Chapter Sixteen
- Winding Road - Do Not Pass . . .
When I awakened in the morning and found myself in Grampa Bender's bed, I was literally lost and didn't know where I was for several seconds. Actually since I had a morning woody which was tucked between the soft, but firm globes of Carissa's bare bottom as I cuddled to her back, I was shocked and somewhat alarmed as well. It took at least a couple of minutes for the happenings of the previous night to sink into my thick skull. Until that happened and I realised that she and I had both wanted to make love I was almost afraid to move. Of course by then the hydraulic pressure in my bladder had reached the danger level and I knew I had to either move or I'd suffer an accident.
Untangling my arms from around her delightful body so that I could manage to get out of bed without awakening Carissa seemed to take forever, but I was finally able to slip out of bed and make a mad dash outside. It wasn't until I was standing there relieving myself into the bushes off the end of the front porch of the cabin that the true implications of what had happened interrupted my thought processes.
I'd had sex with one of the Coulter twins and of course I remembered the rumour that all guys my age had heard about the twins and about their father. John Coulter had supposedly threatened to use a rusting tin can lid to nut any guy who took the virginity of one of those twins. The two of them were the delight of his life and he'd spent eighteen years guarding them from the world. Now in one rampant moment I had destroyed one of those precious bits of flesh that he had spent so many years protecting.
It didn't matter that Carissa had been a willing and eager participant in our actions, for some reason I still saw her as an innocent participant that I had drawn into my version of depravity. I was the guilty guy whose undisciplined actions had disgraced one of the two stars of John Coulter's universe. I was the damn fool who had picked her up and carried her inside the house, then taken her to bed, so I was going to have to face the music, not only with John Coulter, but with my parents as well. All I could do was hope that they wouldn't be too hard on me.
With a deep sigh of resignation at my fate, I crossed the front porch in an attitude of surrender to the world. I was guilty and I knew that I had to face the music. In my weakness, I had given in to the temptation of having sex and now I knew I had to suffer the consequences for my actions.
On top of that I had to find some way to face Carissa and apologise for being such a weakling. I resolved that in some way I was going to treat her so wonderfully that it would make up for the disgrace I had brought upon her. Then as I was preparing the coffee pot for the morning brew and thinking about how to apologise to Carissa, I remembered that she'd driven out here and had been the one to tempt me, not the other way around. Perhaps an apology wasn't called for? After all, she was literally as guilty of our actions as I was. I paused and my mind whirled around and around as I had an argument with myself.
Then my rebellious memory recalled the delight of being involved in the act of sex and my libido clamped down on my reason. Some twisted and perverse tendril of thought intruded itself into my brain, insistently pointing out that now that Carissa was no longer a virgin, no one would be able to tell if we'd only had sex once or if we had enjoyed the act of making love a dozen times.
The hormones in my body must have been waiting on standby and instantly leaped into action. Almost instantaneously I had another erection and without any thought of the consequences I was suddenly moving back toward the bedroom. It didn't help that Carissa was awake and smiling at me as I came to the bedroom door; nor did it help that she had thrown off the covers on the bed so that my rebellious libido was further stimulated by the sight of her delightful body.
"Well, look at you." She purred softly and I could almost feel the weight of her gaze as it singled out the swollen flesh that waggled at my groin. "Is that for me?"
Something suddenly switched in my brain and once more reason intruded. Abruptly I was again the shy kid who had worshipped this young woman from afar. I felt the blood rushing to my face and one of my hands attempted to cover the shocking display of swollen flesh at my crotch.
"I'm sorry, I . . ." My voice failed me as she wriggled provocatively.
"Oh, you're not going to go all shy on me again, are you?"
Her voice was like a siren song, drawing me forward, one reluctant step at a time.
"That's my guy! Come to Mama." She coached softly, one hand reaching out beseechingly as the other patted the bed at her side.
My feet seemed to be drawn step by step, closer and closer to her influence. Our hands touched and I knew I was completely seduced, but somehow it felt so good, so right.
"I need a good morning cuddle." She purred and I was drawn to her, enveloped in the raw lust that she seemed to radiate.
I don't recall slipping back into the bed, but somehow she was wrapped in my arms and we were kissing.
Then we were doing more, so much more!
