His day dissolved into the customary duties. A meeting with the collector of taxes to decide what to do about homesteaders who refused to pay; a new judicial appointment to make; an agenda to set for the upcoming meeting of the territorial legislature; various papers to sign, which Chase placed in front of him with only cursory description. At three o’clock, Apgar appeared in Peter’s door. Did the president have a minute? Everybody else on the staff simply called him by his first name, as he preferred, but Gunnar, a stickler for protocol, refused. Always he was “Mr. President.”
The subject was guns—specifically, a lack of them. The Army had always run on a combination of reconditioned civilian and military weaponry. A lot had come from Fort Hood; plus, the old Texas had been a well-armed place. Virtually every house, it seemed, had a gun cabinet in it, and there were weapon-manufacturing facilities throughout the state, offering a bountiful supply of parts for repair and reloading. But a lot of time had passed, and certain guns lasted longer than others. Metal-framed pistols, like the old Browning 1911, SIG Sauer semiautos, and army-issue Beretta M9s, were close to indestructible with adequate maintenance. So were most revolvers, shotguns, and bolt-action rifles. But polymer-framed pistols, like Glocks, as well as M4 and AR-15 rifles, the bread and butter of the military, did not enjoy the same indefinite shelf life. As their plastic casings cracked with fatigue, more and more were retired; others had leaked via the trade into civilian hands; some had simply vanished.
But that was only part of the problem. The more pressing issue was a dwindling supply of ammunition. Decades had passed since a prewar cartridge had been fired; except for the stockpiles in Tifty’s bunker, which were vacuum-sealed, the primer and cordite didn’t last more than twenty years. All of the army’s rounds had been either reloaded from spent brass or manufactured with empty casings taken from two munitions plants, one near Waco and a second in Victoria. Casting lead for bullets was easy; far trickier was engineering a propellant. Weapons-grade cordite required a complicated cocktail of highly volatile chemicals, including large quantities of nitroglycerine. It could be done, but it wasn’t easy, and it necessitated both manpower and expertise, both of which were in very short supply. The Army was down to just a couple thousand soldiers—fifteen hundred spread throughout the townships, and a garrison of five hundred in Kerrville. They had no chemists at all.
“I think we both know what we’re talking about here,” Peter said.
Apgar, seated across the paper-stacked expanse of Peter’s desk, was looking at his nails. “I didn’t say I liked it. But the trade has the manufacturing capacity, and it’s not like we haven’t dealt with them before.”
“Dunk’s not Tifty.”
“What about Michael?”
Peter frowned. “Sore subject.”
“The guy was an OFC. He knows how to cook oil—he can do this.”
“What about this boat of his?” Peter asked.
“He’s your friend. You tell me what it’s all about.”
Peter took a long breath. “I wish I could. I haven’t seen the guy in over twenty years. On top of which, we tell the trade we’re out of ammo, we’ve tipped our hand. Dunk will be sitting in this chair in a weekend.”
“So threaten him. He comes through for us or that’s it, the deal’s off, we storm the isthmus and put him out of business.”
“Across that causeway? It’d be a bloodbath. He’ll smell a bluff before I stop talking.”
Peter leaned back in his chair. He imagined himself laying out Apgar’s terms to Dunk. What could the man do but laugh in his face?
“This is all stick. There’s no way it’s going to work. What can we offer him?”
Gunnar scowled. “What, besides money, guns, and whores? Last time I checked, Dunk had all of those in plentiful supply. Plus, the guy’s practically a folk hero. You know what happened last Sunday? Out of the blue, a five-ton full of women shows up at the encampment in Bandera where they’re housing the road crews. The driver has a note. ‘Compliments of your good friend Dunk Withers.’ On a fucking Sunday.”
“Did they send them away?”
Gunnar snorted through his nose. “No, they took them to church. What do you think?”
“Well, there has to be something.”
“You could ask him yourself.”
A joke, but not entirely. There was also Michael to consider. Despite everything, Peter liked to think that the man would at least agree to talk to him.
“Maybe I’ll do that.”
As Gunnar rose, Chase appeared in the doorway.
“What is it, Ford?” Peter asked.
“We’ve got another sinkhole. A big one. Two houses this time.”
This had been happening all spring. A rumbling in the earth; then, within moments, the ground would collapse. The largest hole had been over fifty feet wide. This place really is falling apart, Peter thought.
“Anybody hurt?” he asked.
“Not this time. Both houses were empty.”
“Well, that’s lucky.” Ford was still looking at him expectantly. “Is there something else?”
“I’m thinking we should make a statement. People are going to want to know what you’re doing about it.”
“Such as what? Telling the ground to behave itself?” When Ford said nothing, Peter sighed. “Fine, write something up, and I’ll sign it. Engineering on the case, situation in hand, et cetera.” He raised an eyebrow at Ford. “Okay?”