C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-THREE
Stark's eyebrows rose in surprise as he leaned back in his chair.
“Mayor?” he repeated. “I think you've got the wrong man, Jack. I'm about as far from being a politician as you can get.”
“You're not afraid to tell the truth,” Jack said. “Isn't that what we need more of in our politicians today?”
Hallie said, “We're getting ahead of ourselves here. It's true, John Howard, that your name came up as a possible candidate for mayor, but we have to get the town incorporated first. Which means an election for that before we have an election for mayor and city council.”
“So I don't have to make up my mind today?”
“Not at all.”
“Okay, in that case I'm all for the idea of making Shady Hills a town. It's a good way to shut up all the people who are yelling about us being vigilantes.”
“Exactly,” Alton said. He beamed with pride as he looked at Hallie. “My little girl is pretty smart.”
“Dad, I haven't been a little girl for forty years.”
“You'll always be my little girl. Don't you know that by now?”
Stark asked, “So what's our next move?”
“We're going to form an organization called Incorporate Shady Hills and hold a press conference to announce our intentions. Then we'll have to collect signatures from a sufficient amount of registered voters on a petition for incorporation that we'll present to the county judge. He'll have to certify the petition, but once he's done that, he'll set an election date.” Hallie smiled. “Then we'll have to hope that incorporation wins.”
“It will,” Jack Kasek said. “I can practically guarantee it.”
“There are no guarantees where politics is concerned,” Stark said. “Except that no matter what you do, somebody won't like it.”
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Stark was right about that. The news conference announcing the formation of Incorporate Shady Hills was well-attended, with representatives of the media from all the major cities in Texas, plus correspondents from
The New York Times
,
The Washington Post
,
The Los Angeles Times
, a number of cable news networks, and even an influential blogger or two.
And the coverage, also not surprisingly, was overwhelmingly negative.
TEXAS VIGILANTES TRY TO MAKE IT LEGAL,
screamed one headline. Another proclaimed,
A CITY BORN IN VIOLENCE AND HATRED
. Pundits on the news shows explained that what Shady Hills was trying to do was in fact legal under the laws of the state of Texas but left no doubt that they thought it was wrong. Editorialists noted solemnly that this movement was likely to lead to still more violence.
Meanwhile, the residents of Shady Hills couldn't sign the petition drawn up by Hallie fast enough. In less than twenty-four hours after the news conference, the document already had enough signatures on it to be submitted, but Hallie advised the committee to wait a few more days. The more signatures they collected, she said, the more public opinion would be on their side. Having to worry about things like that instead of simple right and wrong annoyed Stark, but he knew they had to deal with the world as it was, not how they might like it to be.
An unexpected development cropped up a couple of days later. Stark was at the community center with Hallie and the rest of the committee, going over the signatures to make sure all of them were legitimate. The ACLU had already demanded to see a copy of the petition when it was turned in to the judge, to “make sure there was no effort to disenfranchise minorities,” as they put it. Since the signatures included a large percentage of Hispanic names, along with a number of residents who were black, including one of the volunteer captains, that effort to interfere with the process wasn't likely to fly, but Stark and the others wanted to be sure it wouldn't.
Several men Stark didn't recognize came into the building. They were roughly dressed and he tensed for a moment, thinking that they might be there to cause trouble, but then the spokesman smiled and said, “Howdy. We're lookin' for the people who want to turn this into a town.”
“That would be us,” Stark said as he got to his feet. His friends were wary, too, and he figured most of them had their hands close to the guns they were carrying. “What can we do for you?”
“We want to be part of the town of Shady Hills, too,” the stranger said. “We're from the Dry Wash community.”
Stark was familiar with the area a couple of miles farther on up the highway, going northwest from Devil's Pass. There was an old mission there, along with the arroyo that gave the place its name, and probably two dozen houses and mobile homes.
Jack Kasek said, “We figured the boundaries of the town would be the mobile home parkâ”
“But there's no reason they have to be,” Hallie put in. “There are different requirements for incorporation depending on the size and population of the proposed town, but there's no reason Shady Hills couldn't take in more than just the park.”
