The Governor's Wife (53 page)

He had laughed and said, "Hell, I just plucked you out of cow shit—I didn't rescue you from Indians on the warpath."

"You're a good man," she said. "I'm proud to be your wife."

She wasn't proud anymore.

Now, all these years later, for some reason that he could not put into a complete thought, Bode Bonner wanted desperately to make her proud again. To be her hero again. He needed that. It was the part of him that was missing.

They had married after she graduated from UT with a nursing degree. She joined him on the ranch. And there they would still be had Ronald Reagan not won the presidency in 1980. Democrats had controlled the State Capitol since Reconstruction, but Reagan carried Texas and gave Republicans in Texas hope. That hope came to Comfort in the nineties. Republicans were plotting a takeover of state politics, and they needed young attractive candidates to run against old incumbent Democrats. Bode Bonner was thirty-one years old when ambition came into his life again. He had grown bored on the ranch. He again looked beyond the fences. Out there somewhere was excitement. Challenges. An adventure for Bode Bonner.

Perhaps in politics.

He had already run for the state legislature as a Democrat and lost to the incumbent in the primary. He then became a Republican and ran against the same incumbent in the general election. He won. The state legislature was a part-time job, only one hundred forty days every two years, so they had still lived at the ranch. Four sessions later, he ran for the Governor's Mansion and won. That was a full-time job, so they had moved to Austin. Four years after that, he had won again. His political career had soared—and his wife could no longer keep him grounded.

Between Comfort and Austin, he had lost his way.

He was governor-for-life, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. Ambition and testosterone drive a man to greatness—and then to self-destruction. No man can stop when he's ahead. Not when there's more to be had. More money. More power. Higher office. Younger women. Ambition drives him forward and testosterone makes him want more, always more—until he destroys himself. And those around him.

It is man's nature.

Was it God's desire? Did God really want Bode Bonner in the White House?

He stared up at the crucifix above the altar in the Catholic church he had attended as a boy with his family. Where he had received communion and professed his faith in God. But he had lied. He didn't believe in God. He believed in Bode Bonner. Until that day at Kerbey's—until he had survived an assassination attempt—he had never thought much about God. He had thought about himself.

He had given in to his demon: ambition.

He wasn't God's chosen one. That was pure delusion fueled by ambition not faith. It was not real. What was real was that he loved his wife and daughter, but he had squandered their love. So his wife had left him and his daughter hated him. He had betrayed them both and now paid the price. Just as Hank and Darcy and Mandy had paid the price of living in the shadow of an ambitious man. It's a dark place. A dangerous place. They were dead, innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of Bode Bonner's ambition. They would never laugh or love again; they would never have children or be someone's child again; they would never live again. Their lives were over—because of him. His ambition had killed them as surely as if he had pulled the trigger. Their deaths were on his tab. He turned his eyes up to the crucifix above the altar. They had died for nothing.

Unless.

At two the next morning, Hector Garcia and his two
soldados
parked the SUV under a stand of trees just down from the entrance to the governor's ranch north of San Antonio. They donned night-vision goggles and slung silenced weapons over their shoulders. Not that anyone would hear the gunfire—the ranch was in the middle of nowhere—or the governor's death cries.

They hiked up the caliche road to the house on the hill. A dog barked out front of the house. Hector put the beast down with one silent shot. When they arrived at the house, they tried the front door. It was unlocked. He shook his head; the
gringos
live such sheltered lives. They entered the house.

Five minutes later, everyone sleeping in the house lay dead.

Hector removed his goggles and turned on the lights.

"The saw, for I must take the governor's head to
el jefe
."

The
soldado
handed him the small serrated blade. They returned to the large bedroom and stepped over to the bed. Hector turned the bloody head over and—he recoiled.

"Who is that?"

"The governor?"

"No. That is not the governor. That is an old man."

"Perhaps it is his father."

They checked the other dead Anglos. None was the governor of Texas.

"Who are these people?" Hector said.

The
soldado
shrugged. They returned to the main room where they found the other
soldado
eating in the kitchen. He held up a chicken leg.

"Barbecue. It is good."

Hector searched the room and found the mail. He read the name on the envelopes, blinked hard to clear his eyes of the gunpowder, and read again. He held up an envelope to his
soldado
.

"This is the Double V Ranch. I said Double
B
, as in boy. Not
V
as in Victor."

Hector threw his hands up.

"Ay-yi-yi."

Governor Bode Bonner stood naked—he had no teleprompter, just his handwritten notes—before the other forty-nine governors finishing off their chicken entrées and pecan pie desserts and the cameras carrying his speech live on cable television. He was the keynote speaker at that year's governors' conference in Dallas. He spoke in the voice of a man irrevocably changed by death.

"In the last two months, I killed six members of a Mexican drug cartel and survived two assassination attempts—but three people close to me did not. I went from obscure governor to American hero to leading presidential candidate to object of scorn and back to hero. After the last assassination attempt, I realized that I needed to reconsider my life. So I went back to where my life began, to the ranch that was my father's ranch and my grandfather's ranch before me, the land where Bonner men had lived good and decent and honorable lives for over a hundred years. I spent the last two weeks reevaluating my life—who I used to be and who I want to be. I decided I want to be the man I used to be."

He glanced over at the Professor standing in the corner. His hands were spread and grasping his speech—the speech Bode was not giving that night. His expression was that of Dr. Frankenstein watching his creation think for himself. For the first time in his political career, Bode Bonner was his own boss.

