Chapter 6

The kids found out how much work it is to harvest meat. Bob mentioned, at the outset, that all their pioneer ancestors knew all about this process, at an age even younger than they were.

First, he made them decide whether to do the job with the buck on the ground, where they would have to pull all the innards out through a slit down the belly or of hanging the deer up and letting all that gooey mess just drop out on the ground.

They chose plan B, of course. Without thinking about what would be involved in hoisting a hundred and sixty pound dead weight up into the air.

Once they sweated through that, which involved someone pulling on a rope slung over a tree branch, while the others lifted the weight as well as they could, then it was time to make the incision through which all the unwanted stuff would be allowed to fall. Randy wanted to take a shot at it, so Bob handed him the skinning knife.

Randy found out how tough rib bones are and, when Bob finally told him where the cartilage was, he used a bit too much force and rammed the knife hilt deep into the chest. Then he pulled hard in a downward direction, and before he had any idea what was going to happen, the knife (and his arm) were buried elbow deep in the belly of the beast. When he jerked it out on pure instinct, entrails decorated his arm like bling on a pimp.

Mallory promptly puked, and it was a close thing for Sam, who heaved twice, but got it under control. Randy just stared at the steaming mass that coated his arm.

"Shit!" he expostulated.

Bob calmly showed him how to complete the cut and the pointed out the various organs that began spilling out of the carcass and into a gelatinous pile on the ground.

It took Bob five full minutes to convince the girls to reach, grasp some ribs, and pull to open the cavity so Randy could finish reaching in to cut here and there, until, at last, the final bits fell with a splat on top of the others.

"I am not eating this deer," groaned Mallory.

"You might as well," said Bob. "You're earning the choice bits."

"Please don't tell us we have to eat the heart, or something like that," moaned Sam.

"Best part," said Bob. There were groans all around. He hid a smile. "I'm just saying..."

"What now?" asked Randy.

"If you're going to keep the head, then we either drag him by that back to camp, or we quarter him here and come back for the head later," said Bob.

"Keep the head! Why?" asked Mallory.

"To have it mounted, so you can put it on your bedroom wall," said Bob.

"Yeah, I can see that happening. There I am trying to go to bed, and this deer is staring down at me from the wall, reminding me that I killed it."

"If you're not going to keep it, then we can cut that off and leave it here. We cut the legs off too, unless you want to keep the hooves to make a gun rack or something like that."

"I'm not even going to ask," sighed Sam.

"Then we skin it, butcher it, and carry it back to camp in the hide, using it like a stretcher. It goes in the cooler and ages until we can get home and finish the job, wrapping things up in freezer paper and putting it in the freezer for later."

"Gee, that's all?" Randy looked at his blood and offal soaked sleeve.

"Until we kill another one," said Bob, smugly.

"And you've been doing this every year for as long as I can remember ... alone?" Sam sounded like she couldn't decide if he was a superman, or insane.

"And you've been helping me eat the meat all that time," said Bob.

"You should at least keep the horns, Mal," said Randy.

"They're antlers," Bob corrected him.

"Yeah, the antlers," said the boy.

"We can cut those off with the saw while we're butchering," said Bob.

"How long are we staying again?" asked Randy.

"The rest of the week," said Bob.

"I can't stay like this for the rest of the week. I have to take a shower or something."

"It will have to be or something," said Bob. "We don't have enough fresh water to bathe in."

"He has to take a shower," said Mal. "No way am I sleeping with him tonight if he doesn't."

"What?" Randy perked up.

"Never mind," said Mallory. "It was just an idea Sam and I talked about. Not happening, though."

"Wait!" Randy looked frantic, and not because he was blood soaked. He looked at Bob. "You said, it could be or something. What else is there?"

"Well, there's a pond over that way half a mile," said Bob, pointing north."

"And when were you going to tell us about this?" Mallory sounded outraged.

"When you needed to know," said Bob. "Randy needs to know."

It was amazing to Bob how much difference it made in their attitudes when the girls found out there was a way to take a bath after all.

