Sarah, daughter of cattle rancher Jonas Collins, goes missing under strange
and disturbing circumstances.  Then his wife disappears too.  It all seems
to have something to do with the unwelcome sheep rancher next door but
Jonas doesn't seem to be able to solve the mystery.  Can a 15 year old boy
succeed where a grown man fails?

Codes: MF mf mF slow rom 1st teen cons reluc het oral mastrb preg
=========================================================================
 

   Author's comment: Both beastiality and rape are mentioned in this story,
and there is some violence to move the plot forward.  None of these
elements are significantly described, but the reader should be prepared to
be confronted with these concepts.

   Bob 
=========================================================================

   Cattleman's Lament   
   by Beating Off Bob (beatingoffbob@yahoo.com)

   Sarah Jean Collins lay back and stared up at the dark blue sky, filled
with fluffy white clouds.  She felt the sun on her face and smiled.  She
wasn't out in the sun quite as much as her father and brothers, and didn't
yet see it as a pain in the behind that one just had to deal with during
the work day.  Her body rocked, as the horse under her kept walking in the
direction she had last urged it to go, but her muscles automatically took
the horse's gait into account and shifted subtly to keep her from sliding
one way or the other.  Her thighs, draped around the horse's neck helped
too.

   She felt Daisy's haunch muscles bunch and move under her back as the
mare stepped gracefully over the scrub, heading for home, and the pan of
oats she knew Sarah would provide her when they got there.  Sarah loved
riding bareback, in direct connection with the magnificent animal that
carried her, and she rarely used a saddle unless she was working on the
trail, or doing other work with cattle.

   But today she was just enjoying being with her friend, as the summer
breeze swept across the plain.  She had ridden over to visit Mrs. 
Settleton, on the ranch "next door", and the new dress Beatrice Settleton
had made for her was in the saddlebags connected by the wide leather strap
that currently made a hard pillow for Sarah's head.  It was a red and white
checkered gingham dress, and Sarah was going to wear it to the dance that
was scheduled in just two weeks.  Travis Woods would ask her to dance, and
as they swirled to the tune of the fiddle and washboard, he would fall
madly in love with her and beg her to become his bride.  And then ... 
she'd find out what made her mamma moan so loud when she and Pappa were
alone in the dark of their bedroom at night.

   Sarah had heard that moan clearly on a lot of nights since she was a
little girl.  The first time she'd been aware of it as a real sound was the
first time it had awakened her.  Her parents' room was right next to hers
in the big house her pa had built in the shelter of a geologic disruption
in the mostly flat land they ranched.  Her brothers had shared that room
with her, but had recently been installed in their own newly added room
across the house.

   She had only been eight or nine that time, when her mother's agonized
sounding moans had come through the wall clearly, and she had awakened. 
Unused to being alone in her room ...  it was her room now ...  and used to
the noises her brothers made while they slept, her mother's voice had
sounded like she was in pain.  Sarah had been instantly frightened,
thinking of Indians, or some other danger that had overtaken her mother. 
Those piteous moans had broken into an agonized plea of "Pleeease Jonas ...
don't tease meeee."

   Jonas was her pappa and the noises that had followed had made her get
out of bed and pound on her parents' door.  She would never forget the
sight of her pappa's huge body, holding the lantern as he opened that door,
a pistol in his hand.  He was stark naked, something Sarah had never seen
before, and his gaze was over her head, searching for the cause of the
pounding.

   Then his eyes had fallen to see Sarah, somehow huddling, even though she
was standing alone in the dark of the hallway.

   "It's just Sarah." he said over his shoulder.

   Her mother had appeared, concern on her face, closing a robe around her,
but Sarah could see that she too was naked under that robe as it closed and
was belted.

   Then there had been the questions about what was wrong, and Sarah's
tear-filled complaint of the sounds she had heard, as if her mother was
being killed.

   Her pappa had laughed, standing there like he was proud to be buck
naked, instead of ashamed, like all decent people were if they had on no
clothes.  Even at eight Sarah had been taught that.

   "Send her back to bed, Molly." he said ruffly.  "We're not finished
yet."

   Mamma had shot her husband a look that would have sent Sarah running,
had it been aimed her way, but Pappa had just laughed louder and turned
away, back toward the bed.

   Mamma had taken Sarah back to her bed, and sat there in the dark,
telling Sarah that what she had heard was nothing bad, but what husbands
and wives did sometimes that was what they were made for during creation.
She tried to convince Sarah that those sounds were pleasure, not pain, and
that she must never interrupt them again when she heard them.

   And so, over the years, whenever Sarah heard those noises again, her
mind tried to come up with some scene that would account for them.  She
tried to think of her parents dancing, since that was fun, but who would
dance naked?  And why?  When she started to bleed between her legs and her
mother instructed her on what to do about that, she asked again about the
sounds for some reason.  Her mother simply said that, once she was married,
she would understand.  That was all she had ever been told.

   Well, perhaps not all, though she didn't know it.  At various times she
had been scolded for wrestling with a boy ...  Junior Ridgemont, to be
precise.  She was fourteen at the time and he had said something she didn't
like, so she took him down and sat on him.  He had cried, lying there in
the dust under her, his eye already swelling where she had punched him. 
They were in town at the time, getting provisions, and her mother had seen
from not far away.  Her mother's anger had been vitriolic, and full of talk
about how civilized people didn't behave that way, which was purely
puzzling, since Sarah's brothers acted like that all the time, as did most
of the cowboys around, and nobody ever yelled at them about it.

   Her mother had made her wear dresses after that ...  all the time.  You
couldn't fight or wrestle in a dress.  You couldn't move quickly in a
dress. And your legs got tangled up, so you couldn't kick.  You could still
stomp, but the soft soled shoes her mother made her wear weren't any good
for stomping.  Now, the only time she could put on pants, was when she had
to ride a horse.

   Which was one reason Sarah Jean Collins was riding Daisy on this sunny
summer day.  Anybody could have picked up her new dress from Mrs. 
Ridgemont, but the excuse to be able to wear pants was too much to pass up.
So, Sara was dressed in pants, and one of her brother's cast-off blue
checkered shirts, lying on her back, stretched out on the firm, swaying
rump of her best friend in the world, riding along without a care in the
world.

   Then, her best friend stopped.

   That was odd.  Daisy wouldn't stop on her own.  She was too well trained
for that.  About that time Sarah heard a deep voice ...  one that raised
the hackles on the back of her neck.

   "Well, looky what we got here." growled the voice.

   Sarah knew that voice.  It belonged to one of the men who should not be
anywhere near where she was currently located.  It belonged to a man who
would be beaten and dragged through the scrub if he were caught on her
father's range.  It belonged to Buford Smith.

   And Buford Smith was one of the men who worked for Brad Rocklin, who
was, if not at war with her father, at least most unwelcome in this part of
Wyoming.  Brad Rocklin was a sheep man, and that made Sarah Jean Collins
shudder.

   =======================

   Sheep were domesticated 10,000 years ago in Central Asia, but it wasn't
until 3,500 B.C.  that man learned to spin wool.  Sheep helped to make the
spread of civilization possible.  Sheep production was well established
during biblical times.  There are many references to sheep in the Old
Testament.  Sheep farming is man's oldest organized industry.  Wool was the
first commodity of sufficient value to warrant international trade.

   In the 1400's, Queen Isabella of Spain used money derived from the wool
industry to finance Columbus and other conquistadors' voyages.  In 1493 on
his second voyage to the New World, Columbus took sheep with him as a
"walking food supply." He left some sheep in Cuba and Santo Domingo.  In
1519, Cortez began his exploration of Mexico and the Western U.S.  He took
with him sheep that were offspring of Columbus' sheep.  These sheep are
believed to be the descendents of what are now called "Churros." The Navajo
Churro is the oldest breed of sheep in the U.S.  Despite efforts by the
U.S. government to replace them, the breed is still raised by Navajo
Indians.

   As useful as sheep were, though, they were also the cause of much
contention during American history.

   During the 16th and 17th centuries, England tried to discourage the wool
industry in the American colonies.  Nonetheless, colonists quickly smuggled
sheep into the states and developed a wool industry.  By 1664, there were
100,000 sheep in the colonies, and the General Court of Massachusetts
passed a law requiring youth to learn to spin and weave.  By 1698, America
was exporting wool goods.  England became outraged and outlawed wool trade,
making it punishable by cutting off the person's right hand.  The
restrictions on sheep raising and wool manufacturing, along with the Stamp
Act, led to the American Revolutionary War.  Thus, spinning and weaving
were considered patriotic acts.  Even after the war, England enacted a law
forbidding the export of any sheep.

   George Washington raised sheep on his Mount Vernon Estate.  Thomas
Jefferson kept sheep at Monticello.  Presidents Washington and Jefferson
were both inaugurated in suits made of American wool.  James Madison's
inaugural jacket was woven from the wool of sheep raised at his home in
Virginia.  President Woodrow Wilson grazed sheep on the White House Lawn.

   The sheep industry started in southern Wyoming in the 1870's along the
Union Pacific rail line.  The coming of the railroad also led to large
sheep drives from Oregon to the Wyoming along the old Oregon Trail.  On
some drives in the 1880's as many as 20,000 sheep would be trailed to
Rawlins.  Even after the construction of the Oregon Short Line, sheep would
be trailed from Oregon rather than be hauled on trains.  Even within the
state trailing sheep remained the general means of transport.  In 1928, as
an example, a herd of 1500 sheep purchased from the Yellowstone Sheep
Company was trailed from Hudson to Douglas even though the railroad was
available.  The reason was simple.  One sheepherder with a dog and a sheep
wagon, could herd as many as two thousand sheep.  By 1910 there were over 5
1/2 million sheep in the state.

   But in the late 1870's during what came to be called the U.S.  range
wars, violent conflicts erupted between cattle ranches and sheep herders as
both competed for land to graze their livestock.

   Which brings us back to Sarah Jean Collins, who sat, more or less, her
horse, on a summer day in 1877.

   Sarah was a cowman's daughter, and, at age sixteen, was tougher than
most men five years older than her nowadays would even hope to be.  Her
five foot six inch frame, which was undeniably as female as any man could
hope for, belied that toughness.  Her hands would have convinced anyone
that she was a hard worker, but her thrusting breasts, unfettered by
undergarments that women in later years would wear routinely, drew a man's
eyes away from her hands.  From there it was difficult to decide whether to
look at those obviously sweet soft humps under her shirt or dress, or at
the pretty feminine face that was surrounded by a wild halo of bright
yellow hair.  That hair constantly got in her face when she wasn't wearing
a hat, or had it tied up in ribbons like floppy dog ears.  Of course it
would be normal to let your eyes linger on her hips too, as they swelled
out from a tiny waist, and smoothed into legs that looked too long to fit
the rest of her body.

   A man's eyes could get eyestrain, looking at this girl, from his eyes
jerking all over the place trying to find a place to light.

   "You're not supposed to be here." she said, sitting up.  Her voice held
command.  Among the men on her pappa's ranch, she was untouchable, and her
word held sway.  Men who looked too long at her, or spoke roughly towards
her didn't last on the Circle C ranch.

   "Y'hear that Chaps?  We ain't supposed to be here." said Buford,
sneering.  "This here is open range girlie, and you nor any of yore high
fallutin' folks cain't say otherwise."

   It was then that Sarah saw the sheep.  While they were still in the
distance, they were everywhere, heads down, doing what she knew destroyed
the range ...  her father's range ...  HER range!

   "This is Circle C land and you know it." she sneered back.  My pappa has
ranched this land for years.  You turn those dirty beasts around and get
them OFF OUR LAND!" she yelled.

   Buford smiled widely, unaffected by her outburst.  Then, in what was
obviously supposed to be a lightning quick, smooth, and impressive
maneuver, he jerked the pistol out of the holster he was wearing and
pointed it in the direction of Sarah.

   The only problem was that, while it was quick, it was by no means
smooth, and as far from impressive as drawing a weapon could get.  In the
first place, Buford had been practicing that draw while shooting at tin
cans, so his muscles, which meant only to draw the weapon to impress the
girl, caused his thumb to cock the hammer back.  Buford's brain realized
that something was wrong, and he looked at the pistol, as his forefinger
held the trigger back and he took his thumb off the hammer.

   It might have been a comedic moment, as the Colt fired, and flipped out
of the startled man's hand, to spin, now gracefully, backwards as it headed
for the dirt.

   But the bullet grazed Daisy's neck, where her mane erupted from the
skin.

   Daisy was a well trained quarter horse, who would turn on a dime, stop
or start in an instant, and who would go up against a longhorn with not a
care in the world.  But Daisy had never been shot before, and she reared at
the burn of the bullet that removed a .44 caliber patch of her mane.

   Sarah Jean Collins slid helplessly off the back of her horse and landed
square on the top of her head as Daisy scampered and bucked, and then ran
for home at a full gallop.

   Sarah saw stars, and then everything went black.

   Both Buford and his even less intelligent sidekick, known only as
"Chaps" stared at the girl on the ground.

   "Yuh SHOT her Buford!" gasped Chaps.  "What did yuh do THAT fer?"

   "I didn't shoot her you idiot." said a very pale faced Buford.  "The gun
went off and skeered her horse."

   "She looks pretty dead to me." said Chaps, taking his hat off and
scratching his head.  I don't think yuh ought to have done that Buford."

   Buford sighed, once again, as he wondered why he had been saddled with
this man.  True, Chaps was probably the only human on earth who would call
Buford his friend, but putting up with him was like putting up with sheep.
It just rankled a man.

   Buford thought hard, which meant it was quiet for fifteen seconds, other
than the distant bleating of the sheep, and the occasional bark of Queen,
the dog that actually did all the work when the sheep were being handled.
Buford couldn't talk and think at the same time.

   "We got tuh get her to a line shack somewheres." he finally announced.
"You know, hide her away." His cretinous brain ground on further and his
excitement grew.  "We can hold her for ransom!  And make that damn pappy of
hers pay for her, to get her back.  And then we'll have a stake and we can
light out of here and live like kings.  Yeah!  That's what we'll do!"

   Chaps screwed up his brow and put his hat back on.  "I don't know
Buford. That don't seem right to me somehow.  Won't her pa be all upset?"

   Buford looked at his ...  friend ...  and scowled.  "Whatta you think
her pa's gonna do if he comes along and finds her here like this, and with
us here too?  You think he'll ask any questions?  He'll gun us both down
Chaps, fer sure.  An she knows who we are now.  If'n we just leave her here
they'll come lookin' fer us fer sure.  Takin' her fer ransom is the only
way out of this.  Now get her up on behind me and let's get the hell out of
here before that horse of hers gets back to the barn and they know
somethin's up."

   ===============================================

   Sarah woke up confused and in pain.  Everything hurt.  Her head ached
abysmally, and her stomach and chest hurt.  She felt her wrists painfully
too.  Then the musty odor of burlap filled her nostrils.  Her eyes blinked
open to a dim light.  She couldn't tell what she was looking at until her
nose reminded her that it had to be burlap.  There was a burlap bag over
her head.  It was stifling, and she tried to move her hands to get it away
from her face.  But her hands wouldn't move and the pain in her wrists
increased.  Her shoulder joints were on fire too.  Clarity seeped into her
head as she realized she was bound.  Then movement under her resolved
itself into the knowledge that she was tied face down on a horse that was
walking.

   She opened her mouth to take in a breath to complain, and the bag sucked
into her open mouth.  Spitting it out she moaned uncomfortably.

   "I think she's awake." came the voice she suddenly realized belonged to
Chaps.

   "Don't matter.  Not much further now." came another voice, that of
Buford.  Memory flooded back into her mind and she wiggled again, subsiding
with another moan at the pain in her raw wrists and shoulders.

   "Be still" barked Buford and she felt a hand slap her upraised bottom.
It was a hard slap, and she gave a muffled squeak of outrage.

   Despite what she'd heard, the ride seemed to go on forever.  She bit her
lip as tears streamed from her eyes.  The pain was almost unbearable.  The
only thing that pushed past that pain was the feel of a hand, on her
buttocks, rubbing and pinching.

   That was when she began to get scared.

   ===============================================

   Frank Collins was oiling tack when Daisy cantered into the yard,
riderless and without a saddle.  He knew instantly that something was
wrong, because he knew his sister, Sarah, had taken off on Daisy that
morning.  He whistled, and Daisy veered toward him, tossing her head and
snorting.  She looked angry, or scared.  When she nuzzled him, he felt the
dried blood matted in her mane before he saw the thin dark stain that ran
down her chocolate brown neck.

   ===============================================

   Molly Collins was baking pies, and thinking about what her husband had
done to her last night.  She still felt, or imagined she felt, the warmth
of the spend he'd left in her womb after riding her for almost an hour. 
Their lovemaking had always been a wild and torrid thing, since the first
night Jonas had brought her to the ranch as his bride.  She had been a
frightened girl back then, but he had transformed her that night, and the
next day people looked at her twice, trying to figure out what it was about
her that was so completely different.  What had transformed her was the
gentle love of a man who, while he didn't know a thing about women,
understood scared foals, and bawling calves better than he understood
himself.

   He had taken his time, hard though that was, and had coaxed his young
bride along until she was the one who was pushing and pulling at him,
demanding more, laughing and crying so much that he was almost ashamedly
glad that the men had stayed in town that night.

   Since then it had been like that almost every time they coupled.  And
they coupled a lot.  He knew every inch of her body, and she was just as
familiar with him.  It didn't embarrass her to inspect each dark and hidden
place about him.

   One time she had sat on his back, while he pretended to be the horse. 
She was facing his feet and laughing as she spanked him gently, grinding
her wet sex into his back.  When she leaned over and parted his buttocks,
curious to see what he looked like between them, he became wild, cursing as
her finger probed.  That was the night she had taken him into her mouth as
he lay, agog, unbelieving as his virginal wife did things to him he hadn't
even imagined before.

   Since then she had made him her slave, demanding that he do the same
kinds of things to her.  He had resisted mightily, thinking that no normal
man would stoop to put his tongue where she wanted it.  But, once she had
bullied him into it, he found her taste to be intoxicating.  After that,
there was almost nothing he wouldn't try if she was curious enough to ask
for it.  He would die a thousand deaths before admitting some of the things
they did, but he looked forward to each and every night with Molly.

   She had become even more wild and demanding after he impregnated her the
first time, and sometimes she went much longer than he could.  Still, she
had a way about her that made it clear that what she needed most was ... 
him.  She needed his soul, his essence, and she drank that in through his
body when they made love.  She made it impossible to feel less than a man
who could compete with the mythical gods.

   He had given her two more babies before a long horned steer snagged him
in the crotch and threw him fifteen feet like he was a rag doll.

   After she was assured he'd live, and would recover to walk and work,
Molly had been almost as anxious about his recovery as he was.  It had
almost killed him to lie abed for a month, but the first time he got up and
took a few steps he couldn't wait to get back to the hated bed again. 
Still, he was back on his feet a week later, limping around and doing what
he termed "wimmens work".  As to whether his sexual equipment would
recover, Jonas had wanted to know sooner than the doctor said was wise, and
it was Molly who pushed her delicate face into his grizzled one and snarled
that if he ruined himself by trying too early, she'd cut it off and save
him the trouble.

   Conversely, after making him wait an entire month past when Doc Granger
said it was OK to "test out the Bull", her tenderness and patience had been
exactly what he needed to be soothed enough to let things happen naturally.
The upshot was that his penis still worked, but the babies had stopped
after that.

   Molly rolled out another crust, thinking that it was too bad.  She'd
wanted six or seven children to assure the future of the Collins line.  She
was comforted by the fact that both Peter and Frank were strong young men.
Sarah was the essence of motherhood too, though she resisted taking up that
mantle.  Molly sighed as she thought she'd have to have another talk with
Sarah.  At least she'd been excited about the new dress, and about going to
the dance.  That was an improvement, at least.  If only she wasn't so picky
about the boys she could have her pick of.

   Frank's scream stopped Molly's movements as if she'd been frozen
instantly, and the cold ran straight to her spine.  That scream had the
sound of panic, but not pain to a mother's ears, and she turned, looking
first to the shotgun on the wall by the door.  Frank yelled again, and this
time she could hear the drawn out and panicked "Mawww" in it.

   She grabbed the gun off the wall, broke it open to make sure it was
loaded and then snapped it closed again while reaching for the door.  Only
the sound of Frank's boot heels on the porch gave her enough warning to
step sideways as the door burst open and Frank rushed through, heading
immediately for the kitchen.

   "FRANK!" she shouted.

   He spun, overbalancing, and his shoulder hit the wall hard enough to
shake her collection of rare plates displayed on a shelf that ran the
entire length of the wall up high.  Molly's eyes darted toward the plates,
but then snapped back to her son.  The plates weren't as important as
whatever had set him off.  Frank was the calm one.

   "Sarah's horse" he burst out.  "It came back.  She's not on it and it's
bleeding."

   Molly's existence as a rancher's wife had tempered her in ways that made
her tough as nails.  Clamping down on her own panic, she opened the door
and pointed, not needing to say anything.  She took the shotgun with her,
even though it probably wasn't needed.  It made her calm to feel its weight
in her hand.

   Daisy was standing at the stock tank, head down, drinking.  Frank patted
her withers and Molly saw the blood at the same time he pointed it out.  As
she parted the blood matted hair at the base of the mane, Daisy snorted and
stepped sideways until Molly cooed at her.  A quick look-over found no
other injuries.

   "You father is in Ford's gulch, rounding up strays.  Peter and Buckshot
are with him.  I'm going to start backtracking Daisy.  You ride Widowmaker
and go get them."

   Frank was off at a dead run as Molly yelled after him.  "BE CAREFUL!"

   Widowmaker was the fastest horse on the ranch.  Jonas, and sometimes one
of the boys, rode him at local fairs in the races the stockmen threw
together and bet astonishing amounts of money on.  His name belied his
temperament.  He was a sweet horse, who loved to run.  He worked cattle
pretty happily too, but he purely loved to run.  Molly heard the clatter of
hooves as she went into the house, skinned out of her dress and pulled on
leather pants, and a bright red and white blouse.  She stomped on her boots
and grabbed a hat before getting a few things she hoped she wouldn't need
when she found Sarah and packing them into a set of saddlebags she had
tooled herself.

   For her own mount Molly chose Vixen, a quarter horse mare who stood
almost fifteen hands high.  She wanted Vixen because she was voice broke,
and would follow spoken commands.  She could also see farther from Vixen's
back, rather than her own horse, Tulip.  She took Tulip along too, but not
to ride.

   Jonas, like most stockmen who shoed their own horses, made every set of
shoes in recognizable patterns.  With a quick look at Daisy's left front
hoof, Molly saw the V shaped notch at the toe and knew that all four shoes
would exhibit the same sign.  She cursed under her breath for forgetting to
ask Frank what direction Daisy came in from, but started looking towards
the North, the direction Sarah had left in that morning.  It only took her
five minutes to pick up Daisy's back trail.  She could see it easily even
from up as high as she was.

   Molly Collins set Vixen a mild canter and let the horse watch where they
were going.  Molly kept her eyes in the ground, looking for more of those
notched hoof prints.  They were there, dug in and far apart.  Daisy had
been at a dead run when she approached the ranch.  That was odd.  Horses
usually only stayed scared for a short while, and then stopped to nibble.
They'd come home, but they usually took their time about it.  Whatever had
happened to Sarah had scared Daisy enough to make her run for miles,
unless, of course, Sarah wasn't far away at all.

   ===============================================

   Frank, besides forgetting to tell his mother which direction Daisy ran
in from, also forgot, or maybe didn't think to take Daisy with him when he
went to get his father.  Had he been a little older, he'd have known that
the first thing his father would do was examine the horse's hooves, to see
what color of dust was on the fetlocks.  It wasn't a sure fire piece of
information, but Jonas Collins knew his range well, and he knew what soil
types belonged to what areas.

   Had Jonas known that Daisy's hooves were stained with red dust, he'd
have known immediately that Sarah had cut through Ute Canyon, and he would
have ridden straight there.  But he didn't know that, and the only way he
could determine where to look was the same way his wife was currently
using.

   Jonas was unhappy about all this, whatever it was.  He and his foreman
and son had collected thirty-five strays and had them bunched up and ready
to move when his younger son came flying toward them on Widowmaker.  The
horse, after a mere five miles, didn't want to stop, and danced under Frank
as he tried to tell his father what had happened.  Jonas hated to leave the
small herd; because he knew they'd fragment and have to be rounded up all
over again.  He also believed, in that way that strong men have of
thinking, that there was probably nothing wrong.  Sarah had probably gotten
off of Daisy to water the flowers and something had spooked the horse. 
Daisy could work cattle, but she was lazy about it, and that colored Jonas'
opinion of her worth.

   So they had to return to the ranch first, to get more information from
Sarah's horse, and to find her back trail.

   His attitude changed instantly as he peeled apart the mane hairs and
examined the wound on Daisy's neck.

   "Bullet!" he growled.

   "Buckshot" Anderson, so-named because of the small pieces of lead still
residing in his buttocks, and placed there when he was much younger, by the
father of a girl who'd objected to his attentions toward her, crowded up
and pushed his boss out of the way.  He peered at the crusty raw wound that
was a perfect semi-circle into the flesh of the horse, right where the hair
should be growing out of the neck.  He idly thought that that hair would
never grow there again, but then sobered as he realized Jonas was right. 
Peter, Jonas' elder son, tried to see what the older men were looking at.
He knew not to speak.  Questions could come later, but when his father was
busy, or thinking, you didn't bother him.

   The men examined the rest of the horse intently, at which time Jonas saw
the red dust on her fetlocks.

   "She used Ute Canyon." said Jonas shortly.  "Peter, get your
Winchester." he ordered without looking at the boy.  "And extra
ammunition." he added.  He glanced over at Buckshot.  "You think you can
find that telescope you got hidden away?"

   Buckshot nodded and moved off.  Jonas got another box of bullets for his
own rifle, which he carried with him habitually, and stuffed them in his
saddlebags with an extra canteen as well.  He saw that Buckshot also
brought extra water, along with a short brass tube that he was wrapping in
a piece of cloth.  Jonas mounted his horse as he saw Peter running toward
him, excited, as usual.  At least he wasn't yammering ...  yet.  Frank came
tearing out of the house belting on the double holster and Colt pistols he
had won riding Widowmaker at a Rodeo a year ago.  They were garish guns,
with pearl handles ...  sissy guns to Jonas' way of thinking.

   "Frank, you stay here and keep an eye on the place." he ordered tersely.

   "Paaa!" complained the boy.  "I want to go with you!"

   "We don't know what's going on." said Jonas, as patiently as he could.
"There's a gunshot wound on your sister's horse.  Could be Indians ... 
could be bandits ...  could be those damn sheep farmers.  Trouble's been
brewing ever since they invaded the range.  I don't want this place left
unguarded.  You do what I say, boy." he finished.

   "Yes, Sir." said the dejected teenager.  He kicked the dust with his
boot toe.

   "See to that wound on Daisy." said Jonas.  "And rub down Widowmaker. 
You rode him hard today." He nudged his horse with one knee and the animal
turned instantly away from the nudge.  Over his shoulder, as the horse
stepped out, Jonas yelled "AND DON'T SHOOT YOURSELF WITH THOSE DAMNED TOY
PISTOLS!"

   The other two men mounted up and the group moved directly toward the
same path that Molly had taken.  Now they galloped, knowing where they were
going, and eager to get there.

   Frank looked around, waited until his father was out of sight, picked a
knothole in a fence post in the corral and, in a draw that would have left
his father standing slack-jawed, fired one shot.  The knothole burst
outward as the hard wood was displaced by a .44 caliber bullet that struck
dead in the center of the target.  Frank stood and looked at what was left
of that target, while his fingers automatically opened the loading gate of
the pistol he had used, ejected the spent case, and loaded a fresh round
into the cylinder.  Almost idly he spun the pistol backwards around his
trigger finger and let it drop back in the holster.  He had secretly been
practicing with his guns for a year, and, though he didn't know it, he had
become amazingly good with them.

   Then, kicking the dirt with his toe again, he went to take care of Daisy
and Widowmaker.

   CHAPTER TWO

   Sarah knew she was in some kind of trouble.  She didn't know why she was
in that trouble.  Something had happened that didn't match up with her
experience.  What should have happened was that, when she found the
trespassers on her father's land, they should have tucked their tails
between their legs and hastened to get their nasty little grass killers
back where they belonged.  Wherever that was.

   Sarah's attitude towards sheep, and the men who raised them, was the
product of her father's attitude towards the same subjects.  Jonas had been
prepared to dislike sheep from the beginning.  Actually, he was prepared to
dislike any animal that ate what his cattle ate, including cattle belonging
to other ranchers.  Wyoming was a fine place to raise cattle, as long as
you were the only one doing it.  When more and more people began to filter
into the land, the resources soon became stressed, and that stressed Jonas.

   All it had taken was coming upon a sheep trail just once.  He had
smelled it first, and then came upon the mass of tracks that went from side
to side as far as he could see from his horse.  This flock of sheep had
left a broad bare swath, weed less, grassless, flowerless, in their wake.
Where sheep grazed they destroyed.  That was what Jonas had against them.

   He didn't know that the flock he had seen the results of were badly
trailed, allowed to move much too slowly and thus over feed.  He didn't
know that, if sheep were moved properly, as nomadic people had done for
thousands of years that their passage would be almost invisible in a few
weeks time.  He didn't know and he didn't care to learn.  The solution was
simple to him.  He was there first.  Take the damn sheep back to Oregon,
where they came from.

   Some of the other ranchers had been talking of proclaiming a "Dead Line"
along the Green River.  They wanted to post signs that said in no uncertain
terms that any sheep that crossed the line was dead as soon as a cattleman
saw it.  Some of the hotter heads suggested that there wouldn't be much
difference in shooting sheep, or the men who herded them.

   Jonas was, despite his rough exterior and almost surly countenance, a
thoughtful man.  He was fully aware that a herd of sheep could easily
contain five thousand animals.  You could bankrupt yourself buying
ammunition if you actually planned on shooting sheep.  Even if you did, you
were left with having to clean up the carcasses.  On the other hand, if
there were dead sheep lying around, maybe the wolves would leave the calves
alone.  He didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it.  So far, the
nearest sheep farmer, a man by the name of Brad Rocklin, hadn't caused him
any problems.  There were no sheep on his land, to his knowledge, and as
long as it stayed that way, things were fine.

   The only problem was that, like a lot of cattlemen in the late 1800s,
Jonas Collins viewed a lot of land as "his" that many other people,
including the United States Government, defined as public land, or open
range.  And, to those people, Jonas didn't have any right to keep anyone
off of that land.

   Brad Rocklin was one of those people.

   ===============================================

   Brad Rocklin was currently treating sheep that had been brought in for
one ailment or another by Charley Kemp and Buster, the alpha male sheep dog
of Brad's operation.  Every so often the whole flock was run back to the
ranch house and weak animals were culled out.  Sometimes they were treated
and re-inserted into the flock.  Sometimes they became supper.  It all
depended on what was wrong with them.

   Buster had a sixth sense about which sheep were in less than perfect
condition and when Charley worked him to find those sheep Buster went about
it with single minded concentration.

   First he'd just range through the flock.  It looked for all the world
like he was just running back and forth as the sheep opened corridors for
him.  In that situation the sheep seemed to know they weren't being herded,
and didn't shy away from the dog like they usually did.  That's how dogs
herded sheep ...  by making them shy away in the direction the dog wanted
them to go.  The dog took his cues from the shepherd.  A well trained dog
only had to see the shepherd walk off in some direction, perhaps with a
whistle or yell of a command, but not always, and the sheep would appear to
follow as the dog went to work.

   It was actually a combination of things that moved a flock of sheep. 
There was a dominant ewe in the herd, the matriarch, and most sheep
followed wherever she led.  She too was trained to follow the shepherd,
based on cues and commands.  What the dog did was take care of the beasts
that didn't follow the ewe.

   But when Buster was "evaluating" the flock, it was almost as if he was
counting how many of the animals would need to be culled out of the flock.
Once he had done that, then, with little nips and the clacking of teeth, he
picked out those animals he wanted and moved them through the flock toward
Charley.  Once there, the number two bitch, one of Buster's offspring named
Lisa, was being trained to keep the chosen sheep bunched up.  She did that
by running in circles around them, which she loved.  She had taken to it
naturally, watching her mother work.  Her two brothers weren't quite as
smart.  At least not yet.  They were penned up when the flock was home, so
that Charley could work on firming up Lisa's training without having to pay
attention to their antics.

   That had happened the day before, and Buster had culled out thirty four
animals.  Brad and Charley were now evaluating each one, having sent his
two hands and best dog, Queen, who was also Buster's mate, out to graze the
rest of the flock.  Brad had told them exactly where to take the flock, a
piece of open range that had good grass.  As usual he told Buford not to
leave them in any one place too long, but to keep them moving so they
didn't overgraze the land.  There was plenty of land for the twenty-five
hundred sheep Brad ran in his flock, as long as they kept moving.  Soon it
would be time to run the flock up into the mountains, where the high
meadows, lush with grass watered by melting snows from above, would feed
them until late fall.  While they were up there, he'd process the wool that
had been shorn off the sheep when winter was over.  That was still piled
high in a barn.

   Brad was cleaning an infected hoof when his son, Bobby, wandered up and
stood watching.  Bobby was a good boy, but he didn't have sheep in his
blood.  He did whatever his father asked of him, but Brad knew Bobby would
never take over the business when his father was too old to do the work. 
Brad himself had gotten into sheep by accident, back in Oregon, when he
needed a job and that was the only one he could find.  Well, there had been
the owner's daughter too.  The first time he'd seen Amanda she had taken
his breath away.  A short girl, only fifteen at the time, with long
strawberry colored hair and a temper to go with it, she had been upbraiding
a cowboy who had ridden too close to her and bumped her with his horse. 
Dressed in jeans and a man's shirt, the girl had reached out and slapped
the horse on the butt, making it jump and sidestep.  The cowboy had almost
fallen off, and two of his friends had laughed at him.  He'd wheeled the
horse, aiming to go back and teach the upstart girl some manners, but had
found Brad suddenly standing between him and the girl.  When the cowboy
persisted, riding toward Brad as if to walk over him, Brad had taken the
bridle of the horse in hand and, in a trick taught to him by an Indian
friend, had caused the horse to dip his head and roll onto his side,
trapping the cowboy's leg underneath.

   Luckily, the sheriff had seen the whole incident from the porch of the
jail, and arrived in time to stop anyone from shooting Brad.  Amanda had
given him a kiss as a reward and invited him to dinner at her house.  He
got a good dinner, a job, and another kiss in the process.

   Amanda's father was the owner of almost thirty thousand sheep in the
Oregon territory, and he had a hundred men working for him.  He had no use
for Brad, particularly when he saw how his daughter looked at the man.  But
Amanda was stronger than her father and when they got married, Brad was
suddenly the owner of five hundred sheep.  He had almost screwed that up,
except Amanda saved him there too.  It was Amanda who found the right dogs,
and taught him everything he hadn't yet learned about sheep, and urged him
to leave Oregon and establish a ranch in Wyoming, where they would be
closer to the markets for both meat and wool.  The United States Army had a
voracious appetite for both, and being so much closer to Army points of
delivery gave them an advantage over their western brothers.  For one thing
they could just trail the sheep to market, rather than having to pay rail
fees.  For another, cartage for wool was less expensive since there were no
mountains involved.

   "Dad" Brad's reminiscences were interrupted by Bobby.

   "What?" asked Brad, wrapping up the hoof he'd just put salve on.

   "My chores are done." said Bobby.

   "Well find something else to do." said Brad, looking at a deep scratch
on a lamb's hindquarters, trying to figure out what had caused it.

   "Everything's done." said Bobby.

   Charley snorted.  He was Brad's foreman, and had been with him since he
and Amanda had gotten married.  Amanda had marched up to him one day and
informed him that he now worked for her, instead of her father.  Charley
had grinned, packed up the few things he owned, and followed Amanda off the
farm where she'd just stolen him.  He was just a lead hand then.  Amanda
had made him "Foreman", but he took a cut in pay.  He was Amanda's uncle.

   The only time Charley listened to her, or more correctly deferred to her
after that was when they were in public, and non-family members were
around. Their relationship was tumultuous and loving at the same time. 
Amanda would tell him what she wanted done and he'd tell her what he was
going to do.  More often than not, those two things differed, sometimes
significantly.  Amanda stomped her foot and made dire threats, all of which
rolled off Charley's back like water off a duck.  He just grinned
insolently as she railed, and then went off and did what he knew was best.
The fact that Amanda, who thought she knew everything about sheep ranching,
but was smart enough to know when she'd made a mistake, kept things more or
less peaceful.  She was smart enough to know when Charley called the shots
correctly, even though she had never once admitted she had been wrong. 
Charley snorted because he knew there was NEVER a time on a ranch when
"everything" had been done.

   "Go see what your mamma needs done." said Brad, peering at the lamb's
injury.

   "She sent me down here." said Bobby heavily.  "Said I was under foot."

   Charley snorted again, but didn't say anything.  He knew Bobby's heart
wasn't in sheep ranching too.  He was the only one, however, who knew that
what Bobby really wanted to do was be a mountain man, trapping furs and
hunting big game.  Bobby had confided in him around a campfire one night,
while they were tending the flock.  He thought it was a ridiculous idea,
but didn't try to talk Bobby out of it, exactly.  Charley had a wild streak
in him too though, and knew how the boy felt.  Instead, he set about
teaching the boy what he'd have to know to be a successful mountain man,
thinking that, when he found out how hard it was, and how much knowledge
would be required, and how dangerous it was, the boy would change his mind.

   That hadn't happened yet, to Charley's surprise.  Every task he'd set
the boy had been attacked with vigor, and completed successfully.  Bobby
was an ace shot with a Sharps buffalo rifle, or Winchester.  He could track
with the best of them, and he understood predators as well or better than
Charley did.  More than once he'd taken on bear or wolf and ended up the
victor.

   But Charley didn't mention any of this to his sister or brother-in-law.
He knew what Amanda would say if she found out the kinds of things Charley
had been teaching her fair-haired boy, and he knew Brad couldn't keep a
secret from Amanda to save his soul.  He didn't know what he was going to
do if the boy didn't tire of his dream soon.  In the meantime, he just
didn't mention Bobby's dream to either of Bobby's parents, and made sure
that Bobby knew not to as well.

   "Clean the stalls." said Brad.

   "Did that already." said Bobby.

   "Fence around your mother's garden needs work." said Brad.

   "Did that too." said Bobby.

   "How about the tack?  Did you oil it?" asked Brad, looking up at his
son.

   "Yep.  Finished that yesterday." said Bobby smugly.

   "All of it?" asked Brad.

   "All of it." said Bobby firmly.

   "Find a tool that's rusty and put some lanolin on it." suggested Brad.

   "Dad, I did that last week." said Bobby, a whine beginning to creep into
his voice.

   "Well find SOMETHING to do, dammit." Brad's voice began to rise.

   "Can't I go out with the flock or something?" asked Bobby.

   "You know I don't like you hanging around Buford." said his father,
slathering a medicine on the lamb's injury.  Amanda made the stuff from
plants she knew about.  Brad had no idea what was in it, but it worked
well.

   "You know you can't trust him to move the flock like he's supposed to
either." said Bobby.  "I can ride out and make sure he's not overgrazing.
Didn't you say there's been some trouble with the cowmen about that?"

   "Yes" said Brad firmly.  "I DID say that, and you should know that if
there's trouble with some cowboys, that's the last place you need to be."

   "OK" said Bobby.  "How about I take a wagon up to the high pastures and
restock the shack up there?"

   Charley snorted again.  Now he understood.  Bobby was trying to get up
into the mountains, where he could have all kinds of excuses to do all
kinds of things that had nothing whatsoever to do with pasturing sheep. 
The high meadows were up above the heat of the plains, with trees and
wildlife and plenty of water from snowmelt.

   "You know I already stocked that camp." said his father.

   "I could check on it then ...  to make sure nobody's messed with it."
suggested Bobby.

   "Who'd mess with it?" asked Brad.  "Nobody even knows we go up there. 
The cowboys won't take their steers up there because they walk off too much
weight getting up the mountain."

   "Maybe a drifter has set himself up in our camp." said Bobby, reaching
for any reason to go.

   "And if he has?" asked Brad, looking at his son.  "What exactly would
you do about that?  Run him off?  How?  All you'd do is get yourself hurt
and then your mother would make my life miserable."

   "Come on Dad, there has to be something I can do." complained Bobby.

   Brad didn't want to argue any more.  He was getting hot under the collar
and he didn't like being that way either.  "OK, ride out to the flock and
tell Buford to start moving them up toward the high meadows.  It's a week
early, so tell him to take his time, and weave them back and forth between
here and the foothills.  How's that?"

   "That will only take me a few hours." complained Bobby.

   "Well, you could always oil tools you've already oiled, or clean stalls
you've already cleaned.  I bet you two ewes and a good dog there are weeds
in your mamma's garden."

   "OK, OK, I'll go out there and tell Buford and Chaps to start them up
toward the mountain." said Bobby, moving off.  Maybe he could stretch this
trip out to four hours.  "I'll take a look around and see if there's any
wolf sign." he said over his shoulder.

   Brad looked up and frowned.  Then he looked at Charley.  "What would he
know about wolf sign?" he asked.

   Charley grinned.  "Oh, you know.  Turds is turds, but maybe even he can
tell the difference between dog turds and wolf turds.  He's just lookin'
for something to do anyway."

   ===============================================

   An hour later Bobby arrived at where, to his mind, the flock should be.

   But it wasn't there.

   It had been there.  That much was plain.  There were tracks everywhere,
and the area had been grazed.  There was a wide swath of tracks that led
off to the East, but that was wrong.  That was toward the Collins spread,
and his father kept a five mile buffer zone between his sheep and the
Collins cattle.  He didn't want trouble, and there was plenty of other land
on which to graze the flock.

   Bobby followed the tracks, and grew even more unhappy as they led
straight toward what Bobby knew was where there could be a thousand head of
cattle grazing.  He had gone six more miles and it was late afternoon
before he spotted the flock.

   What he didn't spot was two horses that should have been easily visible
standing above the sheep, or the two men who should have been riding those
horses.

   As he neared the grazing flock, Queen bounded up to meet him, barking
and wagging her tail.  Bobby got down off his horse which pawed at the
ground and whickered, probably a greeting to the dog.  After ruffling the
fur on Queen's head he asked her where Buford and Chaps were, and then,
knowing she couldn't tell him, got back up on his horse and began circling
the flock, looking for sign.

   The first thing he saw was that the flock had been on this piece of
ground too long, and had eaten the grass down to the roots.  That was the
difference between sheep and cattle or horses.  Cattle and horses bit into
a tuft of grass and pulled, tearing it, and then chewing.  As they lowered
their heads for another bite, it was almost impossible to end up at the
same place the last grass had been pulled up, so there were tufts of grass
left to keep growing and spread.

   Sheep's teeth were arranged so that they could bite through the blades,
and then reach for more, biting through that too.  They didn't raise and
lower their heads when they grazed, and would eat a tuft down to the ground
and then move their head to keep doing that.  Unless they kept moving,
sheep would eat the grass to death, so to speak.

   Queen barked that special bark that meant "strangers" and Bobby looked
around.  He saw a horse in the distance and, as it got closer he saw a
woman riding it.  She was wearing a hat like most westerners did, commonly
called a cowboy hat, with a wide brim that protected the eyes from the sun,
and the head from rain.  Bobby didn't know who she was, but it was unlikely
she was just out for a pleasure ride, and the flock was now close to the
Collins spread.

   She was still some distance off, so Bobby kept looking at the ground as
me moved his horse along.  He came to a place where the ground was scuffed,
and there were a number of horseshoe prints in the dirt.  He recognized two
of them as belonging to horses that Chaps and Buford would be riding. 
There was a third set he didn't recognize.  He got down again, seeing
something that was the wrong color, and found a small patch of cloth stuck
in the thorns of a plant.  It wasn't so much a patch of cloth, as a large
number of threads torn from the edge of a piece of cloth.  They were blue.
They were also faded, and could have been here for a long time.  He was
puzzling out something that looked like drag marks in the soil when he
heard the other horse approach.

   "What are these sheep doing on our land?" came an imperious female
voice.

   Bobby stood and turned to look up at the woman.  He recognized her,
having seen her in town.

   "You're Miz Collins." he said.

   "And you're the Rocklin boy." she said back.  "Now, answer my question.
What are these sheep doing on our land?"

   "Ma'am, in the first place they're not supposed to be here.  That's ..."

   "I already know that young man." interrupted the woman impatiently.  "I
want to know why they ARE here."

   "Ma'am, if you'll let me finish, I might be able to answer your
question." said Bobby.  Adults didn't faze him.  He had been around a lot
of adults who were stupid, or vain, or just plain mean, so just being an
adult didn't get you much respect from Bobby Rocklin.  He was polite, or
tried to be, but if you wanted his respect you had to show you deserved it.
He stood and looked at the woman, who was still mounted.  For the first
time he saw she had a Winchester cradled in her arm, lying across her
thighs.  It was more or less pointed in his direction.  Neither of them
said anything for a few seconds.

