Soon there was no one left to wave to, but Rona kept the window open. The hard road ended; a newly graded dirt-and-scree road slanted through an upcountry pass. Pure, stunning rush of wind on her face. The breath of deep woodland larch, Rocky Mountain maple, fir, a dozen varieties of pine growing close to the road. Ambush country for road agents, she thought whimsically. The old Bardstown stage.
Stand and deliver
. But she wanted the smoke-toned window down. She recalled campaign trips in Clint's pickup: mud and manure, sweaty leather and woolens, plug tobacco and snoose, effluvium that no amount of hosing-down could remove. Cow country cologne. Not all that bad until you tried to wolf down a Big Mac on the go with the windows closed in a thunderstorm. Visiting pool halls and post offices, body shops and beauty parlors, beet dumps and feed lots.
No vote too remote to track down. Singing along at the tops of their voices with Hank Junior, Buck Owens, John R's dark and melancholy baritone.
Pulling over by the side of the road when the urge was upon them. Doing it at high noon standing up behind an old barn. Chaff and finely rotted wood sifting down into her hair as they banged the boards. Or after midnight in a high place, damn near halfway to the moon on Acapulco Gold, shuddering butt-naked together on the blanketed ground, his balls tight as prunes from the cold. Three, four hours sleep a night. Exhausting. But on a high, on a roll. Clint was a winner and they knew it, even before his first landslide. Fun, fun, fun all the way. It occurred to Rona with an unexpected twinge of nostalgia that her life wasn't fun anymore. But that was one of the expected forfeitures when destiny took over.
Small lake with half-sunk deadwood on its placid shores, then the treeline dwindling to rocky meadow and sunlit rangeland spotted like a bobcat's pelt with flowering cushion plants. She saw white-faced calves and riders in a slow string from the Broken Wheel guest ranch that lay next to Big Country. Almost there.
Clint Harvester made waking-up sounds, clearing his throat. The chill morning air had revived him. Rona glanced at Clint. He was looking past her, his eyes filled with the daze of blue distance. Then he appeared to focus on something, or someone, out there on the range. Rona turned her head. Early summer vacationers, dudes on horseback. A couple of pack mules. At the head of the file of a dozen riders was a young woman wearing a white or cream-colored Stetson. Abundant black hair swayed on her shoulders as she rode. Rona knew most of the female guides who worked at the Broken Wheel, but she didn't think she'd seen this one before. Even so, there was something about her, in profile, that was startlingly familiar. Clint had moved across the seat and was next to Rona. She glanced at him again. He was still looking past her, out the window, and she could hear him breathing excitedly even as a rush of sorrow suffused his face. His hand came up. He pointed.
"
Linda!
" he said.
T
he main house at Big Country Ranch was two years old; it replaced the homely one-story log house at the entrance to a box canyon that Clint Harvester's grandfather had built, almost single-handedly, in 1909. The ranch manager, Cletus Huckey, now lived in the old family home with his wife. The Huckeys were in their sixties, and Cletus liked to joke that they'd been married for so long they were on their second bottle of Tabasco. Clint and Rona's new digs half a mile away occupied a rocky promontory on the northeast corner of the ranch. The house was eight thousand square feet of cedar and stone amid old pine and fir trees, a waterfall, a swimming pond, and gardens. There were extensive decks on several levels. The floor plan was open, with mountain and valley views from the great room. The freeform granite and soapstone fireplaces had built-in bake ovens, and the one nearest the kitchen area contained a stove. The dining room, with yet another Red Moss Rock fireplace, could seat twenty-four for dinner. There were four bedroom suites upstairs. The lower level of the house was dedicated to games and an exercise area with a Jacuzzi and steam showers. There was a granite-lined lap pool for Clint.
A bomb shelter designed to withstand anything short of as a direct hit by an ICBM lay in the granite beneath the house. A disguised radar installation on Silverdust Peak six miles away was there to give the President time to reach the shelter in the event of unexpected hostilities.
