Kyle heard Devlin swallow hard. The government man might be getting a little nervous.
That was good. It made him more likely to answer questions.
Instead of all three of them crowding into the pickup’s seat, Kyle suggested, “Why don’t Devlin and I ride in the back? I can keep an eye on him that way, and he can’t try anything.”
“Good idea,” G. W. agreed.
Devlin said, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not a violent man.”
“Let’s just make sure of that,” Kyle said as they reached the pickup. He lowered the tailgate, then used the rifle barrel to motion to Devlin. “Climb in.”
Awkwardly, the government man did so. Kyle told him to go all the way to the front and sit with his back against the cab. When Devlin had done that, Kyle closed the tailgate and climbed in over it. He sat down with his legs crossed and the rifle across his lap.
G.W. got behind the wheel and started the pickup toward the ranch. As they rode, Kyle asked, “Why did you follow Finley and Todd out here, Devlin? You fellas work for different agencies, don’t you?”
“Yes, I work for the IRS,” Devlin replied. “Worked for it, I should say. I strongly suspect that I don’t have a job there anymore.”
“Why not?” Kyle asked with a frown.
“Because I was ordered to return to Washington, but I’m still here. The service dropped the case against your grandfather.”
“Really? Because of that injunction his lawyer got?”
“What? I don’t know anything about an injunction. No, my impression was that we were pressured to step aside in favor of the Bureau of Land Management.”
Devlin was being a little more talkative than Kyle had expected, so it might be wise to keep the pump primed. Kyle said, “Pressured by who? Who’s more powerful than the IRS?”
Devlin let out a little bark of laughter, but he didn’t really sound amused.
“You’re joking, aren’t you, Brannock?” he asked.
“I’m deadly serious,” Kyle assured him.
“There are any number of agencies in Washington equally as powerful, or more powerful, than the IRS. It all depends on how closely they’re linked to the seat of ultimate power.”
“The White House,” Kyle said.
“Exactly. The executive branch has expanded and consolidated its power over the past three decades until the system is no longer equal. With one party controlling the White House and having supermajorities in both houses of Congress and a seven-to-two advantage on the Supreme Court . . .”
Devlin shrugged as his voice trailed off.
“What you’re saying is that for all practical purposes, the President is now a dictator,” Kyle said.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Devlin argued. “With the obstructionists dealt with, by and large, the government can actually get its work done—”
“You mean it can grow faster and faster and gobble up more and more of everything people used to own and control more and more of people’s lives.”
Devlin leaned forward, evidently agitated. He said, “But . . . but that’s what government is supposed to do, isn’t it? Control things? Keep people safe, even from themselves?”
Softly, Kyle said, “There was a time when the government in this country kept people free.”
Devlin shook his head and said, “Freedom of the sort you’re talking about is . . . messy. It’s inefficient and unfair. That’s why government has to step in and make things right. I mean . . . the government knows best.”
The man was really brainwashed, thought Kyle. Devlin actually believed the drivel he was spouting.
“At least . . . I always thought it did,” Devlin added, then he sighed.
Now, that was interesting. The fella sounded a little disillusioned, as if he might be starting to see that the fairy tale he had believed in for so long was nothing but an elitist, statist fantasy that couldn’t function in the real world unless the government had plenty of jackboots and “reeducation camps” to impose its will. True freedom had to be stamped out before the progressives’ warped version of freedom could take hold. That was why they had been trying to take away everyone’s guns for so long.
The feel of the Winchester in Kyle’s hands was reassuring proof that so far, they hadn’t quite succeeded.
But as true believers, the Democrats couldn’t give up.
And so the pockets of resistance, the holdouts like Texas where freedom—the real deal—still existed, had to be just as vigilant and stubborn. Otherwise, what was once the true America would someday vanish, never to be seen again.
It was a depressing feeling, but Devlin’s words offered a ray of hope. Kyle said, “You’re starting to see that everything’s not exactly the way you thought it was, aren’t you?”
“I was told that your grandfather has been systematically cheating on his taxes for years now—”
“That’s a lie,” Kyle said. “G.W.’s as honest as the day is long, and a damned good citizen. A better citizen than this government today deserves. He’d never cheat on his taxes or anything else, and his lawyer has the documentation to prove it.”
“I’ve seen the results of the audit,” Devlin insisted. “If it’s accurate . . .”
Again he didn’t continue. Kyle said, “You don’t believe that audit is right, though. Or at least you’re starting to have some doubts.”
“I’d have to see it for myself,” Devlin insisted with a note of stubbornness coming back into his voice. “I’d have to see the numbers.”
“Maybe that can be arranged,” Kyle said. Miranda had all those numbers. If she showed them to Devlin, maybe she could convince him the government’s case against G.W. was built on a pack of lies. Kyle didn’t know what good it would do in the long run to convince the IRS agent of that, but as far as he could see, it wouldn’t hurt anything.
“I’d be willing to look at them with an open mind,” Devlin said.
“I’ll talk to G. W. Now, what do you know about the BLM trying to take over the ranch? How in the world could they have any use for it?”
