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 HIGH COUNTRY HERO
BROTHERHOOD PROTECTORS COLORADO
BOOK TWELVE

ELLE JAMES

TWISTED PAGE INC

 CONTENTS

High Country Hero

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue

REMY
Chapter 1

Afterword
About the Author
Also by Elle James
HIGH COUNTRY HERO
BROTHERHOOD PROTECTORS COLORADO BOOK #12

New York Times & USA Today

Bestselling Author

ELLE JAMES
Copyright © 2023 by Elle James

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical
means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

© 2023 Twisted Page Inc. All rights reserved.

ISBN EBOOK: 978-1-62695-535-6

ISBN PRINT: 978-1-62695-533-2

A big thank you to my parents who taught me the value of hard
work, determination and family love. I miss you both so much.
Elle James
 AUTHOR’S NOTE

Enjoy other military romance books by Elle James

Brotherhood Protectors Colorado

SEAL Salvation (#1)
Rocky Mountain Rescue (#2)
Ranger Redemption (#3)
Tactical Takeover (#4)
Colorado Conspiracy (#5)
Rocky Mountain Madness (#6)
Free Fall (#7)
Colorado Cold Case (#8)
Fool’s Folly (#9)
Colorado Free Rein (#10)
Rocky Mountain Venom (#11)
High Country Hero (#12)

Visit ellejames.com for more titles and release dates

Join her newsletter at
https://ellejames.com/contact/
 CHAPTER 1

“IN POSITION,”
Chief Special Operator Enrico “Rico” Cortez was last to
report after he and Roberto “Bert” Ramirez achieved the forward-
most position on the edge of the target compound. They’d cover for
the others as they moved forward.
“Task Force Smash-n-Grab, move out,” Lieutenant Metcalf’s
order came through Rico’s headset.
The US Navy SEAL team slipped through the night, closing in on
the ISIS-held location where three US Army Forward Surgical Team
members had been taken after capture.
The SEAL team’s mission: extract the surgeon, anesthetist and a
nurse. Two males and one female. ISIS had ambushed the team en
route to perform humanitarian work in a recently bombed village in
northwestern Syria. An informant had indicated they’d targeted the
FST to bring them to one of their leaders who’d been injured in a
raid against Syrian Democratic Forces.
From what the informant had learned, the ISIS leader, Khalid
Sukkar, hadn’t made it through the surgery, and the FST members
were being tortured and held in horrific conditions.
The sooner the SEAL team freed them, the better, before there
was nothing left to liberate.
This ISIS faction, under the new leadership of Sukkar’s second
in command, wasn’t known for their mercy. If anything, Sukkar’s
replacement was even more violent than his predecessor.
Rico would be surprised if the FST members were still alive. If
they were, they’d be in bad shape. The team would likely have to
carry them out. And if they took out every one of the ISIS bastards
in the process… Good. Under International Law, Humanitarian Law,
Geneva Convention and just common sense and honor, combatants
didn’t fuck with medical personnel.
From the informant’s report, the FST members had been royally
fucked with.
“Let’s get ’em,” the lieutenant said.
The team moved into the compound, picking their way through
the rubble of bombed-out structures to the semi-intact buildings at
the center of what had once been a thriving village perched on a
hillside.
As described by the informant, the building at the center of the
village was surrounded by a six-foot-tall wall with a one-story
structure sprawled inside the center.
The hairs on the back of Rico’s neck stiffened. “Where are all
the guards?”
“I thought this was an ISIS stronghold,” Patch said. “Think
they’ve moved out?”
“That or dug into the hillside,” LT suggested.
“Got a bogey half-asleep on the east corner rooftop,” Bert’s
voice came through Rico’s headset.
Rico glanced up at the spot. A man dressed all in black with a
black turban wrapped around his head held an AK-47 rifle. He
swayed and jerked as if falling in and out of sleep while standing.
“Got him in my sights,” whispered the team’s sniper, TJ Murphy.
A muted report of the sniper’s rifle suppressor sounded from the
corner of a building.
The man swaying on the rooftop slumped over and dropped out
of sight on the roof.
Rico’s muscles tensed.
“Rico, Bert, take point,” LT ordered.
“Roger,” Rico and Bert replied as one.
With the team covering, Rico and Bert approached the east
wall.
Bert leaned his submachine gun against the wall, bent and
cupped his hands.
Rico slung his rifle over his shoulder, stepped into his buddy’s
palms and pulled himself up onto the wall. Flattening his body
against the top, he peered into the shadows.
An eerie silence greeted him. Nothing moved in the shadows.
He didn’t like it. A single guard on the roof but none around the
building didn’t bode well for what they might find inside. “Other than
the guard on the roof, this place appears to be abandoned,” he
whispered into his mic.
“Move in,” LT ordered.
Rico reached a hand down to Bert.
The man grasped it and walked up the wall until he could throw
his arms over the top and pull himself up.
The team approached the wall. One by one, they scaled it and
dropped to the other side.
They spread out, surrounding the exterior of the structure.
Rico and Bert found the front entrance.
Standing to the side of the door, Rico tried to turn the knob.
Locked.
He pulled out the small crowbar affixed to the back of his
armor-plated vest, inserted it between the door and the frame and
gave it a sharp jolt. The door opened, swinging inward.
Rico nodded to Bert in the darkness. “Cover.”
“I’ve got your six,” Bert said. “Go.”
Rico, crouching low, his rifle held out in front of him, ducked
through the door and darted to the right.
Again, nothing moved.
Wooden crates lined the walls, their lids removed, the packaging
materials scattered across the floor in front of them.
The writing on the sides of the crates was in Russian. Based on
the length and width of the boxes, Rico would bet the contents had
been AK-47 rifles or the dreaded flame throwers this faction liked to
employ against their enemies and villages full of women and
children. They were brutal, and their methods of torture inhumane.
Once inside the building, the team went from room to room.
Rico and Bert led the effort, arriving at the very back of the
building, having found no people and no signs of habitation other
than the crates, dusty piles of trash and remnants of tattered rugs in
each room.
 But people had been here. Recently. The dust on the floor
leading down a long hallway had been disturbed with enough feet to
obliterate individual footprints, all ending at a pile of tattered rugs
lying in a bunch near the far corner of the last room.
Rico nudged the pile with the barrel of his rifle. The rugs didn’t
move far, the base of the pile seeming stuck to the floor.
Bert and Rico pulled the top layers of the rugs away, revealing
the lower remnants were nailed to a wood trap door.
“It’s a goddamn spider hole,” Bert said softly.
A shiver of apprehension rippled across Rico’s skin and up the
back of his neck.
The team gathered in the room, shining flashlights at the spider
hole.
Rico nodded toward Bert.
“I got your back,” Bert said.
As Rico reached for the corner of the wood, the door lurched
upward and a bearded man’s head emerged, wrapped in a black
turban. He held a flashlight in his hand, shining it into the room.
When he spotted the men standing around the room, his eyes
widened.
Rico reacted instinctively, slamming the butt of his rifle into the
man’s face as hard as he could.
He fell backward into the hole, and the trap door dropped
closed.
Bert yanked it open. Rico dropped down into the hole, landing
on the man he’d hit. In the glow from the flashlight the man had
dropped, Rico yanked out his knife and quickly dispatched the man
to keep him from raising the alarm.
Rico dragged the man out of the way. He pointed his rifle with
the flashlight attached to the barrel down a dark tunnel carved out
of the side of the hill. Once Bert had lowered himself into the spider
hole, Rico set off.
Other members of the team entered the tunnel behind them.
Rico hunkered low to keep from scraping his helmet against the
narrow, earthen ceiling and moved quickly and silently until the
tunnel opened into a larger room.
 Chains hung from the ceiling, sticks leaned against the wall, and
plastic bags lay in one corner next to a couple of old tires. A barrel
full of rancid water stood in another corner, and dark patches stained
the floor. The room smelled of sweat, urine, feces and decay.
Bile rose in Rico’s throat. This room he’d entered had to be the
torture room. He didn’t hold out much hope of finding the FST
members alive. If they were alive, they’d be in terrible shape.
Two tunnels branched off from the torture room. Rico, Bert, TJ
and Skeeter entered the left tunnel. Four others took the right
branch.
Several yards into the tunnel, Rico found a metal door with a
locking lever on the outside.
Bert pointed his rifle at the door as Rico lifted the latch and
swung the door open. The flashlight attached to the barrel of Bert’s
weapon swept into the tight room.
At first, Rico thought the room was empty until Bert’s light
reached the corner to his right, where a lump of what appeared to
be dirt stirred, and a weak groan rose out of the dirt.
Rico entered the room as a naked man, covered in dried blood
and filth, lifted his head and stared at them with dull eyes.
As Rico approached, he shrank back against the wall.
“Colonel Estep?” Rico whispered.
The man shook his head and wrapped his arms around his legs.
“Captain Monahan?” Rico crouched beside him.
The prisoner nodded, his eyes rounding.
“We’re here to get you out.”
“Sweet Jesus,” he croaked.
Rico slid the man’s arm around his neck and helped him to his
feet.
The man moaned and slumped to the ground.
“His feet are bleeding.” TJ entered the room. “We’ll carry him.
Look for the others.” TJ and Skeeter lifted the man between them
and carried him out of the cell and down the tunnel.
Rico and Bert moved further down the tunnel to the next door
and lifted the latch. Inside, they found a man lying on the floor, his
arms secured behind his back with a leather strap. Shirtless, his back
was crisscrossed with raw slashes as if he’d been beaten with a whip
or sticks. He stirred when Rico and Bert entered the room.
“No more. Please,” he murmured.
Rico squatted beside him. “Colonel Estep?”
The man groaned. “Yes.”
“We’re here to get you out,” Rico said.
The colonel’s shoulders shook with silent sobs.
“Can you walk?” Rico asked as he cut through the leather strap,
freeing the man’s wrists.
Colonel Estep nodded.
Rico helped him to his feet. The man swayed and fell against
the wall. He straightened himself. “Monahan and Layne?” he asked,
his voice hoarse.”
“We found Monahan. He’s being evacuated.”
“Layne?”
“Not yet. Bert will help you out.”
The colonel shook his head and steadied himself with a hand on
the wall. “Not leaving without Layne.”
Rico helped the man out of the cell and left him with Bert. He
went further into the tunnel, reaching the end without finding
another door.
As he turned to retrace his steps, the floor beneath him made a
hollow sound. He shined the light on his rifle at the ground to
discover a trap door.
He laid his rifle on the ground, shining the light over the ground.
With his fingers, he traced the edge of a two-foot square of sheet
metal and lifted it off a hole in the ground.
Unlike the spider hole leading into the tunnel, this hole was the
width of an oil barrel and dark.
Rico lifted his rifle and pointed it into the hole. A pair of blue
eyes blinked up at him from a dark face.
“Captain Layne?” he asked.
A quick sob sounded. The head ducked down, the eyes
disappearing.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you. Let me
help you out of there.”
 The head lifted, and the eyes blinked up at him, swimming in
tears.
He laid his weapon down again. The light shining over the top
of the hole cast the occupant inside in darkness.
Rico reached down. “Can you take my hand?”
“No,” a gravelly voice sounded.
He laid on his belly and reached deeper into the darkness, his
hands skimming over a shorn head and lower to narrow shoulders.
His hands gripped beneath the arms, and he lifted, scooting
backward as he did until the person at the bottom of the hole was
bent over the top edge.
He let go to straighten into a kneeling position to get a better
grip.
The prisoner slipped backward over the edge.
Rico grabbed beneath an arm and fell backward onto the
ground, taking the prisoner with him.
His arm encircled a naked female body and steadied her. He’d
found the nurse, Captain Layne.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
In the faint glow of the flashlight on his rifle, he stared up into
eyes so light blue they stood out in a filthy, dirty face. Her hair had
been shaved from her head, and every inch of her body was covered
in what smelled like sewage.
Rico rolled her off him gently, her body coming to rest on her
side. She winced and tried to pull her knees up to her chest,
whimpering.
Pulling his knife from its sheath, Rico cut the bindings from her
wrists.
She moved slowly, her face pinched in pain as she wrapped her
