she did it again."
Ten days later, Bode Bonner sat at his desk staring out the window at the State Capitol dome glowing yellow in the setting sun.
"I know."
"I'm sorry, Governor. You want me to track her with GPS again?"
Bode shook his head.
"I
know where to find her."
It had been two weeks since she had left and taken all the color in the colonia with her. Her yellow and blue and green peasant dresses and scarves and those pink Crocs. And her red hair. The colonia was again gray. Gray lives, gray homes, gray dirt. Each day seemed grayer than the day before. Jesse had tried to focus on his work, but his thoughts always returned to her. To the governor's wife.
Where his thoughts now resided.
He cut the engine and got out of the truck at the post office in Laredo. He went inside and collected his mail. A few more checks. They arrived after each interview, then dwindled after a week or so. Perhaps the network interview the day before would generate more checks. The clinic needed an incubator.
He drove through downtown Laredo-it, too, seemed gray that day-and out of town. He turned south on the farm-to-market and onto his land. He parked next to the house and went inside.
He froze.
He sniffed. He followed the smell into the kitchen. She stood there at the stove. The governor's wife. In full. She turned and smiled.
"Hi, Jesse."
Before he knew what he was doing, he walked to her and took her shoulders and kissed her.
"I love you," he said.
"I know. I just don't know what to do about it."
The next morning, the governor's wife was gone, and the governor woke next to Mandy Morgan in bed. Her bare backside was to him. He slid his hand down her side and over her hips and bottom and down between her legs. She stirred.
"Bode, I'm not feeling so good."
"I hope it's not contagious."
"Don't worry. It's not."
He removed his hand. There would be no sex that morning. But it didn't matter. Even with the Viagra, his body wasn't working these days. Knowing that the most notorious drug lord in Mexico was gunning for you had a way of killing a man's sex drive.
Hank was dead. Darcy was dead. Becca could be dead. She was taking Darcy's death hard; she had moved out of her dorm and into the Mansion. She refused to return to classes or volleyball practice. She was afraid. Bode was worried. The assassination attempt had pushed his political fortunes into uncharted territory. He now transcended politics. He was an icon. A legend. An American action-hero. This was just the sort of thing that could propel a man into the White House. Into the history books. One day his portrait might be on a White House wall with Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt and Reagan. It was a heady thought. But his head was filled with other thoughts. With worries. Because he felt things… changing. Just like in a football game when something almost imperceptible occurred, just a feeling, when you knew the momentum had shifted to the other team.
