The Blue Ridge Resistance

by Steven Bird

  Tyrone just looked at his wife, smiled, and said, “Absolutely, sir, absolutely.”

  With that, Jimmy cooked up a delicious, warm dinner for the hungry family. There wasn’t any rabbit left, but he made do with what they had. Any warm meal for people on the run like the Gibbs family was a true blessing during these difficult times. After they ate, the men set the trailer up as a shelter for the family and let them get their much-needed rest.

  As the Gibbs family snuggled together, wrapped in the sleeping bags that Evan and the men provided them, Tyrone kissed his wife and daughter on the cheek and said, “See, there are some good people left in the world.”

  Chapter 17: Helping Hands

  As Daryl walked out of the Lewis home, he heard the sound of a diesel engine roaring up to the house on the gravel road. He quickly realized it was Molly, driving Evan’s Dodge pickup with several other people in the cab. As the truck came to a stop, the doors flew open and, in addition to Molly, out came Luke, armed with an AR15, followed by Rachel and Griff’s wife, Judy.

  Luke and Rachel ran up to Daryl as Luke shouted, “Who and where?”

  Daryl replied, “It’s Griff. Linda’s with him in the woods now. He seems hurt pretty bad. I’ll take you.”

  Judy frantically asked, “Who? Who is hurt?”

  “It’s Griff ma’am,” Daryl responded with a somber tone. “He had an accident with his horse while pursuing the thieves that attacked Beth.”

  “Where’s Beth?” Molly asked. “Is she alright?”

  He just shook his head no in response and said, “C’mon; Griff is this way.”

  Everyone knew by Daryl’s behavior that something tragic must have happened to Beth, but Griff was the priority at the moment. Daryl then led them on foot, through the woods in the direction of where he left Linda with Griff. When they reached them, Linda looked up and said with relief, “Oh, thank God.”

  Judy ran to Griff’s side and began crying as Molly tried to pull her to the side to allow Rachel and Luke to assess the situation. Rachel and Luke quickly got to work as a team, like they had countless times before, when working with the Texas State Guard, as wounded soldiers and civilians were brought into their makeshift hospital.

  Noticing his skin color and lips, Rachel quickly said, “Get a rate and BP.” She then listened to his chest with her stethoscope and began to look him over for obvious signs of trauma.

  “BP is seventy-six over thirty and his heart rate is ninety-eight,” replied Luke after taking his vitals.

  Rachel looked up at him and said, “I think he’s got a pneumothorax on his left side, possibly some broken ribs.”

  “A what?” shouted Judy through the tears.

  “A collapsed lung,” Luke replied while Rachel was digging around in her bag. She quickly pulled out an IV needle and began running her fingers down the left side of his chest from his clavicle, counting his ribs. She inserted the needle and listened to his chest with her stethoscope.

  Luke turned to Molly and Judy and said, “She’s trying to allow the air trapped around his lung to escape so that it will re-inflate. It’s okay. It’s not hurting him.”

  “It’s working,” Rachel said to Luke as she continued to listen.

  They could almost immediately see the difference in the rise of his chest. Luke looked at her and said, “Should I tape up the needle for transport?”

  “Yes, we’ll put a chest tube in back at the farm, where we can get him stabilized while we analyze the extent of the rest of his injuries. For now though, let’s get him out of here.” She then looked at Daryl and said, “Is there anything around here we can use for a stretcher, to get him out of the woods and into the back of the truck? We don’t know the extent of his other possible injuries just yet, so we need to stabilize him before we move him.”

  Daryl quickly replied, “I’ll find something,” and ran back towards the house.

  While Rachel and Luke continued to assess Griff’s situation, Molly comforted Judy, and did her best to assure her that Rachel and Luke were very experienced with trauma patients and would be able to get him back on his feet in no time. She hoped that was the case, but with the unknown extent of his head injury that still remained to be seen, she couldn’t help but fear the worst.

