by George Wier
“You guys,” I said. “You all take the cake. I suppose you all see this as some kind of little revolution. That somehow this is your duty, and if you don’t do it, why, you’re gonna have to answer to the ghost of Sam Houston or something?”
“For somebody who doesn’t know a thing about us,” Sheriff Sample began, “you sure got all the answers. But what you don’t know is that if you don’t help us — ”
“What? You’ll kill me?” I asked, and gave him the stupidest look I could muster.
“Naw. We don’t do that sort of thing unless we have to. Nope. You’ll be comfortable here for a good while. But Governor Sawyer, on the other hand — ”
“What?”
“You don’t help us, Travis? Sawyer’s got a date with a sniper. Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
Milo broke in. “Bill. You think you can head that off? You can forget about helping Governor Sawyer, or anybody. Except if you help us make him step down and line up the Lieutenant Governor for the Governor’s Office, Sawyer lives. That’s the only way you’ll be able to save his life.”
“What about all that stuff? The Vietnamese fishing boats? Graft and influence? You and your boys fabricate all that? I know you didn’t stuff those words in Norman Howell’s mouth.”
I waited. No one answered so I plowed on. “No, maybe I can’t stop a sniper’s bullet from tearing Sawyer’s head off. But I’m not sure I believe you can or will do it. I think you’re all more full of crap than a Christmas turkey.
“Believe it, Bill,” Noah said.
I turned to look at him, briefly, then looked away. I’d lost friends before.
“Make me believe that you’d really do it,” I said. “Then I’ll consider talking to you. Otherwise, I have nothing more to say.”
Milo looked at Sheriff Sample. Sample nodded.
“The football game tomorrow morning,” Milo said. “The Longhorns play the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Sawyer tosses the coin. Even you knew that. There’ll be fifty thousand witnesses to his assassination.”
I took a good long look at Milo Unger and all the other faces around me.
“What’ll it be, Bill?” Milo asked.
I was about to answer when we all heard and felt the explosion.
And then all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We all heard the staccato thrum of rapid arms fire mere moments after the shock wave shook the foundation of the house.
The men around me scrambled past the pool tables, yanked gun cabinets open and grabbed shotguns and rifles and flew out the door. All, of course, except Milo, who stayed put behind the bar. He kept his drink in his hand, looked over at me and winked.
“Somebody doesn’t think well of the Republic,” I said.
Milo shrugged.
I heard a muffled scream. Somewhere outside, probably on the other side of the house.
“Milo,” I said. “Where’s Hap McCorkindale? The pilot.”
“He’s harmless. We told him a tall tale, put him up in a hotel room. He’ll be back home by tomorrow. I wouldn’t kill an innocent like that, Bill.”
“Who would you kill?”
“Not innocents,” he said.
“Sawyer didn’t kill your parents, did he?”
That got his attention. His face grew hard. The muscles in his jaws bunched up.
I heard twin shotgun blasts outside.
“Did he?” I repeated.
“You... know... NOTHING!” Milo spat the words.
“Enlighten me then,” I said.
His jaws un-bunched. The growing redness in his face peaked, then began to drain away.
“You’ve got a picture of mine,” he said. “It was in the box I gave you. Where is it?”
“Outside. In Herrera’s patrol car. Which picture? The one with Sawyer Senior, Junior and Emil Howell?”
“That’s the one.”
“The Posse,” I said.
“The Posse.”
“How would Norman Howell know about some Vietnamese fishing boats that got blown up about the time he was running around in diapers? His father wouldn’t have told him.”
There was a heavy, solid thump that shook the house. I’d say it was the thud of a human body hitting a floor somewhere not far away. The small arms fire had gone silent.
“No. You’re right. He wouldn’t. And didn’t. His step-brother told him.”
“I’ll bet his step-brother told him just days before his unscheduled execution,” I said. I’d never heard about any step-brother.
I looked at Milo’s face. His eyes were flat, staring, unmovable.
“You,” I said.
“Me. We’re leaving, Bill.” His left hand came up from behind the bar. He had a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun in it, his finger on the trigger. The twin barrels looked huge and black.
“Fine,” I said.
*****
Milo motioned me toward the door that led back to the center of the house. I nodded and moved slowly as he stepped around the bar, shotgun trained and unwavering the whole while.
We were halfway to the door when the man with the rifle walked in. The rifle was butted against his shoulder and he had me full in his cross hairs. He stopped, legs spread. I was sure he could see Milo behind me, but I wasn’t sure he could see the sawed off shotgun.
I saw the rifleman jerk in response to something, then I heard the crash of the window shattering behind me. I turned to catch a glimpse of one of Milo’s airborne feet disappearing into the night.
The rifleman’s gun tracked back to me.
“Friend or foe?” he barked.
“Friend,” I said. “I’m Bill Travis.”
“Okay then,” he said, and relaxed, lowering the rifle. He took two paces toward me, grinned, and held out a rock- hard hand.
I shook his.
“Walter Cannon,” he said.
“I’m damned glad to meet you,” I told him.
“Sheriff Sample?” I asked. “Those other fellows?”
“A couple of them got away. I shot the Sheriff,” Walter Cannon said.
