After all he’d been through, after everything those he’d cared about had suffered, this silly debate and whatever might happen after it was no more important than all those high school games he’d played, or that last pep rally before the Ozona game, which most people here had long forgotten. All those things that had once mattered to him—to Murfee—had been just more empty moments, ephemeral and fleeting.

Impossible to hold on to.

Escaping his hand, like every touchdown ball he’d ever thrown.

—

BETHEL LOOKED THE PART—tall in his suit and his Stetson. He was easily twenty years older than Chris, and the gray at his temple (just enough, not too much) gave him a certain seriousness. He cleanly answered questions about community policing and use of force and protecting ranches from the influx of illegals across the river. He talked tough about enforcing the laws, and getting more federal funding for the jail and hiring more deputies and getting them better training and strengthening Big Bend County’s relationship with other counties as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety.

All things Chris had been doing.

And in a subtle reference to the fires of a year ago, he emphasized that because Murfee didn’t have its own city police—the county sheriff’s department had always filled that role—one of his priorities would be “Murfee First.” He planned on focusing on the safety of the town, something that had been ignored for far too long.

Murfee First. It’s OUR Big Bend. Bethel’s case could be made with a couple of easy slogans, and backed up by a lifetime of law enforcement work—he’d been a constable before being a ranger—they made for a damn compelling argument. Chris had plenty to say, too, and good work of his own to defend, but would never escape the specter of the deaths and fiery violence that had occurred on his watch, or the lack of experience that many felt had helped ignite it.

Chris wasn’t sure how many of the debate questions Royal Moody helped write, but plenty of them took direct aim at Chris again and again—how Chris was simply unqualified to carry a badge and a gun, an inescapable fact that had compromised everyone’s safety. On his watch, Murfee and the Big Bend had all but been overrun by illegals and white supremacists and drug runners and murderers, most of whom Chris had failed to anticipate or deal with, if not outright aided and abetted by his incompetence.

It wasn’t necessarily his fault, but Chris was simply too young, too naive, too unseasoned, and as the debate rolled on, Bethel—who claimed to have helped capture the notorious serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells outside Del Rio—only had to nod sagely. Sorrowfully. He was the veteran lawman the Big Bend needed to ride out of retirement and set things straight again.