“All we ask is to be let alone.”
Pops Younger strolled into the ornate reception area of the governor’s office. Already famous among law enforcement professionals, Pops was now a living legend among everyday Texans and the rest of the country for the scene that was broadcast live worldwide on the International Bridge in Laredo during the Texas Crisis. Pops had walked into the chaos and gunfire that erupted on the bridge to confront charging Mexican federales, calmly shooting several with the two ivory-gripped revolvers he pulled smoothly from his western-style holsters as the federales plunged more than a hundred feet to the Rio Grande below. It looked like a perfect stunt scene out of a well-orchestrated action movie, except that it was real.
Most people in Austin had never seen Pops without his trademark Stetson hat, his cowboy-cut denim Wranglers, and alligator cowboy boots. His handlebar mustache seemed to be as old as he was, but those close to him always commented on his steel-blue eyes and homespun wisdom. Legend had it that he had brought two fugitives to justice simply by staring them down as they pointed their weapons at him. That icy stare shot fear into the criminals, enough for them both to surrender their weapons to Pops without him saying a word. Nobody really knew how old he was, but some guessed him to be as old as eighty. He was ornery as a rattlesnake, except when it came to women.
“Howdy, Margaret, how was your weekend, darlin’? Damned cold this morning, ain’t it?” Pops greeted Margaret, the governor’s executive secretary.
“Sure is, Mr. Younger, but it may be colder in that office than it is outside!” she quipped back.
Pops never was much for ceremony, even in its simplest forms, and he detested most politicians. Margaret knew not to ask him to wait in the reception area while she notified the governor he had arrived. Pops was a Texas icon, surviving the administrations of six different governors, both Democrat and Republican. The one commonality between them all was that every one of them grew to love and respect Pops despite any differences they might have had with his old-school conservatism. Women especially were not put off by his chauvinistic nature and, oddly enough, most of them considered it chivalrous.
He also didn’t need an invitation. Pops rarely elicited small talk, and about the only time you could get him to opine on current and political affairs was around a campfire at deer camp. Pops was Texas’ version of Yogi Berra in cowboy boots, full of a unique, special wisdom and simply genius anecdotes. Pops had no tolerance for politics or politicians and, if he was coming to the capital, even without an appointment, then by God the governor was going to see him.
As the large oak doors swung open, Governor Brahman had just finished lighting a cigar. He didn’t say a word as Pops strolled to his desk and sat down in the large leather chair, made from Axis deer and longhorn steer hides, opposite the desk. Governor Brahman took a long draw on his giant box-pressed Cuban stogie, leaned back in his hide-covered chair, and let the smoke billow out slowly. The governor’s office always smelled like fine cigars and leather with a hint of the finest Kentucky bourbon.
“Good morning, Pops,” said Brahman.
“What’s good about it, Smitty?” asked Pops, who never called anyone by his official title.
“Well, damn, Pops, I guess you know where we stand this morning. I should’ve figured you’d be the first one in my office.”
“I know this,” said Pops, who was visibly agitated, “we’ve got a bunch of spineless weasels in the Congress and one especially from Texas.”
“I know. I’ve never been more disappointed in my life with a Texas’ senator. I thought Yankee liberals from the Northeast would be difficult to top!” lamented Brahman. “But you gotta be impressed with the PR campaign the media waged for Johnson.”
“Hell, the impeachment hearings for Johnson were a joke and we didn’t even see them! A certain senator should be tarred and feathered, then hung on the lawn of the Capitol. Somebody in D.C. must have some damned goat pictures on a few of these scoundrels.” Pops stood to gaze out the window.
Brahman took another deep draw on his cigar. The former Texas Speaker of the House had ascended to the governorship immediately following the deaths of former Governor Brent Cooper and his wife, who were killed during the ill-conceived and failed federal arrest raid ordered by the administration that ignited the Texas Crisis.
Brahman had become a very popular figure among Texans as he stood up to President Johnson and Washington, D.C., just as his predecessor Cooper did. Not nearly as good-looking as Cooper, who strikingly resembled the original Marlboro Man, he became just as popular quickly during the Crisis as he promoted a non-binding referendum on Texas independence to voters despite the administration’s heavy-handed unconstitutional tactics to stop it.
“Give some credit to that old warhorse Annabelle Bartlett, Pops. She managed to be the voice of reason, complaining how the impeachment hearings were tearing the country apart,” said Brahman.