arms over her breasts.
Rico shed his vest with the armored plates and removed his
uniform jacket.
He helped her into a sitting position and gently wrapped her in
the jacket, noting the slashes across her back, the oozing sores on
her inner thighs and her bloody feet. What had this woman
endured?
 God, he didn’t want to know. His job was to get her out. The
sooner, the better.
Gunfire echoed in the tunnel.
“The hornets’ nest is officially stirred,” the LT’s voice sounded.
“Get out while we hold them.”
“You got the girl, Rico?” Bert’s voice sounded in his ear.
“Got her,” Rico responded.
“Targets acquired,” Bert reported. “Heading out.”
Rico pushed to his feet. He didn’t have time to slip back into the
vest, which would only weigh him down further. He had to get the
woman out.
Now.
He pulled the flashlight off the barrel, slung his rifle over his
shoulder and lifted the nurse into his arms. She was as small and
light as a child and painfully thin. “Hang on. We’re making a run for
it.” With the flashlight pointing forward, he headed back the way
he’d come, soon catching up to Bert and Colonel Estep, moving
slowly through the torture chamber.
“TJ and Skeeter got Monahan out,” Bert said. “The rest of the
team is holding the bogeys at bay.”
“We have incoming up here,” Patch, the external team leader,
said in Rico’s ear. “Two truckloads of militants heading our way. We’ll
hold them back, but you have to get out now. It’s about to get hot.”
Gunfire sounded in the other tunnel.
“We’re heading for the exit point,” the LT’s voice sounded in
Rico’s ear.
“Go!” Bert said. “Doc, follow them. I’ll cover the rear.”
Rico ran through the torture room.
Layne pressed her dirty face into his shirt, her arm around his
neck, barely able to hold on.
When they reached the spider hole, TJ was there. He reached
down, grasped Layne’s arms and drew her through the narrow hole.
Rico pulled himself up and out, then turned to help the colonel
to the surface. Though the man was thin and weak from starvation,
he was heavier than Layne. Rico strained to pull the colonel up and
out of the hole.
 Bert was next, followed by three more members of their team,
each popping out one at a time.
“Fire in the hole,” the lieutenant cried. He fired his rifle, pulled
himself out of the spider hole, slammed the trapdoor down and
covered his ears just in time.
An explosion lifted the trap door several inches into the air. As it
landed, the lieutenant scrambled to his feet.
TJ grabbed Monahan’s arm and dragged him up and over his
shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He took off at a dead run through the
hallway of the building.
The lieutenant looped the colonel’s arm over his shoulder and
followed TJ, moving as fast as he could with the colonel leaning
heavily against him.
Rico gathered the nurse in his arms and ran, Bert bringing up
the rear.
When they emerged into the open, gunfire pierced the
previously silent night.
“Over here!” Skeeter called from the wall where they’d entered
the compound. He’d dragged a wooden crate out of the building and
placed it against the wall.
TJ ran for the crate with Monahan over his back. Skeeter leaped
onto the wall; TJ handed Monahan up to him and climbed up and
over, dropping down on the other side.
Skeeter eased Monahan down on the other side and slid over
the wall after him.
The lieutenant half-ran, half-dragged the colonel to the crate.
The three men who’d been with him in the other tunnel ran ahead
and helped get the colonel over the wall.
Rico handed Layne into the hands of the men helping them over
the wall and pulled himself up and over in time to receive the nurse
on the other side.
He waited long enough to ensure Bert made it over with the
other members of the team who’d breached the wall with them.
Once they were all on the other side, he ran with Layne clutched
close to his chest, Bert covering the rear.
 The other members of the team, who’d remained outside the
walled compound and had held down the incoming truckloads of
combatants, eased back through the village streets, quickly catching
up to Bert.
Their goal was to make it to the hillside just outside the village,
where Black Hawk helicopters would pick them up and ferry them
back to their Forward Operating Base. A medical team waited there
to stabilize and accompany the FST members to a higher level of
medical support in Germany. Once they could withstand a longer
flight, they’d be transported to the States to recover.
They just had to get them on that Black Hawk and out of range
of ISIS anti-aircraft weapons.
Rico kept moving forward, following the others, carrying Layne.
The colonel slowed the lieutenant down to the point that Metcalf
stopped and tossed the doc over his shoulder in a fireman carry. He
was able to move faster, even weighed down by the man. Weaving
through the rubble and destroyed portions of the village, the team
finally emerged on the edge of the town and raced out into the
open.
Bert and three other team members hung back, laying down
cover fire to keep the ISIS combatants from advancing on the guys
carrying the injured Forward Surgical Team members.
Skeeter called in the Black Hawks.
Two helicopters swooped in. One aimed for the hillside, the
other flew closer to the village and unloaded fifty-caliber gunfire in
front of the line of SEALs holding back ISIS gunmen.
TJ reached the chopper first and handed off Monahan to the
flight medics aboard, then jumped.
Rico felt something hit the back of his left calf, making him
stumble. He fell to his knees, still holding Layne in his arms. After
regaining his balance, Rico lurched to his feet and limped forward,
picking up speed despite the pain in his left calf.
“Fuck!” Bert said. “Some of those bastards got through further
south of our position. Heading that way.”
“Negative, Bert,” the lieutenant said into Rico’s headset. “Pull
back and head for the extraction point.”
 An explosion sounded behind Rico. He turned to see a cloud of
dust and debris blurring his view of the village.
“Bert.” Rico slowed to a halt.
“I’m hit,” Bert called out. “Keep going. I’ll hold them off. Get
those people out.”
Rico shook his head. “We’re not leaving without you.”
“You have to. There are too many of them. If you don’t get out
now, you might not make it out. Get them out.”
“Move, Rico. Get Layne on that chopper,” Lt. Metcalf ordered.
Rico leaned forward, limping heavily. He gritted his teeth and
powered ahead, refusing to let the pain in his leg or his draining
strength stop him. If he could get the woman to the chopper, he
could turn around and go back for Bert.
As he reached the helicopter, hands reached for Captain Layne,
pulling her up into the aircraft.
When Rico spun to head back for Bert, the dust was settling
where the explosion had occurred. Dark silhouettes emerged from
between the buildings on the edge of the village. A flash of flame
burst through the air.
“They have flame throwers,” a voice said into Rico’s ear.
“Get out of here!” Bert cried as a burst of machine gun fire
forced the ISIS combatants to drop to the ground.
All the men but Bert had made it back to the chopper.
When Bert’s gunfire ceased, the black silhouettes rose and
moved forward again, the flame thrower belching a stream of fire,
sweeping back and forth across the ground.
Bert’s machine gun went off.
The man holding the flame thrower crumpled to the ground,
dropping the weapon.
Another man picked it up and kept moving forward.
Another burst of gunfire sounded from Bert’s weapon.
Rico lunged away from the Black Hawk, half-running, half-
limping toward Bert.
The gunfire didn’t last long, cutting off suddenly.
The black silhouettes rushed forward, the flame lashing out.
 “Well, damn,” Bert said. “My gun’s jammed. Why the hell
haven’t you left yet? Get out of here. Tell my wife and kids I love
them. You know I love you guys,” he said.
The flame swept across the ground, scorching brush and grass.
“Out here,” Bert said. A single shot sounded.
“Bert,” Rico cried. “Bert!”
He didn’t answer.
The flame finally caught a huddled figure on the ground,
lighting it up in the night.
“No!” Rico staggered forward. In his heart, he knew. Bert was
gone. But he couldn’t leave him behind.
The second helicopter had circled around and swept in, laying
down fire on the ISIS combatants.
Two of Rico’s teammates grabbed his arms and dragged him
back to the helicopter. Other hands reached down and pulled him up
into the aircraft as the last two men dove on board.
Even as the helicopter rose from the ground, Rico fought to get
out. Go back. Bring Bert home. His teammates forced him into a
seat and buckled the harness around him.
A truckload of ISIS burst from the edge of the village, ground to
a halt and unloaded the men on board. One of the men pulled out a
long, narrow tube and lifted it to his shoulder.
By then, the helicopter was well up in the sky, heading over the
top of the ridge.
The other chopper turned and fired a rocket at the truck. But
not before the ISIS rocket left the hand-held launcher.
The truck exploded.
“Incoming!” Lieutenant Metcalf yelled.
Rico closed his eyes, fully expecting the rocket to slam into the
side of the Black Hawk.
The chopper dove behind the hill. The rocket slammed into the
ridge, the force of the explosion rocking them.
The pilot struggled for control, steadied the aircraft and picked
up speed, leaving ISIS, the village and Bert behind.
Rico stared out at the night, his heart heavy and feeling sick to
his stomach. His best friend was gone. He’d known that flame would
reach him soon, and he’d chosen to go out on his own terms. He
would not have suffered. He’d sacrificed himself to save his team.
He was a hero.
But what good was a dead hero?
Rico dragged his gaze back to the interior of the helicopter.
They’d accomplished their mission, extracting the three members of
the FST.
All three lay across the helicopter floor, the flight medic and
their team medic working over them to establish IVs. Monahan was
already hooked up. Though unconscious, he was breathing. He’d
probably passed out while being carried from the village. Captain
Layne lay at Rico’s feet, staring up at him with those incredibly blue
eyes. She reached up a dirty hand.
He took the hand and held it all the way to the FOB. When they
landed, she refused to let go, her last bit of strength channeled into
her hand, holding him.
Rico carried her out of the helicopter, almost collapsing when he
put weight on his injured leg.
When others tried to take her from him, he held on, carrying
her to the stretcher. Only then did he release his hold.
She grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him close. “Thank you,” she
said, her voice nothing more than gravel and air. “You’re my hero.”
He shook his head. He wanted to say that he wasn’t a hero. The
hero was Robert Ramirez, who’d stayed back to cover for them. The
man who’d chosen a bullet over flames as his ticket out of hell,
leaving the world on his own terms.
Before Rico could say anything, two medics carried the nurse
away, loaded her into an ambulance and drove her to the field
hospital.
“Dude,” TJ came up beside him. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing,” Rico said, his tone flat, his heart flat-lining.
“The hell it is.” Lieutenant Metcalf called out, “Medic!”
“I’m fine,” Rico ground out. “We need to go back for Bert.”
The lieutenant laid a hand on Rico’s shoulder. “Another team is
already in the air, halfway there. They’ll bring him back.”
 What was left of him. If ISIS didn’t drag his charred remains
through the streets.
Rico’s stomach lurched. He staggered away from the others and
lost the contents of his belly.
When he straightened, a medic stood beside him. “Come with
me, sir. We need to take care of that wound.”
Rico didn’t want to take care of his wound. Compared to what
had happened to Bert, the bullet in his leg was nothing. The pain
served as a reminder of what he’d lost and what he hadn’t done to
save his friend.
“You’ll go with the medic,” Metcalf said. “That’s an order.” He
stood in front of Rico. “There was nothing any of us could do. Bert
was too close. You had a job to do. You saved a life.”
“And we lost a life.”
“You’d have done the same thing had you been Bert and
expected Bert to get that woman to safety.”
“He should’ve been carrying her. I should’ve been the one left
behind.”
Metcalf shook his head. “He had the machine gun. It was his
job, and he did it.” The lieutenant tipped his head. “Go. Let them
patch you up. If you die of infection, Bert’s sacrifice would be in
vain. You saved a life today.”
“Damn it!” Rico slammed his fist into his palm. “Bert’s gone. Is it
right to save one life at the cost of another?”
“You saw what condition they were in. Bert wasn’t tortured. He
didn’t suffer. Had we left those three where they were, they
would’ve continued to suffer. They didn’t have the option Bert had.
You helped save them from a fate much worse.”
“Yeah. Tell it to Bert’s wife and kids,” Rico said. “Fine. I’ll get my
leg patched. I’ll live to fight another goddamn day.”
Bert wouldn’t. Rico’s wingman. The guy he’d been with since
BUD/S was no more.
Nothing would ever be the same.
 CHAPTER 2