Within easy walking distance of the main house and away from the barns and stock pens four well-appointed guest lodges and offices of the western White House were scattered among the lofty conifers and creekside poplars, separated from one another by the meandering trout stream. The White House Communications Agency had installed three uplink dishes next to the office building, which contained a fully equipped television studio. Two generators of the type used for movie location work, enough emergency power for the entire ranch complex, were parked beside the studio in bombproof trucks, protected around the clock by members of MORG's Elite Force. Several more members of the force rode the range day and night equipped with sniper rifles and night-vision scopes. There were dozens of surveillance cameras on the property, but an expert eye was needed to spot most of them. Two helicopter gunships stationed in Bozeman were combat-ready and twelve minutes away. The ranch's water supply was tested four times a day. Rona had decided that it was just too medieval to have a food-taster on the premises. MORG used two of the ranch's Border collies for that chore. They remained in robust health.
Rona loved the pomp and circumstance of the heritage-laden White House, but she loved her downtime on the ranch even more.
On arrival she parked Clint downstairs with two MORG agents and a personal trainer to supervise his session with the Nautilus machine. She changed into her shit-kicker duds, substituting sneakers for boots, which hurt her feet when she wore them only once in a while. She left the house and, unaccompanied, drove a golf cart down to the largest of the guest lodges, two stone chimneys on either end and a deep screened porch across the front. Two more MORG agents, still in city clothes but with their jackets off, were on the porch. Rona gave them a jaunty wave and went inside.
Victor Wilding was having brunch on another sunny porch at the back of the lodge. He smiled in a relaxed way at Rona, who wiped a bit of egg from his lower lip and kissed him fervently. Then she plopped into a padded chair and sighed.
"Made it."
"Care for something to eat?"
"No thanks. These jeans are snugger than the last time I had them on. How's everything?"
"Fine. How about you?"
"Oh, fine. Now that you're here."
Wilding spread apple butter on corn bread. "Thought I noticed a frown just then."
"I wasn't frowning, I was squinting. Bright in here." Rona adjusted the angle of her chair away from the windows. Then she reached impulsively for the apple butter and ate some with a spoon. "Oh, boy. Nobody puts up better apple butter than Jonquil Huckey, bless her heart." She enjoyed another spoonful from the canning jar, licked her lips, and sighed. "Clint gave me kind of a jolt on the way down here," she finally admitted.
"Really? How?"
"When we passed the Broken Wheel he saw a string of riders and, in particular, one of the ranch hands leading them into the mountains on a pack trip. The guide I'm talking about had, you know, Linda's shape and profile and wore her hair like the first and late Mrs. Harvester."
"What about it?"
"He said her
name
. With this look in his eye. God damn it, Clint
remembered
. He remembered being married to or at least knowing her twenty-three years ago."
Wilding said after a few moments, "An isolated flashback. Doesn't signify that he's coming out of it."
"But there has always been that possibility. Lately he's been fucking
uncanny
with Rubik's Cube. Solves it in a couple of minutes. That's memory too, isn't it? And I caught him yesterday moving pieces around on the gold and jade chessboard one of the sand nigger sheiks gave him for his fifty-third birthday. Clint looked as if he was trying ... to figure out a move."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Wilding advised. "He won't suddenly recover all of his faculties." He paused, looking her in the eye. "Not in the time he has left. Marcus Woolwine assured me of that."
Rona bit her lip and shrugged. "I was a little creeped out, I guess. I've been on edge. Speaking of Woolwine, how's our Shaman-in-Chief doing with Eden Waring?"
"Remarkable results."
"Can she heal Robin Sandza?"
"Don't know yet. Marcus and I introduced her to Robin two days ago. We're certain they've made contact on some level of apprehension. Quoting Marcus. But she's a kid still, not the experienced Avatar and neurosurgeon Kelane Cheng was. It's too soon to tell what she may be able to do for him, or how long it will take. After Eden's visit, he appeared to rally. That's encouraging."
"It certainly is. Have you almost finished eating? Not that I'm rushing you, but I want to get into your pants. Like I said, I've been terribly on edge."
Wilding smiled. "We should touch base on the important stuff."
"Your cock is important." She moved her chair closer to him. Put a hand even closer, under the table. "Go ahead," she told him. "While I'm getting you ready. When's the blastoff?"
