Storiesonline.net
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                            After the Change
                               by Old Fart

Copyright© 2011 by Old Fart


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Description: Book 4 in a series. Val, his family and neighbors find themselves in a new world, the same as the old one but different. And they're in charge of a section of it.

Codes: MF cons non-con reluc PostApoc oral anal preg violent
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Chapter 01


BURT

I recognized it as the home I'd left a little over a month before yet it was different.

There was an open structure, similar to a carport where the garage had been. Back wall, side walls and a roof; pretty much a wide garage without the big doors. A couple of wagons were parked inside, backed in for easy hitching and unhitching of the horses. There was room for at least two more wagons. Tack, miscellaneous wagon parts and wheels were hanging on or leaning against the back wall.

The barn looked about double the size of the old one. I guess horses were taking over for pretty much anything that had an engine in it in this new world. We'd had a tractor, mainly for harvesting close to 30 acres of hay each year plus digging fence holes with an attachment that fit on the back. A cutter, rakes, a baler and a flatbed trailer made harvesting the hay a matter of just putting in the hours. That would all need to be done with horses and strong backs from a lot more men now. Fence holes would just take good old muscle combined with sweat.

Behind the barn was a long building with four doors on the closest side that I somehow knew was a bunkhouse for some of the help. It looked like it could house at least 30.

The house had grown, both out and up. A couple of rooms had been added on the back where the propane tank had been and there was a completely new second story. I noticed that the number of chimneys was triple the two we'd had before. A porch that hadn't been there before covered the front and one side of the place.

All the buildings had a rustic look, primarily constructed of local timber and rock.

What used to be an asphalt driveway was now dirt. There was something else different about it. It took a few minutes to spot that the three utility poles from the main street to our house, bringing in electricity, phone and cable, were no more. As if to take their place, the number of trees on and close to our property had increased at least fivefold.

"It's all gone, isn't it?" my wife said, taking my hand.

"Yeah, I guess it is. We didn't get hit too bad, considering."

"They didn't even ask us how we felt. One day we go to the cave and a couple of weeks later they say, 'Oh, by the way, we've wiped out most of the people on the planet along with anything more modern than a pot bellied stove'."

I squeezed her hand. "Well, it's obvious it was going to happen no matter what we said or thought about it. Would you rather have been wiped out with the rest of them?"

"No, that's not it. I don't know. I guess I'm in shock."

Grace said, "We're going over to my place to see what they've done to it."

"Do you want me or Val to go with you?"

"No, Kyle can take care of anything. We're just going to our home. Vicky, do you want to come?"

"Yes."

"We'll be fine," Grace said. "I guess we need to get together after we settle in and figure out what we're going to do."

"That sounds good. We can't call each other so why don't you plan on coming back around 6:30 or 7 and we'll see what we can come up with for dinner."

"I don't know. It's going to be dark and we don't have any lights. It could be pretty dangerous riding back home after we eat."

Maria said, "It looks like we've got plenty of room if you want to spend the night."

"No," Grace answered, "I think I'd like to spend the time getting used to my new place. We'll come over in the morning."

They swung their horses around and headed across our ranch towards theirs. The wolves looked at each other as if communicating and then Betty got up to go with them.

Val and Bev decided they wanted to check out the place and see what changes had been made in this new era. They headed out toward the back of the ranch. Knowing them, they'd be looking for places they could be alone as much as changes to the property. Alfie got up and followed them before they'd gone a dozen yards.

Maria had started toward the back of the house when the kids took off. She was just past the far corner now, sitting on her horse, looking at whatever was back there. That's where her garden had been before.

I nudged my horse forward and pulled up next to her.

Our garden had grown every year since Maria started it and had been about half the size of a football field when I left for the cave. Now we had one that you could easily fit six or eight stadiums in. At the far edge were a couple of dozen fruit trees. I saw a couple of different apples, cherry and several varieties of plum, all trees that belonged here in eastern Montana. There were also orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, pear, peach, nectarine and several others that had no right growing here in the cold. All were filled with fruit that any magazine would be proud to have on their cover.

Between the trees and the garden were berries. I picked out huckleberry, raspberries, blackberries, bluberries and strawberries. Again, lots and lots of fruit. The strawberries were almost as big as my fist and I could almost feel the juice running down my chin just looking at them.

The most surprising thing to me was the windmills. There were two of them, at the close end of the trees, near the house. Someone had figured out how to to irrigate the garden. I wondered if we had running water in the house, as well. I'd eventually find out why we needed two of them.

Maria got off her horse and walked over to the edge of the garden, bending over to pick up a handful of dirt and inspect it as it ran through her fingers. She looked up and called to Margarita, who was about twenty feet away, bent over with her back to us. Margarita came running over to her, apologizing for not noticing that we'd returned. Maria shushed her and pointed to the section she'd gotten the dirt from. The two of them knelt down and began to run their fingers through various areas of the dirt and to feel the leaves of the sprouting plants between their thumbs and fingers.

Maria stood up and wiped her hands on her thighs as Margarita called out to five other women who were working further away in the field. They ran over to her and Margarita duplicated what my wife had just done with her, showing the women what had been discovered and discussing what needed to be fixed. Three of them ran off to the barn and came back shortly, loaded down with shovels, hoes, rakes and a couple of buckets.

Manuel came over for Maria's horse and I got down from mine and handed him over. As he led them away, I asked Maria if there was a problem.

"Not really. I just saw a way to get the plants more water. They're doing OK but we could feed a lot more people if they got more to drink." I looked back at the garden area. There were now about ten women digging out the dirt between the rows of vegetables. Where there had been troughs an inch or two deep, there were now five or six inch deep channels.

Maria turned away from the garden and took my hand. "Let's take a look at what they've done to our home."

The first room we entered was a big mud room. There were hooks on the wall for coats and three four foot long shelves, one above the other, for boots and shoes. There was probably room for twenty or more people to keep their stuff and approximately a quarter of the shelves and hooks were in use.

There were sturdy doors both from the outside and into the kitchen. Solid doors that would cost hundreds of dollars at Home Depot that I knew had been cut whole out of trees on or near our land.

It wasn't until I wiped my boots on the mat and hung up my coat that I realized we'd been clothed when we transferred from the cave to our driveway.

The kitchen was a throwback as far as we were concerned but would probably be a dream to someone who hadn't seen what we used to call the modern world. The whole outside wall was covered in brick that narrowed down into a single chimney about ten feet up. There were three open fireplaces, two of them large enough for a steer, pig or deer, set up with spits that had handles coming out of the brick so someone could rotate the meat without getting too close to the fire. The third had a couple of big cauldrons on hooks. There were a couple of pot bellied stoves with four round metal plates of varying size for cooking, similar to the burners on a stove. There were also ovens built into the brick above the three fireplaces. So, you could roast a pig and bake several pies in the same fireplace if you wished. I know that because Rosa, one of Manuel's relatives was doing just that. I was going to have to teach her to make pizza.

There were three cast iron sinks on the other side of the room, each one almost a yard cubed. They looked about 3 X 3 X 3 except the outside part sloped in a bit so the bottom was probably closer to 3 X 2 ½.

There was running water, I assume made possible because of the windmill. Believe it or not, there were both cold and hot water spouts over each sink. I had no idea how that miracle had been achieved with no gas or electricity.

Maria opened a door to find a pantry. It was about six feet to the far wall, then covered half the side of the house to the left. There was shelf after shelf of canned produce, jams and jellies, jerkies and other dried meats. One wall had several smoked hams hanging in front of it.

There was a thick wood door with insulation surrounding the edges to the right of where we entered. There were a couple of thick coats on hooks next to the door. Going inside was like walking into the storage freezer in the grocery store I worked at as a kid. We both went inside and closed the door. I could feel the hairs in my nose freeze up as I breathed and a cloud appeared in front of my mouth. There were 50 or 60 animal carcases hanging from hooks. I spotted beef, a few sheep, several pigs and some deer and caribou. It got too cold to stay and I was happy to leave when Maria tugged on my arm.

Next to the kitchen was a huge dining room with a table that could probably seat thirty. There were cabinets and sideboards with warming trays and china. The furniture was all handcrafted and it was solid. No pressed wood with plastic skin died to look like grain here.

It was pretty obvious that the place used a lot of wood, both for food prep and heating. It would win no awards from Al Gore, especially in Montana's sub zero winters. I'm sure he'd accuse us of destroying the ozone layer all by ourselves. Peta would also have a major problem with us because there were fur rugs all over the floors and the primary materials for furniture were wood and stuffed animal hides.

There was a big room that had four couches and a half dozen over-stuffed chairs. The stone floor was covered in skins from local hairy animals: bear, sheep and goat. Where the plasma screen would have been was a huge fireplace. There were smaller versions of the cauldrons from the kitchen in this one. The wall was decorated with paintings on the wall of the local landscape and wildlife. There were also several trophy animals' stuffed heads; a bison, a 12 point stag and a bear that matched one of the rugs.

Another room was a combination library and office. There were books on two walls in shelves that reached up to the ceiling. A couple of roll top desks were against one wall and there were three sturdy oak tables with cushioned chairs for reading or writing. Each desk and table had several quills plus ink bottles. I took a quick look at the books and didn't see any authors I recognized. They were all leather bound, first editions. The majority were fiction, primarily romance and adventure but there were some nonfiction, mostly about nature. I didn't see any histories of the world we'd grown up in or the one we were now relegated to.

There were two guest rooms with a shared bathroom at the end of the hall between them. Each room had a four poster queen size bed, complete with feather mattress and pillows and quilts. A walk in closet had drawers, hooks on the walls for hanging clothes and shelf space. The bathroom had a toilet with a water receptacle mounted above shoulder height with a chain hanging down. There was a cast iron tub, complete with clawed feet that had hot and cold faucets. Between them was a sink with hot and cold water and a mirror. There was a cabinet with drawers below the sink but no medicine cabinet.

Upstairs were four bedrooms similar to the ones below, all on the right side of the hall, split by two shared bathrooms like the one on the first floor. The other side of the hall was the master suite. There was a sitting room, a bedroom twice as large as the others with a bed one and a half times as large and a private bath. The tub was big enough for two or three; the other fixtures were similar to those in the other bathrooms. There were three picture windows in the suite, all looking out over the garden to the ranch and the mountains beyond. And there was a walk-in closet almost as large as one of the bedrooms across the hall.

The end of the hall had a door that led to a laundry room that covered the complete side of the house, directly above the pantry and ice room. There were four large sinks, similar to those in the kitchen with additional washboards. A large set of rollers with a handle for turning them was over the far sink for wringing out clothes. There was a large window with a crank that opened it completely so it was up against the outside wall. The sill was large enough for sitting on comfortably with room for a basket of washed clothes. There was a horizontal beam attached to the side of the house above the windows and there were three pulleys, each with a loop of rope around it. The middle rope went straight out from the house to another pulley on a pole about 50 feet away. The other two were each about 45 degrees off-center, the same distance to two other poles. Each rope was a closed circle and was set up so clothes could be attached by the person sitting on the sill, the rope reeled out to allow more clothes until the rope was filled from house to pole. There were two big cloth bags, filled with push-on wooden clothes pins on the wall, one on each side of the window. I bent over and saw a metal grid coming out from the side of the house, slanted slightly up. Dropped clothes would be caught instead of falling all the way to the ground, as would someone who leaned out too far and lost their balance.

There were also five parallel lengths of rope inside, running the length of the room, high enough so that a stool was needed to reach them. There were stools against the walls at each end of the room. There were shelves for temporary storage of clothes, a couple of large tables that folded up and attached to the wall when not being used for folding clothes and a fireplace with a cauldron, both for warming the room and for boiling water. The room was easily large enough for five or six people to work comfortably without bumping into each other. I noticed there was no bleach, softener or special stain removing laundry detergent, just a large barrel at the end of the room past the sinks that was three quarters full of white flakes, similar to the Ivory Snow I remembered my grandmother using when I was a child.

Lighting throughout the house was accomplished with candles and kerosine lamps. The hallways and many of the rooms had lamps mounted on the walls but each room had at least two sitting on a table or a desk that were portable. Every room had a fireplace and the chimneys were common for the two floors. Glass jars with handsful of strike anywhere matches were conveniently placed throughout the house.

We were never big TV watchers so we weren't going to miss that lack. Not being able to throw a switch and get clean, bright light was going to take some getting used to. As were hopping in the car, throwing dirty clothes in the washer and taking a hot shower. Maybe there was something I could do about the showers. We did have hot water and I was just going to have to find out where that was coming from. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to rig up a shower of some sort.

Maria didn't complain once on our tour of the house and she smiled and squeezed my hand upon several occasions, especially when she noticed the size of our bed. All in all, I figured we could live in our revised world.

We were eager to go when Rosa came up and told us that dinner was ready.



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Chapter 2


MARIA

I felt conflicted when we arrived back home. Or at least as close to home as we were ever going to see.

A big part of it was that I suddenly felt so helpless. All my life, I'd been the master of my destiny. I saw Burt the first time when I was about Val's age and within a week I knew he was the one for me. It took less than another week to convince him of that and we were married and had started on our family a couple of months later. The two of us worked together, raised two wonderful children and created a thriving ranch before Val started junior high. Nobody gave us anything; we worked for it. If we got lazy, the ranch and our future suffered. If we put more effort into it, we could see the results a short time later.

The thing is we made it work. We had control over our lives, over our environment.

My first slap in the face was losing Val. When he went on that survival trek and didn't come back and that damn Jimmy wasn't any help, I almost lost it. I found myself bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. And there was no way I could control it. I just cried like a baby until I was done and no amount of holding, consoling, or anything else had any effect. It was like a part of me died when he didn't come home. And of course, being his mother, there was always that nagging thought that I should have been able to do something to prevent it, even though I knew that wasn't true.

The man who came out of that forest wasn't the boy I'd watched go in three months before. Bev had told me she was going to claim him years ago and had been getting her nerve up to really go for it all that time. When he left with her brother to do their wilderness thing, she grabbed him and laid one on him that I'm sure left him hard for the first few miles into the woods. She was worried about him when he didn't come back but she was still strong. She made no bones about it. When he came back (not if, but when), he was hers, no matter what. But when he did show up, she was the one following him around like a puppy dog.

There were other changes in him, his physique and his new ability to wish things to happen being the two most noticeable. Talking to him was different. He had grown up. It was like he'd been away to college for four years, not lost in the woods for three and a half months...

And then losing Burt. Thank God, it didn't happen, but I knew in my heart it was going to as I watched him waste away to practically nothing from that damned cancer. My strong, handsome man turned into a weak skin-covered skeleton right before my eyes.

Dreamer and his cave gave me back both my men. There's no doubt Val went in there to die and Burt was practically dead when he made Val and Bev take him there and that neither of them should have come out alive. When the three of them came out of the forest with their wolves, I swear, they looked like gods. Burt never looked so good and there was something magnetic about him, something I realized Val had had when he came out and hooked up with Bev. When Burt told me we were going back to his cave, there was nothing I could have done to stop him, even if I'd wanted to. As we walked away from the kids and he put his hand on my butt and squeezed, I wanted to fall on my back right there and let him claim me.

I felt better than ever before when I woke up from my nap in the cave. I'd had my indoctrination and seen all the things that Dreamer had helped others with throughout the ages and was more than willing to help do whatever job it was that had drawn Val and then the rest of us to the cave.

But to find out everything was gone and we had no say in the matter and didn't even realize it was going to happen until it was over and done with – that was too much. I felt like I'd been an ant, toiling away, doing my ant thing, happy with my life and my production only to find I'd been in an ant farm all along and the kid who owned it wasn't happy with things and decided to shake it up, destroying everything I'd worked for with the rest of my hive. I could control my destiny up to a point and then, seemingly at a whim, that destiny could be taken from me and another forced upon me. Or I could cease to exist, as almost all my fellow inhabitants of Earth had. What happened to them? Did they go to their chosen heaven or hell or did they just disappear into oblivion, as if they never were?

Had I been happy with the way things were going on our planet? Heck, no. The two political parties, each a mirror vision of the other, constantly striving for more and more power while dragging more and more of their constituents into their thrall both scared and disgusted me. The greed and power madness of the politicians was dwarfed by that of the corporate world. The pursuit of the almighty dollar justified doing anything. Morals and ethics were for weaklings, something to tie you down.

Mankind had succeeded in polluting just about everything on the planet. The skies were brown, the dirt was drained of nutrients, replaced with insecticides, water contained enough poison to cause cancer, whether it was from the tap, the stream, as rain or in bottles. The government even regulated how much poison they could include in foods and beverages.

So, we had a chance to start over. The soil was back to where it should be, maybe even better. That was obvious by looking at the trees bursting with oversized fruit. I could smell life when I held a handful of dirt near my face. There were things growing in my garden that shouldn't survive further north than Chile or Equador. The sky was clear and Dreamer had told us we could drink water right out of a pond or a stream without fear. He may have taken everything we were familiar with and either removed or modified it, but he hadn't lied to us.

Burt had expressed it pretty well when he said it was a choice of accepting this new world or ceasing to exist. That made all my complaints dubious.

To be honest, it was the principle of the thing that got to me. I didn't run across any changes I didn't like. Some would be a bit more work than we were used to but none were real problems.

I'd held Burt's hand in mine most of the time since we came into the house, feeling like a newlywed exploring her first apartment. I have to admit, I liked what they'd done to the place. It felt like home, even though I could point out countless things that had been changed.

When Rosa came upstairs to tell us that dinner was ready, we followed her down the hallway to the stairs. Seeing her walk down the hallway in front of us, what came to mind was that Burt was going to enjoy making her pregnant. That was so not like me it wasn't funny. I'm no prude, but both Burt and I took our marriage vows seriously and neither of us has had any reason to doubt the other's fidelity. I could remember that attitude, I could actually feel it, yet I also felt with all my heart that Burt was going to make other women pregnant and it was not only OK, it was desirable, his duty. I knew in time I'd make love with and have children by both my son and my daughter's boyfriend and while it didn't turn me on, it didn't turn me off, either. It was like anticipating trying a new restaurant all my friends said was good. Once again, it wasn't me. But now, I guess it was. The fact that I could feel the way I had before the change yet feel exactly the opposite a second later scared me. Just another of many conflicts.

"Rosa, did Val and Bev get back?"

"No, Patrona."

We passed by the kitchen. Subi was lying on the rug next to the door to the mudroom, her ears up, watching for any food that happened to fall or get tossed in her direction. I walked over to her and opened the doors to the mudroom and to the outside.

"Subi, go get Val and Bev and bring them back."

She ran in the direction they taken when they went exploring.

The dining room was full of people. Miguel, Margarita and a couple dozen of Miguel's 'cousins' were either sitting or bustling in and out of the kitchen with steaming dishes of food. Rosa wasn't technically a cousin, being Margarita's sister. I'm sure half the 'cousins' had less blood in common than Val and Christina. Margarita's husband, Raul, was in the kitchen, carving a roast pig that they'd somehow wrestled off the spit in the fireplace and onto the kitchen table. He'd no sooner fill a platter with meat than one of the women would bring it into the dining room.

There were five places vacant at one end of the table. Burt sat at the head after pulling out the chair to his right for me. Val and Bev came in and claimed the two chairs across from me, leaving Vicky's chair, on my left, empty.

Four of the older kids, a couple of girls and a couple of boys, between 14 and 16, were taking their own platters and bowls of food over to the bunkhouse for the kids' meal. We could hear the snapping noises as the pups caught food out of the air.

Burt called out, "You kids aren't feeding my wolves, are you?"

It got quiet for a minute, then one of the boys answered, "No, Patron."

Burt called back, "You'd better not. They'll bite your hand off."

I heard a low "No, they won't," then the other's shushed him up. We smiled as we heard one of the girls giggle just before they all ran out the door.

Just before the last kid left, my husband called out, "Go ahead."

All three wolves followed their new-found friends over to the bunkhouse.

When I saw all the food they were cooking, I figured it was a special feast to celebrate our homecoming. I was beginning to realize that with all the people we had on the ranch, this was a usual dinner. There might be some leftovers, but I didn't think they'd be much.

Once I tasted the food, I realized it might be what was considered usual in this time and place, but it was nothing like the meals we'd had before the changes. I've always taken pride in my cooking, but in order to make good food, you have to have good food to begin with. What we were eating today made the food we'd had previously seem bland. The fruits and vegetables were so full of flavor and nutrients that I actually felt more energy before I finished my dinner. We'd had pork that we raised before, but it was nothing like this. It's like they say – garbage in, garbage out. I could taste the difference raising the pigs off today's produce and clean air and water made.

I don't know all that was on the table. There were baby potatoes, a couple of different squash dishes, peas and carrots mixed together (shiny green peas and big chunks of bright orange carrot, all without a drop of food coloring) with fresh churned butter for it all. Dessert consisted of big bowls filed with two or three fist-sized strawberries covered in fresh cream, not quite whipped but not quite liquid, either. I'd never eaten strawberries as juicy or as sweet. Or had cream anywhere near as good as this.

The four of us did some research as we all ate. I started, then Burt joined in, followed by Val and Bev when we missed something they were interested in. It took some finesse. You don't just blurt out, "Oh, by the way, do you remember how things used to be before the world was completely redone?"

But then again, maybe we could have gotten away with that. The answer to that question soon became obvious. No. We had been away. Where, nobody knew but they weren't bothered by that. We were the Patron and Patrona and that was good enough for them. These weren't ignorant people. Their experiences, their memories were that we had owned the ranch and they had worked it as long as they could remember. None of the cousins had gotten a letter and snuck over the border and made their way to Montana. They had always been here as far as they were concerned. There were no memories of anything before the ranch and it didn't concern anyone – that was just the way it was.

Someone who didn't know any better, like the PC police of our old world, could take a quick look at us and decide we were either plantation owners with a bunch of Mexican slaves or we had a permanent crew of migrant workers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We were more like a commune than anything else I was familiar with. It was accepted that the land was ours. We didn't have a deed for it and it wasn't limited by the fence we used to keep the livestock from wandering. You could get on a horse and ride for days or even weeks and the land would still be ours. Grace and her family had the same land she'd owned before. It was still ours overall but was also considered hers.

There was a strange hierarchy at play here that I envisioned as a muli-layered totem pole ... Burt and I were at the top, more like the parents than anything else. Grace was right up there with us but not quite as high. Picture the three of us next to each other with Burt's head at the top, mine an inch or two lower and Grace a little lower still. Val and Bev were a little lower, then Kyle and Vicky, with Christina at the bottom. Vicky was considered a bit higher than Kyle, close to the relationship between Burt and I and Grace. We weren't gods but what we decided was followed without question.

While we made all the decisions, that doesn't mean we followed the workers around, looking over their shoulders, issuing orders. I was in charge of the gardens, deciding what and how much we would grow. I might decide to increase one vegetable while reducing the amount of another or I could just as easily choose to open up another field and increase both. Then, it was up to the women and children to make it happen. I might butt in to show them a better way of doing something, as I did with the watering earlier today, but then I knew enough to back off and let them do it. If someone wanted to grow more tomatoes or watermelons or had an idea to improve something, I was willing to listen and if it made sense, accede to their suggestion.

Burt was in charge of livestock and property. He might give an order to open up another section or two for cattle and then ask for suggestions on how to get another five hundred head. We also had a small manufacturing colony a few miles down the road from us. We hadn't visited it yet but Dreamer had told us there were about thirty people there, working with leather, wood and metal. They did the work but Burt came up with a list of things he wanted. Of course, there was enough time to make the things we needed as well as other items the tradespeople thought up on their own.

I wasn't sure how this worked. As far as we were concerned, this was our first day on the renewed planet, but the talk at the dinner table was as if we'd been running things all along. Maybe it was something we'd do in the future. Dreamer had made it pretty clear that we weren't stuck to the time structure we were familiar with.

Bearing children sired by any of our enhanced males was considered to be both a privilege and a duty. Men would brag that their woman had given birth to a child of any of them. Again, Burt's children would be senior to Val's, which would be slightly elevated from Kyle's. Now that three of us had been impregnated by our men, the norms were anxious for them to start spreading their seed.

Speaking of being anxious, in the short time since Dreamer had informed us that three of us were pregnant, I'd almost been able to smell the need from both Grace and her daughter, as if they were a couple of mares in season. I fully expected Grace to corner Burt sometime tomorrow, some time before noon if I knew anything about the way a female thinks. I wouldn't be surprised if Christina had already tripped her brother. If not, or maybe even if so, I had no doubt she'd be sharing the bed with Kyle and my daughter tonight and possibly from now on. I fully expected Grace to find her way into ours before long, as I did Bev and Vicky, and sooner or later, Christina. There were no plans for the women to share anything other than Burt.

The women were cleaning off the table when I heard Grace in my head. We'd been worried about her not being able to phone me earlier. When Dreamer had told us we had the ability to talk to each other mind to mind, it had gone right over our heads.

Grace had encountered a home very similar to ours only scaled down. There was enough produce for her family and her expanded workforce, but most of the ranch's efforts were spent raising cattle. As near as she could tell, her ranch was about five times bigger than the ranch she purchased several months before. She said they would all be over around 7 in the morning for breakfast.



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Chapter 3


BEV

Dreamer finished telling us that we were part of the chosen few left alive in a world that had been practically wiped out basically because of greed and then we were back at the ranch on horseback as if nothing had happened. I took Val's hand and looked around. It looked like the place we knew until you took a good look, then everything was different. The adults looked like they were in shock while Kyle, Vicky and Christina merely looked confused. Grace said something about checking out her place and she, her kids and Vicky took off. Burt was looking around like he couldn't believe his eyes while Maria just sat on her horse like a statue. She said something about not being consulted about the change, then went to look at her garden.

Val squeezed my hand then said that we were going to check out the rest of the ranch. We'd barely started off when Alfie joined us.

We urged our mounts into a nice ground eating lope and everyone was soon out of sight. Val held out his hand and we slowed to a walk.

"I've seen them like this before when something's changed that they couldn't control. It's best to just leave them for a bit to absorb it. The last time had to do with some new taxes and before the dust was settled a couple of county supervisors were out of a job."

"Somehow I don't think they're going to be able to do that this time."

"No, I don't think so. But they still need to figure out where they are. A bunch of us bugging them, asking questions they can't handle yet is that last thing they need. Grace said something about coming back tomorrow for breakfast and then coming up with a plan. If we just let them be until then, we'll be welcome, too. If we try to get them looking at a plan right now, somebody's gonna say something they'll be sorry for and feelings are gonna be hurt.

Alfie seemed happy to get the chance to run with us. He's a magnificent animal. Being the male of the trio, he's about a head taller than the other two. You can see the muscles beneath his skin, like steel bands, ready and willing to put him in motion, whether for a run or to attack his prey.

We had some experience with Subi the day before. Was it really just a day ago? Listening to Dreamer, it gets pretty confusing, but as far as I'm concerned, it was the day before today so I'll call it yesterday. Anyway, Burt sent Val and me to follow Subi with a cart to get something for dinner. I could tell she was holding back, even though Val and I were going full speed. The cart slowed us down some but we were still hauling ass. I know I'd never run that fast before and was really enjoying putting my new body to the test.

Subi spotted a small herd of deer at a watering hole and she took off, making us look like we were standing still. The deer didn't even have a chance to react. There were a couple of does with fawns, another doe and the buck. He was a few feet behind them, his head in the air, keeping a lookout while they drank. He turned his head just as the unattached doe lifted hers. At that instant, Subi went for the doe's neck. She went down and the others took off in a flash.

She looked at them running off, then looked at us as if to ask if she should get another. I told her she'd done good and it was enough for today.

As magnificent and as powerful as Subi had been, Alfie was just a little more. He was loping along a few feet ahead of us, like a scout, when I saw him tense up. He didn't get stiff; his muscles were working just as smoothly as before but I could tell he was ready to go into action.

A few seconds later, I saw the reason. A rather nervous herd of sheep was just around the bend.

I clucked my teeth and he reluctantly turned around to see what I wanted.

"Alfie, leave the sheep alone. You can take Subi and Betty out to hunt something wild tomorrow or you can find something when one of us takes you out. But the sheep are off limits."

He still kept an eye on the herd, but he backed down. That was part of my ability. I knew how to talk to him and I knew that he understood and would follow, even if he didn't like it. I sent some quiet thoughts over to a couple of skittish sheep

There was a dark skinned boy watching over them, maybe 12 or 13, holding a staff in his hand. He'd placed himself between us and the herd, ready to defend them with his life if necessary.

"It's OK, I called out to him. He won't hurt you or your sheep."

I could see him relax a bit as he smiled and nodded at me.