“THANKS FOR COMING OUT TO HELP.”

RJ Tate set three full beer mugs on the tray
and pushed it across the bar toward Laurel. “We’re always slammed
when the rodeo’s in town.”
Laurel hefted the heavy tray and smiled. “You know I love being
out here with you and Gunny. I owe you so much for loaning me the
money to expand the shop.”
RJ snorted as she filled another mug full of beer. “You don’t owe
us anything. You’ve paid back the loan and are doing great with your
florist business. The point is, you’re family. Family takes care of each
other.”
“Yes, we’re family. I’d do anything for you and Gunny.” With a
grin, Laurel turned to take the tray to the table of rowdy cowboys,
laughing about their day at the rodeo. Over her shoulder, she called
out, “I’m going to make you a special flower arrangement, RJ.”
“Save the flowers for paying customers,” RJ yelled over the din.
“Flowers remind me too much of funerals.”
Laurel nodded without turning back.
“Sorry,” RJ called. “Forgot for a moment.”
“No worries,” Laurel swallowed hard on the lump in her throat
and kept moving forward. Looking back never did her any good.
Easier to focus on others, like her friend, RJ.
Having lost her mother at a young age, RJ had been raised by
her Marine father. A tomboy, more at home on Lost Valley Ranch,
wearing jeans and boots than at a social event in a dress, RJ was
female through and through. Beneath her gruff exterior, she had a
heart of gold and loved fiercely.
 Laurel was so glad she’d found her match in Navy SEAL Jake
Cogburn, the head of the Colorado regional office of Brotherhood
Protectors.
Jake had saved RJ’s life, and she’d saved him from the self-
destructive track he’d been on before taking his position with the
protection agency founded by another Navy SEAL, Hank Patterson.
The agency meant so much to the men they employed—men
who’d served in special forces who’d left the Army, Navy, Marines
and Air Force highly trained in combat and at a loss with how those
skills could be used in the civilian sector. Many of the men employed
suffered with PTSD and struggled to fit into their new lives.
Laurel understood PTSD. She still had nightmares from when
she’d been captured and tortured by ISIS. She didn’t remember
much from her time in captivity and was glad of it. The external
scars were enough of a reminder of that time. Her nightmares tried
to bring those memories back. She often woke drenched in sweat
and tears. She hated tight, dark places and preferred to be
surrounded by sunlight and the beautiful colors abundant in her
flower shop, Laurel’s Florals, in Fool’s Gold, her hometown town,
nestled in the Rock Mountains.
Laurel carried the tray of beer to the table and served the men
with a smile. Life was short. She chose to be happy rather than
relive the terror of her captivity and nightmares.
Her bother Devin hurried to a table a group of cowboys had just
vacated and loaded empty drinks and plates into a tub and then
wiped the table clean with a spray disinfectant and a clean rag.
“Hey, Dev,” she said, “where’s Mallory?”
“She’s helping at the rodeo. She competes tomorrow.
Otherwise, she’d be here tonight.”
“She’ll do well,” Laurel said.
“She should,” Devin said. “She’s been practicing with Jazz since
the last rodeo.”
Laurel smiled. “Now that you two are together, she’s much more
focused. And happy. You’re both happy. It does my heart good.”
He straightened with a grin. “We are. Crazy, stupid happy.” His
brow dipped low. “What about you?”
 She blinked at him. “Me? I’m fine.”
“Even with the reunion and memorial with your team from
Syria?” he asked, his concerned gaze pinning hers.
She nodded. “I look forward to seeing Colonel Estep.” She gave
him a quick smile. “I should just call him Dr. Estep. He got out of the
Army after Syria.”
“I was sorry to hear about Captain Monahan,” Devin said. “I
worry about you.”
Laurel shook her head. “Don’t. I’m home with family and
friends. I have a thriving business. I’m happy. Monahan came out of
Syria a lot worse off than Dr. Estep or me. He suffered terribly.”
“All three of you did,” Devin said, his jaw tight. “Those
bastards…”
“It’s in the past. I prefer that it stays there,” she said.
“Are you sure this reunion and memorial won’t bring it all back?”
Laurel drew in a deep breath and let it out. “It will be good to
see Dr. Estep and the others we deployed with. It might just be the
event that gives us the chance to let go of what happened.”
“Are you still having nightmares?” He studied her closely.
The nightmares were very much a part of her. She’d hoped,
with time, they’d fade. When they hadn’t, she’d learned to live with
them.
Her brother’s brow dipped lower. “You are still having them. You
know you can move in with us. Mal would love to have you close.”
Laurel shook her head. “No way. I’d be a third wheel in your
lovefest. I’m content in my apartment over the shop. I have a great
security system, and I’m thinking of getting a dog.”
“Mal and I discussed this. We would love you to live with us.
Especially after what happened with Alan Croft, aka Trent Ryan.”
She squared her shoulders. “I’m over that. Alan Croft is behind
bars and can’t hurt me or Mallory ever again.”
“Are you still seeing that therapist at the VA?” Devin asked.
Laurel nodded. “For what it’s worth. I don’t really need it. I’m
happy, healthy and loving life.”
Her brother’s frown remained. “And you’ve been through more
than most people can handle without cracking.”
 “If I wanted to live around people, I’d move in with RJ and
Gunny in the lodge. I would not mess up a good thing between you
and Mallory by intruding on young love.”
“We have a new Brotherhood Protector as of today. He took the
last available room in the lodge until the rodeo is over. Staying at the
lodge might not be an option. Besides, the ranch house is just as
much yours as it is mine. It’s your home. We grew up there.”
Laurel sighed. “Now, it’s yours and Mal’s. I have a lovely
apartment above my shop. I’m comfortable and happy,” she insisted.
“Miss Laurel,” a cowboy called out from a table full of rabble-
rousers.
“I’m fine, Devin,” she said. “I came out tonight to help.” And to
get away from her thoughts of Monahan’s suicide. She needed to
keep busy. “Let me do my job, and quit worrying about me.” She
moved away from him and took orders for drinks.
The Brotherhood Protectors had employed her brother, Devin,
when he’d come off active duty, medically retired due to an injury
that had left him with a limp. He and his team had saved her life and
that of her friend Mallory when an insane man, bent on revenge,
captured them and buried them alive in fifty-five-gallon barrels.
After being tortured in Syria and then buried in a barrel, she
should be afraid to leave her apartment, cowering in a closet or, at
the very least, cocooned in bubble wrap.
However, Laurel didn’t want to live her life looking over her
shoulder, afraid to step outside and suspicious of every person who
came within ten feet of her. She might as well have died in that hole
in Syria.
But she hadn’t. So, her waking memory was a little vague about
what had happened to her during her captivity. She didn’t even
remember being carried out of the underground tunnels where her
team had been held.
What she could remember from her nightmares was being
naked and trapped in a dark hole, unable to move. So cold and
alone. On the verge of giving up in her nightmares, she heard a
deep, rich voice saying, “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Let me
help you out of there.”
 Strong arms lifted her out of the hole and gently wrapped her
damaged body in a big shirt still warm from his body heat and
smelling of…
She couldn’t place the scent—woodsy…musky…pure heaven.
“Hey, Blondie,” a voice called out.
The sound yanked her out of the tunnel and back into Gunny’s
Watering Hole, filled with hungry and thirsty cowboys, hopped up on
adrenaline from riding bulls and broncos all day.
“Sir?” She pasted a smile on her face and looked at the heavy-
set cowboy at the table beside her. “What can I get for you?”
“I was going to ask for one of Gunny’s onion burgers, but a lap
dance sounds even better,” he said, pulling her down on his thick
thighs and leering at her, his breath smelling of whiskey.
“Junior!” RJ came out from behind the bar, carrying a taser.
“What did I tell you about touching the waitresses?”
“Oh, I was just playing.” He patted Laurel’s knee, his hand
sliding up beneath her denim skirt.
In a split second, Laurel went from a calm, happy waitress to a
fighting, kicking, hissing animal. She leaped from the man’s lap and
shoved him backward until his chair tipped over, sending him
slamming down on the barroom floor. Then she leaped onto him and
pounded his chest.
The man gripped her wrists to keep her from scratching his
face.
Rational thought flew out the door as she fought for her
freedom and her life.
“Laurel,” a voice called out.
She could barely hear through the buzzing in her ears.
As the meaty hands holding her wrists tightened, she fought
harder, finally jerking them free and scrambling to her feet. She
turned in a circle, surrounded by men, all staring at her.
Her chest tightened, and she threw herself under a table and
curled into a ball. She was back in the torture room, surrounded,
naked, and so scared she couldn’t move. She closed her eyes and
wished she was invisible or that she could disappear.
 “Laurel,” a woman’s voice spoke softly. “Open your eyes,
Laurel,” she coaxed. “It’s me, RJ. You’re safe. Come on. Open your
eyes.”
“Laurel,” a familiar voice called out. “Come out from under the
table, and let me take you home.”
She opened her eyes and stared into pretty green eyes. “RJ?”
“Yeah, sweetie. I’m here for you,” she said.
“Me, too.” Her brother was on his knees in front of her, as was
RJ.
Laurel frowned. “Why are you two on the floor?” She looked up,
and her frown deepened. “Why am I under a table?” Understanding
dawned on her. “What happened? What did I do?”
RJ chuckled. “You gave someone what he deserved.” She held
up her taser. “I didn’t even need to use this on him.”
“Oh, RJ.” Tears welled in Laurel’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, really.” RJ touched her arm. “He deserved getting knocked
on his ass and pummeled for putting his hand up your skirt.”
“I’m so sorry.” Laurel crawled from beneath the table and stood,
smoothing her hand over the denim skirt. “I might be more help in
the kitchen.”
“You should go home with Devin and get some rest,” RJ said.
“See?” Devin said. “I’m not the only one who thinks you need to
live with someone rather than staying in your apartment by
yourself.”
“I’m not changing my mind.” Still, she didn’t want to be alone
yet. Not after the drama she’d just performed.
Laurel pushed past RJ and Devin and then through the crowd of
onlookers, forcing her way through to the kitchen.
Grizzled old Gunny gave her a gentle smile. “Miss Laurel, was
the crowd out there getting to you?” He flipped a burger and laid a
slice of cheese over it.
“Sure,” she said. “Do you need anything from the lodge?” She
needed to walk and breathe fresh air, out in the open.
“I could use more napkins. We’ve run out in here. I have a case
in the walk-in pantry in the lodge kitchen. If you’re going, could you
pick up four bags? That should hold us over for tonight, and I’ll bring
over more tomorrow.”
Ready to explode if she didn’t get away from people in the next
two minutes, Laurel dove for the door, burst through and ran down
the lighted pathway toward the lodge. Tears filled her eyes and
streamed down her face.
She’d told Devin she was okay, happy, over the past.
But she wasn’t.
Her reaction to Jr.’s touch had sent her over the edge into that
dark place she couldn’t climb out of.
Though tears blurred her vision, she didn’t slow, running as
hard and fast as she could. No amount of running, no amount of
distance could get her away from the demons of her past.
So desperate to escape her nightmare, with eyes filled with
tears, she couldn’t see in front of her until she hit a wall.
Her chest connected first, and then her face, slamming into
something hard. When she bounced back, steel arms wrapped
around her, trapping her against the wall.
Rational thought fled, replaced by her fight-or-flight instinct.
Laurel struggled to free herself, kicking, bucking, twisting. With
her arms pinned to her sides by iron bands, she couldn’t punch or
gouge eyes out.
Terror gripped her as tightly as the arms around her, squeezing
the air from her lungs. She couldn’t talk, scream or beg for mercy.
Suddenly, she went limp. Before her captor could react, Laurel
slipped to the ground, tucked and rolled into the woods, then
burrowed into the brush. Her breath caught and held as she hid
behind leaves, counting the seconds the dark-clad legs remained on
the path.
Then those legs bent. The man they belonged to searched the
brush for her.
All she could see was the silhouette of his head and hunched
body.
“There you are,” he said, his voice deep, smooth and…familiar. A
hand reached for her. “I’m not going to hurt you. Let me help you
out of there.”
 Her heart stopped, started, stopped and raced to catch up with
the oxygen she needed to think. The buzzing sound intensified.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Please, take my hand.”
She knew that voice. It was the same one she heard every night
in her dreams.
The buzzing faded. Her heartbeat slowed.
Laurel laid her hand in his palm. He might be a serial killer, but
she didn’t care as long as he kept talking to her…with that voice.
 CHAPTER 3

