by Nathan Wolf
The ecosystem of the valley and the mountains idled between fall and winter as plants and animals braced for the arrival of winter and the season's first major snowfall.
"The herd we're hunting should be about fifteen miles ahead of us. We'll need to cross a steep ridge and two valleys to get there," Alice said.
Thanks to the modifications to our ATV's exhaust system, we journeyed westward in near silence. The sound of our tires on the rocky trail was louder than the whispering purr of our engine.
As we topped the crest of the last ridge between our deer herd and us, Alice let the ATV coast to a stop.
The top of the rocky ridge offered a spectacular view of the snow-capped summits all around us, and the clear, chilly air gave the illusion distant mountains were much closer than they actually are. High overhead, the bright indigo sky of the morning now had a hazy white tint and high altitude streamers of wispy mare's tails and cirrus clouds smeared across the heavens from the west.
"Time for lunch and a potty break," she said as she secured the vehicle, killed the engine and dismounted.
"Great idea! I gotta go water some moss," turning my back on Alice, I used my body as a modesty screen. As I was busy unzipping my fly, Alice moved next to me and stood at my side.
"Do you mind?" I protested.
"Don't get your knickers in a knot. Just pretend I'm not here," Alice responded with a wink.
"Besides, you weren't very shy when my daughter and I were playing with you in the shower the other day," she reminded me.
Despite some major boundary issues, I was both amused and flattered by her interest in my man parts. Since our shower episode, she flirted with me and teased me at every opportunity. As much as I hated to admit it, I enjoyed the sexual flirting between us. It was a weirdly major turn-on.
My bladder was so full I started to leak and dribble. I gritted my teeth and tried to stem the flow. I didn't have time for an argument, so I raced to pull my prick out of my pants as quickly as possible. It was a photo finish. The floodgates opened just as the head of my dick cleared my fly.
My knees trembled in relief as urine drained out of me. I am at the age where my early warning system is a bit out of tune. The interval between the sensation of needing to take a piss and the uncontrolled act of urination was razor thin.
I turned to rebuke Alice for her bad manners. She was intently watching every movement of my man parts. Her eyes might just as well 'have' been super glued to my pee-hole.
"Oh, Shit! Now I gotta take a piss," said Alice as she succumbed to the power of suggestion.
"Would you like some privacy?" I made a point of drawing out and embellishing the final word of my question with extra syllables for dramatic effect. My version of "privacy" sounded like a blurry "Pretty-City."
"Thank you for asking," Alice said as she unbuckled her pants and lowered them and her blue cotton panties to her ankles. She squatted down, looked me in the eye, smiled, and pointed to her neatly trimmed crotch as she let loose a thick stream of bright yellow piss.
I frowned at Alice for her exhibitionist behavior, and she burst into laughter. "Don't be such a prude. I caught you spying on me while I was spying on you. You liked what you saw so I gave you a show for the fun of it."
"Lady! That was no show. That was the whole ‘effing circus," I growled, pretending to be annoyed. My stern demeanor crumbled when my shoulders started to shake with suppressed laughter, and my mouth broke into a grin.
"One day a voyeur and an exhibitionist walk into a bar and," I took a breath and paused as I tried to remember how the joke went. My mind went blank, all I could remember was the punch line, "Here's looking at you kid."
An Interesting fact of life: it is nearly impossible to stay pissed-off at someone when you are both sharing a laugh.
After the show-and-tell piss break, we got down to the business of lunch. The thermos we had filled in the kitchen prior to our departure produced two steaming hot bowls of the colony's legendary venison stew.
I studied Alice as I dug into my serving of stew. Despite our shared laughter, there was something about Alice's sexual advances and continuous flirting that didn't ring true. Why would a hardcore lesbian like Alice suddenly decide she needed a man in her life?
