This is a work of fiction. It contains explicit descriptions of sexual acts. It is not intended for minors.


Ironcleft Genesis part 6
By Boondocker (Boondocker42@gmail.com)


Savior


It began to rain that night. Jenny's only shelter was a tree. She spent the night leaning against the trunk, huddled around her child.

Before dawn was truly begun, she was so cold she simply had to get up and move around. It took several hours for her slow pace to begin to warm her body. It was still raining. Water was beginning to fill every wash and stream.

It was still well before noon and Jenny's body was just beginning to warm when something made her pause. It took her a moment to identify what was wrong. She had heard something; a faint cry of some kind. She couldn't identify it but it seemed to be coming from the small river a few hundred yards west of her. She turned to investigate.

The cries resolved themselves into a woman's pleas for help and the sobbing of small children. Immerging from the thick growth along the bank, Jenny looked out across the river. It was swollen with runoff and coursing along high in its banks. It was over forty feet across and appeared deep. She cast her gaze upstream and identified the source of the pleas.

The first thing to catch her eyes was the half-wrecked form of a wagon partially submerged in the rushing water and pressed against a large boulder. A body was visible trapped between the cart and the rock.

The woman calling for help was kneeling on another boulder a little ways downstream from where the wagon pinned a victim. She was soaking wet and there was blood on her face from a scalp wound. In her arms was a bundle she held fiercely to her chest.

More sounds drew Jenny's eyes back to the wagon. She hadn't seen it before but a blond-haired head could be seen of the far side f the wagon. There appeared to be a small child clinging to the wagon's submerged bed.

Quickly, Jenny found a safe spot for her son well away from the river and then raced along its bank, passing the woman who just then spotted her and began screaming hysterically for help. The powerful, naked woman studied the situation.

Jenny could not swim at all. Of course, with the river's current as it was, swimming would have been pretty much useless anyway. She eyed the river. She figured if she absolutely had to and was without burden, she could leap its forty feet given a running start but that wasn't going to do any good. If she tried to jump out to the wagon or the boulder it had caught itself on... well, there wasn't much chance she could land safely on the boulder and she was likely to wrench the wagon free and send them all tumbling downstream if she tried to land on it.

She now saw that there were actually two children clinging to the wagon bed and that the pinned victim was a man, probably their father. He appeared to be unconscious.

Jenny looked around desperately for inspiration. There were trees lining the bank here. One specimen had a trunk of a bit under two feet across and was slanted slightly out over the water. It was tall enough to span the river if it was felled.

But Jenny hadn't brought any of her logging tools.

The woman was begging Jenny to go for help. Jenny considered doing so but she had no idea where she was likely to find anyone. It could literally take all day to find help. Jenny Stram felt a mantle of determination settle over her. The situation might be hopeless for anyone else but not for her.

She strode over to the tree she had identified. It was well positioned just a little ways upstream from the stranded wagon. She studied it for a moment and then positioned herself in-land from it. She braced her right shoulder against the trunk and wrapped her arms around it, locking her hands together. Kicking and scuffing at the earth, she set her feet securely.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she heaved with all her might.

Bark splintered in her grasp and the tree's crown swayed. Jenny's back protested. She let her breath gasp out and released the tree. She shook bark from her hands and brushed it off her shoulder. She slapped at the trunk several times to dislodge more of the tree's rough skin. The girl put her shoulder to the tree again and embraced it. She took a second to visualize the children being swept downstream to drown and then heaved at the tree again.

The earth moved beneath her feet. Jenny realized that she was actually standing on the tree's roots. She tried to think her way through the problem but no alternatives came to mind. She must either snap the tree's trunk or force her feet to break through the roots beneath her so that she could uproot it.

Or she could fail.

Jenny re-set her feet. She crouched down a little lower and dug her shoulder in. She took three deep but quick breaths through her mouth and then surged her body's power against the tree.