RICO WAS surprised when the woman reached out to take his hand.
After she’d gone bat-shit crazy trying to escape him, he was sure
she would sink deeper into the shadowy woods and get lost.
He felt horrible for having scared her.
She’d been terrified.
He’d held on because he was afraid that if he’d let go, she’d
have collapsed, slammed into a tree trunk or gotten lost. He hadn’t
counted on her going completely limp and sliding through his arms
to the ground.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I won’t hurt you. I just want to make
sure you’re all right.
Applying the slightest bit of tension, he pulled her out from
under the bush and let her get herself to her feet.
When she swayed, he cupped her elbow lightly to steady her.
“Can you stand on your own?”
She wiped moisture from her cheeks before looking up at his
face.
A gap in the tree branches added starlight to the soft glow of
the lights lining the path, shining down into her face, glinting off
eyes so blue they looked as if they were made of starlight
themselves.
Rico stared down at her, a memory tugging at his heart.
The petite blonde wore a denim skirt with a white blouse tucked
into the waistband. Her hair hung down to her shoulders, straight
and thick, cut in a straight line all the way around. He didn’t
recognize her hair or face, but those eyes…
“Do I…know you?” he asked.
 Her brow puckered as she stared up at him, canting her head to
one side. “Are you from Fool’s Gold?” She smoothed her hand over
her skirt and brushed leaves from her white blouse.
He shook his head. “No. I’m new here. I just hired on with Jake
Cogburn and—”
“—the Brotherhood Protectors,” she finished.
He smiled. “Right. You work with them?”
The woman shook her head. “No. I run a florist shop in town.
My brother, Devin Layne, works for them. He said there was a new
guy at the lodge. I take it you’re the new guy.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What branch of service?” she asked.
“Navy.”
“SEAL?”
He nodded. “How did you guess?”
“They like to hire guys with training and experience in special
operations.”
Rico cocked an eyebrow. “Your brother?”
“10th Special Forces. Green Beret,” she answered.
Rico held out his hand. “Enrico Cortez. A pleasure to meet you.
Sorry if I hurt you.”
She laid her hand in his for the second time and gave him a
crooked smile. “My fault. I should’ve been looking where I was
going. I’m Laurel.”
“Laurel,” he said, rolling her name over his tongue. It suited her.
“I was headed for the bar. Would you care to join me?”
When she hesitated, he added, “You’d be doing me a favor. I
don’t know anyone but Jacob.”
She grimaced. “Can’t. I’m working. I was just going to the lodge
to get some napkins for Gunny.” Her eyes narrowed. “Have we met
before? I don’t recall seeing you in town.”
“Ever been to San Diego?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Fort Sam Houston?”
He shook his head. “Is that where your brother was stationed?”
“No. I was stationed there.”
 “Prior military?” he asked.
“Army,” she said and looked past him. “I really need to get the
napkins for Gunny.” She stepped past him.
He fell in beside her. “Do you mind if I walk with you?”
Laurel set off. “Weren’t you on the way to the Watering Hole?”
“I was,” he said. “I don’t mind taking a detour. I promise not to
slow you down this time.”
Her lips pursed. “I should’ve been looking where I was going.”
“Hard to do when you’re running full speed and your eyes are
leaking,” he said softly.
Her head dipped, her hair falling across her cheeks, hiding her
expression from him. “I had something in my eyes.”
“Right.” He didn’t push for more. She obviously didn’t want to
talk about what had upset her. It was enough to walk beside her to
the lodge to make sure she was okay and didn’t run into anyone
else. “You were in the Army,” he stated. “What was your MOS?”
“I was a nurse.”
“And now you sell flowers?” He shot a glance at her. “I thought
once a nurse, always a nurse.”
She looked at him with one eyebrow cocked. “What about you?
I thought once a SEAL, always a SEAL.”
“It’s true. Just because you leave the Navy doesn’t mean you
quit being a SEAL.” He frowned. “Laurel.” Again, he rolled her name
on his tongue, trying to remember if he’d ever dated a Laurel. “Do
you have the same last name as your brother?”
“I do,” she answered. “Why do you ask?”
His gut clenched. He pressed a hand to his belly, his head
spinning with the possibility, flashes of memory hitting him square in
the chest. “No reason,” he forced out.
When they arrived at the lodge, Laurel climbed the stairs to the
wide front porch.
Rico followed out of morbid curiosity, his steps slowing, his
heart in his throat, his hands suddenly clammy.
It couldn’t be… She looked nothing like… But then she’d been
dirty…head shorn… The world wasn’t that small… Was it?
Memories rolled through his mind like a disjointed movie.
 The Syrian village clinging to the side of a hill, bathed in the soft
glow of moonlight. A spider hole. The tunnel. A cell with a naked,
beaten man. Another prisoner with slashes across his back. A hole in
the ground.
Blue eyes shining up at him.
Flames.
Bert’s last words.
Halfway across the dining room, Rico stopped and leaned
against a table, struggling to walk, to think, to breathe. His lungs
were so tight he couldn’t get air into or out of them.
Ahead of him, Laurel pushed through a swinging door.
Rico was glad when the door swung shut between them. He
needed a moment or two to slow his racing heart, restore air to his
lungs and remember how to function like a normal human being.
The door swung open seconds later, and Laurel leaned through,
a frown denting her forehead. “Did I lose you?”
He shook his head and dragged a breath into his lungs. “I’m
coming.”
Her gaze lingered, her brow dipping lower. “You don’t have to. I
can take care of the napkins myself.”
He straightened and cleared the knot in his throat with a
strangled cough, then gave her a tight smile. “I’ve come this far. I
can help carry the napkins.”
Her frown lingered. “You look like I feel. Are you okay?”
“Never better,” he lied and closed the distance between them.
Laurel held the door open for him to pass through and let it
swing closed behind them. She hurried toward a door on the wall to
her right and stepped into a spacious pantry.
Rico stood in the doorframe as Laurel reached for the top shelf
where several bags of paper napkins were lined up in a neat row.
Even standing on her toes, Laurel was four inches short of the bags.
She tried jumping to snag one with her fingertips. When that didn’t
help, she placed her foot on the bottom shelf, gripped the edge of
the shelf below the one with the napkins and pulled herself up. She
grabbed for a bag of napkins, yanked toward her, lost her grip and
fell backward.
 Rico stepped forward just in time to catch Laurel in his arms.
“Oh!” She clutched the bag of napkins to her chest and blinked
up at him. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he said, holding her longer than necessary. When
he realized what he was doing, he eased her feet to the ground.
Laurel weighed more than the filthy, pathetic creature he’d
carried out of the compound that night over three years ago. That
woman had been shaved, beaten, probably raped and starved.
Laurel was light to that other woman’s darkness. Other than her
bright blue eyes, she didn’t resemble the ISIS victim who’d barely
survived captivity.
“I can stand on my own,” she said.
Immediately, he let go. Laurel grabbed his arm to steady
herself, still holding onto the bag of napkins. “Okay, then. Next time,
I’ll remember to be prepared,” she murmured.
“Sorry,” he said, kicking himself for letting his memories drive
his actions and make him forget where he was and how he should
handle a woman—especially one who might have been traumatized
so severely.
She stepped back, her gaze raking over him. “Are you sure
you’re okay?”
“I should be asking you that question,” he said. “You were the
one who ran into me on the trail and then hid in the shadows like a
wounded cat.” Which made sense if she was who he thought she
was.
Her cheeks flushed a deep pink. “I thought you were attacking
me.”
He nodded. “I understand. I imagine it was hard to tell in the
light when you’re running, and there’s something in your eyes.” He
reached over her head and plucked another bag of napkins from the
top shelf. “Gunny must be pretty desperate for these napkins for you
to run so fast to the lodge to get them.” He handed the second bag
to her. “How many do you need?”
“Four,” she replied.
He snagged two more bags and turned to her. “I’ll carry these.”
His gaze connected with hers.
 She was looking at him with a wrinkle in her brow. “I feel like I
know you.”
He opened his mouth to tell her where he thought he’d
encountered her, but the gut-wrenching nature of that event froze
his lungs. It happened every time he dredged up the memories of
that night. Rather than stand there with his mouth hanging open
and nothing coming out, he shrugged and stepped out of the pantry.
By then, he was able to drag in a breath. “We should get these to
Gunny.”
Rico marched through the kitchen, dining room and great room.
Her footsteps sounded behind him, hurrying to keep up.
A hand reached out to touch his arm, bringing his flight to a
halt.
“We have met, haven’t we?” she said. “Were you one of my
patients? Was I rude to you? If so, I’m sorry.”
He looked down at the hand on his sleeve as she balanced the
bag of napkins under her arm.
His gaze met those blue eyes, and everything about that night
so long ago hit him with the force of a runaway freight train. “Yes,”
he said through gritted teeth. “We’ve met. But you probably don’t
remember.”
She shook her head, a frown. “Where? When?”
When he couldn’t tell her, her fingers curled into his shirt sleeve.
“Tell me.”
His breathing became ragged, just like when he’d run through
the streets of that village, carrying a thin, dirty creature, barely
recognizable as human. “Syria. Three years ago. The night we pulled
a nurse, a doctor and an anesthetist out of an ISIS compound.”
Her eyes widened, and her face blanched. The bags of napkins
dropped to the floor. “That was you?”
In his own living hell of memories, he almost didn’t move fast
enough to catch her as her eyes rolled backward and her knees
buckled.
Rico flung the bags of napkins he carried aside and lunged for
her, catching her before she hit the ground. Swinging her up into his
arms, he carried her back into the great room and lowered himself
onto a leather sofa with Laurel clutched in his arms, draping her
across his lap.
As she came to, he held her gently, forcing back the storm of
emotions that inevitably overwhelmed him when he recalled that
night.
Those blue eyes blinked open.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. “It was you,” she
whispered.
Rico nodded. “I almost didn’t recognize you from that woman I
pulled from a hole in the ground.” He brushed a thumb across her
cheek, wiping away a stream of tears.
No sooner had he done that then more tears replaced them.
“Hey, you’re okay.” Her tears pulled at his heart. “You’re not
there. You’re here in Colorado.”
She nodded, and more tears slipped down her cheeks. “I
thought I’d left the past behind,” she whispered.
“And here I am to bring it all back.” He brushed his lips across
her forehead. “I’m sorry.”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t be. I can finally put a
face to the voice in my dreams.”
He liked the feel of her finger on his lips. “And I can put a face
to the memory of incredibly blue eyes staring up at me from that
hole.”
She shook her head and swiped at the tears. “I asked for your
name. They wouldn’t tell me. It was top secret. All they could say
was Navy SEALs were responsible for getting us out.” She cupped his
cheek. “Thank you.”
He nodded, his chest tight. The loss he’d experienced that night
was as fresh as when it had happened. So many times since, he’d
relived the mission, second-guessing decisions made. No amount of
retrospection would bring back his friend. Robert Ramirez was gone,
his wife widowed and his children left without a father.
“I’d heard one of your guys didn’t make it,” she said softly. “I’m
so sorry. It didn’t seem right to sacrifice a life to save a life.”
 What could he say? It was worth it? It was their job to die for
others? Those were the risks they took when they signed on to
become SEALs?
In the end, Rico made no comment.
Laurel sat up.
He pressed a hand to her back to steady her.
“I’m okay.” She turned and rested her feet on the floor. “Gunny
needs those napkins.”
“I can get them to him. You should stay here and rest.”
She shook her head. “I need to keep moving. It helps.”
“Not if you’re running into people or passing out in a pantry.”
She gave him a weak smile. “I don’t usually do those things. I’m
really a very stable person. It’s just…” Laurel glanced away. “I
thought I was better.”
Rico’s lips pressed into a tight line. “And then I showed up and
threw you back in that hell hole?”
“It’s not just you.” She reached out and patted his leg. “Other
things happened that set me back. Then I got word that one of the
three people you rescued that night committed suicide.”
Another punch hit Rico in the gut. “The doctor?”
Laurel shook her head. “No. Chris Monahan. The anesthetist.
Thing is, I talked to him less than a month ago. He seemed fine.”
Her voice caught on a sob. “He’d suffered so much more than me or
Dr. Estep.” She met Rico’s gaze. “I’m told they tortured him in front
of the doctor and me to get us to talk. They wanted secrets. We
didn’t have any secrets to tell. They didn’t believe us. Chris took the
brunt of their torture.” She glanced away. “At least, that’s what they
told me. I don’t remember much of what happened.”
“That’s probably a blessing,” Rico said.
“All three of us left the service. Chris, because he was medically
discharged. Dr. Estep and I left after our commitment was up. I
couldn’t go back, couldn’t deploy. Not after…that.”
Rico stared into the fireplace, where fresh wood was stacked,
ready for a cozy fire to warm the guests. “I get it.”
“It took a while to get over the trauma and adjust to civilian
life.” She gave him a crooked smile. “If it wasn’t for Martha and the
flower shop, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I didn’t want to go
back to nursing. I’d seen too much. Lost too much.”
Rico nodded to everything she said. “But you adjusted.”
Laurel’s lips twisted. “For the most part. Until recently.” She
pushed to her feet. “I just have to get through the next few days.
Then I can get back into a routine of making people happy with
flowers.”
“What’s happening over the next few days?” Rico stood. “Is it
the rodeo?”
Laurel shook her head as she gathered the four bags of
napkins. “In Chris’s suicide note, he asked his wife to have his
memorial here in Fool’s Gold and for his ashes to be spread in the
mountains.” She met Rico’s gaze. “Dr. Estep is coming in for the
memorial, along with several more of the team that deployed
together to Syria. It’ll be a reunion of sorts.”
Rico took two of the napkin bags from her. “Thus, the need to
keep moving. If you’re busy, you don’t have time to think.” He led
the way to the door and held it open. “I’m at a loose end until Jake
assigns a client to me. Can I buy you lunch or dinner? I’d like to
make it up to you for slowing you down on the trail.”
“I owe you for saving my life. You don’t have to make anything
up to me.” Her brow furrowed as she passed through the door. “If
you’re inferring that I need someone to hold my hand through the
next few days, forget it. I’ve come this far on my own. I’m not going
to backslide into depression, and I’m not going to commit suicide.
I’m happy, damn it.”
Rico backed a step. “Whoa! I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
Laurel sighed. “My brother has been nagging me to move in
with him and his fiancée. My friends show up all hours of the day
and, sometimes, into the night. I don’t need constant company or
supervision.”
Rico chuckled. “I’m not your brother, and we aren’t friends—
though I’d like to think we could be someday. I don’t want to hold
your hand—unless you want me to. I asked for purely selfish
reasons. I’m new to the area. Jake’s a busy man with a business to
run and a dozen guys to manage. It’s nice to have someone to talk
to and show me around.”
“I’m busy, too,” Laurel said.
“Right. You’re a florist. I’m sure you’re very busy. Do you need
someone to load and unload supplies or drive you around to deliver
arrangements?”
She stared at him through narrowed eyes. “As a matter of fact,
my driver just left me for a job in Colorado Springs. With the rodeo
in town and a convention going on at the casino, I’ve been swamped
and doing my own deliveries. But you’re new here. You wouldn’t
know how to get anywhere.”
“No, but I could drive. You could hop out and deliver. And, like I
said, I could also help load things. It might save you a little time,
and helping you would give me a chance to get to know Fool’s Gold.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t have to pay me. I can’t
guarantee how long I’ll be available, but a few days delivering
flowers would help me and, hopefully, help you.”
“Hmm.” Laurel’s frown deepened. She glanced down at the
napkins and spun. “At this rate, Gunny’s never going to get his
napkins.” She descended the porch steps and headed for the lighted
path.
Rico followed. As they neared the Watering Hole, he said, “I
guess that’s a no.”
She opened the back door, turned to face him, and said, “Four-
thirty AM. Laurel’s Florals on Main Street. Be there. I have a big
shipment of flowers coming in at five and need help unloading.”
He grinned. “I’ll be there.”
Laurel lifted her chin. “If at any time I suspect you’re doing this
out of pity—”
His grin broadened. “You can kick me out of the delivery van.”
“Don’t think I won’t,” she warned.
He snapped to attention and popped a sharp salute. “Aye-aye,
boss.”
She grabbed the two bags he carried and turned, shaking her
head, her lips twitching on the corners.
 Laurel entered through the back door of the Watering Hole and
let the door slam shut before Rico could follow her into the kitchen.
He rounded the building, entered through the front door and
found a seat at the far corner of the bar, hoping to catch glimpses of
Laurel Layne as he drank a beer.
She didn’t emerge from the kitchen the entire time he sat at the
bar. He left after an hour and walked back to the lodge, aware of the
time and the fact he had to get up at four in the morning.
He shook his head.
He’d come to Colorado to get away from the Navy, away from
reminders that he’d failed to have Bert’s back. How fucking ironic
was it to run into the woman he’d pulled out of a hell hole in Syria at
the expense of his friend’s life? Was he insane to suggest helping her
out at her flower shop? Did he want to stab himself in the heart
every time he saw her? Pain was a reminder that he was alive and
Bert was dead.
Though they were strangers, they had a lot in common.
They’d both been in the military, spent time in Syria and had
been shot at. They’d both lost someone they cared about and were
wading through life trying to come to terms with PTSD. They were
two very different people, fucked up by war.
His footsteps faltered halfway back to the lodge.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
Laurel probably needed someone who wasn’t as screwed up as
he was. Someone who had his shit together and didn’t have
nightmares every damn night.
He should call and tell her never mind. It was a bad idea. Rico
pulled out his cell phone to do just that.
Except, he didn’t have her number.
He had to go to the shop the next morning to deliver that
message.
Damn.
 CHAPTER 4