Once more she was soft and wonderful and oh so cooperative. The delight I felt at being with her simply overwhelmed all the sensations of guilt and fear. Once more she reacted in a way that drew me to feats of raw lust that I could hardly imagine. Then once more we were surging together to a plateau of ecstasy that I'd never suspected was possible, not until being with her.
Unfortunately I was like many men, once my body had achieved release it simply insisted on rest, but at least I managed to shift so I wasn't crushing her beneath me before I dozed in relaxation.
It wasn't until I was again wide awake, simply laying beside her and gently stroking the smooth skin of one of her breasts with my fingertips, that another of the consequences of what I had done truly sank into my thick skull.
"Oh shit!" I sat up and stared at her in shock.
"What's wrong?" Her voice was filled with concern.
"I forgot to use a damn French safe last night when we made love and I just did the same bloody thing again." I whispered.
"A French safe?"
"A condom, dammit."
"Oh, I knew that. I very carefully didn't warn you so that it would slip past your memory." She smiled like the cat who had just eaten the canary.
"But what will we do if . . ." My voice failed me with the question only partially spoken.
"Then we'll deal with it, but there really isn't much chance of anything happening." She laughed softly and sat up to stare me in the eye as her face grew more serious. "Haven't you ever heard of the pill?"
"What pill?"
"The birth control pill that came onto the market just a few months ago. A pill a day is supposed to stop any chance of a pregnancy." She was sounding like a teacher who was lecturing a class. "I started taking it a while before the graduation party, but the doctor warned me that it might not do much until after my first period and wasn't foolproof until after the second one."
I didn't say anything, instead, I was starting to feel upset for some reason. I suppose it was because I felt let down at being left out of the loop and not knowing what was going on.
"Remember last week, when Will gave Corinna and me a ride to town after we came up here?"
I nodded my head to let her know that I remembered, but almost opened my mouth and told her about my injured feelings.
"Well, the only reason that I didn't take you to bed then was that I was having my period. That was the second one after I started on my pill."
"Oh." I answered shortly then saw her face twist into a frown at my annoyed tone so I thought I'd best explain. "Look, I'm glad you're protected, but I wish you'd let me know. I was left feeling like a bastard because I didn't respect you enough to protect you. After all I'm supposed to be just as responsible as you are."
"Oh, you sweetheart." She smiled and suddenly she was pressing me back onto the bed, then with her face scant inches from mine she spoke slowly and deliberately. "I am sorry for upsetting you and making you feel bad, and I admit that I didn't think of how you might feel. I was only trying to give you a treat."
"A treat? What do you mean?" I was still trying to talk as her lips were grazing across my face, teasing me.
"Well, I thought our first time should be skin to skin." Carissa lifted her head and grinned at me. "I wanted to make sure you were a good bareback rider. Besides, I know you don't have enough condoms to last for four days, so we'd end up doing it this way in the long run anyway."
"Wait a minute, are you planning on spending all four days here?"
"Unh huh, I'm gonna be here the whole weekend." She giggled. "By the time out folks get back from their holidays, I imagine that I'll be walking bowlegged and pigeon toed from clamping my legs around your back as you poke that wonderful tool of yours deep inside me."
"Oh damn. Don't remind me of that." I heaved a huge sigh. "I'm going to have to face both your dad and my folks about this."
"Don't worry about it." She laughed softly. "By now I imagine both of our Dads have been told what Corinna and I had planned."
"What?" I stared at her. "Who would tell them?"
"Our Moms of course." She giggled softly and poked me in the ribs. "Who do you suppose arranged for Corinna and me to get you and Wil alone while our family's were out of town?"
"But, what about . . ."
She lifted a finger and laid in on my lips to silence me.
"Shh." She whispered. "You and Wil were set up, but I can explain, if you want me to, but you'll have to be patient and not interrupt."
I managed to nod my head and she drew a deep breath.
"First off you need to know that puberty shot down Corinna and me very early and my folks knew about it right away because they'd been expecting it."
I must have looked slightly confused because she grinned and chuckled.
"Oh quit looking so surprised." Carissa chortled. "Remember that Valentine that you gave me, the one that you thought I threw away?"
I nodded my head again, but still kept quiet.
"Well, Mom caught me laying in bed holding that in one hand and playing with myself with the other." She giggled then her face went through a sudden change and she became very serious. "That was when she talked to Daddy and he laid down the law to us about boys. You see he and Mom were sort of precocious when it came to sex and they didn't want us to go through the same sort of thing they'd had to put up with when they were young."