  After about ten minutes, Daryl came running through the woods, dragging along two long wooden poles and a scrap piece of plywood. As he dragged the items up to where Griff was lying, in an out-of-breath voice he said, “I found these poles in Jimmy’s garden shed; I think they were supports for his bean pole strings. This scrap of plywood was leaning next to his garage.”

  He then pulled out of his pocket a screwdriver and some long wood screws, which he had also retrieved from the garage, and began to screw the poles along the long sides of the plywood. The screws went about halfway in; then the resistance from the depth they were going into the wood began to cause the Phillips screw heads to strip. “Damn it!” he shouted in despair. “I really needed to drill a pilot hole. These screws are crap.”

  “It’s okay, Daryl,” replied Luke. “With the plywood on top of the poles, his weight will do a pretty good job of holding it all together. The screws are in far enough to keep the plywood from sliding off. That’s all that really matters.”

  Daryl just looked at him with a defeated nod and put the screwdriver back into his pocket. They then placed the homemade backboard next to Griff, and in unison, they all moved him as carefully as possible onto it and began to carry him out of the woods. Upon reaching the truck, they loaded him into the back, which was covered with a fiberglass truck canopy. Rachel climbed inside and said, “Judy, you ride with me and your husband. Luke, you ride shotgun with Molly upfront. Daryl, do you and Linda want to ride with us, or are you going to ride your horse?”

  “I’ll lock up Jimmy’s home and check to see if there is anything else I can do to secure Beth, and then I’ll be on over,” he said with a very somber voice. “Oh, and I need to go back out into the woods and deal with the bodies of Beth’s murderers. That’s not something Jimmy should have to come back home and deal with on top of everything else.”

  Rachel put her hand on his and said, “Thank you. You did a great job taking care of him, getting Linda to help, and getting us here. You made all the difference for him.”

  Daryl just nodded as a tear rolled down his face.

  Linda then said, “I need to head back to my place. I didn’t come prepared for a trip. Please radio me if you need anything at all and let me know how Griff is doing once you get it all figured out.”

  “We will,” replied Rachel as she shut the back window. She then gave Molly the thumbs up and they began to drive away.

  Linda turned to Daryl and didn’t say a word. She just gave him a hug and patted him on the back. He hugged her back and began to cry. She didn’t know what to think, seeing a big, burly man like Daryl, who had fought fiercely for them today and in the past, break down like this.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he pulled away and wiped the tears from his face with a sniffle. He cleared his throat and said, “Let me take care of things here and I’ll escort you home.”