There was a frantic, almost desperate desire for us to connect. She wanted us to engage in sex, so much so, that she was even hinting at bringing her virgin daughter into the action. Even though they were both hotter than a Texas parking lot in August, I held my libido in check. Until I had a better understanding of the mother/daughter dynamics involved, I decided to make haste slowly.
Years of social trial and error had taught me the best way to clear the air between two people was to speak plainly. I liked to think of it as playing poker with my cards face-up on the table.
"Alice, we need to talk. Curious minds want to know, do you want us to have sex?" I said.
My blunt question seemed to take my hunting partner by surprise as she raised her eyebrows and blinked at me. She said nothing for several moments before responding, "Do you mean right now? Can we finish lunch first? Why do you ask?"
"At the meeting this morning you asked me if I would share your bed tonight if you asked nicely. Was that a real question or were you just flirting?" I inquired as I moved to sit at her side.
"I was serious. I wanted to know if you would make love to me." Alice's face took on a reddish tint as she blushed, "Dennis, will you make love to me tonight?"
"Be honest. You are a lesbian, and I'm an old fart. Why would you want to have sex with me?" I asked.
She looked at me in silence for the longest time before answering, "I am concerned about my daughter."
It was my turn to be surprised. "What does your daughter have to do with us having sex?"
"My home is Liberty Mountain, and I'm here because I love my sisters. My daughter has displayed no interest in sexual relations with other women, but she has shown a keen interest in getting to know you in the Biblical sense. I want her to explore her sexuality, and I want her to be true to herself. Star and I have had a few long mother and daughter talks about you. You are the first male she's met," Alice turned to face me and looked directly into my eyes.
"I warned her one man is not all men, and I told her I might give my blessings for her to have sex with you, but I would do so only after I've had a chance to check you out," Alice glanced at my private parts.
"Your daughter is still a child. I wouldn't feel right taking advantage of her that way," I sighed.
Alice gave me a sharp look, "Bullshit! How old were you when you lost your virginity?"
"I was fifteen, and she was nineteen," I had a hard time remembering who seduced who.
"So fifteen is old enough for boys, but eighteen is too young for a girl? Sounds like a fucking double standard, pun intended," she shot back.
"OK. I get it I'm old-fashioned. However, I still don't understand why you would want your daughter to have sex with me," I studied her eyes and searched for her answer.
"I want the best life for my daughter, and that begins by her being true to herself. If it turns out she likes men, I'm good with that. If she prefers women, I'm also good with that. If she's bisexual like her mother, that would be fine. I'll love and support her no matter who she is. Besides, I have a dream of someday being a grandmother," Alice said with an almost shy smile.
"What about you? Why is it so important that you check me out first?" I was looking for the truth behind her interest in me.
"Because if you turn out to be an asshole like her father, I won't let you near her, that's why. He was a lousy, selfish lover who cared nothing for the sexual needs of his partner," Alice concluded.
We spent the next several minutes in thoughtful silence as we finished lunch and got ready to resume our quest for fresh venison.
Our vantage point on the ridge afforded us a clear view of the deer herd in the valley a thousand feet below. Under the watchful eye of a magnificent stag, a dozen does graze
along the banks of the stream flowing across the glen's floor. It would take all Alice's driving skills to traverse the pathway to the bottom.
Chapter 13 – (Return to index)
"This is Liberty base. The National Weather Service has issued a revised winter storm warning for our area. Forecasters are calling for up to 36 inches of snow starting tonight at 5 PM with blizzard conditions beginning at 6:30 PM. Snow will continue throughout the evening and into late tomorrow afternoon. Winds south by southwest 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 120 mph along exposed ridges. Return home immediately. Please acknowledge."
"It's too bad we can't acknowledge a message we never received," Alice said as she turned off the radio's power.
I scanned the sky overhead. The wispy streaks of morning clouds of had given way to a high hazy overcast. Tops of advancing clouds were beginning to appear on the western horizon. The minuscule amount of weather lore I still remembered from my days as a Tenderfoot Scout told me high thin clouds and Mare's tails were telltale signs of approaching storm systems and usually signaled that a weather front was moving in.
