Storiesonline.net ------- Dammit Boy! by cmsix Copyright© 2008 by cmsix ------- Description: Chuck was a DirecTV installer working the "Rich Folks" houses in Plano Texas. At a multi-million dollar home he found a more than friendly, lonely wife. Things were looking up all around until some asshole in a step van fucked them up beyond recognition. Codes: MF ScFi TimeTr harem ------- ------- Chapter 1 Man, this was the classiest house I'd ever been to, for work, or at all. I'd worked a four million dollar spec house last week and this place made it look like a dump. I couldn't believe people obviously this rich didn't already have DirecTV. I hoped they weren't going to be an enormous pain in the ass like some big shots. I could already nearly feel the fight coming. They'd want me to hide all the wires inside the walls and leave no trace of my presence except one wire from the wall to their receiver near the TV. Hell, I could do that, but with a house this big, and since the install order was for eight receivers I'd be working here long enough for them to put me up in a room. It was easy to see they had plenty of spares. I'd noticed one other disgusting thing about rich people too; they often didn't want to pay the satellite TV guy for the extra work they wanted done. One hell of a lot of the discontent I'd been feeling about what was coming next went completely away when she answered the door. The woman looked like she might be twenty-one, someday. Her face was absofuckinglutely beautiful, maybe the prettiest woman I'd ever seen in person, the movies, on TV, or the Internet. She had a lovely smile too. "You must be here to switch out our TV service," she said, with a voice that was just too low and sexy to believe. "Yes Ma'am, but is it a switch out? The work order didn't mention that," I said, hoping against hope that she was telling me the truth since switching someone from Dish Network to DirecTV was usually no trouble at all. "My husband might not have mentioned it, but we have Dish already. He got mad at them about something and canceled the service then ordered DirecTV. I hope it won't cause any problems," she said. "It shouldn't. In fact, if you still have the boxes their receivers came in I'll be happy to pack them up and send them back," I said, doing my best to suck up to this vision who was masquerading as a housewife. "Come on in and we'll look in the storage closet," she said, turning to lead the way. Did I mention that this five foot eight inch, beautiful, green-eyed redhead must have come directly from their pool in the tiniest thong I'd ever seen? The top was tiny too and barely had enough cloth to cover her areolae. The only thing that kept this from being a perfect wet dream on the spot was she hadn't come to the door straight out of the pool. She wasn't soaking wet, but I could live with it. I followed the world's most perfect ass toward my fate, I hoped. Whoa, I thought, as we entered the storage closet. It seemed more like a network installation room. This was where their Internet service entered too, but it wasn't a normal residential broadband setup. I knew damned well that was a T-1 drop feeding the hardware firewall which fed the commercial router that led to a panel of network switches. Somebody here didn't want to wait when they clicked on a porno site. I nearly creamed my jeans when she leaned those fantastic titties against me and pointed to the shelves the receiver boxes were on, but I held on and dammit, she left me to it after that. First things first - I carried all the boxes back downstairs and set them in the living room. She hadn't stayed long enough for me to ask and I wasn't going out to the pool for more info, not yet at least. I was going to give my pride and joy some time to settle down. The next thing on my list was changing out the dish and aiming it. I went back out the front door and walked around the house, spotting the installation on a wall mount after I turned the first corner. It took less than thirty minutes to get that squared away and I carried the eight new receivers inside this time. There wasn't a TV in the living room or den, but I found my first suspect in their entertainment lounge. The receiver was easy to get to, and even though it was hooked to the projection unit of the biggest screen I'd ever seen, all the connections were normal. After things were plugged in and connected I found a remote for the giant television, pushed the button for the sixteen-foot screen to roll down. After it was operating, I managed to get it started on the rest of the account setup. I left the receiver to do it's downloading and other crap and went looking for the next room. I felt like I was ready for another look at the bombshell by now, but though I walked around into bedrooms unannounced, I didn't manage to catch her even more nearly naked anywhere. Three hours later I was done. I hadn't seen the beauty again during the whole time. I packed everything back up, put her old receivers in my pickup, gathered the paperwork, and went toward the pool to look for her. She'd been by the pool the whole time I guess, working on her tan. This made me really happy since I found her lying on her front on the lounger with her fantastic ass pointed right at me as I walked up to get the paperwork signed. "Are you done already?" she asked, after hearing me walk toward her. Somehow I was able to get a yes Ma'am out before I nearly swallowed my tongue. She'd been sunning for sure, since at some time she'd removed what little she'd been wearing before. That was plain when she turned over after I answered her. By now even I had figured out she was getting her jollies somehow by teasing me, and it didn't bother me a bit. Hell, my part of the bargain was getting to see her naked. Sure, I wished I could just drop trou and crawl between her legs, but that wasn't going to happen. I concentrated on being grateful for the view while she signed my papers. I'd be leaving with an aching dick but what the hell; it would go down again, someday. When I turned to leave she spoke up. "Wait a second. You haven't even showed me how to work it," she said, and she was getting up off the lounger as I turned back toward her. I wanted to apologize and tell her it had slipped my mind, but when I saw those big titties in their full uncovered glory all I could do was let my mouth drop open. Letting my eyes drop away from the big luscious milk fruit didn't help a damned thing either. Her sparse auburn bush came into view and I'll swear I could see just the top of her slit from this angle. She didn't give me time to gather my wits either. "Come on," she said, taking hold of my hand, "You've got to show me the difference between this setup and the other one. I don't want to be stuck here by myself all weekend with nothing but a test pattern to watch." Even though my brain was clouded and foggy at the moment, her words came through quickly. This was Wednesday afternoon and unless I was more confused than I thought, she'd just told me she'd be here alone until next Monday. Why was she telling me this? Not to mention why was she leading me back into the house without bothering to even put on her light robe. She was holding my hand, leading me inside, and she didn't have one damned stitch covering that lethal body. Things like this didn't happen to me. Sure, I guess my looks were acceptable, for a guy at least. At six two and a solid non-fat two-thirty-five I even stood out in a Texas crowd. Still and yet the girls weren't beating a path to my door. Even though I did ok when I went out to two-step with the ladies, a naked beauty dragging me into her house wasn't in my experience. Maybe I was making more out of her nudity than she was. Hell, of course I was. Inside the house I expected us to head for the entertainment lounge and the giant TV but it wasn't the case. She led me upstairs and directly into what I thought of as the master bedroom. She stopped right in front of the custom made cabinet for her video equipment. When I'd been in here earlier to get things connected I couldn't help but notice the decor. She had the biggest damned bed I'd ever seen. It faced a giant flat-panel TV and I hadn't missed the ten by twelve mirror directly over the bed. The cabinet near the TV had everything from an old fashioned VCR on up. Her DVD player had some kind of caddy that must have held fifty DVDs and it looked like it could change them on its own. That wasn't the problem right now though. She was nearly bouncing from foot to foot and hurrying me along to get the thing going. "Find us a sexy movie," she said, as soon as I got a picture. I didn't know a sexy movie from a kick in the ass. I knew porno when I saw it and in fact I knew exactly where to go to find some, but I didn't think that was what she had in mind. I moved the menu to the pay-per-view section and gave her the remote so she could make her own selection. "Just scroll up and down until you find what you like, Ma'am," I said. "Reanna, my name is Reanna, Chuck," she said, and I was bumfuzzled again. My name hadn't come up before and from the way she called it I knew she knew it somehow. What I didn't know was how she knew it. That was something I decided I did want to know though. "Uh, Reanna, how did you know my name?" I asked. "Marilyn told me." "Marilyn who?" I asked, but I had a sneaky suspicion of my own. "The order girl at your office. I told her not to send some sloppy fat ass out here to traipse around in my house and leave dirty footprints on the carpet or I'd send him right back. She said Chuck was her best installer and she'd make sure you got my ticket." That would have to do, but I was still feeling a little in the dark. What the hell did I have to bitch about though? While Reanna changed channels I busied myself looking over the good parts, and on Reanna, all the parts looked good. When she found a movie she liked, Reanna led me over beside the bed and had me sit on it. I still wasn't sure what was going on but even a dim wit like me had a hint by now, though I could barely believe I could be right. "You can't put those boots on my comforter," she said, and in a flash she had one of my legs between her knees and was bent over facing away from me and pulling the offending manly footwear off. No matter what happened after that, I knew I could die a happy man. As she wrestled with my boot her spectacular ass was facing me, showing me her pink pucker and her lightly fringed vertical smile. By now I was sure she wanted some dick and I was also sure she was gonna get some of mine, unless she screamed loud enough to bring the law. I'm as polite to women as the next man, and my mother raised me right. I'd never physically abused a woman in my life and didn't intend to start now, but enough is enough. I was going to fuck this auburn haired goddess whether she wanted me to or not. When she'd pulled both boots off I stood up and started off with my clothes. She didn't say anything at first; she just stared as my shirt came off. She finally spoke up as I released my belt and dragged my zipper down. "What are you doing Chuck?" "I'm gettin' naked, like you. It's just plain bad manners for me to hang around fully dressed while you don't even have a stitch on." She didn't say anything else, just watched me. When I pulled my jeans and drawers down in one move, letting my swelling dick jump loose, her mouth dropped open like mine had earlier. "My God, what a dick!" she said. Now I know my dick is big, it always has been. Showers with the other football team members had let me know early on that I got more in the dick lottery than they did. I'd never thought it was anything to blurt out about though, even if several girls had done a good bit of moaning about it from time to time. "You're gonna fuck me with it, aren't you?" "I've got it on my mind. What did you expect with the way you've been teasing me all day?" "It's exactly what I planned on, but it's such a shock to see that big thing. Don't hurt me," she said, pleading. There was nothing more to be gained by talking. At least I couldn't think of anything. I never was much of a talker anyway and I'd been told on more than one part time retail sales job to stop selling as soon as the deal was closed. I took her in my arms and when she pressed herself against me my dick let me know what to do next. I think it got a hint from the feel of her bush against my ballsack. Her mouth was hot and sucking as soon as I got my lips against it. I took that as an all signals go and tumbled us over onto the bed. My boots weren't going to muss the comforter since she'd pulled them off me, but I wasn't giving any warranties against dripping come. She wasn't looking for any either. I couldn't last long swapping spit with her because those titties were crying for my lips. When I latched onto a nipple it swelled in my mouth and made my hands want to wander south. Her bush was merely pointing the way and finding her pussy made me feel like things were going better than I could have ever hoped. Her lower lips were beginning to get slippery already and I let a finger tease them while I swapped nipples and sucked the other one up to match the first. Reanna was already panting and petting on my back. It surprised me she got so hot so quickly, but she did. Her legs were already squirming around and had spread to make room for me between them. She was ready to go and seemed like she hadn't had any in months. What was I waiting for? She cooed encouragement as I moved between her long legs and when I took hold of my dick and swabbed its head between her love lips she gasped and her arms flew around me, hugging me tightly. I'm usually pretty patient at times like this, but I could tell she wasn't going to be. She wanted me in her and I put my knob in her slot and pushed it up slowly into a snug warm heaven. She was hot inside too, noticeably hot. If I'd been thinking clearly I'd have realized that all women felt hot inside, but it was something I'd never paid attention to before. I couldn't miss it this time though. She was tight too and there wasn't a chance I could slide all the way up her in one stroke. I didn't mind a bit - working my way up was fine with me. Reanna was hot and tight but she was a tall girl and there was plenty of depth for all ten inches of me. We both sighed when our bushes merged, and I let it soak for a few seconds, enjoying the feel of her inner grip along my length. I was sure I could just stay there up on her for weeks and never get tired of the feeling. Reanna didn't have that kind of patience. She lay still for a few seconds and then cocked her hips, wrapped her long legs around my waist, and the fucking started in earnest. Naturally this got my ass going too and before you know it we were banging away at each other almost savagely. By the time she got her hands on my asscheeks and spurred me with her long fingernails we were rounding the final turn and galloping down the stretch. I was relieved when I felt her tight tunnel clasping around me, since I knew she was going to come too. I always tried my best to make sure the girl got her goodies before I did, but I'll admit it hadn't been possible for me to hold out with Reanna. She was so beautiful and so hot that I was lost almost as soon as I got it in her. I've heard it said the mind is the most powerful aphrodisiac, and just the thought of getting a ride on this beauty had been nearly too much. Actually climbing between her legs and rutting had meant any bets on an extended performance were off. When she hit her peak Reanna arched her neck back and howled like a hound. I could barely hear it myself over my grunting and groaning, but I was glad something I did set her off. Now that I'd found her I didn't want this to be a one and done party. As my hose drained into her I sagged against that perfect body and panted. We both did for a few minutes. "Jesus God. You really know how to do a girl up right," Reanna said, when she had her wind back. "It wasn't me, it was the inspiration I had." "A sweet talker too." "All I can say is this is the best installation I've ever been on. I just hope you don't intend to run me off right away," I said, fishing and I'm sure she knew it. "You can count on staying, and on coming back anytime you have time," she said. "Won't your husband be back soon?" "It doesn't matter. He's as queer as a three-dollar bill. He did at least let me in on the secret before we married. I guess you could say I'm a professional trophy wife. "He's a class action litigator. He specializes in doing massive suits for groups of construction workers that were exposed to asbestos or other types of nasty chemicals. How many he-men do you think would sign him up if they knew he'd rather lick their dicks than sue their X employers? "He'll be happy that I've found someone to keep my nerves settled and take my mind off bitching at him. Hell, the next time you want to come over just call me and I'll send the limo. It'll keep the neighbors from getting nosey and everything will work out fine," she said, and I couldn't believe my luck. After we had our strength back I got right back to earning my keep. She took a turn on top this time and it was even better than the first. I even got to watch in the big mirror. It was a lot more inspiring than I could have ever thoguht. I stayed in her bed until it was nearly dark out and when I left she made plans to have the limo fetch me back out for the night after I finished work tomorrow. We kissed each other into another frenzy before she let me out the door. I was a happy little satellite TV installer as I headed home. I'd been so distracted I hadn't even taken my tool belt off when I got in my truck, and it made me laugh at myself. The asshole that ran the light at fourth and Main did not make me laugh at myself, or him. I got about half a second's warning before I slammed into the side of his step van. Then there was that explosion thing I got to see for about another half a second and that was it. ------- Chapter 2 The next thought for me was I must be dead, because I could hear birds singing and no birds did any type of singing in downtown Plano Texas. Then I wondered where in the hell my pickup's air bag had gone, since it wasn't all over me. Next I wondered where my pickup was, and why I wasn't already in the back of an ambulance going somewhere to have my life saved. I gave up wondering and opened my eyes, then shut them again really fast. Damn, the sun was bright, especially since I seemed to be lying flat on my back with my face pointed right toward it. I put my hand over my eyes to shade them and took another peek. I didn't even bother wondering why it was noon out now and the sun had been going down for the count just a minute or two ago. My retinas weren't seared from the next peek, but I didn't think the deal was very fair. I could see around me perfectly but what I saw didn't make one bit of sense. I remembered plainly that I'd just been in an automobile accident in downtown Plano, right at sunset. So where was everybody and why was the sun so high in the sky? I mean, I'm nobody special or anything, but good God. Surely a big wreck and such a hellacious explosion would draw at least a little of a crowd, and by the way, where had the streets and buildings gone. The explosion couldn't have done them any damage because I had to still be on the spot and damned if I wasn't lying in a sort of grassy pasture near the edge of a hardwood forest. Hell, there was underbrush and everything. I could even hear what sounded for all the world like the proverbial babbling brook off in the distance. Fuckit, even though I knew it would probably hurt like hell I sat up. That was odd, it didn't hurt a bit. My eyes were accustomed to the light by now and so I looked around and it was more of the same. It looked exactly like I was sitting on the edge of a fairly open field or pasture. There were the occasional wild flowers scattered around and even some bushes. That couldn't be right either, because even if the explosion I know damned well I'd heard right at the last had blown me miles away from where I'd been, without damaging me, it was still completely impossible. I wasn't even in central Texas any longer because I couldn't see a single mesquite bush or tree or whatever the ubiquitous fuckers technically were. I don't think there's any place near where I was supposed to be that was short of mesquite. Damn, this just was not fair. It looked to be a little past noon here and since I didn't even know where I was, there was no way I'd be back home in time to catch the kick off of Thursday Night Football. Shit, tonight the four and 0 Cowboys were playing the one and three Buffalo Bills. There was practically no way the Cowboys could lose and I wasn't even going to see the kick off. What was I talking about? I wouldn't get to see one bit of the game. I knew the TIVO would record it, but it just isn't the same watching the game after you already know the score. Time to quit wasting time worrying about the Cowboys. They could take care of themselves. I needed to see if I could find out where in the hell I was. Later, hopefully, I could even find out how in the hell I got here. Finally I stood up and that didn't hurt either. Things just didn't seem right somehow. Since I didn't have the first fucking clue where I happened to be or which direction the closest anything was, I headed for the stream I'd heard. Shit, it was that or walk over to a wildflower or bush or something. When I was within a hundred yards or so of the stream I got another shock. There was a big whitetail doe taking a sip of water, she looked up when she heard me, and she didn't haul ass. She moved on ok, but didn't even bother to run or raise her flag. She hadn't been a bit worried about me being that close. Not only was I not in Central Texas, I couldn't be in any part of Texas at all. There was nowhere in the state that a man coming close wouldn't terrify a whitetail deer. I don't know how they came to realize that men could hurt them from long distance, but I was sure it was the first lesson mommy deer taught baby deer in this day and age. I couldn't spend the whole damned day worrying about the wild life; I had to find a phone somehow. The underbrush was sparse near the stream and I figured walking alongside it would lead me to something that made sense sooner or later. Upstream or downstream was the next question but there was no way for me to make an intelligent decision. If it was a hundred miles to the nearest thing of interest upstream and only one mile downstream to something, I still had no way to tell. I started off upstream. Nearly three hours later I realized it would be sunset, at least, before I came across anything I recognized. I found a little clear spot, raked off a space for a small fire, and then went to the stream to bring a few rocks out to make a circle to put around my upcoming blaze. Later, after gathering some squaw wood and then a few larger pieces, I reached into my pocket for my Bic. Doing that made me remember I'd bought a special deal at the convenience store this morning. Six packs of Winstons in the box came with six free Bic lighters. Hey, it was a great deal, even if I'd only been able to stuff two packs of Winstons in each of my shirt pockets. Stuffing all the lighters into my left pants pocket reminded me. Well wasn't that a stroke of luck. Now that I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere, at least I had seven Bics to start my little campfire, my original Bic and the six new ones from the excellent deal. The funny thing was I hadn't even thought about wanting a smoke since I woke up from the crash. Hell, I didn't even want one now. I wanted a cheeseburger pretty bad, but I wasn't craving a smoke. Man, what a miserable night I spent. I'd gathered enough wood to keep my small fire going so I'd be able to see a little bit anyway, and also in the wild ass hope that someone would be searching for me and might see it. I know, I'd somehow disappeared from downtown Plano, and the chances were no one was looking for me. At least they'd have no reason to look anywhere near here, wherever here was, but hope springs eternal. The fire wasn't the rub since it wasn't even cold out. I was hungry as a bitch wolf sucking nine pups by dark, and I hadn't even had sense enough to try and gather leaves and stuff for some sort of padding to sleep on. Hell, I was used to sleeping on a waterbed and my current rocky dirt bed just didn't do it for me. I didn't manage to get a lot of sleep if you get my meaning. When I finally woke, about sunrise, I was sore in several places and I'd learned a damned good lesson in case I didn't find anyone today. I was going to be sure I had enough crap piled up for padding before I spent another night wherever I was now. I was born and raised in Texas and I'd done a lot of deer hunting and spent a lot of time sleeping in deer camps with other guys doing the same thing, but hey, we always brought air mattresses if we happened to be staying somewhere we couldn't pull a camper to. Sleeping out on the ground with nothing beneath me but rocks and dirt wasn't in my past anywhere. Well, that wasn't exactly true now. Last night was in my past. This morning everything was here and now though and I still didn't have a damned thing to eat. I made sure to pick up everything I had and started walking. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to find a Seven Eleven, no matter how closely I looked. It made me wish hard that I'd signed up for a cell phone so I could call someone - anyone. By noon I was tired and decided I'd have to try killing something. There had been a few hickory trees but I now knew Euell Gibbons was as full of shit as a Christmas turkey. Wild hickory nuts weren't worth fucking with. Hell, I'd starve to death cracking and eating those things even if they were piled up by the ton near me. It took more work to get the nutmeat out than the energy they could possibly provide. I used one of my most useful tools on a sapling to cut it down. It was a cutter for plastic pipe. It worked a little like pliers but had a blade on one side and flat jaws on the other with a slit for the blade to pass through. The handle had a ratchet action with some type of gear reduction inside. It didn't have a bit of trouble cutting through an inch and a half oak sapling. After trimming off the small branches and sharpening the end I was armed and dangerous, kinda. On my third try at sneaking up on a deer that wasn't paying much attention, I made a throw. Great, I hit it. Oh shit, it ran off with my spear flopping from its side. It might not even be a fatal wound. Hell, it hadn't even knocked the deer down. I searched along the deer's direction of exit from the place I thought it had been standing when I hit it. After half an hour I'd only found one tiny spot that was probably blood. Somehow something sensible bubbled to the top of my brain. There was no point in trying to follow the deer to see if it dropped dead later. With no more blood sign than I'd found it probably wasn't in danger of dying until infection killed it, but the way the spear waved around in the deer's side reminded me of a limp fishing pole, and I had all the makings for a fishing trip in the tool bag hanging from my belt. Cutting a pole was no problem, and I had a two thousand foot spool, nearly new, of nylon twine that claimed to be hundred pound test. I used my hammer and needle nose pliers to fashion a hook out of a #4 finishing nail and I was pretty much set to go. Over near the stream I'd been paralleling, I turned over rocks until I found a grub-worm big enough to fit over my hook's sharp end, and then looked for a likely spot and lowered the bait near a big fish that seemed to be just swimming in place under a slight overhang of the bank. It hit my hook so quickly that I barely saw it move. When it discovered that something was holding it back a few seconds later it raised a little hell, but I set the hook better with a flick of my wrist and pulled it out onto the bank. I wasn't much of a fisherman since I didn't think it was much fun to sit in a boat on a hot day, drink beer, and fuck with a stinky fish every half hour or so between beers. I thought this catch looked like some kind of perch that weighed a little less than two pounds, but it didn't matter. I did know that pretty much any fish I was likely to catch would do for breakfast, lunch, or supper. I started a little fire, cleaned the fish, and then held it over the fire with a stick poked through it. All in all it wasn't that tasty, but my mouth and tongue knew it was food and they told my stomach we weren't going to starve after all. After my makeshift meal, which I wasn't bitching about, I moved on even though I was getting a little discouraged by now. Who wouldn't be? I didn't have the first fucking clue as to my whereabouts and I'd probably come nearly six or seven miles from where I'd started without seeing one damned thing that looked like civilization. Worst of all, I wouldn't be there tonight when the limo showed up to take me back to Kathy. With no better plan in mind, I followed the stream for three more days, stopping to hook a meal whenever I thought I needed one. The only difference I noticed in my terrain was the stream seemed to be getting a little wider, but it might have been my imagination. About an hour after starting out on my sixth morning I spotted something new, well new to me anyway, but it wasn't at all comforting. I was following the stream as usual, minding my own business when the woods thinned out and suddenly I was at the edge of another grassy plane. I'd come across a few bare spots in the last few days but this was not a bare spot. The plane was easily several square miles if not more. Looking out from the woods I couldn't see anything but plane. Oh, there were scattered trees along the bank of the stream that marched on out across the open space, and I even thought I could tell that the stream ran into a larger stream or river about a mile or so from me, since there were a few more trees that way. The plain wasn't the really surprising thing though. There were thousands of bison grazing along in the grass. They were moving mostly south or southeast, as best I could tell, in a leisurely fashion. I had a sinking feeling I'd never see Plano again unless I killed a witch and took her ruby slippers. I was pretty sure there weren't this many bison left on the earth I'd been on just a few days ago. Yeh, it sounded crazy unless you said it really fast, but this was not where I came from. I didn't have any idea where I might be and none at all about how I got here, but in my heart I knew I probably wasn't leaving here ever. The thought was so unreal, and so terrifying that I just sat down in the grass and cried. I know real men aren't supposed to cry, but fuckit, I was scared shitless. Texas is a great place for rednecks that get drunk and claim they were picked up and abused by flying saucers, but I wasn't one of those type rednecks. I'd never believed any of that shit and had always thought it was merely the ramblings of someone with the DTs. It was quite a shock for me now to realize that I would love to see a flying saucer and a spaceman to be abused by. Hell, I'd even welcome Bigfoot with open arms, or even the Foulke Monster. A fucking herd of buffalo was one of the last things I wanted to see, since it let me know for sure I wasn't in Texas anymore. After fifteen minutes or so for a self-pity break I got back to my feet. With this much meat on the hoof wandering around there was bound to be something out here looking for a free meal and whatever that something was it would probably have big teeth. I walked back closer to the woods and found a tree I thought I might be able to climb pretty quick. While I was at it I pulled the shortened machete I always carried while working outside on a job out of its scabbard and spent a little quality time hacking off a limb and making myself a stout club. I'd had to use the machete lots of times to cut tree branches out of the way where I was working. It's a pain in the ass to be up on a roof with some untrimmed tree poking you everywhere while you're trying to aim a satellite dish, and the shortened machete was a lot easier to fuck with than a saw. Finally, with club in hand, I couldn't think of anything else better to do than watch the buffalo some more. Watching like hell didn't show me anything though. I watched them until what I figured was about three hours before sunset. It was time for something to eat by then, so I went back to the stream, turned over rocks until I found some bait, and did my thing. I recognized what I caught this time as a catfish, maybe five pounds or so. While it was gasping its last on the bank I found a fairly flat rock to try a different way to cook it. I built my fire all the way around the edges of the rock, intending to use it for a sort of skillet. I didn't make the fire very big, since I didn't want the rock to break up from rapid expansion. I didn't need any pieces of exploded rock flying around and I didn't want to burn up my catfish steaks either, once I had them cut. Yes, I knew things would go better with some lard to melt for grease, but I didn't have any handy right now, much less the peanut oil I would have really liked. I settled for cutting off all the fat on the fish and smearing it over the rock. It takes a long time to cook a catfish on a hot rock, believe me. I don't know if it actually made it taste better this way or if the wait made it seem that way. I didn't waste much time trying to puzzle out the actual facts either. I thought it tasted better and I ate every damned scrap that was edible, then sat down on my no longer even nearly fat ass and got still to relive the discomfort of overeating. I promptly dozed off, dreaming of Indians riding horses around a herd of buffalo and shooting them with arrows. Some noise woke me up later and it was fully dark out. I heard it again and figured it was something digging around in the fish guts I'd cast aside. There'd been a full moon the night before so there was probably one tonight also, or nearly full anyway. That didn't do much for me in here under the trees. I grabbed my club and slammed it into the ground a time or two while yelling insults to whatever it was. I never saw it but I did hear it running off. Here was a stupid move I'd made, falling asleep and letting my fire go completely out. It turned out ok since I could easily start another one with one of my numerous Bics, and I did that promptly, but still, I could have been done for if a bigger something had come prowling around. After I had a respectable little fire going again I hunted up more wood for it by its light. I had to remember to make sure and do this before sunset from now on. I spent the rest of the night sleeping for an hour or so, waking to put more wood on the fire and then sleeping some more. The light after sunrise let me know I didn't need more wood on the fire the last time I woke to mend it. For the first time, since all this shit started, I wasn't hungry when I woke but I did need to squat and dump a load pretty bad. I walked off about two hundred yards from my impromptu camp to take care of business and damned if I didn't find out that the grass on this big plane worked better to clean my ass than leaves had. Walking so far from my fire to take care of business in the morning hadn't been my usual habit before now, but it hadn't mattered then since I would be leaving right away, walking on up stream and looking for someone. The buffalo had cured me of that notion. There weren't going to be any cities, towns, or even gas stations. I'd probably run into people sooner or later but I had the feeling they'd be people that I couldn't talk to and that they might not want to see me hanging around. Since now I didn't even think finding someone else would be the grand idea I'd had before, I didn't see the point in moving on any farther, for now anyway. I had water and food in the stream and this was as good a place as any I'd seen so far to camp. Hell, I even had a kind of skillet to cook on. I spent most of the day wandering around, gathering up squaw wood, and looking to see if there seemed to be anything else useful lying around. I didn't find anything but the wood but I gathered a lot of that. It was a couple of hours after what I figured was noon when I started to feel that mealtime should be coming around again. After finding a good fat grub I baited my hook and snagged another catfish, though it wasn't as big as the one last night. I had sense enough to throw its guts, head, and skin back into the water this time after I cleaned it, and damned if it wasn't as good as I thought I remembered from the one the night before. As far as I was concerned my after supper nap was one of the dumbest moves I'd ever made in my life anywhere, and certainly here. I gathered stones for a circle around the fire and even put a smaller circle around my rock skillet's fireplace. I called myself done for the day after that and lay down in the bunch of leaves I'd gathered for a mattress, or was it my nest? ------- Chapter 3 I'd been dreaming of Reanna when I woke, a little before false dawn, and I got up to watch the sunrise. I think it was the first time I'd ever seen it and the hell of it was I didn't even know if it was actually sunrise on earth. I know it made sense it was, but how in the hell could I know? It looked like the same old sun I was used to, but who really pays that much attention to what the sun looks like? Hell, it was just a big light in the sky and in the first place it hurt to look at. I already knew there was only one moon here and it seemed a lot like the one I was used to, but it was the same story as with the sun. I'd never spent a lot of time looking at the moon or the night sky. I couldn't even remember ever looking for the Big Dipper and didn't have the first clue about finding it, if that even mattered. Anyway, the sunrise was nice enough and I was up early to start my day. Fat lot of good it did me. I didn't have the first clue about what my next move was. I faked it by catching another catfish and fixing a meal. After eating and then doing my business way away from my camp again, I took a walk back downstream and paid strict attention to what things looked like in detail. I don't even know why I did it, but with nothing else on my mind I decided it would be better to know more about my surroundings than I did. I probably wasn't five hundred yards from my camp when I came across a place that was obviously a crossing for animals, or at least a place they came to drink. There were prints all over the damp ground. Mostly deer, but also some smaller ones I didn't recognize and some that I thought might be wolves, though only a very few. I even saw a couple that I thought must be for some type of fairly large cat. By fairly large I mean they looked a little like prints a house cat might make, but were at least three or four times as large. At least I didn't see anything that let me think there were lions, tigers, or bears around. It wasn't proof there weren't any, it just didn't prove there were. About two miles from camp I came to a stretch where the stream had cut through a big hill over the years. I remembered it from my original trek upstream, but I hadn't paid it a bit of attention at that time, mostly because I was bitching about climbing the damned hill. Looking down into the gash the stream had cut showed me some of it was limestone and that triggered a memory of Jack Tolison. Jack had a sporting goods store in the town where I was raised. He fancied himself an expert on Indians that had been in our area before white men came and ran them off or killed them or whatever. Jack's store was comprised of about half sporting good (rifles, pistols, shotguns, compound bows, and such) along with fishing gear and camping stuff, but fully half of the floorspace was devoted to Indian artifacts he'd found or dug up and a lot of literature about them. Hell he'd even written two books about them. Jack's books had been printed by vanity publishers, since Indian history written by a guy who'd never been to college weren't likely to make it to the best seller's list, but Jack did manage to sell nearly out of both books he'd had printed, so someone must have been paying attention to what he wrote. He was even invited to the local community college to give talks to American History classes a couple of times each year. The part that mattered to me now though was Jack had thousands of flint arrowheads, knives, axes, and such. Several times when I was a teenager, while I'd been looking around at a rifle or pistol I'd wanted badly, Jack had filled the background noise with instructions on making things out of flint and explained exactly how the Indians did it, as if he really knew. I did remember he'd said they started with a chunk of flint, or sometimes he called it chert, and they whacked it with a bigger harder stone to break off what he called flakes. These flakes were just thinner pieces of the flint. Later they'd tap it with pieces of antler or dried hardwood to shape it and to get it sharp again after a little use. Right about now I wished I could go to his store for a couple of hours and listen to him again, paying more attention this time. Even if he'd been full of pure bullshit, which was likely, he'd sounded like he knew enough about it to at least get me started trying it myself. What the hell, if I could wish something like that up I'd just wish I was back home and all this shit was over. Here and now though, it had me looking hard at the limestone walls of this mini-gorge and hoping I saw some flint in there somewhere. I did remember Jack said flint was often formed in limestone and that sometimes there'd be small pockets visible in places like this where a stream or river had cut its way through. Then the other shoe dropped for me. He'd also said downstream of places like this pieces of flint would be scattered sometimes after being washed out of the limestone. Downstream was where I needed to go then, because as far as I knew flint was the only thing I'd have to make any kind of decent weapon out of. It didn't take many examples like the deer I wounded the other day to let me know a spear with a flint point would do one hell of a lot better job. By now it was already way past noon so the flint rush was off until tomorrow at the earliest. I made my way back to my camp to catch an evening fish, cursing myself all the way for not bringing my fishing line and hook with me. Hell, I could have caught a fish right here just as easily probably, and after all there was no shortage of poles around. Turning my dumb ass right back around I found a good enough place to make another camp, bent another nail into a fish hook, and walked far enough so the bank was closer to the water to start looking for grubs. It didn't take but a few minutes to find one and start fishing. I caught about a three pound small mouth bass this time and even cooking it the old way, with a stick over the fire, beat hell out of walking all the way back to my main camp. After gathering enough wood for the night, I scraped some leaves into a pile and lay down. I dreamed of the Indians riding around the buffalo and killing them with arrows from horseback again that night, but not all night. My next dream was of Reeana welcoming me back to our Tepee, cutting up the buffalo and cooking me a big steak. When I woke the next morning I decided the dream was stupid. I didn't have a horse or even know if there were any around here anywhere. I didn't have a bow or arrows and I sure as hell didn't have a saddle. No matter if the Indians did it or not, I wasn't about to go tearassing around a buffalo herd bareback, with a bow and arrows to keep up with. Not to mention trying to stay on a horse that probably didn't want to do any of that shit either. As for the part about Reanna cooking me a buffalo steak, I'd worry about killing the steak material after she showed up. Finding some flint was on my mind now though and I didn't even bother to catch breakfast. At least I brought my new hook and line with me this time before I went traipsing downstream looking for flint. Half a mile downstream of the hill I came to a wide spot. Even better, there was a depression in the land around it for another half mile or so and it looked as if this was one of those spots that came up when the stream spread out during high water, like in the springtime. I figured looking around here would beat the shit out of wading in the stream. For once I was right about something. In less than an hour I'd found more flint than I could carry back to my camp in one trip. Thankfully I realized how dumb that would be right away, carrying the flint back to camp that is. The only thing back at my original camp that was worth walking back there for was the first fishhook I'd made from a nail and even though I knew nails were going to be scarce here, I didn't think it was worth the trip for one bent example. I decided it was time to try a little flint knapping. Finding a big rock to sit on was the first step and it wasn't too hard. I took hold of the biggest piece of flint I'd found then, grabbed my plumb sixteen ounce claw hammer and gave the flint a sharp whack about dead center. Of course it broke right in half and that wasn't a bad thing. My next lesson was to be damned careful handling these flakes I broke off. I cut my thumb right away on the sharp edge that was left. Oh well, the cut was a very small one and I figured it was a cheap enough price for the lesson. I gave the part still in my hand a lighter tap, near the edge that had been formed when the thing split and this time I got what I considered a real flake. The things had started out roughly ten inches long, six wide, and four thick. I now had two rough halves and the flake. The flake was still about ten inches long, but was maybe three inches wide and probably only half an inch thick. This was going to take some work. I took a lunch break, since it was at least an hour past noon and I hadn't bothered with breakfast. I got another catfish this time and it made me remember what else I'd left at my first real camp. My cooking rock. I spent half an hour trying to find another one as well suited but couldn't get it done. I settled for cooking small pieces over the open flames by putting a stick through them and holding them in the flames until done. They didn't taste as good this way either. No matter, it was filling so it was good enough. Back to the old flint knapping grind was next and I kept fucking with it and fucking with it all afternoon. I didn't have one thing I considered useful from my work yet either. I wasn't really trying for anything like that though. Mostly I was hitting rocks with different strength blows and in different places to see what would happen. Experimentation was all I had to go on. I knew for sure that useful things could be made out of flint and all I needed to do was keep whacking on it until I figured out a good method. The next day, after breakfast and about an hour of trying, I made a breakthrough. The hammer was just too big for doing anything except breaking big pieces of flint into rough halves. I had a small, about six inches long, ball peen hammer that I never really used as a hammer. It was a sort of rudimentary gadget. The hammer head and about two inches of the handle were all one piece, but the rest of the handle was a set of nested screwdrivers with brass handles. It was threaded and the brass part fit up into the hammer head part and you screwed them together to form a hammer and handle. Inside it were other smaller screwdrivers that did the same, getting smaller with each step, until the last one was only about an inch long. Now I had a use for the hammer part and I started right away. It still wasn't easy, but I did discover I had more control. By the end of the day I had made my first knife, sort of. It was actually just an oval that was fairly dull on one side and very sharp on the other. I guess it was really more of a scraper. I was proud of it though and used it on the next fish to scrape the scales off after gutting it. Hell, it actually seemed to work better for this than my Case Shark's Tooth folding sheath knife. After ten more days of breaking rocks I was tired of it. It had been a hell of a lot of trial and error, but I had managed to make six pretty good arrow points and three passable spear tips. I knew I couldn't stop here but it was a good start and I had to take a break from this shit. I spent another day rigging up and loading a travois so I could carry some flint back to my original camp with me. There was nothing there I really needed badly, except the cooking stone that I hadn't found a decent replacement for. I don't know what it was, but no matter how carefully I built the fire or how slowly I heated up a candidate they always burst before I even got any fish on them. Fuckit, I knew for sure where a good one was and I was going back for it. I cut two poles and wound a lot of my nylon twine around them, then wove four grass mats to lay over the twine. At least by now I'd learned what parts of the flint I found were useless and I had about two hundred and fifty pounds of cleaned up flint to take with me. It would be enough to keep me going for a while and I wanted some fried fish again. Besides, the area I'd been working in was now littered with thousands of scattered pieces of flint that were sharp as razors. If I needed to move anyway I might as well move back to my skillet. Surprise, it was fish on a stick for breakfast again the next morning. It still didn't taste all that good but I ate as much as I could hold anyway. Picking up the travois was the next step and then a dragging I went. When I started up the hill that the stream had cut the gorge through I was reminded of why I'd cursed it so soundly the other times I'd climbed it. It was an even colder bitch with the load I was dragging. The bad part was, going downhill with a travois isn't a hell of a lot better than going uphill. The ends of the poles dragging the ground kept you from getting any help from gravity on the way down. My whole trip was less than seven miles, probably closer to five, but it was a hard drag the whole way, and my poor hands were blistered by the time I found my skillet rock again. I was so fucking tired I didn't even try to catch any supper. I rested until about an hour before sunset and then built a campfire, but no cooking fire, and lay down to sleep. I'd done a hell of a lot of walking since I got here and you'd have thought I wouldn't be sore from the relatively short trek with the travois. I didn't think I would, but when the sunlight woke me I was in pain. Apparently you use a lot more muscles dragging a travois than you do just walking. Fishing for breakfast was first and I was glad I got a nice big catfish right off the bat. After cooking and eating it I thought about unloading my travois which I'd merely dropped when I got here. I decided it'd be another day, or two, before I started any of that. Mostly I sat or lay on my ass all day long, only taking a break to catch lunch and later to catch supper. It was a good fight maw, but I'm pretty sure I lost. The next morning was more of the same for my poor muscles but at least I could tell I was going to live over it. I had a small bottle of aspirin but didn't use any. It was going to have to last a long time and no doubt I'd have worse pain later on, so I did without for now. After a perch for breakfast I took a good look at the stream and wondered why I hadn't thought of soaking my aching ass in it yesterday. For one thing a bath wouldn't hurt me any, and for the other even cold water would help the aches and pains. While I was in the water I rinsed out my clothes too. One thing I'd never carried in my tool bag was soap and I berated myself for not planning ahead for this little trip, as if I could have. Try as I might I couldn't think of one reason I should have been carrying a bar of soap. The next morning I felt much better. After my fishy breakfast I soaked again for an hour or so and then got out and put my clothes back on after I air dried my self. I didn't put my socks or boots back on though. I hadn't been using my head about my boots and they were sadly in need of a little time to dry out. I hadn't done any wading to speak of but even though I'd rinsed my feet and socks several times I hadn't given my boots the extra time they'd need to get good and dry inside and that would end up with a foot fungus for me sooner or later if I kept it up. No doubt about it, I was going to have to kill something with enough skin to make a pair of moccasins, and soon. That thought got me going on my next project. I cut and cleaned saplings and then made spears for the three points I'd already knapped. No, it wasn't any fun and it wasn't easy. I had to notch the big ends to make room for the points and I had to do it carefully for each individual point so the fit would be tight but wouldn't induce splitting. I used more of my twine to lash the points in place for the last step but that only made me realize I needed some rawhide for that part. I could put it on after soaking it and when it dried it would hold things together more tightly. The spears were just one step up from the absolute most rudimentary sharpened stick. Yes, they were a big improvement, but no, I couldn't stop there. I had to make a bow and some arrows. I'd realized it from the time I'd finally decided there would never be any kind of rescue for me, still I'd