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Ranger George knows every inch of his acreage. His arm shoots out to point at the different kinds of oaks, the elm and the hackberry. There's an overwhelming brownness as you look out over large portions of his land, which have the texture of a worn brush. He stops the truck to show us a rare cottonwood and make sure we can all see the white-tailed deer hiding in the trees. "Motts are what they call those groupings of oaks," notes Bush. He catalogs every stream crossing, every canyon and the precise number of cows, bulls and calves that he lets graze on his land. There's Ophelia, the gray Texas Longhorn his staff gave him as a pres- ent. Some of the gray oak trees look like old villagers, wrinkled and stooped, as if they have fought hard for every inch of growth.
His descriptions have none of those elongated pronunciations he's prone to; he serves up none of the verbal jambalaya he's known for on the stump. His accent has no thickener the way it might if he were trying to give the Disney version of the tour. And he doesn't go the other way either, trotting out 10[cent]words like sylvan or making wide detours to talk about Teddy Roosevelt. His voice is easy. Meanwhile, the recount continues.
But it's cedar that is vexing him now, the clotting underbrush that chokes the majestic old oak and elm hardwoods. "When it is cleared, you'll have the full effect of the amphitheater," he says, sweeping his hand across the long ridge of limestone that leads to the waterfall. "I'm making the case for my cedar-eradication project," he says, pointing out yet another patch of the annoyance long after he needs to make the case.
It is a truth about Bush that he prefers to guide by the big picture and the bottom line. While Gore enjoyed playing at the molecular level, Bush is annoyed by it. Every aide tells you this is the key to understanding his leadership approach. And it is the way to understand how he rules the ranch too. The stuff has to be cleared to get the broader view, cleared so that you can see from the land on top of his property down into the greener valley. We stop at an overlook he has just thinned out so that he can show Laura. Each night they take a walk before sunset; now they will have a clean lookout down to the Rainey Creek, more than 100 ft. below. Bush has torched his conifer hackings all over the ranch, leaving black burn circles that look as if there's been fireworks testing. Once the brush is gone, he's got plans: wildflowers over there and maybe a feeder to attract some wildlife. Laura is growing a patch of native grasses. Bush is quick to point out, though, that more than enough cedar has been left for the golden-cheek warbler and the black-capped vireo, which use its bark for their nests.