Plains Crazy by J.M. Hayes

though they are. It’s more because they’re libertarians, even if they don’t know it. We go and seize somebody’s land, even Mad Dog’s, there’ll be new faces on the board after the next election and they won’t be ours.”
    â€œYeah,” the chairman agreed. “Take Mad Dog’s land today, what’s to keep you from coming after mine next? That’s what they’ll think.”
    â€œWe’re talking a special case here,” Haines argued, pacing in front of the chairman’s desk and swiping his blond mop out of his eyes. “I mean, let’s face it. Mad Dog’s the only one standing in the way of this wind farm. He’s the reason the other two land owners haven’t agreed to sell yet. They’re sure we’ll never get Mad Dog’s land. Without it, our land isn’t contiguous and we got no wind farm.”
    â€œWind blows the same damn speed everywhere in this county,” Finfrock said. Craig Finfrock was a short, muscular man with a flat nose he claimed was the result of an undistinguished boxing career. He owned the Bisonte Bar and Buffalo Springs’ only liquor store. This might be Carrie Nation country, but decades after she wielded her ax it remained a profitable business. The chairman had watched it make Finfrock a wealthy man.
    â€œLook here, Finfrock,” Jud Haines said. “Where else in this county are you going to find ten sections that line up east to west and aren’t already controlled by one or two families? I mean, think about it. We don’t put this together, somebody else will. One of those corporate farmers gets to thinking on this before we get the contract signed, they can go around us. Hook themselves up with Windreapers, or one of them other firms, and put this thing in themselves. Then, those of us who’ve invested in the Benteen Energy Coop can kiss our front money goodbye.”
    â€œPersuasive argument,” Finfrock admitted. He was one of the larger investors. “But I still don’t like this. Surely Mad Dog can be persuaded. I mean, he’s a damn conservationist, right?”
    â€œA conservationist? With oil wells on his property?” Haines scoffed. “Give me a break. And you’ve heard him criticize the president and the war in Iraq. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mad Dog was involved with OPEC or one of them other Communist fronts.”
    The chairman leaned forward and rubbed his chin. The tone of this conversation troubled him. “Mad Dog is a lot of things,” he said, “pain in the ass being one of them, but he’s no Communist.”
    â€œIslamisist, then,” Haines countered. “Pretty much the same thing. Didn’t you tell me Mad Dog claimed to be a Negro once? Spent time advocating Black power?”
    â€œYes, but…” The chairman had to admit it was so. Then Mad Dog had traded Black power for Rastafarianism, then the new-age crystal thing. And, of course, there was his hippie period and the grape boycott and…
    â€œThere you go,” Haines asserted. “Black power—Black Muslim, most likely. And this Cheyenne thing. Hell, it’s probably a sham. He might be planning to strike at his neighbors with a suicide bomb or some such, now that our beloved U S of A is involved in a holy crusade against satanic Islam. I’ll bet we could seize his land through the Patriot Act.”
    Chairman Wynn had heard enough. Mad Dog might be a nut case, but he owed his own life to that nut. Probably his son’s as well. He wasn’t going to allow a quest for profit on a wind farm to turn into a witch hunt. He opened his mouth to protest, but the door opened first and his son stuck his uniformed body through it and smiled.
    â€œYou guys seen Mad Dog?” Wynn Junior asked.
    The supervisors shook their heads.
    â€œI was supposed to keep him here for Deputy Parker,” Junior continued, “only he