put it off. I knew a good bit about bows and arrows, but most of my experience was with a compound bow and carbon fiber arrows. I knew enough about a longbow to know it would be a long tedious job to make a decent one and to make serviceable arrows. Though they look simple, and I guess they are, usable arrows are not simple to make when starting with nothing. I had to find small saplings of a usable size, clean off the bark and under layer and then let them dry while trying to make sure they did it and stayed straight. I'd made six arrow points already but I didn't have any feathers to use for fletching and I didn't have any fucking glue to stick the feathers to the arrows. And that's another thing, I didn't have a damned bowstring either. The nylon twine might work after a fashion but it wouldn't be the best solution. By a couple of hours before sunset I had made a little progress, I had three saplings cut, stripped, and drying for candidates as bows. Four days later I had a stroke of excellent fortune. I decided to try out one of my new spears if I could get close enough to something to try it out on. I'd checked the route to the small spot where lots of animals came to drink the night before and got up well before false dawn to make my way down toward it the next morning, so I could climb a nearby tree and wait for a suspect. Slightly after dawn a big buck came by for a sip. It was easy to see he could smell me, but I was up a tree and being as still as possible. He finally dropped his head for a drink. The spear hit him on an angle I estimated would send it into his heart. It didn't knock him over, but it was easy to tell he was wounded much worse than the one I'd tried for before with the simple pointed stick. To be on the safe side I let him have another one as fast as I could. This time it dropped him and though he tried once to get up he didn't make it. I was out of the tree and slitting his throat before he was fully dead. His carcass was like a bonanza. I'd killed a lot of deer while hunting in Texas, but this was the most exciting kill I'd ever made. I calmed down after a few minutes and took my time to remove the spears. I was lucky neither point had been broken. Carrying him back near my camp was a bitch, especially since I didn't want to drag him in fear that it would fuck up some of his hide and I also had the three spears to carry. I made it though and was actually happy he felt so heavy. Gutting and skinning him was a chore, not only because I didn't think the twine would hold him up from a tree limb, no matter what the label had said about its strength, but also because I intended to save every part of him that might ever come in handy, like his stomach and his intestines. I even planned to use his hooves to try making glue. If there was ever a crappy job, cleaning the shit out of a deer's intestines is it, and that wasn't even the worst part. I'd got this deer a little before my preparations for his preservation were complete. I knew I needed a couple of racks to put over small fires to dry the meat and I hadn't built them yet. It was a damned good thing I'd started before sunrise because it took me all fucking day to do everything I needed to, and that was only the stuff that couldn't wait until tomorrow. I even stayed up most of the night making sure I had enough fires burning to keep scavengers and prowling animals from my drying meat. At least I was well fed, since I'd cooked the heart, the liver, and both kidneys on my handy skillet rock. The next day was more hard work, including making a frame to put the skin on for scraping, but I was happy while I worked. I was even planning to use some of his antlers as makeshift points for other spears. I figured I couldn't have too many. Killing that first deer here had really done a number for my confidence that I could make a go of it, no matter what. I got back to my chores with a will after the meat was dried and hidden in a rock cache I built for it. Ten days or so later my bow and arrows were getting near ready. I'd also spent a whole day building a string jig, unwinding plenty of the triple strand nylon twine and making it into a bowstring with the help of the jig. It was a big pain in the ass, but I knew it would work much better than the twine. I'd even spent half a day looking for and finding some feathers. Now my problem was finding a way to boil the deer hooves and coming up with glue to attach the fletching. No matter how much I wiggled and squirmed around in my head I couldn't think of a way to boil the hooves down into glue. I knew it could be done somehow, though I wasn't sure that just boiling them would get the job done. That didn't matter because I didn't have one fucking thing to boil them in. My skillet was the only rock that I'd found so far that could take the heat of a fire and it wasn't shaped to hold water. For a few seconds I thought about trying to shape it somehow with my hammer or something, but I decided it was too valuable to me just the way it was to take any chances. Finally it came to me that I had twice walked past millions of tons of limestone. I wasn't sure it would take the heat either but I figured trying to make a sort of bowl out of it was worth the effort, so I packed up a little of my dried venison and headed back down that way, spear in hand. ------- Chapter 4 As I walked toward the big limestone hill I started marveling over the work that must have gone into bows and arrows in the first place. I knew exactly how they worked to start with and it was still turning out to be a pain in the butt to get a setup together. How hard must it have been to figure out in the first place? Especially when sharpened rocks were all you had to work with and you even had to make them sharp yourself. I didn't want to think about that now though. I didn't even have to go to the top of the hill to find something that would work. There were several chunks of limestone lying around before I even started up, and it made me wonder what in the hell could have done that. Shit, I didn't have any idea how it happened and it didn't matter to me. I found a piece I thought was about the right size and started applying my hammer to it, gently at first. It was pretty easy to hollow out a bowl shape in it and then even easier to pound the roughest edges off the outside. I was headed back to my camp with it by a couple of hours after noon. Tomorrow I would try boiling the hooves. After breakfast of some dried venison the next morning I got started on the great limestone bowl experiment. I already had a few hours work into this thing and I didn't want to fuck it up and have it explode like the other rocks had. I decided to just set it on my skillet and let the heat come up that way. I filled the bowl with water from the stream and then set it on the skillet rock, building a fire all around the skillet as normal. Then I waited and got an exact demonstration of what it was like to watch water boil. Before we got to the boiling point though, I realized I had a problem on my hands. The water I'd put in the bowl was evaporating at an alarming rate. I was afraid it would all be gone before the bowl got hot enough to make it boil. No, of course I didn't have anything to go get more water in. Even if I had a way to take the bowl back to the stream for refilling without burning hell out of my hands it would defeat the whole purpose - if it didn't destroy the bowl from the rapid cooling. Finally I went to the stream, got a mouthful of water, came back to the bowl and spit it in. I ended up doing this twenty-five times during the two hours until the boiling started. I had to do it ten more time while it was boiling because it didn't look like anything was happening to the hooves. Finally I gave up and let the fire go out. Damned if I hadn't been fooled the whole time. When the bowl was cool I looked in it and the hooves were gone, replaced by sticky wet goo. I set the bowl aside and cooked a fish I caught just for the occasion, and I went to sleep that night with another feeling of accomplishment. The glue debacle had taken me so long, especially thinking up, finding materials for, and making a bowl - that the rest of the arrows were already done. I now had twelve arrows with my handmade points attached and waiting only for the fletching to commence. By now I had the feathers cut up into the correct size and shape and I was ready to fletch. I ate some venison, started a small fire to warm the glue back up, and got with it. I'll be damned if it didn't work. When they were finished I set them aside to let the glue dry and I went back to my flint knapping. Currently I was trying to make a decent blade to build a knife with a handle made of part of the deer's antlers. Being especially cautious for once in my life, I gave the glue two days to set, or dry, or whatever. I mostly knapped flint the first day but wised up and made an arrow backstop out of grass I cut and gathered off the plain the next day. I had practicing to do and I didn't want to fuck up my new arrows doing it, even though I figured I probably would damage them at least a little. The bow surprised me since it was much more powerful than I'd expected. My first try at the target, from only twenty feet, went straight through the backstop and about ten feet passed it on the other side. Luckily the arrow was no worse for wear and I'd actually hit pretty near the black spot I'd made in the middle of the backstop with a cooled coal from the fire. What the hell, I backed up ten feet and tried again. I ended up practicing about four hours and still hadn't harmed an arrow. I spent the rest of the day trying to carve myself a bowl out of a piece of wood I'd scavenged from a big deadfall. The next day my arm wasn't sore like I'd expected it to be so I spent about six hours on and off practicing with the bow. My only casualties were the feathers of the fletching. They were pretty ragged by the end of the day, so before I ran out of daylight I warmed the glue back up and refletched the shafts. After eating the next morning I decided I was good enough with the bow for now and I was practiced out anyway. It was time for me to go kill something. It was a decision that would change my whole attitude about living here. I already knew I could get a deer practically at will now, but deer didn't have what I really thought I'd need before very long. I couldn't explain exactly how I knew it, but in my estimation the hottest part of summer was already over and fall would be approaching soon. If I was correct the hottest part of summer hadn't been all that hot at all and I figured fall and winter might just be very cold to make up for it. I needed a couple of the bison skins to use for sleeping furs and as the main material for making a heavy coat. Of course this was all just my attempt to justify hunting a bison. The main thing was I wanted to kill one for the hell of it and I knew it wouldn't be wasted. My little bison hunting song and dance wasn't what changed my world as I knew it. When I stepped slowly out of the woods onto the edge of the plain I saw five men probably five hundred yards from me and they were chasing a bison in shifts. They'd cut it out of the herd somehow and they were keeping it from joining again and running it into the ground while they were at it. While I watched, one of them chased it for about five minutes and then another one took over for him and did about ten minutes. Two more men took a turn before the bison was so winded it couldn't keep up the game any longer. They all approached it after that and put an end to it with their spears. No sooner was the bison down with its throat cut than seven women came out of the woods and started the gutting and skinning. The men backed off and turned around facing away from their kill. They seemed to be standing watch so that nothing could approach and pester the women who were at work. It was pretty likely these were fine examples of Cro-Magnon man, and woman, as it were. Obviously they were dressed in skins. The men wore what looked for all the world like a leather diaper. It was rather loose and though I couldn't see clearly from this far away, it appeared to have a drawstring around the waist to keep it up. The women wore the same for bottoms but had a sort of sleeveless tunic on top. They hadn't spotted me yet. No matter. The bison herd didn't seem horribly distressed and there happened to be a mother with a fairly large calf following her about two hundred yards from me. I didn't need and probably couldn't manage an adult, but the calf looked to be no more than about three hundred pounds and I was sure I could deal with it. Another thing in my favor was taking the calf would put me even farther from the other hunters. I started walking slowly toward my intended targets and even after I was within a hundred yards they didn't seem distressed about things. I assumed they were somehow accustomed to men chasing them around from time to time and they seemed to know the game wasn't on yet since I wasn't running. This was just conjecturing on my part of course, but it seemed to fit the situation and it was more explanation than I really needed. Damned if I didn't manage to walk up within fifty yards of them before the mother even started obviously eyeing me. Not wanting to push my luck I knocked an arrow and let go. The calf's broad side had been toward me and the arrow went home perfectly to my way of thinking. It must have slipped between ribs too, because it sank all the way to the fletching. I couldn't have asked for a better shot. The calf gave a sort of bellow, though it was rather a high sounding one, and it turned its head as if to see what had happened. By now blood was pouring from its nostrils and I knew it would be dead shortly. When it fell to the ground its mother seemed alarmed for a second and then walked over, nudging it with her snout. When it didn't move or respond in any way for a few minutes she just walked off, fairly rapidly, and as she came among others they moved off from the vicinity too. After they'd gone I went toward the dead calf. If I'd been thinking more clearly I'd have brought my travois along so I could haul the thing back whole. I hadn't though. I'd been ready to try my luck and now I was here with three hundred pounds of bison to move. Killing it had seemed so easy and the skinning and cleaning job looked like such a grind that I was about to turn to the others and see if I could make them understand they could have it. I could bring my travois back later and kill another one. Just as I turned to try getting their attention I saw the shortest one of the bunch, maybe five-eight was my guess, running flat out toward me and he had his spear up like he was going to cast it. When he saw I was paying attention to him he started yelling something at me. Of course I couldn't understand, but I could tell from the tone it was meant to scare me off. He was still two hundred yards from me, but coming fast. I didn't want any damned battle out here over a bison that I'd been going to give them anyway, but I wasn't going to let him take it from me on general principles. I knocked an arrow, but I don't think he understood what that meant. When he came within fifty yards I drew the bow and it still didn't deter him. Ten yards closer and I took a shot at his chest and knocked another arrow before looking to see if I'd hit him. I decided at the last I'd let him get too close in the first place. When I looked back to try one more shot I knew I needn't worry about him. He must be down because I couldn't see him. I headed toward the last place he'd been standing but kept the bow drawn for an instant shot in case he was trying to trick me. As soon as I found him I could tell that his tricking days were over, along with all his other days. It had been a perfect center of mass shot and must have slipped in just under the end of his sternum. I felt for a pulse in his neck anyway and there wasn't one. I looked up and saw the other four men were headed my way now, but they weren't running and yelling and none of them had their spears in what I'd call a threatening position. I didn't take my eyes off them though and as they got nearer, the one I assumed was the leader switched his spear to his left hand and held his right palm up facing me. I did the same with my bow and my right palm and they slowed down and walked the rest of the way to me. They looked the dead one over carefully when they first reached us, and then the leader picked up the spear dead guy had been carrying and handed it to me, giving me a little short speech as he did it. I told him "Thank you very much and I don't mind if I do get a good spear out of the deal," realizing that we were not going to be speaking the same language for quite a while yet and that if we ever did we'd be speaking his language. At least from my remarks he knew at once we didn't understand each other, except for the palm forward trick. I couldn't get the slightest hint they thought I'd done anything wrong and I assumed dead guy had been trying to take away my kill and they figured he got what he deserved. The one I thought of as the leader was trying to explain something else to me after that and since he could tell it wasn't going so well, he turned back toward where the women were working and pointed toward one of the females that seemed to have a pack on her back now and was walking toward us. "Malta," he said, and at least I could understand it must be her name. I pointed to myself then and said, "Chuck." He returned the favor by pointing to himself and saying, "Charto." After that Donalt, Cabba, and Gorso introduced themselves one at a time and I told them each in turn that I was still Chuck. This seemed to be the end of the formalities. When Malta reached us, Charto told me her name again and so I told her I was Chuck. She smiled shyly and came over to stand beside and slightly behind me. I was beginning to wonder what the hell was happening and then the other four took off and I thought I had it figured out. I could asks more questions later after I'd learned more of their language, from Malta no doubt. I was pretty sure she must have been dead guy's mate or woman or something. Funny though, no one had mentioned his name at all. What the hell, I pulled my arrow out of his chest and was happy to see it appeared to be unharmed. With his spear in one hand and my bow in the other I nodded toward the bison calf and Malta started toward it. I decided it would be senseless to try fucking with it right now. We could be back with the travois in ten minutes or less and if something came and claimed it in that time I'd either kill them or let it go. I was pretty sure the others weren't about to fuck with it at all now, and I didn't see any wolves, jackals, or hyenas around anywhere. "Malta. Come," I said, turning toward my camp and motioning for her to come too. She didn't tarry, no matter that she looked confused. She came right along with me to camp and we were headed back, with me pulling the travois, in only a few minutes. Since it was rolled up and she gave it a curious look I guessed she didn't have any idea what it might be. We were back at the calf in only minutes and Malta was flabbergasted when I unrolled the travois and wrestled the calf onto it. She was even more surprised when I handed her my bow, picked up the poles and headed right back toward camp. She did follow right along though. I might not know their ways, but I knew she expected to process the young bison. Hell, I was going to let her, mostly at least. I unloaded the carcass about fifty feet from camp and took the travois on in by where I slept while she commenced cutting. Meanwhile I built a fire around my skillet and got ready to cook some buffalo steaks. When the fire was going good I went back to Malta and it was my turn to be amazed. She'd taken some type of skin out of her backpack and she already had the heart, liver, and kidneys lying on it and she was busily squashing shit out of the large intestines by hand. Once she was done to suit herself with that task she took the stomach, large intestines and small ones down to the stream and began washing them out. The best part was she'd removed her short pants and her tunic before getting into the water. She didn't seem like she expected me to help with this so I just watched while she did it. Malta was probably five six and I'd guess her weight at about a hundred pounds. Her deep auburn hair nearly reached her shoulders and she had it tied behind her head in a sort of pony tail with what appeared to be a rawhide thong. Her breasts weren't massive but they were damned sure a lot more than a handful and they jiggled happily on her body as she worked. Her ass was full and firm and overall she was just spectacular. It was easy to tell work kept her in great shape and constant walking or running was no doubt the main reason for her shapely legs. I was ready to kiss whatever sent me here right on the mouth. She was easily one of the most attractive and beautifully made woman I'd ever seen in person, except for Reanna, and damned if Malta didn't seem to be mine now. I could live with that. Especially since I didn't have a hope in hell of ever seeing Reanna again. She'd finished while I was ogling her goodies and when I noticed her looking at me looking at her she smiled shyly again and seemed to blush just a little. I was quick to help her out with the washed parts and I put them on the hide with the other parts while she put her clothes back on. Skinning was next on the agenda and though I'd intended to help her she let me know it was either her job or she thought I'd just get in the way. I was going to offer her my Shark's Tooth sheath knife but she was using the flint one she had so deftly that I didn't bother. After the calf was skinned Malta began cutting up the meat. She was thrilled when I let her use the machete. She was a little clumsy with it at first, but her no doubt extensive experience cutting up carcasses came to the fore after the first few tries and I could tell she loved the thing. She was surprised again when I took a rear quarter and cut a couple of steaks off it. She watched as I placed them on my skillet and let them start cooking. I was sure she'd never cooked that way before and she damned sure had never seen a man cooking a meal. If men cooked at all it was probably when they were away from the women for some reason. When the steaks were done I got Malta to take a break to eat, even though she didn't seem to want to. It was easy to see she liked the taste of the fried steaks and that she had never eaten meat this way before. I could also tell she wondered if there wasn't something else to go with it, but she didn't even try to ask. I knew I didn't know a single thing about what kind of vegetables might be available and I was going to help her any way I could with gathering anything she thought was edible. After we'd eaten she went directly back to work. She looked relieved when I erected the two racks I had to smoke drying meat, but when she noticed two was the extent of it she looked a little pensive. I decided to cure that by making some more right away. I took my handy dandy PVC pipe cutters and walked off a little to cut some saplings. After cutting the forth sapling I noticed Malta was right beside me, staring dumbfounded at what I was doing. I made a point to make sure she could see clearly when I cut the next one. That still didn't mean she could understand what she was seeing. I took time to show her the device and then cranked it through its cycle so she could see the blade moving without a sapling in the way. I knew she still couldn't understand how it was doing what it was doing, but she gave up and went back to work. By the time sunset was near, Malta had everything done to the calf that could be done. All the meat was spread out over the six drying racks and there was a fire under each and six other fires spread out around us to keep sneaky animals away. Everything we weren't going to eat or use otherwise was thrown into the stream and she even scraped loose dirt over the blood on the ground and built one of the fires over that spot. She had been amazed again when I flicked my bic to start all the fires. It was clear she expected to cook something for supper now, but I was feeling bad about all the work she'd done already. I'd cut off two more steaks before the rest went on the drying rack and when I motioned cooking them the same way and raised my eyebrows in question she smiled, so I threw them on the skillet. Malta had a little surprise of her own then. She dug around in her backpack and came out with what must be some type of traveling food. She erected a small skin bag type of cooking thing over what I thought of as the main campfire I usually kept going at night, put in some things out of her pack and then took a wooden cup over to the stream for water. It took four trips to bring enough water to suit her but after that the vegetable stew, or whatever, was put in place over the fire and we seemed to be set. The stew was ready before the steaks since that fire was hotter and Malta used the cup to dip it into two wooden bowls she also brought out of the pack. She then rinsed the bag out in the stream and brought it back with more water in it. She added a few more things and left it alone while we ate what we had ready. After the meal Malta cleaned up everything in the stream and then took the bag arrangement off the fire after she packed almost everything back up. She produced another wooden cup then and dipped us both a cup of something out of the bag. It was some type of tea and I liked it. I'd probably have liked anything to drink that wasn't plain water by now, but the tea was tasty and it left a nice taste in my mouth afterward. Malta's stock went way up in my opinion again when she untied the roll of sleeping furs from her backpack and started spreading them. As soon as she was done she shucked her top and bottoms again and watched me while I shucked mine. She was watching when my dick came into view and she smiled when she saw it was hard. She went to her hands and knees on the furs and started waggling her beautiful ass at me. If that wasn't an invitation I'd never seen one. I was on my knees behind her in seconds and when I put a hand to her pussy to see if there was any chance she was wet yet I found out that Malta knew all about being ready - she was practically dripping. This position didn't allow for much in the way of foreplay and I got a notion it wasn't a big part of their sexual habits. When I placed my dickhead and shoved it in slowly the fuck was on. Malta might not have expected any foreplay, but she knew all about fucking back, even in this doggy position. Her hips were slamming her pussy back at me after the first penetration and her