  “Okay, thanks,” she said with a smile.

  ~~~~

  After what was, thankfully, an uneventful drive back to the Thomas farm, they moved Griff into the home and stabilized him in Rachel’s makeshift clinic in the basement. After as thorough of an examination as she could do without any real medical equipment, Rachel determined that the likelihood of any other serious internal injuries was low. His lungs had returned to a more normal level of function, and his blood-oxygen-content had returned to healthy levels. She removed the IV needle and replaced it with a chest tube to keep his chest cavity clear, preventing his lung from re-collapsing. At this point, she felt they just needed to keep him stable and hope that his head injury wasn’t too severe to recover from on his own. She started him on an IV, gave him an anti-inflammatory, and started him on antibiotics to prevent infection from the wound around the c
hest tube. Having very limited medical supplies, it was all she felt she could do for him, other than to just keep him stable and comfortable continuing to monitor him. She was worried, however, that he had shown no signs of consciousness and was fearful for the extent of his head injuries.

  As Judy remained by his side, Rachel said, “I’ll leave you alone with him for now. If you need anything at all, just yell and Luke or I will come running. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Judy replied, wiping a tear from her eye. “Thank you so much for helping him. I can’t imagine living without him, especially in this crazy world. He’s my rock.”

  “We will make sure we take great care of him and get him through this.”

  Judy just nodded as she held back the tears. Rachel excused herself and joined the others upstairs in the living room.

  “How is he doing?” Mildred asked.

  “Stable for now, but still no signs of consciousness,” she replied. “We’ve done all that we have the ability to do. At this point, we just keep him stable and wait.”

  Chapter 18: Return of the Guardians

  Around noon the next day, as Evan and the men stood watch over the Gibbs family while they caught up on their much-needed sleep, Evan looked at Jason and said, “What are the odds they are still alive?”

  “Who?” asked Jason.

  “The woman and the girl Tyrone mentioned. Do you think they are still out there going through some kind of unspeakable hell in the hands of their captors?”

  “If history has taught us anything… yes,” replied Jason with a look of disgust on his face. “To scum bags like that, a female is a prized possession in a world where they don’t have to worry about the threat of the authorities catching them. My guess is they will hang on to them until they are no longer useful. Look at how long the guys at the Muncie place kept poor Haley.”

  Evan kicked a rock and said, “Very true. Let’s get some information from Tyrone before they leave about the woman and the girl, as well as the men that took them. We are heading that way. There is no need not to keep an eye out for them. What kind of man, who has the means to do something about it, lets that stand?”

  Jason just nodded knowing exactly what Evan had in mind. “What if we find them? Do we take them with us?”

  “We can cross that bridge when we get to it, but first we have to find the bridge.”

  Evan and Jason heard Charlie say, “Good morning.”

  They turned around to see Tyrone coming out of the trailer, looking much better than the night before. “That’s the first sleep I’ve gotten in as long as I can remember,” Tyrone said appreciatively. “Thank you gentlemen, so much, for taking us in last night.”

  “No problem, sir,” replied Jason.

  Evan said, “If people didn’t still strive to do what’s right, this world would already be gone. Speaking of which, Jimmy is cooking up some lunch now. After you eat, if you could give us some information about the woman and the girl that were taken, we would greatly appreciate it.”

  “I can tell you now,” he said. “But what do you plan on doing?”

  “We’ll keep an eye out for them,” replied Evan. “If we see signs of them somewhere, we’ll take it from there.”

  Tyrone just looked at them with bewilderment. Why would these total strangers want to risk going up against some thugs to help people they’ve never even met? “The mother’s name is Roxanne and the daughter is Sabrina. Roxanne is in her mid-thirties, and Sabrina is sixteen. They’re both black, like us, and have slender builds and are average height.”

  “Where exactly were they taken?” Evan asked.

  “We were heading west from Hot Springs, North Carolina. It was getting late in the evening and we were starting to look for a place to bed down for the night. That, of course, is when we still traveled during the day. Anyway, a little ways back, before you get to the point where seventy cuts across a peninsula made by the river, there was a bunch of old, abandoned eighteen-wheeler trailers and large shipping containers on the south side of the highway. It looked as if people had camped there before, those trailers and containers making the perfect temporary shelter. Anyway, we were checking out the containers when a truck pulled in. The Jacksons, that was the family name of our friends, had already climbed into a small shipping container while we were looking through what was still available to find one for ourselves.”

  “There were several men in the back with guns and two up front, in the cab. They must have seen us looking around the containers. That or they simply used that place as a regular trap. They seemed to operate pretty calm and calculated, like it was a routine.”

