half a dozen Mexican women discussing their medical issues and drinking Kool-Aid from tall plastic fast-food glasses-even the clean water didn't taste clean, so they made Kool-Aid to mask the taste-as if they were suburban stay-at-home moms drinking mochas at a Starbucks. She had decided not to focus on the living conditions in the colonia but instead on the living. She was here for the people. She was here to make a difference in their lives. And in her life.
She heard a scream from down by the river.
'Governor, that's a long shot.'
The network folks wanted to retrace Bode's every step that day, so they had driven out to the scene in John Ed's Hummer. Bode now sat perched on the same ridge with a camera focused on him. Jim Bob and Ranger Hank stood behind the camera. The female reporter sat next to him, close enough for him to catch the scent of her perfume. She was a good-looking broad with a twinkle in her blue eyes and her blonde hair blowing in the breeze like she didn't give a damn. Like she'd be fun on a camping trip on a cold night, building a fire, eating meat seared on a stick, drinking a few shots of bourbon, then climbing into a double-wide sleeping bag and 'You must have a really big one.'
'What?'
'Your rifle. It must be big.'
'Oh. Yeah. It's a big rifle all right.'
He unpacked the big rifle, loaded a cartridge, and sighted in through the scope. Down below, the valley was vacant. The FBI, ICE, DEA, DPS, Texas Rangers, and Border Patrol had collected the evidence, removed the bodies, cut and burned the marijuana, and cleared out. Only a feral hog rooting around showed any signs of life in the valley. But not for long. The camera was running when Bode put the cross hairs on the hog's head and pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
'Oh, my God, that's so loud!' the reporter said, sounding girlish in a sexy way. 'Did you hit the hog?'
Bode snorted. 'Of course I hit the hog.'
They drove the Hummer down past the dead hog and to the marijuana farm. The reporter set up the camera angle then gave an intro: 'I'm standing in the desolate but starkly beautiful Davis Mountains of West Texas with Bode Bonner, the swaggering former college football star and'-a coy smile-'the charming governor of Texas.'
She and the camera turned to him.
'So, Governor, the cowboy image isn't just an image?'
He wore the same jeans from that morning, but he had changed into a denim shirt and old work boots. He didn't want to clean crap off his handmade boots.
'I've been a cowboy all my life.'
'I like cowboys.'
'Do you now?'
Bode couldn't tell whether she was flirting with him or setting him up, but being male he naturally sided with flirting.
'Those poor children, living out here for a year. And the girl, getting raped and beaten.'
Bode thought, Here it comes.
'Governor, how did you feel when you shot those men?'
'Pretty damn good. They were dead, and she was alive.'
'Governor, it seems incredible that a Mexican drug cartel could operate a huge marijuana farm right here in Texas.'
'They're not just here in Texas. The cartels are everywhere in America now. The drugs are here, and the violence is coming. We're outmanned and outgunned. The GAO says we have operational control over less than half of the border. That's like saying the NYPD has control over only half of New York City-how safe would that make you feel?'
'How do we stop them?'
'Secure the border.'
'But the president went to El Paso just three months ago-he said the border is secure.'
'We're standing a hundred seventy-five miles east of El Paso and eighty miles north of the Rio Grande in a marijuana farm operated by a Mexican drug cartel for the last year-that seem secure to you?'
'Governor, you're not worried that the cartel might seek revenge?'
'Against me? I'm the governor of Texas.' He stood tall and aimed a finger at Ranger Hank. 'They'd have to come through that big Ranger to get to me, and then they'd find out that I'm not much fun in a fight.'
The reporter's eyes twinkled.
'Governor, the tea party sees this incident as supporting their anti-immigration position-do you agree?'
Bode stuck with Jim Bob's play.
'Look, I'm a politician, but everything I do isn't about politics. What I did out here two days ago wasn't about immigration policy-it was about little Josefina and those twelve boys. They didn't deserve to be abducted and held as slaves, whether they're Mexicans or Methodists. I'm the governor of Texas, and those cartel hombres, they were committing crimes in Texas. That made it my business, not my politics.'
Lindsay cradled the child and cried. She had heard a scream, and then a boy had come running to her. The nurse was needed at the river.
'?Apurate! '
She hurried. At the river, a small child lay next to the water. Blood drenched the dirt. Other children had gathered around. Lindsay slipped and stumbled and got muddy going down the low bluff to the river below. When she arrived at the child, she knew immediately that the child needed more than a nurse.
'?Llamen al doctor! '
Get the doctor.
'That was a good line,' Jim Bob said. ' 'My business, not my politics.' '
They were back on the jet and drinking bourbon.
'I winged it.'
'Well, it worked this time. But don't do it again, okay? Makes me nervous.'
'You're the boss, Professor.'
Jim Bob drank his bourbon and felt the warmth inside him. Eight years he had begged the networks to interview Governor Bode Bonner; now they were begging him for interviews. It felt good, tables turning and all. It felt good to have a stud horse he could ride right through the front door of the White House. This was his chance to escape Karl Rove's shadow. To make his own shadow. To prove to his ex-wife that she should've stuck with him for better or for worse-because it was fixing to get a hell of a lot better for James Robert Burnet.
Jesse had taken the camera crew for a brief tour of Colonia Angeles. They now stood at the farthest point from the river. The border wall was visible in the distance.
'We stand on land that America has abandoned in the drug and immigration war, a land that is neither here nor there, neither-'
A dog barked in the distance. Then he heard a boy's scream.
'?Doctor! '
A boy ran toward them, trying to keep up with Pancho. They both arrived out of breath.
'Doctor,' the boy said in Spanish, 'we have been searching for you! Come quickly! To the river! The nurse, she needs you!'
FOURTEEN
'How pathetic is that?' Jim Bob said.
The next morning at nine, Bode, Jim Bob, Mandy, Ranger Hank, and the thirteen Mexican children stood just inside the front entrance at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and stared at the mass of humanity waiting in line at the security checkpoint to be scanned, searched, patted down, felt up, and otherwise subjected to personal humiliation by employees of the Transportation Security Administration.
