Tyranny

by William W. Johnstone

  “Vern Hummel? He told Officer Chapman that you threw the first punch, and the only witness agreed that that was true.”

  So Stella had thrown him under the bus, thought Kyle. He supposed, technically speaking, he had struck the first blow, but Vern had had it coming, and the fight would have been over after that if he’d had the sense to let it go.

  Once Kyle’s possessions had been returned to him and the three of them were outside on the sidewalk, G. W. said, “How come you to show up in Sierra Lobo right now, boy? You comin’ to see me?”

  “I thought I’d stop and visit for a while, yeah.”

  “Broke, are you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well . . . I was raised to never turn away family.” Kyle’s grandfather put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. Throw that duffel bag in the back of the pickup and we’ll head out to the ranch.”

  “In a minute.” Kyle nodded toward the glamorous blonde. “Who’s this?”

  “I can speak for myself,” she said. “I’m Miranda Stephens. I’m your grandfather’s attorney.”

  “You brought a lawyer with you to get me out of a one-horse hoosegow like this?” Kyle asked G. W. with a frown.

  “No, she was already out at my place when Ernie called, discussin’ another problem I got.” G. W. sighed. “When you hear what all’s been goin’ on around here, Kyle, you may want to head for the hills.”

  Chapter 9

  Miranda had driven her own car back into town from the ranch, so Brannock didn’t have to give her a ride. She said, “I’ll call you later this afternoon or in the morning, G.W., after I’ve had time to look into things more.”

  “Thanks. I don’t know what you can do, but I wasn’t raised to just give up.”

  “Neither was I,” Miranda said. She lifted a hand in farewell and turned to walk toward her car.

  Kyle watched her go and muttered under her breath, “I can think of some things I’d like to look into right now.”

  Brannock resisted the urge to thump the boy on the back of the head. Instead, he snapped, “Quit oglin’ that gal. Miranda’s a nice girl.”

  “She does mighty nice things for a pair of jeans, that’s for sure.”

  Brannock sighed and shook his head. He said, “Throw your duffel bag in the back of the pickup. Just because you don’t have anything to do doesn’t mean I don’t.”

  “Sure, sure.” Kyle reached over the pickup’s side and deposited the bag just behind the cab. He opened the passenger door while Brannock went around the front of the vehicle.

  “When are you gonna get a new ride?” Kyle asked as his grandfather slid behind the wheel. “I don’t think this antique has power anything.”

  “I can still push down a door lock button and roll down a window just fine. Folks did that for years and years and never thought anything about it. Anyway, look at these little vent windows. Best thing the automotive industry ever invented. Turn ’em around so the air’s blowin’ on you while you’re drivin’, and you don’t need any air condi-tionin’. So what did they do? They got rid of ’em and call it new and improved. Bunch o’ damn engineers. They ought to have to live with and work on all the crap they design. That’d only be fair.”

  Brannock had started the engine, pulled away from the curb, and headed west along the street while he was talking. He glanced over at Kyle and saw that the boy was gazing out the window.

  “You ain’t listenin’ to me, are you?”

  “It’s not like I’ve never heard that rant before,” Kyle said. “And all the ones like it, too. Everything was better in the old days. The world today sucks. That about sums it up, right?”

  “And the world tomorrow don’t hold out much promise of bein’ better,” Brannock said. “So, you want to tell me your side of what happened back there?”

  “No point in wastin’ my breath. You’ll just believe what the cops told you, no matter what I say.”

  “Ernie Rodriguez is a fine chief and runs a damn fine department,” Brannock snapped.

  “And I’m just the prodigal grandson.”

  Brannock’s callused hands tightened on the steering wheel. Kyle was his own flesh and blood, all he had left of his own son, and he loved the boy. But Kyle sure as hell didn’t make it easy sometimes.

  “I’d still like to hear your side of it.”

  “All right, fine.” Kyle launched into a recitation of the events that had taken place in the convenience store around noon, then concluded, “I was just trying to help out an old friend.”

