The Hole

by Jaclyn Cadell

  Lefty was my second in command, and I left him in charge, again, as Sharp Eye and I went exploring the neighborhood in the direction opposite from the one we had previously taken. Hannah's map had indicated that I should find 3 occupied caves within a day's drive of our community. No such luck! We found the caves, but they had been empty since before the winter season. I wondered if these people had been killed or captured by the invaders before we fought them. I might never find out. We spent the night at the last cave and came home the next day.

  Lefty was glad to see us. He never really liked being in charge of people, he much preferred horses. He had sent out a hunting team with the other cart, and they had come back with a full load. He expected today's team to come back pretty soon, in fact, they were running late. About dark, two of the four hunters came in by themselves. They had a horrendous tale to tell.

  They had just filled their cart with kills and were headed back to town when they were attacked by a pride of lions. I was taken aback by this, until I remembered that lions had been common in France until the Celts had killed most of them. There were 6 lions, and they hit the cart with an overwhelming charge. The men fired their crossbows and wounded 2 of the lions, but two of the men were killed by the attacking lions while two more killed the horse. The two men who escaped were barely able to defend themselves with their crossbows, finally killing the two lions attacking them, before they were forced to retreat.

  I blew some cigarette smoke at them and told them that the gods were pleased at their bravery. We would go back in the morning to see what we could recover. At least, we should be able to recover the cart.

  The next morning, we set out with 10 hunters, all armed with crossbows, and I had 4 hand grenades along as a last resort weapon in case we ran into more lions. There was no question that we could not stand to have lions running free in our territory. I didn't like the idea of killing for the sake of killing, but the lions were too dangerous to tolerate. We had my old cart with us and 4 of the men were riding horses, while the rest rode in the cart.

  It took about 90 minutes for us to get to the site of yesterday's attack. There was the cart with no apparent damage, but the horse was gone, as were the bodies of the men and the game they had collected. We hooked up a horse to the cart and 3 of the men got into that cart with the driver. We were now ready for our lion hunt.

  We expected the lions to still be sleeping off the effects of gorging themselves yesterday. Their trail was easy to follow in the tramped down grass. The horses were understandably reluctant to follow the lions, but did so with constant urging. We rode with crossbows at the ready, and me holding a hand grenade in each hand. We were able to spot the lions from a distance, so we were ready when we got close.

  The lions ignored us when we approached. They had never been attacked by humans, before, so they were not concerned by us in the least. There were 5 females, 1 male, and 4 cubs in the pride. I hated to do it, but we had to kill them all. Each of the 6 men riding in the two carts was assigned an adult lion as a target, and all were instructed to hold their fire until I ordered them to shoot. The men on horses were the backup, and were to chase down and kill the cubs after all the adults were dead.

  We got within 50 feet of the lions before they reacted, but it was too late for them by then. All of the men were ready, so I called out, "SHOOT!" Six bolts were on their way. Four of the lions were mortally wounded and dropped where they were, but 2 of the females were not wounded seriously enough to keep them from charging us. The 4 men on the horses did as they should, and we were free of adult lions, at least from this pride. The four cubs didn't know how to react, and they died under a shower of bolts as soon as the men could reload.

  The lion meat was of no value to us, but the skins, claws, and teeth were. The men took the time to skin the lions and take the claws and teeth. They loaded the booty onto my cart, and we headed back to Fabton. The men on the horses took the other cart and went hunting elk.

  When we got back, everyone marveled at the way we were able to kill 6 lions and 4 cubs without injury to any of us. They also wanted to have a party right then to celebrate, but I squashed that. I wanted to wait until the hunters returned, because they had an equal part in killing the lions. I wanted one big celebration to include everybody. We did that at supper that night.