The sound of tearing and cracking reverberated from the ground. The packed soil shifted beneath her feet. A red haze filled Jenny's world as she strained against the tree. The young woman's physical size was unusual but her immense strength was not usually immediately evident. Her frame was solid but did not swell with muscle.

Now, tested as they never had been before, her muscles tightened and bulged. Granite-hard masses of raw power swelled across every part of her straining body. Her smooth sleekness disappeared beneath a relief-map of straining effort.

Every cell in Jenny Stram's body burned. She refused to give up. The tree had moved. She knew from the grinding movement beneath her that she had damaged the tree's anchor. Huffing, she paused for a split second to re-seat her shoulder and then surged against the stubborn trunk again.

With a series of cracks and a cascade of dirt, the roots began to rise out of the earth and the tree slowly toppled over. All around Jenny, root and loam lifted from the ground. 

Jenny danced away in relief, panting and eyes wide. The tree seemed to fall in slow motion, slowly bowing to meet the river. Its top dozen feet crashed to the far bank. The small mountain of dirt and tendrils at its base bucked ten feet in the air as the beast rebounded.

Jenny couldn't believe she had done it.

She nearly collapsed taking the first step towards the fallen tree as her right leg cramped up painfully. She gritted her teeth and hobbled to the bank but then had to stop and try to massage her strained thigh muscle back into working order. Her back ached and her shoulder was tender and would probably show an ugly bruise later. It is impossible to know how many thousand pounds of force she had just subjected her body and the tree to.

In a minute or so her leg transitioned from a knotted ball of pain to a deep soreness that she could ignore if she had to. Jenny stepped up onto her newly made bridge and crept out over the river. Her bare feet made solid contact with the damp bark giving her secure footing. She stepped around a few branches, using them as hand holds. As she got closer to the wagon, the branches became more numerous and were getting in the way.

She bent, grabbing one large branch with one hand and braced her other three limbs against the trunk. She wrenched at the branch, snapping it and tearing it away from the tree. The makeshift bridge bounced and swayed with the jerking forces. She did this four more times as she got closer to the wagon, clearing a path.

The children were watching her with wide eyes. It was only at that point that it occurred to Jenny how she must look; a large naked woman that had just ripped a good sized tree out of the ground and was now clawing her way towards them. She hoped the kids wouldn't be too frightened to help her save them.

When she drew even with the wagon, she examined the situation. There were about eight feet between the trunk and the bed of the cart. Numerous branches stretched between the two. Jenny saw that she had been very lucky that no large branches had impacted the stranded cart.

Jennifer jumped lightly across to the wagon, splashing down into the sharply angled bed as lightly as she could.

The children were a boy of perhaps six and his little sister who was no older than four. The boy had pressed his sister high into a dry corner and was clinging to the wagon around her. "Come here little ones, let's get you out of here." Jenny said.

The boy had cried himself dry. His lips were blue and his teeth chattered. "Our daddy's under the wagon. He's asleep and won't wake up."

"I know dear. I'll help him soon but he'd want me to make sure you are safe." Jennifer sidled closer to the children, stepping carefully along the cart's submerged structure. She extended her free arm in a welcoming gesture. "Bring your sister over here and I'll take you to shore."

The boy griped his sister's upper arm and pushed off towards Jennifer. They dipped beneath the churning surface of the water. Jenny snatched at his shirt and caught them. Gently and awkwardly, she worked both the children in towards her body. She managed to get her arm under both of their arms and hug them like a single bundle. The boy put his arms around her neck. The whimpering, shivering little girl was jammed against Jenny's shoulder with nothing to hold onto. Her little hands scratched and grasped at Jenny's tit looking for a hand-hold.

Jenny had to concentrate to keep herself from crushing the children. She also was fighting for balance against the current and the sloping surfaces of the wagon. Gathering her legs beneath her, she jumped lightly back towards the fallen tree. Her feet landed squarely and her free hand steadied her on one of the remaining branches. "See," she said. "No problem."

