Anybody know where I can find the sequel to Sundown at coffin rock.
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SAS RKBA freedom Scottsbluff Cowboy Shooters Cheyenne Regulators
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SAS RKBA freedom Scottsbluff Cowboy Shooters Cheyenne Regulators
Sunrise at Coffin Rock
- Thread starter Joey
- Start date
Steve Smith
New member
I lost the locale for "Sundown" could you post it? Thanks!
Sundown at Coffin Rock
by Raymond K. Paden
The old man walked slowly through the dry, fallen leaves of autumn, his practiced eye automatically choosing the bare and stony places in the trail for his feet. There was scarcely a sound as he passed, though his left knee was stiff with scar tissue. He grunted occasionally as the tight sinews pulled. Damn chainsaw, he thought.
Behind him, the boy shuffled along, trying to imitate his grandfather, but unable to mimic the silent motion that the old man had learned during countless winter days upon this wooded mountain in pursuit of game. He's fifteen years old, the old man thought. Plenty old enough to be learning. But that was another time, another America. His mind drifted, and he saw himself, a fifteen-year-old boy following in the footsteps of his own grandfather, clutching a twelve gauge in his trembling hands as they tracked a wounded whitetail.
The leg was hurting worse now, and he slowed his pace a bit. Plenty of time. It should have been my own son here with me now, the old man thought sadly. But Jason had no interest, no understanding. He cared for nothing but pounding on the keys of that damned computer terminal. He knew nothing about the woods, or where food came from...or freedom. And that's my fault, isn't it?
The old man stopped and held up his hand, motioning for the boy to look. In the small clearing ahead, the deer stood motionless, watching them. It was a scraggly buck, underfed and sickly, but the boy's eyes lit up with excitement. It had been many years since they had seen even a single whitetail here on the mountain. After the hunting had stopped, the population had exploded. The deer had eaten the mountain almost bare until erosion had become a serious problem in some places. That following winter, three starving does had wandered into the old man's yard, trying to eat the bark off of his pecan trees, and he had wished the "animal rights" fanatics could have been there then. It was against the law, but old man knew a higher law, and he took an axe into the yard and killed the starving beasts. They did not have the strength to run.
The buck finally turned and loped away, and they continued down the trail to the river. When they came to the "Big Oak," the old man turned and pushed through the heavy brush beside the trail and the boy followed, wordlessly. The old man knew that Thomas was curious about their leaving the trail, but the boy had learned to move silently (well, almost) and that meant no talking. When they came to "Coffin Rock," the old man sat down upon it and motioned for the boy to join him.
"You see this rock, shaped like a casket?" the old man asked. "Yes sir." The old man smiled. The boy was respectful and polite. He loved the outdoors, too. Everything a man could ask in a grandson ...or a son.
"I want you to remember this place, and what I'm about to tell you. A lot of it isn't going to make any sense to you, but it's important and one day you'll understand it well enough. The old man paused. Now that he was here, he didn't really know where to start.
"Before you were born," he began at last, "this country was different.
I've told you about hunting, about how everybody who obeyed the law could own guns. A man could speak out, anywhere, without worrying about whether he'd get back home or not. School was different, too. A man could send his kids to a church school, or a private school, or even teach them at home. But even in the public schools, they didn't spend all their time trying to brainwash you like they do at yours now." The old man paused, and was silent for many minutes. The boy was still, watching a chipmunk scavenging beside a fallen tree below them.
"Things don't ever happen all at once, boy. They just sort of sneak up on you. Sure, we knew guns were important; we just didn't think it would ever happen in America. But we had to do something about crime, they said. It was a crisis. Everything was a crisis! It was a drug crisis, or a terrorism crisis, or street crime, or gang crime. Even a 'health care' crisis was an excuse to take away a little more of our rights." The old man turned to look at his grandson.
"They ever let you read a thing called the Constitution down there at your school?" The boy solemnly shook his head. "Well, the Fourth Amendment's still in there. It says there won't be any unreasonable searches and seizures. It says you're safe in your own home." The old man shrugged. "That had to go. It was a crisis! They could kick your door open any time, day or night, and come in with guns blazing if they thought you had drugs ...or later, guns. Oh, at first it was just registration -- to keep the guns out of the hands of criminals! But that didn't work, of course, and then later when they wanted to take 'em they knew where to look. They banned 'assault rifles', and then 'sniper rifles', and 'Saturday night specials.' Everything you saw on the TV or in the movies was against us. God knows the news people were! And the schools were teaching our kids that nobody needed guns anymore. We tried to take a stand, but we felt like the whole face of our country had changed and we were left outside."
"Me and a friend of mine, when we saw what was happening, we came and built a secret place up here on the mountain. A place where we could put our guns until we needed them. We figured some day Americans would remember what it was like to be free, and what kind of price we had to pay for that freedom. So we hid our guns instead of losing them."
"One fellow I knew disagreed. He said we ought to use our guns now and stand up to the government. Said that the colonists had fought for their freedom when the British tried to disarm them at Lexington and Concord. Well, he and a lot of others died in what your history books call the 'Tax Revolt of 1998,' but son, it wasn't the revolt that caused the repeal of the Second Amendment like your history book says. The Second Amendment was already gone long before they ever repealed it. The rest of us thought we were doing the right thing by waiting. I hope to God we were right."
"You see, Thomas. It isn't government that makes a man free. In the end, governments always do just the opposite. They gobble up freedom like hungry pigs. You have to have laws to keep the worst in men under control, but at the same time the people have to have guns, too, in order to keep the government itself under control. In our country, the people were supposed to be the final authority of the law, but that was a long time ago. Once the guns were gone, there was no reason for those who run the government to give a damn about laws and constitutional rights and such. They just did what they pleased and anyone who spoke out...well, I'm getting ahead of myself."
"It took a long time to collect up all the millions of firearms that were
in private hands. The government created a whole new agency to see to it. There were rewards for turning your friends in, too. Drug dealers and murderers were set free after two or three years in prison, but possession of a gun would get you mandatory life behind bars with no parole.
"I don't know how they found out about me, probably knew I'd been a hunter all those years, or maybe somebody turned me in. They picked me up on suspicion and took me down to the federal building."
"Son, those guys did everything they could think of to me. Kept me locked up in this little room for hours, no food, no water. They kept coming in, asking me where the guns were. 'What guns?' I said. Whenever I'd doze off, they'd come crashing in, yelling and hollering. I got to where I didn't know which end was up. I'd say I wanted my lawyer and they'd laugh. 'Lawyers are for criminals', they said. 'You'll get a lawyer after we get the guns.' What's so funny is, I know they thought they were doing the right thing. They were fighting crime!"
"When I got home I found Ruth sitting in the middle of the living room
floor, crying her eyes out. The house was a shambles. While I was down there, they'd come out and took our house apart. Didn't need a search warrant, they said. National emergency! Gun crisis! Your grandma tried to call our preacher and they ripped the phone off the wall. Told her that they'd go easy on me if she just told them where I kept my guns." The old man laughed. "She told them to go to hell." He stared into the distance for a moment as his laughter faded.
"They wouldn't tell her about me, where I was or anything, that whole time. She said that she'd thought I was dead. She never got over that day, and she died the next December."
"They've been watching me ever since, off and on. I guess there's not much for them to do anymore, now that all the guns are gone. Plenty of time to watch one foolish old man." He paused. Beside him, the boy stared at the stone beneath his feet.
"Anyway, I figure that, one day, America will come to her senses. Our men will need those guns and they'll be ready. We cleaned them and sealed them up good; they'll last for years. Maybe it won't be in your lifetime, Thomas. Maybe one day you'll be sitting here with your son or grandson. Tell him about me, boy. Tell him about the way I said America used to be." The old man stood, his bad leg shaking unsteadily beneath him.
"You see the way this stone points? You follow that line one hundred feet down the hill and you'll find a big round rock. It looks like it's buried solid, but one man with a good pry bar can lift it, and there's a concrete tunnel right under there that goes back into the hill."
The old man stood, watching as the sun eased toward the ridge, coloring the sky and the world red. Below them, the river still splashed among the stones, as it had for a million years. It's still going, the old man thought. There'll be someone left to carry on for me when I'm gone. It was harder to walk back. He felt old and purposeless now, and it would be easier, he knew, to give in to that aching heaviness in his left lung that had begun to trouble him more and more. Damn cigarettes, he thought. His leg hurt, and the boy silently came up beside him and supported him as they started down the last mile toward the house. How quiet he walks, the old man thought. He's learned well.
It was almost dark when the boy walked in. His father looked up from his paper. "Did you and your grand dad have a nice walk?"
"Yes," the boy answered, opening the refrigerator. "You can call Agent
Goodwin tomorrow. Gramps finally showed me where it is."
*********************************************************
Editor's note: "Sundown at Coffin Rock" is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual events or to actual people, living or dead, REMAINS TO BE SEEN
by Raymond K. Paden
The old man walked slowly through the dry, fallen leaves of autumn, his practiced eye automatically choosing the bare and stony places in the trail for his feet. There was scarcely a sound as he passed, though his left knee was stiff with scar tissue. He grunted occasionally as the tight sinews pulled. Damn chainsaw, he thought.
Behind him, the boy shuffled along, trying to imitate his grandfather, but unable to mimic the silent motion that the old man had learned during countless winter days upon this wooded mountain in pursuit of game. He's fifteen years old, the old man thought. Plenty old enough to be learning. But that was another time, another America. His mind drifted, and he saw himself, a fifteen-year-old boy following in the footsteps of his own grandfather, clutching a twelve gauge in his trembling hands as they tracked a wounded whitetail.
The leg was hurting worse now, and he slowed his pace a bit. Plenty of time. It should have been my own son here with me now, the old man thought sadly. But Jason had no interest, no understanding. He cared for nothing but pounding on the keys of that damned computer terminal. He knew nothing about the woods, or where food came from...or freedom. And that's my fault, isn't it?
The old man stopped and held up his hand, motioning for the boy to look. In the small clearing ahead, the deer stood motionless, watching them. It was a scraggly buck, underfed and sickly, but the boy's eyes lit up with excitement. It had been many years since they had seen even a single whitetail here on the mountain. After the hunting had stopped, the population had exploded. The deer had eaten the mountain almost bare until erosion had become a serious problem in some places. That following winter, three starving does had wandered into the old man's yard, trying to eat the bark off of his pecan trees, and he had wished the "animal rights" fanatics could have been there then. It was against the law, but old man knew a higher law, and he took an axe into the yard and killed the starving beasts. They did not have the strength to run.
The buck finally turned and loped away, and they continued down the trail to the river. When they came to the "Big Oak," the old man turned and pushed through the heavy brush beside the trail and the boy followed, wordlessly. The old man knew that Thomas was curious about their leaving the trail, but the boy had learned to move silently (well, almost) and that meant no talking. When they came to "Coffin Rock," the old man sat down upon it and motioned for the boy to join him.
"You see this rock, shaped like a casket?" the old man asked. "Yes sir." The old man smiled. The boy was respectful and polite. He loved the outdoors, too. Everything a man could ask in a grandson ...or a son.
"I want you to remember this place, and what I'm about to tell you. A lot of it isn't going to make any sense to you, but it's important and one day you'll understand it well enough. The old man paused. Now that he was here, he didn't really know where to start.
"Before you were born," he began at last, "this country was different.
I've told you about hunting, about how everybody who obeyed the law could own guns. A man could speak out, anywhere, without worrying about whether he'd get back home or not. School was different, too. A man could send his kids to a church school, or a private school, or even teach them at home. But even in the public schools, they didn't spend all their time trying to brainwash you like they do at yours now." The old man paused, and was silent for many minutes. The boy was still, watching a chipmunk scavenging beside a fallen tree below them.
"Things don't ever happen all at once, boy. They just sort of sneak up on you. Sure, we knew guns were important; we just didn't think it would ever happen in America. But we had to do something about crime, they said. It was a crisis. Everything was a crisis! It was a drug crisis, or a terrorism crisis, or street crime, or gang crime. Even a 'health care' crisis was an excuse to take away a little more of our rights." The old man turned to look at his grandson.
"They ever let you read a thing called the Constitution down there at your school?" The boy solemnly shook his head. "Well, the Fourth Amendment's still in there. It says there won't be any unreasonable searches and seizures. It says you're safe in your own home." The old man shrugged. "That had to go. It was a crisis! They could kick your door open any time, day or night, and come in with guns blazing if they thought you had drugs ...or later, guns. Oh, at first it was just registration -- to keep the guns out of the hands of criminals! But that didn't work, of course, and then later when they wanted to take 'em they knew where to look. They banned 'assault rifles', and then 'sniper rifles', and 'Saturday night specials.' Everything you saw on the TV or in the movies was against us. God knows the news people were! And the schools were teaching our kids that nobody needed guns anymore. We tried to take a stand, but we felt like the whole face of our country had changed and we were left outside."
"Me and a friend of mine, when we saw what was happening, we came and built a secret place up here on the mountain. A place where we could put our guns until we needed them. We figured some day Americans would remember what it was like to be free, and what kind of price we had to pay for that freedom. So we hid our guns instead of losing them."
"One fellow I knew disagreed. He said we ought to use our guns now and stand up to the government. Said that the colonists had fought for their freedom when the British tried to disarm them at Lexington and Concord. Well, he and a lot of others died in what your history books call the 'Tax Revolt of 1998,' but son, it wasn't the revolt that caused the repeal of the Second Amendment like your history book says. The Second Amendment was already gone long before they ever repealed it. The rest of us thought we were doing the right thing by waiting. I hope to God we were right."
"You see, Thomas. It isn't government that makes a man free. In the end, governments always do just the opposite. They gobble up freedom like hungry pigs. You have to have laws to keep the worst in men under control, but at the same time the people have to have guns, too, in order to keep the government itself under control. In our country, the people were supposed to be the final authority of the law, but that was a long time ago. Once the guns were gone, there was no reason for those who run the government to give a damn about laws and constitutional rights and such. They just did what they pleased and anyone who spoke out...well, I'm getting ahead of myself."
"It took a long time to collect up all the millions of firearms that were
in private hands. The government created a whole new agency to see to it. There were rewards for turning your friends in, too. Drug dealers and murderers were set free after two or three years in prison, but possession of a gun would get you mandatory life behind bars with no parole.
"I don't know how they found out about me, probably knew I'd been a hunter all those years, or maybe somebody turned me in. They picked me up on suspicion and took me down to the federal building."
"Son, those guys did everything they could think of to me. Kept me locked up in this little room for hours, no food, no water. They kept coming in, asking me where the guns were. 'What guns?' I said. Whenever I'd doze off, they'd come crashing in, yelling and hollering. I got to where I didn't know which end was up. I'd say I wanted my lawyer and they'd laugh. 'Lawyers are for criminals', they said. 'You'll get a lawyer after we get the guns.' What's so funny is, I know they thought they were doing the right thing. They were fighting crime!"
"When I got home I found Ruth sitting in the middle of the living room
floor, crying her eyes out. The house was a shambles. While I was down there, they'd come out and took our house apart. Didn't need a search warrant, they said. National emergency! Gun crisis! Your grandma tried to call our preacher and they ripped the phone off the wall. Told her that they'd go easy on me if she just told them where I kept my guns." The old man laughed. "She told them to go to hell." He stared into the distance for a moment as his laughter faded.
"They wouldn't tell her about me, where I was or anything, that whole time. She said that she'd thought I was dead. She never got over that day, and she died the next December."
"They've been watching me ever since, off and on. I guess there's not much for them to do anymore, now that all the guns are gone. Plenty of time to watch one foolish old man." He paused. Beside him, the boy stared at the stone beneath his feet.
"Anyway, I figure that, one day, America will come to her senses. Our men will need those guns and they'll be ready. We cleaned them and sealed them up good; they'll last for years. Maybe it won't be in your lifetime, Thomas. Maybe one day you'll be sitting here with your son or grandson. Tell him about me, boy. Tell him about the way I said America used to be." The old man stood, his bad leg shaking unsteadily beneath him.
"You see the way this stone points? You follow that line one hundred feet down the hill and you'll find a big round rock. It looks like it's buried solid, but one man with a good pry bar can lift it, and there's a concrete tunnel right under there that goes back into the hill."
The old man stood, watching as the sun eased toward the ridge, coloring the sky and the world red. Below them, the river still splashed among the stones, as it had for a million years. It's still going, the old man thought. There'll be someone left to carry on for me when I'm gone. It was harder to walk back. He felt old and purposeless now, and it would be easier, he knew, to give in to that aching heaviness in his left lung that had begun to trouble him more and more. Damn cigarettes, he thought. His leg hurt, and the boy silently came up beside him and supported him as they started down the last mile toward the house. How quiet he walks, the old man thought. He's learned well.
It was almost dark when the boy walked in. His father looked up from his paper. "Did you and your grand dad have a nice walk?"
"Yes," the boy answered, opening the refrigerator. "You can call Agent
Goodwin tomorrow. Gramps finally showed me where it is."
*********************************************************
Editor's note: "Sundown at Coffin Rock" is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual events or to actual people, living or dead, REMAINS TO BE SEEN
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Sunrise at Coffin Rock – Part II
by Raymond K. Paden
Thomas sat alone upon the cold stone, shivering slightly in the chilly pre-dawn air of this April morning. The flashlight was turned off, resting beside him on the bare granite of Coffin Rock, and involuntarily he strained his eyes in the gray non-light of the false dawn, trying to make out the shapes of the trees, and the mountains across the river. Below, he could hear the chuckling of the water as it crossed the polished stones. How many times had he fished there, his grandfather beside him.
He tried to shrug away the memories, but why else had he come here except to remember.1 Perhaps to escape the inevitable confrontation with his mother. She would have to be told sooner or later, but Thomas infinitely preferred later.
"Mom, I've been expelled from the university, he said aloud in a conversational tone. Some small night animal, startled by the sudden sound, scurried away to the right. "I know this means you won't get that upgrade to C-3, and they'll probably turn you down for that surgery now. Gee, Mom, I'm sorry." It sounded so stupid. "Why?" she would ask. "How?"
How could he explain that? The endless arguments. The whispered warnings. The subtle threats. Dennis had told him to expect this. Dennis had lost his parents back in the First Purge back in 2004, and his bitter hatred of the State's iron rule had failed to ruin him only because of his unique and accomplished abilities as an actor. Only with Thomas did he open up. Only with Thomas did he relate the things he had earned while in the Youth Reeducation Camp near Charleston. Thomas shuddered.
It was his own fault, he knew. He should have kept his mouth shut like Dennis told him. All of his friends had come and shook his hand and pounded him on the back. "That's telling them, Adams!" they said. But their voices were hushed and they glanced over their shoulders as they congratulated him. And later, when the "volunteers" of the Green Ribbon Squad kicked his ass all over the shower room, they had stood by in nervous silence, their faces turned away, their eyes averted, and their tremulous voices silent.
He sighed. Could he blame them. He'd been afraid too, when the squad walked up and surrounded him, and if he could have taken back those proud words he would have. Anyone is afraid when they can't fight back, he'd discovered. So they taught him a lesson, and he had expected it to end there. But then yesterday had come the call to Dr. Morton's office, and the brief hearing that had ended his career at the university. "Thomas," Morton had intoned, "You owe everything to the State." Thomas snorted.
The light was growing now. He could see the pale, rain-washed granite in the grayness as if it glowed. Coffin Rock was now a knob, a raised promontory that jutted up from a wide, unbroken arm of the mountain's stony roots, its cover of soil pushed away. There were deep gouges scraped across the surface of the rock where the backhoe had tried, vainly, to force the mountain to reveal its secrets. He was too old to cry now, but Thomas Adams closed his eyes tightly as he relived those moments that had forever changed his life.
The shouts and angry accusations as the agents found no secret arms cache still seemed to ring in his ears. They had threatened him with arrest, and once he had thought the government agent named Goodwin wouId actually strike him. At last, though, they had accepted defeat and turned down the mountain, following the gashed trail of the back-hoe as it rumbled ahead through the woods.
At home, he had found his mother and father standing, ashen faced, in the doorway.
"They took your grandpa," his father said in disbelief. "Just after you left, they put him in a van and took him. "
"But they said they wouldn't!" Thomas had shouted. He ran across the yard to the old man's cottage. The door was standing open and he wandered from room to room calling for the grandfather he would never see alive again.
It was his heart, they said. Two days after they had taken him, someone called and tersely announced that the old man had died at the indigent clinic a few hours after his arrest "Sorry," the faceless voice had muttered. Thomas had wept at the funeral, but it was only in later years that he had come to understand the greatest tragedy of that day-that the old man had died alone, knowing that his own grandson had betrayed him.
That grandson was Thomas Adams, and he was now too old to cry but in the growing light of the cold mountain dawn, he did anyway.
Thomas was certain that his father's de-certification six months later was due to the debacle in the forest. As much as anyone did these days, they had "owned" their home, but the Certification Board would still have evicted them except for the intervention of Cousin Lou, who worked for the State Supervisor. As it was, they lost all privileges and, when his father came down with pneumonia the next autumn, medical treatment was denied. He had died three days after the first anniversary of Grandpa's death.
Thomas had been sure that he would be turned down at the University, but once again his cousin had intervened and a slot had "opened" for him. But now that's finished he reflected He would be unable to obtain any certification other than manual laborer. "Why didn't I keep my mouth shut" he asked the morning stillness. In a tree behind him, a mockingbird began to sing its ageless song, and as if in answer, the forest below began to twitter and chirp with the voices of other birds, greeting the new day.
No, what he had said had been the truth and nothing could change that. The State was wrong. It was evil. It was unnatural for men to be slaves of their government, always skulking, always holding their tongues lest they anger The State. But there is no "State," Thomas considered. There are only evil men, holding power over other men. And anyone who speaks out, who dares to challenge that power, is crushed.
If only there was a way to fight back!
Thomas shifted on the stone, hanging his feet off the downhill side. His feet had almost touched the grass that day, but now, although his legs were certainly longer, it was at least ten inches to the scarred rock surface below. As he kicked his heels back and forth, he could almost hear h is grandfather speaking to him from long ago...
"One day, America will come to her senses. Our men will need those guns and they'll be ready. We cleaned them and sealed them up good' they'll last for years. Maybe it won't be in your lifetime, Thomas. Maybe one day you'll be sitting here with your son or grandson. Tell him about me, boy. Tell him about the way I said America used to be.
"You see the way this stone points." the old man was saying. "You follow that line one hundred feet..." Thomas' heels were suddenly still. For many minutes he did not move, playing those words over and over in his mind. "...Follow that line..."
What hidden place in his brain had concealed those words all of these years. How could the threats have failed to dislodge it. He stood upon shaky legs and climbed down from Coffin Rock. In his mind's eye, he could see the old man pointing and he walked down the hill and through a clinging briar patch, counting off the paces. The round stone did seem sol idly buried, but he scratched around near the base and found that the rock ended just an inch or so beneath the surface. "One man with a good bar can lift it," Grandfather had said. Thomas forced his fingers beneath the stone and, with all the strength in his 21-year-old body, he lifted. The stone came up, and he slid it off to one side. Cool air drifted up from the dark opening in the mountain. Thomas looked to the right where the scars of the State's frustration ended, only 15 or 20 feet away. They had been that close.
He squatted and stared into the darkness and then remembered his flashlight. In a moment, he was back with it, probing into the darkness with the yellow beam. There was a small patch of moisture just inside, but then the tunnel climbed upwards toward the ridge. On hands and knees, he entered.
It was uncomfortably close for the first 20 feet or so, then the cavern opened up around him. The men who had built this place, he saw, had taken a natural crevice in the granite rock, sealed it with masses of poured concrete, and then covered it with earth. The main chamber was bigger than the living room of a house, and they had left an opening up near the peak of the vaulted roof where fresh air and a faint, filtered light entered.
Wooden boxes and crates were stacked everywhere on concrete blocks, up off of the floor, stenciled with legends like, RIFLE, CAL. 30 M1, 9MM PARA, M193 BALL, 7.62 x 39MM, and 5.56MM. He pushed between them and crawled to the wall where he found cardboard boxes wrapped with plastic sheeting. They were imprinted with strange names like CCI, OLIN, WW748, BULLSEYE, and RL 550B.
He did not know what the crates and boxes contained, and was afraid to break the seals, but near the center of the room he found a plastic-wrapped carton labeled, OPEN THIS FIRST. With his penknife, he slit the heavy plastic wrapping.
It contained books, he saw with some disappointment. But he studied the titles and found that they were manuals on weapons and how to repair them, how to clean them, how to fire them, and ammunition...how to store it, and how to reload it. And here was something unusual' A History of the United States. He lifted it from the carton and crawled back to the open air. Leaning against a stone, he tore open the heavy vinyl bag that enclosed the book and began to read at random, flipping the pages every few moments. On each page, something new met his eye, contradicting everything he had ever been taught.
Freedom is not won, he learned, by loud words and declarations.
He remembered a quotation taught at the University' "Blood alone moves the wheels of history." An Italian dictator named Mussolini had said that, but now he read of a man named Patrick C Henry who said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Mao was required reading at the University, too, and he now recalled that this man called a "hero" by The State - had once said, "Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun."
Freedom is never granted, it is won. Won by men who are willing to die, willing to lose everything so that others may have the greatest possession of all: liberty.
Mentally, he began to list those he could trust. Men who had been arrested for speaking out. Women whose husbands had been arrested and never returned. Friends who had been denied certification because of their fathers' military records. The countryside seethed with anger and frustration. These were people who longed to be free, but who had no means to resist... until now.
Thomas laid the book aside and then worked the stone back into position, carefully placing leaves and moss around the base to hide any evidence that it had been disturbed. He tucked the book under his arm and started for home with the rays of the rising sun warming his back. He imagined his grandfather's touch in the heat. A forgiving touch.
A long, hard struggle was coming, and he knew with a certainty that defied explanation that he would not live to see the day America would once again be free. His blood and that of many patriots and tyrants would be spilled, but perhaps America's tree of Liberty would live and flourish again.
There is a long line stretching through the history of this world a line of those who valued freedom more than their lives. Thomas Adams now took his place at the end of that column as he determined that he would have liberty, or death. He would be in good company.
Sunrise at Coffin Rock is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual events is up to us. Do you vote? Do you belong to the NRA? You should.
[/quote]
There's more here: http://members.home.net/paulbritton/
------------------
¡Viva la RKBA!
Bulldawg: NRA, GOA, TSRA, Shiner Bock Connoisseur.
Bulldawg's Firearms Page
[This message has been edited by Bulldog (edited May 28, 2000).]
by Raymond K. Paden
Thomas sat alone upon the cold stone, shivering slightly in the chilly pre-dawn air of this April morning. The flashlight was turned off, resting beside him on the bare granite of Coffin Rock, and involuntarily he strained his eyes in the gray non-light of the false dawn, trying to make out the shapes of the trees, and the mountains across the river. Below, he could hear the chuckling of the water as it crossed the polished stones. How many times had he fished there, his grandfather beside him.
He tried to shrug away the memories, but why else had he come here except to remember.1 Perhaps to escape the inevitable confrontation with his mother. She would have to be told sooner or later, but Thomas infinitely preferred later.
"Mom, I've been expelled from the university, he said aloud in a conversational tone. Some small night animal, startled by the sudden sound, scurried away to the right. "I know this means you won't get that upgrade to C-3, and they'll probably turn you down for that surgery now. Gee, Mom, I'm sorry." It sounded so stupid. "Why?" she would ask. "How?"
How could he explain that? The endless arguments. The whispered warnings. The subtle threats. Dennis had told him to expect this. Dennis had lost his parents back in the First Purge back in 2004, and his bitter hatred of the State's iron rule had failed to ruin him only because of his unique and accomplished abilities as an actor. Only with Thomas did he open up. Only with Thomas did he relate the things he had earned while in the Youth Reeducation Camp near Charleston. Thomas shuddered.
It was his own fault, he knew. He should have kept his mouth shut like Dennis told him. All of his friends had come and shook his hand and pounded him on the back. "That's telling them, Adams!" they said. But their voices were hushed and they glanced over their shoulders as they congratulated him. And later, when the "volunteers" of the Green Ribbon Squad kicked his ass all over the shower room, they had stood by in nervous silence, their faces turned away, their eyes averted, and their tremulous voices silent.
He sighed. Could he blame them. He'd been afraid too, when the squad walked up and surrounded him, and if he could have taken back those proud words he would have. Anyone is afraid when they can't fight back, he'd discovered. So they taught him a lesson, and he had expected it to end there. But then yesterday had come the call to Dr. Morton's office, and the brief hearing that had ended his career at the university. "Thomas," Morton had intoned, "You owe everything to the State." Thomas snorted.
The light was growing now. He could see the pale, rain-washed granite in the grayness as if it glowed. Coffin Rock was now a knob, a raised promontory that jutted up from a wide, unbroken arm of the mountain's stony roots, its cover of soil pushed away. There were deep gouges scraped across the surface of the rock where the backhoe had tried, vainly, to force the mountain to reveal its secrets. He was too old to cry now, but Thomas Adams closed his eyes tightly as he relived those moments that had forever changed his life.
The shouts and angry accusations as the agents found no secret arms cache still seemed to ring in his ears. They had threatened him with arrest, and once he had thought the government agent named Goodwin wouId actually strike him. At last, though, they had accepted defeat and turned down the mountain, following the gashed trail of the back-hoe as it rumbled ahead through the woods.
At home, he had found his mother and father standing, ashen faced, in the doorway.
"They took your grandpa," his father said in disbelief. "Just after you left, they put him in a van and took him. "
"But they said they wouldn't!" Thomas had shouted. He ran across the yard to the old man's cottage. The door was standing open and he wandered from room to room calling for the grandfather he would never see alive again.
It was his heart, they said. Two days after they had taken him, someone called and tersely announced that the old man had died at the indigent clinic a few hours after his arrest "Sorry," the faceless voice had muttered. Thomas had wept at the funeral, but it was only in later years that he had come to understand the greatest tragedy of that day-that the old man had died alone, knowing that his own grandson had betrayed him.
That grandson was Thomas Adams, and he was now too old to cry but in the growing light of the cold mountain dawn, he did anyway.
Thomas was certain that his father's de-certification six months later was due to the debacle in the forest. As much as anyone did these days, they had "owned" their home, but the Certification Board would still have evicted them except for the intervention of Cousin Lou, who worked for the State Supervisor. As it was, they lost all privileges and, when his father came down with pneumonia the next autumn, medical treatment was denied. He had died three days after the first anniversary of Grandpa's death.
Thomas had been sure that he would be turned down at the University, but once again his cousin had intervened and a slot had "opened" for him. But now that's finished he reflected He would be unable to obtain any certification other than manual laborer. "Why didn't I keep my mouth shut" he asked the morning stillness. In a tree behind him, a mockingbird began to sing its ageless song, and as if in answer, the forest below began to twitter and chirp with the voices of other birds, greeting the new day.
No, what he had said had been the truth and nothing could change that. The State was wrong. It was evil. It was unnatural for men to be slaves of their government, always skulking, always holding their tongues lest they anger The State. But there is no "State," Thomas considered. There are only evil men, holding power over other men. And anyone who speaks out, who dares to challenge that power, is crushed.
If only there was a way to fight back!
Thomas shifted on the stone, hanging his feet off the downhill side. His feet had almost touched the grass that day, but now, although his legs were certainly longer, it was at least ten inches to the scarred rock surface below. As he kicked his heels back and forth, he could almost hear h is grandfather speaking to him from long ago...
"One day, America will come to her senses. Our men will need those guns and they'll be ready. We cleaned them and sealed them up good' they'll last for years. Maybe it won't be in your lifetime, Thomas. Maybe one day you'll be sitting here with your son or grandson. Tell him about me, boy. Tell him about the way I said America used to be.
"You see the way this stone points." the old man was saying. "You follow that line one hundred feet..." Thomas' heels were suddenly still. For many minutes he did not move, playing those words over and over in his mind. "...Follow that line..."
What hidden place in his brain had concealed those words all of these years. How could the threats have failed to dislodge it. He stood upon shaky legs and climbed down from Coffin Rock. In his mind's eye, he could see the old man pointing and he walked down the hill and through a clinging briar patch, counting off the paces. The round stone did seem sol idly buried, but he scratched around near the base and found that the rock ended just an inch or so beneath the surface. "One man with a good bar can lift it," Grandfather had said. Thomas forced his fingers beneath the stone and, with all the strength in his 21-year-old body, he lifted. The stone came up, and he slid it off to one side. Cool air drifted up from the dark opening in the mountain. Thomas looked to the right where the scars of the State's frustration ended, only 15 or 20 feet away. They had been that close.
He squatted and stared into the darkness and then remembered his flashlight. In a moment, he was back with it, probing into the darkness with the yellow beam. There was a small patch of moisture just inside, but then the tunnel climbed upwards toward the ridge. On hands and knees, he entered.
It was uncomfortably close for the first 20 feet or so, then the cavern opened up around him. The men who had built this place, he saw, had taken a natural crevice in the granite rock, sealed it with masses of poured concrete, and then covered it with earth. The main chamber was bigger than the living room of a house, and they had left an opening up near the peak of the vaulted roof where fresh air and a faint, filtered light entered.
Wooden boxes and crates were stacked everywhere on concrete blocks, up off of the floor, stenciled with legends like, RIFLE, CAL. 30 M1, 9MM PARA, M193 BALL, 7.62 x 39MM, and 5.56MM. He pushed between them and crawled to the wall where he found cardboard boxes wrapped with plastic sheeting. They were imprinted with strange names like CCI, OLIN, WW748, BULLSEYE, and RL 550B.
He did not know what the crates and boxes contained, and was afraid to break the seals, but near the center of the room he found a plastic-wrapped carton labeled, OPEN THIS FIRST. With his penknife, he slit the heavy plastic wrapping.
It contained books, he saw with some disappointment. But he studied the titles and found that they were manuals on weapons and how to repair them, how to clean them, how to fire them, and ammunition...how to store it, and how to reload it. And here was something unusual' A History of the United States. He lifted it from the carton and crawled back to the open air. Leaning against a stone, he tore open the heavy vinyl bag that enclosed the book and began to read at random, flipping the pages every few moments. On each page, something new met his eye, contradicting everything he had ever been taught.
Freedom is not won, he learned, by loud words and declarations.
He remembered a quotation taught at the University' "Blood alone moves the wheels of history." An Italian dictator named Mussolini had said that, but now he read of a man named Patrick C Henry who said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Mao was required reading at the University, too, and he now recalled that this man called a "hero" by The State - had once said, "Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun."
Freedom is never granted, it is won. Won by men who are willing to die, willing to lose everything so that others may have the greatest possession of all: liberty.
Mentally, he began to list those he could trust. Men who had been arrested for speaking out. Women whose husbands had been arrested and never returned. Friends who had been denied certification because of their fathers' military records. The countryside seethed with anger and frustration. These were people who longed to be free, but who had no means to resist... until now.
Thomas laid the book aside and then worked the stone back into position, carefully placing leaves and moss around the base to hide any evidence that it had been disturbed. He tucked the book under his arm and started for home with the rays of the rising sun warming his back. He imagined his grandfather's touch in the heat. A forgiving touch.
A long, hard struggle was coming, and he knew with a certainty that defied explanation that he would not live to see the day America would once again be free. His blood and that of many patriots and tyrants would be spilled, but perhaps America's tree of Liberty would live and flourish again.
There is a long line stretching through the history of this world a line of those who valued freedom more than their lives. Thomas Adams now took his place at the end of that column as he determined that he would have liberty, or death. He would be in good company.
Sunrise at Coffin Rock is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual events is up to us. Do you vote? Do you belong to the NRA? You should.
[/quote]
There's more here: http://members.home.net/paulbritton/
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¡Viva la RKBA!
Bulldawg: NRA, GOA, TSRA, Shiner Bock Connoisseur.
Bulldawg's Firearms Page
[This message has been edited by Bulldog (edited May 28, 2000).]
mzanghetti
New member
Where is this country going? I won't ask if this country is honestly headed for rebellion because I am not sure if I want to know the answer! 
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A Life Well Lived Is The Best Revenge!
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A Life Well Lived Is The Best Revenge!
Here is some more to the story. this was written by someone over at ar15.com
Coffin rock III, "The challenge"
I muttered to myself as I was reading through a journal my grandfather had left in the
collection of old books hidden in the cave. "Gee, how am I going to recruit some of my trusting friends." Frustrated, I tossed the journal onto my dresser. It fluttered about until it landed open, face up, and slid bumping to a stop. I jumped on the bed and tried to sleep.
That night something just seemed to really bother me and I just couldn't sleep.
Tossing and turning, A passage my grandfather wrote in his journal just kept going over
and over through my mind.
It read; For the ambition that you need to gain the strength in numbers, you must read
this parable while viewing yourself in a reflective object. It will help your courage to
fulfill the destiny of a free man.
What did that mean, was he trying to tell us something? I just couldn't sleep.
Around 5:00 AM, I decided to get up and look through that journal for the umteenth
time.
I turned the light on and walked over to pick up the book when to my surprise, in the
mirror, I saw it!
On the back of the book, there was this writing that consisted of some unusual dialog
with an unusual emblem. It was illegable.
But in the mirror, it made sense!
It read; On page 74, there is a picture.
On the top and bottom there are several dots.
These are reference marks to fold it as shown in the diagram below.
I went to that page and followed the instructions. It was amazing! It reminded me of a
picture my grandfather showed me out of an old, antique magazine called Mad. Folding
it morphed it into a picture of the cave. But there was something different about the
cave.
The big triangular rock in the back wasn't there. It was an opening to another cavern!
I got myself together, got a prybar and went back into the cave.
That rock was big, I could bairly move it.
Behind it was a very long tunnel which led into this HUGE cavern.
Inside this cavern, was what looked like some sort of shooting range similar to the one's
I saw in the books. There were many more crates in there as well.
After lighting the room up by painting some illuminus jell in various key locations I
decided I would shoot one of the guns for the first time.
Upon opening one of the crates, I pulled one out that had Bushmaster AR-15 engraved
on its side.
I followed the books directions for cleaning and preparing the gun so I could shoot it.
Entering the cavern, I was shaking like a leaf. I felt a bit sick to my stomach being
nervous about knowing I'm about to go against everything I was ever taught.
Nervously pointing the gun in the direction of the heavy wooden barrier, I pulled the
trigger.
Nothing happened.
Looking at the gun, I noticed the little lever was pointing to safety.
Switching it to fire I tried it again.
BOOM. It was so loud in the cavern that it startled me causing me to drop the gun and
hold my ears.
Why were my ears ringing so loudly. I've never had that happen before. It was scary.
I sat down and just stared at that gun.
Thinking back, I recall one of the books recommending hearing protection, I got some
blue ear muffs in one of the crates that resembled the picture.
I put it on and tried it again.
This time, I was real jittery and it took me 5 minutes to finally pull the trigger.
Thump! Wow, that was much better.
It took awile, but I finally managed to hit inside the circles.
That night, I debated on how I was going to recruit trustworthy people.
I had some friends that I know lost level status.
Jerry seemed very disgruntled about it so I fugured I'll try him first.
I went to work on him the next day.
I invited him over and we went for a walk down a rocky path.
We sat down on a dirt knoll and I began thinking how I was going to discuss it with him.
He broke the silence with "What's wrong?"
"What do you mean?" I replied.
"You look a bit pale, are you alright?"
I became silent and began to cry.
"Well, uh, It's about my grandfather."
"When I was young, I think I made a very bad mistake." "Like what kind of mistake."
Jerry said in a nervous voice.
"Years ago, He told me of some things that was against all we know today."
"He told me we use to have these freedoms that I never knew existed."
"Could you tell me about it?"
"If I do, you can never openly discuss it as it will get us incarcerated for sure."
"Well, I lost my level status so what the heck, I'll give it a listen, you have my word, I'll
keep quiet."
I told him about the constitution and how it guarantied free speech, the right to bear
arms, and how people could profess this thing called religion as well as many other
things we were never taught.
Then I told how I turned him in for not conforming and now I know it was a big mistake.
"I'm responsible for my grandfather's death,
I killed him." "I never should have turned him in."
He laid back on the ground and stared off into space as if to be in a trance.
"Wow, I wish we had the ability to change it back to that."
"It's not your fault, you were just doing what you were taught."
"What if I told you that it could be a real possibility."
He sat up slowly and looked at me silently for a bit. For a moment there, I could see it
in his eyes. He was a different person for that time, as if to say he would die for this
country. He would die for the freedom of many.
It was then that I knew I made the right choice.
As requested, here's part 4.
As Jerry and I were going through the crates in the newly discovered cavern, we came
across some more paperwork.
"Hey Jerry, look, lets see what this is."
"It doesn't look like any books, just papers." As we were looking through the papers we
came across some that said; The 54th militia freedom fighters. Among this, was a page
that had network membership written on it as well as a list of names.
"Hmmm, I wonder if any of these people are still around." "Well, this is a very old list,
most of these people, if there still alive would be too old to do anything."
"My cousin has class 2 clearance and is a survellance moniter, he has his own security
cubicle at his home."
"The last few times I have been there, he seemed to be alittle laxed on his cubicle
security." "I'll just have to start spending more time visiting him and when he uses the
bathroom or something, I'll access these names and check." "Are you kidding me Jerry?"
"If he does a log check, then you will never see the light of day!" "Don't worry, he
never does a log check, he won't know we accessed it." "I don't know, it sounds pretty
risky to me."
"Well, let me at least try."
The next two days were un-nerving, I haven't seen or heard from Jerry. Just as I was
about write him off as the first casualty, he arrived. He seemed very excited. "Lets go
for a walk." Which he then grabbed my shirt and about jerked it off of me pulling me out
of the door.
As we got out of view of the house, he began to tell me what was on his mind. "Some
of them are still alive!" "Alright!" I chimed. "Many of them died shortly after they were
incarcerated, but some still reside and one of them is only 20 km away!" "I'm not
finished accessing, so I'll have to go back and finish." "Good, While you were gone, I
read the rest of that paperwork." "There is a map with locations marked on it." "Also,
when we talk to these people, so they know we are for real we have to say this
sentance, Freedom through 54, It's sort of a password I guess." The next day we
devised a plan so we could convince the check points that we had business being in
the area were this man lived. Jerry would go to his cousin's, forge some bogus
paperwork and enter region clearance to that zone.
"Give me your paperwork and state your business in this zone!" groaned the agent at
the checkpoint. "We are doing a seimic study on this region for geology class." He
peered in the car and looked at our equipment, "Hold on, I'll have to log this in and
verify it." Jerry looked at me as if to say, I hope this works. "Carry on!" Said the agent.
"Phew!" What a relief that was. Shortly after we got out of site from the checkpoint,
Jerry suddenly turned pale, He opened the window and preceded to throw up. "Are you
alright!" "Yes, I didn't think we were going to make it through that checkpoint." "I can
see this is going to be long and hard."
We pulled up to the address that Jerry got from the computer. There weren't too many
houses near, and the place didn't look well taken care of. We looked at each other for
what seemed to be an eternity. My hands were sweaty and I had a lump in my throat.
"Come on Jerry, lets just do it." We knocked on the door and waited for a bit. A few
minutes later, this old man opened the door. He appeared to be in poor health and had
several scares on his face. In a shaky voice he said, "What do you want!" I just looked
at him dumbfounded and lost for words. "Well, what, who are you!" "Oh,um sorry, Uh
free, Uh, freedom through 54." Upon hearing that, he got very still and his eyes turned
glassy as though he was in another world. "Um, is this a bad time?" "If not, we'll leave."
He just stood there in silence. "Lets go Jerry." As we turned to leave, he hollered,
"WAIT!"
"Come with me." He led us to this place in the woods, his movements were slow,
stopping to catch his breath now and then. When we stopped, he sat down on a rock
and began to cry. "I thought I'd never live to see this day." Sobbing as he continued.
"We lost our freedom years ago through a tyrant government." "First it was our guns,
then when they stripped us of our only defense, They stole our integrity and moral
values." "It was terrible they..." "I know", I interupted, "They killed my grandfather."
"Who was your grandfather?" I told him, and he was in great disbelief. "Your
grandfather was a great man, he was my commander in the 54th militia."
"How did you find me?" "Well" I began, I told him everything. About how I turned my
grandfather in and how I later found the cache with books which I soon realized the
mistake I made and how I wanted to change things and make a differance. "Boys, I'm
just too old to help you much, but I have something that can." He stood up, "Move this
rock for me." We grabbed some dead branches and used them to move the rock. It was
another cache, only this time many of the crates had 'DANGER HIGH EXPLOSIVES'
written on them. He hobbled over to a crate and had us pryed it open. Inside were
some books on how to handle explosives along with more books on how to make bombs.
He pointed to some crates and said "Those ones contain all the hardware you need to
assemble many types of bombs, they contain the casings, timers, and other triggering
devices." I pointed at some that had 'HAND GRENADES" written on it and asked him
what a hand grenade was.
We opened it and he showed them to us and explained how to use them.
We closed the place back up and the old man lectured us on how we need to recruit
and network in order to have an efficient uprising. He gave us some brief lessons to
help us. Looking at my watch, I noticed it was time to leave, it was getting close to
our time allowance in this region. "I'm sorry, But we have to go." We need to get to the
checkpoint before 5:00." He understood and we went back to the house. I told him
when we get more people together, we will be back to get what we need. As we were
leaving, the old man said " What ever you do, don't hurt or kill our own, because if you
do, you will be an offence against the true cause of freedom and you will be just like
them." He then smiled at us and waved goodbye. A few weeks later, Jerry invited me
over to meet his cousin. "That doesn't sound too good to me." I told him. "Don't worry,
I'm done accessing his computer until we need to forge something."
I went with him and met his cousin. He seemed a bit nice for a security monitor. Later,
as we sat down for something to eat, Mark spoke up. "You think I don't know what you
guys are doing, do you?" "What do you mean." Jerry said. "I know you've been in my
system accessing things and falsifying documents for the two of you." I knew this
would happen, it was over before it began. My life is over, there will definitly be no
freedom now. He then preceded to tell us, "However, lately I have been second
guessing the way society is and I find myself disagreeing with the direction we are
heading." "It's not right, My clearance allows me to view the old laws for review and I
find myself agreeing with the old ways."
"What does that have to do with us", I said.
"Those people's files that were accessed were all investigated at one time or another
for not conforming." "I want you to know that I nearly turned you in but I decided not
to."
"Instead, I decided to help you." "It won't be much, but it will help."
"Like how?" "Well, believe it or not, I already have." "In the area were we thought your
grandfather buried some arms, we have been picking up some unnatural seismic
activity." I was suppose to order some sensors to be placed out there to triangulate
the source." "It had the characteristics of small arms fire in an enclosed location." "I
put two and two together and instead, logged an order stating that it was as sensor
malfunction." Then I ordered the sensors to be shut down as it was an inactive area
and they were no longer needed." "You boys just do what you feel is right and I don't
want to hear about it." "If you need to access the system,... you must have done it
while I was away from my station." He then winked at us and wished us a safe trip
home. It was a quiet trip home, but we knew that things were beginning to come
together.
Someones
Addition
If you don't mind me horning-in a bit, here's my addition to the evolving Saga of Coffin
Rock:
Agent's Lament
"What I wouldn't give", thought Ben Turner, "for a few drops of honest-to-goodness
milk!" Deciding against the "Neo-Milk, non-dairy, cruelty-free, drink whitener", he
topped-off his coffee mug and headed to his cubicle. After the first couple of gulps, his
caffeine-withdrawal headache started to ease. He was racking up a lot of overtime
lately, and his coffee consumption was approaching near-addict levels. "Maybe they
were right when they tried to ban this sh*t", he mused.
As he turned the corner into the Records Section, he nodded to a couple of young
clerks already diligently tapping on their keyboards. "Real eager beavers." Most of these
kids were good for a few months, until they realized that the drudgery of this work
never subsided. Occasionally, VERY occasionally, someone would quit when they
suddenly developed a conscience, but these instances were few and far between. Most
simply left for less-boring jobs. Ben would have left, too, if it was even remotely
practical.
At 42, the Federal Employment Bureau had him pigeon-holed so tightly that any
thoughts of changing jobs were a pipe-dream. There were always opportunities in the
"off-record" economy that operated at the fringes of society. If he were alone, it would
be doable. But with Jean and the two kids, he just had to grind out each day and hope
it didn't get any worse. With the caffeine finally kicking-in full force, he picked up the
next folder from the pile and began entering the information
Case #, 2043-1188. Subject, Yeager, Allan M.. DOB, 10-19-80. State of Residence,
California. Population Zone, 4A. Charge, violation of the National Childrens' Violence
Prevention Act, to whit, Possession of a Weapon. Disposition of Charge, N/A, violator
terminally sanctioned during on-site investigation. "It would be a lot shorter if I could
just type "Whacked the uncooperative S.O.B"", Turner thought. Materials seized,
BLANK? "Guess the field teams are getting sloppy with their paperwork, again." He
looked through the folder for the reporting agent's narrative.
"Let's see what we've got in here." He flipped through yellowing photocopies of CA DOJ
DROS forms, old ATF 4473's, receipts of registration, then finally found the lead agent's
hand -written report and started scanning through for the information he needed.
"Confidential informant", "search and seizure warrant issued", "executed said warrant at
0430 hrs, PST", "subject moved in a suspicious manner", Blah, Blah, Blah. He still didn't
see the information he needed, so he left the field blank on the monitor and tried to
save the report. "Error: Mandatory field is invalid or empty!" shouted his computer
screen. Cr@p! Apparently the new report software wouldn't let him "fudge" the field.
For a moment, he thought he'd just make up info for the report. Then he remembered
that his section was due for an "efficiency audit" that quarter. The auditors sometimes
put "baited" reports in the information stream to trip up the data entry people, so he
opted to stay on the good side of the "weenies" and find the info in the report.
"On 30 August, Intelligence Section received information from a confidential informant
concerning a violation of the National Childrens' Violence Prevention Act (aka
Schumer-Clinton Act), to whit, Possession of a Weapon. Information was deemed
credible and presented to the Office of Chief Administrator (hereinafter, OCA) for the
subject population zone. OCA issued search and seizure warrant #50-04-198766, with
endorsement for pre-approved use of deadly force, to search subject residence for any
illegal materiel. Warrant Team Echo, of the San Fransisco field-office, executed said
warrant at 871 Malvern Road, City of Hayward, a detached, semi-mobile dwelling unit
registered to subject Yeager, Allan M, ID# 80-1-9578536-PD3/V1. Agents entered the
subject residence at 0430 hrs, PST. Upon entering the residence, agents came upon
the warrant subject in the front room of the home. Subject moved in a suspicious
manner, to whit subject was reaching behind his back. To protect themselves, agents
of Warrant Team Echo fired at the subject, striking subject multiple times in the head
and chest area. Subject pronounced dead at scene. Search of the residence was
inconclusive. No weapons recovered."
"What that's just phucking wonderful," Turner groaned to himself, "What the h*ll do I
put in the report."
He flipped through the rest of the packet and found the after-action photos. The trailer
had really been trashed. The paneling and all the insulation from the walls had been
ripped out and thrown in the yard. The ceiling had been pulled down, the floor torn up…
Hell, even the toilet had been ripped out and smashed to pieces. That's when he
noticed it. Just visible in the corner of one of the photographs, it sat. A wheelchair,
half collapsed by the pile of debris in the yard. A wheelchair with at least three 10
mm-sized holes in the fabric of the back-rest. A g*dd@mned wheelchair! He looked
back at the report. It hadn't struck him before, but the poor SOB's ID number clearly
indicated he had a Level Three Physical Disability and Level One Visual Disability! Mighty
Warrant Team Echo had whacked a nearly-blind quadriplegic!
He held up the picture again. Hanging from one of the handles behind the wheelchair
was one of those cheap, disposable flashlights. Now the sequence of events unfolded
in Turner's mind. The Warrant Team had executed the warrant in the pre-dawn
darkness, wearing the NV gear. The poor slob in the trailer was just trying to get a light
on whoever was breaking in his house! Turner didn't want to believe the WT Echo had
been that callous and brutal. Years ago, when Turner was still in the good graces of
the Enforcement Section, he had mentored the youngster who was now Echo's Team
Leader.
Turner felt himself sick at his stomach as he wondered, "How in the H#ll, did we come
to this?"
Coffin rock III, "The challenge"
I muttered to myself as I was reading through a journal my grandfather had left in the
collection of old books hidden in the cave. "Gee, how am I going to recruit some of my trusting friends." Frustrated, I tossed the journal onto my dresser. It fluttered about until it landed open, face up, and slid bumping to a stop. I jumped on the bed and tried to sleep.
That night something just seemed to really bother me and I just couldn't sleep.
Tossing and turning, A passage my grandfather wrote in his journal just kept going over
and over through my mind.
It read; For the ambition that you need to gain the strength in numbers, you must read
this parable while viewing yourself in a reflective object. It will help your courage to
fulfill the destiny of a free man.
What did that mean, was he trying to tell us something? I just couldn't sleep.
Around 5:00 AM, I decided to get up and look through that journal for the umteenth
time.
I turned the light on and walked over to pick up the book when to my surprise, in the
mirror, I saw it!
On the back of the book, there was this writing that consisted of some unusual dialog
with an unusual emblem. It was illegable.
But in the mirror, it made sense!
It read; On page 74, there is a picture.
On the top and bottom there are several dots.
These are reference marks to fold it as shown in the diagram below.
I went to that page and followed the instructions. It was amazing! It reminded me of a
picture my grandfather showed me out of an old, antique magazine called Mad. Folding
it morphed it into a picture of the cave. But there was something different about the
cave.
The big triangular rock in the back wasn't there. It was an opening to another cavern!
I got myself together, got a prybar and went back into the cave.
That rock was big, I could bairly move it.
Behind it was a very long tunnel which led into this HUGE cavern.
Inside this cavern, was what looked like some sort of shooting range similar to the one's
I saw in the books. There were many more crates in there as well.
After lighting the room up by painting some illuminus jell in various key locations I
decided I would shoot one of the guns for the first time.
Upon opening one of the crates, I pulled one out that had Bushmaster AR-15 engraved
on its side.
I followed the books directions for cleaning and preparing the gun so I could shoot it.
Entering the cavern, I was shaking like a leaf. I felt a bit sick to my stomach being
nervous about knowing I'm about to go against everything I was ever taught.
Nervously pointing the gun in the direction of the heavy wooden barrier, I pulled the
trigger.
Nothing happened.
Looking at the gun, I noticed the little lever was pointing to safety.
Switching it to fire I tried it again.
BOOM. It was so loud in the cavern that it startled me causing me to drop the gun and
hold my ears.
Why were my ears ringing so loudly. I've never had that happen before. It was scary.
I sat down and just stared at that gun.
Thinking back, I recall one of the books recommending hearing protection, I got some
blue ear muffs in one of the crates that resembled the picture.
I put it on and tried it again.
This time, I was real jittery and it took me 5 minutes to finally pull the trigger.
Thump! Wow, that was much better.
It took awile, but I finally managed to hit inside the circles.
That night, I debated on how I was going to recruit trustworthy people.
I had some friends that I know lost level status.
Jerry seemed very disgruntled about it so I fugured I'll try him first.
I went to work on him the next day.
I invited him over and we went for a walk down a rocky path.
We sat down on a dirt knoll and I began thinking how I was going to discuss it with him.
He broke the silence with "What's wrong?"
"What do you mean?" I replied.
"You look a bit pale, are you alright?"
I became silent and began to cry.
"Well, uh, It's about my grandfather."
"When I was young, I think I made a very bad mistake." "Like what kind of mistake."
Jerry said in a nervous voice.
"Years ago, He told me of some things that was against all we know today."
"He told me we use to have these freedoms that I never knew existed."
"Could you tell me about it?"
"If I do, you can never openly discuss it as it will get us incarcerated for sure."
"Well, I lost my level status so what the heck, I'll give it a listen, you have my word, I'll
keep quiet."
I told him about the constitution and how it guarantied free speech, the right to bear
arms, and how people could profess this thing called religion as well as many other
things we were never taught.
Then I told how I turned him in for not conforming and now I know it was a big mistake.
"I'm responsible for my grandfather's death,
I killed him." "I never should have turned him in."
He laid back on the ground and stared off into space as if to be in a trance.
"Wow, I wish we had the ability to change it back to that."
"It's not your fault, you were just doing what you were taught."
"What if I told you that it could be a real possibility."
He sat up slowly and looked at me silently for a bit. For a moment there, I could see it
in his eyes. He was a different person for that time, as if to say he would die for this
country. He would die for the freedom of many.
It was then that I knew I made the right choice.
As requested, here's part 4.
As Jerry and I were going through the crates in the newly discovered cavern, we came
across some more paperwork.
"Hey Jerry, look, lets see what this is."
"It doesn't look like any books, just papers." As we were looking through the papers we
came across some that said; The 54th militia freedom fighters. Among this, was a page
that had network membership written on it as well as a list of names.
"Hmmm, I wonder if any of these people are still around." "Well, this is a very old list,
most of these people, if there still alive would be too old to do anything."
"My cousin has class 2 clearance and is a survellance moniter, he has his own security
cubicle at his home."
"The last few times I have been there, he seemed to be alittle laxed on his cubicle
security." "I'll just have to start spending more time visiting him and when he uses the
bathroom or something, I'll access these names and check." "Are you kidding me Jerry?"
"If he does a log check, then you will never see the light of day!" "Don't worry, he
never does a log check, he won't know we accessed it." "I don't know, it sounds pretty
risky to me."
"Well, let me at least try."
The next two days were un-nerving, I haven't seen or heard from Jerry. Just as I was
about write him off as the first casualty, he arrived. He seemed very excited. "Lets go
for a walk." Which he then grabbed my shirt and about jerked it off of me pulling me out
of the door.
As we got out of view of the house, he began to tell me what was on his mind. "Some
of them are still alive!" "Alright!" I chimed. "Many of them died shortly after they were
incarcerated, but some still reside and one of them is only 20 km away!" "I'm not
finished accessing, so I'll have to go back and finish." "Good, While you were gone, I
read the rest of that paperwork." "There is a map with locations marked on it." "Also,
when we talk to these people, so they know we are for real we have to say this
sentance, Freedom through 54, It's sort of a password I guess." The next day we
devised a plan so we could convince the check points that we had business being in
the area were this man lived. Jerry would go to his cousin's, forge some bogus
paperwork and enter region clearance to that zone.
"Give me your paperwork and state your business in this zone!" groaned the agent at
the checkpoint. "We are doing a seimic study on this region for geology class." He
peered in the car and looked at our equipment, "Hold on, I'll have to log this in and
verify it." Jerry looked at me as if to say, I hope this works. "Carry on!" Said the agent.
"Phew!" What a relief that was. Shortly after we got out of site from the checkpoint,
Jerry suddenly turned pale, He opened the window and preceded to throw up. "Are you
alright!" "Yes, I didn't think we were going to make it through that checkpoint." "I can
see this is going to be long and hard."
We pulled up to the address that Jerry got from the computer. There weren't too many
houses near, and the place didn't look well taken care of. We looked at each other for
what seemed to be an eternity. My hands were sweaty and I had a lump in my throat.
"Come on Jerry, lets just do it." We knocked on the door and waited for a bit. A few
minutes later, this old man opened the door. He appeared to be in poor health and had
several scares on his face. In a shaky voice he said, "What do you want!" I just looked
at him dumbfounded and lost for words. "Well, what, who are you!" "Oh,um sorry, Uh
free, Uh, freedom through 54." Upon hearing that, he got very still and his eyes turned
glassy as though he was in another world. "Um, is this a bad time?" "If not, we'll leave."
He just stood there in silence. "Lets go Jerry." As we turned to leave, he hollered,
"WAIT!"
"Come with me." He led us to this place in the woods, his movements were slow,
stopping to catch his breath now and then. When we stopped, he sat down on a rock
and began to cry. "I thought I'd never live to see this day." Sobbing as he continued.