  I did have one problem to settle. The two recent widows had to be taken care of. One of them had a large extended family she could rejoin, but the other had come from the far cave and was without relatives close enough to take her in. My three wives insisted that I had to take in Butterfly as another wife, since she had no place else to go. There were no children, and Butterfly was only 13 years old, so I really was left with no choice. But what was I going to do with a wife who was only 13 years old, but expected sexual service just like the other wives? It was obvious what I was going to do, but I wasn't happy about fucking a 13 year old girl, even if she was my wife and wanted it. Oh, well, when in Rome...

  That night, my other wives insisted that Butterfly spend her first night with me; however, she stank to high heaven. My wives knew how I felt about a reasonably clean body, so they made the effort of give Butterfly a bath. She didn't understand this strange ritual, since she had never had a bath with soap before. She was fascinated by the soap suds, though she really didn't get the point. Oh, well, as long as she was clean, for whatever reason, she was acceptable.

  The other wives brought her into my bedroom, wrapped in a fur. With some ceremony, they unveiled her, and I had to admit, she was pretty, in an undeveloped sort of way. I wondered if she really had been with anyone before. I knew that 13 was considered prime marriageable age in this time and place, but I wondered if it hadn't been pushed a bit for Butterfly.

  She looked scared to death, but that might have been the fact that she didn't know me from Adam's off ox and had been pushed into this marriage just as I had been. Unfortunately, though, if I didn't make love to her tonight, her social status would plummet to depths from which it could never be resurrected. She knew it and I knew it, so the social pressures made it impossible for us to avoid the upcoming event.

  I removed my clothes, as I had bathed earlier, as soon as I found out about her sleeping with me this night. The two of us faced each other and stared at the other's genitalia. I am sure that I was no more impressive than she was; I was as soft and droopy as I could get. This was definitely not complimentary for her!

  I embraced her and kissed her gently on the mouth. This seemed to wake her up—she definitely knew how to kiss! She managed to produce one of the sexiest, open-mouth kisses I had ever had. That woke up my junior partner! I started getting hard, and she could feel my cock pressing against her belly. I was so much taller than her that there was no way my cock was going to push against her pussy with both of us standing. As soon as she felt my cock start to fill, she became even more enthusiastic with her kisses.

  I hated to break off the kisses, but I figured that there was no better time than the present and pulled Butterfly down onto my bed. Once we were lying side-by-side, the discrepancy in our height became a non-problem. She pulled herself up so that our mouths were close and resumed the kisses. Just a minimum of contortions let her press her pussy against my cock head, and I could feel her wiggle in anticipation. This was all it took for my cock to reach its maximum size. She felt the increase in size and broke off the kisses long enough to see what she was going to have to work with.

  She looked down and gasped. I'm no monster, but my other wives had commented several times that my cock was larger than the average. I need not have been concerned, Butterfly obviously wasn't! Her renewed kissing gave me the impression that she was looking forward to giving me a ride.

  I was now worked up enough to want to move the activities along a bit, so I pushed her back a little and started kissing down her throat and around her ears. I gently sucked and nipped her earlobes, and Butterfly began to moan. I moved down to what would eventually become her breasts and gently
chewed on her small, but not tiny, nipples. I must have been the first man to do this, because she acted at first as if she didn't understand what I was doing, but it didn't take her long to decide that she liked it. I sucked and nipped with my teeth on her nipples, and she started to moan louder. While I was playing with one nipple with my mouth, I was gently rolling and twisting the other between my fingers and thumb. Occasionally, I would flick my thumbnail rapidly back and forth over her nipple, and this would draw a particularly intense reaction. Suddenly, Butterfly's hips begin to squirm and buck, and she let out a scream which nearly deafened me, my ear was so close to her mouth.

  My other wives must have been standing just outside my door, because they all stuck their heads in to be sure the girl was not injured. They took one look and nodded. They withdrew, and I never saw them again that night.

  I suspected that this was her first orgasm at this strength, because she just collapsed. I gave her a minute to recover, and slid my hand down her belly to her pussy. This brought her around and got her attention as I massaged her pubic mound with the heel of my hand as I rubbed my fingers up and down her slit. After the third or fourth pass with my finger barely in her slit, I pushed in a little deeper and dragged my finger up to press on her tiny clit. This produced another scream and thrashing around as she had another orgasm.

