Blue Thunder Read Free Page A

ordered
Effie, but the servant refused to budge.
    “Ah’s not goin’ down thea’. Ways Ah sees it,
if Ah mus’ meet de Lord, Ah do it fightin’ dem Yankees. No, ma’am.”
She shook her head so wildly, her jowls quivered.
    No time to argue, Mary believed Melissa
hadn’t heard the commotion and not aware of the danger. If she were
she’d come up and fight off the soldiers with her bare hands.
Quickly, Mary shut the door and locked it, then dropped the key
into her pocket. Running into the study, past Sam, who was hard of
hearing and oblivious to what was happening, she plucked the other
rifle from the wall. Hurriedly, she snatched shells from the desk
drawer and joined her husband in the yard that was doing his best
to ward off the Yankees.
    “Mary!” Darrell yelled over the gun fire,
“Get back into the house.” He fired another shot, hitting one of
the men. There were still five soldiers left.
    9
    Mary saw another soldier charging; he came
up from the rear, shouting and waving frantically. His uniformed
sleeve bore more strips than the other men. She was not able to
make any sense out of it, but she took aim and fired.
    Darrell squeezed her hand. “I know where
Melissa got all her spunk. You’re a special person Mary. Our life
had been happy and prosperous. There would be no regrets and I pray
that our children will escape this horror by some miracle. Mary,
please go inside.” Her husband tried
    once more to convince her through a hail of
bullets. “No!” She shook her head adamantly. “We build this place
together. I’ll not go it alone; we stand together.”
    Her eyes watered remembering all the love
they shared. He grabbed her hand and kissed it. He was still
holding it as a bullet took his life. “Darrell?!” she shrieked,
sobbing over his lifeless body. Incensed with rage, she grabbed her
rifle and charged at the men. Her long skirt wrapped around her
ankles nearly made her stumble but she managed to get off a wild
shot.
     
    Effie looked out the window in time to see
the bullet hit Mrs. St Andrew’s between her beautiful eyes. Effie’s
husband Sam was behind the door with a smoking pistol in his
trembling hands. The soldier didn’t live to boast, his bullet
struck the man in the stomach, tumbling him to the ground to die a
slow and painful death.
    It had taken a while for her to make Sam
understand her babbling. There were three soldiers left and she
knew her husband wasn’t any match for them. He quickly bolted the
front door and grabbed Effie, practically dragging her to the back
door. Petrified, she stood rooted to the floor.
    “Stop yo’ tuggin’, yo’ ol’ fool!” she
hollered but Sam didn’t hear her and she didn’t want to go. Where
would she go anyway? Her beautiful Mary was murdered by the Union
devils and what about Melissa and Daphne? If they escaped this
nightmare, they needed their Effie to care for them. She wouldn’t
leave, even under threat of death. Sam continued to pull at her. By
the time her mate dragged her through the back door, a bullet was
waiting for him and she realized that one of the soldiers circled
the house, expecting someone to escape.
    Sam grabbed his wounded shoulder, falling to
the back porch wooden floor. Effie stared in horror as tears
streamed down her cheeks. Then something snapped and she ran back
into the
    10
    house when the soldier leaped from his
horse. She grabbed her broom and waited for him to come through the
screen door. A few whacks on the head stunned the soldier.
    Like a fish out of water, the uniformed man
flapped his arms to defend himself calling her a crazy old lady.
Ear blistering curses spewed from his mouth as he snatched at the
broom, yanking it from her hands. With weapon in hand, he pointed
it at her, and snarled, “Cause any more trouble, you old bag, I’ll
shoot you.” Her outraged gasp didn’t faze him and the soldier
cursed. “Son-of-a bitch!” he waved his bayonet threateningly at her
as two other men ran into the