I thought everything was handled when I heard a growl and saw a border collie flying through the air straight at Alfie. Alfie immediately went into defensive mode, his hair standing up on his back and his teeth showing as he snarled at the collie.

The boy reacted before I could. He swung his staff and it hit the collie on the shoulder, knocking her away. She landed on her side and I could actually hear the wind knocked out of her as she hit the ground. I saw the boy wince when he hit his partner but what he saw next put a look of terror on his face. As soon as the dog hit the dirt, Alfie was on her, his jaws open around her neck.

"ALFIE!!", I screamed. It stopped him from biting down but he didn't back off an inch. The poor sheep dog was trying to get her breath back and was trying to turn her eye toward the back to see what the wolf was doing.

I slid off my horse and ran over to the two of them. I put my hand over Alfie's snout and wrapped my fingers underneath his top teeth, then pulled him away from the terrified dog. My other hand moved where Alfie's mouth had just been, holding her down. I noticed that Val had his rifle aimed at Alfie, ready to take him out if his instincts were more powerful than our relationship and he decided to take a bite out of my hand.

I was able to talk both of them down and Val put his gun away and came over. I felt him behind me, his hands massaging my shoulders. Damn, I didn't realize how tense I was until he started working on me.

I told Alfie to go back near the horses. He moved over to the border collie and laid his neck over her shoulder, the bottom of his snout touching her back, just below her neck. I heard a low growl and she tensed up and pulled her ears back.

He stood up and walked over to the horses. Not quite prancing, but he made it clear that he was in charge. I ruffled the dog's neck where Alfie's teeth had been and told her it was OK to get up. She raised her head and looked back at her side as if she was checking for damage, then got to her feet and shook, as if to shake away the experience. Alfie was sitting next to the horses but he had his attention on her.

I went over to the boy who'd been watching the herd. The poor kid was also shaking, but it was from the adrenalin flowing through his body, not fear. I wrapped him in my arms and hugged him until he calmed down. I felt something hard pushing into my stomach and pushed back a bit. The poor kid was red with embarrassment. I kissed him on the forehead, then held him tighter for another minute.

I heard Val clear his throat and looked up. Alfie had mounted the border collie and was going to town. I released the boy.

"It looks like your dog is going to have puppies."

"From your wolf?"

"Looks like."

"Oh, thank you, thank you. What sheep dogs she will have. Thank you, señora."

Alfie dismounted with a smug look on his face. He didn't react when the border collie snapped at his hind leg as he walked away. She shook it off, then went back to work, getting a couple of sheep that were too far away from the rest for her back into the herd. She may have gone overboard with her nipping at their heels but I could understand her frustration.

We got back on our horses and took off at a gallop. We didn't say anything; we were so attuned it was just the thing to do. Alfie stayed right with us, in fact, he was a few feet in front of us and to the right. He might be a strong animal but even he wasn't immune to getting run over by a horse.

We slowed down when we came upon a stream. I looked at Val and he said, "I've never seen this." We let the horses drink, then followed the flow of the water. After about a quarter mile, we came across a decent size pond, probably about 50 feet by 50 feet. We could see a man made dam at the far end. We just sat there, watching the water and an occasional fish jumping into the air for a second or two before splashing back into the water.

We continued to follow the lake until I spotted a building that looked familiar. I pointed at it and said, "Look! That's on my property. That's our caretaker cottage."

"You mean Grace's property."

"Yeah, Grace's property. It's hard to realize it's gone. I grew up on that place and I've always considered it mine."

"Well, according to Dreamer, the whole world's practically ours if we want it."

"I'm not that hungry for property. Besides, even though I still think of Grace's place as mine, I don't have a lot of good memories there since my mother died. It could have been a lot worse. I wasn't beaten or molested or anything. But I wasn't made to feel welcome in my own house, either."

Val looked like he was going to say something but we were interrupted by Subi running up to us and barking.

"Looks like we're being summoned," I said.

Val looked at the sun, three quarters of the way down from its helix. "Probably close to dinner time. I could stand a bite of something."

"I could, too," I said, turning my horse around to follow our two guardians, as they dove at each other in play, twenty feet ahead of us.



-------

Chapter 4


Grace

'Oh, Shit. Now what?' That's what went through my mind when I found myself back at the Hendrix place.

You know that old Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times'? Well, the last year and a half certainly qualified as interesting.

A little over eighteen months ago, I finally wised up and confronted my husband. He was one of those men who couldn't keep it in his pants. Every pretty woman was a potential conquest.

Maybe I deserved it. I'm sure I did as far as he was concerned. High school quarterback, naïve sophomore cheerleader, back seat of his car. I'm sure you can imagine the rest. He wanted me to get an abortion and I threatened to report him for statutory rape if he didn't marry me. We eventually married and three months later Kyle was born.

I'm sure there were other girls in the months before we went down to City Hall with my certified birth certificate and a note signed by my parents, then got a justice of the peace to tie the knot. I know there were at least two more honeys between the time we married and our son was born. And it didn't stop then.

There was just something about Henry that women couldn't ignore. He had a way of talking them out of their panties before they had a chance to object, even it they'd wanted to. He could also do the same thing in sales. You've heard about natural born salespeople? Well, that's Henry.

The reason it took so long for us to get married was football. There was no doubt we were going to do it. My dad would kill him and his own father would have ground up the pieces if he skipped out on me. But he made a deal with all of us. Let him finish out the season and he'd uphold his end of the bargain.

He took the team to the championships and got them within a game of bringing home the trophy. He made all state, as did his favorite wide receiver. There were plenty of colleges after him and he would have probably been drafted by the pros in four years, barring injury, if he didn't have to support a family.

He never told me how he felt about having to give up football and his education and I never asked. I never said I was perfect. I got what I wanted for my child and me.

Just because he quit school in his senior year doesn't mean he was dumb. He looked around and decided he wasn't going to get rich flipping burgers. He couldn't act, sing or paint. But he could schmooze others. He convinced the local Mercury dealership to let him sell cars on a trial basis. He even let them pay him commission only, which could have gotten them in a lot of trouble if the state found out. Within two months, he was pulling in more money than any of the other salesmen. A couple of months later, he had his own office and all the salespeople would bring their deals in for him to approve.

Of course, that was all part of the game. He'd come back with the salesman, sit on the edge of the salesman's desk, right in front of the customer and convince him or her or them that he couldn't afford to cut the price that much, then proceed to sell them the car with undercoating, Scotchguard on the upholstery, a deluxe alarm system and a six CD upgrade, all the while sending them away with a smile on their face. He got commissions on the extras plus a cut of the salesman's commission. The salespeople were happy because their closing percentages went way up plus the vehicles were selling for a substantially higher price than they had before Henry took over. Henry was happy because each customer he talked to was ready to buy plus he was making about one and a half times what he made as a salesman. The dealer practically came every time he saw Henry with that smile on his face. The one he got anytime he convinced some innocent to drop her panties or when he sold a car. Knowing Henry, I'm sure there were plenty of times when he did both with the same customer.

Henry bought his way into the dealership a couple of years later and bought out the owner three years after that. The Ford dealer was having problems and he made a deal for that a year later. We got the big house on the hill, the country club membership and the big cars. Henry did the obligatory things: the anniversary and birthday presents, some of the kids' events, sex three or four times a month. He was still hitting up other women much more often than that. I have to admit, I took a spin with the pool boy and my tennis instructor, more than once.

It took overhearing a couple of my 'friends' in the locker room at the country club for me to see what a complete lie my life had become. They were talking about Henry and his conquests. One woman told the other that her husband was just as bad. "At least my husband is discrete about it," was the answer. "You know she's got to know what he's doing. She gets everything she wants so why should she complain?"

I looked in the mirror as I got out of the shower. I saw a beautiful body with a face to die for. But I didn't respect that woman. I'd sold that respect away, a chunk at a time, for years. A ring, a marriage license, a house, a car, being 'friends' with the 'right' people. I felt the tears start, willed them to stop, got dressed and drove home.

I crawled onto my bed and let the tears come for an hour or so and then I decided it was time to do something about it. I'd been around the country club crowd long enough to know who the good divorce attorneys were. I made a call and met with one of the best the following afternoon.

I told him I didn't want to break Henry but I wanted to be fair. The two kids were his and they were used to a particular life style and I expected it to be maintained. I also wanted health insurance, the house and college educations for the two of them.

I think Henry was actually happy about the divorce. Shortly after we filed, he started showing up in the local gossip pages, at a play opening or a restaurant, each time with a new piece of fluff on his arm. The only thing he fought me on was the car. I had a Lincoln Navigator with all the bells and whistles and it was perfect for the family. He'd been able to write it off as a demo but it was actually going to cost him some money to give it to me. Let's just say that Henry sweet talked the manufacturers he sold for and not everything was kosher. That was the only time the divorce got dicey and I found out how important the right lawyer can be. That's the car that mysteriously rolled down the hill shortly after the divorce was final.

I took the time to examine my life, as well as the kids'. I'd seen how the other kids in our overly privileged neighborhood turned out and I really didn't want that for my two. Kyle was doing pretty good so far but I could see the signs that peer pressure was starting to raise its ugly head Christine was already having problems because she didn't fit in with the in crowd. Oh, yes, they had one of those for the 8 year olds.

I got in touch with the top real estate agent in the county, Marsi Archer, and told her how I felt. I wanted to find something we could move into as soon as we sold the house. I didn't want my kids to grow up to become delinquents like their friends who had everything handed to them without having to lift a finger.

When she told me a working ranch had just come on the market and it was a steal, my first impulse was to tell her to forget it. I said I'd have to think about it and that was it. A couple of days later she called me from her car. She was in the neighborhood, had a couple of hours, how about if she dropped by and we took a drive over to the ranch. No obligation, if I didn't like it, she'd never mention it again. I didn't want to go but she was in my driveway honking her horn before she hung up the phone and I felt trapped and obligated.

As we drove over to look at the place, I wondered what would happen if Marsi and Henry came up against each other. Now that would be a reality show I wouldn't mind paying to watch.

The place was vacant but all the furniture was still there. Marsi was very low key, not saying much more than "There's the kitchen," "There are three bedrooms upstairs," "Most of the kids around here have horses."

It was the horses comment that got my attention. Christina was right in the middle of the 'Can I have a horse?' phase that most young girls go through. I had to admit, the thought of Kyle being responsible for an animal had merit, too.

The furniture in the place was well worn, to say the least, but we had furniture up the butt in our house. The clincher was when Marsi told me she could sell my house immediately; she had a buyer who was already committed whenever I put it up for sale. We worked out a deal and I found I was the new owner of a ranch and almost a hundred cattle. We went home, packed a bunch of boxes full of dishes, books, linens and food from the cupboards, rented a U-Haul and packed it up.

The mysterious rolling down the hill accident happened in the couple of days we were packing up the old house. The insurance company was hemming and hawing, claiming it was suspicious and that they didn't feel they should pay for it. I argued with my agent and her supervisor and her supervisor and got nowhere with any of them. I had enough cash to rent something for a couple of weeks but nowhere near enough to buy a new vehicle. Plus, I didn't think I should be forced to. I hadn't done anything to be punished for.

We made the move and had started unloading when Val, Vicky and Bev showed up and started helping. They didn't ask. One second we were struggling with a cart full of boxes and all of a sudden, Val was there, helping Kyle pull it up some boards we had over the steps and the two girls were pushing along with me.

That was our first meeting with the Hendrix family. They became best friends immediately and Vicky and Kyle started seeing one another, decided to break it off and now it looked like they were permanently together. They knew a lawyer who like to chew up insurance companies and spit them out and she got me a hell of a settlement. And then we went out car shopping and ended up with two of them and cash left over.

So, when I had the dreams and was told to go with the three kids to a cave deep in the woods, I didn't hesitate.

My kids had similar dreams, but they weren't as complete as mine. I think Dreamer showed each of them just enough so that they didn't fight me on it and were a little excited.

Everything went great until we were told the reason we'd been proofed up was because we were going back as leaders and that the world we were going back to was changed. We didn't even get a chance to ask about it before we found ourselves back on the Hendrix property on horseback., looking at a changed world.

And I thought, 'Oh Shit, now what?'

My next thought was, 'I hope to God I still have a home.'

It was with that thought in mind that I took my two kids and Vicky in the direction of my ranch.

I've never done well with the unknown. It's safe to say that my mind was going crazy on the ride over to what used to be our ranch. Val had once told me it was a 7 mile trip straight across both ranches or about ten miles using both driveways and the street. We hadn't gotten a mile before I was wondering if we would have been better off to have just stayed the way we were, living with a liar and a cheat in a big house away from problems of the common folk. It was shortly after that that I realized my former husband was symbolic of the lack of morals that was responsible for the wipeout of civilization as we knew it. And if we had stayed with him, we'd be dead or whatever he was now.

I laughed when I thought of Dreamer's orders for the men to get all of us women pregnant and then to start working on the other women, the 'norms' as he called them. Talk about a heaven for my former husband. But, I guess the 'slime' factor was what made the difference, why I was still here while he wasn't. Of course, nobody told me that he wasn't still alive but when Dreamer told me that the society had been obliterated except for a select few, I knew he was no more.

I hadn't been perfect by any means. I definitely strayed from my husband. But can you really stray from someone who was never there to begin with?

There were some, myself included, who would say that I took advantage of the situation and forced Henry to provide for us. It didn't start out that way. He took advantage of a young girl who didn't know any better and I happened to be strong enough to force him to take responsibility for what he had done. I was also smart enough to get my parents and his as reinforcements, to make sure he did right by us. And that was at the bottom of our relationship until I got fed up with him never being around, giving every other woman he encountered what he'd vowed to give only me. When you help create a life, your responsibility doesn't vanish if you change your mind or get tired of him or the mother after a few months.

"Señora Grace. It's so good to see you." Arturo's greeting pulled me out of my thoughts. Arturo was Manuel's cousin and my overseer. He had been told to get some help when I went off on our trip to the cave.

I looked around. We were right on the edge of a herd of fifty or so cattle.

"Hello Arturo. Is everything alright?"

"Si, si. We have many new calves and the other animals are doing good, too."

"Other animals?"

"Si, the sheep and the goats, pigs, chickens."

"Oh, of course. How many would you say we have these days?"

"No se exactly. Maybe 300 cows, 100 sheep, 30 or 40 goats and pigs and a hundred chickens. We have a few ducks and geese, too. And of course the horses. Our ranch has very fine horses, even better than Señor 'endrix."

"Have you got plenty of help?"

"Oh, si. Mi familia are all here and three of my cousins and their familias as well. We take care of everything, don't worry."

He brought his index fingers to his mouth and let out a loud whistle. "Miguelito, come here."

A young boy I hadn't noticed on the far side of the herd rode his pony around the back of them, almost skidding to a stop as he pulled up near us.

"Señora Grace, this is my nephew, Miguelito. Miguelito, this is Señora Grace, our patrona, and this is Señor Kyle and Señoritas Vicky and Christina."

"Mucho gusto," he said, taking off his hat and bending at the waist.

"Ride quickly and tell Tia that the patrona and her children are here and are going to need dinner. Tell he to make sure their rooms are ready for them. Rapidamente, Mijo."

The youngster took off in a cloud of dust. "It looks like you've got a good nephew there, Arturo.

"Si. He is my sister's boy and she makes sure he behaves."

We said our goodbyes and followed the settling dust. I felt a lot better about things now than I did before.

We crested a hill and stopped. We could see a panoramic view of my home and it's surroundings.

"Damn, look at all the chimneys," Kyle said.

Our house had four of them. There had been one when we left.

"Horses!" Christina was standing in her stirrups, pointing animatedly at the maze of corrals and exercise rings set up near what I supposed was a stable. There were three exercise rings, one of which had a four foot stump in the middle with a spindle arrangement and four posts angling up. Each of the posts had a leather strap hanging down with a clip on it for attaching to a bridle. There was one horse hooked up, walking slowly around in circles. In addition to the big rings, there were a half dozen smaller enclosures, suitable for from one or two to ten horses.

Vicky was pointing to the right. "Mom would love that."

I looked to see a huge garden. It probably took as much land as our whole property when we lived with Henry. That was a 4000 square foot house with a two car garage and a swimming pool. I recognized corn and tomatoes but there were a bunch of others I had no idea about. Lettuce, carrots, cabbage, beets – I had no idea how to tell them apart, especially this far away. There were a couple of women with hoes working in the garden and three others filling baskets they carried under one arm.

In addition to the stables, there was a new barn, probably three times as big as what we'd had before and a building that I assumed was for the help.

There had been a fence about a quarter mile on the other side of our place that was the boundary of our property before things got turned around. Now there was no fence, and there were sheep and goats grazing, a couple here and there, as far as I could see. With this much land and the help we had, I was sure our ranch could produce a lot more than it could before.

The house was larger, too. But there were a lot of changes. No vinyl, plastics, pressed wood. There was a lot of wood and stone used for the construction and the furniture was all hand made. Whoever made it knew what he was doing. No microwave, coffee maker, food processor or even refrigerator. There were a couple of women I didn't know preparing dinner. They seemed to know me, though, and that was strange. I was treated as if I'd just been gone for a day or two and was now back.

It was strange to have a fireplace and a big wood-burning stove in the kitchen but the smells were something else. I was reminded of some of the Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners we had as a family, when my grandmother would cook for around thirty people. We had vegetables I'd seen being picked as we rode up. You can't get much fresher than that.

I leaned back to chew a mouthful of fresh pork and thought about Maria. I'm sure I startled her by her confused response to me being inside her head. I told her a little of what we'd discovered and that we'd see them for breakfast around 7 the next morning.



-------

Chapter 5


Burt

I woke up at the first sign of sunlight. I suppose it was around 5:30 or 6:00 but I had no way to tell for sure. One of the things that didn't make the change, as far as I knew, was clocks. I noticed when I was getting undressed for bed that my watch was missing. Everything in our home had been electric or battery powered and neither of those sources of power were available. I know that clocks were made centuries before either of them were used so it was possible that there was someone in the area who could figure out how to make a wind up clock or an old fashioned pocket watch.

That started me wondering what I'd use a timepiece for. I had no appointments to make, no TV shows to force me to sit down on a couch at a specific time. I imagine a timer of some sort would be useful for cooking, but people had gotten along fine without them since the discovery of fire. Heck, my mother never used a timer or a measuring spoon. Her eyes and her nose were good enough for her and nobody ever complained about her cooking.

To tell the truth, my watch was more for verifying the time than anything else. Pretty much the only thing I'd used it for was meals, and I looked at it when I got the feeling it was getting close to eatin' time. I used the position of the sun and my body's built in clock more than my watch. Besides, there was a big ole bell on the porch that the women used when meals were ready in this new old world.

I realized I didn't even know what day it was. Was there even a reason to give them names? How about months and the numbering of the days within them. With no mortgage, utility, cable or credit card bills to pay by a certain date or be penalized, their need and usefulness seemed debatable. It seemed second nature but the time, effort and money we'd expended to keep track of various dates had been staggering. I didn't even want to start thinking about years.

I felt surprisingly well rested, especially considering the limited amount of actual sleep we had. Maria and I had definitely put our new bodies through their paces as soon as we turned in. It was like we were on our honeymoon again. Actually, my body was a lot more resilient than when I was a kid and we were first married.

I probably had four hours sleep and felt like I could go all day. With the cancer, I'd been lucky to stay awake for four hours out of 24. Hard to believe that was only a couple of months ago. Two months by my time, who knows how long it actually was.

The bed was as comfortable as any I'd ever slept on. The mattress and the oversized pillows were stuffed with feathers and our cover was a hand sewn quilt that was both soft and warm. Even at 39 years old, I felt warm and cuddly when I pulled that thing up over me. Having my wife snuggled up against me just added to that feeling.

I was very happy that we had real toilets instead of having to use a chamber pot or take a hike out back somewhere to a cold and smelly outhouse. There was room in the tub for the two of us and we'd taken advantage of it before we went to bed. We had hot and cold running water although I had no idea how that was achieved. I didn't want to use up all the hot water and force others to wait hours or days for more to heat up. Both of us bathing together didn't save any time but it sure was fun.

That's another thing that had been missing from our lives before the change: fun. Everything was so damned important that we didn't take time out to enjoy what we'd built, much less each other. Our attitudes had changed, along with the planet. Well, some had changed after the cave. Before, I never would have hugged Bev or Grace in the nude. Hell, none of us would be caught dead in front of the others without a stitch of clothes on. Now, it was no big deal. The feeling of the other person's skin on me was great. There were no thoughts of seduction, molestation or sex of any kind. Nothing communicates like a good, solid hug and we were just glad to share that communication with each other.

Val and Bev were just disappearing down the stairs as we came out of our room and we followed them down into the kitchen. Grace and her troops were already sitting at the table with coffee and glasses of milk. The kitchen smelled of fresh brewed coffee, bacon and eggs, hash browns, milk gravy and of course homemade rolls warming in the oven.

The food was all fantastic. It was food the way God or Mother Nature or whoever was in charge these days had intended it. It wasn't chock full of growth hormones, it hadn't been engineered to make something bigger or prettier or more sell-able plus our re-energized taste buds and olfactory glands hadn't been worn down by a constant barrage of chemicals in the food and the water and the air.

We caught up on what each of us had seen so far. Val and Bev talked of their ride and Grace and the kids informed us of all the things they'd discovered on their place. Tina and Vicky had decided they wanted to get in on the training of all the horses they had. There was plenty of help to do it already; they just thought it would be fun to train horses.

"That brings something up that I think we should all take a look at," I said. "Both places have enough help to let us sit around on our asses and do nothing if we want to. I don't think that's wise. I think we should all find things to keep up busy."

"Well, I've got my gardens," Maria said. It's going to take a few days just to figure out just what we've got growing. This world is different from the one we came from. That coffee we're drinking was made from beans that were grown out back. There's no way you could grow coffee in the old Montana. There are a lot of fruits and vegetables growing here that couldn't before. And it seems like just about everything grows year 'round. We don't have to harvest a crop and try to come up with a way to preserve it so we can eat it till the next crop comes in."

"I'm going to have to get involved with my garden, too," Grace answered. "I was amazed at how much they've got growing on my place. There are a lot more animals and Kyle and I are going to have to find out what we've got and do some planning for the future."

"Aw, Mom, I've already got something to do. I have to get a bunch of women pregnant."

That earned him slugs from his mother, my daughter and his sister.

"We've already had one mating with a norm," Bev said.

Everyone turned to look at her.

"Alfie had his way with a border collie while we were out yesterday. His owner couldn't thank us enough. I was surprised to see an old fashioned shepherd, complete with a staff with a hook on the end of it and everything. He's convinced he's going to have a litter of super sheepdogs."

"He may just," I said. "A lot of dogs had the life bred out of them in the old world. Inserting some prime blood into the canine population couldn't hurt, that's for sure.

"Speaking of which," I continued, "I believe we were given an order to do the same with the female population. Grace and Tina, you each need to decide who you want to father your first child. You don't have to tell anyone else if you don't want to, but from what Dreamer said, it's something that needs to be looked at within the next week or so.

"Val and Kyle, the three of us need to start impregnating some norms. You need to make sure your mates are comfortable with it. Personally, I'm looking at two or three women a week. I haven't talked it over with Maria," I said, smiling at her, "but I would just as soon have the outsider share our bed instead of sending my wife away two or three times a week.

"Keep in mind that there are plenty of women who will jump at the chance. There's no excuse for forcing anyone or taking a child to be with you. Also, the husbands and boyfriends are supposed to consider it an honor. What's supposed to be and what happens in real life may not be the same. I haven't actually sat anyone down and asked them if they remember the way things were a week ago and I'm pretty sure I'd just confuse the hell out of them if I did. Just keep your eyes open so you don't hurt the pride of someone who's still got some attitudes from the old world."

"That makes sense," Maria said. "I know I've felt ambiguous about some things. I saw one of the women yesterday and thought about how you would enjoy being with her but I felt a touch of jealousy, too. Keep your mate's feelings in mind when you bring another woman into her bed. Or if you go off to another woman's bed."

Grace said, "You need to watch out for the other woman's feelings, too. I'm not saying you need to fall in love with each of them, but you need to make sure they're interested in the first place, then treat them with some respect and affection. They aren't your whores or your sperm buckets. Show them some care and make sure they're satisfied. And Kyle, you haven't been let loose in a candy store, so don't act like it."

That comment got a giggle from his sister and a smirk from Vicky. Kyle looked like he was struggling not to come back at his mother but wouldn't look at her.

"Well," I said, "I've been given the role of enforcer, whether I want it or not, and I'm going to take it seriously. Just remember that if any of you decide you know better than anybody else. I think the next thing we should talk about is what we want to do about the future. It's not going to be enough to just populate this new world of ours. We came from a society that was a lot more advanced, at least technologically, than ours. Do we want to try to re-create some of that technology that's been lost? And what about educating our young? Maybe some or all of the adults could do with some education, as well."

"I don't know that all that technology did anybody a whole lot of good," Val said. "There was always talk about labor saving devices and all the leisure time they were going to provide. What I saw was 98% of the people working their butts off to pay the bills while the other 2% lived in luxury."

"What about guns?" Kyle said. "They'd sure make hunting a lot easier."

"I was shooting soon after I learned how to walk, so I'm not an anti-gun fanatic" Val answered. "But I don't see that we need to introduce them into this world. We haven't been here long, but it sure doesn't look like we're going to go hungry any time soon. And as far as hunting is concerned, I don't think there's much out there that we can't take with a bow and arrow or a crossbow. Any idiot could buy a gun in the world we came from. I'll let you in on a little secret. I went through hell before I ended up in that cave but what really scared me happened before I was even in the river."

Kyle asked, "What was that?"

"Jimmy, the guy I went on the survival trek with, Bev's brother, ignored the rules and brought a gun along with him. He also brought some pot, which wasn't specifically against them but was definitely contradictory to their intent. When he got high and started waving that gun around, shooting in the air, and then started talking about what a wimp I was, I was scared shitless. He was the kind of person that would shoot first, then come up with some excuse about it later. There's no way he'd ever take any responsibility or feel guilty about it. I don't know if there are any people like him on this new planet of ours but I don't want to find out. Jimmy used to be a pretty OK guy and then he got into high school and started running around with other people who thought they were special and that the rules didn't apply to them. It's going to be tough enough keeping this place the paradise it is and not letting man's greed and avarice destroy it without introducing things like guns into the works."

"Well, if we don't do it, somebody will," Kyle challenged Val.

"That doesn't make it right," I broke in. "I'm sure that was a major part of the rationalization for developing the atom bomb back in World War II. It was bullshit then and it's bullshit now. I'm sorry Kyle, but I'm going to pull rank here and rule that we are not going to put guns into the mix in this new world. I refuse to be the devil or a Klingon."

"What's a Klingon?" Christina asked me.

"There was a TV show back before any of us were born called "Star Trek." It was about a starship and its crew who were out on a peaceful mission to explore the universe. There were a couple of warrior races that were our enemies most of the time and one of these was called the Klingons. In one episode there was a planet that had some resource both races needed and there were people from both ships on the planet, trying to convince the people to let them have some and keep it away from the others. The Klingons gave the primitive people weapons, something like guns but I think they were more like what you'd call a ray gun. The good guys were forced to follow the Prime Directive. That meant they couldn't introduce new technology to any of the planets they visited. If they did, it was a criminal offense. I think we should institute something similar. We at least need to take a good, hard look at anything new before rushing ahead with it. If we didn't already have hot water or even running water, I wouldn't fight too hard against 'inventing' a way to produce either of them. But I'd fight damned hard if you wanted to start drilling for oil or mining coal."

"And what are you going to do about it if one of us breaks this Prime Directive?" Kyle shot back.

"We could always cut off your weiner," his mother answered.



-------

Chapter 6: Burt


Grace's suggested punishment put an end to her son's desires to introduce firearms to our uncontaminated world. Maria reminded us that we had mentioned education at the beginning of our discussion and never got around to it.

"I don't see the point of it," Kyle spoke up. "I mean, what good is the history of a world that doesn't exist going to do any of us? Besides, someone might learn that there were such things as guns in the old days and we wouldn't want that."

Vicky beat me to the punch. "Don't be a smartass, Kyle. If you get your head out of your computer games and the TV and take a look around you, you'll realize that our policy of not teaching everyone on this planet how to kill everyone else isn't really so bad. I think we should have some lessons in history. But I think we're the one's who should get them."

"How do you mean?" asked Bev.

"I mean we haven't been here for a whole day yet. We don't know shit about the history of this world."

"Language, Dear," my wife said.

