The Blood of Patriots by Bill Fulton

Author:Bill Fulton [Fulton, Bill; Devon, Jeanne.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944648084
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.

CHAPTER 14

THE FRIENDLIEST HOTEL IN FAIRBANKS

“A lot of people in this country think we’re actually headed toward a Revolution, like 1776. What’s in their food?”

—Chris Matthews

In Fairbanks on the summer solstice, the sun would rise at 3 a.m. and wouldn’t set for twenty-two hours. It was an odd city, not just because of its extremes of light and dark or heat and cold. It seemed somehow to be lost somewhere in the ’Fifties, both in its architecture and its attitude. Many of the bars in the center of downtown had their original neon signs, and there was a little clock tower next to the flag-covered bridge that spanned the Chena River, which divided the city in half. If Norman Rockwell, Daniel Boone, and Billy Graham had gotten drunk and dreamed up a city, it would be Fairbanks.

We’d be staying at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge on the outskirts of town. The rustic lodge of a building filled the narrow space between the road and the river. Huge baskets of flowers were everywhere, and gardens with freakishly huge flowers were in full bloom soaking up the almost endless sunshine. Dandelions pushed two feet tall and two and a half inches across. A life-sized sculpture of a moose made of twigs stood near a sign: “Welcome to the Friendliest Hotel in Fairbanks.”

Jesus, who hauled up our merchandise for the fundraiser, would be staying in the main hotel, but I had rented one of about a dozen tiny one-room log cabins scattered next to the building for me and the girls. They got settled in and set off to grab dinner on the riverside deck and then go for a flower walk.

At the designated hour, I went to Jesus’s room to meet up with Cox. I wanted my lives absolutely separate—a border fence a mile high. Stacey and Emma had to be as far away as possible from the world of Drop Zone, and militias, and sovereign citizens, and Cox. There was no way he was setting foot in my room.

I opened the door when the knock came, and Schaeffer Cox (once again in his tweed cap) stood there with a doughy, red-faced companion—a white-haired gentleman introduced to me as Les Zerbe.

“Hey, Schaeffer! Thanks for coming to see me, man. I know we got off to a bad start . . . Emotions were running high and all that.” We shook hands. “I don’t get up to Fairbanks that often, so I wanted to make sure just to touch base, see how you’re doing.”

Zerbe was a missionary pilot and also second-in-command of Cox’s Alaska Peacemakers Militia. He and Cox settled into a pair of chairs at a wood-laminate table by the window.

Despite our confrontation and hostile goodbye at the Republican convention, Cox seemed not to hold a grudge. There was no awkward silence. He started right in talking, just as he had in Joe Miller’s room all those months ago. He boasted about the rapid growth of his Second Amendment Task Force and how he now had direct (and very public) support from Congressman Don Young.

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