  When she came down from this, she grabbed my now rock hard cock and used it as a handle to drag me between her legs and to pull me down so that my cock pressed against her slit. I was still pretty dry, except for a little pre-cum, so I gently pulled loose and rubbed my cock head up and down her slit to get some lubrication before I tried to penetrate her cunt. It probably wasn't necessary, judging from the amount of fluid pouring from her cunt, but I didn't want to hurt either one of us. Once I thought I was adequately lubricated, I lined myself up with her tunnel and gently pushed through her lips.

  Butterfly was not having any of the gentle treatment, though. As soon as she felt me properly aligned, she drove her hips up and impaled her pussy on my cock so quickly that I was caught by surprise. The surprise didn't last long; I pressed back and, in two pumps, had myself buried to the hilt in her almost too tight cunt. The impact of my pubic bone on her clit was the signal for her to start panting and banging me with her cunt as hard as she could. It took only a moment for us to get synchronized, and we began to fuck each other! This wasn't making love—this was hard fucking! Any skill we might have lacked was more than made up for in enthusiasm. We both were now panting and straining and we both came at the same time with explosive orgasms which caused us both to scream. I think that I must have pumped enough of that white stuff into her cunt to float a boat. I felt like I came and came and came, and Butterfly was there with me, coming just as hard. We both collapsed, but I managed to roll off her before I went to sleep. As far as I know, neither one of us woke up until the next morning. Now, that was a wedding night!

  My wives left us alone and we woke up well after the normal breakfast time. When we did wake up, Butterfly kissed me deeply and said, "Husband, I have never been fucked so good. Thank you. Now I know what your wives were bragging about. Thank you for taking me for your wife. I can't imagine how I could have been so lucky. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Now, I've got to run pee. Please excuse me."

  Butterfly stood up and fell right back down with a mighty groan. "Oh, I am so sore down there! I may never walk right, again. But it was worth it. SISTERS, PLEASE HELP ME! I NEED TO PISS!"

  My other wives came in, laughing so hard that they nearly fell down. Gentle Rain said, "What did we tell you? He's the best, isn't he?"

  "Oh, yes, he is! But if somebody doesn't help me pretty soon, I am going to leave a big wet spot in here!" They helped Butterfly to the wardrobe, laughing all the way. Undoubtedly, anyone who saw Butterfly had to laugh, since my wives never bothered to cover her as they practically carried her to relieve herself.

  Word must have spread throughout our community pretty fast, since I got admiring looks everywhere I went for the next few days! And I am sure that those looks had nothing to do with my performance as a shaman!

  Hannah and her crew showed up about 10 days later with carts full of copper and tin ore. Now we were in business! Ox and Stork started converting the ore into bronze that same day. If nothing else, we were going to need 19 new crossbows and even more swords. I had plans for the rest of the bronze, and I was in a hurry to get the wagons built so that an expedition could go back for more bronze. I had great plans, now that our community was starting to grow.

  The first wagon was ready within a month, and we were busy training horses to pull as a team. We built 3 wagons and sent them off for more ore under the command of Horse, who had been on every one of the previous expeditions for ore. He was back in a little over 3 weeks with what I hoped was enough ore to keep us busy for the rest of the summer.

  My great project for this summer was a plow! The bronze alloy we used was harder than iron and nearly as hard as steel. Even though I had worked on a farm, I had never used a plow, so I had to learn. It's not as easy as it looks to plow in a straight line. A well trained plow horse really helps, but we didn't have any of those, so the horses had to learn along with me. The ground had never been turned, so it took two horses to break through the topsoil. Both Hannah and I had to work together with this job, I drove and she operated the plow; she was so much stronger than me that the job just went easier that way. It took us a while to learn, but we finally worked it out and the plowing went well after the horses were trained.

