by D. I. Telbat
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STEADFAST Book Three
America's Last Days
D.I. Telbat
https://ditelbat.com/book/steadfast-book-three/
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Copyright 2017 ~ D.I. Telbat
All rights reserved
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Cover Design by Quest Publications
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In America's last days,
only the steadfast will prevail!
Bible Scripture verses taken from the KJV.
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FREE PDF Downloads
Get your FREE Steadfast Drawings at
~ https://ditelbat.com/steadfast-drawings/ ~
*~*
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
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Dedication
for The Steadfast Series
To those who know they must begin
to stand for Christ right now, not later.
*~*
Acknowledgements
for The Steadfast Series
Every book requires a team,
and every series requires commitment,
so, thanks to the individuals who bless me,
and strive alongside me,
by correcting, editing, and advising:
Dee, Jamie, Sharon, and Mountainman Ed.
Special thanks also to my Beta Reader Friends!
Most of all, I acknowledge the finished work
of Jesus Christ for us,
and the saving work of God in us.
May our work bring Him glory.
*~*
Table of Contents
Title & Copyright
FREE Map Downloads
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Conclusion
Character Sketch
Glossary
Other Books by D.I. Telbat
About the Author
BONUS Chapter: Steadfast Book Three Bonus Chapter
*~*
Prologue
As Christians await Christ to return for His Church, America struggles through its darkest hour. Six years after Pan-Day, the Meridia Virus still plagues the shadows of countless neighborhoods. Rogue militias rally for domination over food and fuel. Bandits prey upon homesteads. Families struggle for a morsel of meat. Strangers are suspected and avoided.
But deep in the Wyoming wilderness, Eric Radner, nicknamed Mad Man, has preserved a remnant of women and children—the families of resistance fighters who are battling the invading Liberation Organization and its allies. Though Eric has made an effort to stand steadfast for Christ in River Camp, the gospel has been resisted. Even beautiful Gretchen has found more comfort in the idea of Eric as a husband than in the idea of a Savior who yearns for her heart.
As River Camp's Provisions Officer, Eric prays for strength to remain steadfast for Jesus Christ, even as the future of America has never seemed so bleak . . .
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"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin,
and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ." I Corinthians 15:55-57 KJV
*~*
Chapter 1
Eric Radner tripped over a root and tumbled into a steep ravine. He came to rest in a small bog, the smelly water warmed by the summer sun. As he stared up at the blue sky, his wits slowly returned after his brain had been rattled by the fall. Death had visited River Camp, and Eric felt responsible. While civil war raged along the rural highways of Wyoming against the invading Liberation Organization, a grizzly bear had attacked a party of River Camp's food gatherers.
With a wince, Eric sat up and checked his .223 hunting rifle still in his right hand. He hunted with open sights, so he didn't have to worry about damaging a scope. Except for a little dirt he blew out of the barrel, the rifle seemed unharmed. Only then did he gasp and touch the finger-wide branch that protruded from his ribs. After panting three short breaths, he plucked the branch straight out. Blood flowed down his side, but the piece of wood, sharp and jagged, had only penetrated an inch deep. A couple ribs felt broken, but his arms and legs were functional. Shakily, he rose to his feet, mud from the bog clinging to his backside.
After climbing out of the ravine, he paused on the north side of a birch tree where moist moss grew at the base of the trunk. His fingernails clawed deeply at the green spongy moss, and he lifted clear a section as big as his hand. Pulling up his shirt, he painfully pressed the poultice onto his wound. Nature had its share of remedies to fight infection, but it was blood loss that was his immediate concern. With a grizzly on the rampage, Eric needed all of his strength to kill the beast that had already killed one youth.
"Hold me together, Lord," he prayed aloud.
Pressing the moss against his ribs with one hand, the blood flow slowed. With his rifle in his other hand, he started through the woods at a jog, though less recklessly now.
He was two miles from River Camp when he came to a small meadow where he and Gretchen often hunted. Kneeling at the edge of the clearing, Eric took in the scene. A youth's dead body lay in the middle of the meadow. Small flowers in the short grass were smeared with blood, telling the tale of violence only minutes old.
A whistle pierced the scene. Eric moved only his eyes, not wanting to alert the grizzly that he was on the scene. The whistle had come from Andy, his adopted son, now six years old. But where was he? Only weeks earlier, Andy had discovered his ability to make an ear-splitting, two-fingered whistle, and he'd been driving River Camp crazy ever since. But now, the whistle meant life—his son was alive!
Still, Eric waited. To move hastily now could mean death. The three other rifle hunters from River Camp were minutes behind him, but he intended to put the beast to rest before anyone else was placed at risk.
Andy whistled again, and this time, Eric saw the boy thirty feet up a white oak tree, its sparse, thin branches barely giving the boy a foothold. The bear could be waiting even then for his prey to fall.
