The "Woman's Revolution"-spurred by the murder of Jimena Abarca-has taken over the Jurez Valley.

- There's only one position missing.

Valverde has no police officer.

Two of the previous cops were killed, the others fled to the United States.

Keller sits with Marisol in her mayor's office in the town building as she ponders this problem.

He's furious with her.

Not only has she not left Valverde, she's put herself squarely in the crosshairs and shone a light on it. He's leaving later in the morning, now he tries to persuade her to at least carry a gun.

"I'll get it for you," he says. "A little Beretta, it will fit in your purse."

"I don't know how to shoot a gun."

"I'll teach you."

"If I'm carrying a firearm," Marisol says, "it will just give them a pretext for shooting me, won't it?"

He's forming a counterargument when there's a knock on the door.

"Come in!" Marisol yells.

The door opens and a young woman stands there. She's tall, probably five-ten. Long black hair, not fat by any means, but not skinny either, with wide hips and big bones.

"Erika, isn't it?" Marisol asks.

The young woman nods. "Erika Valles."

"You work for your uncle, Toms."

Her uncle is a realtor in the valley.

"There are no houses to sell," Erika says, looking down at the floor.

"What can I do for you?" Marisol asks.

Erika glances up. "I'm here to apply for the job."

"What job?" Marisol asks.

"Police chief."

Keller is appalled.

Marisol smiles. "How old are you, Erika?"

"Nineteen."

"Education?"

"I went to ITCJ for a semester," Erika says, naming the local community college.

"Did you study law enforcement?" Marisol asks.

Erika shakes her head. "Computer programming."

Now Keller shakes his head. A nineteen-year-old girl with no training and a semester or two of community college computer science wants to be the town's only police officer. It's cloud cuckoo land.

Marisol asks, "Why do you want to be police chief, Erika?"

"It's a job," she says. "No one else wants it. I think I'd be good at it."

"Why?"

"I'm tough," Erika says. "I've been in a few fights. I play ftbol with the boys."

"Is that it?"

Erika looks at the floor again. "I'm smart, too."

"I'll bet you are," Marisol says.

Erika looks up. "So I have the job?"

"Do you have any criminal record?"

"No."

"Drugs?"

"I smoked a little mota," Erika says. "When I was young."

When you were young? Keller thinks.

"But not anymore," Erika adds.

"Erika," Marisol says, "you know that people have been killed doing this job."

"I know."

"And you want to do it anyway?"

Erika shrugs. "Someone has to do it."

"And you know that there's no one else on the force," Marisol says. "For the time being, anyway, you'd be the chief of yourself."

"Sounds good to me." Erika smiles.

"All right," Marisol says. "I'll swear you in."

Are you out of your goddamned mind? Keller thinks, giving Marisol a look that expresses exactly what he's thinking. She gives him an irritated look back, and then fishes through her desk for the police chief's oath.

After she's sworn in, Erika asks, "Do I get a gun?"

"There's a what...an 'AR-15,'" Marisol says, "but do you know how to shoot it?"

"Everyone knows."

Jesus Christ, Keller thinks.

"All right," Marisol says. "When can you start?"

"This afternoon?" Erika asks. "I should go tell my mom."

"She should go tell her mom," Keller says when Erika leaves. "This is insanity, Mari."

"It's all insanity, Art," Marisol answers. "It's not as if she's going to be investigating murders or busting narcos. Parking tickets, routine patrols against break-ins...Why can't she do it?"

"Because the narcos don't want any kind of police here," Keller says. "Or any government."

"Well," Marisol says, "we are here."

Keller shakes his head.

"But," she adds, "I will take that gun."

- Weeks later, the messages start to appear in the valley.

White bedsheets, spray-painted in black with the names of those to be executed, are nailed to walls. Banners strung on phone lines read YOU HAVE FORTY-EIGHT HOURS TO LEAVE.

Leaflets threaten to kill police and town officials.

Marisol's name is on the list.

So is Erika's.

So are the names of the councilwomen of Valverde and the police officers in the other towns.

During Semana Santa, Holy Week, leaflets tossed from the backs of trucks tell the entire populations of Porvenir and Esperanza, "You have just a few hours to get out."

On Good Friday, a firebomb is thrown at the Porvenir church, burning its old wooden door.

The exodus begins.

People leave their homes for Jurez, or to family farther south, or they try to cross the border.

Keller urges Marisol to be one of them. He shows up at her office, having driven down from EPIC, and confronts her with the threats.

"How do you know about this?" she asks.

"I know about everything." The hyperbole is not that exaggerated. He gets daily briefings from every important intelligence source, and can't help himself from finding out what's going on in the valley.

"So if you know everything," Marisol says, "tell me-is it the army or the Sinaloa cartel, or is there really a difference?"

Keller does know.

The CDG and the Zetas are expanding west, along Highway 2, through Coahuila and then into Chihuahua.

There are signs that the process has already begun, and Adn Barrera isn't taking any chances on this part of the border. He's already moving Sinaloans into the lands vacated by the people he forced off.

Adn Barrera isn't just depopulating the Jurez Valley.

He's colonizing it.

It's a bizarre repeat of the history that brought so many of those families into the valley in the first place, as "military colonists" to fight off the Apaches. Except this time, the Apaches are Zetas. The Zetas and CDG are doing a similar thing in rural northern Tamaulipas, moving suspect people off their land and putting loyalists in their place.

"It's Sinaloa," Keller tells Marisol, "but the army won't do a damn thing to stop them."

"To say the least."

"Mari, you have to go," Keller says. "I admire what you're trying to do, I admire the hell out of what you're trying to do, but it's not possible. You and a half dozen women cannot go up against the Sinaloa cartel!"

"Because the people who are supposed to protect me," she said, "are the same people who are going to kill me."

"Yes. Fine. Okay."

"No, it's not okay. If we yield to intimidation-"

"You don't have a choice!"

"We always have a choice!" Marisol says. "I choose to stay."

Keller walks over to the window and looks out at the devastated town, half-deserted. A few folding tables set up under a tent in the park to serve as a grocery store, untended trash blowing across the street. Why does she want to fight and die for this wasteland?

"Mari," he says, "I have to be back in Mexico City on Monday. I'm begging you-please come with me."

Erika picks that moment to come in. She wears jeans and a hooded sweatshirt and has her AR-15 slung over her shoulder.

"Erika," Marisol says, "Arturo thinks we should run away."

"There would be no shame in it," Keller says. "No one would think any less of you."

"I would," Erika says.

Marisol flashes Keller an I-told-you-so smile.