inside were warm and wonderfully active. I knew there was no way I could hold out long enough to get her off, but when I gave her a reach around I found her hand was already down there and she was diddling her own clit. I bent my back a little more and reached both hands up to play with those titties. Titty manipulation must have been something she wasn't used to, but the surprise didn't seem to bother her in the least and even though her nipples had been firm to start with they seemed to stiffen up even more as I caressed and twisted them. My new trick must have helped out because she howled a little as my come started pumping and she was wiggling and shaking to beat the band. After she calmed down, a few seconds later, d she just collapsed onto the furs. It caught me by surprise and I went with her whether I wanted to or not. She didn't make any complaints, but I rolled off and then rolled her over to face me, kissing her lips. This was obviously new to her too, but she did her best to catch on and after my tongue spent a little time in her mouth hers followed it back into mine and we swapped a little spit. It wasn't cold out but it was cool. After Malta had her breath back she reached down and pulled the other fur over us. I put my arm around under her neck and pulled her closer. This seemed to surprise her for a second, but she snuggled up right beside me soon enough. Like any man I've ever heard of, I was asleep seconds after that. ------- Chapter 5 Malta turned out to be a lively little alarm clock. Just as false dawn started she was out of the furs and scampering out away from camp a little to squat and pee. She was back and putting on her clothes in a few minutes. She didn't try to urge me out of bed, but when she started tending the fires I got up to help. After all the fires were going good again, Malta made more of the tea, as she handed me a cup she pointed to my skillet and said something which she knew I couldn't understand, but I also knew it was a question. We hadn't started a fire around the skillet when we mended the others so I went over and picked it up. It was the first time I had since I'd started using it. It was heavier than I remembered it being. That wasn't a shock because at the time I put it in place I hadn't been all that familiar with what rocks weighed. Now though, I felt I was an expert on the weights of rocks. This one was too damned heavy to be a rock. I set it down on another nearby rock, took out my Plumb hammer and gave it a small whack. It returned the unmistakable sort of ring that metal makes when you do that. No wonder the heat didn't bother it. Meanwhile Malta was amazed at the rock and also at the hammer I'd used on it. It seemed like she decided the hammer was another of my incomprehensible gadgets like the PVC cutter after a few seconds, but she was still curious about the skillet. By now she wasn't the only one. The skillet was nearly ten inches in diameter and roughly circular. It was also pretty smooth all over as if it had spent thousands of years in a streambed being constantly smoothed by silty water flowing over it. That didn't make a bit of sense to me. If it had ever been in a streambed, how in the hell could it have gotten out? I knew it had possibly been here for thousands or even tens of thousands of years but I'd never heard of gravity being turned off ever and it was one of the densest things I'd found here. Hell, it was the densest. It was only a little over an inch thick and I know it weighed more than twenty pounds. I just shrugged my shoulders at Malta who was still waiting for an answer. She seemed to understand the gesture perfectly. She made one of her own then toward the skillet and after a little hand waving and speaking slowly to each other, as if it would help, I came to understand her phrase for where did you get it and she came to understand "What?" I didn't remember exactly where the thing had been when I found it but I knew the approximate location and I showed her, somehow making her understand it was somewhere 'round here. She started searching the ground at once and damned if she didn't find the exact place because there was still an indentation in the ground just the size of the skillet. Frankly, I wondered what the big deal with finding the exact spot was but that curiosity was gone shortly when I became curious about what Malta was doing now. It looked for all the world like she was searching carefully for more of the skillets and she was using a spiraling outward search pattern from the spot she'd found. We exchanged words and hand motions neither of us could understand for a few more minutes, at my instigation, and she finally made me understand that I'd been right; she was looking for more skillets. I didn't have much faith in her chances, but I didn't bother her. Instead I did what most good old boys will do when left to their own devices and there's no NASCAR race on the TV. I went fishing. The effect wasn't quite the same though because I didn't have a forty mile-per-hour capable Bass Boat and I didn't have a cooler full of beer. Another less fulfilling aspect was that I actually needed the fish, so it didn't really feel like proper fucking off time. I'd just caught the first fish, and damned if it wasn't about a three-pound large mouth bass. Looking at it I realized all along I had been neglecting an important piece of fishing equipment. I needed a stringer. Hell, I threw the fish back and commenced construction right away. I hadn't really needed a stringer while I was by myself. Heretofore, when I caught a fish, I cleaned it, cooked it, and ate it. Unless I missed my guess, I could now catch a mess of fish and rely on Malta to look at me with admiration as the, so to speak, bread winner. After that I was hopeful she would take the fish from me, clean them, and turn them into a meal. It was worth a shot anyway. I used a burning twig, lit from one of the drying fires, to cut and glob the ends of three approximately eight foot lengths of the nylon twine. After three-plaiting them together I tied a loop in one end with a bowline knot and tied the other end around a sixteen penny nail that I found in the bottom of the tool bag - the bottom of the bag being the catch all section. Technically the catchall portion of a tool bag is equivalent to the household junk drawer but of course it is much smaller. The organization methods of the two are similar though, randomly in and randomly out. Armed with my makeshift fish stringer I went back to the manly art of procuring food. It must have been a sign from heaven and I was humbled by it when I caught the same damned bass again right off the bat. I'm sure he was disappointed when he found himself on the stringer this time as I lowered him back into the water. I got two more bass and a five pounds or better catfish and called myself through for the day. Malta was shocked out of her search when I found her and showed her the fish. She wasn't even nearly as gob smacked as I was though. Malta had found four more pieces of the strange type of metal rock. She had covered a lot of ground to do it but still it was amazing to me. She marked her point of progress by scratching an X in the ground where she was, picked up her finds, and headed back toward the center of our camp. When we arrived she put her treasure in a pile and took the fish from me, then she was flummoxed again. She didn't know how to untie the knot I'd made in the stringer and she was also surprised by the nail. Another incomprehensible exchange of words and hand signals resolved the issue with me untying the stringer and releasing the fish. She took them back to the stream promptly and did a number on them with one of those sharp flint pieces she seemed to have plenty of. Meanwhile, I put the skillet back into its place of honor and built another fire around it. Malta didn't know the first thing about catfish steaks and so she cut it up like the others, being careful to remove the meat and leave the bones. Hell, I didn't mind a bit cause I liked filets too. She let me fry the catfish when I indicated I wanted to and she put the rest in the big skin bag cooker she had, added water and put the thing over the main campfire and built a fire to suit herself. She saved her magic for last when she added something that looked like the ever-popular herbs and spices to her brew. Then we cooked in silence, mostly. The wooden bowls she had came in handy again when it was time to eat the fish stew she'd made. She even had a sort of wooden plate to put my catfish on. We drank water with this meal since there was still a lot of stew in the bag and she couldn't make tea again. No matter, I considered this one of the best meals I'd had here and couldn't quite decide if I liked my bison steaks better than her fish stew or not. After I helped Malta clean up from the meal, whether she wanted me to or not, she went back to her search and I sat on my ass on a handy rock. No, it wasn't all that comfortable. I had visions of making a real chair in my head and mostly daydreamed the afternoon away while Malta searched for more of the magic rocks. It got me started wondering about our metal rocks. Obviously Malta had some idea about them and about other uses they might have. I still couldn't fathom how they came to be and more importantly, how they came to be here instead of at the bottom of some stream or deeper in the earth. I knew I wasn't all that familiar with the natural processes of the earth, if this was earth, but I still couldn't fathom how these metal rocks could just be lying around on the surface. Shit like that just didn't happen in Texas, and even though I knew I wasn't in Texas any longer it was still the only reference point I had to work from. We had more stew near sunset and we mended all the fires that were warding off sneak thieves from our drying meat. When it came time for crawling in the furs again Malta seemed practically delighted when she saw that her little strip-show had once again roused the raging monster I fondly thought of as my dick. Hell, she seemed happier about it than I was. She promptly hit her hands and knees on the furs and started waving her delightful ass at me. Who was I to complain? Dog style was one of my favorite positions, but it always reminded me of that old joke at first. You know the one - the Rodeo Fuck - where you mount your woman dogstyle, grab hold of both titties, and whisper "Your sister's better" into her ear and try to hold on for eight seconds. I didn't know if Malta even had a sister and didn't even know the word for sister if she did have one, besides, I wanted to get up close and personal with those titties. I got on the furs beside her and gently pulled her out of doggie position and onto her back. She gave me the strangest look until I moved over and sucked one of her fat nipples into my mouth. She started trying to tell me something, but I didn't have any idea what it was and I was too busy to play talk nonsense and wave hands around at that moment. After making sure both her nipples were as plump and firm as they'd get I started kissing my way up around her neck and then detoured to make sure I nibbled both earlobes. Malta wasn't trying to tell me anything now, but she was making sounds. Mostly sighs, and I was pretty sure they were encouragement. When I kissed her lips and started tongue tag with her again I was sure. Even if her active tongue hadn't clued me in, the way her hips were squirming was a dead giveaway. When I left off kissing around her face and neck and started nibbling my way down between her breasts Malta stiffened for a second and then commenced babbling again. She shivered when I kissed and nipped on the flesh around her navel and when I swabbed it out with my tongue. When I moved my kissing twatward after that she began trembling slightly, all over. She didn't have any doubts where I was headed when my lips and tongue entered her surprisingly tidy bush. She knew exactly what was coming next and she gasped, loudly sucking in a lungful of air and then her legs practically flew apart. Hell, I could see an open armed invitation as easily as the next guy so I put my mouth to the pussylips to do my job like a man. The surprise was mine when I tasted her twat. Despite the no doubt rudimentary means available to her, Malta's pussy was scrupulously clean and her taste was delightful. I couldn't smell even a hint of urine and it didn't hurt my feelings a bit. I gave her lips and tunnel as good an inspection as my tongue could provide and then I teased her button with its tip as I slipped first one finger and then two up her to pump for pussy juice. She was making plenty and by now her sighs had turned to low moans and her hips were pumping in time with my fingers. She went off sooner than I expected again, but I didn't give up the ghost just yet. I sucked, licked, and even nibbled a little all around her pussy, but made sure not to bother her little clitty any more incase it was too sensitive for such. Many women do not want you anywhere near the magic button for quite a while after they've gotten their cookies. I didn't want to take any chances this time. After Malta settled down a little and had her breathing under her own control again I moved up to lay beside her, kissing her lips and around over her face again. She looked into my face and her expression seemed almost like adoration. That couldn't hurt. We spent a few minutes with kissing and gentle caresses and then I tentatively moved my hand toward the main attraction again. Her breathing picked up as I diddled between her love lips and sucked first one nipple and then the next. She was plenty wet enough again for a dick injection and her hips were squirming slightly once more, so I moved myself between her thighs. It seemed to confuse her at first but I guess she figured out the deal because she spread wide again like she had when I was sucking on her pussy. She hadn't caught on enough to guide me to the sweet spot but hell, I knew how. I placed my dickhead and pushed gently and then I could tell realization hit completely home for her. Apparently no missionaries had been by to teach them this position. Malta proved to be an enthusiastic student though and we were making the beast with two back promptly, and doing a damned good job of it too if I say so myself. I was sure Malta was right with me when I got to the short rows and she proved it a second later by wrapping her strong legs around my pumping ass and giving as good as she was getting. I'm not sure exactly who pounded whom to glory but it didn't make any difference because we both arrived at the same time. I hate to admit it, but like a typical man I was short on post coital cuddling after that one, and all I could do was hope I wouldn't snore too loudly. A man can just tell when he's been a hit in the furs the night before by the way his woman treats him first thing the next morning. I was lying flat on my back when I opened my eyes and Malta was half over me with her head on my chest and her eyes looking right into mine. I could tell she'd been away for a while but she hadn't tried to wake me. I pulled her to me and gave her a good kissing, taking the opportunity to use the arm I had around her to put its hand on her delightful ass and give it a minor fondling. She giggled at me after a few seconds and then got up to show me what I'd been into last night. She was a vision in the morning sun too. I walked away from camp to bleed my lizard when she scampered off for the same type of task. We polished off the fish stew for breakfast and Malta was quick to rinse out the skin bag and brew some tea. I was happy to get another cup and decided I'd be trying my best to make another bag that would do the same job so we could have tea and stew at the same meal. Malta chided me for helping her clean up again this morning, but I could tell she was at least partially pleased no matter what she was babbling. Afterwards I halfway expected her to resume her search for metal rocks but she didn't. She began checking on the drying meat and if she found any piece that she thought was completely dry she took it off the rack and placed it in the stone cache I'd made earlier. She pointed out a problem to me before she finished checking even half the bison meat. The cache was nearly full already. There was no doubt in my mind she was trying to break it to me gently, but it appeared cache making might fall into the man's work portion of her understanding of their civilization. I didn't try to get out of it, I just started finding stones and bringing them in. I'd bow to her experience and let her show me how big and how sturdy she wanted it. When I motioned she didn't seem put out at all to give directions. She marked off a square on the ground and it was about four feet by four feet. I was about to start piling stones around it but she stopped me and let me know I should cover the floor with mud from the bottom of the stream. Since she showed me by getting naked and getting in the water to dig up the first few handfuls I didn't mind at all. She even had a sort of utility skin to help me carry more mud at a time. It was easy to see the skin had taken some hard use over time and it was likely to get more of the same, soon. Malta helped/showed me how she wanted this part done. We covered the area she had marked off completely with a thick coat of the mud and we colored beyond the lines by about eight to ten inches. She then showed me how the rocks and mud worked together by starting a wall along one edge and making sure to squash the first stone down firmly into the mud. She left the rest to me for a while, but I saw her sneaking peeks to see if I would use the mud for a sort of mortar between the rocks. Of course I did. I'd already figured out the mud would keep insects out if I applied it liberally. I worked for several hours on the four walls and Malta made sure I used plenty of mud and that I made the walls thick enough to suit her. She surprised me when she stopped the height at around thirty inches. When she showed me she intended to use a skin stretched on a more than normally sturdy frame for the top I understood about the height. The top would be removable for access. After that she showed me I needed to add on to the front and side walls to allow for the skin to have a nice pitch to turn water, and later she helped me mould the mud so that the skin would lay close to the top all the way around. When it was basically done and needing only time to dry, Malta built a small fire inside it and then made me understand she need more stones, many more stones. I didn't understand what she needed them for, but I got right on it since she was making something for lunch. Two days later, about two hours before sunset, we had all the meat in our new cache and Malta had me help her pile all the extra rocks around and on it. We didn't put so many on the skin top to make it sag badly but we did cover it and then Malta disassembled the drying racks, laid the cut up sapling over the slanted top and had me help her pile on more stones. The damned thing was well and truly covered with rocks before we got through. To me it seemed it would be a large pain in the ass to access the food inside but what the hell did I know? Slowly but surely I'd begun to understand some of the things Malta said. Not many, but by now I had a pretty firm grip on come, go, lift, spread, fire, cook, and stew. What more did a man need to know? Seconds later I found out. Malta had seen the light when I'd used the travois for carrying my dead bison and she went to where it was lying and unrolled the skins, undoubtedly intending to load it, or at least make sure it met her specifications. She placed a couple of rocks on it, lifted the poles, and then craned her neck around, apparently to see how much it sagged. I came over and took the handles from her so she could get a better view. Apparently she didn't think it would suffice and I could almost feel her wondering how to make it more sturdy. I dropped the handles, removed the rocks, and then disassembled the whole thing while she watched, fascinated. I went to work on it then, realizing it would no longer be easy to close it down for carrying while empty. I cut about twenty saplings but darkness caught us before I could do more. No matter, Malta had caught on and she was happy that I knew the solution. She was naked and on the furs waggling her great ass at me in seconds. I showed her my dick was up to snuff and thought about introducing her to the pagan ritual of sixty-nine, but the smell of her aroused pussy made me forget that and I let her know I still admired the dogstyle position. It didn't take us very long at all to get me sleepy, and I even forgot to wonder about why we needed to make the travois stronger. When I woke the next morning, just as the sun was rising, I saw Malta was already at work. She and her skin bag were making a stew with dried bison as the main ingredient. She'd already showed me she was a master of this trick so I went to take a piss with a smile on my face, even though I knew we would be tealess for the meal. After we'd eaten she didn't make a peep as I helped her clean up and then she got me wondering again when she started to fumble with the travois, looking for all the world like she was going to finish its upgrade. I rooted her out of the way, by the hardest though, and did my duty. I lashed the crosspieces to the main poles with the twine that was formerly the main frame. I was done in less than an hour. Malta had watched me closely, apparently surprised by the twine, but she didn't let that hold her back when I was done. She spread the freshly dried bison skin over the framework and a couple of the smaller skins she had with her were pressed into service also. When it suited her she began loading it by putting the skillet and all the other iron rocks on it first. Next she emptied the original cache I'd built onto the skin and she laid her pack and everything else she'd had on it too. She handed me my bow, arrows, my spears - including the one I'd gained when the asshole attacked me - and pointed to my tool belt as if telling me to don it. I didn't know what was going on for sure, but it seemed obvious we were going somewhere so I put on my tool belt. I knew enough of her language by now to let her know I was curious about our destination. She replied with some other words I was sure I didn't understand and it seemed she was saying we were going to get motea. Anyone who was ever in the south for any length of time, except for the occasional itinerant yankee or other undesirable, understood what motea meant. I didn't even take time to wonder why she'd called it tea because that wasn't their word for the beverage or the ingredients she made it from. To me we were going to get the makings for more tea and by God I was all for it. I assumed we'd be trading the meat and maybe some of the metal rocks. I hoped it wouldn't require my skillet too, but I wasn't about to bitch much if it did. Our only disagreement came when she wanted to pull the travois. It was much lighter now since everything we had on it, racks and all, didn't weigh nearly as much as the bison calf had, but that didn't matter to me. When I tried to take the job over she let me know with the few words I knew and with plenty of gestures that I should carry a spear and my bow to protect us. There was no way I could tell her what I had in mind, but by getting her to at least put the travois handles down I was able to get her to stand beside me and hold a spear. I lay my bow and makeshift quiver on top of everything else on the travois and then took the handles. She was watching me closely as I dropped the travois and took the spear out of her hand in less than a second. She understood at once, took the spear back when I handed it to her and didn't complain when I picked the travois back up. Then she took off, leading the way slowly. As we walked I don't think I cursed my self more than a hundred times every five minutes for not taking the time to clean the bark off the ends of the poles so the handles would be smooth. I didn't have any idea where we were going or how far the trip would be. All I knew was my hands hurt but it was my own fault after all and I kept my mouth shut about it. At least I could tell it was only rough and uncomfortable and I wasn't raising any blisters, at first at least. My best guess was we'd come about eight miles when Malta started making what sounded like a bird call every half minute or so. She'd done it about six times when four guys with spears showed up. She'd led me here to be killed for my stone skillet was my first thought, but it only lasted until I saw the faces of the men. They were obviously glad to see her but it seemed they were equally glad to see me. Then they noticed the travois and it seemed to shock them. As they gathered around to watch me pull it Malta said something that came out with a sort of testy tone and one of them turned back to face the way they'd come and yelled something I couldn't understand that included Chuck and Malta which I did recognize. ------- Chapter 6 As soon as he yelled it there was an answering shout and then two women and a man came to see us too. I knew some type of fix was in when I saw the women. One of them looked almost exactly like Malta and the other one had to be the twin's mother, though she hardly looked old enough to be. The man was Charto, leader of the hunting party I'd met. Charto was surprised by the travois too and since Malta had stopped I did too. She didn't stay stopped for more than a second before she ran to embrace her twin and her mother. I held the travois for a few seconds to let Charto give it an examination but dropped it after I figured he'd had time to get the gist. It wasn't that heavy, but hell, I didn't want to be standing around like a dumbass holding it up for the rest of the day. Even with the men still looking over the first vechicle they'd probably ever seen they still didn't touch it. I flipped the edge of the furs back so they could see the rest of the parts and it seemed to explain everything they needed to know about it. I could see them looking at each other and nodding, as if saying "How could we be dumb enough not to figure this out." I didn't say a word though. Malta and her family came back to me then and she introduced me to Motee and Mayta and the tea riddle was solved for me. It wasn't the last thing I had to figure out but it was a slight relief. Malta gave Motee and Mayta an overview of the travois and probably explained how to make it. They were suitably impressed, but I could tell they had questions. One of them must have been about how it had happened that I came to be the one dragging it. Malta picked up one of my spears which caused them some consternaiton in itselt, and