A Target on my Back by Erleigh N. Wiley

Author:Erleigh N. Wiley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

I WAS WALKING back downstairs to my office after the press conference ended. Before I got there, however, the other Judges, the sheriff, the state’s representative, and state senator waved me over. There was lunch with Governor Perry in the law library with some of the county and state officials. Lance gave me a hard look that said it all: Stop the false modesty and get your butt upstairs.

I scurried back up the stairs. Governor Perry’s security detail stopped me until I was waved in by the other elected officials in the law library.

“She’s fine,” Governor Perry said.

Someone must have told him who I was.

“She’s one of the judges,” he explained to them further, turning his eyes on me briefly and then continuing to work the rest of the room. I glanced around the room and saw it was filled with other officials, some members of staff, and security detail. Along one wall of books a makeshift lunch line had formed. Heading over, I told the server, “I’ll have the turkey, thank you,” I said. Smiling, I took a sandwich box and looked around. Seeing a familiar face, I leaned up to Judge Chitty and whispered in his ear.

“Judge, this is pretty impressive,” I said. “Whoever gets this close to the governor?”

Judge Chitty smiled back, his blue eyes twinkling.

“And not pay for it,” he added, smiling.

We both chuckled.

Governor Perry had been the governor of Texas for the last fourteen years. He had filled the unexpired term of former President, and then Governor George W. Bush, who vacated the office when he won the White House. Perry then won three consecutive elections. I could barely remember a time when he wasn’t the governor.

Over that fourteen-year span, the governor had become a strict conservative. Few people remembered that when Perry started his political career in 1984, he was a Democrat. Over the last thirty years, he had become one of the most powerful Republican officials in the country. Governor Perry had made more appointments throughout the state than any other Texas governor in modern Texas history. He wielded his political power effortlessly. For me, getting this close to a man of Governor Perry’s stature would have only happened at a political fundraising event; that would have been too pricey for my judge’s salary.

Fundraisers and politics were not in play today and it certainly didn’t seem that way for anyone observing the governor. He was the most engaged and sincere person in the room. Even though I smiled back at Judge Chitty, knowing what he meant, I watched the governor mingle and schmooze with admiration. He was definitely at home in our small county law library. Some of the press had been allowed in and was finishing up some of their questions when he turned back toward us.

“Anywhere we can sit down and eat this lunch?” he asked.

We had been awkwardly holding our lunch boxes. No one was certain if we were supposed to sit down and start eating at the big conference table in the law library.

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