Liberty's Last Stand (13 page)

The second hand of his watch was swinging, past forty-five seconds. Come on, man, where are you?

Ah, there, moving slowly and carefully. JR zoomed in on his head, which was partially obscured by brush. But for an instant he got a good look. Yep, he was wearing a night-vision headset. But there was only the one man. A quick sweep revealed no others.

JR lifted the edge of the tarp an inch or so, located the man. He was about forty feet away, moving right along so as to keep up with the mules. He was relying on the goggles, so he wasn't situationally alert. JR poked his AR-15 with the night-vision scope out under the tarp. He flicked off the safety, aimed it, and squeezed the trigger. The man went down.

Abandoning the rifle for a moment, JR located his lighter and the detonator cord by feel. Applied the flame. That cord burned at several thousand feet a second. It seemed to explode, dissolve into ashes. Then he heard the explosions, just one big roar. At least two screams, of men in mortal agony. The blast was followed by a patter on the ground and brush, like rain. JR knew what it was: he had used ten pounds of screws and nails in the mines.

Now for the shooter or shooters on the other side of the arroyo. JR hadn't seen any, but he knew someone was there. These guys didn't take chances.

He came out of the hide on his belly, wearing the night-vision goggles, with the AR cradled in his arms. He crawled as he scanned around. Black powder smoke oozed through the brush and acted like fog, reducing visibility. Still, the other men might have caught the muzzle flash of the AR or seen the flash of the burning det cord.

He caught a glimpse of a man, then saw the muzzle flash and heard the bullet strike brush near his head.

JR shot back, three shots as fast as he could squeeze the trigger, then he rolled sideways away from the spot where he had been.

Lay in the brush on his face, waiting.

Silence.

How much patience would these shooters have? They weren't trained soldiers and they had no idea how many opponents they faced.

Raising his head, JR scanned again with the goggles. There was a lot of brush, so he could be sure of nothing, except he didn't see anyone.

It occurred to him that the man behind him might be only wounded. So he crawled that way to check on him. The little .223-caliber slug had hit him square in the chest and killed him almost instantly.

Now for the other man. JR thought anyone on the other side of the arroyo would make for the hole in the fence as quickly as they could get there. They had heard explosions, screams, and shots from two different weapons, and had certainly gotten a good whiff of the stench of that black powder smoke. They knew they had walked into an ambush; they didn't know how many people they faced; they'd get out of there as fast as they could.

JR crawled to an old juniper, which screened him from the west side of the gully and allowed him to see where the fence crossed the arroyo. He waited, lying absolutely still.

Two minutes, and then he saw a man break from the brush and run toward the hole in the fence. JR shot him in the back. Down he went on his face, the rifle falling ten feet away. JR took careful aim and shot the prone man again.

He waited, listened, scanned with the goggles, felt his heart pounding in his chest.

He consciously willed his heart to slow, which was ridiculous, but it did, finally. Ten minutes passed. . .eleven. Now he heard a man. Sounded as if he were in the arroyo, moaning softly, dragging himself along.

JR tried to become one with the earth. Put his head down and listened.

Yes, the man was dragging himself along, moaning, “Madre de Dios. . .”

He was just to JR's right, down in the arroyo, crawling for the fence. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five feet away from where JR lay, but JR didn't move. Didn't even twitch. There might be another shooter out there, one with steel nerves, and if there were, to move was to die.

Finally the man made the gap in the fence and JR saw him with the goggles. Shot him with the rifle, twice. Now the man lay absolutely still, the stillness of death.

JR leaped to his feet and ran away from the fence, out of the area at an angle.

He loped along, turned north, and went around the kill zone and finally joined the trail. Jogging along with his rifle at port arms, wearing the goggles; he could do this for hours. Or used to be able to, anyway. Tonight, with his nostrils full of the black powder smell and his ears still ringing from the gunshots, he fell into a rhythm. Only two miles to go, two miles, run, run, run.

He wanted to see that van, get the license number.

He got to the fence, ran eastward along it fifty feet, and lay down. The road was empty. Checked his watch. Forty-five minutes had passed since he detonated the mines.

His breathing returned to normal and he waited.

Seems like he had spent the major portion of his life waiting. He tried not to think, just became one with the night. The van would come, if the driver wasn't waiting for a cell phone call to summon him. Waiting just up the road, around the bend.

He saw the glare of the headlights in the goggles before he heard the engine.

