by Jess Walter
In 1982, Julie had begun dabbling in astrology, and Keith was still playing in a rock-and-roll band when, one afternoon, Randy knocked on the door. He made some small talk and then got to the point. “You’re letting the devil into your lives,” he told Julie. He pointed upstairs to where Julie’s baby, Emily, was sleeping. “The devil might be up there right now, possessing Emily.”
Julie stopped him right there.
“Get out and don’t come back, Randy.” She was furious.
“It was your sister that sent me down,” Randy admitted on the way out. Vicki never said a word to Julie about it.
Julie, like everyone else, realized that the less they said the better. Vicki gave birth to Rachel in 1982, and once again babies were a safer subject of conversation. Despite their growing paranoia, Randy and Vicki were still great parents. And anyway, Julie rationalized, she wasn’t going to persuade people who believed God was talking to them. If they just let the arguments wind down, they’d last only as long as the red faces, and then they could move on to less flammable subjects.
By the early 1980s, Julie began a debate with herself that would last for years. She never once sat down with her sister and said, “What are you doing with your life?” She didn’t think Vicki wanted that conversation. And so she just let it pass, asking polite questions as the Weavers became more and more excited about heading for the mountains.
Forever, Julie and Keith would talk about whether anything could have been done or said. But at the time, even they weren’t sure how far out there Randy and Vicki Weaver were swinging.
THE BELIEFS REVEALED THEMSELVES SLYLY, one book, one tape, one conspiracy at a time. The Weavers came across the staples of radical right-wing thought, ideas that have been around for decades, in some cases longer, lurking just off the edge of the mainstream, a pattern of marginalization that in itself made the material more powerful because people value what they have to work to find. Like thousands of others, Randy and Vicki Weaver were not stumbling into rehashed ideas and hoaxes, but discovering great truths hidden away from the mainstream, ideas that did a much better job crafting a cohesive and universal explanation of the world than the media’s mainstream message. They slipped imperceptibly from Christians to conspiracists.
Few people who don’t follow conspiracy theories comprehend their attraction: they create a framework for understanding everything by tying coincidence and accident together. If every event is part of the fabric of the conspiracy, then everything must have a reason, a meaning. And so, when the same unlikely details from one mimeographed pamphlet show up on a tape or in a mail-order book, it comes not only as confirmation but as revelation: “Here it is again! The Illuminati!” For true believers, the conspiracies seem no more unlikely or illogical than other things that are considered truth.
The Weavers uncovered a conspiracy that began in America with the Masons, the kind of secret society the prophets warn about in the Bible, that buried its tentacles in the farthest reaches of government. (Nearly every president had been a Mason.) The tool for this conspiracy, they read, was the Illuminati, founded May 1, 1776, a secret society of socialists that led to the Council on Foreign Relations, and later, the Trilateral Commission—shadowy supergovernments that pulled the strings of every level of government and law enforcement. All of these groups, in turn, were controlled by evil, money-grubbing Jews. The Weavers bent biblical prophecy to fit their new beliefs, until Vicki and Randy and a few others in the Bible study could imagine the Beast, the many-tentacled, Satanic government spoken of in Revelation. Who wanted to pay taxes to the Beast?
Mail often brought a book, pamphlet, or tape from some obscure mail-order house. One day it was “Satan’s Angels Exposed,” a sort of clearinghouse for radical right-wing conspiracies connecting everyone from George Washington to Gandhi, with crude illustrations of white Christians being strung up during the great tribulation. Another day, it was comic books for the kids to read on the carpeted floor: Betrayed and Doublecross, comics about how the Jews had killed Jesus. In the back of one book would be an address for another small publishing house, and that day Vicki would walk across the front yard and drop a letter in the mailbox, requesting more. They listened to a half dozen tapes made by a conspiracist named John Todd, and Randy even arranged for Todd to visit Cedar Falls and speak in a half-empty banquet room at the Holiday Inn. They worked so hard to get Todd into town that Carolee felt bad for Vicki and baked a batch of rolls. But when she brought them over, she saw John Todd pacing in the Weavers’ living room, packing a gun, of all things. She told Vicki she didn’t like him or the people he attracted, and Vicki agreed, pointing at one person and saying, “Watch out for him. He’s a neo-Nazi.”
