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The first Cadillac Gage Ranger armored personnel carrier assigned to the Texas Education Agency had not yet rolled into Fort Stockton, and nobody at Jim Bowie High School, Home of the Fightin’ Knives, had actually heard the sound of military tires coming down Dickinson Boulevard. That was fortunate, because the faculty parking lot was already full and the district had recently painted over the only two spaces wide enough to accommodate an armored vehicle. They were now reserved for visiting instructional consultants, who generally arrived in rented Nissan Rogues carrying PowerPoint presentations explaining why teachers should develop stronger relationships with students while simultaneously trying to identify which of those students might be carrying drugs.

Still, the possibility of a Cadillac Gage Ranger appearing outside Jim Bowie had become real enough in the collective imagination of Fort Stockton that the Regulars at the Grounds for Divorce had begun glancing toward the window whenever something with a diesel engine or painted dark green approached from the east.

The Ranger was not a subtle vehicle. Originally developed around 1979 for military base protection and patrol duties, it placed an armored body on shortened Dodge underpinnings and came equipped with four-wheel drive, bullet-resistant glass, firing ports, a roof hatch and a rotating turret. Beneath all that armor was a 5.9-liter Chrysler V8 connected to a three-speed automatic transmission and dual-range transfer case. The cabin had black vinyl bucket seats, and another pair of seats occupied the rear compartment beneath the turret platform. It was, in other words, exactly the sort of machine the United States once believed necessary for protecting military installations and exactly the sort of machine nobody had previously thought necessary for determining whether a sophomore could get his hands on The Great Gatsby.

But education had changed.

The Texas Legislature had spent considerable time considering what might threaten the future of public education, and while teacher shortages, attrition, the increasing reliance on uncertified classroom personnel and ever-lowering literacy scores remained troublesome, books had moved rapidly up the list. Texas public schools were already having to hire more than 40,000 teachers a year to replace educators leaving the profession, while the number of uncertified teachers had risen from roughly 12,900 before the pandemic to more than 42,000. More than half of teachers in some recent new-hire cohorts had entered classrooms without standard state credentials.

This was the sort of problem that might ordinarily cause a state to ask why so many trained professionals were leaving.

Texas was not an ordinary state.

While teachers were being asked to do more with less, and many districts were not providing meaningful raises for the 2026-27 school year, lawmakers had nevertheless managed to locate roughly a billion dollars for a voucher program allowing taxpayer money to be used for private schooling. This struck several people in Fort Stockton as an unusual response to declining public-school enrollment, since subsidizing departure from a system and then citing declining enrollment as a reason not to put more money into the system possessed the circular elegance of draining the swimming pool because the water level kept going down.

There was, however, still money available for priorities.

Hence the Cadillac Gage Rangers.

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The Stockton Telegram-Dispatch broke the news on a Thursday morning beneath a photograph of an armored vehicle that looked capable of settling a border dispute. The headline announced the creation of a new statewide Library Compliance Response Unit, although somebody in Austin had apparently noticed the initials just before the press release went out and changed “Response” to “Assurance.” The revised name produced LCAU, which meant nothing but was considered preferable to spending the next legislative session explaining why librarians kept referring to the state inspectors as “lick-roos.”

Hairless B29 had the newspaper spread across the regular table at the Grounds for Divorce before eight o’clock.

He studied the photograph for some time.

Hairless fancied himself a connoisseur of literature based on the fact that Shakespeare had written several plays and Louis L’Amour had written everything else, and he knew vehicles. He recognized armor when he saw it, understood four-wheel drive and had enough mechanical curiosity to become deeply suspicious of anything with a turret.

“This son of a bitch has gun holes.”

Rex Hall leaned over the newspaper and adjusted his glasses. “Firing ports.”

“If somebody shoots a gun through it, Rex, that’s a gun hole.”

Pastor Peterson looked over Rex’s shoulder. Brother Bob moved his coffee out of danger and joined him. Angus Hopper remained seated, studying the photograph from beneath his brown hat with the calm expression of a rancher who had encountered many animals in his lifetime and was trying to determine what useful purpose this one served.

Trixie settled the matter.

“What are they expecting the librarians to shoot back with?”

Nobody had an answer.

Lucinda came over with the coffee pot and examined the photograph. “Maybe they’ve armed the librarians.”

Hairless looked interested.

“With what?”

“Books.”

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That was when Rex began reading the specifications aloud. The Ranger had armored bodywork, bullet-resistant glass, locking front hubs, front disc brakes, dual windshields with separate wipers, steel bumpers and a rear pintle hitch.

“Pintle hitch,” Angus said.

“Apparently.”

“What’s that got to do with libraries?”

Rex shrugged. “Maybe they tow the dangerous books to wherever they’re going to burn them.”

The vehicle even had an 85-mile-per-hour speedometer, which Hairless considered excessive until Trixie pointed out that somebody might make a break for Alpine with Romeo and Juliet.

That was funny.

The list of books was not.

