Tyranny

by William W. Johnstone

  Grayson started to close the folder. Devlin said sharply, “Wait a minute. I want a better look at that.”

  With a grunt, Grayson opened the folder again and held it out farther. Devlin studied the badge and ID card for several seconds. Both of them certainly looked authentic enough, and there was no doubt that was Grayson’s picture on the card.

  “Satisfied, chief?” Grayson asked. The toothpick jumped up and down when he talked.

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  Grayson snapped the folder shut and put it away. With a cold smile, he said, “You gonna ask me in? You know, one of Uncle Sam’s loyal servants to another?”

  Devlin’s hatred for the man deepened. No one had a right to make fun of the federal government, and he thought he heard mockery in Grayson’s tone.

  But he stepped back and said, “Come on in.”

  Grayson sauntered into the room and looked around.

  “Not exactly fancy, is it?” he drawled.

  “That doesn’t matter. It’s just a place to stay while I do my work.”

  “Nice utilitarian little bureaucrat, aren’t you, Barton?”

  Devlin bristled and said, “What are you doing here, Grayson? You obviously know who I am—”

  “And I know why you’re in Sierra Lobo, too,” Grayson interrupted. “You’re here to take G. W. Brannock’s ranch away from him.”

  “He owes back taxes, fines, and penalties that he’s refused to pay. He deserves everything that’s going to happen to him.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Doesn’t . . . doesn’t matter anymore?” Devlin sputtered. He’d never heard anything so outrageous in all his life. Nothing was more important than collecting taxes so the government could continue to function.

  Certainly nothing that had anything to do with the Bureau of Land Management!

  “That’s right,” Grayson said with a smirk. “I’m heading up the government’s dealings with Brannock now.” His tone hardened as he went on. “I wouldn’t have to be telling you that if you hadn’t jumped the gun. You weren’t supposed to seize the old guy’s ranch until Friday. You shouldn’t even be here yet.”

  Even though Devlin was angry, his keen brain still worked swiftly. Now it made sense why his superiors had moved the seizure up. They must have heard rumors that the BLM was interested in Brannock’s ranch, too, and they wanted to bring the case to a conclusion before those rival bureaucrats could get their dirty paws on it.

  “You’re the one who shouldn’t be here,” Devlin snapped. “I don’t know what you have in mind, but the IRS has a prior claim on Brannock’s property. All the paperwork will be filed as soon as federal court opens in El Paso tomorrow.”

  “No, it won’t,” Grayson insisted. “That deal’s dead. You can pack up and go home.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “Then call your bosses and ask them,” Grayson suggested. “Or don’t. It really doesn’t matter to me. You see, Bart, ol’ buddy, I don’t care if you stay or go, as long as you do one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Devlin demanded.

  Grayson bared his teeth in another grin that sent chills down Devlin’s spine.

  “Stay the hell out of my way,” said the man from the BLM.

  Chapter 17

  When G.W. got back from church, Kyle told him about Miranda’s visit and the news she had brought with her.

  He didn’t mention anything about Stella showing up, too, figuring his grandfather didn’t have any need to know about that. G. W. was old-fashioned enough not to want a girl with a reputation like Stella’s hanging around the ranch.

  With a frown, G.W. asked, “Miranda really thinks she can get an injunction from that judge to stop the IRS from takin’ the place away from me?”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me,” Kyle said. “She seemed really confident.”

  “Wish I could be,” G. W. replied with a slow shake of his head. He looked solemn as he stood there in his Sunday suit and tie, still holding his Bible. “Even if she’s right, though, I reckon some other judge higher up will just toss it out as soon as the Internal Revenue boys ask him to.”

  “Maybe. But hey, every day you can stall them is one more day something good can happen, right?”

  G.W. gave him a surprised frown and said, “When did you turn into such a Pollyanna?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kyle said.

