Only by Blood and Suffering: Regaining Lost Freedom

by LaVoy Finicum

  Inside the tactical vest, on both sides, there were zip pouches. Each pouch held three more, 30-round magazines with another hundred rounds of .223 ammo still boxed. When taking into account that my 30-round magazines were loaded with only 28 rounds each, I was packing 560 rounds for my AR. It was considerable weight but there were too many unknowns ahead and being prepared was a trait that was deeply woven into all that I did.

  Along with the ammo, I had enough energy bars for two days. To my back, the tactical vest held a gallon of water in a bladder pack. It was water that most people cut themselves too short on. When a man started to fight, to push himself physically, he could soon become dehydrated.

  I waited, and the eastern sky began to grow bright. I looked through my scope down at the dirt road. I did not have my night vision scope attached to my rifle but it was light enough that I could see the cross-hairs through my regular scope. Another 15 minutes passed before I heard the rumble of the approaching cattle trucks.

  There were two, actually, three things that I wanted to accomplish. First, I wanted to slow them so that when they launched their attack the sun would have risen high enough to be out of the eyes of our defenders. Secondly, I desperately wanted to take out the DHS agent, the lieutenant Zackary Williams had left to run this operation. Third, well, I did not want to think about the third.

  Each of his lieutenants were seasoned warriors with proven abilities to lead. This lieutenant was the one who had organized and trained the men from Long Valley and he would be the one to hold them together.

  The rumbling grew louder and the trucks drew into sight. There were two old one-ton cattle trucks with Omaha beds. These were the trucks ranchers had hauled their cattle in a generation ago. The cabs were rounded and rusty. Behind the cabs, the trucks had flatbeds that were enclosed by old wooden sidewalls. I could not see them but behind those wooden walls would be men. If the men were packed in standing up, both trucks could have fifty or more men in each. I wished all I had to do was to start shooting through the old wooden sides, with each shot inflicting multiple causalities. I knew that was foolish thinking because the lieutenant was no fool.

  The trucks whined and moaned under the strain of a heavy load. Inside of the wood walls of the cattle truck it would be reinforced with sand bags or something else that would defeat the bullets of my AR or any deer rifle. I wished I had a fifty-cal but I did not. I did have a magazine loaded with steel core penetrators and that magazine was in my gun.

  I opened fire, putting rounds through the engine hoods and radiators of both trucks. I was shooting with the sound suppressor on my rifle and the greatest noise was the ping of the bullets punching holes through the tin of the engine hoods.

  The trucks ground to a halt and all became still with nothing moving. I waited. Then there was a shrill blast from a whistle followed by an eruption of men from the first truck. It was like smacking a wasp nest. Moving fast, men spilled over every side of the wooded cattle racks of the first truck.

  I was shooting fast and they were moving fast. A second, but deeper sounding, blast from a whistle pierced the early morning air again. All of the men from the first truck went to ground. They opened fire on any dark spot on my hillside as the second truck spewed men. The men had been supplied with M-4 rifles. Similar to my AR, they could shoot a single shot for each pull of the trigger, or with a flip of a switch, each trigger pull would release a three-round burst of fire.

  Their guns were set for three round bursts and they were shooting without sound suppressors. The canyon reverberated with the noise of the gun fire and I could hear the buzzing of bullets everywhere.

  The first whistle sounded again and all the men that had been firing rose up and charged the hill in a four-second sprint. The second group of men went to ground and took up the firing like the first group had done.

  I did not cease to fire and the skill that was developed over a lifetime of shooting at game on the run paid off. Men were dropping and I was on my second magazine but they were closing fast as they kept repeating the four-second charges.

  With heart pumping and adrenalin flowing, I had failed to see the white SUV of the lieutenant pull up behind the last cattle truck. It had arrived with a horse trailer in tow and had stopped forty yards behind the cattle truck. The men that had been in the horse trailer were already out and on the run up the ridge. They were being led by the DHS agent in a flanking maneuver. At more than two hundred yards out and in low light, they made poor targets as they ran between the trees. I got off three shots before they gained the top of the ridge. They were all misses.

