This trip had been in the planning for months and I was finally ready to take on the Appalachian Trail. Ever since I read the book "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson I had been promising myself that I was going to do it. I used part of my savings to buy the gear and had even bypassed the spring term at the university to get a start in early April, hoping to make it to the other end by October. I'm an experienced hiker but I had never tried anything even close to this. I hugged my dad who insisted on driving me to the trailhead to see me off.

"Take care, son. Give us a call whenever you have access to a phone"

"I will, Dad. Thanks for all your help in putting this thing together. I'll see you this October in Maine."

With that, I was on my way. The first part of the trail wasn't too tough. My plan was to try to do two three-hour stretches every day until I got used to the strain on my legs and the weight on my back. I figured it would take several days to establish my pace. There were wayside rest stops all along the trail but most of my nights would be spent in my tent a few yards off the beaten path.

The first few days passed without anything of consequence to report. Occasionally, I would hook up with other hikers, very few of them out to walk the whole thing. Sometimes we would stay together for a few miles but invariably, we'd end up separating. I was close to the Tennessee-North Carolina border north of Georgia when my adventure, the subject of this story began.

I was resting on a boulder after a series of fairly steep inclines reminded me I still had some toughening up to do. The area around me was pretty rugged and I hadn't seen any sign of civilization for two days. As I was munching on some trail mix and sipping from my canteen, I thought I saw some movement in my peripheral vision. I looked around to spot it but saw nothing. There are black bears around but they usually try to keep their distance from humans. I figured it was probably some small animal or maybe a deer. I shrugged into my pack and got underway. The rest of the day promised to be a little easier because, from what I could see on my topographical map, it was mostly downhill. I hadn't walked a half a mile when I caught movement off to the side again, and this time I was sure I saw a flash of red. The only red animal I could think of in these parts was a cardinal and I was pretty sure what I saw wasn't a bird.

I'm not given to panicky reactions but I'd heard stories of rare assaults and robberies of lone hikers. I stopped and took my 9mm and holster out of my pack and strapped it onto my belt. If I were being scoped out, maybe that would discourage them. I didn't see anything else suspicious for the rest of the day so I decided that either it was nothing to start with or the person or animal no longer had any interest in me. I stopped at a wayside camp and got my tent set up before dark, then started a fire in the little grated fireplace to heat up some freeze-dried stew. Oh, yummy! Just as I started to pour some of it into a mug, someone stepped out from behind a tree about thirty feet away. I guess I spooked and put my hand where my pistol would be but of course it was in the tent. When I looked closer, I saw it was a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. He had dark, ratty looking hair that was down to his shoulders and he was dressed in old jeans and a red sweatshirt that were way too big for him. He was bare footed but had a pair of high top shoes tied together and hanging around his neck. I was pretty sure I'd just met my 'stalker'.

"Hi! Can I help you?" I asked.

"Hey! I's wonderin' if ya could use some hep." He still had a boy's voice and the accent was so heavy it took me a few seconds to figure out what he said. His head was cocked to the side and his eyes were fixed on the pot of stew. The message seemed to be that he was hungry and hoping to work for food.

"What's your name?"

"C. J."

"Nice to meet you, C J. My name is Dave. What kind of help did you have in mind?"

"Ah could tote stuff fer yuh. Ah'm purdy strong."

"Well, we might work something out. Would you like to have some supper with me?"

He nodded his head and walked over to the camp. I handed him the mug of stew I had poured and asked him to have a seat on the log by the campfire. He began blowing and sipping the stew like he couldn't wait for it to cool off. He was really hungry and one mug of stew wasn't going to be enough. I went to the tent and came back with a bag of gorp and tossed it over to him. I poured myself some stew and refilled his mug with the last of it.

Why wasn't this kid in school, I wondered. "Do you live around here, CJ?"

"Ah don' live no place."

"What do you mean? Don't you have family around here somewhere?"

"Ah wuz stayin' with a ol' man but Ah thank he dahed."

Again, a pause for translation, "You think he died? When did he die?"

"Two days ago. Ah got skeered 'n tuk off."