  By the time the bronze was made, the plow was constructed, the horses and people were trained, and the seeds were planted, we didn't have much of a growing season left. I planted some squash and hoped for the best. I had been collecting seeds of likely looking plants over the last year and a half, so I hoped to have a real garden the next year.

  I had found something that looked to me like a cereal grain, so I hoped to make bread next year. I found that I really missed bread and was looking forward to having it next year. I knew that there was no hope for corn or tomatoes or many of the other vegetables that I was used to, but we had to get agriculture started if we were ever going to have a civilized life.

  We needed to domesticate animals, too. My current hope was rabbits. There were certainly plenty around. The children usually learned the basics of hunting by going after rabbits, or, more properly, hares, but I won't quibble. Anyway, I wanted to start raising rabbits for the practice, while we waited for sheep, goats, and cattle. One day, these would become important, and I wanted to push for that day.

  Chapter Eleven

  The women were absolutely enthralled by the growing squash. They loved the idea of having the plants right where they could find them easily and not be in danger from wild animals while gathering the produce. I knew I had a winner when I got the women on my side—now the men would go along just to keep peace in the family. Next spring, I planned to have a full fledged garden in operation; I now knew that the women would support me.

  My next project was to get the kids interested in having some "pet" rabbits. I got some of the older boys, 7-10, to help me build pens to hold the rabbits they caught. I figured that all we would need was 1 male and 2 females; soon after that, we should have all of the rabbits we could eat. The men were interested in this, because of the prospect of fresh meat during the winter without having to brave the bad weather to find and kill it. Maybe, it was going to be easier to get farms going than I had thought!

  In the meantime, the crossbows made it easier to hunt, and the hunters were bringing in more meat than we needed to get us through the winter. I figured that this was a good time to go after more recruits for joining Fabton before the weather got too bad. We put Lefty in charge, and Hannah, Sharp Eye, and I set out to see if we could find anyone else who wanted to join us while there was still decent traveling weather. This time we took a wagon, thinking that the extra carrying capacity might come in handy. We took some bronze knives for incidenta
l gifts and trading items; we planned to kill elk as our friendship gift.

  It was a bright, sunshiny morning as we drove out, and Hannah predicted that the weather would stay clear, but cool, for the next few days. We went toward a section we had not visited before and found an inhabited cave on our first try. Hannah had killed an elk for us to use as our gift shortly after we left home, so we were ready for our first meeting. I had learned a lot from my previous trips, so I sent out Hannah to make the first contact before we pulled up in the wagon. My theory was that a woman would be less threatening, and she could not be hurt if the people she met were too hostile. Sharp Eye, an obvious boy, was driving, so this was not likely to be a war party, and I was lolling back, prepared to light a cigarette for the smoke if worse came to worst. All-in-all, we were about as non-threatening as we could get!

  Hannah had everything under control when we pulled up to the front door with the wagon. It was an instant sensation and everybody wanted a ride after we presented our elk as the friendship gift. They gave us some jerky in exchange, hardly an equal swap, but it was the thought that counted. There were 12 people in the group, so it was a tight squeeze to fit everyone in the wagon at the same time, but a grand time was had by all. We had fun that afternoon. Hannah and Sharp Eye demonstrated the crossbow to prove that even a woman or a boy could handle a weapon superior to a stabbing spear. The men were very impressed with what I could do with a sword, so we all three made a big impression.

  I was getting a little pickier about the recruits than I had been before when we needed every hand we could muster. I still wanted to take in everybody we could, but I was now on the lookout to eliminate troublemakers before they were even invited to join. Therefore, we spent the night in order to get to know everybody a little better. All these people were acceptable, so, after supper that night, I put on my shaman persona, lit a cigarette, and gave them my sales pitch about joining us. All but one of the people, a woman, was ready to go right then, and she wanted to wait until morning. I sided with her, so we spent the night at this cave.