  Another whistle sound, another charge, men above me and behind me, I needed to move. I shot twice more and the action of my rifle locked back with the firing of the last bullet in my magazine, my second magazine.

  I dropped the empty magazine in the pouch on my left thigh and slammed a fresh magazine home. My left thumb pushed the slide release and the rifle’s action sprang forward, charging the gun with a live round. The small ravine I had been laying in was my backdoor and it would be closing fast. I must gain the top before the flankers reached me.

  Crab crawling as fast as I could, I went up the ravine. At the top of the ridge I was exposed for a moment and something tugged at the top of my shoulder. I did not pause but rose and sprinted for a group of pinions to my left. From the corner of my right eye I saw the movement of the flankers. Someone called out and gunfire sounded. Taking a slide like a baseball player, I went under the limbs of a bushy pinion tree. Rolling to my belly, I pushed my rifle forward and up to my cheek. My cross-hairs found a man that had gone to a knee and was bringing his gun to bear upon me. I pulled my trigger twice and the man pitched forward onto his face. I could hear bullets cutting through the limbs above me. Two more shots at a moving man and I rolled behind the tree.

  The trees were thick here and provided concealment but little cover. Men from the cattle truck were topping the ridge and that put hostiles to my front and left. The DHS agent was expending men but he had men to lose and knew what he was doing. In another moment he would have me pinned down. I rose to my feet and sprinted again. The DHS agent was trying to catch me in a pincer movement and it was closing in on me fast.

  I was glad the trees were thick. Still, they were burning ammo, shooting randomly through the trees in my direction. I could hear the buzz of bullets all around me as I ran. I continued going left, staying to the higher ground. Fifteen yards ahead of me a clearing in the trees appeared. The last tree before the clearing was a scraggly cedar, not much taller than me and I grabbed the thin trunk as I passed. This spun me behind the tree and I went to a knee. I had covered about 160 yards in my sprint and my lungs were burning as I sucked for air. My gun was up again and I laid the barrel against the tree trunk, and with my left hand, held both the trunk and the rifle barrel. With my chest heaving, I was trying to steady my aim.

  The DHS agent had kept his men on the run as they followed after me but they had not traveled as fast as I had. I had gained some ground. All I could see were flashes of men passing through the trees sixty yards back. At the head of them, a young man appeared between the trees. He had young legs and a recklessness to him that had carried him ahead of the rest. I did not hesitate and my aim was true. He spilled forward into the sand and brush. Then without aiming, I sprayed the remaining bullets in my magazine randomly into the trees as fast as I could pull the trigger. I needed them ducking their heads for just a moment. As the action locked back with the last bullet, I turned and sprinted across the clearing.

  Most of the men in Long Valley had been hunters before the gun control laws and they could shoot. To the next group of trees it was forty yards and I had covered all but five when I heard gunfire again. I could see several puffs of dust in front of me then something clipped my boot heel and I tripped. Tucking my head, I rolled head first and came up on my knees. I could feel wet on my back and it was running down to my waist. The trees were in front of me with a windblown hollow at the base o
f the closest tree and I dove into it. My mind was racing, was I shot in the back? I could move and I did. The eddy of the wind that had made this hollow had deposited the sand in a low ridge that ran up to higher ground. I jumped out of the hollow and over the sand dune. The ridge gave me protection and I crawled upward till I was high enough to see over the trees into the clearing behind me. Here I dropped the empty magazine from my rifle and put in a fresh one, my fourth one.

  The men were just coming to the clearing below me. Most paused but two made a dash to cross it. I was panting hard and it was difficult for me to get a bead on them. It took too many shots but I dropped both before they crossed the clearing. No one else tried to cross; they either went to ground or took cover. None could be seen now. For a moment I had stopped their advance. I was buying time.

