by Taylor Lee
The newspapers postulated that the Rongue Ri captured the little boy and the Sing Leon found him and killed the kidnappers. It was anybody’s guess how the Back Door Saloon owners were involved. The news soon spread that they were part of the Demonios gang, who were fierce rivals of the Tongs. The only group firmly in the clear was the Forrester campaign that from the beginning had proclaimed their innocence. In fact, they were now circulating the rumor that Wyatt had manufactured the whole episode to get sympathy.
~~~
The public weren’t the only ones asking if Wyatt would drop out. It was the number one question at the Blue Canyon Ranch. When Wyatt, Chief, and Alono returned from the Back Door, they gathered up the family and headed back to the ranch. Both Lei and Wyatt wanted to get the children home and in their own beds as quickly as possible, to try to regain what normalcy they could.
When they had checked on each of the children for the third time that evening, they joined the others in Wyatt’s office. In addition to Wyatt and Lei, Wan, Chief, Alono, Joey, and Tom were there. They invited Bai and Nianzu to join the inner circle. Joey was the only one who had not been in Cheyenne and was the one who still seemed the most in shock.
“Whatever you decide, Wyatt,” Tom said, “We need to go public no later than tomorrow morning. If you decide to withdraw, I want to get the news to the newspapers tonight. God knows, given what’s happened, people will understand. What you are up against. Why you’ve decided to do what you’re doing. Right now, I am concerned about the Wyoming papers. We can deal with the national ones tomorrow. The Wyoming papers need the decision tonight.”
The discussion centered on the children. The adults were shaken to the core by what happened. What could have happened? They were still trying to come to grips with how badly their elaborate security precautions failed. Surrounded by nearly a hundred guards, none of them had ever felt more vulnerable. After several hours of back and forth discussion, Wyatt came to his conclusion.
He puffed on his cigar and shook his head ruefully.
“I can’t do it. We all know it. Most important, I know it. My past has caught up with me. My past and now my present. I don’t know why I thought it wouldn’t. Probably my damn ego. Hell, I know I would have been a good governor. I agree, it would have been a hell of a statement for this state to elect someone like me. But being governor is unimportant compared to the children. I can’t and I won’t put my family in this kind of danger.”
Wan nodded. “It isn’t only you, Wyatt. I’m as responsible as you are for what has happened here. From the beginning, my past and my present,” he smiled ever so slightly, “and, let’s face it, my future, make it virtually impossible for all of you to be anything but a target.”
Wyatt said with a slight smile and some relief, “That says it, Wan. So we all agree, the decision has been made.”
The others looked down knowing that these two powerful men were right. They agreed that Wyatt and Wan were lightning rods for violence and bore responsibility for what had happened. Withdrawing, while painful, was the best decision. All nodded in agreement. Except Lei.
Her face flushed slightly as she stood and looked around th circle from one to the other of them. Her voice was calm, her expression serene. “No, I do not agree. And the decision has not been made.”
Wyatt and Wan and the others looked at her in astonishment.
Turning to her father and Wyatt, she said, “Neither one of you is responsible for what happened. The Demonios gang is responsible. If you drop out, Wyatt, every enemy you have and every enemy you have, Father, will know how to bring you down. They will know where you are most vulnerable. How best to attack you.”
Ignoring their incredulous stares, she continued.
“They will try to do that whether you drop out or not. You showed Charlie and his men– and all the other bad men, what will happen if they try to hurt us or our children. They will be killed and killed viciously.
“If you drop out, you will show your vulnerability. Our children will be less safe than they ever were.”
She stood up and walked over in front of Wyatt and looked up at him, ignoring his surprised frown.
“You need to show that you are not and will not be intimidated. You need to stay in the race and, most important, Wyatt, you need to win.”
When Wyatt continued to stare at her in disbelief, she smiled and added, “Furthermore I have decided that I want to be the wife of the Governor of Wyoming. Since you seem to have the best shot at it of the men I know, I want to be your wife, Wyatt. If you’ll have me.”
~~~
The next morning newspapers around the state and nationally all led with a picture of a determined Wyatt and the headline:
“I Won’t Quit and I WILL Win!”
~~~
Chapter 31
“Look, it’s a given. Newspapers need news to survive. Let’s face it, when we don’t have a crisis, we create one. But, Holy Christ, this is too much.”
Joe Chambers commiserated with Will Myers. Both editors were astonished. They tried to be professional, unruffled. There was no way they could keep up. Not only for their own papers, but with all the requests coming from papers around the country.
Joe shook his head in dismay. Counting on one finger at a time he clicked off the astonishing sequence of events.
“Jesus, first Wyatt’s kid is captured and maybe killed. Then he’s found alive. Then half the people in the county are killed, some with hatchets in their heads, others by choking on their dinner. Then the Tong wars come to Wyoming. Then against all odds, Wyatt decides to stay in the race. And now this! This is too much!”
