Liberty's Last Stand (18 page)

The National Guard's blockade of the runway yesterday was only the first shot in the war, he told himself. Texas has a lot more bullets. Last night his staff thought that the crash crews would have the runway cleared by late this morning. Then he would fly the planes out, if he could find enough flight crews. He suspected that might be a problem. But he would worry about all that when he got to the office.

Normally the general ran on base, but this morning he put the lab in the car and headed for the main gate. He drove past the thirty aircraft that lined the boulevard to the highway, aircraft dating from World War II right up through the present day. One was a retired B-1 and another a retired C-130.

He drove the seven miles into town, marveled at the display of Texas flags, and, as the sun rose, was jogging in a park with his dog.

Two miles along he saw a man in a baseball cap sitting on a bench with a rifle across his knees. He had a golden retriever on a leash. As l'Angistino got closer, he saw the man was probably Latino and well past retirement age. He was also wearing a gun belt with a pistol in a holster.

The general stopped to talk. As the dogs sniffed each other and got acquainted, the man said, “Was you in the air force?” L'Angistino was wearing a faded air force T-shirt and red shorts. He nodded.

“I was too,” the man said. The hands that caressed the worn old lever-action Winchester were the hands of a working man. “Wound up in Thailand turning wrenches on F-105s. Now them was airplanes!”

“Why the rifle?” the general asked.

“Oh, a bunch of us are going out to the base this mornin'. Going to talk to those people out there. We're gonna meet at nine o'clock. Can't sleep very well anymore, so came out here to the park to sit. Gonna get hot today”—it was already pushing 80—“but with the clear sky and still breeze, it's mighty nice right here right now. At my age, you enjoy ever' day because you don't know how many more you got.”

“Think there'll be trouble at the base?”

“Hope not, but you never know about the blue suits. They's good 'uns and bad 'uns, just like ever'where. But if there's any shootin', I fully intend to shoot back until they get me.”

“I see.”

“My folks was in Texas before the white and black people ever showed up. One of my great-great-great-grandpappies died at the Alamo with Travis and them. His nephew rode with Terry's Texas Rangers during the Civil War and lost a leg at Shiloh. Yankee doctors cut it off for him. I've had granddaddies and uncles and men kin fight in ever' war this country ever fought. The world wars, Korea, and me in Vietnam. We're Texans.”

“What kind of pistol is that in your holster?”

“It was my daddy's Colt Police Positive. He was a policeman in San Antone until he retired and moved here to Abilene to be near his daughters. I got it when he died.”

“So what do you think of independence?”

“Some more of us are gonna have to fight for Texas again.”

“When did you get out of the air force?”

“Seventy-five. Came back here and opened a garage. It was a close squeak at times, but we have six bays now. My two sons run it, and I sit and watch baseball on TV and drink beer.”

General l'Angistino glanced at his watch. He needed to get going, but. . .

“Texans don't seem to like illegals. What is your opinion?”

“I'm like ever'body else. They flood in here and take jobs away from poor Texans because they'll work for the minimum wage or less. Down in Mexico the Church won't let 'em use contraceptives. Lots of kids guarantees they'll never get ahead and will always be poor. I'm Catholic, but believe me, after the two boys arrived I used rubbers back when the old lady could still get knocked up. I tol' the priest about it, and he said I had to do what God tol' me to do. I tol' him that I was gonna do what my wife tol' me to do, and if that got me sent to Hell, at least I'd know a lot of the people there.” The old man chuckled. Apparently he had told this story many times before and still liked it.

“What does your wife think about you going out to the base this morning carrying a pistol and rifle?”

“She tol' me to be careful and never forget my family or Texas.”

“Good luck to you,” Brigadier General l'Angistino said. As he jogged back to his car, dog in tow, he thought, I'm the one who's going to need the good luck.

Newspapers all over Texas carried the news about independence in headlines in the largest type they had. The
Dallas Morning News
devoted its entire front section to the declaration and interviews with lawmakers, including a short one with the governor. Of the paper's editorials and op-ed pieces, all but one favored independence in order to preserve the freedom of the people of Texas. The lone dissenter was the paper's token liberal, whose column most
Morning News
subscribers read only for aggravation.

The publisher defied federal edicts when he published the paper. He got away with it because the federal censors spent Sunday at FEMA headquarters getting briefed on the latest orders from Washington, which was in a dither, apparently, unsure how to handle those goddamn Texans.

At eight that morning five FBI agents, two women and three men, plus a FEMA representative, showed up at the publisher's house in one of Dallas' toniest neighborhoods to arrest him.

They were met by several dozen armed civilians. In the shootout that followed, one civilian was killed and another wounded, but all six of the federal officers died on the scene. Two minutes after the shooting stopped, there was one more shot, which may have been a coup de grâce, but afterward none of the participants could recall hearing it.

Leaving the agents and their weapons where they lay, the victors of this encounter took their dead comrade to a funeral home and the wounded man to a hospital. Then they went to Dallas FBI headquarters and arrested everyone they could find, even the office help. The sheriff incarcerated all the prisoners in the Dallas County jail. He had to release some drunks and potheads to make room.

When the crowd, which had swelled to more than two hundred armed men and women, arrived at the Dallas FEMA building, they found it empty. The FEMA employees had fled: that was probably a good thing since the crowd was in an ugly mood.

