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  “Nobody watched the segment by Dr. Farnot on the heartbreak of facial hair on teenage girls. I thought that piece was exceptionally well done.”

  “I was enthralled by our piece placing the blame of the upswing in gang violence on either the lack of vitamin C or the Republican party. I thought it was very timely.”

  “I just don’t understand it,” another executive said, waving a handkerchief. “They didn’t even run my favorite piece about the success of midnight basketball for disadvantaged youth.”

  “They didn’t run it because while the game was going on there were two stabbings on the court and a thirteen-year-old girl got gang-raped in the locker room,” it was pointed out.

  “That doesn’t mean the program isn’t working,” the hanky-waver rebutted.

  A woman stood up and closed her briefcase. “You just don’t get it,” she said. “None of you. And I doubt you ever will. We, and the other networks, are perceived by a large percentage of the population as antigun, liberal to the core, soft on crime, and pandering to punks. We’re losing viewers because we don’t run stories that a vast number of Americans want to see. Americans are overtaxed, overlegislated, drowning in federally mandated paperwork, distrust and in many cases openly hate their own government. They think the majority of senators and representatives are a bunch of crooks, live in fear behind barred windows and locked doors in their own homes... while we run stories about ingrown toenails, facial hair on teenage girls, carp every goddamn night about the Mideast—when only about five percent, or less, of the American public actually gives a big rat’s ass what happens over there—we’ve all stopped editorializing because our editorials were so damned liberal it made the average American want to puke . . . and you people can’t understand why the Coyote Network News just kicked our asses right off the ratings scale. Me? I’m going home. Providing, of course, I can get there without being mugged, or raped, caught up in a drive-by shooting, don’t get run over by a drunk driver who already has been ticketed for DWI fourteen times and is still driving . . . or any number of equally depressing scenarios, while you people are sitting around here discussing tomorrow’s news, contemplating about whether to run a piece on Mongolian yak drivers or the lack of political correctness in America. Personally, I’d opt for the yak drivers. Americans are much more likely to watch that. It has some human interest value. Animals, you know? Good night.”

  * * *

  The morning was cool, and Stormy lingered for a time under the covers. She had told herself a hundred times that she was not going to make love to Darry Ransom. But she had, and now her story about him, if she did one, no matter how hard she tried to be objective, was going to be tainted.

  Darry was up, had been for some time. She could smell the coffee. She smiled. Before coming out to Darry’s cabin late yesterday afternoon, she’d called in to Coyote headquarters and heard some beautiful words: Coyote Evening News had kicked some butt. They’d earned the highest shares in television news history. The White House and everybody associated with it was furious; the IRS was vehemently denying it ever went after anybody for punitive reasons, certainly not at the suggestion of the White House, or any federal enforcement agency. Senators and representatives were being inundated with faxes, phone calls, and telegrams from hundreds of thousands of pissed-off Americans, demanding that big government be cut back and rigidly controlled. The FBI, DEA, BATF, Federal Marshals Service, and others were maintaining a tight-lipped, no-comment policy about anything and everything, and sponsors were literally hammering at the doors of Coyote headquarters wanting to buy time.

  Life was good.

  She closed her eyes, stretched under the warmth of blankets, and sobered. But now, what the hell was she going to do about Darry?

  “You can start by having a cup of coffee,” Darry spoke from the doorway.

  Stormy jerked under the blankets. “Will you please stop doing that?” she said. “How the hell can you get inside a person’s head like that?”

  “My mother was a gypsy.” Darry sat down on the edge of the bed and held out a mug of coffee.

  “Sure she was,” Stormy said drily, sitting up and taking the mug. Despite the coolness of the morning, Darry was shirtless, and her eyes took in the scars on his chest. “You can be hurt,” she said softly.

  “Oh, yes. But I heal very quickly.” How quickly would have boggled her mind and mystified medical science. “You’d better make plans to get out of here, Stormy. This area is about to get very dangerous.”

  Her eyes widened, and the blanket and sheet fell from her shoulders to her waist. She paid no attention to that, but Darry sure did, enjoying every second of it. “About to get dangerous? What the hell has it been for the past couple of weeks?” She realized she was naked from the waist up and grabbed at the sheet while Darry laughed at her antics and took the coffee cup from her hand before she spilled it all over herself, and him.

  “My parents really were gypsies,” Darry said.

  “Fine. Now tell me why this area is going to get more dangerous now than it has been?”

  “Because the war between the mercenaries and me is about to get personal, that’s why. They plan to kill my dogs in an attempt to anger me and cause me to slip up, get careless. But that will not happen.”

  “Kill Pete and Repeat? That’s horrible!” She bit at her lower lip. “But how do you know this?”

  “A friend told me last night.”

  A friend about six and half feet tall, weighing about three hundred pounds, with a head like a prehistoric bear and paws and claws for hands.

  “Where was I?”

  “Asleep.” The press had never really believed the stories about the Unseen and, for the most part, paid no attention to the rumors. “Get dressed. I’ll walk you back down to the ranger station.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to go.”