Jenny moved quickly back toward the bank with her burden. Once on dry land (if the soggy bank could be called such) she paused to examine the children for injuries. Aside from being extremely cold, they seemed fine. The boy couldn't take his eyes off the wreckage of the wagon. "Why is daddy still sleeping?"

Jenny didn't want to think about it and she wanted the children thinking about it even less. "I don't know, we'll find out soon. But look over there. Is that your mommy?" she asked, pointing downstream at the woman crouching on her rock.

The girl finally spoke. "Mommy!"

Jenny carried the children to the place she'd left Stanley. She was realizing more and more how extremely foolish she had been to bring no blankets or anything. The baby seemed content in his papoose for now but Jenny was feeling guilty. 

She told the children to stay with her baby while she went to get their mommy. Both children collapsed to the earth without protest, exhausted by their ordeal.

Jenny trotted back to the bank, her leg finally beginning to loosen from its cramp. There were no handy trees in the vicinity of the mother. Her rock was a bit closer to the bank being only about fifteen feet out. There was no room on the rock however as the woman occupied its entire small surface.

Seeing no better alternative, Jenny aimed for open water a few feet upstream from the rock and jumped. She plunged to the bottom of the rushing river while being grabbed by the powerful embrace of the current. Before she knew what was happening, her hip and then her shoulder hit the rock hard. The current's path drug her around the rock, her arms twisting to find a grip but failing. The river carried her downstream.

Jennifer bounced along the rocky bottom of the stream. She was completely disoriented. She couldn't figure out which way was up for long enough to do anything about it. For a long minute she remained under water, lungs burning and her body being beaten against the streambed and carried away from her child and the family in distress.

Then her body slammed into a large boulder stomach-first. For a moment the current pressed her there and she had the presence of mind to wrap herself around the obstruction and hang on.

The boulder she had hit was completely submerged. She managed to work out which was up. She braced her legs against the rock's upstream edge and tried to raise her head above water. She just managed to break the surface, gulping in air between waves. She thought she saw more rocks sticking out of the water a little farther along. She tried to raise herself up higher for a better look and lost her purchase. The river swept her away again.

Her underwater journey was much quicker this time. The last thing she had done as she lost her footing was to make sure she faced her body downstream. She kept her arms out in front of her as if to catch herself in a fall. She tried to keep her feet under her, bouncing herself along the bottom.

She couldn't see anything and when her hands crashed into another obstruction, she was unable to prevent the rest of her body from doing the same thing. The impact forced her to take a breath and water filled her lungs. The impact would have shattered the arms and chest of anyone else.

She tried to wrap her arms around the rock she had hit. Something was wrong with one of her hands. It was like some kind of nightmare. But Jenny Stram hauled herself out of the stream and onto the boulder. She spent several minutes hacking up water. Her left hand was throbbing. She stared at it. It had taken the brunt of the impact, first slamming into the boulder and then being smashed by the rest of her careening body. Already her ring finger was swelling and her pinky was the wrong shape. Dully he realized that those fingers were broken.

Kneeling on her rock, Jenny tried to get her bearings. She looked upstream and could see the woman and the wagon. She was surprised at how close they were... she felt like she had been dragged along the river bottom for miles.

Her rock was only about ten feet from the bank. Dragging herself to her feet, she jumped to the shore and began walking back up stream. Her hand hurt. She tried moving her broken fingers and that hurt a lot more. Grimly, she tried to straighten her pinky. Heat flashed across her face and she felt faint. My god that hurt.

Jenny Stram was now angry at the river. She never let anything get the best of her. When she reached her original jumping-off point, she didn't pause for even a second. She took two running steps and jumped back into the water in the same place she had before.

She kept her injured hand held close across her chest and angled her body to first strike the rock with that shoulder. As she hit, her good hand snapped around and gripped the stone, her finger's finding purchase on its rough texture. She used that iron grip to hold herself steady against the current while her toes found similar holds and she climbed out of the water.

She was eye to eye with the woman. She seemed to be in shock now as her gaze was glassy and she didn't speak. Jenny spared a glance for the bundle she still held. Presumably there was a baby in there but it was not visible beneath the swaddling. Trying to sound friendly, Jenny said "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here."

