“Breakfast tomorrow,” JR said. “I’ve been up over thirty-six hours and am going to a hotel to crash.”
“Breakfast at my house,” Jack Hays said, shook his cousin’s hand, and walked into the capitol.
JR did indeed crash, but not until after he had a shower and watched Colonel Tenney on the evening news. The camera lingered on the pile of cocaine on Tenney’s desk. “Breaking this gang would not have happened without the intelligence provided by and the active cooperation of Sheriff Manuel Tejada of Upshur County,” Colonel Tenney intoned, staring into the camera. “He was instrumental in helping us smash a major narcotics smuggling operation. All of Texas thanks you, Sheriff Tejada.”
JR hit the bed and slept for ten hours.
The aftermath was not slow in coming. Two mornings later Mrs. Tejada found her husband wired to a tree in their backyard. He was dead, strangled with bailing wire. She was pretty broken up about it, until she found over a quarter of a million dollars in an old chest in the guest bedroom, wrapped in a quilt her mother made over a half century ago. Since no one knew where the money had come from, she kept it and lit a candle for her husband in the local church.
When the state police finally got around to visiting the Hays ranch, they found the bodies, which had been worked on by buzzards, coyotes, and feral pigs, one of which was lying dead with the mules. It had apparently ingested enough of the cocaine scattered around to kill it, so presumably it went to pig heaven happy. The only positive identification the cops made was the body of Deputy Sheriff Jesus Morales, identified by his fingerprints and distinctive tattoos, but his boss had been dead almost a week by then, so it was decided to not make a fuss and embarrass the Morales family, who were third-generation Americans, and by all accounts good people. The other dead men were apparently Mexican nationals, so their fingerprints were passed to the Mexican DEA, which didn’t bother to acknowledge the receipt of them.
When the Hays’ hired man returned from his two-week vacation, he repaired the ranch fence.
But all that was aftermath, and the lives of Jack and JR Hays had moved on by then.
TEN
On Monday morning, August 29, JR got his pickup from the hotel valet and drove to the governor’s mansion. There he discovered that the governor had a maid, who admitted him and led him to the dining room, where Jack and Nadine were buried in the Austin Statesman. The events of the previous day and the full text of the Declaration of Independence filled the front page. Inside were interviews with legislators and quick man-in-the street quotations from celebrating citizens of the new republic. The Statesman, a liberal newspaper, editorialized that the governor and legislators who voted for independence were irresponsible radicals whose actions bordered on insanity.
After the trio had discussed the events of the previous day, JR remarked about the maid. Jack said he did a lot of official entertaining so the legislature paid the salaries of a maid and a cook.
“He’s in the kitchen now whipping something up. You ready?”
“Sure,” JR said.
“Jack, read that editorial aloud,” Nadine urged. So he did.
Jack said dryly, “If the Statesman had editorialized that we had done the right thing, I would have been really worried.”
Soon the maid served eggs Sardou with crumbled bacon, unbuttered toast, and white wine.
Jack said to his cousin, “If it’s too early for you for wine, we have coffee and the juices.”
JR glanced at his watch. “I have an ironclad rule that I never drink before seven in the morning,” he said, “and it’s ten after. I’ll do the wine.”
Nadine took coffee with cream.
Jack and Nadine expressed the hope that the Houston rioting was at last at an end. As they ate they discussed the new status of Texas.
“Tell us what you think,” Nadine said to JR.
JR thought about his response, then said, “I’m a natural-born Texan, and I’ve had it with Soetoro. A few terrorist incidents don’t seem to be a good reason to declare martial law. The FBI and local police can sort that stuff out. I sorta suspect Soetoro thought all that was a good enough excuse to become a dictator, but I don’t know. I just caught snatches of the news, here and there.”
Nadine zeroed in. “Are you happy with independence?”
“Anyone who isn’t can hit the road,” JR said. “I’m staying. But I hope you folks know that you have bought a ton of trouble. I doubt if all the U.S. soldiers and sailors and airmen will stick to Barry, but a lot of them will, and that’ll be plenty. They can cause you lots of grief. Air strikes against concentrations of troops or civilians, against industry, refineries, armories, storage tanks, power generation facilities, everything you can think of, plus armored columns and infantry going through the towns and cities to take them house by house and block by block, seeking out and killing or defeating the rebels… it could get damned rough. The feds will ultimately lose, of course, but they will give it the old college try and kill a lot of Texans before they throw in the towel.”
Nadine jumped right on it. “Why will they lose?”
“Because control of the cities is strategically worthless. Whoever controls the countryside always wins in the end, if they keep their nerve and are willing to take the casualties. People in cities have to eat, and the food comes from the countryside. Not to mention electrical power, gasoline, and every other commodity known to man. It all has to be produced in the country or transported through the country, which means it is militarily vulnerable.”
“You think?”
“I know. The American Revolution, the French, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban Revolutions, Vietnam, Afghanistan, you name it. Control of the countryside was the essential element every time. And successful revolutions or rebellions are not the victory of a pissed-off majority, but the triumph of a dedicated minority who won’t quit. It doesn’t take many men. But the revolutionaries must be willing to suffer and be quite ruthless with the enemy.”
“There will be casualties.”
“A lot of them,” JR agreed, and sipped his wine. “Bloodless revolutions are usually military coups — the generals win because no one else has weapons. The people of Texas are armed. Everyone has guns, and a lot of people know how to use them. More important, some of them are willing to do so. Just having a gun isn’t enough. Successful rebels must be willing to fight, to kill, and if necessary, be killed. But you know all that and declared independence anyway, so I assume a lot of legislators have some guts. Or their constituents do, which is better. Whether a dedicated minority has enough guts and determination remains to be seen. Time will tell.”
“We are hearing very little from Washington,” Jack Hays said. “They aren’t going to make idle threats. When the blow falls, it will be heavy.”
“Don’t wait for it,” JR advised. “You must take it to them. Seize the initiative and put them on the defensive. That’s the only way. The Confederates in the American Civil War were strategically hampered by the politicians’ desire to take the defensive. In war the defense always loses. If you try to defend everything, you are spread so thin you end up defending nothing. If you try to defend just a few key places or installations, the attackers will bleed you to death someplace else.”
Nadine had abandoned her breakfast. “So how do we prevail and make our independence stick?”
“Attack. As U. S. Grant said, find out where they are, hit ’em as soon as you can, as hard as you can, and keep moving on.”
“The best defense is a good offense,” Jack Hays said thoughtfully.