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the time he finished, every person in the room would feel Governor Jackson Garrett had touched him or her personally. He sensed his audience and reached a crowd like nobody else Bernie’d ever seen.
    â€œHow many of you think people should make money from sick babies?”
    Health care. Students didn’t have much interest in it, but the older people did.
    â€œThis country has the best resources in the world for health care. Our physicians are the best trained and we have the best equipment for dealing with disease, the newest tests and the latest medicines. Who gets the benefit of all this? It’s not only the rich who should get the best in health care. Every person in this country should have it.”
    He went on to talk about the cost of medicines and what must be done to reduce it so sick people could buy what they needed. When the Governor paused, Bernie froze. No, Jack, don’t do it. No. Not right here in God’s country.
    To Bernie, God’s country was any small town. Its people always knew for a fact that God took a dim view of bright lights, dark bars, expensive restaurants, foreigners, Darwin, new scientific facts, and minorities. God, they were certain, was partial to the big sky, the sanctity of the land, and all that tumbleweed shit. God was also very big on an eye for an eye. If God didn’t see to it, well then, they also knew that God takes care of those who take care of themselves and they’d snap up their rifles and their handguns and go after that offending eye.
    Leaning over the podium, Garrett was talking as he would to friends. “… when each one of you who has lost a son or daughter, a mother or father, a friend to a cretin with a gun…”
    To Bernie’s surprise there was some applause mixed in with the boos. Minutes later, Garrett finished as he always did. “With your help and your vote, we’ll make this great country an even greater one.”
    Troopers tensed to leap into action and, sure as shootin’, the governor trotted down the steps from the platform and plunged into the crowd filling the aisle between the rows of seats. Harried officers fought to stay with him. Governor Garrett was the worst kind of nightmare for security people. Without warning, he jumped into crowds, was apt to change his schedule on impulse, and refused to wear a Kevlar vest despite pleading from Phil Baker. Jack took each offered hand, looked at each face, and murmured a comment to each person. He got caught up in it, all the excitement, the ambitions, the dreams, but Bernie thought there was more to it. Almost as if Jack had to prove something to himself. That he wasn’t afraid? Making up nonsense, Bernie told himself. The governor just needed to meet people up close to keep himself real. Or maybe punish himself. All the handshaking led to a swollen and painful right hand, so swollen and so painful that he had to bury it in a bowl of ice.
    â€œGovernor.” A television correspondent pushed a microphone in Jack’s face. “Will your position on gun control hurt you in D.C.?”
    Jack reached beyond the reporter for another outstretched hand.
    â€œGovernor,” the newscaster insisted.
    A thin guy in a gray jacket slid in between him and the governor.
    â€œHe’s got a knife!”
    Bernie wasn’t sure what happened next, but all of a sudden, the crowd seemed to shift closer, bumping the thin guy into the governor or maybe the guy lurched toward him. Somehow the governor was shoved back toward the steps of the stage and stumbled.
    Oh no. Oh God, no. Bernie eeled his way through the crowd that babbled with confusion.
    â€œI didn’t hear a shot.”
    â€œDid you hear a shot?”
    â€œSomebody saw a knife.”
    â€œHe was stabbed.”
    Art van Dever and Phil Baker threw themselves over Governor Garrett. By the time Bernie had elbowed his way through the milling people, the Governor was on his feet.
    â€œWhat