“You think that's a good idea?” her father asked.
The spokesman for the visitors said, “Look, my name's Ben LaPorte. Ever since y'all had that trouble up here with those drug smugglers, a bunch of us have been gettin' together and sayin' that we wish we could've been down here to give you a helpin' hand. I'll be honest with you. We're not a fancy bunch. Just good ol' hardworkin' common folks. We try to abide by the law. And we have trouble with smugglers and illegal immigrants all the time. Everything that's not bolted down gets stole. And the sheriff . . . well, I ain't sayin' that Sheriff Lozano's a bad fella, but I don't think he cares overmuch about what happens to folks in Dry Wash, neither. We'd be happy to pay some city taxes if it meant we'd get some honest-to-God police protection out here.”
Stark stood up and went over to shake hands with Ben LaPorte and the other men in turn, then said, “I'm glad you boys came to see us today, Ben. I can't make the decision myself, but I can sure promise you we'll discuss your suggestion.”
Ben looked at his companions, then nodded.
“That sounds fair enough, Mr. Stark.”
“You know who I am?”
“Pretty hard not to,” Ben said with a smile. “Your face has been all over the TV for the past few days.”
Stark chuckled and said, “Yeah, and I'm not too fond of it. For some reason those folks seem to think I'm newsworthy.”
“Somebody standin' up for what's right, after so many people been apologizin' and excusin' what's wrong for the past thirty or forty years, yeah, I'd say that's newsworthy.”
Stark put Ben LaPorte's number into his cell phone and promised to call when a decision had been reached. The men from Dry Wash nodded and left the community center. Stark went back to the table where they had been going over the petitions and sat down.
“What do you think?” he asked the people gathered around the table.
“I don't know,” Jack Kasek said. “Dry Wash is a pretty rundown area.
Alton said, “Not really. It's just old. The community got its start as a way station on the old Butterfield Stagecoach Line, back in the 1850s. There's never been a town there, just a church or two and some houses, and they even had a little one-room school for a while, but there was never any reason for the area to develop much. People take care of their places pretty well, though. I saw that when I was handling insurance claims in this area.”
“They don't cook meth in some of those trailers?”
“Now you're jumping to conclusions, Jack,” Alton said. “Everybody here in the park lives in a mobile home except you and your wife. Nobody here cooks meth.”
“Yeah, but we're all a bunch of old geezers,” Jack protested.
Stark said, “Yeah, and with the economy the way it is, there might be some young men from Dry Wash who'd jump at the chance to be cops. I don't see a problem with including them. We can draw the boundaries of the town any way we want, can't we, Hallie?”
“As long as the area included doesn't exceed nine square miles,” Hallie said.
“There are a lot of towns in Texas bigger than nine square miles,” Fred protested.
“Not at the time they were incorporated, which might be well over a hundred years ago.”
Fred nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. So after Shady Hills is incorporated, we can annex more land if we want to?”
“As long as we do it legally.” Hallie looked around the table. “Shall we put it to a vote? Do we want to include Dry Wash in the city limits? There would be that many more signatures to put on the petition.”
“I suppose that would be all right, if the rest of you think so,” Jack said.
They didn't need a formal vote. Everyone nodded and spoke up, voicing their support for the idea.
“But the town's still going to be called Shady Hills, right?” Jack asked.
“That's all right with me,” Stark said. “Something I've always wondered about, though, Jack . . . how come you to call this place Shady Hills?”
Jack grinned and said, “Would
you
want to live in a place called Flat and Blistering Hot?”
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-FOUR
It didn't take long for the news to spread about the community of Dry Wash being included in the proposed boundaries for the new town of Shady Hills. Once the media got hold of it, they blew the story out of proportion as usual, blaring headlines such as
VIGILANTES SEEK TO EXPAND LAWLESS EMPIRE
. Stark just shook his head in disbelief at that one, and Hallie commented wryly, “I guess once the town's incorporated you'll have to run for emperor instead of mayor, John Howard.”