  “You have to. You and the others have to keep hammering away at the government. You have to make the people so angry they’ll approach an open revolt stage. Only that will make the government take notice and start heeding the wishes of the majority. You can’t ever let up; never stop the momentum. Start asking hard and rude questions about third generation welfare recipients. Start questioning the reasons why the taxpayers should foot the bills allowing young, able-bodied people to live in public housing. Hammer at government waste in all areas. Get on the backs of elected officials and demand to know why an across the board flat tax rate—which the majority of Americans want—is never even brought to committee. Demand to know why we allow our elderly to die from the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter while the government spends billions of dollars in wasteful social programs that don’t work. Question why our seat of government, Washington, D.C., is the crime capital of America.”

  “Some of those things will make a lot of blacks and minorities very angry, Darry.”

  “Good. They need to get angry. That’s the only way they’re going to solve the problems facing them. But they need to get angry at a small percentage of their own people who are causing the problems, and stop putting the blame on somebody else—stop blaming all their woes on society and whitey.”

  “Oh, boy!” Stormy said with a sigh.

  “Start asking hard questions of the thousands of immigrants flooding into this country. Ask them how in the hell they expect to survive. Do they think it’s fair and right for them to expect the American taxpayers to support them while some of our own long-suffering citizens are homeless and jobless and hungry? The press has got to stop ducking the issues and get down and dirty and take a stand.”

  She smiled at him. “You want a revolution in this nation, don’t you, Darry?”

  “I’ve started or helped start more than one in my time, Stormy. I hate big government. I’ve seen too many times what it inevitably turns into. The pen is mightier than the sword, Stormy. I’ve been a writer; I know.”

  Stormy was silent for a moment, sipping her coffee. “You know something, Darry,” she said, almost
wistfully. “I felt good yesterday interviewing Kevin Carmouche and his friends. I felt like for the first time in my career I was really accomplishing something.”

  “You were. Sticking it to big government.”

  She laughed. “You really do hate big government, don’t you?”

  “Passionately.” He stood up. “Get dressed. You’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I told you, I don’t want to go. And neither does Ki. She thinks this is where the big story is going to be, and so do I. And, I think, so do you, or you wouldn’t be trying so hard to get rid of me.”

  Darry slowly nodded his head. “Yeah. Well, if I can’t convince you to leave, you could stay with Chuck and George, I suppose. Both of you would be safe there. That’s a fierce old man, and George is tough as a boot and as fast and dangerous as a rattlesnake.”

  “I like both of those men.”

  “Then you and Ki will stay with them; follow their instructions?”

  She cut her eyes to him. “You worried about me, Darry?”

  “Well, yes.”

  As their eyes met, something warm and pleasant stirred deep in Darry’s soul, and something soft and gentle moved around Stormy’s heart.

  Don’t be a fool! Darry thought. It never works, you know that.

  You’ll never do that story on Darry now, Stormy thought with absolutely no pangs of regret.

  End it right now, Darry thought. Take her to the ranger station, leave her, and walk away and don’t look back. You know that’s the smart thing to do.

  My God, Stormy thought. What kind of life are you expecting with this man? Your future together is hopeless. Don’t let this happen.

  It’s unfair to her, Darry thought. You know it is. Don’t let this happen.

  Darry is news and I am a reporter! Stormy fought a silent battle she knew she would lose. He is news, dammit. And the people have a right to know.

  What kind of a life can you offer her, you damn dreamer! Dairy thought. After seven hundred years, isn’t it about time you accepted what you are?

  Stormy slowly put out her hand and touched Darry’s bare chest, her fingers lingering on a scar that she was sure had been made by a knife, or, she thought, more likely a sword. “Do we have to leave this very second?” she asked, her voice husky.

  Darry touched her face with gentle fingertips. “No.” His eyes twinkled. “You have something in mind?”

  She smiled.

  Book Three

  28

  A statement made by Pastor Martin Niemoller at the time of his arrest by the Nazi Gestapo in the late 1930s: “In Germany, they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then, they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then, they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then, they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then, they came for me, and by that time, there was no one left to speak up.”

  The United States of America, in the mid-1990s: “In America, government agents came first for the machine guns, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a machine gunner. Then, government agents came for the handguns, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a handgunner. Then, government agents came for the semiautos, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a semiauto owner. Then, government agents came for the antique gun collector, and I didn’t speak up because I was a hunter. Then, government agents came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.”

  * * *

  “If this continues, Mr. President,” a top aide said, “we will have a full-fledged revolt on our hands. And it will be unstoppable.”

  The Pres said nothing.

  “I don’t think it’s quite that serious,” a senior senator said. “Not yet. But I agree that the seeds of revolt have been planted.”

  “We could start deportation procedures against Ian MacVay.”

  “Don’t be stupid. The man hasn’t broken any laws.”

  The Pres remained silent, staring at his coffee cup on the conference table.

  “We’re all shooting at phantoms,” another senior senator said. “Somebody is behind this movement. One person started this. But who?”

