Strong Light of Day by Jon Land Page A

kill. I see you both with guns, aiming at each other.”
    Paz couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “That was a long time ago. I look in the mirror now, I see an entirely different man looking back. Still a work in progress, though.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œI want to see in my eyes what I see in my Texas Ranger’s.”
    â€œAnd what’s that?” Madam Caterina asked, her tone different, the otherworldly forces that had grabbed her ear likely quieting themselves to listen as well.
    â€œI don’t know. I’m still working on that, too.”
    â€œNow you find purpose in being her protector, in searching for the light you see in her eyes, Colonel.”
    Paz found himself taken aback again. “How’d you know that?”
    â€œKnow what?”
    â€œThat I was once a colonel. My Texas Ranger calls me that.”
    â€œYou didn’t tell me?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSomeone else did, then. Your mother maybe. Wait,” Madam Caterina signaled. “Something’s wrong.…” Her eyes sharpened. “Does this Texas Ranger have children, a son?”
    â€œYes and no. Two boys.”
    â€œOne’s in trouble. Danger,” Madam Caterina corrected quickly. “She’s going to need you.”
    â€œMy Texas Ranger?”
    Madam Caterina nodded. “And this boy.”
    Paz started to rise, when Madam Caterina clamped a hand on his forearm from the other side of the table. He’d been captured by antigovernment rebels back home in Venezuela once, manacled to a tree while they tried to figure out what to do with him. That’s what the woman’s grasp felt like—a steel manacle fastened over his flesh, squeezing tight enough to shut off the blood flow until his fingers went numb.
    â€œWait,” she said again, “there’s a light, a strong light, a blinding light. Everywhere at once, swallowing everything.”
    â€œA nuclear blast maybe,” Paz reasoned.
    â€œIn my experience, it’s more likely metaphorical, the strong light a sign of something that’s coming.”
    â€œIn my experience,” Paz told her, as she finally released her grasp so he could rise as tall as the single light fixture dangling from the ceiling, “they’re the same thing.”

 
    P ART T WO
    One Ranger who has come to epitomize the Ranger service of the early 1900s was Bill McDonald, captain of Ranger Company B. One reason McDonald is still so well known today is that he had a knack for hard-boiled talk.… Perhaps less known is McDonald’s statement to a large mob that confronted him as he left a jail with two prisoners in custody. “Damn your sorry souls!” growled McDonald as the men surged forward, intent on hanging the prisoners in his custody. “March out of here and get away from this jail, every one of you, or I’ll fill this yard with dead men.” The mob quickly dispersed.
    â€”Jesse Sublett, “Lone on the Range: Texas Lawmen,” Texas Monthly, December 31, 1969

 
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    N EW Y ORK C ITY
    The bright light shining on the stage kept Calum Dane from seeing the protester storm down the aisle and yank off his own leg. The move had the look of a performance to it, slapstick comedy maybe, until Dane saw that it was a prosthetic leg he was now trumpeting over his head like a flag, while the audience hooted and hollered.
    â€œYou did this to me, Mr. Dane!” the young man yelled up toward the stage, holding the leg still to keep himself from falling. “You just said you’re in the business of giving back. How about it then, sir? Give me back my leg!”
    Dane cupped a hand over his brow to shield his eyes from the lighting. He’d taken the stage just a few minutes earlier, the wires of the lavalier microphone threaded up under his shirt to emerge at his lapel like a clipped-on insect. He’d straightened it one last time in the mirror before he’d