But then the government man caught himself and leaped in the air for another kick. Brannock couldn’t get out of the way of this one, either, although he tried. It caught him on the left hip and spun him halfway around.
Grayson chopped a blow against his right shoulder where the arm met it, and that side of Brannock’s body went numb. He felt himself on the verge of collapse, so he tried to use that to his advantage.
As Grayson crowded in on him, he grabbed the front of the man’s shirt with his left hand and threw himself over backwards, heaving as hard as he could and using Grayson’s own momentum against him.
Grayson hit the ground hard and rolled over, and a scream suddenly ripped out from him. Brannock didn’t know what had happened. Maybe Grayson had landed wrong and broken something.
Brannock’s right arm hung limply at his side, but he got his left hand underneath him and levered himself upright. He called on his reserves of strength and staggered to his feet.
Grayson got up, too, clawing at his face and continuing to howl in pain. Brannock saw what had happened. Grayson had rolled right into a bed of cactus, and dozens of needles were embedded in the left side of his face and neck. Some of them were probably sticking through his shirt into his shoulder, too.
While Grayson was distracted by that, Brannock hauled in a deep breath, stepped forward, and swung his left fist, putting every bit of strength he had into the blow.
The punch exploded against Grayson’s jaw and lifted the man off his feet. He slammed down on the ground, luckily for him not on cactus this time. With a groan, he tried to get up, then slumped back, apparently only half-conscious, if that much.
With his pulse pounding in his head like a wild summer thunderstorm, Brannock turned toward the gate and the armed federal agents on the other side of it. He glanced to his right and saw that Kyle had arrived and was standing in the back of a pickup, leveling a Winchester over the cab. More vehicles were racing up and spilling armed defenders from them.
Brannock took a few unsteady steps toward the gate and looked over it at the grim face of the agent called Lassiter, who stood there unmoving.
“Looks like . . . I won,” he panted. “You and your boys . . . can clear out . . . mister.”
“You may outnumber us now, Mr. Brannock,” Lassiter said, “but I assure you, you’re still outgunned.”
Behind Brannock, Grayson regained enough of his senses to push himself up on an elbow.
“Shoot him!” Grayson screamed. “Shoot the old bastard! Shoot all of them!”
“What’s it gonna be?” Brannock asked Lassiter. “You gonna do what he says and murder American citizens . . . or you gonna honor the deal that was made?”
“I don’t give a damn about any deal,” Lassiter snapped. “Grayson’s the one who agreed to that, not me.”
“Then go ahead and shoot,” Brannock told him. “And you can start with me.”
For a couple of long, tense seconds, everyone stood there frozen. Then Lassiter said, “I didn’t come out here to spill American blood.” He turned his head and called to the men with him, “Stand down!”
Grayson climbed to his feet. He was shaky and stumbled as he came toward them, but he managed to remain upright as he screeched, “What are you doing? I ordered you to shoot these traitors! Kill them! Kill them all!”
“Mr. Grayson, you need medical attention,” Lassiter said. “Let’s go.”
“No! No, damn it! They’re defying the government! You have to shoot them!”
Lassiter asked Brannock, “Can I come in and get him?”
“Sure,” Brannock said. “We’ll even open the gate for that.”
He nodded to his allies. One of the men, with obvious reluctance, went to the gate and unlocked the padlock on the chain holding it closed.
“Leave that rifle on the other side,” Brannock told Lassiter.
The agent nodded and handed the weapon to one of his companions. Several of them looked like they thought Lassiter was making a mistake, but he was in charge and they weren’t going to go against his orders.
“Stop it! Get away from me!” Grayson cried as Lassiter approached him. “I’m in charge here! I told you to shoot those bastards!”
“You need to get those cactus needles removed as soon as you can, Grayson,” Lassiter said. “Otherwise, your face is liable to swell up like a basketball.” His tone hardened slightly. “And we’re in joint command of this mission, remember?”
“I’ll get you for this,” Grayson threatened. “I’ll get all of you! You’ll be sorry!”
Brannock drawled, “Sounds to me like he’s gettin’ a mite delirious from the pain.”
Lassiter took hold of Grayson’s arm and steered him toward the gate. Grayson resisted, but he wasn’t in good enough shape at the moment to stop Lassiter from leading him off the ranch. As soon as they were on the other side, the gate was closed and locked again.
Lassiter turned Grayson over to a couple of his men and told them, “Put him in one of the vehicles. Then the rest of you load up. We’re withdrawing.” He turned to the gate and said through it, “Don’t think you’ve gotten away with anything, Brannock. Just because I’m not willing to massacre American citizens doesn’t mean the next man to come out here won’t do it. You’d be smart to go along with what the government wants.”
“I don’t reckon I can do that,” Brannock said. “Not when what they want is to steal my ranch.”
Lassiter just pursed his lips for a second, and then he got in the lead vehicle. A moment later, it pulled away, turning wide across the highway to start back toward Sierra Lobo. One by one, the other armored vehicles followed.
