Stephen Devlin bounced playfully up and down on the balls of his feet as he held firmly onto Jonah's ankles. Jonah, perched gleefully on Devlin's shoulders, managed to keep a lock-grip on his father's thinning hair, at the same time determinedly holding on to his precious string of balloons. Jonah's high-pitched laughter mingled with the raucous shouts and cheering of the crowd, and was swallowed up in the general tumult which surrounded the 4th Annual St. Mary's Takeback Day Memorial Parade.

As the marching band fielded by the New Free Congregationalist Church approached, many of the revellers joined in the strains of Spielberger's inspirational anthem, "Renewed Republic," and the remaining on-lookers, except for the very youngest, became respectfully quiet.

"Dad, it's the national anthem," whispered Jonah in his father's ear. Pride welled within Stephen Devlin as he sang along with the crowd, and he nodded his head to his son.

Devlin marvelled at the way his four year-old son's young mind absorbed things. Jonah could tell you that President J. Mathias "Matty" Reid's first name was Jubal, and that he hailed from Sleetmute, Alaska where he had built himself a tidy flying and charter service before the Takeback. Jonah knew all about the fact that Matty Reid had earned a local reputation in Alaska as a leader and a scholar, dispensing historical and political knowledge, grown arcane by omission in twentieth-century America.

Jonah knew too, all about Simon Parker and the Parkerites, and how Simon and his brother Percy had been slain, along with their entire families, by an army of special agents when they had refused to surrender their homes and their ideals to the enforcement arm of the Treasury Department and its minions. The iconoclastic Parker brothers and their followers had sprung from the same barren Utah soil on which the Mormons had sought refuge from their persecutors generations before.

The whole story nearly remained untold, receiving no coverage by NBCBSInc or the ABCFOX networks, nor was the incident officially acknowledged by any state or federal government agency or spokesperson. What started as a trickle of shocking rumours between acquaintances on-line, in posts and in e-mails, was eventually substantiated by amateur reporters smuggling videos and eyewitness accounts from the scene and distributing them all over the internet, to the dismay and the denials of the administration.

Devlin had struggled to explain to Jonah why the old government had exerted such brutal tactics in its strategy of control and domination. He was somewhat at loss to explain to the innocent minded youth the meaning of power, corruption, and the self-perpetuating machinations which inevitably followed in their wake.

"Jonah, you know how Damien Hubbell made the other kids in the neighborhood give him their ice cream money, ....and how they gave him their money because they were afraid that they would be the next one beaten up by Damien and his friends?," Devlin asked as they walked home.

Jonah instantly grasped the analogy his father was attempting to convey, remembering all too keenly the bloody lip he had suffered at the hands of Damien and his band of roughnecks.

"And you remember what happened when the neighbors shamed Damien's father into facing his parental negligence, ....and how he finally gave Damien the severe strapping which he so desperately needed?"

"Like the Takeback!" exclaimed Jonah. "When Matty and the people crushed the black-coats at Waco Ridge, ....they stopped being bad!"

"That's right, son," Devlin said, as the pair walked past the massive edifice that was once St. Mary's Municipal Building. Now the home of the Amarantha Foundation, a benevolent organization entirely funded by unsolicited donations and dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of the history and heritage of the U.S. Constitution, the imposing and ornately carved stone building was donated by the people immediately following the Takeback.

"Matty would never lie to us, ....would he Daddie?" asked Jonah, his little features fraught with genuine concern at the notion. "Matty would never send the black-coats here, ....would he?"

"Don't you worry son," said Devlin, rubbing Jonah's head affectionately, "not as long as everyone remembers the lessons of the past and the dangers which face an uneducated people."

Jonah thought of the rich brown antique gun cabinet at home that his father had been given, by his father. Since his toddling days, Jonah had tried to open the locked door to touch the long curious sticks behind the glass window.

"Dad, Matty won't be bad because he knows the people won't let him!" Jonah exclaimed. "Just like Damien knows his father will belt him if he steals and bullies again, right?"

Little Jonah felt a gripping surge of responsibility, thinking of his father's promise to teach him about the guns when he became old enough, and at the realization that someday, he would be a part of what the teachings called a well regulated militia, entrusted with the safe-guarding of a free state.

