The Governor's Wife (27 page)

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.

"
¡Apúrate!
"

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 Ángeles.
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!"

"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.

"Like sheep lining up to be slaughtered," Jim Bob said. "American citizens letting a government employee violate them, just because they're scared."

"This is bullshit," Bode said.

"
Caca de toro,
" Miguel said from behind Bode.

Not an exact translation, but close enough.

"It is indeed," Jim Bob said. "All a president has to do is promise to make these sheep safe and secure, and they'll hand over their constitutional rights. Just to fly on a plane."

"Not that," Bode said. "That I've got to fly commercial, go through security like everyone else."

"Oh. Yes, you do."

"Why can't we take the state jet?"

"I told you, Bode, you can fly the Gulfstream all over Texas because Texans don't care. You're Republican, they're Republican, they're gonna vote for you no matter what. Democrats and Independents are irrelevant in Texas."

His phone rang. He checked the caller ID—"MSNBC … as if"—then muted the ringer.

"But if you want to play politics on a national stage, we've got to change your game for a national audience. It's a different market. For some reason—mental illness, lack of education, bad parenting—not everyone in the other forty-nine states is Republican. So things that wouldn't raise an eyebrow in Texas go viral in other states."

"What's that got to do with flying commercial?"

"Because that national audience got mad as hell when they saw Pelosi flying around the country on private jets at taxpayer expense and Boehner skirting the security lines at Reagan Airport. But Pelosi and Boehner did it anyway, because they're tone deaf to the people. Because they think they're better than the people. Bode Bonner doesn't."

"I don't?"

"No. You don't. Bode Bonner is a populist, a man of the people. He flies commercial, he stands in the security line like everyone else, he goes through the scanner like everyone else, he gets felt up like everyone else …"

"He does?"

"He does."

Bode sighed. "Jim Bob, you sure about this?"

The Professor pointed at the security line.

"The path to the White House starts at the back of that line."

"Are we at least flying first class?"

The Professor now regarded Bode as he would a D student.

"Hell, yes, we're flying first class. You and me. Mandy and the kids and Hank are back in coach. We'll go through security with this rabble, but we're sure as hell not sitting back in coach with them for four hours."

But it was a long journey from where he now stood to a safe seat in first class. He had to go through security, walk down the terminal to the gate, loiter among the citizens for an hour, subject himself to possible verbal abuse—a Republican governor out among Democratic voters—and otherwise expose himself to enemy fire. This was his first public appearance since he had shot three Mexicans dead. How would the public react? More specifically, how would the liberals in Austin react? Would he again be greeted with "You're a fucking Nazi!"? Would they toss the f-word and perhaps fast food at him? Would they shoot angry glares and middle fingers at him? And he couldn't exactly hide; he stood six-feet-four-inches tall, and everyone in Texas knew Bode Bonner on sight.

"Jim Bob, you really think this is a good idea? This ain't Lubbock."

"Trust me."

Bode felt as if he were taking the field against Oklahoma—in Oklahoma. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

"Let's do it."

As soon as they took their place at the back of the security line, Bode knew why the Professor had earned a Ph.D. in politics. An obese woman smelling like McDonald's and wearing a stretch sweat suit—why do they do that?—just in front turned to Bode, stared up at him as if in disbelief, and then cried out in a shrill voice.

"Oh, my God! You're Bode Bonner!" She held up her cell phone. "I'm one of your followers!"

The man in front of her turned and stared at Bode. His eyes got wide, and he cried out, "Bode Bonner!" The woman in front of him turned and shrieked, "Bode Bonner—in line with us!" Word ran up and down the serpentine security line and people turned to him like dominoes dropping—

"Bode Bonner!"

"He's in line with us!"

"Can you believe it?"

—until every person standing in line was staring at him and pointing at him and grinning at him with faces as bright as Becca's when he had surprised her with a pony for her fifth birthday. Their hands instinctively came up armed with cell phones. Hundreds of little lights flashed like machine-gun fire and voices called out to him.

"You the man, Bode!"

"Way to go, Governor!"

"We got your back!"

"Send all them Mexicans home in body bags!"

And then the chant rose up from the crowd.

"Bo-de! Bo-de! Bo-de!"

His worries evaporated like spit on the sidewalk in August. He stood there and took it all in and let the people's admiration wash over him like a star athlete who had just won the big game—or a war hero home with victory in hand. And maybe he was. Maybe this was a war. A culture war. The Second Mexican War. A war the American people wanted desperately to win. Maybe they had found their hero.

"Bo-de! Bo-de! Bo-de!"

Stubby arms suddenly clasped him around his waist and put him in a death grip.

"Take my picture, Earl!"

Aw, shit, the fat woman wanted her photo with him.

Bode cleared security first after enduring the full-body scan; he hoped his manliness made him proud on the screen. He put his boots and belt back on and pushed his wallet and other personal items into his pockets. Jim Bob emerged next, grumbling something about "Russia and the goddamned KGB."

"How'd you know these people would react like that?" Bode said.

"I didn't. I had a hunch. Now all those cell phone photos will be posted online, picked up by the news outlets. Bode Bonner, man of the people."

Two of those people, round white-haired women, waddled over in their bare feet and wrapped their Michelin man arms around Bode and squeezed tight. They released him, and one said, "You're even better looking than Regis Philbin." They turned and went over to the conveyor belt to retrieve their personal items.