The Power of the Dog

Epilogue

An undisclosed location

May 2004

The poppies are in bloom.

Bright orange, bright red.

Art waters them carefully.

And savors the irony.

They didn’t put him in prison, the judge having decided that the former Border Lord wouldn’t have lasted a day in any federal institution. So it’s been a series of safe houses between rounds of testimony, seemingly endless sessions before endless committees, then back to another refuge where he’s relatively safe.

He’s been at this one for three months now and soon it will be time to move again, but he takes it a day at a time, and today is sunny and warm and he’s enjoying the garden in the enclosed courtyard.

He enjoys the solitude.

YOYO, he thinks as he sets down the watering can, sits on the little bench and leans back against the adobe wall.

But not really.

You have your ghosts.

Nora is gone now. She finished testifying and faded into her new life. Art likes to think that she’s with Callan, who likewise disappeared. It’s a pleasant thought.

Adan is serving twelve consecutive life sentences in a federal hole, also a pleasant thought. Art got to sit in the courtroom and watch him be led away in cuffs and ankle chains as Adan shouted back to tell him that the bounty on his head was still good.

And who knows, Art thinks, maybe someone will collect.

The drugs stopped flowing out of Mexico for about fifteen minutes after Adan’s downfall, then new kids on the block stepped up to take his place. There are more drugs coming into the country than ever.

Based on Art’s testimony, Congress launched an intensive investigation into Operation Cerberus and Red Mist and promised action. So far, nothing has been done. The government spends billions of dollars a year in aid to Colombia for drug interdiction. Most of it goes for helicopters to fight the insurgents. The war drags on.

The murder of Cardinal Juan Parada is still officially ruled an unfortunate accident.

Art supposes he should be bitter.

Sometimes he tries to be, but it feels like a slightly ridiculous parody of a former life, and he drops it. Althie and the kids-Hell, he thinks, they aren’t kids anymore-are coming for a quick visit this afternoon, and he wants to be cheerful.

He doesn’t know yet what will happen, how long he will have to spend in this limbo, whether he’ll ever get out. He accepts it as penance. He still doesn’t know if he believes in God, but he has hope of a God.

And maybe that’s the best we can do in this world, he thinks as he gets up to resume watering the flowers-tend to the garden and maintain the hope of a God.

Against all evidence to the contrary.

He watches the water bead silver on the petals.

And mutters a snatch of an odd prayer he once heard, which he doesn’t quite understand but that nevertheless sticks in his head Deliver my soul from the sword.

My love from the power of the dog.