We left base around 9:00 AM and had been on the trail for almost four hours. If we return now, we will make it home with barely 30 minutes to spare before the storm hits.
“We need to turn back if we are going to beat the snow," I urged Alice.
"No fucking way! I'm not getting this close without bringing back Bambi Burgers," she replied with a look of determination that could blister paint.
"Besides, we can get down to the valley floor and back in less than 30 minutes. We should have time to spare. Not much, but enough. I didn't come this far to go back empty-handed." I wasn't going to win this argument.
The 30-degree angle of the slope and the sheer granite face of the nearly treeless ridge made for a treacherous descent. We had almost made it to the base of the ridge when our rocky trail abruptly narrowed before ending in a dead end at the edge of a vertical cliff. It was fucking frustrating. We were within a hundred feet of the valley floor. As far as we were concerned, our goal could just as well been on the dark side of the moon.
"Shit! I missed the turn, we're on the wrong trail," Alice swore as she reached for the radio and turned on the power.
Haste makes waste, but I kept my thoughts to myself as I scanned the sky.
"Liberty Base this is Hunter One, come in, please. Over," Alice paused and repeated her call, "Liberty Base this is Hunter One, come in, please. Over." It was useless. A granite slab a mile thick stood between our location and the base's radio receiver, effectively blocking out our signal. The steady hiss of static ruled the airwaves. Alice handed me the radio's microphone and instructed me to repeat the call to base every five minutes.
Backing up the steep slope was a royal pain in the ass. Reverse gear is slow, and the best speed our mule could manage up the incline was not much faster than a slow walk. Our retreat finally paid off when we came to a wide spot on the trail after 20 minutes of travel. Alice executed a tight 3-point-turn, and at last, the front of the ATV pointed in the right direction.
The trail up the side of the ridge was difficult to follow. The overcast changed the light. None of the landmarks we passed on the way down looked like the ones we were passing on the way back up the trail.
We blazed our own path and followed the contours of the ridge in an ever upward journey. We hit a series of dead ends where we were forced to turn around, backtrack and start over. Slow and steady wins the race in fairy tales. In our case, we won the ridge in an hour and thirty-six minutes and lost our race against the clock.
We used too much time backtracking, and there was no way in hell we would be able to make it home before the weather turned to shit. Unless we could find a sheltered place to hunker down and ride out the blizzard, we would both be dead before dawn.
"Do we have the time and tools we need to build a lean-to?" I asked.
"Good idea. We have the tools, but we don't have the time. We've gotta find something almost ready-made - like a cave, rock overhang, or a cluster of fallen trees," Alice said as she handed me a pair of binoculars.
We drove to an outcropping with a good overview of the eastern face of our ridgeline.
"Scan to the north, and I'll scope out the south," Alice said as she lifted her binoculars and searched our southern flank.
The heavy overcast of clouds reduced the daylight in the valley to near twilight conditions even though sunset was still 45 minutes in the future. In a classic case of the lull before the storm, the wind died down to almost nothing. I felt a drop of wetness on my cheek and a few moments later another on my nose. Like the advance scouts of an approaching army, the first flakes of snow explored the ground around us.
"Damn it! There's nothing to the south of us!" Alice growled in frustration.
To the north, the slope of the ridge gave way to a nearly vertical drop. Conditions were favorable to the formation of rock shelters. Over the eons, slabs of granite had broken away and tumbled to the ground. I was looking for anything resembling a natural rock lean-to or cave opening.
"Alice! I think I got something," I shouted with more hope than conviction as I pointed to a dark shadow in a land of shadows at the base of the granite cliff.
My partner studied the rock feature with her binoculars for a moment before slamming the ATV into drive and racing forward to possible sanctuary.