  Jason interrupted to ask, “Were you or the Jacksons armed?”

  “No,” he replied. “When it all started, I had a pistol and Ted had a shotgun. The kind you pump. He had gotten it for home defense when we all started to see the writing on the wall. Then during the initial stages of everything, the local city police went door-to-door, confiscating all of the legally owned weapons. Not wanting to become criminals ourselves by hanging on to them illegally, we complied. That was the biggest mistake we ever made.”

  “That’s such bullshit,” Jason said in disgust.

  Ed added, “They were doing the same thing in Ohio when I left.”

  The men all shared an equally disgusted look, and Tyrone continued. “Anyway, when we saw them drive up, we slipped off into the weeds to hide. The moon was really bright that night so the darkness itself was no place to hide. We could have run then, but we didn’t want to abandon our friends. The group of men moved from container to container, clearing each one with what seemed like military or swat team precision. When they reached the Jackson’s container and opened the door, we could hear Sabrina scream as the men dragged her and her mother, kicking and screaming, from the trailer. Ted, the father, tried fighting them off with everything he had. Two of the men pulled him out of the trailer and beat him mercilessly right in front of his wife and daughter.”

  Looking haunted by his memories, he cleared his throat and continued. “Sorry,” he apologized for his pause. “So then, while he was down on his back, beaten nearly to death, he reached up with his bloody arm towards his wife and daughter, who were being restrained by the men. He told them he loved them as one of the men dropped a concrete block on his head, killing him.”

  Tyrone then broke down into tears, weeping for his lost friend. Ed brought him a cup of water; he graciously accepted it and regained his composure. “His wife and daughter lost their minds. I’ve never heard such screams filled with pain and agony. I wanted to run out there and kill every single one of those men with my bare hands, but I knew if I did so unarmed, my wife and daughter would suffer the same fate. My wife and I held our daughter’s mouth as she tried to scream out in agony from the horror of what she had witnessed. Luckily, the cries of the Jackson women drowned out her whimpers… huh… ‘luckily’. I can’t believe I just said that,” Tyrone said as he held his head down with shame.

  Evan put his hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “There was nothing you could have done for them, on your own and unarmed. You kept your wife and daughter safe from those horrors. Don’t you ever regret that. Your family will always be your number one mission in life.”

  “Where did they take them?” Evan asked. “Could you see what direction they took when they left?”

  “They loaded them up and headed back towards the east and then up a hill,” Tyrone answered. “We waited several hours, after it all went down, before we started moving again. Since then, we’ve only traveled at night, staying hunkered down all day. Until we stumbled across your camp, that is.”

  “When we pack up and head out, we are heading east,” Evan said as he stood up and took a sip of water. “We’ll keep an eye out for the Jackson women. If there is anything in our power we can do to help, we will.”

  “Thank you guys so much,” Tyrone said with a tear in his eyes.

  Evan then walked over to the trail
er and dug around in his pack. He walked back over to Tyrone and handed him a .38 special revolver and a box of ammunition. “Do you know how to use a revolver?” he asked.

  “Yes. Yes, I do. That’s what I had before it was confiscated.”

  “Good,” Evan replied. “Do as we said and head for Del Rio. When you get to the outskirts of town, you may encounter a roadblock guarded by some of the town’s people. If they are the same ones we encountered, they are good people but have a right to be mistrustful. Tell them you are looking for Pastor Wallace… and tell him The Guardians sent you.”

  Chapter 19: Moving On

  As Evan, Jason, Charlie, Jimmy, Nate, and Ed loaded up and headed out for the east, Tyrone’s wife looked at him and said, “For the first time in a long time, I feel like God is looking out for us. It couldn’t have been mere chance that we stumbled across those men. Their kindness to total strangers was like nothing I’ve seen since we started traveling.”

  He just squeezed her hand and smiled. She then noticed a concerned look on his face as he watched them drive away. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing. It was just something he said,” he replied.

  “What?” she insisted.

  “He said to tell the pastor in Del Rio that The Guardians had sent us. I could see what that meant in his eyes.”

  “What did it mean?” she asked insistently.

  “I’m probably just reading too much into little things these days. We had better get a move on. I’m anxious to get to this Del Rio place,” he said as he pulled her by the hand, and the three of them started walking west.

  ~~~~

  As the tractor rolled along with the trailer in tow, Evan and Jason were mostly quiet, both knowing what might await them ahead, and what that meant. The violence of the previous year had strengthened them, but had also left deep scars in their own hearts. They had not only lost good friends and neighbors, but they each carried a heavy heart for committing the deeds that had to be done. Even if the nation somehow returned to normal in the near future, they, along with most people who had survived the turmoil thus far, would remain changed forever.