The Soviet Comeback by Jamie Smith (best ereader for academics TXT) 📕

who had once roamed freely across these plains had believed the oil seeps to be gifts from the heavens, using it for medicine. His grandaddy, Terry Conlan, had seen it more as a gift to him and had set about creating an empire with a bloody singlemindedness that had made the Conlans one of the wealthiest families in Texas. The Cherokees had lost their land and heritage, but as Terry had always said, “When the dust settles, money and power are the only things that really matter.”

Simon breathed deeply, soaking up the clean, dry air. This was a rare treat. He could count on his hands how many times he’d got back to the ranch since Callahan appointed him secretary of defense back in ‘81. Away from the whining politicians, high security, and not even any wife and kids this time; they’d had a last-minute call to visit her mother in Arkansas this weekend, and praise God he hadn’t been asked to go. He pulled the sleeves up on his old blue and red chequered shirt, over the arms that had once been strong and muscled, gained through a childhood of working the cattle. They had got him through a hard war in the Pacific too. Now they looked every inch like the pen-pushing, hand-shaking arms of the seventy-year-old he’d become. A formerly handsome man, he still exuded a natural authority, with broad shoulders and a full head of steely grey hair. Broken veins on his nose and the absence of any laughter lines gave away both his indulgences and his lack of humour.

He sighed. Life had been so much simpler fighting the Japs. See one, shoot one. So straightforward. Now life had become so goddam complicated and consumed by the Russian commies. Sometimes he wondered if politics had been the right career choice.

“Take the weekend; think it over, Simon, and I know you’ll make the right decision on the INF Treaty. The world needs this to happen,” the president had said.

Negotiations for the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty had dominated his entire term as secretary of defense, and he was starting to grow tired of fighting it. But fight it he would. The only way to beat communism was to destroy it, and he wasn’t about to let more than eight hundred of his nuclear warheads be destroyed because that snake Petrenko said he’d do the same. However, many the Russkis had, Simon wanted more.

“We do not negotiate with communists,” he’d told Congress again and again, but he was fast being overruled and was ready to play dirty to undermine the agreement. Even making his position clear in the press hadn’t generated the level of public support he’d hoped for.

He downed the rest of his beer, tossed it to the ground and walked towards the stables. He looked over his shoulder and shouted, “Is nobody going to pick that up?”

A young black woman appeared silently from the side of the house and ran quickly to pick up the bottle, her wide eyes avoiding the haughty glare of Secretary Conlan.

This is why I love politics, he thought to himself. So much power over so many. He made efforts to make the staff black. Politically it helped him look good in the eyes of the northern states. Privately he’d never forgiven the Confederacy for losing to the anti-slave north. For him there was an order to things, and the blacks were firmly rooted at the bottom with the Cherokees.

He ambled over to the stables as the girl scampered away with the bottle. The massive wooden construction had been redeveloped by his father who was horse mad. Simon had never fully shared the enthusiasm, but horses were in his blood as a family of Irish descent, his great grandfather racing horses back in County Donegal before making the move over to the US in the famine. Jane and the kids got a lot more out of it than he did, but he liked to keep a stable and an eye on it as his father had before him.

He walked over to a chestnut stallion in its pen and stroked its head as it bowed slightly to him and pawed the ground. There was straw in his mane.

“Nat! Where the hell are you?” he yelled.

Appearing from another pen, a young black man appeared. “Here, sir. How can I help, sir?”

“What the hell are you doing with these horses? This one looks like he’s not been cleaned in weeks!”

“He was sleeping in the straw. I clean him every day, sir.”

Nat ducked quickly as an old horse shoe came flying at his head. “You going to tell me I’m wrong, boy? Don’t make me throw you back to the dirt you were born in with the rest of you bootlickers.”

Nat looked terrified. He was eighteen and yet to fill out his wiry frame, appearing gangly. “Please, sir, sorry, sir.”

“Don’t let it happen again. I’m docking your pay for a week.”

“Sir, please! I have to pay for my momma’s medicines.” The boy had tears in his eyes.

“You should’ve thought of that before you let him get all strawed up. Now get out of my sight.”

The young man fled, all legs and arms. The stallion whinnied as he saw the stable boy leave, and pawed the ground again. Simon smiled. It was good to be home.

He left the stables and as he returned to the house, he heard the phone ring. “I suppose it’s asking too much for anyone to answer the goddam phone?” he yelled. He heard footsteps running. “Whatever happened to slaves being neither seen nor heard? No, no, it’s fine, don’t let me interrupt all y’all’s rest.”

He picked up the phone in the broad living room, its wide French windows thrown open onto the plains beyond, casting light across the pale blue and white room.

“Secretary Conlan speaking.”

“Good afternoon, Mr Secretary, sir,