A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [77]
“The bomb was my responsibility,” Quinn said, entirely taking the wind out of both inquisitors.
Senator Lightner had a rare moment of shame and disgust for himself. Zacco had been stripped of his congressional right to bully. He knocked on the table in successive knocks. “I have a feeling you have something more to tell me, Gunner.”
“Yeah, I sure do,” Quinn said with a lowered voice. “You’re a necrophilic, a corpse fucker. Now, get out of my sight.”
“Mr. Zacco,” the senator creamed reflectively, “the gunner has been through a tremendous ordeal. I suggest his remark was made in the heat of the moment. Kindly wait outside.”
The senator crushed an empty cigarillo box, tried but was unable to say something to Quinn. Quinn called for Mandy, waiting just beyond the door, who wheeled him away.
Now the scornful eyes of Commandant Brickhouse fell on Lightner. “I don’t think we’d better have a hearing on this,” the senator said. “I’m not going to tangle with Gunner Quinn.”
Part Two
Chapter 19
TROUBLESOME MESA, 1980
Oh, what a glorious valley. It echoed in a sound that said, “peace.”
Dan O’Connell was neither able to drive a car nor ride in the saddle. The first time Quinn swooped him up into his arms and set him in the passenger side, the two looked at each other, wordless but rich with joy. Neither of them ever said, “I’m sorry.” Dan was at his son’s side a good part of the day, at the chessboard, or the movies, or being wheeled into Mile High Stadium for a Bronco game.
Quinn said to himself, over and over again, “This is what life should be all about.”
Dan O’Connell ceded his seat as state senator, and the governor selected Quinn to finish the term, even though it was a switch from Republican to Democratic.
Dan had made dramatic changes and lost some of his Brooklyn cop mentality, broadening his base and finally getting a keen and compassionate understanding of other people.
He had been confused by the roiling student protests of the Vietnam War, by the ruckus called music, and by the decline in the basic morality, yet he’d grown enough to understand the meaning of the civil rights movement.
It was good to have a son as knowledgeable as Quinn, who seemed to have a grasp on all kinds of events and was a student of human history and behavior.
With Dan and his son so close these days, Siobhan was able to free herself to take a path she longed for. Siobhan had always been a stalwart of the church. She had to make peace with Greer Little’s abortion and finally concluded that her church made mistakes. The mistakes usually came from men asked to give more than they had to give.
Siobhan soon represented Colorado as an uppermiddle national committee woman. She and Dan traveled a lot on church tours of the cathedrals of grandeur in Italy and France, or they would cruise to the Alaskan glaciers, visit Buddhist temples, or charter for the Greek islands.
Quinn took over more and more of the ranch operation, bringing him into daily contact with the Martinez family. Consuelo and Pedro had four children, three of them university graduates, settled in cities as professionals with careers.
The remaining son, Juan, evolved into what seemed a natural passage from his father.
The Martinez family were twenty-five percent partners in the ranch operation. The changing of the guard from Pedro to Juan continued the close relationship with the O’Connells.
The families accorded one another the affection and respect of people who had spent a long time in one another’s kitchens. And this, too, was good. Dan had overcome a good part of his bigotry as the Martinezes largely replaced his own family back in Brooklyn.
The older people were delighted that Quinn and Juan would continue to run the ranch. Juan, in particular, was a cowboy’s cowboy, born to ride and rope, a mountain man with a graceful work ethic.
The clinker was that Carlos was missing. Quinn and Carlos had buddied so well, playing the games, dancing the music, riding like fury over