"Eleven-fifteen P.M. CDT."
"I'd say in about ten minutes, way it feels now."
"What about the help in the k-kitchen?" Wilding said, looking over one shoulder.
"They see me doing this; they better
stay
in the kitchen. Damn this zipper! Okay, next."
"One hour later we start our spring roundup. Washington, New York. Pretext is a phone call from a spokesman for H-Hamas, threatening total extinction of the white capitalist devils of the West and their client state in the Mideast. The t-tape will subsequently be released to all the m-media."
"Am I giving you the stutters?" Rona asked with a devilish expression, working his penis free of his Jockey shorts. "Everyone accounted for?"
"No, but we'll have ninety percent of the members of the executive and judicial branches iced within an hour. Some important exceptions. We haven't been able to keep track of Buck Hannafin since his Chief of Staff resigned. Buck's canceled appointments and committee meetings. There's a rumor he checked into the Mayo Clinic under another name. Prostate cancer."
"Yeah, right. If Buck's being surreptitious, something's up. Buck Hannafin is a problem for us. Major problem. You'd better find him."
"We will. Wanda Chevrille is her usual elusive self; may be on a religious retreat, that cloister she favors in western Maryland. The Veep is in Bonn trying to talk the Krauts out of withdrawing from
NATO. AG
is at the bedside of her sick mother in Maine. Admiral S-Sobieski left yesterday for o-oh!-Oceania to dedicate the Navy's new super-carrier, c-can't touch him there. Jesus, Zeph, I was going to have a second cup of c-coffee."
Rona's face was snuggled naughtily in his lap. "Uh-uh," she murmured.
"The tapes are ready. Clint addressing the nation from the western White House. Clint invoking his executive powers. The d-disinformation will come thick and fast from around the world. Who is it? Who else is involved in this conspiracy? London, Paris, Israel, Seoul. Everyone will be on full military alert. Washington is rumored to be the next target. Pandemonium. Mass exodus. And then the really b-bad news." He inhaled sharply. "The P-president of the United States isâ
God
, Zeph!"
She looked up with a grin. One hand still clutching the empurpled stalk.
"And a new legend for our time arises in the darkness of fear and turmoil, twelve feet tall with thunderbolts flashing from the tip of her swift sword." Rona gave Wilding a downstroke and a series of slow squeezes that took him close to a peak of ecstasy. "Don't suppose we could borrow Excalibur from the British Museum. Now
there
is a goddamn sword. No negative comparisons intended, lover. Or maybe Excalibur is in the Tower with all of the family jewels." With her thumb she gave Wilding's engorged jewels a little nudge, then unexpectedly relaxed her hand.
"Excalibur is a m-myth, I'm afraid. You're not going to leave me like this?"
"Of course not. La la la la la! That's enough business talk. Come along, darling, play with li'l Ron-er till it's time to pull on the chain mail."
Rona knew they were being peeked at from the kitchen while she elevated Victor Wilding from his chair, Victor laughing with the roots of his short hairs a-sizzle, Rona towing him playfully by his extended penis toward the master suite of the lodge. God help her, she did love it so, as General George S. Patton reportedly had remarked in a different context. Her hand on a willing weenie, and the rest of the nation soon to follow.
BROKEN WHEEL RANCH ⢠JUNE 7 ⢠10:15 A.M. MDT
T
he fourteen riders from the Broken Wheel Ranch took a break at the Mahoon Falls meadow. From that elevation there were exceptional views of three mountain ranges, national forests, and the ranches in the Black Alder Valley below. Forty-three square miles in all. Good photo opportunities.
Buck Hannafin walked about half a mile higher through a grove of old-growth cedar and fir with three of the men who had accompanied him up the trail. They followed a pack mule and a woman named Courtney Shyla, whom Clint Harvester had glimpsed in passing an hour ago and had mistaken for his first wife. Courtney had worked at the Broken Wheel a decade ago during her summer breaks from college. She had studied biology and ecology at the University of Montana, then opted for adventure in her life. Her current employer was the United States Army. She held the rank of major in the Special Forces.