This was getting really bizarre. "OK. Let me get this straight. You were living with an old man and he might have died two days ago and then you left. Weren't there neighbors you could go to for help?" He wouldn't look me in the eye and my gut told me he was hiding something.

"The onliest folks aroun'd thar's his kin 'n Ah cain't abide 'em."

I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere so I gave it a rest. The map showed that I'd get to a small town the next day and there might be someone there who could help him. "Tell you what, CJ. We'll try you out tomorrow carrying the tent and the sleeping bag, then we'll talk about it again. Will that work for you?"

"Yessuh. Tha'd be fahn."

"Do you have a sleeping bag or anything?"

"Nah, Ah'll jes curl up heah by the fahr."

"It looks like it might rain tonight. I have an extra blanket you can wrap around you and sleep in the tent."

"Well, Ah sho do 'priciate ya n Ah'm b'holden fer the supper."

I didn't sleep all that well because I sort of half way expected him to grab my pack and make a run for it. I was wrong. He slept like a baby.

We had oatmeal with raisins and walnuts and instant coffee for breakfast. Once we got back on the trail, we made pretty good time. The sleeping bag and the tent don't weigh all that much but it's surprising how light my pack felt without them. CJ was still barefoot and I asked him why he didn't wear his shoes. He said they were too big and he only wore them when it was cold. It didn't slow him down though; he stayed right with me every step of the way. Come to think of it, he was probably a lot more used to walking up and down mountainsides than I was. When we stopped for lunch, I told him that I was going to get a room for the night if there was a motel in town. That would give both of us a chance to clean up and resupply. At first, he didn't seem too enthusiastic about the idea, but I explained to him that if he was going to share a tent with me, he needed to clean himself up because he smelled a little gamey. He grinned in response and that reminded me that we needed to get him a toothbrush.

There was a small motel that catered to hikers near the trail but they only had one room and it was a single. I took it anyway because I didn't feel like tromping all over town looking for another. The lady said there was a coin-op laundry about a block down the street and a general store the next block down. We decided to do the store first so CJ would have something to wear while we washed our clothes. Since the store catered to hikers, there was a good supply of gear. We got him some jeans, heavy socks, a sweatshirt, some underwear and basic toiletries. Oh, why not? I thought to myself, Let's add some hiking boots to that. If he bolts on me, at least he'll have some creature comforts for a little while. I hadn't paid any attention before but, when he tried on the boots, I was surprised at how small his feet were. Teenage boys are usually still catching up into their feet at his age.

He used the fitting room to change into his new clothes and we carried his dirty ones in a bag along with mine to the laundry. While he was changing I checked in with my dad to let him know I was OK. I didn't mention CJ because I knew I'd have to field a lot of questions that I didn't have answers to yet. There was a lady at the laundry who would wash and dry our stuff for five bucks a load so we left it in her hands and told her we'd pick it up in the morning. As soon as we got back to the room, I pointed CJ to the bathroom and told him not to come out until he was scrubbed clean and his teeth were flossed and brushed. I had to explain and demonstrate what flossing was. While he was still in the shower, I knocked on the door and said I had to pee. The shower was one of those glassed-in jobs where the glass was frosted; you could see shapes but they were blurry. Even so, as I was standing there doing my business, something didn't seem quite right about what I was seeing. As I watched his shape moving around in the shower, it finally sunk in that CJ had boobs.

My god, he's a girl!

I closed the bathroom door and sat on the bed wondering what in the hell I should do now. Here I was in a motel room, a single no less, with a girl who was probably underage and may in fact be a runaway. A smart person would no doubt be calling the Sheriff's Department and dumping this problem into someone else's lap; but then I have no claim to genius. I'd confront her with it and see what she had to say.

When she came out of the bathroom, looking a whole lot better I might add, I just came right out and asked, "Why didn't you tell me you were a girl?"

"Wernt no secret 'n ya ditn' ask. Ah kin do th' work so whut's th' differnce?"

"The differnce, as you put it is that people could get the wrong idea. How old are you, anyhow?"

"Sixteen, Ah thank, Ah ain't too sure."

Oh, lordy, I thought, this is just what I need! Jailbait!