Movement to Eric's right caught his eye. He almost raised his rifle, but then saw it was Joel Grayport, River Camp's recent addition. The man was a bow hunter and meat provider, but his past from the town of Mastover haunted him, making him a loner and solitary tracker. Few in River Camp besides Eric associated with the gap-toothed man. Joel's father had sided with the Lib-Org invaders and was the scourge of Wyoming. Eric had known the thirty-year-old bow hunter was out hunting that morning, so he hadn't expected him to respond to their bear threat.
Crouching as he moved, Eric angled across the meadow to Joel. The bow hunter saw him and stopped his advance. Together, the two knelt and whispered. The dead child lay a few paces away.
"The kids were out gathering amaranth vegetables," Eric said. "A few of them ran back to camp and said there was a bear that had attacked them. At least one dead, we confirm now. It's got to be that grizzly we saw tracks from last week."
"It's him, all right." Joel nodded, his eyes scanning the tress, his fingers pinching an aluminum arrow already in the bow string. "I put an arrow in his shoulder. That's what set him off. I didn't know the kids were this far out in the woods. Is that your boy whistling?"
"Yeah, in the tree, there." Eric checked behind them. He'd heard of bears sneaking up when no one was looking. Since Pan-Day, his experience at hunting had been focused on deer and the occasional elk. He'd hunted black bears, but grizzlies were a whole different challenge. "We should've hunted down that monster the first day we saw his tracks. You're already unpopular back in camp. I'm afraid this is going to send folks over the top."
"What do you suggest?"
"About camp or the bear?"
"Let's start with the bear." Joel frowned at Eric. "And don't say we should pray about it, or I'll run straight into the jaws of that beast just to stop my misery."
Eric didn't laugh at the jab. Not many at River Camp had taken kindly to the Sunday morning services he'd started for those who wanted to attend. Even Gretchen seemed to barely tolerate his faith as he casually resisted her urgings for them to become an official couple. Each Sunday, he read from the Bible, gave a short encouragement to follow after Jesus, then prayed for the camp. Only ten attended regularly. Two women had asked if they could sing a duet the following week, though only one of them had made a profession of faith. The dead boy had been the son of one of those women—the only other certain Christian in camp besides him and Andy.
"After all you've seen God do, you still doubt Him?"
As often as Eric could, he liked to remind Joel of God's deliverance of them at the river months earlier.
"I just shot a bear, and it turned on that kid and killed him." Joel cursed. "Where's your God in that?"
With a prayer on his lips, Eric turned away. He didn't judge Joel for his stubborn heart. Before Pan-Day, Eric had also blamed God for the evils and tragedies in the world. True, it hardly seemed that good could come from the death of a child, but Eric wasn't willing to doubt God before he waited for Him to work something spectacular out of the suffering.
The sound of footfalls from a runner made the two hunters pivot to the north. Gretchen Worcester, her red hair loose from its leather tie, skidded to a stop at the edge of the meadow. She didn't react to the carnage before her, merely studied the scene as the cautious hunter she'd become. Her hard exterior had bought her the nickname, "Grim," but those who knew her best took confidence in her no-nonsense attentiveness. Eric held up his palm for her to wait, and she nodded. Silently, she eased her rifle to her shoulder, ready to fire. Like the rest in camp, her attitude toward Joel had been cold and distant. Eric guessed this incident wouldn't improve matters any.
"Your bow and arrow can't do much in this fight now," Eric said to Joel. "You'll just make that beast angrier. But you can still help."
"What do you want me to do?" The man replaced his arrow in the quiver and swung his bow over his shoulder.
"Priority one: we get Andy to safety. Move up to his tree and get him out of here. Gretchen and I will cover you."
Like Eric, Gretchen used a bolt action .223—hardly a bear gun, but it was all they had.
"Don't miss," Joel said as he cautiously moved forward.
Eric waved at Gretchen to move ahead. She snuck into the meadow, her face stoic. No one would call her Gretchen the Grim, Eric considered, if they saw her that day—committed to protecting the camp, even in the face of a wounded predator. Parallel, she and Eric moved thirty paces behind Joel. Finally, Joel reached the foot of the white oak tree. Andy started down the tree as Gretchen and Eric calmly aimed their muzzles across the tree line.
When Andy's feet touched the ground, Eric risked speaking.
"Where's the bear, Andy?"
"I think it went south." He pointed into the heart of the wilderness where the mountains jutted into the sky, and pristine lakes hadn't been visited by anyone but Eric in years. "It killed Willy."
"I know. Walk slowly to me, Andy. Joel, can you pick up Willy and carry him back?"
Joel didn't respond, though he took off his jacket as he walked back to the body. When he reached Willy, he wrapped the boy's broken form in the jacket and lifted him into his arms. The boy had been only seven years old.
"Gretchen, take lead. Andy, follow Gretchen." Eric nodded at Joel. "Go ahead. Let's get back to camp. I'll bring up the rear."
Gretchen hesitated, then moved closer to Eric.
"I hope you see it now." Her face was pale but her eyes were fierce. "My dad was right. Bringing Joel into River Camp was a mistake."
