Last week, on a whole other country, on Sunday, April 27, 1997, after the arrest of ROT member Robert Scheidt, Rick McLaren initiated the takeover of the home of his longtime enemies, Joe Rowe and his wife, M.A. Rowe. I was realistic enough to know that someday it's going to all come down to something. Joe was shot. There was a lot of blood, but the wound wasn't life-threatening. He was on blood thinners, which made it look a lot worse. He now sits in his house, swaddled in blood-soaked towels, waiting to see what will happen next. From his embassy, surrounded by computers and fax machines, his webpage open, Rick McLaren officially declared war. We're in the state of war with the United Nations and all of its counterparts. Hours tick by, with media amassing down the mountain. Ambassador Rick is on high alert. The people caught in the middle were after the people who have caused this problem that refuse to do their job. And that is to respond internationally and allow the people of Texas their right to vote on a referendum and initiative for their independence. It's funny, I'm not sure I've actually explained what a standoff is. It's essentially a moment of pause or stasis. A waiting game, like those scenes in old westerns where two cowboys draw their guns, point them at each other, and wait to see who shoots first. During the days after Rick McLaren declared war, what would come to be known as the Republic of Texas standoff, an unprecedented number of people descended on the Davis Mountains. Horses, reporters, a SWAT team, tanks rolling up the mountain. It was a moment of frozen, escalating tension, as everyone waited to see what Rick would actually do. All of the people I talked to for this show had a memory of this time, from their own standpoint, their own little world. And of course, there were the cameras and microphones, catching the whole thing, beaming it straight out to TV sets in the living rooms of people who'd never heard of the Davis Mountains, never even been to Texas. During the standoff, people told me, it felt like the whole world was watching to see for themselves how things were playing out in the real-life Wild West. So, in the spirit of an old Western, really, I'm just leaning very hard into my own Western-obsessed inclinations. From Marfa Public Radio Studios in beautiful downtown Marfa, this is A Whole Other Country. Starring Department of Public Safety spokesperson Mike Cox. I meant to say he's not Davy Crockett. Reporter Jonik Petoskey. I mean, people died. Toy Fisher. Well, I know these guys. They're not going to just need a laundromat. The Neighbors. It was a mess. It was living hell. And other voices you know and love. I'm your host, Zoe Curland. Let's get back to the action. We open on journalists from all over the country driving deep into the desert. Vans with satellites turning down Highway 166. They're headed to a picnic area called Point of Rocks. It looks like a pile of rocks made by a giant, looming, extraplanetary. It's two miles down the mountain from the entrance to the DMR. That's as close as the authorities will let the journalists get to the action. We pan to a radio reporter talking on the phone to puzzled headquarters in Washington, D.C. They want to vote for independence. That's right. The Republic of Texas believes Texas was illegally annexed to the U.S. in 1845, and so they've done everything from printing their own passports to ordering Governor George Bush to vacate the Capitol. You've got to understand that I would say 95 percent of the media out at Point of Rocks had never been to the Davis Mountains Resort, had no idea what you were talking about or what it looked like. Journalist Joannick Petoskey stands with the other reporters. You're staring off into the abyss, and you don't know what you're looking at. As a media person, that's what made it weird and hard, because you could stare as long as you want. You can use whatever kind of electronic gadgets you've got. You're not going to get any closer to that story than you were right there. Nearby, Big Ben Sentinel editor Robert Halpern is rubbing elbows with a new crowd. All the national outlets had set up their remote vans with a satellite. So we would hang out with the other journalists and broadcasters at Point of Rocks. It's kind of an interesting thing when you get a national story that comes to town. And, you know, just holding our own because we knew the lay of the land, knew the people that they didn't. You just hit the story like anybody else. You know, you don't get intimidated by the national girls and boys. You just do your thing. We cut to a house in Houston, Texas. A phone rings. Lawyer Terrence O'Rourke, tall, bespectacled, picks up. It's a man he once met out in Fort Davis. And he said, hey Terry, this is Rick McLaren. I said, well, hey Rick, I've been listening to the news. are you surrounded by the Texas Rangers and do you have hostages there with you? And he said, well, yeah, but they're not hostages. They are prisoners of war. And boy, I knew right then this was going to be a problem. There is a lightness and a humor about him that is also engaging. So it wasn't like I was talking to a delusional person in the same way. He has a wonderful sense of presence. What I said is, look, Rick, what you need to do is you need to renegotiate those prisoners of war as soon as possible. Because there's a high