THAT NIGHT, Laurel’s nightmare was more detailed than any before. So
much so she felt the pain of every beating and smelled the stench of
burning flesh as her captors pressed lit cigarettes into her skin.
When a light shone down into her hole, and that warm, deep
voice said, “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you,” she could see his
face.
He pulled her out of the hole and out of the dream. She woke in
the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. Free of the hole. Free of
her captors. Free of one of the shadows that had clouded her mind
for the years since her liberation.
For once, she didn’t dread going back to sleep. The image of
Rico’s face and the memory of his arms wrapped around her made
her feel safe enough she could close her eyes again and not fall back
into the hell of her dreams.
Laurel slept soundly until her alarm woke her at four in the
morning. She rose, stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water
on her face to help clear the sleep from her eyes. The few hours of
deep sleep had felt so good, she hadn’t wanted it to end.
A glance at the clock on the counter made her heart flutter. In
fifteen short minutes, Rico would be at her door, ready to go to work
with her. Her pulse quickened, and her breathing grew a little erratic
as she brushed her teeth, pulled her hair up into a messy bun and
applied a little mascara to her blond lashes.
She grimaced at her reflection. It wasn’t much, but at least she
didn’t look like the wreck she’d been when Rico had rescued her in
Syria.
 Another glance at the clock made her squeak. Ten minutes until
he arrived, if he didn’t come early. Laurel yanked the T-shirt she
slept in over her head and rushed to pull on her jeans. After a
minute of digging through her dresser for a suitable T-shirt, she
gave up and ran to the closet.
Not the blue chambray shirt. It was too faded and had holes in
the sleeves. She shoved hangers aside until she reached the blouse
Mallory had given her for her birthday. She hadn’t worn it in the
shop because she was afraid she’d ruin it by snagging or staining the
beautiful powder-blue fabric with the tiny white and yellow daisies
sprinkled all over it.
Lights flashed through the windows from the street below.
Holy hell. It was him.
She grabbed the pretty blouse, shoved her arms into the
sleeves, buttoned the two buttons in the middle then dove for her
shoes. After sliding her feet into the ballet flats, she threw open the
door and ran down the stairs. As she neared the bottom, a figure
appeared around the corner of the building, stepping into the light at
the base of the steps.
Laurel was moving too fast to slow her momentum in time.
Instead of stepping out of her way, Rico caught her in his arms
and swung her around to deflect the impact.
“Whoa,” he said as he set her on her feet and released her.
“You’ll break your neck coming down the stairs that fast.”
She pressed her palms to her heated cheeks, glad the light over
the stairs wasn’t so bright he’d see her blush. “Do you always step
into the paths of running women?”
He chuckled. “Do you always operate at full tilt?”
Laurel grinned. “Rarely.” She rubbed her hands down the sides
of her jeans.
Rico nodded toward her chest. “Uh, you might want to finish
dressing before you launch yourself down a flight of stairs.”
A glance down at her blouse made her gasp and spin away.
She’d been in such a hurry to get to the shop before Rico she’d
forgotten she’d only buttoned two of the buttons on her blouse.
 “I’m not usually this discombobulated,” she murmured as she
secured the remaining buttons and shoved the hem into the
waistband of her jeans.
“Discombobulated?”
Fully dressed, Laurel turned to find Rico grinning. “You know…
confused, befuddled, hair-brained.”
“I know what it means,” he said. “I’ve just never heard anyone
actually say it aloud.”
Laurel lifted her chin. “I like the word. It doesn’t get nearly
enough airtime, and it’s just quirky enough to make me happy.” She
ducked past him and hurried toward the back door of the flower
shop. “The truck will be here shortly. I could use some help clearing
tables and floor space to receive the delivery.”
“Lead the way,” Rico said and followed her into the back of the
flower shop.
Between them, they moved empty boxes and buckets to make
room.
The delivery truck arrived at five. They moved the fresh flowers
into the shop, organizing them by type and color, placing them in
buckets and vases filled with water to keep them fresh for as long as
possible.
After the truck left, Laurel carried bunches of flowers from the
shop's back room up to the front and placed them in more
decorative buckets and vases on tiered shelves, wiping away water
stains and cleaning up fallen leaves.
By six-thirty, she had the flowers where she wanted them and
started working through the day’s orders of arrangements.
“I’ll be busy for a few hours making the arrangements we’ll
need to deliver. You don’t have to hang around.”
He glanced around the shop. “What a difference fresh flowers
make.”
Laurel smiled. “I love them. All the colors, smells and choices
make me happy.”
His gaze met hers, his lips tipping upward on the corners. “I’m
sure they make your customers happy as well.”
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
leaders saw Governor Stone again, and he ripped out Bigelow’s
Brown and appointed in his place a ring Brown. Thus the ring was
restored to full control under a charter which increased their power.
But the outrageous abuse of the Governor’s unusual power over the
city incensed the people of Pittsburg. A postscript which Governor
Stone added to his announcement of the appointment of the new
recorder did not help matters; it was a denial that he had been
bribed. The Pittsburgers had not heard of any bribery, but the
postscript gave currency to a definite report that the ring—its banks,
its corporations, and its bosses—had raised an enormous fund to pay
the Governor for his interference in the city, and this pointed the
intense feelings of the citizens. They prepared to beat the ring at an
election to be held in February, 1902, for Comptroller and half of the
councils. A Citizens’ party was organized. The campaign was an
excited one; both sides did their best, and the vote polled was the
largest ever known in Pittsburg. Even the ring made a record. The
citizens won, however, and by a majority of 8,000.
This showed the people what they could do when they tried, and
they were so elated that they went into the next election and carried
the county—the stronghold of the ring. But they now had a party to
look out for, and they did not look out for it. They neglected it just
as they had the city. Tom Bigelow knew the value of a majority
party; he had appreciated the Citizens’ from the start. Indeed he
may have started it. All the reformers know is that the committee
which called the Citizens’ Party into existence was made up of
twenty-five men—five old Municipal Leaguers, the rest a
“miscellaneous lot.” They did not bother then about that. They knew
Tom Bigelow, but he did not show himself, and the new party went
on confidently with its passionate work.
When the time came for the great election, that for recorder this
year (1903), the citizens woke up one day and found Tom Bigelow
the boss of their party. How he came there they did not exactly
know; but there he was in full possession, and there with him was
the “miscellaneous lot” on the committee. Moreover, Bigelow was
applying with vigor regular machine methods. It was all very
astonishing, but very significant. Magee was dead; Flinn’s end was in
sight; but there was the Boss, the everlasting American Boss, as
large as life. The good citizens were shocked; their dilemma was
ridiculous, but it was serious too. Helpless, they watched. Bigelow
nominated for recorder a man they never would have chosen. Flinn
put up a better man, hoping to catch the citizens, and when these
said they could see Flinn behind his candidate, he said, “No; I am
out of politics. When Magee died I died politically, too.” Nobody
would believe him. The decent Democrats hoped to retrieve their
party and offer a way out, but Bigelow went into their convention
with his money and the wretched old organization sold out. The
smell of money on the Citizens’ side attracted to it the grafters, the
rats from Flinn’s sinking ship; many of the corporations went over,
and pretty soon it was understood that the railroads had come to a
settlement among themselves and with the new boss, on the basis
of an agreement said to contain five specifications of grants from the
city. The temptation to vote for Flinn’s man was strong, but the old
reformers seemed to feel that the only thing to do was to finish Flinn
now and take care of Tom Bigelow later. This view prevailed and
Tom Bigelow won. This is the way the best men in Pittsburg put it:
“We have smashed a ring and we have wound another around us.
Now we have got to smash that.”
There is the spirit of this city as I understand it. Craven as it was for
years, corrupted high and low, Pittsburg did rise; it shook off the
superstition of partisanship in municipal politics; beaten, it rose
again; and now, when it might have boasted of a triumph, it saw
straight: a defeat. The old fighters, undeceived and undeceiving,
humiliated but undaunted, said simply: “All we have got to do is to
begin all over again.” Meanwhile, however, Pittsburg has developed
some young men, and with an inheritance of this same spirit, they
are going to try out in their own way. The older men undertook to
save the city with a majority party and they lost the party. The
younger men have formed a Voters’ Civic League, which proposes to
swing from one party to another that minority of disinterested
citizens which is always willing to be led, and thus raise the standard
of candidates and improve the character of regular party
government. Tom Bigelow intended to capture the old Flinn
organization, combine it with his Citizens’ party, and rule as Magee
did with one party, a union of all parties. If he should do this, the
young reformers would have no two parties to choose between; but
there stand the old fighters ready to rebuild a Citizens’ party under
that or any other name. Whatever course is taken, however,
something will be done in Pittsburg, or tried, at least, for good
government, and after the cowardice and corruption shamelessly
displayed in other cities, the effort of Pittsburg, pitiful as it is, is a
spectacle good for American self-respect, and its sturdiness is a
promise for poor old Pennsylvania.
 PHILADELPHIA: CORRUPT AND CONTENTED

(July, 1903)