then she stood by the travois donkey end. Even I was smart enough to know she wanted me to give the I can get the spear in action in plenty of time demonstration again. I picked up the travois, waited a few seonds and then dropped it and took the spear out of her hand again. They were impressed like she'd been, but I still didn't understand why. Hell, if it made Malta happy it was fine with me; she controled one hundred percent of my pussy supply. I'd even take a day job to keep her if I needed to. I'd had one before after all. Demonstration or no, Motee and Mayta took hold of the travois poles this time and Malta started leading me onward, into the camp I assumed. I was right but Motee and Mayta had more trouble with the travois than they'd expected. They finally swallowed their pride and said something to Malta. Of course she looked at me for an explaination of the problem. I could forgive them since this was their first rodeo at travois pulling. Anyone who has ever used one knows they are a one person vechile, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is one person always knows exactly which direction he or she is headed. I looked at Malta and just held up one finger. All of them understood what that meant and Mayta surrendered her hold once she knew Motee was latched on. Of course that cured the problem right away. Once we were into the camp the surprises started for me. It looked almost like a small village, but all the houses were made of poles and skins. There were several small fires around and nearly every one of them had one of the skin bag cookers over it or near it. I wondered now why Malta only had one since there were so many here and they had many different sizes. I was sure I'd find out more later as I caught on to their language. Our destination was one of the largest huts here, in fact there was only one that was larger and it was nearby. An older man was sitting on a sort of stool type arrangement near its opening and he gave me an obvious scowl when he saw me. He was pretty muscular but I could't tell how tall he was. If his height was near mine he might even outweigh me and none of the others I'd seen so far even came close. I decided not to worry about his grouchy looking ass unless he caused me trouble, but it was ovbious something was up with him because he didn't give the travois Motee was dragging a second look. I wasn't bent out of shape over it. Malta lead me directly into the hut thingy with Mayta right behind us. Motee came in as soon as she figured out she could just drop the travois. Inside the place was piled high with skins, preserved food of all sorts that I didn't recognize, and preserved meat that I did recognize, sorta. It made me wonder why we'd brought the meat we had. I'd envisioned Malta bringing it back to her old and frail mother or father or something. Malta pointed out where I should sit and I did it. It was also some type of stool but I couldn't tell about its manufacture because it was covered with several furs and it was surprisingly comfortable. I don't guess that was a surprise because my ass was now accustomed to having nothing but rocks to sit on. When Motee was inside we got around to the motea that I'd imagined was the reason for our trip. Mayta had some brewing over a small fire in the center of the hut. She gave me a wooden cup full of it and I knew right away she was as good at cooking it as Malta was. I knew a hell of a lot better than to even think she was better, even to myself. Of course they broke out into conversation at once and I could only catch a word I could recognize every now and then and none I understood. It didn't matter though because I knew that simply hearing their language would make it easier for me to understand later. So I listened to them chew the rag. After a while I wondered about meeting the others in the camp. It seemed I should but since I'd already killed one member I wasn't sure I wasn't redneck non-grata or something like that. Didn't matter now though, I'd either find out if I was or wasn't or maybe not find out at all. Mayta started rumbling around in the food supply then and after a few minutes she and Motee went outside for the equivalent of rattling the pots and pans. They were gone for about ten minutes and were obviously upset when they returned. A quick conference between the three of them had Malta turning to me and trying to explain something. No matter how slowly she spoke all I could get out of it was their word I thought meant fight or battle or some such. The light finally shined after a lot more talking and some pointed hand waving. It seemed the grumpy one next door wanted to rumble for some reason. What the hell, even if he turned out a little bigger than me I figured I could hold my own. Suddenly someone was scratching on the hut's wall and I could see two legs standing just outside. Malta said something and Charto came inside. After a few seconds of talk he joined in trying to make me understand. I still couldn't but was gratified to see he felt embarrased and ashamed over the whole thing. I stood up and headed for the door, and once I was outside the grumpy asshole started yelling at me. Damned if that voice didn't sound familiar for some reason, but it took me a couple of minutes of listening to know that it was a little like what the dead guy had been yelling before he got dead. I didn't know the procedure at all, and I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying, but it didn't really matter. I took off my tool belt and then my shirt and set it by the door to what I thought must be Mayta's hut. Grumpy yelled something again and I started for him, intending to settle his hash. Malta, Motee, Mayta, and Charto were outside by now and when I headed for Grumpy, Malta showed me she had a good handle on what "No" meant becasue she yelled it at me. I stopped and came back to them. It seemed the fight would soon be on, but just duking it out in the middle of camp wasn't the proper protocol. Too bad - I was ready now. Charto and several of the other men led Grumpy and I out to a small clearing with the rest of the camp following. Grumpy was keeping his mouth shut now and though I thought about calling him a motherfucker and a few other things I kept quiet too. Charto lead both of us to the center of the small clearing and then a guy came up carrying two spears, two clubs, and two antler handled knives. Charto motioned to the weapons and I figured it was like any duel I'd ever heard of before where the challenged got to choose the weapons. I found out later I was wrong, but it was too late after that. I declined any weapon and just held up my fist. There was a gasp from the crowd and I only realized why when Grumpg came over and chose a spear. My asshole puckered a little then because if we started out at a distance from each other the whole deal would depend on how good I could dodge. I knew if I managed to stay alive after a cast he was toast. Normally I had never been a very violent guy, but growing up in small town Texas meant I'd been in my share of fights. The first time I got my ass kicked by an older boy my father decided he was going to teach me something about fighting. He seemed surprised at how fast I learned and he actually paid for me to have some boxing lesson in the closest small city, Texarkana USA to be specific. I know, I know, eastern martial arts are the popular thing now-a-days. That may be true, but boxing doesn't waste any time with a bunch of spirtual mumbo-jumbo. The empahsis of the training is on knocking the coon dog shit out of your opponent as soon as possible. In other martial arts you train mostly by going over set moves until you can do them in your sleep. Since there are so many moves it takes a hell of a lot of study. Boxing is like that, kinda. You learn several different types of punches, but there aren't that many. You concentrate on learning to hit a punching bag over and over and it teaches you to hit a moving target that moves faster every time you hit it. You use the heavy bag to build up your strength for more powerful blows and you spar to learn what tactics work best for you against different opponents. Even if this guy was a bladk belt in some ancient way of fighting I was pretty sure he was gonna have a hard time dealing with me if he missed me with that spear. That said, I wasn't all that sure I could dodge a cast spear. If I could we could get it on later. Grumpy's fate was sealed when Charto called us both to the center of the little clearing to start things off. As soon as he gave the signal I grabbed Grumpy's spear before he could even try to move it. I yanked it out of his hands right away, broke it over my knee, threw the pieces aside and beat his ass within an inch of his life. He didn't ever even get time to give me the first lick. As I alternated pounding his face and his breadbasket I could hear indrawn breath and gasp from the peanut gallery. I listened closely in case Malta hollared NO but she never. After I was tired of it I kept on anyway because I didn't know the rules. I wasn't going to let him up to get another spear and try again. Finally I gave him a good one right on the end of his trashed nose and he went down. It was a knock out for sure. I just stood over him after that. Probably I should have realized what the outcome had to be, but it didn't dawn on me. After a couple of minutes with Grouchy lying there, no doubt with a serious concussion, Malta came over and it didn't take her very long to let me know it was a fight to the death. No problem. I reached down to Grumpy, took his head in both my hands and twisted his ruined face around to look behind him. I guess this life was getting good to me because I relished the sound his neck made when the vertbrae were ripped from where they belonged. At least I was glad it didn't give me a boner. My last trick seemed to amaze the others too, as if it were a big secret reavealed. A woman came over then and put her hand over Grumpy's chest, no doubt looking for a heartbeat. If she'd been quicker she might have even felt his last few but I knew it was over at least a minute or two before she arrived. I was surprised when she stood back up and said something to the assembled crowd and they all seemed delighted. My main though was maybe now we could eat. About half an hour later Motee brought me a wooden bowl, similar to the ones Malta had but nearly half again larger. It was full of some stew that had many vegetables I didn't recognize but that were all delicious. Mayta was right behind her with a larger than expected cup of tea. I commenced pigging out. As I slurped up the last of the excellent stew and swallowed the last of my tea, Malta led another pretty young woman up to meet me. She had black wavy hair down to her shoulders and deep blue eyes. She could barely contain the smile on her face and I wondered what in the hell that was all about. It was about my next new mate, as far as I could tell from the flood of words and hand signals. Malta finally made me understand this was Grumpy's young widow. If I'd know about her I might have killed him a lot more quickly, especially since her titties looked even bigger than Malta's - they looked nearly as big as Mayta's appeared. My dick shot to attention at once. It didn't hurt my feelings any when Malta and Sheeta made me understand the big hut, and all of Grumpy's possessions were now my possessions, it was just the cherry on top of Sheeta's nipples as far as I was concerned. Malta spent a few minutes teaching Sheeta how I liked to see titties wobble and the delightful little thing had it down pretty quickly. They both made their way into what I thought of as Mayta's hut then, but when I started to follow, Mayta let me know she'd call me when the time came. It made me a little curious about what was going on, but a dufus like me didn't look gift pussy in the rosebud unless he was feeling particularly kinky at the moment. I sat on my rock by myself and enjoyed the night sky and the slight chill in the air. About twenty minutes later I haeard Malta calling my name from inside the hut, so I pulled back the curtain type opening and stooped over to walk in. This was a big shock, maybe one of the biggest of my whole life. The fist things I saw were four beautiful nakes asses pointing at me from the doggie position. It was very inspiring, but I didn't understand how it could have come about and I didn't know the women's exact status. I had a damned good idea about Malta and Sheeta, but didn't understand exactly where Mayta and Motee fit in. On second thought, I knew exactly where I'd fit into them so I shucked my clothes, hit my knees and lined my dick up with Motee's sweet looking snatch first. A little probing with my dick head showed me Motee was easily wet enough for smooth entry so I didn't waste any more time getting that part over with. She sighed loudly as I pressed it home and then she squeezed me more firmly than I would have thought she could with her tunnel. "Powder River and let her buck," I said, just like Custis Long would have. This was my first time ever with more than one woman in the room, or hut. I found out fast the fucker and fuckee didn't have a strict duet going either. Mayta came back toward me, big titties swinging, and proceeded to lick, kiss, and suck around my head, neck, ears and upper body. Thank ya ma'am, I don't mind if you do. Malta and Sheeta took this oppurtunity to dole out kisses, sucks, and caresses for Motee and it made her ass wiggle even more energeticly. I felt myself getting close but didn't even try for a reach around on Motee since she already had plenty of hands on her. She went off seconds after I had the thought and it surprised me so much my urge to blow eased off. Since my best estimation was Motee and Mayta were just bonuses given by the fact I was here, I decided I'd nail Mayta next lest the oppurtunity slip away later. Malta, Sheeta, and Mayta were currently petting and kissing on Motee but I took Mayta in my arms and gave her a good old fashioned French kissing and eased her onto her back on the furs while I was at it. Like Malta, she seemed a little surprised but it passed when I slid a hand into her bush for a little diddling. She was hot and wet so I slid two finger up her and dropped my mouth to kiss, nibble, gnaw, and suck on first one plump nipple and then the next. As best I could tell she started telling me the same thing Malta had when I gave her the first round of nipple play. Malta said something back to Mayta in reply and the next thing I knew Mayta had both her hands in my hair and seemed to be urging me to suck harder. Hell, don't mind if I do. Mayta didn't really need much or any foreplay and as I moved between her thighs it seemed almost like Malta had clued her in on this manuver too. She spread 'em wide for me and I had my dick in place and moving up her in seconds. Her legs came around my ass almost right away and the bronc ride was on with me firmly stabbed into her love saddle. I let her buck while I kept banging and this time I stayed with the plan until I got my nut, no matter she blasted off a couple of minutes before. When my strength was gone I settled down onto Mayta and barely had the strength to reach down and pet what I could reach of that lovely ass. Malta said something and then Sheeta and the revived Motee helpd her roll me off and over onto my back before Malta sprung the next surprise on me, but I wasn't the only one surprised. When Malta leaned down to lick and suck on my dickhead, Sheeta and Motee both sucked in their breath. It made Mayta look up and she gasped at the sight. Shitfire, I wanted to howl like a dog. From the way she did things down there I could pretty much tell mine was the first dick her mouth had ever been near. She took a little more inside then though and whirled her tongue around the head in a way I approved. I could almost feel myself climbing again, and when Malta took her mouth off me to tell the others something I didn't mind a bit because I thought she was surely telling them either why or how she was doing what she was. Education never hurt anyone. Malta let up on her work when she had about the first three inches in her mouth and I was just as glad. She was a newbie at this and though I knew she wouldn't hurt me on purpose, the gag reaction can be unpleasant if it come from a woman who doesn't quite realize how close her teeth are to your dick. Better safe than sorry, and bleeding. Though she seemed like she was done for the moment, Malta had given me plenty of time to catch my breath. The last new pussy in the tent, or hut, was Sheeta and by my calculations she had a dick ride coming. I surprised them all by pulling her onto me in the cowboy position and poking my hardon up into her sweet coochie. Surprised or not Sheeta knew at once we could fuck this way and she also caught on she was going to have to do most of the work. While my fingers did the walking on her lush titties, her legs and hips got to work and she fucked me like a madwoman. It was so good I knew very well I wouldn't last for the whole show if I didn't do something pretty quick. I snuck a hand down to where we were joined, slicked up my index finger in her slippery juices, and teased her clity a little while I was at it. I was nearly there when I pulled my hand out of there, but Malta didn't let Sheeta's magic button go it alone for more than a second. At the last second I slipped my wet finger in her backdoor and man, what a reaction. She screamed out, doing her best to scream Chuck and she went off at the same time I did. I kept up pumping with my dick and my finger and in seconds Sheeta was coming so hard she fainted. She didn't stay out long but she was still limp when she opened her eyes again to show me her widest smile. No doubt Malta didn't want me to give up before she got another sample because she had my dick back in her mouth in seconds. When she realized some of the slippery stuff on its outside was come she slurped it up like it was nectar. I was throbbing to go in minutes and she smiled wide when I pulled her up for another cowboy ride, but it was reverse cowboy this time. She didn't seem to mind. I just lay there and let Malta fuck herself off on my dick, but I wasn't the only help she got. Before long she had Mayta sucking on one nipple and Motee the other, or at least that's what I thought they were doing with there heads down by her titties. Sheeta finally got the strenght to get up and give her a good kissing and maybe three minutes later Malta blasted off without my finger up her delicious ass. Fine with me, my dick was still hard but I knew it was just showing off. I don't know what happened after that because I dropped right off to sleep. It was easy to see I was the man of the hour, day, week, or even month when I woke the next day. All four of them were awake, but everyone was touching me somewhere and they were all watching my face and eyes, to make sure I woke I guess. They were all smiles and me too as soon as I saw them. Mayta even handed me a cup of tea as soon as I got my arm out from under Motee. Talk about pampered, I was, in spades. Each of them took a turn licking around my dick and balls; not so much to get me excited, it seemed more like they were actually enjoying cleaning it up. Whatever floated their boat suited me fine, and they didn't stop there. I didn't even try to count it but I'm sure they put way over a hundred kisses all over me as they helped me get into my clothes. While I'd never experienced anything like it I knew treatment like this could grow on a man. They were all dressed already and when they had me presentable we went outside and they put a meal on the fire. Several of the men who were already up and every one of the women outside kept shooting quick glances our way. None of them were giving me reproachful looks though. I guessed there were no hard feeling about me killing Grumpy. After I'd eaten the women started roaming around the camp and talking to other women. A couple of men came up and introduced themselves to me but we couldn't really communicate so they each drifted away later. For a minute I thought about using this time to work on the edge of my machete. I'd noticed it was a little dull and most other men were sitting around fiddling with something or other. I decided not to though because I was sure it would bring a lot of curious onlookers and there was no way I could even start to explain anything, even to Malta, and she knew me best. It made me decide there was nothing wrong with sitting on my ass until Malta or any of them came to me for some help. Ten minutes later I saw Malta and the girls didn't need any help from me. They came to the hut and brought out several things we'd brought from my mini-camp. I saw that had all the metal rocks except our skillet and she also took all the dried meat we'd brought with us along with many of the larger fishbones I hand't even seen her save. Motee and Mayta also came out with some of the things they had in their hut and damned if Sheeta didn't bring a few things out of Grumpy's hut. In minutes a trades day broke out. I didn't do anything but look for the hot dog stand, but I never spotted it. Four hours later it was all over and the girls came trudging back. They brought some of the original things back, but I noticed Malta didn't have a single metal rock to tote this way. She also had almost more preserved vegatables than she could carry. Actually it was more than all of them could have carried because they put everything in Mayta and Motee's hut and when they started back Malta let me know they'd like some help with carrying. It seemed to shock the others a little but I was happy to do it. Most of the things were in skin bags but the skins weren't in such great shape anymore. It was obvious they had seen better days at other jobs and were nearing the end of their usefulness now. The things inside them weren't though. I was a happy man when one of the main things we were carrying looked exactly like pinto beans to me. It made my day just thinking about it, and it seemed like we had a lot of them. Again we put all of it into what I considered Mayta's hut and then they made me happy again by cooking. We didn't get into the beans today but I didn't care so much. We'd have them sooner or later and I could wait. I did my best to keep from stuffing myself but it was a job. The women worked diligently at what I took to be packing for the rest of the day. Charto came by and tried asking me something that I just couldn't get a handle on. Finally I called Malta out and let him ask her. "Go hunt sunrise?" she said to me and the tone made it a question. ------- Chapter 7 "Not yeh, but hell yeh," I told her, nodding my head like crazy to make sure she and Charto got the message. I wasn't sure what all a hunting trip called for, since the last one I'd seen involved women and enough stuff to camp for a few days. I was pretty sure if it were something Malta didn't think we had time for she'd have let me know. I didn't think we needed any meat since Malta hadn't mentioned that either, but at least if I went hunting with Charto, and maybe others, I'd have something to do besides sitting around and looking handsome, and Malta seemed pleased too when I agreed. That night I wasn't sure of the significance but we moved over to Sheeta's hut. I guess it was necessary though because Mayta's was over half full of crap now from the trading and such. Whatever the reason, Sheeta's hut was roomier and the furs on the floor seemed thicker by a good bit. Sadly though, another bout of fucking didn't seem in the works and we all went to sleep soon after supper was done and the stuff was cleaned and put away. The next morning Sheeta woke me with a cup of hot tea and then Mayta came in with a bowl about half full of stew. I didn't know why I was eating inside the hut and none of the others were eating at all but I did my duty and cleaned my plate, uh bowl. After I swallowed the last of the tea Malta and Motee set about dressing me as if I couldn't do it myself - they even strapped my tool belt on me. To me this meant Charto and I, and possibly others, would be heading out soon. Since I didn't see Malta or any of the others dressing, I assumed none of them would be coming along. I guessed we weren't going to go to the plane and try for more buffalo. Charto showed up a few minutes after I was ready and scratched on the side of the hut. I went out to meet him and then ducked back inside to get my bow and arrows. Malta smiled wide at me when I picked them up. Charto was alone but it was nearing dawn so I figured it was just him and me. We didn't have hardly a damn thing we could accomplish by talking, but I figured we could make each other understood well enough with hand signals to get a little hunting done. Basically he just walked out of camp and we were as good as hunting. Their little village was among some of the tallest trees I'd seen since I got here, but they were spread out a little more than you'd expect for some reason. Charto didn't seem to be taking any special care to keep quiet right at first but that changed when we were about a half-mile or so from camp. When he changed to quiet as I can mode I was hard pressed to do the same, at least not as well as he was. I realized they had to be extra quite because they had to get pretty close to anything before they could take it with a spear. Bison wouldn't be as tricky since they couldn't get away as fast, but I was betting there weren't enough of them in the whole tribe to chase down even one deer, and deer was my guess as to what we were after today. Maybe fifteen minutes later Charto proved me right. He held up his hand for me to stop and then pointed almost straight ahead. Through probably a hundred yards of trees I could make out fifteen or sixteen deer browsing in a small clearing. Charto made me understand I had the first chance. Knocking an arrow, I moved off ahead of him. I took my time and all the pains I knew about to move silently. I even made a point to keep my legs from rubbing together and letting my jeans make noises from that. Luckily there was just a slight breeze in our faces, though here inside the tree line it wasn't much at all. I made it up behind the last tree before I'd be exposed in the clearing and stopped with half myself hidden behind it, standing still just a few seconds to make sure I was settled. It was probably forty yards to the nearest deer, a big buck, and he was going to be my first target. You couldn't call me an expert archer by any means, but I knew I could take deer from this range. I even felt sure I could get at least two. I wasn't a rapid-fire specialist but I was pretty sure I could get off six or seven arrows in a minute or less. I drew the bow and let fly then, knocking another arrow as fast