"Oh, language my ... posterior," Vicky shot back. It's a new world, Mom. We're not going to go to hell for thinking evil thoughts or taking the Lord's name in vain. I can see using words in moderation so they don't lose all meaning, but the way I used that particular word expressed exactly what I wanted to say probably better than any word you could come up with. I'm pregnant and part of the ruling class on this world, for God's sake. I don't think using one of the 8 forbidden words has quite the same impact now that most of humanity has been erased."

"I stand corrected," her mother said. "I thought it was 7 words, though."

"It may be. I don't remember and I don't have a computer to look it up."

"What are you two talking about?" asked Christina.

"There was this comedian who did a routine about words you couldn't say on the radio. It was on a record he released and every once in a while some rebellious FM radio station would play it in the middle of the night, daring the FCC to do something about it."

"What's FCC?"

"It was a government agency that was set up to make sure the radio and TV stations served the public."

Val snorted. "They didn't do a very good job of it."

"No," I said. "But as far as government agencies were concerned, there were a lot worse. They were holding their own against the internet giants who wanted to determine which sites you could access and which you couldn't right up till the end."

"All right, all right. That's beside the point," Maria said. "We were talking about whether we want a bunch of illiterate children or not."

"We already teach the children," Rosa, Margarita's sister interrupted. She had been puttering around the kitchen like a mute waitress, serving us, refilling coffee, taking dishes as we finished eating.

"That's interesting," said Grace. "What do you teach them?"

"Oh, many things. How to work, to keep the cows happy and from wandering off, how to grow our food, how to pick it and prepare it and cook it. They already know how to eat it," she laughed.

"What about things not to do with work like reading and mathematics?" Grace asked her.

"Oh, they learn to read early. All the children love being read to, most of them before they can even talk. There are always one or two sitting on the lap of whoever is reading, following along. As they get older, they start picking up the words and then they read out loud to the group. One of the older children or an adult stays to make sure they are doing it right. But this other thing, this math a..."

"Mathematics. It's the study of numbers and how they relate to each other."

"Oh, they know how to count."

"Well, that's an early part of it, but what about putting numbers together. Like one plus one..."

"Oh, they all that makes three."

"No, Rosa, one plus one equals two."

"You will learn soon enough. All the ladies except you and your daughter already have." She reached over Maria's shoulder and put her hand on her stomach.

"She's got you there, Mom," Vicky said to Grace.

"Oh, I'm Mom now? When did that happen?"

"I figure it might as well be. You're going to be Grandma before too long here."

"Oh, God. I knew there was something about this new world I didn't like. I'm too young to be a grandmother."

"Wait till I have a baby, Mom," Christina said.

"Oh, Fuck."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Language, Mother."

"Forget it, Christina. Like Vicky said, there's a right word for every sentence and that was the right one here."

"I think these folks have the right idea," I said. We have a lot of books here and the main thing is to teach the young how to read. If something else comes up, either in life or in their reading, then's the time to teach it. Part of the problem with education was that a lot of it didn't have much if anything to do with real life. Letting someone try a couple of different sized hammers when he's hammering in a fence post is going to mean a whole lot more than a lecture about mass and vectors and velocity. He's learning the same data but one way it's practical, something that applies to his life. The other way, it's pretty much information he'll never use."

"What about sex? Are you just going to let them pick it up on their own?" Bev said.

Rosa said, "Oh, we don't hide anything about sex. Why would we want to do that? When they're ready, they ask and we tell them. If a little girl and boy are taking a bath together and ask about the differences, we let them know. As they grow older and the questions get more complicated, we might show them if it's too hard to describe. This is a ranch, you know. You can't walk too far without seeing two animals mating with each other. Or maybe even a couple of the older kids experimenting."

Grace was the one who asked but I think we were all surprised. I don't think Rosa ever did understand what we were talking about. There was no such thing as Spanish. In fact, the concept of naming languages was unknown. It was just the words everybody used. Like the 7 or 8 forbidden words, there were words we thought of as Spanish that meant specific things.

Patron or Patrona were reserved for very few people. For Maria and I, the capital P was always in place. The same with Grace, over at her property. For the rest of our group, the word might be used with a small p. I supposed the literal translation would be 'boss' for the three of us and 'enhanced' for the others with a gender component included.

Señor and Señora were used for adults, mostly by the children. And Niño and Niña were the opposite – used by adults when talking to or about children, having a connotation of affection. The very young were called Mija (me hah).

We talked about everyone's plans for the day and Val and I decided to take a ride to the small village that was supposed to be nearby. From what Dreamer had told us, it was a community of artisans. As soon as we got up from the table, Alfie got up and lazily followed us out the door.

Manuel and his son Juan caught up with us when we went out to the stable. We talked to Manuel while Juan saddled up our horses. Val tried to saddle his own horse but Juan told him in no uncertain terms that it was his job and that Val had other, more important things to do. Rosa had done the same thing when Grace made the mistake of telling Christina to help clean off the table.

Manuel told me that we should both take swords and bows and arrows. He got quite upset when I told him we wouldn't know how to use them if we had them and then he tried to stop us.

"It's too dangerous, Patron. At least let me get someone to ride with you in case there's any trouble."

"Oh, come on, Manuel. Who would try to attack us. It's what? A couple of miles to the village?"

"It is over ten, Patron, and it is not men I am worried about. What would you do if you came across a mountain lion. I know your wolf is very strong, but why risk injury to him when an arrow will do a better job from a distance? Besides, if they come across some wild game, we can have some variety on our dinner table."

I agreed with him and Juan ran off to get a couple of his older 'cousins'.

Ricky and Connie (short for Enrique and Consuela, I later found out) were a couple of fifteen year olds who were also a couple, if you follow my meaning. Manuel notified them that they were there to guard us and make sure that we got to the village and back safely and that if they didn't, they were going to hear about it from him, as well as from their parents.

We made quite a group as we went down the driveway. Four adults, one wolf and five horses, including an extra, just in case. If we found what I thought we might, we would have needed a couple more horses if we had the women with us for all the junk they'd want to bring home.

"If we want something for ourselves from the village, we don't just take it, do we?" I asked Connie.

"Of course. You are the Patron. They know you will not cheat them."

"But what do they get out of it?"

"Oh, I see what you are asking. We feed the villagers and in trade, they make things for us. If we need arrows or swords or horseshoes, someone in the village provides them. If we wanted something special, that would be extra."

"What would constitute something special?"

"Let's say something happened and we had to replace a large section of fence. Or you decided you wanted a new saddle, even though the one you have is still good."

"So a new saddle would be special."

"Not always. When Christina outgrows her saddle, it will go in with the rest of the children's saddles to be used by whoever fits it. Christina would then have a new one made for her. As each child grows into an adult, he or she is going to need a new saddle. If we have a lot of new babies, like we're going to have, there may not be enough small ones for them. They will have to be made but we wouldn't have to give them extra food. But we would probably have to supply the saddle maker with one or two people for her to train. In fact, that would probably be a good thing to do soon. That way when the babies start coming, the apprentices will know what they're doing."

"That makes sense. Who do you know that would like to learn to make saddles?"

"We would," the two of them answered.

"How would your parents feel about that?" I asked Ricky.

"They would be proud that we chose to learn a trade, especially one so useful as this."

"Well, I'll have a talk with this saddle maker and see what we can work out."

"Thank you, Patron," the two of them said, smiling at one another.

There were a lot more trees and other vegetation than there had been in the Montana we were familiar with. We weren't in the forest yet but it wasn't paved roads and fields, either.

We'd gone about seven miles when Alfie moved ahead of us and turned sideways, blocking the horses. Ricky and Connie were in the lead and they stopped immediately. Of course, since they were in front of us, our horses had to stop as well, as did the pack horse.

"What is it?" Val asked.

"Shh," Connie cautioned him. "There's a stream over there," she said, pointing in the direction of some bushes, "and deer drink from it. He probably smelled something."

I stood up in my stirrups and looked over Ricky. Alfie was now sitting down, facing the direction Connie had pointed, looking alert but not making any attempt to move.

In the meantime, both kids had dismounted and were past the bushes, carrying their bows, both with an arrow notched, ready to shoot.

Val and I looked at each other and heard the twangs of both weapons, just far enough apart to tell that there were two distinct shots. They ran away from the bushes, excitement evident as they talked to each other. "Got it. That's a big one. Someone's going to have a good meal tonight." I saw a blur in my peripheral vision as Alfie took off after them.

Val and I moved forward enough so that the bushes were no longer blocking our view. The other three horses followed but made no effort to get away. We got down off our horses and started towards the kids. I could see the stream and the two of them bent over as Alfie ran back and forth behind them, looking excited. I called out "Hey, Boy," and he ran over to us with his tongue hanging out, then turned as if to take us over to them.

The two teenagers had each tied a rope around the necks of their kills and Val and I rushed over to them and helped them drag the carcasses over to a nearby tree. There were a couple of low branches, maybe 160 degrees apart and they each threw the end of their rope over one. The four of us tugged on the ropes and secured them after the animals were both a couple of feet off the ground. We hardly had them tied off before the two of them had their knives out and were slicing up the bellies, starting to field dress the animals.

"There should be some burlap sacks on the pack horse," Ricky said.

"I got it," I told Val.

I found several of them, what we would have had fifty pound of beans or rice in, or maybe animal grain, back in the old days. I grabbed a couple of them and headed back.

"I'm sorry, Patron, I didn't mean..."

"That's OK, Ricky. You are obviously much better at this than I am. I'm glad to be able to help."

The animals had just about bled out. Alfie was working on a pile of entrails like they were so many table scraps.

"We can take them over to the stream and wash them off. Then we can skin them and put the meat in the burlap bags to take with us."

Ricky and Connie grabbed the larger animal, a male that looked about two years old, and took him down to the stream. I had just untied the second and was lowering it while Val held onto the animal, a doe, when Ricky came up to help. I looked over my shoulder and the buck had already been skinned and Connie was cutting, rinsing and putting large chunks of meat into the now wet bag.

Ten minutes later we were on our way again with a couple of nearly full burlap sacks, a couple of deer skins that needed to be taken care of and a wolf that shouldn't be hungry for quite a while.

"Damn, you two are good," Val said. "I've done a lot of hunting and my Dad has done a whole lot more, but neither of us could field dress an animal anywhere near as fast as you guys."

They tried to pretend it was no big deal but I could see that the two of them were both pleased.

"Never be embarrassed to get praise that you've earned," I said. "The two of you definitely earned it today."

"You should see my father," Ricky told me. "He's the one who taught us."

"Who's your father?" I asked.

"Arturo. He's working with the cows these days. He broke his arm a couple of weeks ago and he has to take it easy."

Val asked, "Is he going to be OK?"

"Oh, sure. It's no problem to fix a broken arm. The medic from the village had it straightened out and in a cast the same afternoon he broke it."

I was going to have to talk with this medic and see what the state of medicine was in this new world. To be honest, it couldn't be a whole lot worse than it had been in the old one. They had been OK with broken bones, delivery babies and taking out burst appendixes, but anything more complicated and they 'practiced' medicine. They'd never figured out how to cure the common cold, for God's sake, and most of them were just legalized drug pushers. Heaven forbid if you knew about some herb that could reduce a fever or a root that eased pain. You'd end up in prison for practicing medicine without a license.

I heard the twang of an arrow being shot and looked up to see Connie putting away her bow and Alfie running off to our left. He came to a halt, bent down, then turned around and ran back to us with a pheasant in his mouth. He was carrying it by its neck and I could see the arrow sticking out of the swaying body. He held it up to Connie and she bent over and grabbed the arrow, picking it up and draping it over her horse's shoulders, just in front of the saddle horn. She reached behind her and came up with a leather thong that she used to secure the bird to the horn. She then leaned over and reached somewhere near her leg, pulling out a chunk of meat, tossing it to Alfie. "Good Boy," she told him as he caught it on the fly.

We continued on another mile or so and came around a curve. I could see some movement in bushes on both sides of the path, maybe a dozen yards ahead of us. Connie and Ricky were leading again and they'd both come to a halt, their hands in front of them, about chest height, showing that they were empty. I caught some movement about ten feet past where I'd seen the bushes move and a short stocky man came out into the path holding a crossbow. I could see that it was ready to fire.

"Halt. Who goes there?"



-------

Chapter 7: Burt


"It's us, Garth. Consuela and Enrique. We have the Patrón and his son with us."

The man lowered the crossbow and swiped his forehead with his free arm. He moved a little to the side, leaning over so he could see past the two up front and squinting at us. I noticed that the bolt was still engaged, ready to fire, and his finger was still on the trigger. He looked back at Connie and motioned toward Alfie with the weapon.

"And this?" he said to her.

"This is Alfie," she said, leaning over and patting him on the head. "He's no danger unless he needs to be. Sit Alfie."

The wolf sat down and Garth said, "And what would make him need to be a danger?"

"Somebody threatening us with a weapon and not putting it up after it had been established that we were not a threat," Val said, barely hiding the anger in his voice.

Alfie remained seated but I could hear a low growl and see the raised hair on the back of his neck.

"Take it easy, Val," I said. "He doesn't know us."

Garth swung the crossbow to his left, making sure it was pointed at the ground, then raised it enough to unseat the bolt. He put it into a pocket of the heavy leather apron he was wearing along with about a dozen of its mates.

"It's OK, guards," he said, his voice raised. "You can come out now."

A boy and a girl quickly came out onto the road from the bushes I'd seen movement in. They looked about the same age as Ricky and Connie. I heard something behind us and turned my head around to see two women, one about Bev's age and the other my wife's, obviously mother and daughter. All four of them were holding crossbows, aimed toward the ground but still ready to fire. The woman looked as though she wanted to rip somebody's head off. The daughter looked sad, as if she'd lost something.

"Senior," I heard. I turned around to see the man in the leather apron at my side, between Val and me. His hand was extended and I took it in mine. The hand was rough and his grip was strong but not overpowering. "I'm Garth, the blacksmith," he said.

"Burt Hendrix," I responded. "And this one next to me with the temper is my son, Val," I continued, motioning to him with a head nod.

"A temper is not out of line when there is a lack of respect that is due," he said, shaking Val's hand. "We had to be certain that these two were not being coerced." He motioned at Ricky and Connie with his free arm.

"I'm a little surprised," I said. "I didn't expect such vigilance."

"This is unusual," he answered, "but we find ourselves to be in a position where it's necessary."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Come, come, this is not the place. You four go back to your posts," he said to the guards. "Amanda and Susan, I'll call some replacements for you when I get back to the signal gong," he said to the mother and daughter. Turning back to me, he said, "Come into the village, relax and have some refreshment and we will talk."

The guards disappeared into the bushes and Garth took off at a fast trot. We followed him around a curve in the road and then stopped as he did. We were at the crest of a hill, looking down into a valley.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when but this was not it. When I heard of a village near us, I thought of something out of the old west, maybe a dirt street with wood sidewalks. The saloon, bank and most likely the hotel would be missing but the stables, blacksmith, saddlemaker, etc. would all have their own places on the outskirts of town. I'd even pictured a collection of teepees with the elders meeting around a fire at one time.

What I saw was a beautiful valley with homes spread out across it. It was at least a quarter mile between the houses but they mostly averaged a mile and a half to two. The construction seemed to be mostly wood and stone. Most places had a house with a barn close by and all I could see had crops of some kind growing on a section of the property. Some had farm animals grazing. There was a stream flowing down the center of the valley and I saw three water wheels set up, several miles apart from one another. Each had at least one large building close by. One had several wagons filled with logs that looked to be recently felled. I could see several piles of uncut logs, each one numbering close to a hundred. In another area, I saw stacks of cut lumber. They reminded me of the lumber section of one of the giant home warehouses.

I was snapped back into the now by the sound of a huge gong being struck by a mallet. I looked over as Garth hit it twice, waited about five seconds, then hit three more times. The gong was hanging from an upside down L, similar to the structure you draw when playing Hangman. Garth let the mallet drop and it fell to about a foot from the ground, the leather thong holding it secured to the crossbeam away from the straps holding the gong.

I heard a repetition of the signal from somewhere in the valley a short time later. I looked at him questioningly.

"It's a signal. This one means we need to have a town meeting and that there's nothing to worry about. If I'd signaled three, then three, it would have meant I was in danger and was being forced to signal the town. The answering signal serves two purposes. It acts as an acknowledgment to me and also relays the signal so that all can hear it."

I could see some movement already. Some people were on horses, heading toward the center of the valley while others were in wagons or in the process of hooking horses up to them.

Garth reached down and picked up the mallet again. He hit the gong five times, waited a couple of seconds, then hit it twice more. He didn't wait for me to ask. "I called for two replacement guards." I could see a couple of people on horseback turn around and head in our direction.

Garth let out a whistle and a horse came running over to him. It was not a tall horse but it was wide and muscular. It looked like it would be equally at home pulling either a plow or a wagon. Garth put a foot in the stirrup, swung up and plopped down on the saddle. The horse settled itself but showed no other effect from the added weight.

I'd been observing Garth on and off since he first blocked our path. My first impression had been short and stocky, and that still held true. But calling him stocky would be like calling a politician from the old world power hungry. While true, it came nowhere near describing the magnitude of the characteristic.

He said he was a blacksmith and it was obvious he had been at it for a long time. He stood about 5'2" and was almost as wide as he was tall. There didn't seem to be an ounce of fat on him, though, it was all muscle. His biceps bulged out larger than my enhanced thighs, measuring twice as large, even at rest. He was obviously ambidextrous as I could see no difference in size between them. His pants legs were stretched out in the thighs as he sat astride his horse and they looked to be close to a foot from front to back. Barrel chested doesn't even come close to describing him. I imagine it would take more than my fist to make him react after hitting it. Hitting him full on with a sledge hammer would probably only make him take a step or two backwards.

He had been stern when we first met and there was no doubt he was giving the other four orders with full expectation they would be followed without question, yet his handshake was firm and confident but not overpowering. I had no doubt he could have easily crushed my hand if he wanted to. This was no bully. He was a strong, powerful man who seemed to have complete control over himself and those in his charge.

He lead the way, following a path that meandered down the slope. Connie got behind him, then me and Val, the pack horse tied to his with a long lead, Ricky taking up the rear. I noticed that both of our young guides seemed even more alert than they had been before, their bows held in one hand along with a notched arrow, not draped across their shoulders as they had been for most of the ride.

I could see quite a distance in both directions but could not make out any other paths into the valley.

"Is this the only entrance?" I asked.

"The only one on this side," Garth shouted back to me. "There's another one on the far side," he continued, pointing at the hills in the distance, a little to the left of center. I could just make out a trail similar to the one we were on, winding its way down the hill.

"Are there guards over there, as well?" I asked him.

"Oh, yes. Day and night."

There was something going on. The vigilance of the guards that met us at the top of the hill, Garth's inference that there was a reason they were so vigilant and that it was unusual, the meeting called between us and everyone in the community. I could see the people moving towards the center of the town and it appeared to be everyone. I had an idea that Amanda and Susan, the mother and daughter, had something to do with it. The look on Amanda's face and the tenseness of her body plus the fact that Garth made sure to tell her she'd be replaced all added up to her being at the center of whatever it was that had put this community on alert. If all the other indications didn't do it, the sadness shown by Susan alone would have told me it wasn't pleasant. Whatever it was, they had decided would wait until we got there. I wasn't about to pull rank and force Garth to tell me about it.

We had to slow down and move to the side about halfway down the hill to let a couple of young men about Val's age pass by. They nodded to Garth and exchanged hellos with Ricky and Connie.

"Amanda and Susan will probably beat us to the meeting," Garth said over his shoulder.

"I have an idea that it's important for them to be there," I said.

"That's why you're the Senior and I'm just a lowly blacksmith."

I heard a snort from Ricky. He was lucky he didn't have a mouthful of liquid because it would have surely come out his nose.

"Lowly blacksmith my horse's rump," he said. "You should see the work this man produces."

"I plan to," I said, looking back at him.

We made it to the valley and started in the direction everyone else had been going. Garth pointed out the first spread we passed.

"This is Amanda and her family's."

We were 50 yards past the entrance when we heard a couple of horses racing towards us. Susan turned down the drive but Amanda stopped long enough to shout "I'm just going to check on Oscar, then we'll head to the meeting."

"OK. Take your time," Garth shouted to her retreating back.

The next place was where I'd seen the two replacement guards come from. There was a long structure, twenty five feet deep and maybe 150 feet from end to end with walls at each either end and the back but was open all along the front. The roof sloped down from front to back. I could tell there was something all along the back wall but had no idea what it was because of the roof and its shadow.

"What do they do in there?" I asked Garth.

"That's where we make our copper pipe," he answered.

"Really? What do you use that for?"

"Oh, come now, Senior. You should know that well enough. You must have over two miles of it at your place, for the crops and your home and the other buildings."

"Oh, I didn't realize that. How about here in... ? I'm sorry, I don't even know the name of this community."

"I don't think it was ever named but everyone just calls it The Town. But to answer your question, we are in the process of manufacturing the pipe we'll need to provide for ourselves, now that we've completed your two properties."

I wondered why he said two properties until Val leaned over and quietly said "Grace."

A mile or so down the road we passed another spread.

"This is where I make my home and do the majority of my blacksmithing. I'll be glad to show it to you after the meeting, depending upon what happens."

There was another long, open-fronted building a bit further back from the house.

I heard horses while we were stopped, looking at Garth's place and turned to see Amanda and Susan ride up.

"How is he doing?" Garth asked Amanda.

"No change."

"At least he's not any worse. There's always hope."

"Yes, there is that. Come, we don't want to keep everyone waiting." Amanda urged her horse forward and the rest of us followed suit.

Garth urged his horse into a trot so we sped up too.

We rode another three or four miles and came to the meeting place of The Town. There was a large building that Garth pointed out to us as the community center. When there was a gathering and it was dark or the weather wasn't suitable, that was where they met.

Since the weather was good, we went over to a park close by. There was an area filled with wagons and ropes were run between several trees for tying up horses. There were quite a few youngsters between five and ten years old running around and Garth called for one of them to get a few of his friends and take care of our horses.

The boy I handed my reins to gave me a liter of something. When I asked him what it was, he called it mead. It was similar to beer or ale but was light and had a sweet taste to it.

There was a bandstand with benches set up on one side and they were filling up with people. The opposite side had a large dance floor made up of polished hardwood planks. I saw close to a dozen fire pits spread out and there were two to ten picnic tables with benches near each one.

"Rick and Connie, you two go find some friends to visit. I'll take care of the Seniors," Garth told me two guards.

Connie looked at me and I nodded my head. She took Ricky's hand in hers and the two of them took off at a run toward a group of teens talking on one side of the benches.

Alfie came over to me and I said, "Go on." He ran after his two new friends.

Garth led Val and me up to the bandstand. There was a row of chairs about ten feet back from the edge, plenty of room for someone to stand in front and address the crowd. Two men and three women were sitting down already, Amanda and Susan being two of the women. There were three empty seats in the middle of the row which the three of us took. I sat between Amanda and Garth with Val on the other side of Garth. Susan was next to Amanda and she was gripping her mother's hand tightly. She looked like she was ready to break down at any moment.

Garth stood in front of us, close to the edge of the bandstand and looked over the crowd. He clapped his hands a couple of times and it quieted down.

"OK, People, let's all sit down so we can get this meeting started. Does anyone know of anybody who's missing?"

A man a couple of rows back stood up. "I don't see Clyde and Walker."

"That's OK, Ralph. They're on guard duty so Amanda and Susan could be here."

By now everyone was sitting down and for the most part quiet.

"OK, folks. By now I'm sure just about everyone knows what has happened to The Town and you were probably all wondering why we were calling a meeting. Just so you know, there isn't any news. We still have four people standing watch at each of the entries and we'll continue the rotation as scheduled. The only reason I changed things and put Clyde and Walker at the east entry is so Amanda and Susan could be here. Personally, I didn't want either of them on guard duty. They already have enough to worry about. But Amanda insisted and Susan didn't want to be left behind. That's bravery and dedication well beyond the call of duty. I'll have Amanda come up here and talk to us all in a while." He looked over at Amanda and she nodded.

"First, I'm sure you all noticed them up here and they're the real reason we called this meeting. I for one am happy they're here, we certainly can use their help." He motioned back to me with one hand, pointing me out to the crowd. "Folks, this is Burt Hendrix, the Senior. And that good looking young man is his son, Val. He has a giant wolf around here somewhere, too, so don't be afraid if you come across him."

Connie stood up. She was over at the edge of the seats with a group of kids her age. "Alfie's over here," she hollered.

Garth motioned me up to the front of the stage where he was. I got up and walked over to him. He slapped me on the back of the shoulder and left me to sit back down.

"Hello, everyone," I said. "As Garth told you, I'm the Senior and my name is Burt. I planned to tour your village today and meet many of you one on one. I gather that something has happened that's shaken things up and I'm not going to take up a lot of your time because I want to find out what it is. In case you don't know, there's Val and me, Val's mate Bev, my mate Maria and our neighbor Grace. I have a daughter, Vicky and she's mated with Grace's son, Kyle. Grace also has a daughter, Christina or Tina. Tina is figuring out who she wants to hook up with and Grace will probably join me and Maria. Alfie has two mates, Betty and Subi. Betty is already expecting pups and I'm sure Subi won't be far behind. By the way, Maria, Bev and Vicky are all pregnant."

Someone started clapping and soon the whole crowd was on its feet applauding.

After a minute, I raised my hands and got them to settle down.

"One more thing and then I want to get Amanda up here so I can hear what she has to say. My goal is not to be a leader so much as to be an adviser. That doesn't mean there won't be times when I'll decide the way something is going to be and when that happens, my decision will be final. But I'm sure as hell not going to be over here all the time holding your hands and telling you what to do. I had two reasons for coming here today. The first was to see what you do in this community and how we can support each other. The second, and probably more important, was to find out what you want. What would make your lives easier? What new projects do you envision? I still plan on getting with as many of you as I can, but right now, I want to bring Amanda up here."

They started up again, applauding and talking to each other about what I'd said, as well. I walked back to Amanda and held out my hand. She took it and I guided her out of her chair and then over to the front of the stage.

"Are you OK or do you want me to stand up here next to you?"

"I'll be fine, but maybe you should stay up here. You're probably going to want to say something."

I held up my hands to get their attention and once again they sat down. I started to back up and Amanda reached back and pulled me up with her.

"Hi, Friends."

The crowd answered back, "Hi, Amanda!"

She smiled, the first time I'd seen her do so, and turned to me. "We've been talking as if we know each other but we haven't been introduced. I know you're Burt because you just told everyone. My name's Amanda Burke. That's my daughter Susan over there," she said, pointing. "Susan, say hello to Burt."

"Hello."

"Hello, Susan. Hello Amanda."

"Hi. There are a couple of members of my family who are not able to be with us today." She got that unforgiving look back. "My husband Oscar is presently in bed, unconscious, and has been since the night before last. My six year old son, Michael, was taken from us that same night."

"That's terrible," I said. "What happened?"

"Some men rode up to our property and hit my husband in the back of the head with some kind of club. They then took my son and rode off."

"I'm so sorry. How could this happen?"

"I think it would be better if Garth came up here." She turned and motioned to Garth. He stood up and walked over to us.

Garth stood on my left, facing at a 45 degree angle so he could see and talk to both me and the audience. Amanda was on my other side and had crept over until the whole left side of her body was touching me.

"Senior, this is mostly for you. Those of you who missed the initial announcement should listen so you're not operating on rumors.

A little over two weeks ago, three men showed up and asked around for whoever was in charge. We have a council of four." He pointed toward the people seated behind us. "Susan and Amanda are not members of the council but I and the other three townspeople seated there are. They were insistent but wouldn't say what they were there for until the met with the full council. They said it was something that was going to affect the whole town.

"We met and they told us that they were from a place north of here and that they were willing to assure that we didn't come to harm for ten percent of our production. Of course, we laughed in their faces and told them we had never had any problems and that they should just leave while they had the chance.

"A week later, they were back with three others and I was the first council member they came across. The one who had done all the talking the previous week asked me if we'd changed our minds. When I told him we hadn't and that the six of them should leave and never come back, he said that was too bad because he was now raising the cost of his protection to 15%. He then told the others with him to torch the place. Fortunately, I was training a couple of new apprentices at the pipe making shop and they suddenly found themselves surrounded by me, my two apprentices and twelve other workers. We walked them to the trail and I told them that if they showed up in our town again, they would be taking their lives in their own hands because I was going to issue a 'kill on site' decree on them. They left, screaming that we hadn't heard the last of them and that we were going to be sorry. I left five of my workers at the bottom of the trail to make sure they actually left.