Later that morning a television reporter on
Good Morning Texas
questioned the sheriff, Milo Makepeace. Milo claimed he was a direct descendant of Comanche war chief Quanah Parker, and he had enough Indian blood in him to make that plausible, even if newspaper reporters had been unable to ever prove or disprove the relationship. Not that it mattered. With his dark skin tint and Indian features, Makepeace was Texas “to the bone.” The interview ran on
Good Morning Texas
, a popular morning staple for many in the Dallas area. The show ran fifteen seconds of footage of ambulance crews in front of the publisher's house loading the bodies of the FBI and FEMA agents. Then the station aired the interview. The reporter asked about the slayings of the FBI and FEMA agents.

“I don't know a solitary thing about it,” Sheriff Makepeace said, “other than the fact they're dead. I also was told that they had federal credentials and weapons on them. Maybe they got in a shootout and killed each other, or maybe they tangled with persons unknown. If they had packed up and gotten out of Texas yesterday, that incident wouldn't have happened. It's very sad that they didn't.”

“I understand you jailed some FBI agents this morning.”

The sheriff nodded. “As of yesterday morning federal employees got no authority whatsoever in Texas. The FBI people had a lot of concealed weapons on them that they didn't have permits for, which is a violation of the laws of Texas and Dallas County. Texans are big on self-help, and the folks in the crowd that brought them in looked like voters to me. I'm holding them until Jack Hays or a Texas judge tells me what to do with them.”

“How about a federal judge?”

“Federal judges have no authority in Texas. I just explained that. All their summonses, orders, warrants, and such don't mean diddly-squat. If they want to keep drawing federal checks, they'd better get themselves back to Soetoro-land. If they want to stay here, they need to get a real job. That goes for all federal employees, from the janitor at the federal courthouse to the people at FEMA, ICE, the DEA, the FAA, the EPA, and the Federal Reserve Bank. All of 'em. Get out of Texas or get a real job.”

Major General Twilley read Governor Jack Hays' note and came around his desk to shake JR's hand. “I can't tell you how relieved I am,” he said. “I have a son in the U.S. Army Special Forces and a daughter in the U.S. Air Force in Germany. I couldn't fight against them under any circumstances, and you know as well as I do that Barry Soetoro won't let Texas go without a fight. I was going to write Jack Hays a letter and ask for immediate retirement. He saved me the trouble.”

He called in his staff, introduced JR, and read the governor's letter aloud. “I have been relieved by Major General JR Hays.” He and his staff saluted JR. JR returned the salute.

Then Twilley turned to a colonel. “Major General Hays will need a uniform. Until he can get some greens, get him some camos. I'll give him my stars.” And he took them off right there and pinned them on JR's collar. Meanwhile, Major General Gentry, the officer in command of the Texas Air Guard, came into the room and was introduced. He read Governor Hays' order and saluted. JR saluted him back.

Twilley took a few moments to shake the hands of every officer on the staff, then he put a photo of his wife, son, and daughter that sat on his desk under his arm and walked out of the room.

“Let's go somewhere that we can sit down,” JR said. “Do y'all have a conference room?”

“Sure do, sir. Follow me.”

When everyone was sitting down with pads of paper and pens handy, JR got to it. “Ladies and gentlemen, you know all about the Declaration of Independence. The people of Texas, acting through their elected representatives, have declared themselves a free, independent republic. Our job is to build a military that can and will defend the Republic of Texas against all enemies. The governor has asked me to lead the military effort. Yes, I'm Jack Hays' cousin. I grew up in west Texas, graduated from West Point, and spent twenty years as an infantry officer in the United States Army. I fought in Kosovo, the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan before I retired from that army. I'm proud of my service, and I am very proud Jack asked me to lead Texas' military in a fight for freedom.

“I understand the emotional muddle many of you find yourselves in. Many of my closest friends still wear United States uniforms. They will do their duty as they see it, as I will mine.

“Still, I want you to understand the depth of my commitment. I am absolutely committed to the Texas cause. One of my kinsmen, Captain Jack Hays, was the very first captain of the Texas Rangers. Hays men have fought, bled, and sometimes died fighting for Texas, for the Confederacy, and for the United States in world wars and police actions. As a soldier, I was fully prepared to give my life for my country in every place I fought, just as I am now fully prepared to give my life for the Republic of Texas if God demands it of me. I expect no less from every one of you.”

He surveyed the audience, tried to gauge their mood. He concluded most of them were with him, which was more than he hoped for.

“Every one of us in this room swore an oath to defend freedom. Every one of us swore to defend the United States Constitution. But our Constitution, and the United States as we knew it, no longer exist. They've been hijacked by a power-mad tyrant bent on transforming America into a socialist dictatorship. The people of Texas have chosen not to be a party to the destruction of their liberties.
And since freedom is never free, we are going to have to pay for ours
.”

A murmur of approval swept through the room.

Heartened, JR said, “Our first job is figuring out how many soldiers we have. I want the National Guard troops individually polled today. I intend to muster everyone in the Guard into full-time Texas service. I know every guardsman has agreed to that in his enlistment papers or officer's commission, but we need to be realistic. We're going to have a civil war. If you can't in good conscience defend Texas against other Americans in Barry Soetoro's army, please excuse yourself right now and no questions will be asked. If you can't in good conscience take the risk because of your family obligations—again, fine, leave now and no questions will be asked. The rest of us need to get ready.”