  “Stella Lopez,” Brannock said. “Nice girl. I didn’t know the two of you were ever sweethearts.”

  Kyle scoffed and said, “I wouldn’t go far as to call it that. We had a good time together once or twice.”

  Brannock felt his lips thinning in disapproval and couldn’t help it. He said, “Well, it sounds like you remember her fondly.”

  “I suppose. And that guy Vern just rubbed me the wrong way.”

  “The whole world rubs you the wrong way most of the time, doesn’t it?”

  For a few seconds, Kyle didn’t respond. Then he admitted, “Yeah, I guess it does. Don’t think I’m trying to fool myself, G.W. I know what I’m like.”

  Brannock’s foot pressed down harder on the accelerator as they reached the edge of town and the speed limit on the highway went up. The pickup surged ahead.

  “You ever give any thought to callin’ me Grandpa or Granddad or something like that?”

  “Why? You’ve always been G.W. to me. That’s what everybody calls you, including that sexy little lawyer of yours.”

  “She’s smart as a whip.”

  “I don’t doubt it. And she’d better be, if she’s going to be taking on the IRS. Did I hear that right? Why are the Feds after you?”

  “They say I figured my deductions wrong for the past ten years and I owe ’em a bunch of back taxes. To tell you the truth, ’most everything they say just sounds like a bunch o’ gibberish to me. I can’t follow it. That’s why I got Miranda to give me a hand dealin’ with ’em. She’s pretty good at tax law.”

  “And pretty easy on the eyes, too.”

  “I don’t reckon there’s any disputin’ that.”

  “So how much are you gonna owe them if they get their way?” Kyle asked. “A few thousand dollars?”

  “They say I got to pay nearly four hundred grand.”

  Kyle’s eyes widened and he let out a low whistle.

  “That’s a fortune,” he exclaimed. “You don’t have that much, do you?”

  “Not hardly. And that’s not the worst of it. They say if they don’t get their money, they’re gonna take the ranch. They’ve given me until next Friday to settle up with ’em.”

  “That’s less than a week away!”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Kyle leaned forward with a solemn look on his face and asked, “What are you gonna do?”

  At least the news had knocked some of the snottiness out of him, for the moment, anyway, Brannock thought. He said, “I don’t know. Miranda’s gonna try to figure out somethin’.”

  “Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, I’d be glad to.”

  Brannock glanced over at his grandson and asked, “Are you sure you want to associate with an ornery old man who’s liable to wind up in some federal prison . . . or dead?”

  “Dead?” Kyle echoed in alarm. “G.W., what’s going on in that stubborn old brain of yours?”

  “Stubborn’s right,” Brannock said. “If those bastards come to put me off my land, they’re gonna have a fight on their hands. They’ll have to put me down before they put me off.”

  “Now, don’t start talking crazy—”

  “There ain’t nothing crazy about it,” Brannock insisted. “I’m right, they’re wrong, and it don’t matter how big and powerful they are, nothin’s gonna change that.”

  “Do you really think right and wrong actually mean anything in this world anymore? How can you look around at what goes on and believ
e that?”

  “They mean something to me,” Brannock said softly.

  Kyle sat back and shook his head.

  “I hope that little blond hottie really is a good lawyer,” he said. “I think you’re gonna need one. But from the sound of it, what you really need is an army, if you want to keep the Feds off your land.”

  “Know where I can get one?” Brannock asked with a grin.

  “If I did, I’m not sure I’d tell you. I get the feeling that you’re spoiling for a fight, G.W.”

  Brannock shook his head and said, “No, I’m a peaceable man, as long as folks leave me alone.”

  “Yeah, that’s what those movie cowboys you were always so fond of would say just before they beat the hell out of somebody.”

  “They never beat the hell of anybody who didn’t have it comin’.”