New Braunfels ISD, attempting to comply with Senate Bill 13, had removed, restricted, aged-up or otherwise affected roughly 1,500 books across its schools, with hundreds more subjected to continuing review. The district had even temporarily closed its secondary libraries while the review proceeded before reopening them after public outcry.

The authors caught in the process represented one of the strangest conspiracies ever assembled.

Barack Obama was there.

So were Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton.

That did not surprise anybody at the table. After all, Texas was a red state. Not the communist kind of red. Not yet, anyway.

Then Rex got to George W. Bush.

“Wait,” Rusty Hammer said. “Our George Bush?”

“Former president. Former governor of Texas. That George Bush.”

Rusty frowned. “Republican?”

“Last time anybody checked.”

“Maybe they found something new.”

Rex continued.

Herman Melville.

Jane Austen.

John Steinbeck.

Victor Hugo.

William Shakespeare.

Homer.

Ayn Rand.

Hairless held up his hand.

“Hold it. Ayn Rand?”

“Yes.”

“I thought conservatives liked her.”

Brother Bob stirred his coffee. “Apparently not enough to let children find out why.”

That bought Brother Bob several seconds of silence.

The list wandered across political ideology, historical period and popular culture with such enthusiasm that it eventually became difficult to determine precisely what kind of coordinated intellectual threat the state was confronting. Memoirs and biographies caught in the various bans and reviews included books by Barack and Michelle Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, Prince Harry, Muhammad Ali, Trevor Noah, astronaut Scott Kelly, Britney Spears, Chip Gaines, Andre Agassi, Audie Murphy and Fred Rogers.

Hairless stopped them at Fred Rogers.

“Mr. Rogers?”

Rex checked.

“Mr. Rogers.”

Hairless leaned back.

The regular table became quiet.

It was one thing to accept that Barack Obama might be part of an international plot involving Jane Austen and Britney Spears. Politics made strange bedfellows. But Mr. Rogers represented an escalation nobody at the GFD had been prepared for.

“What’d he do?” Hairless asked.

Trixie looked at him. “Changed his shoes indoors.”

Hairless nodded slowly.

“Always wondered about that.”

Rex resumed reading. Marvel’s Greatest Comics had been caught up in the process. So had Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Lincoln, Star Wars: Light of the Jedi, and editions of Guinness World Records.

This was where the political usefulness of the argument began developing mechanical trouble. It was much easier to imagine a censorship campaign when the books could be divided neatly between people one liked and people one didn’t. But the lists refused to cooperate. They contained liberals and conservatives, presidents of both parties, actors, athletes, astronauts, soldiers, children’s authors and enough dead white men to hold a respectable faculty meeting at Harvard in 1938.

Then Trixie saw Harper Lee.

She reached across the table and took the newspaper from Rex.

“To Kill a Mockingbird?”

Rex nodded.

Some middle-school classics, including To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm and Romeo and Juliet, had been moved up to high schools. Other classics had been restricted in various ways, with certain works retained partly because they were used in AP Literature classes.

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Trixie read the paragraph twice.

“I learned most of the morals I’ve got from Harper Lee.”

Hairless glanced at her.

“You don’t have that many.”

“Exactly. I can’t afford to lose any.”

Rusty laughed, but Trixie did not.

That changed the temperature at the table.

Trixie had no particular objection to parents deciding what their own children should read. Neither did Rusty. Neither, for that matter, did Brother Bob, although Brother Bob’s list of books requiring parental judgment was considerably longer and included several things Trixie kept beneath the front counter at the Klip-N-Dye.

What bothered them was the transfer of that authority outward, away from the family and toward a government apparatus capable of making one decision for millions of families at once.

Brother Bob finally spoke.

“There are books I don’t believe children should read.”

Rusty nodded.

“I reckon there are.”

Brother Bob had been preparing for an argument and was briefly stranded without one.

Rusty continued. “But Cody and Brody have a mama and daddy. They’ve got grandparents. They’ve got teachers. They’ve got a preacher if things get desperate. I don’t remember electing anybody in Austin to be their mama.”

Pastor Peterson looked down at his coffee.

Brother Bob looked at him.

“You could contribute here.”

“I think Rusty’s doing fine.”

It was not often that the Second Baptist Church and the Almost United Methodist Church found themselves on opposite sides of a theological question in which Rusty Hammer was serving as the moderate.

The front door opened and Vice Principal Lutz came in.

Lutz normally avoided the GFD during school hours because the Regulars had an unfortunate habit of asking what vice principals actually did, then waiting for an answer. That morning, however, he came directly to the table.

“They haven’t come yet.”

Nobody had asked.

Hairless folded the newspaper.

“The tank?”

“It isn’t a tank.”

“It has a turret.”

“That doesn’t make it a tank.”

Hairless considered this. “Battleships have turrets.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re saying it’s a battleship?”

Lutz closed his eyes.

Lucinda brought him coffee without being asked.

He needed it.