Christianity could be so passive. It was always about someone else, about the disciples, the community, loving thy neighbor. The Weavers saw a vibrant, dangerous world, a judgmental, vengeful God, and churches that lay down in front of evil and refused to do battle. For the Weavers and the Bible study group they had formed, religious experience was active, a trip of self-discovery and a heightened sense of their own place.
Of course, it came to them as a revelation, the place where all this had been leading. Combined with their new sense of self and of divine prophecy, combined with the visions, combined with the inescapable pattern of conspiracy and coincidence in their own lives, Randy and Vicki Weaver began to find it difficult to believe there could be any other chosen people but themselves.
RANDY SLEPT PEACEFULLY, a flak jacket and helmet beside his bed, the loaded gun still under his pillow. But during the day, there was much less peace. Work was becoming intolerable. The guys he supervised were slovenly and immoral, sneaking off to read dirty magazines when they should have been working. His bosses told him to quit preaching and passing out literature to the other factory workers, a few of whom turned and ran when they saw Randy coming. It was no secret that some people wanted him fired. Just as God had shown them, the pressure and suspicions of the world were coming to bear on them because they chose to follow the truth.
For instance, there was Shannon’s girlfriend, whose parents didn’t like the talk they were hearing. They called the Cedar Falls police department, whose detectives had already heard of “The Group,” as some locals called it, and police were quietly looking into whether the Weavers and their friends had formed a cult.
Randy knew someone was watching him, and he became convinced his telephone was tapped. The forces of evil were gathering. They had to hurry. One weekend, the Weavers visited an Amish community to learn how to live without modern conveniences and how to store food for long periods of time. Vicki began dehydrating fruits and vegetables and stacking them against the basement wall. They planned to have a root cellar in the mountains and to hunt wild game, because they knew that in three and a half years, there would be no grocery on the corner. In fact, there might not even be any corner left. Randy and Shannon had been collecting the weapons they would need to hunt and to defend themselves: 30.06 rifles, pump shotguns, and Mini-14 semiautomatic assault rifles. Randy bought about ten guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. At any given time, a half-dozen other people were preparing to go with the Weavers, including Vaughn and Shannon. And Randy seemed bent on warning everyone else in Iowa.
Pretty soon, the local newspaper heard about The Group. Dan Dundon, a reporter for the Waterloo Courier, sat down with Shannon Brasher and the Weavers in their living room in December 1982, turned on his tape recorder and, for the next hour or two, listened to stories of the Great Tribulation.
“The Bible teaches us,” Randy said, “that somewhere near, during the reign of the One World Leader, God will free the hands of Satan to wreak havoc with the peoples of the Earth.”
Dundon asked about the rumors that they were forming a cult, and the Weavers strongly denied it. There may be others going to the mountains, they said, but they weren’t trying to form any sort of group. “The ones who seek the truth will accept us, the ones who do not want the truth will
call us crazy,” he said. They called themselves Christian survivalists, and Randy and Shannon talked about the strategic home they would need and a plan for defending it. They talked about a “kill zone,” a 300-yard defensible space around the home.
When the story came out, the Weavers were upset. It didn’t calm the rumors floating around but ignited them. Vicki told friends that the reporter quoted every wild thing they said and ignored the fact that, at heart, they were still a quiet, wholesome family, good Christians just trying to find their way in the world. They denied saying anything about a “kill zone.” Since the Weavers wouldn’t allow themselves to be photographed, next to the story was a drawing of a Bible and two bullets.
“We’re servants,” Vicki said in the story. “And what the Lord tells us to do, we will do. He has told us we have to pull up our roots and leave. I don’t want to leave my home, but if we are obedient, then He will protect our children.”
