B00C74WTKQ EBOK (22 page)

The overpass was much too small to accommodate the crowd, so the meeting was held out in the open. Adrian was standing in the crowd and watched as Ryan climbed up onto a hastily erected speaker’s platform. The crowd had been noisy, even raucous at times, but as Ryan stood there the silence came slowly at first, then rapidly as they waited to hear him speak.

Ryan, not comfortable speaking in public but knowing that he needed to do this, acted with a confidence he didn’t actually have and spoke loudly. “You have a moment in time, a place in history, right now right here…but only if you grasp it quickly. You can let it slip away forever, or you can show your courage and your honor of your fellow Texans by bringing them back two gifts: The first gift will be a resounding victory over the army that intends to invade your land.” Loud cheering followed for several moments. Ryan waited, and when he gauged the time was right he held up his hand for silence, which he quickly got.

“The second gift is just as big. Bigger. It’s a gift to the men and women of Texas that want to lead their own quiet lives. People who are raising children and want their children, your children and mine someday, to live in a better place than we have now. A place where law and order work for the citizen and against the criminal raiders that scar our land. Gathered here today are the people needed to create a new government, our own government, crafted by our own hands. I’m not talking about resurrecting the United States, or even the state of Texas. I’m proposing that we, right here and now, vote to restore the Republic of Texas under a new constitution.”

Ryan paused in the dead silence that followed. For a brief, horrifying moment he thought he had misjudged. He thought they might turn away with disinterest because every face turned to him was silent.

Then one man started to clap. The shock washed away across the crowd as they spontaneously erupted into wild cheering and applause. Men were slapping other men on the back, fists were raised and pumped, a few had tears streaking down their faces. The crowd went absolutely crazy.

Ryan stood above them knowing he had gauged them correctly after all. He looked for Adrian in the crowd to judge his reaction. Spotting him, he saw that Adrian was smiling through the back slapping he was enduring. Ryan knew that as sure as the sun would rise in the morning that Adrian would be President of the Republic of Texas before this meeting ended. Ryan the historian was making his own history now and he knew it, and fully believed it was the right thing to do.
History will judge me for this, I only hope approvingly.
He was fully aware of the irony of a historian being judged for his place in a historic moment.

Choosing the right moment, after the cheering had begun to decrease just slightly but well ahead of anything resembling an orderly crowd, he raised both hands. Slowly the celebrants noticed his call for silence and gradually the crowd settled down, but Ryan knew they were primed to explode again at the slightest cue.

“We’ll need to do this in an orderly fashion. First we need to elect the President of our brand new Republic.” Before the crowd could start shouting again Ryan quickly shouted out, “Are there any nominations for the office of the President of the Republic of Texas?”

Ryan knew exactly what would happen next and was not disappointed.

A voice answered immediately, shouting out from the middle of the crowd it said “Bear! Bear! Bear!” His chant was immediately taken up by the crowd. They shouted loud and were soon in unison, shouting “Bear! Bear! Bear!” for nearly ten minutes. No amount of hand raising on Ryan’s part slowed them down. When he looked down, he saw that Adrian was being pushed towards the platform by the crowd, they were propelling him forward.

Adrian reached the platform and climbed up. The crowd went even wilder than it had before. Adrian turned to face them and they instantly got quiet again, not wanting to miss a word. Before Adrian could speak, Ryan shouted “I second the nomination, and by voice count I declare that Adrian Hunter, General Bear to his soldiers, is hereby legally and duly elected President of the Republic of Texas!”

It took a full fifteen minutes before the ecstatic crown quieted enough for Ryan to once again speak.

“Before I turn the platform over, there is some quick business we need to attend to. After the meeting tonight we need to meet in smaller groups, groups by region. North Texans meet north of the platform, South Texans south of the platform and so on. Each group will nominate and elect three representatives to act in their behalf in a constitutional convention that will be held as soon as we can. Now…without further delay here is the Father of the new Republic of Texas!” The crowd yet again went wild as he shouted out those last words..

Ryan climbed off the platform leaving Adrian there, alone. He knew the die was cast now, his job done for the time being. He didn’t know that at the back of the crowd a ham operator had set up his radio and was broadcasting the meeting across the world, or that the Mexican Cartel leaders were listening with intense interest.

Adrian, when he finally had a chance to speak, said, “I promise to make a short speech if you’ll promise to give your throats a chance to rest. They have to be aching by now.” Adrian gave a smile and continued quickly, “Ryan sprang this on me earlier today so I haven’t had much time to consider it. I promised him though that if you really wanted me to I’d take it on. Well you’ve made it obvious. I think it is a radical idea, but a good one. There’s going to be a lot of work to do to get it rolling, a lot of work. You’ll be engaged in that work, every one of you. As long as you promise to do your part I promise to do mine. I thank you all for what you’re about to do, for making a start on bringing a civil society into these hard times. I’m assured that this is a legitimate government, but with big problems to solve. Together we’ll solve them. Our first great challenge of course is to win this war. We have to continue to make that our number one priority.