"Ah don' see why it makes any never mind lessen yer plannin' ta rape me er sumthin. Are yuh?"

"Of course not! Don't be silly. But you could accuse me of assaulting you and I don't know how I could prove I didn't."

"Ah got no call t' do that 'n Ah ain't got no truck with th' law, no how. You been nice t' me, Dave 'n Ah'm b'holden. Caint we jes keep on lak that?"

After thinking about it for a while, I laid it out. "CJ, I need to know the truth about why you're on your own on the Appalachian Trail. If you'll trust me that far, I'll do what I can for you including keeping you hired on as a porter."

She looked at me intently like she was trying to read what was really on my mind. "Ah don' know what a porter is but Ah'm hungry. Kin we git a bite 'n then Ah'll tell ya everthang."

"There's a pizza joint across the street. That OK?"

We took a back booth where nobody was in hearing range. After we ordered our pizza and got our iced tea, she leaned across the table and laid out her story.

"That ol' man Ah wuz stayin' with weren't no kin o' mine. My real pap sold me to 'im when Ah wuz 'bout thirteen 'r so. Ah had t' keep his house 'n do fer 'im but he's all th' tahm tuchin' me n stuff. Three days ago, he trahed t' make me suck 'is dick but Ah tolt 'm there wernt no way Ah'd put his nasty ol' thang in mah mouth 'n said he couldn't even git it up anyways. That made 'im mad 'n he started in t' slappin' me. Ah pushed 'im off'n me 'n he fell back agin th' wood stove 'n whacked 'is haid 'n Ah don't thank he wuz breathin'. I knowed fer sure his kin 'd say Ah kilt 'im on purpose, so Ah jest lit out. That's th' God's truth, Dave. Now Ah'm goin' north whuther it's with you 'r not, but Ah'd sure take it kindly if you'd let me go with ya."

I leaned back sipping my iced tea, thinking. This is just great. Now I had an under aged girl who wasn't just a runaway, she could be a fugitive from the law. Am I willing to stick my neck out that far? My gut feeling was that this girl really needed someone's help and I knew nothing about the law or social services in that part of the country. If the practice of selling children was tolerated, I didn't hold out much hope for her getting a fair deal.

The improvidence of youth must be my lot because I decided to chance it. "Here's what we'll do, CJ. Tomorrow morning after we pick up the laundry, we'll stop at the store and get you geared up properly for the trail. We'll put some miles between us and the old man and you can take your time deciding what you want to do with your future." When she smiled, it struck me that she was actually a very pretty young woman now that I was seeing her as a female.

Back at the motel she insisted on taking the sleeping bag while I luxuriated on an actual bed for the first time in several days.

At the store the next morning, aside from a backpack for CJ, we added some proper underwear including a couple of sports bras and some short pants and T-shirts for the warm days that I knew weren't far off. With both of us carrying packs, we could carry a lot more food and minimize the number of supply stops along the way. Some days we managed twenty or twenty-five miles. I was getting used to her southern Appalachian drawl but she wanted me to correct her speech and vocabulary; it was her intention to make a new start on life and she knew that the way she spoke was going to be a barrier. It became obvious pretty quickly that she was well above average in the smarts department, absorbing information like a sponge and making noticeable improvements in her speech daily.

By the time we had crossed into Virginia, we had grown comfortable with each other. In fact, I believed there was a pretty strong mutual attraction but I never put it to the test by touching her in any suggestive way and I was careful to see that she had all the privacy she wanted. If we found a little pond or a stream to wash up in, we would take turns while the other watched the camp. If I had a problem at all, it was that thinking about her stirred up my hormones and opportunities for relief by way of a little self-abuse were uncommon.

We'd been on the trail for about a month when our relationship took a turn. As the weather warmed we were meeting a lot more hikers along the way, the wayside campgrounds were often crowded at night. We took to avoiding them and setting up camp far enough off the trail to not be visible. In the last town we stopped at, I picked up a little sterno heater to cook with. I also made a covert trip the drug store while CJ picked out some more freeze-dried meals.