“Hell, it’ll probably get her elected,” quipped Pops.
“Pops, you know good and well she’s going to get elected, no matter what. That’s already been decided,” answered Brahman.
Pops walked over to the coffee bar and grabbed a coffee mug emblazoned with the state seal to use as a spit cup for the pinch of Copenhagen between his bottom lip and gums. The governor knew he was about to get some of Pops’ unique wisdom and insight. At that point, it was best to just shut up and let Pops talk, and Brahman knew it. This was about to be one of those rare moments with Pops that endeared him so much to those who knew him.
Looking down at his cowboy boots, Pops moved his left foot, then his right, in small circles as if he was kicking dirt around on his ranch, despite the fact he was standing on broadleaf pine wooden floors in the governor's mansion. He spit some tobacco and saliva juice into the cup, then twisted his thick handlebar mustache, deep in thought. Next came the slight tilt on his Stetson as he pulled it down slightly lower above his left eye.
“Smitty, folks are madder than hell. They stirred up a damned hornets’ nest. It’s like a box of BBs fell on the floor. You ain’t never gonna get ’em back in the box,” Pops said in his slow Texas drawl. “If I was that dirt weasel Simpson, I’d be damned sure afraid to go back to my hometown right about now. We’re sittin’ on a tinder box, Gov. It wouldn’t take much for the whole enchilada to blow up again.”
“Well, crap, Pops, we had one hundred eighty-nine Texans die simply trying to cast a vote for a non-binding referendum on Texas independence!” retorted Brahman. “Seventy-eight percent to twenty-two percent, then the legislature refuses to take up the referendum and pass it. I’m pretty angry myself!”
“Some folks think Bartlett will salve all wounds,” responded Pops. “I don’t buy it. She’s worse than that scalawag Johnson in some ways. Pure evil through and through. I don’t know how folks don’t see it. It’s as plain as sunlight hittin’ your face in the morning.”
Again, Brahman drew down deeply on his cigar. His office now had a three-foot-thick haze of cigar smoke clinging to the ornate tin ceiling as the two antique ceiling fans in the room barely turned.
“I’m working on the timeline now to call the legislature back into session. We better get this one right, Pops.”
“Damned straight, Smitty,” shot back Younger.
“The good people of Texas will find out soon enough if their elected leaders have any balls,” said Brahman.
“Governor, I have a lot of faith in my fellow Texans, but that damned legislature ain’t much better than those sons of bitches in D.C. Politicians are lower than a snake’s belly, no offense intended.”
“None taken,” chuckled the governor.
Pops sat back down and Brahman now stretched his legs as he put his black snakeskin cowboy boots up on the desk. They both just sat there and thought for a few long moments. It was as if just the fact that they were in the same room together, smoking cigars and dipping tobacco, that put them both at ease despite the enormity of the last few months’ events. Both had felt a strong loyalty and duty to Texas for their entire lives. Now, two giants of Texas lore, one as iconoclastic as a figure straight out of the 1880s and the other of more recent vintage, sat there together, just the two of them, quietly pondering the uncertainty of Texas’ fate.
After a few quiet moments, Brahman said, “That was a helluva storm, Pops.”
Pops knew exactly what the governor was referring to, and it wasn’t the weather.
“Sir, what’s bearing down on us right now will make that look like an afternoon squall,” replied Pops.
More moments of silence ensued as Pops peered over to the west wall of the office, the only wall without windows to the downtown Austin skyline. For a moment, Pops seemed to be taken aback, then he flexed his slender frame as if realizing he was in the presence of royalty or some antiquity of historic or religious importance.
Recognizing this was the first time Pops had seen the large framed item that adorned his west wall, Brahman offered, “I sure as hell hope he and that little gal didn’t die in vain.”
Pops kept staring at the now famous item, a Texas Lone Star flag with the black numbers 1789 hand-stitched in the white bar. The flag was covered with dark stains…
Blood… from Chuck Dixon and Amanda Flores.
Pops walked over to the flag and stood just beneath it, then rubbed his mustache with his right forefinger, trying to hide the fact that he was struggling to hold back tears.
“It would be a damned tragedy, sir. Damned tragedy, indeed…” said Pops as his voice trailed slightly.
After a few more moments of silence, Pops seemed to gather himself and his entire demeanor changed. “Gov, you can say a lot of things about Texans, but forgetting history ain’t one of ’em.”