I’ll say this much more, and then I’ll be quiet. I’ve never seen or been associated with finer men and women than those gathered right here. You are the cream of the crop of Texas citizens. It will be an honor, an absolute honor to serve you in our new government—Long Live The Republic Of Texas!”

It was dawn before the camp was quiet again.

Chapter 24

R
ace heard of the radio
broadcast of the creation of the Republic of Texas from one of the cooks. She was stunned, as she had no idea that Adrian had become involved in creating a new nation.

Race knew immediately that the Rangers were going to Cotulla, but she also knew that if the Admiral thought the girls had that idea in mind they would be held on the ship.

Race gathered the girls and told them what she had learned, “Adrian has been elected the President of the Republic of Texas along with going to war with Mexico.”

The girls were as surprised as she had been, their expressions a mixture of shock and puzzlement.

“We have to go to Cotulla and fight with him,” Race continued. “But, we can’t let anyone know we’re going, or they won’t let us off the ship. This is extremely important…
Do not let on that we’re going to go to war with Adrian.
Swear it now, hold your right hands up and say ‘I swear.’”

The girls all immediately did so.

“Good,” Race said, satisfied. “I’ll tell the Admiral we’re going on a training exercise for two days, and that we’re going to be just outside Corpus city limits on the north side. We’ll head for Cotulla as soon as we’re out of sight and drive non-stop. By the time they start looking for us to the north of the city we’ll already be in Cotulla.”

Six hours after leaving the ship Race pulled the truck off the road and into a thick stand of mesquites.

“We’ll spend the night here.” She was tired from the driving, the truck’s lack of power steering made it a difficult physical activity. Navigation had been simple though. She had an old highway map in the truck and it was a simple matter of taking the highway from Corpus to Cotulla across inhospitable semi-arid country.

The girls dismounted from the truck following their training. They hit the ground in a circle with rifles ready. When they determined that the immediate area was safe, four scouts disappeared into the brush to check out the larger area. While the scouts were out the other girls stretched the circle out to control the perimeter of their camp site, and waited quietly for the scouts’ return.

After receiving the all-quiet report from the scouts, sentries were posted further out around the camp. Only then did the camp preparation commence. Wood was gathered, first to resupply the truck’s wood gas generator, then for a cooking fire. They made a small meal from some of the canned goods in the truck, and ate quickly. When the dishes were cleaned and all utensils returned to the truck, the girls got their bedrolls and went to sleep. Sleep came fast for most of them.

Race lay awake long into the night, looking up at the stars through the mesquite limbs. She was too tired and too excited to fall asleep straight away. She had wanted to drive straight through to Cotulla, but the truck’s top speed on wood gas was only about thirty miles per hour. With the two rest stops they’d taken, they’d averaged twenty miles per hour.

Even so, they were close to Cotulla. She didn’t want to get too close just yet, anyway. She knew that Adrian would send them back—and not only would he send them back, but he would assign an escort which would waste resources that he probably couldn’t spare. Her plan was to locate Adrian’s camp, then watch it until they left and either join up at the last minute or follow along behind.

Race tried to still her mind, force herself to relax. Adrian had instructed her and the Rangers on the value of sleep.
“You never know when danger will strike,”
he had often said.
“When you’re in danger, you need to be able to react and to think rapidly. Being tired or sleep-deprived dramatically lowers how fast you can react and how fast you can think. It also lowers your capability to think clearly. Imagine you were on a strong drug when danger approached, it’s about the same result as being exhausted. Soldiers learn to sleep wherever they are and whenever they can. They may have to go long hours, sometimes days, without rest when in combat. So they catch what sleep they can whenever they can.”

By the second changing of the sentries she had finally fallen into a restless sleep, one that was dogged by dreams of doubts that she was doing the right thing.

“How long have they been missing? Over.” Adrian asked the Admiral.

“Three days. We’ve had a search party out looking for them since this morning. They weren’t going far, just to the north edge of the city. I’m praying nothing has happened to them, Adrian. If you start thinking that you’ll come and look for them…don’t. I have thirty men out looking and you would add nothing of value to the search. Over.”

“Did they know about the war Admiral? Over.”

“Maybe. We tried to keep it from them, but you know how people talk. It’s possible. What are you thinking? Over.”

Adrian paused for a long moment. “I’m thinking they’re hiding out near here. They had more than enough time to get here and if they heard about the war I strongly suspect this is where they were headed. If I may suggest, have your men keep looking but have them do it on the west side of town instead. They may find someone that saw the truck headed this way. Meanwhile I’m going to check around the area here, see if I’m right or not. Over.”

Adrian called in the scout commander. “Ralph, I have an exercise for you.” Adrian explained about the girls and their training. “I want you to locate their camp. I’m pretty sure they’re nearby. Focus east of our camp, I suspect they came in on FM 624, and that they have set up near it within a couple of hours walking distance of here.”

“When you find them, don’t attempt to make contact. These girls are well-trained, and if they think you’re a threat, they’ll shoot you without hesitation. Just find them and then come back and tell me where they are. And be extremely careful, you’ll have to see them first and not be seen at all. Got it?”