as I could and letting go again. I kept it up until they caught on and all hauled ass. All the ones that still could anyway. Charto had been right behind me and when I turned to look at him he was clearly stupefied. He was trying to say something but though his mouth moved open and closed a time or two no sound came out. Didn't matter, I wouldn't have been able to understand him if it had. Finally he gathered his wits and we went out to see how I'd done. Like I thought in the first place, there were seven dead or very near death deer scattered around. With Charto's help we dragged all of them to one spot just inside the wood line. After that he waved his hands around and babbled quite a bit and finally made me understand he wanted to go back to camp to get some help and that he wanted me to stay and watch over the kills. Hell, it was the least I could do because they were my kills. He took off in a dead run and he wasn't making any effort at all to be quiet this time. Charto was back in less than ten minutes and he looked like he'd been running a marathon. Malta, Motee, Mayta, and Sheeta were with him along with a woman I hadn't met and two young boys. I was glad as hell Malta had taken time to bring the travois along cause it saved a lot of work. We managed to pile five of the deer on the travois and Charto cut poles to carry the other two by tying their front and back legs together and carrying them swinging below a pole. Charto and what I assumed was his mate were intending to carry one that way and it looked like the two boys would carry the other one. Malta brought things to a more sensible outcome since she could do it easily by talking out the kinks and she also knew more about using a travois and keeping watch too. She had Charto's mate and Sheeta carry one pole-mounted deer while Motee and Mayta took care of the other. Charto and his two boys served as lookouts and she walked right beside me carrying both my bow and quiver. With everything settled into a sensible order, away we went. Yes, there was quite a commotion when we arrived at the camp. Charto seemed determined we should have all the deer except one which would be his for going with me. I didn't like that one bit, especially since we had more than plenty of meat already. Besides, Malta had been so diligent about building a sturdy cache at my old camp, and I figured we'd be heading back there sooner or later. We'd never be able to eat up six deer before we left unless we stayed for the winter and I was pretty sure I wouldn't put up with that. I didn't look forward to carrying that much meat anyway, since I knew perfectly well we could get more deer a lot easier than we could carry all these. Malta pulled a fast one on the others then, with my help. She turned to me in front of all of them and asked me a question. I knew she knew I didn't understand a word of it, but I played along and told her of course it pours when it rains and the Yankees were out of the pennant picture yet again this year. She nodded her head sharply and turned around to face the others and announce ... something. Apparently this was a deal closer because there were smiles all around and suddenly other women were coming up to haul deer off and do what they did to dead deer. With so many working on them the deer cleaning, skinning, and cutting up was done shortly after lunch. One surprise for me was women kept coming to our hut every now and then and bringing deerskins already scraped and mounted on the racks they used to stretch them. They brought six back and I was glad Charto kept his. In fact I would have been happy if whoever skinned a deer had kept the skin. We already had plenty and I knew good and well a lot of them would leave with us when we went. It wasn't worth trying to communicate my thoughts to Malta though. I could always hope she'd trade the skins later for more pinto beans. I hoped like hell they knew how to cook 'em. After sunset things didn't go as they had on other nights here. They built a massive fire near the center of camp and everyone ate supper near it. The main dish was venison, of course, but there were plenty of side dishes of different vegetables and even a lot of pinto beans, though it was obvious they didn't realize the beans were twice as good when warmed up the second day. They were plenty good enough their way though and I was sure I could teach Malta the better method, by begging if I had to. Soon after the meal was over skin bags of some type of drink were being passed around and sampled. Mayta came out of her hut with one and gave me the first taste. I didn't recognize what it was, exactly, but it had the tell tale taste of alcohol. I didn't take much of a drink, but I smiled at her to let her know it was tasty. That was the trouble, it had a different but better taste than any beer I'd ever had and I knew I'd be best served by shunning it like the plague. I'd satisfy myself with watching to see how drunk the others got. It didn't take long to realize it was going to be Very drunk with the capital V. We gave up on the party not long after the girls realized I didn't have any interest in the hooch that was being passed around. After entering Sheeta's hut were all started shucking clothes and my dick and spirits shot up when I saw them all hitting their hands and knees on the furs and wagging their asses at me. And a good time was had by me - them too I hope. During breakfast the next morning I could practically feel Malta getting ready to try for a talk with me. I was right as rain too, because as I was sipping my last of the tea she got started. I surprised the shit out of her when I let her know early on I understood what she wanted. Now she'd seen first hand the benefits of the travois she wanted more of them. It was jake with me because it meant we'd have a lot of stuff to carry back to our camp and the more we could carry per trip the less trips we'd have to make. I wasn't sure about what all we'd be taking but I knew if she wanted more travois it would probably be more than one trip. She went with me and we cut poles for five more travois. When she saw me cutting two that were noticeably longer she let me know I should cut four like that. I didn't understand why, but it didn't make much difference to me, so I did as she asked. It made us end up with enough for six travois. I'd cut the longer poles so I could make one that would let me carry even more. I figured she understood this at once, but I wondered who in the hell she thought would be hauling the second one. If it was too much weight for someone though we could just lighten the load and catch the leftovers on the last trip. She thought we'd cut the cross pieces also before we went back to camp but I didn't want to. Even with two of us, twelve long poles was a load and we were going to need at least seventy cross pieces. They'd be lighter or course but not much when you considered the numbers. I'd been right on the button as it turned out. We had to make two trips just to carry all the cross pieces back. My first step this time was to skim the bark off all of the handhold sections and make sure I left the wood underneath as smooth as I could get it. Laying out the poles and trimming the cross pieces to length was the next step, but before I started tying them on I managed to make Malta understand I wanted to use rawhide for the chore this time. I still had more than plenty of twine, but it had to last a lifetime and I knew we'd never get anything better to make bowstrings from. While she and the others were cutting thongs out of rawhide I took some extra time to cut notches in the in the long poles to help hold the cross pieces in place. I figured I might as well make them as good as I could and it wasn't like there was a deadline or anything. At least if there was no one had let me know about it. When Malta brought me the rawhide strips they were in the biggest wooden bowl I'd seen yet and soaking in water. Damned if she wasn't a smart one. I happily took a break to let them soak a while and I even managed to get a big cup of tea out of Mayta. A hard working man like me needed a little now and then to keep his spirits up. By the time I'd downed my tea the rawhide seemed wet enough to stretch some. When I tied it around each end of each cross piece I used my Channel Locks on the short end so I wouldn't have to waste enough rawhide for a handhold on that end when I was stretching it tight. I figured I saved nearly a foot for each joint and that was a hell of a lot by the end of the job. It took the rest of the day and all the next one to finish and I was as tired as hell of lashing little sticks to big ones before I was done. The next morning Malta and the rest, except Mayta, started taking down Grumpy's former hut as soon as we were out of it. Mayta wasn't helping because she was feeding the ding dong daddy from Plano. I noticed they just left the six poles that had been the frame and only salvaged the hides that made the covering. They were nearly half done by the time I finished breakfast, and it was a struggle to get them to let me help after that, but I stamped my little feet and got my way in the end. The packing didn't end after we'd loaded the hut's hides though. They started in with the stuff that had been stored inside it next. As we worked I thought I'd figured out what they were doing. As the load on the big travois grew they'd have me test the weight every now and then and Malta made me understand I shouldn't let it get too heavy to pull constantly at a good pace. I called an end to it a little before I thought it was absolutely all I could manage and they started on the next one then. This time they didn't have me testing the load. Motee went to fetch Charto before this one was loaded with even half as much as the one I must have been scheduled to pull. Apparently Malta had made some type of deal for him to help us on the trek. Later I learned his whole family was going to help. He and his wife would pull a travois and the two boys would keep their eyes open so they could shout a warning. That's how the whole loading deal went. Everyone scheduled to pull a travois named their own poison by testing the load a few times as it was being done. I was pretty sure Malta was encouraging them to err on the side of too light instead of the other way around. We were damned close to having it all loaded by the time we quit for the day and I was pretty sure we'd be able to get it all on the two reaming travois. After a good supper we slept in Mayta's hut, which was now nearly empty and had plenty of room for sleeping again. After an early breakfast again the next morning we got right back to loading. Everything left in Mayta's hut fit on one travois easily and I figured that was it. We had a nice leisurely lunch when we were done and I spent the rest of the day mostly sitting on my ass drinking tea while all the girls roamed here and their in camp talking to people. I guessed they were saying goodbyes. After supper that night we slept in Mayta's hut again, of course, and it never even dawned on me there was nothing left inside but just a few dishes. They waggled their naked asses at me and all other thoughts left my mind. I did my duty to God and my girls and slept like a baby. They had another surprise for me the next morning. Sheeta cooked and served my breakfast and tea while the rest of them dismantled Mayta's hut. It made me curious as hell for a minute or two and then the only possible answer came to me. Mayta and Motee were moving with us. It was the only thing that made sense. I damned sure didn't do any bitching about it. Everything, and I mean everything but the huts' framework was loaded an hour after I finished my breakfast. Charto, his mate Charla, and their boys Dukto and Baleye showed up right on time. Malta proved to me again how smart she was when she brought us all a pair of hand sized pieces of tanned hide to put between the handles and our sensitive flesh. They made holding even the smooth handles a lot more comfortable. We hit the trail then with the boys keeping watch. But the boys weren't the only watchers. I kept a close eye on all the other beasts of burden. I was practically sure none of them would say a word even if they were getting too tired and needed a break and I was correct. Sheeta was the first to start laboring and I called for a halt saying I needed to catch my breath. Since I knew they wouldn't understand what I was saying, unless maybe Malta caught part of it, I just said Stop and dropped the handles of my travois. Hurrying there was pointless. I could already tell we'd get to my camp by noon or a little after and that was easily good enough. If it took until sunset it wouldn't cause any harm and it wasn't going to take even nearly that long. The others, including the women for some reason, seemed to act like it was some kind of pecker test and for my part I didn't mind letting them think I was losing. I knew my pecker could pass any real test my girls had for it. After the second time I called a halt over Sheeta's upcoming distress I walked over to her travois and took my best shot at removing about thirty pounds of what she was carrying and took it to my travois. She and Malta talked it over for a few minutes while we were having a blow but neither of them said anything to me. Charto seemed to catch on to what I'd done then and when he started talking to Charla it was plain to me he was quizzing her about the weight of her load. I guess she convinced him it was fine because he didn't do any shifting. When we moved on again it didn't take long to see just that slight shifting of the burden made a big difference for Sheeta. She got along much better now and we went quite a bit farther before the next break. I still kept a close watch on everyone, including Charto, but things were working out now as best I could tell. We made it to my camp about half an hour after what I considered noon. I was pretty sure we'd all done as much travois pulling as we wanted to for the day and the first order of business was sitting on our asses for a few minutes and catching our breath. Of course, Malta was the first one done with this part and she came over to me with a question. Slowly but surely I'd been catching onto a few words of their language. I was sure what Malta asked me was something like you pull fish out water stick. She wanted me to do a little fishing. I looked around and it didn't take but a minute to find one of the fishing poles I'd cut when we were staying here before. I fished my nail/hook and string out of my tool bag and made all the proper connections. There was a big fat grub under the first rock I turned over and I was good to go. All the rest of them, except Malta, had been idly watching me while I did this. They could see I was up to something, but it was obvious they didn't know what. I knew they had to know about some way to get fish out of the water but apparently my way wasn't part of their ways. The truth to that was apparent when I pulled a big catfish out of the water five minutes later. Charto was up on his feet and over to me in a heartbeat and I didn't even have to mess with the stringer this time because Malta was right there to start cleaning it. I found another grub and got back to it, though I did take time to show Charto, and his boys, exactly what I was doing. I caught four more fish - two catfish and two bass, and Malta let me know it was plenty for lunch. She was already cooking some catfish filets on the skillet/rock and she had a fish stew going also in one of the skin bag cookers. While she was at it I showed Charto about the missing piece of the fishing puzzle, the hooks. Actually it was the nails the hooks were made of, and I took the time to make a hook for him and one for both the boys. After giving them each some of the twine I helped them tie it all together with poles they cut quickly and we got ready to do a little more fishing later on. They never mentioned how they caught fish even though I knew they must have some way. When Malta and Motee started serving the stew I noticed the improvement in our living conditions here at once. We now had multiple skin bag cookers and Mayta had one employed making plenty of tea. I was glad because having tea with my meal at the other camp had spoiled me to it. I finally decided Malta had only had the one with her when she came to me because she'd been carrying light on the hunting trip. I still had a lot of questions about things though. The main one was why Motee and Mayta had come to live with us. I now understood I was somehow responsible for the care and upkeep of Malta and Sheeta because I'd killed their mates. Hell, it was more than fine with me since they seemed to be the ones doing most of the caring and upkeep. I could bring in a lot of meat at one time, but it was the women who did most of the actual work. I was pretty sure if I hadn't demanded to haul the travois to Malta's home camp when we went she would have done it and considered it her job. Apparently Charto had been convinced a heavier travois was a man's job only from my example. I could understand the other side of the coin easily though. If not for the travois it would have been impractical for a man to carry much of a load since his foremost duty was to protect the women and a backpack was not quick or easy to put down in an emergency. This let me see one man with two or more wives was a more efficient way to do things under these conditions, especially without the travois. The women could carry less of a load but with multiple wives they could make up the difference while one man could keep watch over and protect more than one woman at a time. A man could also bring in plenty of meat for several women and they could do the more tedious gathering faster with several sets of hands and eyes. After we'd eaten, Malta let me know I was elected to cut new poles for our huts and it was fine with me. I was a little surprised to find out Motee would be going with me to help me find suitable small trees and also to show me how they were to be trimmed and to what length. As we walked off Malta was showing Charto and Charla where she had found the metal rocks and damned if it didn't look like they were starting a search of their own. Finding trees nearly the right size wasn't all that easy, but it wasn't an onerous task either. They had to come from the outer edge of the woods, near the large grassy plane since as the forest got older toward the interior the trees were naturally bigger and the darker shade they created discouraged younger growth. I guess that's how it went with forest everywhere, but it wasn't like I was an experienced sylvan or anything, and I'll admit this was a WAG. It made sense to me though. We took the first six poles back to camp after I had them trimmed to suit Motee. I could see Charto and Charla out doing the outward spiraling search thing when we got back with our load. Sheeta and Mayta were rummaging around in the travois, finding things which needed to be unpacked first no doubt, and Mayta seemed to be looking around and making some kind of plan. I figured it was for the placement of the huts or something similar. Motee and I headed directly back out as soon as we dropped off the first poles and we had a little bit more to do this time. We needed another six main poles but they were a little shorter this time for the smaller of the two huts. We also needed several smaller cross pieces. The way she determined the sizes was by use of a special measuring stick. It was about two feet long, give or take, and it had a few notches along it. They weren't actual divisions along its length though; they were more along the lines of specific lengths for some certain thing. She tried to explain but of course that was still impossible. Progress was evident when we got back with this load, and I was just in time to make more possible. Malta had the spots marked off for the huts and they even had the small ends of poles tied together. Now I was here Malta went out to push pause on the search so Charto and Charla could help us stand the first poles up. It wasn't very hard at all with the help and when they were in place Charto and Charla went back to their looking while Motee, Sheeta, and Malta started tying spreaders to the poles to make the thing more stable. Mayta was detailed to bring me a cup of tea and I was shuffled off to the side, out of their way. Dukto and Baleye were stalking up and down the stream, staring into the water looking for fish no doubt. I wondered why they weren't helping Charto and Charla but decided the grownups thought the search for the metal rocks was too important to be trusted to the boys. I guess I just couldn't see the true value of such. I sure hoped they weren't some type of spiritual object or something. I didn't think that could be the case since Malta was perfectly fine with using the skillet. I could easily see its value. That clued me in to a new theory about the rocks. We used the skillet I'd found every day now and it was something Malta, nor any of them had ever seen. That didn't mean she wasn't quick to see its value. Maybe Charto and Charla weren't looking for any specific type of object but were looking for any they could find in hopes they'd be able to think of a way they could be helpful. It seemed it was probably the reason they traded the things and I guessed when someone found something similar they offered them for trade if they couldn't think of a way to put them to work, hoping someone else could think of something useful to do with them. Malta had made sure I didn't want any of the bunch she'd found before she got rid of them. Oh well, farther along I might know more about it, if I kept paying attention. Charto and Charla kept up their search all the rest of the afternoon and when they came in for supper they showed they had done some real good. They'd found another skillet suitable rock, and it was even a little bigger than the one we had. It wasn't quite as nearly round as the one we had but it was slightly thinner and even though it seemed bigger because of its larger diameter it didn't seem to weigh quite as much. They had another piece I could see a use for right away. It looked a whole lot like the business part of a round point shovel. It wasn't nearly as regular as a normal shovel would be but it resembled one more than a little. I'll admit I had lust in my heart for it at once and it made me wish I'd been out there beating the bushes long before Charto and Charla came here with us. When they'd set all their finds down they'd kept the skillet pulled back away from the other five pieces. All my girls looked these over carefully and I could almost hear the wheels turning in their heads as they tried to imagine a use. Even Dukto and Baleye had come over to examine the haul. Finally Malta asked me something and after a few minutes she made me understand she wanted to know if I saw any of them I wanted. Hell, I pointed to the small shovel head like piece right away. Charto reached down and handed it to me at once. He, Charla, and Malta started talking together at once and I knew they must be discussing the trade. They went back and forth quite a bit and I finally decided Malta was trying to pay our tab and Charto and Charla were trying to just give the thing to me. Hell, I let them figure it out. They weren't getting it away from me now without a tussle. I spent my time turning it over and over, looking at it from every angle, and trying to decide how I was going to attach a handle. Like a bolt from the blue, as they say, the nature of these metal rocks came to me. They were meteorites, or pieces of meteorites. That was the only explanation which made any sense. About all I knew about meteorites was they fell to earth from outer space, they made a bright streak in the sky as they did it, and some of them were metal. I had no idea whether they broke into parts like this one seemed to have but I felt I was holding proof they could in my hand. I guess it was possible this might have been the landing zone for a meteor shower like I'd often heard of but never seen, but that seemed a little too unreal for me. My best guess was they'd all been part of one meteor and had either splattered when they hit the ground or come apart not long before they hit the ground, then again I really didn't know shit about it. There was no way of telling how long they'd been there, peacefully lying on the ground and minding their own business before I found the skillet, and it didn't really matter to us. They were just little oddities that we could try to make use of. My new little part of the magic gifts from the sky started a task that took over two weeks, on and off, to complete. The one piece I got was the only one that changed hands. I could see another one which should make a good hammer stone for working with flint and another that might be useful as a sort of axe head if you could figure a way to sharpen one edge. I was pretty sure I had the only file in existence here and it would be worn completely out before it could even do a small part of that job. Maybe they had some other way to abrade an edge onto it I didn't know of. If I came up with something workable I'd be sure to let Charto know the possibilities. We didn't take long to eat supper that night and the girls didn't let any grass grow during the cleaning up either. We were all tired and it was early to bed and to sleep for us tonight. Tomorrow would be another good day. ------- Chapter 8 When I woke I could tell it was going to be another good day for sure, because I could smell cooking going on and to me that was always a good thing. By the time I'd dressed, walked off a little, watered a bush, and come back near the fire Mayta had a cup of tea for me and not long after I sat my ass on the ground Malta brought me a bowl of stew. Most meals were stews and that was fine. My skillet was the first utensil these women had ever seen for frying things, except ordinary rocks, and I could easily understand why they would be slow to use those. I assumed they knew how to wrap up meat and cook it in a ground pit but that seemed like a big pain in the ass to me too. With stew you just threw some food to cook into a skin bag, poured in some water, added some spices and away you go, and no one had ever accused me of being a picky eater. Not long after we'd done eating Malta came to me and asked about where I'd found the flint I had. I pointed off down river. The next part was a little more puzzling, but she finally made me understand she wanted to know if there was more down there and if there was enough to let Charto and Charla carry some back. Nodding for the universal yes, I went over and picked up one of the big travois. Everyone gave me an odd look and I motioned for them to get their travois too. We had them all unloaded