Hector and his men were out the doors-'?Vaya, vaya, vaya! '-before the wheels touched State Street.
Fort Davis served as the county seat of Jeff Davis County. Both city and county were named in honor of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America. But the Civil War was not on Deputy Sheriff Boone Huggins' mind at 5:45 A.M. that Tuesday morning. In fact, nothing was on his mind.
He was sleeping.
On duty. Sheriff Roscoe Lee worked the day shift; his deputy worked the night shift. The total population in the entire county was just over one thousand, so it wasn't as if they needed a SWAT team on stand-by. The biggest crime in the county was underage kids drinking beer at the fairgrounds on Saturday nights. So Boone made up a cell bed and caught six or seven hours of shut-eye every night.
What they call 'easy money.'
Consequently, Boone damn near shit his uniform pants when he opened his eyes to the business end of an AK-47 and six men dressed in black paramilitary uniforms.
'Jesus de la Garza,' the bald man pointing the gun said in a Mexican accent.
'No. I'm Boone Huggins.'
'Where is Jesus de la Garza's body?'
Boone pointed to the back.
'Show me.'
Boone led them to the morgue. Course, it wasn't really a morgue. It was just a walk-in freezer where the sheriff stored his deer during hunting season. But for the last month, it had stored three Mexican bodies wrapped in plastic, which creeped Boone out so he never went into the freezer. He unlocked the freezer door and stepped aside. The bald man went inside and checked the stiff bodies standing in the corner. He tapped one.
'This is Jesus.'
Two other men went inside and carried the body out. The bald man came out and said to Boone, 'Inside.'
Boone stepped into the freezer. The bald man shut the door. Boone was already cold.
Two hours later, Hector Garcia walked into Enrique de la Garza's office.
'I have brought your son home.'
' Gracias, Hector. Now, go to Austin and kill the governor.'
Lindsay Bonner knocked on the closed door to the Governor's Office then entered. Ranger Roy stood guard outside. She found her husband at his desk.
'Bode, East Austin Elementary, that's my school. That's Graciela Rodriguez's school. You can't close her school.'
'I'm not closing her school. Austin ISD is. Or they might.'
'Because you're cutting K through twelve funding.'
'Lindsay, the state is broke.'
She exhaled. It was time to tell him.
'I voted Democrat.'
'When?'
'Always.'
'I thought you switched to Republican when I did?'
'I didn't.'
'Don't mention that in public, okay?'
She gave him a look.
'Did you vote for me?'
'Yes.'
'Appreciate the vote of confidence.'
'You used to make me proud. Now I vote for you only because you're my husband.'
'Well, it's a vote.'
'It might not be this election.'
'Are you ready to go back to school?'
'I think so.'
Becca Bonner lied to her mother. She was not ready to go back to classes or volleyball practice. She might never be ready. But she knew her mother was ready to leave. She needed to leave. Her mother hated life in the Governor's Mansion. She hated being the governor's wife. Becca only hoped that her mother didn't hate the governor.
Jesse Rincon had gone into town to speak at a rotary luncheon. He arrived back at the clinic to find a network news truck with a satellite dish on top parked outside-no doubt another of Mayor Gutierrez's Mexican Mafia-and inside Inez dressed as if she were auditioning for American Idol. Perhaps she was.
'They are going to tape the interview,' she said. 'It will run tonight on the evening news. Their 'Difference Maker' segment. Do I look okay?'
Just before six, Lindsay sat alone in the master suite. She had a choice to make: the Governor's Mansion or Colonia Angeles. The governor's wife or the doctor's nurse. Bode Bonner or…
She picked up the remote and clicked on the television. She switched channels without conscious thought but stopped when she saw a byline: 'From outside Laredo, Texas.' The video showed a colonia. Her colonia.
She increased the volume.
'There are over two thousand colonias along the border in Texas,' the reporter said over a byline that read NORA RAMOS. 'What makes this colonia so unusual is that it is situated between the border wall and the border, a no man's land north of the Rio Grande but south of the wall that separates America from Mexico. Ninety-eight percent of the residents are Mexican nationals who…'
The segment continued with a voice-over video showing the wall and the river from the air above-she could almost smell the foul stench from the river-and the colonia situated between and then a ground-level view of the women and children living in conditions that seemed more desperate from afar, women and children Lindsay recognized. Little Lucia. And Teresa. And their madre, Sonia. The video ended with the reporter standing on the front steps of the clinic. She was young, she was Latina, and she was pretty. Jesse stood next to her.
'But while these people don't even have running water, sewer, or electricity, they do have one thing forty million Americans still dream of-a highly skilled doctor giving them medical care every day-for free. Colonia Angeles means community of angels, but the angel in this community is named Jesse Rincon, a young doctor who was born in this very colonia and who returned home after Harvard Medical School to care for his people. He built clinics from Laredo to Brownsville, he trained midwives to staff each clinic, and he travels down the border when he is needed. But most days you will find him here, in the clinic in Colonia Angeles.'
She turned to Jesse.
'Dr. Rincon, you care for six thousand patients in this one colonia? Alone, without a nurse?'
'I had a nurse, but she left.'
'Why?'
'A life on the border is a harsh life.'
'Will she return?'
Jesse stared into the camera a moment-almost as if he were staring at Lindsay-then shook his head slowly.
'I do not think so.'
TWENTY-FOUR
'Uh, Governor,' Ranger Roy said. 'I don't know how, but Mrs. Bonner, she, uh… she did it again.'
Ten days later, Bode Bonner sat at his desk staring out the window at the State Capitol dome glowing yellow in the setting sun.
'I know.'
'I'm sorry, Governor. You want me to track her with GPS again?'