  “Never mind,” G.W. said. “Lemme go put on some comfortable clothes, and then we’ll see about grillin’ some burgers for lunch.”

  “That sounds good to me.”

  It was a lazy, pleasant Sunday afternoon. G. W. didn’t believe in working any more on the Sabbath than was absolutely necessary, so after lunch he and Kyle sat in the living room and watched a baseball game and a couple of old movies. Out in the cabins, the ranch hands were enjoying the time off with their families and friends.

  Sunday supper in G.W.’s house was always fend-for-yourself and scrounge up whatever you could, so that was a pretty low-key affair, too.

  Then night fell and G.W. took down a couple of rifles from the rack and started checking them.

  “Hey, I thought we decided we weren’t gonna take any guns with us,” Kyle exclaimed when he saw what his grandfather was doing.

  “You said that. I don’t recall ever comin’ right out and agreein’ with it.”

  “You can’t just start shooting at people—”

  “Never said I was going to. If we can catch those fellas who’ve been sneakin’ around, I want to ask ’em some questions, that’s all. But two-legged trouble’s not the only kind you might run into out there on the range after dark. There are snakes and coyotes and it’s not unheard of for a panther or a bear to wander down out of the mountains. That’s why we’re takin’ rifles with us.”

  “Oh.” Kyle felt a little foolish now. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

  “That’s because you didn’t grow up out here. A man can’t live close to nature for very long without realizin’ that the world’s got a whole heap of ways to kill you. The best way to survive is to never let your guard down.”

  “That gets pretty tiring, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” G.W. said with a shrug. “But it beats bein’ a bunch of bleached bones picked clean and scattered by the scavengers.”

  Kyle couldn’t argue with that.

  They waited until it was good and dark, then went out and got into the pickup, taking the rifles and sleeping bags with them. G. W. didn’t turn the headlights on as he pulled away, which prompted Kyle to ask him about it.

  “Why would we need headlights?” G. W. asked. “There are plenty of stars up there, and besides, I know every foot o’ this ranch. If somebody else is out and about, we don’t want to announce that we’re comin’ by showin’ any lights.”

  “Won’t they hear the motor?”

  “Maybe, but we can’t avoid that. The pool’s too far for us to walk.”

  “We could have taken horses.”

  “I thought about it,” G. W. admitted. “But then I figured we might need to get back here in a hurry, if anything should happen to go wrong.”

  “You mean if one of us was hurt,” Kyle said.

  “I don’t like to take foolish chances.”

  Kyle wondered if G.W. would have been so careful if he hadn’t been coming along tonight. Maybe G.W. was just being protective of his grandson.

  Or maybe he figured Kyle might foul things up somehow, and he’d need to be ready for that. Either version was possible, Kyle decided.

  As G.W. had said, he didn’t really need the headlights. He steered the pickup across the open range without any trouble, avoiding the arroyos that snaked across the valley here and there. The pickup’s rugged suspension didn’t care that there wasn’t a road through here.

  Instead of heading directly for the pool, G. W. drove to a narrow canyon about half a mile from it. He ran the pickup into the t
hick shadows cast by the canyon’s steep walls and brought it to a stop.

  “We can hoof it from here,” he said. “Don’t slam that door when you get out. Just ease it shut. Then grab the sleepin’ bags and follow me. Don’t talk unless you have to. Voices carry out here at night.”

  Kyle did as he was told. He got the rolled-up sleeping bags from the back of the pickup and slung both of them over his shoulders.

  That was the real reason G.W. wanted him to come along on this adventure, he thought wryly—to be a mule.

  G.W. set off on foot with Kyle behind him. Kyle wore jeans, a black T-shirt, and boots thick enough and high enough to protect him from cactus and snakebites, if he was careful.

  He carried the rifle with his finger outside the trigger guard and the barrel pointing down. Both G. W. and Kyle’s dad had taught him at an early age how to handle a gun safely.