They were staring at the wire that detailed the indictment of Grant Forrester and three members of his campaign committee. The indictment was damning. Grant and his cronies were charged with heading up a prostitution ring, buying and selling underage girls. The news was stunning, the pictures more so. The Washington Post featured four beautiful thirteen and fourteen year old blond, blue eyed girls from San Francisco. The girls told the hideous story of how they had been sold by evil Chinese dealers to Grant Forrester and his company EVI, Inc. and forced into prostitution at one of the hundred brothels owned by EVI, Inc. Later, an enterprising reporter discovered EVI, Inc. stood for Exotic Virgins International. Apparently, the enterprise featured primarily young Chinese girls, although the ones who had come forward were white. The one consistent factor was that none of the girls being offered at the Grant’s brothels was older than fourteen.
The news kept coming. Several insiders came forward to tell what they knew, hoping to avoid prosecution. They detailed how Grant and his cronies were in league with a China based Tong and were buying young Chinese girls and bringing them to America in the bottom of cargo ships. The pictures of the terrified girls – some of them as young as eleven years old – were devastating. But the pictures that led the news were the pictures of American girls. These girls told the reporters and the authorities that questioned them that they had been captured by Chinese Tongs in San Francisco and sold to EVI, Inc. Apparently, the Chinese dealers convinced Grant that the girls were mixed blood Chinese. The girls emphatically denied that they had any Chinese blood and were from good families. They told horrific stories of how they had been stolen off the streets of San Francisco by Chinese thugs who sold them to Grant. At first, the reaction was disbelief, then outrage.
“Those sons of bitches! Goddamn, we’ve been had! Don’t you see? Every goddamn one of the snitches is one of those white guys that we hired in the last two months. Just as long as the fucking campaign for governor has been going on. They have to be plants. Christ, we should have known better. They’re the ones who told us about the blond Chink cunts—the best of all worlds. Goddamn, remember how they said how unusual it was for a Chink to have blond hair and blue eyes? And Christ! We bought it! I’m telling you it’s that son of a bitch Wyatt in cahoots with that fuckin’ bastard Wan Chang.”
Grant railed for more than an hour, pacing u
p and down, taking breaks only to drink more bourbon and read yet another devastating newspaper story.
“So what are we gonna do, Grant? Go to the press and tell on Wyatt? Tell them that he took us and we’re sorry as hell that we’re a bunch of stupid assholes? That he planted the blond cunts so that people would think we were buying and selling American girls instead of Chinks? And we fell for it?” Clarence demanded in a fury.
Grant was surprised at Clarence. He relied on him to have a cooler head, if anything to tamp him down when he got crazy with anger. Now Grant saw he was going to have to be the reasonable one.
“Settle down, Clarence. Look, we have to take them on. Make it clear that this is all part of a campaign tactic. Do our damndest to connect those blond haired bitches to Wan Chang and Wyatt. Show that we’ve been set up. If we can make it all about politics, we can still win.”
Will was as angry as Clarence.
“Goddamn, Grant! Is that all you can think about? Winning the goddamn governor’s race? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison or spend every cent I have on fucking lawyers trying to stay out of jail. You want to win an election?”
Grant exploded.
“Look, you fucking assholes, don’t you get it? The only way we are going to get out of this is to win the governor’s race. Once I’m governor, no one can touch me. I can make sure that no one touches you. That son of a bitch wins and we’re all looking at years of hell, in or out of prison.”
John poured bourbon all around. “I have to admit, you are making sense, Grant. Our biggest vulnerability is not the prostitution – especially if we can prove somehow that those blond bitches have even a drop of Chink blood. There isn’t a goddamn person in this country who cares about a Chink prostitute, no matter how old they are.
“No, the thing that could put us all in prison is if they can prove that we used money from an illegal operation to fund our political campaign.”
“You’re right, John,” said Grant. “I repeat, political corruption is only gonna be a problem for us if I lose. If we win, it’ll go down in the books as smart politics, becuz damnit, we’ll be writing the books!”
He continued, “But just in case, Clarence, you better be rewriting every goddamn financial statement you’ve made for EVI in the last two years. Sharpen your pencil. More important, get out every fucking eraser you have. And move fast. Our biggest problem is that we have four days until the election. We have to turn this story around now.”
John shook his head and said in a disbelieving voice, “I know you don’t wanna hear anything positive about Wyatt, Grant. But, hell, you gotta admit. If he did what we damn well know he did do, and sprung the story less than a week away from the election, he might be as smart a fucking politician as he is a businessman. And, Holy Christ, that is sayin’ something!”
“You can fall all over him, if you want, John. Hell, you can beg to suck his dick for all I care. I tell you there isn’t a full blooded American who is gonna vote a fucking red-skinned Indian into the governor’s house. And Wyoming is filled with full blooded Americans.”
Grant smiled and took a satisfied puff of his cigar.
~~~
Ultimately, it was up to the voters in Wyoming to decide who they wanted as governor. Did they want a half-breed with a penchant for violence, who had intimate connections to the most vicious Chinese gang in the country, but who was smart as hell and didn’t have a corrupt bone in his body? Or did they want an old time politician, one who considered corruption a necessary part of the political game, who was accused of running a prostitution ring that bought and sold underage Chinese girls, but who was as white an American as you could find?
