Rise From the Ashes: Lena's Story Read Online Free PDF

trained military men and then spread back south, making sure each place is secure and then moving south again. The sheriff is going to stay in Brattleboro, but left it open for anyone to go or stay. He figures he can keep Brattleboro safe & if not, he can help the ones who stay behind fight and retreat.
     
    “Sheriff, the days are nice now, but winter will be here in a few months. We need to be all set up for winter so I can’t really stay long. I’d like to leave tomorrow if I can. I know it’s short notice. But if anyone else wants to head north, they can come along at any time. I just need to get up there and take my place with the army. Start really helping out.”
     
    “You take good care of Lena, I’ll hold things together here until you make it back down this way.”
     
    I actually gave Sheriff Edwards a kiss on the cheek as I left. I never would have done that before the bombs, but now; well, we just have to show affection every chance we get, don’t we? The world AB is going to be different. I guess how different is going to depend on us, each of us can do something to build it up and create a new world or to make it worse.
     
    Then Mick and I went looking for some good horses. I was not too keen on the idea of riding north. Mick took his time, told me about the Humvee. Told me how hard fuel was going to be to get and about the roads already being littered with cars that had run out of gas. He said we could go in for bikes, but they were noisy, we would still have to worry about fuel and they couldn’t carry as many supplies as a horse could. That some time or another he figured we would end up on horseback anyway.
     
    Better to do it now, when we had time to choose some good horses and also had some time to learn to ride. Mick said he figured we were ahead of any Taliban, so we had days if not weeks to learn to ride before we might have to worry about them.
     
    “Ok, fine.” I was not really grumping, I was convinced. Still, it is not so easy to ride a horse as you may think if you have never been up on one. And it seems really high up there.
    I didn’t know too much about horses, just a little from riding them a couple of times a year as long back as I could remember. I took him to some places around town that I knew had horses, the first one had an owner that was still alive. We told her our plans, but she said she was not going to leave her home.
     
    The second place was deserted. So I picked out a horse that looked physically like Lady. Mine was so dark brown all over you could mistake it for black unless you were up close. I hoped it was a Morgan too, I heard they could travel well and used to be military horses in the civil war. I guess we are going to need that kind of horse in the days ahead. I had no idea what my horse’s old name was. So I thought I’d be funny and call him Clint. Yes, after Clint Eastwood; after all, I’m kind of a cowgirl now.
     
    We spent one more night in town and started out in the morning with two other people. A couple, Sue and Ed, older and not interested in talking too much. They wanted to be as far away from the chaos as possible and they said they knew how to hunt and trap. Good enough for me. Ed did growl out that the sheriff said there was radio chatter about gun fights and fires in Amherst, MA; the college punks gone crazy. That hell was making its way toward us.
     
    Sue was wearing really old-fashioned 80’s faded jeans, a plaid blouse and white sneakers. She kept that conservative 80’s look going. She topped it off with frizzy blonde hair that looked a little dry. I couldn’t decide if Sue had permed it or it was naturally frizzy. Guess I will find out in a few months.
     
    Ed was just a typical guy. Jeans, flannel dark green shirt. Normal hiking boots. He had a medium length beard and some wrinkles around his eyes. He was tall and pretty muscular, losing most of his dark hair with a decent amount of grey in what was left. Totally unconcerned with