The local paper carried the sheriff’s musings on the subject, which were largely focused on the likelihood of satanic rites or upon greens who had gone mad with enviro-rage and blood lust.
Benita—MONDAY
First thing Monday morning, Benita phoned Congressman Alvarez’s office, then took a cab to the Congressional Office Building. The young woman at the desk in the outer office looked at her curiously, then invited her to sit while she went into an inner office. The door wasn’t shut all the way, and through the crack Benita could see into the office where her namesake representative sat behind his desk, going through a stack of messages. The young woman handed him a note, and he looked up, saying in an annoyed voice,
“Who is this Alvarez woman, Susan?”
“She said she’s your cousin, Congressman. Benita Alvarez, Joe Alvarez’s daughter. She says she’s not a nut, not a hysteric, not looking for money or to get any kind of bill introduced, but she has something that was given to her to put into the hands of authority, and she thought you would be the one to decide who authority was because she is one of your constituents, and even though she didn’t vote for you, you still represent her interests.”
He barked laughter. “All that?”
Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves.Benita flushed and turned her head away from the door, but she didn’t stop listening.
The young woman went on, “When she called, I suggested she bring whatever it is by and leave it, and she said no. It had been entrusted to her to put into someone’s hands, and she was going to put it into someone’s hands she could trust and she didn’t know me from Eve.”
“Lord save us. She could have mailed it. That’s a long way to come.”
“She’s waiting outside. What do I tell her?”
Benita could visualize him, looking up at the ceiling. He did that during debates, looked up at the ceiling, as though hoping for a sign.
He said, “I don’t remember Joe Alvarez, though I don’t doubt he was some kind of cousin, umpteen times removed, and so far as I can remember, I’ve never heard of Benita. Better err on the side of kindliness than go the other way and have her turn out to be the widowed sister of the state Democratic chairman. I can see her now. I should have about five minutes before the lumbermen get here, or is it the tree-huggers?”
“That’s tomorrow. Today it’s General Wallace and the Forest Service.”
Benita straightened. She’d actually met General Wallace, well, heard him speak, at a conservation seminar she’d attended. He had made a big name for himself at the Pentagon before retiring to the family ranch in Arizona. Evidently he felt his years of service entitled him to be heard on a whole range of civilian topics. Range being the operative word among cattlemen. In Benita’s part of the country, the people who ran cattle in the national forests did not like laws protecting the environment, or protecting endangered wildlife. If it wasn’t something a human being could eat or make money off of, it wasn’t important.
The congressman said, “Why don’t retired generals fade away like they’re supposed to? Why is he so involved in this grazing issue? He’s working me into a real bind. If I vote to protect the land, my constituency will howl, because they prefer to do things the way they’ve done them for three hundred years, despite the fact that three hundred years ago there were only a few hundred people cutting timber and running cows where several thousands want to do it now!”
“I’m sure it’s very difficult, sir.”
“Oh, no, hell, as one recent visitor rancher told me, the world is coming to an end soon, so it won’t matter whether there is any range or rivers left or not.”
There was a long silence. Benita visualized the young woman standing patiently, saying nothing. She’d probably heard it all before.
“End of speech,” said the congressman in a tired voice. “I’ll see Ms. Alvarez.”
He opened the door himself. The way he pushed it back, fully open, told Benita he didn’t plan for her to stay long. If the door was open, he could walk people out, chatting, arm around the shoulders of whoever it was, casually reaching down from his six-foot-four-inch height to take a visitor’s hand, to murmur something about nice of you to have come by, you take care now, have a nice day, bye-bye. She’d seen him do that at campaign rallies. Congressman Gregorio Alvarez was actually Greg Kempton on his birth certificate, but he ran for election on his mother’s maiden name, and that side of the family had always called him Gregorio. He really was a sort of cousin, through a many times great-grandfather. His mother had been short, like most of the Hispanics of the Southwest, but his father, Brad Kempton, had been six foot five.