  “I think it’s that damn rabble-rousing writer from Louisiana,” a representative from a NY district said. “We should have done something about him last year.”

  “What would you suggest?” a senator asked.

  “We could have the IRS investigate him.”

  “We did,” another representative said. “He’s clean. And the FBI report stated that the man has never even received so much as a traffic ticket.”

  “He’s preaching sedition!”

  “Let’s drop this. He writes fiction books,” a more moderate Democrat said. “I don’t even want to talk about tampering with the First Amendment.”

  “Why not?” the question was tossed out. “We’ve already violated the second, the fourth, the fifth, the tenth, and God only knows what others. Probably most of them, one way or the other.”

  Still, the Pres said nothing.

  “We’ve got to disarm the people,” the AG said. “A weaponless society cannot revolt.”

  A senior senator looked up, his eyes blazing. “You try to forcibly disarm the American public and there will be open warfare and blood in the streets.” That statement was poo-pooed by the others at the conference table.

  “Darry Ransom,” the Pres blurted out.

  “What?” the VP asked.

  “Who is Darry Ransom?” a senator asked.

  “What about him?” the AG asked.

  “He’s behind all this. Bet on it.”

  “Who the hell is Darry Ransom?” the VP pressed.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” the rep from Brooklyn said.

  The Pres sighed. “Not one word of this leaves this office. I mean that. It could make us look like total idiots.”

  “Seems to me the Coyote Network is doing a pretty good job of that, and their news department is only a few days old!” another senator spoke up.

  The Pres ignored that. How does one deny the truth? When the men and women in the room were settled down, the Pres began explaining about Darry Ransom. At first they exchanged dubious glances, but that quickly changed to astonishment as the President’s words sank in.

  When the Pres had finished speaking, the men and women were at first silent; then the room erupted into a babble of voices, all of them stating opinions about Darry Ransom, the man who could not die.

  It would have been so easy to rectify the situation confronting the government of the United States. But the men and women who ruled governments never seemed to want to take the easy path. They inevitably chose a rough and rocky road in a vain attempt to please everybody ... and that is impossible.

  All the President had to do to defuse the situation was to go on national television and admit that government enforcement agencies were a bit out of control, and promise to put them on a shorter and stronger leash. All the Pres had to do was admit to the existence of the Bureau’s “secret files”: a massive and totally illegal file kept on citizens who had broken no laws. All he had to do was promise the files would be destroyed, and those investigations stopped. But of course, he didn’t.

  All the Pres had to do was promise to the American public that he would personally steer through congress a flat-rate tax bill, thereby easing the terrible burden on taxpayers and making the system much simpler and fair to all. He could have said that the dictatorial powers of the IRS would be put on a short rein. But of course, he didn’t.

  All the Pres had to do was promise that the hated (by many) gun grab bill was history. He could have let the current assault rifle ban stand and promise that no further legislation to disarm the American public would be forthcoming, and that would have satisfied any reasonable-thinking gun owner. But he didn’t.

  There were a lot of things the Pres could have done to defuse a bad situatio
n. But of course, he did none of them.

  When the Pres had outlined his plan, a liberal loudmouth from the upper Midwest bellered, “Right on! We’ll get tough!”

  There were dissenters, but they were few, the older and wiser among the bunch; and they were shouted down.

  Out in the hall, one older senator, with years of politics behind him, said to another senator, also with years of Washington experience behind him, “What do you think?”

  “I think,” the senator said, a grim note behind his words, “that we’d better find us some helmets and flak jackets. The goddamn revolution is about to start.”

  * * *

  That evening, reporters from the Coyote Evening News spent half an hour interviewing men and women whose lives had been shattered and careers ruined by the IRS. The reporters went in-depth and personal with the stories. When they finished, the IRS came out looking like the monster that elected officials had allowed it to become— going directly against the wishes of the majority of American citizens.

  The next half hour of the Coyote Evening News was devoted to victims of violent crime. Residents of Small Town, Illinois, were not surprised to learn that residents of Small Town, Florida, and Small Town, Texas, and Small Town, California, and Small Town, New York, were all related in that they had experienced mindless incidents of violent crime and the slap-on-the-hand punishment many of the offenders received . . . and what the risks were when a citizen decided to defend himself or herself against violent criminals.

  “The son of a (beep) was raping my twelve-year-old daughter in the shed behind the house, and I shot the (beep). The (beep) cops came and arrested me! Can you believe that? The (beepbeepbeep) cops arrested me! Then the parents of the sorry (mother-beep) sued me in a civil action. They lost in court, but it still cost me thousands of dollars for lawyers. It wiped out our savings. That’s not right. It’s just not right.”

  “This sorry little (beep) stole my brand-new car and totaled it. You know what the judge gave him? Probation! My insurance rates went up because my car was stolen and wrecked through no fault of my own, and that little (beep) gets a slap on the wrist. He’s out walking the streets, and I’m paying higher insurance premiums for the rest of my life. Do you find something wrong in that?”