St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

the editor’s office. Except for those chronicling the Senator’s career, and that of his son the governor, most of the biggest headlines were more than a century old. In Taos, not much in the way of banner headlines happened from year to year.
    The printing presses had arrived in the 1830s, and the Spanish newspaper that ultimately became known as the Taos Morning Record began. The Mexican governor made large land grants in 1842, with the major benefactors being Señor Baubien and Señor Miranda of Taos. Soon afterward, Lucien Maxwell married Baubien’s daughter and set the stage for the Lincoln County War. Kit Carson and Lucien Maxwell, both of Taos, scouted for John Frémont in the 1840s. The Mexican-American War flared in 1846. The Civil War rated a passing mention because it kept the newly created Territory of New Mexico from becoming a state. Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett played out their violent destinies in the 1880s. Statehood in 1912 rated a headline as big as the paper.
    After that, very little that was both local and newsworthy happened until the 1960s, when a ski resort was opened, the Senator’s oldest son was killed in Vietnam and his other son injured, the hippies invaded Taos County, and a triple murderer was caught with a bloody knife. The fact that one of the women murdered was the Senator’s wild-child daughter—a clinically designated pathological liar and a famous druggie—was discreetly mentioned, but not emphasized. Just one of three female bodies.
    Much more ink was given to the Senator’s grief over the death of his oldest son and his dedication to discovering and celebrating the service history of every Taos County veteran of the Vietnam War. Instead of lobbying for a memorial just for his son, the Senator dug into his own pocket and commissioned a statue listing the names of each Taos County hero of an unpopular war.
    Other important local news was the big bridge over the Rio Grande gorge outside of town, which saved the locals a long detour and increased tourism greatly. The most recent excitement was years ago, in 1998, the four hundredth birthday party of New Mexico, historic land of many nations.
    Is this why I came back? Dan wondered. To read about how men and women from a rural county had to go halfway around the world to die?
    No matter who lives or dies, nothing really changes.
    Gus hung up and reached for the carton of pastries. “Thanks for the doughnuts. I’m starving. Marti was up all night with the youngest and my cooking is caca . Is Dad’s back still bothering him?”
    Dan turned and watched his foster brother take a huge bite out of a bear claw. “I’m starving, too, so save at least one for me. And if it’s still bothering him, it didn’t show. We hiked six miles yesterday.”
    “Yeah? Why?”
    “I felt like it. He felt like coming along.”
    “Huh.” Gus swallowed the last of one doughnut and reached for another. “Any coffee?”
    “Besides the sewage you keep in that pot?”
    Gus winced. “Yeah.”
    “Sorry.” Dan saluted with the mug he’d barely sipped from. “This is as good as it gets.”
    “I keep thinking if it’s bad enough I won’t drink as much.”
    “Has it worked?”
    Gus eyed the coffeepot warily. “Most of the time. But I didn’t get much sleep last night, so…” He shrugged and refilled the stained mug that rarely left his desk. “How’s the leg?”
    “Better.”
    “That’s what you always say.”
    “It’s always true.”
    Gus sipped, grimaced, and hastily ate more pastry. “Considering that your leg wasn’t worth much when you got here, I guess you’re right.” Covertly he looked at his older brother’s posture. Erect and relaxed at the same time. Must be some trick they taught in Special Ops, because the regular army sure hadn’t made a long-term dent in Gus’s habitual slouch.
    “Where’d you hike?” Gus asked.
    “Castillo Ridge.”
    “Pretty. In the summer.”
    Dan shrugged and ignored the question implicit in his brother’s words.
    Gus went back to the sweets. He’d learned in the last few months that when Dan closed a subject, it stayed that way.
    The phone rang.
    Gus picked it up, listened, and automatically glanced through a window into the adjacent room to see if one of the paper’s three part-time reporters was warming a chair. “Thanks. Someone will be there in ten minutes.” He hung up, hit the intercom, and gave Mano his marching orders. The reporter slammed a hat over his red hair,