A state of disobedience

The sneer never left the soldier's face. 'That's what you want, eh, Mr. Forsythe? You should be careful what you ask for.'

Turning to the sergeant major the general ordered, 'Top, bring me a loudspeaker, would you?'

* * *

Even over the singing coming from behind her, Juani's heart skipped a beat when she heard the order coming over the loudspeaker, 'First Squadron, Seventh Cavalry: one magazine, lock.' The general was careful not to use the word 'load.'

* * *

Schmidt and Nagy both began to pull her back, even as the crowd behind them recoiled from the threat.

'No,' she said with a calm she did not feel. 'No, we go on,' with determination.

Exchanging glances, Schmidt and Nagy tacitly agreed: If she's got the balls to go on . . . then so do we.

* * *

The sergeant major watched, horrified, as the general gave commands over the loudspeaker. Boss, this isn't balls. This is bullshit.

Unperturbed, the general continued, 'Now I want you to aim for the women and the children first, boys. Extra points and a four day pass for drilling a mother carrying a baby. Don't sweat it, boys. Mr. Forsythe here, from the White House, says it's just 'okay.' He says if we don't shoot down these 'rioters,' we'll all go to Leavenworth for the long course.'

Tilting his head to one side, the sergeant major asked silently, Are you trying to start a mutiny? The old soldier's eyes widened, By God, you are.

* * *

Spec Four Franklin Washington had seen and heard enough. He'd also had just about enough, too. Standing there on Eleventh Street, with a rifle in his hands, a bayonet on the end of it, a magazine seated firmly in the well; facing a crowd that looked no different and no more threatening than a crowd at a beach; for a government and a cause he neither understood nor very much liked—Washington had indeed had just about enough.

The crowd had reached the intersection and begun to spread out and around the street-wide line of arm-linked men and women. They were close enough for Washington to make out faces easily. There was a familiar one, right there in the center; the Texan Governor.

But that face wasn't the problem. It was all the others—those many, many others—that looked no different from folks back home.

How could he, Franklin Washington, ever go home to Alabama and tell his folks that he had shot at people that seemed so much the same? Bayoneted and clubbed them?

The simple answer was: he couldn't.

So while better than half the officers and men on that line were thinking much the same thing, it was left to a young black man of no great station in life to state the popular feeling first.

'Fuck this shit,' said Franklin Washington, tossing his rifle on the ground. 'I ain't a-gonna play anymore.'

* * *

At the sound of not one, but hundreds of rifles being dropped and thrown to the ground, the general turned a beaming smile on Forsythe. 'Did you hear that, sir? That sound? Why here I have given orders for my men to put down this 'riot' . . . and guess what? They didn't listen.

'The sound you've just heard, Mr. Forsythe, was the breaking of your government in Washington. I suggest you run, sir. To Canada, perhaps, because no place in the United—or even perhaps disunited—States is going to be quite safe for you.

'And—to quote that young man down on the street—'We ain't a-gonna play anymore.' '

The general turned from a shocked Commissioner Forsythe and said into the microphone for his loudspeaker, 'First Squadron, Seventh Cavalry: on your feet and face this way. Pick up your rifles, boys. Now let's escort the Governor of Texas back to her job.'

Interlude:

From: The End of the Dream: Reconstruction in

Post-Rottemeyer America by Patrick T. Hamilton

Copyright 2051, Baen Historical Publishing

The end, when it came, came suddenly.

With the Marines and soldiers to the west in rebellion against federal authority, with the main force, the Army's Third Corps having turned, it was a matter of hours before the Eighteenth Airborne Corps and 2^nd Marine Division likewise pointed poignant fingers in Washington's direction. Even the Navy, shadowing the Texas coast, refused to continue the blockade imposed by President Rottemeyer.

At that point the federals could count on nothing but their own law enforcement agencies, already badly depleted and demoralized, and the states' National Guards.

The states' National Guards were, of course, under the authority first and foremost of the state governors. These came from states of two different classes: northern and western urbanized states where the National Guards suffered a considerable degree of both unpopularity and benign neglect, and southern and rural states where the guard remained rather popular.

Thus, when California mobilized its National Guard in response to a presidential demand, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado did the same in response to California. Unlike California, however—which merely sat there, once those other National Guards were reinforced by the 1^st Marine Division, they advanced