Russel was pulled out of his negative reverie. He looked at George with a slightly hostile expression. “You mean about Malheur?”
“Yeah,” George said more sharply than he intended. “I mean I think it’s important to know what we are getting into.”
Feeling irritable, Russel responded, “I guess so, but there’s no way of knowing really until we get there. I suppose we can just keep looking at the stuff on the internet.”
George sensed the tension. As they passed Sandy, Oregon, he said, “I think we’re uptight about this.”
Russel nodded solemnly.
“I suppose we could turn around and forget about it,” he said without enthusiasm. There was a long pause.
Then Russel said, “Yeah, I thought about that. Part of me thinks this is a waste of time.”
“I get that,” George said. “Part of me thinks the same. I don’t know what kind of difference we can make down there. But I have trouble not doing anything.”
Russel nodded again but said nothing.
“You know, Russel, we still have time to turn around. A few more miles, and I won’t be so willing,” George said with a slight smile.
Russel noticed the smile and laughed softly. After sharing trips to this area and other wildlife destinations for years, they had developed an ability to pick up on subtle cues from each other. Russel could detect that George was trying to lighten the mood.
Letting the option to return settle into his mind, Russel responded, “I guess we could turn around, but I would hate to do that. I would feel like shit! I would feel a bit like a coward. Discretion is the better part of valor they say, but I think we must be committed. I got this far, and I’m willing to see it out.”
“I feel the same way,” George said.
There was another pause; then Russel said, “We can go and assess the situation. There should be plenty of opportunities to be cautious. Ahh, let’s make a pact. If either of us doesn’t want to do something, then we don’t do it. Deal?”
“That sounds good,” George concurred.
George decided to shift their focus onto their normal lives for a while. They talked about their respective relationships, then jobs, then beers; then they got back to the occupation of the refuge. They had laughed and become animated during the prior discussions, but their voice tone dropped when discussing the Malheur situation, except for periodic expletives.
“So, Russel, what do you know about these yahoos occupying the refuge?” George asked.
“All I know is that they are mostly sympathizers with a couple of ranchers. The Hammonds, I believe. They were charged and sentenced for setting fire to the refuge. I think they thought the land was theirs to do with as they pleased because they had been grazing their cattle there for years. From what I understand, they served some time, but a federal judge thought it was not enough, and they were about to go back to prison when these guys showed up.”
“That’s what I got from some of the reports. But I think it’s a lot more than that. It was a little shitty that the Hammonds had to go back to prison, but I think these occupiers saw it as an opportunity to confront the government. I read something that a local law officer said, and it was something like, ‘These guys want to overthrow the government, at least the local government and Bureau of Land Management.’ I think there is some truth in that. They sure seemed to attract a lot of kooks to this occupation,” George continued. “Anyway, as we’ve discussed before, this goes back to the standoff at Bunkerville, and even before that, with the Waco crap, and I think there was another. I can’t remember the name of the incident, but it all goes back to the conspiracy theorists and the antigovernment nut jobs.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that. That was ridiculous,” Russel stated. “It’s hard for me to believe that people would get behind these conspiracy theories. I can look at what happened and see that these people that government agencies were trying to disrupt or arrest were whack jobs. I don’t understand why some people can’t see that.”
“Exactly,” George added. “I think the other incident was Ruby Ridge.”
“Oh yeah,” Russel responded. “I forget what that was all about. Do you remember?”
“Kinda. I know it was about some guy in Idaho who had some relatively minor charges against him and didn’t show up for his court process. Some agents went in—I don’t know if they were FBI or what—but it was a shoot-out, and some people got killed. I kind of remember that it didn’t look too good for the federal agents, but in my opinion, the right-wing groups made too much out of all of these incidents.”
Their occupation conversation continued until they reached the outskirts of Bend. Then they switched to discussing where they wanted to stop for beer. Assuming that Burns might not provide the opportunity to buy “good beer,” they agreed they would stop by a local brewery to fill two growlers with India Pale Ale. They would have lunch at another brewery.
“Well, here we are!” George exclaimed as he raised his beer glass to toast their trip. “Are we having a good time?” he added with a wry smile.
Russel chuckled. “Maybe we should keep any comments about where we are going to a low roar. We wouldn’t want to attract ‘undesirables,’” he said with air quotes.
“Sounds like a good idea. What else can we talk about?” George chuckled in return.
“Okay. Since we have cell service, I think I will search for what’s happening at Malheur,” Russel said.
“And I will check out Waco and Ruby Ridge and whatever else I can come up with,” George offered.
George and Russel did their respective searches and had plenty to talk about on the remainder of their journey to Burns. After following various websites that discussed the so-called right-wing extremist movement and antigovernment incidents, George had a clearer picture of the Malheur occupation background.
George explained that the WACO action was taken by the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) an agency of the Department of Justice and followed by involvement of the FBI. It was initiated in response to the suspicion that the Branch Davidians had violated weapons laws. The “siege of Waco” became chaotic and violent quickly. The outcome, which included a fire at the Mount Carmel Center, resulted in the deaths of seventy-six of the followers of David Koresh, including the charismatic leader himself.
He also explained how the Ruby Ridge siege preceded the Waco incident by one year. He described the involvement of the FBI and how the incident started over an alleged firearms violation, very similar to the Waco siege. George pointed out that some family members were killed in the siege and that the family dog had been shot.
“You know, I can see why some of these antigovernment types have a problem with the way law enforcement handled things. Based on some of the descriptions I read, some of the officers involved made some serious mistakes. I get that in both incidents, the government was somewhat overbearing, but the—I’ll use the term civilians—you know, the civilians involved were likely violating the law regarding firearms. Also, it’s a problem to resist arrest. What did they expect? Did they really think the government agents would say, ‘Oh, all right, we were just kidding. We’ll just pretend you aren’t doing