  An uneasy silence fell between the two of them as Brannock drove on toward the ranch. Finally Kyle said, “I meant it, you know. If there’s anything I can do to help, I will. I don’t care if it gets me in trouble with the law, either.” He snorted derisively. “Hell, I’m used to it.”

  “You never tangled with federal law, at least not that I know of.”

  “No,” Kyle admitted. “I’ve steered clear of that sort of trouble. I’ve had my chances, too. Guys I knew in the army were mixed up in some sort of drug ring, and I could have thrown in with them. They promised me all kinds of money.”

  “How come you didn’t take it?”

  “Honestly?” Kyle laughed. “Because I knew that if you ever found out about it, you’d kick my ass six ways from Sunday.”

  “You got that right. Might even make it seven ways from Sunday.”

  Both of them chuckled as Brannock drove on. He’d been upset to get that call from Ernie Rodriguez and find out that Kyle was in trouble again, of course, but now that he’d talked to the boy, Brannock’s instincts told him that Kyle could still make something of himself.

  With all the trouble looming over his own head, Brannock didn’t know if he was in any position to give Kyle a hand with that job, but he would do what he could.

  One way or another, he thought, it was time his grandson started growin’ up.

  Chapter 10

  The GPS on Barton Devlin’s phone took him right where he needed to go. He brought the rental to a stop near the edge of a ridge that ran for more than twenty miles along a meandering path that followed a generally north-south orientation.

  The rocky drop-off down to the flats was about forty feet. The slope was easy enough that a man could walk down it if he was careful, but a vehicle wouldn’t be able to make it so the dirt road Devlin had been following—really just a barely discernible trace—ended here.

  He didn’t need to get any closer today. He was just here to indulge his curiosity.

  He picked up the binoculars lying on the seat beside him and got out of the car to walk to the edge. He had already taken the binoculars out of their case, so all he had to do was lift them to his eyes and peer through them.

  The valley spread out before him was several miles wide and greener with vegetation than much of the arid landscape around here. That was because it was watered by a clear, spring-fed stream that flowed down from the mountains on the other side of the valley.

  The creek disappeared almost as soon as it left the mountains, swallowed up by the thirsty ground, but the moisture was still there, trickling under the surface and making it easier for grass and other plants to grow.

  Because of that, this valley—designated Yucca Valley on official USGS topographical maps—was good ranch land and had been ever since one of G. W. Brannock’s ancestors had settled here almost a hundred and fifty years earlier.

  But there were other good uses to which Yucca Valley could be put, thought Devlin as he raised the binoculars and focused on the ranch house.

  It was a rambling, two-story frame structure that had been built onto several times over the years, those additions to the original house being easy to see.

  But that gave it a unique quality. There wasn’t another house anywhere in the world exactly like it. Brannock probably liked that about it.

  Several cottonwoods grew around the house and provided shade at various times of day. Again, the underground moisture allowed them to attain greater height than most of the rather scrubby trees in this area.

  Set about fifty yards behind the house and off to the side a little was a large barn made out of sheet metal, even its roof. Devlin knew from studying Brannock’s tax returns that the barn was six years old, having been built to replace the old wooden barn that had been there.

  To the left of the barn was a large enclosure made from T-posts and horse panels. On the other side was an old-fashioned wooden pole corral. An open shed was also on that side of the barn, its roof overhanging metal water troughs.

  Devlin swung the binoculars toward a row of small, three- and four-room frame cottages. The ranch hands who worked for Brannock lived in those cottages, some with families, others single men who shared the cottages.

  His workers were all Hispanic, but there were no illegals among them. In fact, all of them came from families that had been American citizens for several generations. The INS had no leverage to use against the rancher.

  And they had searched high and low for just such leverage, Devlin knew.

  He lifted the binoculars to look at the lower reaches of the mountains. At this time of year, most of Brannock’s cattle would be up there on that higher range, although Devlin didn’t spot any at the moment. Generally, winters were mild in this part of West Texas, but there could still be a considerable amount of snow, so during the fall the herd would be driven down into the valley.