   "You're impertinent, young man." sniffed the woman.

   "No, Ma'am, I am not." Bobby disagreed.  "You asked me a question, and
I'll be happy to answer it if you'll just let me." He waited to see if
she'd respond.

   Her horse moved toward his and the woman spoke a command, backing her
horse up a little.  She was riding a mare.  Bobby hoped that mare wasn't in
season, because if she was, his mount might cause trouble.  He looked at
his horse, which was a stallion, but it was standing more or less placidly.
its ears were up, and it was looking at the mare, but that was all for now.


   "Well ...  get on with it then." said the woman in an exasperated tone
of voice.

   "Thank you." said Bobby.  "As I was saying, my pa has told us not to
graze the flock too close to your land.  This, I believe, is open range,
but he's trying to be neighborly." The woman's face screwed up and she
opened her mouth, but he went on, not giving her a chance to complain, like
he expected she would.  Cow people all seemed to think that all land was
"theirs" for some reason.  "The two men who were supposed to be watching
the flock are missing, and the flock has strayed over here.  I was trying
to figure out where they went when you rode up.  There's some strange horse
tracks mixed in with theirs, but I haven't figured that out yet."

   "What tracks?" the woman said, sounding suddenly interested.

   Bobby turned and went to one of the strange prints, which was clear in
the dirt.  He leaned over an pointed.

   "Here's one." he said.  "If you get down you can see it better."

   "I can see just fine from up here." said the woman.  "That track belongs
to the horse my daughter was riding.  I'm looking for her."

   "Well, I haven't seen anybody." said Bobby.  "I just got here a few
minutes before you did.  But something's wrong.  Those men should be here.
Well, not here, but they should be with the flock." He stood back up and
looked at Mrs.  Collins.  "There was some kind of scuffle here too."

   "What?!" she asked.  Now she did step down from her horse.  She brought
the rifle with her.  "What are you talking about?"

   "See here?" he pointed.  "These drag marks?  they look like they were
made by the heels of a pair of boots." He leaned down and pulled at the
blue fibers.  He held them up.  "I don't know how long these have been
here, but they didn't grow on that plant."

   Molly peered at the fibers.  She couldn't remember what Sarah was
wearing that morning.  Wait.  Yes, she was dressed like a man.  Now Molly
remembered.  She was trying to get Sarah to act like a woman, and it was a
long haul.  She had been wearing one of Frank's old shirts.  And it was
blue!  She reached out for the fibers and took them, bringing them close to
her face.

   "I think this is from the shirt Sarah was wearing." she said.  She
frowned.  "What have you done with my daughter?" The rifle came up and now
it was pointed directly at his stomach.

   "I haven't done anything with your daughter, Ma'am." he said, taking a
step backward.  He wasn't armed.  There was a rifle just like hers in a
scabbard on the side of his horse, but that was ten feet away.  "I told
you, I'm looking for our men."

   Molly stared at the boy.  He had been nothing but polite, but he was a
sheep herder, and she had no use for sheep or their herders.  But he had
pointed out things that, if he were guilty of something, he would have
tried to keep secret.

   Queen had been making her rounds, keeping the flock bunched up, and she
came around to nuzzle at Bobby's knee, wanting to be noticed.  Molly's
horse didn't like having the dog so close, and sidestepped away from them.
Molly reached for the hanging reins, but missed.

   "She won't bother your horse, Ma'am." said Bobby.

   "She's already bothered my horse." Molly barked.  She was worried now,
and being worried made her argumentative.

   Bobby ignored her combative response.  "Look, Ma'am, I want to know just
as much as you do what happened here.  Those men aren't much, but they
wouldn't have gone off and left the flock without a reason."

   Molly wanted to be angry with this sheep herder boy, but his attitude
was so different than what she'd expected that she was thrown off guard a
little.  "Sarah's horse came back without her.  It was injured."

   "Injured?  How?" asked Bobby.

   "I don't know for sure." admitted Molly.  It had something wrong with
its neck.  It had been bleeding.  It looked like it had been cut or
something.  There was a little piece of mane missing."

   Bobby ranged around the area, looking at tracks.  His uncle had taught
him better than anyone might have known.  Bobby saw where the strange horse
had been standing, and then had jumped sideways.  There were two hoof
prints, walking backwards, and the bush the strands of cloth had been
caught in was crushed.  He located more prints heading off at a gallop in
the direction the woman had ridden in from.  He went back to where the
horse had been standing and found prints where the two Rocklin horses had
been standing.  He could see where Buford and Chaps had gotten down off
their horses and walked toward the crushed bush.  Then he saw one set of
boot prints that straddled the drag marks on the ground.  One of his men
had dragged a body out of the bush.  He followed the drag marks.  The
Rocklin horses had moved and the drag marks ended up where one of them had
been standing.  There were two sets of boot prints in the soil at that
point.

   Bobby stood up.  The woman had watched him, saying nothing.

   "Here's what I think happened." he said.  He pointed to the things he'd
seen.  "I think your daughter fell off her horse when it reared.  She must
have been hurt, because they dragged her to another horse and put her up on
it.  She wasn't fighting, because the marks her boots made as they dragged
her don't show any movement.

   "My daughter," said Molly grimly, "wouldn't just fall off her horse."
She looked at the marks on the ground.

   "I'm just telling you what I think happened." said Bobby.  "Why don't we
see where the horse tracks lead.  Maybe they were taking her to get help
for her."

   Bobby had a sinking feeling in his gut, though.  Buford was the kind of
man who, if he found you lying on the ground, was more likely to pick over
your body than help you.  And Bobby had seen this woman's daughter in town
too.  She was a looker, the kind of girl that made a boy's pants get tight.
If Buford picked her up off the ground, it wasn't to help her.  He didn't
want to voice his doubts to the girl's mother though.  She still had that
rifle, even if it wasn't pointed at him any more.

   Instead of waiting for her to agree, Bobby just started following the
tracks.  He soon found that one of the horses was, indeed, carrying double,
or at least carrying a heavy load.  Those tracks were deeper than the other
horse's prints.  The trail made it obvious that both Rocklin horses were in
a canter too.  The problem was that they led in the wrong direction.  They
led toward the mountains, and not toward any ranch where someone might seek
help for an injured person.

   They had only followed the tracks for a quarter mile when the woman
spoke.

   "Obviously, your men were not going back to your ranch."

   "No, Ma'am, it appears you're right about that." admitted Bobby.

   "So they took my daughter." she said.  Her voice sounded ...  ugly.

   "I don't understand it, Ma'am, but it appears that's correct." said
Bobby.

   "I should just shoot you where you stand." said the woman harshly.

   "Ma'am, I didn't take your daughter.  But I can help you find her. 
Well, I can help you find her if you don't shoot me.  It would be pretty
hard for me to track them if I'm lying dead."

   He looked over at the woman.  She still held the rifle, but, despite her
comment, it wasn't pointed at him.  Unknown to him, his coolness under her
threat impressed her.  She recognized that emotion had made her run her
mouth ...  like a man ...  and she didn't like that.

   "Why don't we work together on this?" said Bobby.  "They can't have gone
far."

   Technically, Bobby knew that wasn't true.  The men had a good five or
six hour start, maybe more, based on how long the sheep had been at this
one place.  Bobby whistled at Queen and yelled at her to follow, giving her
the arm movement too, just to make sure.  He stepped up onto his horse and
started following the tracks of the two Rocklin horses.

   "What are you doing?" asked Molly, as Queen darted into the herd and
barked at the lead ewe, moving her toward Bobby.

   "I can't leave the flock here." said Bobby.  "They'll ruin the grass. 
They need to move."

   "You can't herd sheep now!" said Molly, getting angry.  "We need to find
Sarah!"

   "We'll find your daughter, Ma'am.  I just told Queen to follow us,
that's all.  She'll keep them moving along our track, even if she can't see
us."

   "Why didn't your men do that?" asked Molly, confused.

   "I'd say because they're hoping we won't be able to track them." said
Bobby, unsure whether or not the truth was a good idea right now.  "It
would be easy to follow the whole flock.  If they're heading for the
mountains, there will be rocky areas, and they may hope to lose themselves
that way."

   "Are you saying they plan to KEEP my daughter?!" gasped Molly.  Molly
was a frontier wife, and the code of the west was firmly engrained into
her. The code of the west said that women were to be respected ... 
cherished ...  held inviolate.  If a man abused a woman he often ended up
dead as a result.  It was unthinkable to her that the missing men might
hold her daughter against her will ...  kidnap her, for all intents and
purposes.

   "I don't know what's going on." said Bobby.  "But I aim to find out." He
looked over at the woman riding beside him.  "Are you with me?"

   Molly looked at this self possessed young man and her eyebrow arched. 
"You, young man, are with ME!  And if anything has happened to my daughter,
you will answer to ME!"

   "Let's just see what happened.  Then we can decide what's going to need
doing." replied Bobby.  He had a bad feeling about this.  There was just no
good reason why Buford and Chaps would take the girl toward the mountains.

   CHAPTER THREE

   Jonas, Buckshot and Peter arrived in Ute Canyon and located Sarah's
trail.  Had they followed Molly's tracks, they'd have arrived at the scene
of Sarah's kidnapping much sooner, but Jonas had gone with his gut
instinct. As a result, they were four hours behind Molly when they arrived
at the place where she had met Bobby Rocklin.  Unfortunately, the signs
that Bobby had read were gone.  Two or three hundred sheep had walked over
them.

   "Been sheep here." said Buckshot needlessly.

   "Do tell?" commented Jonas sarcastically.

   By then it was getting dark, and the sheep following Bobby and Molly had
wiped out all trace of their tracks.  Buckshot rode wide, to the East,
toward the Collins ranch, and located Molly's tracks coming into the
disturbed area.  Those tracks were lost where the sheep had wiped them out.
He rode back up to Jonas.

   "Found Molly's tracks coming in.  She's riding Vixen, and leading
Tulip." he said.  "Nothing going back to the ranch, though."

   They ranged through the mess of tracks, finding prints of three other
horses, all strange to them.  Two were hard to read because the shoes were
worn down and left little detail.  The third had the distinctive bumps on
it that indicated they were winter shoes, made to grip ice better.  Most
stockmen took them off in the summer because they were expensive and it was
no use to wear them down in routine conditions.  That horse was also a big,
heavy animal too, with large hooves.  All that told them was that there had
been strangers in this place, along with Sarah and Molly.

   Had there been a little more daylight, and had they ranged wider, they
might have picked up some of Molly's tracks heading toward the mountains,
or the small cairn of stones with two large one piled on top of each other,
and a smaller one set to the side.  Bobby had left that sign for anyone who
might be following them.  The smaller rock pointed in the direction he
thought he'd be headed for a while.  But, while Charley would have known
instantly what that meant, the cattlemen weren't used to following that
kind of trail, and that wouldn't have made sense to them.  In any case,
darkness caught them, and they had no idea where to go next.

   "What do you want to do, Boss?" asked Buckshot.

   "Damned if I know." said Jonas.  I thought to ride out here, find her
and then get home.  We didn't bring supplies to camp overnight."

   "Maybe they went over to that sheep farmer's spread." suggested Peter.

   "That sheep farmer doesn't have a spread." said Jonas angrily.  "He's a
squatter."

   "Now Jonas, the way I heard it, old man Johansen said he sold his ranch
to the man." said Buckshot.  He immediately wished he hadn't said anything.

   "Johansen didn't know they were bringing sheep here." said Jonas.  "If
he'd a known that he wouldn't have sold."

   Buckshot didn't want to argue.  His arthritis was acting up.  He idly
thought that it must be going to rain soon.  "Boy could be right Jonas" he
said, ignoring the outburst.  "Mebbe they did go over to ...  Johansen's
old place."

   "Let's ride." barked Jonas.  Jonas never apologized, but if he
recognized a proper course of action, he took it.

   The three men headed for the ranch now owned by a man named Rocklin.  It
would be the first formal meeting of men who, as the world saw it, were
neighbors.  Jonas Collins didn't think of it that way at all.  He loosened
the rifle in it's scabbard by his right knee.

   ===============================================

   In the house now owned by Brad and Amanda Rocklin, there was a serious
conversation going on.  It was almost dark, and supper was on the table,
though no one seemed interested in eating it except Enid.  She was fourteen
years old and had a healthy appetite to go with the stocky body she'd
inherited from her father, much to her mother's dismay.  The only thing
Enid had inherited from her mother were a pair of proud, thrusting breasts
that, according to her, were a bother because they always got "in the way",
whatever that meant.  Amanda often looked at Enid, and then her other
daughter, Elizabeth, and wondered how they had both come out of the same
womb.

   Beth was tiny, like her mother, almost delicate, with thin wrists, and a
narrow waist to match.  Like her year-younger sister, she had the same
large, lush breasts that Amanda had, but Beth's figure was more
proportioned to that of a woman, with swelling hips to match.  Enid's hips
were slim and boyish.  Beth worked hard too, but it didn't show on her like
it did on Enid.  Beth's skin was milky white, while Enid had freckles and
darker skin that was darkly tanned by the sun.

   Enid was already taller than Amanda, and had the sturdy look of a young
pioneer woman, with callused hands and short, usually dirty fingernails. 
Not that she didn't appear to be a female.  Her long strawberry blond hair,
not quite so red as Amanda's, was tied back with a ribbon.  Her young, but
already large breasts pushed at the soft buckskin shirt she was wearing,
above pants made of the same material.  Beth had on a proper dress.  Amanda
would rather have had both girls wearing dresses, but the only ones Enid
owned were two or three years old and had been made for a much smaller
girl. Amanda hated sewing, and, come to think of it, Enid had inherited
that from her too.  Beth, on the other hand, had probed to find what sewing
skills Amanda possessed, and had pulled them from her on cold winter nights
beside the fire.  Beth made her own clothes.  Amanda could spin wool into
thread that made the finest cloth, like most women of that day, and Beth
was fast on her way to becoming just as good with a spinning wheel.  But
the weaving and cutting and sewing of that fine wool cloth was something
Amanda had no patience for.  She'd just as soon buy ready made dresses. 
That happened infrequently, though.  It was rare to get to town, and even
more rare to have the money to spend on things like that.  The only proper
dresses Amanda still owned were the one's she'd brought with her from
Oregon, and one that Beth had made for her.

   On the other hand, the Rocklins had good relations with the local
wandering tribe of the Batcinena, or Red Willow Men of the Arapaho Indian
tribe.  In the uneasy peace between former enemies, enforced by the
infrequent appearance of soldiers, the tribe traded with other tribes who
wove wool into beautiful blankets, and the Rocklins were able to trade good
wool thread for both good will, and fantastically well made clothing of
animal skins.  Elk skin made the best clothing, thick and almost
indestructible, and as long as you didn't wear the same outfit too long
without airing it, the leather maintained its sharp, pleasant smell.

   As a result, Amanda's children often dressed in clothes that were more
suited for a wild Indian than a civilized sheep farmer.  For that matter
Amanda herself owned two sets of sturdy Indian garb.  Her husband refused
to wear leather clothing, preferring jeans and cotton or wool shirts,
depending on the weather.  His chaps, though, were Indian made.  They were
a gift to him by an Indian woman who had showed up on foot at the ranch,
handing them over and saying her son's name.  Brad had found the boy with a
broken leg and had splinted it and carried him to where the tribe was
located at the time.  At that time, that had been thirty miles away, and
the woman had made the chaps and walked the whole distance ...  round trip
...  to thank him.

   The other nice thing about leather, Amanda had to admit, was that it
stretched as the body grew into it.  She glanced at Enid's swollen breasts,
pushing the leather away from her chest, and sighed.  Her worried mind was
drawn back to the issue at hand as her husband spoke.

   "I shouldn't have sent him out there." he said.

   "Nonsense." said Amanda.  "He's a grown man.  Well, almost.  And he
should be back by now.  I'll tan his hide good for making us worry like
this!"

   "He's probably dead." said Enid.  She had argued with her brother that
morning about whose job it was to clean the chicken coop.  Being two years
older he had simply informed her that he had other things to do, and it was
her job, and if she didn't do it he'd tell their father.  She realized it
had gotten very quiet at the table, and looked up.  Her mother and father,
along with Buckshot and Xian Bai, their other lead shepherd, were all
staring at her.

   "Why would you say that?" asked her mother, her face darkening.  "Why in
the WORLD would you say that, Enid Rocklin?"

   Enid knew that tone of voice, and knew she'd made a tactical mistake. 
But the odor of chicken manure on her hands ...  the odor she couldn't get
off no matter how much she washed them ...  made her compound the mistake.

   "Well?  He's just so STUPID!" she said forcefully.

   Oddly enough, Amanda relaxed and sat back in her chair.  She recognized
that tone of voice.  Sibling rivalry.  She glanced at Beth, who had her
eyes on her food, like she was trying not to get involved in the
conversation.

   Charley tried to defuse a situation that really didn't need to be
diffused any more.  Of course he didn't know that.  He was a man, and
didn't recognize those tones of voice.

   "Your brother is not a stupid man." he said patiently.  "He should be
back by now and your mother is worried."

   Xian Bai spoke from the other side of the table.  "Your Brother is very
smart, Missy." he said, grinning.  Xian Bai had somehow attached himself to
the party as they moved from Oregon to Wyoming, herding five hundred sheep
along the old Oregon Trail.  He had been walking alone, with only sack
hanging from a six foot long pole as he was surrounded by sheep.  He had
just kept walking until the Rocklins caught up to him.  Queen, their lead
dog, had ambled up to him, sniffed him and then ambled off.  That, in
itself, was an endorsement.  Amanda had been exposed to Chinese immigrants,
and invited him to eat with them when they camped.  He'd been with them
ever since.  He picked up sheep ranching as if born to it, and he had an
almost magical way with the dogs, as if he could speak to them somehow.  He
took his pay, when they had money to give him, but often Amanda found it
back in the big clay jar she kept loose cash in.  He was also a wizard with
the weaving of rope, and made all the rope they used on the ranch.

   Enid, knowing that she had gotten off easily, started eating again.

   Buster, who had been lying in a corner of the room, suddenly lifted his
head, his ears up.  A soft growl issued from his throat.  The three puppies
who had been sitting patiently under the table, hoping for scraps, began
yapping loudly.  Brad kicked one and Amanda shushed at them, picking two of
them up and holding their muzzles closed.  Xian Bai grabbed the third and
did the same thing.

   Buster was standing now, rigid and facing the door.  His growl
continued, but he did not bark.

   Brad and Charley stood.  Charley went to the wall and took down the
double barreled Damascus twist black powder shotgun.  He knew it was
loaded. Brad went to the desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a Navy Colt
.36 caliber pistol.  Charley headed for the back door of the house while
Enid, all business now, turned the kerosene lamp down until it gave off
just a dull glow.  Xian Bai had disappeared without a sound.

   "Halloooo the house" came a faint yell from outside.

   Brad opened the door, but stood to one side.

   "Who's there?" he yelled out into the almost dark.  He could see the
dark forms of three men sitting horses, out away from the house.

   "It's Jonas Collins" came back the reply.  "I'm lookin' for my wife and
daughter.  They've gone missing!"

   Brad frowned.  He hadn't met the cattle rancher.  That had been on
purpose.  When he'd moved onto an old cattle ranch with sheep he'd known
that he would not be welcome.  Cattlemen he saw in town wouldn't even speak
to him, shooting him hostile looks instead.  He'd decided on his own to try
to lie low and keep the flock away from his closest neighbor's range, to
avoid conflict.  While surveying his new ranch he'd found grass that
cattlemen wouldn't want to use, and had capitalized on that.  He had four
or five times as many sheep now as he had when he'd first arrived, and the
operation was just beginning to make some money.  He intentionally left a
broad piece of free range untouched between him and the Circle C ranch. 
Brad was trying hard not to get caught up in the general trouble between
cattlemen and sheepmen.  The last thing he needed right now was trouble
with Collins.  He was uneasy about this "visit", but when kinfolk were
missing, it was a serious thing.

   "Come on in." yelled Brad, and he stepped out onto the porch.  He put
the pistol in his pocket, but did not let go of the grip.  He knew Charley
was at one corner of the house, covering the three riders.

   The three horses stepped slowly toward the house.  It was too dark to
see the men's hands, and that made Brad more nervous.  As the men got
closer he spoke to them.

   "We haven't seen any strangers." he said, suddenly wishing he'd said
"people" instead of "strangers".

   Jonas sat his horse.  He hadn't been invited to step down.  "Found sign
of your sheep where her trail disappeared." he said.  "Over by that dry
creek bed that comes out of Ute Canyon."

   "That's impossible." said Brad firmly.  "We don't graze the flock over
there.

   "Well, somebody does." said a gravelly voice of one of the other men. 
The grass had been eaten to the roots, and there's sheep tracks all over
the place."

   "I don't graze my sheep that way." insisted Brad.

   "Where's your flock?" asked Jonas.

   "They should be on their way to the high meadows." said Brad.  I sent my
son out to tell the men to start them that way this afternoon.  He's not
back yet.  We were just talking about that at supper."

   Brad suddenly remembered his manners.  "You men eaten yet?"

   "No SIR!" came a young man's voice from the three.

   "Shut up Peter." growled Jonas, turning his head.

   Brad had heard that tone of voice before.  He'd never talked to Jonas
Collins, but others had shown their contempt for him and his sheep.

   "Well, we've got plenty.  You may as well come on in and have a bite. 
If nothing else tell me what you've found.  Maybe we can figure out what's
going on.  My son should have been back by now and we're a little worried
about him too."

   Jonas sat there silent, thinking.  He didn't want to act friendly in any
way toward this man, but his daughter and wife were missing.  At least he
should get a look inside the house.  He didn't think the man would just lie
outright, but he'd like to look around a little ...  just in case.  His
saddle creaked as he put his weight on his left leg and he swung down.  The
two other men followed suit.

   When his booted feet hit the boards of the porch, Jonas smelled the food
and his stomach growled.  He hadn't had anything except jerky since
morning. He thought a curse to himself, but kept quiet.  He didn't want to
take the hospitality of a sheep farmer.

   ===============================================

   Sarah came to again, and through the fuzziness in her head she realized
she must have passed out again.  The terrible pain in her middle was gone
and she realized she was lying on the ground.  Her wrists still hurt and as
she tried to flex shoulders in fiery pain, she realized she was still
bound. The first odor to get past the burlap bag still covering her head
was smoke.  She heard voices.

   "Keep it small you idiot.  We don't need no smoke and flame giving us
away."

   "Damn it Buford, I want hot vittles!" complained Chaps' voice.

   "You won't get any vittles at all if'n they find us before we're ready."
snarled Buford's voice.

   "'N that's another thing." went on Chaps' whiny voice.  "Why'd you take
her like that?  They's gonna be mad Buford.  Real mad."

   "I already told you Chaps!  That there pretty little slice of pussy's
gonna get us the stake we need to light out to better parts you fool. 
They'll pay gold to get her back." said Buford, trying to be patient.  He
couldn't pull this off without Chaps' help.  He couldn't manage the girl by
himself.  She was too damn heavy.

   "What if she's dead?" whined Chaps.  "She ain't moved in a long time
Buford."

   "She ain't dead." grunted Buford.  "Least wise she'd better not be.  She
ain't worth nuthin' dead.  Plus I aim to get me a piece of that pussy.  I'm
tired of fucking sheep."

   "That ain't right Buford." said Chaps, his dim mind settling on sheep
... and what Buford someimes did to sheep ...  and forgetting the girl. 
"You shouldn't ought to be doin' that anyways."

   "You shut up.  If you want to live with blue balls, fine.  But I'm a
real man and I need some real pussy once in a while.  That there little
filly's gonna feel real fine wrapped around my dick."

   "I don't like this Buford." insisted Chaps.  He was simple minded, but
he was no fool.  He knew the code of the West just like every man in that
part of the country.  He knew what was likely to happen just for carrying
the girl off, if they got caught.  If she was raped they'd swing from a
tree for sure.

   But Chaps was scared of Buford.  He'd seen Buford do terrible things to
a sheep, things that hurt it ...  sometimes even killed it.  And the way he
was unnatural with them.  It scared Chaps a lot.  So Chaps subsided into
unhappy silence as he stirred the beans over the tiny fire Buford had
allowed him to build using only squaw wood - small dead sticks pulled from
the lower trunks of trees, or found lying on the ground.  While Buford
wasn't looking he added a few sticks to the flames.  Beans needed to be hot
to choke down in his opinion.

   Sarah heard all this as though it came through cotton stuffed in her
ears.  Her head hurt horribly, and her face felt hot.  She knew she should
be frightened, listening to Buford's plans to rape her, but she couldn't
concentrate.  Her eyes closed as her bruised brain cut off her
consciousness once again.

   ===============================================

   Molly sat her horse in the dark, next to the boy.  They hadn't talked
much.  The boy's attention was all on tracks and bent twigs and flattened
tufts of grass, or scrape marks on rock.  Molly knew a little of tracking,
though she wasn't much good if the trail was faint.  But it was obvious
this boy knew what he was doing.  Whenever he lost the trail, he found it
again within minutes.  He seemed to have an instinct for it, or knew his
men well enough that he knew what they'd do.  The trail had not gone
straight, like she thought it would.  It often turned, for no clear reason
at all.  She realized that each time they came to rock that the trail would
turn and go in a different direction.  She wasn't stupid, and it didn't
take her long to understand that the people they were following didn't want
to be found.  That made the pit of her stomach lurch, and a sour taste come
to her mouth.  Her baby girl was with men who didn't want to be found.

   "It's too dark to go on." said the Rocklin boy softly.

   "I didn't come prepared to camp out." she said irritably.

   "Neither did I." he said.  "Still, that's what we're going to have to
do. We'll pick up the trail in the morning."

   "We can't camp out here!" said Molly firmly.  "It gets cold at night up
this high."

   They had left the plains after a three hour ride, and had been climbing
ever since.

   "Yes, Ma'am it does." he agreed.  "We'll just have to build a fire and
live through it, I guess."

   "That's insane." complained Molly.

   "You can't go back in the dark, ma'am." said the boy.  "And if you did
you'd lose hours on the trail.  I thought you cow people were supposed to
be tough." he said mildly.

   Molly bristled.  "You watch your mouth boy." she grumped.  But there was
no heat in her voice.  She realized she sounded soft and pampered to be
complaining about a single night out in the open.  She'd done that when she
was younger lots of times.  She'd show him tough!

   Three hours later she wasn't so sure she was tough at all.  He had some
food in his saddlebags, which he shared with her.  Then, finding a rock
face, he built a fire right up against it.  He dragged in two respectably
sized logs and lay them next to the rock face, forming a V, and then built
a fire filling the void between them.  He added wood until the blaze was
uncomfortably hot and she complained.

   "The heat will soak into the rock and then reflect back out when the
fire dies down." he explained.  "Whichever one of us wakes up in the night
will need to add wood to keep it going all night, but the fire will eat
down into those logs, and it will be easy to get it going again."

   "Aren't you going to stand watch?" asked Molly.  It had been a long time
since she'd slept out in the open.  She'd been a girl the last time she'd
camped.

   "What for?" he asked.  "The only folks around here are the Indians, and
they won't be out in the dark.  You can stay awake if you want to, but then
you'll be tired in the morning."

   "This is just ridiculous." moaned Molly.  It was cold already.  Well,
her front was warm from the huge fire, but her back was freezing.  She
turned around to warm her backside.  "Won't they see this fire and know
we're after them?" She wanted to find something wrong with the way the boy
was doing things.

   "I picked this face because it's downhill." he said.  They'll be up
there somewhere.  I think they might be headed for the high meadows.  We
have a shack up there, with provisions.  That's where they were supposed to
take the sheep."

   When he mentioned the sheep Molly suddenly heard them.  They were massed
just below the ledge Molly and Bobby were on.  Queen sat in the night, head
up, watching over them.

   "Doesn't that dog ever eat?" she asked.  "Or sleep?"

   "She'll sleep later, when the flock is quiet.  She's probably been
eating all day.  She's a good forager.  She probably caught her a rabbit or
something along the way."

   He got up and walked off in the dark.

   "Where are you going?" asked Molly, more anxiously than she wanted to.

   "I don't suspect you want to see what I'm going to do, Ma'am." he said.
"There aren't any outhouses around here."

   "Oh." said Molly, getting pink in the face.  "Of course." She suddenly
felt the pressure of her own bladder.

   He was gone a long time, and when he came back it was from a different
direction than the one he left in.

   "I climbed up on the rock." he said as he walked silently into the light
of the fire.  "I can see their fire.  It's maybe four and a half or five
miles ...  straight line.  They probably have eight or so miles on us by
the lay of the land."

   "You saw their fire?" asked Molly amazed.

   "Buford's not the smartest guy I ever met." said Bobby wryly.  "But he's
all we could get to work sheep.  Cowboys won't touch them, and that's about
all there are around here ...  cowboys."

   "That's because no decent man works with sheep." said Molly without
thinking.  She realized her insult as soon as it was out of her mouth.

   "My father's a decent man, and I will be some day." said Bobby with
dignity.  He recognized the cowman's mantra when he heard it.  He also knew
it was ingrained.

   "I'm sorry." said Molly, not sounding very sorry.  "But sheep ruin the
range."

   "Sheep don't ruin the range if they're properly herded." said Bobby. 
That was the shepherd's mantra, and he knew it.  But he also knew it was
true.

   "We haven't ruined the range on our land, and we've been here three
years." he said.

   "If your range is so good," questioned Molly, "then why was your herd on
our land?" She was a stubborn woman.

   "First of all it's open range, and not your land.  At least according to
the register of deeds and the land office.  My ma checked that before pappa
bought our place."

   "Your mother!  Why in the world would she get involved in man's
business?" asked Molly.

   "Are you saying you don't herd cows?  Or help birth calves?  Are you
saying you don't have anything to do with your husband's cattle, Mrs. 
Collins?" Bobby could feel his face getting red.  Why was this woman so
hard headed?  He was glad it was dark.

   "Of course not." snapped Molly.  "But that's different."

   "How is that different?" he asked.  "Around our place it's a family
business.  We all take part." he said.

   "Well ...  I mean ...  " Molly trailed off as she realized she sounded
silly.  She was an integral part of the ranch.  Any woman was.  Jonas
barked at her whenever she interfered in ...  She thought about that for a
minute.  The last two times Jonas had argued with her had been times when
she knew she was right, but he was so stubborn.  HE was the one who kept
saying she was meddling in man's business.  She realized she had just
accepted that ...  for years.

   "Let's talk about something else." she said suddenly.

   Bobby chuckled.  "OK, but it's been a long day and I'll admit I'm tired.
I need some sleep if we're ever going to find out what your daughter did
with our men."

   He had meant it to lighten the mood, but her face in the firelight
frowned.  He could see how upset she was, and she didn't even know Buford.
He tried to reassure her, even though he wasn't reassured himself.

   "They won't hurt her, Ma'am." he said quickly.  "They know what would
happen to them if they hurt her."

   Molly slumped.  She'd run off without thinking, chasing off after her
daughter.  Jonas was probably tearing his hair out looking for them both.
Now she was freezing, and all she had with her was a boy.  Well, almost a
man.  Well, she hated to admit, almost a man who was also smart as a whip.
She thought about what she'd seen him do that afternoon.  He'd gotten them
ten times farther than she'd have gotten by herself.  And now he knew where
they were out there, only miles away.  What was happening to Sarah right
now?  Was she all right?  Was she alive?  Tears welled up in her eyes and
rolled down her cheeks.  She scrubbed at them furiously, ashamed to cry in
front of this boy.

   Bobby reached out and touched her elbow with his fingers.  "Really,
Ma'am, it will be all right.  We'll find them.  We'll get her back to you."

   Molly looked at his fingers where they touched her elbow.  She wanted a
hug.  But she couldn't hug this boy ...  this shepherd.

   "We'd better." she said softly.  "I don't know what Jonas would do if
something happened to her.  I don't know what I'd do."

   "We'll catch them tomorrow." said Bobby seriously.  "Now, get some
sleep. We're going to have to ride hard tomorrow."

   ===============================================

   It was tense in the Rocklin house, as the three strangers sat down to
eat.  Beth was suddenly animated, with the exuberance of youth seeing
strangers for the first time in months, and one of them a boy not much
older than she was, at least to her thinking.  She smiled at Peter and
served him first.  Amanda saw and blushed at the insult to the older men.

   "Beth, mind your manners." she said shortly.

   Beth looked up, confused, and realized what she'd done.  "He was
closest." she said.  It sounded weak, even to her.  Enid giggled.  She knew
her sister well, and could understand her sister's interest in the boy.

   Peter had never seen either of these girls before, and he was just as
interested in them.  Enid was strange looking.  He'd never seen a girl
wearing buckskin, but she looked like a girl for sure.  While Beth looked
more like other girls he knew, she was different too.  Most of the girls he
knew were simpering things, fawning on the boys, pretending to drop their
hankies so the boys would pick them up.  This was a girl who had a self
possession about her.  That, and her beautiful loose brown hair made him
stare at her.  When she looked back with wide brown eyes, he felt his
stomach lurch.

   Jonas ignored the byplay and got right to facts.  He described what had
happened, the bullet wound on the horse, the tracks and obvious evidence
that a lot of sheep had been there and wiped out the tracks.  He mentioned
that his wife had chased off before him, and he didn't know where she was
either.

   "We found her tracks going into the mess, but lost them where your herd
of sheep wiped them out.  "

   "Flock." corrected Brad.

   Jonas frowned.  "Only other tracks we saw were a few of my daughter's
and two sets of worn down shoes.  There was also a big horse there, with
winter shoes still on."

   "That would be my son's horse." said Brad.  "He rides a stallion he
caught and trained.  It's a big horse.  He likes those shoes for when he
has to go over rock.  The others probably were the horses my two men were
on.  They weren't supposed to be that close to your place.  I sent Bobby up
there to tell them to start the move to the high meadows."

   "Well, your son, and your men were where my daughter and wife were, and
now we don't know where any of them are." said Jonas heavily.

   Charley came in the front door with the shotgun.  "Chores done Brad." he
announced, as if he were coming in from work.  He stood the shotgun in a
corner near where he pulled a low bench up to the table.  "Xian Bai should
be coming in any minute."

   Sure enough Xian Bai came in the back door.  He had a rifle in his
hands.

   Jonas looked at Xian Bai, and then Brad.  There was surprise on his
face. Lots of people had seen Chinese workers, but not on a ranch.  And not
armed with a rifle either.

   "Got wolf troubles?" he asked, surprise spilling over into his voice.

   "You never know." said Brad.

   Both men knew what had just happened, of course, and that the cowmen had
been covered by weapons in the dark, but neither felt inclined to admit it.

   Charley and Xian Bai sat down as if nothing strange was going on, and
began to eat.

   Brad held a piece of bread in his fingers, but didn't eat.  "Like I told
you, the thing is my boy should be back.  All I told him to do is go find
the flock and tell the boys to move them toward the mountains."

   "Well, the tracks of your herd ...  flock ...  went off in the direction
of the mountains.  It got too dark to follow them.  But I can't think of
any reason why my wife and daughter would throw in with your men. 
Something must have happened out there.  You had any Indian trouble since
you've been here?" asked Jonas.

   "None." said Brad firmly.  "We do some trading with them, but that's
all. Hardly ever see them.  They seem to keep to the north of here for the
most part."

   Amanda spoke for the first time.  "Is it possible, Mr.  Collins, that
your wife found your daughter and took her home?"

   Jonas looked surprised, as if he hadn't thought of that possibility.

   Buckshot wiped his mouth and spoke.  "Ma'am, that's a right nice
thought, except I didn't see no tracks going back to the ranch.  Only
coming into that mess.  If she'd a done that I'd a seen some tracks, don't
you s'pose?" His voice had a hint of derision in it.

   Amanda wasn't going to be looked down on.  "You did mention it was
getting dark.  And you, Sir, are obviously aged.  Perhaps your poor old
eyes didn't quite catch the sign."

   Brad's head snapped toward his wife.  "Amanda, that will be enough of
that.  These men are guests."

   Jonas laughed suddenly, his eyes on Amanda.  "You'd get along fine with
my Molly, that's a fact." He elbowed Buckshot, who was suddenly busy
eating. He was smiling, though.

   Jonas stopped laughing.  "I guess we might as well go back to the ranch
and see if maybe Molly DID find her.  Maybe she found her someplace else
and they went back from there.  The sign doesn't support that, but we might
have missed something.  We can't do anything until daylight anyway."

   "You sure you want to travel at night?" asked Brad.  "We could put you
up here."

   Jonas stared at the man.  For a sheep herder he was mighty neighborly.

   "No, if Molly and Sarah are back there they'll be wondering where we
are. Thanks for the supper, Ma'am." he nodded toward Amanda.

   "You're quite welcome." she said sweetly.  "It's nice to finally meet
our neighbors."

   It was Buckshot who snorted that time.

   "You say the trail led off toward the mountains?" asked Brad.  "In the
morning we'll need to go up and find the flock.  If my men, or Bobby had to
leave them for some reason I don't want them wandering around up there with
just the dog."

   "That's your business." said Jonas.  "If you happen to find my daughter
or wife, hold on to them for me.  If she's not home, then I suspect we'll
be trying to find that flock of yours too."

   The men stood to leave and got to the door when they realized Peter
wasn't with them.  They turned to find him and Beth staring in each other's
eyes, oblivious to the rest of the people in the room.

   Enid giggled again.

   "Oh Lord." said Buckshot.

   "PETER!" said Jonas harshly.

   Peter jumped and then blushed, standing up and knocking his chair over
backwards.

   "Oh Lord." said Buckshot again, as Peter hastily picked up the chair
and, blushing put it back in place.  He scurried to stand by his father,
looking at the floor.

   "Bye!" said Beth, standing and waving.  Her smile was beatific.

   "Oh Lord." said Amanda, putting her head in her hand as the door closed
behind the men.

   "Bye mister big strong cowboy" mimicked Enid, her voice in a high
falsetto, obviously teasing her sister.

   She got an elbow in her ribs from her older sister, and a dark look from
her mother.

   ===============================================

   It's interesting how something small can make such a big difference in a
person's life.  Something so small, say, as someone unexpected dropping by
to visit.

   Elizabeth Rocklin, at almost sixteen years of age, was almost an adult
in that day and age.  She had the knowledge of how to run a house, and the
skills to cook and clean.  Her body was ready to bear children, and had
been for several years.  On the other hand, her social development was more
or less stunted by the fact that living on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming
meant she didn't get much time with people outside her immediate family. 
While the hormones flooding her bloodstream were normal, her knowledge of
men and what to do with those hormones was more or less ...  deficient. 
Oh, she had seen both her father and brother naked many times.  The family
all used the horse trough to bathe in.  Being isolated like they were,
there was little modesty.  Charley and Xian Bai generally bathed in streams
or ponds while they were out tending the flock, and on bath night they took
Chaps and Buford, if they were even around, and disappeared into the dark
to check on the sheep so that the women could bathe comfortably without
non-relatives seeing their nakedness.

   Beth was quite aware of the change in her father that inevitably
happened on bath night.  The women went first, standing in line and
assisting each other with back scrubbing or handing towels to each other.
That meant there were three grown women, for all intents and purposes,
standing around the horse trough naked.  Brad's reaction was to take his
wife behind the curtain that prohibited a view to their bed and make all
kinds of noises with her.  Brad and Amanda had told their children long ago
that those noises were natural, and that some day each of them would
understand what was happening behind that blanket.  The term "Making Love"
was not unfamiliar in the house, though the actions of what that meant were
somewhat misty and undefined to the three teens.  Of course all three teens
had seen animals mating, but to try to visualize their parents that way
just didn't seem real somehow.

   Beth had looked curiously at both her father and brother when it came
their turn to bathe.  Amanda had bathed the children all together until
they had set up house on this ranch, and had meant to establish some rules
for privacy and modesty as the children entered puberty.  Somehow she just
hadn't gotten around to it.  But for Beth it was mostly just curiosity. 
She didn't feel anything in particular when she looked at what hung between
her father's and brother's legs.  Her father had lots of hair on his legs
and stomach and around that thing that hung down.  She did notice that it
didn't look much like what sheep or dogs or horses had.  Her brother had
much less hair everywhere, and his penis was pinker somehow.  All these
things were academic, for the most part, and she noticed them just like she
would have noticed that the wind had broken a tree branch or something like
that.  It didn't "mean" anything to her.

   She was, therefore, completely unprepared to feel the things she felt
when Peter Collins walked into her house that night, and sat down.  She
noticed literally everything about him.  She noticed his eyes, with their
long lashes, and his nose, and his chin and the way his hair fell to almost
his collar, but wasn't greasy or stringy like that of the men who worked
for her father.  She noticed his shoulders, and had blushed when her eyes
had been drawn to the rear of his tight pants as he pulled out a chair to
sit at the table.  When she served him, and he smiled at her, she felt her
stomach doing flip flops, and a strange, tight heat in her chest.  She was,
on some level, aware that she was staring at him, but she couldn't help it.


   As supper progressed, and the men talked, Peter looked at her too, with
little darting glances that landed all over the parts of her he could see.
She noticed his eyes landed on her chest frequently, and that made her feel
funny inside for some reason.  Buford stared at her too whenever he was
around, but this was completely different from that.  When Buford stared at
her it made her feel dirty and she wanted to take a bath.  But Peter's
looks made her feel light enough to float away.  Once, when his eyes slid
from her chest up to her face, and locked with hers, he smiled shyly.  Beth
wanted to wiggle in her chair at how that made her feel.  She had never
been in love in her life, and she had no concept of love-at-first-sight.

   But the fact was, that Elizabeth Rocklin was probably experiencing
something very akin to that concept while she sat ...  and occasionally put
something in her mouth ...  during dinner.

   After it was over, and she tried to recall what had been discussed, she
had a hard time remembering much of what was said.  But Peter Collin's blue
eyes were burned into her memory lie they had been put there with a
branding iron.

   ===============================================

   Peter Collins, riding slowly in the dark, couldn't see much beyond the
ghostly shapes of bushes and the soft shimmer of moonlight on the tips of
the grass as the wind moved it gently in the cool breeze.  His eyes took
that in, along with the sound of the clopping of horse's feet.  He didn't
pay any of that much attention.  It was chilly, but he didn't notice that
either.  While his eyes saw, and his ears heard, they reported to a part of
his brain that was on standby.

   What Peter saw and heard in most of his brain were the smooth curves of
a blue gingham dress, resting on the frame of a girl he'd seen only once,
and the voice of that girl.  He had only a few words to concentrate on,
remembering that voice, because she hadn't spoken much.  But he clearly
remembered the timbre of her voice.  He remembered her lips, dark and soft
and lush.  He remembered her hands, slim and white as they served him food.
He remembered her eyes, locking onto his ...  something no girl had ever
done before.

   It had made him feel like shouting at the moon.

   He STILL felt like shouting, but he knew his father would yell at him if
he did that.  Not, perhaps because he was making noise in the dark, but
because of why he made that noise.  You couldn't just let loose with a howl
and then not be able to explain what it was all about.  Not only had her
eyes stayed on his ...  they had stayed on his after catching him looking
where a boy wasn't supposed to look at a woman.  He knew that because just
a few months back his father had caught him looking at his mother one
night, while she was in her nightgown.  She had been standing in front of
the fire place, pulling his father up out of his chair to take him to bed.
The gown was thin, and the fire bright, and Peter Collins had been given
his first view of what a woman's body looked like under all that clothing
women wore.

   Somehow his father had known what he was looking at, and had stood in
front of his wife, staring down at his son.  "Don't be looking at a woman
like that." he had said gruffly.  Then his mother had wanted to know what
was going on.  Peter had been ashamed.  He knew women were supposed to be
respected, but he couldn't tell his eyes not to see.

   It had been a very uncomfortable moment until his mother realized what
had happened and pushed her husband toward the bedroom.  Then she came back
and, standing with the fire to her back again, she leaned down to kiss
Peter on the top of his head.

   "You're normal." she whispered to him.  "And I'm the only girl around,
so don't let your father make you feel bad." she added, smiling at him. 
"We need to solve that little problem pretty soon I imagine.  We'll just
have to find you a girl you CAN stare at."

   She had gone off to bed then, and Peter had been further ashamed to find
that his penis was stiff.

   Now, almost as if his mother was some kind of prophetess, he had
stumbled upon a girl.  He wondered what she'd look like standing in front
of a fire in a thin gown.  Then he was glad it was dark, because he would
never have been able to either explain to his father or live down what was
happening in his pants.



   CHAPTER FOUR

   Molly woke, shivering.