It was a close call.
Two days before the election, Tim Angler, the reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, sidled up to Wyatt at one of his final appearances.
“Can I talk to you for a minute, Wyatt?”
“Sure, what’s up, Tim?”
“I was sitting with my newspaper friends in a San Francisco saloon two days ago. We were discussing the governor’s race. It’s a big story in San Francisco, as I’m sure you know. Imagine my surprise, Wyatt, when a girl walked in who looked a hell of a lot like one of those “American” fourteen year olds who Grant is supposed to have bought from the Chinese. Seeing her up close, she looked a damn sight older than fourteen—twenty at least. Now it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but every person in their group was Chinese. One of them looked a lot like that Bai guy who rides with Wan Chang.”
“Hmm, Tim, that is interesting. Could make for a hell of a story, especially if it breaks the day before the election.”
Wyatt reached in his pocket and pulled out one of his custom cigarettes. He took his time lighting it, enjoying a deep drag of the smoke. He squinted at Tim, a wicked smile tugging at his lips.
“On the other hand, my friend Tom Caldwell, who is the savviest guy I know dealing with newspaper men, taught me long ago that the smartest reporters and editors would give away a big story any day of the week for a great source. You know, Tim, there is a fifty-fifty chance I’m gonna win this election. If I do, you might have the best placed source of any newsman in the country for the next four years.”
He took a drag off his cigarette and grinned. “Guess it all depends if you’re a betting man, Tim.”
Tim shook his head, admiration and disbelief warring over his face. “You’re something else, Wyatt.”
Wyatt winked at him. “So I’ve been told.”
~~~
Wyatt and Tom were sitting in the alcove in his office working on acceptance speeches. Or, as they laughingly called them, two versions of an acceptance speech. One if he won the governorship, the other if he got to go back to being a horse trainer and businessman. They both were writing and would combine their efforts when they finished. Even though he earned his living working with words, Tom was always surprised and impressed by Wyatt’s ability to step in and capture precisely the right word, the right tone.
They both looked up when they heard Lei come in, but before they could say hello, it was clear that she was not alone.
Lei smiled at the shy young man in the hallway. Even when she called out to him he continued to look at the floor. She motioned to him to come in the office.
“Alono, please come here. I want to talk to you.”
They had not spoken privately since that awful day in the barn. She knew he had been avoiding her, but she was determined to speak to him.
“Alono, please come in. I promise I won’t hurt you,” she said with a smile, closing the door behind her. He flushed and moved back against the door.
“Don’t worry, honey. I’m not going to assault you. But I am going to put my arms around you like this—just for a moment.”
When she hugged him, she felt his resistance melt and saw the tears in his eyes.
“Alono, I want to apologize to you. I did a terrible thing to you. I am so sorry. I wanted to hurt Wyatt. Instead I hurt you. I took advantage of you and the fact that you love me. It was a dreadful thing to do. I hope that you will forgive me. I have had a hard time forgiving myself.”
He nodded and said softly, “It’s okay, Lei. I know how much you were hurting. I knew at the time that you didn’t want me… that you only wanted Wyatt. I knew that. That’s why I couldn’t…wouldn’t…well, you know. I wanted to…”
“It’s okay, honey. I know that.
“And, Alono, I appreciate what you wouldn’t do. Thank you for honoring Wyatt and for honoring me the way that you did.”
She stood for a moment looking at him and saw his pain.
“Alono, stop loving me.”
He stared at her and jerked away.
“At least stop loving me the way you have been. I am a taken woman. A one-man woman. Love me like a sister, or a cherished friend, but stop loving me the way you have been.”
He smiled at her through his tears.
She reached out and touched his face. A saucy grin tugged a
t the corner of her mouth.
“Alono, you have a gorgeous cock. It is a huge compliment when I tell you it is almost as beautiful as Wyatt’s. Much too nice to be wasted. Now, go. Find someone worthy of it. Someone who will love you the way you should be loved.”
He flushed and pulled back further, then smiled slightly, and then more broadly. She smiled in return, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. She gave him a little push toward the door.
As he turned to leave, she said, “One more thing, Alono. If you bring someone with blond hair back to this ranch, you can kiss that amazing dick of yours good by.”
He jumped back startled and then smiled. He shook his head as if in wonder at her audaciousness.
“Jesus, Lei.”
She laughed, a luscious peal. “You heard me. Now go.”
He nodded and left, a broad grin on his face.
Lei stood for a moment, looking at the door with a smile and shook her head. She glanced up when she heard a sound and realized that she wasn’t alone. She walked over to the alcove to see Wyatt and Tom, both looking embarrassed.
Wyatt stood up and came toward her.
“Sorry, honey. Tom and I were working in here and couldn’t let…”
“Hell, Lei, I’m not sorry.” Tom broke in with a grin. “I wouldn’t have missed that speech for anything.”
Lei smiled uncertainly, but her eyes were dancing.
Wyatt had turned away and then looked back at Lei, trying hard to be casual, not let his anger show. He said in what he hoped was an unconcerned tone but his anxiety crept through, “You didn’t tell me you saw his cock.”