Refuge occupation brings uptick in business, drama

BURNS — As the FBI and Oregon State Police continue to negotiate with four remaining occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the owners of The Narrows, a cafe/general store and the closest thing to civilization from the headquarters of the refuge, sit and wait and wonder what’s next.

“I just wish the rest of these guys would come out before they get killed,” said Linda Gainer, who owns the RV park and cafe/general store that is six miles from the refuge headquarters, on Friday morning.

The occupation has not only been good for business, Gainer said, but it’s been a record January, normally a dead time of year for the business that she owns with her husband, Ron Gainer, about 24 miles south of Burns.

Most of that has come from members of the media, who have come from across the nation to cover the occupation that continues despite Tuesday’s arrest of the Bundys, and the state police shooting death of group spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, during a traffic stop on Highway 395.

Gainer has gotten to know many of those who’ve been part of the occupation in the past four weeks. Eleven of them have been arrested since Tuesday.

“And of those that did come in, they were always polite, always very nice,” she said. “They were always concerned that we were OK. They knew we’d gotten nasty emails that said we were aiding and abetting terrorists.”

But what really peeves Gainer is what happened just after midnight, in the early morning hours Wednesday, when an FBI and state police convoy came down Highway 205, from Burns, set on trying to peacefully remove those who remained at the refuge compound.

The authorities set up roadblocks at all points of access into the refuge, including on Highway 205, both north and south of the Gainers’ business, virtually shutting The Narrows down on Wednesday and Thursday.

“I sold a whole $12 (Thursday),” said Gainer, who lives on the property with her husband. “Pretty good, huh?”

The roadblocks on Highway 205 were moved by the FBI late Thursday afternoon, putting a new roadblock on Sodhouse Lane, just down the road from The Narrows.

Gainer’s only customer on Wednesday was Barbara Berg, a Winnemucca, Nev., woman who said she was born in Eugene and grew up in Pleasant Hill. Berg, 51, drove here from Nevada a couple of weeks ago, saying Thursday she empathizes with the occupiers, befriending many of them.

She drove back on Tuesday, after hearing of Finicum’s death, and got here before the roadblocks went up. Someone has been letting her stay in an RV in Gainer’s RV park.

She got into the refuge on Wednesday, Berg said, and drank a beer with some of those who remained and persuaded a couple of them to leave, driving them to a checkpoint, where they were arrested.

“If you’re walking along and someone falls in a frozen pond, what are you going to do? Are you going to keep walking by, or are you going to help them?” Berg said.

As for Linda Gainer, she blames local officials for the closing of Highway 205 on Wednesday and Thursday, specifically Harney County Judge Steven Grasty.

Told this is a federal operation, Gainer said: “(Grasty) should have showed more backbone. Yes, you can come in,” she said of the feds, “but you have to work with us.”

Grasty, who has been an outspoken critic of the occupation, and among the majority of Harney County residents asking the federal government to do something to get the armed militants out of here, did not return a phone call left at his office late last week.

Because of the high volume of phone calls from concerned residents, the judge has set up a hotline, with a recorded message saying it’s not possible to return all calls.

Linda Gainer said she was frightened about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, when someone in a truck was driving around her business parking lot.

She does not know who it was, whether authorities who were part of the convoy, or possibly someone from the refuge occupation.

“I hunkered in with my dogs and my cats, and I just pretended I wasn’t here,” she said.

Still, after all that has happened, Gainer still expresses sympathy for the Bundys and other occupiers, if not completely agreeing with how they’ve gone about it. “I’m sorry that the man lost his life,” she said of Finicum. “From what I understand, he was a very nice man.

“I believe in my Constitution,” she said. “Does that make me a sympathizer? Does that make me a supporter of them? If you don’t believe in the Constitution, you should go live somewhere else. I live here because I love my country.”