"I don't understand." I sighed softly.
Her face was twisted into a frown as she sighed deeply.
"Don't ever tell them that I told you, but Daddy got Mom pregnant when she was only fourteen. She had a miscarriage and the baby was stillborn or I'd have had either an older brother or sister." She looked like she was almost in tears as she talked about it.
"Oh, I'm sorry." I sighed and hugged her gently as she snuggled against me.
It was a few minutes before she began to speak again and somehow I had the sense to keep quiet and wait for her to continue.
"Anyway, to make a long story short, Mom and Dad didn't want that sort of thing to happen to us, so they laid down the law. First they told Corinna and me exactly what had happened to them. Then they made the idea that if we fiddled around with boys sound so scary that we were terrified of getting pregnant. We were still fascinated by guys, but we wouldn't even let them touch us out of fear. So we became the 'Ice Cubes', otherwise known as the world's worst cock teases." Carissa snorted then and moved so I could see her face again.
"Then a few weeks ago, just a few days before our eighteenth birthday, Corinna and I heard Mom and Daddy having a loud argument. Anyway, the next day Mom tried to talk to us about sex, but I guess after so many years of trying to make sex seem so unpalatable to us, she did a terrible job of it. All she really did get across was the idea that she really thought that sex was wonderful, but that she was worried about us because once we were eighteen, she and Daddy couldn't legally stop us from screwing our butts off if we ever found out how great sex really was."
She snorted in reaction to the thought and I was going to say something, but instead she looked at me seriously and sighed softly. "I think Mom really expected us to go nuts about sex because inside of a few days she took us both down to see Dr. McGraths. She asked him to give us a talk about the pitfalls of unprotected sex, especially with guys who slept around. That talk of his was a lot scarier than the sex ed class we had in school, but at the same time he also told us about the birth control pill and that made it worthwhile."
"So this pill stops you from getting pregnant?" I asked in wonder since I'd never heard of it before.
"Unh huh and I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it 'cause it's new." She nodded. "Of course when Mom heard that both Corinna and I had gotten a prescription for the pill, that almost shut down our chances of having the grad party wed planned on having at our house. She'd heard the stories about so many of the girls who went to grad parties and about them having sex for the first time that night. I suppose she was afraid we'd be right in there like pigs in the mud. Somehow Daddy calmed her down and insisted that we should still have the party." She smiled, then her face changed and she shrugged.
"You know what happened then. Of course Mom heard about the big bollix after the party, but she also heard how both Corinna and I thought you were the nicest guy around. That really threw her for a loop. I think she was afraid that both of us were going to compete with each other to win you over or something I guess."
"But the thing about the pictures didn't happen until the next week." I protested.
"Oh that wasn't the first thing, not for Mom." Carissa snorted. "First off she was supposed to be away until Monday and the party was on Friday night, so we thought we'd have all weekend to clean up. She came home early and caught us still cleaning up on Sunday morning. Then to make it worse, both of us were prattling on about how you could have had sex with us, but you'd been such a gentleman and so on and so forth. She was positive that you were setting us both up for a threesome or something."
"Oh."
"Yeah, 'Oh.' is right. So we started out the week in crap with Mom, then the shit hit the fan with the pictures. I mean when we opened that damn envelope, I knew right then that my life was over. All I could think of was to get out of there and hide somehow. So the next thing I remember, Corinna and I were running down the street toward home, knowing that Mom and Daddy were going to skin us alive. Then suddenly Daddy's car was pulling in front of us and Daddy was ordering us to get in the back seat. I guess Beth had phoned your dad and he'd phoned my Dad. I think he was planning on going to the school to take it apart when he saw us on the street and decided we should be with him." Carissa's attempt at a laugh was closer to a bark. "Anyway, Daddy was pissed! I mean he was just livid, ranting and raving like a maniac about what he was going to do to whoever had taken those pictures."
"I know. Remember, I was there when he came in, but he was calm compared to my Dad." I nodded and managed a grin.
"Well, to be honest none of us were exactly calm as cucumbers.' She grinned back at me. "You did a pretty fair job of imitating a wild man yourself."
"Hah, I wasn't the one who tore out the girls' hair and blackened their eyes."
"That's only because someone held you back." She giggled. "Anyway, after everything had settled down and we got sent home, you and Beth showed up at our house. Daddy got the wild idea from Beth about us helping out on the farm for a few days and that's when our real sex education began, from your little sister of all people."