"Dad," Jonah asked, "God was helping the people at Waco Ridge, ....wasn't He?"

Devlin still got goosebumps thinking of Waco Ridge, where thousands of fed up and irate, every-day people migrated, spontaneously and en mass , to the aid of the "American Preservationists," an association of God-fearing and freedom loving members, dedicated to the restoration of a law-abiding and honest government-of-consent. In an attempt to quell the font of damning information welling from the association's enclave in Waco Ridge, black-coats had encountered an armed and determined resistance which they had not counted on. As the administration frantically amassed more black-coats and heavier firepower to the scene, the alarm had gone out over the internet, ....in spite of the official news blackout.

Following the outrage engendered by the Parkerite debacle, subtle changes had occurred in the collective mind-set of the people. With the realization that a soulless, out-of-control, criminal government was no longer even concerned with maintaining the appearance of legitimacy, vast numbers of heretofore disinterested citizens had quietly armed themselves, as much from the fear that government was no longer able to protect them from crime, as from the fear of the criminal government itself.

As the situation at Waco Ridge came to a head, thousands of informed citizens calmly passed through roadblock after roadblock in battered Chevy pick-ups and road-weary Cadillacs, rendering the blockades impotent by earnestly but politely informing local law-enforcement officers that they would simply have to shoot them unless they were allowed to pass.

When 35,000 thousand impatient and steadfast citizens eventually surrounded the army of 475 black-coats and their small armada of tanks and troop-carriers at Waco Ridge, the administration desperately scrambled the local National Guard and hastily mobilized two divisions of artillery units from nearby Fort Powell.

But perhaps for the Hand of God, Waco Ridge might have been much worse ....As it was, a large portion of the black-coats was efficiently dispatched by thousands of passionately wielded Winchesters and Mossbergs, after an overzealous black-coat had started an ill-advised and futile fussilade towards the front ranks of the gathered people.

The two tanks on hand were initially problematic, taking a precious toll on the protesters with their huge-bore cannons and deadly rockets, until an unknown fuel-tanker driver named Philemon "Bucky" Wiggins, forever emblazoned himself in the pages of history. Bucky heroicly steered his fully loaded gasoline tanker-trailer down on the government tanks at 50 MPH, blind-siding the poorly positioned machines in a beautifully executed end-around kamikaze attack that lit up the dusk sky all the way to Taos.

"He said something about giving him liberty or giving him death," wailed Wiggin's distraught widow afterward. Jonah knew, as most every child now did, that Bucky Wiggins was known as "the Father of the Renewed Republic."

"Yes, son," said Devlin, "God did help the people at Waco Ridge, ....and always thank Him for it whenever you say your prayers."

Indeed, Divine intervention seemed evident when the big military might arrived too late at Waco Ridge, only to find the victorious but sober people's militia, cleaning up the carnage wrought by the momentous battle.

Matty Reid had arrived during the confrontation, and had assumed a leadership role by popular demand. Following a brief unsuccessful negotiation in which the military commander on the scene demanded an unconditional surrender of all the arms held by the people, more bloodshed appeared inevitable.

As orders from above came down to eliminate the impromptu militia using all available means, it became obvious in the ranks that the foot soldiers were unwilling to execute their orders. Some of the soldiers had fathers and mothers, and sisters and uncles among the determined militia ....no, they would not fire upon these people, ....they could not fire upon these people.

As the commander and his captains screamed out orders to kill, a handful of soldiers began shooting at the people, but just as quickly, a handful of their own comrades shot them. It was over as suddenly as it had begun. The screaming commandant himself was shot, and the mass of soldiers broke ranks and jubilantly and tearfully joined their countrymen and family members.

Across the land, the news spread like wild fire. In every locale and government center, black-coats were offered amnesty, ...and most took it. Very few others chose to die in an inglorious blaze of misplaced narcissism, however in the face of the wrath and enmity of tens of millions of free citizens, the old goverment quickly and quietly fell.

"Dad, when we get home, will you teach me how to shoot?"