“If I was emperor there'd be some changes made, that's for sure,” Stark said.
“You remember the story about the emperor's new clothes? He was naked, as I recall.”
Stark changed the subject in a hurry.
The story wasn't done evolving, of course. A few days later, Stark got a phone call from a man named Carlos Arizola, who introduced himself as the principal of Joseph P. Gonzalez High School, which was down the highway between Shady Hills and Devil's River. Stark had passed the school dozens of times, but he had no idea what the principal wanted with him.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Arizola?” he asked.
“I'd like to meet with you and your friends, Mr. Stark, and talk about this new town of yours.”
Stark managed not to grunt in surprise.
“Just what is it you want to talk to us about?”
“You may not be aware of this, Mr. Stark, but the school isn't in the city limits of Devil's Pass.”
Stark hadn't ever thought about it, but he knew that Gonzalez High was a couple of miles north of town. It had been built there to accommodate new growth in the area when the school district's student population got to be too big for the original Devil's Pass High School. School districts in Texas never liked to split their students between two or more high schools, because the new schools always dropped into a lower classification athletically. But sometimes the numbers made it impossible to do otherwise, and that was the case in Devil's Pass. The new high school, Gonzalez High, had opened several years earlier, before Stark moved to the area, but he had heard about it.
Principal Arizola went on, “The new housing developments that have grown up in this area aren't in the city limits, either, but Devil's Pass has its eye on annexing all of us. We don't want that, Mr. Stark. If we're going to be part of a city, we'd rather it be Shady Hills.”
“Shady Hills isn't even a real town yet,” Stark said. “What in the world could we offer folks like you?”
“You intend to have a police department, don't you?”
“Well, sure. To be honest, that's the main reason we decided to incorporate.”
“What about a fire department?” Arizola asked.
“I don't know when we'd be able to afford a real fire department. I imagine we'll have to rely on a volunteer department for a while, just like we do now.”
“With a greater tax base, you could at least afford some equipment of your own. Taking care of a town costs a lot of money, Mr. Stark.”
“I know,” Stark said. That very subject had been weighing heavily on his mind. A lot of little towns contracted with the county in which they were located or with larger municipalities nearby to provide vital services like police and fire protection. That wasn't really going to work in the case of Shady Hills. Stark couldn't imagine George Lozano or Dennis Feasco agreeing to such an arrangement.
“We had a meeting here at our school last night,” Arizola went on. “Almost a thousand people showed up, and they were overwhelmingly in support of approaching you about being included in the boundaries of Shady Hills. What it boils down to, Mr. Stark, is that we're going to be paying city taxes to
somebody
in the next few years, no matter what we do. We'd rather it be Shady Hills, where at least you're trying to do the right thing and stand up to the drug cartels. I tell you, some of the things we see in high school . . . well, it's frightening, that's all. I'm convinced that the cartels have agents right here in the school among our students.”
“Wouldn't surprise me a bit,” Stark said. “But I'm sorry to hear it.”
“Anyway, that's what I want to talk to you about. I'd like to present my case to the leaders of your community and propose that we join forces.”
“I think you already have,” Stark said with a chuckle. “But if you'd like to do it face-to-face, I'm sure that would be fine. We can meet with you whenever is convenient for you. We're all retired, after all.”
Arizola suggested that he come speak to the committee that evening. Stark told him that was fine and promised to call him back if anything changed.
The people of Dry Wash wanting to be part of their cause had been a surprise, and this was an even bigger one. But it would instantly increase their credibility, Stark thought. The people who lived in those new housing developments were well-to-do, although they were suffering some like everybody else in the weak economy Washington's poorly thought out, ham-fisted policies had created. Principal Arizola was right about being able to do more with a larger tax base.
If they weren't careful, Stark told himself with a smile, Shady Hill might just wind up being a real town.
Â
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INTOLERANCE HAS A NEW HOME.
IT'S NOT THE WILD WEST ANYMORE.
NO VIGILANTES.