"I used to be a cattle rancher. I wore old boots and old jeans and an old cowboy hat. I rode a horse. I drank beer. I never heard of Twitter.

"But once in the Governor's Mansion, I started wearing Armani suits and French-cuffed shirts and the finest handmade cowboy boots. I drank bourbon. I sprayed my hair. I became more concerned with polls than people, more worried about how many followers I had on Twitter than how many teachers I had to fire.

"That's what ambition does to a man.

"I stand before you a man seduced by ambition and corrupted by politics.

"Politics changed me. I was once a Democrat and then I became a Republican and then a tea party favorite. I was once a good man and then I became a politician. I once had character but then I became a character.

"But looking death in the eye changes a man.

"I stand before you a changed man.

"I lost my way. That happens to men in politics. We're driven by testosterone to make our mark on the world, but too often it's not a mark our children can be proud of. We play politics as if it's just a game, but it isn't a game to the people. Politicians have let the people of America down. I've let the people of Texas down.

"I'm going to try to do something about that."

Bode Bonner walked off the stage to silence.

The next morning Bode walked into the Governor's Office to find Jim Bob waiting with the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House. Bode sat behind his desk.

"Governor, what's this all about?" Mack Murdoch said. "Calling us in on a Sunday morning."

"Mack, Dicky, we're gonna revise the budget."

"How?"

"We're not firing teachers, and we're not closing schools. We're not cutting education funding. We're increasing it. A lot."

"Bode—"

He cut Jim Bob off with a raised hand.

"Where's the money coming from?" the speaker said.

"Your ideas, Dicky. Reform the property tax and expand the business tax to services. All the revenues will be dedicated to pre-K through twelve education. Every penny."

"We're gonna catch hell from the business community."

"And we're gonna tap the rainy day fund. All of it."

"We're gonna catch hell from the tea party."

"Gentlemen, Texas is dying. The only way to save our state is to educate our kids. If we don't educate them, we're going to incarcerate them. I don't want kids sentenced to prison on my watch. We'll cut everything except education."

"Why are you doing this, Governor?"

"Because we're those kids' only hope … and I don't want to make my wife a liar."

Bode stood.

"That's the legislative agenda for the next session. Get to work, boys."

"What about John Ed Johnson's special bill?"

"Forget about it."

Jim Bob stood. "Bode, he pledged fifty million to the Super PAC."

There was a knock on the door, and Helen stuck her head in.

"Mr. Burnet, there's an emergency call for you."

Jim Bob followed her out the door. Bode looked back at the speaker, who was eyeing him.

"What are you looking at, Dicky?"

"A real goddamn governor."

"You cussed."

"Special occasion."

"Governor, I don't want to take the heat for raising taxes," the lieutenant governor said.

"I'll take it."

"I'll be by your side," the speaker said.

"Aw, hell, now you boys are making me feel bad," the lieutenant governor said. "Guess we came this far together, might as well see how this story ends. I'm in. Let's kick some ass at the Capitol."

The door opened, and Jim Bob entered. His face seemed pastier than normal. He walked to his chair and sat down hard. He stared at his hands. Bode glanced at the speaker and the lieutenant governor. Both shrugged. After a long moment, Jim Bob blew out a breath and spoke.

"John Ed Johnson is dead."

"
What? How?
"

"They killed him. That cartel. They killed them all. John Ed, Pedro, Rosita … all the animals, too. Except the lion."

Manuel Moreno sat before a campfire on the Johnson ranch in the Davis Mountains. He was cooking breakfast. He had lived on the land for almost five months now, since the governor shot Jesús and the others that day. The
gringos
assumed he would make a run for the border, but he did not. He hid out on the ranch, and here he had been ever since.

Waiting.

He was promised much money for assisting the cartel with the marijuana farm. But the girl had attempted an escape the same day the governor had come out to hunt for the African lion; their fates had aligned that day. First harvest was only weeks away; Manuel's money was within his grasp, only to go up in smoke. The
gringos
burned the plants. And his future. He had watched the fire from the distance.

And felt the anger rise within him.

He had planned to take the money and go farther north, to buy land in Montana, perhaps, and to live the American Dream. But his American dream had been stolen from him by the
gringos.
Each day the anger grew. He watched as the Anglos came to the ranch and paid much money to kill
Señor
John Ed's game animals. He watched as
Señor
John Ed drove around the ranch in the Hummer as if he were a king. He watched through binoculars as
Señor
John Ed climbed on top of Rosita each night.

And the anger grew stronger.

Two days ago, the anger won out. Manuel had taken the AK-47 that Jesús had given him and gone to the lodge. He had walked inside at dinner time, when he knew
Señor
John Ed would be in the dining room and Rosita would be serving him food and Pedro would be pouring his bourbon. He killed them all. Then he killed every animal he found. He had never before eaten antelope, but it was quite good, especially when mixed with beans and wrapped in a tortilla, as he was now preparing. Manuel felt a presence and turned his head just in time to see the lion's jaws spread wide as the beast lunged at him. He felt the lion's mouth take his head and then the sharp teeth puncturing his face and skull. He dropped the tortilla.

Congressman Delgado rolled the flour tortilla filled with
migas
and
salsa
and took a big bite. Jesse sipped coffee. They were at Luis Escalera's café for Sunday breakfast. Jesse had heard that the congressman was in town that weekend; he had called his office and asked to meet with him.