  The breeze that swept through the valley had a hint of a chill to it, reminding Kyle they were at a fairly high altitude. The nights were cool here year-round.

  The stars overhead were incredibly bright. Nobody in the eastern half of the state ever saw stars that bright, he thought. You had to get out here in West Texas, far from anywhere, and even here the air wasn’t as clear as it once had been. Too much pollution drifting up from factories in northern Mexico.

  G.W. led the way to the pool as if he were following a well-marked path. Kyle saw starlight rippling on the surface of the water, which was never completely still because the spring-fed stream never stopped flowing.

  G.W. circled the pool and started climbing into the rocks on the slope above it. He moved slowly and carefully, and Kyle knew why. There could easily be rattlesnakes in those rocks, and G.W. wanted to give them a chance to slither away once they sensed the humans approaching.

  The two of them wound up stretched out on top of a huge slab of rock that had broken off the slope somewhere above and slid down here in millennia past. It was plenty big enough to accommodate both of them and their rifles.

  G.W. took off his hat and set it beside him, along with his rifle and the handheld spotlight he had brought along. Kyle placed the sleeping bags behind them to be used later if they needed to stay out here overnight.

  From up here they had a good view of the pool down below, as well as the approach to it. They would see anybody coming from the direction of the valley.

  Lying on a big rock wasn’t that comfortable, but Kyle tried to stay as still as he could. The rock still retained a little of the day’s warmth, although that was fading fast in the dry air. Kyle moved his head closer to his grandfather’s and whispered, “How long do we wait?”

  “As long as it takes,” G.W. said.

  Chapter 18

  It seemed unlikely to Kyle that anybody would go to sleep stretched out on a big rock while waiting for some mysterious, possibly sinister skulkers to show up, but that was exactly what happened. He dozed off and didn’t even realize he had done so until something touched his shoulder.

  His head was pillowed on his left arm, which had gone numb from the awkward position. He started to jerk upright and say something, but the hand on his shoulder tightened. Kyle’s breath hissed between his teeth. Those fingers had clamped down like iron.

  His grandfather leaned close to him and said, “Shhh.”

  Kyle remembered where he was and what he and G. W. were doing here. He nodded, knowing G.W. could see him in the starlight.

  G.W. let go of Kyle’s shoulder, raised his arm, and pointed. Kyle looked where his grandfather was indicating and spotted a dark shape coming across the valley floor toward them. It was close, no more than a hundred yards from the pool below them.

  “The jeep?” Kyle whispered.

  “Yep. We’ll wait here and see what they do.”

  Still keeping an eye on the approaching vehicle, Kyle rolled onto his side and flexed the arm that had gone to sleep. Pins and needles shot through it as feeling returned. When the arm was all right again he propped himself up on his elbows to watch.

  The jeep was running without lights, too. The driver brought it to a stop near the pool, and he and another man got out. They were nothing but dark, vaguely manlike shapes as they moved around in the starlight.

  One of the men took something from the back of the jeep and carried it back about fifty yards from the edge of the pool. As far as Kyle could tell, it was a long, thin tube or rod of some sort. The man took a small hammer from his belt and began driving the thing into the ground with a steady tapping.

  The other man knelt beside the pool and leaned forward to fill a container with water. Both men went about their tasks efficiently, as if they had done this sort of thing many times before. They didn’t speak to each other as they worked.

  Kyle felt his forehead wrinkling as he frowned in puzzlement. It looked like the intruders were gathering soil and water samples for some reason, probably scientific. That was the only explanation that made sense to him. But he had no clue what their motivation for doing so might be.

  He was certain there was no oil or gas under his grandfather’s land. Geologists had tested it for such mineral wealth years earlier and found nothing. There were cinnabar mines farther south in the Big Bend, but nothing like that had ever been found around here, either, at least not as far as Kyle was aware.