likelihood that the Texas Rangers are going to kill you and your wife and everybody there with you when you're engaged in the conduct that you're doing. And that's when he said, well, yeah, that's why I want you to be our lawyer. So in my fax machine, approximately 30 minutes later, came this very long fax as a resolution of the Republic of Texas retaining me as their international counsel. Scene dissolves to lawyer Terrence O'Rourke boarding a plane to Fort Davis to represent his client. Cut to the exterior of Joe Rowe's adobe house. Four gunshots ring out. Camera pans to the left to see a man in worn camo fatigues holding a pistol in front of a car, tires torn through and smoking. This is one of Joe's R.O.T. captors. He shot out all four tires of his own car, creating a blockade at the entrance of the DMR so that no one can go in or out of the resort. Cut to the inside of the house. Joe's two other kidnappers are pacing around, talking on the phone to the press. We have a military situation in progress. One of our lieutenants in our military unit was taken a prisoner of war by the Jeff Davis County Sheriff's Department early this morning. Joe Rowe still bleeding is propped up in a rocking chair listening Joe clicks on the TV to watch his own story play out on the news At Rose home a strided member of the Republic Defense Force answered the phone and would not allow the Rose to speak. And there he sits and sits. I just peddle away the Sunday afternoon. As evening falls, the Rangers agree to a prisoner swap. Joe and M.A. Rowe will get out, and the arrested R.O.T. member, Robert Scheidt, will go free. It's time for the R.O.T. to leave Joe's house. They look outside. The camera zooms in on the flattened car tires. In creating the blockade, the R.O.T. kidnappers have shot the tires out of their only getaway car. They look at Joe, and they ask if they can use his car to get back to the embassy. Joe, bleeding still, says, sure, the keys are in it, and when you're done, just throw them on the floor and lock the door. I have another set. After a day of captivity in their own home, the Republic of Texas' captives have been freed. In exchange, R.O.T. Captain of the Guard, Robert Scheidt, rejoins his comrades back at the embassy. I will die on my feet before I'll live on my knees. It's as simple as that. Rick is barricaded up at the lean-to with six core ROT members. They're posting alerts and calling for backup from their following off the mountain. No one knows how big this following is. Rick's on the phone with the Rangers and the local sheriff. His demand is clear, a statewide referendum to allow Texans to vote on independence or else. An ROT member named Greg Paulson comes out from behind a bush in worn camo fatigues, carrying a gun. There's a lone branch attached to his hat, an attempt at camouflage. He addresses the TV cameras seriously. This isn't a Waco. This here is serious. I'm gonna die for my principles. Yeah. So is my wife, so is everybody here. Night falls on an uncertain resort. 100 retirees are trapped inside their homes, in effect held hostage, cut off by the Republic's armed forces. It was a mess. It was living hell. Scene fades up in the home of Donna Watkins, longtime DMR resident. Gray hair, sharp, a shotgun somewhere in the house. They made me leave. And they said, Miss, you can't be here. You're all by yourself. And I said, hell, I've been by myself for years. The neighbors in the DMR are being evacuated, shuttled down the mountain to safety. A ranger tries fruitlessly to get Donna to leave her house. And I said, by the way, I can shoot as good as anybody. But they made me leave. So I said, go get the Texas Rangers. Y'all got some jobs to do. Donna gestures at a motley herd of animals surrounding her house. They had to load up the livestock, nine cats, four dogs, an awdad that was baby. An awdad, a wild sheep with giant curling horns, trots across the screen. She had been found and we were trying to get her up big. Scene ends with Donna disgruntled in a crowd of DMR neighbors. wading it out down the mountain in the town of Fort Davis, newly flooded with reporters from all over the country. The reporters came down from New York and everywhere else. Scene opens on Toy Fisher, DMR local historian and one-time owner of a coffee shop on Fort Davis' main drag. It's bustling. They came with basically their clothes, and there was nowhere to buy any shirts or anything. They'd come in and they'd talk and they'd visit. They asked me, well, where's the laundromat? And I'm going, well, I know these guys. They're not going to just need a laundromat. And I'm a full businesswoman. I mean, I'm thinking, okay. And I'm also a service. I mean, you know, I'm going to meet their needs the best I can. And so when they came in and asked for a laundromat, and I said, well, you want your shirt pressed? He said, well, I need it pressed. And I said, well, you have to go to Alpine. Well, a lot of them didn't want to leave because if anything happened. So I just said, well, hey, you know, I can do it for, you know, $10 a shirt or so. So I was like doing laundry for all these guys, pressing their shirts, you know, making them look presentable on TV at my coffee shop. The frame fades on Toy, busily pressing shirts. And Toy isn't the only person wondering how to capitalize on the new influx of people. Scene opens on local rancher Joe