"We stationed a couple of men at the bottom of the trail all day a week later but nobody showed up. That evening, just after it got dark, some of them showed up at Amanda's place. Oscar and Michael were in the barn, replacing a wheel on one of the wagons. They must have snuck in and hit Oscar in the back of the head with something and taken Michael with them. Amanda went out to see why they were taking so long and found Oscar lying in a pool of blood. Someone had scratched 20% in the dirt next to him.

"That was the night before last. We sent out three scouts yesterday to see if they could find out where these men are and if they could rescue Michael. They haven't reported back yet."

"When do you expect the scouts back?"

"They are supposed to return by nightfall unless there is a good reason not to."

"By 'reason', you mean..."

"They come upon a trail and need more time to track them down or they run into trouble."

Just then, I heard the gong at the top of the hill. Four, pause, two, pause, one.

Garth looked at me. "The first part says that the scouts have returned and they are not being followed. But there's an added tone. I have to believe it means is that only one of the three scouts has returned."



-------

Chapter 8: Val


They say first impressions determine how you feel about someone or something from then on. My first impression of The Town was not very good. In fact, The Town never had a chance to make a first impression on me because we ran across Garth the blacksmith before we even saw it. The guy pissed me off with his arrogance. Hell, we were the Seniors, the Patróns, and he hassled us for a good five minutes. He made some half-assed apology and Dad seemed OK with it, but I was so pissed I didn't even notice my surroundings as we rode down the hill and then to the town center.

It was only when I heard what they were going through that I was able to put my damned pride aside and understand what he did when we first met. It was no less than what I'd do if a couple of men I didn't know rode up to our place even if they hadn't done anything evil yet.

It was disturbing to hear about the troubles. Of course, I was disturbed that some gang wannabees existed in this world in the first place, then that they could come into this peaceful place and almost kill one person and kidnap an innocent child. But up till now, the idea that we were going to be leaders in this new world had been almost academic. Sure, we were talking about taking a bunch of women to bed, but we were also the law and I hadn't really thought about what either of them meant. In short, we were responsible for all these people and they were counting on us to handle the problem. Anything short of finding, capturing and bringing the criminals to justice would not be acceptable. Banishing them and threatening them if they came back wouldn't work; that had already been done and their answer was the assault and kidnapping. I don't think anyone would accept providing shelter and food for them for several years or the rest of their lives as the prison system had in the old days. The only acceptable punishment would be putting all involved to death. And not after housing and feeding them for a couple of decades before doing it. More like finding them guilty and taking the straight out to a tall tree and using a rope.

There was no failure possible. If we didn't make things right, we would no longer be looked upon with the trust and loyalty we had without doing anything to earn it other than being here. And we had more than the people of The Town to answer to. We had all future generations and the existence of humanity dependent upon us doing the right thing.

I ended up between Garth and Susan when we sat down on the bandstand. When Amanda told everyone how she found her husband lying on the ground unconscious with her son missing, I glanced over at Susan. She looked like she was struggling not to cry, so I reached over and put my hand on her thigh, squeezing it a bit in a show of support. As soon as I did, she grabbed my hand. I tried to pull it away, thinking it was bothering her but she let wouldn't me, in fact she used both hands when it looked like she was going to lose it. She relaxed when I did but soon she was holding onto my arm with both hands, just above the wrist. Shortly after that she was leaning against me, the side of her face smooshed against my shoulder.

When the gong sounded to let us know that one of the three scouts was returning, there was an unspoken agreement that everyone would stick around and see what he had to say. That didn't stop them from leaving their seats and wandering around. A lot of little groups formed and I could see some spirited discussions going on in addition to the normal things people who don't see each other every day talk about.

The bandstand cleared off as well. I noticed that Amanda was acting much the same as her daughter, clinging onto my father as he went from group to group. As I made my way over to check out the horses, Susan continued to hold onto my arm with both hands.

I decided to see if I could communicate with Bev from this distance. Up till now, the farthest I was aware of was when Grace called us from her place.

Do you know that you can think of a complete event within an instant? Take our trip today. All the things that happened, the deer we shot and cleaned, the feel of the horse underneath me, the encounter at the top of the hill, the ride down, the speeches, Susan holding onto me, the reactions of the crowd – all of this can be experienced at as a concept in a fraction of a second.

That concept can be communicated to another person in less time than it takes to snap your fingers. Once I sent that to Bev, she did the same thing to me. I saw her helping out with the difficult birth of a foal, riding around on the ranch for a couple of hours, talking to some of our workers and working with my mother in the garden for the past hour.

She told me that it looked like my father and I had found our first eager women and laughed when I asked her what she meant. I thought Susan had just needed some comfort because of what had happened to her family. Bev told me she probably did but that Susan's idea of comfort was probably a lot different than what I was thinking. Her parting thought was "You know your duty. Do whatever you have to do."

I took a closer look at the girl who was hanging on to me. Now that Bev had yanked my head out of my ass, I could see the sexuality smoldering just beneath the surface. To use a ranching term, this girl was definitely in season. No, that wasn't right. We weren't in the good old USA where you weren't a real person until you reached the age of 18 or even 21. Around here, everyone pulled his weight, and when you reached the ripe old age of 14, you were adult enough to bear children, marry, pretty much whatever you wanted to do. This was no girl next to me; this was a woman.

Once again, I needed to shit or get off the pot. It's one thing to talk about wandering the countryside, spreading my seed. It's quite another to be confronted with someone I'd never even seen a couple of hours ago who's making it pretty obvious that she wants to bear my child. Considering that I was a virgin six months ago, at least by my subjective time line, and that I had never been with anyone but Bev, this was kind of a shock.

Let's face it. This was the high point any adolescent male's dreams. A woman, enthusiastically ready and willing to screw, no strings attached. Definitely in the no brainer, what are you waiting for, don't be an idiot category. Yet, to me, it wasn't.

When we first got together, I made a promise to be faithful to Bev. To be honest, her love for me was so great that I believe she would have been OK with me being with others, as long as I came back to her. She would probably have gone along with sharing me with another woman. But I decided I wanted Bev and only Bev and vowed that to her, unsolicited.

I felt like I was being forced to become an Alfie or one of the stud stallions or, heaven forbid, Jimmy.

But then I took a look at it. I had been given a tremendous gift. I could have been obliterated along with 99.99999% of the people on this planet but I wasn't. Instead, I was beefed up, enhanced, made better than any mortal that had lived on this planet before. And I'd been commanded to spread that, to improve the stock of mankind. It would certainly be pleasurable. It was time to throw out the Puritanical, Calvinistic ideals that had contaminated the species and go forth and be fruitful. As Bev had reminded me, it was my duty. I'd known it intellectually but not deep down inside, in my gut, the way Bev did. It had only been a subject of conversation. Now it was becoming real. It was time to step up to the plate. As they say, it's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it.

I had to fight Susan a bit before she would let me lift my arm but she snuggled up to me willingly when she realized I just wanted to put it around her shoulders. I leaned down and kissed her. It wasn't a passionate open-mouthed, tongue swapping kiss, but there was a little moisture and a lot of promise. She sighed and leaned against me, opening the eyes she'd closed when I kissed her, like twin suns gazing up at me.

We heard a horse riding up and everybody turned. "We should get back," Susan said to me. "That's one of the scouts we sent to find the criminals."

While everyone got settled down again, the scout handed over his horse to one of the kids, got a mug of mead, drained half of it and made his way up to the stage.

"This is Hector," Garth said, introducing him to my father. "Hector, this is Burt Hendrix, the Senior, and this here is his son, Val."

"Well, I sure am glad to see you the both of you. We have some real trouble." He looked at Garth. "Al and Sam got grabbed."

"You might as well tell everybody at once," I said, leading him to the front of the stage,

"Well," he started, "we didn't have any problem picking up their trail. There were three horses and one of them would stray off the path they were traveling every once in a while. We figured they had Michael doubling up on one of the horses and he'd act up every so often, spooking the horse."

"If there's anyone that could get a horse to do what he wants, it's Michael," Amanda said. "He's been riding almost since he could walk and he thinks nothing of getting on horses I'm afraid of."

"We thought it was something like that," Hector answered her. "We figured he was probably kicking it."

"I wonder why they didn't just take a horse when they grabbed him. It would have made a lot more sense," I put in.

"We don't think they got much sense," he responded. "They have a leader, and none of them seem to do much of anything unless he orders them to. Al said he bet they couldn't think of anything to do but bluster when we told them they were dead men if they showed up again. He thinks they went back, got their orders to pick up the first kid or woman they ran into and to take out anyone that got in their way and that's what they did. Nobody told them to take a horse so they didn't.

"So anyway, we tracked them about 25 miles, just east of north from here. We came upon a valley and that's where they have their camp set up. We tied the horses up at the top of the slope, then snuck down and hid behind a boulder so we could see them."

"How much room is there at the top of the hill?" I asked him.

"Oh, as much as you want. It's all pretty flat, then it slopes down to the valley. It's nothing like this place. It's maybe a hundred yards across, then it goes back up. There's trees and stuff up top but there's lots of room if you're wondering about where to put our horses if a bunch of us ride over there."

"Good man, Hector, that's exactly what I was thinking. I noticed some people came to this meeting in wagons. Could they get there and would there be room for them?"

"There's a few places where it gets tight, but they should make it. We rode side by side when we were tracking but there were three or four times one of us had to fall back for a spell. But there was always room for two of us."

"Good. Go on with your story."

"The camp was nothing much. The first thing we saw was a couple of lean-tos, one big enough for one person and the other fairly long. There was a tie rope running between two trees and there were eight horses tied to it. Three of them were all lathered up and left there wet. The other five looked to be in real bad shape.

"There was another tree and it had three chains attached to it. One of them was around Michael's neck. He looked OK. There's a bruise on one cheek, like someone slapped him pretty hard. He's dirty as all get out but I didn't see any other damage and he seemed to be able to move around alright.

"The other two chains were tied to a couple of women. It's hard to tell but one looked about 15 and the other was 17 or 18. They were both naked and were both in real sad shape. They were slapped around a lot while we watched and Al and I had to hold back Sam a couple of times when he wanted to run down there and go after somebody.

"We counted fifteen different men during the four hours before it got dark who raped one or both of those two. No part of them was out of bounds and both of them were bleeding from between their legs and in back. Like I said, they weren't too gentle, either in their fucking or in slapping them when they didn't do what they wanted fast enough.

"They had a bucket of water and they let the boy have some a few times but they made sure they put it just outside the women's reach. Twice one of the men took a ladle of water and told one to open her mouth, then splashed it on her face. Then he did the same with the other one. They only got a few drops to drink, then they tried to scrape what was still on their faces into their mouths.

"The horses didn't make out much better. They got a bucket of water between the eight of them and they could all reach it, but one or two were able to keep the others from getting much of it. The only thing they had to eat was grass, and they'd been there so long that there wasn't any left that they could reach.

"Like I said, they had two shelters. The leader's looked pretty good. He had four branches stuck in the ground and some skins stretched out on top of them. They were long enough to make three walls and a roof, with the front open. There was an overhang, maybe a foot and a half or so, in front. They probably could have fit four or five people laying down side to side in there. The leader is the only one we saw go in there.

"The other one was a lot wider and had two poles on each end and another two sets inside for support. The skins didn't go down to the ground in back and there wasn't any overhang in front. The leader had a pile of sheepskins for a bed but the men in the big tent had to get by with blankets or nothing. The skins on the leader's tent were all sewn together neatly but whoever did the others did a lousy job. There were a lot of gaps and if it ever rained, I doubt it would stay dry anywhere in there.

"Most of the men looked like they hadn't eaten in a long time. When it came time for dinner, the big guy warmed up a chunk of meat that had been cooked previously. When he'd had his fill, he tossed it in the grass in front of the fire and six or eight of the men scrambled for it. One would take a bite out of it, then another took it from him. Four people each got some of it, plus the leader, but that left the rest hungry. We counted a total of 22 men, including the leader.

"We decided to wait until dark to move in, even though it was tough seeing the women abused like that. We figured they might have a guard or two but the rest would be sleeping and it would be easier to overpower one or two guards then try to fight the whole bunch of them.

"They didn't even post a guard. After they'd all bedded down and there wasn't any movement for a while, Al and Sam headed on down to the tree where Michael and the women were. The plan was to grab Michael and the two women, put them on the three best horses, then make it back here before they were missed. I was going to stay and keep watch.

"Al and Sam made it over to the tree and had to settle down the women so that they didn't give them away in their excitement. While they were doing that, I saw three men leave the large tent and go behind it to pee. I lost track of them in the dark.

"They had just gotten Michael free when I saw the three men sneaking up on them. Somehow they'd realized something was up and had made their way around the camp without me seeing them. Two of them had a bow and arrow and the third had a spear. By the time I saw them, they were too close to the others and I couldn't warn them. The guy with the spear stuck the end of it against Al's throat and said something that I couldn't hear. Sam looked up to see two arrows ready to fire pointing at him. The two archers guarded the three of them while the one with the spear went over and woke the leader. After talking with him, he got some more chain and went over to the tree with the leader. They wrapped chain around Sam and Al's necks, then the tree. They also tied their hands behind their backs, then did the same to Michael. The three soldiers took turns hitting Sam and Al as the leader asked them questions. After everyone was chained to the tree, the leader and the spear guy went back to bed but the two archers pulled guard duty. They stayed where they could watch the prisoners and the horses so there was nothing I could do. I went back to where we had our horses, got on mine, tied the leads of the other two to my saddle and made my way back here as fast as I could leading two horses. When I got to the guard position at the top of the hill, I left the extra horses with them and made my way down here."

My dad questioned Hector. As far as he could tell, none of the men were being forced to stay there. Dad said that made them all guilty of the attack on Oscar, the kidnapping of Michael, the capture and abuse of the two women, not to mention the capture of Sam and Al. He asked if anyone disagreed with him and nobody did. Dad said that anybody who had a weapon and knew how to use it, had a horse or a wagon and was interested in freeing the prisoners and dispensing justice to the criminals should raise his or her hand. The only ones who didn't were young kids and a couple of people who looked like they were in their 80s. Hector, the four council members, Dad and I huddled together and decided the best bet was to leave there in the morning, check everything and regroup when we got there, then take out the key people and overwhelm the rest. Garth announced that we should all meet at the pipe factory two hours after sunrise the next day.

Then Garth announced that we were all invited to go over to the community center and enjoy a feast. The Senior had brought two deer and a pheasant his party had caught on the ride in and had graciously donated them for dinner and a couple of the older women had been in the community center dinner for everyone. Dad and I looked at each other and shrugged. We didn't find out till we sat down with Ricky and Connie that they were the ones who gave the meat away.

"It was going to spoil sitting on that pack horse and I knew we were going to be here a long time once I saw all the people going to the center of town," Connie told us. "I told Garth to take them when we were riding down the hill."

The meat was wonderful plus there was squash, corn on the cob with real butter, turnips and sweet potatoes. They had big bowls of salad with turnip greens, radishes, tomatoes and cucumber. By the time everyone was done eating, we both felt part of the community.

Amanda and Susan ate with us, sitting as close as possible while still allowing us to eat. When the people started dispersing, Amanda announced that there was room in the barn for Ricky and Connie and that Dad and I would be spending the night with them. It was kind of weird to think about bedding the two of them when the head of the house would be lying in another bed, unconscious. At least I hoped he'd be unconscious.

It took a while before we got going. Even though we were the Seniors and got bumped to the head of the line, there were a lot of people who had already started getting their horses. It was the first time Susan had been more than a half foot away from me in the last three hours.

Garth rode up front, talking with my father most of the way. Amanda was on Dad's other side. Susan and I were next in line, then came Connie and Ricky, armed and ready. Those two took their duties seriously and had been on high alert whenever we rode since we came across Garth. I still had the pack horse following me, lighter by a couple of deer. There were a bunch of people, some on horseback, some traveling together in wagons further back. Alfie stayed alert, sometimes in front of everyone, sometimes at the back or to one side or the other.

Susan talked about her life in The Town. She split her time between helping out on the farm and working as an apprentice clothier. She was currently learning all the ins and outs of making cloth, from spinning to weaving. Next would be working with animal skins, learning skinning and curing, then she'd be ready to start sewing simple patterns. She dreamed of the day she'd be able to plan and design clothing and create it herself.

Garth eventually said his goodbyes and turned off into his place. Most of the crowd behind us was still there and they continued until they reached the pipe manufacturing plant. Everyone behind us turned in at that point, leaving our party plus Amanda and Susan.

It wasn't long until we came upon their place. We took the horses into the barn and Connie said that she and Ricky would take care of them, but first they insisted on checking out the house. Ricky went in first while Connie stayed outside the door, not letting us enter until we heard an "All Clear" from Ricky.

Amanda and Susan went inside and Dad told them we'd join them in a few minutes.

"I want the two of you to keep watch tonight. You can do it in shifts so neither of you goes without sleep. Who knows what those gangsters will do now that they've caught our two trying to free their prisoners? They might try to retaliate and this is the first place they'll come to once they get down the hill. Plus, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the reason our two were at their camp was because they took Michael. Doing something further to this family to teach them a lesson is exactly the kind of thing those scum would do."

We went into the barn and got the saddles and blankets off all of the horses. Connie said that Ricky was going to take a three hour shift while she brushed them down and caught a couple of hours sleep before her watch. She'd then pull two hours while he slept, then they'd switch. Dad told Alfie to stay and help guard and we went into the house.

We were both barely in the house when Amanda wrapped her arms around my father and started kissing him. Susan wasn't far behind in her attack on me. Amanda took him by the hand and led him down the hall, turning to the right at the end. Susan and I did the same, turning right the doorway before.

It was one of the most unusual experiences I'd ever had. There was no first time nervousness, no hesitation. It was almost like being with Bev; it seemed that familiar.

We weren't wildly passionate. No hastily removed clothing left in the hall, I didn't push her up against the wall and shove my tongue down her throat as soon as the door was closed. We entered her room, she turned and opened her arms, I wrapped mine around her and we kissed. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't devoid of passion. It's just that we were comfortable with each other, we were there to make love and there was no rush.

We each removed our clothing. Hers went into a basket in her closet, mine on a chair. She climbed into bed, held the covers up for me and I joined her. We kissed again, this time feeling our bodies up against each other. We each explored the other's, more loving than frantic. I went down on her and brought her to a fairly quick peak, then she returned the favor, just enough to make me hard. Our joining was intimate and natural, as if we were familiar with each other from previous encounters. Each seemed to know what the other wanted and needed. It was a very loving and enjoyable experience.

Bev and I didn't get together until after my trip to the cave, so I had no experiences making love before I became enhanced. You can't get through high school without hearing both sides of the story. Most guys brag about how good their first time was, claiming that the woman couldn't get enough of it. The girls are just the opposite. They usually get almost nothing out of it unless you count the pain.

Our first time was fantastic. I was able to last and and didn't have to resort to thinking about baseball stats or ugly women. Bev felt good immediately and built to a peak in less than two minutes. She came several times before I finally did. After that, things just kept getting better between us.

Things were so good that Bev thought there might be something wrong with her. She wasn't complaining, but she thought there might be something on the low end of nymphomania going on. None of the girls she talked to were anywhere near as responsive as she was and many of them thought she was lying. Those that didn't tended to look at me the way a pit bull looks at a side of beef.

We realized that it was my enhancement that made the difference after she spent her time in the cave. It was like night and day. Our previous lovemaking efforts seemed awkward and ineffective compared to when we were both enhanced. It was unusual for Bev to last half a minute before she started coming and once she did, she'd have multiples, one right after the other and then it would turn into one long orgasm.

It was a compromise between those two for Susan. She started climaxing after we'd been fucking about a minute and I counted eight of them before I finally shot my load. And it wasn't just Susan. We could hear her mother going off constantly while we were going at it.

They say that the brain is the most important sex organ. Being in love, foreplay, caring, all these make the sexual experience better. But the brain can create and enforce negatives, too. Many men are ignorant or just plain thoughtless when it comes to sex, others can't get off without inflicting pain or suffering, but these are things that harm or spoil the process for the woman, and women are just as able to ruin it for their partners. But then there are other factors, societal factors that are so pervasive that they are unnoticed. Most organized religions have perversion of the instinct to procreate as an integral part of their teachings. The various Christian sects are particularly vile in this regard. Their scriptures tout that their god ordered mankind to go forth and multiply and their doctrines seem to do their damnedest to make sure that none of them follow them, threatening the parishioners with damnation for doing so. The human female is perfectly able to begin procreating sometime between 9 and 14 years of age. Their bodies say, even demand one thing and society, the government, the nannies and all the others who "know best" say the opposite. With all the suppression heaped upon the subject, it's a wonder the race was able to continue before the change.

I felt pretty certain that these two women weren't exceptions and that we were going to find most of the women to be just as responsive and just as amorous as the two in this household. It's possible that Dreamer modified the perceptions and attitudes of the remaining people on the planet but I leaned more toward the idea that the societal and religious contaminants had been removed and this behavior was the natural result.

The female in the species has always had the instinct to find the males that will provide shelter, food and protection as well as the strongest and smartest offspring. These weren't necessarily the same. You might want an accountant for the first group and a football player for the second. A football player with a 4.0, not another Jimmy. Though Jimmy did have plenty of women who were more interested in looks and strength than brains. We, the enhanced, were the desirables. Our children would survive better than the offspring of two norms. The imposed restrictions no longer obtained. It was completely natural that women would flock to us and that they would enjoy the sex act.

I was sure that we were going to discover that the men were fine with their women making themselves available to us, just like we'd been told. Not only the women would benefit. It would also be to the men's interest to have children who were better able to survive and prosper.

I now understood Bev's reaction. In the old world, "It was just sex" was an excuse men used when they got caught. Now, that seemed to be the way of the world. Having a child that would survive was a prime concern but that was completely separate from having a good companion and provider. And if a man was able to provide, there was no reason he couldn't have more than one mate.

Susan should have caught the first time we had sex. I was in my prime, and I was extremely potent. Susan must not have been so certain. She woke me up twice during the night and then again before she got up for her chores to make certain.



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Chapter 9: Burt


Well, Amanda was certainly a new experience. She knew what she wanted and she went all out to get it. I must say I was happy with the result. Me, a man who hadn't touched a woman other than my wife for close to twenty years. Maria and I mind talked when I found out about the troubles and saw what Amanda was doing and she told me I knew what I had to do. Somehow, I don't think she would have been the same if I'd called her six months ago and told her I wasn't coming home until the morning because I just met someone and was going to take her to bed.

Something had been bothering me since I found out about the punks trying to pull the protection racket here. I had no idea how to use the weapons currently in vogue. The last time I used a bow and arrow was as a kid, when it was still acceptable to play Cowboys and Indians. I never threw a spear, the closest thing being on the track and field team in high school, tossing a javelin around. The same with a sword. I had a few mock sword fights with sticks when I was a kid but had never even held a real one. I'd never had a crossbow in my hands but I imagined, out of the available weapons, that would be the easiest to learn. I suppose I could hit the side of a barn with one but I had my doubts about a target. Or a man. And I was supposed to lead these people.

When I woke up, I realized there had been nothing to worry about. I now had the knowledge to use any weapon in existence well beyond an expert level. In mind talking with Maria, I found that she and Bev were now experts in modern weapons, as well. Then she set up the equivalent of a conference call with Grace, and she confirmed her family (and my daughter) had woken up as arms experts, too. Good old Dreamer.

I went into the room where Oscar was lying down. Amanda had a bowl of water and was wiping him down with a washcloth.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Oh, that would be wonderful. He needs his bandage changed. Just take off the old one, clean the wound, and put some of this on it before you put on a new bandage." She pointed to a jar with some yellowish paste in it.

"I can do that."

"Good. That will give me time to get started on breakfast while Susan finishes her chores."

I lifted Oscar's head and unraveled the bandage that was wrapped around his head. Once I got that off, there was a square something like the gauze I was used to. That took a little work to get off without opening up the cut.

It looked like he'd been bashed in the back of the head with a shovel. Someone had shaved around the wound. It was seeping but it didn't seem to be infected. I cleaned it as best I could and scooped a couple of fingers of goop from the jar. It had a pleasant spicy odor and softened as it absorbed the warmth from my fingers and his head. Soon there was a nice layer, almost like a lifeguard's nose only yellow.

There was a small stack of the cloth squares and a roll of bandage on the table next to the jar. I picked up a square and put it over the wound, then secured it with some bandage. I eased Oscar's head down on the pillow and felt his forehead. I felt a sharp jolt in my elbow and he jerked as if he'd been shocked the instant the palm of my hand touched him. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me. He brought his hands up a few inches off the bed, trying to make fists and failing and I could see a reaction in his eyes. There was some fear there, some confusion and even a little anger. That only lasted a few seconds, then he relaxed, as if he realized I was no threat.

He tried to speak but couldn't. There was a pitcher half filled with water and a glass on the table. I poured some into the glass and raised his head enough for him to take a few sips. When he was satisfied, he nodded and looked up at me.

I put the glass down and he said, "Who are you?"

"My name is Burt. I'm the Senior."

"I'm Oscar. What happened to me?"

"You were attacked. There were three of them. They also took your son."

He struggled to get up but I held him down.

"He's OK," I said. "Three scouts went out and found the camp and he was fine. They can't harm him if they want to use him to convince The Town to pay them off. Most of the townspeople are leaving with us in about an hour to bring back your boy and a couple of women that are also being held captive. We'll also take care of the men who did this to you. You don't have to worry about them harming anyone else ever again."

I think he was getting ready to fight me and try to go after them when Amanda came in the room to tell me that breakfast was almost ready. She was carrying a cup of coffee for me and dropped it when she saw him.

Amanda ended up staying with Oscar, feeding him and herself. She was going to take care of him instead of riding out with us. Susan fed the rest of us breakfast.

This was the second day in a row that I had fresh eggs for breakfast. Fresh as in still warm from being underneath a chicken when they were cooked. Chickens that were allowed to wander and weren't kept in an area smaller than a paperback book and pumped full of chemicals. That alone would make a big difference in taste; eating them fresh from the source just made it that much better.

The eggs were just the start. We also had homegrown bacon, fresh picked fried tomatoes and homemade bread with fresh churned butter. Susan had brought in the milk we drank straight from the cow.

Susan was friendly but wasn't hanging all over Val like she had been the day before. By the time we were finished eating breakfast, Oscar was sitting up. Amanda and he were leaning into each other and had their arms entangled. Oscar seemed to have a pretty good appetite so I guess he was well on the road to recovery. Susan and Connie had made us all sandwiches and we took them and some fruit with us.

It took about fifteen minutes to saddle up and ride over to the pipe plant. We left our saddle horse in the barn. If anyone shot any game, there was bound to be room in some of the wagons. I didn't say anything, but I thought we might also need them to transport some of the captives. We arrived at the pipe plant early but most of the people who were going were already there. I met with Garth and Hector and they fixed Val and me up with longbows.

Hector took the lead. There were 27 of us and we were able to ride four or five across for most of the trip. Ricky and Connie stuck with us and were watchful the whole time. Their bows were over their shoulders today and their arrows were in their quivers, but I'd seen how fast that can change when Connie spotted that pheasant.

We made decent time and the sun was just past its peak when Hector slowed and pointed.

"The slope down to them is just past those trees," he said.

We stopped and I told the group just behind us to get everyone to take care of the horses, drink and grab something to eat if they wanted and get any bathroom chores out of the way. Garth, Hector and our group of four went to the top of the slope, then snuck down to a clump of boulders about halfway down the hill to get a better view.

Michael looked pretty good other than a yellow bruise under one eye. The women looked as bad as I'd been told. There were two men lying on the ground, chained by the neck with their hands behind their backs. One looked like his nose was broken and he groaned every time he moved so I assumed he had some broken ribs. The other had two black eyes and it looked like there was something wrong with his right arm, though it was hard to tell with his hands chained together. Both men had fresh abrasions on their faces and both got kicked by a couple of men on their way to rape the women. The leader was sitting in front of his lean-to talking to another couple of men. Most of the rest were in the big tent, either resting or asleep. Connie told me she counted 22 plus the prisoners. All eight horses were still tied up but none of them looked well enough to carry anyone for any distance.

I sent Val back to get the troops organized and lead them. As soon as we fired, everyone was to rush them and just take out anyone other than the prisoners. The medic was to get somebody to assist him and head right for the prisoners and give them whatever emergency help they needed. Somebody else was to go with them to remove the chains from all of them. As Val got up to leave, I said, "Five minutes."

I assigned targets to the five of us. Garth and Hector had the two rapists, I got the leader and Connie and Ricky were going to take out the two others with him.

When the five minutes were up, I said, "On three."

