“Nope.”
“Nope what?”
“He’s not going anywhere unless I go with him.”
“And you are?”
“My name is Beth. I’m his grandmother. And I can verify his identity.”
“And I don’t suppose you have any identity?”
“Didn’t figure I’d need it. So I gave it to Jake so he could keep it for me. He said he’d keep it safe, next to his own ID. Guess it fell out of his pocket the same time his did.
Ranger Maloney sighed and said, “And your last name, ma’am?”
“I don’t rightly remember, officer. I used to have to look at my ID all the time when I needed it. But I guess it’s gone with the card.”
“Are you sure you want to get all tied up with these two, ma’am? They could be in for a world of trouble.”
“I don’t see it that way, officer.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t have a clue where Jesse Luna’s body is. And I suspect it’s pretty hard to prove a killing wasn’t self defense if you can’t even find the body.
“Plus, Red has two eye witnesses. You don’t have a single witness who will say she murdered the man. Now how will that look if you try to take this case to a jury? You claim Red murdered a man, but have no body. She admits to killing him, but says it was self defense, and has two reliable witnesses. And there is simply no other evidence.
“How long do you think the jury will deliberate before they acquit her, and then lock you in the loony bin for wasting their time?”
The Ranger had met his match.
He didn’t give up, necessarily. But he would retreat.
For now, anyway.
He turned back to Red and said, “Ma’am, I’m going to finish my investigation with or without your cooperation. And if anything bad happens to John Savage before I’m finished, I assure you, you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”
“It won’t matter,” Beth said.
“And why not, ma’am?”
“If anything bad were to happen to John Savage, Red would have two eye witnesses willing to say she was in her kitchen baking cookies at the time.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Jacob said. “In fact, There might be a dozen other witnesses as well. Red likes to have a lot of company when she bakes, you see.”
-48-
The Ranger gave up. He knew he’d get no cooperation at all from these three.
He suspected they weren’t bad.
He suspected it was true what he’d heard from Luke and Mrs. Montgomery and a couple of others. That Red’s entire family was brutally murdered and that John Savage was the money man behind it.
There was, across Texas and most of the rest of the west, a growing disgust with the justice system.
The courts had largely ceased to function. Judges, like attorneys and police officers, were dying off in great numbers.
The police were simply overwhelmed. Their numbers were sparse too, and officers trained in investigative work were slim to none.
Beat cops tried to do what they could. But in most of the bigger cities there were twenty new deaths per week.
For every cop.
Not all were homicides.
In fact, most were suicides.
But for untrained beat cops, sometimes it was hard to make the distinction.
A few of them tried.
But in every single case, had their murderers ever been caught and taken to trial, they’d have been acquitted.
For the beat cops were just untrained.
They couldn’t take a set of latent prints. They didn’t know how to bag evidence without tainting it. DNA evidence had no chance at all against their fumbling fingers.
It wasn’t their fault. They weren’t stupid.
Ignorant, maybe. But not stupid.
Actually, untrained was the best description. They simply didn’t know how to properly gather and secure evidence and to establish an effective chain of custody for it.
And even if they had, there were no more forensics labs to process the evidence.
Precious few medical examiners to perform autopsies.
Even fewer jailers willing to work long hours at no pay to lock up prisoners and care for them.
Throughout the Great State of Texas and creeping farther west, people were fed up. They were taking matters into their own hands.
The prisons and jails, one by one, were forced to open their doors and set their inmates free. The hacks deserted en mass to be with their families. The wardens had to decide whether to let the inmates die of starvation in their cells, and then rot there, or to set them free.
Humanity won out, in every case.
Within days, the inmates themselves had exacted their own brand of justice.
The child molesters and rapists were the first to go, followed by the jailhouse snitches.
Often in sadistic and cruel manners.
The hacks, where they could be found, fared little better.
Even a few wardens paid the ultimate price.
Away from the prisons, horse thieves were now being hung on the courthouse steps.
So were rustlers and poachers.
Texas had returned to its wild west days. Vigilantism was the order of the day.
The Texas Rangers fared a bit better than the local police departments.
Its force, perhaps because they were a bit more picky in their recruiting methods, was largely intact.
Austin was the seat of the 128th District Court and the 15th Federal Court.
To try to save what was left of the crumbling justice system, the United States Department of Justice sent all available circuit court judges to Austin.
And since the Texas Rangers were trained on criminal investigations and the rules of evidence, the new judges were actually holding court. And getting some convictions.
Ranger Randy would do his job. It didn’t matter whether he thought John Savage was guilty of some horrific crimes. His duty was to uphold Texas law. And that included combating vigilantism.
He tipped his hat to Red and to Beth, then nodded to Jacob.
“I wish I could say it was a pleasure,” he said.
“Likewise,” countered Red.
He turned to leave, and Red spoke again.