Williams, driving in his truck down Highway 166. I was spending an awful lot of time on the road in those days here in the United States and in Mexico. But got back in town and there were uplink trucks all over Fort Davis. And, you know, there wasn't a room available anywhere in the three-county area. And it was pretty crazy, you know, because we live in a sleepy area. But all of a sudden it was crazy. Anyway, we got an idea. And, you know, I saw guys wearing T-shirts and things like that. You know, I was at Waco and some of these other protest sites. So I had a friend up in Des Moines, Iowa, who was a really large T-shirt maker. And I called him up, can you make me some T-shirts? And he'll go to God, yes, I can have those knocked out in a couple hours. And I said, you know, UPS them down here overnight. And he did. I had those T-shirts within, oh, I don't know, a day or two. Joe pulls up at Point of Rocks, hops out of his car. He's wearing a T-shirt that says Fort Davis over and over across the front. On the back, don't mess with Texas, plus the letters R-O-T in a red circle that looks like a road sign crossed out. I thought that was kind of cute. Everybody was in a full froth about what was going on. CNN and ABC and NBC and anybody that had a BC on them was out there. And I just put this shirt on, walked through the crowd. And all of a sudden, people were going, where'd you get that? Where'd you get that? Oh, I want one of those. It was just like a feeding frenzy. You know, we sold 250 t-shirts in less than two hours. It's been three days since the kidnapping. In Austin, criminal charges have been filed against Rick and the Republic, engaging in organized criminal activity and aggravated kidnapping for the whole Joe Rowe situation. Lawyer Terrence O'Rourke has touched down in Fort Davis. So you're out in just a completely different world, and you're also passing through all of this mythology. At a ranch down the mountain from the DMR, authorities from all different departments are swarming around. Texas Rangers wearing blue jeans, starched shirts, big buckled belts with firearms at their hips. Snipers coming down from the mountain with long-range guns. A negotiator from the FBI. Local sheriff's departments coming to assist. Cowboy hats everywhere. I grew up in the mythology, and so to understand people reenacting it was quite normal. You had so few people in a place that was essentially indefensible. In a way, you had the forces of the state of Texas surrounding the place, much as Santa Anna had surrounded the Alamos so that there was no escape And it was just a matter of time before they blew the whistle or blew the bugle and to attack and to take it And then, of course, the people inside, at least as I understood, were from all of these kind of other places. They had come to the call of Rick McLaren, just like the call to all free men to come to Texas to defend it in its time of need, all that kind of romantic language. McLaren was not just imitating it. He was reenacting it. It was quite real that other people were listening to Rick's language, and he was very skillfully articulating the mythology and the romantic appeal of dying for freedom. And followers from far away are heeding the call. Fluorescent lights flicker at a Flying J truck stop in Pecos. A group of men orders enough food for a small army. Joe Nick narrates the scene. A waitress walks up to the group of guys, says, Are you all here to go see Rick McLaren? And they were kind of like ashen-faced. How did you know? The waitress calls the authorities, who intercept the men and their truck full of explosives. Cut to the lean-to up in the mountains. Rick and his followers have stockpiled guns and ammunition, placed pipe bombs along the creek and filled gasoline tanks up to the brim, ready to spill down the mountain and set the DMR ablaze. Volunteer fire departments from across the region are all on standby. Surrounded by computers, maps, piles of paper, Rick's deep in negotiations with the sheriff and the Texas Rangers. They're sending ceasefire agreements back and forth, authored in part by lawyer Terrence O'Rourke. He took the documents in an armored personnel carrier and would drop them off. It's like they'd throw it out the window of the armored personnel carrier. Then they would back off, and McLaren's people would go and pick it up and take it in, and Rick would read it and go over it and make changes in it and come back with different ideas. They want Rick to come out, stop threatening violence. So it really was a negotiation just as in any type of ceasefire that you would have in any other kind of system. And what you say is McLaren was intelligent enough to be able to engage in this at a high level. But without a promise of an independence vote, Rick isn't interested. He's told reporters that Texas Attorney General Dan Morales can, quote, stick his arrest warrants up his butt. On the phone to reporters, he's asking about the whereabouts of U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and President Bill Clinton. We have every document to prove there is no more state of Texas, there is no more United States, and we want to know where Reno is and Clinton. They seem to be hiding. Clinton and Reno are not hiding. Bill Clinton is very publicly attending a volunteerism summit in Philadelphia, and Janet Reno is in her office in Washington, issuing a statement