  I could feel the back of my pants that were now soaked wet. I felt no pain but I must be losing a lot of blood. I put my hand to my back and then drew it back in front of me. In bewilderment I looked at my hand. It was wet with water and not blood. It took a moment to click in my mind, but at last, it did. A bullet had passed through the side of my bladder pack of water without hitting me. Relief washed over me at the same time I felt thirsty.

  Keeping my eyes on the clearing, I put the hose of the bladder pack to my mouth and drew deeply. One, two, three long draws of water and then air. It was empty.

  “Jake,” I said to myself, “I’m glad it ain’t summer.”

  From the exertion, I was already sweating. Had it been summer, at this rate of physical expenditure, the risk of demise from dehydration would have competed with that of being shot.

  The early morning was growing lighter but the sun had not yet crested the eastern hills. It was light enough for me to make out dust rising above the trees beyond the clearing. Dust that gave away the position of men moving away, both to my left and my right. My neighbors were not letting up pressure on me. Two flanking parties were on the move. There was nothing to see to shoot at and I did not want to get caught in this jaw that was ever snatching at my heels, so I moved.

  Backing into the trees, I stood up and took off on a fast jog angling to my right this time. I wanted to head the flanking party on that side. As I went, I kept looking for the tell–tale sign of dust that would give me the location of the moving men.

  Five minutes, ten minutes, I kept going. Then there was some dust rising less than a hundred yards ahead. We were on a collision course. I drew down in a thick patch of oak and blended in. The trees behind the oak patch gave me a backdoor. Always a backdoor. I always looked for spots that gave me a way out and I must have the judgment to go through that door before it closed.

  At fifty yards the men started coming into view and there were a lot of them. With speed, swiftness, and sheer numbers they sought to cut me off. The men were spread out as they began to appear. I started shooting. They could not see me and this time they did not go to ground. They returned fire in my general direction as they sprinted forward.

  I fired as quickly as I could as the running men closed the short distance. No more time! I took off running. The movement caught their eyes and it was a foot race. I dodged in and out among the trees and they continued shooting on the run. Another shot rang out and a man screamed in agony. Someone had shot one of their own in the mayhem but they did not stop. The sound of shooting would bring the second party bending in this direction.

  “Damn!” How did that agent get them organized and trained so well in a months’ time? It was the young men with good wind and strong legs that pressed me hardest. I was glad that running had been a routine in my life but the young legs required me to dig deeper to keep up the pace.

  After an hour of running, shooting and running some more the sun rose and we were half way back to the ranch. Another hour passed of deadly hide-and-seek, shoot and run and the rim of the basin drew in sight, causing my pursuers to break off the attack.

  I crawled behind a rock in the shade of a tree and rested a moment. No more dust, no more sound of running men, no more gunfire. My mouth was dry and it was only morning. My eyes scanned the trees and brush. No movement. They must have reached the final staging position and were regrouping.

  Time passed and I looked at my watch, 8:42 a.m. I had slowed them some but not near what I wanted to. When this morning had started there were three things I wanted to accomplish, one, slow them down. Successful? Maybe. Two, take out the DHS agent. Failure. Three. I now thought about the third goal. Survive till night, and night was a long ways off.

  If we could hold them off till night, and if I could stay alive, my night optics would help even the odds. If I figured right, the only other person with night vision ability would be the agent.

  Several miles out I could see dust rising from the gathering of more men from the valley. I had been surprised at the efficiency of the operation of the force that was coming against us. As much as I felt that Zackary Williams and his lieutenants were evil men, I had respect for their abilities. The rumors that had filtered back to us over the years of what great things Zackary had done were clearly understated. These men were the elite of the elite.

  One more careful scan of the land before me and I slipped away from the rock, making my way to the north side of the ranch basin. I stayed to the thickets and out of view of any of our defensive emplacements. I did not want to get shot by friendly fire. I arrived at the foxhole I had previously prepared for myself. It was a hundred and twenty yards off from the north rim of the basin and provided a good field of fire. From here I could provide some outside support to this side of the basin.