There was little room on the boulder. Jenny got one foot up onto it and then lifted the woman carefully onto her shoulder. Jenny rose and got her feet under her and shifted the woman into a comfortable two-armed carry with her bundle resting safely atop her. She faced the bank and flexed her knees. "Here we go" she said. Putting as much spring as she could into her arms, she jumped out over the stream. She landed high on the bank, trying to absorb the landing with her legs.

Jenny moved to put the woman on her feet. She wobbled horribly. Jenny lifted her back up and carried her to where the children were bundled together. As Jenny lay her down there the woman finally found her voice. "Is my husband...?"

Jenny grimaced. "I don't know yet. I'm about to find out."

The woman seemed to slowly be regaining her thoughts. "You've hurt your hand." She said.

Jenny just nodded. "Yes. We'll worry about it later." And then went back to the fallen tree.

Jenny quickly made it to the wagon and then climbed over it to crouch down on the large boulder it had come up against.

The man didn't look very old, probably not yet thirty. A nasty gash on his head had bled heavily but was now scabbed over. Jenny bent closely but the sounds of the river made it impossible to tell if he was breathing.

The girl studied the situation. While the wagon was pressed tightly against the man's trapped body, most of the actual weight seemed to be supported by the axels and frame so that he was held in place without being crushed. Unless of course he was crushed, Jenny just didn't know yet.

Jenny lay on her belly and pulled on the back of the guy's shirt. Then she saw that he was wearing suspenders. She felt behind his body and found them. She gather them both up into her grip and attempted to lift his body. Even laying prone with one extended arm, Jenny should have no trouble lifting the man's weight. He body shifted but the rock and the wagon held him in place. If she tried to force it, she would probably kill him and certainly injure him seriously.

Standing again, she thought for a few moments and then straddled her legs between the boulder and the wagon. She found good footing on the rock side and braced her other foot against the edge of the wagon. Her back reminded her of how unhappy it was when she bent down low to grab the man's suspenders again. He was well below the level her feet were at now and the reach was awkward to say the least. If he had been conscious, he would have been treated to the sight of Jen's straining thighs framing a vagina that was soaking wet and pulled open wide.

He probably would not have actually been aroused given the situation.

She would have liked to use both hands to help control things but her injured hand just refused to provide a decent hold. The pain was bad enough but it also masked any other feeling and she just couldn't trust that hand's grip.

She finally got both belts of the suspenders in her good right hand. Now to open things up.

Jenny began pushing against the cart. The thick tendons in her thighs tightened. Jenny heaved with her legs, trying to open the gap so she could lift the man out.

The weight of the wagon alone would have been no challenge but the force of the current pressing against it was another story. It took her four tries, each time she tried to set her leverage at a different angle. She considered the other method of putting her feet on the rock and her hands on the wagon... she could exert a lot more force that way but wouldn't be able to hold on to the man.

On the fourth try she set herself low, allowing the knees to bend a bit. Then she actually lifted her foot off the wagon for a moment. She came back down on it hard, slamming into it and pressing with all her might.

The wagon shuddered at the first impact and then moved inexorably. It only took about two inches of travel before the man's body began to slide down farther into the gap. Jenny jerked him out using the power of her arm to lift him clear and above her head while maintain pressure with her legs.

She swept her left arm under his body and held him against her chest. He was of medium height and built. She let the wagon push her back and swung her foot down to the boulder. The wagon settled back into place, apparently to right where it had started.

Jenny had misjudged slightly and was off balance. There was little room on the boulder to help her. As she began to fall forward, she hopped up onto the edge of the wagon. Balancing there would be an impossible but she had enough time to gather herself again and jump the ten feet or so to the fallen tree. She aimed for a cluster of branches. She landed squarely with her feet on the trunk and let herself fall forward softly into the branches there. She rebounded and found her balance long enough the shift the man to one shoulder, freeing her right hand. This put her injured left hand on the man's back but it was suitable for just keeping him in place.