on closing the gap in penalties for crack versus powder cocaine. Rick's barking coded orders on his shortwave radio. No one really knows what it means or who he's talking to. Ham radio is a hobby. With a little bit of wire and a few electronics, you can literally talk all over the world. Founding member of the local ham radio club, Bob Ward, sits by a radio transceiver with headphones on. He's been asked to listen in on Rick. You know, when all else fails, ham radio is there. and we were called upon to listen and report what we heard to the authorities. They would just talk, you know, about I'm here, I'm there and kind of playing soldier. Just another day in the life of being a ham, you know. No big deal. On day four, the Texas Rangers send a fax to Rick. He doesn't answer. he's cut off communication. And this means it's time to call in all the backup. Highway Patrol in their screaming vehicles, the SWAT team, narcotics, even the horse brigade shows up. Zoom in on the Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson, Mike Cox. He's rising out of what appears to be a mosh pit of media, undulating with their equipment by the side of the road. Mike has only one wish for the outcome of this standoff. We hoped it would just be a nonviolent, kooky experience. We did not want another Waco. We did not want for all the people in that embassy, quote-unquote, to get killed or anybody killed. Mike understands the image Rick's creating, the power it has, a lone revolutionary against hundreds opposing him. So Mike, along with an FBI agent, comes up with a plan to make Rick look less like a hero. And he said, why don't you just really ham it up and come off as a good old boy Texan and say this is just a little dust up here in Texas and we don't need anybody else coming in and trying to mess with Texas. And so I did that at one of my press conferences. I said, with great gravitas, I said, This is not the Alamo. This is not San Jacinto. I'm not Davy Crockett. You know, we're just a state law enforcement agency trying to bring a couple of some folks to justice. Mike mixes up the crucial characters, but still makes a point. That was totally wrong, and I don't know why I misspoke that. I meant to say he's not Davy Crockett. The cops had already isolated them by cutting off their electricity, preventing them from leaving, and all that kind of stuff. But apparently they were still somehow updating their website. The call for recruits went out Wednesday on a Republic of Texas information line. The language is much stronger on a McLaren-backed webpage. It calls for militia members and defense forces to mobilize. lives. And that's when they asked for people to arm up and come out. At the Overland Network offices, Todd Jagger is nervous. He never meant for his internet project to incite any violence. And now Rick is posting a red alert message on his site. There was so much traffic on my system that it crashed on my servers. My website was just trashed. I mean, people couldn't get out the internet. They couldn't do anything. So I get this, it was probably a phone call from the district attorney. And he said, Hey, Todd, we need you to take down their website. And I'm like, okay, just get me something signed by a judge. And so I took the website down. Well, that created a whole nother kind of controversy. In fact, the Fort Worth Star Telegram calls it the first website in the U.S. closed for political reasons. At the state capitol, the real state capitol of the real state of Texas, George Bush has finally started acknowledging the standoff. He wants it over, and he's holding a press conference in an echoey, marbly room. I want to see a peaceful resolution to this. That's obviously the first choice. I'd like to see these people brought to justice. On the mountain, Rick and the ROT carry out an elaborate flag-lowering ceremony in honor of a militia member they believe has died. In fact, no one has died. An armored vehicle begins winding its way up the mountain, all the way to a drop point near the embassy. The Texas Rangers are making Rick an offer. In exchange for his surrender, they'll hold an official hearing about the legitimacy of the Republic of Texas. They also send a desperate letter from Rick wife children begging her to leave the embassy Scene dissolves to point of rocks Journalist Joenik Petoski is still on the side of the road with the rest of the reporters. Everyone's sort of plopped in the dust. I think declaring, you know, this is the embassy of the Republic of Texas, that was news. You know, kidnapping, that's news. Shooting the guy, that's news. But, you know, all you're doing is getting these canned responses which is basically there's no news to report. You know, how long can you wait that out? What are you going to do? Are you going to do that every day? And then, on day five, Rick sends out a five-paragraph fax. It's addressed to his ROT comrades. It says, I pray reinforcements arrive before they overrun the embassy. Long live the Republic of Texas and the American people and death to the new world order. In the facts, he refers to Governor George W. Bush as Daddy Bush. Along with the letter, Rick and four of his comrades at the Lean-To include their last wills and testaments. Evelyn McLaren's daughters get shuttled into the DMR to make a tearful appeal to Rick. I'm begging you to please, you and Mom, both come out. But