A state of disobedience

State House, Austin, Texas

"The President for you, sir," announced a flunky.

Forsythe took the cell phone, answering happily, "Forsythe here, Madam President . . . ah, yes, we've heard rumors to that effect . . . no, Willi, I haven't seen a television lately . . . Yes, yes . . . I'll certainly talk to the military commander here, Madam President. . . ."

Handing the cell phone back to his flunky, Forsythe pondered the information he had just received from Rottemeyer. A mass march? Here? Against the Army's guns? What could they hope to prove by it?

* * *

The Texas Rangers had been the first to arrive at the rally point, an intersection of First Street, SW, and Oltorf. They first cleared the immediate neighboring buildings and then radioed for the Public Address people to bring in the microphones and loudspeakers. Juanita and Jack showed up just as the last connection was being made between microphone, amplifiers, and speakers.

The people began to assemble to hear the governor moments later. Businesses had closed in anticipation of the coming occupation. There were many people available, from all stations and walks of life. Of those available, many came. They came from poor barrios where spoken English was a rarity. They came from upper-crust mansions along the river. They came from everywhere in between as well.

Juanita had never said what she wanted them for. All that her recent TV and radio broadcast had conveyed was that she wanted to speak to them. Many assumed it was to lay down her mantle as governor. Some came, indeed, as a last gesture of respect for what Juanita had tried to do, even if she had, as she apparently had, failed.

The crowd was solemn. Solemnly, the recently widowed Juanita Seguin mounted some steps to address them.

Before beginning to speak, Juanita looked to the north, trying vainly to discern the thin pillar of smoke that she knew arose above the ashes of her husband, her son and many of her friends, aides and co-workers. The crowd followed the governor's gaze as if they knew what she was thinking and for what she was looking. Some of them may have known what she was thinking. All knew, in their hearts, what she was feeling.

"My husband is up there," Juanita began, pointing north across Town Lake. "My son, Mario, as well. I intend to go there now, whatever or whoever bars my way, and see to their bodies."

"The Rangers are coming with me." Juanita glanced over at Nagy, who nodded a firm agreement. "The Forty-ninth Division is coming with me." Schmidt scowled but ultimately agreed.

"I'd like you all here to come with me, too.

"You think we have lost? I've lost the larger and better part of my family but I haven't 'lost.' Texas seems better than half occupied but we haven't lost either.

"Even as I stand here speaking to you now the Marines between here and El Paso are trading cigarettes and stories with our own National Guard troops that were facing them. General Schmidt tells me that as soon as we can refuel the Marines and the soldiers with them, we will have three new brigades to defend ourselves with.

"Houston is still fighting. And the soldiers and marines between here and Houston have said 'enough.' They will not act against us on behalf of that woman in the White House any longer.

"All that remains is the force to our north, the force that is sitting on the bodies of my family. Do you think they are sitting on those bodies because they want to? Because they believe in and support a government that kills helpless people without reason or even warning?

"No. Those uniformed men and women up there are our friends. They do not want to be here. They do not want to support our enemies or the enemies of the country and Constitution that were ours.

"Now come with me; come with me to recover the bodies of my family; come with me so I can show you that—while we have enemies, enemies of liberty—we have friends too."

And with that, Juani offered her right arm to Schmidt, her left to Nagy, and stepped off into the street.

* * *

It was the second largest-capitol building in the United States, second only to the national capitol in Washington, as a matter of fact. Even more, Texas' legislative building was the taller of the two by fifteen feet.

From the front steps Forsythe looked down the central walkway, the walkway flanked by greenery and monuments, the greenery being flanked in turn by a driveway to each side. To his right front arose a faint trace of smoke from the charred ruins of the Governor's Mansion.

Pity, he thought. I had hoped to move in there myself.

The driveways in front of Forsythe linked just before the main gate, a wrought iron screen held up by reddish stone pillars. On the other side of the gate, and the low stone wall that surrounded the capitol area and fronted on Eleventh Street, soldiers armed and with bayonets fixed stood in unwavering lines.

* * *

Rangers and guardsmen joined the arm-linked, walking wall as Juanita passed. Some, lacking faith in the result, did so only because they had faith in her. Schmidt had faith in neither, but was determined to see things through with Juani, wherever events might lead them.

Behind the line of arm-linked men and women, civilians, some with children, fell in behind.

Inevitably, an old black woman, certainly spurred by memories of an earlier struggle, began to sing in a high, weak voice. The words were simple and well known. In seconds, so it seemed, the crowd had drowned out the older woman.