THEIR FRIENDS WERE SLOWLY falling away. Shannon, who had moved in with the family, had gotten into a disagreement because Vicki and Randy made his girlfriend stay in a different room. It became clear Shannon wasn’t going with them. Another family that had considered going decided against it, too.
And Vaughn was starting to have doubts. His wife didn’t like the idea, and besides, he didn’t have the money to stockpile food and guns. Then, in February 1983, driving past a church he’d never seen before, the gunshop owner stopped his car, walked inside, sat down in a pew, and asked for God’s guidance. Seated next to him, his wife started crying. He talked to the pastor of the church and realized God was telling him not to go.
The Weavers didn’t push him. Randy said he would honor Vaughn’s own vision and that it wasn’t for him to judge. Vicki admitted that in her visions of the mountain, she didn’t see Vaughn anyway. The gunshop owner began going to the new church and accepted that the birth of Jesus meant people didn’t have to live the Old Testament law anymore. Like everyone else in the congregation, Vaughn came to believe that he was saved by grace, not by following the impossible law of the Old Testament.
Cedar Falls police officer Mike Roethler had come to the same conclusion. He still liked Randy, and they got together to talk, but Roethler could feel his friend moving in a different direction. Once, Randy leaned forward and told Roethler that Jews were the product of Satan. “What? Jesus was a Jew,” Roethler said. “How can you believe that?” Roethler kept witnessing at the old Sambo’s, but his message had changed. More and more, it seemed as if Randy and Vicki were alone.
In March of 1983, Carolee watched Randy and Vicki pound the “For Sale” sign into their front yard. Oh my, she thought, they’re really doing this. They held garage sales every weekend, Randy standing in the front yard with a Bible, selling everything that wasn’t coming to the mountains with them. A few weeks later, Carolee and Vicki sat out on the back swingset, motionless in the still summer air.
“You’re really going?” Carolee asked. Vicki was exhausted. She had lost fifteen pounds getting everything ready for the trip, taking care of the children, finding exactly enough clothes to last the three years before Jesus came back.
“How am I going to learn any more about God without you?” Carolee wondered.
Vicki told her to relax. Everything she needed to know was in the Bible. “The King James Version, not the standard version,” Vicki said. “God’s word doesn’t change.”
But the King James Bible, with all its “thees” and “foresakens,” was so hard for Carolee to understand. “It’s easier the other way,” she said.
“Not if you’re a true believer,” Vicki said. Before she left, she gave Carolee a King James Bible, with especially large type.
Carolee said she’d never pick it all up. Inside, she knew she just didn’t believe the same way the Weavers did, and to be truthful, she didn’t understand all this Illuminati and Freemason stuff.
Vicki swung slowly and looked over at her friend. “Write down every question you’ve got and I’ll try to answer them.”
They talked about the things the Weavers would need to survive, and Carolee admitted she was worried about them. How would they eat? Where would they work?
“I’ll see you again.” Carolee tried to sound hopeful, for herself as much as anything, but, as she often did these days, Vicki seemed distant.
“You know Carolee, for our beliefs we could be killed. For our beliefs.”
THEY TRADED THEIR CAR for an old moving truck, a long, blue grain truck with a tarp thrown over the top that they backed up against the front porch. Sammy—who was a sickly kid—fell off the truck as soon as they got it and broke his leg. So the children stayed with Carolee while Vicki and Randy loaded the truck. “We goin’ to da mou’tains,” little Sammy said, and it was all Carolee could do to keep from crying. Meanwhile, Randy and Vicki worked themselves ragged packing food, clothes, and a little bit of furniture. Mike Roethler came over and helped Randy push an old woodstove to the back of the truck. They loaded guns and ammunition, kerosene lamps, everything that a family heading west might have taken eighty years earlier.
They got $50,000 for their house and cleared $20,012. When Randy showed up to get his money and they tried to give him a check, he asked for cash. “This is just a piece of paper,” he said, holding the check. “It isn’t worth anything.” As he left, he said he was going to transfer the money into gold and silver.
The Sunday before they left, the Weavers drove to Fort Dodge for one more Sunday dinner. Lanny stood outside and barbecued steaks, and this time, there were no arguments.