“Look. I understand you’re just doing your job, Ranger. But I’m sure there are a lot of other places in this great big state that need your help more than we do.
“Seriously, just ride away. We’ve got a handle on whatever goes on here.”
“I’m glad you appreciate that I have a job to do,” the Ranger replied. “Then you’ll understand I can’t just ride away.”
-49-
They stood on the porch and watched him leave, the three of them.
And when he was out of sight, they breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Thank you both for having my back,” Red said.
Jacob said, “You don’t have to thank us, Red. We’re a team, for better or worse.”
“Well, it looks like for better or worse I’ve dragged you down into the muck of lawlessness with me.”
“From what I can see, down here in the muck isn’t such a bad place. As long as you’re surrounded by friends and have right on your side.”
Beth, for her part, was still silent.
Jacob put a steady hand on her shoulder.
“What are you thinking, granny?”
She grinned just a bit. She just couldn’t help it. And that helped ease the tension.
“I’m thinking about what a little snot I have for a grandson. A little snot who needs to get his britches beat.”
“Seriously. How do you feel about the way we treated that man?”
“I didn’t feel good about it. That’s the first time I can remember that I’ve openly defied the police. The first time ever I’ve broken the law. And I’ve lived an awful long time.”
“I’m sorry to drag you into it.”
“You didn’
t. I put myself in the middle of it. And I’m not sorry, not one bit. I’d do the same thing again. As Jacob said, we’re a team, for better or worse.
“I’ve always respected the law and still do. But you’ve lost everyone you ever loved. You have a right to deal with this the way you see fit.”
Jacob asked, “What do you think he meant, “I can’t just ride away?”
He meant he’s not giving up. He’s going to continue to do his investigation, with or without our help.
“But you’re the complainant in this case. If you claim there was no crime, could he really bring a case?”
“I don’t know, Beth. I’m not an attorney. And I can’t go find one to ask. The only attorney left alive in Blanco is Hal Davis, and he’s in Savage’s pocket. Has been for years.”
“So, what happens now?”
“I don’t know,” Red said. I really don’t. I suppose Savage has won himself a reprieve. But it’s only temporary. He’s won himself a few more days here on earth. But he’ll eventually pay his due.
In the distance, the church bells began to ring.
“It’s five o’clock,” Red said. It’s time for the daily gathering. Y’all want to walk over to the town square with me and watch the fireworks?”
Beth asked, “They have fireworks? But it’s not even dark yet”
“No, they normally don’t have fireworks. But they will today.”
She closed her front door and walked down the steps.
“Is it too far to walk?” Jacob asked, more for Beth’s benefit than his own.
“Five blocks. We can be there in ten minutes. Or we can spend ten minutes saddling the horses. Your choice.”
Jacob asked Beth, “Are you up for it?”
“Heck yeah, the old woman exclaimed. “Piece of cake.”
As they approached the gazebo where Judge Dan Moore held court each day, they noticed that nearly everyone in town was there.
But not, unfortunately, John Savage. Red wanted him to be there when she called him out, to see the look on his face.
But she wasn’t really surprised to see he’d gone to ground, now that he knew she was back in town.
“All right, who’s next?” yelled Judge Moore.
A man named Tony Mendez stepped forward.
“How you doin’, Tony?”
“Just fine, Judge.”
“Pick out enough to feed you and Megan and your two little monsters until tomorrow.”
Tony selected a one pound box of spaghetti noodles, four cans of Ravioli, and two cans of spaghetti sauce.
Judge Moore watched the selection, determined that Tony wasn’t being overly greedy, and blessed the transaction.
Tony put the items in his backpack and stepped back into the crowd.
“Okay, next?”
Three men stepped forward and handed the judge a sheet of paper.
He examined it, then announced to the crowd, “Mrs. Montgomery’s boarding house has thirteen boarders today. And five employees.”
He turned back to the innkeeper’s employees and said, “Okay, fellas. Pick out what you need and set it aside.”
The process went fairly smoothly. After the last resident took his share there were a few canned goods and packages of pasta left on the gazebo steps.
“Okay,” the old judge hollered. “I hereby declare the food distribution for today closed. The leftovers will be added to tomorrow’s haul.”
It was as good a way as any to ensure that everyone in the town got fed, and that nobody ate more than their share or was able to hoard the most precious of commodities.
“I’m done here,” the judge finally announced. “Somebody else can talk now.”
Judge Dan Moore would be forever referred to by his official title. But he wasn’t a judge. He hadn’t been for many years. He’d retired from the bench some twenty years before, and was now just another of Blanco’s citizens.
A slightly eccentric citizen with a penchant for knowing a little bit of everything which went on in Blanco.
The Ranger, watching the activities from atop his horse at the back of the crowd, pegged him as such. As maybe a bit of a curmudgeon, but also a man who had his pulse on the community.
The Ranger made a mental note to find the judge once the crowd broke up and to talk to him.