“Right,” I said.
“Self-defense.”
“Uh huh,” I agreed. “You talked to my wife, huh? And my buddy Hank Sterling?”
“Yeah, talked to Julie the last time this morning. And Hank. I knew you were heading this way, but when certain things started happening, I knew you and I would have to postpone meeting at my ranch. I had to come get you.”
“I’m glad you did, Walter,” I said.
“My friends call me Walt.”
“Walt. How’d you know I was here?”
“No time for that now. I’ll explain later.”
“Right. Let’s go. We need to catch that guy.” I jerked a thumb toward the window through which a chilling breeze now freely blew.
“Okay,” he said.
Walt Cannon pivoted and ran, and I was right on his heels.
*****
An engine was starting outside near the front of the house.
We ran down the trophy-lined hallway and back into the living room.
Outside there was the sound of tires crunching and slipping on gravel and an engine too-quickly gunned.
I glanced over at the cowhide chair where Milo had been sitting when I first came in. The laptop computer was gone. He’d come back for it.
The front of the house was pelted with gravel from Trooper Herrera’s patrol car doing a Dukes of Hazzard imitation as it peeled out. Glass panes shattered along the front porch.
Walt, whom I took to be six feet two and some hundred and seventy-five pounds of muscle, leapt the living room furniture like it wasn’t there, opened the screen door and fired a shot. The sound was deafening.
“Damn,” he said.
“Missed?” I yelled. My ears were doing funny things.
He turned back to look at me. There was a smile on his face and for just an instant, it gave me a case of the willies.
“Nope,” he said. “I got h
im. I just didn’t bring him down is all.”
“Hey, you seen any telephones around here. I’ve got to make a call to Austin. They’re gonna kill the Governor.”
“I cut the phone lines,” he said. “That’s standard operating procedure, you know. But I’ve got a cell phone in my car. We don’t have to make any calls just yet, though. Let’s reconnoiter the, uh, scene.”
Among the bodies was Sheriff Sample, Darrell Herrera, and several of the men I’d seen who weren’t introduced. A couple of them looked to be the hired help — goons. Heavy-lifting-types. But one of the bodies was a few years old for that kind of work, even though he was a big man. I fished out his wallet. Sure enough he had a driver’s license, a lodge dues card, and a prison system I.D card. Each bore the name I suspected they would: Benjamin Spence.
“No more unscheduled executions, Warden,” I told him.
I looked high and low, but there was no sign of Noah McPherson. I was actually relieved that he wasn’t among the dead. I went back through the house looking for survivors and found none.
Walt was sitting on the front porch when I came back outside.
“You done?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He held out a gun. I didn’t know what kind it was in the near dark, but I took it and stuffed it into my pants.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where’re we going?”
“Hunting.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We sprinted down the steep hill in the night. Above us the stars were out, twinkling lights on a purple and black velvet cloak.
Inside Walt’s Chevy pickup, headlights revealing sage and tumbleweeds in sharp relief, we turned and headed back down into the valley, a wake of fine white dust hanging in the West Texas night air behind us.
The dust from Milo’s passage had already either settled or blown away. I was beginning to wonder how we were going to track him when Walt switched on a police scanner.
Flipping through the channels there was a lot of static and electronically blurred monotone voices seeming to walk all over each other. Then I heard a distinct male voice with a twang from points east say: “ — May need a doc. Meet me at Zero One.”
I looked over at Walt. He turned his head and winked at me.
“Zero One. What’s that?”
“I think I know about where that is. A not-so-secret Republic of Texas secret base out near Marfa. They’ve got more men there and a few big guns. Old military stuff, mostly.”
“Damn,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Serious shit. Which is why I’ve been watching it so close.”
We blew through stop signs at abandoned crossroads in the desert. Walt knew where he was going. I hadn’t a clue.
“This how you found me?” I asked. “Police scanner.”
“Yeah,” he said. “If you listen close and patient-like, they’ll eventually tell you everything over the airwaves. First you were code-name ‘Clairvoyant,’ then somebody started calling you ‘Doofus,’ then you were ‘Flyboy.’ You’ve got more code names than the freakin’ President.”
“Ahh,” I said. “Code names used by the Republic, or by the Governor’s men?”
“What Governor’s men?”
I thought about it. Maybe there weren’t any. So far I’d been purposely fed nothing but disinformation by people with an anti-social agenda.
“Never mind,” I said. “How did you know about the Republic?”
“Those sonsabitches been trying to recruit me for the last six years. After the last time they got their hat handed to them by the Texas Rangers, I knew it was only a matter of time before they resurged and it would all hit the fan again. Some guys, you poison ‘em, you knife ‘em, you shoot ‘em and drown ‘em, they just keep comin’. Don’t know when to lay down and die.”
“Like Rasputin,” I said.
“Yeah. The Russian guy. Never can remember his name.”
“Well,” I said. “Somewhere on this mudball at this moment, somebody’s killing somebody else for a Cause. And they’re convinced.”
“Convinced,” Walt said. “That’s a good way of saying ‘Loony Tunes’”.
“Yeah.”
