Part 31 (2/2)
Ray was studying her face interestedly. ”You don't know, do you?” he said. ”You just do it on instinct.”
”Do what on instinct?”
Ray shook his head flirtatiously. ”I don't want to make you self-conscious and ruin it.”
”What are you talking about?”
”I really admire what you did to Earl Strong, you know,” he said, changing the subject none too subtly.
”Yeah, you tell me that every time we see each other.”
”Now what we need to do is get that flame thrower aimed at the right target.”
”Aha,” she said. ”The hidden agenda comes out.”
”I told you I was paying for breakfast. What did you think?”
”And an excellent breakfast it is,” she mumbled, chewing her first mouthful. They ate in silence for a minute.
Both of them were ravenous. Emotion burns calories.
”I talked to Jane Osborne,” Ray said. ”I was all ready to be p.i.s.sed at her, but she's nice.”
”Here's the part where I ask who Jane Osbourne is.”
”She's a forest ranger out in La Junta.”
”A forest ranger? In the prairie?”
”Funny, that's exactly what she said when she was a.s.signed there,” Ray said. ”She likes forests. She went into the Forest Service hoping she would end up in one.”
”Logical enough.”
”She didn't count on the fact that the Forest Service owns a lot of gra.s.sland. Including the piece of land where the Ramirez family was living until yesterday. And they need people to look after that land. These people arecalled forest rangers. They wear Smokey Bear hats and everything. So Jane Osbourne is stuck out there, not a single tree, much less a forest, for a hundred miles, in this s.h.i.+tty, dead-end GS-12 position, driving around in a pickup truck chasing dirt bikers and replacing signs that have been shotgun-blasted by the local intellectuals.”
”Must be disappointing.”
”Yeah. But it's not as bad as what comes next.”
”And what's that?”
”She's about ready to turn in for the evening when she gets a call from On High and she is ordered to personally evict about a hundred migrant workers from this patch of grazing land.”
”How does a single woman do that?”
”She called in a few other rangers and brought in some federal marshals too, as a show of force.”
”Who gave the order?”
”Her boss. Who got it from Denver. And they got it from Was.h.i.+ngton. I'm sure.”
”Correct me if I'm wrong,” Eleanor said, ”but I'm sure that this wasn't the only patch of federal land in Colorado that was housing squatters.”
Ray smiled. ”You got that right.”
”Have any other such communities been evicted?”
Ray shook his head.
”Just this one,” Eleanor said.
”Just this one.”
”So this wasn't a blanket order from Was.h.i.+ngton. It was targeted at this one piece of land.”
”Sure looks that way.”
”And why,” Eleanor said, ”do you suppose that some bureaucrat in D.C. would suddenly take an interest in this one parcel?”
Ray shrugged. ”I can only speculate.”
”Please do.”
”This bureaucrat probably went to law school with one of Senator Marshall's aides. Or was his college roommate. Or their kids go to the same day care. Something like that.”
Eleanor waggled a finger at Ray. ”There you go making a.s.sumptions. How do you know there's a connection to Caleb Roosevelt Marshall?”
”The piece of land in question adjoins the Lazy Z Ranch,” Ray said, ”and the cattle grazing on it now all wear the Lazy Z brand.”
”Say no more.” Eleanor said. ”You win.”
The Lazy Z ranch was owned by Sam Wyatt. Sam Wyatt was Caleb Roosevelt Marshall's biggest private contributor. And the president of Senator Marshall's PAC. Sam Wyatt was one of a dozen or so const.i.tuents who could get through to the Senator on the phone whenever he wanted to.
But in this case, he probably hadn't. This was too much of a dirty detail for the Senator to mess around with personally. He had probably just called one of the Senator's aides. He had probably called Shad Harper, that underaged son of a b.i.t.c.h who had the office across the hallway from Eleanor's.
Ray was watching her in fascination. ”You have this look on your face like you're plotting an a.s.sa.s.sination,”
he joked.
”Something like that,” she said.
30.
WHEN LITTLE BIANCA RAMIREZ WAS FINALLY RELEASED FROM Arapahoe Highlands Medical Centre after one week of hyperbaric oxygen treatment, a dozen television crews, four satellite uplink trucks, one Academy Award-winning doc.u.mentary filmmaker, thirty print reporters, a hundred supportive protesters, the Mayor of Denver, staffers from all of the local senators' and representatives' offices, and a few lean and hungry lawyers were waiting for her. The only question was whether or not her parents, Carlos and Anna Ramirez, would actually show up to collect her.
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