Other American cities, no matter how bad their own condition may
be, all point with scorn to Philadelphia as worse—“the worst-
governed city in the country.” St. Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburg
submit with some patience to the jibes of any other community; the
most friendly suggestion from Philadelphia is rejected with
contempt. The Philadelphians are “supine,” “asleep”; hopelessly ring-
ruled, they are “complacent.” “Politically benighted,” Philadelphia is
supposed to have no light to throw upon a state of things that is
almost universal.
This is not fair. Philadelphia is, indeed, corrupt; but it is not without
significance. Every city and town in the country can learn something
from the typical political experience of this great representative city.
New York is excused for many of its ills because it is the metropolis,
Chicago because of its forced development; Philadelphia is our “third
largest” city and its growth has been gradual and natural.
Immigration has been blamed for our municipal conditions;
Philadelphia, with 47 per cent. of its population native-born of
native-born parents, is the most American of our greater cities. It is
“good,” too, and intelligent. I don’t know just how to measure the
intelligence of a community, but a Pennsylvania college professor
who declared to me his belief in education for the masses as a way
out of political corruption, himself justified the “rake-off” of preferred
contractors on public works on the ground of a “fair business profit.”
Another plea we have made is that we are too busy to attend to
public business, and we have promised, when we come to wealth
and leisure, to do better. Philadelphia has long enjoyed great and
widely distributed prosperity; it is the city of homes; there is a
dwelling house for every five persons,—men, women, and children,
—of the population; and the people give one a sense of more leisure
and repose than any community I ever dwelt in. Some
Philadelphians account for their political state on the ground of their
ease and comfort. There is another class of optimists whose hope is
in an “aristocracy” that is to come by and by; Philadelphia is surer
that it has a “real aristocracy” than any other place in the world, but
its aristocrats, with few exceptions, are in the ring, with it, or of no
political use. Then we hear that we are a young people and that
when we are older and “have traditions,” like some of the old
countries, we also will be honest. Philadelphia is one of the oldest of
our cities and treasures for us scenes and relics of some of the
noblest traditions of “our fair land.” Yet I was told how once, “for a
joke,” a party of boodlers counted out the “divvy” of their graft in
unison with the ancient chime of Independence Hall.
Philadelphia is representative. This very “joke,” told, as it was, with a
laugh, is typical. All our municipal governments are more or less
bad, and all our people are optimists. Philadelphia is simply the most
corrupt and the most contented. Minneapolis has cleaned up,
Pittsburg has tried to, New York fights every other election, Chicago
fights all the time. Even St. Louis has begun to stir (since the
elections are over), and at the worst was only shameless.
Philadelphia is proud; good people there defend corruption and
boast of their machine. My college professor, with his philosophic
view of “rake-offs,” is one Philadelphia type. Another is the man,
who, driven to bay with his local pride, says: “At least you must
admit that our machine is the best you have ever seen.”
Disgraceful? Other cities say so. But I say that if Philadelphia is a
disgrace, it is a disgrace not to itself alone, nor to Pennsylvania, but
to the United States and to American character. For this great city, so
highly representative in other respects, is not behind in political
experience, but ahead, with New York. Philadelphia is a city that has
had its reforms. Having passed through all the typical stages of
corruption, Philadelphia reached the period of miscellaneous loot
with a boss for chief thief, under James McManes and the Gas Ring
‘way back in the late sixties and seventies. This is the Tweed stage
of corruption from which St. Louis, for example, is just emerging.
Philadelphia, in two inspiring popular revolts, attacked the Gas Ring,
broke it, and in 1885 achieved that dream of American cities—a
good charter. The present condition of Philadelphia, therefore, is not
that which precedes, but that which follows reform, and in this
distinction lies its startling general significance. What has happened
since the Bullitt Law or charter went into effect in Philadelphia may
happen in any American city “after reform is over.”
For reform with us is usually revolt, not government, and is soon
over. Our people do not seek, they avoid self-rule, and “reforms” are
spasmodic efforts to punish bad rulers and get somebody that will
give us good government or something that will make it. A self-
acting form of government is an ancient superstition. We are an
inventive people, and we all think that we shall devise some day a
legal machine that will turn out good government automatically. The
Philadelphians have treasured this belief longer than the rest of us
and have tried it more often. Throughout their history they have
sought this wonderful charter and they thought they had it when
they got the Bullitt Law, which concentrates in the mayor ample
power, executive and political, and complete responsibility. Moreover,
it calls for very little thought and action on the part of the people. All
they expected to have to do when the Bullitt Law went into effect
was to elect as mayor a good business man, who, with his probity
and common sense, would give them that good business
administration which is the ideal of many reformers.
The Bullitt Law went into effect in 1887. A committee of twelve—four
men from the Union League, four from business organizations, and
four from the bosses—picked out the first man to run under it on the
Republican ticket, Edwin H. Fitler, an able, upright business man,
and he was elected. Strange to say, his administration was
satisfactory to the citizens, who speak well of it to this day, and to
the politicians also; Boss McManes (the ring was broken, not the
boss) took to the next national convention from Philadelphia a
delegation solid for Fitler for President of the United States. It was a
farce, but it pleased Mr. Fitler, so Matthew S. Quay, the State boss,
let him have a complimentary vote on the first ballot. The politicians
“fooled” Mr. Fitler, and they “fooled” also the next business mayor,
Edwin S. Stuart, likewise a most estimable gentleman. Under these
two administrations the foundation was laid for the present
government of Philadelphia, the corruption to which Philadelphians
seem so reconciled, and the machine which is “at least the best you
have ever seen.”
The Philadelphia machine isn’t the best. It isn’t sound, and I doubt if
it would stand in New York or Chicago. The enduring strength of the
typical American political machine is that it is a natural growth—a
sucker, but deep-rooted in the people. The New Yorkers vote for
Tammany Hall. The Philadelphians do not vote; they are
disfranchised, and their disfranchisement is one anchor of the
foundation of the Philadelphia organization.
This is no figure of speech. The honest citizens of Philadelphia have
no more rights at the polls than the negroes down South. Nor do
they fight very hard for this basic privilege. You can arouse their
Republican ire by talking about the black Republican votes lost in the
Southern States by white Democratic intimidation, but if you remind
the average Philadelphian that he is in the same position, he will
look startled, then say, “That’s so, that’s literally true, only I never
thought of it in just that way.” And it is literally true.
The machine controls the whole process of voting, and practices
fraud at every stage. The assessor’s list is the voting list, and the
assessor is the machine’s man. “The assessor of a division kept a
disorderly house; he padded his lists with fraudulent names
registered from his house; two of these names were used by
election officers.... The constable of the division kept a disreputable
house; a policeman was assessed as living there.... The election was
held in the disorderly house maintained by the assessor.... The man
named as judge had a criminal charge for a life offense pending
against him.... Two hundred and fifty-two votes were returned in a
division that had less than one hundred legal votes within its
boundaries.” These extracts from a report of the Municipal League
suggest the election methods. The assessor pads the list with the
names of dead dogs, children, and non-existent persons. One
newspaper printed the picture of a dog, another that of a little four-
year-old negro boy, down on such a list. A ring orator in a speech
resenting sneers at his ward as “low down” reminded his hearers
that that was the ward of Independence Hall, and, naming over
signers of the Declaration of Independence, he closed his highest
flight of eloquence with the statement that “these men, the fathers
of American liberty, voted down here once. And,” he added, with a
catching grin, “they vote here yet.” Rudolph Blankenburg, a
persistent fighter for the right and the use of the right to vote (and,
by the way, an immigrant), sent out just before one election a
registered letter to each voter on the rolls of a certain selected
division. Sixty-three per cent. were returned marked “not at,”
“removed,” “deceased,” etc. From one four-story house where forty-
four voters were addressed, eighteen letters came back undelivered;
from another of forty-eight voters, came back forty-one letters; from
another sixty-one out of sixty-two; from another, forty-four out of
forty-seven. Six houses in one division were assessed at one
hundred and seventy-two voters, more than the votes cast in the
previous election in any one of two hundred entire divisions.
The repeating is done boldly, for the machine controls the election
officers, often choosing them from among the fraudulent names;
and when no one appears to serve, assigning the heeler ready for
the expected vacancy. The police are forbidden by law to stand
within thirty feet of the polls, but they are at the box and they are
there to see that the machine’s orders are obeyed and that repeaters
whom they help to furnish are permitted to vote without
“intimidation” on the names they, the police, have supplied. The
editor of an anti-machine paper who was looking about for himself
once told me that a ward leader who knew him well asked him into a
polling place. “I’ll show you how it’s done,” he said, and he had the
repeaters go round and round voting again and again on the names
handed them on slips. “But,” as the editor said, “that isn’t the way
it’s done.” The repeaters go from one polling place to another, voting
on slips, and on their return rounds change coats, hats, etc. The
business proceeds with very few hitches; there is more jesting than
fighting. Violence in the past has had its effect; and is not often
necessary nowadays, but if it is needed the police are there to apply
it. Several citizens told me that they had seen the police help to beat
citizens or election officers who were trying to do their duty, then
arrest the victim; and Mr. Clinton Rogers Woodruff, the executive
counsel of the Municipal League, has published a booklet of such
cases. But an official statement of the case is at hand in an
announcement by John Weaver, the new machine mayor of
Philadelphia, that he is going to keep the police out of politics and
away from the polls. “I shall see,” he added, “that every voter enjoys
the full right of suffrage and that ballots may be placed in the ballot
box without fear of intimidation.”
But many Philadelphians do not try to vote. They leave everything to
the machine, and the machine casts their ballots for them. It is
estimated that 150,000 voters did not go to the polls at the last
election. Yet the machine rolled up a majority of 130,000 for Weaver,
with a fraudulent vote estimated all the way from forty to eighty
thousand, and this in a campaign so machine-made that it was
called “no contest.” Francis Fisher Kane, the Democrat, got 32,000
votes out of some 204,000. “What is the use of voting?” these stay-
at-homes ask. A friend of mine told me he was on the lists in the
three wards in which he had successively dwelt. He votes personally
in none, but the leader of his present ward tells him how he has
been voted. Mr. J. C. Reynolds, the proprietor of the St. James Hotel,
went to the polls at eleven o’clock last election day, only to be told
that he had been voted. He asked how many others from his house
had voted. An election officer took up a list, checked off twelve
names, two down twice, and handed it to him. When Mr. Reynolds
got home he learned that one of these had voted, the others had
been voted. Another man said he rarely attempted to vote, but when
he did, the officers let him, even though his name had already been
voted on; and then the negro repeaters would ask if his “brother
was coming ‘round to-day.” They were going to vote him, as they
vote all good-natured citizens who stay away. “When this kind of
man turns out,” said a leader to me, “we simply have two repeaters
extra—one to balance him and one more to the good.” If necessary,
after all this, the machine counts the vote “right,” and there is little
use appealing to the courts, since they have held, except in one
case, that the ballot box is secret and cannot be opened. The only
legal remedy lies in the purging of the assessor’s lists, and when the
Municipal League had this done in 1899, they reported that there
was “wholesale voting on the very names stricken off.”
Deprived of self-government, the Philadelphians haven’t even self-
governing machine government. They have their own boss, but he
and his machine are subject to the State ring, and take their orders
from the State boss, Matthew S. Quay, who is the proprietor of
Pennsylvania and the real ruler of Philadelphia, just as William Penn,
the Great Proprietor, was. Philadelphians, especially the local bosses,
dislike this description of their government, and they point for
refutation to their charter. But this very Bullitt Law was passed by
Quay, and he put it through the Legislature, not for reform reasons,
but at the instance of David H. Lane, his Philadelphia lieutenant, as a
check upon the power of Boss McManes. Later, when McManes
proved hopelessly insubordinate, Quay decided to have done with
him forever. He chose David Martin for boss, and from his seat in the
United States Senate, Penn’s successor raised up his man and set
him over the people. Croker, who rose by his own strength to the
head of Tammany Hall, has tried twice to appoint a successor; no
one else could, and he failed. The boss of Tammany Hall is a growth.
So Croker has attempted to appoint district leaders and failed; a
Tammany district leader is a growth. Boss Martin, picked up and set
down from above, was accepted by Philadelphia and the Philadelphia
machine, and he removed old ward leaders and appointed new
ones. Some leaders in Philadelphia own their wards, of course, but
Martin and, after him, Durham have sent men into a ward to lead it,
and they have led it.
The Philadelphia organization is upside down. It has its root in the
air, or, rather, like the banyan tree, it sends its roots from the center
out both up and down and all around, and there lies its peculiar
strength. For when I said it was dependent and not sound, I did not
mean that it was weak. It is dependent as a municipal machine, but
the organization that rules Philadelphia is, as we have seen, not a
mere municipal machine, but a city, State, and national organization.
The people of Philadelphia are Republicans in a Republican city in a
Republican State in a Republican nation, and they are bound ring on
