Mountain War: Defending Their Home (Mountain Man Book 4) by Nathan Jones

Author:Nathan Jones [Jones, Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

New Arrivals

Sangue had been strangely quiet since breaking off pursuit after the failed ambush. Tom had been dreading the scouts inevitably returning with news of squads once more inexorably searching in their direction, but so far it hadn't come.

He could only assume the enemy was too occupied getting Highway 29 back up and running to keep searching the mountains for an elusive group of enemies. That, or maybe they'd hit another even bigger patch of resistance somewhere else and had their hands full dealing with it.

Whatever the reason, he nearly had a heart attack the day after Brandon's skirmishers set out to begin their work. Mel Carver, who'd been with the scouts keeping an eye out northwest of the valley, came thundering back into Camptown in the early afternoon, nearly throwing herself off her borrowed horse to breathlessly give him news of hundreds of people heading south into their area.

Tom's heart rate steadied when the young woman went on to add that the hundreds of people looked to be a refugee convoy, and one that was seriously bad off. “Derry tells me they're an unorganized mass, almost no scouts he could see out watching the area around them. Most of them are struggling just to put one foot in front of the other, and while they're not exactly leaving a trail of bodies behind them, he did observe a family stopping long enough to bury a loved one.”

Refugees, from up north? Did that mean Sangue had managed firmer control up there than they were managing in these mountains, forcing people to flee? “How'd they get past Highway 29?” he asked.

Mel shrugged. “No idea. But Derry says they're about two days out from Camptown at the pace they're setting, although from the direction they're headed they'll probably pass us by well to the west.”

Assuming Camptown wanted them to pass by. But what was the alternative, inviting hundreds of people in? The displaced Emery townspeople were already reduced to eating bugs and eagerly waiting for the scrub oak acorns to grow big enough to harvest to give them some hope of food storage through the winter. Brady kept pestering Tom to think about “selling” the town in exile his livestock to butcher for meat, at least a few of them.

There was no possible way they could take in another group. But at the same time, Sangue had proven that one good push from them would probably blow past any resistance the volunteers could raise, leaving the invaders in a position to attack the valley.

The grim truth was, Camptown didn't have the numbers to defend the place on their own. At which point Tom supposed the question was: which would kill them first, starvation or bloodies? Either way, he wanted to at least get a look at this group, find out what he could about them.

First things first, though, he needed to talk to Brady and Mitchells, see what they thought.

“Good job,” he told Mel. “Take your horse back to Brady, and tell Jenny to ride back out to join the scouts as quick as she can to replace you.

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