On a dirt road up past the Newcastle fairgrounds, lining a driveway marked with a "PRIVATE PROPERTY" sign, a movement is taking root in Wyoming.

Or maybe it's a phenomenon. Or just some caragana bushes. Maybe it's just new friends helping each other out, without being forced to. They can live with that.

Mac Frank, his wife Vicki and Susan Callaway begin digging holes starting at the entrance to the Wyoming home Callaway says she was called to in the spring of 2006. A pair of California license plates from her former life leans up against the Newcastle cabin. They are riddled with bullet holes.

The wind whips cold on an early May afternoon. The rocky ground rebels against dulling shovels. The compost pile goes ash dry in Frank's truck bed.

"Just a beautiful day in Wyoming," Frank says.

But the sun creeps out and the temperature darts up some 15 degrees. The ground gets softer nearer the road. The work takes a couple hours, tops. Now Callaway has about 20 potential trees in her yard thanks to the efforts of the Franks, who responded to her call for help on a Web site they frequent.

There, Callaway goes by "MamaLiberty," and Frank is "manfromnevada." There, they discuss encroaching government, unnecessary taxes, personal responsibility and, sometimes, gardening, with approximately 783 registered users on fundamentalsoffreedom.com.

Here, in Newcastle, on a quiet Saturday, MamaLiberty and manfromnevada wear loaded handguns on their belts. Yes, Newcastle is a safe community, Callaway says, but "You never know."

Being armed, defending herself - it's a belief, a conviction and a right, she says. She and Frank share many common beliefs, and they've come to believe that the people of Wyoming are most likely to share them, or at least accept them.

So they moved here. Dozens more have too, and many others have the Cowboy State in their scopes.

"I think the spirit of the independent cowboy rancher is still alive," Frank says. "I hope it is. 'Cause those are the people I want as my neighbors."

So do the other libertarians and independents who are moving from California and Nevada and the Carolinas and beyond to become part of something called Free State Wyoming.

Free State What?

An initial wave of several thousand disenfranchised Americans will move into five specific Wyoming counties, targeted for their scarce populations. The power of their votes coupled with the general apathy of current residents will allow for the election of the new wave's preferred county officials, sheriffs and state senators and representatives. The effect will grow to take over the majority of the state over the course of three election cycles.

A decade from now, the majority of Wyoming men and women will wear sidewinders to Wal-Mart, since those who don't will be taxed more on goods purchased. The crime rate will plummet lower than any other state. The public school system will be dismantled and privatized. And because of all that the governor of Wyoming, a member of the Laissez-faire Party, will in 2015 and 2017 sit down for two extended interviews that will be published in Playboy Magazine. And the President of the United States won't like any of it.

That's part of the plot of Molôn Labé!, a fictional title written in 2003 by Boston T. Party, the founder of Free State Wyoming.

What members of Free State Wyoming say, however, is that they moved here because they like the state as it is. The day he helped Callaway plant bushes, Frank stopped working for a moment to say that he'd like to take a picture of Wyoming, and live in that state forever. Current laws needn't be rolled back, he said, but there certainly didn't need to be any more tacked on.

"The scenario in Molôn Labé! will unlikely resemble whatever is played out in real life," Boston, also known as Kenneth T. Royce, wrote in an e-mail to the Star-Tribune. "Also, FSWers aren't moving to Wyoming to change it, but to preserve and enhance its culture of freedom-mindedness. The state is already a 'good fit' for us, else we wouldn't be moving there."

It's a better fit for them than New Hampshire, chosen in a vote by the Free State Project in 2003 as the best place to populate with 20,000 libertarians. The migrating thousands pledged to find homes in the eastern state and influence politics over time. That project is moving slowly.

Royce argued vehemently at the time in favor of Wyoming, which finished second in the voting, since it had and still has the lowest population among the United States. There were also open spaces to fill, he wrote in essays in favor of Wyoming, and an acceptance of firearms that doesn't fly among Northeasterners, even in Republican-heavy N.H.

Royce, then living in Durango, Colo., decided to continue advocating Wyoming as the place to be. Though they are not all in Wyoming, yet or maybe ever, several hundred people seem to agree.

"I've known Boston for a very long time," Callaway said. "I was interested in the Free State Project. But when they chose New Hampshire, I thought, 'That's far too close to the District of Criminals.' When Boston decided to start Free State Wyoming, I perked up my little ears and said, 'This sounds like a very good idea.'"

When someone pays the $25 membership fee to join FSW, he or she pledges to try and move to the state within seven years. Other than that, Free State Wyoming is not on any kind of track, Royce said. There are no population-specific goals, just an effort to attract free-thinking people to a freedom-loving state. Though the original effort focused on bringing newcomers to Crook, Hot Springs and Weston Counties, members scatter across the state.

"The salient point regarding the FSW I'd like people to understand is that the purpose of creating an organization was not for its own sake, but to energize an independent phenomenon," he wrote. "Although I created the FSW, it has no leader and no structure. It's a very bland club, so to speak, existing solely to showcase and further an idea."

The Jam

Only once a year do Free State Wyoming members and people interested in joining get together as a group. This year, in June, they gathered in Guernsey for the fourth annual FSW Jamboree, where they introduced themselves by their more familiar online names.

One had a t-shirt with his on it: "BEULAHTRASH."