ring on ring. The President of the United States and his patronage;
the National Cabinet and their patronage; the Congress and the
patronage of the Senators and the Congressmen from Pennsylvania;
the Governor of the State and the State legislature with their powers
and patronage; and all that the mayor and city councils have of
power and patronage—all these bear down upon Philadelphia to
keep it in the control of Quay’s boss and his little ring. This is the
ideal of party organization, and, possibly, is the end toward which
our democratic republic is tending. If it is, the end is absolutism.
Nothing but a revolution could overthrow this oligarchy, and there is
its danger. With no outlet at the polls for public feeling, the machine
cannot be taught anything it does not know except at the cost of
annihilation.
But the Philadelphia machine-leaders know their business. As I said
in “Tweed Days in St. Louis,” the politicians will learn, if the people
won’t, from exposure and reform. The Pennsylvania bosses learned
the “uses of reform”; we have seen Quay applying it to discipline
McManes, and he since has turned reformer himself, to punish local
bosses. The bosses have learned also the danger of combination
between citizens and the Democrats. To prevent this, Quay and his
friends have spread sedulously the doctrine of “reform within the
party,” and, from the Committee of One Hundred on, the reformers
have stuck pretty faithfully to this principle. But lest the citizens
should commit such a sin against their party, Martin formed a
permanent combination of the Democratic with the Republican
organization, using to that end a goodly share of the Federal and
county patronage. Thus the people of Philadelphia were “fixed” so
that they couldn’t vote if they wanted to, and if they should want to,
they couldn’t vote for a Democrat, except of Republican or
independent choosing. In other words, having taken away their
ballot, the bosses took away also the choice of parties.
But the greatest lesson learned and applied was that of conciliation
and “good government.” The people must not want to vote or rebel
against the ring. This ring, like any other, was formed for the
exploitation of the city for private profit, and the cementing force is
the “cohesive power of public plunder.” But McManes and Tweed had
proved that miscellaneous larceny was dangerous, and why should a
lot of cheap politicians get so much and the people nothing at all?
The people had been taught to expect but little from their rulers:
good water, good light, clean streets well paved, fair transportation,
the decent repression of vice, public order and public safety, and no
scandalous or open corruption, would more than satisfy them. It
would be good business and good politics to give them these things.
Like Chris Magee, who studied out the problem with him, Martin
took away from the rank and file of the party and from the ward
leaders and office holders the privilege of theft, and he formed
companies and groups to handle the legitimate public business of
the city. It was all graft, but it was to be all lawful, and, in the main,
it was. Public franchises, public works, and public contracts were the
principal branches of the business, and Martin adopted the dual boss
idea, which we have seen worked out by Magee and Flinn in
Pittsburg. In Philadelphia it was Martin and Porter, and just as Flinn
had a firm, Booth & Flinn, Ltd., so Porter was Filbert and Porter.
Filbert and Porter got all the public contracts they could handle, and
the rest went to other contractors friendly to them and to the ring.
Sometimes the preferred contractor was the lowest bidder, but he
did not have to be. The law allowed awards to be the “lowest and
best,” and the courts held that this gave the officials discretion. But
since public criticism was to be considered, the ring, to keep up
appearances, resorted to many tricks. One was to have fake bids
made above the favorite. Another was to have the favorite bid high,
but set an impossible time limit; the department of the city councils
could extend the time afterwards. Still another was to arrange for
specifications which would make outsiders bid high, then either
openly alter the plans or let the ring firm perform work not up to
requirements.
Many of Martin’s deals and jobs were scandals, but they were safe;
they were in the direction of public service; and the great mass of
the business was done quietly. Moreover, the public was getting
something for its money,—not full value, but a good percentage. In
other words, there was a limit to the “rake-off,” and some insiders
have told me that it had been laid down as a principle with the ring
that the people should have in value (that is, in work or benefit,
including a fair profit) ninety-five cents out of every dollar. In some
of the deals I have investigated, the “rake-off” over and above profit
was as high as twenty-five per cent. Still, even at this, there was “a
limit,” and the public was getting, as one of the leaders told me, “a
run for its money.” Cynical as it all sounds, this view is taken by
many Philadelphians almost if not quite as intelligent as my college
professor.
But there was another element in the policy of conciliation which is a
potent factor in the contentment of Philadelphia, and I regard it as
the key to that “apathy” which has made the community notorious.
We have seen how Quay had with him the Federal resources and
those of the State, and the State ring, and we have seen how
Martin, having the city, mayor, and councils, won over the
Democratic city leaders. Here they had under pay in office at least
15,000 men and women. But each of these 15,000 persons was
selected for office because he could deliver votes, either by
organizations, by parties, or by families. These must represent pretty
near a majority of the city’s voters. But this is by no means the end
of the ring’s reach. In the State ring are the great corporations, the
Standard Oil Company, Cramp’s Shipyard, and the steel companies,
with the Pennsylvania Railroad at their head, and all the local
transportation and other public utility companies following after.
They get franchises, privileges, exemptions, etc.; they have helped
finance Quay through deals: the Pennsylvania paid Martin, Quay said
once, a large yearly salary; the Cramps get contracts to build United
States ships, and for years have been begging for a subsidy on
home-made ships. The officers, directors, and stockholders of these
companies, with their friends, their bankers, and their employees,
are of the organization. Better still, one of the local bosses of
Philadelphia told me he could always give a worker a job with these
companies, just as he could in a city department, or in the mint, or
post-office. Then there are the bankers who enjoy, or may some day
enjoy, public deposits; those that profit on loans to finance political
financial deals; the promoting capitalists who share with the bosses
on franchises; and the brokers who deal in ring securities and
speculate upon ring tips. Through the exchange the ring financiers
reach the investing public, which is a large and influential body. The
traction companies, which bought their way from beginning to end
by corruption, which have always been in the ring, and whose
financiers have usually shared in other big ring deals, adopted early
the policy of bribing the people with “small blocks of stock.” Dr.
Frederick Speirs, in his “The Street Railway System of Philadelphia,”
came upon transactions which “indicate clearly that it is the policy of
the Union Company to get the securities into the hands of a large
number of small holders, the plain inference being that a wide
distribution of securities will fortify the company against possible
attacks by the public.” In 1895 he found a director saying: “Our
critics have engaged the Academy of Music, and are to call an
assemblage of people opposed to the street railways as now
managed. It would take eight Academies of Music to hold the
stockholders of the Union Traction Company.”
But we are not yet through. Quay has made a specialty all his life of
reformers, and he and his local bosses have won over so many that
the list of former reformers is very, very long. Martin drove down his
roots through race and religion, too. Philadelphia was one of the hot-
beds of “know-nothingism.” Martin recognized the Catholic, and the
Irish-Irish, and so drew off into the Republican party the great
natural supply of the Democrats; and his successors have given high
places to representative Jews. “Surely this isn’t corruption!” No, and
neither is that corruption which makes the heads of great
educational and charity institutions “go along,” as they say in
Pennsylvania, in order to get appropriations for their institutions
from the State and land from the city. They know what is going on,
but they do not join reform movements. The provost of the
University of Pennsylvania declined to join in a revolt because, he
said, it might impair his usefulness to the University. And so it is with
others, and with clergymen who have favorite charities; with
Sabbath associations and City Beautiful clubs; with lawyers who
want briefs; with real estate dealers who like to know in advance
about public improvements, and real estate owners who appreciate
light assessments; with shop-keepers who don’t want to be bothered
with strict inspections.
If there is no other hold for the ring on a man there always is the
protective tariff. “I don’t care,” said a manufacturer. “What if they do
plunder and rob us, it can’t hurt me unless they raise the tax rates,
and even that won’t ruin me. Our party keeps up the tariff. If they
should reduce that, my business would be ruined.”
Such, then, are the ramifications of this machine, such is its
strength. No wonder Martin could break his own rules, as he did,
and commit excesses. Philadelphia is not merely corrupt, it is
corrupted. Martin’s doom was proclaimed not in Philadelphia, but in
the United States Senate, and his offense was none of this business
of his, but his failure to nominate as successor to Mayor Stuart the
man, Boise Penrose, whom Matt Quay chose for that place. Martin
had consented, but at the last moment he ordered the nomination of
Charles F. Warwick instead. The day that happened Mr. Quay arose
on the floor of the Senate and, in a speech so irrelevant to the
measure under consideration that nobody out of Pennsylvania
understood it, said that there was in his town a man who had given
as his reason for not doing what he had promised to do, the excuse
that he was “under a heavy salary from a great corporation (the
Pennsylvania Railroad) and was compelled to do what the
corporation wished him to do. And,” added Senator Quay, “men in
such a position with high power for good or evil ought ... to go
about ... with the dollar mark of the corporation on their foreheads.”
Quay named an the new boss Israel W. Durham, a ward leader
under Martin.
Martin having the city through Mayor Warwick fought Quay in the
State, with Chris Magee for an ally, but Quay beat them both there,
and then prepared to beat them in their own cities. His cry was
Reform, and he soon had the people shouting for it.
Quay responded with a Legislative committee to investigate abuses
in the cities, but this so-called “Lexow” was called off before it
amounted to much more than a momentary embarrassment to
Martin. Martin’s friends, on the other hand, caught Quay and nearly
sent him to prison. The People’s Bank, James McManes, president,
failed. The cashier, John S. Hopkins, had been speculating and
letting Quay and other politicians have bank funds without collateral
for stock gambling. In return Quay and the State Treasurer left
heavy State deposits with the bank. Hopkins lost his nerve and shot
himself. McManes happened to call in friends of Martin to advise
him, and these suggested a Martin man for receiver. They found
among the items money lent to Quay without security, except the
State funds, and telegrams asking Hopkins to buy “1000 Met”
(Metropolitan) and promising in return to “shake the plum tree.”
Quay, his son, Richard R., and Benjamin J. Haywood, the State
Treasurer, were indicted for conspiracy, and every effort was made to
have the trial precede the next election for the Legislature which was
to elect a successor to Quay in the United States Senate; but Quay
got stays and postponements in the hopes that a more friendly
District Attorney could be put in that office. Martin secured the
election of Peter F. Rothermel, who was eager to try the case, and
Quay had to depend on other resources. The trial came in due
course, and failed; Judge Biddle ruled out the essential evidence on
the ground that it was excluded by the statute of limitation.
Rothermel went on with the trial, but it was hopeless; Quay was
acquitted and the other cases were abandoned.
Popular feeling was excited by this exposure of Quay, but there was
no action till the factional fighting suggested a use for it. Quay had
refused the second United States Senatorship to John Wanamaker,
and Wanamaker led through the State and in Philadelphia a fight
against the boss, which has never ceased. It took the form of a
reform campaign, and Quay’s methods were made plain, but the
boss beat Wanamaker at every point, had Penrose made Senator,
and through Penrose and Durham was gradually getting possession
of Philadelphia. The final triumph came with the election of Samuel
H. Ashbridge as mayor.
“Stars-and-Stripes Sam,” as Ashbridge is sometimes called, was a
speech-maker and a “joiner.” That is to say, he made a practice of
going to lodges, associations, brotherhoods, Sunday-schools, and all
sorts of public and private meetings, joining some, but making at all
speeches patriotic and sentimental. He was very popular. Under the
Bullitt Law, as I have said, all that is necessary to a good
administration and complete, though temporary reform, is a good
mayor. The politicians feel that they must nominate a man in whom
the people as well as themselves have faith. They had had faith in
Warwick, both the ring and the people, and Warwick had found it
impossible to satisfy two such masters. Now they put their faith in
Ashbridge, and so did Durham, and so did Martin. All interests
accepted him, therefore, and all watched him with hope and more or
less assurance; none more than the good people. And, indeed, no
man could have promised more or better public service than
Ashbridge. The result, however, was distracting.
Mr. Ashbridge “threw down” Martin, and he recognized Quay’s man,
“Is” Durham, as the political boss. Durham is a high type of boss,
candid, but of few words; generous, but businesslike; complete
master of himself, and a genius at organization. For Pennsylvania
politics he is a conservative leader, and there would have been no
excesses under him, as there have been few “rows.” But Mr. Durham
has not been the master of the Philadelphia situation. He bowed to
Quay, and he could not hold Ashbridge. Philadelphians say that if it
should come to a fight, Durham could beat Quay in Philadelphia, but
it doesn’t come to a fight. Another thing Philadelphians say is that he
“keeps his word,” yet he broke it (with notice) when Quay asked him
to stand for Pennypacker for Governor. As I said before, however,
Philadelphia is so constituted that it apparently cannot have self-
government, not even its own boss, so that the allegiance paid to
Quay is comprehensible. But the submission of the boss to the
mayor was extraordinary, and it seemed to some sagacious
politicians dangerous.
For Mr. Ashbridge broke through all the principles of moderate
grafting developed by Martin. Durham formed his ring—taking in
James P. McNichol as co-ruler and preferred contractor; John M.
Mack as promoter and financier; and he widened the inside circle to
include more individuals. But while he was more liberal toward his
leaders, and not inclined “to grab off everything for himself,” as one
leader told me, he maintained the principle of concentration and