“I don’t know,” Devlin replied with a shake of his head. “I honestly don’t.”
“Why’d you step in to help Finley and Todd get away?”
“I’m not sure about that, either. There’s no real love between their agency and mine, of course . . . my former agency, more than likely . . . but when I saw they were in trouble, I just . . . felt the urge to help them. After all, we’re all fellow government employees. Or at least we were. . . .”
They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Kyle asked, “What are you gonna do if you find out everything you thought you knew is wrong, Devlin?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Devlin replied, and the hollow tone in the government man’s voice told Kyle that he found the prospect horrifying.
Chapter 43
Miranda didn’t look quite as put together as she usually did. Her hair was a little tousled and she wasn’t wearing much makeup. But it had been late when G.W. called her and asked her to come out here to the ranch, and anyway, Kyle thought the natural look made her even prettier, if such a thing was possible.
She had regarded Barton Devlin with considerable suspicion at first. Kyle could tell that she didn’t want to show him all the information she had put together to argue G.W.’s case against the IRS.
“I assure you, Ms. Stephens, I can’t use any of this against Mr. Brannock,” Devlin had told her. “I doubt very seriously that I even have a job with the Internal Revenue Service anymore.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Miranda had argued. “What if when you do go back to Washington, they still want to pursue the case against G.W.?”
“If the numbers truly do support his position, then there’s nothing I or anyone else can do to harm him.”
After thinking it over, Miranda had said, “I suppose that’s true.” She set the cardboard file box she had brought with her on the kitchen table and took the lid of
f it, then looked at Kyle and G. W. and went on. “This is going to take a while. You two might as well go and do something else while Mr. Devlin and I go through this paperwork.”
That was how they came to find themselves in the living room, watching G.W.’s copy of Ride the High Country.
“Reckon I’ve always liked what Joel McCrea says in this movie,” G.W. commented. “I just want to enter my house justified, whatever that takes.”
“Hard choices, like you said.”
“More than likely.”
Kyle glanced toward the kitchen door and then asked quietly, “If it comes down to a fight, G.W., do you really plan to start shooting?”
G.W. sighed and said, “I hope it never goes that far, but if it does, this is my land and I know that, no matter what anybody else says. If somebody tries to take it away from me, I’ll defend it.”
“Honestly, though, you can’t start a shooting war against the United States government and expect to win.”
“If I’ve done what I know is right, then that’s winnin’ as far as I’m concerned.”
That was an admirable attitude, thought Kyle, but it might wind up getting his grandfather killed.
And him, too, because whatever G.W. did, Kyle intended to be right beside him. He had spent enough time wallowing in self-pity and not amounting to anything. Even though he hated what G.W. was going through, the adversity had taught him some valuable lessons. He wished he had come back here to the ranch sooner.
“How do you reckon it’s goin’ in there?” G.W. asked with a nod toward the kitchen.
“I don’t have any idea,” Kyle said. “If I was awash in a sea of numbers like that, I’d drown for sure.”
“That’s it,” Miranda said as she showed Devlin the last of the printouts she had brought with her. “I spent a long time putting all this together with the best tax accountant I could find. Some of it is subject to rules interpretation, of course, but even taking those areas into account, it seems obvious to me that G.W. is so scrupulously honest he actually overpaid what he owed. The amount may be uncertain, but it’s clear to me that the government owes my client money.”
Slowly, Devlin shook his head. Miranda could tell that it was a gesture of amazement, though, not disagreement.
“This . . . this just isn’t possible,” the man muttered. “There must be some other source of income you’re not showing. . . .”
“You’ve studied the case,” Miranda said. “Where is it? What is it? You can look around and see how the man lives. Do you honestly think he has millions stashed away in secret bank accounts in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands?”
“He could,” Devlin said stubbornly. “This humble lifestyle he lives could just be a front—”
“He’s never been out of the country except to go to Mexico a few times. We can prove that.”
“These things can be set up via computer.”
Miranda laughed and shook her head.
“Not by G.W. Brannock,” she said. “And if I were to put him on the stand in court, a jury wouldn’t have any trouble seeing that.” She tapped a fingernail on the printout lying on the kitchen table in front of Devlin and went on. “Just look at that for a minute and then tell me the government was right to try to take that man’s home away from him.”
Devlin sighed and said, “I can’t.” He looked up at her. “But it’s all moot. The case has been dropped.”
“It could be reopened.”
Devlin shook his head.
“I suppose it’s possible, but I doubt if that would ever happen. The focus now is on the BLM. Someone must have decided that we weren’t going to win the tax case, so now they’re trying something else.”
“They?”
“Whoever is pulling the strings on this. Whoever Slade Grayson is really working for.”
“Who do you think that is?”
“There can only be one answer to that, can’t there?” Devlin scraped his chair back and stood up. “This goes as high as it can go.”
He turned and walked toward the living room. Miranda hurried after him. Evidently, Devlin wanted to say something to G.W., and she wanted to be there for that, whatever it was.