A couple of days later we camped in a beautiful little clearing about fifty yards off the trail. The walk that day had been strenuous and we both needed a good cleanup. The slow-moving stream was cold enough to get your attention but it wasn't the kind of cold that makes your skin hurt. We ate first and then took turns washing in the stream; she went first. Our routine was to clean ourselves up then crawl into our sleeping bags to get warm. I was shivering when I crawled into the tent to zip myself in. I was very much surprised to find that CJ had zipped the sleeping bags together and was peeking out at me with a wicked grin on her face.

"Ah caint seem ta git warm enough and thought maybe you could help me with that."

Hallelujah! Was this really going to happen? I was pretty sure from her coquettish expression that she wasn't asking me to just snuggle. The thought crossed my mind that this could get me into a world of trouble with the law but that thought went right on through my brain without even slowing down for consideration; biology would not be denied.

"Give me just a second to get something out of my pack and I'll definitely help you get warm." I got a couple of condoms out of the box I bought on my covert trip to the drug store. I hadn't really expected to use them but I'd certainly hoped to. They were for 'just-in-case' and here it was. I crawled into the sleeping bag to find that she was already naked so within seconds, I was too.

We were all over each other like bark on a tree, mashing our mouths together and exploring every available surface with our hands. After a couple of minutes, I came up for air and asked, "What brought this on, CJ? Not that I'm complaining you understand, but it is a surprise."

"You must be slow 'r sumpthin', Dave. Hell, we bin makin' eyes at each other fer the last hunert mahles. Ah jes' bin waitin' fer the raht tahm t' jump ya n here it is." With that, she dove under and began working over my cock with her hands and mouth and, lordy, she was a natural. Slowly stroking my shaft while she gently massaged my balls, she began licking the head and then taking about half my length into her mouth. I didn't dare ask her where she had learned her skills, but she surely knew what she was doing. Every few strokes, she would take most of my dick into her mouth and I could feel it stretching her throat as she moved her tongue over the underside of the shaft. I'd never felt anything like that before.

"Ease up, girl, or you're gonna make me come in your mouth!"

She smiled as my cock slipped free. "That's the plan. Ain't we got all naght to try a little of everthang?" Plunging her head back down onto me, she began to suck and stroke with abandon, bringing me to a convulsive climax within minutes. She took every bit of juice that I had been saving up for days and never lost a drop. As I lay there catching my breath, she continued to stroke my dick, never letting it go completely soft. "Ah caint wait t' feel that thang inside of me."

"In due time, lover!" I pulled her up over my body and rolled her onto her back and dived under to do my part. She had a dark brown, curly bush and she was already wet, but it wasn't from washing up. I wedged between her legs and planted my face into the heavenly scent of passion, licking her pussy and sucking on her erect clit. She was moaning and whimpering as she grabbed two handfuls of my hair and mashed my mouth into her sex. I reached as far into her vagina as my tongue would go, stabbing in and out while I pushed two fingers in even further. Her hips began to buck and thrust against me as she had her first orgasm eliciting a loud groan trailing off into a shuddering sigh.

"Oh, my stars, Dave! Ah didn't know Ah could ever feel anything that good! Would ya do it agin?"

This time around, I took my time slowly licking the length of her slit and teasing her clit with the tip of my tongue. I moved my hand up her belly to massage and gently pinch her nipples. Her breasts weren't huge by any means but they were more than a handful, firm and silky smooth to the touch. Her hips undulated under my oral assault as she alternately ran her fingers through my hair and clasped my hand to her breast. Two orgasms later, she insisted it was time to "plug in", pulling me up over her body and guiding my cock into her overheated sex. Wet as she was, it was still a very tight fit, making it necessary to penetrate in small increments until she could accommodate the whole length and girth of my cock; then it was 'hold on for dear life!' We had our arms around each other in a death grip as out hips slammed together in a frenzy of lustful fucking, calling out each other's names and moaning in pure ecstasy.

I looked at her beautiful face and gasped, "Tell me when, baby! Tell me when your ready!"

"Ah was born ready, Davey!" she panted. "Let 'r rip!"

