A RARE VISIT WITH THE REBEL OF RUBY RIDGE

• Share

He is the patron saint of militant gun owners, a living martyr whose infamous 1992 shoot-out with federal agents helped ignite "a seething backlash in the country," as the N.R.A. puts it. But as Randy Weaver looked out his window in a rural Iowa town last week, watching children play on the freshly mowed grass of a park across the street, he sounded more like a struggling single parent than an antigovernment desperado. The children on the lawn reminded him of Samuel, his 14-year-old son, who was shot and killed by federal agents. "He loved the outdoors," Weaver told a TIME reporter. "When we skinned deer, he would sharpen a knife as I cut into the hide. He did everything well. And my wife was so good with the kids ." Then he abruptly stopped. Tears filled both eyes. "I'm not as good a father as she was a mother."

During the shoot-out at the family's cabin on Ruby Ridge in Idaho, Weaver's wife was killed by a federal sniper's bullet as she stood in a doorway holding her baby daughter. Weaver was accused of murder in the death of a federal agent in the shoot-out but was convicted of only two counts related to his failure to appear in court on an earlier weapons charge, for which he served a 16-month sentence.

Yet the Randy Weaver who answers the doorbell of the two- story house with the flaking brown paint and squeaky front door on a corner lot in Grand Junction, Iowa (pop. 880), is dwarfed by his own legend. He is about 5 ft. 7 in. with neatly styled salt-and-pepper hair. He wears a pressed pair of jeans, black T shirt and clean white socks. "I can't wait till all this blows over, and I can go back to the mountains again," he says as he ushers a Time reporter into his living room, furnished with two couches and an exercise machine. He spends $250 a month on rent, getting by, according to a friend, on the Social Security survivor's benefits paid because his wife died.

From a brown corduroy recliner, Weaver can keep an eye on his two youngest daughters, Elisheba, 3, and Rachel, 13, who often play in the park across the street. His oldest daughter, Sara, 19, who works as a waitress, has rented a house up the street. On some days, Weaver sits and sips coffee from a mug emblazoned with the German flag. When visitors drop by, he mixes White Russians in the kitchen. Outside on the small lawn, a jumble of bicycles lies scattered across the sidewalk. A battered white gas guzzler hunkers in the driveway. He says he is not working. Not doing much. Just waiting.

Weaver is waiting as his 87-year-old father fights a battle with cancer. He is waiting for his $170 million lawsuit to be heard against the government, in which he alleges the wrongful death of his wife and son. He is waiting to find out if he is to testify at congressional hearings on his case. He is waiting for the end of the probation that locks him in the southern counties of Iowa, his family's original home, until Dec. 17. He is waiting as Gerry Spence, the flamboyant Wyoming attorney who won Weaver's acquittal on murder charges, finishes the book that will explain what happened on Ruby Ridge and take the government to task.