-50-
The judge was replaced upon the gazebo’s steps by a spritely woman with gray hair and a very sunny disposition.
“Hello, everyone!”
Several in the crowd responded with a cheerful greeting.
“For those of you who may be boarders at Mrs. Montgomery’s place and attending for the first time, I’ll introduce myself. I am Leticia Turner, the unofficial town baker. My bakery is no longer open, unfortunately. But I was able to save enough flour and powder to bake a large cake in honor of everyone who is having a birthday this month.”
She pulled out a piece of paper with great flourish and read from it.
“Judge Moore, before you get too far away, you can turn your little self around and get back up here. For those of you who didn’t know, the judge was born seventy years ago tomorrow. Now, he’ll never admit to that age, and he’s been known to tell people he’s much younger. But I know better, because we started first grade together at Blanco Elementary. The old one, the one that burned down in the 1980s. Anyway, despite what he says, he’s the same age I am, and I am seventy. So if he says he’s fifty five, don’t believe the old coot.”
Several people in the crowd laughed.
“Also, Dave Bennett has a birthday on the thirteenth, the Galvez twins turn eighteen on the fifteenth, and Lucy Park celebrates her tenth twenty-ninth birthday on the thirtieth.
“Did I miss anyone?”
No one spoke, but a couple of Lucy Park’s friends gave her a hard time about getting older.
“Very well then. The cake will be served at the back of the gazebo after we break up. There’s plenty for everyone. You all enjoy.”
Ms. Turner was followed by Mike Martin, who spoke of his son David. “He went up the highway two weeks ago, saying the stress was getting to him and he needed to get away. He never came home. For those of you who are the praying kind, please include him in your prayers.”
He was followed by Reverend Fall, who said a prayer not only for David Martin and his family’s peace of mind, but also for all the other town residents who were ailing in one manner or another.
Finally, as the reverend stepped down, Red took her turn.
Most in the crowd were surprised to see her. Most didn’t know she was back.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I am Red. Red Poston. I’ve lived here pretty much all my life, and wouldn’t live anywhere else on God’s green earth. Blanco, in my mind, is still the friendliest little town in Texas.
“We do have some problems, though. Many of you are stressed because of what the blackout has wrought. And the behavior of some of the town’s so-called citizens after the blackout.
“Blanco’s always been a town where we banded together to help each other out. Especially when somebody was going through hard times.
“But there is also a small handful of people who have looked upon the blackout as an opportunity. An opportunity to take advantage of others. Others who might be weak or frail, or timid. People who might not want to stand up for themselves to defend what’s rightfully theirs.
“Or to ask for help from those of us who are stronger.
“I’m referring specifically to John Savage and his henchmen.
“Most of you won’t talk about it, because you are terrified that by pissing Savage off he will move to foreclose on your property. There has been a conspiracy of silence around this town and a hesitancy to talk about what’s been going on, even as some of you have already been displaced and forced to live with friends or relatives.
“Well, it’s about time we talk about this problem.”
-51-
Red had the rapt attention of almost every one of the t
own’s residents.
“Most of you know that my own house burned to the ground after an explosion last May. I no longer have a mortgage carried through John Savage’s bank. However, when my father died I inherited his house and farm. And there are four years left on his note. A note which I cannot pay off, for Savage is accepting only precious metals as payment. And I have no precious metals to speak of.
“I suppose I could give him my wedding band… but I’ll be damned if I give him the one symbol I have left of my marriage to Russell, after…”
She let that subject drop, aware that the Ranger was watching from the back of the crowd. Everyone in town knew her implication, and further words were not needed.
“John Savage will not foreclose on my father’s home because he is afraid of me. He knows that I would beat his worthless ass to a bloody pulp. He knows that I am not afraid of the law because I do not recognize his authority as police chief. He knows I would put him in a body cast.
“It is not right, nor is it just, that I should enjoy the immunity from foreclosure that many of you don’t. It’s not right that many of you go to sleep at night wondering if the next day is the day Savage comes knocking on your door with a handful of papers, to tell you that you have to vacate your homes.
“It’s time we start fighting back.
“I’m going on record, here and now. If John Savage or one of his thugs ever calls on you… any of you… to say he’s taking your house, I want you to let me know.
“From here on out, such an affront on you is no different than an affront on me.
“And I will treat it as such. If he attempts to steal any of your properties, I will beat him to within an inch of his life. I say that fully knowing that such action on my part is illegal. And also fully knowing that the Texas Rangers are in the crowd listening to my words.
“I was hoping that Savage himself would be here to hear my words, but he’s too much of a coward to leave the safety of his bank. I’ll rely upon you to make sure he hears them.
“I’m making this promise to you because I’m no longer afraid of the so-called law that John Savage administers. His is a law which stomps on the common folk and favors the greedy. It is a law which I choose not to recognize.
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