by now and if we were going to get flint we might as well get plenty. Soon enough we were headed that way with the boys doing most of the watching for us again. Two miles downstream we started up over the hill the stream had sawed in half. I could see Charto and the others eyeballing the opposite side and figured they knew it was the kind of place you could usually dig some flint. Hell, they had a surprise coming and they got it when we made it to the bottom of the hill and onto the spread out mini flood plain. We were almost stumbling over flint nearly right away. Apparently neither Charto nor any of his bunch had ever been down here looking around because they couldn't have missed the flint if they had. It took me about twenty seconds to decide Charto knew a hell of a lot more about what made good flint than I did. His boys had started bringing up nodules for him to look at right away and he didn't take long to cull them or clean them off a little first and then load them up. What the hell, I hoped he'd sort mine for me too so I dropped my travois and started mocking what the boys were doing. Malta, Motee, Mayta, and Sheeta copied my act. Soon Charto was up to his ass in flint to clean and grade and Charla was loading it onto travois as he handed her suitable specimens. We kept at it pretty steadily for about an hour and a half and then took a break. Charto was nowhere near caught up with us, but Mayta started a bag of tea and we called him away from his work to take a tea break. He talked enthusiastically during the whole break and I could only assume it was about the flint. We spent the rest of the day fucking with rocks with only a short break for lunch. I think Charto half way wanted to spend the night, but it would have been pointless. We already had nearly as much as we could carry and so we headed back to our camp. With the loads we barely made it back by an hour before sunset. The women seemed damned happy to be back, and even though I know they were tired they got right on supper while Charto and I built another pretty big fire so they could have more light for cooking. After the meal was done and the clean up was over, everyone went directly to bed. After breakfast the next morning things were a little different. Malta and Charto had some sort of discussion and when it was over he pulled his large travois off about a hundred yards from camp and started going through his rocks again while Charla and the boys started going over the meteor landing zone some more. Mayta came to me and I knew she was going to ask me something. I just hoped I could figure out what she wanted. "You show Charto how make bow arrows lunch?" she asked, and I could barely believe she was catching onto my language so fast. "Yes, I'll show him," I said, hoping like hell I could get it over to him. She smiled and walked out to Charto and I assumed it was to give him the good news. I took the machete and searched for a useable sapling for the bow and some smaller ones for the arrows. After lunch I made sure Mayta was with me to help translate and then we went to it. I showed him my bow first, pointing out things like the small grooves for the bowstrings to lie in near the tips, the arrow rest, and I made him look carefully at the arrows and how the points were secured. When I showed him my jig for making a bowstring I was sure he didn't understand, so I took the time to make myself another one and give him a demonstration while I was at it. There was no way in hell I could tell him how to make glue and then show him what it was for, so I found the limestone bowl I'd made, put a little water in it and warmed it back up. When the gooey mess was ready I cut up one of the feathers I had left and gave him another demo. He was catching on but I knew he'd still be lost when he tried to put everything together after he had the carving done. "Charto come back to finish?" I asked Mayta, hoping she understood I wanted him too. She must have because they talked back and forth for a few minutes and it seemed like things were agreed. Charto, Dukto, Baleye, and I spent the afternoon fishing. It seemed to me like they were planning to head home tomorrow so I wanted to help them out with the technique as much as I could. I even made them a dozen more hooks after we quit and the women started cooking. We had a big meal for supper and demolished all the fish we'd caught during the afternoon lessons. Afterward we found our furs and my women and I did some pre-sleep exercise. Sure enough, the others left as soon as we'd all eaten. Mayta said my goodbyes for me while I smiled, nodded my head, and later waved as they left. I was about to start going through my own new rocks when I got a strange urge to head back to the place I'd been put when I arrived here. I tried to ignore it, but thirty more minutes showed me it was useless. Making my women understand we had to go took another hour. Lack of sufficient words in common to make them understand why was a big part of the trouble, but knowing that I didn't understand why myself was the main hang up. Once they understood I had to go they got with the program. We didn't pack any travois for the trip, mainly because I didn't know what we were after and if we needed them when we got where we were going we could always make more. Most of their time was spent making sure there wouldn't be anything lying around to attract unwanted guests while we were gone. They secured everything edible in the cache and then built small fires on anything that might smell like something to eat. We left a little before noon. All of them had big backpacks loaded with food and such. They wouldn't let me take one and insisted I go with my bow and arrows ready for business. We moved out a hell of a lot faster than I'd traveled on my first trip up here, but when we got to the spot, three days later, I felt very suspicious. When the place came into site there was a seventies model four wheel drive pickup sitting there hooked to a long enclosed horse trailer and I'll swear the dust hadn't settled from its landing yet. They were dumbfounded and stopped in place. I walked straight to it. There were two redheads inside and they looked dazed. Almost as if they'd just been in a crash. I guess that made sense since it was the way I'd arrived, but without my truck. They still had theirs, including the enclosed trailer hooked to the back of it. When I knocked on the driver's door the girl behind the wheel turned her head to look right at me. She was a lightly freckled, green-eyed beauty and I guessed she might be sixteen, if that. Glancing at her companion I knew at once they were twins - young, redheaded, green eyed, big tittied twins. Things were looking up. The driver rolled down her window then. "Where are we mister?" she asked, and her voice made her sound a little older than I'd first thought. "You probably won't believe me, but I don't know exactly. Were you just in a wreck?" "We thought we were, but the truck doesn't look bent up or anything. We were driving back east on I-30 when some fool in one of those UPS vans cut over in front of us and the last thing I remember was a damned explosion. The flash was the last thing I saw before we showed up here, and then you were knocking on the door." "That's about what happened to me, but my truck didn't come along," I said. "And you don't know where we are?" "No, but I know for sure we aren't in Texas." "How do you know that?" "Well, first thing there's no Mesquite, and besides, I've been here a few months already." "You've been here a few months and you're still hanging around in the same spot? Why haven't you tried to find out where you are?" the passenger asked, giving me a suspicious look. "I know it sounds weird, but I have looked around. I've been up that creek probably thirty miles or more. I just headed down this way three days ago. I got a feeling I needed to come back." "That don't make a lot of sense, mister. We just got here," the driver said. "Who do you think you're telling? I already told you I've been here for months. All I had when I woke up from a car crash in downtown Plano was a tool belt and my half-machete. The first week or so all I had to eat was fish I caught with a bent nail and a little twine I had with me." "Kathy, how in the hell can we get back if we don't even know where we are?" the passenger asked the driver. "I don't know Katie, but Bill is gonna kill us if we're late," the driver said. "The best thing any of us can hope for is Bill showing up, whoever he is," I said. "He's our brother, and he sent us to Dallas to pick up all that stuff in his tack trailer. He needs it for an auction he was going to tonight," Kathy said. "I don't mean to darken your day, but you ain't gonna make it home today, and maybe not ever. Maybe you'd better get out and meet my family." The girls had come up pretty close by now and I don't even want to think about what the two redheads might be thinking. They were both staring wide eyed and open mouthed. Of course my girls weren't doing much better. Between the pickup, trailer, and the two new redheads in the pickup they didn't know which way to look. Finally Katie and Kathy opened their doors and got out. This action was another shocker for Mayta and the crew, but they didn't panic. "You talk them good?" Mayta asked, after she got a handle on things. "Yes. They talk my talk." "Come from where you come?" "Close," I said. "What name?" "This is Kathy and this is Katie," I said, pointing to them as I did. "Katie and Kathy, this is Mayta, Malta, Motee, and Sheeta," I told them, pointing to my girls in turn. Now they'd had a good look it was Katie and Kathy's turn to be shocked. They took things in quickly though and Katie turned to me. "I guess you were right. We sure as hell aren't in Texas anymore. You don't have any idea where we are," she asked. "No, but that's not the bad part. I don't even know when we are. My closest guess it that it's early fall or late summer, and that's it." "Bill'll want to paddle our asses for this," Kathy said. "If I could see him again I'd be glad to take it without squawk one. I think he's telling us the truth," Katie said. "Yeh, me too, but what is your name mister?" "Chuck. I'm sorry for what you've gotten into, but I don't even know Bill and if he'd show up with a hint about how to get back I'd let him paddle my ass too if he wanted." "Don't you have any kind of place to live yet? If you've been here as long as you say it looks like you could have built a hut or something. There's nothing here," Katie said. "We've got a place upstream about forty miles. Like I said, I got a feeling I needed to come back here and the more I put it off the stronger it got," I said, trying to make sense. "Will you help us then? We've been on camp outs before and we were raised on a farm; we've even been hunting a few times, but we don't know much about killing our own food. We do know how to fish," Katie said. "Of course we'll help and the main hut is big enough for all of us. We've got plenty of food for now and we can get a lot more meat without much trouble. It's a hell of a lot easier since I made a bow and some arrows," I said. "Oh my God. You really had to make your own bow and arrows. Wasn't it hard?" Kathy asked. "Yes, but it beats hell out of fish all the time. Things are actually going pretty well now. Talking to the girls is about the last snag and it'll work itself out sooner or later." "We go back today Chuck?" Mayta asked, making me realize it was getting late in the day. "No. We need to stay. I'll get wood, where do you want to sleep," I asked her. She picked a place and then they started opening the packs. Kathy and Katie were right on top of them in seconds, wanting to know what they could do to help. I should have been ashamed of myself, but as the new arrivals started walking around, bending over and stooping around I lost myself comparing their asses to my girl's asses and I decided there was just no way to say who's was best, because they were all fantastic. My job was elsewhere though. I knew Malta, Mayta, and the others would get around to gathering firewood later if I sat on my ass and watched, but I just couldn't get into the women do all the real work swing of things. I didn't get out of sight but I did gather a lot of firewood. After all, I'd get to eat plenty of whatever they cooked with it and I didn't want any prowlers at night anymore than they did. They got a meal and some tea going not long after I started the fire. Malta and Mayta did the cooking while Motee and Sheeta showed Kathy and Katie how to clean off a spot for the furs and spread them out. There wasn't much to cleaning off a spot but it was a lot better if you made sure there were no rocks where the furs were headed. Of course I didn't think a thing about it when it was time for bed. My girls and I had shucked our clothes before I even noticed the way Katie and Kathy looked sheepish. Finally I got a clue. "I'm sorry, I should have been paying attention. There's no need for you to sleep in the buff if you don't want to. I can understand it must be a big culture shock to you. Hell, it was for me at first even though I'll admit I'm really glad about the custom now," I said, and they blushed terribly. "No. If that's the way it's done we'll do it too. We sleep that way too, but we've never slept with a man in the bunch," Katie said, and then they giggled. "Well, I'll face the furs and try to give you a little privacy," I said, and then did it. I even tried not to listen, but that didn't do much good. Now that the subject had come up my dick was at attention no matter what I wanted. I got a shock of my own when Mayta, Malta, Motee, and Sheeta insisted Kathy and Katie sleep on either side of me. I wasn't watching but apparently they made room next to me and had the two uptime cuties get in the pile on either side of me. Kathy giggled when she discovered my dick's condition, but she didn't shy away from it altogether. I was surprised it didn't take me long to fall asleep after Sheeta pulled a couple of furs over us. In spite of having two new members in my harem, even if it was only a temporary membership so far, I still dreamed of Reanna that night. She was giving me a sound cussing for leaving her without so much as a word. I can remember trying to explain my rude behavior, but she wouldn't hear a word of it. When the sun rose I woke and was in the furs alone. It wasn't unusual and I got up and walked over to water a tree. I'd just finished draining my morning boner when a loud wolf whistle pierced the morning calm. I turned to see who'd done it and all eyes were on me, giving me a turn to blush. I went back to put on my clothes and I'd just pulled on my boots when another urge made itself known. This time the feeling wasn't the same, it just felt different, kinda like the difference between a light slap and a sharp jab, but I thought I knew what it meant. I hoped it wasn't for the same reason we'd come down here in the first place, but worried that it was. Less than fifteen minutes later my pickup popped into place near Kathy and Katie's. This was crazy since I could see there wasn't a damned thing wrong with it. It hadn't been bent up or burned from the crash. I saw one difference right away though. The camper shell was on it and it hadn't been the last time I saw it. The damned nearly worn out U-Haul I'd bought as a utility trailer three years ago was also hitched to my pickup's trailer knob. My main question was What the Fuck?" Even stranger, when I walked toward it I saw someone sit up behind the wheel, as if they'd been lying across the seat. As I reached it I recognized Reanna. When she saw me she shoved the door open and rushed out, holding her arms wide and then wrapping them around me as she nearly ran me over. "Chuck, where have you been? What happened to you?" she asked. "I've been here since the night I left your house, but I haven't got one clue about where we are or how we got here," I said, and she looked at me like I was nuts. "I don't understand," she said. "I don't either. Do you know how you got here, in my pickup?" "What?" she asked looking around quickly. "No, I don't know, and I didn't know I was in your pickup. James was driving me downtown and he had a small accident; then the other car seemed to explode. I must have been knocked out or something. I just woke up, sat up, and saw you. I didn't pay any attention to anything but you after that. I've been worried about you," she said, kissing me soundly. The others were with us now, and when Kathy and Katie giggled I noticed all of them joined in. No doubt this was part of the language exchange since I'd never heard such out of Malta, Mayta, Motee, or Sheeta. Reanna stopped the kiss when she heard them. She looked at the six and then looked at me. I headed her off before she could ask any questions. I introduced them all. Before they could get started I led us over to the fire and asked Malta to make some tea. We didn't talk about much until after we'd all had one cup, and while Mayta was dipping us another, I rolled out my tale to all of them at once. I'm pretty sure Malta was the only one of my downtime girls to catch onto the gist of what I was saying. After Reanna got the whole story, without the dirty parts, but with enough information to let her know there were some, she started bawling. I pulled her close and held her. I might be dumb, but I knew a lot better than to try any explanations for my behavior before I knew for sure what she was crying about. I just held her and stroked a hand through her hair. "Oh God, I was so worried about you. There was something on the news about a horrible crash downtown and then about the vehicles seeming to disappear. It was just one of those short teasers claiming more information in the regular news program. I waited for it but didn't really worry. Nothing else was ever said about it, and when I called the station the next day to ask, after you didn't call, they said I must be mistaken. Of course no one answered when I tried to call you. "I'm so sorry, but there was nothing I could do about it," I said, wanting to tell her I'd missed the Cowboy's game too, but I didn't dare do that. After a few minutes Malta asked me if we were going to stay here again tonight. As soon as she did I realized there was no need. I had absolutely no feelings like the ones which brought us here or those that kept us overnight. At least if both trucks would run we wouldn't have to walk back. Hell, we wouldn't even be very crowded since Bill's truck was one of those four door jobs. Thankfully it was four wheel drive, like mine. Somehow the fix was in. Reanna was the only one that rode back with me in my pickup. It was a little hassle picking a way through with the pickups and trailers. I tried to allow plenty of room for us to pull the trailers through with minimum bother. We did need the four wheel drive, and especially the low range. We had to use it to go slow enough to keep from rattling our teeth out with no real road to travel on. I also had to make a wide detour around the flint gathering area. I know those sharp flint flakes would be the death of our tires. It didn't take long for me to figure out why Reanna and I had a truck to ourselves. I had to go over the dirty parts after we were alone. I kept expecting an explosion out of her any second. Even though we'd only been together that one time it hadn't been intended as that type thing. We'd both expected more to come of it. "It sounds so exciting. I've been married to a gay guy for what seems like several lifetimes and somehow I've ended up in an ancient harem. Did you do it to the young ones last night? Tell me what they were like. Were they virgins?" she asked, all in a rush. She was nearly panting over it in fact. "No. I kept my dick to myself last night. I didn't try to take advantage of them." "Take advantage of them? I'll bet they're pissed off to the max today, especially after the way I jumped out of this truck and cried like a baby. You have to show them what harem living is going to be like as soon as we get in bed tonight. "Wait. We don't have beds do we. Oh God, we'll be sleeping in furs. Jesus, I'm soaking wet at the thought," she said, moving over close to me and taking hold of my dick through my pants. ------- Chapter 9 Since Reanna didn't seem at all alarmed over my harem as she called it, I was relieved. I wasn't so sure Kathy and Katie would be chomping at the bit to join the fun, but the way they'd snuggled up naked beside me to sleep last night gave me high hopes. From the minute we'd left heading home I'd known the X U-haul I was pulling was loaded fairly heavily, but I didn't have any idea about the contents. The last time I'd parked it at home it was empty. I was also very curious about what might or might not be in Katie and Kathy's truck and trailer. Of course it didn't belong to me, but I hoped they'd be willing to let us use some of the things it held if we needed them. Curiosity kept nagging at me as we traveled and by lunchtime I decided we needed to make camp. We'd been able to move about fifteen miles even in the rough conditions. I decided we should stop for the day since we could probably make it the rest of the way home in half a day tomorrow. When we stopped, Malta led the charge for setting up camp, which didn't take long, and for getting food on the fire, which took a little longer. There was nothing really on my schedule except keeping my eyes out for attacks and I felt fairly secure in broad daylight. My pickup bed, with its camper shell attached was the first thing I peeked into and I was very happy with what I found. It included a good portion of what I owned. Some of it promised to be fairly useless here. I didn't think my thirty-two inch LCD television was going to come in very handy. It did get me wondering who in the hell packed it though and why they'd included some of the things like that. It also made me curious about what might be in the former U-Haul. The trailer was a fairly large one, a twenty-four foot box trailer in fact. When I opened the doors I was even more surprised than by the load under the camper shell. The trailer was completely full and I guessed it and the camper shell contained every single thing I owned. I couldn't imagine how it could have been packed so full. One thing was easy to see. We didn't need to unload anything. If we started pulling things out now we'd never get it all back in so we could take it on back home. After a good long look I shut the trailer's doors again and decided to just walk around and watch the girls work. They rewarded my attention with a big pot of tea right away. The tea wasn't the extent of things either. I noticed them wandering close to me and even rubbing an ass or titty against me in some sort of game they'd cooked up. Malta, Mayta, Motee, and Sheeta seemed to get it started almost on purpose. One or another would come up and ask me something in their language, which I still couldn't understand completely. They'd seem to give up on talking after a little and then pet my cheek or give me a little hug and then move on. After the four of them made a couple of passes each by me, I joined the fun and patted any ass that came into range. I even doled out a few kisses and squeezed a titty or two. Reanna caught onto what was going on pretty quickly and she joined the game. Then Katie and Kathy were right behind her. I had high hopes they'd be petitioning for membership in the harem too. The rest of the afternoon was very pleasant. All the women were teasing me by now and I'd already patted and stroked every ass several times and I was familiar with every titty before we settled down to eat. We'd be sleeping under the stars again tonight and Katie, Kathy, and Reanna shucked their clothes as soon as the other girls did. I ended up more or less putting on a show for them when I got around to getting naked. Katie and Kathy were set to get in right beside me again and I wasn't sad about it. Katie had some instructions for me as soon as I hit the furs. "Don't even try holding out on us again tonight," she said, leaning over to plop a magnificent breast on my chest. "That's right. We've never done it before but horseback riding did away with our cherries years ago. Just try to be gentle, at first anyway. Me first," Kathy said. I felt a little hesitant at first and I really wanted to ask them a dumb question. Something like "Are you sure?" but I managed to keep from it. They were right beside me, buck naked, and squirming naked flesh against me every place I had a place. They were more than sure about what they wanted. I was even getting a whiff of their arousal already. A little squirming of my own had Kathy on her back with me nibbling and sucking her plump nipples while her hands toyed in my hair. Katie was caressing and petting my back and ass while I was occupied with her sister. I moved my lips to Kathy's a little later and she understood all about French kissing. When I noticed her hips were squirming quite a bit I moved my legs between hers and she spread wide at once. Everyone else had joined Katie in petting and teasing us both by now, and Kathy was practically babbling, telling me to get on with it. Hell, I was glad to. Apparently Katie was anxious too because she took hold of my dick and swabbed the head up and down between Kathy's slippery lips. I teased Kathy with a few mini-strokes and then put on more pressure to begin slipping up her. "Oh God that's big," she said, when I reached about half way and then retreated for another try. Jesus, she was hot and wet inside, and even if this was her first try, her pussy was semi-intelligent already. As I started back in, her inner muscles nipped at my length and she cocked her hips as I pulled outward again. On the next push I hit bottom and Kathy wrapped her beautiful athletic legs around my ass and moaned into my neck. The fuck was on for real then and within minutes she was bucking back at me and pulling with her hands on my ass to encourage me to pump deeper. I couldn't go any deeper though because I was already bumping her cervix. I did speed up my strokes and put more power behind them. If Kathy hadn't had a hair trigger I'd have beat her to the end, but she went off as I did, holding me tight and grinding her bush against me firmly. I knew her orgasm hadn't been earth shattering, but I could tell she thought it was grand. I rolled to the side kissing and snuggling up against her until she caught her breath and then I was rolled to my back and Reanna gave all the girls a deep-throat demonstration. Though Reanna was doing excellent work she disengaged when I was ready to go again and I gave Katie a dose of the same thing her sister got. It seemed she liked it just as well and I know I did. Reanna tried to get the other girls in line for treatment, but Mayta