As soon as I finished the count, there were five arrows in the air. Mine went into the leader's left eye and the arrowhead stuck out of the back of his head a couple of inches. The two talking to him got arrows through the neck and ear. I saw Connie reach for another arrow, swing to the left and let fly. One of the two with the women was still upright but he slumped as soon as the arrow she shot went through his heart. Either he moved or someone was a poor shot because the first one was sticking out of his arm.

Connie's second arrow was still in the air when over twenty people ran down the hill. Connie and Ricky each got four or five in their beds before the crowd reached them.

In the old days I'm sure it would have been called a massacre and Allred, Sharpton and Jackson, the ACLU and all the newspapers would have decried the barbarity and there would have been several laws proposed to control bows and arrows and other weapons. Any widows would have gotten reparations and there would have been speeches and mass apologies to the criminal population.

Once the two women were freed, they broke away from the medic and did their best to tear apart the two dead men who had just been raping them, kicking them and stabbing them repeatedly with the arrows they ripped out of their bodies. Susan was particularly violent and she used her sword to slash the genitals of two of the sleeping men before she ran them through. One man with an arrow in his leg tried to crawl away and got his throat ripped open by Alfie.

There was no jury of their peers. These people had had their lives violated by these excuses for men who didn't care who they hurt to get what they wanted without having to produce anything of value for it. There were no lawyers, no appeals, no childhood traumas taken into account. They were simply exterminated like the vermin they were. I'm sure no one involved felt the slightest guilt. They were threatened, they stood up to that threat and they made sure it was never going to happen again, at least from these men. You could call it vigilante justice, but the key word was justice. It was swift and final. Brutal? I suppose so. But what do you call sneaking onto someone's property, hitting him on the back of the head and leaving him for dead, then taking off with his son? They got what they deserved and I made sure everybody knew I considered it a job well done.

A victim is someone who has been the effect of something he can't fight back against. Our old civilization had done a pretty good job of curtailing people so there were lots of opportunities for people to join that club, in fact, victims were praised and encouraged by the legal and mental health crowds. The five of us plus Val could have probably taken out all of the bad guys by ourselves but I made sure that everyone had a chance to get involved. Susan's mutilation of the two men she killed was unnecessary as far as killing them was concerned, but very necessary for her sanity. Letting the two women attack their most recent rapists had a similar effect. Everyone had the opportunity to get back at them and take back the power that these clowns were trying to steal. There were only five who I was aware of that didn't get that chance – Al and Sam, Michael, Oscar and Amanda.

I wanted to leave the bodies so that the last five could do whatever they wanted with them the following day, after they'd had a chance to recover a little. Whether it be setting the whole bunch of them on fire, chopping off body parts with an axe, a combination of the two or pretty much anything else, I was going to offer all five of them the choice to do whatever they had to do to end off on the affair.

I had Garth assign a detail of men to drag all the bodies into the large lean-to. There were only the two near the captives, the chief and his companions and three others that had made it out of the shelter when the attack began so the cleanup task wouldn't be too great.

Susan was sitting down with Michael's head in her lap, stroking his hair when I made it over to check out the former captives. She'd cleaned him up and except for the bruise, he looked pretty good. Susan introduced me to him and he said he was feeling OK but he missed his mom and dad. He was glad when I told him we were leaving soon and he'd be home later today.

Val was helping a couple of young women and the medic with the four wounded. One girl looked around 17 the other in her early twenties. Both looked like they were struggling to pay attention to their patients rather than him. It looked like Susan's replacements were here.

The nurses were cleaning up and applying something like Amanda's salve to the wounded women. The women were now wearing robes that someone had been thoughtful enough to bring, knowing they were naked.

The medic's name was Jeff. He was in his early thirties and seemed competent. I held Al's shoulder while Jeff pulled his arm to put the bone back in place. After he did, I grabbed the two sticks he had on the ground and held them while he wrapped a thong around them. I felt that jolt again and Al looked up.

"Shit. I don't know what you did, Doc, but my arm doesn't hurt now."

"It wasn't me," he said. "I think the Senior may have some powers we aren't aware of."

"You and me both, Doc," I told him. "It happened this morning with Oscar. I had no idea I could create an effect like that and until now, I figured it was some kind of fluke."

"You'll find that new abilities will make themselves known as you need them," Jeff smiled.

"How do you know that?"

"I have no idea. I just do. Healing is like that. If you asked me how I knew how to set that bone just now, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Or why I had Sandy crush some leaves from that bush over there and spread it on all the bruises and abrasions these people have. I just found that I could make people feel better when I was young and I always seem to know what to do."

"I know what you mean. I didn't know the first thing about using a bow yesterday."

"You're the one who took out the leader, right? That was a hell of a shot from behind that rock."

"I know, but it felt as natural as taking a dump."

Connie came over.

"Patrón. We checked over the horses and they don't look very good. What do you want us to do?"

"Do they need to be put down?"

"I don't think they're that bad but they won't be of any use to anyone without a lot of care. It looks like they've just been neglected."

"Tina and Vicki said they want to work with the horses over at Grace's ranch. Let's give them a shot at taking care of them. Make sure they get water but don't let them drink too much at once. And let them loose so they can graze on the grass."

She hugged me. "Oh, Patrón. You always have the answers."

The hug was longer than necessary and she made certain her whole body was pressed against mine. I think she wanted to take Amanda's place.

Those that had brought food shared with those who didn't. Michael was especially hungry. The captive women picked at some food but couldn't take much. They seemed more interested in the water than the food.

Jeff moved over to Sam and determined he had a couple of broken ribs. I held Sam up while Jeff wrapped them up tight. I was actually surprised that there was no jolt this time.

Jeff held Sam's face in his hands and studied it. He put his fingers on either side of Sams, nose, looked up at him, said, "Hold still," then tweaked some. I heard a crunch and Sam moaned. I was still supporting Sam with my hands on his shoulders. As soon as Sam groaned, I felt the jolt and Sam's jerk under my hands.

"Damn," he said. "It hurt like a sun of a bitch for a second, then the pain went away. Shit. My ribs even feel better."

"You have the senior to thank for that," Jeff told him, nodding at me.

Michael wanted to be with his sister so he rode on the back of her horse with his arms around her. Jeff decided that none of his patients should ride and there was room found in wagons for all four of them.

The group's morale was a lot better on the ride back than when we made our trip out. The anger was long gone and a feeling of triumph pervaded.

Connie must have felt she needed to guard me a lot closer now than earlier because she stayed right next to me on the whole ride back. She told me she'd thought about grabbing some of the skins and blankets from the lean-tos for the people in the wagons but gave up on that idea. "You don't want to know what they smelled like. I got the heck out of there when I saw something crawlin' around on one of them.

I noticed that Val was sandwiched between his two nurses, too.

The ride back seemed to go a lot faster. It was no time at all until we were riding down the slope. Garth pulled out the guards and signaled for the ones on the other side to vacate their posts. I heard the signal repeated shortly after and then again, farther away and quieter.

Oscar and Amanda's place was the first one we came across. Susan and Michael, Val and his two women, Connie and I and Ricky all turned in.

Ricky volunteered to take care of the horses and said he was going to camp out in the barn. Amanda slept with Oscar in the front room. Oscar was a lot better but she said she wanted to keep an eye on him. Michael wanted to stay with Susan so they slept in his bed after his mother made a fuss over him and checked half a dozen times to make sure he'd live. Val and his two spent the night in Susan's room and Connie and I used Amanda's. Connie was just as responsive as Amanda and, from the sounds of things, so were both women with Val.



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Chapter 10


Connie

Ricky and I have been inseparable since we were toddlers. Our families lived in the same bunkhouse and we were born three days apart. Any time the families get together to relax, someone will inevitably tell a story about something cute we did when we were growing up and the rest of the time will be taken up with everyone else adding their stories. If you asked anyone on the ranch, including us, it was practically destined that Ricky and I would be together as mates.

That all changed a couple of days ago.

One of the stories is about me crawling over to my father's store of arrows and taking one to bite down on when I started teething. A couple of weeks later, when Ricky's first tooth started coming in, I offered him my chewed up arrow. We shared it until all our teeth had broken through.

That developed into play and then to practice with toy bows and soon we were tagging along any time a hunting party went out. We had plenty of livestock and produce on the ranch but hunting and gathering have always played a major role in maintaining and varying our food supply.

We soon became expert at spotting hard to find roots, herbs and of course, animals. Long before Alfie and his sisters came along, we were the ones who would flush out birds and then retrieve them after they were felled by someone's arrow.

Our fathers took us to The Town shortly after we turned five. We marveled at all the wonderful sights; things we had never seen or even imagined before. One of the places we stopped was run by a woman and several children a few years older than us. The children were each doing a different task with the end result being finished arrows. I saw one making points out of stone, another two continually turning a piece of wood while a third shaved it until it was a perfectly round shaft. Another took the shafts and smoothed them while others attached feathers and points. Each of our fathers traded a freshly killed bird for a bunch of arrows and then the woman measured us. She made each of us stand, hold our arms out in front of us and to the sides, each time running a piece of string from one part of our bodies to another, then cutting it to fit that measurement. She had a dozen pieces of string for each of us, side by side on a table, when she shooed us away and told our fathers to bring us back in a week.

A week later, the four of us went deer hunting. This was unusual since we normally went out in a larger group and we didn't look for anything specific, taking whatever we came across.

We got an old doe and field dressed her. When that was done, we fashioned a travois out of a couple of branches and the skin. Once again, we went to The Town, but this time we went straight to the arrow lady.

My fathers gave her our cargo and she had two of the children drag the travois away. She went through some curtains into another room, then came back with two bows. She held them in front of us, one for each. They were slightly taller than us. That made Ricky's bow seven inches longer than mine since the top of my head only reached to the middle of his throat.

We each took our bows and a quiver of custom arrows and proceeded down the road to another set of buildings. There, a man with a big beard and a big belly scrutinized our left hands, then went into another room, returning with wrist guards, which he took great care in fitting to our wrists. He wasn't satisfied with Ricky's until went back and traded it for another.

We were told by our fathers that we wouldn't be able to use our new bows until we reached home and set up a range. The arrows were too valuable to waste and we would not hunt until we had both proven we could hit a target at distance. That ride home was one of the longest I've ever experienced.

Ricky and I took our lessons to heart and by our next birthdays, when we went back to get longer bows, longer arrows and bigger wrist guards, we were each averaging one and a half times as many kills as any of the adults with the exception of our fathers. This time we were able to pay for our own weapons.

That year we were allowed to split off from the hunting parties and work as a pair, provided we stayed within shouting distance of the others in case of trouble. Knowing how to kill a grazing deer and protecting yourself from a hunting cougar are two different things and a six year old just isn't equipped for the latter. Neither are many adults, but the choice between two six year olds and two six year olds plus several adults is no choice at all.

At seven, we would go out with a group of other children, several years older than us. They would find and gather produce for side dishes, stews and the like and would provide the labor to carry the game we would kill. We were able to provide enough going out a couple of times a week that months would go by without another hunting party leaving the ranch.

Now we were both fifteen, almost sixteen, and hunting had lost its allure. We were still good at it, each of us surpassing the ability of everyone on the ranch except my father, but there was no passion. We were fast, we were accurate, but we were at the top of our games and there was no place to go. Killing more wasn't the answer. We didn't want to kill for the sake of killing, wasting good food just to prove something. We didn't mind getting food to supply The Town once in a while but neither of us was interested in taking on the task of feeding that group as well as our own.

About three years ago we came back from a hunt and I was bored. One of my aunts was removing the skin of an elk we had bagged a few days before from the curing rack. She cut off the legs and tossed them on a pile of odd pieces.

"What are you going to do with those?" I asked her.

"I don't know, Mija. They go in the pile and if anybody needs them, they take them."

"Can I have one?"

"Chica, you have brought back enough meat to feed the whole ranch for several years. I'm sure no one will miss it. Are you sure you don't want the whole thing?"

"No, this will be fine."

I grabbed one of the legs and kissed my aunt on the cheek.

That's when I started working with leather. That leg was the first piece of many in months of trial and error in the craft of leather working. A similar piece of leather was transformed into a new quiver for me about six months later.

It didn't take long until Ricky noticed my new quiver and it wasn't long after that before he was working with his own piece of leather.

We rediscovered the feeling of excitement we'd experienced when we first started hunting. Now, three years later, the possibilities seemed limitless, restricted only by our skill, training and creativity. A year ago, we were promised the next two apprentice slots by the master saddle maker in The Town. With the return of the Patrón, there would be a need for more saddles and that meant more apprentices. We were both expecting the call any day now.

Only now I wasn't so sure I wanted to leave. An apprenticeship would mean living in The Town with limited visits back home to the ranch. And I had discovered a reason to want to stay at the ranch.

We've always been told that there's a biological instinct to bear a child fathered by one of the patróns. It was something I'd heard over and over but had never really thought about.

I actually experienced it when Ricky and I were assigned as combination bodyguards and guides for the Patrón and his son. It was like having sex with the Patrón was something I wanted to do but there wasn't any urgency.

After the first night, when he'd been with Amanda, the feeling had intensified to the point where it felt as if my body was trying to force my mind to relinquish any control. I literally felt like knocking him off his horse and having my way with him when we were riding to meet with the rest of the group. It got worse as the day went on. Ricky and I have fooled around for a couple of years so I wasn't a virgin, by any means. That night, the Patrón touched me in places I never knew I had. I felt things I'd never felt before, both physically and emotionally. I felt bound to the Patrón and I would no sooner leave him than cut off my right arm.

I was able to operate; don't get me wrong. When I was chosen as one of the few to take the first shots and kill one of the two outlaws talking with the leader, it was like a sacred trust. But there was more to it than putting an arrow through the target I'd been given. The Patrón wanted those three plus the two over near the prisoners killed instantly, before the rest of our group started their attack. My senses were more alert than they've ever been on a hunt and somehow I knew without a doubt that one of the two targets near the prisoner wasn't taken out. What's strange is I knew it before any of us let fly. I was already planning my second shot to fix that situation while aiming at my assigned target.

Once I was certain the first batch was dead, I took out as many in the large tent as I could until there were too many of our people in the way. The Patrón wanted our people to get blood on their hands and I knew he was right.

The previous day it had been an honor to serve the Patrón. Now it was a duty, almost holy. One of the bedtime tales we were told as children was about a group of people called nites. They devoted their lives to some leaders called King and Kween and would gladly die to serve them. Of course, it was a made up story. They even had a magician and we all know that there aren't any such things. But I felt like I was one of those nites and the Patrón was my king.

The biological imperative to mate with the Patrón was there, but there was also a need to devote my life to him. This was much stronger than an instinct. It was as if a cloud that had been hanging over me had suddenly dispersed and I could now see. I knew what my years of training with the bow had been for. I was destined to be with and protect the Patrón. I was also destined to be one of his junior wives. That was something I knew deep inside, as deeply as I knew how much to raise the angle of an arrow when an animal was a certain distance away.

BURT

Today was different than yesterday. I know I led a party that killed twenty two men and that's certainly different, but that's not what I'm talking about.

A couple of days ago, Amanda was hanging all over me. She practically dragged me into the bedroom as soon as I went into the house after assigning guard duties to Ricky and Connie. I assume she checked on Oscar while I was in the barn but I don't know for sure. We'd talked about this situation at home, this spreading of the seed among the norms, and the women had stressed that Val and I should make certain to treat the women right, not to play Wham, Bang, Thank You Ma'am. Grace and Vicky had both been particularly insistent about that with Kyle. I wish somebody had told Amanda that. She was like a bitch in heat. Not that she was a bitch – she was very receptive and very affectionate. But she seemed to have a compulsion to mate. Like some kind of succubus, she pulled me into her and forced me to inseminate her. I felt like a six foot turkey baster. She seemed driven to climax and the only reason she wanted me to climax was to provide the male part in the fertilization process. Picture the most self centered high school jock you can with a freshman girl he's going to toss away after he's had his 45 seconds in her and he would seem like the hero in a romance novel compared to the way this woman acted.

She had her way with me four times before we got out of bed. I had new respect for the term "sperm donor," and it wasn't disparaging to the male as I'd always heard it used; it was quite the reverse.

She wasn't as aloof as a female dog can be once she's been serviced but there was definitely no romance or passion between us. I was still treated as an honored guest in her home but her main attention was on her husband and nursing him back to health.

My experience with Connie was completely different. She'd let me know I had been selected by getting closer, more affectionate, more touchy. She laughed at the slightest provocation and seemed overly attentive.

She wasn't distracted. When I gave the order, she was like a killing machine. She dispassionately took the lives of five people that I'm aware of, though there may have been more. She had orders to take out one target. She did so with extreme prejudice, proceeded to finish of one that had been botched, then started picking off people in the big tent until the attacking villagers got in the way. I have no doubt that she and Ricky would have been able to dispatch everyone in that tent if they'd been let loose to do so. The only thing that would have stopped them would have been running out of arrows.

Last night we spent the night together. She was no less demanding than Amanda had been but she was much more loving. Well, you can't really say that since Amanda was not loving at all. Sexing, yes, loving, no. Connie was very affectionate and treated me almost with reverence. The biological imperative was still there but it was loving and fun. I felt appreciated instead of used. We were there to do the same job as Amanda and I had done the night before but this time we were both doing it enthusiastically.

This morning she was no less loving. She gave me a kiss that would have disabled a lesser man when we woke up this morning. There have been a couple of hugs and many caresses. She seems more alert and is very attentive to her duties but she's still able to pay attention to me and be affectionate without being distracted. I've also noticed that she seemed very reflective a couple of times this morning. If I was less self assured, I would be nervous because I get the feeling I'm the target of her musings.

I was wondering what Connie was contemplating when my inner phone signaled that my lovely wife was communicating with me. This new power is as different from cellular communications as cell phones were from the telegraph, but we haven't developed a terminology for it and the cell phone terminology has worked so far. It communicates and that's the purpose of any nomenclature.

<How did your evening with Consuela go?>

<It went well.>

<Just well?>

<Much better than the night before. I didn't feel used.>

<I feel like making some smart comment about that but it would be a lie. You've never made me feel that way, quite the opposite, in fact.>

<I try.>

<Yes, you do. And you usually succeed. How is Connie acting this morning.>

<She's acting very affectionate, very efficient. She seems different. It's as if she was a good soldier yesterday but today she's part of the Royal Guard. She also seems to be doing a lot of thinking.>

<I'm not surprised. I woke up knowing that we're going to have another wife. In addition to Grace, I mean.>

<Grace?>

<Oh, don't be a fool. Of course Grace.>

<Shit, it seems so different.>

<Let's face it, Burt. It's a brand new world. A lot of the old rules don't apply. Which isn't so bad because the old rules are part of the reason the old one was so fucked up.>

<You're right. You've always been my rock, Maria. So, this idea of two new wives. How do you feel about it?>

<I'm not against it. Grace and I get along great and have a lot in common. Connie and I are going to have to sit down and have a long talk when you get home but I don't anticipate any problems. It's like it's already a done deal and we just need to make it happen in the real world. Whatever that is recently. We are going to need a bigger bed. And you're going to need to take your vitamins and eat right.>

<Yeah, I don't suppose I could find any Viagra in this place. You know, it's sad, but the only scientific breakthroughs I can recall in the last quarter century before the change were in the pharmaceutical realm. "Bigger and better drugs." More ways to addict more people to a new poison to ingest. And of course all the new drugs to counteract the side effects the previous new drugs created.>

<I'm sure there were some new ways to kill people, too. Both in the armed services and all the super secret government agencies. Strictly to keep the other countries' super secret agencies in line, you understand.>

<Yeah, I guess I can put up with several wives if I don't have to live in that crap anymore.>

<Aw, poor baby.>



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Chapter 11: Val


Audry and Veronica, the two nurses who spent the night with me, left after breakfast. Both had been responsive, both were affectionate, but neither of them displayed any love for me. I guess it's pretty silly of me to expect that, and I'm probably a lot better off not having every woman I sleep with devoted to me but I'll take Bev over any of them, any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Dad and Connie spent the night together, which was kind of a surprise. She was young enough to be his daughter and any relationship between them would have caused a lot of problems or at least a lot of talk in the old world. It was another indication that we weren't in the old world any longer. Just in case we had any doubts about that. Connie didn't have her arms wrapped around him but it was obvious she wasn't finished with him, either. She was the only one out of five females we'd been with who acted like that. Dad was unusually quiet this morning, too.

Michael seemed to be in pretty good shape today. The bruise on his cheek was starting to change color, showing some purple and green tinges. He said it didn't hurt too bad. Susan asked me if I'd touch it and I did, not understanding why. I felt a jolt travel down my arm and he jumped a bit like he'd been shocked. He reached up, felt it, smiled at me and said "Thanks."

I said "No problem," totally confused about what just happened.

Oscar was able to sit at the table and eat breakfast with the rest of us. Amanda helped him walk in from the front room. I'm not sure if he really needed the help or she needed the closeness. She stayed real close throughout breakfast.

Dad told Oscar and Amanda what had happened the previous day. Oscar looked disappointed that he hadn't been in on it.

"That's something I've been thinking about," my father told him. "I let everyone join us so they'd all feel they had something to do with getting rid of the criminals. Susan had her chance but you three didn't. You two were here and Michael was chained up until it was all over. The bodies are all out there, piled up in their camp. I don't think it's worth the effort it would take to dig a hole for them. I want the three of you to go out there with me today. You can see for yourselves that they're really dead and won't be able to harm you any more. If you think it will make you feel better to kick or stab someone, chop off a head or even light a match to burn the bodies, that's fine with me. I want you all to go out there with me, though. You won't get another chance and I don't want you wishing you could have done something when it's too late."

Amanda said, "We can be ready to leave in about ten minutes."

"I appreciate that," Dad said. "I need to go over to Garth's place before we leave. Jeff took the wounded over there because it was the closest place that had enough room for them. The two women took some of their aggression out on a couple of the outlaws but I'm going to give them a chance to do more if they want to. Al and Sam were pretty messed up and weren't able to do anything."

Amanda asked, "Who were the two women?"

Dad shook his head. "You know, I was so busy I didn't even ask who they were. Val?"

"No, I was busy helping out but I never did ask their names."

"Susan? Connie? Ricky? Do any of you know them?"

All shook their heads, mumbled No.

"Well, I guess that will be the first thing to do when I get over to Garth's," my father said.

We finished our coffees and Dad and I, Ricky and Connie and of course Alfie took off to see how the wounded were.

There were seven people finishing up their breakfasts when we arrived. Garth was hustling around the kitchen with his wife Gloria. Gloria was a few inches shorter than her husband but looked just as big around as he was. His mass came from beating metal with a hammer, hers looked like it originated in the kitchen. She was one of the friendliest, happiest people I'd seen in a long time.

Jeff and his four patients were also drinking coffee or tea. All of them had been cleaned up and looked 100% better than yesterday. Al had his right arm in a sling and had a few bruises I could see but he was alert and didn't look like he was in pain. Sam looked like a raccoon from having his nose broken but he didn't even have a bandage on it. His ribs must have been wrapped up pretty tight because he looked stiff every time he moved.

The two women were Beth and Mia. Mia was 15 years old and Beth was 16. They had some bruises and were stiff. They were also very sore from the sexual abuse they'd received. They had been captured a couple of miles from the small settlement they lived in when they were out looking for food. That was about a month ago, as near as they could tell. They couldn't shoot over to Savon and pick up a home pregnancy test but Jeff and the two of them thought it would be a miracle if they hadn't caught during the month they'd been used as cum buckets by the gang. They did have a pretty good attitude about it. They were happy the bastards were dead but they weren't going to take it out on their babies. They were each going to raise their child so it would not follow in its father's footsteps. The gene pool was too shallow to abort an outlaw's spawn.

Jeff looked at Dad. "Would you mind helping the girls out so they don't have as much pain?"

"Not at all. Val, you help Mia and I'll take care of Beth."

I figured it was something like Susan asked me to do with Michael but I let Dad lead the way. He took Beth's hand and got her to stand up. "I need to get a bit personal here, please don't take it the wrong way." He put his right hand between her legs and cupped her butt with his left. He just stood there a few seconds, then she jumped like she'd been goosed. By the time this happened, I'd helped Mia out of her chair and was just getting my hands in place. A couple of seconds later, she reacted the same way her friend had.

Both girls looked at each other, started giggling, them stopped suddenly. The amused expressions changed to amazed and they both reached down to where Dad and I had just had our hands. They looked at each other, smiled and then they each grabbed the one who'd helped them and laid a big one on us.

I commented that I had no idea what was happening and Jeff and Dad explained that we seemed to have the ability to heal people, or at least take away some of their pain. Dad said he thought we sent some healing power into the area we touched because Oscar was doing much better than should be expected and so were Sam and Al. We weren't ready to raise the dead but we could help ease people's pain and speed up their healing.

A half hour later, Garth was diving an oversized wagon with the four previous captives in the back, lying on an oversized mattress. There was also an assortment of tools, including a pikes, axes and sledgehammers. We did not have any shovels because we had no plans on using them. There was a tarp up near the front of the compartment, near Garth's seat, but I couldn't see what was under it.

Connie was riding next to Dad and the two of them talked the whole way back to Amanda's. Ricky was taking up the rear. Alfie did his usual wandering guard thing.

Garth stopped the wagon at the end of Amanda's driveway while the four of us turned into it. Connie waited for Ricky to catch up to her. The two of them pulled up, got off their horses and sat down on a boulder next to the drive. Dad and I rode to the house and picked up the family. They were all in their own wagon. Amanda drove with Oscar on the bench next to her and Susan and Michael sat in the back. Michael and Susan were still close to each other but he didn't seem as clingy as he had been earlier.

Ricky was waiting on his horse near the end of the drive when we rode back. Dad stopped to talk to him for a bit. I noticed that Connie was already in front of Garth's wagon. Garth had pulled forward, about 50 feet past the driveway. I rode past the wagon and stopped next to her.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. Rick's a little out of it but he'll be OK."

"Did you two have an argument?"

"No. There have just been some changes. He didn't make them and he's not real happy about them but he'll get over it."

"Alright. If you say so."

Dad and Ricky rode to the end of the drive. Dad leaned over and slapped him on the shoulder, then turned left and headed toward us while Ricky made a right turn and rode the other way. Dad stopped next to me and asked me if I would mind taking up the rear. He had some things he wanted to talk to Connie about.

By now, Amanda had made the turn and was coming up behind Garth. Dad and Connie started moving and everyone followed. I stayed off to the side until they all passed me and then I fell in, accompanied by Alfie.

When we got near the path up the hill, I noticed there was a crew of workers building a shelter of some kind. There were a couple of others with crossbows, watching the path. "What's happening?" I asked one of them.

"We're building something so we can keep a couple of guards out of the weather. Just a bench with a roof over it so we'll stay dry when it rains and won't get too much sun. We've never needed guards before but the elders have decided that we should have a couple of guards at the bottom of each path so we can see if anybody who doesn't belong here tries to get in."

I shook my head. "It's a shame you have to do that."

"Yeah, well, this place has been paradise for a long time. There are people out there who want a piece of paradise but aren't willing to make the effort to earn it. We happen to feel that it's worth the effort to defend it. We took it for granted for too long and we almost got burned."

As I followed the rest of the group, I realized what he said made a lot of sense. It was easy to point out all the people that were doing wrong in the old world. Their greed and desire for power were easy to see and blame for the way things were. But the fact is, if the populace wasn't so apathetic, the greedy power mongers wouldn't have been able to get anywhere near as far as they did. Let's face it. The ones in charge weren't the only ones who were greedy. When the common man discovered he could vote in benefits he didn't have to work for, it was a pretty powerful lure. There were lots of surveys that rated most elected officials in the lower percentile as far as satisfaction was concerned. Each district tended to be much more satisfied with their own reps, though. And the more pork that rep got for them, the higher the rate of satisfaction.

So, Eden had already been visited by the serpent. But these people weren't walking off with their tails between their legs. They were taking a stand and were willing to fight for what was theirs. I wonder what would have happened if Adam and Eve had told God to stick it and had chopped off their serpent's head.

It didn't take long to make it to the outlaw camp. There were almost as many different reactions as there were people with us.

Sam and Al had been willing to accompany us but they hadn't said much. They took a look at the bodies under the big lean to, seemed satisfied they were still there and went back to the wagons at the top of the hill.

Michael pointed out the three who kidnapped him to his family. These were also the ones who attacked Oscar, though nobody saw which one actually hit him in the back of the head. Michael kicked the one who hit him in the cheek a couple of times, then shrugged and walked away. Susan had gotten rid of quite a lot of anger the day before and she didn't seem to need to do any more today. She was there for Michael, hugging him when he was done.