The problem for Lutz was that the possibility of a state inspection, even one conducted without an armored vehicle, was not especially funny. Proposed state penalties had included reducing a district’s accountability letter grade if prohibited material remained available, while districts facing the evolving rules had already undertaken large-scale audits, removals and temporary library restrictions.

“One book?” Angus asked.

“Potentially.”

“You mean Jim Bowie could lose part of its rating because one book is sitting on the wrong shelf?”

“Depending on the rule and how it’s enforced.”

Angus nodded. He understood cattle better than bureaucracy, but the principles of pressure were much the same.

“So you don’t really have to ban the books.”

Lutz looked at him.

“You just have to make the superintendent afraid of finding one.”

Nobody said anything.

That was the point at which the Cadillac Gage Ranger ceased being the most troubling thing in the story.

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An armored vehicle was ridiculous. Everybody could see it. Put a turret outside a school library and reasonable people would immediately ask whether the situation had gotten out of hand. Fear was quieter. A librarian could look at a shelf containing a questionable book and decide it was safer to remove it. A principal could look at a list of titles awaiting review and decide students should not have access until somebody farther up the chain accepted responsibility. A superintendent could decide that temporarily closing a library was preferable to explaining to the state why one book remained available. No soldiers were necessary, no armored vehicles were necessary, and nobody even had to order the book removed. You merely had to make leaving it there dangerous enough.

Lucinda finally broke the silence.

Lucinda finally broke the silence.

“Tell me they aren’t really sending that thing.”

The Captain looked at the photograph in the newspaper, then toward Jim Bowie High School through the window.

“Keep reading.”

That answer did absolutely nothing to improve the mood at the table.

That answer sat at the table for a while.

Hairless was the first to move on, partly because prolonged contemplation made him uncomfortable and partly because he had just discovered Shakespeare on the list.

This created an immediate Fort Stockton problem.

Shakespeare in the Stock Tank was scheduled to return in the spring.

The previous production had suffered from wind, mosquitoes, a malfunctioning spotlight and one unfortunate incident involving A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a loose extension cord and a city employee who had not been informed that Puck would enter from behind the pump house.

Hairless had nevertheless become protective of the institution.

“Can the bastards ban the Bard from being performed in public, too?”

Lutz said he did not think so.

Hairless was not reassured by “think.”

Within ten minutes, the Regulars had developed contingency plans.

If Shakespeare became legally questionable, Earl’s Salvage Yard & Formalwear would host the production and advertise it as a Southwest Texas Gun Show. Rex suggested they avoid Romeo and Juliet because of the underage relationship. Trixie said they could rename it Two Teenagers Make Several Poor Decisions. Pastor Peterson thought this improved the theological message considerably. Brother Bob wanted an adult discussion guide.

From there, the resistance expanded.

Earl could hide prohibited books inside old transmissions. Rex Hall Drug could distribute paperbacks in prescription sacks. The Lucky Lady could handle anything containing profanity because children were not supposed to be there anyway. Trixie volunteered the Klip-N-Dye as a sanctuary for Jane Austen.

Nobody questioned this. Jane Austen belonged in a beauty shop.

Angus offered his ranch for Tolstoy because there was plenty of room. Rusty volunteered the back room at RUSTY HAMMER HARDWARE but warned that anything shelved beside plumbing supplies would probably never be found again, even by the state.

For several minutes it was funny again.

That was important.

Fort Stockton had survived droughts, recessions, oil booms, oil busts, highway construction, municipal improvement projects and Mayor Goodman largely by refusing to surrender the right to laugh at people who took themselves too seriously. Humor was not denial. It was how people standing far from the machinery of power reminded themselves that the machinery was still being operated by human beings, many of whom looked considerably less impressive when imagined trying to explain why Pride and Prejudice required armored intervention.

Then a diesel engine rumbled somewhere down Dickinson.

The table stopped.

Nobody acknowledged what had just happened. The billion dollars for private-school vouchers was real. The teacher attrition was real. The tens of thousands of uncertified teachers were real. The library closures and mass reviews were real. The restrictions reaching from Barack Obama to George W. Bush, from Jane Austen to Ayn Rand, from Shakespeare to Mr. Rogers were real.

The Cadillac Gage Rangers were not.

The armored library raids were the one thing in the entire story we had made up.

Chad, the one at the table with the most kids enrolled in Texas public schools, shook his head and wished the Legislature had been as aggressive about keeping guns out of schools as it was about keeping books out.

“Honey,” Trixie said, “it’s a lot easier trying to ban ideas than it is firearms. Nobody goes deer huntin’ with a copy of Pride and Prejudice. And they damn sure don’t cite a part of the Constitution that guarantees them a right to bear books.”

Hairless picked up the newspaper one last time and looked at the photograph.

“So you’re telling me the only thing you made up was the armored truck?”

“Yes.”

He studied it for several seconds, then glanced through the GFD window toward Jim Bowie High School.

“Hell,” he said. “That’s the part I was having the easiest time believing.”

And nobody at the table laughed quite as hard as they should have.

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