wouldn't hear of it. The other three joined in with explanations then and Reanna was out of her league, especially since she couldn't understand or speak a word of their language. She didn't seem like she was all that anxious to talk her way out of it anyway. We went at it even harder and heavier than the twins and I had. By the time the howling and shouting was over I had to take a breather. Sheeta started serving hot tea then and I'll admit I nodded off. I woke a short while later with my dick in someone's mouth. It was Sheeta and she had me hard as a brick bat while Motee was on her hands and knees with her ass pointed at me. She was wagging it so I got on my knees behind her and shoved the meat in. Apparently I'd been the only one asleep. The rest of them swarmed us about then, petting, kissing, nibbling and one of them even gave me a sharp slap on the ass. When they let me get to sleep, four fucks later, I stayed that way until sunlight woke me up. Malta, Motee, and Mayta were showing Kathy and Katie how to cook breakfast stew in a skin bag, while Reanna showed Sheeta how to use a camp-out coffee pot to boil coffee. What could be better? A few minutes later Reanna brought me the first cup I'd had in months. We packed up and left about an hour later and made it back to camp around three PM. Nothing had bothered the huts and when we were out of the trucks the show and tell was on. "Damn Chuck, I was hoping you'd turned into a real cave man. Couldn't you find us a big one to live in?" Reanna asked. "I haven't thought of or even asked about caves for that matter. It sounds like a hell of a good idea though. Let me see if I can make the girls understand. They might know right where to find one." Hell, all four of them did, but when I made them understand my question about moving into one Malta stood up on her tiptoes, raised both arms above her head in a threatening manner and bellowed while walking toward me. It confused hell out of me. "Bears. I think she'd trying to tell you bears live in the caves," Katie said. "Doesn't matter if they do. The cure for bear infestation came along in my pickup. They won't be anything but more meat when I get done with them," I said, but I knew I was bragging at least a little. At any rate I put off any cave searching until tomorrow, since it was late in the afternoon now. All the women put our camp back in order and then started cooking something. I didn't care what it was because I knew I'd like anything. After supper and sunset we were in the pile of furs inside the big hut and going at it hammer and tongs again. I was up and out first the next morning, mainly because I had to piss like a Rocky Mountain race horse. I'd just finished shaking the dew off when Malta came out to start thinking about cooking. She came over for a good morning kiss and then pointed out across the big plain and said, "Cave there." I looked but couldn't see it of course. It was probably four or five miles across the plain to what I could tell was more forest. I did notice for the first time there seemed to be some high hills or short mountains a little past the forest. "We can look today," I said, and without a doubt she understood me. "When Reanna, Kathy, Katie and the others came out of the hut I asked Katie and Kathy if we could use their truck to go see about finding a cave today. "That's your truck now cave man. We're your women now and if we don't act like you want you can just drag us around by our hair. Please don't hit us with a big old club though. We won't play hard to get, we'll give it up anytime," Kathy said, and they both laughed at me. "What will your brother think?" "If he comes to get it he can just take it home," Katie said. "Damn if that's so," Reanna said, "I'll just write him a check. My checkbook is in my purse. Hell, I'll go write one for the truck, trailer, and everything in both of them right now." "You can wait until he comes to collect," Katie said, and the three of them laughed again. What the hell? I went over to the big Ford and looked inside. The back seat was piled high with purses and travel bags. There was a gun rack against the back window and it had three Model 94 30-30 lever actions in it. A Model 94 wasn't my favorite rifle, but if there was ammunition I wasn't ashamed to use one. Of course if all my things were here now then my rifles, pistols, and shotguns were available, but I wasn't planning on hunting this afternoon anyway. We could get by fine with the 30-30s if they were in good shape and there was ammunition. "During breakfast I asked Katie and Kathy about the rifles. One is for each of us and the one on top was Bob's. We have a case of cartridges under the seat. All of them are loaded already though," Kathy said. "Well they should be plenty of protection to ride around looking for a vacant cave," I said. "We'll be ok with all three, but we should probably have them out and ready before we poke around in any cave," Katie said. "Why?" "I can tell you didn't pay enough attention to Malta. She wasn't warning you about a black bear. I asked her to mark off the size against a tree. She has to be talking about a Cave bear. Those fuckers were gigantic. "I think it's too early for them to be holed up for the winter yet, but they could be wandering around close. We'll damn sure need to build one hell of a door before we start using one of their caves. I don't think they'll notice we don't have the welcome mat out," Kathy said. They had a valid point - several of them in fact. Of course I'd never seen a cave bear for real - no one from my last home planet had. I had read a little about them a time or two and I knew if there were some here they weren't to be taken lightly. Anyway we had some work to do first, namely the truck needed to be unloaded. Many of the things in it were boxed up and looked like they'd just been purchased. A few questions let me know they had. "Bob sent us to Dallas to pickup merchandise he'd just bought. It's mostly horse tack and other things he knows sell well at the pre-auctions they always have before the horse-auctions start. There's not much telling what sort of odd items might be included. "Horse auctions are always attended by farmers, ranchers, and other people who bring money and intend to spend it if they see something they think is useful. Bob's biggest asset has always been his ability to say things that convinced potential buyers he had something they needed," Kathy said. "Well, he'd probably be proud of you two. You convinced me we needed it all, and sight unseen to boot," Reanna said. I didn't pay much attention to what we were unloading, I just helped unload. It fit well with what was going on and with advice I'd heard often. Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon. In this case it was just unload the wagon. With the truck mostly unloaded all of us were able to fit inside the four-door cab. I was elected to drive and we started across the big grassy plain in the direction they'd pointed out earlier. When we reached he other side the first thing I noticed was a preponderance of younger trees near the edge of the woods. In fact, a hundred feet or so in from the absolute edge the trees seemed to become mature almost at once. Other signs let me speculate there had been a large fire that basically stopped here at one time. My guess was a natural forest fire that had suddenly been put out or drastically reduced by rain. It must have happened at least twenty years ago since most obvious signs were gone and there'd been so much new growth along the edge of the fire's farthest point of destruction. The mature trees remaining were also fairly thin on the ground like a very mature natural seeding would leave them. The details were in our favor though. By examining the forest carefully I determined we could drive the truck all the way to the beginning of the small mountain after clearing a path through the new growth and then dodging around trees through the mature growth. For the moment we'd be doing all our cave hunting on foot though. Kathy and Katie retrieved their rifles and pulled out the case of ammunition while I grabbed Bob's Winchester. We each took two boxes (forty rounds) of shells and emptied the boxes into our pockets. The rifles were already fully loaded. Malta led the way through the woods and we came out into a large clearing with an obvious opening to a cave directly across from us. Near the base of the mountain there seemed to be open space all along it. It looked like none of the trees had grown within a hundred feet or so of the rather abrupt steep edge. The details looked odd to me, as if somehow the mountain had been planned and placed here and trees hadn't been allowed to grow near it. I understood that wasn't possible, but didn't know enough about things to understand why it was this way. When it came down to it I really didn't care. It would work out well for us. Before we even looked into the first cave we saw, Malta showed us four more. All had good useable openings and we couldn't tell see any real differences from the outside. All of them also showed us bears had used them at some time in the past. There had been plenty of flashlights in among Bob's merchandise and we'd found batteries and put four of the largest into service. It didn't take long to teach my downtime girls to use them. We started with a cave on one end and eased our way in with Motee in the lead and me right behind her. It was larger than I'd expected and it had room enough for all of us and in fact is was easily spacious enough for every human I'd seen since I came here. There were no prehistoric monster residents present and we were able to take a close look. So far so good. We moved on and the next cave in line was even larger and the interior details were largely the same. It was perfectly adequate also and equally empty. Like the first one the house keeping had been nothing to shout about, but the dirt over rock carpeting would probably be easy to care for. The third cave, the one we'd seen first was larger again and it had a new feature that looked really promising. We found a small stream of water trickling down from above. There was no way to know where it was coming from, but I had visited Carlsbad Caverns once and running water in a cave wasn't a mystery to me. Of course the situation with Carlsbad Caverns was completely different since they were basically underground and the water was more understandable. The next cave proved to be the most suitable by a long shot, and more water was the main feature. There was a veritable small stream flowing and it wasn't very far from the entrance. My guess was maybe twenty gallons per minute were flowing, basically out of a small break in a wall. The water flowed out of the breech, as if under at least slight pressure, and arced into a pool. The runoff disappeared almost immediately by running into a small channel in the rock floor and then down into a moderate sized hole. You could hear it splashing its way away and it sounded to me like the distance of fall was substantial. The pool was interesting too. I thought it might be made into a nice bathing pool or something similar until I put my hand in it. Oops, it was nearly freezing cold. Any bath in that pool would be very short. The last cave was largest by a long shot; in fact it seemed gigantic compared to the others. Even the entrance was larger. It had water flowing in two places also but they weren't nearly as handy as the arrangement in the previous cave. We were all convinced the fourth cave we'd looked at would be best for us. Apparently it was best for the bears too, since it seemed to have been used by more of them down through the years. I wasn't worried over that detail though since I was sure we could put up a substantial door before winter set in. It was decided without much discussion. We walked back to the Ford, turned it around, and headed back to our camp. ------- Chapter 10 Lunch was the first order of business when we got back to camp. There were more than plenty of cooks now and it seemed each of them wanted to participate. There was more than plenty to eat before they were done. Alas, I had to rein myself in or I'd be too full and get lazy and sleepy during the afternoon. Ok, lazier and sleepier, satisfied? I did rein in my eating though and we had to get to work right away. The first thing I dealt with was my piece of a chainsaw. I'd bought it for a tricky job I'd done for a lawyer I thought probably wasn't gay like Reanna's husband. He had two damned big oaks right in the dish's line of sight. He wanted the dish where he wanted it. He nearly shit his pants though when the tree trimming service provided an estimate. In usual lawyer fashion he wasn't ashamed to beg for what he wanted, namely a cheaper tree trimming. I nearly fucked up by the numbers when he showed me their sixteen thousand dollar estimate. Of course it called for complete removal of the trees and I nearly mentioned it. "I can climb the trees and trim out a sightline for five grand. It will need to be touched up every other year or so probably, but that shouldn't be nearly as expensive," I said. He chewed it like a pickle, so I headed for the pawnshops to find some used equipment. I was able to locate climbing spikes, lineman's boots, a safety harness, and a used Stihl 440 chainsaw at the same shop. Since the saw wouldn't start I got it all for a hundred and fifty bucks. I wasn't about to take the saw to a regular chain saw shop since that was about like calling up a mugger and asking him to come over and do a number on you since your wallet was too full. After taking the saw apart I found one of the safety kill switches broken, replaced it, and fired that mother up. A round file and a little more work had the saw chain sharp again and the next day I climbed for money. For trimming I used the simple expedient of walking as far out on a limb as I could without breaking it off. I cut off everything I was afraid to walk on. Of course I tied off on up the tree so if I made a mistake I wouldn't fall far. The lawyer promised me his homeowner's insurance had me covered. I knew if it didn't my next lawyer would make sure something had me covered. It took most of the day to trim the trees and most of the next to cut up, split, and haul off my free firewood, but I did get the chainsaw out of the deal. It looked like shit, but it cut like a demon. With the saw running good and everything else I could think of ready for action we took the rest of the day off for grab assing and then had a nice supper and an even better fuck break before bed. The next morning I'd lobbied for a light breakfast and we had it. We loaded up into Bob's former ride and headed for the distant tree line. It didn't take long to mark out a nice wide path and then get to work. A stout chain with a slip knot in the end tied to Bob's bumper hitch was my precision insturment for pulling up every tree I could, and that was most of the small ones. We only needed to fell four of the bigger ones and the saw and I had our work cut out on them. First I had to fell them, and then cut them into sections small enough to be pulled out of the way by Bob's Ford. After finishing it I had to do the low work, cutting the stumps off very close to the ground and then smoothing the edges so they wouldn't cut a tire if we had to run over them. It was damned near dark thirty before we were done, and since we'd skipped lunch I was tired and hungry. The girls cured my ills back at our camp though, and filled my belly full. Unfortunately I had to call in sick for the fuckathon that night. I was sore as a boil in places the next day too, but felt a lot better after breakfast and a little stretching. Like I figured, we couldn't even get most of the few things we'd unloaded back into the trucks or trailers. Lucky we hadn't even opened the back of Bob's. When we checked it to see about stowing some of the crap we couldn't get back into mine we didn't find enough room to put even a screwdriver in. It was stuffed full from front to back. We even had trouble getting the doors closed again. We put anything we couldn't get into either truck or trailer inside the hut and headed out toward our new home. Kathy drove Bob's truck and I drove mine. We were both able to pull inside the cave and turn around to head back out. We dropped the trailers in place, pulled forward about six feet for room to work, and then unloaded both trucks. After the trucks were empty we pulled them outside and unloaded my trailer first. Since I had a general idea of what we'd find we were able to keep it organized, sorta. My guess had been right. Everything I'd owned had come along. We now had a kitchen table and chairs, a dining table and plenty of furniture we could arrange into a den. My entertainment center cabinet, all my tapes, DVDs, and CDs were here - even my desk, chair, and computer. A few things even surprised me. I had replaced the kitchen sink at the house with one of those nice stainless steel triple sink models and it had come along too, including all the plumbing I'd had to put in. Hell, we even had my In-Sink-Erator, my new dishwasher, and my brand new trash compactor. Unfortunately the kitchen cabinets we needed to set it all up on and under didn't make the trip. My used bathtub made it though. It was a seven foot cast-iron clawfoot and it came with most of the plumbing I'd used to put it in with too. I'd bought the house as a fixer-upper and most all the things I'd used to make repairs and improvements had come along for the trip. Two prized possessions I'd never have counted on were the inline instant water-heaters. They wouldn't be worth a shit unless I could find a way to generate electricity, but I did know how to get AC out of an automotive alternator. All my things would be, or at least could be nice sooner or later, but there were others which would be much more useful. My rifles, pistols, and reloading stuff came to mind right away. We put the bench and the things that went with it together, keeping it a good distance away from any place we ever intended to build a fire. The smokeless powder wouldn't explode or anything, but it would burn like a bitch with only a spark or two and we'd no doubt have a hard time replacing it. I was also glad to see my cowboy things. Two lariats, two saddles and a pack-mule pack frame plus other assorted but useful tack and hardware. My anvil even made the trip along with the few pieces of horseshoeing tools I had. I'd never put on a set of horse shoes, but I'd replace and tightened one shoe more than once. All that stuff would come in handy sooner or later. It took all damned day to get my trailer and truck unloaded. I voted we leave Bob's trailer for tomorrow and it passed by acclimation. While the girls built a cooking fire not far from the water supply I built a larger fire in the middle of the entrance. We wouldn't be entertaining company tonight, we hoped. At least we weren't worn out tonight, but we weren't hot to trot either. Pretty much by mutual consideration we abstained again. We hit the furs early too and got a lot of sleep. I was lucky enough to be near the middle of the pile and didn't even have to do a turn mending the un-welcome fire in the entrance. After our first breakfast in our new home the next morning it was decision time. What should we do next? Reanna, Kathy, and Katie thought installing my shitter from home should come next and I was inclined to agree with them, except. When I got started plumbing I wanted to work on it until everything was finished and working, except maybe the water heaters. I didn't really have much hope for generating enough power for them ever. Still, I didn't want to put in a shitter now and have to move it later to accommodate other connections. I nixed the shitter for today and didn't get any really loud howling. A door to lock us in was the next most requested item on the list and I agreed. Me and my chainsaw could furnish practically all the materials we needed, and I knew I had a few old barn door strap hinges in with my stuff for hanging the door. Simply because I knew I could get it done with the equipment and materials on hand didn't mean it would be easy. It took all morning to cut and trim enough of the small trees and nearly all afternoon to get the door laid out and cobbled together. The worst part was scrounging up nails and bolts, which were large enough. We got it done though. Hanging it would be for tomorrow though. I still had to figure out some type of fasteners to attach the hinges to our rock walls. We'd just about used all the large bolts in my junk box putting the door together. Kathy gave me a hint. "Bob has all kinds of odds and ends to use around a farm. Surely we can find something to work if we unload the trailer," she said. "I guess we should unload it first thing in the morning then," Reanna said. "No. We should have breakfast first thing in the morning, then we'll unload the trailer," I said, and didn't even get too much groaning and complaining. They splurged for breakfast the next morning and we had fried venison steaks and then some. Reanna even brewed me a pot of coffee. I felt like a king, or, considering the harem I might be closer to a sultan. Bob's trailer was next on the agenda and the first item was no surprise to me. Side to side and floor to ceiling right in the back door were twelve cardboard boxes of the same size. They were what closed off the trailer so nothing else could be added. They were twelve brand new rough-out roping saddles. No box had ever even been opened. It was a treasure trove for us if we could catch some horses. A lot of the other things packed into the long wide bumper hitch trailer were odds and ends. Many things were obviously bought from store closing sales and auctions. For instance, there was a pegboard-mounted display of axes and hatchets, and another of Estwing farrier's tools. There were boxes of bulk horseshoes and one thing I wished we'd found before building the door. Two fifty-pound cases of 1/2 by twelve inch deer spikes, used for driving into trees to climb to a deer stand. The trailer was packed with what you generally saw at a tack auction, which came before the horses went on the block at a horse auction. He had everything from hand tools to seed potatoes. Like most tack-auction sellers he bought anything he thought he could sell for more money later and he had a thirty by eight by eight-foot box trailer of the stuff. Some of it I doubted we'd ever be able to use, but most of it would probably come in handy one day. Like my trailer, the thing was packed completely full, but it was bigger and I'd never seen the contents before. Looking over what we were taking out as we did it made things take even longer. I figured we might as well go ahead and unload it all while we were at it though. Our day was going to be shot anyway. At noon we broke up to cook some lunch. Even my downtime girls had caught the excitement when Kathy found forty pairs of cowboy boots. While Reanna was warming up stew, Kathy and Katie opened a giant box of white athletic socks. They sat Malta, Motee, Mayta, and Sheeta down and fitted them with a pair of boots. Even I was nosey and watching the process, mostly because I wanted to see if I could make sure they found good fits, but also because I got a good look up their dresses while it was going on. After eating and then dragging ourselves back to work Motee found several boxes of something and after opening one she held up a pair of Levis and asked if they were clothes. This was another fitting I didn't intend to miss, especially after Katie found four boxes of Maverick brand denim cowboy type shirts that went well with the jeans. It happened to be the same type shirt I always wore while working. I think there were even some that would fit me, but they didn't have my attention now. All the women stripped to the buff and divvied up the new jeans and shirts. They spent a lot of time making sure at least one set each fitted them perfectly. At least they didn't break out any of the thousands of sewing needles we found and start altering things right away. The needles and thread were going to be priceless, no doubt about it, but I'll have to say seeing Malta, Motee, Mayta, and Sheeta wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots, and denim shirts made my dick extremely hard for some reason. I had to hook up the string of battery powered inside lights Bob had installed in his trailer and turn them on to finish. The far end was just too dark inside even though we had a fairly big fire out behind to give us light. We finally had all the last item out though. As soon as I saw it I knew it must have been stolen somewhere and I teased Kathy and Katie about Bob getting a five-finger discount. "Believe me, Bob was never against it. He did buy that thing though. Of course Sammy Wilkins stole it somewhere up in the panhandle where they were building one of those windmill electricity farms. Bob only gave him three hundred bucks for it though, because the dumbass didn't bother to steal the blades," Katie said. "Well, three hundred bucks ain't a bad price for a thirty thousand dollar wind turbine," I said. "God almighty. Bob would have pissed his pants if he'd known if was worth anything like that. Still, what good is it without the blades?" Kathy asked. "The blades don't matter too much. This is a fifteen KW generator. Sooner or later I'll figure out something to make it turn," I said. "Don't it have to be wind?" Katie asked. "It would be a lot better if we had the blades, but we don't have to have them to make it work. It already has the speed governor and clutches attacked where the blades hook on. If I can find a good stream close by I might be able to turn it with a water wheel or something," I said. "Well I didn't see a water wheel in that trailer either," Reanna said. "Hell woman. I'm a Texas with tools. I can rig something up sooner or later. In fact all y'all better hope I can. As soon as this is working I'll be able to run the dishwasher, the garbage disposal and make the water heaters work. You ain't forgot the bathtub already have you?" "I shore as hell haven't, and I'm going to suck your dick dry as soon as I get a hot bath," Katie said. "Me too," her sister said, copying her at once. The damned thing weighed nearly eight hundred pounds, not to mention the four giant twenty-four volt batteries and the big cavinet with a commercial grade inverter. We had more than a little trouble getting it out. When it was all on the cave floor I opened some of the inspection panels and found a two inch thick instruction manual. That made me even more certain I could cobble something up to make it work. ------- Incomplete and Inactive ------- Posted: 2008-06-22 Last Modified: 2008-08-15 / 10:59:38 am ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------