Now able to grab branches to steady herself, Jenny made it to shore quickly.

Jenny was faintly surprised to find the woman waiting for her on the bank near the fallen tree. Jenny lowered the man from her shoulder and gently laid him out on the wet grass. Without a word, the woman bend over him, listening for his breath. "He's alive!" she said, her voice rough with suppressed sobs. "Oh thank the Father, he's alive."

The woman took her husband's head in her hands and tried to revive him. Jenny went to check on Stanley. He was asleep in the papoose. The young girl was asleep as well, her head nestled in her brother's lap. His eyes were wide and he shivered with cold. "Did my daddy wake up?" he asked.

Jennifer picked up her son and looked down at his sleeping face. His soft, round features showed nothing of the strength she knew was within. Something about the day's events had brought home to her the meaning of family.

"No, he is still asleep I think. He may be badly hurt. I do not know. Your mother is with him." The boy was silent in response. He was experiencing several kinds of shock but Jenny had no idea how to help him.

She stood in silence over the brother and sister with Stanley in her arms and rain cascading over them for many long minutes. She turned when she heard the woman approach.

"My name is Agnes. Agnes Wilson." She said.

"I am Jenny."

Agnes was starring at her with many confused emotions pent up behind her fatigued face. Where did one even start? Concern about her husband, shock at the appearance of the naked woman and wonder at what she had done... it was just all too much to take in. Survival instinct asserted itself and she settled on practical questions. "Thank you for your help. My husband has not woken and the children are freezing. Do you have any blankets? Or clothing? Or food?"

Jenny both shook her hean and shrugged. She bent down for her small pack as she answered. "I have only a little food." She set her son aside and presented some pieces of hard bred to the boy and his mother.

Agnes took the bread but only held it in frong of her in uncertainty. "We lost everything. Our entire lives were in the wagon and it's all washed away."

Jenny cast her gaze down-stream. "Perhaps we can find some of it." She suggested. Before the woman could respond, Jenny asked her, "Will you look after my baby for a bit?"

Brought up short, the piece of bread still clutched before her, Mrs. Wilson nodded blankly.

Holding her injured hand against her side, Jenny loped away down the bank, eyes scanning the river. She paid special attention to the rocks where debris might catch and collect.

It felt good to be moving, driving the chill from her body. She was just out of sight of the stranded wagon when she came upon a burlap sack wedged amongst some boulders. She recovered it and left it on the bank as she continued downstream. She found one small crate soon after. Following that she found nothing more. She must have covered two miles at a bounding jog but there was no other sign of the family's goods.

She moved more quickly returning upstream, scooping up the crate and sack as she went. Agnes had moved all the children near her husband. She was breast-feeding her youngest while her oldest sat with his father's hand in his. The daughter was gnawing on a piece of bread, leaning in against her mother.

Stanley rested against her hip and gazed about with newly wakened eyes.

"This was all I could find." Jenny declared as she dropped down amongst the little group. Without waiting for permission, she untied the sack to discover its contents. It held a motley collection of clothing and a few small blankets. Everything was soaked, wadded mess. Jenny places the bag in front of Agnes and moved on to the crate. This time she did pause and gave the other woman a questioning look. "I think that's a cook pot and some plates." She said.

Jenny's hard fingers pried the nailed lid off. Indeed, within the crate sat an iron pot and inside that were wads of straw and some clay plates. Jenny set the crate in front of her. Her attention was drawn to her injured hand.

Two fingers were badly swollen, the pinky still visibly misshapen. She had not been unaware of the pain but seeing her hand now gave it new urgency. She tried to spread her finger's out across the crate's lid. She had to grit her teeth against the pain.

Agnes covered her bosom and told her son to sit with the baby. "Let me see if I can help you with that." She said. She shook out the contents of the sack and found her apron. "Do you have a knife?" she asked.