   There was a horse blanket draped over her upper torso, which helped, but
her legs were cold and her feet leaden.  The fire had died down, and the
two logs smoked, above red embers.  She levered herself up on one elbow and
looked around.  The boy was right beside her, covered with another horse
blanket.  She was between him and the fire.  "He must be freezing." she
thought, but his breath came softly and steadily from under his hat.  She
reached out and threw several sticks of wood on the embers, piling them up.
They started smoking immediately and burst into flames as she lay back down
and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

   She lay there, uncomfortable.  She should have emptied her bladder, but
she'd been too stubborn to go off in the dark.  Groaning she sat back up.
When she got to her feet she stumbled.  She couldn't feel anything in them
as her boots scraped across the ground.  The boy moved, rolling toward the
fire a little, but didn't seem to wake.

   She only went ten feet, and felt the cold air on her pale buttocks as
she dropped her jeans to squat, leaning back on a rock.  Her urine splashed
and hissed so loudly she was sure the boy would wake up, but he didn't
move. She sighed as the pressure vanished inside her.  She was so cold she
didn't want to wait for things to drip dry and she stood, quickly pulling
her pants back up.  She wrapped her horse blanket around her shoulders and
walked around a little until she could feel her feet again.  Then she sat
with her boots close to the fire, until she saw the soles smoking.  She put
more wood on the blaze and felt welcome heat bathe her.

   What was she doing out here in the wilderness, alone with this strange
boy?  Her thoughts went to Sarah.  Was she freezing too?  She looked up at
the stars.  The moon was setting.  What time of the month was it?  How long
was it until dawn?  She looked at Bobby again.  He could have taken his
sheep and just gone home.  Why did he care what had happened to her
daughter?  He obviously did, though, and was going to some lengths to help
her.  Would she have done that if his sister was missing?  Did he even have
a sister?

   Eventually Molly lay back down.  This time she lay on the outside, so
the boy could get some heat.  She lay down close to him, and could feel his
body heat.  She draped her blanket over their legs and feet and then lifted
his blanket, and snuggled in close to him, pressing her breasts against his
back.  It felt odd to be so close to a strange man, but it was warmer.

   It was the least she could do for this strange boy who cared about a
girl he'd never met...  and for that girl's mother.

   ============================================================

   It was past midnight when Jonas and his men got back to the ranch.  The
three of them made enough noise though that Frank was up and awake when
their weary feet hit the planks of the back porch and they entered the
house.  Frank expected to hear news.  What he heard instead was his
father's terse question "Are your mother and sister back?"

   "I thought you went to get them." said Frank, getting even more anxious.
Jonas was tired, and he knew they were at the end of their strength for the
day.  He gave Frank only the minimal information that it appeared that the
sheepherder's boy and Frank's mother had either found Sarah, or had
followed after her and two of the Rocklin men.

   "We've got to go find them!" cried Frank.

   "We're worn out, boy." said his father heavily.  "And we don't even know
where to look."

   "But that man - the sheep herder - he has to know which way they went."
objected Frank.

   "He says he doesn't know, and anyway, we don't need the help of any
sheep-lover to take care of our business." retorted Jonas.

   "But..." started Frank.

   "Go back to bed!" ordered his father.  "We'll decide what to do in the
morning.  Do as I say, boy!"

   The men began dragging off their clothing, getting ready to get the
sleep Jonas had just ordered.  Frank went back to his room, but he didn't
go back to bed.  He couldn't stand the thought that his sister and mother
were out in the dark somewhere, maybe hurt, and that no one cared enough to
go after them.

   It was a typical reaction in a fifteen year old boy who felt like the
adults around him didn't appreciate his skills and talents.  He had no idea
what the men had gone through already that day, or the details of what
they'd found.  It was fixed in his mind that the sheepherder knew where to
find his missing relatives, and he intended to get that information out of
the man, one way or the other.  And if he could help, then it was foolish
not to accept that help.

   He dressed quietly, and then waited until he was sure the others were
asleep.  Knowing the floor boards would squeak, he climbed out the window
of his room.  Then, saddling his horse, and with his cherished pearl
handled revolvers strapped on, he walked the horse far enough away from the
house that he could mount and ride without making noise that would wake
anyone.  He was sure he could find the old Johansen place in the dark.

   =================================================================

   Sarah woke again.  This time, while the pain in her wrists and shoulders
was just as bad, her head felt a little clearer.  She realized she didn't
smell the burlap bag any more, and opened her eyes.

   It was dark, and cold.  A small fire flickered ten or so feet away.  She
was lying on her side, with her hands bound in front of her.  She tried to
move and couldn't stifle a groan of pain.  Her whole body hurt.

   "Oh, little miss cow girl is awake, is she?" came Buford's voice.  Sarah
turned her head to see Buford bent over, pulling things out of her saddle
bags.

   She tried to speak, but her throat was so dry she couldn't make words
come out.  She swallowed and got some saliva in her mouth.

   "Leave that alone." she said weakly, her voice cracking.  "Those are my
things." "You ain't the one giving orders here missy." said Buford more or
less pleasantly.  "What's this here?"

   He pulled the paper-wrapped package that contained her new dress out of
the leather pouch.  Tearing it open he shook out the dress.

   "Now ain't that purty?" he said.  "I bet you'd be a lot better lookin'
with this on." He held out the dress toward her.  "Course we're gonna have
to get you all nekkid to put it on you." he leered.

   "You're a dead man." Sarah spat.

   Buford let his hand fall, and the hem of the dress puddled on the
ground. He looked himself up and down.

   "I ain't nowheres near dead." His eyes glinted in the dim light as he
looked at her.  "And I'm gonna prove that to you right soon now.  But first
I want to see you in this purty little dress."

   "You go to hell." said Sarah.

   Buford unbuckled his gun belt and dropped it to the ground.  Then he
walked over to her, dragging her new dress in the dirt.  He casually leaned
over and slapped her face hard enough that her head bounced off the ground.
His handprint would remain on her face for over a week.  Sarah cried out
and rolled.  His foot came down on her stomach hard, pinning her on her
back.  He reached out and grasped her brother's old shirt, pulling, and the
old, worn cloth ripped easily in his hands.  Sarah tried to fend him off
with her hands, but she had been tied over the rump of a horse, with her
wrists roped to her ankles.  Her shoulders wouldn't work right and she
cried out at the pain.

   Buford pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt and pressed the tip
right between her now-naked breasts.

   "You fight me and I'll carve you up like a turkey on Thanksgiving." he
snarled.  "You're gonna put this here dress on." He dragged the tip of the
knife down off her ribcage, to her belly, until the blade went between her
wrists and came in contact with the rope still binding them.  He gave a
savage flick and the rope parted.  The tip of the knife was too dull to
penetrate her skin, but the cutting edge was razor sharp.

   Sarah's arms fell limply to her sides as her shoulders refused to
support them.  She lay, her naked breasts heaving, pale in the dim light of
the small fire.  Chaps appeared in the dark.  "What are you doin' Buford.
We're in enough trouble already.  Don't you go hurting that girl."

   Buford didn't turn his head, but it was obvious his words were for
Chaps. "You just shut your yap.  I told you I'm gonna get me some pussy. 
If you had a brain in your head you'd be standing in line."

   "It ain't right Buford" whined Chaps.

   Now Buford did stand and turn to face Chaps.  The knife glinted in his
hand.  "You get in my way Chaps and I'll gut you.  You hear me?  If you got
no stomach for prime pussy, you just go off and jerk yourself off or
something.  But don't mess with me Chaps, or I'll kill you dead."

   Chaps held up his hands, trying to sooth the angry man, and took a step
back.  He didn't feel like turning his back on Buford just then, and stood
quietly.  Buford turned back around to Sarah, who had been trying to get
her arms to work.  Her vision was fuzzy.  The pain was still severe, but
she could move her lower arms a little.  She'd managed to get her numb
hands up to cover her breasts.  Buford leaned down and grabbed a tender
wrist, pulling her to a sitting position.  Her shoulder shrieked at her. 
Her head swam, and she almost fainted, her upper body lolling back and
twisting as it tried to fall back to the ground.

   With a muttered curse Buford let her go and knelt beside her limp body.
His knife made short work of the jeans she was wearing as the cut them off
in strips and pulled them away from her body.  He ripped at her shirt again
too, cutting off her what she wasn't lying on.

   He stood back up and gazed at her youthful nakedness.  He kicked her
ankles apart and stared at the fluff of hair that stuck up into the dim
light.

   "I changed my mind." he growled, kicking her new dress to one side.  "I
don't care about the dress any more."

   He worked at his own jeans, pushing them down to reveal his erect
phallus.  He stroked it a couple of times and stepped between her legs
without taking his pants off.  He got to all fours and, supporting himself
with one arm, reached to hold his stiff dick and nose it into the dark area
that he knew contained the opening he sought.

   Sarah moaned and raised her hands again, only to have them slapped away
by the hand that had been down by her crotch.  She felt pressure in a place
she had never felt pressure before.

   "I'm gonna like this." leered Buford.  "I can tell already."

   He was enjoying the feel of being at her portals, and began to push. 
She was dry, and he couldn't force himself in her.  He rearranged his knees
to try lunging.  Suddenly there was a soft hissing noise and a thump,
followed by a gasp from Chaps.

   Buford paused to turn his head.  Chaps was standing there, eyes wide, an
arrow magically sprouting from dead in the middle of his chest.  With a
sigh, Chaps collapsed in a boneless heap beside the fire.

   Buford reacted instantly.  Forgetting the girl, he rolled sideways into
the dark, pulling at his pants to get them back up.  He lost the knife in
the process, but didn't care.  He'd taken off his gun belt so he cold get
his pants down, and so the girl couldn't try to grab for a gun, and it was
lying on the ground not far from the fire.  Seeing the girl's dress, he
dashed into the light, snatching up the dress and throwing it on top of the
fire to blank out the light.  He kept running, leaning over to grab at his
gun belt.  He pulled at the pistol frantically while he ran toward the
horses.  He saw the horses, and a figure standing between them, a hand on
each bridle.  Part of his brain cursed the animals for not having given
them any warning about strangers being about.

   Buford brought his pistol up and pulled the trigger.  The pistol wasn't
cocked and he swore as his thumb scrabbled at it.  The muzzle flash as he
fired lit up the Indian that was guarding the horses, and he saw the man
jerk and fall backward.  The horses bolted, one to each side, but Buford
had expected that, and he veered left.  He didn't know which horse he was
going for, but he didn't care.  Grabbing the reins, he pulled the horse,
running until he was away from where he had shot.  The horses had been on
the high side of the little meadow they'd stopped in, and he ran upward. 
He'd left the horses saddled on purpose, something that wasn't good for
them, but he was nervous about pursuit, even though he didn't admit it to
Chaps.  Now he was glad he hadn't pulled the saddles off of them.  When he
thought it was safe, he vaulted up onto the horse.  He could tell by the
saddle that it was Chaps' horse, but then Chaps didn't need it any more...
did he?

   He rode hard into the dark, hoping the horse wouldn't stumble.

   ===================================================================

   Water Man, as he was called by his tribe, walked into the light of the
fire.  Sees Long Distance followed, his bow still in his hand.  He had
fired the arrow that had killed one of the two men abusing the woman.  Both
had heard the other man shoot, and the sounds of a horse being taken from
where Little Pine should have been guarding them.

   Water Man looked around.  He paid no attention to the naked white woman.
She was no threat.  He hoped, against hope, that Little Pine would walk
into the light.  If Little Pine had been killed, there would be trouble in
the tribe.  The old ways were dying out, and when Water Man wanted to take
the two young men on a vision quest, the elders had argued.  But both young
men had been eager to prove themselves, and a vision quest was the only way
to do that any more.  In the past there could be honor gained in honest
battle, but the white eyes had ruined all that.  Now if natural enemies
fought, the white man would come and kill indiscriminately.  Often they
killed women, and the young.  Most white men had no honor.

   Just as these two men had no honor.

   No civilized person treated a woman like this.  Water Man and the two
young braves, flitting through the trees, had watched the men for a whole
day.  Little Pine had been careless, and should have been seen, but the two
white men had been oblivious.  The men treated th is woman badly, never
feeding her, or giving her water.  They tied her to a horse like baggage,
instead of letting her sit.  Why didn't they just make her walk?  Why must
they cause her such pain?  Then, when it became clear that the men intended
rape, Sees Long Distance couldn't take it any more.  He had not asked if he
could attack.  He had simply pulled an arrow from his quiver, knocked it
and let fly in a moment of passion.

   Water Man frowned.  Had he known what Sees Long Distance was going to do
he would have been ready to take care of the other one.  Now, perhaps,
Little Pine was dead, and the elders would be very unhappy.  He walked
toward where he was afraid he would find Little Pine's body.

   Little pine's body was there, but it was not dead.  He sat, holding one
hand to his head.  His face was stained dark, and Water Man knew that must
be blood.  Silently he pulled Little Pine's hand away and saw a shallow
crease on the side of his head, where the bullet had skimmed the skin. 
Water Man heaved a sigh of relief.  "He was just there!" complained Little
Pine.  "The horse blocked my vision." "Just as the horse blocked his shot?"
chided Water Man.

   He pulled the young man to his feet and back into the light.  Sees Long
Distance was standing over the white woman.  No, she was only a girl. 
Water Man could see that now.  Still, he knew what was going through Sees
Long Distance's mind.  "I think our quest is over." said Water Man.

   Sees Long Distance turned his head.  "She is mine.  I claim her as my
right of conquest."

   "What do you want her for?" asked Water Man.  "She is skinny and white.
She will only be trouble."

   "I have no woman yet." said Sees Long Distance simply.  "It is tradition
to keep women taken in battle."

   "The white eyes do not let us do that any longer." said Water Man,
unhappy that he had to say so.

   "She is mine." said Sees Long Distance stubbornly.

   "Then you are responsible for her." said Water man with a sigh.  This
would cause trouble too, but maybe, given the chance to think about it,
Sees Long Distance would realize that and let the girl go.

   Little Pine was unhappy.  He had been shamed by the white man, and now
Sees Long Distance was able to claim a woman.  "The horse is mine then." he
said.  "I claim the horse."

   Water Man looked up at the dark sky, sighing.  Young men were so
impetuous.  "The white men brand their horses." he said.  "If you are found
with a branded horse, they will think you stole it."

   "Then I will eat the horse, and the brand will be no more." said Little
Pine, just as stubbornly as his young friend.

   "I need the horse for my woman." said Sees Long Distance.

   "What do you have to trade?" asked Little Pine.

   Water Man groaned as the two young men argued.  He stood over the girl
and examined her.  She was indeed skinny, in his opinion, but her milk bags
were large and firm, and would serve little ones well.

   She looked dead to him, so pale was her skin, but he saw she breathed.
He felt his own loins tingle as he looked at the impossibly light colored
hair that rimmed her sex.  Feeling his own reaction to the naked white girl
Water Man sighed again.  Yes, she would cause trouble.

   He listened as Little Pine demanded to be allowed to lie with the woman
in exchange for letting her use the horse.  Sees Long Distance finally had
to agree.  It would tire his mount too quickly if he had to ride double. 
Then they haggled over how many times Little Pine would be allowed to mate
with the girl.  Sees Long Distance insisted that he must be the first to
get her with child.  Finally they came to an agreement that Sees Long
Distance would have her for one moon, and then Little Pine could mate with
her.

   The girl had covered her milk bags again, and she looked up at him from
the ground through half closed eyes that glittering in the firelight.  He
offered her his hand, but she lay limply and licked her lips.

   Little Pine went to get his new horse, while Sees Long Distance came to
them.  The girl's eyes opened wider now and she spoke the white man's
language.  Water man knew a little of that talk, but ignored her.  They
needed to be moving.  Someone might have heard the shot the other man
fired.

   Little Pine bent down and got the shivering and obviously frightened
girl to her feet.  She was babbling, about being taken home.  Two of them
couldn't understand her.  The other didn't want to talk.  Water Man went
through the saddle bags on the Little Pine's new horse but found nothing
for her to wear.  He cut the strap holding the saddle onto the horse and
tipped the saddle to the ground.  He took the blanket and threw it at the
girl, who wrapped it around her, still babbling.  She would just have to be
tough as they rode to get away from here.  He was tired of young people
making trouble, and just wanted to get back home.  Maybe the old ways
weren't so great after all.

   When she was finally up on Little Pine's new horse, which required
entirely too much help in Water Man's opinion, she lay forward, letting the
blanket cover her to her thighs.  Water Man looked around and did one other
thing.  He pulled Sees Long Distance's arrow out of the dead man and, using
the man's own pistol, shot him right where the arrow wound was.  The girl
screamed.

   Let the white eyes think one of their own had done this.

   ====================================================================

   Sarah didn't know what was going on.  It was dark, and she was naked and
cold.  The horse blanket the Indian man had given her helped, but she was
still cold.  She had to hold it on with one hand, and try to stay on the
horse with the other.  They had cut the saddle off the horse.  Why had they
done that?  It didn't make any sense.  She couldn't run, because one of the
Indian boys had hold of the reins.  She knew she didn't have the strength
to hold on even if she managed to get the reins free and kick the horse
into a run.  Then they led her to a place where there were more horses...
Indian ponies, and trying to get her horse free was moot.

   She tried to think.  They had saved her, but they weren't acting all
that friendly towards her.  Where were they taking her?  What was going to
happen next?  Where was Buford?  She had seen him run toward the horses,
and heard gunfire.  Had the wounded Indian boy killed him?  They hadn't
dragged his body back to the fire.

   They didn't understand when she spoke.  That much was clear.  But they
hadn't hurt her either.  And they'd saved her from Buford.  That caused her
to think about the last place Buford had touched her.  There hadn't been
any pain to speak of.  She'd heard there was always pain the first time. 
She didn't know if he'd actually raped her or not.  She had nothing to
gauge by.  There had been that pressure digging into her softness, but that
was all.

   Sarah suddenly realized that the area of her body she was thinking about
was trying to talk to her.  As the horse walked under her, her bare sex
pressed against the rough hair on its neck.  She rode bareback a lot, and
while she had felt twinges of delight down there as she did so, they had
never been more than that - twinges.  She had never been on a horse naked,
of course, and that, in itself, was strange enough.  But the feelings
coming from down there were distinctly more than just twinges.  She was
amazed to find that it felt GOOD to feel that coarse hair pushing against
her.  She shook her head.  She didn't WANT to feel good down there.  Not
right now!  She was cold and miserable and still kidnapped, as far as she
knew.  She had no business feeling good.

   But she couldn't get away from that delicious feeling as the horse moved
under her.  She tried sitting up and leaning back, the way she usually
rode, and that helped a great deal, but the blanket wasn't big enough to
wrap around her and it was too cold.  She had to lean back down so that the
blanket covered more of her.  The rubbing was causing something to happen,
and she felt like there was some kind of pressure building inside if her
that threatened to tear her apart.  It was all coming from right where her
sex rubbed the hide of the horse.  She moaned, and the Indian man barked
something at her.  It didn't take understanding their talk to know he
wanted her to be quiet.

   She couldn't be quiet though.  The pressure was building more and more
and she began to help the horse rub at her.  Then she was blinded as she
saw spots of light where there shouldn't be any, and a wave of sweet
pleasure shot through her.  She realized that, where her breasts were
pushed against the horse's neck, her nipples felt pain that wasn't pain and
her whole body seemed to vibrate as the sensations washed through her.  It
was indescribable and she thought surely she must be dying to feel this
good while her whole body hurt as much as it did.

   Then it was gone, and she was left panting for air as she realized she
had been holding her breath.  She wasn't dying after all.  A few minutes
later, as her breathing neared normal, it all started to happen again. 
With horror she suddenly knew that it would keep happening as long as the
horse rubbed her sex.

   Sarah tried to fight it.  At one point she shoved her hand between
herself and the horse.  That helped a little, but then her hand made the
sensations come again.  She sat upright as long as she could stand the
cold, but inevitably she had to lie back down on the horse.

   It happened to her six more times before they stopped.  She had to be
helped off the horse, and collapsed onto the ground, heedless of the rocks
that bruised her soft body.

   Water Man looked at the girl on the ground, and then at the back of the
horse.  The horse's hair was dark and wet where she had been sitting.  He
rubbed the area with his fingers and sniffed at them.  His eyes opened wide
as he realized it was not urine he was smelling.

   He laughed out loud.  No wonder Little Rabbit, his number one woman,
loved to go riding so much.  And no wonder she yipped and yelled as she did
so.

   ===================================================================

   Molly woke and found that her arm had gone over the boy in the night,
and she was snuggled close to him.  He was warm, and she didn't want to get
up.  Still, it was almost light, and she didn't want him to wake and find
her like this.  It would be embarrassing.

   She rolled away from him, and out from under the horse blankets.  She
felt amazingly good once she got some blood into her toes and could feel
them again.  She hadn't slept on the ground in years and years and though
she felt the pains of doing so, she felt more alive than she had in a long
time.

   The boy rolled and reached to lift his hat onto his head as he sat up,
blinking and looking around.  He looked up at her and his eyes swept down
her body.  Molly couldn't help but feel the thrill of being looked at and
appreciated.

   "Get up lazy bones." she said tartly.  "I've been up for hours."

   "No you haven't." he grumbled.  "Until about a minute ago you were the
only warm thing within a hundred miles."

   Molly flushed as she realized he knew she has been pressed hard against
him.  Her...  a married woman...  old enough to be his mother.  She
remembered the way he'd looked at her.  He didn't look at her like any boy
that age looked at his mother.  She blushed harder and turned away to pick
up sticks to put on the fire.  Then she realized they didn't have anything
to cook.  Her stomach growled at that thought and she threw the sticks on
the ground.  When she turned around the boy was standing with his back to
her.  He had gone more or less behind a scraggly bush, but it was obvious
what he was doing, looking down, with both of his hands at his crotch.  She
could hear the splash of his urine on the ground.

   He tucked in and turned around.  "Sorry, Ma'am." he said.  "Sometimes in
the morning...  I mean sometimes a man..." he looked flustered.

   "I'm married." she smiled.  "I know exactly what happens to a man in the
morning.  Thank you for not making it obvious to me."

   Bobby couldn't tell if she was kidding him or not.  He was still mostly
hard, even though he'd emptied his bladder.  Having her soft warm body
pressed against his hadn't helped any.  He realized she was staring at the
front of his pants and he hoped he had buttoned completely up.  He looked
down and almost groaned as he saw the large lump in the front of his pants
that his mostly hard penis was causing.  He felt like he should cover it
up, but all that would do is bring more attention to it.  He turned away
instead.

   "Nothing to eat." he said.  "May as well get on with it, Ma'am."

   "Would you do me a favor?" she asked him.

   He turned and automatically said "Sure."

   "Would you stop calling me ma'am?  It makes me feel like I'm old... 
like a crone."

   Bobby's eyebrows rose, lifting his unruly hair.  "No offense, Ma'am...
uh...  sorry...  " Doing what she had just asked him not to do flustered
him and he spoke again without thinking.  "I don't know how old you are,
but there's no way in the world any man would think you were a crone."

   He stared at her, waiting for her to yell at him, or throw something. 
What was he thinking?  He WASN'T thinking.  That was the problem.

   But she didn't yell.  She looked startled and then a ghost of a smile
came over her face.  "Why thank you, Sir." she said.

   Ten minutes later they were saddled up and on their way.  Bobby knew
where he had seen the fire the night before, and he abandoned tracking,
hoping it had been this woman's daughter and the Rocklin men.  If it wasn't
he'd look like a fool, and they'd lose a lot of time backtracking and
picking up the trail again.  But they could move much faster and make up a
lot of time if he didn't have to watch the ground, so he took the chance.

   It speeded them up so much that the sun was only two hours high when
they came upon Chaps' body.  It was lying on its back, as if the man had
lain down, arms spread and fallen asleep.  But his face was pale and stiff,
waxy, and Bobby knew before he got off his horse that the man was dead.

   "Is that one of your men?" asked Molly.

   "Yes, Ma'am." he said automatically.  He turned to find her looking at
him, her eyes narrowed.  "Sorry.  What should I call you?  Mrs.  Collins?"

   Molly's eyes left his and swept the campsite.  "No, that makes me feel
old too.  Just call me Molly while we're out here.  What happened here?"
she asked.

   Bobby didn't jump to any conclusions.  He stalked around, noting
moccasin tracks and running boot prints.  He found Sarah's half burned
dress in the ashes of the fire and held it up.

   "Your daughter's?" he asked, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his
stomach.

   "I've never seen that one." said Molly.  "She was on a ride to pick up a
new dress when she didn't come back.  I expect that's the dress."

   "Do you think she was wearing it?" asked Bobby.  He bit his lip as he
realized how callous that sounded.  "I mean would she wear it home?" He
didn't look at her.

   "I don't think so." said Molly evenly.  "It was for a dance coming up.
Knowing Sarah she'd have wanted to wait.  I have a hard enough time getting
her to wear a dress in the first place.  I expect that was in her saddle
bags.  Those, lying there are her saddle bags." She pointed to the empty
bags lying on the ground nearby.

   She was silent for a moment while Bobby looked around.  Then: "She was
wearing that when she left."

   Bobby turned to find Molly stepping down and going to a pile of rags
that, upon inspection, revealed themselves to have been a shirt and jeans.
It was obvious they had been ripped and cut.  Bobby's eyes went to an
amazingly clear print of two buttocks in the dirt, with equally amazingly
clear knee prints positioned where it was obvious to him that the girl had
been raped right there on the ground.  He felt the urge to throw up, but
coughed and swallowed the urge away.  His eyes slid sideways to look at
Molly.  She was staring at the same thing, her face pale.

   "Don't look." he said.

   "Is there blood?" she asked.

   He didn't understand at first and looked at her questioningly.

   "Is there blood...  there?" She was pointing at the imprint of her
daughter's buttocks.  "A woman bleeds...  the first time."

   He stared.  She thought he was still confused.

   "My daughter was a virgin.  " She shook her head.  "My daughter IS a
virgin." she insisted.

   Bobby was amazed at how this woman's mind could work so well under these
circumstances.  She was tougher than he'd imagined.  He bent over and ran
his fingers through the dust, blushing at their proximity to where the
girl's...  sex...  had been.  But the dust was dry.

   "No, Ma'am." he said.  "I mean Molly." he corrected himself.

   He looked further afield and saw something glinting.  He went to it and
found the knife that he knew Buford carried.

   "This belongs to Buford." he said, picking it up.  "He works for us.  He
and Chaps...  that man..." he inclined his head toward the body, "were with
the flock."

   "Maybe that man tried to stop him," suggested Molly, also inclining her
head toward the dead man, "and they fought.  Maybe he ran away."

   "If that's so, where is your daughter?" asked Bobby.  "Wait...  I
forgot! There were Indians here."

   "What?" asked Molly, staring at him.

   He pointed at the moccasin tracks.  "See there?  Moccasin tracks.  At
least two sets.  A man and a boy I'd say." He went to Chaps and bent over,
pulling the man's shirt apart.  There were two holes, the edges touching.
One, the smaller, more of a puncture wound than a hole, had blood all
around it.  The other was clean and round, with dark edges.

   "I'd say he was killed with an arrow, and then shot." he said.

   "How in the world could you know that?" asked Molly.

   "Come here." he said.  "See there?  The arrow pushed the skin aside as
it penetrated, and it bled out around the arrow.  When it was pulled out
the skin almost closed back up.  This other one?  That's a bullet wound. 
See the dark edges?  That's lead from the bullet.  It punched the skin into
the body, so the hole is clean.  And there's no blood around it.  He was
already dead when that was done."

   "You're an amazing young man." said Molly, impressed at his logic.  She
looked down on one of the men who had taken her daughter.  There was no
pity in her eyes.  Then she looked at Bobby.  "I don't even know your
name." she said.

   "Bobby.  Bobby Rocklin." he said.

   "So, Bobby Rocklin, where is your other man...  and where is my
daughter?" Bobby's mind got caught for a few seconds on her
characterization as Buford being "his" man.  The men who worked for the
Rocklins were his father's men...  not his.  But this woman treated him
like he was an adult...  like he could be the boss.  It was an odd
feeling...  being treated like an adult by a woman...  that made his chest
tight.

   He looked around, and then followed the running boot prints to where two
horses had stood.  He saw blood on the ground, and the imprint of an elbow
and moccasin prints.  Either Buford had shot an Indian trying to steal the
horses, or the Indian had wounded Buford.  There was no body, and if they'd
have killed Buford his body should be there.  If Buford killed the Indian,
the others might have taken his body.  He saw boot prints leading a horse
away and that confirmed that Buford had gotten loose somehow and gotten
away with a horse.  The other horse had been walked back toward the camp.
He followed that trail and saw moccasin tracks deeper than the weight of a
man would cause, beside prints of a standing horse.

   "I think the Indians surprised them." he said.  "Chaps fell right there
beside where maybe Buford was...  " Bobby didn't want to say what he
thought Buford was doing to the girl.  "beside where her clothes are. 
Buford got away and killed or injured one of the Indians.  But they got
Chaps' horse...  or one of the horses anyway.  They lifted something heavy
up onto it right here.  The only thing I can think that would be was either
one of their men that Buford killed...  or your daughter."

   "Indians have my daughter?" moaned Molly.  "What does that mean?  Will
they hurt her?"

   Bobby thought back to one time when he had accompanied his father on a
trading trip, to trade wool thread and sheep skins for elk hides and
blankets.  While he had been standing around two teenaged Indians, a little
older than he, had run laughing past him.  The boy had caught the girl and
tackled her, pulling her buckskin dress up to reveal naked thighs.  Then he
had gotten between those naked thighs and began having sex with the girl.
She had beaten at him, but had been laughing too, and obviously wasn't
upset at what he was doing.  Before long her arms were around him and she
was lifting her hips to meet his.  An old woman had come storming out of a
wigwam with a switch and begun beating the boy and the girl's legs.  She
had shouted at them, and they jumped up to run off in another direction,
still laughing.

   "I don't know." he said thoughtfully.  "I don't think so.  But their
ways are different than ours.  Maybe she was hurt and can't walk or
something.  Maybe they're just trying to help her."

   "What about that?" asked Molly pointing to where what was clear were her
daughter's buttocks prints in the dirt.

   "I don't think that was Indians." said Bobby.  "If she was healthy and
they took her, they might make her work, but I don't know about...  the
other." Bobby had grown up hearing stories about Indians and how they stole
women and children in raids.

   "We've got to catch up with them and get her back." said Molly fiercely.
"Can you follow them?"

   "They took a horse with shoes.  That should make it easier." he said. 
They went in ever widening circles around the camp, expanding the search
away from the clearing.  Bobby didn't think they'd have chased Buford, who
had gone uphill, toward the high meadows.

   It was Molly who found where the Indian horses had been kept.  She had
watched what Bobby did while tracking and noticed that the grass had been
grazed and flattened in one area.  She called Bobby over and he agreed.  It
wasn't long before they found the tracks of the horse Sarah must have been
put on.  There were tracks of unshod horses too, though it was hard to tell
how many horses the Indians rode.

   Bobby felt bad about leaving Chaps unburied, but they were in a hurry.
He stopped long enough to break two tree branches, aiming them in the
direction the Indian's tracks went, but didn't take the time to leave a
better sign.

   They followed, and the sun was sinking toward the horizon, and Molly's
stomach was grumbling constantly when Bobby stopped and shielded his eyes
from the setting sun.  "Smoke" He pointed.  Far in the distance they could
see the tops of conical wigwams in a clearing by the river.  The tracks led
straight there.





   CHAPTER FIVE

   Frank rode into the old Johansen ranch yard when the sun wasn't quite at
the noon position.  The place was deserted.  Based on what his father had
said, he figured they had gone to find their sheep.  He knew roughly where
they had last been, also compliments of his father's sparse comments from
the night before, and headed that way at a canter.  His horse was still in
good shape.  He hadn't rushed, knowing he'd need a lot more out of the
animal before he was done.  He was amazed at the width of the trail once he
found it.  Cattle followed each other, mostly, when they moved naturally,
making relatively narrow trails.  But this was as wide as he could see.  He
frowned at the grass, so short that the sun would burn it if it didn't rain
soon.

   He set his horse in the direction the sheep had gone, and found the
flock three hours later.  There were dirty-white animals everywhere.

   He was greeted by a dog, who ran around him in circles barking.  His
horse didn't much care for that and danced, almost unseating him.  Running
his horse didn't help.  The dog was able to keep up easily, though it left
off barking mostly.  He saw people and horses up ahead, and a wagon that
looked something like a Conestoga, but shorter and lower to the ground.  He
rode up fast, and skidded the horse to a stop, raising dust.

   "I'm Frank Collins." he announced.  "I'm here to find my sister and my
mother.  Do any of you know where I could do that?"

   A woman was standing on the front of the wagon, holding the reins to a
team of horses pulling the wagon.  She had on a bonnet, but her flaming red
hair spilled out of that onto her shoulders.  The dog had set to barking
again.  He realized now it was just an adolescent, just grown out of its
puppy stage.

   The woman shouted at the dog.  "Hush now, Zeke." The dog continued to
bark.  "Enid!" she yelled.  "Shut that dog up!" A girl came around the
wagon and jumped over the traces like they weren't even there.  She was
dressed in buckskin, like an Indian.  Her hair was red, though not so red
as the woman's, and it was done up in pigtails, while the woman's was
pulled back in a bonnet.  She tried to catch the dog, but it ran from her,
thinking they were playing a game.  The girl suddenly wilted to the ground,
as if she were, without reason, unconscious.  The dog immediately ran to
her, sniffing at her face.  She grabbed the dog in a lightning move and
closed her fingers over its muzzle as it wiggled.

   "Gotcha!" she said triumphantly.  "You're so stupid." she said to the
dog, cuddling it, her actions giving lie to the sound of her voice.  She
obviously loved this dog, even though she called it stupid.  It subsided
and went limp as she scratched its belly, splaying its legs open and
showing it was a male.

   The woman spoke.  "Do all the Collins men ride around like chickens with
their heads cut off?"

   Frank had tried to impress these sheep farmers with his riding skill and
the control he had over his horse.  But the woman didn't seem all that
impressed.  He didn't know what to say.  He fell back on his original
statement.  "I need to find my mother and sister." he repeated.

   "I had hoped she was already home by now." said the woman.

   "No, Ma'am." he said automatically.  It rankled him to show respect to
sheep people, but respect for others had been hammered into him, oddly
enough, by his father.

   "Then I expect they're up ahead." said the woman.  My husband says there
are horse tracks up the trail, heading higher.  He says there are five
sets, one of which belongs to our son's horse.  It appears he is following
your sister too, and has someone with him."

   She looked at Frank and he felt like he was being inspected.  Then she
went on.

   "That might be your mother with my son.  If she was looking for your
sister they may have met up and are traveling together."

   Frank blinked.  His mother, traveling with a sheep herder's boy?  That
didn't make any sense at all.

   "I'd like to see these tracks you speak of." he said, for lack of
anything else to say.

   "I'll take him up to Papa." said the girl, dumping the puppy on the
ground and letting him scamper off.

   The woman looked at the girl, and then at Frank.  She took a deep
breath, which made her breasts push at her shirt in the most distracting
manner, at least to Frank's way of thinking.

   "All right, Enid." she said, though it looked like she meant to say much
more.

   Frank looked at the girl, who now had a name.  Enid.  What a strange
name.  She smiled at him.

   "Come on, Mister Cowboy." She took off at a run, and Frank was startled.
Not only did she not ride a horse, she ran like the wind.  He had a sudden
image of her as an Indian girl, running across the plains.  He kicked his
horse with his heels and the startled animal jumped, almost unseating him
again before he got his seat firm again.  He flushed, knowing that the
woman had seen that, and blamed it on being tired.  He caught up to the
girl in only a few handfuls of seconds, but she only ran harder, jumping
over rocks and darting between stands of brush that Frank had to ride
around.  He was astonished at how much ground she covered with those two
puny legs.

   Feeling slightly foolish, Frank let the horse drop to a quick walk, not
quite a canter.  Now they were going through what looked like a hallway
between sheep on both sides of them.  The sheep bleated and scurried out of
the way.  The puppy caught up to them and ran with the girl, barking
happily and darting this way and that into the flock.

   Enid looked over her shoulder at the puppy and stopped just as her foot
contacted a rock she hadn't seen because she was looking over her shoulder.
She pitched forward and ducked her head, rolling onto one shoulder into a
somersault and bouncing up into the air, laughing.  Then, as if nothing at
all had happened, she dashed toward the puppy and scooped him up in her
arms.

   "Bad dog!" she growled at the wriggling dog, panting.  "You don't know a
damn thing about what you're doing." She looked up at Frank, who sat his
horse with his mouth open.  "He's a pup and he doesn't know anything yet."
she said, as if that made any sense to him at all.  "Come on." she said. 
Then she turned and, carrying the struggling hound, took off at a run
again.

   The sheep had closed in around them in the brief interlude, and Frank
didn't know what to do.  He was afraid his horse would step on one of the
animals.  But as he nudged his mount forward, the sheep bleated and jumped
to the side, making a path that opened magically for him.  Cows sure didn't
act like this.  His horse would have been shouldering cattle out of the way
unless he yipped and swung his hat, or a rolled up lariat at them.  The
girl was almost a hundred yards ahead of him, still running hard, and he
urged his horse faster.

   Enid ran around a corner and saw her father up ahead.  He was mounted,
and leading Betty, the senior ewe in the flock.  The rest of the sheep
followed her.  She saw Queen off to one side, bunching the flock toward the
leader and preventing them from stopping to graze.  She hazarded a glance
over her shoulder and saw the boy coming around the corner.  She wanted to
look at him longer, but didn't want to fall again.  That had embarrassed
her, and she didn't want to look foolish to this boy.  That thought
exploded in her mind.  She'd never cared about what some boy thought of her
in the past.  Especially a cowboy!  But when she'd seen this boy her
stomach had felt all fluttery, and her mouth had gone dry.  She'd felt like
a little girl standing in front of a man years older, even though he was
obviously about her own age.  He had sounded so stern ...  so serious ...
so ...  manly.

   She saw her father look over at her and knew he'd be wondering why she
was running so hard.  But she also knew that he could see the mounted
cowboy behind her.  It never occurred to her that he might suspect she was
being chased.

   Brad did, indeed, suspect that something was wrong.  He saw Enid running
like her life depended on it, holding a struggling Zeke in her arms, and
then a mounted stranger burst into sight behind her.  Brad's Winchester was
out of its scabbard and into his hands, one hand working the lever
automatically, and he started to bring the rifle up to his shoulder.  Just
then his horse decided to circle as Betty caught up to him and stopped. 
The sheep following her wandered forward, beginning to graze and
surrounding his horse.

   "Noooo!" He heard Enid's faint yell above the bleating of the flock.  By
the time he got back around and could draw a bead on the man chasing his
daughter, she was within shouting distance.

   "Don't shoot, Daddy" she yelled.  "He's looking for that woman."

   Enid ran up to her father and dropped Zeke, who ran full tilt toward his
mother.  Queen ignored everything except her job of keeping the sheep
bunched up and moving.

   "He's ...  one of ...  those ...  Collins ...  people." Enid panted,
holding onto her father's stirrup to steady herself.  She dragged in huge
lungfuls of air, trying to get her breath.

   "What's he doing chasing you?" asked Brad.

   "He's ...  not ...  chasing me." she gasped.  "He's ...  following ...
me.  Mamma sent him ...  up here."

   Brad looked at the boy on the horse, and lowered his rifle, letting it
rest across his lap.  He had to admit the boy had sand, as he rode up to
Brad and Enid.  He hadn't slowed at all, even though the rifle had been
pointed in his direction.  Brad decided to just sit and see what happened.

   Frank had indeed seen the rifle, and the electric feeling of having a
weapon pointed at him had surged through his body.  But as teenagers
everywhere feel invulnerable from harm, he couldn't believe that anyone
would want to hurt him, and he rode on anyway.  His mind ran over what the
man had seen, and he understood immediately what had happened.  He'd have
done the same thing.  He rode on, stopping a few yards away from the girl
and her father.

   "I'm Frank Collins." he said.  His prepared speech jumped into his mouth
without him thinking about it.  "I'm looking for my mother."

   Brad was astonished to find that he immediately liked this boy.  He
couldn't be a day over fifteen, but he rode and acted like a man.  He
seemed serious beyond his years.

   "There appears to be a lot of people looking for your mother." said
Brad.

   Frank was still hopped up from the adrenaline running through his veins
from realizing he was in danger.  "Your ...  wife ...  she said there were
tracks." he said.

   The man looked off to one side and whistled.  Another dog, a bigger one,
and the same puppy that the woman had called Zeke came running over.

   Brad got down off his horse.

   "Queen" he called.  The larger dog ran up to him, tail wagging.  "Hold!"
Brad commanded.  The dog turned as if she'd been shot and bounded off, the
puppy trailing.  Frank could see that she started circling the part of the
flock that was all around them, as if there were some race she had suddenly
entered.  She disappeared behind a pile of boulders and Frank looked back
at the man, who was standing, looking at him.

   "Up ahead." the man said, turning his back on Frank and walking off to
leave his horse standing.  The girl followed her father.

   Frank, not knowing what to do exactly, decided to ride, and he nudged
his horse through the sheep that again surrounded him, and followed the two
sheep farmers.  As they left the flock behind, Frank looked over his
shoulder to see the big dog running back and forth, between them and the
flock, keeping the sheep from following their shepherd.  He was amazed that
one dog could control so many sheep.

   The man stopped several yards away and looked down at the ground.  Frank
stepped down off his horse and let the reins drop.  He knew the horse
wouldn't move again unless he called it or remounted.

   Frank saw the tracks easily.  He recognized Tulip's tracks instantly and
took a breath.  Then he walked up to the man and bent over to look at the
others.  They were on a well defined path that wound its way through small
trees and rocks, some as big as a horse.

   The man pointed.  "Those are from Bobby's horse - my son." he said,
pointing.  "And those over there," he pointed a few feet to one side, "I
believe are from horses belonging to my men."

   Frank could see it now.  Now that he was closer he saw the tracks of the
horse named Vixen.  Three sets of tracks were together, to one side.  The
Circle C horses' tracks, and those of another horse with winter shoes on it
- this man's son - were together to the left of the first set.  Frank could
see that some of his mother's tracks, and the tracks of the winter shoes,
were on top of the others occasionally, meaning they had followed.  But he
couldn't tell whether they had all been riding together or not.  He got
down on his knees and looked at the right hand set.  They didn't look quite
as clear as the others, with grains of dust crumbling from the edges into
the deeper impressions.  He saw that one of the horses was more heavily
loaded than the other, but that might only mean a bigger man rode that
horse.

   Then he looked at his mother's tracks.  They were cleaner, with less
dust in them.  Vixen's tracks were deeper than those of Tulip, which was
his mother's horse.  "My mother was following those two." he said, pointing
to the tracks Brad had identified as his men's tracks.  "Your son was
either with her, or she was right behind him.  He based that on the fact
that his mother's tracks sometimes were on top of the winter shoed horse,
which were just as clean and clear.

   "I was thinking the same." said Brad.  "What I don't know is why she'd
think your sister was with my men."

   "See how your son's tracks go mostly beside the others?" Frank pointed.
"And how my mother's seem to follow his?" Frank pointed to one of Tulip's
prints on top of the one left by a winter shoe.  "I think your son was
tracking those two, and she was following him.  I can't tell if she was
riding Vixen or Tulip, though.  I think maybe she brought a horse along for
my sister to ride when they found her.

   "Then Bobby must think your sister is with my men too." said Brad.  "He
left the flock alone with just the dog, and he wouldn't have done that
unless he thought your sister was in some kind of danger."

   "My sister's horse was shot." said Frank heavily.

   Brad knew that already, but didn't say anything.  "Well they're up ahead
somewhere." said Brad.  "And so are my men.  They shouldn't have left the
flock either.  I don't know what's going on here, but I don't like it one
bit." Brad looked at Frank.  "Where's your father?  You aren't out here
alone are you?"

   What Frank wanted to say was that his father was wasting time back at
the ranch, but he didn't want to air any dirty laundry in front of this
sheep farmer.  He also felt the sting of another adult treating him like a
child, but he bit off the retort that sprang to his mind.  "He sent me on
ahead to find the trail." he said, trying to make it sound like he was
important.

   Brad heard the lie, but couldn't figure out why the boy would tell it to
him.  "Well, there's the trail.  We can't follow it as fast as I'd like
with the flock along, but it doesn't look like rain.  I figure we'll catch
up with them sooner or later and find out what in tarnation is going on."

   "I'm not waiting." said Frank.  "I mean to find out what's going on and
I mean to find out soon." He said defiantly.

   "I'll go with him." said Enid suddenly.

   Both men looked at her and she blushed.

   "I mean he shouldn't go by himself, right?" she tried.

   "You'll do no such thing." her father said, staring at her.

   "I don't need a girl following along." said Frank.

   Enid almost cursed, mostly at herself for speaking in the first place.
She had no idea why she'd said that.  What they'd said made her mad, though
and she opened her mouth to yell at them both.

   "I said no." her father said firmly.  "You have no business going off
into trouble."

   "Well ...  well ...  how do you know there's trouble anyway?" said Enid,
her face flushing red with anger.

