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one. Like your grandfather. He sent me out here to see if I can help.”
    â€œDoes Mahoney listen to you?”
    DeMarco shrugged. “As much as he listens to anyone. Mahoney’s a politician, and like most politicians, he acts primarily out of his own self-interest. But he’s loyal to his friends and he told me your granddad saved his life in Vietnam. So he’ll probably help you if he can, and if he doesn’t have to stick his neck out, but that’s the best I can tell you.”
    He could see Sarah wasn’t enamored with his answer but said, “Well, since nobody else is willing to do anything, I guess talking to you can’t hurt.”
    â€œTell me what you’re doing that’s making people want to kill you. All your grandfather said is that you think there’s some kind of big conspiracy going on.”
    â€œI don’t think . I know . I just can’t prove it and I can’t get anybody in law enforcement or the big-time media to listen to me.”
    â€œI’m listening,” DeMarco said.
    â€œYou know anything about state government in Montana or the Dakotas?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYeah, well, the chances are if you lived in one of those states, you still wouldn’t know anything. People pay attention to national politics because that’s mostly what’s on the news. They know if the president’s thinking about bombing Iran or screwing with Social Security, but they don’t have a clue what’s happening in their own state legislatures. To find out what’s going on in a state legislature you have to really want to know. You have to watch some little local channel that nobody watches and that’s drier than dirt. You have to read bills that are written in some language other than English. So nobody pays a lot of attention to what’s going on in Helena, Pierre, or Bismarck, but that’s where the action really is. If a state can pass a law that’s not covered by federal law, they can make anything happen. Hell, the states can even pass laws that go against federal law and sometimes the federal government can’t do anything to stop them. To use a simple example, it’s like in Washington and Colorado where they passed laws legalizing pot even though the feds say pot’s illegal.”
    Sarah Johnson’s intensity was palpable. After two minutes with her, DeMarco could tell that she was completely committed to whatever she was doing. He could sense her seriousness, her resolve. No, maybe resolve wasn’t the right word. Maybe obsession was more accurate. Whatever the case, he could see the passion blazing in her eyes and he thought: Joan of Arc. That’s who this young woman was. She was so zealous about what she believed in that she was willing to be burned at the stake. She wasn’t an activist ; she was a crusader and a would-be martyr.
    â€œThe other thing you need to understand,” Sarah said, “is that the people elected to state legislatures are paid hardly anything. They barely make minimum wage. In South Dakota, a legislator is paid twelve thousand dollars a year and gets a hundred and ten dollars a day in per diem when the legislature is in session. If you do the math, that’s less than eighteen grand if you don’t take special sessions into account. And it’s about the same in Montana and North Dakota.
    â€œWhat this means is that these legislators, unless they’re rich or retired with pensions, all have other jobs. They’re ranchers and farmers and salesmen and teachers. Hell, half of them take the job because they need the lousy salary it pays. The other thing is, a lot of times they’ll run unopposed because who else wants a job that pays so little?
    â€œSo what I’m trying to tell you is if you want to control what happens in a state, you don’t waste your money bribing Montana’s only congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives.