Liberty or Death by Kate Flora Page B

fish-and-game inspectors, their forest wardens, their park rangers up here to tell people where and when they could hunt and fish and hike and cut some firewood and snowmobile. These were all things they'd done perfectly well their whole lives without no government busybody telling 'em when, where, and how.
    "Goddamn government wants to tell us what color we can paint our houses."
    "They want us to register our guns. You know why? So they know who has 'em. Then when the New World Order comes, they can take our guns away. Gun control is just the first step."
    "I heard they've got a big stockade up to the Limerock Air-force Base. That's the first place they'll take people."
    If I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times. "Well, I've got my gun. Let 'em come up here and try to tell me what to do. I know my rights. My constitutional rights. When the government begins to betray the Constitution, it's up to all of us—the constitutional militia—to take matters into our own hands." It scraped on my nerves until I felt raw.
    All right. Jack Leonard had tried to tell me, coldly and pedantically, but he'd tried. "Believe me, Thea. You have no idea what you're getting into."
    I hadn't. I've always hated to admit it when someone else is right. I've grown up and matured and gotten better at it. I'm striving for wisdom and balance. I can listen openly and fairly to the other side of an argument. Even though Andre still accuses me of being pigheaded and stubborn and too sure I'm right, I'm more balanced. Able to consider the other guy's point of view. But these other guys' points of view, considered or not, scared me to death.
    Any second I was going to drop a hot plate of food onto some poor, hungry, gun-toting customer. I had to get away for a minute and get a grip on myself. As I hurried through the kitchen, I called to Clyde. "I'll be right back. I've got to get some air."
    Even the back porch was too bright. I needed the darkness. Someplace that wouldn't assault my senses. Someplace away from all the noise and commotion. They were only words but it seemed to me that the dining room was full of bright swords, slashing through the air, pricking me a million times. I did not bleed. What flowed out was my energy and hope. My head was bursting with the things I'd heard; my heart gripped with fear for Andre, for myself, for all of us. For where this thing was heading. I was the last person who should have been surprised to discover that the world was going to hell. I'd seen man's inhumanity to man up close and personal. But I suffered from persistent naïveté. Fool that I am, I had come here believing I could help.
    I leaned against my car. The metal, still faintly warm from the sun, seemed to be trying to comfort me. I closed my eyes and fought against my rising fear and despair. For the third time, I felt Clyde's butterfly touch between my shoulder blades.
    "Dora, you okay?" he asked. In the cool air, his body gave off waves of heat. I wanted to hurl myself against his broad chest and wail. But I didn't win all those Miss Independence awards for nothing. Needing people is a step down the slippery slope. I only needed one person. The one I couldn't have.
    "I'm fine." F.I.N.E. F ucked up. I nsecure. N eurotic. E motional. I was fine.
    "Here." He pressed an icy glass into my hand. Ginger ale. The universal tonic for the ailing. "Take your time. World won't end if people have to wait a minute for their dinners." And he was gone. It was eerie. He moved so quietly for such a big man.
    I leaned against the car, sipped ginger ale, and stared up at the stars. As a child, I must have read too many novels. I still had a highly fictional view of the world. At work I was a cold-hearted realist, but in my own life, I was still a romantic. I hoped for happy endings and riding off into the sunset. Out here, with the soft darkness and the twinkling stars, the backdrop of murmuring voices, the clinking sounds of people enjoying their food, it