  I had dug the foxhole out below a large slab of yellow sandstone that was shaded by a larger than normal pinion tree. The tree could be easily identified by those defending the basin. They knew that this is where I would be, if I was alive, and that I would not be re-entering the valley until this fight was through.

  I looked to the rim and thought of the ones who were in the emplacement closest to me. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and shook my head slowly. How did I give in and let my girls talk me into letting them man an emplacement. Dan had stood quietly behind them as all three of my daughters confronted me …

  “It’s not right. We won’t do it,” HayLee-H had demanded. “We stay back at the house while all the men fight at the rim. This is our home and we love it as you do. We all die someday, Dad, and there could be no better cause or place where we could lay down our lives. We are not married. We have no children to care for and no husband to fight in our place,” added KayLee-K.

  Dan had shrugged his shoulders. He had not been able to convince them to take up the defense at the house.

  Cat had jumped in, “Dad you can’t ask our neighbors to take up the first line of defense of our own place while we take a safer seat in the back.”

  As much as I did not want them there, I could not deny them. To do so would be to ask them to be less than I had raised them to be. I was proud of them and scared for them. Sandy had stood next to my girls and I knew that she had cast her lot with theirs.

  “I’ll be in there with them, Dad,” Dan had tried to reassure me. “With Sandy, we have a full team for an emplacement.”

  I jumped into the shaded foxhole, sat down and leaned back against the cool dirt. For a moment I took the indulgence of allowing myself to shut my eyes and rest–just for a moment. I could not keep my girls off the front line, but I made sure their emplacement was the one closest to my foxhole.

  I thought of how close I had come to not making it to this place. The heel of my boot was torn by a bullet and my bladder pack had been shot through. The men that had chased me had not been forced or driven, they were motivated. I thought of what Bill had said to me a few nights back—

  “They hate you, Jake,” he had said.

  What had I done to them? I had not robbed them, I had not assaulted them, nor had I threatened their wives or children. I, along with the rest of the ranchers, had given freely to them of our livestock in amounts t
hat we felt we could or were willing to do. We had feelings of compassion and concern for our neighbors that were suffering. But when we were no longer free to make those choices, when they claimed that our cattle now belonged to everyone, those feelings vanished. In a few hours, in overwhelming numbers, they would charge the muzzle of our guns while claiming patriotism and martyrdom. The ideal of Americanism had been twisted so as to become a mirror opposite.

  A moment longer of rest and I opened my eyes to look at my watch: 9:21 a.m. It was midmorning and I had already been going hard for six hours. I desired water and laughed at myself. For a person who always tried to be prepared and look ahead, I had failed to put extra water in my foxhole. A simple thing, a thing I would not have overlooked 99 times out of a 100, but this time I had. I was hungry and wanted to eat an energy bar but without water it would not be wise to do so.

  I had put my Winchester 270 deer rifle with two hundred rounds of ammo in the foxhole along with my range finder. I also had thought to put in my spotting scope and extra ammo for my AR but no water.

  Pulling myself up to my knees, I looked over the edge of the foxhole. The five minutes that I had closed my eyes were longer than I should have. I made a quick scan of the vicinity then, more thoroughly, my eyes re-studied the area. I saw nothing.

  In the distance, there was dust rising from what I guessed to be the remaining men coming up from the valley. No cattle trucks to move them now. They would be marching on foot. The dust cloud was five miles out and it would take an hour and a half to cover the distance.

  I set up my spotting scope and trained it on the area below the dust cloud. Between the openings of the trees I could see men walking as they moved along the dirt road on the back side of the bench. I looked at my watch again: 9:31 a.m. It would be 11:00 before they were all regrouped. Another thirty minutes to an hour before they would be in position to launch a strike against us. High noon.