The Governor's Wife (51 page)

Any moment, anytime, anywhere—a bullet could slam into his head. Bode turned his eyes up to the animal heads on the wall—now he knew how they felt. The only difference was, he knew he was being hunted. He knew they were coming after him.

Bode Bonner had hunted all his life. Now he was the hunted.

Mandy Morgan's body, encased in a cardboard box, was slid into the natural-gas-fired furnace at the crematorium at nine-thirty the following Monday morning, exactly forty-eight hours to the minute after the time of her death shown on the death certificate signed by the Travis County Chief Medical Examiner. Ninety minutes later, the sixteen-hundred-degree fire had vaporized her body tissues and organs and reduced the physical being that was Mandy Morgan (and her unborn child) to skeletal remains. Which remains were collected and pulverized by the cremulator until they were ashes. She had weighed one hundred ten pounds in life; in death, her ashes weighed only three and a half pounds and were placed in a silver urn at her mother's request. Madeline Morgan, James Robert Burnet, and Governor Bode Bonner witnessed the cremation. Madeline cried; Bode sat stunned; Jim Bob paid the $500 cremation fee from the campaign petty cash fund. The Travis County District Attorney filed a written request for an autopsy with the Medical Examiner's Office at precisely 11:07 that morning.

Jim Bob drove Mrs. Morgan to the airport for her flight back to Odessa with the urn containing her daughter's ashes cradled in her arms like an infant. Bode returned to the Mansion and found the kids playing soccer on the south lawn. With no adult supervision. He walked over to Josefina. She again wore the yellow dress, as if it were her only item of clothing.

"Where's Becca?
¿Dónde está
Becca?"

"
Duerme
."

¿Duerme?

"
¿Qué?
"

"
Está durmiendo.
"

Bode turned his palms up.

"
¿Qué?
"

"Becca … she …"

Josefina put her hands together and lay her face on her hands and closed her eyes. As if sleeping.

"She's sleeping?"

"
Sí. Duerme.
"

Bode checked his watch.

"It's almost noon."

He went inside and upstairs to Becca's room. He knocked but she didn't answer. He opened the door and peeked in. She was still sleeping. He went over to the bed and sat next to his daughter bundled under a blanket even though it wasn't cold. Becca Bonner never used to sleep till noon. Back on the ranch, she'd be up at dawn to ride her horse or brand cows or practice volleyball before school. She had been an active, athletic, fearless girl. Now she was a frightened, fearful, depressed child hiding from the world in bed. It was his fault. His actions had put her in this state. He put his hand on his daughter over the blanket and gave her a little shake.

"Becca, wake up. It's almost noon."

No response.

"Come on, honey, you can't stay in bed all day. It's not healthy."

Still no response.

"Becca."

He stood and yanked the blanket off her. Saliva hung from her mouth. Her face was pale. He shook her hard this time and slapped her face. No response.

She was unresponsive.

"Becca!"

"Don't tell Mom, okay?"

Two hours later, Texas Rangers stood guard outside the emergency room at Austin General Hospital in downtown. Inside, Bode Bonner sat in a chair next to his daughter's bed. They had pumped her stomach. Alcohol and sleeping pills.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was just trying to sleep. I'm afraid to shut my eyes."

This was his fault, too.

"Daddy, I want to go home."

"To the Mansion?"

"To the ranch."

The Double B Ranch comprised five thousand acres of Hill Country land outside Comfort, Texas, population 2,358. The ranch had been in the Bonner family since 1868, when Samuel Bode Bonner, fresh off fighting in the Civil War, returned to Texas and bought the land for $800 cash. No one knew how he had come into such a fortune.

Samuel married Rebecca. They had five children. Two died before age ten; two more died without having married. Thus, the ranch went to the last surviving child, Benjamin Bode Bonner.

Ben married Jean. They had one child who survived birth, Henry Bode Bonner.

Henry married Elizabeth. They had two children. Emma Elizabeth, the daughter, died in a car wreck on Interstate 10 when she was sixteen. William Bode, the son, became governor of Texas.

Bode Bonner turned the Suburban through the gates under the Double B brand. Becca sat next to him in the passenger seat; Lupe, Miguel, and Alejandro sat in the middle seat, and Josefina sat in the third seat.

"
¿La hacienda?
"

"Yep. This is our ranch."

Jim Bob had remained in Austin to write the keynote speech that Bode would give at the governors' conference in two weeks in Dallas. Bode had convinced his Texas Ranger bodyguards that if they stayed in Austin and made daily trips about town in the caravan of black Suburbans and Jim Bob issued daily press releases and tweets from the Governor's Office, everyone would think the governor was still in Austin; that he was safer alone than with large Rangers attracting attention. And besides, no one could find the Double B Ranch without a guide.

At least he didn't think so.

The long caliche road led to a modest house high on a hill that overlooked wide valleys east and west where the cattle grazed under the hot August sun. Bode parked the Suburban under the shade of an oak tree. The kids bailed out and stretched after the two-hour drive. A white-haired Mexican man rode up on a white stallion trailed by a big German shepherd. The man dismounted and embraced Lupe, his sister. The dog ran to Bode.

"Shep!"

Bode greeted the dog then stood to greet the man.

"
Señor
Bode, it has been a while."

Ramón Sendejo's hands were strong from a life of hard work, the last sixty years on the Double B Ranch. He had come with his own father when he was only eight; he had never left the ranch. He turned to Becca and held his arms out to her.

"
Señorita
Becca, you have finally come home to Ramón."

