Tyranny (18 page)

W
arren Finley thought of himself as an amateur cartographer, and a good one, at that. One thing he had done while he and Woody Todd were exploring and taking inventory on Brannock's ranch was to map all the waterholes in the valley.

Because of that, he wouldn't have any trouble finding another of them to dump Grayson's poison into. As much as the thought of killing more cattle disturbed him, he knew he would go through with it.

Handling some mysterious biological weapon scared him, but making Slade Grayson angry was an even more frightening prospect.

Finley wasn't the only one worried. From the passenger seat of the jeep, Woody said, “I don't like this, Warren. We're gonna wind up getting in a lot of trouble over this. Mark my words.”

“I don't doubt it, but what else can we do?” Finley asked. “We work for Grayson now, and he gave us an order. We have to carry it out.”

“You got the stuff?”

Finley's hands were clenched tightly on the steering wheel as he drove across the valley without lights. He said, “Of course, I have it. What, did you think I was going to forget and leave it in the motel room?”

“Just making sure. If we have to do this, I want to get it done and get the hell outta here.” Todd paused. “Those poor cows.”

Finley knew what he meant. Neither of them were going to give up eating meat, but somehow this was different. This served no purpose except to make life more difficult for G.W. Brannock and push him closer to either surrendering or going off the deep end and giving Grayson an excuse to use force.

Finley wasn't sure which of those options Grayson preferred, but he was starting to get an idea. He didn't like that idea, either. He thought there was a good chance nothing short of bloodshed was going to satisfy Grayson now.

“There it is, just inside the mouth of that little canyon,” he said to his companion. He took one hand off the wheel long enough to point. “We're almost done.”

“Grayson will just come up with some other crappy job for us to do.”

“Probably. But we'll deal with that when the time comes.”

Finley brought the jeep to a stop about fifteen feet from the edge of the waterhole, which was a black, irregular circle in the light from the moon and stars. Both men climbed out.

“I hope this is the last time we have to do this,” Todd said.

“If Grayson goes ahead with his plans and makes his move the day after tomorrow, it should be,” Finley said.

They walked toward the pool. Finley reached up to the breast pocket of his shirt, which was buttoned closed. He unfastened it, reached inside, took out the plastic vial.

He was about to work the stopper out of its neck—oh, so carefully—when a voice said somewhere nearby, “I'd think twice before I did whatever you're about to do, mister.”

Todd let out a started curse and exclaimed, “Not again!”

“I'm afraid so,” Brannock said as he and another man emerged from the shadows deeper in the canyon. There was enough light for Finley to see that both of them were armed. The rifles they pointed at him and Todd were steady, too.

Finley swallowed hard and said, “Please be careful, Mr. Brannock.”

“So it's you two again, is it?” Brannock said disgustedly as he stalked forward. “What's the matter, Grayson can't do his own dirty work? He has to send somebody else to handle it for him?”

“Don't get too close to him, G.W.,” the other man advised. That would be Brannock's grandson Kyle, the former army ranger in training, thought Finley. “There's no telling what that is he's got in his hand.”

“Please, we don't wish either of you any harm—” Finley began.

“Now that's a damned sorry joke,” Brannock interrupted. “All you've been tryin' to do is run me off the ranch that's been in my family for generations. Seems like harm to me.”

“I understand how you feel,” Finley said. “But the situation has changed. This isn't your ranch—”

“Just shut your trap. I don't want to listen to that bull, especially after you varmints killed some of my cattle.”

Todd said, “We're sorry about that.”

“Then why'd you do it?”

“We didn't have any choice—”

“People always have a choice,” Brannock said. “It's just that sometimes they're hard ones. Now, we're goin' back to the ranch house, and I'm callin' the sheriff. No matter what happens in the future, right now you two are trespassin', and I've got a right to turn you over to the law. I reckon that bottle of devil's brew in your hand will be evidence. I'm lookin' forward to seein' what the law can find out about—”

A brilliant beam of light suddenly shot out and hit both Brannocks, causing them to step back involuntarily and fling up an arm to block the blinding glare.

“Run!” another voice shouted. “Get out of here!”

The waterhole was between the BLM agents and the two Brannocks. That would slow down the pursuit. Finley and Todd turned and sprinted toward the jeep. Finley kept his hand closed tightly around the vial of poison. He didn't want to drop it and leave it behind.

As the light snapped out, Finley expected to hear the rifles roaring and feel bullets smashing into him at any second, but that didn't happen. The Brannocks weren't cold-blooded killers, he supposed, and he was thankful for that. He and Todd piled into the jeep, and Finley's hand found the key in the ignition and twisted it desperately.