Oscar used an axe to chop off the right hands of all three. Amanda had a sledgehammer and looked like she was playing croquet with their heads. When they were all bashed in too much to do much more to, she started pounding chests, knees, elbows and whatever else came to mind. When she figured she'd done that enough, she asked me which one was the leader. I pointed him out and she took her hammer to him, totally mutilating his body.

Mia and Beth each had a six foot pike and they went around checking faces, then stabbing bodies. Every one that was stabbed got it in the genitals. Most got one or both hands as well as their eyes poked out. A couple of men were left alone after the girls checked their faces so I assume they left the girls alone. As they got further through the mass of bodies, they slowed down. Soon, they were just going through the motions and finally, they just stopped. Garth went over to them and held out his hands. Both girls hand over their pikes then hugged each other and cried. Garth left them and walked over to the boulder Dad and I were leaning against, plunged them into the ground, then joined us.

"I thought you were going overboard, Burt, but I can see that they all needed this. I find it interesting that Amanda received the least damage from them but inflicted the most damage on the criminals."

My father put his hand on the big man's shoulder. "First off, you don't mess with a mama's baby. I don't care if it's a bird, a bear or something in between. She may not have been bashed in the head or been taken away and hit in the face, but she had the most to lose. Her family, her security, almost everything she had to live for was taken away from her and there wasn't anything she could do about it. That's why she wouldn't let you talk her out of pulling guard duty. This is the first time she's had a chance to do anything. She knows it's not doing any good but that's just increasing the amount of rage and frustration she has. Look at her. She's finished with the chief and now she's heading back to her family. She'll be over affectionate with Oscar and Michael until she works it out of her system. They'll put up with it, even if it's a pain or it's embarrassing because they know she needs it. Things will be back to normal before you know it. I don't think Michael and Oscar will work out in the barn at night without being checked on regularly for a long time, though."

Everybody was finished with the bodies and they were all slowly making it over to us. I heard sounds from the top of the hill and looked up. Al and Sam were coming down the hill carrying large buckets with lids on them. Sam had one in each hand while Al was struggling to carry two in his good hand. I ran up and took one away from him. Sam looked pretty stiff and I started to go over to take one but Garth beat me and grabbed both of them. My father was right behind him taking the last one from Al.

We set them down near the big lean to. Garth took off the lids and I could smell kerosine. Al, Sam, Oscar, even Michael each picked up one and sloshed it all over the corpses. Garth reached into one of his apron pockets and pulled out a handful of wooden strike anywhere matches and held his hand out. Mia, Beth, Susan and Amanda each took a few and started striking them and tossing them onto the pile of bodies. It wasn't long before the heat and the smell of burning meat both became too strong to stay in the area and we all went back near the boulder the men had been observing from. We watched the lean to flare up and disintegrate and then Michael grabbed a match from Susan, ran over to the chief's lean to, lit and tossed his match on top of the skins that made up his roof and burned that one down, too. By the time he got back, the bodies were unidentifiable and the flames were starting to abate.

We headed back to The Town. Dad and Connie were still deep in conversation. They looked friendly so I knew he wasn't chewing her out about something. I knew that if they wanted me to know anything, they'd tell me. In the meantime, it wouldn't do anyone any good for me to worry about anything or try to figure anything out. I did talk to Mia and Beth. I thought we could take a trip to the settlement they came from and take them back, see if the people there wanted to move closer, maybe relocate to The Town. They both said that nobody would want to have anything to do with them. They would be considered spoiled because they'd been raped. When I pointed out that they hadn't chosen to be raped, they told me that it wouldn't make any difference.

Garth told them that they were welcome to live in The Town and said he was sure they could find something to do. Sam let them know that there weren't any free rides and everyone had to produce something but they'd never be held accountable for something that wasn't their fault.

When Mia said that she didn't know how to do anything, Al said, "You were out gathering food when they picked you up, weren't you? We need to eat, too. You can always find some way to contribute." Mia brightened up when she heard that.

We hit a fork in the road and after everybody wished everybody else well, Dad, Connie, Alfie and I went towards our ranch and the others headed towards The Town. I asked Dad about Ricky and he told me that he was going to start apprenticing with the saddle maker and was going to live in his compound from now on.

"Connie is going to move in with us."

"Us?"

"She'll be sleeping with your mother, Grace and me."

"Oh."

We didn't stop to hunt so it didn't take long to get home. Connie and Dad said they'd take care of the horses so I went into the house.

Mom was in the kitchen with Margarita, going over the dinner preparations. Mom hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"I'm still amazed about how good the vegetables and fruit are. And they grow so fast." She held up a fat tomato, so ripe it looked ready to burst. "These tomatoes were planted three weeks ago."

"How long did they used to take?"

"It varied somewhere between two and a half and four months. A lot depended on the temperature and the time of year they were planted. None of that seems to matter here."

"Wow. We're going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears."

"Tomatoes, squash, melons, citrus, apples, pears..."

"It's a good thing we have a lot of people here to eat all that stuff."

"The way I look at it, it's a good thing we have all this stuff for all the people here to eat. Speaking about people, is Connie here?"

"Yeah, she and Dad sent me in while they take care of the horses. The last time I saw them, they were taking them into the barn."

"I'll have to go out and meet her."

"Is everything OK between you and Dad?"

"Things couldn't be better. Speaking of that, Bev has a surprise for you. She's upstairs in your room. Dinner will be in about an hour, so don't get caught up in anything."

She had a funny grin on her face. I imagine I looked confused when I looked back at her. That's because I was.

Margarita took me by the shoulders and sat me down at the table, then poured me a tall glass of milk and gave me a hunk of fresh baked bread and some cheese.

"You need food after your long ride today. You have to keep your strength up."

The food was good, and I am a growing boy, so I didn't think much about what she said. I finished off my snack, gave her a quick hug and a kiss on the forehead. I knew she loved it and I always got a kick out of her turning red, then calling me loco and pushing me away. She acted like I was harassing her but she always had a grin a mile wide.

"You know you love it, Margarita," I said as I left the kitchen.

"Get away from me and let me work. Go to your woman."

The door to our room was part way open. I was surprised to see Bev lying on the bed, talking to another girl. Bev was facing me and her head came up as I pushed the door and walked in. The other gal rolled over and smiled. It was Karen, the first person I saw when I came out of the forest for the first time.

"Hey, Val," she said. "Where's your sheep?"



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Chapter 12: Karen


Some bozo had just spent what seemed like half an hour yelling at me. I'm sitting in a booth that's barely big enough for one person, wearing a pin striped shirt and a paper hat I wouldn't be caught dead in anyplace other than at work and he lectures me forever on how I'm screwing everyone by raising the price of gas. Hey, Fucker, I'm sure you make a hell of a lot more than the minimum wage they pay me. I have to pay the same prices for gas that you do.

A year ago someone like him would be unusual. Now I ran across assholes like him two or three times a week. The higher the prices at the pump, the more assholes come out of the woodwork.

At least they communicate with me, even if it is only one way. Most people that come here hardly even notice I exist. I'm just something they hand money to and get change from. Sometimes they demand a receipt and I'd better get it to them damn quick or they act like it's the end of the world.

There was one guy...

I was working the evening shift, so I went up to the window and waved at Jeremy, the old man who worked days. One of the first things they teach us in our two hour training seminar is that you never open up the door to anybody other than your relief person or someone with a corporate picture ID. The company is very security conscious and the facts that a lot of people pay in cash and that we all work alone makes us prime robbery targets. If anyone discovers that we opened the door, much less allowed someone inside, it's grounds for immediate termination. I was surprised when Jeremy told me some kid came out of the woods wearing a sheepskin poncho and asked him to watch over a ram's head for him while he waited for a ride. I was even more surprised that Jeremy agreed to it. The fact that it was on the floor under some shelves on the back wall meant that the door had been opened at some point.

After Jeremy left, I checked it out. I think they call them bighorns. You know, the kind that have curly horns that can climb just about anywhere. They always show two of them going at it, bashing their heads against each other on the nature channel. This one looked like it was still alive. And the part where the body should attach wasn't smooth and flat like I expected. I thought they usually mounted them on some kind of plaque so they could be displayed on a wall. I tried to pick it up but it was like three times as heavy as a bowling ball.

A couple of hours later, this hunk came over to the booth. I knew who he was immediately. There weren't a lot of guys wearing sheepskin parkas that looked alive. The parka I mean; he was definitely alive. When he smiled at me, I thought I was going to die.

He told me his name was Val and that he'd left the sheep's head. I told him it was in the corner. He thanked me and said he'd come back when his ride got here.

He'd taken a couple of steps away from the booth when my brain unfroze enough to start working and I told him he could check it out if he wanted. It sounded totally dumb as soon the words started coming out of my mouth but he said OK and he did.

He was all set to leave when I jumped him. I'd never done anything like this before but I couldn't let him just walk away from me. I held on tight, rubbing his back and his butt while I gave him the best kiss I knew how. He kissed me back and ended up with one hand behind my head and the other holding onto my butt.

I had a small orgasm while he was kissing me. I never have orgasms unless somebody goes down on me for like half an hour. But he gave me one by holding me in his arms and kissing me.

The kiss was just about over when I heard someone say "Are you going to fill her up?

I looked out the window and there was this gorgeous female smiling at him. She was wearing a suede coat that must have cost a fortune. Her jeans looked like they were painted on. I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd pulled out a gun but he just introduced us, she made a joke about us sucking out each other's tonsils, then told me she'd look after him from now on. She was nice about it but there was no doubt she was claiming him for herself.

He took one of the curly horns and picked up the head like it was nothing. I grabbed a credit card app and scribbled my name and cell number on it. I held it out and said "Text me?" He took it, shoved it in his back pocket and then wrapped his free arm around me and pulled me in for another kiss. It wasn't as powerful as the first one and I didn't come from it but it was still one hell of a kiss.

He and his girlfriend, whose name was Bev, walked away, arms around each other, him with a ram's head bouncing on his shoulder blade.

I wanted to bear his children.

I saw him a few weeks later. He showed up at the gas station after he went driving to think things over after a dumb argument with Bev. He didn't even realize where he was until I called him by name.

I'd had some warning because Bev had texted me to call her. Somehow she knew right where he'd go. Unfortunately, it wasn't me he went to but this place. It had some kind of special meaning for him.

I called Bev. We had a good talk and made plans to have a picnic the following weekend.

We did go to the picnic. We started later than we planned because something happened the night before. Bev had a black eye but she was definitely Val's girlfriend. I figured I had no chance. Well, I could always dream.

-------

I watched the asshole get in his car and drive away. The job had always been boring, now it was becoming a pain. Maybe I'd check with the restaurant and see if there were any waitress jobs open. Did people complain about the cost of food? Probably. I heard on the news that when the cost of gas goes up, so does everything that needs to be delivered. Makes sense. But if I was waiting tables, I could at least get some tips. That's something that never happened at the gas station.

It started getting dark and I looked out the window. Black clouds were coming in, faster than I'd ever seen before. I had a fleeting thought that maybe it was the end of the world.

-------

My head hurt. I was lying down and had just woken up. My eyes were still closed but I could see red through my eyelids. I put my hand over my eyes and cautiously opened them, pulling my hand away as I got used to the light. It wasn't anything highly unusual, it was just a really sunny day. The sky was bluer than I'd ever seen it with some fluffy white clouds scattered around. There was no sign of the black clouds which were the last thing I could remember.

It occurred to me that I was lying on the ground. I looked around. I recognized those trees. I saw them every day when I parked my yellow beetle in the employee parking area. What I didn't recognize was the rest of the place. There was no parking lot, no lines of gas and diesel pumps, no truck wash, no restaurant, no showers, no fast food joints, no cars. There wasn't any asphalt and no yellow beetle. All I could see this side of the trees was grass. Not front lawn grass, this was wild and was a foot or two high. There were a few spots where it was green but most of it was turning brown.

Our truck stop is off a business route that has four lanes, two in each direction. It runs parallel to the Interstate, which has six lanes going each way. The Interstate is at a higher level than the street and the truck stop, so it can be seen quite easily from the booth I work in. Well, wear the booth I work in used to be. Since there wasn't any more truck stop, I didn't think I worked there anymore. And that waitress job wasn't gonna happen, either.

If I had to place where the booth used to be, I'd put it right where I was now. It was as if the booth vanished and I fell where I was, maybe hitting my head on the ground. I felt around in back and came across a tender spot. That's why I had a headache.

I looked in the direction of where the highway and the Interstate should be and saw more grass. I walked what I figured was halfway there and saw more of the same.

I thought about the black clouds and the idea I had about it being the end of the world and I got scared. I sat down and cried.

I got most of it out of my system and decided I needed to come up with some kind of plan. Somehow I knew that walking the six miles to my apartment would only get me tired. There was no apartment and there was no town for the apartment to be in.

I've read stories about people suddenly being transported back in time. It was as good an explanation as any. If I was somewhere in the past, it had to be before 1865 because that's when this area was populated. Looking around, it made sense. The sky was cleaner, the trees looked greener, the whole world smelled fresher. The only thing was that the trees looked the same size. Not that I'd taken a tape measure to them, but I saw them every day when I came to work and they looked about the same. They definitely weren't 150 years younger.

Another idea was a parallel universe. An unpopulated Earth, or at least this part of Montana. That could explain the trees being the same size.

Whether it was one of those two or there was some other explanation, I needed to figure out some way to survive. I felt my pockets. A cell phone with no signal. The time and date were blank. I think the phone called the phone company and got those somehow. There wouldn't be any phone company in the past. Who knows what they'd have in a parallel universe. My other pocket had eight dollars and a couple of quarters. My wallet was in my glove compartment in my car. Wherever that was.

The only thing I could see on this side of the trees was grass. If I was a goat, I might be able to live off it, but I wasn't a goat. I headed back towards the trees. I remember Val saying he killed that ram and fed off if a couple of days. I wasn't a hunk like Val but I might be able to find something to eat. Maybe I could surprise a sleeping squirrel or rabbit. Or find a bird's nest and steal some eggs. Some trees have nuts or acorns or something. Maybe I'd get lucky and find some mushrooms that didn't kill me. The point is, it was more likely I'd find something to eat in the forest than out.

I walked around for five days. I was drawn in one direction and every time I wandered away from the path, I'd get pulled back. I stopped fighting it. It could be God, it could be magnetism, it could be instinct, it could be some kind of coincidence. I didn't see any reason not to follow the urge. I found some berries every once in a while. I tried to eat a pine cone but gave up on that real quick. I did come upon a stream so I had water to drink. I saw lots of fish but they were too damn fast for me to catch any of them.

By the fifth day I was feeling tired and weak and I didn't think I was going to make it. I didn't have a trailer full of weapons transport with me and I made a pretty sad pioneer. Hell, I didn't even have a pocket knife. The sun was going down and I was just about ready to collapse when I saw a cave. I couldn't tell you how or why but I felt welcome. Almost like I was coming home. Not to my apartment, not even where I grew up. It's hard to put it into words but if I had to, I'd say it was mankind's home. It sounds weird but that's how I felt.

I walked into the cave. The sun was low in the sky and happened to be shining straight at the opening so I could find my way back into it. I went inside and the wall on the right curved in, making a cubbyhole just large enough for me to lie down. At the far end of the cubby was a pond. I knelt down and scooped up some water. It tasted sweet and pure.

By this time, the sun had set and it was dark. I lay down and went to sleep.

-------

I dreamt. I saw a race different from ours that could travel the stars. They had some kind of drive that took them out of the physical universe, allowing them to scoot around it somehow. They had an intelligence, a being they'd invented, that was in charge of an Earth that they'd seeded with life. I saw the planet get populated with different species, then the air and water get dirty, the planet get raped for its raw materials. A few men became powerful, the rest became slaves. They were given small freedoms that made them think they were free but they served the powerful, the greedy.

A few were found who were exceptionally ethical. Others were good workers, cared about others and weren't afraid to serve. A small number were out to get whatever they could with no thought of who they might hurt.

A planet of billions was reduced to thousands in an instant. In the time it took for black clouds to cover the sky, a cesspool was transformed into a paradise. Global warming, pollution, the dollar and the euro, oil based fuels and bi-partisanship were concepts that didn't exist any more and would soon be forgotten by the few that remembered them.

Why were the bad included with the good? People who could be freemen or serfs, depending upon the will of the strong? There were a couple of reasons. Free will was the first. Also, it isn't sporting to rig the game. The workers had the choice to follow whoever they chose, to question whoever they followed or to just be sheep. The evil needed no instruction manual. The good were told that it was up to them to prevent the world from going the way of the previous one. Now Dreamer would sit back and observe. Unless he was called upon for help, something I'd inadvertently done.

I'd gotten a glimpse of the closest band of those Dreamer called ethical. Val and Bev were members of that group.

I woke up refreshed and invigorated. I sat up and realized that I had undergone a transformation. My body was perfect. I was still the same but I looked and felt stronger than ever before, like a finely tuned automobile. If I'd been a VW before, I was now a BMW. I learned that I was one of the enhanced and part of my duty was to increase our number.

I drank from the pond. It was even more refreshing than I remembered. I could see now and it wasn't because of sunlight. My eyes worked in the dark now.

I stood up and realized I was naked. My clothes were gone. They probably wouldn't fit anyway. The new me seemed a little taller and a lot more muscular. I wasn't a musclebound weight lifter, I was just in really good shape.

I went to the front of the cave and something off to the left caught my eye. There was a deer eating some tender shoots of grass. I found a rock on the ground that looked like it would work. Sorry, Bambi.

A couple of days later, I had a full tummy and was wearing the latest fashion, at least for the immediate vicinity. I had genuine deerskin moccasins and a deerskin dress, ala Pocahontas. The was a lot of leftover deer meat but I put it out for something to find. I'd heard noises at night and knew that deer weren't the only wild animals in the area. I left the rest of the animal outside, away from the cave, doing my part to contribute to the cycle of life.

The sun was just coming up as I left the cave, heading toward the area where the truck stop had been. The journey that took five days to make when I was wandering aimlessly took about four hours to make now that I had a definite goal. I knew which way to go and I didn't question how I knew or its correctness. I just went that way. I figure I walked and ran about 65 miles that day, much of it over fairly rough terrain. I was in peak condition. It was a piece of cake.

Dinner was a combination of roots, berries and some apples I found growing wild. My bed was a pile of pine needles. I was able to scrape up enough of them to provide protection from the ground and also cover me, using a branch that still had a full complement of needles at the end.

I was awake before the sun, grabbed a couple of apples for breakfast, made like a bear in the woods and headed out in the same direction as yesterday. It was about 10:30 in the morning when I got to the Hendrix ranch. I hit the back end, hopping a fence and finding a crew working some cattle a quarter of a mile inside the fence. I told them I was looking for Val and Bev and got a ride up to the house on the back of a horse guided by a very nice man named Fernando. He called me patrona.

We rode a long distance. I saw cows, sheep, goats, pigs, even a few buffalo. No cars, trucks or tractors, just horses. There were a couple of fenced in areas, one with hundreds of turkeys, another that covered acres and probably held thousands of chickens. There were several good sized hen houses. I'd hate to be the one who had to gather all the eggs. I also saw a few ducks and geese running free. I was surprised when a couple of she wolves ran up to us, one on each side, sniffing my legs. Fernando called them by name and told them I was a patrona. They seemed to understand and started running with us and attacking each other like a couple of puppies.

We finally came to a farm area that was larger than the whole truck stop. I mean everything – parking, gas station, restaurants, everything. Lots of green but there were other colors, also. Red tomatoes, purple eggplants, green, yellow, red and orange bell peppers. Every vegetable you can think of, berries of every type, trees galore. Trees with apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemons and limes, coconuts, pears, peaches, nectarines. If it grew on a tree, there was at least one of them and they were all bearing fruit.

There was a beautiful woman talking to a couple of the workers, pointing out various things while they smiled and nodded their heads. She was older than me but I couldn't tell by how much. She was also enhanced. She looked at me and smiled as we rode up, looking deep into my soul as her son had the first time I saw him.

"Hello, Mrs. Hendrix. My name's Karen Baxter."

"Hello, Karen. Please call me Maria. Are you the beautiful Karen that Val and Bev met at the truck stop?"

"I am. I'm afraid there's no more truck stop, though."

"A lot of the old world is gone. Are you going to live with us?"

"I'd like to. If I'm welcome."

"That depends on Bev. Val will think he has some say in the matter and I'm sure she'll let him think he does. She's in the kitchen, helping out with lunch. Why don't you go in and see if there's anything you can do?"

"That's fine, but I have to ask. It looks like there are plenty of people who could do the work. Why are you out here and Bev working in the kitchen?"

"We have to do something to keep busy. There are no soaps to watch and we haven't figured out how to make bonbons. There's no reason we have to work and if there's something more important to do, we do it. But we all enjoy helping out. Years ago, I planted a garden, maybe the size of a two car garage. I was able to grow a few things to put on the table but the main reason I had it was to maintain my sanity. For me, there's just something about working with the soil that invigorates me yet makes me feel peaceful. That small plot has grown to what you see here and there's no way I could take care of it by myself. But I still like to keep my hand in."

"That makes sense. I think I'll see if I can find Bev and plead my case."

She laughed. "I don't think you'll need to plead too hard."

Bev had her back to me but I knew it was her as soon as I saw her. It was obvious she'd been enhanced. I heard her voice in my head, <Karen, is that you?>

I thought, <Yes. This is amazing.>

She turned around and smiled at me, a smile as bright as sunshine. She was even more beautiful than before, something I wouldn't have believed possible. We both hugged each other.

I got the concept of <How?> and thought of everything that had happened to me since I saw the dark clouds.

<We didn't see the clouds. We were asleep and when we woke, Dreamer told us that the world had changed. The next thing we knew, we were here.>

<Shit. It took me two days to get here.>

She laughed. <That's OK. Val's away with his father, taking care of some low lifes. He'll be back this afternoon. I know he'll be thrilled to see you. Are you going to be one of his co-wives?>

<If that's OK. I'd love to. The first time I saw him, I wanted his children.>

<It was a bit later than that for me. I think I was 13 when I decided that. I was such a chicken it took years for me to act on it. I'm happy to say it's going to happen. I'm pregnant.>

I squealed and we hugged each other. <That's wonderful.>

She spoke out loud. "Help me get some lunch for our hard workers. You can start cutting that fruit into bite size pieces." She pointed to a couple of large buckets, overflowing with fruit.

Fifteen minutes later a couple of tweens came in and carried away a platter of fruit and one of sandwiches. A boy a few years older came in and got a bucket full of milk.

There were sixteen of us around the table for lunch. Bev, Maria and me, Margarita, the woman who had made most of the sandwiches, the rest women who had been working in the garden when I arrived. The bread was fresh baked, the butter was rich, the milk was whole and the fruit was the best I'd ever had. There was a chicken salad that was out of this world. When I commented on how good it was, Bev said "It should be. They were walking around this morning."

I was shocked for a moment. Then I took another bite.

After lunch, I got a two hour tour on horseback with Bev. Then we put up the horses, including brushing them down and making sure they got fed and watered. When that was all done, we went up to Bev and Val's room and talked. Shortly after that, Val came in the room and I asked him about his sheep's head.



-------

Chapter 13: Val


I was shocked to see Karen lying on our bed, talking to Bev as if they were best friends and her visiting was a common occurrence. The first time I saw her was the day I came back to civilization after three and a half months in the wilderness. I'd killed a mountain sheep to survive and left its head in the gas station booth for safekeeping. She had taken over the booth while I was eating, showering and letting my family know I was still alive. I had fashioned the fleece into a poncho and was wearing it when we met.

The second time I saw her was the day Bev decided that neither of my prizes, the head or the fleece, had any place in her home. Her home happened to be my house. And since they represented my transformation from an awkward teenager into an almost god, they had a lot of sentimental value to me. Pointing out these facts just made her ridicule me and I stormed out of the house before I did something we'd both be sorry for. I drove on autopilot, not even knowing where I was heading and ended up where it all started and ended – the entry point to the wilderness on the far west side of the truck stop. I didn't even realize where I was until Karen spoke to me, waking me up as it were. She had been texted by Bev, who was smart enough to figure out exactly where I was headed, even if I hadn't been. They talked on the phone and I'm sure the subject of my sheep came up when Bev told Karen to expect me.

I would have assumed Karen was taken away with the rest of the population that disappeared while we were all at the cave if I'd actually given it any thought. We were the only ones, with the exception of our previous caretakers, who had been around before the change. There was also a bunch of people we'd never met, each doing some job they'd supposedly been doing for years. I wasn't sure how that all fit together, but I figured it was one of those need to know things and I didn't.

I was surprised to see Karen but I wasn't surprised at her greeting.

"Hey, Val," she said. "Where's your sheep?"

"In the den," I answered. "It's the only room in the house that the men can claim for their own, and if any women don't like it, they can stay in the kitchen or the bedroom where they belong."

I purposely leered at Bev as I was saying this. She stuck her tongue out and said, "It's perfectly acceptable now that Rosa's cleaned it. It looks very nice with the head mounted on the wall and the rug next to the pool table. I'd even consider using the skin as a bath mat now that it doesn't stink." She stuck her tongue out again and then the two of them laughed.

[Time to quit while you're ahead, Val.]

"You're looking good, Karen." I took a closer look. "You've been enhanced! How did that happen?"

Bev sent me the whole story of Karen's adventures, including the fact that Karen had sent it to Bev.

"Darn it, Bev, it's my story. I wanted to tell it," Karen frowned for a moment, then cracked up, soon to be joined by Bev.

When they settled down, I said, "So, have you figured out what you're going to do in this brave, new world we've found ourselves in?"

"I think she should stay with us, Val. Don't you?"

[Put me on the spot, Bev, why don't you?]

"How do you feel about that, Karen?"

"Oh, I'm fine with whatever the two of you decide."

"Yeah, right." I looked directly at Bev. "If I didn't already know that you arrived with only the clothes on your back, I'd look to see which part of the closet my beloved has already handed over to you."

"Oh, that reminds me," Bev told Karen. "We need to get Rosa and the ladies started on making some clothes for you. You can't wear that deerskin all the time, even though it is the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Don't you think so, Val?"

I mumbled some kind of agreement but they weren't there to hear it. They took off down the hall, leaving me standing there, shaking my head and wondering it there was any way I could have possibly gotten out of this. I doubt it. Whenever a woman makes up her mind about something, the only thing you can do about it is try to do whatever you can to reduce the damage. When two of them work in collusion, you might as well forget it.

Dinner was interesting, to say the least. Grace and her family, all of our family (something rare, these days), Connie and Karen were all there. There was an unspoken understanding that Karen was now a member of my family, bringing us up to three and that Mom, Grace and Connie were all in Dad's group. It was just assumed by the women, almost as if it had always been that way. Dad got a little more time to get comfortable with it but I was coming to accept it. There really wasn't much either of us could do about it.

I did make the mistake of mentioning that Karen might want to explore her options before dedicating herself to us.

Bev let me have it between the eyes. "God, Val, get a clue. It's not like she can get on the Internet and look up 'enhanced'. You make it sound like it's a simple thing like finding a new boy scout troop. In case you haven't noticed, we're the only game in town."

I dug myself in a little deeper. "There are other people who are enhanced. Dreamer told us that."

"Yeah, in some other area. Like New York or Miami. Even if there was one nearby, why should she go begging when she's already got people who know and love her right here? Maybe she should find herself a boat and go overseas. He said there were enhanced in Europe, too. Karen was here. She was the closest person to the cave when the change happened. She should have disappeared with everybody else. Yet for some reason she didn't. And she was drawn to the cave and just happened to get enhanced after the end of the world. Think about it, Val. Dreamer doesn't do things just for the hell of it, Val."

Kyle spoke up. "Hey, Dude, I don't know what you're complaining about. It's like two pussies, Man. Two Pussies!"

That effectively ended the discussion. Nobody seemed impressed with him, especially my sister.

After dinner, Vicky said that she was going to stay over here tonight. Tina asked her if she could, too. Vicky told her it was up to both of our mothers and they both gave the OK.

Kyle jumped up. "Alright! I'm gonna go get me some poon tang."

Nobody responded to him. It was almost like he wasn't in the room. Vicky continued to look down at the table as Kyle left, not saying another word.

When he was gone, Vicky looked up and there were tears in her eyes. "I don't know if I can take this anymore."

I touched her arm. "What's going on, Sis?"

Grace answered for her. "It's Kyle. The same things we warned you all about. It's like he's doing all the things we told you not to do with the women."

I asked my sister, "Are you OK?"

"No, I'm not. He's gone crazy. He's sent girls away in tears. Last night he had four women in our bed and I ended up sleeping with Tina. He acts like I'm just another piece of ass to him. In fact, that's what he called me – another piece of ass. I can't handle it any more."