"We lost our freedom years ago through a tyrant government." "First it was our guns,
then when they stripped us of our only defense, They stole our integrity and moral
values." "It was terrible they..." "I know", I interupted, "They killed my grandfather."
"Who was your grandfather?" I told him, and he was in great disbelief. "Your
grandfather was a great man, he was my commander in the 54th militia."
"How did you find me?" "Well" I began, I told him everything. About how I turned my
grandfather in and how I later found the cache with books which I soon realized the
mistake I made and how I wanted to change things and make a differance. "Boys, I'm
just too old to help you much, but I have something that can." He stood up, "Move this
rock for me." We grabbed some dead branches and used them to move the rock. It was
another cache, only this time many of the crates had 'DANGER HIGH EXPLOSIVES'
written on them. He hobbled over to a crate and had us pryed it open. Inside were
some books on how to handle explosives along with more books on how to make bombs.
He pointed to some crates and said "Those ones contain all the hardware you need to
assemble many types of bombs, they contain the casings, timers, and other triggering
devices." I pointed at some that had 'HAND GRENADES" written on it and asked him
what a hand grenade was.
We opened it and he showed them to us and explained how to use them.
We closed the place back up and the old man lectured us on how we need to recruit
and network in order to have an efficient uprising. He gave us some brief lessons to
help us. Looking at my watch, I noticed it was time to leave, it was getting close to
our time allowance in this region. "I'm sorry, But we have to go." We need to get to the
checkpoint before 5:00." He understood and we went back to the house. I told him
when we get more people together, we will be back to get what we need. As we were
leaving, the old man said " What ever you do, don't hurt or kill our own, because if you
do, you will be an offence against the true cause of freedom and you will be just like
them." He then smiled at us and waved goodbye. A few weeks later, Jerry invited me
over to meet his cousin. "That doesn't sound too good to me." I told him. "Don't worry,
I'm done accessing his computer until we need to forge something."
I went with him and met his cousin. He seemed a bit nice for a security monitor. Later,
as we sat down for something to eat, Mark spoke up. "You think I don't know what you
guys are doing, do you?" "What do you mean." Jerry said. "I know you've been in my
system accessing things and falsifying documents for the two of you." I knew this
would happen, it was over before it began. My life is over, there will definitly be no
freedom now. He then preceded to tell us, "However, lately I have been second
guessing the way society is and I find myself disagreeing with the direction we are
heading." "It's not right, My clearance allows me to view the old laws for review and I
find myself agreeing with the old ways."
"What does that have to do with us", I said.
"Those people's files that were accessed were all investigated at one time or another
for not conforming." "I want you to know that I nearly turned you in but I decided not
to."
"Instead, I decided to help you." "It won't be much, but it will help."
"Like how?" "Well, believe it or not, I already have." "In the area were we thought your
grandfather buried some arms, we have been picking up some unnatural seismic
activity." I was suppose to order some sensors to be placed out there to triangulate
the source." "It had the characteristics of small arms fire in an enclosed location." "I
put two and two together and instead, logged an order stating that it was as sensor
malfunction." Then I ordered the sensors to be shut down as it was an inactive area
and they were no longer needed." "You boys just do what you feel is right and I don't
want to hear about it." "If you need to access the system,... you must have done it
while I was away from my station." He then winked at us and wished us a safe trip
home. It was a quiet trip home, but we knew that things were beginning to come
together.
Someones
Addition
If you don't mind me horning-in a bit, here's my addition to the evolving Saga of Coffin
Rock:
Agent's Lament
"What I wouldn't give", thought Ben Turner, "for a few drops of honest-to-goodness
milk!" Deciding against the "Neo-Milk, non-dairy, cruelty-free, drink whitener", he
topped-off his coffee mug and headed to his cubicle. After the first couple of gulps, his
caffeine-withdrawal headache started to ease. He was racking up a lot of overtime
lately, and his coffee consumption was approaching near-addict levels. "Maybe they
were right when they tried to ban this sh*t", he mused.
As he turned the corner into the Records Section, he nodded to a couple of young
clerks already diligently tapping on their keyboards. "Real eager beavers." Most of these
kids were good for a few months, until they realized that the drudgery of this work
never subsided. Occasionally, VERY occasionally, someone would quit when they
suddenly developed a conscience, but these instances were few and far between. Most
simply left for less-boring jobs. Ben would have left, too, if it was even remotely
practical.
At 42, the Federal Employment Bureau had him pigeon-holed so tightly that any
thoughts of changing jobs were a pipe-dream. There were always opportunities in the
"off-record" economy that operated at the fringes of society. If he were alone, it would
be doable. But with Jean and the two kids, he just had to grind out each day and hope
it didn't get any worse. With the caffeine finally kicking-in full force, he picked up the
next folder from the pile and began entering the information
Case #, 2043-1188. Subject, Yeager, Allan M.. DOB, 10-19-80. State of Residence,
California. Population Zone, 4A. Charge, violation of the National Childrens' Violence
Prevention Act, to whit, Possession of a Weapon. Disposition of Charge, N/A, violator
terminally sanctioned during on-site investigation. "It would be a lot shorter if I could
just type "Whacked the uncooperative S.O.B"", Turner thought. Materials seized,
BLANK? "Guess the field teams are getting sloppy with their paperwork, again." He
looked through the folder for the reporting agent's narrative.
"Let's see what we've got in here." He flipped through yellowing photocopies of CA DOJ
DROS forms, old ATF 4473's, receipts of registration, then finally found the lead agent's
hand -written report and started scanning through for the information he needed.
"Confidential informant", "search and seizure warrant issued", "executed said warrant at
0430 hrs, PST", "subject moved in a suspicious manner", Blah, Blah, Blah. He still didn't
see the information he needed, so he left the field blank on the monitor and tried to
save the report. "Error: Mandatory field is invalid or empty!" shouted his computer
screen. Cr@p! Apparently the new report software wouldn't let him "fudge" the field.
For a moment, he thought he'd just make up info for the report. Then he remembered
that his section was due for an "efficiency audit" that quarter. The auditors sometimes
put "baited" reports in the information stream to trip up the data entry people, so he
opted to stay on the good side of the "weenies" and find the info in the report.
"On 30 August, Intelligence Section received information from a confidential informant
concerning a violation of the National Childrens' Violence Prevention Act (aka
Schumer-Clinton Act), to whit, Possession of a Weapon. Information was deemed
credible and presented to the Office of Chief Administrator (hereinafter, OCA) for the
subject population zone. OCA issued search and seizure warrant #50-04-198766, with
endorsement for pre-approved use of deadly force, to search subject residence for any
illegal materiel. Warrant Team Echo, of the San Fransisco field-office, executed said
warrant at 871 Malvern Road, City of Hayward, a detached, semi-mobile dwelling unit
registered to subject Yeager, Allan M, ID# 80-1-9578536-PD3/V1. Agents entered the
subject residence at 0430 hrs, PST. Upon entering the residence, agents came upon
the warrant subject in the front room of the home. Subject moved in a suspicious
manner, to whit subject was reaching behind his back. To protect themselves, agents
of Warrant Team Echo fired at the subject, striking subject multiple times in the head
and chest area. Subject pronounced dead at scene. Search of the residence was
inconclusive. No weapons recovered."
"What that's just phucking wonderful," Turner groaned to himself, "What the h*ll do I
put in the report."
He flipped through the rest of the packet and found the after-action photos. The trailer
had really been trashed. The paneling and all the insulation from the walls had been
ripped out and thrown in the yard. The ceiling had been pulled down, the floor torn up…
Hell, even the toilet had been ripped out and smashed to pieces. That's when he
noticed it. Just visible in the corner of one of the photographs, it sat. A wheelchair,
half collapsed by the pile of debris in the yard. A wheelchair with at least three 10
mm-sized holes in the fabric of the back-rest. A g*dd@mned wheelchair! He looked
back at the report. It hadn't struck him before, but the poor SOB's ID number clearly
indicated he had a Level Three Physical Disability and Level One Visual Disability! Mighty
Warrant Team Echo had whacked a nearly-blind quadriplegic!
He held up the picture again. Hanging from one of the handles behind the wheelchair
was one of those cheap, disposable flashlights. Now the sequence of events unfolded
in Turner's mind. The Warrant Team had executed the warrant in the pre-dawn
darkness, wearing the NV gear. The poor slob in the trailer was just trying to get a light
on whoever was breaking in his house! Turner didn't want to believe the WT Echo had
been that callous and brutal. Years ago, when Turner was still in the good graces of
the Enforcement Section, he had mentored the youngster who was now Echo's Team
Leader.
Turner felt himself sick at his stomach as he wondered, "How in the H#ll, did we come
to this?"