The motor caught instantly. One-handed, Finley spun the wheel and tromped down on the gas at the same time. Dirt and gravel flew into the air as the tires slid and then caught. Finley headed the vehicle away from the waterhole as fast as he could.

Long moments went by before he stopped worrying about shots coming after them.

“Who . . . who the hell was that?” Todd panted.

“The man who helped us, you mean?” Finley shook his head and said, “I have no idea.”

Kyle had the butt of the Winchester snug against his shoulder. He knew he could bring down one and possibly both of the fleeing federal agents, but he hesitated as his finger tightened on the trigger.

G.W. must have been feeling the same thing, because he said, “Hold your fire, son. I don't hold with shootin' a man in the back, even if he is a thief.”

Kyle lowered the rifle and said, “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Bright spots still danced in front of his eyes. “What the hell happened just now?”

“Don't know, but I intend to find out. Come on.”

They moved quickly in the direction the unexpected voice had come from, along with the blinding light. Kyle knew his grandfather hoped to catch whoever had been behind that light.

“We could be waltzing right into a trap, you know,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, but I don't think so. That didn't sound like a fella who'd be settin' a trap. And it sure as blazes wasn't Grayson.”

Kyle agreed with that. The voice of the man who had shouted to Finley and Todd had been totally different from Grayson's smug tones.

They moved quickly along the base of the bluff near the canyon mouth where the waterhole was located. Kyle thought there was a good chance their quarry was gone by now, but then he heard rocks rattle somewhere not far ahead of them. The guy was still up there somewhere, probably trying to get away but not doing a very good job of it.

Suddenly, G.W. lifted his rifle and barked, “Hold it right there, mister! I see you, and if you move again I'll drill you.”

Kyle doubted that his grandfather really would shoot—but the man who had been fleeing through the darkness didn't know that.

As his eyes continued to adjust, Kyle spotted the figure, too. The man stood with his arms raised. As Kyle and G.W. approached warily, he said, “Don't shoot. I'm unarmed.” He paused, then added, “Well, I have a flashlight, but that doesn't really count, does it?”

“Just stand still and don't make any sudden moves,” G.W. told him. “I've got a hunch you're another of those government types, and I'm not overly fond o' you boys right now. Who are you, and what're you doin' out here on my ranch?”

“My name is Barton Devlin,” the man replied. Kyle was close enough to him now to see moonlight reflecting off the lenses of Devlin's glasses as he went on. “As for what I'm doing out here . . . I'm not sure that I really know.”

“Wait a minute,” G.W. said. “Devlin . . . Blast it, I know that name.”

“You should. I sent you a letter recently.”

“Now I remember!” G.W.'s voice fairly shook with anger. “You're that son of a bitch from the Internal Revenue Service who said he was gonna take my ranch away from me!”

K
yle and G.W. marched Devlin back to the pickup. As they walked, the IRS agent said, “My car is parked about a quarter of a mile from here.”

“Somebody'll come get it later,” G.W. told him. Kyle could tell that his grandfather was still furious, but G.W. had his emotions under control, as usual.

“Thank you. It's a rental, you know. I wouldn't want anything to happen to it.”

“You may have bigger problems than that,” G.W. said ominously. “This is a big ranch. Lots of places where a fella could disappear and never be seen again.”

“Your threats don't frighten me, Mr. Brannock. I know you're not a killer.”

“Yeah, well, I've never been backed into a corner quite like this before, either.”

Kyle heard Devlin swallow hard. The government man might be getting a little nervous.

That was good. It made him more likely to answer questions.

Instead of all three of them crowding into the pickup's seat, Kyle suggested, “Why don't Devlin and I ride in the back? I can keep an eye on him that way, and he can't try anything.”

“Good idea,” G. W. agreed.

Devlin said, “You don't have to worry about me. I'm not a violent man.”

“Let's just make sure of that,” Kyle said as they reached the pickup. He lowered the tailgate, then used the rifle barrel to motion to Devlin. “Climb in.”

Awkwardly, the government man did so. Kyle told him to go all the way to the front and sit with his back against the cab. When Devlin had done that, Kyle closed the tailgate and climbed in over it. He sat down with his legs crossed and the rifle across his lap.

G.W. got behind the wheel and started the pickup toward the ranch. As they rode, Kyle asked, “Why did you follow Finley and Todd out here, Devlin? You fellas work for different agencies, don't you?”

“Yes, I work for the IRS,” Devlin replied. “Worked for it, I should say. I strongly suspect that I don't have a job there anymore.”