   Brad looked at her, amazed.  She had always been more boyish than Beth,
and she carried her weight like a man, but she was just a girl.  It should
be clear to her that there might be serious trouble afoot.

   "I said no." he said again.  You get back and help your mother.  This
flock is strung out and we need to keep them together.

   "But his mamma may need help!" insisted Enid, proving that she did
suspect there was trouble after all.

   "Am I going to have to tan your hide girl?" asked her father, getting
mad now.

   Enid was as stubborn as he was.  "Well then ...  what if he finds some
kind of trouble that we need to know about?  What then Pappa?  We could be
walking right into an ambush or something!"

   Brad started to shout, but swallowed his words.  He realized suddenly
that he had been foolish.  He was so centered on the flock, and getting
them to their summer pasture that he hadn't really thought much about
anything else.  He was certainly following his son's trail, but he had
never really thought about anything being bad wrong, or representing danger
to the rest of his family.  While he was just as stubborn as Enid, and just
as unlikely to apologize for making a mistake as Jonas Collins was, he was
also smart enough to recognize when he hadn't thought things out as well as
he should have too.

   "Let's just suppose there is some kind of trouble up there waiting for
us." said Brad as patiently as he could.  "Wouldn't you just walk into it
first?" He was trying to show her that scouting trouble was no job for a
fourteen year old girl, despite her boyish ways.

   "Not if we were careful." said Enid immediately.  "I know how to sneak
around, and besides, he'd be going first, and I could just watch him get
ambushed and then come back and tell you about it." Enid nodded towards an
astonished Frank.

   "You'd let me get ambushed and do nothing to help?" he squeaked.  That
bothered him.  His voice hadn't cracked in a long time.  He cleared his
throat.

   "Well?" she stuck out her chin at him.  "You're the one who said you
didn't need any girl along.  So I won't BE along.  I'll just watch what
happens from behind you.  Then you won't have to worry about a GIRL!"

   "Enid, that's crazy." said her father.  "I won't have it."

   "Well I think it's a good idea!" she said, now jutting her chin at her
father.  "But if you want to let our neighbor's son get himself shot or
whatever, I guess we'll hear it, so I suppose I don't REALLY need to be
there." She turned around, putting her back to the two men.

   Brad thought about that.  Damn!  If this boy DID get hurt, and it turned
out he was alone, when there was a full grown man not far away, it wouldn't
look good.  Damn!  But he couldn't leave the flock.  They were his
livelihood ...  his whole family's livelihood.  It was hard enough keeping
the flock on track with his two daughters and the dogs.  Amanda couldn't do
much because she had to bring along the sheep wagon, which had some of the
lambs in it that were too small to put on the trail, plus all their
supplies for the trip.

   Damn!

   Brad looked at the boy.  "She could just trail along behind you." he
said.  "Just so that if somebody jumped you she could come for help."

   Frank scowled.  "I told you.  I don't need no girl to protect me."

   Brad wanted to smile.  Instead he tried logic.  "I'm not worried about
you." he said.  "I'm worried about what your Pa would think if he found out
you DID get into trouble, and had turned down a little help."

   "My Pa knows I don't need any help from ..." Frank's mouth snapped
closed.  He had been about to insult a man who was still holding a rifle.

   Brad sighed.  "I know how you people feel about sheep.  But that's not
really the issue, now is it?  You and I both know that there's something
funny going on, and your mother and my son are involved in it.  I can't
just abandon my sheep, but if Enid had you in sight and something happened
to you, she COULD come back and get help.  Now doesn't that make sense to
you?"

   Had Brad had time to think about it he might have been amazed at how he
had been maneuvered into arguing for what Enid wanted to do, and which he
had started out discounting as utter nonsense.

   Frank looked at the girl.  She wasn't smiling.  In fact she wasn't even
looking at him.  She was bent over a sheep, pulling a thorn or something
out of the fluff around it's ears.

   "I'm gonna have to move fast to catch them." he said, thinking that
would stop this girl.

   "I can keep up just fine thank you very much." said Enid standing up,
her hands on her hips.

   Frank looked at her.  His eyes slid to her chest and he closed them,
wishing he hadn't looked.  He didn't want to feel anything for this girl,
but she was awfully cute.  He opened them.  "Not on foot you can't." he
said with finality.

   "Then I'll get my horse." she said simply.

   "You have a horse?!" he asked, incredulous.

   "Of COURSE I have a horse." she said, disgusted.

   "But you ...  you ....  you RAN to get up here!" he said.  The idea of
running on your own two feet when you had a perfectly good horse available
was something he couldn't get his mind wrapped around.

   "I was only going a short ways." she said, her hands on her hips again.
That buckskin shirt showed an awful lot of freckled chest and Frank looked
away again.  "Well I have to be moving on.  I can't wait for you to go get
your horse.  I'm moving out.  Thanks anyway."

   He tipped his hat to the girl's father and kicked his horse with his
heels, ready this time as the cow pony jumped like it had been burned with
a branding iron.  He wanted to gallop, but he knew he had to keep his
mother's tracks in view.  If he lost those he'd lose even more time finding
them again and the last thing he wanted was for those sheep people to catch
up with him while he hunted fruitlessly for her trail.

   He was therefore greatly surprised when, a very short time later, he
heard hoof beats behind him and looked over his shoulder to see the girl
riding toward him.  She WAS at a gallop, or close to it, and he wanted to
sneer that she was so inexperienced at riding that she'd hazard her horse
on rough ground like this.

   Except that it was obvious to his already experienced eye that she
WASN'T an inexperienced rider.  She sat her horse solid as a rock, the
animal moving under her as she took the shocks in her knees.  He couldn't
help but watch those fabulous breasts in that tanned leather, bouncing up
and down as she rode toward him.  She looked ...  good!  He groaned.  He
couldn't feel like that about a sheepherder.

   His eyes stayed on her, though, watching her jiggle as she trotted up to
him.

   Enid flushed as she realized where his eyes were.  She could feel her
breasts bobbing and bouncing under her shirt.  She had never thought about
it much, except that if she rode too hard for too long sometimes her
breasts hurt from bouncing so much.  But no man had ever looked at them. 
Not right AT them.

   "What are YOU looking at?" she shouted as she brought her horse to a
skidding stop.  "You aren't supposed to be looking at me THERE!" She was
outraged.

   Frank flushed, embarrassed that he had been caught staring.  "I thought
you were supposed to stay behind me.  Back there." He pointed back the way
she had come.

   "Oh posh!" she said, forgetting she was mad at him.  "There's no danger
up there." she said.

   "Oh really?" asked Frank, confused now.  "Then why did you want to
come?"

   "I don't know.  I'm tired of sheep I suppose." she said airily.

   Frank hadn't had enough experience with girls to hear her interest in
him as a boy in her voice.  For that matter, Enid probably wasn't aware of
why she'd actually wanted to follow him either.

   "Well, you're supposed to be watching me so you can report trouble to
your pa." said Frank.

   "So you really don't want to talk to me." said Enid, anger growing in
the pit of her stomach.

   Frank DID hear that womanly tone of voice that spelled trouble.  He
didn't understand it in this situation, but he recognized it.  "I didn't
say that." he said heatedly.  "But that's what your pa said you were
supposed to do."

   "You just let me worry about my pa." she said.  Her chin jutted toward
him again.  "Do you want to talk to me or not?"

   Frank felt nervous all of a sudden.  He wasn't equipped to have this
argument, and he didn't like the way this was going at all.  "I want to
find my mother." he said.  "That's what I want to do."

   Enid felt rejected.  She was quite sure nothing at all was wrong up
ahead.  She couldn't conceive of anything really bad happening to her
brother, or to a grown woman.  This disturbing boy's sister had had some
accident, or gone off on some wild goose chase, and there was nothing wrong
at all.  All Enid could think about was that he wasn't interested in her at
all.  That riled her for some reason.

   "Well then, little boy," she said acidly.  "You go off and find your
mommy, and I'll tail along and keep an eye on you."

   Frank would have retorted, but she turned her horse like it was a
cutting horse and ran it back down the trail.  Finding that his teeth were
grinding against each other, he decided to ignore this infuriating sheep
girl and do what he had come to do.  He turned and began following the
trail again.

   ===============================================

   Bobby decided that they needed to ride into the Indian camp plainly
visible, with no weapons showing.  His family had traded with this tribe
before, and had never had any misunderstanding with them.  He was sure he
could collect this woman's daughter and they could start home, assuming the
girl could travel.  They had a spare horse, and should be able to get at
least halfway back to the woman's ranch by nightfall.

   The last time Molly had seen an Indian was when she was eleven, and she
had shot at the man.  Everyone else had been shooting at the Indians too,
and many people on both sides of the issue had died that day.  The
soldiers, and the Government had brought peace to the area since then, but
that memory bothered Molly and she wasn't at all sure that riding in like
this was a good idea.  She found herself deferring to this strange boy/man
whom she now realized she actually liked.  They'd had time to do a lot of
talking, and her preconceived notions of what he was going to be like had
been eroded until she realized he was just a nice young man, smart as a
whip, and perfectly capable of taking on the role of an adult.

   Her gut tightened as she saw there were several Indian men coming to
meet them.  The men had spears, and one had a rifle.

   Bobby got down off his horse and walked toward them.  Molly didn't want
to do the same.  She felt fear and itched to reach for her own rifle. 
Instead she just sat and let her horse follow Bobby's.  Bobby's horse was
showing all too much interest in Vixen.  That big black animal was
magnificent, and Vixen acted like she was coming in heat.  Molly didn't pay
any attention to those things around the ranch.  Those were things her
husband was concerned with.

   She saw the men look at her.  She swallowed.  They looked magnificent
too with broad muscular chests and bulging arms.

   "Wah hah no shay." said one of the men to Bobby.  Then he spoke broken
English.  "You grow much since long time ago."

   Bobby spoke to the man.  "Howdy, Man who runs like deer.  It is good to
see you again."

   The Indian looked at Bobby's horse, and then at Molly's horse, and then
at Molly.  She saw approval in his eyes of her as a woman and flushed.

   "You no have wool string?" he addressed Bobby again.

   "No, not this time." said Bobby.  "We're looking for a girl, a white
girl.  She may be hurt."

   The Indian was silent for a long time.  No one made a sound.

   "Why you think this white girl is with the people?" he finally asked.

   "There was trouble up in the hills." said Bobby.  "Bad men stole this
girl and hurt her.  It looked to me like some of your people found her ...
helped her ...  brought her here."

   There was more silence.

   "Bah-bee" said the man finally.  "You have been friend to the people. 
What means this woman to you?  Is she your woman?"

   Bobby didn't know quite how to respond to that.  For some reason he had
the suspicion that the "correct" answer was "Yes, she is my woman", but he
couldn't just say that ...  could he?  The Indians were waiting.  He had to
say something.

   "Yes." he said simply.  Then he added.  "Bad men stole her from me."

   He heard Molly's intake of breath and turned to shoot her a warning
look. She looked outraged, but subsided.  Her fingers were gripping her
reins so hard her knuckles were white.

   Man Who Runs Like A Deer stared at Bobby.  The two men with him said
nothing.  Finally Man Who Runs Like A Deer spoke.  "I was told of these bad
men ...  men who hurt such a woman."

   Molly couldn't control herself any longer.  "Where is she?" she gasped.

   The Indian looked up at her, and then at Bobby.  "Who is this woman who
has no manners?  Did you bring her to trade?"

   Bobby wished he'd paid more attention to Indian customs when he was here
with his father in the past.  He had been agog at looking at strange
sights, eating strange food, smelling strange smells, but hadn't paid any
attention to negotiations much.  He did know that, if you wanted something
from the Indians, they demanded something in trade.  Bobby suddenly
realized the meaning of what Man Who Runs Like A Deer had said.  He was
suggesting that Bobby owned Molly, and might want to trade her for
something!

   "No!" said Bobby forcefully.  "She is my woman too.  I do not wish to
trade her."

   "Bobby!" gasped Molly.  He turned around, his face scowling.  "Be quiet
woman!" he growled.  He winked at her startled expression and then winked
again, pleading in his face.  This wasn't working out at all like he had
planned.

   Man Who Runs Like A Deer frowned.  "Do you want me to get you a stick to
beat her with?" he offered.  "She has very bad manners."

   Bobby felt his stomach sinking.  "No ...  that's all right, Man Who Runs
Like A Deer." he said.  He felt one of his hands tremble.  "I haven't had
her very long and I am trying to be patient with her."

   The big Indian looked up at Molly, still frowning.  Then he grinned. 
"She looks to be a strong woman.  Too pale for me, but I can see why you
like her.  You'll have to beat her though.  I can tell." he said as if he
and Bobby were old friends, talking about this and that.

   Molly gasped and her horse moved as it felt her emotion.  Bobby turned
and, with his face completely blank, snarled "Quiet woman, or I WILL beat
you!"

   Molly's mouth snapped shut and she bit her cheek to keep from screaming
at him.  She recognized, though, that this was a different culture than
what she was used to, and that she needed to play along.  She began
thinking about ways she could make this young man rue the day he'd spoken
to her like this.

   Bobby turned back to the Indian.  "I fear you are right, Man Who Runs
Like A Deer.  I may have to beat her.  But what of my other woman?"

   The Indian seemed to come to some decision.  "This could cause trouble."
he said.  Bobby waited, tensing up.  "She was captured in battle with these
bad men you speak of.  The brave who took her claims her too."

   Bobby felt his stomach clench.  He had to try to get her back.  "This is
not good" he said as firmly as he could.  "She is my best woman.  As you
can see I have come a long way to get her."

   The Indian turned and huddled with the other two men.  They spoke their
own language, which neither Bobby nor Molly understood.  It was a long
discussion, with some voices raised at one point or another.  Finally Man
Who Runs Like A Deer turned back to Bobby.

   "This is something we must consult the elders about." he said.  "I will
have Morning Mist get you something to eat.  You may feed your woman too,
if you wish.  My woman will prepare food for you."

   "Thank you, Man Who Runs Like A Deer." said Bobby formally.  "Tell the
elders I must have my woman back.  That is why I came here.  Perhaps we can
trade again when this is finished."

   "Perhaps" said the Indian, obviously saying an unfamiliar word.

   Bobby was led to a wigwam, where Man Who Runs Like A Deer barked
commands to two women who were tending a fire that had strips of meat
impaled on sticks suspended over it.  They looked at Bobby, and then at
Molly, still on her horse, and grinned their welcome.  One of them was
missing several teeth.  The other was younger and pregnant.  A third woman,
perhaps nineteen, came out of the wigwam with a clay bowl that had beans in
it, soaking in water.  She was also pregnant, and heavy with child.

   Bobby turned to Molly and told her to get down, but not to speak.  Her
only comment was "We'll talk about this later, young man, you can be sure
of that."

   "I'm sorry." he said softly.  "But it was all I could think of.  I'm
trying to get your daughter back.  Please help me do that."

   The old toothless woman came and offered Bobby two strips of steaming
meat that were almost too hot to hold in his fingers.  Then she examined
Molly, walking around her, bending over to look at Molly's jeans and boots,
and fingering the colorful shirt Molly was wearing.  Molly stood and looked
at the woman, unsure of what to say or do.  Acting on impulse, Bobby ate
both pieces of meat he had been given, and then smacked his lips in
appreciation.  He pointed at Molly and then at the meat smoking over the
fire.  The older woman smiled her toothless grin and got one piece, which
she gave to Molly.  She then reached out and patted Molly's abdomen,
rubbing her hand over it in a remarkably sensual and familiar way.

   Before Molly could react to the invasion of her space, the woman backed
up and turned away.

   Bobby squatted beside the fire, and looked at it, like he was bored. 
Molly shuffled around behind him.

   "What are we doing?" she asked finally.

   He turned his head to look up at her.  "Waiting." he said shortly.

   All three women were watching them, as if listening to their
conversation.  A boy and girl came out of the wigwam.  Both looked like
they might be eleven or twelve.  They stared at the white people at their
fire.

   "I don't think I can do this." said Molly.

   "You have to do this, Molly.  We came here to get your ...  to get
Sarah, and I mean to do that.  We just have to play this by ear."

   There was the sound of a crying child from inside the teepee, and the
girl darted back inside.  She came out with a toddler, who wanted down. 
The girl put the toddler down and she immediately ran toward the strangers.
She almost fell, but caught herself in time to come to a stop beside Bobby.
She stared at him.  He turned his head and looked at her.  He grinned and
she backed up.  The older pregnant woman spoke and the toddler looked at
her, and then back at Bobby.  Then losing interest, she went to examine
Molly, who squatted and smiled too.

   "Aren't you a cute little thing." cooed Molly to the little girl.  The
toddler raised both hands in the air and then swept them downward, almost
falling over backwards while making a sound.  It didn't sound like speech,
just the kind of noises that children too young to talk make.  Molly held
out her hand to the little girl, who leaned forward to examine it.  She
reached out and touched the back of Molly's hand, running one stubby dirty
finger along Molly's pale, soft skin.  Looking at Molly's eyes one last
time with her own huge ones, the toddler spun and tried to run to the woman
who had spoken to her.  She tripped and fell right towards the fire.

   Bobby reacted instantly, rising and stepping one booted foot into the
fire, hitting one of the uprights that held the sizzling meat and almost
knocking it over.  Strips of meat sizzled as they fell around his boot. 
His hand darted for the toddler's leather shirt and grasped it just as the
baby's outreaching hands were about to hit the coals.  He gave a jerk
upwards and strained as the baby's weight came onto his outstretched arm.
He pulled the child toward him and scooped it up with his other arm as he
felt the heat of the fire penetrating his boot.  The child squalled as he
stepped back.  All three Indian women and both youngsters were frozen.

   Bobby found himself holding a squirming crying Indian baby and, by
instinct, held it out away from him, towards the women.  It's mother
unfroze and rushed to hold the baby, sitting it on her hip, since her round
belly was in the way of a direct hug.  The child quieted almost
immediately, but turned hurt eyes on Bobby, who stepped back and squatted
again, not knowing what else to do.

   The old toothless woman stepped forward and reached into the embers of
the fire to pull blackening strips of meat out.  Her fingers seemed not to
feel the heat at all.

   It seemed like it took forever, but finally Man Who Runs Like A Deer
came back.  This time he had seven or eight men with him, and two youths,
about Bobby's age.  Bobby stood to face them, his hands empty.  Man Who
Runs Like A Deer looked at the three women who stood across the fire from
Bobby.  They weren't moving.  He spoke to them, his voice sounding an
undecipherable question.  The older woman spoke, her voice quavering at
first, and then getting stronger as she talked longer.  The Indian barked
harshly, and all three women scurried, two going back in the wigwam, and
the other pulling more strips of meat away from the fire.

   The two women who had gone inside appeared with hides, the hair still on
them, and spread them on the ground.  The toddler's mother came and pulled
Bobby toward one and seated him on it.  She came back for Molly and pulled
her to sit behind him and to one side.  The older woman brought them more
meat, this time lying on a stick they could hold so their fingers wouldn't
be burned.

   Man Who Runs Like A Deer sat down on the other skin, and was served in a
like manner.  Bobby gave Molly two strips of meat, and ate three more
himself before anyone spoke.

   Man Who Runs Like A Deer threw his stick into the fire and wiped his
fingers on his leggings.

   "My woman tells me you kept my daughter from the fire.  That is good."
he said.

   Bobby smiled.  "It is good when children are not hurt." he responded.

   "I have talked with the elders about this problem." said the Indian, as
if nothing else had been said before.  "You must fight Sees Long Distance
for the woman."

   Molly gasped and Bobby frowned.  "Why must I fight?  She is my woman."

   "Yes" said the big Indian.  "But you lost her.  Now, to get her back you
must fight.  Will you do this?"

   Bobby stood.  Molly started to stand, but he put a hand on her shoulder
and pushed her back down.  "I will fight." he said.

   CHAPTER SIX

   Jonas was shaken awake by his elder son.  Peter's face looked anxious.

   "Frank's gone, Pa." he said.

   "What do you mean gone?" asked Jonas, trying to command full wakefulness
to come to him.

   "His bed wasn't slept in and his horse is gone.  His trail leads toward
the old Johansen place." explained Peter.

   "Shit!" roared Jonas.  "Doesn't ANYBODY around here do what I tell them
to any more?" He rose and began dressing immediately.

   Less than thirty minutes later three men rode away from the Circle C
ranch house, headed toward the last place they'd seen a flock of sheep.

   ===============================================

   Bobby was nervous.  He had no idea what fighting for Sarah meant.  He
had no idea what kind of weapons would be involved, or what constituted
winning the fight.  But he knew he couldn't go back and face anyone in his
family if he failed to try to get the girl back.  Molly weighed heavily on
his mind too.  If he lost the fight, what did that mean for her?  Would
they try to claim her too?  He needed more information badly, but was
afraid to ask for it.  He didn't want to appear stupid.

   He was relieved beyond measure when Man Who Runs Like A Deer smiled and
said that, as the challenger, Bobby got to choose the weapons for the
combat.  Bobby knew that one of the two young men who was with Man Who Runs
Like A Deer must be the boy he'd have to fight.  Both looked strong and
savage to him.  He knew he couldn't fight with a knife, or tomahawk or
anything like that, and he didn't want to suggest guns either.

   Instead he took a chance and offered to wrestle for the girl.  He and
his father wrestled every so often, and Xian Bai had delighted in doing the
same thing, winning hands down by using things he had learned in China. 
Over time Bobby had learned some of what Xian Bai did during those
wrestling matches, and he hoped that might give him some advantage.

   The young Indian smiled widely and accepted.  When he looked at Bobby he
saw a thin, pale white boy.  He was sure he could break this boy in half.

   Both boys took their shirts off as a crowd formed to watch the
entertainment.  Soon there was a large circle of Indians, primarily men,
but with some women and older children mixed in.

   The crowd only grew as the battle started.

   Bobby figured out almost immediately that his definition of "wrestling"
and that of Sees Long Distance were very different.  He tried to grapple
with the Indian boy and take him down.  Sees Long Distance tried to punch,
kick and gouge.  His fingernail left a long stripe of bleeding skin from
the corner of Bobby's eye to just below his ear with that first attempt,
and Bobby barely avoided losing his eye.  As he backpedaled away, the boy's
moccasin covered foot came up and lashed between his legs.  Bobby felt like
he was going to throw up as paralysis hit him and he fell flat on his back.
Sees long distance stood and watched, smiling as Bobby lay there and rolled
to one side, drawing his legs up to ease the pain.

   Man Who Runs Like A Deer came over to Bobby.  "Is it over so quickly?"
he asked.  "If you do not get up it is done."

   Bobby groaned and rolled to his hands and knees.  The pain was less now.
He hadn't been kicked quite as hard as he had thought.  He started to stand
and saw the boy running at him, grinning widely.

   Bobby let his left leg collapse and he fell sideways, as if that leg was
broken.  Then he rolled quickly toward the running brave.  Sees Long
Distance tripped and went sprawling.  He was up before Bobby, and wasn't
grinning any more.  Several men in the circle were laughing.

   The two youths circled, and the Indian boy darted in to lash out with
his foot again.  Bobby saw it coming and turned sideways, putting his hand
under the boy's ankle as it streaked by Bobby's chest.  He helped the ankle
keep going up long after the Indian boy would have stopped it, and Sees
Long Distance flopped hard onto his back.  There was an explosive burst of
air from his lungs and he lay stunned.  Bobby stood and waited to see what
would happen.

   The boy got to his feet, smiling again.  This was a feral grin, though,
as the boy decided that this was a worthy opponent after all, and that it
would bring him honor to beat this white boy into submission.  He decided
to count coup on the boy by slapping him.  He jumped to his feet and
circled warily, trying to find an opening.  He kept his arm at his side,
not wanting to telegraph what he was going to do.

   There!  The white boy's arms were too wide.  He stepped forward and his
arm streaked forward, hand open and cupped.  If he hit the boy hard enough
it might break his eardrum and he could finish this quickly.

   Instead he watched in amazement as his hand missed the boy's face
completely, and kept going, dragging his body forward.  He felt something
hit his shins, and he was falling face down into the dirt.  He wasn't hurt,
but he heard more laughter and he saw red.

   As he got up he saw Dove woman, the wife of Racing Boar in front of him.
She was smiling ...  laughing at him.  Her cooking knife was at her belt.
In a rage he snatched at it and pulled it free, turning back to the white
boy who had shamed him.  With a scream he ran at Bobby, the knife weaving
low in his hand, aiming for the soft belly of his opponent.

   Bobby saw the knife and knew he could be in trouble.  He timed his
movements with the Indian boy's rushing stride and fell down backwards as
the boy reached him.  Putting his feet in Sees Long Distance's stomach,
Bobby let the boy's weight carry him forward as Bobby straightened his
legs, pushing hard.  Sees Long Distance flew high into the air, toward the
edge of the crowd, which parted for him like magic.  The crowd there was
only two people deep, because behind them ...  was Man Who Runs Like A
Deer's cooking fire.

   The tumbling youth landed on top of the meat rack on his back, and
crushed it.  His arms were outstretched and he had no purchase.  He
screamed as red hot coals burned into the flesh of his back and tried to
roll to one side.  That put his shoulder and upper arm into the coals and
he screamed again.  He could not believe the agony of the pain that ate at
his back and arm, or the amazing coolness of the packed dirt that his chest
rolled onto.

   Three women acted instantly.  Two held clay jars of water in their arms
as they watched.  They had been getting ready to cook when the excitement
drew them away from their fires.  Both of them threw their water on the
burned boy's back, where blisters were already forming.  Another ducked
into a teepee and brought water, also dumping it on the boy.  He tried to
get up, but was seized by four men and carried to the stream, where he was
submerged in the water.  He was yelling that he wanted to go back and
fight, and was told to be quiet.

   Bobby, of course, was not aware that the fight was over.  He was on his
feet, horrified at what had happened.  He looked at the people in the
circle, some of whom were staring at him.  One older man stalked toward
him, his face stern.  Bobby didn't know what to do, but this man's hair was
white with age, and Bobby knew he could not bring himself to strike a man
so old.  He stood and waited, his fists balled up.

   The old man approached as if he had nothing to fear from this young
white eyes.  He stopped in front of Bobby and stared into his eyes.  He
said something Bobby couldn't understand, and then reached out to slam one
old hand down on top of Bobby's right shoulder.

   "Ah yeh tah HA" he screeched.  Bobby tensed.

   The crowd roared, and the old man smiled, tapping Bobby on his shoulder
several more times, but much less strongly.  Bobby turned to see people
smiling and laughing.  He looked at Man Who Runs Like A Deer, who was also
smiling.  Bobby went to him.

   "A good win" said the Indian.  "You fought well, even when Sees Long
Distance disgraced himself."

   "I won?" asked Bobby.

   "When Sees Long Distance lost honor by taking a weapon, he gave you the
battle.  You fought well and have much honor with the people." said the
man.

   Bobby was suddenly tackled from behind and arms came around him, slim
white hands sliding across his sweaty chest.

   "I thought you'd be killed." came Molly's soft, almost whining voice in
his ear.

   Bobby had tensed when he first felt her hit his body.  His brain had
identified that there was no threat, but now it was trying to deal with her
hands sliding across his nipples, gripping his flesh as her soft breasts
pressed into his back.  The woman's hair tickled his shoulder and he was
amazed at how good it felt to be hugged in this way.

   Instinct told him to turn and tell the woman that he'd won ...  that her
daughter could be recovered now.  He did so, not realizing that she would
not move back from him.  Her turned inside her arms, and saw wide,
tear-filled blue eyes staring into his from only inches away.

   "I won." he said, amazement in his voice.

   "You were wonderful." said Molly, her voice husky.  "I was so worried. I
didn't know what to do."

   Bobby had the strongest urge to put his arms around this woman.  He felt
his prick stiffen in his pants, and felt instantly ashamed.  He pushed at
her waist, and turned back to Man Who Runs Like A Deer.

   "I want my woman now." he said.

   The big Indian laughed.  "You cannot satisfy two women at once, and this
woman looks like she needs to be satisfied now." He chuckled.  "But I will
get your other woman and bring her to you." He slapped Bobby on his
shoulder, like the old man had.  "Yes, it was a good fight."

   Bobby and Molly stood nervously beside each other as the crowd began to
break up.  Several members of the tribe pulled Sees Long Distance out of
the water and he began limping back toward Bobby.  There was a scowl on his
face as he approached, pushing at the hands that held his arms.  He
teetered a little bit, and Bobby could see that he was clenching his jaws
at the pain, but he limped up to Bobby and faced him.

   The boy let out a string of words that Bobby couldn't understand, and he
looked at the boy blankly.  A woman stepped forward and in a soft hesitant
voice said in remarkably good English "He says he feels shame for his
dishonor and begs that you give him an honorable death."

   Bobby rocked back on his heels and thought furiously.  Then he said to
the woman: "Tell him that battle brings out many emotions, some not good,
and which cause us to do things we would not otherwise do.  My people do
not kill brave men who do foolish things.  My people try to learn from
their mistakes.  Tell him it would dishonor me to take his life."

   The woman turned and spoke to the boy, who scowled more, but then began
to relax as the woman went on and on.  Finally he said something to the
woman and, with a look at Bobby, turned and limped off.

   Bobby looked at the woman expectantly.  Her skin darkened and she
couldn't meet his eyes.

   "I told him what you said, and that white people are strange and
different, and don't know how to live sometimes ...  that they have strange
ideas.  I did not mean to dishonor you, but I want him for my man, and I
did not want him to die.  He said you are welcome to the white tiger woman.
He says she is too much trouble anyway.  I am happy to see her leave his
lodge."

   Bobby stared at her.  "Your English is very good." he said, for lack of
anything else to say.

   "I went to the white man's school for a little while." she said, now
able to look at him.  "Your ways are too strange for me though, and I came
back here to be with the people."

   Molly gasped and Bobby looked to see a white girl being led toward them.
She was snarling and pulling at the men who escorted her, one of which was
Man Who Runs Like A Deer, and he was laughing as she slapped at his hands.
She was dressed in a worn and faded buckskin dress, and was barefoot.  With
a start Bobby realized it was beginning to get dark.

   When Sarah saw Bobby, and then her mother, she let out a hysterical
screech and pulled violently away from her escort, running toward them. 
She slammed into Molly, crying with great wracking sobs of relief.

   Molly exulted in the feel of her live and apparently well daughter in
her arms.  But her adult mind still hummed in her skull.  She knew they
were not safe yet.  These people thought Sarah was one of Bobby's wives,
and that deception needed to be continued.  She put her lips next to her
sobbing daughter's ear and whispered urgently.

   "This man is named Bobby.  He fought for you and saved you.  You must
greet him as if you love him.  Now!  Sarah, you must hug him as if you love
him now!"

   Molly pushed her daughter away from her and towards Bobby, who stood,
eyes wide and mouth open.  Sarah, hearing her mother's commands, reacted in
several ways.  She didn't want to leave her mother's protective arms, but
her brain processed what Molly told her.  Part of her brain rebelled at the
notion of treating a stranger ...  any stranger ...  as if she loved him.
And she wasn't enthralled with men at the moment either.  But her mother's
urgent commands penetrated and, without looking at the man, she turned and
grasped him tightly, burying her face in his neck.  His strong arms went
around her and she felt his hands on her back as he rocked backwards,
compensating for her frenzied hug.

   "It's OK." he said into her ear.  "It's going to be OK"

   His voice soothed her and she slumped, exhausted, letting him hold her
up to some degree.  That pulled her against him even more as he held her
tightly to keep her buckling knees from letting her fall to the ground.

   Molly moved to put her arms around both of the teens.  She thought of it
as a protective gesture in one sense, but she wanted to touch them both
too. Her relationship with Bobby, in the space of a short thirty minutes,
had altered radically.  It was almost too much to contemplate.  Over time,
she would think about what had happened, and would think about it
rationally.  But for now she responded with pure emotion.

   Bobby felt the girl stiffen her knees and somehow knew it was time to
let her go.  He moved his hands from her back to her waist and tried to
look through the tangled blond hair that wreathed her dirty face.

   "You need to be strong just a little longer." he said, his face inches
from hers.  "They think you're my wife and we can leave in a while.  Just
be strong a little longer, all right?  Everything's going to be all right."

   "OK" she sniffed.  She turned back to her mother and hugged her again.

   Man Who Runs Like A Deer was still standing near them.  Bobby turned to
him.

   "We can leave now, yes?" he asked, butterflies in his stomach.

   "Father sun is fading from the sky" said the Indian.  "We will find a
lodge for you and your women to sleep in tonight.  When Father sun returns
then you can take your women and go." It was more of a pronouncement than
suggestion, and Bobby didn't know whether to argue or not.

   Molly turned her head.  "This is a good thing husband.  The night will
be cold."

   Bobby looked at her in astonishment, but she just stared at him over her
daughter's blond hair, her eyes piercing his.  He remembered the night
before in a jarring mixture of biting cold, and a warm female body pressed
to his back.  It would be cold, and the girl was probably in no condition
to travel.

   "All right then." said Bobby, nervously.

   As things turned out, Swallow Tail, the Indian girl who had spoken
English to them, was chosen to host the "visitors", since she slept in a
lodge with only her grandmother.  Her grandmother turned out to be the
toothless woman who had examined Molly earlier, and whose fingers seemed
oblivious to heat.  Swallow Tail led them to a teepee and lifted the flap
for them.  Inside was dark, but there was a small fire in the fire pit in
the center of the floor which gave off some light.  Swallow Tail's
grandmother followed them into the structure and there was some animated
conversation between her and her daughter as a bed was made for Bobby and
his wives.

   It soon became clear to Molly, Bobby and Sarah, who had stopped crying
now, and was taking everything in with wide eyes, that there was to be one
bed for all three of them to sleep in.

   Swallow Tail turned from making up the bed and spoke.

   "This is my Grandmother.  She is called Birthing Woman among the people.
She says she will stay here with you tonight.  I am going to go tend Sees
Long Distance's wounds.  You have done me a great service by giving me this
opportunity to soothe him.  He has not paid attention to me because I lived
with the white man.  Perhaps tonight I can change that." She grinned.

   She turned to leave and then paused.  "My grandmother says you are not
performing your husbandly duties well." Her face was completely straight as
she looked at Molly.  "She says this woman's belly is empty of life, and
that it is your fault.  She has offered our best furs and will help you so
you can remedy that problem tonight."

   Bobby's mouth fell open, but still Swallow Tail went on.

   "She says she remembers what my grandfather was like after battle, and
she will burn the herbs that increase fertility so that you may have a son
to remind you of this victory."

   Then, as if that had been the most normal thing in the world to say, she
ducked through the flap of the wigwam and disappeared into the night.

   ===============================================

   Frank Collins was disgusted.  He'd lost the trail.  He couldn't believe
that he could lose the trail of five horses, but he had.  At first he
thought he'd pick it up in a few hundred yards, but when he hadn't, he had
to backtrack.  From there he fanned out, but still couldn't find any sign.
He heard the measured clip-clop of a walking horse and stood up from where
he'd been bent over, trying to find something in the dust.  He put his hand
on one of his pearl handled revolvers and then almost groaned as Enid rode
around a rock on her piebald mare.  He groaned again as he realized how
good she looked on a horse.

   "Hi there, Mister Cowboy." she said gaily, waving at him.

   "Can't you leave me alone?" he whined.

   "I can't help it if you're on the trail I want to go along." she said
smugly.  "Actually you're NOT on the trail.  I saw where you went wrong
about a quarter mile back.  The trail you want is over there." She waved
one hand off to the north.

   "You're just a girl.  You don't know anything about tracking." he said
gruffly.  She sat up in the saddle and stretched.  He saw two bumps on the
front of her smooth leather shirt and felt his prick lurch in his pants. 
Damn, but she was pretty.

   "Oh" she said airily.  "I suppose you're right.  But, then again, I
don't need to know how to trail anybody.  I already know where they're
going."

   Frank's jaw dropped.  "What are you talking about?" he asked.

   "There's only one place they could be going, and that's to our summer
camp up in the high meadows.  There isn't anyplace else to go up here ...
is there?" Her words posed a question, but her tone of voice indicated she
was disgusted with him for being so stupid.

   "Why didn't you tell me that two hours ago?" he ranted.

   "Why, mister big strong cowboy, because I'm just a girl, and don't know
nothing at all." she simpered.  Then she smiled.  "Besides ...  you didn't
ask me." She kneed her horse and, just like a cow pony, it turned without
the reins being touched.  She was obviously leaving.

   "HEY!" he called.  "Wait a minute."

   Her horse stopped and she looked back over her shoulder.

   It irked him to all get out to have to ask this, but if he wanted to get
back on the trail, it was needful.  "Um ...  do you suppose you could ...
um ...  show me where the trail is?"

   "Maybe" she said, smiling.

   "What do you mean ...  maybe?" he asked, frustrated.

   "What will you give me if I do?"

   "I shouldn't have to give you anything?" he said, incensed.  "I'm
looking for my mother and sister ...  and YOUR brother.  You should help me
for nothing!"

   "I don't know." mused Enid, having fun.  "You've been awfully rude to
me."

   Frank knew she was right about that.  But he was worried about his
mother and sister, and this girl maddened him with her sultry looks and
smiles and thrusting breasts with those bumps on the tips of them.

   "Look ...  I'm sorry." he said.  "I'm just worried about my kin."

   Enid looked startled, as if she'd just remembered that he really did
have an important job to be about doing.  She felt ashamed for teasing him.

   "Come on." she called.  She kicked her horse, but he caught up to her
within fifty yards, having vaulted into the saddle.  She stopped another
twenty-five yards on and pointed to a narrow opening between two boulders.

   "That's what we call the gate." she said.  Pappa pushed those boulders
together so we could block it and keep the sheep from straying down the
mountain.  But it doesn't look like a trail any more.  Once you get beyond
that, just follow the path.  It will take you straight on up.

   "Thanks" he said.  He couldn't keep his eyes off her breasts.

   "You owe me." she said firmly.

   "What do I owe you?" he asked.

   Before he could do anything she leaned in her saddle and one hand
captured the back of his head.  She pulled his face to hers and crushed her
lips to his.  He was so startled that he opened his mouth a little, and his
tongue touched her lips.  Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over
and she was sitting back up in her saddle, her face red, her freckles dark
and prominent on her face and neck.

   "Another kiss like that." she said, her eyes flashing.  Then she turned
her horse and left back downhill at a gallop.

   Frank licked his lips.  He could swear they tasted different than they
had only a few moments before.  He realized his cock was rock hard and
sighed.  Then he stepped his horse between the two boulders and started up
the path.

   He had only gone another mile when he smelled the faint odor that he
knew meant death.  He grew wary now.  There were bear in these mountains,
and they cached their kills, letting them "cure" while they went about
doing whatever it was that bears did when they weren't eating.

   He drew a pistol and edged his horse forward.

   He saw the clearing, and the body in the clearing and stopped.  Quietly
he got down.  He saw Tulip and Vixen's tracks leading right to that
clearing, and felt his gut seize.  But he couldn't just ride in there. 
Dropping the reins of his nervous horse, which smelled the death even
better than Frank did, he left it and started to circle the clearing.  He
heard a horse snuffle and looked back to see Enid sitting on her horse,
stock still.  She was peering up at the clearing.  Without a sign or word
from him, she whirled her horse and ran back the other way.  Feeling a
puzzling relief that she was gone ...  away from the danger ...  he circled
the clearing, taking his time and listening carefully.  On the other side
he saw tracks of a running horse with worn shoes.  He went on.  When he got
back to his horse he walked it forward, pulling the reluctant animal toward
the body.

   He was still there, an hour later, trying to figure out what the signs
he saw meant, when he heard the distant bleating of sheep.  The Rocklins
had caught up to him.

   ===============================================

   Bobby stood in the flickering light, inside the teepee, and looked
towards Molly, who was again hugging her daughter.  She looked back at him
calmly.

   "What do we do now?" he asked, totally out of his realm of experience.

   "Let me think." said the woman.

   Molly's mind was awhirl.  While she looked calm and composed on the
outside, in her mind everything was turmoil.  She was vastly relieved to
have found Sarah well, even though she hadn't had a chance to really
examine her daughter's mental and physical injuries.  She spoke to Sarah
softly.

   "Are you all right, baby?" she asked.

   Sarah tensed in her arms, and then relaxed.  "Is it really over?" she
asked.

   Molly squeezed her.  "Almost, sweetheart.  Tomorrow we can go back to
the ranch."

   Sarah's head turned toward Bobby.  "What was that woman talking about?
She called you his woman."

   Molly kissed Sarah's hair.  "When we got here and asked for you, they
thought Bobby was your husband, come to get you back.  He had to pretend
that this was so, and that I was also his wife.  Then he had to fight to
win you back.  The man he fought cheated, but Bobby beat him anyway. 
That's why she said those things.  They think we are Bobby's wives."

   Sarah looked through her blond hair at her savior.  "Who ARE you?" she
asked.

   "Oh" said Bobby uncomfortably.  "I'm Bobby Rocklin."

   Sarah stiffened again.  "Rocklin!?  The sheep farmer?  It was YOUR men
who took me!  Hurt me!" There was anger in her voice.

   "I don't understand that." said Bobby.  "I'm sorry, but I don't know why
they did that." he said helplessly.

   "They wanted to ransom me." said Sarah.  "And other things." she added,
her voice catching again as tears welled up in her already full eyes.

   Molly squeezed her daughter.  "That's all over now.  We can talk about
that later.  Did they ...?" She couldn't make herself say the word at
first, but when Sarah looked up at her with questioning eyes she finished.
"Did they rape you darling?"

   Sarah's face took on a tiny almost smile.  "No.  I don't think so. 
Buford was about to when the Indians killed that other man.  Buford ran
away I think.  The man who was with them - he spoke English - he said that
I was the boy's wife now ...  and that tonight I would sleep with that boy.
I was so scared Mommy" She began to cry again and Molly folded her back
into her arms.

   Birthing Woman suddenly appeared beside them, with a bowl in her hands
that contained a thick, pungent smelling paste.  She put a hand between
Molly and Sarah, obviously wanting them to separate.  When they did she
handed the bowl to Molly and then began pulling at Sarah's buckskin dress,
trying to pull it up and off her body.

   Sarah resisted and Bobby stood, agape, not knowing what to do.  The old
woman spoke soothingly, but unintelligibly and grasped one of Sarah's
wrists, pulling it toward her.  Sarah groaned at the pain she still felt in
her raw wrists.  Molly, seeing the torn flesh for the first time sucked in
air and moaned in sympathy with her daughter.

   Holding the wrist firmly, the old woman dipped a finger into the paste
and smoothed it onto the torn and bruised flesh.  Sarah's eyes opened
widely and she gasped as the pain almost disappeared where the salve
touched her skin.  She stopped trying to fight and let the woman tenderly
smooth more of the paste all around her wrist.  Then the old woman treated
Sarah's other wrist.  When that was done she again tried to get Sarah to
take her dress off.  It was clear that she wanted to examine the girl's
body, and treat any other wounds.

   "Mommy?" Sarah asked plaintively, when she understood what was going on.

   "It's all right baby." said Molly soothingly.

   "But he's here." pointed out Sarah, looking at Bobby.

   "She thinks he's your husband darling." said Molly, surprising herself.
"Bobby is a gentleman.  He won't hurt you."

   Perhaps it was the fact that, for the first time in days, the awful pain
in her wrists was dulled.  Maybe it was because, like most girls, she
wondered what a man would think if he saw her naked - at least in
circumstances more nearly normal than the only other time a man had seen
her naked.  It could have been her mother's promise that nothing would
happen to her ...  that it was only play acting.  For whatever reason,
Sarah Jean Collins allowed her body to be revealed to a man for only the
second time in her life.  She winced at the pain still present in her
stretched shoulder ligaments as she raised her arms and let the woman take
the dress off, and then blushed as she saw Bobby stare at her nakedness. 
His eyes darted away, and she felt relief.  Then his eyes darted back to
her, and away again.  He started to turn around, and Molly chided him,
reminding him that Sarah was his "wife", and that he must behave normally.

   Bobby couldn't believe what was happening.  He wanted to stare at the
girl.  Her body was the stuff of dreams.  She was so beautiful that it made
his stomach hurt, even though there were ugly dark circles around her
wrists, and other scrapes and bruises marring other places on her pale
white body.  He couldn't help but stare at her breasts, with their small
pink capping nipples.  The hair between her legs was lighter even than the
blond tangles that surrounded her head.

   Sarah sighed as the woman rubbed the soothing ointment into each bruise
and scrape.  When the woman prodded her to raise her arms she moaned at the
pain and rubbed one shoulder.  The woman massaged big globs of the ointment
into her shoulders and that helped immediately.  When the last injury had
been treated, the old woman led her to the bed that had been made for them
and sat her on the furs there.

   The woman took the bowl from Molly, and went across the teepee to put it
down and pick up another.  She reached into a bag and pulled a handful of
dried leaves from it, crumbling them into the bowl.  Then she added water
from a clay jug that was sitting in the fire.  She made another thick
paste.