It came on, slowing. It wasn't a van; it was a car. Down to a creep as it approached the spot where the trail and fence met. No doubt the driver was looking for a signal. Didn't see it, so he began to accelerate on by.

JR got a good look as the car passed the fence. It had a bank of emergency lights on the roof and on the side it said “Sheriff of Upshur County,” and under that, “To serve and protect.”

Five minutes later it came slowly back. JR was tempted. Taking out the driver would be an easy shot, but then what? He let it go by. Big man driving. Maybe the sheriff himself, ol' Manuel Tejada.

Five or six minutes later the sheriff's car returned heading east. Five or six minutes after that, it passed again, westbound, and as the taillights went on along the road, JR heard the engine wind up to highway speed and saw the dimly glowing taillights fade into the darkness of the rolling plains.

In the House, Ben Steiner signaled to the speaker that he would like the floor. The speaker recognized him. The chamber was silent as he approached the podium.

“My fellow Texans,” he said. “This building is surrounded by federal agents and regular army troops, who have sent in word that everyone in this building is under arrest. Defending us are Texans from our National Guard. There has been no shooting yet, but there might be, at any moment. Armed Texans are trying to defend this building, this seat of Texas government, and defend you, the elected representatives of the people of Texas. And some in this chamber worry that blood might be shed, so they advocate our surrender to tyranny.”

Steiner paused and surveyed his audience on the chamber floor and in the balconies. “I
do not
believe—I
cannot
believe—that such sentiments are representative of the sentiments of the people of Texas, the physical and spiritual descendants of the defenders of the Alamo, those patriots who laid down their lives rather than surrender to the tyranny of the Mexican government. I say to you, Remember the Alamo! Remember those thirteen days of glory. Remember those brave men who laid down their lives so that Texans might be free.”

The applause rose like thunder in the chamber. Ben Steiner mopped his brow with his handkerchief. He was on a roll now, and he knew the jury was with him. He waited until the noise died somewhat and said, “Hard, cold, and cruel will be the road ahead. Many difficult decisions will have to be made. Many will suffer, some will die. Yet I say to you, Americans everywhere will judge us by what we do here tonight. We can so conduct ourselves that future generations will glorify our deeds and honor our lives, and remember our deaths if need be. . .or we can surrender and throw ourselves on the mercy of a tyrant. Is life so precious that you would shame yourself to keep it? As for me, I want to repeat—and I hope someday they engrave these words upon my tombstone—the immortal words of Colonel William Barret Travis at the Alamo: ‘Victory or Death.'”

The applause and cheering rose to a staggering volume. Ben Steiner turned around, leaned toward the speaker, and shouted to be heard. “Mr. Speaker, I move the question.”

The Senate passed the declaration by two-thirds vote, and the majority was almost as large in the House.

Ben Steiner went back to the podium. “My fellow Texans, we are making history tonight, history that Texans will talk about as long as there are people in Texas and men yearn to be free. We cannot tell our children and our children's children that we passed this by a mere majority vote. I move that the vote be made unanimous.”

The speaker called for a voice vote. The yeas had it.

Steiner was so relieved he had to hang on to the podium to stay erect as the legislators cheered wildly.

The leaders of both chambers signed the document and took it to the governor to be signed, which he did. He handed the signed document to the colonel in charge of the National Guard troops, one with the unfortunate name of Buster Bean, and said, “Get a loudspeaker and read this on the steps of the capitol.”

When the crowd in the governor's office had thinned somewhat because many of them wanted to be outside to hear the declaration read, Jack Hays asked Ben Steiner, “What did you say to them?”

“I paraphrased Winston Churchill and Colonel Travis and appealed to their honor.”

“I guess you convinced them.”

“No. They knew the right thing to do. They just needed to hear someone say it.”

The floodlights of several television stations almost blinded Colonel Bean, but at least their illumination helped him read the document.

“The unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the elected representatives of the people of Texas in General Convention in the City of Austin on the twenty-third day of August, 2016.

“When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for whose happiness it was instituted, and ceases to be a guarantor of those inalienable rights which are granted to every human by God Almighty, and becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression:

“When the federal Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, has been declared a nullity by the leader of their country and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed without their consent from a limited federal republic into a military dictatorship:

“When, after the spirit of representative, constitutional government has been forcibly usurped, when the semblance of freedom has been removed and the sole power in the land is the whims of a dictator, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to preserve their liberty, rights, and property by taking the political power into their own hands becomes a sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such a government and create another in its stead, one calculated to rescue them from impending dangers and secure their future welfare and happiness.”