Closing the Doors on Craven Ridge

As the sun’s morning rays permeated the little southwestern American town that had once stood strong against a vast army over a decade ago, the reflections of red and pink in the low clouds portended evil tidings to come. An old, slightly wrinkled, man took off his hat, as was the custom when entering a church, and took a seat in the back row pew to listen to the townsfolk debate. His cotton shirt and denim pants were caked with dust driven by the desert winds, some of which settled on the wood bench where he sat. For many hours he just listened to their hysterical rantings and ravings.

“…but the federal government has withdrawn the last of their troops, and we’ve all but been abandoned by the state,” the bonneted young schoolteacher bemoaned, clutching her newborn in her frail arms.

“We’ll be overrun and behind enemy lines before nightfall!” the innkeeper lamented. “What are you going to do about it, Mayor?”

The bespectacled, balding mayor wrung his sweaty hands, and squeaked a single word as a question, “Fight?”

When the old man in the back of the church heard the civic leader’s lily-livered tone, he cringed, knowing full well that the man was as insincere today as the day he was put into office. Regardless, he was able to hold his tongue.

A collective groan came from the citizenry and the doctor-dentist-barber whined, “What can we possibly do against thousands of Mexican Federales? This time they’re backed by the whole of Europe…the Spanish, French, and British…we don’t stand a cat’s chance without claws!”

“We’ll just have to surrender; we certainly can’t fight, now that our constable has flown the coop,” submitted the cowardly pastor.

“But they’re taking no prisoners…we’re doomed!” The elderly church organist rested her head on her instrument’s keys and began to sob.

Eventually, the people’s general grumbling and whimpering came to a stop and the church was deathly silent in the face of their stark reality.

The aged frontiersman finally had reached his boiling point. He stood up and addressed the congregation from the rear of the sanctuary. “Dad-gum-it! In all my sixty-one years, y’all people are the most spineless bunch of namby-pamby bellyachers that I have ever laid eyes on!”

He cleared his throat and continued his tirade, “Our town founders, a couple of which I called my friends, would be ashamed of what this place has become! As if any of y’all would even know anything about our founders, since the latest string of milksop-mayors have all but erased them from the history books by removing their monuments and belittling their countless sacrifices and outstanding achievements! Even worse, almost as a punchline, they renamed our town Craven Ridge!”

The man leaned on the back of the pew and chuckled, “In retrospect, the name is quite appropriate.”

“Now listen here, you…” the mayor began timidly, but he was cut off.

“No, mayor, you listen! It was you that regulated and taxed any lucrative businesses, like our coal mine, out of existence! And when the mine closed down, y’all justified it as a dang victory for the environment…what a farce! To top it all off, it was the sheriff, that you appointed, whose gun control policies have limited the supply of guns and ammunition to such a point that even if there were any brave men left, they’d have no weapons with which to make that final stand!

The young teacher took offense, “Good sir, guns are dangerous, and…”

The frontiersman rolled his eyes, “You’re dern-tootin’! Of course they are, ma’am! But you ain’t better off without ‘em! You’re sunk now that the army, and your law enforcement, has left y’all for dead! As for you, miss smarty-pants schoolteacher lady, most of the wise folks already packed up and moved when you and the good Reverend began to stress the ‘social’ over the plain old-fashioned ‘justice!’”

“Well I never!” she groused as he cut her short once again.

“No you never! That’s for sure! Y’all should’ve just run back east as soon as they abolished slavery and there was no longer any rumblings of a civil war. The doctor was right, out here, y’all don’t stand a snowflake’s chance in hell! You gutless, self-righteous people who think y’all are so progressive make me sick to my stomach! Y’all have made your laws and rules so overwhelming and created an atmosphere so oppressively woke…if that’s even a word…” he paused at the term he’d coined and carried on, “…that the only folks left to defend this town are just a bunch of bootless cowards who deserve what’s comin’ for ‘em! Hell, it’ll be a blessing when the Federales recapture this worthless town…they can have it…and all y’all!”

The old man kicked the dirt off his shoes as he departed the church sanctuary through its double oaken doors. A voice he may have once known called out to him before he left, “Wait, David, we need you!”

The frontiersman ignored the request, picked up his hunting rifle and powder horn where it rested against the stoop, and shrugged as the doors slammed shut behind him. Looking west he could already see the fire and smoke of war blocking out the sunset. Shouldering his firearm and donning his coonskin cap, Davy Crockett abandoned the people of Craven Ridge to their self-inflicted fate. Not once did he look back upon the Alamo mission where he’d made his courageous stand with his fellow Texans against General Santa Anna. They’d won that battle back in March of 1836, but this time he knew it would turn out differently; this time, in June of 1847, it would be a slaughter.

As he walked west to meet his enemy, he sincerely hoped that once this Mexican-American war came to an end, that Americans would remember the mistakes of embracing woke ideology and return to their roots of patriotic self-reliance, but as the sounds of fighting grew more intense and he watched hapless Americans being trampled by the colossal army of Mexicans, intermingled with French infantry, and British cavalry, he had his doubts.