   She turned to Molly, whose startled look showed plainly that she hadn't
planned on receiving any attention from the old woman.  The woman handed
Molly the bowl and then began unbuttoning Molly's shirt.

   Molly took a step backwards, and Sarah's voice rose from behind her.

   "They think he's your husband, remember?" There was almost humor in the
teenager's voice.

   "Oh" said Molly, her eyes wide, looking over at Bobby.  "Yes." He
started to turn around again and she said "Bobby, it's all right.  Sarah is
right."

   Molly flushed red clear to her chest as the shirt was removed, and her
jeans undone and pulled downward.  The old woman's hands were gentle, but
firm and soon Molly stood, naked, feeling more vulnerable than even on her
wedding night, when Jonas had taken her for the first time.

   Bobby stared again as this older, more mature body was slowly exposed to
his gaze.  Her breasts were much larger, and heavy looking, with wide brown
circles at their tips, and smaller darker circles in the middle of them. 
Nursing three children had left her nipples thick and round where they
perched on her breasts.  Her waist was surprisingly thin, despite being
stretched three times.  Where those three babies had spread her hips as
they struggled to come into the world, her hips had settled into a wide
stance and then sloping inward into long muscular legs.

   If anything, she was even more beautiful than her daughter ...  ripe ...
fully formed ...  the essence of femininity.

   "You don't have to stare quite THAT much." said Molly, butterflies
flurrying in her stomach.

   "Sorry." said Bobby.  "I don't think any man could resist staring."

   "That's the second compliment you've paid me." said Molly, her feminine
instinct to control a man kicking in.

   "You deserve them both." said Bobby quietly.

   Behind her mother, Sarah was sitting, not in pain now, relaxed for the
first time since she could remember.  Hearing the byplay between this
strange man who had saved her, and her mother, now standing naked in front
of her, her first instinct was to ask "What about me?" But while she felt
an excitement that she couldn't understand, she was more comfortable if the
boy wasn't looking directly at her.  The feeling of safeness was so
palpable that it overcame her resistance to being naked with strangers.  It
also helped that she was in surroundings that were so alien that what was
going on seemed less strange.  She was both amazed and intrigued at the
same time that her mother could be so ...  normal ...  standing naked in
front of a strange man.

   The old woman began streaking the thick paste she had made on various
places on Molly's body.  She smoothed a palm full of the stuff over each of
Molly's breasts, lifting each one in the process, as if to weigh it in her
wrinkled hands.

   "What's she doing?" asked Molly, her voice tight.

   "I have no idea." admitted Bobby.

   Another handful of the stuff was spread across Molly's taught abdomen.
Molly flinched and danced a little as the woman's hand dipped into the red
fleece that grew just above her sex.  The old woman spoke soothingly.  She
dipped one thumb into the paste and carefully smeared it across Molly's
lips.  Molly felt the taste of the stuff seep between her closed lips.  It
tasted minty, and not at all unpleasant.  When she licked her lips dry the
woman smeared more paste on them and she licked them again automatically.

   The old woman led Molly to the bed and, rather than sitting her down
beside Sarah, made her lie down on the soft furs.

   "I don't know about this." said Molly uncertainly.

   "I've never seen you without clothes." said Sarah suddenly.  "You're
beautiful, Mamma."

   Molly stared at her daughter, who was seated beside her.

   "Will I look like that when I'm older?" asked the girl.

   Molly's mouth opened and closed.  She didn't have any idea how to
respond to that.

   "You're just as beautiful as she is." blurted Bobby.

   Sarah, with more self control and calm than she or anyone else in the
wigwam would have thought possible, looked over at Bobby and said, "I bet
you say that to all your wives."

   Molly and Sarah watched as Birthing Woman approached Bobby, whose eyes
widened as it became obvious that he was the next person on her list.  He
started moving backward and the old woman cackled.  She reached out and
grasped his shirt firmly, pulling him toward her.

   Then she handed him the bowl and stripped him just like she had stripped
Molly.

   "I can't ..." he moaned.

   "Yes you can." said Molly.  "You fought to save us both.  This is just
some silly Indian ritual or something.  When she's done we can all go to
sleep, and in the morning we can leave, and this will all be over."

   Bobby looked up into the darkness of the teepee as he felt his pants
being removed.  Part of his shame was because he knew he was rigid, and
that when the two women saw his stiff penis they would then know that he
harbored unwelcome emotions toward them.  Up to now he had been able to
pretend that this whole situation could be forgotten in a few days, or
weeks or maybe months.  But he was convinced that these women would always
remember how, when it was his duty as a gentleman to resist lust, he had
failed to do that and shamed both himself and them.

   He was both right ...  and wrong in his assumptions.

   He was right that both women would remember this night for the rest of
their lives.  He was wrong that they would hate him for being erect because
of their nakedness.

   Molly watched, her eyes glittering, as this amazing young man's sex was
revealed to her.  She heard herself sigh as she saw that his penis was
stiff.  That stiff penis, to her, validated that she was desirable ... 
that after birthing three children and getting, what to her mind was old,
that she could still produce desire in a man's loins.  That she completely
forgot that Jonas still found her attractive can be forgiven.  Many times,
in a long marriage, partners take each other for granted.  That she also
centered on herself, instead of thinking that the boy might be that way
because of her nubile naked daughter, can also be forgiven.  Women her age
are often anxious about how men perceive them.

   Sarah's feelings were a little different.  The only erect penis she had
ever seen was Buford's, as he prepared to rip her virginity from her
battered and bruised body.  There had been nothing interesting or
attractive about that.  At the same time she couldn't remember much about
that incident.  She remembered the fear, which was distinctly lacking in
this situation, and the pain, which was also mostly gone now.  She
remembered her hate for the man who had abused her...  but she didn't hate
Bobby, and he had done anything but abuse her.  And so she considered this
to be her first sight of the thing that men had ...  that her father had
... that made her mother squeal so loudly in the night.  She had a sudden
dim memory of seeing her father's penis, long and stiff, a long time ago,
in the dark.  She couldn't remember what it looked like now.  Instead she
stared at Bobby's.

   She thought it was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen.

   Both women stared as the woman scooped up a handful of the minty paste
and then used it to cover Bobby's stiff penis and full, heavy balls.  He
groaned, and the old woman cackled again as she grasped his penis in her
slippery hand and stroked up and down its length several times.

   The old woman stood up.  She reached up and caressed Bobby's cheek with
two fingers, and then wiped some of the salve on his lips, like she had
Molly's.  He also licked the stuff, tasting it automatically.

   She took his hand and led him to the bed.  Both naked women looked up at
him.  He couldn't tell what lay behind those eyes.  It was obvious the
woman was taking him to the bed that held his "wives", and he had no
inkling of what he should do ...  or not do.

   Standing above the two women ...  mother and daughter ...  Bobby felt
the old crone's hand stroke his rampant manhood several more times.  Both
women's gaze was fixed firmly on what she was doing.

   "I don't know what to do." he moaned.

   Birthing woman kneeled on creaking knees, hovering over Molly, who
looked up at her wide eyed.  She pulled Molly's knees up and then pushed
them apart.  Molly, too stunned to resist, felt heat explode in her loins
as her sex was opened up in front of Bobby.

   Birthing Woman leaned back on her heels and looked up at Bobby, who
stared open mouthed at the ripe, mature woman lying open and exposed to his
gaze.  He felt his penis jerk and looked at it.

   Then he looked at Molly's face.  Her eyes were half closed, but through
her lashes, they were fixed on his.

   She did not close her legs.

   CHAPTER SEVEN

   Again, it was Enid who came toward the clearing first, still riding the
piebald mare.  She went into a canter and then had to pull hard on the
reins as she saw that Frank was not alone ...  that there was a body lying
on the ground.

   "What did you DO?" she yelled, jumping down from her horse and running
to stand over the obviously dead man.

   "I saw you with your pistol out!" she said excitedly.  "So I knew there
was trouble.  Did you SHOOT him?" she asked, breathless.

   Frank wanted to snort.  The dead man at his feet was beginning to bloat,
and the wounds on his chest were prominent and thick with flies.  Surely
she would knot he'd been dead a long time.  He decided not to push that
point though.

   "I found him here." said Frank.  "Do you know him?"

   "That's Chaps!" she exclaimed.  "He's ...  he was one of our men.  What
happened?" she cried.  She had never seen a dead human being before, and
she felt ill.

   "He's been shot.  A while back, maybe a day.  There's another wound too,
but I don't know what caused that.  There are all kinds of tracks all over
the place, but I can't figure out what they mean." He frowned.  "There's a
set of horse tracks going on up the mountain, too." he added.

   Together they examined the tracks he had found.  He could tell that
Tulip and the horse with the winter shoes had gone off to the north, rather
than following the running horse that went uphill, and that didn't make any
sense to either of them.  They didn't have time to talk about more before
Brad Rocklin rode up, rifle in hand.  He was angry.

   "Enid, I TOLD you not to come back up here without me!" he said, looking
down at the body of one of his men on the ground.  "This is EXACTLY why I
told you that, girl.  Now, what happened here?"

   Frank explained that everything was just as he'd found it, and that he
was trying to figure out what happened.  He pointed out the multiple wounds
in Chaps' body, and the tracks he'd found.

   It was Brad who spotted a moccasin tracks and then things began to make
sense.

   Half an hour later Frank was headed north, again on a trail that was
made by Tulip, Vixen and the Rocklin boy's horse.  He went against the
advice of Brad, who used Chaps' body as a clear reason why the boy should
not go on alone.  But it was Chaps' body that made it impossible for Frank
to do anything else.  His mother had been there ...  where this man was
killed.  Her tracks were mixed with those of unshod horses, going away from
here.  He had to find her.

   He went as long as he could, but darkness forced him to stop.

   Beside a small fire, wrapped in a poncho covered by his horse blanket,
Frank Collins fell into an exhausted sleep.

   ====================

   Fifteen miles behind the sheep, Jonas, Peter and Buckshot camped for the
night.  Jonas was beside himself and wanted to go on in the dark, saying
that a blind man could follow the trail of the flock.  Buckshot insisted
that they get some rest.  The horses needed rest too, and that was what
finally won Jonas over.

   =====================

   "I don't know what to do." Bobby said again.

   Molly took a breath.  "I'll show you." she said, her voice husky.

   "You don't have to do this." Bobby said, his voice cracking.

   Molly looked up at him, her face serene.  "You found my baby girl.  I'd
never have found her without you before ...  I'd never have found her. 
This woman thinks I am your wife.  She has gone to great lengths to prepare
me to receive my ...  husband.  Once ...  just this once ...  let me show
you how grateful I am for what you have done for us."

   Her hand went to grasp that of her naked daughter, who sat stunned next
to her on the pile of furs.  Molly felt her body's moisture ooze our of her
and begin to run down between her legs.  She realized she was as aroused as
she had ever been in her life.

   Birthing Woman reached out and grasped Bobby's iron hard prick and
pulled him his knees, between Molly's open thighs.  The woman scooped up
another two fingers full of the sweet smelling paste from the bowl and
Molly gasped as those two fingers smeared the stuff on her golden pubes and
then probed between her legs, wiping the stuff on the lips of her sex. 
Then the old woman grasped Bobby's rigid penis one more time and pulled it
to Molly's entrance as he couldn't help but fall to his hands to support
his upper body.  He looked down, his face only inches from Molly's.  Her
lower lip was captured gently between her teeth.

   Bobby felt heat surround the tip of his prick.  He had never felt
anything remotely like this, and he froze.

   The old woman cackled again, and her hand left his penis.  He didn't see
where she moved it, but felt it seconds later as it came down on his naked
ass in a surprisingly painful slap.

   His hips fell, and his rampant prick surged forward, skewering Molly to
her cervix.

   "Ohhhhhhhhhh" moaned Molly as she was filled so quickly and unexpectedly
...  and delightfully.  Bobby was longer than Jonas, and thinner, so she
wasn't stretched at all.  Instead there was just the delicious feel of his
length and hardness caressing the walls of her pussy.  The tip nosed into
the mouth of her womb insistently, as if it yearned to go just a little
further, to gain entry to her womb itself.

   Bobby's groan was just as loud and drawn out as, for the first time in
his life, hot, wet pussy sucked at his prick and squeezed it all over it's
surface.

   "Mother!" squealed Sarah, whose eyes were so wide they bugged out.  It
had all happened so quickly and so smoothly that she hadn't had time to
process what was actually happening.  When the old woman has spread her
mother's thighs and drawn her knees up Sarah was so stunned that her mind
froze.  She stared at the pink lips that she had never seen, below the
fluff of reddish blond hair.  Those lips gaped open, and looked oily-wet.
Her mother was acting so differently than she ever had before that she
couldn't wrap her mind around it.  Then the old woman's fingers had come
into view to cover those pink lips with the brownish paste, and a finger
had actually entered her mother's sex, pushing that paste inside her.  And
THEN that long hard penis had appeared and pushed into the mess of paste.
The sound of the slap on the boy's buttocks had come like a pistol shot,
and Sarah had blinked and leaned backwards.  When her eyes opened, every
inch of that long hard flesh was suddenly buried inside her mother.  It was
then she had heard the sounds that sounded so familiar, yet so foreign to
her ears, as the two people in front of her ...  having actual SEX ... 
groaned.

   "Hush, baby" moaned her mother's throaty voice.  "I'm thanking Bobby for
saving you."

   Bobby, for his part, was just as stunned as Sarah was.  The rush of
feelings he had never felt before threatened to overwhelm him.  Unknown to
him, or Molly, for that matter, the paste that had been smeared on him had
similar qualities to what would eventually come to be known as an
aphrodisiac.  But it also had the quality of making his penis less
sensitive than it would have been otherwise, so while his lust was
inflamed, he did not suffer the premature ejaculation that would probably
have otherwise taken place when his foggy mind came to grips with what was
actually happening.

   Molly's experience was similar to the many times Jonas had entered her,
but vastly different for several reasons.  For one thing she hadn't thought
of Bobby as a potential sexual partner for more than perhaps an hour before
he was fully buried inside her.  Her first glimmer of lust for him was
triggered by his casual acceptance of his role as her "husband".  His
willingness to assume that role, and then to fight for what it was plain to
see was not only her daughter, but her own future as well, had made her
pussy gush unexpectedly.  His bare upper torso during the fight extended
her errant mind further along a track she would never have thought to let
it go.  She was off kilter enough that, when her daughter was stripped in
front of them, his reaction to Sarah's nakedness had fed the fire in her
own loins.  Finally, the knowledge that he would see her naked, and then
his reaction to that, had pushed her over the edge.

   That the old woman insisted on seeing her bred, and then HELPED that
process along, had been so delicious that it had almost taken the decision
out of her hands.  She had wanted the decision taken out of her hands.  She
had suddenly wanted this boy/man, with his long hard penis, and she wanted
an excuse to have him.  The combination of lust, gratitude, relieved fear
and joy that her daughter was unharmed, had let her do something she would
never have otherwise even contemplated.

   Now she was so deliciously filled, and his thrusting body felt so good
against hers, so much lighter than Jonas, writhing, where Jonas pounded,
his penis reaching so much deeper than any she'd had before ...  she
suddenly felt the need to be bred ...  to receive this boy's precious
offering ...  to see her belly swell again.  She had loved being with child
each time Jonas had made her pregnant, and she hadn't realized how much she
missed knowing that, as she strained under a man, she might be made
pregnant in the process.  With Jonas she enjoyed the feel of what her lover
was doing to her.  With Bobby there was the promise of so much more.

   There was a low raspy murmur from the area of the fire pit.  Molly
rolled her head to see Birthing Woman singing softly, almost a chant, as
she threw small pinches of some herb that smelled sweet and strong into the
fire.  It was obvious she was still involved in the mating ritual she had
supervised thus far.  Molly felt her heart lurch that this stranger, a
woman from a completely different culture, could care so much about the
fertility of another woman, from another culture.

   Knowing she would feel differently the next morning, Molly gave herself
freely to the boy she would have spit on forty-eight hours earlier, and
thrust up against him in anticipation of feeling his seed flowing deep into
her womb.

   She was surprised by an orgasm that overcame her so quickly, and was so
strong that she froze under the rutting boy, her whole body going rigid and
stiff.  Her teeth clamped together and she hissed her breath out in a long
vocal release that magically unfroze her body and let it relax.  Then to
her amazement and joy, she felt another one coming almost immediately.  She
welcomed it with a violent thrust of her hips, taking him into her as
deeply as possible, her nails leaving beads of blood in long scrapes across
his back.

   Sarah saw her mother go rigid, and heard the groan of release and
recognized it immediately as the same thing she had felt while riding the
horse, when she was unable to get away from the rubbing of her sex.  She
felt hot all over as she realized that she had felt the same thing her
mother was feeling.  Her stomach growled and she jumped as she realized it
wasn't her stomach, but something else, as a flood of wet suffused her own
pussy lips.  She looked down and spread her legs to see drops of clear
liquid dripping out of her body.

   Tentatively she reached two fingers between her legs and placed them on
that dripping orifice.  She realized almost immediately that she could
reproduce the feel of that horse rubbing against her.  In less than a
minute seconds she had her own orgasm.  She almost fell over backwards from
the feeling of it and sound dimmed in her ears.

   The only thing she could hear was the sound of an old woman's voice,
rising to a verbal crescendo that matched what the other women in the
teepee were feeling physically.  Then, Birthing Woman's singing stopped,
and was replaced by cackling laughter.

   ==================== Brad felt bad about having to go on to the high
meadows with the sheep, while the Collins boy went off to find the Indians,
or his mother, or his sister, or Bobby ...  or perhaps all of them
together. He looked thoughtfully at Enid, who had sat her horse, watching
the boy ride off into the trees until he could be seen no more.  That
night, when they had reached the line shack that would house one or more of
the Rocklin family for the summer, he settled into the bed with his wife,
who snuggled up to him and astonished him by telling him that Enid was WAY
too interested in that Collins boy.  Then they talked about how worried
they were about Bobby, and where he could be.  Amanda insisted that he was
fine ...  that she could feel it in her bones.

   Brad wanted to play, but Amanda slapped at his wandering hands.

   "Beth and Enid are right over there!" she whispered in his ear, tickling
it with her tongue just to tease him.  She loved it when he was horny for
her.

   She woke him later in the night, when it was dark and quiet, and the
girls were asleep.  She mounted him and sat up, sinking down on his stiff
manhood, trying to be quiet.  She didn't pay any attention to the moonlight
that came through the windows, or that, while the girls were in the
shadows, she and her husband were not.  She wasn't as quiet as she thought
she was either, as she reached her pinnacle and felt him spurt up into her.


   She had no idea she had just given her first lesson in sex to her
younger daughter, who was not only awake, but was up on one elbow watching
wide eyed through the whole process.

   =====================

   Molly was beside herself.  She was experiencing her fifth orgasm, and
knew that, as long as Bobby continued thrusting into her, she could have
another.  Then he stiffened and groaned.  She felt his penis swell and
thrust her tired hips up once again to receive what she'd been craving for
almost half an hour.  It came in strong, wet bursts that seemed to fill her
whole body as he spurted for the first time into a woman.

   "Ohhhhh yeeessssss" she moaned, loving each and every jolt of his hot
fluid.

   He collapsed on top of her and she started to protest as he rolled to
one side.  Then she saw the old woman's hands pushing at him, making him
roll off, and saw her toothless grin as she thrust a rolled up hide under
Molly's thighs.  Instinctively Molly lifted her buttocks off the furry bed
and the roll of leather ended up under her buttocks, tilting her pelvis
down so that none of the precious seed she had received could escape.

   The old woman's eyes bore into Molly's, and her toothless mouth split in
another grin, punctuated by a wink.

   Tentatively, Molly smiled herself, and then rolled her head to look at
her daughter.  Bobby, limp, his eyes closed, had rolled half onto Sarah's
lap, his head resting between her own open thighs.

   Sarah was staring at his peaceful face.

   ===================

   It was dark.  There was the smell of smoke.  Molly's open eyes could see
nothing until she turned her head toward the fire pit, which contained only
glowing embers.  Her mind leapt to replay what she had done ...  how long
ago?  The roll of leather was still under her buttocks, and was
uncomfortable.  She lifted her buttocks and felt the ache in her loins from
overuse of the muscles there as she removed the bundle.  She was covered
with a fur, and felt skin next to hers.  She turned her head and smelled
what she now recognized was ...  Bobby.  It was very quiet, and Molly lay
with her eyes open, seeing nothing, as she thought about what she'd said.
One time.  Just this one time.  It had been amazing ...  more than she
would have dreamed any woman could experience.  She didn't try to puzzle
that out ...  just felt the memory of what had happened.

   One time.  Maybe that could mean one night.  She tried to concentrate on
that part of her that, a short time before, had felt warm and heavy as his
pooled semen had lain there.  She couldn't feel that lovely warm heavy
feeling any more.  She felt empty, like Birthing Woman had characterized
her.  She was fairly young, healthy, and her belly should contain life.

   Birthing Wooman had said so.

   She pulled at Bobby until he woke, reaching for him.  His limp penis
swelled in her hand as she kissed him.  She pulled him on top of her.  Yes,
one night was what she had meant.

   When she had felt that wonderful feeling twice more, and her womb was
full of his spend again, she put the leather bundle under her buttocks, and
went back to sleep.

   =====================

   The next morning there were, to Molly's intense surprise, no feelings of
remorse or recrimination.  Molly had rolled off the leather bundle in her
sleep and her arm was thrown over Bobby's warm body.  She realized her hand
was resting on her daughter's shoulder, and that Sarah too had rolled
toward Bobby, pressing her front to his side.  He lay on his back, his eyes
wide open, staring up at the series of wooden poles that supported the
hides that made the wigwam in which he had lost his virginity.

   When Molly raised her head, his eyes slid sideways in their sockets and
he took a breath.  Molly could see the uncertainty in his eyes, and she
kissed his shoulder softly.

   "Good morning husband." she said in a soft whisper.

   He smiled weakly, then more strongly, his eyes clearing.

   "Thank you." he whispered back.

   She kissed his shoulder again and then sat up, the furs falling off her
body.  She had thought she would be timid and ashamed, but after last night
she knew she could appear naked before this man any time in the future and
be proud.  She'd have to watch that inclination.  In her mind one night was
as far as she would take this.

   Sarah's eyes opened as Bobby moved, and she licked her lips.  Bobby
rolled his head her way and she blushed, but did not roll away from him. 
She looked over at her mother, who stood.  The inside if her thighs still
glistened with the wet she and Bobby had created.  Sarah's eyes opened
wider as Molly bent to look at that wet and sighed.

   Then, as if nothing untoward had happened, Molly said "I'd like to get
back to the ranch today if it's at all possible.  Your father will be
frantic with worry for both of us."

   Sarah blinked and then sat up convulsively.  Her breasts were only a
foot from Bobby's eyes and he looked at them, before sliding his eyes up to
her lower lip, which was bitten gently between her teeth.  She let it go
and said "Yes, Mamma."

   Both women got dressed and Molly threw Bobby his clothes.

   "Come on ...  husband ...  your women need to get back to their lodge."

   The old woman was already up and stirring something in a clay pot in the
fire.  She grinned at them and pointed to it, pantomiming eating.  Bobby
shook his head, but went over to the woman and leaned over to kiss her
cheek.  She beamed at him.

   Their horses were already waiting for them outside.  There were also
footprints of moccasins, many footprints.  They stood in pairs, or singly,
facing the teepee.  It was obvious they had stood there ...  listening ...
as Birthing Woman worked her medecine on the white man and his women.

   The sun wasn't quite up yet, but they didn't dally.  Instead they
mounted silently and rode at a slow walk through the camp.  Only a few
women were out and about, and none paid them any attention.

   They didn't talk for almost a mile.  Then Molly got the story of
everything that had happened out of Sarah, and answered her questions. 
They rode a ways behind Bobby, who didn't try to overhear their
conversation.  Instead he rode ahead, following the same trail they had
ridden in on.  He planned to cross the river before striking out directly
toward the Circle C ranch, where he hoped he would be received well.

   =====================

   Frank was also up before dawn, chilled to the bone, and on his horse,
with only jerky for breakfast.  He had no idea what he'd do when he reached
the Indian encampment, assuming he could even find it.  The only thing he
knew was that, if his mother and sister were in it, he would somehow get
them and take them home.

   He hadn't slept well, and was still tired.  He had nodded off, his head
bobbing as the horse followed an obvious trail, when his horse whickered.
His head came up instantly and a pistol was in his hand and cocked before
he realized he'd done that.  He looked ahead and saw three horses, with
people on them.  They were crossing the river and coming toward him.  He
saw red hair and kicked his horse hard in the ribs, leaning forward to
counter what he knew would be an explosive leap.

   It only took him three minutes to reach them and, for some reason the
pistol was still in his hand when he skidded to a stop and his eyes took in
the bedraggled look of his mother.  His sister was dressed like an Indian,
of all things.  And then there was the sheep boy, sitting his horse and
looking at him.  All that was in his hands were the reins of his horse. 
Half of his mind took in the appearance of that horse.  It was a stallion,
solid black and huge - at least sixteen hands high.  It was a beautiful
animal, and the boy sat him well.

   The other half of his mind concentrated on the women.  His mother smiled
at him, and Sarah smiled too.  Both were tired smiles.

   "You don't need that pistol." said Molly gently.  "We're fine.  Where is
your father?"

   "What happened?" he asked, his voice cracking.  "What have you been
doing?"

   "Where is your father, Frank?" asked his mother tersely.

   "Oh!" said Frank, a sheepish look coming across his face.  "Well ...  um
...  they came back from looking for you, and said they couldn't find you,
and they went to bed ...  and I didn't think they'd looked hard enough ...
and ..."

   "You rode off by yourself?" Molly's voice didn't sound like a victim
now. There was steel in it ...  mother's steel.

   "Well I HAD to find you ..." he said weakly.

   "Frank, the men who took your sister would have killed you with no
compunction if you'd caught up with them." Molly said, her voice strained.
"If it hadn't been for Bobby they might have killed ME if I would have
found them!"

   Frank looked at Bobby, sitting on his horse, saying nothing.

   "What happened?  How did you hook up with him?" There was anguish in
Frank's voice ..  the anguish of a teenaged boy, trying hard to act like a
man, and not being appreciated for it.

   Molly rode close to him, their horses greeting each other, and she began
to speak in low tones.  Sarah's horse drifted closer to his too, the
animals enjoying being with other horses that were familiar.  Bobby sat and
listened as they told the story.  They didn't embellish, as far as he could
determine.  The only thing that was said that wasn't completely factual was
when he heard Sarah say that the Indians had let them stay the night and
fed them.  That was all she said about what had happened after the fight.

   Frank turned his head toward Bobby and nodded.

   "Much obliged" he said, parroting what he'd heard his father say on
occasion.  He wanted to say more ...  much more ...  but he didn't know how
to say it.

   Instead he then told them all what had happened from his point of view,
assuring Bobby that his family was fine.  No one seemed to know what had
happened to Buford, but it was a fair guess that he wouldn't be seen in
these parts ever again.

   Then Frank thanked Bobby again and announced that he would take his
mother and sister back to the ranch.

   "No." said Molly firmly.  Both Frank and Sarah gaped at her.  She
addressed Sarah.

   "Bobby rescued you.  It is his right to return you to your family." she
said calmly.  Frank, you'll be in a lot of trouble with your father for
leaving like you did.  Now he's worried about all three of us.  You will
ride back the way you came, where he is no doubt following by now, and meet
him.  Tell him to return to the ranch."

   "But ..." Frank moaned.  He had been thinking that he could return home
triumphant, and that he would then be forgiven for his rashness.

   "No buts." said his mother.  "And if your father allows it, I want you
to report to the Rocklins too.  No ...  TELL him I said you are to report
to the Rocklins that Bobby is well, and will be home soon."

   "Yes, Mother." said the dejected boy.

   Then Molly turned back to Bobby.  "I'd like it if you'd take us home
now, Bobby.  I'd like a bath." she said simply.

   ====================

   Wyoming is a big place, and there are many ways to get from one place to
the other.  The fact that Frank knew where he was going, and took
shortcuts, and the fact that Jonas was following a particular trail, and
the fact that Bobby took the most direct line toward the Circle C ranch,
was what was responsible for the fact that the Jonas and his men missed
both Frank and his rescued family, riding right between them, across the
river, and then into the Indian village.

   Frank, when he reached the clearing where Chaps was now buried, saw
clearly the tracks of his father's horses, and knew, with a sinking
feeling, that he had missed them.  He wondered whether he should turn
around and follow them, or, since he was so close to the high meadows, just
go on up and let the Rocklins know that Bobby was safe.  It would be much
easier to face them than it would be to face his father.

   He turned his horse up the mountain.

   ===================

   The three men rode into the Indian camp wary, their hands on their
weapons, not knowing what to expect.  Jonas knew of this tribe, and knew
that there had not been any trouble with them for a long time.  Still, he
was nervous.

   There was a delegation waiting for them.  One man, bigger than the rest,
stepped forward and stood calmly, unarmed.

   "Yah tah ho" he said, raising his hand.  "There are many white people
visiting us."

   Jonas tensed.  "Where?  I'm looking for my wife and daughter."

   "I am Man Who Runs Like A Deer." said Man Who Runs Like A Deer
patiently, exasperated at how rude these white people could be.

   Jonas took an angry breath, but Buckshot spoke before he could.

   "We come from the Circle C ranch." he said.  "This man's women have been
stolen from him."

   Man Who Runs Like A Deer nodded sagely.  "There are many women being
stolen recently.  Another man was here one sun ago, and claimed his two
women in battle.  They are all who were here.  We have no more."

   Jonas looked at Buckshot, who shrugged his shoulders.  Then he looked at
the Indian, and with obvious patience, asked "What did this man and these
women look like?"

   The Indian looked around and gestured to a young woman standing a way
from him.  He spoke to her in his native tongue and she came forward.

   "Tell these men what they want to know." Man Who Runs Like A Deer said
to Swallow Tail in their language.  "I am tired of talking to white men."
He turned and walked off.

   "Hey!" said Jonas angrily.

   "Please" said Swallow Tail.  "Step down.  I will tell you what
happened."

   "What about him?" asked Jonas plaintively.

   Swallow tail looked to make sure the Indian was out of earshot.  "He is
embarrassed by his poor knowing of your language." she said, smiling.  "He
has asked me to help you."

   The men got down and were immediately approached by other women who
offered them food.  Peter and Buckshot accepted it gratefully, having eaten
only cold food for two days.  Jonas was impatient.

   "The older woman had hair like the yellow in a fire." said Swallow Tail,
warming to her story.  "And the younger hair like the sun.  I do not know
their names.  Sun hair was taken from bad men in battle, by one of our
braves, who wanted to keep her for his wife."

   Jonas' face darkened and he frowned mightily, but Buckshot put a hand on
his arm and squeezed.

   The girl went on.  "A man came, riding a wild stallion.  His other
woman, Fire hair, was with him and they had an extra horse.  He demanded
the return of his woman - sun hair." Swallow tail loved to tell stories.

   She embellished a little, to make the story better.

   "Many men of our people wanted to take fire hair from him.  She was
beautiful in their eyes.  But the man ...  called Bah-bee was strong, and
demanded to fight.  His fighting was odd, but he bested Sees Long Distance,
and won his wife back.  My Grandmother, Birthing Woman saw that Fire Hair
was empty and sad, and helped them.  He left with both his wives this
morning."

   "But that's MY wife!" Jonas exploded.  "And the other one, with the
yellow hair ...  that's my daughter!"

   Swallow Tail's eyes widened.  This could mean a lot of trouble.  When
Swallow Tail had come home to announce that she had gotten Sees Long
Distance's ...  attention ...  her grandmothermother had proudly claimed
that surely the Great Spirit had smiled upon Bah-bee and his older wife, as
their coupling had been both entertaining and industrious.  Birthing Woman
had given the younger woman some of the herbs, the gift-that-makes-babies,
as a present to take with her and use later.  Swallow Tail had been
surprised that a white man would have two wives - she had never seen that
before - but she was more concerned with being presented with an
opportunity to get Sees Long Distance under a blanket with her, and had
ignored everything else.

   She folded her arms and said gravely "They are gone.  You must find them
elsewhere."

   Peter spoke for the first time.  "And there are no white women in this
camp at all?"

   "None." said Swallow Tail firmly.

   The men huddled briefly.  It was Peter who asked Swallow Tail to show
them the direction that this "man" and his "wives" left in.  She did them
one better than that.  She showed them the tracks of the party.

   To their chagrin they saw that they had ridden over them as they
approached the Indian encampment.  All their attention had been on the camp
or they would have seen the tracks themselves.

   With disgust in his voice, Jonas ordered Buckshot to follow the trail.
Peter looked over his shoulder and smiled at the Indian girl, thanking her.
She smiled back.

   "Maybe your people might want to trade for some beef." he said.

   Swallow Tail smiled wider.  "We have many things to trade." she said in
a remarkably coquettish manner.  "Perhaps I will get to trade with you
myself."

   Jonas yelled at his son, who tipped his hat to the girl and cantered
off. He looked back over his shoulder twice before he caught up to the men.
Both times the girl still stood there watching him leave.  He compared her
in his mind to Beth.  Looking back to the front he realized he had been
thinking of the Indian girl dressed in Beth's dress.  Now Beth's face took
the Indian girl's place.  He frowned, wondering what was making him think
these thoughts.  He pictured Beth in the Indian girl's buckskin dress.  He
felt his penis begin to stiffen yet again.

   CHAPTER EIGHT

   Enid Rocklin sat on the porch and stared out at sheep.  She was bored.
She was always bored up in the high meadows.  The flat space that grew such
lush grass was surrounded on most sides by mountains, some of which still
had patches of white clinging to them.  Enid wondered for maybe the
hundredth time what it would be like to look out at the world from way up
there where the snows still sat.  But that would take time away from
tending sheep ...  too much time according to her father, who had snorted
when she asked to go up there one time.  He had laughed and said there were
mountain lions up there that would make a quick snack of her.  Why was it
that men - her mother had applauded the idea - why was it that men all
thought that just because you were female and had bumps on your chest that
you couldn't do anything?

   She stared at the mountains.  Maybe if she took someone with her her
father would let her go some day.  That thought led to who she could get to
go with her and, suddenly, the image of Frank Collins was in her mind.  She
blinked.  She didn't know what to think about Frank Collins.  He was a boy,
and usually that didn't get you anywhere at all with Enid Rocklin.  Boys
were a pain in the behind.  But something about him wasn't so ...  so ...
so whatever it was that made her want to kick boys in the shins.  She
hadn't been around any boys since they'd left Oregon.  Well, there was
Bobby, but he was a pain in the behind, always lording it over her because
she was younger than him.

   Frank was different somehow.  She remembered seeing him on that big
horse that pranced and ran and bucked a little.  And Frank had sat there
like he was glued to the saddle.  She knew what it took to ride like that.
Her father still sometimes almost fell off a horse when it moved suddenly.
Beth rode, but carefully, like she was afraid of breaking the horse ...  or
herself.  Her mamma had taught Enid to ride while the men were off with the
sheep.  And her mamma could ride like a cowboy too.

   She closed her eyes and remembered looking up at Frank while he sat on
his horse talking to her mother.  She had rolled in the dirt in front of
him, to capture that stupid puppy.  She hadn't thought a thing about it
until she stood up, dusty and with grass clinging to her buckskins.  He had
been looking at her like she was strange.  Normally she'd have stuck out
her tongue at him, but for some reason she was unhappy that he'd seen her
like that.

   She remembered running to lead him to pappa, and how she had felt like a
deer being chased by a hunter.  When she'd fallen she reacted automatically
in a move that Xian Bai had taught her while they wrestled.  He had taught
her a lot of things that only Chinamen seemed to know.  He could use that
six foot long staff of his to keep a wolf at bay and even kill it, with
whirling lightning strikes that were so fast the eye couldn't follow them.
Seeing him do that one time had left her feeling weak, with a funny feeling
in the pit of her stomach.  She had thought it was just fear.  Wolves
usually didn't come near people.

   But seeing her father preparing to shoot Frank had made her feel the
same way, and the feeling had continued as the boy rode up full tilt and
demanded to be shown the tracks that might lead him to his mother.

   And he'd gone off to find her too!  All alone, and so young!  Well, he
was only a year older than her ...  but would she do that?

   She nodded to nobody.  Buster ran up to her, trailed by two puppies, to
check in.  Enid gave the dogs some loving and sent them back out.  The
puppies were growing up and learning their trade.  She had called them
stupid, but they weren't.  They were proving they were just as smart as
their parents.  Sometimes she felt like a puppy.  Her mind drifted back to
Frank.  HE made her feel like a puppy.

   She remembered kissing him.  She hadn't meant to, but the urge had been
overpowering for some reason.  She remembered riding way too fast away from
him, the taste of his lips on hers, slightly salty.  She had been
astonished that she'd done that.  Kissing a boy?

   She couldn't believe she had told him she wanted another kiss.

   Yet right now she wished she could kiss him again.  That was silly.  Her
pappa kissed her mamma a lot ...  WAY more than was necessary to tell her
he loved her.  He loved Enid - she knew that deep in her bones - but he
didn't kiss her like she was thinking of kissing Frank Collins.  He kissed
her mamma like she was thinking of kissing Frank Collins.  She felt
suddenly hot.  Her nipples itched and she scratched at them.  It felt good.


   Her whole body felt hot and she thought about taking off her clothes. 
She got up to go inside, out of the sun.

   ================================

   Frank walked his horse up the trail.  He was going to be in so much
trouble when he got back.  He was going to be in so much trouble he had no
idea in the world what his punishment would be.

   Trying to find something more pleasant to think about he thought about
where he was going.  They'd be happy to hear that their son was all right.
And maybe he'd get to see that girl again.  What was her name?  Enid.  Yes,
that was it.  The strange girl with a strange name.  He hadn't met many
girls, and for sure he'd never met one like her.  She ran like an antelope,
easy and with long ground eating strides.  And her chest.  He thought about
her chest and his eyes went out of focus.  He knew just a little bit about
breasts.  His mother hugged him sometimes, and pressed hers against him. 
He noticed that, when his mother was dressed and hugged him, it felt
completely different than when she was in her nightgown and hugged him good
night.  Then her breasts felt soft and warm and squishy.

   And Sarah hugged him too, once in a while, pressing her smaller ones
against him.  He'd seen Sarah's, when they were younger and bathed
together. He'd seen the bumps begin to grow on her flat chest and about
that time they didn't take baths together any more.  But one time they had
been taking lunch to the men, out at the herd, and on the way back they'd
stopped at the big pond to swim.  It had been years since he'd seen her
naked, and she only took off her clothes down to her shift, but when it got
wet he could see clear through it.  Her bumps had turned into huge lumps
with things on the end that must be just like his own, which stood out
whenver it was cool.  She had splashed water at him for looking, but hadn't
gotten mad.

   Enid's breasts were bigger than Sarah's, though not so big as his
mother's.  And she had had those bumps on the tips of her breasts too ...
sticking out through the leather she had been wearing.  He remembered her
upper chest, covered with freckles, and wondered if her breasts were
covered with them too.  He liked the freckles across her nose and under her
eyes.  They made her look like she was smiling or something.  The last time
he'd seen those freckles they had been inches from his eyes as she had
kissed him.  Just like that her face had come close and her lips had
touched his, astonishing him.  It had been over so quickly, and then she
had turned and galloped off and his stomach had hurt for some reason.

   He saw the tree branch in front of his face with only the instant's time
it took to lean sideways and back in the saddle to miss getting it in his
face.  He looked around.  Thinking about a girl could get you in trouble.

   But there was no trouble on the trail.  His horse was completely
comfortable, plodding along.  His mind drifted back to Enid.  He couldn't
stop thinking about her.

   Frank walked his horse around a pile of boulders and saw good, tall
grass spread out before him.  He was astonished at how vast the high
meadows were.  He saw the line shack in the distance.  There was smoke
coming from the chimney, and a horse grazing outside the shack, but he
didn't see the wagon.  He was greeted almost immediately by a barking trio
of dogs.  The largest was the dog he knew was named Buster.  The puppy
named Zeke and one other pup about the same age were with him.  Once Buster
had sniffed at him, he bounded off toward where Frank could barely see the
backs of a large number of sheep that grazed in small groups.  Buster
seemed to just run around between these groups, followed by the puppies.

   He looked up and saw that someone had stepped out of the shack.  He felt
a little jolt run through his body as he realized it was Enid.  She had a
rifle in her hands.  He rode ahead and felt his heart thumping in his
chest. He smiled, admitting to himself that he was excited to see the girl
again.

   This time he didn't have the safety of his mother and sister to distract
him, and as he rode up and saw her smiling face, he felt his groin tighten.
She was dressed as before, in leather, and again he couldn't seem to make
his eyes leave her chest.

   "Well if it isn't mister big strong cowboy." said Enid.  "I thought you
were off chasing your mamma."

   Frank flushed at her implied statement that he was just a little boy. 
In any other situation he probably would have responded with anger.  But
there wasn't derision in her voice.  Rather there was a familiar teasing
tone that suggested she didn't actually think he was a little boy at all.

   "I found them." he said simply.  "Your brother is fine."

   Enid was shocked.  Part of her - the girl part - DID think of this young
man as just a boy, out on a lark, trying to show the world what a man he
was.  Another part of her - the woman part - saw him as that man already,
strong and skilled, and able to take care of himself and those he loved. 
Standing over Chaps' body he had been strong and calm, while she wanted to
throw up.  The fact that he was successful in his pursuits tipped the
scales toward that part of her who saw him as a man.

   She stared at him, strange feelings going through her body.  She
realized that her breasts felt tingly, where the leather caressed them.  It
was a nice feeling, like when she was riding hard and her breasts moved
around under that leather.  She realized he was staring at the very part of
her she was thinking about.  In most situations that would have made her
mad.  She realized she liked it when he looked at her though.  Still, she
was glad she hadn't gotten naked.

   "Aren't you going to get down?" she asked.

   "I just came to tell your parents that your brother is fine, and that I
found my sister and mother." he said.

   "That was nice.  Where are they?" Enid asked, making exaggerated
movements to look around him at someone.

   "Your brother is taking them back to our ranch." said Frank, feeling
uncomfortable for some reason.

   Enid's mouth fell open.  "What?  Why would he do that?" She looked at
him.  "Why didn't YOU do that?"

   Frank looked up at the sky, which was dark blue and full of fluffy white
clouds.  "Well ...  my mamma ...  my mother ...  said that he had saved
them, and that it was his right to return them."

   Enid, thought of Bobby as most sisters think of their brothers - as a
pain in the behind.  She was shocked at the idea that her brother could
save anybody from anything.  "You need to get down off that horse and tell
me what happened."

   "Go get your parents." said Frank somewhat crossly.  "I don't want to
have to tell this story more than once."

   "They're not here.  They went back to get the rest of the flock and
drive them up here." said Enid.

   Frank blinked.  "They left you here alone?" he asked, astonishment in
his voice.

   Enid bristled.  "I'm NOT alone.  I have Buster and Zeke and Paps with
me. I also have this!" she held up the Winchester in her hands.  "I can
take care of myself just fine mister big strong cowboy!"

   Frank felt unhappy that that tone was back in her voice.  His
reflections on her as he rode up here hadn't included that tone of voice.
He remembered it now.  He liked it a lot more when she was less acid.  "I'm
sorry.  It's just that you're ..."

   "A girl?" she finished for him.  There was the hint of danger in her
voice.

   "No!" he said hurriedly.  "You're just young ...  that's all."

   "I'm fourteen" she said proudly, sticking her chest out.  Frank almost
groaned as she did that.  "You can't be much older yourself, mister big
strong cowboy." she said.

   "Would you please stop calling me that?" he asked plaintively.  "My name
is Frank, and yes, I'm fifteen." He was having a hard time thinking about
what he wanted to say ...  and how to say it.

   "Well, if you want to live to be sixteen, you get down off that horse
and tell me about my brother.  You can't be talking about Bobby.  He's so
stupid he couldn't save a lamb from falling in a hole."

   Enid's obviously juvenile reaction to the idea that her brother ...  who
appeared to be about the same age as he was ...  caused Frank to want to
smile.  He felt the urge to needle this disturbing girl a little.

   He got down and, like many in the West, couldn't resist making the story
just a little bit better than the mere truth of things.  He began to spin a
tale of heroics, and fighting Indians, and battling storms.  He thought
about throwing some outlaws in there for good measure, but decided that was
going too far.  By the end of his tale Bobby had fought and killed five or
six grown men and Frank's sister Sarah was pining over him.  He told that
part without thinking much about it and it was only after that that he
realized he had suggested there was a romance between a sheep herder's son,
and a cow rancher's daughter.  It was that thought that cut his voice off
as if with a knife.

   Enid had been mesmerized by the story.  And, being young and
inexperienced, she had taken the bait, hook, line and sinker.  It fired her
imagination, and when he stopped talking she was almost panting.  Frank saw
those bumps on the front of her shirt again, and stared at them.

