The Blue Ridge Resistance Read Online Free PDF Page A

each other as they bounded towards the house.
    As Nate rode up to the house, he saw the body of the woman lying on the ground with blood all over her chest. He quickly dismounted, checked her vitals, and picked up the small handgun that was on the ground, just out of her reach. He checked to see if it was loaded and found that it still held live rounds in four of its five cylinders. He stuck it in his waistband and ran on up to Judith to get debriefed on what had occurred in his absence.
    “What happened?” he asked. “Is anyone else hurt?”
    “They tried to rob us,” Judith said, still under stress from the situation. “Luke shot her, but she hit him too…”
    “What? Oh my God! Is he okay?” Nate interrupted in a panic.
    “Yes, it wasn’t bad. He’s fine,” Judith tried to explain as Rachel came out onto the front porch and gave Nate a hug.
    Rachel said to Nate, “Oh, thank God you’re home. Luke will be fine. I’ve got him all cleaned up, and he is downstairs watching over Haley. We’ve been watching the house from up here and have just been waiting for you to get home.”
    Evan and Jason joined them on the porch, keeping their eyes open and scanning the perimeter. “What happened?” Evan asked.
    Rachel gathered her thoughts and said, “Two women and three children approached the house. Luke came down from the roof to confront them. They gave him some sob story about traveling alone with hungry children. Just as he decided to give them some food, Judith caught some men in the cellar around back and started yelling for Nate. The woman lying on the ground over there pulled her pistol and fired at Luke to keep him away from her men once they were discovered. He returned fire and she went down with one shot.”
    “What about the men and the other woman and the children?” Jason asked.
    “The other woman and the children turned and ran towards the main road. Luke just let them go. The men around back in the cellar ran into the woods and got away,” she replied.
    “Cowards!” said Jason in disgust. “What kind of man puts women and children on the front lines when they are just going to run and hide to protect their own worthless asses if something goes down? I’m gonna go check out back,” Jason said as he walked away, enraged by the situation.
    Nate started to follow him and said, “Wait up, I’ll cover you.”
    As Jason and Nate went around the house to check out the cellar and the surrounding woods, Evan went into the house to check on the women and Luke. He was glad to see that Luke appeared to be doing fine, and that the women had handled themselves admirably. 
    He then joined the other two out back. “Did you find anything?”
    Jason replied, “Negative. It looks like got away with some canned goods, well, jarred goods we call canning. They dropped and broke some of them during their cowardly retreat. We trailed them through the woods for a while, and from what we could see from their tracks, they doubled back to the main road, probably joining back up with their decoys. From there, it’s anyone’s guess where they went.”
    Evan looked around, gathering his thoughts and said, “Well, on the bright side, they seem to have been low-level thieves. Probably migrants desperate for food, but not an organized or skilled operation.”
    “So what now?” asked Nate.
    “Well, we need to do something with the body, and we need to let the other homesteads know what happened here. They need to keep an eye out and never go outside without being armed. They also need to know the ruse that was used.”
    Jason added in disgust, “I guess Daryl was right; the winter lull is over.”
    “So what do we do with the body?” asked Nate.
    “Hmmm,” said Evan as he thought it over. “Well, we need to give her a burial… but not here. I think we need to find a place where bodies in this situation can be buried in a proper way, but not in a place where the victims are haunted, knowing their assailant is