“I think they know that.”
“If we can’t win our independence, we’re all dead, including you and me. Once they vote for independence, we’ve crossed the river of fire and burned our boats.”
“Jesus carried his cross,” Ben Steiner said gently. “We have to stand for something or the gift of life was wasted on us.” He walked out the door and along the hallway through lines of state troopers.
The peons laden with backpacks full of narcotics trudged along in the darkness about six feet apart. There was starlight and a sliver of moon, but the old Indian trail up from Mexico would have been easy to follow regardless.
With the periscope, JR saw the lead man with a backpack and started counting. One… two… he quit at eight. Eight mules. No doubt there were armed guards, perhaps even the same ones who had killed his father, but they weren’t on the trail. One was probably behind him, paralleling the trail.
JR glanced at the luminescent hands of his watch when the last man went by. At the speed the peons were walking, he thought it would take about a minute and a half for all of them to get into the kill zone. He had walked it himself that morning, timing it.
Carefully, ever so carefully, he rotated the periscope. If he hadn’t already passed the hide, the man or men on this side of the arroyo guarding the column must be close. JR had to get them first.
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.”