“Why not?” Kyle asked with a frown.

“Because I was ordered to return to Washington, but I'm still here. The service dropped the case against your grandfather.”

“Really? Because of that injunction his lawyer got?”

“What? I don't know anything about an injunction. No, my impression was that we were pressured to step aside in favor of the Bureau of Land Management.”

Devlin was being a little more talkative than Kyle had expected, so it might be wise to keep the pump primed. Kyle said, “Pressured by who? Who's more powerful than the IRS?”

Devlin let out a little bark of laughter, but he didn't really sound amused.

“You're joking, aren't you, Brannock?” he asked.

“I'm deadly serious,” Kyle assured him.

“There are any number of agencies in Washington equally as powerful, or more powerful, than the IRS. It all depends on how closely they're linked to the seat of ultimate power.”

“The White House,” Kyle said.

“Exactly. The executive branch has expanded and consolidated its power over the past three decades until the system is no longer equal. With one party controlling the White House and having supermajorities in both houses of Congress and a seven-to-two advantage on the Supreme Court . . .”

Devlin shrugged as his voice trailed off.

“What you're saying is that for all practical purposes, the President is now a dictator,” Kyle said.

“That's not necessarily a
bad
thing,” Devlin argued. “With the obstructionists dealt with, by and large, the government can actually get its work done—”

“You mean it can grow faster and faster and gobble up more and more of everything people used to own and control more and more of people's lives.”

Devlin leaned forward, evidently agitated. He said, “But . . . but that's what government is
supposed
to do, isn't it? Control things? Keep people safe, even from themselves?”

Softly, Kyle said, “There was a time when the government in this country kept people free.”

Devlin shook his head and said, “Freedom of the sort you're talking about is . . . messy. It's inefficient and unfair. That's why government has to step in and make things right. I mean . . . the government knows best.”

The man was really brainwashed, thought Kyle. Devlin actually believed the drivel he was spouting.

“At least . . . I always thought it did,” Devlin added, then he sighed.

Now, that was interesting. The fella sounded a little disillusioned, as if he might be starting to see that the fairy tale he had believed in for so long was nothing but an elitist, statist fantasy that couldn't function in the real world unless the government had plenty of jackboots and “reeducation camps” to impose its will. True freedom had to be stamped out before the progressives' warped version of freedom could take hold. That was why they had been trying to take away everyone's guns for so long.

The feel of the Winchester in Kyle's hands was reassuring proof that so far, they hadn't quite succeeded.

But as true believers, the Democrats couldn't give up.

And so the pockets of resistance, the holdouts like Texas where freedom—the real deal—still existed, had to be just as vigilant and stubborn. Otherwise, what was once the true America would someday vanish, never to be seen again.

It was a depressing feeling, but Devlin's words offered a ray of hope. Kyle said, “You're starting to see that everything's not exactly the way you thought it was, aren't you?”

“I was told that your grandfather has been systematically cheating on his taxes for years now—”

“That's a lie,” Kyle said. “G.W.'s as honest as the day is long, and a damned good citizen. A better citizen than this government today deserves. He'd never cheat on his taxes or anything else, and his lawyer has the documentation to prove it.”

“I've seen the results of the audit,” Devlin insisted. “If it's accurate . . .”

Again he didn't continue. Kyle said, “You don't believe that audit is right, though. Or at least you're starting to have some doubts.”

“I'd have to see it for myself,” Devlin insisted with a note of stubbornness coming back into his voice. “I'd have to see the numbers.”

“Maybe that can be arranged,” Kyle said. Miranda had all those numbers. If she showed them to Devlin, maybe she could convince him the government's case against G.W. was built on a pack of lies. Kyle didn't know what good it would do in the long run to convince the IRS agent of that, but as far as he could see, it wouldn't hurt anything.

“I'd be willing to look at them with an open mind,” Devlin said.

“I'll talk to G. W. Now, what do you know about the BLM trying to take over the ranch? How in the world could they have any use for it?”

“I don't know,” Devlin replied with a shake of his head. “I honestly don't.”

“Why'd you step in to help Finley and Todd get away?”

“I'm not sure about that, either. There's no real love between their agency and mine, of course . . . my former agency, more than likely . . . but when I saw they were in trouble, I just . . . felt the urge to help them. After all, we're all fellow government employees. Or at least we were. . . .”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Kyle asked, “What are you gonna do if you find out everything you thought you knew is wrong, Devlin?”

“I . . . I don't know,” Devlin replied, and the hollow tone in the government man's voice told Kyle that he found the prospect horrifying.