Jenny nudged her pack towards the woman. Her knife and sheath hung from its strap. Agnes took it and cut away one of the apron's ties. "I think if you sit with the board in your lap and spread your hand out across it as best you can, I can give it a good look."

Jenny did as instructed. Her mangled hand protested mightily.

Agnes looked it over closely. "It looks like your middle finger is fine." She said. She probed it while looking up at Jenny.

"Yes. It doesn't hurt."

"We need to splint these other two. Wait here." She went off to find suitable sticks. As she returned, Jenny watched her as she paused near the bank, staring at the wrecked wagon in the middle of the river. She crossed herself... if she said anything, Jenny could not hear.

Agnes sat back down in front of Jennifer. "We need to straighten the small finger. It will hurt a great deal." Jenny just nodded.

Agnes had set bones before. She had been taught that gentle prodding was simply no good; a badly broken bone must be set with abrupt force and determination.

Jennifer's hands were as large as any man's and her fingers long. Agnes wrapped her hand around the entire pinky and without warning, yanked on it.

The crate lid caved in with a snap as Jenny tensed up, fighting the pain. Agnes froze. She had almost allowed herself to forget this strange woman's strength. Seeing that no further violent movements were forthcoming, she released the finger and examined it.

It looked much better... badly swollen but without the disturbing angle. She moved to place sticks along the two fingers as splints. "This should hurt a little less." She said, trying to smile. She lashed the two injured fingers and their splints together with the apron strap.

As she finished, Agnes forced herself to look Jennifer in the eyes. "It was very kind of you to help us. And very brave."

Jennifer pulled her hand back and lowered her head. "What kind of monster would turn away from people in need?" she asked. Then she mumbled, "I'm not a monster."

"No, I can see that." Agnes replied. Then for the first time she let herself get a good luck at the strange woman. There were no obvious signs of the phenomenal strength and resilience she had displayed but there was something very different about her. Her coloring was odd and she was so tall.

And of course she had been out marching through the remote countryside with a young baby and not a stitch of clothing.

"Jennifer, no one could possibly think you a monster but... can I ask you something?"

Jenny very much did not want to talk. She moved away from Agnes, reaching for Stanley in his papoose. Agnes didn't want to let the woman go without an explanation. "Please, how were you able to do what you did? You tore the tree right out of the ground. That's not possible."

Jennifer held her son closely, avoiding eye contact with the other woman. "I didn't really think I'd be able to do it." She said.

"But you did. How? And why are you out here alone with a baby and... and... without clothes?"

Jennifer really didn't want to talk about herself. She wanted to flee. But at the same time she resented that urge in herself and did not want to give in to any kind of weakness. Staying there with the woman and speaking to her was every bit as hard as ripping that tree from the ground but Jennifer forced herself to do it anyway.

"I'm strong. I'm really strong and I don't need anybody." She answered.

Agnes was silent for a bit. "How long have you been alone, dear?"

Jennifer thought about telling the woman about her days of rutting among the wood-cutters but thought better of it. "Nearly a year. I gave birth to my son alone and have made a home for myself and I don't need anyone."

Agnes raised her hands in a calming gesture. "I can see that. You baby looks beautiful, Jenny."

It was a great relief to the powerful young woman when Agnes was interrupted at that moment by moaning sounds from her husband. Agnes rushed to his side and held his cheeks as she repeated his name over and over again.

Jennifer picked up her pack and slung Stanley across her chest. She moved away from the family quietly. After putting some distance between them, she waited. She watched as the man slowly became aware of his surroundings and began to speak horsy to his wife. The little boy stood over his parents watching with wide eyes as they cried in each other's arms.

As the man began to struggle to his feet, Jennifer Stram slipped away and made a bee-line for her valley home.

In the months that followed, her hand healed true. When Jennifer missed two monthly courses, she thought for a time that she was pregnant again. But then her period came back, surprising her one day with a bloody mess. She thought something was wrong with her but nothing more came of it.

Regretfully she concluded that her trip to the weak-lands had been in vain.


©Boondocker