  G.W. had the spotlight in his hand now, ready to press the trigger that would turn it on. He waited, though, and Kyle assumed he didn’t want to make his move until the man who had walked away from the pool had come back. That way G. W. could catch them both in the beam.

  That was what happened. The man finished his task and turned to rejoin his companion. In the starlight, Kyle couldn’t be sure, but he thought the man had driven about two feet of the rod into the ground.

  “How many more water samples do you need?” the man asked the other one. His voice came clearly to Kyle and G.W. on top of the big slab of rock.

  “Just a couple,” was the answer. “There are quite a few different tests that have to be run.”

  “Well, I’ve got the stake in the ground. I’ll just hook up the equipment—”

  That brief mention made Kyle think the man might be a seismologist and was about to use that metal rod to send waves of some sort through the ground so he could measure them.

  Kyle didn’t have time to ponder that any more, however, because that was when his grandfather squeezed the trigger on the spotlight and its brilliant beam shot out and speared both men.

  Their reactions were almost identical. They both yelled startled curses, twisted toward the light, and threw up a hand to try to block the blinding glare.

  “Don’t move!” G.W. yelled. “You’re both covered!”

  That wasn’t true, but there was no way the two men could know that. They stood there, each with a raised hand, as if they were frozen.

  After a couple of seconds, the man kneeling beside the pool called, “Brannock! Is that you, G.W. Brannock?”

  “I didn’t tell you to talk,” G. W. snapped. “When you say something, it’ll be to answer my questions.”

  “Brannock, you’re making a big mistake,” the man said. “You’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”

  “Damn right,” the second man blustered. “You can’t threaten us and get away with it.”

  “Looks like that’s what I’m doin’,” G. W. drawled. “Now, who are you boys and what’re you doin’ on my land?”

  “It’s not your land,” the standing one said. “It belongs to—”

  The other man made a sharp gesture to silence him.

  “Look, Brannock, be reasonable. There’s nothing you can do to change this. It’s all out of your hands.”

  “The hell it is,” G. W. said. “Stand up, mister.” The man hesitated, and G. W. added, “Now!”

  The tone of command in his voice was unmistakable. Most men didn’t give an order like that unless they had the firepower to back it up.

  The man by the pool stood up.

  Kyle looked
closely at the men. They didn’t appear to be armed. In khaki trousers and work shirts they seemed harmless enough. Of course, they might have guns hidden somewhere on them.

  “All right, both of you wade out into the water,” G.W. told them.

  “The hell with you!” the more argumentative of the two flared. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, old man.”

  “Trespassers,” G.W. said. “And since this whole range is posted, I got a right to shoot the two of you if I think you’re threatenin’ me. You’re pretty damned close to it.”

  He turned his head toward Kyle and whispered, “Lever that rifle.”

  Kyle wasn’t sure he ought to go along with that order. He didn’t know who the strangers were, but they seemed confident in their right to be here.

  On the other hand, Kyle had never exactly had much respect for authority, either, and he didn’t like these guys. Not one damned bit.

  He picked up the rifle beside him and worked the lever to throw a cartridge into the chamber.

  That metallic clack-clack sounded loud in the night. The man who had driven the rod into the ground muttered, “Crap, there’s more than one of ’em up there.”

  “Take it easy, Brannock,” the other man said. “Don’t do anything you can’t take back.”

  “Do what I tell you, then,” G.W. said.

  Both men sighed. Then, with obvious reluctance, they waded out into the pool.

  “Keep goin’ until I tell you to stop,” G.W. said. He tracked them with the spotlight beam.

  When they were up to mid-thigh, the more reasonable-sounding of the two asked, “Can we at least take out our wallets so everything in them won’t get soaked?”

  “Good idea. Take ’em out and throw ’em on the shore.”

  The two men looked at each other. Clearly, neither of them wanted to do that.

  But G.W. still had the upper hand, and they knew it. One by one, they pulled their wallets from their hip pockets and tossed them on the ground near the edge of the pool.