Tina said, "He tried to make me suck on him."

Grace had been quiet but I heard her gasp when her daughter said that.

My father said, "Did he force you?"

"He tried to. I had to kick him in the balls to get him to stop."

"Do you think that stopped him or that he'll try it again?"

"I know he'll try it again. After I kicked him, he told me not to fight it, that he knew I wanted it and he was going to get me sooner or later. He said I have to sleep sometime. I scared, Burt, real scared."

"Dreamer said the punishment for rape was death. I don't know if this would be looked at as rape since it wasn't full on intercourse. It was only attempted, too," Grace said.

"I have a couple of thoughts about that," my father said. "First, if he'd forced himself on her anally, would you say it wasn't rape because it wasn't her vagina?"

"No, it would still be rape."

"The same applies to her mouth as far as I'm concerned. I don't give a fuck what Clinton said, when you have sexual penetration with a woman, it's sex. And if it's unwanted, forced or a combination of the two, it's rape. Now, as to it being attempted, I never understood why it wasn't as serious a crime if the perpetrator was incompetent. Two people fire guns at two different people, both fully intending to kill their victims. One sends the bullet right through the heart and kills his guy. The other is off by a few inches and hits his target just below the shoulder, putting him in the hospital for a week. We put the first guy away for years, maybe even life. The other guy spends a year or two in prison. He gets rewarded because he's a lousy shot, even though both had exactly the same intention when they fired. Kyle intended to force Tina to suck on his cock against her will. The fact that she was able to stand up for herself doesn't reduce the severity of the crime. Plus, unless Tina is lying, he's threatened her, essentially promising he'll find a way to take her against her will when he knows she won't be able to defend herself."

"I know what you're saying but it's not easy to agree with the idea of putting my son to death."

"I understand. Nobody is going to do anything without giving him a chance to defend himself."

We discovered an expansion of our ability to communicate mind to mind. Grace was able to call Kyle and the two of them could communicate while the rest of us with the exception of Connie listened in. Kind of like making a call from a conference room on the speaker phone.

"Kyle, you need to come back to Burt and Maria's. We need to talk about what happened with your sister."

"I'm not going anywhere, Bitch. She wanted it, just like you do. I've seen you drooling every time you think about Burt sticking his fat cock in your twat. And Tina's not the sweet, little innocent cunt she pretends. I've seen her creaming her shorts whenever anyone talks about Val. Although I'll never get why she wants to be with that pussy whipped queer. Fuck off, all of you."

Dad broke in. "Kyle, if you don't come here and defend yourself, I have no choice. You'll be banished from the area, including both ranches and The Town. I'll post a shoot to kill order if anyone sees you. It's your choice. If you don't come defend yourself, you'll be responsible for anything that happens."

"Fuck you, Mr. Senior, Mr. Patrone. I don't need you to order me around. In case you haven't noticed, I'm just as special as you are. Just because I wasn't almost dead when I went into that cave doesn't make me any less enhanced. If I want pussy, I'm going to take it. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Suddenly he was gone. There wasn't a click or anything of that nature, but there was no doubt the call had been terminated. In fact, we could tell that he'd turned it off. There was no way any of us would be able to reach him that way in the future unless he changed his mind and opened up again.

"Grace, I'm sorry it had to come to this."

"Can't you do anything? Show some mercy?"

"Grace, I tried to give him every chance to defend himself. That's not something I had to do. You heard him. He has no respect for any of us or the law.

"And no, I can't show any mercy. He knew that he did was wrong and that there was only one punishment for it, just like the rest of us did. I can't make an exception because he's enhanced or he's your son or my future grandchild's father. For God's sake, one of the things wrong with the society we came from was the justice system was so perverted. If you had money or you were famous, you got a free ride. Whites got off and Blacks got put away for the maximum time allowed or even longer. I can't stand in front of the people I'm supposed to govern if I let any of us get away with something that's against our laws. I'm already bending the rules by letting him live, provided he stays away from the community."

Grace sniffed. "I know, it's just..."

Tina grabbed her mother's arm. "Mom, what if he'd been able to do what he wanted? Or he raped you while you were asleep? Of maybe he beat one or both of us up. How about if he killed one of us? What would it take to make it OK to punish him?"

Grace took her daughter's hands in hers. "I know. You're right."

"Mom, you divorced Daddy because he was a scumbucket. Why can't you believe that your son's the same, only worse?"

"OK. I guess I know when I'm licked."

Bev said, "That comes later. After you go upstairs with Burt and his other women."

Grace looked confused, then turned red as everyone laughed.

Now that Bev had broken through the serious mood, Dad said, "Connie, I hate to send you out this late, but I need you to ride over to The Town tonight and tell Garth about this. I don't want to let it go till late tomorrow morning to post the banishment order." He took a piece of paper and wrote for a minute or so, then signed his name at the bottom with a flourish, before giving it to her. "Take your bow and Alfie. I know you didn't hear what we said, but Kyle has gone rogue. You should read that before you go, but he's basically broken the one law we have a punishment spelled out for and has been told he will be killed if he so much as shows his face. If you see him, shoot to kill unless he immediately surrenders to you. If he does, make damn sure he's secure and bring him back here. Don't do anything foolish. I don't want you getting hurt. And make sure they know who you are when you go down the hill to The Town. They have guards at the bottom of the hill now and they'll more than likely shoot first and ask questions later, especially if it's dark when you get there."

"Yes, Senior. We should get there before dark if we hurry. Come on, Alfie."

The words were hardly out of her mouth when the door closed behind them and they were gone.

We talked for a while but the mood was shot because of the whole Kyle thing. Vicky and Tina left to go up to Vicky's room. Shortly after, we went up to ours.

The three of us ended up on our bed with me in the middle, between Bev and Karen. If anything, she kissed even better than I remembered from the truck stop. When she pressed her improved body against mine, the difference from our earlier encounters was breathtaking. Bev seemed to be more excited and more affectionate than normal. Soon, Karen was working on my belt while Bev unbuttoned my pants, then the two of them worked my pants and briefs down past my butt. They both gave my cock a quick kiss, then scooted down to the bottom of the bed and each took a boot, then a sock, then a pantleg, pulling each in turn off. The briefs were the last to go before they had me sit up so they could pull my shirt over my head, divesting me of all my clothing.

Both of them stood at the foot of the bed and proceeded to remove their own clothes. It was as if they'd rehearsed removing each item in sync and was a definite turn on to watch.

Once nude, they crawled up on the bed like a couple of cats, one on each side of me. Then they proceeded to give me a tongue bath, each taking a side and licking me from head to toe, skipping the genital area until they were done. Then they took their time licking my cock, my balls and beyond, lifting my legs so they could continue down to my asshole. Karen did a thorough job with that, sticking her tongue a good half inch inside. Multiple times.

My legs were lowered and Karen slurped my cock into her moist, warm mouth while Bev used hers on my balls, taking them into her mouth and rolling them around on her buttery tongue one at a time. Bev finished that chore, then started licking and sucking on the base of my cock while Karen continued toying with the top. I warned her as I felt the urge to come intensifying but she just continued, moving a bit faster while Bev wrapped her mouth around the base and moved her head up and down, jacking me off with her lips.

I came in multiple spurts, feeling Karen's tongue rubbing just below the head while Bev's seemed to be massaging the tube that was transporting my semen from my balls to Karen's waiting mouth.

I finished and Karen sucked on the head of my cock one last time, pulling away with an audible pop. She opened her mouth, displaying a pool of cum to both me and Bev. Both women leaned forward and kissed, passing my juices back and forth, dripping some on my cock below them. Once they'd both swallowed, they licked my cock, cleaning up what they'd spilled and bringing me back to life.

After I was fully revived, Karen swung a leg over me and lowered her pussy down to the cock Bev was holding up for her. Karen was fully lubricated and was able to take me fully inside in one smooth motion.

As soon as Karen was seated and was making her first tentative motions, Bev moved up and straddled my face. I got a bird's-eye view of her beautiful ass as she dropped her pussy onto my mouth and tongue. Both girls were kissing each other and playing with each other's breasts when the three of us came within seconds of each other.

Karen got up and went into the bathroom. She drained herself as best she could, then came back into the room with a warm washcloth. She wiped my mouth, my cock and between Bev's legs, then tossed the washcloth on the floor. I fell asleep with a satisfied woman on each side of me.



-------

Chapter 14: Connie


My dinner with the two families was quite an experience. I might have been accepted as a co-wife by Maria but I didn't truly believe I'd ever fit in totally. I was the only norm at the table. Shit, the three wolves were even enhanced.

It was strange to see them all sitting around the table when they were "talking" to Kyle. You could tell they were doing something by the look in their eyes but there was no sound, no words, no other indication. At one point I saw Burt get angry and then become determined. Grace looked ready to cry at that point. I guess that's when Kyle really screwed up and Burt did what he had to do.

I'll tell you one thing. I'm glad I didn't have to make the decision Burt did. Can you imagine having a brand new co-wife and having to sentence her son to death? He'd recently done the same with the men at that camp but they weren't family. Kyle was one of the few enhanced, he was Grace's son and Burt's daughter was pregnant with his child. Like I said, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

I was able to separate the two parts of my life a lot easier than I'd anticipated. At one moment I was a junior member of the family, the next I was a soldier on a special assignment. It was like Burt threw a switch. I could look at my actions, feelings and emotions as a family member but that part of me was completely compartmentalized and had no effect on my current activities. Instead of being Burt, my husband, the man who gave me my orders was the Senior.

I took the time to read the order I was to deliver once I got out to the barn. It was basically what the Senior had already told me. I rolled up the order and put it away, saddled up a fresh horse, filled my quiver with arrows, picked up my bow and headed toward The Town.

It didn't get dark until around 9:00 this time of year and it was just past 7. I could ride flat out because I didn't have anyone else to worry about. Alfie could take care of himself.

Alfie had gone off to the side of the trail, probably to grab a quick bite to eat and catch up with me later. I heard something as I passed a clump of boulders up on a hill on my other side, then saw a shape flying at me in my peripheral vision. Something hit me slightly below my left shoulder blade and then there was a pair of strong arms wrapped tightly around me. I went flying off the horse and hit the ground with the right side of my body, my face getting the hardest impact. The wind was knocked out of me and his arms were like a python around my chest. I lost consciousness.

He woke me when he yanked on the collar of my shirt, ripping it down the front, exposing my breasts. I'm not sure if it was the sound of the ripping cloth or the pressure of the back and sides digging into me or both. I discovered that my hands were tied behind my back and that he'd wrapped something from my wrists up to my elbows, which were touching. My body is exceptionally limber so he was able to do it without dislocating a shoulder or two but I'm glad I wasn't awake to feel it when he tied my elbows together. My legs were also tied together, but only at the ankles. It was a pretty safe bet that I wouldn't be able to untie them, trussed up the way I was.

I saw my quiver of arrows over to the side. My bow was next to it but it was missing its bowstring. That must be what he used to tie me up. My skinning knife had been removed from my belt and was a few feet from the rest of my arsenal.

This was the first time I'd be able to get a good look at him. It was Kyle but he wasn't the same person that had eaten dinner with us. This man was obviously insane. You could see it in his eyes and in the bead of drool coming out the corner of his mouth.

"You're a nice one. This is going to be fun. Let's see how Mr. Patrone likes sloppy seconds." He made a cackling noise that sounded more animal than a human.

This was a mad dog and it needed to be put down.

He undid my belt and ripped it out of the belt loops, lifting and turning my body as he pulled it out. Now that hurt my arms and shoulders.

He tore open the button at the top of my fly, pulling it apart, ripping the other buttons out of the holes, then started tugging the pants down. I was scared. I have no problem with sex, even rough sex, but this wasn't going to be sex. That look in his eyes confirmed it would be more like punishment and torture. I represented the authority he envied and had come to hate.

My pants were down as far as he could get them with my ankles tied together, leaving me naked from the waist to below my knees. I gave up hope on him untying my legs when he started undoing his own belt.

There was a noise from the far side of the trail. Kyle kept going, not hearing anything. He might have enhanced hearing but he didn't have the training I had from hunting several times a week for well over a decade.

"Alfie. Kill."

I hadn't even finished when I saw a blur shoot out from the side. It took less than a second for Alfie to go from standing to flying. His mouth was wide open and I would see his razor sharp teeth gleaming. He hit Kyle with all his weight, clamping his mouth around Kyle's neck as he did. He bit down before Kyle could get out a sound. The only indication I saw that Kyle even realized something was happening was the look of fear in his eyes just before I heard a crunch and he died. I've seen that same look from prey on a hunt when they were dead but the body didn't realize it yet.

I wondered if what Kyle had gone through was destined in the position of junior god. When Burt had been filling me in on the situation at the ranch (and he was Burt then, letting me know what to expect and what he thought my relationship with the others would be), he mentioned Kyle as an afterthought, "Of course, then, there's Kyle. He's my daughter's boyfriend." I wondered if that was the only value he held for the rest of the group. It had to be tough, thinking you're just as superior as everyone else, being considered an afterthought by your peers. The only one lower in status was his younger sister.

I couldn't imagine Val losing it like that, but then, Val wasn't excluded the way Kyle was. Val might not have been in on the decision about the bandits but he was right in the middle of the action, put in charge of the majority of the people who went out there to handle the situation. He was one of the people taking care of the prisoners, helping to free them and patch their wounds. He even helped a few of them by easing their pain and making them heal faster. Kyle got none of that.

Well, I was no longer in danger of being raped and probably killed (I'd seen that in Kyle's eyes, too) but I wasn't home free. I had my ankles tied together and my jeans holding my legs tight to just below my knees. My knife was out of reach and I don't know if it would have done me any good even if I had it in my hands. They had lost most of their feeling by now and I don't think I could have maneuvered it to saw through the bowstring that he'd wrapped guitar string tight, all the way up my lower arms.

Alfie had inspected his work and, satisfied that he'd done a good job, was now sitting, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, looking like he was grinning at me. I rolled over on my belly. "Don't just sit there, Alfie. See what you do to loosen this shit around my arms."

He got up and walked over to me. I couldn't see what he was doing behind me but I felt his snout pushing me as he worked on my bindings. He finally pulled back, lifting my arms up toward my shoulders, making me cry out. There was a moment of excruciating pain, then I felt something let loose and my arms were suddenly freer. They weren't completely untied but the end near the elbows was. He moved his mouth down to my wrists and he soon tugged on that (towards my waist, thank God), pulling it loose and unraveling more. I tried to move my arms apart but there still must have been a dozen or so loops around them. I needed something to pull the loops out one at a time and my hands were sort of tied up at the moment.

Alfie knew what needed to be done and, starting at the wrists, he got the first loop in his mouth and pulled. It took about five minutes for him to get most of the loops undone and I was able to move my arms enough to get the rest loose.

There was a combination of pain and relief as I was finally able to roll over and move my arms in front of me.

Alfie went to start working on the piece around my ankles but I stopped him.

"Alfie. Go get the knife." I nodded toward the stuff on the ground and the other side of Kyle's body.

He went over and picked up the bow but I was finally able to get him to bring the knife over to me. In less than a second my ankles were untied. Then I had to struggle to get my jeans back where they belonged. Not the simplest task when it hurts to move your arms and they have less than 50% normal strength.

Half the buttons didn't fit the ripped button holes and most of the belt loops were torn but I was finally able to get my pants on and held up enough so they would stay unless I tried to do some kind of acrobatics. I wondered what I was going to do about a shirt since Kyle had torn mine apart when I recalled that I had a change of clothes in my saddle bag. The ruined things went into the same saddle bag. Rosa would probably be able to use them for something.

I went over to Kyle and inspected the body. There was no way he could still be alive. His throat was torn open and his head was only attached by the skin at the back of his neck. Most of his spine was still together but it was crushed and I don't know how much support it would provide. He still had a crazed look on his face.

I got my quiver of arrows, picked up the few that had come out when he tossed it away from me and got my bow. I whistled and my horse came over. I had a spare bowstring in one of the saddle bags, something I'd made sure to have for the last eight years or so. I'd been a half day out with nothing to show for it when a string broke on me. I had to spend another four hours walking home with empty hands. What was frustrating was that the string broke when I was taking a shot on a trophy elk I'd stalked for the last couple of hours.

I got the new bowstring secured, checked the saddle to make sure Kyle hadn't loosened anything, picked up the corpse and threw it behind the saddle. I thought it was kind of ironic that I used the bowstring he used on my arms to tie his body to my saddle.

I figured I had a half hour before dark and it was going to take me 45 minutes to get to the guards on the outskirts of The Town. I could have turned around and gone back to the ranch because the banishment and kill on sight order was now unnecessary.

I decided to continue to The Town anyway. It took a little bit less time and it didn't get dark quite as early as I thought so the guards and I were able to see each other as I started down the hill. I wished I knew the different signals as I passed the massive gong at the top of the trail down. I saw that they were arming their crossbows when I got halfway down.

I raised my hands in front of me, palms forward, to show that I had peaceful intentions.

"What do you want?" one of them hollered.

"I need to see Garth or another member of the council. I've got a written order from the Senior."

"Come forward and I'll see that he gets it."

"I need to give it to him directly. And I need to talk to him about it."

He must have just noticed my cargo and pointed. "What's that?"

I grabbed Kyle's hair and lifted up his head. The guard gasped when he saw the red gap in Kyle's throat. The other guard bent over and lost his dinner. OK, I'll admit it, I'm bad.

"This is the person the order was about. He made the mistake of messing with me when my friend here was around." I pointed down at Alfie. Ever the showman, he growled and showed his teeth to the guard.

"OK. I'll get Garth. But you have to wait here. Let me see this order you have."

I showed him my left hand, making a partial fist so that just my first two fingers were pointed, then carefully reached into the pocket and eased it out. I took the rolled up paper in my right hand and held it up.

"This is it. I've been personally ordered by the Senior to hand it to Garth or another member of the council."

"That's fine. Get down from the horse."

He held the crossbow in front of him, aimed at my feet and had his partner take my quiver of arrows, my bow and skinning knife and put them all on the bench in the shelter they'd just built. "Go up and signal Garth to come here," he told his partner.

As the other guy started up the hill, I told the one who was still guarding me, "I know you have a job to do, but so do I. When I'm following the Senior's orders, anything I do should be looked at as him doing them. You may feel secure now that you've removed my weapons, but you should probably remember that he felt the same way," pointing over at Kyle's corpse on the back of my horse. "Although he had me tied up, too."

The gong was struck a few times and then the second guard started back down. I could see some activity in the distance where I guessed the road passed Garth's compound.

Garth arrived about ten minutes later. He noticed the body right away.

"Hello, Connie. More trouble?"

"Hi, Garth. Not any more. I was sent to deliver this to you for posting."

I handed him the order from the Senior and he held it under a lantern so he could read it.

"Is that him?" he said, pointing at Kyle.

"Yes, it is."

"I don't understand. Why did you bring the order if it was already taken care of?"

"I thought about going back afterward but decided to finish what I was told to do. I'm sure it wouldn't have created any problems if I didn't come here but I also thought that you people had the right to know about it and felt that I owed it to the Senior to finish my assignment. It doesn't say on that paper you have, but it was very difficult for the Senior to issue that order. I know it wears on him to order any man's death, even the scum we recently killed. This particular order had a lot more to it than just issuing a shoot to kill order on a criminal. His name was Kyle. As you can tell from the order, he was enhanced. The Senior has recently taken two more wives. Me and the head of the other family of enhanced, Grace. Kyle was Grace's son. The only reason Grace and her family are enhanced is that the Senior's daughter was dating Kyle. He's also the father of the baby that's growing in his daughter's belly.

"The law says that any man who rapes a female is to be put to death. There can be no compromises with that punishment. Kyle attempted to force himself on his younger sister and she was able to stop him. As the Senior says, he shouldn't really get a free ride because he wasn't able to complete the act. But the fact is, he didn't actually rape her. The Senior tried to give him a chance to present himself to the family council and defend himself. Kyle told the Senior that he didn't recognize their authority. The words he used were very disrespectful, to say the least. He was banished and told that a kill order would be posted and it would be his responsibility if he showed his face anywhere under the Senior's supervision."

Garth said, "So you came across him and told the wolf to attack him?"

"No, more like he came across me and the wolf saved my life. The Senior sent both me and Alfie to deliver the order to you and he warned me not to let Kyle get to me. I got complacent and let Alfie wander off to catch something to eat. Kyle was hidden and he overpowered me. He was able to get my weapons, tie me up and was probably seconds away from raping me. I have no doubt he would have killed me or injured me, leaving me to die. Fortunately, Alfie came back and I was able to command him to kill Kyle. It was fast and brutal, but the man had turned rabid and needed to be put down. I was derelict in my duty and it almost cost me my life. I don't know what punishment I've earned but I'm willing to take it, whatever it is."

"Hmff," the big man said. "So, you've delivered your order. Do you plan to leave the body as well?"

"No, I hadn't considered that. His mother needs to be able to cry over her son and see that he's buried. I've brought the order so that you can see that the Senior is doing his job, no matter what and the body proves that his order has been carried out. I'm ready to go back and find out about my punishment."

"If the Senior is that man I think he is, I wouldn't worry too much about that."

"That's something I'll find out when I return home. I'm not going to worry about it. I do need my weapons, though."

He nodded to the senior guard who ran into the shelter to grab my things. I put the band for the quiver and the bow over my shoulders and slid my knife into its scabbard.

"You need to get a gong placed down here," I told Garth.

"Good idea. I would also suggest that the Senior comes up with a uniform or some marking that would let us recognize his representatives. A yellow band to be worn around the arm, for example. Not everybody knows you and not all of those who do realize you are his soldier."

"That's a good point. We need to make sure that somebody like Kyle or the men who kidnapped Michael couldn't counterfeit whatever it is to gain access."

"You're right about that, of course. I'm sure there's an answer that would save you from being suspect any time you come across someone who isn't aware of your duties. In an emergency, you wouldn't want to be forced to wait for someone like me to account for you."

"True. If it had been a real emergency, these two guards might not be alive."

The two guards didn't like that statement, especially when Garth answered, "I know. I've seen you use that bow."

There was enough of a moon out that we were able to find our way home without too much difficulty. I could have stayed at Garth's place and returned the following day but I didn't want to drag things out. Grace deserved to know about her son and the Senior about my failure without delay. We took it easy, just about doubling the time it took to make the earlier trip, even with the delay caused by Kyle's attack.

It was a couple of hours into the morning when I got home. The house was dark so I assumed everyone was asleep. If it had just been the Senior, I would have gotten him out of bed and informed him of the evening's misadventures. But it was supposed to have been Grace's first night with Burt and Maria and I didn't feel right disturbing them. The events with her son after dinner probably spoiled that, but I wasn't going to throw more bad news into the mix in the middle of the night. There would be plenty of time for that first thing in the morning, after they'd had the chance to sleep.

This was also supposed to be my first night with Burt and Maria (and Grace). It was too late for that and I'd already had some time alone with Burt. If it was meant to be, it would happen, if not, I wouldn't have missed out completely.

I took the body off the back of my horse, wrapped it in a blanket and put it in one of the empty stalls. Then I spent some time brushing down, feeding and watering my horse. When that was all finished, I found another blanket and lay down on a pile of straw. Maybe I could get a little sleep before what looked to be another eventful day.



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Chapter 15: Burt


There used to be a lot of lotteries in the world. Many states had their own and the MegaLottery sold tickets in multiple states. It wasn't restricted to the USA, either. The Irish Sweepstakes was started in 1930, and tickets could be purchased worldwide. And there were many more.

One thing these lotteries all had in common was that the number of tickets purchased related inversely to the income of the purchasers. As people made less money, the percentage of that money spent "to win the lottery" went up. The majority of lottery tickets sold was to the middle class and below.

Giving somebody who has trouble keeping ahead financially several millions of dollars is like giving a three year old a bag of candy. Before you know it, it's gone. The three year old eats all the candy. The lottery winner buys things. He'll keep buying and buying until, like the candy, it's gone. He's used to the money in his pocket or his bank account controlling how much he can spend. Suddenly, that money seems endless and any control is gone. He spends and spends until there's no more to spend.

Since the purchase of tickets is tied to lower income, there are very few millionaires who purchase tickets and almost none who win. Any who did would probably do well with the winnings because they already knew how to use money as a tool. And there are those among the lower incomes that have some inkling of the need for money management and are able to keep or even grow their winnings.

Kyle won the lottery several times, simply because he was Grace's son. And he was as unprepared for it as that three year old and the factory worker who blows millions over a couple of years.

Look at Val. He learned at an early age that he had to pull his own weight and that we, his mother and father, weren't going to let him get away with screwing up. Sure, he did a lot of the normal childhood things, getting into trouble like most boys do, but that's not what I'm talking about ... He developed a conscience and felt bad if he did something that hurt another or was successful in getting away with something he knew was wrong. He was actually tougher on himself than anybody else was. He used his wishing ability without thinking it through a few times, nothing really bad, but he gave himself a few sleepless nights because of it. He had a few months longer than any of us to get used to an enhanced body and when we made the transition to leaders in the new world it was pretty easy for him.

On the other hand, Kyle was shoved into several things quite suddenly. Not against his will, mind you, but he had no foundation to ground and support him. I never got to know the kid, just seeing him come and go with Vicky. Grace says he was close to his father and that the divorce really got to him. I know his father made a habit of cheating on Grace and thought nothing of using his money and influence to take advantage of young women. He owned three successful car dealerships, so you can imagine how honest in was in his dealings with others. So that was Kyle's primary male role model. The guy was too busy making money and women to spend much time with his family which sets a piss poor example for a young man growing up.

Kyle drew his first winning number when his mother moved the family into the ranch next to ours and Val and Bev stopped to see if they needed help. That led to Vicky and Kyle meeting which got Kyle his first real girlfriend. It didn't take long for him to start acting like a jerk and she left him. He begged and promised he'd be different and she went back to him. Both of those actions – acting like a jerk and promising things are going to be better are part of an abusive relationship. It doesn't matter whether the abuse is drugs or alcohol or women, whether it's physical or mental, those two steps are classic.

By the time I went to the cave, Grace and Maria had become close. Kyle had convinced Vicky to give it another try by the time I was cured. Dreamer decided to enhance Grace, Kyle and Christina when Vicky went to the cave. That was Kyle's second winning ticket.

When we were told that it was our duty to seed the female population, it was like giving that bag of candy to the three year old, as far as Kyle was concerned. He just didn't have the maturity to control it yet he had a body that could overpower most others. Telling him to treat the women with respect was like telling a lottery winner that his winnings wouldn't last forever when he was certain there was no way he could ever spend it all.

I'm partly at fault, here. First, like I said, I didn't take the time to get to know him. I am supposed to be the leader in this section of the world and I should have done something with him. I can cite the cancer, being busy getting used to the new world, handling the crisis in The Town, and, while they all contributed to it, in the end, they're still excuses. I could have taken him with us when I went to visit The Town, which would have included him in the rescue and justice mission. It still would probably have been an example of too little, too late, but now I'll never know for sure.

It was tough to pass judgment on him. Not because he was Kyle but because he was Grace's son and Vicky had been so close to him. I could justify not putting him to death immediately but in my gut I knew I bent the rules by banishing him in addition to the shoot to kill order.

It was a no win situation. It threw Vicky into confusion because she knew he was dangerous but she had loved him at some point and was carrying his child. Grace objectively knew that it was the right thing to do but the mother-son thing was going on, breaking her heart. There was a "kill the messenger" reaction happening with her, and that could either continue or stop in the future.

Maria had it all planned that we were going to add two new wives to our marriage tonight – Grace and Connie. I sent Connie out on a mission that could easily keep her away overnight and Grace decided to sleep with Vicky. Her last words to me were "I've got a lot to think about." That usually came after "We need to talk" and "You need to sleep on the couch for a few nights."

So, my ruling sent one new wife away from the house and a second away from my bed on our wedding night. Fortunately, my first wife, my true wife, was very understanding and just held me close until I fell asleep. No crying, no arguing, no name calling, just being there for me if I needed her.

There was a profusion of contrasts at the breakfast table. Val, Bev and Karen were all in high spirits and full of energy. Maria was supportive and stayed close to me, as if to give me strength should I need it. Vicky was reflective and Grace was flat out avoiding me. Tina just looked confused.

Shortly after we sat down at the table and were drinking our coffee, Raul came in.

"Patrón, I need to show you something out in the barn."

"Can't it wait, Raul? We're just about ready to eat breakfast."

"No, Patrón, it is important. Please?" He was rocking back and forth from one foot to the other, obviously nervous about something.

"I'll be back as soon as I can. Don't wait breakfast for me," I told the group at the table as I stood.