Always the pragmatist, Vicki’s dad offered advice. “Gear down when you’re driving through the mountains.”
Randy promised he would.
In the kitchen, Vicki said they were going to find a place in Idaho or Montana where home schooling was legal. God would show them where.
Jeane was going over everything. Would they have enough fruit? Vegetables? Where would they stay on the way out? Did they have enough clothes?
“I’ve got enough clothes for three and a half years,” Vicki said. “That’s all we’ll need.”
Still, Julie didn’t talk about it with her sister. Maybe they needed to get out in the woods to settle down and return to reality. Surely there was nothing wrong with becoming less materialistic and more spiritual. “If it doesn’t work out, you can always come back,” she said.
Sammy, who was four, was excited for the adventure, hobbling around on his cast. But Sara seemed sad; she was seven and old enough to know what they were leaving behind—security and loved ones. Julie watched Rachel, who was still a toddler. You won’t know me, she thought, but I will always be your aunt.
David and Jeane were going on vacation, and so they said good-bye. David gave one more warning to Randy that he’d better take care of his family, and then Randy and Vicki headed back to Cedar Falls, to finish packing.
A few days later, they stopped by Fort Dodge again on their way out of town. Randy was driving the moving truck, and Vicki followed him in a pickup that pulled a trailer behind it. They eased off the interstate and parked in Lanny’s front yard. Randy climbed out of the moving truck in jeans and T-shirt with a cigarette pocket. Vicki got out of the pickup truck in one of the long denim skirts she’d taken to wearing. They stood on the porch with Lanny and Melanie, Keith and Julie.
Julie looked at the moving truck, loaded down with every possession they hadn’t sold or given away. It reminded her of the Okies moving west, of The Grapes of Wrath, and she couldn’t believe her smart, perfect sister had been reduced to this.
Julie hugged Randy and the kids, and they made their way to the caravan until only Julie, Lanny, and Vicki were left on the porch.
Vicki and Julie cried as they hugged, and Julie held her sister tight. “I’m just so afraid I’ll never see you again.”
“I’m never coming back,” Vicki said. “You’ll have to come see me.”
Julie cried harder and Vicki tried to comfort her. “Don’t wo
rry. We’ll see each other again.”
Vicki hugged her brother, Lanny, too. There never was so solid an Iowa farmer as Lanny Jordison, and he wasn’t one to listen to intuition, but as he and Julie watched their sister drive off, they both had the feeling they would never see her again.
FOUR
VICKI WEAVER WAS WORRIED. Here it was, the first of September, and they seemed no closer to their mountain sanctuary. Soon winter would come, choking off the mountain roads and making it too late to begin building anything at all. Jesus kept telling her to be patient, but it was trying. There was just so little time. God had made it known to Randy that they would find a place by the Feast of Trumpets, which fell on September 7. That didn’t seem likely now. All through Montana, Randy and Vicki had looked for undeveloped land, but it was $1,000 an acre and more, a price that didn’t even take into account that you’d have to drill for water on most of the property. They continued west across the Idaho border—checking the rearview mirrors to make sure they weren’t being followed—and found North Idaho more affordable. Land was promising around Wallace, an old mining town in the middle of the Panhandle. But every hillside in Idaho that looked like a good place to wait out the Great Tribulation was owned by the government and marked with National Forest Service signs. All this remote wilderness and none of it for the people. It was a chilling sign of what Vicki and Randy already believed. They rumbled farther west in the old moving truck, staying at motels with kitchenettes, where Vicki cooked soup and turkey dogs for the kids.
Finally, on September 1, 1983, after being on the road more than a week, the Weavers’ moving truck happened to roll up Idaho State Highway 95, past rangeland and thick forest, into the town of Bonners Ferry. They found a motel and began asking about land and the possibility of jobs. That first day, the Weavers met a nice family—three kids and a couple who seemed to share their apocalyptic beliefs. The children all played together, and the parents politely asked the family to dinner. Vicki wondered if perhaps God had delivered them after all.