She locked her legs around my waist as I slammed into her, pushing against the far end of her cave and erupting in a Vesuvius of semen, my supercharged cock pulsing against the rhythmic contractions of her vaginal muscles. We slowly descended from our exquisite, passionate flight. I rested on my elbows, holding my weight off her little body.

"No," she said. "I wanna to feel yer whole body against mine. Yeah, lahk that. Jest lay on me lahk yer never gonna let me up." A dim thought drifted through my brain that I had totally forgotten to use the condom. Another dim thought followed that one, that if she got pregnant, I could sure do a lot worse than ask her to stay with me.

We made slow, gentle love twice more during the night and awoke to the sun high in the sky. By the time we finished breakfast and cleaned up, it was almost noon so we decided to just take the day off. We used the time to check our equipment and make sure it was all in tip-top shape. We couldn't know what lay ahead and decided that neither of us was in a position to make long term plans: We'd continue north on the trail and just see what each new day brought. If she stayed with me all the way to Maine, it was going to be interesting introducing her to my dad. But I knew he'd just love her.

The thing about CJ is that she's so unspoiled. Maybe that comes from growing up out of the main stream of civilization, but there's absolutely no pretense about her. I've had a few girlfriends through the years but I've never felt the level of trust and comfort I felt with that girl.

After our first night of incredible sex and passion, it's like we'd been together for years instead of meeting just over a month earlier. We joked and laughed and teased each other like a couple of ten-year-olds. I don't think either of us is the naturally clingy sort but if we weren't actually hiking on the trail, we somehow seemed to be in physical contact at every opportunity.

I have to admit I was a little worried about her getting pregnant that first night so I asked her about her menstrual cycles to try and get some idea of the risk. It turns out she'd never been taught what she needed to know about menstruation and ovulation. All she knew was that she bled for a few days every month so I had to explain how the cycles worked and how to keep track of them. Ultimately we decided it was unlikely that she was PG and from then on we remembered to use the condoms whenever we had sex, which was any time we could manage it. CJ and I didn't just fuck; we made love. A lot.

As much as we reveled in being mutually smitten with each other, there was still the cloud of what happened to the old man she had been sold to. Had he really died when she pushed him, fending off his attack? She said she didn't think he was breathing but she didn't really check closely before she took off. It took a lot of convincing but I final got her to agree that we needed to try to find out; we needed to know if the law was looking for her or if she could show her face in public without fear.

To that end, we got a room in a little motel in the next town we came to in Virginia. After we got settled and cleaned up, we went looking for the town library to do some internet research. Five weeks should have been plenty of time for him to show up in county records or in the obits if he had been found dead. I grew up computer literate so I felt confident that I had exhausted all avenues trying to dig up info but I found nothing. The last thing to do was to call his house and see if anyone answered. We didn't want the call to be traceable so I sprung for a cheap-o cell and activated it with the minimum minutes.

CJ nervously punched in the number and waited. Her eyes popped wide open when he answered. "Walter? This is CJ. Yeah, it's me you dirty ol' bastard! Ah's hopin' you was dead. Where am Ah? Ah'm in Texas 'n don't you even thank 'bout cumin after me cuz Ah'm gone ferever. If we ever meet up agin, you can bet one of us is gonna die fer sure. Bye, Walter 'n Ah hope you rot in hell!" She killed the line and threw her arms around my neck and laughed, "Thank you, thank you, Davey fer makin' me do that. I'd a bin skeert the rest 'o my lahf if Ah hadn't. Let's go git some pizza an' celebrate!"

I thought it was funny that all the progress she'd made trying to overcome her southern Appalachian drawl went right out the window when she got excited.

On the way to the pizza joint, I took the SIM chip out, stomped the phone into plastic splinters and dropped it in a dumpster in the alley. As far as I was concerned, we were done with that issue.

As we waited for our order in the pizza parlor, she kept sneaking her hand under the table and squeezing my dick. "Cool it, CJ! Someone's going to see us." She just giggled and squeezed it again and started to unzip my jeans.

I grabbed her hand and moved it away, "You want to go screw in the room and come back later?"

She had an impish little grin on her face. Leaning over, she whispering in my ear, "No, I wanna jack it raht here. There's a cloth on the table; nobody can see us."