strict control as good politics and good business. So, too, he adopted
Martin’s programme of public improvements, the filtration,
boulevards, etc., and he added to it. When Ashbridge was well
settled in office, these schemes were all started, and the mayor
pushed them with a will. According to the “Philadelphia Plan,” the
mayor should not be in the ring. He should be an ambitious man,
and his reward promotion, not riches. If he is “out for the stuff,” he
is likely to be hurried by the fretful thought that his term is limited to
four years, and since he cannot succeed himself as mayor, his
interest in the future of the machine is less than that of a boss, who
goes on forever.
When he was nominated, Ashbridge had debts of record amounting
to some $40,000. Before he was elected these were satisfied. Soon
after he took office he declared himself to former Postmaster
Thomas L. Hicks. Here is Mr. Hicks’s account of the incident:
“At one of the early interviews I had with the mayor in his office, he
said to me: ‘Tom, I have been elected mayor of Philadelphia. I have
four years to serve. I have no further ambitions. I want no other
office when I am out of this one, and I shall get out of this office all
there is in it for Samuel H. Ashbridge.’
“I remarked that this was a very foolish thing to say. ‘Think how that
could be construed,’ I said.
“‘I don’t care anything about that,’ he declared. ‘I mean to get out of
this office everything there is in it for Samuel H. Ashbridge.’”
When he retired from office last April, he became the president of a
bank, and was reputed to be rich. Here is the summary published by
the Municipal League at the close of his labors:
“The four years of the Ashbridge administration have passed into
history, leaving behind them a scar on the fame and reputation of
our city which will be a long time healing. Never before, and let us
hope never again, will there be such brazen defiance of public
opinion, such flagrant disregard of public interest, such abuse of
powers and responsibilities for private ends. These are not
generalizations, but each statement can be abundantly proved by
numerous instances.”
These “numerous instances” are notorious in Philadelphia; some of
them were reported all over the country. One of them was the
attempted intimidation of John Wanamaker. Thomas B. Wanamaker,
John Wanamaker’s son, bought the North American, a newspaper
which had been, and still is, exposing the abuses and corruption of
the political ring. Abraham L. English, Mr. Ashbridge’s Director of the
Department of Public Safety, called on Mr. John Wanamaker, said he
had been having him watched, and was finally in a position to
demand that the newspaper stop the attacks. The merchant exposed
the whole thing, and a committee appointed to investigate reported
that: “Mr. English has practically admitted that he attempted to
intimidate a reputable citizen and unlawfully threatened him in an
effort to silence criticism of a public newspaper; that from the
mayor’s refusal to order an investigation of the conduct of Mr.
English on the request of a town meeting of representative citizens,
the community is justified in regarding him as aiding and abetting
Mr. English in the corrupt act committed, and that the mayor is
therefore to be equally censured by the community.”
The other “instances of brazen abuse of power” were the increase of
protected vice—the importation from New York of the “white slavery
system of prostitution,” the growth of “speak-easies,” and the spread
of gambling and of policy-playing until it took in the school children.
This last the North American exposed, but in vain till it named police
officers who had refused when asked to interfere. Then a judge
summoned the editors and reporters of the paper, the mayor,
Director English, school children, and police officers to appear before
him. The mayor’s personal attorney spoke for the police during the
inquiry, and it looked black for the newspaper till the children began
to tell their stories. When the hearing was over the judge said:
“The evidence shows conclusively that our public school system in
this city is in danger of being corrupted at its fountain; that in one of
the schools over a hundred and fifty children were buyers of policy,
as were also a large number of scholars in other schools. It was first
discovered about eighteen months ago, and for about one year has
been in full operation.” The police officers were not punished,
however.
That corruption had reached the public schools and was spreading
rapidly through the system, was discovered by the exposure and
conviction of three school directors of the twenty-eighth ward. It was
known before that teachers and principals, like any other office
holders, had to have a “pull” and pay assessments for election
expenses. “Voluntary contributions” was the term used, but over the
notices in blue pencil was written “2 per cent.,” and teachers who
asked directors and ward bosses what to do, were advised that they
would “better pay.” Those that sent less than the amount suggested,
got receipts: “check received; shall we hold for balance or enter on
account?” But the exposure in the twenty-eighth ward brought it
home to the parents of the children that the teachers were not
chosen for fitness, but for political reasons, and that the political
reasons had become cash.
Miss Rena A. Haydock testified as follows: “I went to see Mr. Travis,
who was a friend of mine, in reference to getting a teacher’s
certificate. He advised me to see all of the directors, especially Mr.
Brown. They told me that it would be necessary for me to pay $120
to get the place. They told me of one girl who had offered $250, and
her application had been rejected. That was before they broached
the subject of money to me. I said that I didn’t have $120 to pay,
and they replied that it was customary for teachers to pay $40 a
month out of their first three months’ salary. The salary was $47.
They told me they didn’t want the money for themselves, but that it
was necessary to buy the other faction. Finally I agreed to the
proposition, and they told me that I must be careful not to mention
it to anybody or it would injure my reputation. I went with my
brother to pay the money to Mr. Johnson. He held out a hat, and
when my brother handed the money to him he took it behind the
hat.”
The regular business of the ring was like that of Pittsburg, but more
extensive. I have space only for one incident of one phase of it:
Widener and Elkins, the national franchise buyers, are
Philadelphians, and they were in the old Martin ring. They had
combined all the street railways of the city before 1900, and they
were withdrawing from politics, with their traction system. But the
Pennsylvania rings will not let corporations that have risen in
corruption reform and retire, and, besides, it was charged that in the
Martin-Quay fight, the street railways had put up money to beat
Quay for the United States Senate. At any rate, plans were laid to
“mace” the street railways.
“Macing” is a form of high blackmail. When they have sold out all
they have, the politicians form a competing company and compel
the old concern to buy out or sell out. While Widener and Elkins
were at sea, bound for Europe, in 1901, the Philadelphia ring went
to the Legislature and had introduced there two bills, granting a
charter to practically all the streets and alleys not covered by tracks
in Philadelphia, and to run short stretches of the old companies’
tracks to make connections. Clinton Rogers Woodruff, who was an
Assemblyman, has told the story. Without notice the bills were
introduced at 3 P. M. on Monday, May 29; they were reported from
committee in five minutes; by 8.50 P. M. they were printed and on
the members’ desk, and by 9 P. M. were passed on first reading. The
bills passed second reading the next day, Memorial Day, and on the
third day were passed from the Senate to the House, where they
were “jammed through” with similar haste and worse trickery. In six
legislative days the measures were before Governor Stone, who
signed them June 7, at midnight, in the presence of Quay, Penrose,
Congressman Foerderer, Mayor Ashbridge’s banker, James P.
McNichol, John M. Mack and other capitalists and politicians. Under
the laws, one hundred charters were applied for the next morning—
thirteen for Philadelphia. The charters were granted on June 5, and
that same day a special meeting of the Philadelphia Select Council
was called for Monday. There the citizens of Philadelphia met the
oncoming charters, but their hearing was brief. The charters went
through without a hitch, and were sent to Mayor Ashbridge on June
13.
The mayor’s secretary stated authoritatively in the morning that the
mayor would not sign that day. But he did. An unexpected incident
forced his hand. John Wanamaker sent him an offer of $2,500,000
for the franchises about to be given away. Ashbridge threw the letter
into the street unread. Mr. Wanamaker had deposited $250,000 as a
guarantee of good faith and his action was becoming known. The
ordinances were signed by midnight, and the city lost at least two
and one-half millions of dollars; but the ring made it and much
more. When Mr. Wanamaker’s letter was published, Congressman
Foerderer, an incorporator of the company, answered for the
machine. He said the offer was an advertisement; that it was late,
and that they were sorry they hadn’t had a chance to “call the bluff.”
Mr. Wanamaker responded with a renewal of the offer of $2,500,000
to the city, and, he said, “I will add $500,000 as a bonus to yourself
and your associates personally for the conveyance of the grants and
corporate privileges you now possess.” That ended the controversy.
But the deal went on. Two more bills, called “Trolley Chasers,” were
put through, to finish off the legislation, too hurriedly done to be
perfect. One was to give the company the right to build either
elevated or underground, or both; the second to forbid all further
such grants without a hearing before a board consisting of the
Governor, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, and the Attorney-
General. With all these franchises and exclusive privileges, the new
company made the old one lease their plant in operation to the
company which had nothing but “rights,” or, in Pennsylvania slang, a
“good, husky mace.”
Ashbridgeism put Philadelphia and the Philadelphia machine to a test
which candid ring leaders did not think it would stand. What did the
Philadelphians do? Nothing. They have their reformers: they have
men like Francis B. Reeves, who fought with every straight reform
movement from the days of the Committee of One Hundred; they
have men like Rudolph Blankenburg, who have fought with every
reform that promised any kind of relief; there are the Municipal
League, with an organization by wards, the Citizens’ Municipal
League, the Allied Reform League, and the Law and Order Society;
there are young men and veterans; there are disappointed politicians
and ambitious men who are not advanced fast enough by the
machine. There is discontent in a good many hearts, and some men
are ashamed. But “the people” won’t follow. One would think the
Philadelphians would follow any leader; what should they care
whether he is pure white or only gray? But they do care. “The
people” seem to prefer to be ruled by a known thief than an
ambitious reformer. They will make you convict their Tweeds,
McManeses, Butlers, and Shepherds, and even then they may
forgive them and talk of monuments to their precious memory, but
they take delight in the defeat of John Wanamaker because they
suspect that he is a hypocrite and wants to go to the United States
Senate.
All the stout-hearted reformers had made a campaign to re-elect
Rothermel, the District Attorney who had dared to try Quay. Surely
there was an official to support! But no, Quay was against him. The
reformers used money, some $250,000, I believe,—fighting the devil
with fire,—but the machine used more money, $700,000, from the
teachers, “speak-easies,” office holders, bankers, and corporations.
The machine handled the ballots. Rothermel was beaten by John
Weaver. There have been other campaigns, before and since, led by
the Municipal League, which is managed with political sense, but
each successive defeat was by a larger majority for the machine.
There is no check upon this machine excepting the chance of a
mistake, the imminent fear of treachery, and the remote danger of
revolt. To meet this last, the machine, as a State organization, has
set about throttling public criticism. Ashbridge found that blackmail
was ineffective. Durham, Quay, and Governor Pennypacker have
passed a libel law which meant to muzzle the press. The Governor
was actuated apparently only by his sufferings from cartoons and
comments during his campaign; the Philadelphia ring has boodling
plans ahead which exposure might make exasperating to the people.
The Philadelphia Press, the leading Republican organ in the State,
puts it right: “The Governor wanted it [the law] in the hope of
escaping from the unescapable cartoon. The gang wanted it in hope
of muzzling the opposition to jobs.... The act is distinctly designed to
gag the press in the interest of the plunderers and against the
interest of the people.”
Disfranchised, without a choice of parties; denied, so the Municipal
League declares, the ancient right of petition; and now to lose “free
speech,”—is there no hope for Philadelphia? Yes, the Philadelphians
have a very present hope. It is in their new mayor, John Weaver.
There is nothing in his record to inspire faith in an outsider. He
speaks himself of two notorious “miscarriages of justice” during his
term as District Attorney; he was the nominee of the ring; and the
ring men have confidence in him. But so have the people, and Mr.
Weaver makes fair promises. So did Ashbridge. There is this
difference, however: Mr. Weaver has made a good start. He
compromised with the machine on his appointments, but he
declared against the protection of vice, for free voting, and he
stopped some “wholesale grabs” or “maces” that appeared in the
Legislature, just before he took office.
One was a bill to enable (ring) companies to “appropriate, take, and
use all water within this commonwealth and belonging either to
public or to private persons as it may require for its private
purposes.” This was a scheme to sell out the water works of
Philadelphia, and all other such plants in the State. Another bill was
to open the way to a seizure of the light and power of the city and
of the State. Martin and Warwick “leased” the city gas works.
Durham and his crowd wanted a whack at it. “It shall be lawful,” the
bill read, “for any city, town, or borough owning any gas works or
electric light plant for supplying light, heat, and power, to sell, lease,
or otherwise dispose of the same to individuals or corporations, and
in order to obtain the best possible returns therefor, such municipal
body may ... vest in the lessees or purchasers the exclusive right,
both as against such municipal corporations and against any and all
other persons and corporations, to supply gas or electricity....” As in
St. Louis, the public property of the city is to be sold off. These
schemes are to go through later, I am told, but on Mr. Weaver’s
declarations that he would not “stand for them,” they were laid over.
It looks as if the Philadelphians were right about Mr. Weaver, but
what if they are? Think of a city putting its whole faith in one man,
in the hope that John Weaver, an Englishman by birth, will give them
good government! And why should he do that? Why should he serve
the people and not the ring? The ring can make or break him; the
people of Philadelphia can neither reward nor punish him. For even if
he restores to them their ballots and proves himself a good mayor,
he cannot succeed himself; the good charter forbids more than one
term.
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