Hope turned to disappointment. After twenty minutes of driving, as we got close enough to see the details of our target. We were well and truly fucked, the rock outcropping was too large and exposed to serve as a shelter. Daylight was nearly gone, and snow was falling as fast as the thermometer.
"Now what the hell do we do?" Alice pounded the steering wheel in anger flavored with fear.
"Let's check that out," I said pointing to a stand of saplings about 100 yards to the left of the useless overhang. Maybe we could construct an emergency lean-to from the young Aspens.
We drove across the ground covered by a dusting of snow and dismounted our vehicle. Flashlights in hand we inspected the thin grove of trees.
"Holy shit, there's a cave opening back here," Alice shouted and pointed to a five or six foot wide, six foot tall opening carved into the base of the cliff behind the trees.
The remains of the aborted attempt at gold mining lay hidden behind the stand of saplings. We explored the inside of the cave with our flashlights. Thankfully, it was uninhabited. The dry and dusty floor of the tunnel sloped upward to a level area, which formed a low, cramped chamber about fifteen feet across and twenty feet deep. At the most, we had about four feet of headroom. Whoever had been looking for gold hit a dead end, gave up, and went home. Bad for them, lucky for us.
"Unload the Mule and get our stuff inside, while I cut down as many saplings as I can with our survival saw," I said as I grabbed the folding cutting tool from the ATV's cargo bay.
My plan was as desperate as it was simple. Cut as many of the young aspens as possible, slide the trees into the cave opening, and use the thin branches and remaining leaves to block the wind. As the storm raged, the crowns of the trees would collect snow and form an impenetrable shield against the wind. At least that was the theory. The narrow trunks of the young trees were only four or five inches in diameter, and the saw made for fast work. Within fifteen minutes, I had almost a dozen saplings down on the ground.
I had finished cutting the trees and by the time I was done, snow and night were all around us. Winter had arrived with a vengeance.
Alice finished bringing the last of our gear into the cave, and together we hauled away at the fallen aspens to plug the entrance as best as we could. Alice and I had no choice; the rock cavern would be either our salvation or our grave.
As I adjusted the position of the last tree, Alice screamed, "Snakes! Oh my God, look at 'em all, the fucking cave is filled with rattlesnakes."
To be continued
Chapter 14 – (Return to index)
In the confined space of the cave, Alice's d
istressed cry reverberated off the walls, so loud my ears hurt. I scrambled to be at her side. She sat in a fetal position with her arms wrapped around her knees and her whole body trembling like a leaf in the wind. Fear distorted her face, and her eyes closed so tightly her facial muscles twitched with the effort.
A tiny voice uttered from her lips, repeating a single word again and again: "snakes." Kneeling next to Alice I put my arm around her shoulder and held her tight until her trembling lessened to not much more than a shiver.
"Where are the snakes?" I kept my voice calm and measured.
"Uhh, everywhere," she said.
"Where is everywhere? Can you point them out," I said as I gently pressed her for details.
"Over there," she answered as she pointed to the right-hand side of the rocky cavern, "And over there," she said gesturing to her left.
The blue-white beam of my tactical LED flashlight lit up the last place Alice indicated. I nearly let out a scream of my own. Against the rock wall, at least 75 fat sleeping rattlesnakes knotted and piled together like a braided rug. Several dozen more snakes clumped and piled together against the opposite wall. She was right; hibernating snakes were all around us.
When an old-timer first told me every dry cave in the mountains contained a snake den, I laughed at him. All around us, I surveyed the living proof of his words. The old man made his living as an environmental scientist, and he was obsessed with snakes, specifically the Rocky Mountain rattlesnake. Racking my brain, I tried to recall what else he had told me about our legless friends.
Venomous snakes, such as rattlers, hibernate when the average daytime temperatures fall below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. In the high mountains, their favorite winter quarters are caves and deep crevices. While in hibernation, snakes are lethargic, torpid, and essentially unresponsive zombies as their metabolism slow down to the minimum necessary to sustain life.