"Get moving," Eric said, realizing suddenly that if he sided with Joel about the incident, he'd be facing a camp-wide insurrection. "This wasn't intentional, Gretchen."
She and Andy started off. When Joel passed Eric, he paused.
"The body wasn't eaten. That thing just killed him and moved on."
Eric understood. The bear was a serious threat now—a man-killer. It had tasted human blood. It would have to be put down, or the camp would lose more people.
The two miles back to camp wasn't long enough for Eric to decide what to say to the people of River Camp about the death of Willy. The morning had begun with the final logs being set into place for seven lodges—a day of celebration that had become a day of mourning. Instead of dancing, there would be a funeral. Three months of hard work at their canyon refuge next to the river seemed to have led to this one day of death. And Joel would be to blame.
The two other hunters, Liz and Joy, met the returning party outside camp and warned them that the camp was in a panic, due to the children arriving earlier with news that a bear had attacked their foraging party.
Eric saw no other option except to march directly into camp and present the dead child to his mother, Barb. The women and children were weeping as the hunters walked through the sadness and stopped at the northern-most lodge. Barb was there, a big-boned woman with rosy cheeks. In the midst of the wailing crowd, Joel lay the child in his mother's arms.
"Where's Hank?" Eric asked Sara Worcester about her husband, the camp's second in command.
Sara pointed up at Lookout Ridge, where two women were stationed day and night in eight-hour shifts, watching the northern trail.
"Someone's coming," she said, her eyes damp. "The lookout shouted a warning a minute before you returned."
Gretchen approached Eric, her rifle still on her shoulder.
"You need to get that looked at." She pointed at Eric's side, wet from fresh blood. "And then we need to do something about Joel. That bear is his fault!"
"It just needs a couple stitches." Eric touched his ribs, choosing to ignore her bitterness toward Joel. "Come with me." Together, they climbed the worn trail up the slope to Lookout Ridge. "As if we didn't have enough going on today, your mother just said we have outside company coming."
They reached the lookout, which was a station with a lean-to and an outhouse. Two women in their sixties sat on the bench where they often busied themselves with braiding horsehair or crushing purslane to make flour for baking. Hank Worcester stood at the highest point of the lookout, binoculars to his eyes.
"Who is it?" Eric tried to shut out the wailing from camp behind and below them. He knew better than anyone else all hundred people by name. This death would be hard on them all.
"Looks like two men." Hank passed the field glasses to Eric. "They're wearing Lib-Org uniforms, gray and black, but look what they're carrying."
"A white flag." Eric shook his head. "Whatever they want, we can't let them see our camp. Even a peaceful scouting party is still a scouting party. They know we're out here, apparently. You recognize them?"
"Nope. Could be new arrivals in Mastover, or from the Lib-Org's forward command, thinking we're more involved in the resistance with Major Milton than we really are." Hank drew his sidearm and checked the action. "We'd best kill them before they return to confirm to anyone that we're out here."
"That's not the way we communicate with the enemy, Hank." Eric touched Hank's weapon, gently pushing it downward. "You cover me as I talk to them. Gretchen, sneak into the trees and scout along the trail to the north. Make sure these boys aren't a forward party to a larger force coming to attack us."
> Gretchen slipped into the woods and out of sight. Eric started down the ridge toward the strangers approaching on the game trail. Once, he looked back and saw Hank scowling, certainly not agreeing with Eric's decision, but Eric was glad God had given him just enough authority in camp to enforce decisions that preserved life rather than took it.
Close to the trail, Eric sat on the uphill slope of the path and waited. His side was still damp with blood, but the moss was in place, aiding in the long-term healing. He considered all that needed to be done in camp before winter closed upon them in a couple short months. At least the seven lodges had been completed. Next came sheds and a spud cellar, more firewood, a better corral for the horses, and a smoke house to cure meat. There was also a grizzly to hunt, and that could be potentially deadly since it had already killed once. And now the Lib-Org was on to them. Eric's spirits sank at the prospect of relocating the whole camp.
Two men rounded the bend in the trail and froze. Eric's rifle remained cradled in his right arm, aimed at the ground. He raised his left hand and waved at the visitors. The man on the left lifted the white cloth on a stick a little higher and glanced about nervously as they proceeded. Their assault rifles, which were meant for killing people, not hunting animals, remained slung over their shoulders. Five paces from Eric, they stopped in the trail.
"Nice day for a stroll." Eric smiled warmly, and realized he really had no ill will toward the puppet soldiers of wicked men. "The way you're holding that white flag, I'd say you're out here for a purpose."
The two men eyed the trees and bushes, but Eric figured Hank had remained up on the ridge, practically invisible from the trail at fifty paces. Both men appeared to be in their thirties, clean-shaven and wearing wrinkled uniforms. Their boots showed much wear. The Lib-Org elite troops would never be allowed to wear sub-par gear, so Eric guessed they were local militia from Mastover.
"We're looking for the one they call Mad Man." The spokesman was a shaggy-blond with narrow eyes and a permanent smirk. "Judge Grayport sent us."