Once we were out of the kitchen, Raul grabbed my arm. "Connie told me to bring you to the barn. She's been out there all night."

"Is she alright?"

"Si, she's fine. Come, you'll see."

When we reached the barn, Raul opened the door and held it for me. He closed it after I went through.

Connie was standing at attention about eight feet in from the door. She was staring straight ahead and didn't look me in the eye.

I noticed some scrapes on her right cheek. "What happened to your face?"

"I disobeyed your orders, Sir, and got caught by surprise. As a result, I was taken prisoner. The scrape happened when I was captured."

I walked over to her and put my hand on the scrape. I felt the current surge down my arm and then she jerked. Not much, because she was standing at attention, but I was looking for it and saw it.

"OK, Connie, settle down. Drop the military BS, relax and talk to me. What happened?"

She broke her stance and looked at me like a puppy who just got caught peeing on the carpet.

"I got overconfident and let Alfie run off to find something to eat. Instead of being more alert while he was gone, I became complacent, thinking about where I was going instead of paying attention while I was getting there. Kyle was hidden on the side of the trail and he jumped me. I went under and when I woke up, he had me tied up and was pulling down my pants to rape me. I could see in his eyes that he wasn't going to let me live. He'd removed my weapons while I was unconscious."

"But you got away from him."

"No. I got lucky. Alfie came back. I heard him in the bushes but Kyle wasn't paying any attention. I gave Alfie the order to kill and he tore into Kyle's throat, knocking him away from me. It was over almost before it started."

"OK. Then what?"

"I was tied up with my bowstring. He had tied my wrists behind my back, then he wrapped the string around my arms quite a few times until he got to my elbows and tied them together."

"You mean your arms were touching all the way from your wrists to your elbows, behind your back?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Didn't that hurt?"

"I'm very flexible, Sir. The only times it hurt were when Kyle yanked my belt loose, pulling my body into the air for a second before it fell back to the ground, and later when Alfie pulled on the bowstring near my elbows, forcing my arms up."

"So Alfie helped you get loose?"

"Yes, Sir. He was able to pull both knots loose, then he kept pulling loops off my arms until I could work the rest of them loose. He also got my knife so I could cut the piece that was tying my ankles together. I tried to pull my pants up and put them on but Kyle made a mess of them when he ripped them open. My shirt was in worse shape. Fortunately, I had a change of clothes in my saddlebag so I put those on."

"So why didn't you let me know when you were back? It couldn't have been that late."

"I didn't come straight back here. I went to The Town and gave Garth the order and showed him that Kyle had been killed."

"You didn't have to do that. There was no need for him to have the order since Kyle was already dead."

"I know that, but I decided it would be a good idea to show him that the enhanced aren't above the law and that I have no problem enforcing swift justice. I'm sure the three people I saw have some healthy respect for Alfie now, too."

"Who was there?"

"There were two guards I'd never seen before and Garth came after they called him. The guards were only doing their job but they took my weapons until Garth arrived. Garth suggested a uniform or something else that would mark your representatives, He said a band of cloth around one of the arms might do. I told him we had to do something that others wouldn't duplicate. Kyle or one of the bunch that kidnapped Michael could have caused some real damage if they been accepted as your soldiers."

"I think you're both right. There is probably a need for some way to identify my soldiers. I can think of several things we could do offhand. Some kind of unusual medallion or each mission requiring a signed mission order are a couple. Either could be easily duplicated and most people wouldn't be able to tell if they were real or counterfeit. I don't want to have to issue an order for everything you do. There are going to be times that you'll have to be able to act immediately. Anything you do will be subject to review for abuse, of course. I'll have to think about it."

"There's something else we need to think about, Senior."

"That is?"

"I put Kyle's body in that stall. I'm sure his mother is going to want it."

"I'm sure she is, too. How bad is it?"

"I told Alfie to kill him and he could see I was under attack. Kyle's head is barely attached to his body."

Connie went over to the stall and opened the door. All you could tell was that there was a blanket with a body wrapped in it. She gently worked the blanket open, as a mother would unwrap her baby.

"It hurt you to do that, didn't it?"

She looked puzzled, then realized that I wasn't referring to the unwrapping.

"One time I had to take down a bear that was attacking humans and it hurt me to do it. I knew it was necessary, just like it was necessary to kill Kyle, but it's never easy to take something's life away from it. I've come to realize it's necessary when I'm hunting, but I've never really gotten used to it."

"The day it does become easy will be the day I no longer want you working for me."

"Yes sir." She backed away to let me see the body.

The damage was obvious; there was a distinctive gap in his throat. I expected to see pain or even surprise on his face, but it must have happened too fast. His face still registered the insane rage that must have been present when he was attacking Connie. His pants were open and his penis was exposed.

"How to tell Grace..." I mumbled to myself.

"Sir, I could tell her."

"No, you've done your job and you've done it well. Now it's time for me to do mine. And Connie?"

"Sir?"

"You have nothing to worry about. I'm happy you got away with only a scrape and some sore shoulders. I'm sure you won't let something similar happen again."

"No, Sir."

"Connie?"

"Yes Sir?"

"The mission is over and you are now my wife. Come here and let me hug you."

Her smile was instantaneous and she leapt at me, hugging me tightly like a scared child in a thunderstorm. I returned the favor, then used my hand under her chin to tilt her face so we could kiss. The word 'intense" doesn't come close to describing the way she kissed me. It was something we both needed after the events since the previous evening.

I took Connie's hand and led her to the house. Rosa was washing dishes and Maria was the only one left at the table, a cup of coffee in front of her.

"I need to talk to Grace," I told her.

"She's upstairs, either in Vicky's room or ours."

I thanked her and heard her say, "Rosa, Connie is going to need a cup of coffee and some breakfast, please. Connie, sit down here so you can eat and we can get to know each other."

Vicky's door was open. She and Tina were sitting on her bed, talking.

The door to my room was pushed to but not closed. I knocked a couple of times, then pushed it open. Grace was putting some clothes into a small suitcase.

"Grace, I have something to tell you."

She straightened up and turned to face me. I put my hands on her shoulders.

"Kyle is downstairs in the barn."

She started to leave and I grabbed one of her arms.

"Grace, he's dead."

She gasped and let out a whimper, pulling away from me and running down the hall.

"Grace," I shouted, "Alfie did it."

She hesitated for a split second, then ran down the stairs.

I followed, not fast enough to catch her, but I wasn't going to hide from her, either. I wanted to be nearby in case she needed me, whether for a hug or for someone to beat on.

I was close to the end of the hall when I heard my daughter. "Dad? What happened?"

I turned to see Vicky standing in the hallway with Tina a couple of steps behind her.

"He attacked Connie. He knocked her out, tied her up and was about to rape her when she gave Alfie the order to kill him. It isn't pretty, Sweetheart."

Vicky held her hand up to her throat, a question on her face. I nodded my head, then turned to Tina. She looked dazed.

"Christina, I'm sorry. You need to stay up here for now until your mother has had her time with him. I think she should be the one to decide if you can look at the body and I don't think she's in any shape to make that decision right now. Why don't you stay in Vicky's room with her until things settle down. Vicky? Are Val and Bev around?"

"They're in their room with Karen."

"I'm sure any of them will be glad to help if you need anything." I nodded towards Tina and Vicky nodded back.

I went downstairs and through the kitchen. Rosa was the only person there. Once I went outside, I saw Connie standing a few feet outside the barn. She came over to me when she saw me and put her hands on my chest to stop me.

"I have to do this, Connie."

She dropped her hands and moved to the side. I went through the open door and saw a couple of our men lifting Kyle's body into the back of a wagon. The blanket had been put back in place so all you could tell for sure was what appeared to be a body wrapped in a blanket.

"Stay away from me, Burt. I can't talk to you right now," Grace said as one of the hands helped her into the wagon's seat.

Maria came over to me and took my hand. We stood there and watched silently while he climbed up next to her, took the reins and drove off.



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Chapter 16: Maria

Oh, what a tangled web we weave. Those words are just as true now as they were when the Bard wrote them centuries ago.

Last night was supposed to be the start a new journey for us. Grace and Connie were going to join our family. It was just one in a long line of things that would never have been possible in the world of our birth yet seemed so right in this time and place.

Things didn't quite turn out that way. Grace spent the night away from us while Connie went on a mission to notify and warn our neighbors about Kyle.

I like Grace. She's lived a completely different life from me and came to realize that she was more suited to our way of life than the rat race, buy stuff and more stuff to impress a bunch of people you don't real know or care for life she'd spent most of her marriage striving for. The one thing our lives had in common was that we both had children and we wanted the best for them.

I can't imagine what I would do if Val mistreated his sister the way Kyle did Christina. It's inconceivable to me that a brother could do that to his sister, yet Kyle did. If it was a non-family member who did that to Vicky, my reaction would be to cut his balls off, scratch his eyes out or both. I would have no problem demanding the enforcement of the death for rape mandate. I don't know if I could sentence my own son to death but I do know I couldn't stand seeing him. Banishing Kyle with the warning that he faced death if he showed his face again seemed right to me. Maybe I'd feel different sending my own son away, knowing I'd never see him again.

Seeing his cold body with its throat ripped apart hours later would definitely shake me up. If he was sentenced to hang and the sentence was carried out, that's one thing. But to be told you're going to be killed if you even show your face, then you not only show your face but viciously attack someone close to the one who rules on the life or death decisions is just plain stupid. Kyle had to have been insane, thinking he was above the law and couldn't be hurt. Whatever it was, arrogance, stupidity or insanity, it had to hit Grace hard.

So, Grace drove away with the hunk of meat that was all that remained of her son, leaving her daughter alone to cope with God knows what going through her mind. If Tina hadn't spoken up at dinner last night, none of this would have happened, although it was obvious now that her brother had been a time bomb, just waiting to go off. Like the child who lives the rest of his life thinking he was responsible for his parents' divorce, this was going to affect her for years. Insanity can be contagious and Grace could back away from Christina, blaming her daughter for her son's death.

My husband was already questioning his own judgment. He had the responsibility to ensure that people like Kyle did not exist, protecting the rest of us, and he had been extremely merciful when he banished the boy instead of hunting him down and putting him out of his misery immediately. It was a situation in which duty trumped personal desires and he had acted properly. His actions and the subsequent carrying out of the penalty by Connie and Alfie were the right steps to take. Connie's follow through, making sure all our people at The Town were aware of the order and its completion would serve to show that we are just, that lawful people have nothing to fear while the unlawful do. I don't think anyone alive faulted Burt with the possible exception of Grace.

I had no idea how Grace would finally react. I sincerely doubted that she would ever be comfortable becoming a member of our family, even if she accepted that Kyle's banishment and death were right.

I squeezed my husband's hand as the wagon turned onto the road at the end of the drive. "You did the only thing you could have done. He didn't give you any choice."

"I know. I've gone over everything that's happened since Tina told us about him and I can't find anything I could have done differently. If he had only come back so we could straighten him out."

"Never happen. Our daughter gave him another chance and look what good it did her. We're lucky he didn't beat her. You know that was next, don't you?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I know. What did I ever do to earn all this responsibility? I would have been just as happy being a rancher."

"No you wouldn't. And even if you would, this world wouldn't be as good a place without you watching over it. You were chosen because you care, because you're good. All that shit that's going through your head right now? That's what tells me it was a good choice to make you the Senior."

He hugged me to him. I lifted my head and he leaned over to kiss me. The fact the he's almost a foot taller than me generated a lot of comments when we started seeing each other but we've never found it to be a problem. Burt's strength has always been a comfort to me and it's one of the things I missed the most when he was attacked by that damned cancer. The changes in him after our son took him to the cave made it possible for him to crush me like a peanut if he so desired yet I never feared him, I just felt more safe in his arms than before. Now that my body was in a similar condition to his, I still felt that security when he put his arm around me and squeezed me.

"Are you going to be alright?" I asked him. "Somebody should talk to Tina."

"I'll be fine. Go up to her. I'm sure she's confused right now."

I went in through the kitchen and up the stairs. As I got closer to Vicky's room, I heard voices and some sniffling.

Vicky and Connie were sitting on Vicky's bed, side by side, their backs against the headboard. Christina was lying on top of their legs, her feet on Vicky's, her head on Connie's. She had her back to me and Connie was talking to the two of them in a soft voice, telling them about some horses Burt had brought back from the outlaw camp, going over the poor condition they were in and how it was going to take some loving care from the two of them to bring them back to health. Connie was gently running her fingers through Tina's hair, more like a mother than a girl just a few years older. Tina sniffed and brought a cloth up to her nose. Vicky was as entranced with what Connie was saying as Tina and was idly moving a hand back and forth, rubbing Tina's calves.

Of course, that "girl" who was comforting them was to be our new wife. Somehow I'd known that she was right for our family before I really knew anything about her. Well, I'm sure Dreamer had a lot to do with that. But the way she was able to comfort both of them made it evident to me why she was a good choice.

Connie looked at me and smiled. "Is everything OK?" I asked her.

"As well as can be expected. How is Burt?"

"As well as can be expected. Shaken up and questioning himself. He needs to work things out in his own mind," I said.

"Ah, yes. Our big strong men are the most fragile about these things. You should go to him and be there for him."

"You're right. Thank you, Consuela. You have the wisdom of someone much older than your years."

"I've done a lot of growing up over the past few days."

"I imagine you have. It looks like Tina's asleep. Do you want some help getting her off your laps?"

"No, we'll stay with her for a while. Go to your husband."

"Our husband," I said, blowing her a kiss as I left.

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Tina

Vicky was the best thing to happen to me in a long time. All my life, I'd been totally lost, the little girl who didn't fit in.

My mom appeared to love me but she was always too busy doing her rich bitch things. That's what all the girls my age called their mothers and most of their older sisters. It wasn't meant to be a bad thing, because that's what all of them were hoping to become, you could say they were all in training. No, rich bitch was a lifestyle. It included days at the country club, with drinks starting at lunchtime, unless there were bloody Marys or screwdrivers available earlier. For many of them, there was a variety of pills that helped them "cope with things." Thank God my mother hadn't gone that far and was able to pace herself with the drinks so she didn't became falling down drunk.

And then there was the shopping. Clothes, jewelry, cars, houses. Find the best of them and convince your husband to fork over the money. The blowjobs they used to hook their men before marriage became rewards for buying the right thing. If it was really expensive, there even might be a piece of ass in it, literally. Of course, that was a valuable commodity and was rationed out like water after a week in a lifeboat. Small purchases might reap sex a couple of times during the following month. Most of the rich bitches got their cock from their personal trainer, tennis coach or the doctor who filled and shaped their tits with silicone. Or a combination of them, with a new gardener thrown in once in a while.

Their main pastime, other than spending their husbands' money, was gossip. Missing a gathering made you fair game, and like a bleeding tuna amongst a school of attacking sharks, you were torn apart in their feeding frenzy. Unlike the sharks, who at least had the decency to let their prey see who was devouring them, these women waited until your back was turned before they attacked.

My mother wasn't a bad person, she just found herself living in a world where she had to play by the rules if she wanted to survive. The dollar value of the car you drove, the size of your home and opulence of its furnishings, the number of servants you had all determined your place in the pecking order. Of course, they weren't called servants, which is what they were. They were all grouped together into one faceless group known as "the help."

So, while I had the best of everything, I didn't have much of anything that counted. I had some decent clothes that the help got for me, my cell phone for texting and checking out everyone's Facebook pages and sending and reading Tweets, a room full of DVDs and CDs (they were sooo OLD!) and gigs and gigs of mp3s. I-Phone, I-Pod, I-Pad - if it started with an I-, I had it.

I didn't think like the other girls my age and the boys were such pigs I didn't want to have anything to do with them. Mom was too busy to spend any time with me, my brother was a complete ass and every time I got close to one of the help, Mom would figure out that Dad was screwing her and she'd be gone the next day.

As if things weren't bad enough, Mom decided she'd had enough of Dad screwing himself through the female half of the phone book and hit him with a divorce. Dad was tired of being a husband and a father (not that he ever was either of them) and didn't give her a lot of grief. Mom got the house, her car and some money and Dad got to keep his businesses. That wasn't too bad because it didn't make a whole lot of difference in our lives. But then she sold the house and moved us to a completely new area.

That meant a new school, having to make new friends (not that I had any real ones) but the big difference was where we were going to live. A freaking farm. Eee I Eee I Yo.

So, when Vicky and my brother got together and she started talking to me like I was a real person and that who I was and what I thought mattered, it was amazing. She was with Kyle a lot but she somehow found a lot of time to spend with me. She taught me about horses and I learned how to saddle them, ride them and take care of them when I was done. She even convinced me to invite some of the girls from my old school over to ride and they weren't so bad when they lightened up some. Of course, they had to fill me in on the latest gossip about everyone else. I had three different girls over, one at a time, and it was interesting to compare their stories. I discovered they didn't matter to me and I could care less who was bad mouthing who.

Vicky treated me as a sister and a friend. She would hug me all of a sudden when I needed it and thought nothing of taking my hand when we were walking and talking. If any of us had tried that at school, we'd have been shunned and all the others would call us lezzies.

When Kyle started pushing Vicky and she broke up with him, I thought she'd have nothing to do with me. It was just the opposite – she had even more time for me. I was over at her place a lot, riding her horses and helping out where it was needed. I learned how to milk a cow, get eggs away from a chicken without getting scratched and how to weed and pick vegetables from a garden.

Once I started going over to her place, I got to know her mom, her brother and his girlfriend. The Mexicans who lived on the ranch did more work than any of the ones we'd had when we lived in the big house but they were treated more like family than servants. Maria and Margarita would often work side by side as a team, talking and laughing while preparing dinner or tending the garden. I became another member of the family and I always got lots of hugs whenever I went over there. Bev spent some time with us but most of the time she was with Val. He treated Vicky the way I wished my brother treated me. And he treated Bev the way I dreamed he would treat me.

My mother changed once she got rid of my father and we moved. I heard her talking to Maria one day and she was telling her that Kyle and I were the reason she bought the ranch instead of another house in the "right" neighborhood. She didn't like me growing up to be a rich bitch and was worried about how Kyle would turn out. I don't know if she realized that she needed the move a whole lot more than we did.

She did try to change. A lot of her activities just weren't there to be done since the move. The shopping trips, the tennis lessons, the time at the gym and the three hour lunches didn't happen. There was a gym not too far from us but the people who used it were there to keep in shape, not to impress each other. Mom had enough going on at the ranch to keep herself fit. The distance to our old neighborhood was a few miles but it may as well have been light years.

She told me she knew she'd let me down as a mother and wanted to make things different but she didn't have the time to follow through and when we were together, we found we didn't know each other. That was a shock to her when it finally hit her and she couldn't stop the tears from coming. The first time she hugged me, it was disgusting. She did one of those pretend hugs she and her friends always did, hardly touching me and making kissing noises a few inches away from me on either side. It got better but it was never as good as it was with Vicky or any of the women at her place. Once Manuel's cousin Arturo came to help us out, she had more time, but we were so far apart we both knew it would take a lot of work to fix things.

Kyle had just started running around with a bunch of assholes when we moved. He'd always been a jerk to me but the last few months it got worse. Vicky was able to control him for a few weeks after they got together, then he started acting up. She finally got fed up with him and dumped him. He spent over a month trying to figure out whether to act angry or heartbroken. I would have felt sorry for him if he wasn't so hopeless. He finally convinced her to give him another chance and then we ended up in the cave and then the whole world changed.

Once he got convinced he was now Superman and was allowed, even expected to screw anyone he felt like, he turned into a real asshole. Mom was on a big guilt trip about how she'd ignored him for so long and she couldn't see it. He was disrespectful to her but got more and more abusive with me and with Vicky. I don't think my mom really believed me when I told everyone that Kyle had tried to force himself on me and was threatening more. She could believe it happened but blocked out that he was involved.

I watched her stiffen up when Burt was discussing what to do about him. At first it was just like she'd acted when Dad would threaten to cut her allowance. When Kyle told him he was going to do whatever he felt like and Burt told Kyle he was banished and would be killed if he showed his face, she really lost it. We'd gone over there to celebrate. Mom and Connie were going to become part of their family and Kyle had totally fucked it up. Rather than accept that he was slime, Mom took his side and did what she did so often with my father – she pulled back and withheld affection.

Things were completely the opposite at their house than they were with Kyle. He was the one who pushed, pushing Vicky before she was ready, pushing the women he'd had in his bed more than they were ready for, pushing me to service him like some whore in an alley.

Burt had been with Connie and I'm certain was ready to let her go back to her boyfriend and move on and he'd never been with Mom. Maria was the one who was pushing for them all to get together, probably with some urging from Dreamer. I don't know how that all works but he's got ideas of how things should be now that the change has happened and things we would have resisted before were more attractive. Bev was the same way. Once Karen showed up, it was like the two of them were best buddies and they couldn't wait to get Val in bed and naked. He didn't fight it but it wasn't his idea and he would never have done anything to make it happen if Bev hadn't forced him.

I'd seen Connie once or twice and all I knew was that she and Ricky were responsible for a lot of the meat we ate. The first time I talked to her was at the table and she was just one of a bunch of us eating dinner. It was interesting to watch her when Mom and Burt were mind talking with Kyle. Connie was the only one at the table who wasn't enhanced. She knew something was going on but not what. She seemed alert, ready to do whatever was needed but she was relaxed, too, letting them handle that part.

When Burt told her what had been said and gave her the order to deliver to the town, she changed from the new almost-wife to a soldier. Not the regular soldiers they used to show on the news, roaming in packs in Iraq. She was more like the Green Berets or the Navy Seals. Someone you sent in alone when the job had to be done. Someone you knew who would do it, no matter what it took or what she came up against. Seeing that mindset in a fifteen year old was kind of shocking.

Mom was pissed off at Burt and pretty much glommed on to Vicky's room. God, she's such a Prima Donna. She practically took over the bed and with the way she held her body and the looks on her face, it wouldn't have surprised me to see steam coming out of her ears. I finally grabbed a pillow and slept on the floor.

After she left in the morning, I snuck back into bed and went back to sleep. The next thing I remember is hearing Burt saying "Kyle's dead." It was like when you're asleep and you don't know if you're dreaming something or it's really happening and you have to play it over a few times before you understand it. I was a little more awake when I heard him say something about Alfie getting him. Vicky got out of bed and I followed her into the hall and Burt told her to take care of me.

We lay on the bed and I cried while she held on to me. She didn't say a word, no "There, There" or "Everything will be alright." The first wouldn't do anything and the second was a lie. Yeah, some things would be alright but some others wouldn't.

I went through a bunch of shit while she held me. I was relieved because I didn't have to be afraid of my brother any more. Then guilt, partly because I felt relief, partly because he'd still be alive if I hadn't told on him. And anger because he was such an asshole and was really responsible for all the crap that had happened and would happen now that he got himself killed. I was glad that Alfie was the one to kill him so that somebody else didn't have to feel bad about taking out the trash. I was afraid what would happen to me. Mom could have gone to see his body and then come back to be with me, her daughter, the one child of hers who was still living. It was pretty obvious that her dead son was more important to her at this time. I didn't know if she'd ever accept me or would blame me for the lost life of her son.

I was going through some of the emotions a second time when I sensed someone else in the room. I looked up to see Connie standing in the doorway. Vicky rolled over a bit to see what I was looking at and held a hand out for Connie to come over.

The two of them sat on the bed and I lay on my side facing them. Connie looked pretty bad. Her cheek was pretty scraped up, something like I got once when I took a spill on my bike. That got Mom investigated for child abuse and one of the help fired.

But Connie looked worse deep inside; the whole thing really got to her. She told us what had happened but she didn't gloat and she wasn't glad Kyle was killed, even though he'd been about to rape her and she was certain he'd kill her when he was done.

She felt that she'd failed and blamed herself for his death. If she hadn't let Alfie go off, if she'd been more alert, if, if, if – she would have been happier to bring him back here alive and let justice be done by the administrators instead of her, the soldier. She had failed somehow since she hadn't been able to resist him or overpower him and had to give Alfie the kill order. She failed because she didn't order Alfie to disarm him and take him prisoner, instead shouting "Kill," the first thing that came to mind.

I ended up lying across their legs, my arms around Connie's waist, comforting her because she felt guilty about killing my brother. God, what an asshole. If he was up there watching, he was probably thrilled about all the turmoil he'd caused all of us.

I eventually started talking and I got out some of the crap I was going through. Vicky said a few things about the way Kyle had turned evil and the fact that he'd never see his baby, not that he'd give a shit. She said she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that her son grew up to be nothing like his father. That was pretty much my brother's legacy.

Once we'd all gotten it all out, we started talking of other things. I knew that something had gone on with our neighbors and some bunch of outlaws and I asked Connie about it. She told me that it was something for another time but she or someone else would tell me. I wasn't the little kid anymore and that felt good. She was right, this day was rotten enough and there was no need to make it worse. She did tell us about some horses the bad guys left behind, which told me the bad guys were either banished or dead and I wasn't going to put any money on banished. They had been in such bad shape she was ready to put them out of their misery if Burt wanted it. She said he told her that Vicky and I wanted to work with horses and that this would be a perfect opportunity.

Maria came in to check on us and let us know Burt was feeling it, too. Her last words reminded Connie that she was a member of the family now.

I wondered if my mother would ever be. I didn't think so.



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Chapter 17




This is the final chapter of After the Change. I wrote myself into a corner and upon reflection, found what I consider the only logical way to get out of it. When you force a group of people into a world as foreign as sending them to a far away planet, not all of them are going to survive. I make no apology for what I have written but I will warn you that they don't all live happily ever after and the ending will probably disturb some of you. Part of my job as a writer is to evoke emotion and to make you think. I imagine this chapter will do the first to just about all who read it. Hopefully some of you will indulge in some of the latter.



Grace

I was numb all the way home. Somehow I was able to tell the men to bring my son's body into the house and place it on the dining room table. I put a pillow under my son's head and draped a cloth over the gaping wound in his throat as they unwrapped the blanket, then ordered everybody out of the house. I locked all the doors, closed the drapes and sat down next to him. I took his hand in one of mine and stroked his hair with the other.

And then I cried.

It all bubbled up inside me and all the emotions overflowed. The hurt, the anger, the guilt, the sorrow, the fear – they all poured out and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

Damn Henry Bell for not keeping it in his pants, for not being a father to his children, for not loving us the way Burt loved Maria and the rest of his family.

Damn Kyle's new buddies for their amorality, their attitude that they were due, no matter who they harmed in their pursuits of instant gratification.

Damn Kyle for listening to them all and trying to follow in their footsteps.

Damn Christina for making a big deal out of things. It was only a fucking blow job, it wouldn't have killed her.

The divorce, the move, starting over. Just when things started going better, we got dragged to that damned cave. Yeah, it was great to go through that treatment or whatever it was and come out looking like a teenager on steroids. Dreamer could have made a fortune at the spa in the country club. It was great for an hour or so until we found out that our whole world had been taken away and we'd been placed in one with just enough similarity to taunt us.

And now I was expected to be some kind of breeder, first with Burt, then with his son and eventually with my own. For what? To make things right because society didn't act the way some computer or whatever Dreamer was wanted it to act? Damn him and all his plans.

I wasn't meant to be some guy's harem girl, to be passed around from bed to bed. Those who didn't make the cut had it easy. One minute they were here, the next they were gone. I envied them.

I could make do with the people who killed my son or I could leave, search out another group of enhanced and end up in the same position or worse. If only I could find one person and be his only one. But that didn't happen in the old world and could never happen in this one.

I looked at my baby. I'd made a mess of his hair so I fixed it. He always made sure his hair looked good.

His fly was open and his penis was hanging out. I carefully tucked it back inside and buttoned him back up.

He didn't look peaceful because of that angry look on his face. You poor boy, what did they do to you to make you so angry?

Throughout history, fallen heroes have been sent to the next life by fire. I made a platform with the seat cushions from my couch beneath the table and emptied a can of kerosine onto it. Firewood from the stack in the kitchen went on top of that until the whole space underneath the dining room table was filled.

I got another container of kerosine and sloshed some on the wood, left a puddle on the floor next to the cushions, then soaked Kyle and the table.

I lay down next to my son, poured the rest of the kerosine over myself and threw the can away from me. I struck a match, tossed it over the side of the table so it would land in the puddle, took my son's hand in mine and closed my eyes.

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Maria

I discovered another ability today. I can tell when one of us was gone. Funny I didn't feel anything when Kyle was killed. Either it hadn't manifested itself yet or he was already dead to me. I hope Grace found what she was looking for.


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The End
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Posted:  2011-09-19
Last Modified: 2011-10-31 / 12:32:09 pm
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