About 130 people attended, up from about 80 last year and 40 the year before, Royce said.

The conversations among members and prospective members centered on topics familiar to forum visitors - public schools getting worse, legislators spending too much and the dreaded "z-word" (zoning). And the dialogue didn't take hushed tones in the company of a reporter. A few people declined to give their names for photos and one member expected to be misquoted, but a nearby notepad didn't halt the "Jam."

The thought of people moving to Wyoming to enjoy Wyoming intrigued Norm Hardesty, a Laramie native, because he said he was tired of people moving into the state to try and change it. But Free State also initially made him apprehensive. People with guns are one thing, Hardesty, a biathlete and gun owner, reasoned, but he didn't want Freemen invading his home.

"And I'm Jewish," he said. "I don't want white supremacists."

So he attended the 2006 jamboree in Worland to see for himself. There, he said he found veterans, business owners and nobody on welfare.

"What I'm seeing with Free State people - there are no exceptions - are enough hard-working honest people," he said.

As for being Jewish, not a problem. A statement on the FSW Web page reads that neither race, religion, gender nor sexual preference matter to Free State. Hardesty said he understands why people would initially wonder the same things he did.

"Their concerns are valid, but that's not what Free State is about," said Hardesty, now a member of the group.

In Crook County, which the group says has the highest concentration of members, county attorney Joseph Baron and county sheriff Steve Stahla, who have each read parts of Molon Labe!, said no Free State members have been arrested for any illegal activity.

"There's nothing about this that's clandestine," said Royce, who has declined to give his specific Wyoming address for privacy reasons, on June 23, the second day of this year's jamboree.

Royce said he has no plans to run for office in Wyoming, though guessed that some FSW members could be potential candidates for local offices during the next election cycle. A county commissioner candidate, a sheriff, sure. But not much higher.

"We're more just into local politics," Royce said.

He sat down on a picnic table as the sun began to set, and 90-plus adults gathered around. One man knelt down in front of him with a voice recorder.

Royce wore a tucked-in Hawaiian shirt and put down his beer to deliver the closest thing to a State of the Free State that there is.

"I think we've gotten off to a good start," he told the crowd. "The more abstract we keep it, the less we screw it up."

Bang bang

Two obvious differences separate the people gathered at the Larson Park Campground in Guernsey from people gathered on a standard weekend at a campground - the Free State Wyoming banner flying by the picnic table, and the 50-some people with handguns strapped to their sides.

That's where the guns stayed. Children brandished the only drawn weapons at the jamboree campsite - gun-shaped creations made out of PVC pipes. They weren't loaded.

On several of the shooting ranges at nearby Camp Guernsey, Free State members as well as other jamboree attendees fired at pop-up targets or faraway figures. The fields glistened with spent ammunition, until everyone picked up after the Sunday shoot.

The participants on the known-distance range wore camouflage and shot semi-automatic rifles, M1As mostly.

"The FSW firmly defends a vigorous shooting culture as a necessary foundation of a free society," reads the answer to a Q&A section on the Free State Wyoming home page. "We actively nurture the concept of citizen rifleman, the backbone of a nation's defense which also daily reinforces our individual responsibility and resolve to remain free."

The answer goes on another four paragraphs, and includes several quotes. Though some members don't openly carry, or shoot as often as others, the overall support for Second Amendment rights is so strong it seems rehearsed. On Saturday, Frank wore a shirt that, in so many words, reasoned that if a gun is responsible for killing people, then a spoon is what made Rosie O'Donnell obese.

Even in Wyoming, a gun-friendly state, you don't see many people openly carrying weapons, said Matt Beck, 25, who goes by "Don'tTreadOnMe" on the Internet message board.

"You have to be an ambassador," he said. "Most of the times, (people) are just curious, but sometimes they're scared."

Beck, who taught a seminar on open carry during the jamboree, said he tries not to flaunt his .45, and wears dark-colored clothes to match the holster and the weapon. When he feels someone looking at him, he introduces himself and says he carries for personal protection, because it's his right.

His goal, he said, is to defuse a situation before it gets tense. When he and another Free Stater entered a Guernsey diner with their holstered weapons, nobody objected.

This winter, Callaway ran her truck off the road on a trip up to Spearfish, S.D. A young man pulled over and helped tow her out.

"He looks up at me and says, 'All right, a lady carrying a gun!'" Callaway recalled. "'That's good!' He looks at the license plate and goes, 'From Wyoming, I knew it!'"

Home

"The first night I moved in, in Beulah, three other FSW guys were there, helping me unload," Frank said. "That's the kind of support - go into a new state and a strange place you've never been, it's scary. Even for an old guy."

Frank currently lives in Beulah, but is building his dream home on a secluded piece of property with a view of Devils Tower.

At Royce's request, the 56-year-old is blogging for the first time, telling prospective movers about his time in Wyoming. The idea is to show those interested in moving to the state what it's like to be a new resident here. When his home is finally built, he'll offer newcomers a place to stay, or park an RV or something.

And if they don't come, if people stop exploring the possibilities of Free State Wyoming, if the phenomenon sputters, he said he's fine with it.

"I've already achieved success, already in the first month," he said in May. "It's actually the first time I've done something bigger than myself."

Contact reporter Cory Matteson at (307) 266-0589 or cory.matteson@casperstartribune.net.