Cheers went up from the defenders inside the fence. Men whooped and pumped their rifles and shotguns above their heads in sheer exuberance. Thad Bowman said, “We won, G. W.! You won!”
Brannock looked over at Kyle, saw the grim cast to his grandson’s features, and knew that Kyle understood the same thing he did.
As much as they might wish it was, this trouble was probably far from over.
Washington, D.C.
The man seated behind the desk in the Oval Office hung up the phone and sat back in the comfortable swivel chair. If anyone else had been in the room, they wouldn’t have been able to tell anything from the unreadable expression on his face.
Slowly, though, his features began to darken as his anger grew and more blood flowed into his face. His jaw clenched, and his breath hissed between his teeth. The hands resting on the desk in front of him closed into fists and began to tremble.
Suddenly, without warning, his left arm shot out and swept the desk clean. Everything that was on it crashed to the floor as the man bolted to his feet and let out a strident, incoherent shout.
Less than a heartbeat later, several Secret Service agents were in the room, guns drawn, ready to defend their charge against any danger.
Clearly, though, the President was alone and unharmed, other than the now bright red face that indicated he might be about to have a stroke from sheer rage.
“Get out!” he screamed at the Secret Service agents. “Get out! Find Jessup!”
By the time White House Chief of Staff Angela Jessup entered the Oval Office three minutes later, the President was sitting down again, and although he was still breathing hard, he seemed to have his emotions under control again.
Jessup, as attractive and sleekly groomed as always, showed no sign that the hour was as early as it really was.
“I suppose you’ve heard from Grayson, sir,” she said in a voice honed by years of lecturing at one of the most prestigious East Coast universities. She had doctorates in gender studies, racial studies, economics, and public policy. She was married to one of the lead anchors at a major cable news network. She also had the ear of the President and was accused by many of being the puppet-master who pulled his strings.
In reality, that wasn’t true. He was radical enough in his beliefs without any urging from her. The fact that he was a raging narci
ssist and megalomaniac didn’t hurt anything.
“He failed,” the President said. “Grayson failed. I thought he was ruthless enough to take care of anything. But that old man is still on his ranch, defying the will of the American people.”
What he meant by that was G.W. Brannock was defying the federal government in general and the executive branch in particular, but to the President it was all one and the same.
“I saw a little about it on the news,” Jessup said. “Evidently, the cameramen were asleep on the job. They didn’t get any footage of the fight between Brannock and Grayson.” She shook her head slightly. “It’s amazing an old man like that was able to beat Grayson. That seems to be what happened, though.”
“Brannock was lucky,” snapped the President. “And Lassiter refused to open fire on those traitors. Well, he’s through at the BLM. He’s through, period. In fact, I want him behind bars for the rest of his life.”
“I’m not sure if that’s possible, sir—”
“Of course, it’s possible! It’s what I want, isn’t it?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Jessup promised.
The President snorted and said, “See to it. And I want to see Milburn right away.”
“General Milburn is standing by, sir.” As the head of the Joint Chiefs, Milburn had an office here in the White House, as well as at the Pentagon, and was on call 24-7.
“Get him here. I have an important question to ask him.”
Jessup thought she knew what that question was.
Unfortunately, she didn’t know what the answer would be.
General Thurgood Milburn walked into the Oval Office ten minutes later, his cap tucked under his left arm. His grandfather, a great admirer of Thurgood Marshall, had asked the general’s father to name him after the famous jurist and Supreme Court justice. Of course, at the time Thurgood Milburn had been just a little black baby in Alabama, with very little to indicate that sixty years later he would be the top brass in the American military.
He came to attention and saluted. The man behind the desk was the Commander-in-Chief, after all, even though he despised the military and everything about it except the power it gave him. The President waved a hand negligently, which was as close as he ever came to acknowledging a salute from a soldier, let alone returning one.
“Sit down,” he snapped, then grudgingly added Milburn’s rank, “general.”
Milburn thought about saying that he was all right standing, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to be that insubordinate. Instead, he said, “Thank you, sir,” and took a seat in one of the comfortable leather chairs in front of the desk.
It didn’t feel so comfortable at the moment, however.
“You know what I brought you here to ask you,” the President said.
Milburn had a pretty good idea—he had seen the news reports from Texas, too—but he wasn’t going to admit that.
No, if the son of a bitch behind the desk had something to say, he was going to have to come right out with it.
“No, sir, I’m afraid not.”
The President’s lips twisted in a snarl as he leaned forward.
“What question have we been asking officers for twenty years now?” he demanded.
“You mean whether or not we we’d be willing to give the order to fire on American citizens in the case of insurrection or other national emergency.”
“That’s right. You said you were, or else you wouldn’t be where you are now. You wouldn’t even be in the service anymore.”
“Yes, sir, I said that.” Milburn took a deep breath. “But I’m very glad that I’ve never been put in that position, as are all the other officers I know.”
“Well, that’s where we are now,” the President snapped.
Milburn shook his head slowly and said, “There’s not any insurrection or national emergency that I’m aware of, sir.”
