The 2nd is Only the 1st

By TJ Hillman

Addresses the dangers of dictator like leadership and the value of our constitution. The strength of our nation is tested.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TJ Hillman
• Release date: May 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301553914

TJ Hillman

I live in Montana with my wife Donna and our Golden Retriever Riley.

Book preview

Years prior

Yellow Tail, Wyoming is kind of an idyllic small town, no crime to speak of and very little if any, political sparring, population 2200+/- and a pretty good balance of income/race/retirees etc. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s it was a booming town, there were gold prospectors blanketing the area, there were immense herds of Bison that had left their mark and large herds of cattle and sheep. At the peak population was over 30,000 then the gold petered out and the prospectors packed up and headed to the next hot spot. There was a railroad running through the town until about 1970 or so and in those times there were a significant number of bars and eateries as well as several very successful brothels. From the old photos it appears to have been what you would call a stereotypical western town, wood sidewalks and mud streets. Then the gold dried up, actually there was never a great deal to start with, the railroad folded up and stopped running through the area and progress hit Yellow Tail. Just in the last few years there has been a great increase in the number of vacationers that come out here to pan for gold. One way they have been panning is they get a barrel or tub of the tailings by the old mines in the area and take them down to the river. Once they have the tailings down at the river they use a small amount at a time and pan the gold out at their leisure, often sitting in a folding chair right in the river. With gold prices over $1500 per ounce there are some people that pay for their entire vacation with a couple of days of successful panning. There have been a couple of well documented occurrences of people making $5,000 in one day, which is a darn good day. This resurgence has resulted in a couple of new businesses opening in town, selling prospecting equipment and catering to prospectors. I think the enjoyment it provides for some people makes the entire endeavor worth the trouble. The good thing, at least so far, is that the gold seekers have not become claim jumpers and created a great deal of trouble. So as a result of gold fever we have gained a couple of supply stores an assay office and a bank, in addition there are several residents offering tours, classes in panning and the like. But what the gold panning has done is save the town from drying up and blowing away. We need to come up with another thing or two in the way of businesses or light industry and the town may actually grow.

Yet Yellow Tail remains a picturesque town, it still has the aura of the old west so there are tourism monies to find attract and acquire. There are still wooden sidewalks although now the wood has concrete underneath and decent drainage. The town has kept the wooden facades along the main street; if you didn’t know it appearances would lead you to believe you stepped back in time. There aren’t many remaining businesses in town, just enough to support the relatively small population. There were several empty stores, two grocery stores, five bars of varying descriptions, from a dive to a fairly peaceful and quite place to get a beer or a glass of wine with a nice dinner. There were also a couple of auto parts stores and a Ford dealership. The entire town was about seven short blocks from end to end and about the same width. It’s the kind of town that rolls up the sidewalks every evening just before dark. Most of the buildings were pretty old and definitely had seen better days. We have a small volunteer fire department with a couple of wildfire trucks and a water tender since most of the fires are wildfires that required cross country travel. The most frequent cause of wildfires is lightning and the number of fires varied quite a bit from year to year. There are a significant number of families that can trace their roots back to the 1800’s, these families are very proud of those roots. Basically it was pretty tight town, when volunteers are needed there is definitely never a second request needed, people are there. Like I said I’ve been on the police force for the past ten years, kind of a nice relaxed job, this would be considered pre retirement by many.

I’m Greg Davis, a 35 year old, ten year veteran detective of the nine man Yellow Tail force, I joined the department on my return from the first Gulf war, a brief effective war that stopped short of where it should have, but that’s a whole separate story. A good friend’s father was police chief at the time and he hired me as a patrolman, I made doubly sure he never regretted that move. At that time we had three police cars that were all 4WD SUVs since then that number has doubled; this was not the area for 2WD vehicles.