if you can't find it in your heart or find the courage to come out, please see to it that Mom comes out. Heavy armament, tanks, a SWAT team, a bomb disposal unit is moving up the rock-strewn road to Rick's. Rick, in full military mode, hops on his radio to send out a frantic red alert, which Bob Ward and the hams catch as it flies through the skies. Rick's calling Mayday, Mayday, backup. But no backup appears to be arriving. Lawyer Terrence O'Rourke is patched through to the embassy. We got on the phone and they set it up for me to talk to him and explain to Rick, Rick, you know, everything you've said is right, that the tanks are rolling. They are coming to get you. And they've made their position clear and that you're going to need to surrender right now. This is like a moment of zen moment that you are completely in the now. And I was talking to a guy on the phone and realizing that this was going to be our last conversation. Because if he didn't say yes, he was going to be dead. And I said, Rick, this is it. You have got to do this now. And there was this pause, of course. and he said, well, let me take a minute and talk to my people here. Fade up on a calm morning at the Republic of Texas Embassy. A blonde woman, she looks really good, put together, opens the door of the lean-to and walks out. She's actually late because she was doing her hair and makeup. It's Rick's wife, Evelyn McLaren, and she's holding a document. It's a final ceasefire agreement. It's wordy, full of demands. And most importantly, it's on official Republic of Texas letterhead with a shiny gold seal. A proposal for an agreement between one nation and another. The United States government and the Republic of Texas. Texas Ranger Captain Barry Caver holds this piece of paper in his hands. He looks puzzled. And I'm thinking, what the hell is this? I mean, what does this even mean? It just went on and on. Ranger Caver has been assured that signing the agreement will not be legally binding. Believe it or not, everyone's on the same page. Go ahead and do it. If that's what it takes to end this thing, sign it and be done with it. We'll worry about the legalities of it later. So, standing in front of Evelyn McLaren, Ranger Caver signs. Once I sign that document, it's like the sun rose and the clouds parted and the C parted, and it's like, okay, well, that's all we were asking. And it's so weird after the fact knowing that that's really all he wanted was someone to publicly acknowledge him, that he was who he was, and he was the ambassador to the Republic of Texas. And I just gave him validity, I guess. In Rick's eyes, the United States has entered into a formal treaty with the Republic of Texas, thus legitimizing his people and his nation. In a military-style ceremony, Rick and four ROT holdouts lay down their weapons. Rick saunters down the hill wearing a straw cowboy hat. One last yeehaw for the road. The group gets into a police car, which takes them straight to the Marfa Jail. The credits begin to roll. And they roll. But wait. There's one last scene. Back behind the lean-to, two men flee into the hills. They haven't surrendered with the others. They're headed for the canyon. The next day, a police helicopter circles a man in the mountains. They send a tracking hound after him. He shoots and kills the dog. Shortly thereafter, the man, Rick's former bodyguard, Mike Mattson, who told Robert Halpern and Alice Ashmore that he would die for the Republic, is killed in a gun battle. with the authorities. The Texas Rangers had come to the house and he told me, he said one of the dogs got killed. Donna Watkins pokes her head into the frame. I said, that guy will be dead in two days. I said, you don't, and not in Texas, and not in West Texas. Don't mess with a man's horse or his dog. I said, you will be dead shortly. And sure enough, the next day he was no longer with us. And that was the end of the standoff in the Davis Mountains. By the time McLaren gave up, the story kind of ran out of gas. And there weren't like moving parts that were very exciting anymore. It's kind of like, you know, good. It's over. One got caught, one got killed. Was that worth playing Army for? The armored vehicles rolled down the mountain, the satellite trucks packed up, the reporters headed back from where they came. The conflict that had been ratcheting up for decades, from vineyard to courtroom to lean-to, was over. But the neighbors, they were still there, moving back into their houses, looking out for bombs, remnants of the movement that brought the world to their doorstep. And most importantly, they were left wondering, what happens now? That's next time on the final episode of A Whole Other Country. This episode of A Whole Other Country was reported, written, and produced by me, Zoe Kurland. Liza Yeager edited and also co-wrote the show. Original music by Andy Stack. Editorial support from Lindsay Houck. Artwork by Carolyn McCartney and Lindsay Houck. Special thanks to Mike Cox, Carlos Morales, Elise Peppel, and Victoria Contreras at the Archives of the Big Bend. Most of the music you heard in this episode comes from the Universal Music Library. A Whole Other Country is a production of Marfa Public Radio, a non-profit public radio station in the middle of the West Texas desert. If you'd like to donate to support the station's work, head to marfapublicradio.org slash donate.
