Rancho Relaxo

The fine art of white trashin', deep fryin', and slow smokin'

Please note that each member has an assignment in preparation for the trip. Please be prepared (Ideas are welcome):

This was pulled from the October 2002 edition of Texas Monthly. It appears Matamoras is basically daring us on this one. It is obvious that he's setting up a trap. Keep your game face on:

The headline of the now yellowing March 16, 1997 Houston Chronicle is posted on one of the knotted wooden walls of the bungalow and reads, “Rebellion Over:  Matamoras and Men Wiped Out By Nuke.”  For the last five-plus years, San Felipe Matamoras has called this bungalow in the jungles of Guatemala “home.”  He grins when asked about the clipping, recalling how he had received word of the pending attack and had taken a lifeboat out of Padre the night before Grout’s courageous bombing run that was thought to have killed this old rebel.   

With his troops dismantled, Matamoras retreated to the far reaches of the Oaxacl Jungle in Guatemala to lick his wounds, re-strategize, and find much needed recruits.  He has done well here – and accomplished all three of his aims.  He is stronger.  His daily regiment includes climbing the thousands of stairs at the ancient ruined Mayan temples that line the surrounding jungle.  He chops wood for his fires.  He swims miles in the Gulf of Yucatan every day, all the while, he says, dreaming of the day his forces will rise again.

He has scoured the local watering holes, seedy establishments, and the vast and numerous dens of iniquity throughout Guatemala and southern Mexico to find new recruits for his cause.  The impoverished conditions and the disdain for local governments make the recruiting process easier.  There have been few missions in these five years, Matamoras content to focus on intensive training.  The recruits are numerous – now numbering in the thousands, spreading out over multiple locales.  This group is skilled at guerilla warfare and knows it will not go after any large army.  Instead they focus on subterfuge tactics – tactics aimed at disrupting the lives of their enemies and instilling fear.  What do they hope to achieve – minor degrees of power, massive degrees of money, but most of all, they thrive on causing chaos. 

Chaos has been inspired in a few places over the last five years.  Durango, Colorado has been a focus of attack, the faction of Matamoras’ rebel unit called the “Mountain Lords” have caused tremendous forest fires throughout the state, conducted robberies, blown up ski resorts, and instilled fear throughout much of the state of Colorado.  No one knew Matamoras was funding the missions and reveling in their success.

Nashville, Tennessee has been a target, Matamoras focusing on disrupting the collegiate experience of many students at Vanderbilt University by undermining the recruiting programs for their athletic department – most notably, the football team.  Many who fought for years against Matamoras’ rebels in Tennessee have fled to the North Georgia Mountains to regroup and strategize for victory.  North Georgia is thought to be in danger – as Matamoras has long been desirous of wiping out his foes once and for all.

South Padre island continues to be hammered by the continuously growing factions of Matamoras’ expanded “army.”  Again, these cells are so numerous and so secretive that they typically go unnoticed until the local inhabitants become complacent.  Then they strike.

One week ago, Matamoras himself led a furious uprising in the piney woods of East Texas – a rebellion that shows no signs of stopping.  The focus of the mission is to decimate farmland, kill livestock, burn churches and homes, and murder inhabitants.  Ultimately, the rebels want to set up their “home cell” in the confines of East Texas, a terrain marked by vast uninhabited pine forests and lands perfect for hiding, training, and going unnoticed.  Guatemala, it seems, is too far afield for Matamoras to manage the rebel raids.  East Texas, he believes is a perfect location. 

The fury with which this band of rebels fights is difficult to describe.  The elderly are being tortured, children are being kidnapped – the list goes on.  On an hourly basis the death toll rises – with decimated and dismantled bodies being piled up in the town square.  A local girl (of Swank magazine fame) has wed Matamoras, becoming his 23^rd wife.  She is helping him recruit troops by luring them to Matamoras’ lair with promises of sexual favors.  She is as dangerous as her beauty is intoxicating.  A true gypsy of the wooded East Texas wilderness.

In the midst of the destruction, lives endangered, hope turns to none other than Choate Bergstrom and his band of regulators.  No one knows, however where they are.  Bergstrom was last seen quelling the rebellion in Durango with Bryan Streamside, a group of new recruits, and an old general from the battles of Nashville who has not been seen in years and has never been identified.  Bergstrom and his band, however, disappeared soon after the mountain lords retreated to their caves high atop the peaks surrounding the town.  Grout has not been seen since ’99 and there is speculation that he is somewhere in the Georgia foothills.  Streamside is thought to be dead after the Durango 2002 expedition.  We know that Emmanuelle and the One-Armed Man perished in a prison raid in Mexico three years ago – led by Matamoras. 

It is rumored that Bergstrom himself has found new blood to help fight his old nemesis, but no one has seen him since his hasty retreat from his last successful campaign.  Many think he might have returned to Switzerland where he once led training missions for freedom fighters trying to shut down rebel cells on the European continent. 

In the past decade, we have not seen an offensive like the one we are witnessing in East Texas.  Matamoras’ forces grow like a lethal, unstoppable virus, and play music from the band April’s Motel Room in each Wal-Mart they take over.  They are entrenched – and it is said – are more numerous than the stars in the Texas night sky.  Shreveport, LA is on the verge of falling to the bandits as they spend much time gambling and drinking their days away in the small southern city.  Whataburger – a famous Texas burger chain has threatened to close its doors, as there have been reports of poisoning their food – Matamoras is thought to be the culprit. 

The citizens of East Texas await help.  Hope rests with Choate Bergstrom and his band of regulators, but hope is fading as the death toll mounts.  Where oh where is Choate Bergstrom?

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