She threw herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. Ramón's eyes cut to Bode, his expression asking if she was all right. Bode nodded. When Ramón released Becca, he turned to the children.

"And who are these
niños?
"

"Miguel and Alejandro, and this little gal is Josefina."

"And would you
niños
like to ride the horses?
¿Montar caballo?
"

The boys broke into big smiles—"
¡Sí!
"—but Josefina shook her head.

"I will make them
vaqueros
,
Señor
Bode, just as I made you. Come, Chelo has lunch for the travelers."

Becca and the kids led the way to the house. Ramón lowered his voice to Bode.

"These are the children from that day in West Texas?"

"The ones I still have."

"What you did that day,
Señor
Bode, that was a good thing."

They went into the house where they found Ramón's wife and the aroma of Mexican food in the kitchen. Consuelo—known as "Chelo"—came to Bode and embraced him.

"
Señor
Bode. I am very happy that you are not dead." She looked past him. "And where is the
señora?
"

When Bode had called Ramón to tell him they were coming, he only said that Lindsay would not be with them. He had not explained why.

"She's out of town."

Chelo looked into his eyes, then dropped hers. As if she understood.

"I have lunch." She turned to the children. "Come,
niños
, wash your hands."

Everyone washed up in the kitchen sink and then sat at the table. Enchiladas, dark rice, and refried beans. Bode Bonner had grown up on Chelo's food.

His grandfather had built the hacienda-style house; his father had added on; Bode had put in the swimming pool for Becca and her friends. There were four bedrooms and four bathrooms, a great room with the kitchen at one end and the stone fireplace at the other, an office, laundry, and mud room. Bode had lived every day of his life in this house, except the four years he had lived in the UT football dormitory and the eight years in the Governor's Mansion. Ramón and Chelo lived down in the creek house. Lupe had lived with them until Bode had taken her to the Governor's Mansion. The four
vaqueros
lived in the bunkhouse. They ran five thousand head of cattle on the ranch. Some years they made a little money, some years they lost a little money. You didn't ranch cattle to get rich. You ranched because it was your life. What you knew.

After lunch, Becca took the kids swimming. Bode rode out with Ramón and Shep the dog. Bode's horse was named King. The big bay had been sired on the ranch and would die on the ranch, just as Bode's father and mother had died on the ranch. His sister, Emma, had died on the interstate, but she too was buried on the ranch. Bode and Becca were the last of the Bonner breed. When he died, the ranch would be hers. Given her sexual preference, Bode didn't figure on grandkids.

Who would take care of the ranch when Becca was gone?

They rode to the Bonner family cemetery where eleven white headstones stood. They dismounted and went inside the white picket fence under the shade of a tall oak tree. Bode's great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, mother and father, and big sister. Emma had been special. Blonde and beautiful, tough and smart—she had been the queen of the rodeo and the rodeo star. She was the Bonner who would make the family proud. Then she was gone. Then they were all gone. His sister when he was thirteen, his parents when he was sixteen. Ramón and Chelo had taken him the rest of the way to manhood. They had cheered him in the stands as if he were their own son. Ramón was a wise old man who had helped Bode the boy through the dark days. He had something to say.

"When
Señorita
Emma died, I knew more death would follow. After your
madre
died, and then your
padre
so soon after, you were lost … until the
señora
came into your life. Your path is with her. It has always been so."

Ramón mounted up and rode off to check on the herd in the west pasture. Bode rode on to the far hills, the highest point on the ranch. From there he could see the entire ranch—and the entirety of his life on the ranch. It had been a simple life, a good life, the country life. He had been happy living this life. He had been a boy here, until his father taught him how to be a man here. He had buried his mother here and then his father. He had married and become a father here. He had lived his life here. And the life he had lived here had been a real life.

Why had he left this life?

He had told himself back then that he was leaving to do good, and perhaps that was true at first. But there was no lying to himself now. His parents had put him on a straight path here on this ranch, but he had veered off course onto another path, one that took him to the State Capitol and then the Governor's Mansion and might even take him to the White House. Was that Bode Bonner's path in life?

He sat on his horse and pondered Ramón's words.

And he wondered if Bode Bonner had made the family proud.

He rode back to the house and joined the kids in the pool. He put on a good face for them, but the image of Mandy's face being blown off kept him constant company now. He still couldn't believe she was gone. Because of him.

He got out and sat in a lounge chair under an umbrella next to Becca. It was good to have kids playing in the pool again. They had wanted more children, but the pregnancy was difficult; the doctor said the next one could be dangerous. So Becca was an only child.

"I wish Mom was here," she said.

"Me, too."

"Do you really?"

He nodded. "We need her."

"You hurt her."

"I know."

"What are you going to do about that?"

"I don't know."

"Are you going to try to get her back?"

"I'm not sure she wants me back."

"You're part of her."

Josefina played in the pool. The therapist had helped her. Each day Bode saw the little girl emerge from the frightened soul they had rescued that day in West Texas.

"We need to buy her a new dress," Becca said. "Her yellow one is getting ratty, she wears it every day."

"Find her a new one in town."

"I don't want to leave the ranch."

Bode patted his daughter's hand. Josefina now climbed out of the pool and came over. Bode tossed her a towel. She wrapped the big towel around her little body then stepped to him and gave him a hug.

"What's that for?"

Becca had learned Spanish from Ramón and Chelo and the
vaqueros
. She translated. Bode had never bothered to learn their language. So he spoke Spanglish, the Tex-Mex butchered version, like a Texan cooking Mexican food. It was about time he learned the language.