We quieted down. The night retreated from our headlights and fell back around close behind us as we flew at blurring speeds down country back roads. I felt like we were two men in a spaceship alone between the stars.
I was stiff and sore and my arm ached. I felt strung-out, tired and hungry. In other words, things were about usual.
The police scanner chattered on in its own electronic language that somehow Walt understood perfectly but that I could only catch snatches of — mostly numbers. I had a buddy back in college who used to go around saying that everything reduced down to mathematics. While higher math always had a way of escaping me, I don’t think the chatter would have made any more sense to him than it did to me.
We flew along a ribbon of blacktop with a yellow dotted line tracking the center. Traffic was slight.
I looked at my watch. It was getting on to nine o’clock, and I tried to recall whether or not we were in a different time zone. Not that it mattered at the moment.
I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask Walter Cannon, but I didn’t have to. Forty or so miles down the road he started talking.
“You tell Hank Sterling that he owes me one for saving your hide. That guy feels responsible for you.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. “He saved my life once. You know the old Chinese proverb?”
“About saving someone’s life and being responsible for him from there on out?”
“Yeah.”
“I never bought into that, myself,” Walt said.
“Uh huh. By the way, Hank said something about you having a T-Rex in your front yard. That’s how I was going to find you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “About twenty years back I found this odd-shaped rock that was about six feet long. I thought maybe it was a fossil of some kind. It turned out to be the leg bone of T-Rex. I was gonna put in a dinosaur museum on my ranch, charge admission. Word got out and a whole gaggle of stuffed shirts came down to my ranch, spent six months digging it up, only I didn’t know they were shipping it to New York. Meantime I welded together a big dinosaur from a picture in a book. When they left I had nothing to put on display and the damn monstrosity is still sitting out front. Makes a pretty good lightning rod, though.”
“I’ll bet,” I told him.
In the headlights a jackrabbit darted across the road. We were going around eighty and for an instant I thought we were going to mow it down, but Walt hit the brakes and swerved. The bunny made it and I thought we’d end up in the ditch, but Walt didn’t miss a lick. The fellow had probably just wiped half a dozen men from the face of the Earth, and here he was putting our lives on the line to miss a rabbit.
“Yeah,” he said, as if nothing had happened. “One of these days I’m gonna go up there to New York and get those bones.”
I didn’t doubt that he would.
“What made you want to help?” I asked him.
“Well,” he said. “It’s sort of like this. I had a buddy once. I pulled him out of a hole in the ground in Viet Nam. He used to go down in their caves and lay charges. This time he’d gotten himself bayoneted in the chest. They were gonna give us both Purple Hearts for that one. I got a little shot up pulling him out, see? I never collected my Purple Heart.”
“That makes no sense,” I said.
“Yeah, I know.” he said. “It’s just how I think. Or how I react. Somebody gets in a trap, I gotta let him out. Hank told me that you saved his ass from prison.”
“He walloped an IRS agent over the head with a tow chain once. Hank told me he was just trying to get the fellow’s attention. I guess the guy had thin bones. I didn’t really save Hank, but I can understand how he might feel that way. Hank’s a little dramatic. And he could charm the wings off of a butterfly.”
“That sounds like the fellow I talked t
o,” Walt said.
“You ever hear of the Marfa Lights?” I asked.
“Who hasn’t? What about ‘em?”
“I just saw a light out there in the desert. Maybe it was a house.”
Walt got quiet. After a full minute he said: “I saw it too.”
“How far are we from Marfa?” I asked.
“Not far,” he said.
And then the road sign leapt out at us in the night:
MARFA LIGHTS VIEWING AREA
There were lights in the desert.
Out my side window in Walt’s pickup, I saw a dot of light. It was perhaps five or so miles distant, just above the horizon. As I watched, the light divided and became two lights, each distinctly itself.
Walt slowed. I moved my eyes away from the distant will o’ wisp and back to the road and saw why we were stopping.
Just off the side of the road was a state trooper vehicle. We slowed to a crawl and came up even with it. The driver’s door was open and the dome light was on inside.
And it was deserted.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There is an unwritten rule in life: the very thing that you’re thinking about is exactly what you’re going to pull to you. For instance, you want to fight crime so you hire more police, then bang! you’ve really got crime. Which just goes to prove that thoughts really are things. Like the air they may be invisible, but they really do exist.
And that’s probably how the Marfa Lights — which had held so much of my attention for the past several days — came straight to me.
*****
The male human body contains a good deal of blood. If you were to ask any medical doctor, they’d tell you that the average man holds about seven quarts. If you were to ask any given paramedic or emergency room intern, they’d tell you it seems like a whole lot more than that.
There’s an old saw about how water seeks its lowest level. The same holds true for the blood of life.
There was a perfect round hole in the rear window of the state cruiser where the bullet from Walt’s deer rifle had entered. There was a rip on the lower part of the back of the driver’s-side headrest from the same bullet and a matching exit wound at the base of the front, which was where the blood began. Given Milo’s stature, I was sure that he had a large gash in his right neck. If he was as unlucky as I suspected, and given the evidence of the amount of blood covering the front seat, there was a good chance that a portion of his carotid artery had gotten in the path of the bullet.