   "I can't believe Bobby could do all that!" she said breathlessly. 
"KILLED Indians?!  MY brother?  My stupid old ...  " She looked startled as
her glazed eyes cleared.  "I guess maybe he's not as stupid as I thought."

   Enid's now clear eyes saw where Frank's now glazed eyes were fixed. 
Again she felt the rush of heat in her belly that went along with the
knowledge that she had something to offer that a man was interested in.

   "You sure stare at my chest a lot." she blurted.  She clapped a hand
over her mouth and flushed bright red.  She hadn't meant to say that.

   Frank's eyes cleared instantly and he blushed too.  "I'm sorry, Ma'am"
he said in a formal instinctive way.  "It's just that ..." he floundered,
not knowing what to say.

   Enid tried to get control and also reverted to social training.  "Well
you're very impertinent."

   Frank looked miserable.  He stood up.  "I'll just leave." he said.

   "No!" blurted Enid, again not meaning to.  "I mean ...  I haven't even
offered you anything to eat!  I mean I haven't been very neighborly."

   Frank was confused, as most men are when they are around a woman for
more than ten minutes.  "But I offended you."

   Enid thought furiously.  Part of her brain was asking "What in the world
are you thinking of girl?" That was directed at the other part of her
brain, which was yelling "I don't want him to go!" All of this, of course,
was the result of the fact that most girls are confused by their own
emotions whenever they're around a cute boy for more than ten minutes.  In
truth, neither of them knew what to do about the feelings each had for the
other.  It was too new.

   "I forgive you!" she blurted.

   Frank looked at her, astonished.  He felt his eyes sliding back to her
breasts, and jerked them upward to find her eyes staring at his.  She
giggled.

   "Really" he pled.  "I'm sorry.  I can't help it."

   Enid felt the power a woman has over a man sometimes.  That was another
new feeling, and one she liked a lot.  As if it were a narcotic, she was
instantly addicted to that feeling.

   "I suppose that since you're just a man, I can understand that." she
said sweetly.  "Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked.  She frowned.  She
hadn't meant for that to come out either.

   Frank felt a lump in his throat.  "Yes, Ma'am, I surely do." he said, on
auto pilot.

   Enid felt a rush of relief and that heat in her belly again at his
compliment.  "You don't have to call me ma'am." she said.  "I'm just a girl
mostly."

   Frank, for once, didn't say anything.  He just looked at her, and the
message in his eyes said much more successfully than his voice ever could
have that he saw her as a woman.

   "May I offer you something to eat or drink?" she asked, her voice
suddenly lower than it had been only moments before.

   "I'd like that very much." he said.

   ===============

   As they rode, Bobby, Molly and Sarah fell into a comfortable silence. 
Once in a while one of them would mention a particularly scenic view, or
notice aloud one of the many spectacular wind-carved rocks they passed, but
for the most part they just moved along.  At one point Molly stepped her
horse up beside Bobby's.

   "We're not going to make it back before dark." she said casually.

   "Doesn't look like it, does it." replied Bobby.

   "We should have begged a few furs from them." suggested Molly.  "You
know how cold it gets at night."

   "All I wanted to do was get out of there." said Bobby.

   "Was it that onerous?" asked Molly.  She knew, the way lovers know, that
he had enjoyed what had happened between them.  She was teasing her
one-time lover.

   Bobby looked at her.  "That was the finest night of my life." he said
seriously.

   Molly blushed.  "Thank you.  A woman can't hear that kind of compliment
enough." She looked a little sad.  "But you know it can't happen again."

   Bobby's eyes didn't waver.  "I know." he said.

   "What are we going to do about tonight?" she asked.

   Bobby shrugged.  "Build a fire.  Huddle under the horse blankets like
last time."

   Molly looked forward.  "Last time was different." she said.

   Bobby looked at her.  "I don't understand."

   Molly smiled.  "I enjoyed last night too, Bobby."

   He looked confused.  "But I thought you said ..."

   "I know what I said." she replied.  "But I know what I'm going to want
to do again tonight if you sleep next to me too."

   "Oh!" said Bobby, even more confused.

   "It's not that easy to control, young man." said Molly, trying to bring
some distance between them.

   "Maybe I should sleep alone." said Bobby, trying to be helpful.

   "It would be too cold." said Molly.

   Bobby's confusion turned to frustration.  "What do you want me to do?"
he asked.

   "I don't have the faintest idea." said the completely grown woman beside
him.

   Sarah rode up on the other side of Bobby.  "What are you two talking
about?" she asked.

   The relationship between mother and daughter had changed immensely the
night before, and they had talked about that together for a long time as
they had ridden this day.  Molly didn't try to keep anything from Sarah
now.

   "We're going to have to spend another night out in the open." she told
her daughter.  "We were just talking about how we were going to do that
without ...  without me doing anything more wrong than I already have."

   "Oh" said Sarah.  Seeing them the night before had been an education for
Sarah that had changed her view on life completely.  That and her mother's
explanations on the trail this day helped her understand, as well as any
virgin can, why her mother had done what she'd done, to include her
mother's unconcern ...  if that's what it could really be called ...  as to
whether Bobby had made her pregnant during the night.  She knew her mother
loved her father, and that what had happened was only because of a unique
set of circumstances that would never be repeated.  Still, because she had
never felt what her mother had felt, it was much more black and white to
her.

   "So just don't do anything." she said simply.

   "We have to sleep huddled up together ...  for warmth." said Molly.

   "But we'll be dressed, right?" said Sarah.

   "Clothes don't always keep things from happening." said Molly wisely.

   "So I'll sleep between you and Bobby." said Sarah.

   "That might be best." agreed Molly.

   "What about me?" asked Bobby.  "Doesn't anybody care how that's going to
affect me?" He was trying to joke ...  to lighten the mood.

   Molly looked over at him.  "When I was pregnant, and Jonas couldn't ...
you know ...  he taught me ways to help a man deal with ...  problems. 
Perhaps you already know of these ways?"

   Bobby looked at her uncomprehendingly.  He'd had plenty of boners in his
young life, but had never stumbled across learning to masturbate.  His
family's sleeping accommodations prevented it in one way, and he had just
never found out that he could do with his hand, what Molly's pussy had done
the night before.

   Molly didn't think it was that strange, though.  She'd never heard of
such a thing until Jonas had begged her to help him.  She had found that
she loved to feel a hard penis in her hand, and watch it spurt fountains of
thick white stuff into the air.  She'd also found, by accident, that that
thick white stuff tasted pretty good too.  The next time she'd tasted it
hadn't been by accident.  Jonas had almost had a heart attack, but that
passed and he admitted that what she was doing was just fine with him.

   "I think I can help you get to sleep." she said.

   She forgot completely how doing that to Jonas had made her feel.

   ====================

   Enid's offer of something to eat and drink had, as sometimes happens
when a young man and young woman are attracted to each other, turned into
conversation, which went on and on.  He accompanied her on her rounds with
the sheep, and they talked more.  In short, he was smitten with her, and
she longed for him in ways she had never experienced before.

   It was while they were in the tall grass that she remembered something.

   "You owe me another kiss." she said.

   Frank stopped, and when she turned around to see where he was he looked
at her lips.  He remembered again the feel of her lips on his.

   "A man always pays his debts." he said through dry lips.

   That kiss turned into another one, which somehow led to more, until the
two of them were clasped in each other's arms, their lips glued together.
It was by accident that they both opened their mouths to try to take a
breath while still kissing, and their tongues touched ever so briefly.  The
electric shock of that led to more tentative touches between their tongues,
and soon it was as if each was trying to suck the other's tongue into their
mouth.

   Frank was achingly hard, something of which he was acutely aware, but
the times she had pressed against that hard column she had not reacted
negatively to it.  In fact, as their tongues dueled for oral supremacy, she
began to press her lower body to his most firmly.  They were evenly matched
in height, and that lump fit squarely into the small triangle where her
legs met her hips.  Enid found that, when he pressed into that area, she
felt the most delicious tingles all over her body.

   In short, Enid came to be in heat for the first time in her life. 
Everything felt so wonderful that she wanted it to go on forever.  This boy
was making her feel so wonderful that she was almost beside herself.  It
was, in fact, that feeling of gratitude that caused her to take things to
the next level.  They had taken great pleasure in becoming completely
breathless while kissing, and occasionally they had to stop to breathe. 
Whenever they did so, his eyes raked over her body, stopping quite often on
the front of her shirt, where the two little bumps he had seen before were
now MUCH larger bumps.

   She saw him staring again, and felt the tingles in her nipples as he
looked.

   "Would you like to see them?" she asked, a little shyly.

   "What?" asked Frank, astonished.

   "Well, you stare at them so much I thought you might like to actually
see them."

   "You'd let me see them?" his voice was high, almost squeaky.

   In answer Enid pulled at the hem of her buckskin shirt, exposing her
flat belly first, then the lower part of her breasts, then her breasts in
all their glory to the boy.  As her hands pulled it up and over her face
her breasts lifted, the nipples looking skyward and slightly to the sides.
Frank felt his penis get even harder.  She dropped the shirt on the ground
beside them and stood, uncertainly, her arms at her sides.

   "Well?" she asked.

   Frank stared, his mouth open.  Enid felt better and better as he
continued to stare.  He licked his lips.  Finally his eyes slid up to hers.

   "You're beautiful." he said breathlessly.

   Thrills shot through Enid.  "Kiss me some more." she said.

   Now, his hands slid all over her bare back, and the thrills got stronger
and stronger.  She wanted to feel his back too, and fumbled to remove his
shirt, their lips still pressed together, tongues lashing.

   It was the feel of his skin against her breasts that pushed Enid to the
next level.  Her hands slid all over his back and then down to hit his
jeans.  Something in her wanted those jeans to be gone, so she could feel
only skin.  The next time they broke to breathe, Enid knelt and began
undoing his pants.  Frank stood, paralyzed, unable to do anything as the
bared his straining, stiff prick.  She made a sound in her throat as it
came into view, almost a purring sound.  She didn't touch it, but stood
back and skinned out of her buckskin pants until she, like him, was naked.

   "Kiss me some more." she said huskily.

   Chapter 9

   As the men from the Collins ranch left the Indian encampment behind
there was a lot of frustration.  Jonas and Buckshot didn't know for sure
where the tracks were leading because they headed back in the direction
they had come.  That suggested that they should have seen the party as they
approached the Indian villiage.  Because they HADN'T seen anyone, Jonas
insisted that some man had stolen his wife and daughter, and had some kind
of control over them, hiding them from the men while they rode by toward
the Indian camp.  Buckshot wondered aloud if it might be that sheepherder's
boy, but Jonas denied that hotly.

   "My wife would never stay with that boy once she had Sarah back." he
said insistently.  "It has to be somebody else.  One of those men that
works for Rocklin.  He's got some kind of control on them or something.".

   They had found the grave in the clearing.  The sign was so mixed up that
it had taken them hours to find where Vixen and Tulip's track led off to
the North.  Peter had wanted to dig up the grave, but Jonas, ice in his
gut, didn't want to see whose body was there.  When Vixen's tracks were
found heading North, he convinced himself that Molly was alive.  Her tracks
were still with those made by the winter shoes, and had left that way too,
but Jonas couldn't abide the thought that a sheep herder's boy could
somehow be in control of his wife and daughter.  He had created a fantasy
in his mind that a cowboy, drifting and looking for work, had somenow
gotten hold of the Rocklin horse, and was protecting the Collins women.

   There were holes in his theory big enough to drive cattle through, but
Jonas didn't think about that.  He had never felt so helpless in his life.

   When they crossed the river, it was clear that the party of three horses
had turned East.

   "Well, the trail turned and looks like it's going back toward the Circle
C." commented Buckshot.  The inference was that he thought they should move
at all speed back to the ranch.

   "We have to stay on the trail." insisted Jonas.  "He may turn off and
take them someplace else."

   "Going to be dark soon." said Buckshot.

   "Well then, we'll just have to spend another night camping, won't we?"
growled Jonas.

   =====================================================================

   Brad rolled off of Amanda, who lay sated after a nice, long, intense
orgasm.  He landed heavily beside her.  He was always an extra attentive
lover when they had been on the trail and then returned to the ranch.

   "I sure do love you, darlin'" he panted.

   "You just love what we just did." she teased.

   "Give me a minute," he breathed.  "and I'll show you how much I love it.
"I'm surprised that Beth isn't in here with a rifle, wanting to know where
the Indians are." she teased some more, referencing the noises they had
made as each reached a pinnacle of passion.

   "Our daughters know what we do in here." he said.

   "Really?" she asked, her eyebrows raised.  "I'm so glad you educated
them on that, because I never have." she continued teasing.  Then more
seriously: "We need to be thinking about finding them husbands soon."
Feeling her husband's semen beginning to seep out of her, she reached
between her legs to press her pussy lips closed.
"We've got to get the rest of the flock up to the high meadows first."
he said, not wanting to think of men doing to his daughters what he'd just
done to his wife.  When they located the flock it had been decided that
only half would be driven up to the high meadows.  Xian Bai and Charley
kept the the other half behind, moving them to new grass on the flats near
the ranch.  Brad had been concerned that there might be trouble on the way
and didn't want to hazard the whole flock.  When there had been no trouble,
other than the dead man they'd buried, they had left Enid and Buster to
watch over the flock, and returned to the ranch to get the other half of

their livlihood.

   "All you think about is sheep." complained Amanda.  "I'm leaking.  I
need something to plug a leak, husband.  Get me something to plug a leak."

   "I have something to plug your leak with woman." he said, rolling back
on top of her.

   =====================================================================

   Back in the high meadows, nature reigned supreme.  The grass grew tall,
and the runnel of snowmelt from higher up ran clear and steady.  Sheep did
what nature had equipped them for, grazing peacefully.

   Not far away, two young humans did what nature had intended for them as
well.

   Neither of them could have described how they had somehow ended up lying
in the grass together, clasping and kissing.  Frank could not have
described what made him want to taste the pink tips of the breasts Enid had
so casually exposed to him.  All he thought of was, that when he did that,
her reaction was immensely favorable.  They would have said that they just
kissed, rubbing against each other in their soft bed of grass, until
somehow, unbeknownst to them, his strong young penis changed from rubbing
up against her sex, into prodding into her sex.  The moment when Enid
rolled with him, like a young colt rolls in the grass in joyful abandon,
and his penis somehow ended up inside her body, was unexpected really. 
Neither of them knew the mechanics of sexual intercourse in any defined
way. What they had seen animals doing was completely different than what
they were doing.  They knew it existed, of course, but would have made a
mess of things if they'd have actually tried to perform that mysterious
act.

   Nature, however, is a good teacher.  When it happened, and Enid felt the
sharp pain, she was in such a heightened emotional state that she felt it
not as pain, exactly, but as simply another sensation piled on top of all
those other new sensations she had so recently been feeling.  Besides, that
pain was fleeting, and was replaced almost instantly by a sensation deep
inside her of completion...  fulfillment...  rightness.

   For Frank, the sensation was slightly different, but just as emotional.
Heat around every inch of his straining prick, triggered in him the
instinct to probe deep...  stay deep...  while his completely unexpected
orgasm almost instantly flushed through his prick and packed the young
girl's womb full to the brim with warm spend.  His passion acted on him by
keeping him hard, and they continued to rub and kiss until nature taught
them that moving inside her was delightful too.  They were innocent in many
ways, though in an insubstantial way they were both aware on some level of
what they were doing.  They reveled in all these new feelings, and made
love for hours.  It was the chilling air that led them to stand, still
naked, their clothes in their hands, and walk, hand in hand back to the
shack...  where there was a bed.

   That night the shack served as what would someday be called a newlywed
penthouse.  They explored every inch of each other's bodies, and even
talked about many things.  But always...  always they went back to him
prodding deep within her, seeding her garden again and again as she
welcomed each burst of heat deep into her body.  In the morning she tried
to hold him there, staying naked, standing naked on the porch as he
tightened the girth on his saddle.

   But he knew he had to return to the ranch.

   "I'll see you again." he said solemnly to her, kissing her one last time
before he mounted.  "Somehow I'll make you my wife."

   Enid rubbed her hands over her smooth, sperm-packed tight belly and
looked up at him.  "You'd better." she said.  She was plenty old enough to
know that what they'd done might cause that belly to be anything but flat.

   "I love you, Enid Rocklin." said Frank firmly from his saddle.

   "And I love you, Frank Collins." she said proudly.

   In a mere fifteen hours, hours that matched, very nearly, the number of
years they had been alive, they left much of their childhood behind them.

  
==========================================================================

   Sarah got the dried meat they had been given by the old Indian woman out
of her saddlebags.  She passed it around while Bobby built a fire.  There
was no rock face to reflect the heat back at them this time.  They had
picked a place by a small stream to stop for the night.

   Bobby had decided that a lean-to might help them keep warm, so he put
one together, piling it high with pine branches.  Then, on impulse, he
built another one against the first, making a tent-like structure that was
buried under pine boughs.  There was a pile of driftwood nearby, left by
some ancient flash flood, so there would be plenty of wood.  It was Molly's
idea to make a hole in the roof and put the fire inside.  That let them use
the horse blankets as a mattress, to lie on.

   Once they were settled in, and ready to go to sleep, Molly told Bobby to
lie down on his back and pull his pants down.

   "Mother!" exclaimed Sarah.

   "I told you I know how to help a man when he can't have sex." said
Molly, as if they were talking about how to bake a pie.  "With what you've
seen already it surely won't hurt you to learn this little trick."

   Bobby blushed a little as, when he lowered his jeans, his already stiff
prick bounced up and slapped hard on his abdomen.

   "Oh my goodness." said Sarah.  "It's already...  hard."

   "In some situations that's the best compliment a man can pay a woman."
said Molly, staring at the object that had brought her so much pleasure the
night before.  "He finds us attractive dear." she murmured.

   Molly got down and sat, leaning on one arm, while, with the other, she
reached out and grasped his penis.  She pointed out to Sarah, who leaned
over him from the other side, how his foreskin slid back and forth,
revealing the prominent knob underneath it.  She then stroked her hand up
and down several times, while the two women stared at the exposing of, and
hiding of, that shiny dark knob.  Molly felt her pussy spurt as she did
this, and realized she was going to want more.

   "You do it dear." she said to Sarah.  "It makes me want to do things
that we have agreed not to do."

   "Should I?" asked Sarah, looking down at Bobby.

   "Please?" he moaned.  He had already learned that a hand sliding up and
down his boner felt fabulous.  It wasn't quite as nice as what he had felt
the night before, but it was still fabulous.

   Sarah tentatively reached out to grasp him and exclaimed about how hard
and soft it felt at the same time.  She gave a few tentative jerks, and
Molly told her to go slower, and more gently.  She saw Bobby close his eyes
and his butt lifted off the ground a little.

   "Now, it's going to make a mess." she said.  "There's something I used
to do for your father." She leaned over and kissed the tip of bobby's prick
while Sarah stroked it.

   "Mother!" gasped Sarah.

   "Hush." said Molly.  She opened her mouth and slid it over the head,
just in time to receive four strong healthy spurts.  She loved Jonas'
taste, and found that Bobby's, while different in some way she couldn't
describe, was just as delicious.  She swirled it around with her tongue,
sucking on the knob to make sure he had stopped.  Then she pulled her lips
back over the knob and sat back up, to taste and swallow.  Her swallow was
loud in the quiet confines of their enclosure.  She licked her lips and
smiled.

   "See?  No mess."

   Sarah and bobby were both slack jawed at what they'd seen.

   "It tastes delicious." said Molly, defensively.  "Now you can go to
sleep." she said, looking at Bobby.

   He pulled his pants back up and, for lack of anything else to do, lay
there.  He didn't think he could go to sleep.  He was still excited.

   Sarah lay down beside him, and Molly settled down beside Sarah.  The
light of the fire made the green boughs over them bright.  Both women
wanted to stroke themselves, but both resisted the urge.  They all lay
there for a long time before sleep finally claimed them.

   =====================================================================

   Molly woke from strange, erotic dreams.  The fire was bright enough that
she knew instinctively that someone had added wood to it recently.  It
flickered, and was smoky, but not too bad.  She heard Bobby moan and turned
her head.  Sarah was lying half on top of his legs, his pants down again.
She heard a slurp as Sarah's mouth pulled up off of Bobby's stiff penis. 
One of Sarah's hands was under her buckskin dress, rapidly digging between
her legs.  Molly watched in awe as Sarah licked the head, and then sucked
at it, stroking Bobby as he lay staring up.  He moaned again and went
rigid. Sarah made a little sound and Molly heard several convulsive gulps
as she sucked at the knob, that hand still now.  Sarah went rigid too, her
other hand making several almost violent pulls at her pussy.  Sarah pulled
her mouth off of him and swallowed again, then sucking the knob again as
white oozed out of the little hole in the tip.  He was still hard as a
rock.

   Molly rolled up onto one elbow, and they both looked at her.

   "You were right Mamma." said Sarah softly.  It does taste good."

   Molly felt a moan work it's way out of her throat.

   "Maybe just one more night." she croaked, and began pulling her clothes
off.

   She showed Sarah how to ride a man, getting her pussy packed with his
sperm in the process.  When he was STILL hard, she showed Sarah how, when a
woman was pregnant, a man could take her from behind.  Sarah already knew
how a woman could take care of herself without a man, so her mother didn't
have to teach her that.

   When Molly lay exhausted again, she had nothing to prop under her
buttocks.  She just went to sleep instead.

   ===================================================================

   It was about noon when Frank heard the sheep and was met by Queen and
her puppy Lisa.  He saw the sheep wagon, again with Amanda at the reins,
Brad riding beside her.  He saw two other men back behind the flock, who
were joined by Queen and her puppy as soon as they had sniffed at him.

   He rode slowly through the sheep to the wagon and tipped his hat.

   "Found your son." he said when the wagon had stopped.  "Seems he saved
my sister.  He's taking her and my mother back to the ranch."

   Amanda raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

   "Thanks" said Brad.  "We appreciate the news."

   Frank didn't mean to say it, but somehow it just bubbled out of his
mouth before he could think.

   "I'm in love with your daughter." he said.

   Both adults stared at him, their mouths open.

   He wanted to put his heels to his horse and run for his life, but
something deep inside him stopped him.

   "I'd like to call on her." he said, his throat tight.

   "Enid?" gasped Amanda.  Beth was in the back, in the wagon.  He had to
be talking about Enid.

   "Yes ma'am." said Frank.

   "What in the world are you talking about?" asked an incredulous Amanda.
"How could you possibly be in love with Enid?"

   Frank blushed.  "I went up there to find you...  to tell you about
Bobby. She was there and we spent some time together.  I don't understand
it myself, really." he admitted.  "But I can't stop thinking about her. 
Please?  It's awful important to me."

   "But you're a cow man." said Brad, frowning.

   "That doesn't matter to me." said Frank.

   "Do your parents know about this?" asked Brad.

   "No sir, I haven't seen them.  Well, I saw my mother when I found them
coming back from the Indian encampment.  But I didn't have much chance to
talk to her.  She was kind of mad at me.  Besides, I didn't know it then."
Frank babbled.  "That I love her, I mean."

   Amanda looked at her husband.  Beth stuck her head out of the flap of
the wagon behind her mother.

   "Indians?" she squeaked.  "You're in love with my SISTER?!"

   Amanda turned her head.

   "Hush Beth." She looked at her husband.  "Time for a rest break, don't
you think?" "Definitely." said Brad.  He looked at Frank.  "Get down son,
you have a lot of talking to do."

   Frank just nodded, and got off his horse.  He had no idea how he was
going to explain all this.  He hoped he didn't get shot in the process.

   ======================================================================

   Molly rode slumped in the saddle.  She had really meant to resist her
urges the night before.  Her mistake, she decided, was in seeing Bobby's
prick in the first place.  Then, when she had awakened and seen her
daughter making love to that stiff thing, she had been unable to control
herself.  In the morning she had had to have him again.  She blamed that on
them sleeping naked after they made love.  When she woke to see Bobby lying
there, his prick stiff yet again, she had felt the hunger in her loins and
lay spread beneath him one more time, letting him release in her another
astonishing orgasm, getting even more of his spunk deep inside her.

   She was now sure she was pregnant.  She had nothing on which to base
that, other than the fact that the boy was a fountain of sperm, and all but
a very few spurts of that sperm had gone directly into her womb.  She
couldn't understand how she could be so ravenous for Bobby, when she knew
she loved her husband more than life itself.  Had she had to choose, she'd
have chosen Jonas instantly, with no regrets at all.  Now she didn't know
how...  or even if she could face Jonas again.

   It didn't help that, when they came out of the little house Bobby had
made for them, that his horse...  that big black stallion...  was in the
process of thoroughly breeding Vixen.  She should have known.  The big stud
had been too interested in the mare for days now.  Still, seeing that long
thick horse cock being shoved into her mare had only wanted her to get the
stud who rode that horse back in her own saddle.

   Her funk had caused her to fall behind.  She straightened up in the
saddle and looked at Bobby, riding easily beside Sarah.  They had been
talking together for hours, sometimes laughing.  Molly felt her heart warm
at that.  Sarah had been through horrible things, but her attitude was
still gay and positive.  She was a strong girl - no, woman - stronger than
Molly had dreamed.  She seemed more serious than she had in the past, but
that was to be expected.  She had seen some of the worst that adults had to
offer.  She had seen a man killed, and had almost been raped.  She had been
captured by Indians, and almost made husband to one against her will.  She
had seen her own mother acting the whore...  had even been taught how to
pleasure a man with her mouth by her mother.  Yet she sat her horse
normally, young, healthy, as if she hadn't a care in the world.

   Bobby, too, amazed her.  She wouldn't have believed a boy - no, a man,
albeit a young man - she wouldn't have believed a man could have behaved as
honorably as he had.  That thought jarred as she realized he had made love
to a married woman and been pleasured by a young virgin, neither of which
would be called "honorable" in town.  But she also knew that the same
things went on in that town, hidden away and done in the dark of night. 
She shook her head.  The two of them up there made a handsome couple.  Her
mind drifted off into a fantasy where Sarah fell in love with Bobby, and
they got married, and Molly got to be around him often...  sometimes
even...

   She shook her head and kicked her horse to catch up.  She wanted to talk
to Sarah.  They were only hours away from the ranch now, and Sarah needed
to be clear on what she could...  and could not talk about when they got
there.

   =====================================================================

   Buckshot reined up, looking at the ground.  "It's obvious they're headed
for the Circle C." he said firmly.

   Jonas scowled.  "All right.  Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe somebody really
is taking them back home.  I still don't understand all that husband and
wife business back there though." he said unhappily.

   "Mebbe he did that just to get hold of them." said Buckshot.  You heard
that Indian girl say that a bunch of them heathens wanted Molly.  Mebbe he
had to act like she was his wife just to get her out of there.  Sarah too,
for that matter."

   "Maybe." admitted Jonas heavily.  He much preferred to think about it
that way than any other way he could think of.

   "Something up ahead." called Peter.  He had been riding further up the
trail, as if he were eager to get home.

   The men walked their horses up to a strange looking structure made of
pine boughs.  The same tracks they had been following led to the structure
and it was obvious the horses had been standing around it too.  All three
men had cocked weapons in their hands as they stepped down to see what was
inside the little Hogan.

   "Pretty snug little nest." commented Buckshot as he crawled back out. 
There hadn't been room inside for all of them.  Jonas had followed Buckshot
in and they had seen that, with the fire at one end, there would have been
room for only a couple of people inside.

   When they got out Peter was standing by a tree, looking at the ground.
"Looks like a horse blanket was spread out here." he said.

   They looked and saw the pattern of the weave of the coarse cloth in the
dirt.  What they couldn't know was, that as Bobby mounted her mother in the
morning, before they left, Sarah's feelings were so strong that she wished
it was her he was mounting.  She had crawled out of the lean to, naked
herself, and had sat in the morning sun, using her mother's comb to comb
the tangles out of her long blond hair.  She had taken the blanket with her
so she wouldn't have to sit on the dirt while she listened to her mother's
orgasmic moans.  She had also lain back and fingered herself to yet another
ecstatic orgasm while the sun warmed her skin.  "Looks like the man might
have some manners after all." commented Buckshot.  "Built a place for the
women to stay warm and slept out here."

   "I'll be damned" said Jonas thoughtfully.  He wanted to believe that
theory too.

   "They've only been gone three or four hours." said Peter, trying to
sound like he knew what he was talking about.  In fairness, he had picked
up some tracking from his father and Buckshot.  He wasn't as good at it as
his little brother, but he'd never thought he'd need to know all that stuff
until lately.

   "All right." said Jonas firmly.  "Let's get back to the ranch.  I know
for damned sure that the cattle have spread out.  We should be seeing some
of them soon.  Maybe we can head them back toward the ranch on the way.  I
hate to delay to do that, but it looks like Molly's in good hands, and
we'll just have to ride back this direction to gather them later.

   His decision is why Molly and Sarah were back home, at the ranch, for
half a day before the men folk got back.

   ================================================================

   Bobby and the women saw some of those strayed cattle as they got closer
and closer to the Circle C.  Molly mentioned that they'd have to be rounded
up, but said her husband could do that, since he didn't seem to care where
she'd been.  She was trying to be angry with him, so she wouldn't feel so
badly for her cheating ways.  She worked herself into a fine funk when they
finally got to the ranch to find it deserted.

   "I'm sure he's out looking for you." said Bobby.  Now that he had them
back, he wanted to return to his own home, where he knew his parents would
be anxious about him.

   "Well he should have found me by now." grumped Molly.

   "Maybe he's out herding the cows." suggested Sarah.

   "He'd better damn NOT be herding cattle while we're missing." said
Molly, getting even more emotional.  She got right back on her horse.  "I'd
better damn NOT find him out there moving cows around while his daughter
and wife are fighting for their lives against wild Indians!"

   "I'm going to go on back home now." said Bobby, standing there
awkwardly.

   Molly surprised them both when she hopped BACK down off Tulip, who she
had decided to ride that morning, and came to Bobby, crushing him in her
arms and kissing him soundly on the lips.  She couldn't keep her body from
rubbing up against his and pushed him away roughly.

   "Thank you for your help." she said evenly.  "Thank you for EVERYTHING."
she said.  Then she kissed him one more time, a lingering kiss, and vaulted
back up onto Tulip, who jumped and took off like she had been shot.

   Bobby looked at Sarah, who was staring at him.  He had decided he really
liked how she looked in her worn Indian dress.  It clung to her body all
over.

   "Would you please haul me some water before you go?" she asked.  "I'd
just about kill for a bath."

   Bobby, knowing he should leave, nodded.  "Happy to." he said.

   She showed him the well, and the bucket, and told him where to go once
he got into the house.  They had a copper tub in a room built just for
bathing in the big house.

   "You gonna heat it first?" he asked.

   She shook her head.  "No, I'm hot and dirty and the cool water will feel
good." she said.

   He hauled two buckets to the house, finding the room easily.  He heard
Sarah's voice in another part of the house.  She was humming.  It sounded
nice.  When he returned with the third bucket, she was in the room, naked,
bent over splashing her hand in the water.  With her back to him, and her
legs slightly spread, all Bobby could think about was what Molly's behind
had looked like as she posed for him, urging him to mount her from behind
like a horse.

   Sarah stood up and smiled.  He held the bucket in front of the lump in
his pants caused by his stiff penis.

   "Two more and I'll be fine." she said.

   "Um...  I didn't think you'd be...  "

   "Naked?" she smiled.  "You've seen me naked plenty lately."

   "Well, yes." he admitted.  "It just feels different now I guess.  I mean
here, in your house...  with your mother gone and all." He still hadn't
dumped the bucket.  He knew the lump in his pants would be plain to see.

   Sarah took the bucket from him and did, indeed, see the lump.  She
poured the bucket in the tub and handed it back to him.

   "Two more please?" she asked sweetly.

   When he came back she was sitting in the tub, or more correctly lying
down in the water as much as she could.  Her ankles were up on the sides of
the tub, which opened up her legs like she had seen her mother do.  The
water level was just about even with her pussy, which she was idly stroking
with two fingers.

   "Pour it on me Bobby." she ordered.

   He didn't know where to let the water hit her, and she cupped one
breast. "Right here." she said.

   The water splashed up into her face and she spluttered, blinking, and
then laughed.  "Maybe that wasn't the best idea." she giggled.  "One more?
Please."

   Like Bobby's sister, Sarah knew instinctively how to get a man to do
things for her.  When he came back again she looked and the lump was still
there.

   "Let's try it here." she laid her hand on her abdomen and then slid it
down into the fluffy hair on her mons.

   He poured more slowly this time, and the water made a cold stream that
made her suck her stomach in.  Then he moved it and it splashed into her
open pussy and she sighed.

   "Ohhh that's nice Bobby." She looked up at him.  "You know...  you need
a bath too." Bobby would have liked nothing more than to get naked and get
in that tub, crowded thought it would be.

   "I really should get home." he said.

   "Just think how much better you would feel on the trip if you weren't so
sweaty and dirty." said Sarah, her eyes lustrous.

   "I really shouldn't." he said.

   "Yes...  you should." She stood and leaned to pull him toward her.  She
had never kissed him, but she had seen her mother kiss him many times, and
it was clear that she liked kissing him a lot.  Not to mention other
things. Though she didn't mention them, Sarah thought about them, and it
made fire blossom in her pussy.

   She managed to get his shirt off and then kissed him, finding that the
touch of his lips only made the fire burn higher.

   No man could have resisted, and Bobby was much more of a man than he had
been a few days earlier.

   Before he realized it he was in the tub and her hands were all over him,
splashing and rubbing at him.  It did feel good.  It felt better than good.
Then she was urging him out, onto the plank floor, where the water dripped
off of them making puddles around their feet as she kissed him again, this
time pressing her naked body against his.

   She felt his prod slide between her legs and touch her where it felt so
good to touch herself.

   She felt the heat and wet that came out of her and coated that stiff
column.  Holding him, she let her weight onto him, urging him to the floor
until he was on his back and she was astride him, kissing him and rubbing
her sex on his stomach like she had rubbed it against that horse.

   He pushed at her.

   "We can't." he said helplessly.

   "I haven't thanked you for saving me." she said throatily.

   "Yes you have." he insisted.  "Last night."

   "All I did was taste you...  not thank you." she said, moving her hips
lower.  "Not like I want to thank you."

   She knew from watching her mother that the thing she wanted inside her
so badly had to be aimed.  She raised her hips and squatted, reaching for
his hardness, and nosed it between slick lips.

   "Sarah" he warned.

   Before he could say anything else she sat down on it like she had seen
her mother sit...  all at once...  feeling the incredible pressure of
something too large forcing it's way up inside her.

   Though she didn't know it, her hymen was already gone, lost to a saddle
when she was still too young to understand that pain.  Now, all she felt
was the fullness of completion.  She was astonished at how empty she had
been, not knowing that that emptiness could be filled like this.

   Her first orgasm caused her to clench his chest skin painfully and he
winced.  It also robbed her of strength, and she leaned forward.  Her
breasts grazed his face and she felt a thrill shoot through her as his
mouth captured a nipple and sucked at it.  Her mother had loved that part
of their lovemaking, asking him to suck hard on her large fat nubs.  Now
Sarah knew why and she pressed the breast against his face as she felt
another orgasm coming.  She realized that having an orgasm while full was
different than what she did to herself, and even what the horse had done to
her.  She ground down, liking the feeling of being prodded deep up inside
her.  Bobby grunted and bucked under her, and Sarah felt something hot and
wet flowing into her deep...  up in there where she liked that prodding. 
This was what she had swallowed the night before...  what had tasted so
good, like her mother had said.  It felt even better pooling in her no
longer virgin womb.

   Chapter 10

   Frank had finally answered all their questions, and told them everything
he knew of what had happened to his mother, sister and Bobby.

   Brad thought for a few minutes.  He called to Beth, who had grown bored
with hearing how brave her brother was.  She came to the wagon.

   "I want you to go back to the house." he said.

   She started to protest.  Brad ignored her and turned to Frank.

   "And you need to go to town and let the Sheriff know about Buford and
Chaps...  that Chaps is dead...  and where Chaps is buried.  Somebody needs
to get after Buford before he leaves these parts forever.  I know he went
up to the high meadows, because I could tell he'd been in the shack.  But I
didn't find any evidence that he was still there.  There's another trail
that leads down the south face of the mountain.  It's wrong for herding
sheep, but a man on a horse could use it.  I think he went that way."

   "I need to get home." said Frank weakly.

   "Your pa is probably back there by now." said Brad.  "Just tell the
Sheriff to meet Beth at the house and she'll bring him up to the camp.  She
can show him where Chaps is buried, and then he can come on up and follow
Buford's trail from there."

   "Yes sir." said Frank.  "I'll do that."

   "And see my daughter safe back to the house on the way." said Brad. 
"Try not to fall in love with her too." he added, half smiling.  He was
impressed with the boy, all things considered.  He had a lot of grit to
take out after his mother alone, like he had.  Maybe his interest in Enid
wasn't so bad after all.

   Beth screeched at her father's last comment.  "You don't need to even
think on that pappa." she said angrily.  "And I can see my own way home."

   "You'll let him take you there, and you'll wait there until the Sheriff
comes." said Brad steadily.  "Now, git!"

   He watched the two young people ride off, and turned to Amanda.

   "What do you think?" he asked.

   Amanda was thoughtful.  "He seems to have a good head.  Enid!  I never
thought Enid would be spoken for before Beth."

   She looked up again at the two teens, now far away.

   "It's a good thing it was Frank and not his brother who showed up.  The
way they were making moon eyes at each other I don't think I'd want to send
her off with him alone." She was thoughtful and quiet for a moment.  "You
know Frank was up there with Enid alone.  And he's awfully insistent about
seeing her again.  I wonder what happened up there?"

   Brad wasn't comfortable thinking about what might have happened up in
the high meadows.  "What are we gonna do if both of those boys want to
spark both of our girls?" asked Brad.

   "The question is, what is Jonas Collins going to do?" replied his wife.

  
=========================================================================

   Molly rode to the North, which was the last place she knew the men to be
working.  She found the herd scattered, as she had thought, and it became
clear the men were nowhere around here.  She had settled down on the ride,
but was still filled with nervous energy.

   She set about grouping cows and starting them to the East and South,
where she knew the pasturage was that Jonas wanted to use next.  She
thought about the dogs Bobby had described to her, and how they helped with
the sheep.  She wished she had a good cow dog now.

  
=========================================================================

   Bobby was gone...  had been gone for over an hour, and Sarah was
dressed, this time in a real dress, when she heard hoof beats.  She picked
up a shotgun and checked the loads and stepped out on the porch.  When she
saw it was her father and brother...  and Buckshot, of course, she stood
waiting for them, and leaned the shotgun against the wall.

   Jonas, in an unexpected and rare display of affection, ran his horse all
the way to the house when he saw Sarah standing there and vaulted to the
ground running.  That carried him up onto the porch and he scooped up his
only daughter and swung her in a circle, almost crying.

   Sarah giggled and hugged her father back until he set her down.

   "Where's your mamma?" he asked anxiously.

   "She's fine Pappa." said Sarah, beaming.  "We got saved by Bobby
Rocklin...  well I did anyway.  She's out looking for you up North.  She's
mighty upset that somebody else got me back instead of you, I think."

   "Out looking for me?" asked her father, incredulously.  "That's the kind
of thing that got her in trouble in the FIRST place!  I swear that woman
has no brain!  Which way did she go?" he asked.

   Sarah pointed to the North.  Her father turned and was obviously going
to go find his wife when Sarah stopped him.

   "Pappa, I'm going to marry Bobby Rocklin." she announced.

   There was pure, dead silence for what seemed like forever.  Buckshot
broke the silence by softly saying "Oh Lordy."

   Jonas didn't go to his horse.  His face got darker and darker until it
looked almost purple.

   "You'll do no such damned thing!" he finally shouted.

   In the past Sarah would have reacted completely differently.  She would
have ducked her head and submissively said "Yes Pappa."

   But this was a completely different Sarah, and her reaction was to raise
her head proudly and say "I most certainly am!" When no one said anything
she went on.  "I was captured by Indians, and Bobby fought to get me free.
I'd still BE there, husband to some Indian if he hadn't come to get me.  I
love him and I'll have him for my husband if it's the last thing I ever
do!" she said forcefully.

   Jonas took a step toward his daughter, his face thunderous.

   "Now Jonas, hang on a minute." said Buckshot, holding his hand out and
letting Jonas walk into it.  "Think about things before you do something
rash."

   "I don't HAVE to think about things." said Jonas angrily.  "My daughter
is NOT going to go off and marry some sheep farmer!" He turned to the girl
in question.  "You don't know diddly about being in love!  I met those
Indians.  We'd have got there and took you back ourselves if that boy
hadn't meddled in our business.  And he took your own mother into danger
doing it!  We were told that some of those Indian men wanted to take her
away from him too!"

   Sarah didn't flinch.  "By the time you got there, I'd have had an Indian
baby in my belly." she said harshly.  "The boy that captured me planned to
make me his wife that very night, and there wasn't anything I could do
about it!  And you'd have killed people, and gotten yourself killed too! 
Bobby managed to get me back safe and sound without killing anybody.  He
fought for me bare handed.  He has great honor with the tribe now!"

   She almost blurted out that they had stayed the night and been served by
an old Indian woman, but bit her lip.  That could stray into areas neither
she nor her mother wanted discussed.

   "I FORBID IT!" shouted Jonas, things final in his mind.  He turned to
Buckshot.  "I'm going to go find Molly and bring her back here.  Don't let
this...  this...  this SHEEP LOVER out of your sight, do you hear me
Buckshot?" He turned to Peter.  "And you get your butt into town and find
the Sheriff and tell him I want that damned sheep farmer arrested for
kidnapping my WIFE!"

   "Jonas..." Buckshot started to plead.

   "I'LL NOT HEAR ANOTHER DAMNED WORD!" Jonas thundered.  "I run this
cursed spread, and you'll ALL do as I damned SAY!  Is that CLEAR?" he
screamed.  Without waiting for an answer he climbed up on his horse and
kicked if viciously, jerking the reins just as viciously and galloping off
to the North.

   Buckshot sighed.  "Well, that didn't go all that well." he said.

   Sarah stuck her chin out.  "I'm gonna marry him Buckshot.  I love him."
She was obviously talking about Bobby.  "I don't care what he says."
switching to talking about her father.  Her stubborn streak, identical to
Jonas', shone from her face.

   "Not today, little missy." said Buckshot.  "You leave here today and
I'll be out of a job.  And I LIKE my job." He frowned.  "Well I did until
lately."

   Peter, knowing that he too had to do what his father had ordered, got
back on his own horse.

   "Be back in the morning." he said.

   "Be careful." said Buckshot.  "The last thing this family needs is
another missing member." He grinned and turned to Sarah.  "And you, little
missy, go inside."

   "Don't call me that!" said Sarah, her voice surly.  "That's what that
awful Buford called me when he tried to rape me."

   Buckshot's eyebrows rose into his hat.  "Now THAT is a story I have to
hear.  Let's go inside, Sarah, and you can tell me what happened."

   Sarah deflated.  She loved Buckshot.  He was like an uncle to her and
she couldn't be mad at him for doing what her father ordered.

   "All right, since you asked me nicely." she said.  "But I'm going to
marry Bobby.  I just want you to understand that."

   "Yes ma'am, I certainly do understand that." said Buckshot grinning. 
"You may have to wait until your Pa dies and goes to Heaven, but I believe
you'll marry the boy."

  
===========================================================================
===

   After what he done with her sister, Frank felt distinctly uncomfortable
being with Beth.  At first she was angry and sullenly quiet, but, as
happens with girls sometimes, she forgot all about her anger and plied him
with questions.  She didn't want to know about what had happened to his
mother and sister.  She was interested in how he and Enid got so close that
he thought he loved her.  She asked very pointed questions too, that made
Frank pointedly nervous.

   It didn't take her long to figure out there was something that had gone
on that he didn't want to talk about.  And it didn't take long for her mind
to stray towards things most people did only when they were married.  But
she couldn't believe that Enid would have done any of those things with
this boy.  She rode silently for a while, thinking about Peter, and the
feelings he caused in her, both mentally and physically.  She had stared at
his lips at the supper table, and wondered what they might feel like
against her own.

   "You kissed her, didn't you?" she probed.

   "I love her." he said for what seemed like the hundredth time.

   "How do you KNOW you love her if you didn't kiss her?" asked Beth
triumphantly.  "So what if I DID kiss her?" asked Frank.

   "What was it like?" Beth asked immediately.

   "Surely you've kissed a boy before." said Frank dubiously.

   "I have not!" she replied heatedly.  "I don't even know any boys I might
want to kiss." she said.  "Except maybe your brother Peter."

   Now Frank was astonished.  "How do you know Peter?" he asked.

   "They came to our house and had supper with us when they were looking
for your mother." said Beth.