"Well, from what I heard, Mom stuck her oar in the water once in a while too." I grinned at her.
"Yes, she did, but mostly to confirm what Beth had told us beforehand. Your little sister should be teaching the sex ed class at school instead of those old fogeys they have teaching it now."
I just grinned at her, not wanting her to know that I was wondering if Beth knew more about sex than I did.
"Anyway, after we got that crash course in sex education, along came your brother Wil. Corinna went bananas over him, then you broke up with Sandy and I let you know about my feelings about you. Suddenly we each had a guy and we started thinking that we wanted to find a way to practise all the things we had learned. So, when you took us back into town on the following Monday, we talked to Mom. To be honest, we gave her a warning about the way we were feeling and for once she listened to what we said. She arranged it so that all three of us talked to your Mom. Since we insisted we were going to seduce you two in some way no matter what else happened, they decided that they might as well try to make it uncomplicated for us. So here we are. Corinna has Wil over at your house for three days and four nights, while I have you here for the same time."
She was beaming at me now as she sat up and stretched slowly. As for me, I was astounded that our Moms would do anything like that. For several seconds I didn't do or say anything as I thought out the implications of what she had said.
"Unh, Carissa?" I finally found my voice.
"Yes, Lover." She sighed as she wriggled herself closer and leaned down toward me.
I decided suddenly that even if she didn't like what I said, I had to be honest with her. I tried my best to put my feelings of lust on the back burner while I talked to her seriously.
"Look, I really like you, but I think I'm too young to get too serious about getting involved with anyone, even you. I want to do so many things in my life and . . ."
"Oh, I know that." She answered quickly, again silencing me with a fingertip on my lips; her face was suddenly very serious. "I'm not asking for you to get engaged or anything; I just want to be your girlfriend for now. I have plans too, you know. In September I'm going to be moving to Calgary in order to take a nursing course, in fact I'm already enrolled in that. Now that you're so involved with this place, I don't know what you're planning and I sure don't want to screw you up in any way; actually I'd like to help you do what you want instead. All I'm asking is for us to be together for the next two months. Okay?"
"Well I think we can do that." I answered her quietly. "The thing is that I feel sort of lost about this whole thing."
I sighed deeply as I saw her frown and it was my turn to reach out a hand and touch her lips as she opened her mouth to speak.
"Wait please." I sighed again as I saw a strange play of emotions cross her face. "Don't get upset, please, but I have to try to explain and I'm having a hard time just thinking straight. Okay?"
"Okay." She smiled slightly, then she sighed softly and shifted uneasily. "Can I go use the bathroom though?"
I smiled and nodded, realising that I'd have a moment to collect my thoughts. She slipped out of bed and rushed out of the room and I had to grin as I watched her round 'bubble butt' disappear. A second later I was feeling serious again and I knew somehow that I was going to have to get the idea of my confused feelings across to her.
When she came back, I was still thinking deeply, but at least I had a basic idea of what I wanted to say.
"That's an awfully deep frown." She whispered.
"Sorry, but I've been having some deep thoughts and the only thing that I've really decided is that I'm not sure I like the idea of growing up so fast." I sighed as I patted the bed in an invitation for her to sit at my side again.
"What do you mean?" She leaned toward me and kissed me on the forehead as she sat down, then sat back and looked down at me with a slight frown on her face.
"Well, I'm only sixteen and already I'm sort of on my own."
"I don't understand?"
"Okay, I guess I need to explain that." I sighed again. "This place is Grampa Bender's, but my family has literally given me control of the whole thing. I'm responsible for anything that happens here and that's scary as heck. What if I screw up?"
"Oh come on, you might be only sixteen years old, but I've gone out with guys who are in their twenties who aren't half as old as you are mentally." She snapped. "Jeez, you think too darn much at times. Don't worry. You'll do just great at looking after this place. Besides, what does that have to do with us?"
"Well, right now I'm laying in bed when I should be out working." I managed a weak smile then waved my hand as she looked like she was about to speak. "That scares me as well."
"What? My wanting to make love with you?"
"Unh huh." I nodded. "I'm a kid compared to you, like I said I'm only sixteen and you . . ."
