ST. JOE, ARK. -- Roy MacGregor is working his way from the heartland of America to Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed last Sept. 11. His journey began in Oklahoma City and is taking him through Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee as he heads east for the anniversary.

He drives to work on a lawn mower, the Ozark hills rising and falling in steamy green waves behind him, a loaded, 30-clip assault rifle hanging off his left shoulder, a quart of margaritas cradled in his right arm.

His work is running The General's Mercantile, a U.S. Civil War-themed memorabilia and souvenir store that is little more than a pleasant shack at the side of Highway 65, just north of the Buffalo River.

Here, he sells replica flags and hats and bayonets, rebel bikinis, Confederate army dog collars and even toilet paper called "Johnny Wipes," but the main attraction for most visitors is to have their photographs taken beside a roadside sign that once actually did stand: "Adopt-A-Highway Litter Control. Next 1 Mile. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. St. Joe, Arkansas."

Tony Altman is a Klansman -- off to a cross-burning this very evening, he says -- and the bearded, 41-year-old former Georgian considers his "real" work, even if it pays no bills, to be the spreading of the Word.

He would call it the Truth -- the facts the government suppresses, the media ignore and the people are largely ignorant of.

Others would call it lies, twisting the known facts, paranoia, at times insanity.

Take Sept. 11, 2001, for example.

"It didn't faze me at all," he comments.

"To tell you the truth, I wish they'd wiped out the entire city -- I despise New York City."

Not only that, he adds, "I think it very possible that 9/11 could be some kind of covert deal."

His suspicions were aroused by the death count from the terrorist attack on New York. Early speculation suggested more than 6,000 deaths, based on the numbers who worked in the World Trade Center, but the total has ended up closer to 2,800.

"How many people were told not to go to work that day?" Mr. Altman asks as he prepares to take a little target practice out behind the store. "It sure looks odd, doesn't it?"

His suspicions lean ever more toward President George W. Bush. Mr. Bush's family and the family of Osama bin Laden had business interests together, he thinks.

"There's more to this guy than meets the eye," he says.

There is also more to Mr. Altman, once a member of the U.S. Coast Guard, than meets the ear. No one should presume that one who says such things is simply a man of very little brain. He is quick, remarkably well read, highly articulate and polite: Not a single swear word will pass his mouth in a long afternoon of conversation.

Nor is he one of a kind. He is, rather, of a kind -- and this kind's numbers are far, far greater than even most Americans realize.

His are the angry views of the far right, the views of those who blame their government for almost everything, from personal slights (Mr. Altman believes he was denied university because his skin is the wrong colour) to the general decline of modern society. For example, Mr. Altman says government laxness and corporate greed are behind pornography, including that involving children, which then has a direct connection to abductions and, ultimately, the deaths of innocent children.

There is obviously a point where extremism takes over from these views, and here lies more danger. The Unabomber, the Branch Davidians and Timothy McVeigh are examples of what can happen when outrage goes well over the top. But there are thousands, perhaps millions, of more ordinary Americans who share many of Mr. Altman's views.

Two passing women voice their agreement as Mr. Altman says how education is a problem, how the system has been deliberately dumbed down to accommodate poor inner-city blacks and immigrants, the latter being America's "biggest problem," he says. "Too many Mexicans, Cubans, Nicaraguans coming here. If you can't speak English, you shouldn't get in.

There are threats everywhere, he says, but only a handful of people have noticed. The Chinese are taking over the Panama Canal and building ships in the Bahamas, he says, a development he calls "the single greatest threat since the Cuban missile crisis -- but you don't hear a word about it."

His greatest venom is saved for "that weasel Bush," the person many Americans looked to with increased faith after last Sept. 11. Not so Tony Altman and his fellow riders: To them, Mr. Bush is now free to bring in laws that will effectively destroy what little freedom remains in the United States.

There are no good politicians, he believes. The Republicans and Democrats are "all weasels -- just different sides of the same coin. All bought and paid for by the big corporations."

Better, he believes, that the country splits again down Civil War lines. It is a popular sentiment among those who come to The General's Mercantile, where a typical bumper sticker reads, "If I'd known this, I would have picked my own cotton."

But since the United States appears here to stay, one cannot help but ask Tony Altman what he believes could work under the circumstances.

Simple, he says, and lifts his SKS rifle to illustrate. "Thirty shots as fast as you can shoot it," he says. "Go right through that tree there," he says, pointing to a nearby elm more than a foot thick.

"Put Homeland Security into the hands of veteran Americans like me, real Americans, veterans and former policemen. I figure about 4 per cent of males would fit in.

"But we'd get a grip on things all right. We'd get a grip on things."