   "Oh, yeah...  I knew that." said Frank.  "But that was the only time you
ever saw him wasn't it?"

   "Yes" she said, "But his eyes are so beautiful, and his lips look so
soft..." Frank looked over at her.  She had on a shirt and pants, like a
man.  The wind blew the shirt against her breasts.  They didn't look as big
as Enid's, but there were two very sharp points poking through the fabric.
Beth saw him looking and looked down.  Her hands came up to cover the
bumps.

   "You're a horrible boy!" she accused.  "Looking at me like that!" He
looked back forward and she took her hands away.  "If you did that to Enid
she'd hit you with something."

   Frank was tired of her arguing.  "No she wouldn't" he lashed out.  "She
liked it when I looked!" He clapped his mouth closed and stared stonily
ahead.

   "And what else did you do?" asked Beth.  She'd heard something in his
voice that made the hair on the back of her neck tingle.  "You may as well
tell me.  She tells me everything, you know.  She can't keep a single
secret from me."

   Frank looked over.  "She won't tell you everything about us." he said
firmly.  Beth thought about that for a minute.  Her suspicions grew.  "So
you love her." "Yes."

   "Do you want to marry her?"

   "Yes."

   Just like that...  he'd said "Yes." Beth was stunned.  Her little
sister?

   Beth instinctively went for the throat.  "I bet you HAVE to marry her,
don't you?" He looked straight ahead and didn't say anything.

   "That's IT!" she squealed.  "You HAVE to marry Enid because you..."

   Frank looked at her as the words died on her lips.  "I love her.  I want
to marry her.  I don't HAVE to do anything.  But I WANT to marry her."

   "But did you...  ?" Beth just couldn't see Enid in her mind, doing
things with this boy that it sounded like they might have done.

   "If Enid tells you what we did then fine." he said evenly.  "But I'm not
going to say another word.  Despite his pronouncement he went on.  "I'm
going to marry her, and I don't care if we farm sheep, or cattle, or go off
and do something else." Beth knew now that something had happened up in the
high meadows.  No cow man would agree to raise sheep.  It was unheard of.

   "I can't believe little Enid got do to that before me." she said, mostly
to herself.  Her voice carried though and his head jerked.

   "You'd do that?" he asked incredulously.

   "With the right boy" she said, her nose high.  "If I loved him, and he
was going to marry me."

   "Women aren't at ALL the way I thought they'd be." said Frank, staring
at her.

   "So you DID THAT?" she asked excitedly.  "Really?!"

   "I told you I'm not saying." he growled.

   "What was it like?" she gasped.  "Did she cry?"

   "Of COURSE she didn't cry." he said, defending himself.  "She laughed
and she yelled, but she sure didn't cry." He thought he'd said too much,
and couldn't believe he'd said it at all.

   "She laughed?" sighed Beth.  "Really?  It didn't hurt?  I've heard that
it hurts the first time."

   Frank was caught off guard.  He hadn't talked to many girls at all in
his life, and he sure hadn't had this kind of discussion with one.

   "Maybe it wasn't her first time." he said, not liking that idea one bit.

   "Oh, believe me" laughed Beth.  "She's never so much as even LOOKED at a
boy before.  And if Buford or Chaps or anybody had done anything to her
she'd have scratched their eyes out.  You don't know Enid."

   "I know her well enough to know I want to marry her and be with her
forever." said Frank sullenly.

   "So what was it like for you?" asked Beth.

   "You ask the most strange questions I've ever heard from a girl." he
groused.

   "Oh, come on." she chided.  "If you're going to marry my sister and
she's going to have your babies we're going to be family.  We don't keep
secrets in our family." Her logic was a bit flawed, but she ignored that.
"Was it fun?"

   Frank looked at her like she was crazy.  "Of COURSE it was fun!" he
said. "It was the most wonderful, glorious, amazing thing that ever
happened to me!" He stared at his proposed sister-in-law.  "Why do you
think I want to marry her?" he asked.

   "You're supposed to marry her because you love her, not because you want
to do that all the time." said Beth primly.

   "Well, you try it some time and you'll understand." he said.

   "Maybe I'll try it with Peter." she teased.

   "I don't think that's a good idea.  My Pa is just going to have a shit
fit when he finds out about me and Enid."

   "Don't curse" said Beth.  "It's vulgar." She grinned to show she wasn't
really offended.  "What's Peter like?" she asked.

   For another five miles she plied him with questions about Peter, and
what Peter liked, and didn't like, and if he had any girlfriends, and
anything else she could think of to ask.  When they finally arrived at the
Rocklin ranch Frank was more than glad to be rid of her.  He couldn't wait
to see Enid again, but if he didn't have to talk to Beth for a while it was
just fine with him.  He worried about what he'd told her all the way into
town.

   ==================================================================

   Jonas topped a low hill and saw the group of cows his wife had gathered,
with her in the back, waving her lariat and hooting at them to move them
along.  He watched as she cut away from the small herd to go chase two more
cows into the group.  She sat a fine horse, and her movements were fluid
and practiced.  He didn't know many women who could wrangle steers.  His
heart ached with pride at seeing her working and he forgot completely that
he was angry with her.  Her actions fit with his image of her.  Chase after
her daughter, get her back, come back to the ranch, and life goes on.  He
realized he was skidding over some details, but that's how he wanted to
think of his daughter's return.  He found it easier to accept that his wife
had retrieved her, and that that damned sheep boy had just been there,
watching.  He waved to her and kicked his horse forward.

   Molly saw him coming.  His wide wave suggested that perhaps he wasn't as
angry with her as she expected him to be.  Molly knew Jonas, and knew that
he'd tell her how foolish it was for a mere woman to go traipsing off into
the wild like that.  He had no clue as to now strong the mother/child bond
was.  She'd have gone looking for either of the boys too, if she'd have
been worried about them.  He was grinning when he rode up, and that made
her feel better.  she remembered she was supposed to be angry with him, but
her heart wasn't in it.  Then she remembered what she'd done with Bobby,
and that made her feel worse.

   "Well," he said, reining in beside her.  "Nice to see you decided to
come home to me."

   Molly looked at him.  There was something in his voice...  something
that sounded uncharacteristic...  like worry.

   "You're a rough old bull I suppose," she said, "but I've sort of gotten
used to you."

   "You all right?" he asked.

   "Thanks to Bobby Rocklin I am." she said without thinking it through.

   Jonas reacted instantly.

   "Why is it everybody's talking about that damn sheep boy?" he snarled.
"Your daughter" - he always called Sarah Molly's daughter when he was upset
with her - "is back there claiming she's going to marry that piece of
filth!"

   Molly was at once stunned, and then almost immediately completely at
ease with the idea that Sarah might find Bobby Rocklin suitable as a man.
Of course she was a little biased, but then she knew Bobby better than
anyone in her family did.  Her husband's last words registered in her mind.

   "He's not filth Jonas.  He's anything BUT filth.  He's a strong young
man, who is brave beyond his years.  He helped us Jonas.  If it weren't for
him I might not be here right now."

   "And that's ANOTHER thing!" groused Jonas, remembering to be mad.  "What
in the world were you thinking?  Going off like that.  You could have been
killed!  We found where you were at that place where somebody had been
killed.  I don't even know WHO that was, but you were there, and YOU could
have been killed too!"

   "I went to try and help my little girl when I knew she was in trouble."
said Molly sternly.  "And I'll do it again if I have to.  I was just lucky
beyond measure that Bobby was there to help.  If it hadn't been for him you
wouldn't have a daughter to marry off you dolt!" she shouted.

   "What are you yelling at me for?" Jonas knew that tone of voice.  When
she got good and mad she could stay that way for a week, and make his life
miserable in the process.  "I tried to find you.  I tried to find Sarah
too. That boy just got there first, that's all."

   "That BOY almost got KILLED getting Sarah away from those Indians!"
yelled Molly.  "He didn't HAVE to do that Jonas.  He did the honorable
thing and helped those in need.  And all YOU can do is curse him!"

   Jonas knew he had to calm her down.  Something that had been niggling at
him bubbled up though, and he had to ask.  "What was all that husband and
wives stuff the Indians were talking about?"

   The effect of that question on Molly was astonishing.  She calmed
immediately, as if she'd never raised her voice at all.  She looked pale
too, and took a deep breath.  Jonas' eyes strayed to her breasts.  He'd
always loved her breasts.

   "He had to do that Jonas." she began.  "When we got there and asked for
Sarah, they said she was claimed in battle.  The man who was killed up
there was killed by the Indians.  He was one of the men who had taken Sarah
and were trying to rape her."

   "RAPE?!" shouted Jonas stunned.  "Nobody said anything about rape!"

   "Well, if I know you, nobody had much chance to say anything about
anything." said Molly.  "She said she wanted to marry him before she told
you what happened, didn't she?"

   "Well..." Jonas paused, thinking back.  "I guess she did at that.  I
don't reckon I know exactly what happened out there."

   "Get down Jonas, we need to talk." said his wife.

   "They raped my little girl?" Jonas' voice trembled.

   "No." said Molly firmly.  "It was a close thing, but she's fine.  Get
down Jonas.  Let me tell you what happened.  Then you can decide who to be
mad at."

   Jonas missed the tone in her voice that, had he been listening closer,
might have suggested that he might end up being mad at her.  His bedroll
was still tied behind the saddle, and Molly's fingers flicked at the ties
holding it.  she spread the blankets out on the grass as they both ignored
the little herd of cattle she'd gathered.  They were content to graze where
they stood.

   It took an hour, during which, with each part of the story, Molly
watched her husband's face closely, gauging what parts to go into more
detail on, and what she might be able to leave out.  When she described
what happened in the Indian village, she told the truth, or part of the
truth, but emphasized the danger to Bobby, and the injuries to Sarah. 
Jonas had loved to fight in his youth, and she could tell from his reaction
to her description of the fight with Sees Long Distance that he was
impressed.

   "And then he brought us back here." she finally said.

   "Yes." said Jonas, his mind still on the story.  "We found where
somebody made up a little hut for you and Sarah.  We saw where he had slept
on a saddle blanket outside."

   Molly remembered coming outside that hut, Bobby's semen still dripping
from her pussy, to see Sarah sitting on a horse blanket, stark naked,
calmly combing her hair.  She let Jonas think what he wanted to think.

   "So you see?" she probed.  "He did things for her that would make any
woman fall in love with him.  She'll probably think differently on it
later, when she's had some time to get over all this."

   Molly was quite sure in her own mind that Sarah would NOT think
differently in the future...  not if she'd announced to her father that she
wanted to marry the boy.  She shook her head.  She would have to stop
thinking of him as a boy.  She almost laughed as she realized that in at
least one way she thought of him only as a man.  But she sobered as she saw
Jonas thinking.

   "You remember when you got in that fight with Danny Trimble over me at
the dance?" she asked.

   Jonas smiled.  "Yes, that was a good fight."

   "It was that fight that made me notice you Jonas...  made me want to do
things with you..." She bit that off.  That was too close to what had
happened with Bobby.

   "I could see it in your eyes." he said looking at her.  "And you were so
beautiful.  I couldn't get you out of my head."

   "I missed you Jonas." said Molly.  "I thought about you a lot."

   "Really?" he grinned.  "And just what did you think about?"

   Molly unbuttoned her shirt.  The last person she had unbuttoned it for
was Bobby, and she felt guilty about that.  But she knew she loved her
husband.  She pulled it apart.  "I missed the way you look at me." she said
as he stared at her heavy breasts, their nipples erect.  "It was cold at
night, and I needed you to keep me warm." she said, working at her pants to
slide them down off her hips.  "But you weren't there Jonas.  They thought
he was my husband, but he wasn't.  You weren't there Jonas and I needed
you."

   Jonas Collins was a simple man.  He could have heard all kinds of things
in his wife's voice, including shame, and guilt and confession.

   But what he heard was his woman saying she wanted him.  And he wanted
her too.  She was back, safe, and he wanted her.  He got undressed much
more quickly than she had, and claimed his woman there on the blanket,
under the clouds, with cattle all around them.

   They were both avid to have each other.  With relief she couldn't
describe she welcomed her husband into her and loved every touch he gave
her.

   "Ohhhh I needed this." she moaned as he thrust into her.

   "I missed you baby." he crooned into her ear.

   "I missed you too." she moaned.  "Nobody makes me feel like you do."
Once again, had Jonas been listening more closely, he might have wondered
at her phrasing.  But his attentions were elsewhere.

   And Molly was being truthful, in a way.  What Bobby had done to her was
wonderful and amazing in its own way, but making love with her husband was
also wonderful and amazing in his way.  They were not the same feelings. 
She loved her husband, even though he couldn't give her what she now knew
she had wanted...  more children.  And the fantasy of having Bobby
impregnate her had fed that desire...  sated it...  relaxed her in ways
that having Jonas in her couldn't.  She knew it was a fantasy.  Even as
much as Bobby had given her it was unlikely that, in those few short days,
he could actually have made her with child.  But the fantasy of trying had
been enough.  She was glad to be back with her life mate...  glad to feel
him inside her...  glad to feel his offering, sterile though she knew it
was, as he emptied himself inside her.

   They lay peacefully in the sun afterward, holding hands.

   "That boy wants to do this to my daughter." growled Jonas.

   Molly rolled onto her side, gripping the skin on Jonas' chest and
digging her nails in.

   "She's a woman Jonas.  She's made to have grandbabies for us.  What you
just did for me is the most wonderful thing a man can do for a woman in
love.  And I LOVE you Jonas.  Do you want to take that away from your only
daughter?  She DESERVES to have done to her what you just did to me."

   He sighed.  "I know, I know.  It's just that no man believes anybody is
good enough for his little girl.  And he's a sheep farmer for pity's sake."

   "He's a good man." said Molly firmly.  "She'll probably forget all about
him in a week, but if she doesn't...  he's a good man Jonas."

   Jonas looked over at her.  "How did I get so lucky as to win that
fight?" he asked.  "Want to know something?" she asked.

   "Sure." he said.

   "I wanted you to touch me long before you won that fight.  I kissed my
pillow and pretended it was you.  I just never told you that before."

   "Was that why you were such a good kisser?" he grinned.  "I always
figured you learned to kiss with Danny."

   "Before I met you I never kissed another man." said Molly.  That much
was true.  She didn't say anything about the only other man she'd kissed
AFTER she'd met her husband.

   "Want to go again?" he asked.

   Molly looked and saw him standing tall and proud between his legs.  That
was unusual for Jonas.

   "I'm feeling particularly potent today." he grinned.

   This time, when Molly Collins rode back to her house, it was with two
helpings of her husband's spend that soaked into her womb.

   CHAPTER ELEVEN

   Frank hurried towards Silver City.  It had been so named because someone
thought he had discovered silver there.  That hadn't panned out, but the
name had stuck.  It had never grown more than the one central street, with
a few dozen houses at one end, rather haphazardly built wherever somebody
happened to unload their lumber, and a few merchants holding on up the
street.  It boasted a population of three hundred, but it was a rare day
when more than two hundred were actually in town.

   Frank was surprised, therefore, to see a crowd of people in front of the
Sheriff's office.  There were horses there too, perhaps a dozen, as Frank
rode up.  He saw the Sheriff on the porch in front of his office.

   "What's going on?" he asked of a man wearing a green eyeshade on a strap
around his head.  He was Mister Conklin, the banker.

   "Getting a posse up." said the man.  "Been Indian trouble." He turned
toward the porch to shout.

   "Hey Sheriff, got another one for your posse here maybe.  He's a little
young, but he's wearin' guns."

   Frank looked up to see the Sheriff looking his way.

   "You're one of the Collins boys, right?" asked the lawman.

   "Yessir.  " answered Frank, slurring the two words together.  "What's
going on?"

   "Had a man killed by Indians.  One of those sheep herders that works for
Rocklin."

   "That's what I'm here about." announced Frank.

   "You know something about that, boy?" asked the Sheriff.

   "Yessir.  He was one of two men trying to rape my sister when the
Indians stopped them." said Frank.  There were gasps from the crowd.

   A strident voice rang out.  "That's a damn LIE."

   Frank's eyes widened as Buford stepped from behind two taller men.  He
got down off his horse.

   Buford spluttered.  "I was THERE, boy!  he shouted.  "There wasn't
nobody but me and poor old Chaps, and them savages kilt him dead!" He
yelled at the crowd.  "Now let's go FIND them damn heathens and rid the
world of murderin' savages!"

   Frank stalked toward Buford, and the crowd opened up like magic.  They
had seen men wearing guns walking like that, with that look in their eye.
People began edging even further back, some stepping up on the porch with
the sheriff.

   "You're a liar." he said as he walked.  "You tried to rape my sister ...
had her down in the dirt.  I found the sign, and I talked to her when she
was rescued from those Indians.  You're a rapist!"

   Again there were gasps from the crowd and they moved back.  Things like
this had happened before in this town ...  maybe not about rape ...  but
about other things that resulted in gunplay.

   "Now hold on here." said the Sheriff

   Frank watched Buford, who was standing in an aggressive posture now, his
hand hovering close to his pistol grip.

   "I'll take you there." said Frank, never looking away from Buford's
hand. "I'll show you the sign.  You can come out to the ranch and talk to
my sister.  She knows who tried to rape her."

   Buford panicked and went for his pistol.

   Those who were fortunate enough to be watching Buford and Frank, rather
than looking at the Sheriff, would tell the tale for years to come ... 
decades in fact.  Buford went for his gun first, and he drew in what was
described as an impressively fast draw.  His pistol cleared the holster
and, for once in his life, Buford pulled the hammer back flawlessly.  He
even had a grin on his face as he began to pull the weapon up.  He was
deciding whether or not to pull the trigger, or just hold everyone at
gunpoint and try to get away, when he was stunned by a blow to his stomach
like the kick of a mule.  His finger tightened on the trigger spasmodically
and his pistol went off.  The bullet hit right between Frank Collins spread
feet.

   People looked to see Frank holding a smoking, pearl handled revolver in
his right hand, a stunned look on his face.  Only two men had seen him draw
and they described it as greased lightning, the fastest, most beautiful
thing they'd ever seen ...  at least involving gunplay.

   Buford hit his knees and tried not to fall down.  Something was terribly
wrong with him, and he felt weak.  The boy was still standing there, and
Buford re-cocked his pistol with every ounce of strength that was left in
him.  He tried to lift the pistol.

   Frank couldn't believe he'd actually shot a man.  His draw had been
instinctive, the product of all the secret practice he'd done since winning
the guns.  He'd killed countless tin cans, and knotholes.  He'd even killed
a snake.

   But he'd never shot a man.

   He felt paralyzed and the pistol in his hand that he was so proud of
seemed to suddenly weigh forty pounds.  He couldn't keep it pointed at the
man he'd just shot.  It began to fall as Buford's pistol began to come back
up.

   Sheriff Matt Couffman calmly lifted his pistol and shot Buford right
between his eyes.  The man toppled over backwards, folding up on his lower
legs and giving the impression he was suddenly a double amputee.  The
pistol he'd been about to shoot Frank with flopped in the dirt by his limp
hand.

   There was a split second of silence before everything that had happened
started women screaming and men yelling.  People darted this way and that,
milling like spooked cattle.  Just as amazingly, things calmed down within
only a few minutes.

   Sheriff Couffman stepped down from the porch and walked over to Buford's
body.  The crowd got quiet.  He turned to Frank, who still held his pistol,
hanging from his hand.

   "You shouldn't have shot him, son." he said.

   Almost immediately four men began to argue with the Sheriff, who put his
gun back in his holster while Frank pulled his up to look at it, still
unbelieving.  With a look of astonishment, his muscles did what he'd
trained them to do.  He opened the loading gate and pushed out the empty
casing.  Pulling another round from his gun belt he reloaded his weapon and
put it back in the holster.

   A man came up to him and stuck his hand out.

   "Son, I don't care what the Sheriff said.  That was the most amazing
thing I have ever seen.  He had you dead to rights and you got him clean."

   Frank didn't know what to say as he was suddenly surrounded by people
who had already made up their minds that he had told the truth.

   The Sheriff wasn't quite so willing to give Frank the benefit of the
doubt.  He shoved his way to the boy and stood in front of him.  "I'm going
to need to talk to your sister, son."

   "I'll take you there." said Frank, his voice cracking.

   "I'd better have those guns." said the Sheriff.

   Men complained, but Frank unbuckled his belt without a word and handed
it to the man.  He wasn't so sure he wanted those guns any more.  He felt
sick at his stomach.

   "Let's go on over to the saloon before we leave, son.  Looks like you
could use something to revive you.

   Thus it was that Frank Collins, fifteen years old, had his first shot of
whiskey.  When he was done coughing, and could speak again, he WAS much
revived, though, and was then eager to get the Sheriff back to the ranch
and be done with this sorry business.

   ============

   When Molly and Jonas got back to the ranch house, and Jonas actually
looked at his daughter, and the injuries that still showed plainly, he sat
down and listened as she told what had happened to her.  He cried during
parts of it, which astonished everyone present.  Then he apologized to her
and stood up.

   It was all that Molly could do to keep him from going to find Buford. 
"Let the Sheriff to his job." she urged.  "We need you here.  I need you
here."

   She took him to the bedroom to show him how much she needed him.  For
once, Jonas Collins was so distracted by his anger that he couldn't
concentrate on what his wife wanted from him.  It wasn't until she took him
in her mouth and squeezed his balls tightly that she got his undivided
attention.

   =================

   The Sheriff and Frank met Peter about ten miles out of town.  When he
heard he had been sent for, the Sheriff felt a little better about what had
happened.  When Peter heard what happened he looked at his little brother
with an open mouth.

   Frank suddenly gasped and faced the Sheriff.  "You're supposed to meet
Beth Rocklin at their ranch, so she can take you to that man's body and to
trail Buford."

   "That doesn't need doing any more, now does it?" commented the Sheriff.

   "Well no ...  I guess not.  But she's waiting there for you.  I need to
go tell her it's all over.  She needs to know so she can go back to her
family up in the mountains."

   "I can't let you go off and do that." said the Sheriff patiently.  "I
still need to talk to your sister.  Your folks need to know what happened
too." he said.

   Frank looked at Peter.  "You have to do it." he said.

   Peter thought about that for a few seconds and smiled.  "All right.  You
tell Pa where I went.  NO!  Wait!  DON'T tell him where I went.  He's not
all that hot on them sheep people right about now." He looked confused.

   "You go tell the girl what happened." said the Sheriff.  I'll tell your
Pa I sent you there."

   Peter smiled again.  "I kind of wanted to see her again anyway." he
admitted.

   "Be careful." cautioned Frank.  "I think she's wanting to see you again
too." He couldn't tell Peter anything else under the circumstances.

   "Good" said Peter cheerfully.  He looked at the sky.  "Might not be able
to get back before dark." he said.

   "You stay the night and you'll have more trouble than you can imagine."
said Frank.  But he smiled.  Let the girl talk Peter's ears off.  That
would cool him down.

   =======================================================

   When Peter rode into the Rocklin yard, everything looked deserted.  He
was riding past the barn when he heard a voice above him.

   "Up here." came a feminine voice.

   He craned his neck and was staring down the barrel of a rifle.  He knew
it was a rifle, based on the appearance of the barrel, which was octagonal,
but all he could think of was that it looked like the barrel was six inches
across.  Then his eyes went up the barrel to a smiling face with a brown
pony tail hanging over the neck.  Blue eyes stared into his.

   "Gotcha." said Beth sweetly.  "You're not the Sheriff.  Where's your
brother?  What are you doing here?"

   Peter stared at the face he had been unable to get out of his mind for
two days.  All the time he was on the trail with his father, all he could
think about were those eyes, and that neck and the breasts he knew were
under her dress, even though, in her position, he couldn't see them.

   "He's not coming." said Peter, breathless for some reason.  "The
sheriff, I mean." He blinked.  "Neither is Frank.  He's under arrest.  I
mean the sheriff has him ...  he's taking him to our folks.  He said I had
to come here."

   She frowned, and even THAT looked beautiful on her face.  "Stay there."
she ordered.  "I'm coming down."

   The doors to the barn were open, both front and back, and the sun
gleamed through motes of dust.  Peter looked and saw feet begin to descend
the ladder built onto one side of a post.  As the feet went downward, the
dress covering her legs lifted, exposing firm calves.  She was barefoot. 
Then her body came into view, and he could see the thrust of her breasts
with her arms raised above her.  He sighed, seeing again what he had
remembered so often these last couple of days.  She managed the rifle with
no trouble, holding it in one hand while she gripped the side of the
ladder. She dropped the last two feet, landing softly.  He couldn't see it
because now the sun was behind her, but he knew those breasts bobbed when
she landed.

   When she walked casually out of the barn the rifle was held hanging from
her right hand, no longer pointed at him.  She didn't find him dangerous
and that made him feel good.

   "What do you mean the sheriff's not coming?" She still frowned, looking
up at him.  The neck of her dress was open, and he could see a dark crease
between her breasts - cleavage was a word he wasn't familiar with - that
made him want to wiggle.

   "My brother found the man who took my sister and killed him." he said.
His mind was on that dark crease, and what was on each side of it.

   "KILLED HIM?" the girl gasped.  "Your brother?  FRANK?" That made her
breasts thrust out even more as she took a deep breath.

   "I have to go." said Peter, feeling dizzy.

   "What?  You can't just ride in here and tell me something like that and
then turn around and ride out again.  I want to hear about it!" she said
excitedly.

   Peter knew that if he got down she would know what he was thinking.  He
was wearing cotton pants this day, one of his father's old pair, and they
were loose.  He could see the bulge of his stiff penis even as he sat in
the saddle.  He knew that if he stood it would stick out four or five
inches.

   "I can't stay." he said miserably.  Right then he wanted nothing more
than to stay and look at this vision of loveliness.

   The rifle came up suddenly, without warning, and again he stared into
the muzzle.

   "You get down off that horse Peter, and I mean RIGHT NOW!"

   "You know my name?" he asked wonderingly.  It didn't occur to him that
she might remember his name from the single time they'd met, even though
her name was burned in his brain.

   Her hands worked the action on the rifle smoothly, and he realized it
hadn't even had a round in the chamber when she'd "threatened" him with it.
Her frown had deepened.

   "OK, I'll get down, but I have to tell you something first." he whined.

   "What?" she said, her voice low.

   "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." he said.  "And a man
can't help what happens when he sees a beautiful woman.  Please don't shoot
me."

   She blinked, and the rifle muzzle wavered.  Her mouth opened, and then
closed, and then opened again.

   "And if I get down" he went on, "you're going to see something that's
going to really make you mad, and you're going to want to shoot me, and
it's not my fault - honest - and please don't shoot me." He babbled, unable
to control his voice.

   "What in the WORLD are you talking about?" she said.  "You just get down
or I'll shoot you out of the saddle.  I want to hear about what happened."
she said stubbornly.

   Peter eased his foot over the rump of his horse, and tried to step down
holding on with only one hand, so he could adjust his ...  problem ... 
with the other hand.  His weight swung him toward the head of the horse and
he lost his balance.  His foot got caught up in the stirrup and he flailed
his loose arm.  His weight was too much for his other arm and it slipped
off the saddle horn.  He landed with a thump in the dust, flat on his back,
and the air rushed from his lungs as if sucked out by some overwhelming
force.

   Beth ducked under the neck of his horse and stood staring at the boy on
the ground.  His mouth opened and closed like a fish and his chest quivered
as he tried to get a breath.  Her eyes went down his body and she
immediately saw the lump, which did indeed protrude four or five inches
from his groin, making the front of his pants look like he had stuffed a
rolled up cloth in his pants.  His reference to her beauty, which had taken
her completely by surprise, flashed through her mind and she felt almost
giddy with joy.  She giggled.

   "Oh" she said, giggling some more.  "I see now.  I won't shoot you for
that you silly man." she said, staring at the offending lump ...  which
apparently wasn't nearly as offending as Peter had thought it would be.

   Peter finally got a breath of air in and rolled over onto his side,
lying there and just breathing for a minute.

   "You're kind of clumsy, aren't you?" said the girl maddeningly.  He had
never felt so embarrassed in his whole life.  He didn't know what to say,
so he just lay there and concentrated on breathing.

   "Does it hurt?" she asked.

   He looked up at her.  "Of course it hurts.  You don't fall off a horse
and not hurt." he said, his voice wounded.

   "I don't mean that." she giggled again.  "I mean THAT." She pointed the
rifle at his privates.

   He flinched and covered his groin with both hands.

   "Oops" she giggled again and moved the rifle.  "Sorry.  I'm not going to
shoot you, honest.  So ...  does it hurt when it's ...  like that?"

   He looked at her again, not knowing if she was making fun of him or not.
She didn't sound like it.  She was so strange, though, asking questions
like that, that he didn't know what to think.

   "No." he said, hoping that would be the end of it.

   "I don't see how it could be like that and not hurt." she said
conversationally.  "Course I don't have one.  Did you know your brother
made love to my sister?"

   Peter's mind whirled.  This was all so strange he didn't have the
faintest idea how to act.

   "What are you talking about?" he croaked.

   "I don't want to stand in the sun while we talk." she said.  "And I
don't want to talk to you while you're lying in the dirt.  Why don't you
get up?  Let's go inside and talk there.  We can get something to drink and
have a nice chat."

   Peter moaned.  She was acting so normal, blathering on like he had just
come for a neighborly visit.  She obviously knew that he was stiff, but
didn't seem the least bit concerned or upset about it.  And now she was
raving about and her sister.

   "You promise not to shoot me?" he asked, his voice high.

   She laughed.  "You're not very brave for a cowboy." she said.  But
somehow it didn't sound like she was insulting him.  "Do you need help?"

   That stung Peter's masculine pride.  "No, I don't need some girl's help
to get up off the ground." he said darkly.  He levered himself up, feeling
much better now, and realized his stiffness was fading.  That was good.  He
surreptitiously re-arranged his dick so it went to one side and down into
his pants leg as he stood.  He dusted himself off and picked up his hat,
which had fallen off when he hit the ground.  He planted it firmly on his
head and faced the girl.  She was looking at him like he was a newborn
calf, like she was evaluating whether or not he was worth keeping alive.

   "It's gone." she said suddenly.

   He couldn't help looking at the front of his pants.

   "What's the matter?" she asked.  "Am I suddenly not so beautiful?"

   "You are the strangest girl I've ever met." he said, unable to keep it
inside.

   "First I'm beautiful, and then I'm strange." she said, tilting her head
sideways, her green eyes looking right inside him.  "I'm not so sure you
have all your brain.  Come on." she said, and with that she turned and
walked toward the house, leaving him standing there wondering what was
happening to him.  Every time he tried to deal with something she said, she
said two or three more things and he couldn't keep up.  His head hurt a
little and he couldn't tell if it was because he fell off his horse, or
because of her.

   He followed her into the house, where she set the rifle in a corner and
went to the dry sink.  She worked the pump handle and held a glass under
the spout as water poured out.  As her elbow and arm worked, her hips
swayed and the dress moved on them.  She was even beautiful from the back.
She turned and handed him the glass of water.  Her movements were graceful,
the dress hugging the curves of her body.  She looked so normal, doing such
a normal thing.  He noticed how her hair flipped around behind her head as
she moved.  He saw her eyes drop and she smiled.

   "Oh, it's back!" Her eyes stayed there.  "So now I'm beautiful again?"
she teased.

   "You're not like other women." he said.  "Most women would be riled up
by ...  that."

   "I don't know if I'm like other women or not." she said as he took the
glass gingerly.  "I'm just me, and I'm like me, because that's the only way
I know how to be." He was amazed how good that water felt going down his
throat.

   "So, what happened?" she asked, eager again to hear news.  "Did Frank
actually kill somebody?  I can't believe he'd do that.  Why I was just
talking to him earlier today and he didn't even seem to be able to carry on
a simple conversation.  I know he made love to "Enid, but he wouldn't admit
that either.  And then, you say, he just rode into town and killed
somebody?"

   Peter wanted to sit down, despite the fact that she didn't seem to be
offended by his arousal.  He told her what he knew.  He couldn't remember
the man's name, but he knew it was one of the men who worked for the
Rocklins.  She frowned at that part, but, for once, didn't say anything as
he told the rest of it, going backwards in time.  He found himself telling
her about the Indians, and the sign they had seen.  She knew about the body
in the clearing.  A half hour had gone by when Peter realized she had said
only a word or two during the whole story.

   Then she told him how she had met Frank, and how he had brought her home
"Even though I was perfectly capable of getting myself home" she said
disgustedly.  She described how he had said he wanted to court Enid, and
how she almost got him to admit that they had made love.

   "You're not serious." he responded.

   "I am too." she said leaning towards him.  "Besides, what's so strange
about that?  Except for the fact that my sister is still just a girl ... 
not a woman like me ...  and I don't understand how any boy could want to
do that with her."

   "She can't be more than a year younger than you." said Peter, no longer
afraid of this strange girl who talked a mile a minute one time and then
sat mute for half an hour.

   "I'm a woman." said Beth proudly.  "Enid is still just a girl." she
insisted.  She frowned.  "Except that she's done things like a woman, and
she did them before me and I'm very angry with her about that." she pouted.

   Peter had no experience with pouting women and, not knowing what to do
...  did nothing.

   She looked at Peter.  "Do you really think I'm beautiful?"

   Peter's breath caught in his chest.  He nodded, not trusting his voice.

   "Is that really why your ...  why you were like that?" She leaned
sideways, looking into his lap.  While he had told her the story he had
softened.  Her talk about his little brother and her little sister, though,
had brought images to his mind that had made him stiff again.

   "Stand up." she said.

   "I can't just stand up." he objected.

   "Why not?" she asked.  "If I'm responsible for that," she pointed to his
lap, "why can't I see it?

   "It's just not proper." he said miserably.

   "I don't care about proper." she said firmly.  "My sister got to see one
...  and do a lot more.  Why can't I at least look?"

   "You want to LOOK at it?" he asked incredulously.

   Beth looked stricken.  "Well, that's not what I meant ...  but now that
you mention it, it's a good idea.  Will you show it to me?"

   "You have GOT to be making fun of me." he said.

   "Have you ever seen a girl?" she asked.

   "What?"

   "Naked.  Have you ever seen a girl naked?"

   "No" he gulped.

   "If you show me yours ...  I'll let you see me naked." she said.  Her
eyes were quite serious.  He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

   "We can't do that." he croaked.

   "Why not?" she asked simply.  "Am I so ugly now?  You don't want to see
me?" Her voice sounded uncertain now.

   "No!" he blurted.  "I mean of course I'd like to see you." His mouth
snapped shut.  "I mean ANY man would want to see you." He put his head in
his hand.  "I don't know what I mean." he said miserably.

   He felt her hand on his, and looked up.  He felt tears beginning to form
in his eyes and blinked rapidly.  He'd just die if he cried in front of
this girl.

   "So you think I'm pretty?" she asked softly.

   "Uh huh" he nodded, still blinking furiously.

   "Please," she said.  "I just want to see.  And I don't care about what's
proper.  I think you're handsome." she said.

   "You do?" he asked, feeling a thrill shoot to his groin.

   "Yes." she said.  "I thought you were handsome the first time I saw you.
You're a little strange, but I like you a lot."

   "Me ...  strange?  ME?  I'M the strange one?" he asked, agog.

   "What?  Are you saying I'm strange?" asked Beth.

   "You're willing to let me see you naked?  You want to see what you do to
me ...  down there?  THAT'S not strange?" he gaped.

   "I'm just curious, that's all." she said primly.  "What's so strange
about being curious?"

   Peter stared.  It was too much for him.  He had been excited for days,
and now the reason for his excitement was completely unashamed to let him
see what he'd dreamed of constantly.

   He stood up.

   His bulge was back, though now his penis went sideways, making the bulge
off center.  Beth stood up too, staring at the front of his pants.  She
looked up at him.

   "Well?  Take your pants off." she said.

   He blinked.  "I can't." he said.  "I don't think I can move."

   Her hands went to his belt.  "If I take them off will that make you feel
better?" she asked.  He had sucked in air as she touched him, and all he
could do was nod.

   She fumbled with the unfamiliar fastenings, and then got his pants open
enough to begin drawing them downward.  Peter wanted to grab the waist and
pull them back up, but he didn't.

   When his thick penis came into view, Beth took in a deep breath and
sighed.  It didn't stick straight out like she thought it would.  It bent
to one side, like it was a bone that had been broken, and set wrong.  It
moved slightly, up and down as she stared at it.  She didn't know about
circumcision.  The only hard male members she had ever seen were on horses,
or sheep or dogs, and his looked completely different.  It didn't come out
of a sheath.  It just stuck out from a nest of hair, underneath which hung
his balls.  Those looked a little more normal, like a dog's balls, only
much larger.  Without permission she reached out to cup those balls and
heft them.  He hissed at her touch, and her eyes darted up to his.

   "I won't hurt you." she said.

   He blinked, but didn't respond.

   She put her fingers under his prick and lifted it too.  It jumped and
she jumped with it.

   "It really doesn't hurt?" she asked curiously.

   Her fingers on his penis, just lifting it, made Peter tense up.  "No,"
he gasped.

   "I don't see how that could fit in a girl." she said conversationally.
"Do you think your brother was lying?  About what he and Enid did, I mean?"
she asked.  Her fingers went around his penis and held it gently.  "It's
warm." she said, peering closely at what was in her hand.  "It feels nice,
but I just don't think that would fit in a girl.  Maybe Frank was lying."

   Peter didn't want to think about his brother, but her words brought the
visions back to his head, of his brother and the other girl ...  naked ...
lying down together.  He felt something soothing run through his penis and
looked down to see a single clear drop of fluid seeping out of the little
hole that was almost covered by his foreskin.  "No." he gasped.  He wasn't
cognizant of what he was actually saying.

   "What's that?" asked Beth, looking closely at the little filmy bubble.
Her hand squeezed and the bubble got bigger.

   "I don't ...  know." he panted.

   "You sure are breathing hard." she said.

   "I know." he gasped.

   She gave his penis another tentative squeeze.  The bubble got bigger and
collected wetly in the collar made by his foreskin.

   "There's more of it." she said, leaning closer.

   He could feel her breath on the tip of his cock.  It made him want to
lean towards her.

   "You feel good." she breathed, squeezing his penis harder.  Her hand
moved a little and the hood began to peel back.

   "Oh look!" she said excitedly.  "It moves!"

   "Yeah." said Peter breathlessly.  He suddenly wanted to do anything it
took to keep this girl from taking her hand away.

   She experimented, pushing harder and then adjusting her grip.  "Oooo it
looks so different that way." she sighed.

   More precum drooled out of the tip and made a long drip, stretching
downward.

   "Ooooo" said Beth.  She watched as it dangled and wiggled while her hand
moved on his cock.

   "Stop!" gasped Peter.  He had never ejaculated before, but he felt
something happening inside him and knew, somehow, that he didn't want it to
happen ...  that it would somehow make things wrong.

   "Why?" she asked.

   "I don't know." he groaned.  "I feel all strange inside.

   Her hand kept moving, playing as she covered and uncovered the tip. 
When she brought her hand all the way forward the drip broke off and fell
to the floor.

   "I don't want to stop." she said.  "I like doing this."

   "Ohhhhh" groaned Peter as the feeling got more and more intense. 
"Ahhhhhh" he moaned.  He felt something that was extremely painful and
amazingly pleasurable at the same time.  He looked down to see her hand
push toward his balls and the little hole widened.  Suddenly, with
agonizing sweetness, something rushed through his cock.  A thick stream of
white liquid shot out the tip and splatted against Beth's upper lip.  Her
reaction was natural.  Her mouth opened in protest, and another long stream
of stuff shot directly into it, going to the back of her tongue.  She
choked, closed her mouth and instinctively swallowed to clear her breathing
passage.  Another spurt hit her chin as she leaned backwards, and still
another hit her neck under her chin and immediately started sliding down
into her cleavage.

   Beth's mind whirled with all the new sensations.  There was startlement,
and taste, and the feeling of the hot fluid on her skin, and the feeling of
the thing in her hand pulsing, and all of those sensations hit her all at
once.  Her mind rattled as it tried to process everything.  Taste came to
the forefront, an acrid, almost bitter taste that had an overtone of sweet
and musk in it.  It was all over her mouth and she knew it was that white
fluid that had come out of him.  Her mind told her to be revolted, but her
mouth argued that, whatever this was, it was delicious, and she liked it.
Her fingers came up to her face, finding globs of the stuff and she scooped
it into her mouth, to confirm that it was the same taste.  She felt it
running down between her breasts and reached there to scoop it onto her
fingers.  All that did was spread it around, but she stuck her fingers in
her mouth and sucked on them, finding that taste there too.  There was a
drool of it on the tip of his cock, and she leaned forward to lick at that.
That turned into a kiss as she closed her lips around the tip and sucked to
get the stuff into her mouth.  Her body suddenly felt hot, her clothes
restrictive.

   She heard him moan again, a tortured sound to her ears, and looked up
through her lashes to find him staring, wide eyed and open mouthed down at
her.  She stood, letting him go.

   "I don't know what that was ...  but I liked it." she said, her
breathing deep and rapid.

   "Me too." gasped Peter.

   "I told you I'd let you see me too." she said.  Her voice sounded
strange to her.  She worked the buttons on the dress, eager to get if off
her body.  she let it drop and had to push it down off her hips.  She
couldn't believe how completely unashamed she felt doing this in front of a
boy.  She wanted to giggle, thinking of what she'd just done, which was
much stranger and crazier than just being naked.

   Peter stared as her lush body came into view.  His balls felt suddenly
tight, like they had just before all that stuff had shot out of him.  He
knew it wasn't urine.  His knowledge of sex was limited, like hers, to
seeing animals mating, but he had never seen anything like what had shot
out of him so deliciously.

   He sighed.  Her breasts were just as he'd imagined them, large and
round, with little brown nipples spiked on the tips.  Her hips were smooth
and round too.  He stared at the brown hair that lay flat on her mons.  Her
hands couldn't seem to settle, waving this way and that and finally hanging
straight down.

   Beth saw in his eyes what every woman wants to see when she stands naked
before a man.  His look made her feel beautiful, desirable ...  wanted. 
Her foot took a step toward him, involuntarily.

   "Take your shirt off." she whispered.

   Peter obeyed without thinking, also leaning over to push his boots off
and pull the pants down and off of his feet.  He still had on socks and he
was still wearing his hat.  Feeling foolish, he took his hat off.

   Like their younger brother and sister, these two teens were filled to
overflowing with hormones and urges that somehow told their bodies what to
do, even though neither of them could have described what it was they were
doing.  Her urge to press her body against his was met, and his hands
automatically went to her back.  She loved the feeling of his smooth chest
and rough hands at the same time.  His penis, still hard, poked into her
nest, and she loved that feeling too.

   Whether she kissed him, or he kissed her, neither of them would be able
to say later, but their lips ended up pressed against each other.  That
kiss made Beth want to lie down with this man, and she pulled him not to
her own room, but to the closer bed that was her parents'.

   His kisses got more urgent and she felt helpless.  He suddenly stopped
and lifted his head.

   "I shouldn't be doing this." he said softly.

   "You stop and I'll get that rifle again." she said back.

   "We shouldn't be doing this." he said.

   "I want what my sister got." she said.

   "I thought you said it wouldn't fit." he reminded her.

   "Maybe I was wrong." she breathed.

   Then there were more kisses and, just like it had been between Enid and
Frank, his penis was suddenly at her sexual portal.  Her legs spread under
him at that touch and her hands pulled at his buttocks.  She felt pain and
moaned into his mouth.  He tried to stop at the sound of pain, but she
pulled insistently.

   It wasn't easy.  Her hymen was thick and tough, and it screamed at her
each time he tried to batter it aside.  But the feeling deeper inside her,
demanding to be filled, overrode the pain.  She felt it, but she could also
tell that, once that thick thing got deeper into her it would fill that
empty place.  He gave another convulsive lunge and she felt a sharp stab as
his penis slid into her.  His abdominal skin slapped against hers with a
smacking sound, so hard had his push been.

   Beth felt agony at first, and her mind had doubt.  His instinct caused
him to move, though, and that knobby hard thing stroked that place deep
inside her and she knew that the agony would go away.  She hurried it,
spreading her legs and wiggling, trying to get comfortable.

   Peter stopped kissing her and raised his head.  Her face was twisted and
he didn't like that look.

   "Are you all right?" he asked.  "Am I hurting you?"

   "Just don't stop." she moaned.

   His lust abated a little.  The feel of her tight warmth all around him
was something like looking at fine art, or hearing beautiful music.  He
could submerge himself in that feeling.  But he watched her as he moved
first this way, and then that, trying to figure out which way hurt her, and
which way didn't.