"No, CJ! Let's get the pizza to go and take it back to the motel room."

"Oh, yer no fun. I bet nobody'd even know lessen you squealed when ya squirted." She must have seen the vexation on my face because she relented. "OK, skeerdy-cat. But we better stop at the drug store on the way back cuz Ah thank we used the last rubber last night."

"Good thinking, Babe."

The pizza was cold and the canned sodas were warm by the time we finally got around to feeding ourselves. I keep myself in pretty good physical condition but I swear that girl could wear out an army troop. She was becoming an expert at keeping me right on the edge while she went through three or four orgasms.

After another shower (the AC wasn't working all that well), we worked on her general education. CJ was absolutely determined to bootstrap herself out of ignorance and catch up with the rest of the world. She had completed three years of school so she could read and write but not very well and her knowledge of almost everything else academic was practically nonexistent. She'd been kept out of school to take care of her dad's needs after her mom ran off, presumably to find a better life. It's hard to imagine that kind of thing taking place in this country but it probably happens more often than we'd like to believe.

Two towns earlier, I'd located a bookstore and bought a GED prep manual. We'd been working on that for a couple of hours every evening ever since. While the math part didn't come easy for her, she worked her butt off and began to make good progress with fractions. Algebra would be next. Since chemistry was my major, I figured I was the right person to tutor her in science and math. As smart as she was, I figured we'd have her ready to take her GED within a year or so. That's assuming she'd stay with me that long.

The next morning, after we did our laundry and restocked our food supplies, we were back on the trail. We were a little more than half way through Virginia so we were still pretty much on schedule to make the end by October. I called my dad and reported my progress and dropped a hint that I was hiking with a companion. When he asked for details, I faked a signal loss and said I'd check in later.

We were blessed with good weather for the most part. Early mornings were usually foggy and often rainy but nothing bad enough to hold up our progress. With the warm daytime temperatures, we began running across more and more day hikers and those who were out to do the whole trail but by one section at a time.

CJ remarked that everybody we met seemed so nice. That's always been my experience as well. I don't know what it is about hiking in the wilderness but it seems to attract the best kind of person. In all the miles I've hiked through the years, I don't think I've ever run across an asshole. Hikers also seem to be respecters of privacy. Never once did anyone ask if we were married or if CJ was my girlfriend. People are just taken at face value. I always missed that when I reinserted myself back into civilization after a few days in the woods.

As we got near Harpers Ferry in West Virginia, we were having lunch at a wayside camping area when another couple stopped to join us. They appeared to be a little older than CJ and I, probably mid to late twenties. Just a glance at their physiques showed they kept themselves in pretty good shape.

The woman waved and asked, "Mind if we share your space?"

"You're more than welcome," I said. "Pull up a rock."

They shared our fire to heat up their lunch. They were on the second day of a three-day outing and were actually excited to meet people who were bent on completing the entire length in one season. It seemed they had a thousand questions about where we came from and what we'd seen on the trail. They weren't being intrusive but I looked for an opportunity to get CJ aside and suggest we not be too free with personal information.

She shot a look of mild exasperation at me and said, "Ah ain't no dummy, Davey. Gimme some credit!"

My bad! "Sorry, Babe. I should have known better." She forgave my lapse with a kiss on the cheek.

They asked if we'd mind if they hiked with us for the rest of the day. They were good company so, why not? Lunch was done and the camp cleaned up. Franco, who was originally from Spain, suggested CJ and his wife, Loretta take the lead and set the pace, the premise being that we could talk about guy stuff and they could talk about girl stuff. Plus, there was the added benefit to Franco and me that we'd have a nice view of two very shapely derrieres.

The ladies set a pace designed to prove that they weren't out for a Sunday stroll in the park. I'm pretty darned sure we covered at least fifteen miles before Franco and I cried 'uncle' and suggested we find a place to camp for the night. We guys explored to the right of the trail and the women looked on the left. Within a few minutes, we heard CJ yelling for us to come join them down the hill where they had found a beautiful clearing with a two-foot wide stream running through it. It was isolated and about a hundred yards from the trail. Perfect!