NO LYNCH MOB JUSTICE
.
SHADY HILLS = RACISTS.
“Where did all the idiots come from?” Fred Gomez asked as he and Stark got out of the pickup Stark had bought to replace the one destroyed in the battle. Fred waved a hand at the protestors gathered on the sidewalk across the street.
“Those charter buses would be my guess,” Stark said. He nodded toward two buses parked at the curb not far from the entrance to the county courthouse.
Hallie had parked behind Stark's pickup. She and her father got out of the car and joined them. Jack and Mindy Kasek were here, too, along with Ben LaPorte from Dry Wash and Principal Carlos Arizola from Gonzalez High School. All of them were going to deliver the signed petitions to County Judge Steven Oliveros. The petitions contained almost three thousand signatures of registered voters who supported the incorporation of the town of Shady Hills.
Some of Chief Feasco's uniformed officers were standing along the edge of the sidewalk to keep the protest contained. Hallie smiled and said, “I guess we shouldn't have announced when we were going to be delivering the petitions. We got some unwanted attention.”
“Any publicity is good publicity, right?” Jack Kasek said.
They were getting some publicity, all right. News vans with satellite dishes on their roofs were parked along the street, and several field reporters were standing in the heat, trying to look dignified and handsome as they talked into their microphones. From time to time the cameramen turned to pan across the crowd of protestors, getting plenty of good footage for the evening newscasts.
“I've lived around here most of my life,” Alton Duncan said. “I don't think I recognize any of those people who're shouting and waving signs around.”
“I'm not surprised,” Stark said. “Somebody brought them in from San Antonio, or more likely Austin or Houston, and is paying them to make a scene. That way when the footage shows up on the news, they can claim that public opinion is against us.”
“That's just not right,” Fred said.
“That's the reality of the way things are today, though,” Hallie said. “The left likes to accuse fat-cat billionaires of running the countryâand ruining the countryâwhen in reality they have more fat-cat billionaires bankrolling them than our side ever did. And they're willing to spend whatever it takes until everybody in the country thinks exactly the same way they do.”
“Somebody needs to put a stop to money running everything,” Principal Arizola said.
“Might as well try to stop the earth from turning while you're at it,” Stark drawled. “Come on. Let's get these petitions turned in.”
They walked up the steps into the courthouse. Reporters and cameramen charged alongside them. Stark and his companions ignored the shouted questions. At the top of the steps, a couple of deputies halted the media members. Stark and the others went on inside, glad to be out of the commotion.
Judge Oliveros was expecting them. He met them in his outer office and took the stack of petitions that Stark handed him.
“I have to say, I don't support this effort,” he told them with a stern frown. “But I give you my word I'll examine these petitions personally, and if the signatures are verifiable and in sufficient quantity, I'll certify them and set an election date as soon as possible. I'd like to see this matter settled so maybe the county won't be in such an uproar all the time.”
“We appreciate that, your honor,” Hallie told him.
Oliveros smiled slightly.
“You've appeared in my court before, Ms. Duncan. Since these people have such a competent attorney handling things for them, I'm confident these petitions will prove to be in order. I'll contact you as soon as I've gone over them.”
As they left the courthouse, Stark asked quietly, “That's all there is to it?”
“That's all there is to it,” Hallie confirmed.
The demonstration was still going on across the street. The sign-waving protesters shouted curses and insults at the people from Shady Hills as they headed back to their vehicles.
“If you asked any of them,” Stark commented, “they'd tell you how much they believe in tolerance and free speech . . . until somebody who disagrees with them wants those same rights.”
“Yeah, then all their high-flown talk goes right out the window,” Fred said.
They had just reached Stark's pickup but hadn't gotten in yet when a particularly loud and aggressive shout made them look around.
One of the protesters had gotten past the cops somehow and was charging toward them with a crazed look on his face and his wooden sign lifted over his head and poised to use as a weapon.
Stark had time just to glimpse the words painted on the signâ
PEACE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL
âbefore it came slashing down at him and Fred.