“Those bastards in Texas!” the man behind the desk yelled. “That old man who won’t get the hell off his ranch!”
“I was under the impression that case hadn’t been settled yet. Anyway, with all due respect, sir, it seems to me that a property dispute doesn’t really rise to the level of—”
“The man is defying the federal government! That’s treason!”
“Not technically.”
Milburn’s mouth was dry. He knew that if he wanted to save his career—if he had any sense of self-preservation at all—he’d be agreeing with the President and falling all over himself to promise to do whatever was necessary to give the man what he wanted.
Unfortunately, a tiny but maddeningly persistent voice in the back of Milburn’s head kept telling him that if he did that, he might as well be shuffing bare feet in the dirt and saying, Yassuh, bossman.
Deep down, that was the way most Democratic politicians saw members of his race anyway, he knew. Even the ones who shared that heritage with him.
The President was on his feet now, leaning forward and resting his hands on the big desk as he glared at Milburn.
“If I say something is a national emergency, then it’s a goddamn national emergency, is that clear, general?”
“Most of the time, yes, sir. But not if it involves killing American citizens. That’s not what the armed forces are for.”
As you’d know if you had any clue to what we’re really like, thought Milburn.
“So, if I tell you I want the army to go in and clean out everybody who’s on that ranch, are you saying you won’t give the order?”
Milburn took a deep breath. This man was the Commander-in-Chief. The Constitution said so.
But that same Constitution had been willfully, even gleefully, ignored by the past four presidents, he recalled.
“No, sir,” he whispered. “I won’t give that order. Not so you can get your hands on some old man’s ranch.”
The President stared at him for several seconds, then exploded in a barrage of racial slurs and curses. A man’s true colors always came out when he was under enough stress. Finally, he calmed down enough to say, “You’re done, Milburn. You’re relieved of command. You’re not a general anymore. You’re not even a soldier anymore.”
On the contrary, thought Milburn, he actually felt more like a soldier than he had for quite a while.
He got to his feet and said, “That’s fine, sir. I assume I’m dismissed?”
“Get your black ass out of here!”
Milburn started to turn away, but then the President stopped him.
“What about all the other officers below you? Are they going to say the same thing?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Milburn answered honestly. “I’d like to think most of them would. I believe most of them will, if you back them into a corner over something like this.” He paused. “It takes a lot to get an American soldier to spill his countrymen’s blood.”
The President slumped back into the chair behind the desk.
“Fine. Get out.”
Milburn’s step was brisk and his back was straight as he left the Oval Office. He was even smiling a little. He didn’t know what the future held for him, but he was almost looking forward to it for a change.
When Angela Jessup came back into the Oval Office a few minutes later, she said, “I take it the general didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear.”
“Take care of him,” the President growled. “Make him sorry he was ever born.”
“Of course.”
The President sighed and said, “The worst of it is, he’s got me worried that no matter who I promote to replace him, the answer is going to be the same. Those damned soldiers only want to follow orders when they agree with them.”
Jessup weighed her options and decided to go with the truth.
“If you push them too hard, sir . . . they might decide to push back.”
For a second, the President’s eyes went wide with fear. He had to be aware of how tenuous his hold on power really was. Despite the effort to militarize the agencies, bureaus, and depar
tments under his direct control, and the ongoing program to weaken the actual military, if it came down to a fight he knew which side would probably win . . . and it wasn’t his. A military coup was so far outside the main currents of American thought that it had never been regarded as a serious threat to any administration . . . but it wasn’t impossible.
“All right,” he muttered. “If we can’t use the military to get what we want, then we’ll just have to do something else.” He seemed to relax slightly. He even leaned back in his chair as he went on. “Luckily, we have other options. Get me the Secretary-General of the UN on the phone.” He thumped a fist on the desk. “We’ll teach those damned Texans to act like they still have rights!”
Chapter 54
For the rest of the day Monday, the news media was clogged with coverage of the showdown at the entrance to G.W. Brannock’s ranch. Reporters stood in front of the now-famous gate and intoned solemnly about the unlawful defiance of the federal government’s edicts and the potential for domestic terrorism by the right-wing extremists who supported Brannock’s position. The White House press secretary issued a statement saying that the President was deeply disturbed by the clash and hoped that it could be brought to a peaceful conclusion. One network did a special report called STANDOFF IN TEXAS!, while another ran a special with the ominous title A SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION?
All the pundits agreed that eventually Brannock and his supporters would back down. Otherwise, the government would have no choice but to send in troops to clean them out, no matter how bloody that might turn out to be.
There were only a few dissenting voices crying out in the wilderness and warning that graphic, bloody images of American citizens gunned down by American troops might in fact cause the very uprising that everyone seemed to fear.
But Monday slid into Tuesday with nothing else happening, then Wednesday, and still peace prevailed over the Brannock ranch. More of the defenders drifted away and headed back to their homes, but enough remained on hand to maintain a constant vigil at the gate and patrols along the fence that bordered the highway.
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