* * *

The lyrics, when he first sensed—more than heard—them, touched a note with Forsythe. He, too, had once been young and idealistic. He, too, had once sung the simple song.

He pushed the feeling away, brutally.

* * *

Juani and her leading rank turned half right on Barton Springs. Keeping to a slow and stately pace, they crossed Riverside. At South Congress the point turned north again to cross the bridge over Town Lake. With each turn and each passing step a few more people, sometimes a few hundred more, added their weight to the procession.

By the time the lead reached Tenth Street the crowd had swollen to nearly 100,000 people.

The song had grown to be very loud by that point.

* * *

The Capitol was where the action was, where the threat was, and perhaps most importantly where his Zampolit, Forsythe, was. Thus, accompanied by his sergeant major, the commander of Third Corps made sure it was also where he was.

The troops along Eleventh Street had their faces turned away from him toward the approaching crowd. It didn't matter; the faces of his officers told the general everything he needed to know.

The boys just do not want to be here; do not want to be doing what they're doing.

This was followed by a more ominous thought: And they can't be relied on to do it, either.

Forsythe approached. "What are you going to do about this riot, General?" he asked, a trace of personal fear in his voice.

"What riot?"

"That riot; that unruly mob headed this way."

The general sneered. "I don't see any unruly mob. I see a peaceful procession of citizens coming to their state capitol in peaceable assembly."

"You idiot!" Forsythe exclaimed. "When I tell the President you'll be lucky to stay out of a cell at Leavenworth. You have one chance to avoid that and that is to disperse that mob."

The sneer never left the soldier's face. "That's what you want, eh, Mr. Forsythe? You should be careful what you ask for."

Turning to the sergeant major the general ordered, "Top, bring me a loudspeaker, would you?"

* * *

Even over the singing coming from behind her, Juani's heart skipped a beat when she heard the order coming over the loudspeaker, "First Squadron, Seventh Cavalry: one magazine, lock." The general was careful not to use the word "load."

* * *

Schmidt and Nagy both began to pull her back, even as the crowd behind them recoiled from the threat.

"No," she said with a calm she did not feel. "No, we go on," with determination.

Exchanging glances, Schmidt and Nagy tacitly agreed: If she's got the balls to go on . . . then so do we.

* * *

The sergeant major watched, horrified, as the general gave commands over the loudspeaker. Boss, this isn't balls. This is bullshit.

Unperturbed, the general continued, "Now I want you to aim for the women and the children first, boys. Extra points and a four day pass for drilling a mother carrying a baby. Don't sweat it, boys. Mr. Forsythe here, from the White House, says it's just 'okay.' He says if we don't shoot down these 'rioters,' we'll all go to Leavenworth for the long course."

Tilting his head to one side, the sergeant major asked silently, Are you trying to start a mutiny? The old soldier's eyes widened, By God, you are.

* * *

Spec Four Franklin Washington had seen and heard enough. He'd also had just about enough, too. Standing there on Eleventh Street, with a rifle in his hands, a bayonet on the end of it, a magazine seated firmly in the well; facing a crowd that looked no different and no more threatening than a crowd at a beach; for a government and a cause he neither understood nor very much liked—Washington had indeed had just about enough.

The crowd had reached the intersection and begun to spread out and around the street-wide line of arm-linked men and women. They were close enough for Washington to make out faces easily. There was a familiar one, right there in the center; the Texan Governor.

But that face wasn't the problem. It was all the others—those many, many others—that looked no different from folks back home.

How could he, Franklin Washington, ever go home to Alabama and tell his folks that he had shot at people that seemed so much the same? Bayoneted and clubbed them?

The simple answer was: he couldn't.

So while better than half the officers and men on that line were thinking much the same thing, it was left to a young black man of no great station in life to state the popular feeling first.

"Fuck this shit," said Franklin Washington, tossing his rifle on the ground. "I ain't a-gonna play anymore."

* * *

At the sound of not one, but hundreds of rifles being dropped and thrown to the ground, the general turned a beaming smile on Forsythe. "Did you hear that, sir? That sound? Why here I have given orders for my men to put down this 'riot' . . . and guess what? They didn't listen.

"The sound you've just heard, Mr. Forsythe, was the breaking of your government in Washington. I suggest you run, sir. To Canada, perhaps, because no place in the United—or even perhaps disunited—States is going to be quite safe for you.

"And—to quote that young man down on the street—'We ain't a-gonna play anymore.' "

The general turned from a shocked Commissioner Forsythe and said into the microphone for his loudspeaker, "First Squadron, Seventh Cavalry: on your feet and face this way. Pick up your rifles, boys. Now let's escort the Governor of Texas back to her job."