The metal flavor of blood and the hard truth of silence was all the dusty denim-clad rancher had won as the double courtroom doors closed behind the exiting attorneys fondling his family’s case.

He was alone, and felt it deeply, like a far echo sounding in an immensely vast cavern. He tilted his Stetson to the ground, looked at the burgundy courtroom carpet, and thought…and thought…and thought some more.

How could it have come to this? Did he miss something? What just happened? After all, his family had worn the military uniform for a hundred years and pridefully accented their walls and desks with the old pictures, medals, framed citations, and faded ribbons, along with the music of heroic, quiet, and laughing stories of men acting like boys during war, which always changed rooms and lives.

He recounted the basic facts, biting his lip and squinting at floor as he strained his thoughts slowly, and re-ordered in his mind every step taken -- every action, every word said, every judgment hammered.

Let’s see, for the last ten years, he thought to himself, somehow he had been -- although he didn’t know it -- connected to bearded Middle Eastern, Arabic chanting terrorists firing machine guns in shopping malls and bombing marathons; then grimacing at the thought’s odor and shaking his head in bemusement. Oh please, come on, of course it was insane. Surely no one in their right mind could think a cowboy boot wearing, beer drinking, rodeo-howling rancher was a danger to children, his people, his town, his country…but yet this was precisely what the Department of Justice lawyer had so many times inferred in his loud, angry syllables and resentful tone as he repeated the terrorism statute definition used to box-in the rancher. So it had been said, and since words make law, they mean something, regardless.

It would have been surreal and laughable if it wasn’t so repugnantly real and deadly serious. After all, men with guns and blue windbreakers were soon coming to force him back into a jail cell, then turn around and push his wife and their history of existence off the farm; and perhaps eventually erase him from life as his years faded. That is, unless he did something. But what was he to do now?

How do you get back on the rollercoaster after being told to exit to the right, other than refusing to get out of your seat? That’s it, he thought, he just wouldn’t move and let them come to him, so he could explain it all over again. This time, he would tell them what they missed the first time…yes, that must have been the reason for their screw up and slandering of them. But then again, he knew human lust and desire for power and laziness -- the opiates of politics -- and when combined with government authority, it became a deadly and paralyzing tonic.

He shivered again, and felt the anger begin to rise like it never had before. Suddenly his jaw clenched as he heard a familiar drill sergeant somewhere in his mind calling out numbers in his head and speaking the words:

One!...Lighting strikes land, starts fire.

Two!...Boy follows dad’s orders and ignites a counter-action fire

to contain the burn, and save the feed and animals from starving.

Three!...Bureau of Land Management staff file complaint, alleging a crime.

Four!...No crime found, charges dropped by District Attorney. Five years go by.

Five!...Somehow, Department of Justice thinks they know better, contact him by letter, then file another court action—this time accusing him of terrorism activity in relation to the fire, and calling it arson instead of a controlled burn. Strange, and wrong. But…

Six!...Goes to court, judge keeps out key facts, attorney falls apart—or intentionally throws him under the buss—and somehow the jury get find him and his son guilty. Cold shock, gaping mouth amazement…but there has to be some kind of fix or appeal… surely.

Seven!...Goes into sentencing, lies told, confusion, hustled off to jail.

Eight!...Now another letter demanding a second bite of the apple and more time added unto father and son’s sentence?

Something deep in his instincts founded in the primordial passion to defend wife and children began to growl, and the thought cleared…Now the real agenda: theft of property and destruction of life. Isn’t this war? And in war, aren’t you either alive and victorious or dead and defeated?

He would not bow down without a fight.

His blood ran in the creeks and fed the grass and cows and had nourished the land and lives there for over one hundred years….this was beyond life, beyond body, beyond government, this was his time to stand, and show his ancestors what they created in him. For his God and for everything right and true and good, he had to. To fail to, was not just un-American, it was inhuman.

He would get a few hits in, that’s for sure, if for nothing else than for his ancestors who first settled the ranch and planted their blood in the communality. Time would tell.

Most likely these, or something like them, were the thoughts in the minds of the Oregon Rancher father-and-son duo now surrounded by friends and strangers wearing guns and camouflage, and grimly nodding their commitment to him through low country drawls about God and country.

If anything encapsulates the unfolding Oregon drama, this might.

No doubt these may have been some of the thoughts, images, memories, and emotions that rushed and pounded through the minds of the rancher and his son in Oregon as they pondered their fates, and that of their family.

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