  Everything looked just about like he expected it to, thought Devlin as he lowered the glasses. He had never been here before, but he felt like he knew Brannock’s ranch quite well despite that. He had spent a lot of time studying the place when he was given this assignment. He never went into a job unprepared.

  This drive out here today had been just to get the lay of the land and make sure no one had overlooked anything. Satisfied, he started to turn back toward the rental car when something caught his eye.

  A column of dust had appeared, moving slowly toward the ranch headquarters from the direction of the state highway. Curious, Devlin brought the binoculars to his eyes again and looked through them.

  It took him a moment to locate the dust column through the lenses and then follow it down to the vehicle causing it. An old, dark blue pickup bounced along the rough dirt road leading from the highway.

  That was Brannock’s pickup, Devlin knew. He knew about everything the old rancher paid taxes on or registered with the state. He knew what was in all the e-mails Brannock retrieved once a week, his only use of the Internet. He knew what programs Brannock watched on his satellite dish, mostly sports and old movies and vintage sitcoms and variety shows. Brannock lived in the past as much as possible, no doubt about that.

  That was going to be his undoing. A man had to look to the future to survive.

  There was no garage, but a wooden carport sat to one side of the house. Brannock parked the pickup underneath it and climbed out.

  To Devlin’s surprise, the passenger door swung open as well and another man got out. This one was a lot younger, a slender, sandy-haired man in jeans and T-shirt.

  The agent’s forehead creased in a frown. As far as he was aware, Brannock lived out here alone except for the ranch hands. Maybe this guy was somebody the rancher had just hired.

  Clearly, though, he wasn’t Hispanic, which meant he didn’t fit Brannock’s pattern.

  Devlin didn’t like anything that didn’t fit into a pattern.

  But it didn’t matter, he told himself. No matter who the man with Brannock was, he wouldn’t have any effect on what was going to happen soon.

  The plan had progressed too far for anything to stop it now. Satisfied, Devlin got into the car, backed it around, and started back the way he
had come.

  A couple of hundred yards away, hidden behind a rock spire, two men Devlin hadn’t seen at all watched the IRS agent drive away.

  Chapter 11

  “Keep movin’ and get in the house,” G. W. said sharply as he and Kyle approached the porch steps.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Don’t ask questions. Just get inside!”

  The urgency in his grandfather’s voice was plain, thought Kyle. He did what G.W. said and took the steps quickly, then crossed the porch to the screen door.

  The wooden door was open. G.W. never locked up when he was leaving the house. Kyle pulled the screen open and stepped inside.

  G.W. was right behind him. He reached over and took down a rifle from a wooden rack where it hung with several other long guns.

  “What the hell?” Kyle asked.

  “Stay in here,” G.W. snapped. “Don’t stand up close to the windows.”

  He pushed the screen door open with his foot and stepped back out onto the porch.

  Kyle’s confusion began to turn to alarm. He said, “Hey, if you’re gonna shoot somebody—”

  “I’m not plannin’ to shoot,” G.W. said as he nestled his cheek against the smooth, polished wood of the rifle’s stock. “I’m just usin’ the sight.”

  It was true that the rifle had a telescopic sight attached to it. G.W. leveled the weapon and cupped the rear end of the sight against his right eye. For a long moment he didn’t say anything and didn’t move.

  Kyle’s nerves were taut as he waited for his grandfather to tell him what was going on here.

  Finally, G. W. grunted, lowered the rifle, and said, “Looks like he’s gone.”

  “Who?”

  “Fella on the ridge over yonder who was watchin’ us.”

  “What ridge?” Kyle asked. He recalled his days of exploring the ranch. “You mean that ridge all the way on the other side of the valley?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s miles away!”

  “Air’s clear out here,” G.W. said. “A fella with good eyes can see a long way. But what I saw was the sun reflectin’ off glass where there shouldn’t be any.”