"Oh for cripes sake!" She snapped and stood up again. "I've known you since you were eight or nine years old and you've never acted like a sixteen-year-old. Actually, you act like a grownup most of the time. I've never seen you hurt anyone else unless they've hurt somebody else first, then you're there to defend the one being hurt. Look at what you did for Corinna and me."
"Well, that was a bit different. I knew the truth and the lies and faked photos would've . . ."
"They would have hurt us and so you stepped in. That's my point. You never go looking for a fight, but holy shit, if you do get forced into one you clear the decks and clean the clocks of anyone who is screwing up, at the same time protecting any innocent bystanders." She paused for a second and waved her hand in a gesture that seemed to include both of us as well as everything around us. "Look at you now, you've got a cast on one hand and another on a leg, but you're up here looking after a whole damn farm and planning on doing it on your own because one of your relatives is in the hospital."
"But that's got nothing to do with you and me." I protested.
"Perhaps it doesn't, at least not directly, but it sure as hell impresses me and that's what I'm talking about." She sighed. "You've always impressed me, right from the first time I met you and I've always thought you were a great guy. To start with, you've always gotten the best grades of any kid in the darn school and yet you've never acted like you were special. You've always been willing to help out anyone else that wasn't doing as well as you, but at the same time you were always so darn shy. Now that you seem to be coming out of that darn shy stage, I can see even better what a great guy you are and I wanted to spend time with you, that's really why I'm here."
"But we've known each other for years." I frowned at her. "And what has that got to do with our folks? I mean, why would our Moms set things up so that we could spend a long weekend together?"
"They didn't, not really. They simply left the door open for the two of us to get together if we really felt it was what we wanted." She smiled. "I'm the one who pushed and prodded, well, along with Corinna. My Mom realised that we were serious very quickly, but your mom took some major convincing. Corinna and I must have argued for about two hours."
"I still don't understand why they cooperated at all."
She sighed deeply. "They went along with us because we promised to be totally honest with you and with Wil. Your mom insisted on that. That's why I'm talking to you right now. I want you to know that I'm here because I fought to be here. I want you to find out exactly what I'm like while I discover things about you that I didn't know before and I guess I'm hoping that you and I will really hit it off. Maybe we can become a permanent couple, but I'm not going to push you into that. First I want to see what happens when we work together and live together with no one else around."
"So this is like a trial or a test?"
"I suppose so." She laughed disparagingly as she shook her head. "I'd rather think of it as a bonus of some kind. Maybe you could call it a trial honeymoon if you'd like?"
"Umm, there is a small problem." I smiled at her. "I really need to do some work and . . ."
"So, that's another reason I'm here." She grinned at me. "Your mom wasn't really happy about either you or Wil being alone on either farm, especially you all the way up here and already injured. She knows how easy it is for an accident to happen and she wanted you to have some backup, just in case. Besides, I want to work with you and help you, that way I can learn even more about you."
"Well, if that's so, I guess we should really get out of bed and do something." I suggested.
"I suppose." She sighed. "So what's on the agenda for today?"
I couldn't have stopped the grin that came to my face at her reaction, but I did manage to hide it to some extent as I rolled over and stood up to scoop her into my arms for a hug and kiss.
*
It was evident in the next little while that her mood had changed drastically. When we'd first awakened, she'd seemed to be totally into sex and all that it involved, but now she seemed to be more interested in long term plans and dreams. As well she actually seemed to want to be involved in the work I was doing and she wanted to understand exactly what was going on.
We ate breakfast first, then went to work on the jobs that I'd planned to do. Grampa Bender even had the first job I wanted to tackle marked on the calendar; we needed to check the batteries and service the wind turbine. Once we'd checked out all the animals and cared for them, we hiked up the knoll behind the house to the wind turbine tower and battery shack.
"Why is this so far from the house and why are we hauling water to the top of this hill?" Carissa panted as she helped me pull a wagon filled with jugs of rainwater to the battery shack.
"Well, the wind is stronger up here." I sighed as I stopped for a short break. "And, the reason we're hauling the water is so we can use it to top up the batteries if they happen to be low."
I went on to explain that we used rainwater because it had fewer minerals in it than ground water or spring water, then answered her questions about the reason for using the generator in the first place.