I married my high school sweetheart Donna when I returned from the Gulf war and we live just outside town on a quarter section, 160 beautiful rolling wooded acres, in a 2400+ square foot ranch house constructed primarily from stone found on the property. When we were planning our house we had to decide how big we wanted and also how big we could afford to build as well as maintain. We decided that about 2400 sq. feet was a pretty good balance for our needs. Now that we have been in the house for a period of time we can say we made the right decision. It is cozy and romantic as well as affordable and efficient. When we built the house we super insulated the walls and ceilings it has paid off multiple times and the plus is you cannot hear the wind or rain unless it reaches epic proportions. We heat the house with a wood stove using downed trees on the property and supplement that with a propane furnace. One exception to practicality is our stone fireplace, it’s built with stone collected from our property, we had to have a nice romantic fireplace and it is wonderful. I’ve planted and tended several Deer/Elk food plots, anywhere from a couple of acres to 15 acres. They have been very successful and have resulted in a nice herd of wildlife that has taken up residence. Therefore, I have a place to take some great photos as well as a place to maintain a supply of venison in the fall. There is just the two of us and our two male Golden Retrievers, Zack and Zeus. We leave the property wild and thoroughly enjoy the sights of all the wildlife. We have a snowmobile and an ATV as well as the normal ranch implements and that just about rounds out the equipment and toys.

But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself so let me back up a couple of years,

The last presidential election brought about changes to our country that were a shock to most of the populace and disliked by even more. Dick Reynolds became the President, his campaign was based on modernizing the Constitution, making it more relevant to today’s society. He was a media darling, they never criticized or questioned what he did only having good to say about him. He was less than effective but almost always had an amusing quip when the press questioned his accomplishments, or lack of. The big cities really elected him and he was never a favorite of rural America.

That led up to where we are now not only in Yellow Tail but in the entire nation. The results verify once again that the big cities elect and direct the executive branch of the government, just a fact of life for those of us in rural America. Our nation can easily be compared to high quality steel we’ve been heat by battle and quenched with the blood of patriots. Our country was founded by firearms, protected by firearms and therefore firearms are a major part of our heritage. We had founding fathers that were wise way beyond their years when they wrote and put in place our constitution and bill of rights. They knew that eventually there would be another king, by another name, that would have to be ousted by force. That brings us to now:

Well prior to the aforementioned confrontation at Yellow Tail and thousands of miles away the contest for President was taking place. The primary for the Republican Party became a blood bath between several candidates, they had several debates each one nastier than the last but each one lessened the unity of the party and provided the Democrats with campaign material they could and would use later. People grew tired of the mudslinging and name calling and the media, already very liberal, had a regular party making fun of each and every candidate……………….supposedly in the name of news. Their campaigns continued to vilify each of the other candidates and that kept up right up to the primaries. Even after John Ipcheck was elected to represent the Republican party in the Presidential race some of his opponents in the primary continued to bad mouth him, some great guys huh? It was a long summer and when the smoke finally cleared it was John Ipcheck left standing and badly bruised, he would face Dick Reynolds (the incumbent) in the November race for the Presidency.

The campaign was, as expected quite a show, both parties said they wanted no mudslinging, that lasted only a short time and then it was Katy bar the door. Reynolds started then the Ipcheck retaliated and so on until the voters were ready to broom them both. The Reynolds camp had accumulated a vast amount of mud to sling during the Republican primary, and they used it along with whatever else they could find. They had dirt that they dug up from when John Ipcheck was in high school. Apparently politics is destined to stay a dirty job, usually the dirty part is started by the least qualified and this was no exception. When you don’t have a great past or a lot of good experiences to brag about you turn to slinging mud!!

Finally November arrived and the two candidates were Dick Reynolds (D, incumbent) and the challenger John Ipcheck (R). The hotly contested race for the White House had, as expected, split the country into separate political factions; one of the only things commonly agreed on was both candidates claiming to be advocates of the second amendment as well as other hot topics such as immigration and military strength. The incumbent, Dick Reynolds was an advocate of modernizing the constitution and making it more relevant.

I think that to say you want to Modernize our constitution actually means you want to change/destroy the country, and that has to be for the worse. was Ipcheck’s answer. The reply was a lot more double talk and then not mentioned again, by Reynolds.

Reynolds continued to be evasive about divulging any details of his interpretation of modernizing but with the mainstream media blatantly on his side, no mention of details was obvious he was the media’s fair haired boy. Reynolds was adept at skirting the question, when one was asked, and going off on a tangent and talking about another subject. He had the ability to speak extemporaneously about any subject for hours and still remain uncommitted. His campaign had a vast amount of money and they used it well, they had an ad on T.V. virtually all the time. The only place questions were being asked was the conservative press as well as radio and TV. The mainstream media seemed to adore the man and never had anything bad to say about him, or even