feud was fictional but it could have been modeled after any of a dozen such protracted affairs. The trail to Dodge City was historical, but R. ). Poteet is fictional. So is Alonzo Betz, but the impact of his barbed wire was historical. The destruction of Indianola happened as described.
XII. The Town: All characters are fictional, including the revivalist Elder Fry, but the church trial of Laurel Cobb is based upon a real incident whose details were provided by a son of the accused. The Larkin oil field is fictional, but its characteristics are accurate for that part of Texas. Ranger Lone Wolf Gonzaul-las was real. Details regarding the Fighting Antelopes are fictional but are based upon numerous real teams of that period. Politics as practiced in Bravo and Saldana County aie fictional, but prototypes abound and some still function.
XIII. The Invaders: All characters and incidents are fictional, but the Larkin tornado is based on real and terrifying prototypes.
XIV. Power and Change: All characters and incidents are fictional, except that the summer storm of 1983 was real.
THE GOVERNOR'S
TASK FORCE
I WAS SURPRISED WHEN SHORTLY AFTER NEW YEAR S DAY OF 1983, the Governor of Texas summoned me to his office, because I hadn't been aware that he knew I was in town. I'd been in Austin for some weeks, preparing a series of five lectures I was to deliver at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. The rather grandiloquent title, 'Southwest America in the World Society,' had been chosen by local scholars in a desire to broaden student horizons. The university authorities had left me pretty much to myself; I had paid a courtesy call on the president and had consulted two or three times with the dean of graduate studies, but to hear from the governor himself was something quite unexpected.
I was a native son and legal resident of Texas; however, for the past year I'd been working in Geneva on leave from my job at Boulder's well-regarded think tank, The Institute for Cultural Studies, which I headed. While serving in Boulder, I'd learned the truth of the old statement: 'When good Texans die they go to Colorado.'
I was gratified by my return to the university, for I found its students refreshing, even though some of the brightest seemed to come from up north. The best football players, however, enrolled at Texas, and that's what mattered.
I started in a low key with my students, but won their acceptance by stating in a newspaper interview: 'The students at the University of Texas may not be the best scholars in the world, but they're among the bravest. Anyone who crosses Guadalupe, the main drag by the campus, six times a day without police escort, has to be heroic' I thought people drove crazy when I lectured at Colmbra University in Portugal, but Portuguese drivers are merely in training for the big time in Texas.
Confused as to why the governor might want to meet me, I left my guest office in the shadow of the main building. When I got outside I glanced up at its tower; the sight of it always set me thinking about the conflicting messages that it sent. After any football university major sports victory, and they came frequently at Texas, it was illuminated gaudily in the school color, burnt orange, but on gray and misty mornings, which came less frequently, I knew that people recalled that horrible August day in 1966 when Charles Whitman, an Eagle Scout, gained a gruesome immortality. After murdering his wife and mother, he filled a footlocker with guns, ammunition and knives and drove to the university. Slaying the receptionist, he took the elevator to the top of the tower, where he unlimbered his arsenal and began shooting at random any students or casual passers-by. In all, he killed sixteen persons before sharpshooters gunned him down. Saluting the handsome tower, I crossed the bustling campus which had so excited me when I first reported there in 1959. The university now had forty-eight
XII. The Town: All characters are fictional, including the revivalist Elder Fry, but the church trial of Laurel Cobb is based upon a real incident whose details were provided by a son of the accused. The Larkin oil field is fictional, but its characteristics are accurate for that part of Texas. Ranger Lone Wolf Gonzaul-las was real. Details regarding the Fighting Antelopes are fictional but are based upon numerous real teams of that period. Politics as practiced in Bravo and Saldana County aie fictional, but prototypes abound and some still function.
XIII. The Invaders: All characters and incidents are fictional, but the Larkin tornado is based on real and terrifying prototypes.
XIV. Power and Change: All characters and incidents are fictional, except that the summer storm of 1983 was real.
THE GOVERNOR'S
TASK FORCE
I WAS SURPRISED WHEN SHORTLY AFTER NEW YEAR S DAY OF 1983, the Governor of Texas summoned me to his office, because I hadn't been aware that he knew I was in town. I'd been in Austin for some weeks, preparing a series of five lectures I was to deliver at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. The rather grandiloquent title, 'Southwest America in the World Society,' had been chosen by local scholars in a desire to broaden student horizons. The university authorities had left me pretty much to myself; I had paid a courtesy call on the president and had consulted two or three times with the dean of graduate studies, but to hear from the governor himself was something quite unexpected.
I was a native son and legal resident of Texas; however, for the past year I'd been working in Geneva on leave from my job at Boulder's well-regarded think tank, The Institute for Cultural Studies, which I headed. While serving in Boulder, I'd learned the truth of the old statement: 'When good Texans die they go to Colorado.'
I was gratified by my return to the university, for I found its students refreshing, even though some of the brightest seemed to come from up north. The best football players, however, enrolled at Texas, and that's what mattered.
I started in a low key with my students, but won their acceptance by stating in a newspaper interview: 'The students at the University of Texas may not be the best scholars in the world, but they're among the bravest. Anyone who crosses Guadalupe, the main drag by the campus, six times a day without police escort, has to be heroic' I thought people drove crazy when I lectured at Colmbra University in Portugal, but Portuguese drivers are merely in training for the big time in Texas.
Confused as to why the governor might want to meet me, I left my guest office in the shadow of the main building. When I got outside I glanced up at its tower; the sight of it always set me thinking about the conflicting messages that it sent. After any football university major sports victory, and they came frequently at Texas, it was illuminated gaudily in the school color, burnt orange, but on gray and misty mornings, which came less frequently, I knew that people recalled that horrible August day in 1966 when Charles Whitman, an Eagle Scout, gained a gruesome immortality. After murdering his wife and mother, he filled a footlocker with guns, ammunition and knives and drove to the university. Slaying the receptionist, he took the elevator to the top of the tower, where he unlimbered his arsenal and began shooting at random any students or casual passers-by. In all, he killed sixteen persons before sharpshooters gunned him down. Saluting the handsome tower, I crossed the bustling campus which had so excited me when I first reported there in 1959. The university now had forty-eight
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