“Mr. Brannock,” Devlin said as he came into the living room. “I have to talk to you.”
G.W. turned the TV off and stood up. Kyle got to his feet as well and stood beside his grandfather.
“Whatever you’ve got to say, spit it out,” G.W. said.
“Ms. Stephens has presented your case to me, just like she would in a hearing. This is all unofficial, of course, but if I had been presiding over such a hearing . . . I would have been forced to rule in your favor.”
A grin split G.W.’s rugged face.
“What you’re tryin’ to say is that I’m right and you were wrong,” he declared.
Devlin sighed and nodded.
“Yes, that’s what it amounts to,” he said. “And one more thing . . . I’m sorry.”
This time G.W. looked surprised. He said, “Somebody from the government . . . apologizin’? Did I hear right?”
“There’s no need to rub my nose in it,” Devlin said peevishly. “I was prepared to do my job, that’s all. I just wish . . . what I mean to say is . . .” His expression was bleak now. “To be honest, it appears that much of the government’s case against you was . . . fabricated.”
“You mean somebody lied and made up a bunch of bullcrap just to get their hands on my ranch.”
“That’s the way it appears.” Abruptly, Devlin brought up a trembling hand and rubbed it over his face in a gesture of utter weariness and desolation. “God help me,” he muttered, “how many other lives have I ruined based on falsehoods?”
“I can’t answer that question,” G.W. said. “I reckon that possibility is just somethin’ you’re gonna have to live with.”
Devlin sank into an armchair without being invited. He put both hands over his face now. He didn’t cry, but he seemed shaken to the very core of his being.
“There’s probably nothing you can do about anything that happened in the past, Mr. Devlin,” Miranda told him. “But there is something you can do about this situation.”
He looked up at her and asked hollowly, “What’s that?”
“Help put it right,” she said. “Help us save G. W. Brannock’s ranch.”
Chapter 44
Slade Grayson kept his temper under control, but it wasn’t easy.
“You just let them get the drop on you like that?” he demanded.
“What else were we going to do?” Finley asked. He sounded angry, too. “It’s not like we’re some sort of Old West gunfighters or anything!”
Grayson narrowed his eyes and asked, “Are you mouthing off to me, Warren? Is that really the tone you want to take after your little screwup?”
Finley had the good sense to swallow hard and look a little nervous. He said, “With all due respect, Mr. Grayson, I just don’t see what else Woody and I could have done.”
Todd grunted and put in, “We’re lucky we were able to get away from those guys. Brannock said he was gonna call the sheriff.”
Grayson shook his head and waved a hand dismissively.
“I’m not worried about some Texas yokel sheriff,” he said as he began to pace back and forth across the motel room’s carpet. “But things might have gotten tricky if Brannock got hold of that stuff I gave you.” He glanced at the vial sitting on the dresser. “I’m really glad you didn’t lose it, Warren.”
“So am I,” Finley said. “I made sure to hang on to it as tight as I could.”
“Well, another thirty-six hours and none of it will matter anyway. That ranch will belong to us.”
“To the government, you mean.”
“Yes, of course, that’s what I meant, Warren,” Grayson said. “It’s not like any of this is personal.”
But it was, of course, and deep down, Grayson knew that. He didn’t like being defied, and that old man had made a habit of it. So had Brannock’s gra
ndson. Grayson had scores to settle with both of them, and he had a strong hunch that they would both be behind the bars of a federal penitentiary before this was over—at the very least.
There were black sites that might be better suited to enemies of the country like those two. Places where they would never be seen again, so they couldn’t stand up to the government—or even worse, inspire other people to do so.
“What I’m really curious about,” Grayson went on, saying, “is who it was that helped you get away. Neither of you recognized the guy’s voice?”
Finley shook his head, and so did Todd. Finley said, “We never got a look at him. That light was too bright and blinding. And the voice wasn’t familiar to me.”
“Me, either,” Todd added.
“Well, did he sound like a Texan?” Grayson persisted. “Did he have some stupid drawl?”
Finley frowned in thought, then said, “No, not really. He didn’t have much of an accent, but if I had to guess, I’d say he came from . . . well, from somewhere around Washington.”
“One of us, eh?” Grayson said. He frowned, too. The only other recent visitor from Washington to Sierra Lobo he could think of was . . .
No, that didn’t make any sense. He had sent that IRS weasel scurrying back to his hole.
Anyway, Barton Devlin didn’t possess any real courage except what he got from the backing of the most powerful government in the world, and he didn’t have that on his side anymore. The Internal Revenue Service was done here. This was Slade Grayson’s job now.
No, he didn’t have anything to worry about from Devlin.
The government man looked like an animal caught in a trap, Kyle thought as he, G. W., and Miranda loomed over him.
Devlin glanced around at them nervously.
“I don’t see what I can do to help you,” he said. “I told you, I’ve probably lost my position. I don’t have any influence in Washington anymore. It . . . it’s all out of my hands.”
Miranda crossed her arms over her breasts and regarded him coolly. She said, “Maybe you know something about what Grayson is planning. You admitted that you talked to him.”
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