Since Grampa Bender's homestead was twelve miles from the nearest hydroelectric supply line, the cost to have had a regular electrical supply line installed would have been astronomical. Instead, he had installed a wind turbine since his homestead actually sat at one end of a mountain pass through which the wind blew quite strongly only it didn't blow continuously. To solve that problem he'd added a batch of batteries that could be charged by the turbine when the wind was blowing and he wasn't using power, then he'd have those charged as a reserve when the wind wasn't blowing.
Unfortunately the wind turbine and the batteries were getting quite old and had to be serviced every few weeks to keep them in working condition. Not only were they getting old, but the wind turbine and batteries were all set up to produce thirty-two volts direct current and it was getting hard to get the light bulbs which worked on that voltage. On top of that there was a lot of loss in the system because it was direct current.
Of course I had to explain the difference between direct current and alternating current as well as to go into all the problems with the system. Then when she asked about the reason for not having regular hydroelectric power run in, she needed to be told about the cost versus advantages of regular electric supply. Up until that time she hadn't realised that each farmer had to pay for the lines and poles that allowed the power company to supply the electrical power to each farm.
I was impressed with how quickly she understood the overall situation and was even more impressed that she dug in and helped with everything except climbing up the fifty-foot high tower to help me check over the turbine. It turned out she was terrified of heights and was just as worried about the idea of me climbing the tower while I still wore my casts. In fact since the turbine seemed to be working well and still producing full power, she convinced me that I should get Wil or Tom to help me do the job another day.
While we were on the top of the knoll, I took the time to point out the boundaries of Grampa Bender's original homestead and then to explain the extent of his lease. I wanted her to understand some of the reasons that I and my family were so involved with the whole setup and to have an idea of why I was so adamant that someone should be living on the place all the time.
First off, I pointed out the steep hills that ran along the northeastern and northwestern sides of the valley that bounded the homestead and explained that the upper extension of the valley to the northwest led to a mountain pass several miles to the west of us. That was the real reason why the wind almost always seemed to blow in the area and it was the reason Grampa Bender had thought of the wind turbine as a source of power.
While we stood under the wind tower, we could just make out the little spring fed lake that lay at the north western corner of Grampa Bender's original homestead. Of course we could only just see it out through the trees and bushes that surrounded it, but I thought she should know where the lake was. As well as that, I pointed out that beyond the lake and along the northern edge of the original section of land there was a relatively steep hill and at its base lay the springs and seeps that filled the lake. That area was covered in willows, birches and quaking aspens, then there was a small swampy area that was tightly fenced off so that none of the stock would ever get mired in the muck and mud. That area was the real reason that the government had gone along with the lease that Grampa Bender had negotiated with them so many tears before.
Of course I had to pause then and explain the idea of water rights in relation to what that had to do with leases and grazing rights. Since Grampa Bender's original homestead enclosed the source of all the water in the valley, he had prior rights to whatever happened with that water and without water, no one else could raise anything if the valley below him without his permission. Once she understood that concept she could see the reason that the lease included the whole valley as it meandered down to the upper edge of Dad and Mom's farm, which was where another creek joined the one that ran down from where we stood.
We took several more minutes gazing off into the distance as I pointed out the landmarks that roughly delimited the area of the homestead as well as others that indicated the extension of the government lease. It wasn't long before she understood that my family controlled the whole valley and at least part of the reason why I was so enthusiastic about maintaining control of the lease.
It wasn't until I told her of my dream of a horse ranch that she grew really enthused though. Instantly she wanted to know all about my idea and I decided that the only way she'd really understand was if she saw the area I was talking about with her own eyes. The only way I could think of to do that was from horseback, so I suggested we take a break for lunch, then we could catch my two horses and go for a ride.
I think she would have willingly skipped lunch and gone for a ride instantly, but I insisted that we needed food and a change of clothes. In actual fact I was a bit worried about riding far with her because I knew that neither of us had ridden much in the last while. I was worried that we'd both suffer from saddle sores if we rode for too long. It was only as we were walking down the hill toward the cabin that I remembered she'd come in a jeep and realised that we could use that to travel to the boundaries of the area I'd been discussing.
That suggestion brought on an argument which lasted all through lunch and I learned just how adamant Carissa could be. Of course I was almost as stubborn, but in the long run we managed to hash out a compromise. We ended up planning to take the jeep out first and using it to climb onto one of the high ridges so we could see the overall area, then we'd come back and saddle the horses in order to see some of the areas closely and much more thoroughly.
At least that was what we had planned . . . Unfortunately Mother Nature and circumstance had other plans.