   It was like taming a growling dog.  Her face screwed up, and there were
tears at first.  She bared her teeth and groaned as she wiggled under him.
But gradually her face relaxed, and the motions she made with her hips
became less erratic, and more measured.  Her legs fell open, limp, and then
bounded up to slap against his ribs.  Her back arched, and her breasts
wobbled.  Her moans had less sound of pain in them, and gradually began to
sound like moans of joy.  The first time she smiled and opened her eyes,
and he could see that the pain was gone; he felt a wild aching thrill
inside that made him drive into her more forcefully.  Her breasts jiggled
again and he looked at them.  He had dreamed about them.  He'd seen a woman
in town suckling a baby, and he'd wanted to be that baby back then.  He
dipped his head to suckle at Beth's tiny brown nipple.

   When he sucked, her hips went crazy and she squealed.  She began panting
and moaning, taking a breath and then immediately pushing it back out,
making noises with it.  They weren't words, exactly, as much as rhythmic
grunts.  The softness wrapped around him suddenly went tight, so tight that
he felt like he was being locked inside her ...  like he couldn't withdraw
even if he wanted to.  Her eyes fluttered and rolled up in her head as she
gave a long almost frightening groan of ecstasy.  She froze for a few
seconds, and then went limp as a rag.  Her pussy went limp too, for the
most part, letting him move again, though it still tightened and loosened
spasmodically for a few more seconds.

   He didn't know what had happened to her, but she was smiling, and that
made the feeling come back that had happened just before he had covered her
face with fluid.  He speeded up, reaching for that feeling this time, and
when it came wanted to stop moving while it happened.  Instinct caused him
to push hard and hold there as the soothing stuff shot through his prick
again, this time entering her body, instead of her mouth.  It was
indescribably delicious to feel that and he wished it would go on forever.

   Both lay, just breathing.  He felt like he was heavy on her, and rolled
off to one side.  Neither said anything for at least five minutes.  They
were suddenly shy with each other for some reason, and neither could think
of anything to say.

   Finally Peter spoke.

   "Was that what you wanted?"

   Amazingly, his question made it clear that he cared about how she felt,
and the warmth of his stuff in her belly seemed to spread back out
throughout her whole lower body.  Beth rolled over, half on top of him, her
lips right in front of his.

   "Yes." she said softly.  She kissed his lips, a short, quick kiss.  "But
not enough."

   His eyes widened.  "I have to marry you now." he said, his voice tight.

   "No you don't." she said, just as softly.  "But I hope you do."

   He stayed the night.  She wouldn't let him put anything on, and stayed
naked herself.  They got almost nothing done, always ending up back in bed.
He seeded her six more times before the sun rose again and she finally
admitted that he needed to go.

   "I have to see you again." she said, dressed now, and feeling somehow
strange to be dressed in front of him.

   "I'll come to the edge of our land every day in the evening." he said.
"Can you meet me there?  By the big Cottonwood that grows all by itself?"

   "I know the place." she said.  "There's a little seep of water that
comes up out of the ground."

   "Yes." he said.

   "I can't." she said miserably.  "I'll be in the high meadows."

   "All summer?" he asked, agony in his voice.

   "No, someone has to be at the ranch.  Only a few stay up there at a
time."

   "So you can come to the Cottonwood sometimes?" he begged.

   "Yes, but I won't know when." she said.

   "I'll be there every day." he vowed.

   "You have to go." she said.  She wanted to rip her dress off again.

   "I know." he admitted.  "One more kiss?"

   "Yes." she agreed immediately.

   Somehow that kiss made their clothing fall off again.  Their lips never
broke apart as she maneuvered them to the bed.  He held her tightly as they
fell and rolled, their lips still crushed together.  He didn't pull his
lips from hers until he was deep inside her again.  Then it was only to
suckle at her.  He had learned that when he did that she writhed, and her
pussy sucked at his stiff prod until that soothing stuff flowed again.

   Peter Collins hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, and had gotten
more exercise than he did when he was rounding up cattle.  He dozed in the
saddle as his horse picked its way toward home.  As he dozed, he dreamed,
and his dreams were of a pale skinned beauty, her arms and legs open to
him, her green eyes inviting.

   CHAPTER TWELVE

   When Beth rode into the high meadows and approached the shack, she felt
completely normal.  Everything was right with the world.  She would tell
her parents about Buford, and then offer to go back to the ranch to mind
things there.

   Her mother came out of the shack, her hands white with flour.  She
looked at her daughter, sitting on the horse.

   "What happened to you?" asked Amanda.

   "What do you mean?" asked Beth.  "The Sheriff didn't come.  It's a long
story, but Buford is dead."

   "You look different." said Amanda.  She realized that Beth somehow
didn't look girlish any more.  She looked closely at her daughter. 
Everything was the same, but something was different.  She realized
suddenly that Enid looked the same way.  She was still Enid, but older
somehow, less juvenile.

   Beth felt herself begin to blush.  "I don't know what you're talking
about." she said, getting off her horse and trying to make the blush stop.

   Amanda tilted her head sideways, as if that would let her see what was
different.  She couldn't tell.

   "Come inside and tell me the news." she said.

   "Yes, Mamma." said Beth.

   ===================

   Life was back to normal for both families, at least as far as the adults
could tell.  Once the Sheriff had heard Sarah's story, he patted Frank on
the back and handed him his gun belt.  There would be paperwork to file. 
The Government was interested in problems between sheep ranchers and
cattlemen.  There had been problems elsewhere, but this situation was
clear-cut, with witnesses.  The Sheriff himself had seen Buford draw first,
which is why his own gun was in his hand when Frank froze as Buford was
about to try and shoot him.  The Sheriff planned on filing a report that
simply said he had shot the man while he was trying to gun down an area
youth.  If anybody ever came asking questions about Chaps, which was
doubtful, the Sheriff would answer them then.

   Beth had convinced her parents to let her mind the ranch for two weeks,
after which she would be replaced by Enid.  Brad and Amanda wanted Charley
and Xian Bai to stay in the high meadows to deal with predators.  There was
a bear that had been sniffing around the edges of the flock.  She had two
cubs with her and though Brad did not want to kill her, there needed to be
someone out with the flock to discourage her.

   Beth met Peter almost every day.  There were times when he could not
make it.  What they did when he was able to be there made up for it in
Beth's mind.  She had learned that she could stroke herself when he wasn't
there.  That was almost as much fun.  When he was late one day he found her
there, her skirt up around her waist while her fingers dug into her sex. 
She had heard him coming and, after she rose up and saw it was him, she
laid back down so that he'd see her when he rode up.  He sat and watched,
alternating between looking between her legs and her eyes, which were
pinned on him.  He had been wild that time, and she had loved his urgency.
Neitheer of them gave any real thought to what the rivers of sperm he
injected into her might be doing deep inside her body.

   Before Beth went back to the ranch, she tried to get Enid to admit she
had made love with Frank, but Enid knew that if her parents found out what
they'd done they would either make him marry her immediately, or forbid her
from ever seeing him again.  The marrying him immediately part didn't
bother her.  Being forbidden to see him would have killed her; she was
sure, so she kept her mouth shut.  When Beth claimed to have lain with
Peter, Enid thought it was just a trick to get her to confess.  She glared
at her older sister, turned and stalked off.  That changed when Enid rode
back to the ranch to relieve Beth.  Beth met her, ready to go.

   "You know that old Cottonwood tree over that-a-way?" she pointed.  "The
one by that little seep of water?

   "Yes." said Enid.

   "Frank will be there every evening, two hours before sunset.  Take a
blanket with you when you go."

   "What are you talking about?" Enid asked sullenly.

   "I've been meeting Peter there most days." said Beth.  She thought of
herself like a woman now ...  FELT like a woman.  When she went back up the
mountain she was going to tell her parents she wanted to marry Peter.  She
was still sure that Enid had lain with Frank.  Peter told her Frank was
surly, going off by himself a lot, asking Peter to have Beth pass messages
to Enid.  The two of them had decided that, when Enid replaced Beth, Frank
would be told about their meeting place.

   "You're lying." said Enid, still sullen.

   "You can go or not." said Beth.  "I don't care.  If you don't want to
go, then go on back up to the high meadows.  I'll be most happy to stay
here and keep meeting my love."

   That, more than anything else was what convinced Enid to go to the tree.
Beth had traditionally hated staying at the ranch.  When the girls were
younger, one of the men would stay with them or their mother or father
would.  Beth got bored easily though, and had always wanted to stay up at
the summer camp, where there were people to chatter to.

   When, a day later, she went to the tree, and no one was there Enid felt
foolish.  Then she saw the scrap of paper nailed to the tree.  It was from
Frank, or at least bore his name.  It said he had been there the day
before, and would return.  She waited and then cried when she saw him
coming across the plain.  He thought she had been hurt, seeing her standing
there bawling, but soon found he was wrong.  She tore at his clothes and
cried continuously until he slid his aching prick deep inside her.  Then
her tears dried and she laughed instead, urging him on.  He flushed her
full of his pent up passion three times and had to push her away so he
could mount and get back home before suspicions were raised.

   ===================

   Jonas' attitude toward his daughter had changed dramatically.  Knowing
that she had almost been raped had made him solicitous.  When, on a Sunday
afternoon she announced that she was going to see Bobby, her father
objected.

   "That's foolishness." he announced.

   "Well I'm going." she responded firmly.

   "I told you I won't allow it." he said, his voice rising.

   "Pappa, I love you, and I don't want to hurt you, but I'm going." she
said, her voice surprisingly level.

   Perhaps it was her lack of anger that penetrated his brain, and
convinced him she was as serious about this as anything she had ever been.
He felt the sinking sensation in his gut that all fathers feel when their
little girl begins to act truly independently of his ...  advice.  He
suddenly didn't want to argue with her in front of the family, sensing
somehow that he might lose.  He took another tack.

   "You don't even know where he is for sure." he complained.

   "He's up in the high meadows." said Peter, who had been watching the
exchange almost eagerly.  He spoke without thinking.

   Molly looked over at him, her eyebrow raised.  "And how would you know
that?" she asked.

   Peter paled.  "Aren't they all up there?" he tried.  "I'm sure Be... 
that girl ...  you know his sister?  I'm sure when I went over there to
tell her the Sheriff wasn't coming that she said they were all going up
there for the summer."

   Molly looked at him steadily.  He had been disappearing in the evenings.
He said he was out making sure coyotes and wolves weren't hanging around,
but he was always in a good mood when he returned.  He never brought a pelt
with him to explain that good mood.

   Sarah took her mind off of that.  "I'm going to the house first, and if
he's not there, then I'll go up to the high meadows." she said firmly.

   Jonas groaned.  "That will be an overnight ride, baby."

   "I'm not a baby, Pappa." she said with dignity.  "What happened before
won't happen again.  Both of those men are dead now and the Indians know
who I am.  Bobby has much honor with them and they won't bother me.  I'm
going."

   In the end Jonas simply saddled up his horse and accompanied her.  Both
Frank and Peter offered to go, which made Molly look at them in wonder, her
brow creasing.  Neither boy had worked up the courage to tell their father
that they, too, were interested in one of the Rocklins.

   Sarah was not pleased.  No teenaged girl wants her father to be along
when she goes to see the man she loves.  But she swallowed her impulse to
argue.  She wanted to see Bobby badly enough that she'd take what she could
get.  She expected to be grumpy, and for her father to keep harping against
her wishes.

   Oddly enough, their long ride gave them an opportunity to talk that
otherwise probably would not have happened.

   That time, and that talk, convinced Jonas that Sarah's feelings were not
just a crush, or transitory.  Of course he didn't know that Bobby's baby
grew happily in her womb.  She didn't either at that particular time, but
when she found out later she was thrilled, rather than forlorn.  The fact
is that Jonas, rough as he was, recognized that Sarah's feelings for this
boy he'd never met were not only real, but deeply founded as well.  He had
the same conflicting feelings about that that any father feels when he
realizes his daughter is in love with ...  some man.  He was also smart
enough to know to keep his misgivings to himself, because he was smart
enough to know that it wouldn't do one bit of good to voice them.

   They talked about a lot of things ...  things other than Bobby and what
had happened to her.  The hours brought them closer together in ways that
would otherwise have been unlikely, if not impossible.  Jonas found that he
was enjoying himself immensely.  He didn't have to worry about the ranch.
The boys and Buckshot, to say nothing of Molly had things well in hand. 
They wouldn't drive a herd to the rail head until fall, so all that needed
doing was keeping the herd more or less bunched so that the roundup later
would go more quickly and easily.  Eventually the talk came back to Sarah
and Bobby and he asked her what her plans were.

   "I don't care." she said simply.  "I just want to be with him.  I'd like
to run a few head of steers, but there's cash money in wool too.  When I
was in the Indian village I saw sheep skins that the Rocklins had traded
for the most beautiful blankets.  We could ship those blankets back East
and make a lot of money Pappa.  I'm sure they don't have anything like that
back that far."

   Jonas thought for a while as they rode companionably in silence.

   "If I gave you some land, would you build on it?" he asked.

   "I'd have to talk to Bobby, but I'm sure he'd love to have his own
place. I want to have lots and lots of babies."

   Jonas felt a twist in his gut and a hint of panic at the idea of a man
making his baby girl pregnant.  He looked over at her and was stunned when
he realized she was, for all intents and purposes, a woman.  Where had his
little giggling toddler gone?  Where was the girl he'd bounced on his knee
and who rode Buckshot like a horse around the kitchen?

   "When might you want to get married?" he asked carefully.

   "I'd get married right this minute if I had my way." she said.  He heard
something in her voice that he'd heard in Molly's so long ago, when she
pleaded with him not to wait until he had a stake.  He'd wanted a place,
with cattle on it before he brought her home.  Instead she had used her
wiles on him and they'd come west with nothing.  He'd made his ranch out of
rounding up strays.  In some cases he collected a fee for returning them to
their owners, signing contracts before hand and then going out to find
them. But strays produced calves that weren't branded, and that's where the
real money was.  That's how he had built his herd.  By the time others
caught on to the idea, he had his herd, and his spread and his family well
established.

   "You know you can homestead free range." he said.  He was amazed that
he'd said it.  Most stockmen knew a man could claim land he sat on long
enough, but they didn't want others to know about that.

   "I've been thinking about that." she said.

   Jonas wasn't even upset when that whippersnapper girl who dressed like a
wild Indian met them with rifle in hand when they rode in.  Her attitude
toward him was easy, and she lit up at learning who Sarah was.

   "I've heard so much about you!" she said excitedly.  "You'll be a sight
for sore eyes for my brother." she said, inviting them to come in.  "He
can't talk about anything without bringing it around to you."

   "Is he here?" asked Sarah excitedly.

   "Just rode in at noon." said Enid.  "He's taking a bath."

   Sarah jumped down and dashed into the house while Jonas shouted after
that she couldn't go in there while he was doing that.  Enid laughed and,
when he frowned at her, held up her hands.

   "They've got it bad for each other." she said smiling.  "I doubt anybody
could stop them from seeing each other." She opened the door for Jonas and
he didn't know whether to go find his daughter and drag her away from the
boy or not.

   "Would you please sit down?" asked Enid.  "They'll be fine."

   In the distance, within the house Jonas heard a male voice.  It yelled
"You can't just come in here while I'm taking a bath."

   His daughter's voice floated out.  "Why not?"

   Jonas couldn't help but grin as he realized Sarah was just as stubborn
and forward as Molly had been.  The voices went on, lower now, and Jonas
couldn't understand them.

   "Would you like a piece of pie?" asked Enid.  "Stuck down here I've been
practicing baking."

   Jonas wasn't sure he wanted to try eating some girl's "practice", but
she plunked a plate down in front of him that had a quarter of what looked
suspiciously like gooseberry pie on it.

   "Where did you find Gooseberries?" he asked, sticking his finger into
the gelled juice at the edge of the pie.

   "We collect them up on the mountain." she said, handing him a fork.

   The pie was delicious.  He hadn't had gooseberry pie in ages.  Molly
didn't bake pies.  She was hell on wheels with bread, but didn't do either
cakes or pies.  He was stuffing pie in his mouth and feeling slightly
foolish for being a pig about it when he saw movement out of the corner of
one eye.  He turned to find the boy he'd never seen, but knew an awful lot
about standing wide eyed.  He was still dripping wet, though he had on both
shirt and pants.  They were wet too, and it was obvious he had dressed
without drying off.  Sarah was right behind the barefoot boy, pushing him.

   "Ask him." she whispered loud enough for a man outside to hear.

   Bobby half turned.  "Sarah, I can't ..."

   "Ask him!" she ordered, her voice louder.

   Bobby opened his mouth and then closed it.  His eyes darted all around.
Jonas took another bite of pie while he waited for the boy to find his
voice.

   "Sir." said Bobby finally.  There was silence.

   "Ask him!" came Sarah's urgent command from behind him.  Jonas almost
smiled, but kept his face straight.

   "Sir," he started again.  "I'm in love with your daughter and I'd like
to make her my wife." It came out in a rush, like if he didn't get it said
within a certain very short amount of time something would happen to stop
him.

   Sarah sighed behind him.  "Bobby Rocklin, you're supposed to ASK for my
hand, not tell him what you want to do!"

   Bobby blanched and Jonas actually felt sorry for the boy.

   "Sir, I'll just die if I can't marry your daughter." He looked up at the
ceiling.  "I guess I'm asking for her hand in marriage.  Can I do that?" He
looked confused.

   Jonas put down his fork and pushed the plate away.  It still had pie on
it.  He looked at the boy, who squared his shoulders finally and got some
color back in his face.

   "According to some Indians I talked to ..." said Jonas.  "She already IS
your wife."

   Bobby blinked.  Then he swallowed.  "Well, you see sir, there was this
problem, and I sort of thought it might be solved if I acted like ..."

   Jonas held up his hand.  "I know what happened.  How do I know you'll
take good care of my daughter?" he asked.  He found he was actually
enjoying himself.

   "Sir, I'll work hard, and build her a house and everything.  My pa will
give me some sheep and ..." he stopped.  He looked carefully at the cowman
sitting at the table.  He took a breath and went on.  "I know you don't
like sheep sir, but they're what I know, and I can make a living herding
sheep.  There's plenty of range out here.  I know that cowmen and sheepmen
don't agree on that, but if sheep are run correctly, they don't destroy the
grass.  I know how to run sheep correctly." he finished.

   Jonas couldn't resist teasing his daughter.  "I don't know, son, if I
can allow this."

   Sarah moved from behind Bobby.  Her eyebrows were raised and her mouth
was open.  "Pappa, I'm going to marry this man, and you'd just better get
used to the idea!" she started.  She was stepping closer with each word,
almost stalking.

   Jonas laughed and held up his hands.  "All right.  I don't know what
your mother will say, but I know when I'm licked." He turned to Bobby.  "I
never thought I'd ever say this to a sheepman, but yes, you may have my
daughter's hand in marriage." he said formally.  Again he couldn't resist
the urge to tease.  "If she'll have you."

   Sarah had already started to turn back towards Bobby, but she stopped
long enough to send a murderous glare at her father.  He winked at her, and
she suddenly smiled the most dazzling smile, that made Jonas hurt inside.

   "Thank you, Pappa." she said.  Then she turned and threw herself on the
bedraggled looking boy, kissing him soundly.

   "Now just hold on there." said Jonas, uncomfortable.  "You just save
that for after the wedding."

   Sarah ignored him, holding the kiss for a long time.  Then she turned
around.  "Pappa, you can go on home now.  Bobby will bring me back
tomorrow."

   Jonas stood up.  "If you think I'm going to leave you here with that man
after what I just saw, you've got another think coming!  I know what a man
and woman do when they're going to get married." He looked startled.

   Sarah smiled at him.  "Really Pappa?  What did you and Mamma do before
YOU were married?"

   Jonas was flustered.  He hadn't meant to say what he'd said quite like
he'd said it.  In fact he had claimed his bride's virginity almost a month
before they tied the knot.  "Never you mind what we did or didn't do!" he
said belligerently.  "Your Mamma would skin me alive if I came back without
you and told her I left you with the man you're gong to marry."

   "I thought, according to the Indians, we already WERE married." she
threw his statement back at him.

   "Don't you argue with me on this, Sarah Jean." Jonas was getting upset
now.

   "Oh ...  all right.  But can we at least take a walk?  We have a lot to
talk about."

   "Talking is fine." said Jonas, relieved.  He didn't actually know if he
could force her to go back with him or not.

   "I have three more pies." piped Enid.  "Hows about I get you one while
the lovebirds go for their walk." she offered.

   Jonas smiled.  "Why thank you, Miss ...  I'm sorry, I plumb forgot your
name."

   "Enid." she said sweetly.  "Let me just get you that pie.

   Jonas was just distracted enough that he didn't notice that Saragh
dragged Bobby out of the house before he could even put on his boots.

   =====================

   While Jonas ate an entire gooseberry pie, Sarah stopped at her horse
long enough to remove a small packet from it, and then dragged Bobby to the
barn.  She handed Bobby the packet, which he looked at curiously.  It was
leather, and was cunningly made to tuck together.  He looked up to see
Sarah taking her dress off.  He darted a glance at the door to the barn,
but his voice caught as she was suddenly naked and laying her dress down on
the straw.

   With no sign whatsoever that she was uncomfortable being naked in front
of him she took the packet back and unfolded it to reveal the paste
Birthing Woman had given her ...  the same paste that had been smeared on
her mother when she and Bobby had shown Sarah what making love could look
like.  She had moistened it before she came, though it was stiffer than
when it was freshly made.  Still, she smeared it across her nipples, and
lips, and then ran her fingers between her legs.  she alternated at looking
at where she was applying the paste, and looking at her lover's wide spread
eyes.

   "Oh hurry." she moaned, pulling at Bobby's shirt with her other hand. 
Beside himself, Bobby did what she wanted and soon was as naked as she was.
She put her two paste-smeared fingers on his lips, and then reached for his
prick, which was already fully erect.  She gripped it hard, working the
paste along its length.

   "Your woman needs you." she whispered, lying back on her dress and
exposing herself to him in mimickry of her mother's actions.

   Bobby gave her exactly what she needed, her naked legs wrapped firmly
around his waist, and her hands and lips urging him on.

   "I want to do this every single night." she moaned into his ear.  "We
have to get married real soon."

   "I'll talk to my ma and pa tomorrow." he promised.  Then he groaned and
she felt the luscious heat of his spurts up inside her.

   "Real soon." she moaned as her own orgasm washed over her.

   ==========================================

   When they returned to the house, Enid stepped up behind Sarah and
carefully picked straw out of her hair while Jonas washed his sticky hands
in the sink.  Sarah blushed, and then shot Enid a grin.

   "Tell Frank I said hi" whispered Enid.

   Sarah's eyes widened, but she nodded.  She had noticed Frank wandering
off every afternoon for a week at a time, to be replaced by Peter doing the
same thing the next week.  She'd noticed it, but not thought much about it.
The look on Enid's face, though, put her mind off on a track she hadn't
thought of.

   Jonas and Sarah mounted up for the return trip.  Bobby had put on boots,
and came outside to see them off.

   "Real soon." said Sarah, blowing him a kiss.

   "Yes, Ma'am." said Bobby.

   Jonas sighed.

   Bobby went back inside, where Enid was cleaning up the mess Jonas had
made eating a pie and and three quarters.

   She looked at her brother.  "I knew you were sweet on her, but I didn't
know you were going to ask to get married." she said.

   Bobby looked at her, his eyes slightly unfocused.  "I didn't either." he
said.

   ===================

   Despite Sarah's pestering of her parents, it was insisted that the
wedding should take place in the fall, after the cattle drive.  Molly, when
Jonas had appeared in front of her, hat in hand, to tell her he'd given
away their daughter, reacted in a manner that stunned her husband.  He was
prepared for her to yell at him.  He was prepared for her to tell him to
undo the tragic mistake he had made.  He was prepared for her to argue.

   He was not prepared for her to drag him to the bedroom in the early
evening, before supper even, and fuck him almost senseless.

   Her ardor fed his, and he managed to go twice again.  It was when he had
given her everything he had to give, and was lying spent with her half on
top of him playing with the hair on his chest, that she asked him if he
remembered that day, out in the North pasture, when he had been able to
mount her twice within a short time.  He nodded and smiled.  He had been
inordinately proud that he had been able to do that, and he was just as
proud that he had repeated the feat this evening.

   "I'm pregnant." she said softly.

   He looked at her stunned.  He knew how often they had tried after Frank
had been born, with never a hint of success.

   "I've been pregnant ever since that day." she said.

   "Are you sure?" he asked.

   "I should have bled the next week." she said.  "And I didn't.  Now I've
missed again.  Yes, I'm pretty sure." she said.

   Molly was also pretty sure that, when the baby came out, it would have
Bobby's eyes, or nose, or hair, but she didn't care.  She would have a baby
to love and nurture and cuddle again.  Jonas would love it too.  That was
all that mattered.

   ===================

   It was when Molly announced, at a late supper that night, that she was
pregnant again that plans for Sarah's wedding took a different direction.
Everybody was happy about Molly's news, including Sarah, but she stayed
after all the others had left.

   "Mamma?" she said.

   "Yes, dear?" said Molly, glad that everything had gone so well.

   "I might be pregnant too." said Sarah fearfully.

   Molly turned to her daughter.  "I suspected as much." she said,
astonishing Sarah.  "When I came back with Jonas that night ...  just after
we got back ...  you looked ...  you looked like a woman who had been
loved. Was that when it happened?"

   Sarah nodded.  "I couldn't resist.  After I saw what it looked like, and
how much you loved it, and what with how I felt about him ..."

   "I know, baby" said Molly hugging her daughter.  "So we need to get you
married before the roundup.  Is that what you're saying?  Are you sure
you're pregnant?"

   "I missed my monthly last week." said Sarah.  "I didn't think anything
about it until you said you were pregnant.  I guess I don't know."

   "Was it just that one time?" asked her mother.

   "Yes, until today." said Sarah.

   Molly's head rocked back.  "You did it again today?" she asked.

   Sarah nodded.  "Pappa thought we were out for a walk, talking about
getting married."

   Molly was amazed.  "Are you daft girl?  What if he'd have caught you? 
What were you thinking?"

   Sarah looked at her mother.  "I was thinking the same thing you think
when you do it." she said.

   Molly opened her mouth, and then closed it and then laughed, hugging her
daughter again.

   CHAPTER THIRTEEN

   Molly thought about various arguments she could make to Jonas as to why
Sarah should get married much sooner than he had decreed.  She even thought
about telling him the truth, at one point, but went back to other threads
of thought when she imagined what he'd say and do.

   In the end, it was something else entirely that rearranged Jonas' plans.

   It was an evening, cool for once, and almost dark when Buckshot stood up
from where he was reading by lamp light and said "Horse coming." Molly was
in the kitchen trying to get a dutch oven clean that had been soaking all
day, and the children were in their rooms.  Jonas was dozing in his
favorite chair, but bounded up, alert, reaching for the rifle on the wall.

   "Hello the house." came a male voice from outside.

   Jonas cocked his ear.  "That sounds like Rocklin." he said.  He went to
the door and opened it.  The sun wasn't down yet, though it was dark enough
in the house that the lamps had been lit, and Jonas could see that it was
indeed Brad Rocklin.

   "Take a light." said Jonas, using the traditional western invitation to
get off a horse and be welcome.  "Mighty late to be out riding.  Thought
I'd see you some time."

   Brad took off his hat and limped up on the porch.  "Long ride." he said
shortly.

   "I saw your boy a week or two back." said Jonas.  "He asked for my
daughter's hand." He expected that was why Brad was there, though it did
seem odd he'd come so late in the day.

   "Yes." said Brad.  He looked uncomfortable.  "That's part of why I'm
here."

   "Hello Mr.  Rocklin" said Molly brightly as she came out of the kitchen
wiping her hands on a towel.  She still had on her apron.  "Won't you come
in?  Can I get you a cool drink?  Did you eat on the trail?"

   "Thank you, Ma'am." said Brad.  "But I 'spect I'd better just get on
with what I came here for."

   "You against the wedding?" asked Jonas, his voice tense.

   "No." said Brad.  "Bobby pretty much said he was going to do it, and it
didn't matter what Amanda and I thought."

   Jonas smiled.  He felt better about being railroaded into giving away
his daughter.

   "What then?" asked Molly.  "Is something wrong?"

   "I believe so." said Brad.  He looked even more uncomfortable.

   "Do you want to sit down?" asked Molly, trying to make the man more
comfortable."

   "I don't know." he said.

   Jonas was impatient.  "What's on your mind then Rocklin?  Spit it out."

   Brad took a breath.  "It appears ..." he said slowly, "that both of my
daughters are ...  with child."

   It was so silent that a stranger might have thought he'd gone deaf.

   "Oh Lord." said Buckshot from his chair.

   Jonas didn't like where he thought this was going.  "Well, that's a
shame." he said.  "But what does that have to do with us?"

   Brad sighed.  "The girls wouldn't say anything at first.  Amanda noticed
that they hadn't ..." he looked at Molly and flushed.  "They hadn't ...  um
..."

   "I know what you mean, Mr.  Rocklin." said Molly gently.

   "Thank you." said Brad, obviously relieved.  "Anyway, once Amanda
suspected, she told me, and I ...  asked them some questions."

   "I bet you did." said Molly.

   "Well ...  after we got past them denying it, I got a little insistent I
guess, and ...  well ...  it seems that they think it was your boys who got
them that way." He looked very tense.

   Jonas' face got dark.  "That's preposterous!" he said "My boys don't
even know your daughters!"

   "Jonas?" came his wife's voice.

   He waved a hand at her.  "I don't know what you think you're trying to
pull here Rocklin, but I'm not buying one bit of it.  No sir.  You can't
hang this on my sons!"

   "JONAS!" said Molly loudly.

   "WHAT!" he turned his face to her.

   "I think we need to talk to the boys about this." said Molly.

   "Why!" snarled Jonas.

   "Jonas?" Buckshot spoke.

   "What do YOU want?" asked Jonas unhappily.

   "You remember the first time we met mister Rocklin here?  'Member when
we went there looking for Sarah?"

   "Yes, but what does that ..." started Jonas hotly.

   "You remember the way Pete looked at that girl?"

   Jonas closed his mouth and looked stunned.  Then he frowned.

   "Yes I remember that, but they haven't been around those girls."

   Molly spoke up.  "I've been wondering where they go in the afternoons.
They said they were out looking for coyotes, but they haven't brought a
single pelt back."

   Brad spoke.  " A while back Frank caught up with us on the trail, after
your daughter was back.  He asked me if he could court Enid.  I didn't
think much of it, what with them separated and all.  But we keep somebody
at the ranch ...  to keep an eye on things while the flock is up in the
high meadows.  The girls volunteered to take week shifts.  I wondered about
that too.  I didn't put two and two together, though.  I should have."

   Jonas went to his chair and sat down hard.  Then he stood up.

   "BOYS!" he yelled harshly.

   There was the sound of doors opening and closing, and Frank and Peter
walked into the room.  Each one was wearing only pants.  They found four
adults staring at them.

   "What, Pa?" asked Peter.  He looked curiously at Brad.

   "Hi, Mister Rocklin." said Frank.

   "Sit down boys." said Molly.

   Frank looked pale.  "What's wrong?  Has something happened to Enid?"

   Buckshot turned away.  Under his voice he said "Oh Lordy."

   Molly took over.  "Yes, in a manner of speaking, something HAS happened
to Enid.  When was the last time you saw Enid, Frank?"

   Frank looked like he might fall down, and sat quickly.

   "Well ...  um ...  I don't rightly recollect." he said weakly.

   "Well you better START recollecting young man." growled his father.

   "Jonas, please let me handle this." said Molly.

   Jonas looked at her and blinked.  She went on before he could object. 
"Enid is pregnant, Frank." she said bluntly.

   Frank's mouth opened and then closed.  It opened again.  "Oh." he said.

   "And so is ...  Elizabeth?" she looked at Brad.  He nodded.  Peter sat
down too.

   "I don't suppose you boys know anything about that ...  do you?" asked
their mother, in the same tone of voice she might use to ask them if they'd
cleaned their rooms.

   Frank was breathing fast, almost panting.  Peter just sat, looking
stunned.

   "SPEAK UP!" yelled Jonas.

   Frank looked at him, and then at his mother, and then at Brad.  Gripping
the arms of the chair he stood up.  He still looked pale, but his knees
were stiff and his fists were tight.

   "I love her." he said.

   Peter stood up.

   "Me too.  I love her too." He looked around.  "Beth I mean.  I love
Beth."

   Jonas looked like he'd been kicked in the crotch.

   Molly sighed.  Based on what she thought about Bobby, and the kind of
family she knew it would take to produce such a fine young man, she wasn't
concerned with the fact that her boys were interested in their girls.  But
this wasn't quite the way in which she might have wished things would
proceed.  "How long has this been going on?" she asked.

   Neither boy was prepared to answer that question.  They hadn't thought
about that, or the consequences of what they'd been doing.  Like a lot of
young men, they'd just done what felt good and more or less hoped for the
best.

   "A long time, I guess." said Frank.

   It was touch and go for a while longer, but eventually the story came
out.  Frank told them about his visit to the high meadows to give them
news, and how Enid was there alone, and how ...  somehow ...  it had just
happened.  He looked so helpless that his mother reached out and touched
his hand with hers.

   Peter explained how he had gone to the Rocklin ranch to tell Beth that
the Sheriff wasn't coming, and how he had reacted, and how she had reacted,
and how he wasn't sure either how it happened, but it had.

   They admitted they'd been sneaking off to see the girls for weeks, which
was actually determined to be months, but they hadn't thought anything like
this would happen.  That caused all the adults to roll their eyes and look
at each other.

   "What do we do now?" asked Peter finally.

   Jonas started to say something, but didn't.

   Molly rose to the challenge.  "Jonas, didn't you say something about how
Bobby and Sarah are thinking about homesteading some land between our two
spreads?"

   Jonas nodded miserably.

   "Well, then, why couldn't there be three homesteads?" she asked.

   Brad looked at her and nodded.  She smiled at him.

   Jonas wasn't quite ready to agree.  "Those girls snared my boys." he
said sullenly.

   Molly's face got tight.  "Jonas Collins, you know good and well it takes
two.  They've got to do the right thing and you know it."

   He slumped.  "I know ...  I know.  But I don't have to like it."

   Molly spoke patiently.  "Think about it, Jonas.  All that open range
between our ranch and his?  Anybody could come along and homestead it.  But
if our sons ...  and Bobby ...  if THEY claim that land, our ranches ... 
our family ...  will stretch for over sixty miles."

   Molly knew her husband.  She knew the right buttons to push.  He
frowned, and then brightened.  "There is that." he admitted.  He thought
some more and his shoulders straightened.  He faced the two boys, who were
still standing, still nervous, but able to hear their mother's idea just as
well.

   "You will marry those girls." pronounced Jonas in a voice that brooked
no argument.  "You will marry them and make a good home for them.  Is that
clear?"

   Both boys nodded so hard that Buckshot wondered if their heads would
fall off.  He let out the breath he had been holding for what seemed like
forever.

   "I'm going to bed." said Jonas.  "My head hurts something awful."

   Molly stepped forward.  "I'll be along in a little while dear." she said
soothingly.  "Mister Rocklin will be staying the night with us." She looked
at Brad and he smiled and nodded once.  "While I get him a room ready, I
expect he'll be wanting to have a talk with his ...  sons-ion-law."

   Both boys looked at Brad.  They didn't look very happy.

   "I'd like that very much." said Brad.  "There are plans to make."

   ====================

   Later, in the bedroom, Molly combed her hair while Jonas lay on the bed
grousing.

   "I knew sheep would ruin this country." he growled.

   "Those girls are getting good husbands." said Molly, trying to get him
out of his funk.

   "Those girls are stealing my sons." moaned Jonas.

   "Your sons have stolen something from those girls." countered Molly.

   "You sound awfully happy about this." complained Jonas.

   Molly stood up and dropped her nightgown on the floor.  She stood proud
before her husband, her breasts, breasts that would soon be feeding a baby,
thrust out at him.  She walked over to the bed, her hips moving up and down
like those of a mountain lion.

   "Why wouldn't I be happy?" she asked.  She leaned over to rub her
breasts in his face, and he turned it sideways, trying not to respond.  He
couldn't help himself though, and she felt a thrill as his mouth captured a
nipple.  Her hand went to the front of his drawers, and slipped inside.

   "Can't you think about anything else woman?" he tried to complain.

   She took his drawers down, revealing how he really felt about what she
was doing, and she climbed up on top of him, holding him down with her
hands on his chest.  He looked up at her, eyes wide.

   "What are you doing?" he asked, his voice low.

   "I'm going to break this unruly bronco if it's the last thing I do." she
said huskily.  "I'm going to ride him until he drops."

   She reached down and found his hardness, putting it where she wanted it.
They'd never made love like this before, and it inflamed Jonas to see her
up there on top of him as she filled herself and began to rock.

   "Giddy up horsy." she cooed.

   ==================

   Once things had been decided, the only drawback was that the nearest
preacher was sixty miles away in what, in those days, was the thriving
metropolis of Squaw Creek.  The simplest solution was to have the parson
handle all three weddings the same day.  Bobby went to get the young man,
who had only been out of seminary for three months and was thrilled at not
only the number of weddings he was requested to perform, but at the aspect
of traveling to new and wild country on a horse.  He had arrived in town on
the train from back East and had only had one opportunity to mount one of
the large animals, which he had ridden twenty feet and then back again. 
His visions of carefree riding across huge scenic vistas, and camping out
in wild nature were somewhat tempered by experiencing the real thing.  It
was so much less the adventure he had thought it would be that when he
arrived, and had to be helped into the Collins ranch house because he could
barely walk, a day had to be added to the schedule to allow him to
recuperate.

   The original plan was to have one wedding at the Circle C and the other
two at the Rocklin house, but when Molly saw what kind of shape the stick
thin young parson was in after a ride of only three days and two nights
spent out in the open, she sent Frank to ask the Rocklins to come to the
Circle C.  Xian Bai stayed in the high meadows, with the flock and
everybody else rode to the ranch for the festivities.

   That led to a conundrum as to where people would sleep, since there were
only three bedrooms in the Circle C ranch house.  The solution to that,
suggested by Molly, horrified the young parson, but met everyone else's
needs with not so much as a ripple of concern.

   There was a triple wedding the day the Rocklins arrived.  That night,
Frank and Enid slept in Frank's bed, while across the room Peter and Beth
used Peter's bed.  Neither girl had any problem with the fact that, ten
feet away, wild and somewhat loud sex was going on.  That was because each
girl was making some of that noise.

   Bobby and Sarah used Sarah's room, of course, and Molly, still feeling
pity for the limping minister, said he could have Jonas' and her bed.  The
two older married couples would simply bed down in the bunkhouse with
Buckshot and Charley.

   No one thought about the fact that the parson would be subjected to the
sounds of three newlywed couples engaging in ...  what newlyweds do.  He
was an unmarried young man and, being a virgin himself, had no concept of
what he would be hearing.

   It was too much for his tender sensibilities.

   The young man wondered at the fact that there appeared to be two men,
wrapped in blankets on the ground outside the bunkhouse, already sawing
logs loudly in sleep.  He had been given a tour of the ranch and knew the
bunkhouse contained eight beds, put into use during the annual cattle drive
when extra hands were hired.

   It never occured to him that the men might be sleeping outside because
there were two married couples in the bunkhouse, as he stumbled toward what
he assumed would be a quiet bed where he could get away from the disturbing
noises he had been hearing for over an hour.

   He was completely unprepared, therefore, when he opened the door of the
bunkhouse and limped in, his eyes fully adjusted to the dark, and with
moonlight coming through the windows of the place.

   There, as if in a dream, were the ghostly white forms of two naked
women, sitting upright on top of long lumps under them.  They were in beds
right next to each other, and those forms writhed and moved, hips sliding
back and forth, as if they were riding some spectral horses through the
dark.  Pale white breasts with dark centers bobbed and jiggled as the poor
parson stood frozen.

   And those forms were making the SAME noises as he had just escaped.

   ====================

   Fifteen years later, at the height of the sheep wars that raged across
the upper west of the Republic, Senator Tom Harris heard about a group of
ranches that seemed to be immune from the violence and dissent that
characterized the relationship between men who ran cattle, and men who kept
sheep.  He was so interested by the stories he heard of how well people
were getting along in that part of Wyoming that he wrote a letter
announcing that he was going to schedule a trip to go see for himself
whether cowboys and shepherds could actually live together in peace.

   His tour covered over a hundred miles of some of the most beautiful land
he'd ever laid eyes on.  He started at the Circle C cattle ranch, which
appeared to be about as standard a cattle ranch as he'd ever seen.  Molly,
the woman of the place, turned him over to her fifteen year old son, Brett,
who showed him the operation.  Brett said he had a twin brother, but he was
married and lived on another ranch.  His thirteen year old sister Roberta,
tagged along, wearing buckskin clothing that made her look more or less
like a boy.  They were accompanied by a dog that looked like a wolf.  Ten
year old twins Ruth and Phillip wanted to go, but were retained by their
mother to do chores.

   Brett and Roberta turned him over to a new set of teens at the Bar S
ranch, named for their mother Sarah.  The new guides were two boys, ages
fifteen and fourteen, named Bob Junior and Billy, respectively.  They led
the Senator through fields that had both cattle and sheep grazing together.
At the Bar S ranch house, the Senator got to meet the namesake of the ranch
and her other four children, one of whom was in diapers.  She was obviously
pregnant again.

   After lunch, Senator Harris was turned over to yet another set of
teenagers, two girls this time, who led him onto land they called the Lazy
B ranch, which also grazed both sheep and cattle together.  He stayed the
night with Beth and Peter, who ran that ranch, along with their other four
children.  Beth Collins was also pregnant.

   The next morning, during breakfast, there was the clatter of hoof beats
in the yard and the most striking woman Senator Harris had ever seen
stomped through the door and sat down like she lived there.

   "Howdy" she nodded to the important man.  "I'm Enid Collins.  Heard you
wanted to see our place." She was dressed in buckskin, and wore a gun, like
Annie Oakley or something.  Her hair was done up in pigtails.  She ate like
a horse, but Senator Harris didn't think the slight swell pushing the front
of her buckskin shirt out was caused by overeating.  He was purely amazed
at how many pregnant women there were out in this land.

   "We figured you'd send Thomas to fetch him." said Beth.

   Enid stopped shoveling food in her mouth long enough to say "Needed all
the kids to run the flock up to the high meadows."

   Senator Harris' first impressions of this raw woman changed remarkably
as she showed him a classic sheep ranch on the ride to her home.  Her ranch
was called the F Hanging E, using the initials of her husband's and her
names, the E fastened to the bottom of the F and offset just a tad.  She
talked of politics, and economics and literature as they rode along, and
Tom Harris realized she was one of the smartest women he'd ever met.

   "I have to ask you a question." he said at one point.

   "Shoot." said Enid.

   "Almost every woman I see out here is pregnant." he said, the question
in his mind obvious.

   "Sex is fun." she said with a slight smile.

   Tom Harris blushed, not quite ready for something so plain and obvious
to answer his question.

   "Besides, it takes hands to run cattle and sheep, and if you hire them,
then that takes most of your profit." she added.  "I've got a six year old
who, with a good dog, can herd five hundred head of sheep just about
anywhere I want her to.

   "You let a six year old GIRL heard a flock of sheep?" he asked
incredulously.

   "Well, her two older brothers like to go with her, but they mostly play.
She understands sheep."

   "But isn't it dangerous?" he asked.

   "Not around here.  We have good relations with the Indians ...  what's
left of them anyway.  We had a little trouble with drifters a while back
... a little rustling problem ...  but that got solved with a rope and we
haven't had any trouble since."

   "You HANGED a rustler?" asked the Senator, amazed at how calmly she'd
suggested that.

   "Four of them actually." she said.  "Course I didn't hang them myself."
She grinned at the startled man.  "Posse did that.  Caught 'em red handed
with a running iron, changing brands.  They had over fifty head of cattle
they were trying to sneak down south."

   "But I thought you ranched sheep." he said.

   "We do, but my sister's and Brother-in-law's cattle roam free all over
the place.  Frank and I own fifty or so head ourselves, but that's mostly
for trading with the Indians, and for eating ourselves."

   The Senator met Frank when they got to the ranch house.  He and several
children were shearing sheep.  There was a pile of wool as high as he was
when he was mounted.  After a light lunch, Senator Harris was hustled off
to the Rocklin Ranch and introduced to Enid's mother.  At last he met a
woman who wasn't pregnant.  Amanda laughed as he expressed his joking
amazement.

   "Well then, let me introduce you to my granddaughter, Constance.  She's
six months pregnant with her first.  She's one of Enid's brood.  She's
married to one of Molly's boys from over at the Circle C.  I believe you've
met most of those folks already.

   ======================================

   End Note:

   Senator Harris was impressed by what he saw, so much so that he wrote
legislation intended to cool down the sheep war that seemed to be so
entrenched outside this little group of ranches that proved cattle and
sheep could be grazed on the same land successfully.

   The Forest Reserve Bill, passed in 1902, allotted public grazing land
for both cattle and sheep to terminate this unpleasant piece of history. 
It took until 1906, however, for men to actually agree to halt the
hostilities.








   


  
Cattleman's lament