Bob hadn't brought the tools needed to butcher a deer, since he hadn't anticipated needing them that day. So he sent Randy back to the camper to get them and talked the girls through skinning the carcass while he was gone.

Two hours later the meat was packed in the hide, which was tied with ropes that had loops hanging off that could be used as handles. Sam had dug a shallow pit beside the entrails and used the entrenching tool blade to scoop them into their burial hole. The head sat off to one side. Mallory wasn't sure what she wanted to do with that. She was interested in the antlers, but not the rest of the head. Bob said he'd tell her about the options for that later.

An hour after that, with filthy, bloody clothing abandoned everywhere, the hunting party was skinny dipping.

Bob didn't even make them be quiet. They already had a deer, after all.

Another thing that Bob found both amazing and interesting, was that there was relatively little hanky panky while they splashed in the pond.

There were some hugs, and a few kisses as well. At one point the girls swapped partners, kissing each man over and over. It was billed as an exercise in deciding who was the better kisser, but Bob was pretty sure that was just an excuse. Or maybe something to think about more pleasant than what they'd just had to do.

A few feels were copped, but nothing serious. Both males had erections, which got squeezed, but that was about it. If a father experiencing his daughter gripping his boner can be viewed as being "mundane," of course.

Nobody wanted to put on their wet clothing, which had been washed as clean of blood as they could get it so, other than shoes, they wore nothing back to the camp site. Had it been a few degrees cooler, Bob wondered what they would have done.

Once back at camp, though, the girls said they were going to get dressed immediately, even though Randy tried his best to get them to stay au naturale. He finally followed them into the camper.

Bob, deciding it would be a bit crowded in the camper, reached into the bag he'd taken to the tree stand with him and retrieved a T shirt from it. Then he pulled out his long underwear bottoms and pulled them on before slipping into a pair of moccasins. He set to work to get the campfire going again. He stood up after lighting the kindling to find Sam standing to one side, watching him. Mallory and Randy were nowhere to be seen and he wondered briefly if they'd taken up where the buck had interrupted them.

"Aren't you the fashion plate," she said, smiling.

"Yeah," he said. "I haven't had to try impressing a woman for a while. I guess I just got used to it."

"Lucky I'm not after you for your looks," she said, grinning.

He sat down in a lawn chair, which he had decided would hold a lot more than they'd originally thought.

"C'mere," he said, patting his knee.

"That won't hold us both, Daddy," she said.

"Just sit on my knee," he said.

She did, doing so sideways.

"What are you after me for?" he asked, his voice serious. He was remembering what she'd asked him before they heard Mallory shooting the deer. They hadn't had a chance to talk about that since then.

She looked away.

"That's hard to explain," she said, evasively.

"Try," he said, but it wasn't said unkindly.

She still didn't say anything. He let her have time to think.

"It's a bunch of things," she said, finally.

He kept quiet. The ball was in her court now. Finally she went on.

"Some of it has to do with how I felt about you before this trip. Some of it is because I look at you differently now." She shook her head. "I can't do this. I don't even know myself why I'm acting this way."

He decided to dig down farther.

"Why did you ask me if you could sleep with me tonight?"

Again, she looked away.

"Part of it is because I remember how safe and warm I felt when I was a little girl and you let me crawl in bed with you," she said.

"Are you afraid of something now?" he asked.

"No. Not really. I mean life is kind of scary right now, but that isn't anything I can't deal with."

"So ... what's the rest of it?" he asked.

She frowned. "You know, most guys wouldn't ask questions if a girl said she wanted to sleep with them."

"I'm not most guys," he said. He gave a mental swallow and said what he didn't want to say, but knew he should. "I'm your father."

"You think I don't know that?" She looked right at him now. "It's not for sex, if that's what you're worried about."

"That doesn't make any sense at all," he said.

"Why not? It's what you wanted to hear, isn't it?"

"Look, Sam. I want you to talk to me and tell me how you feel. That's all. I don't want you to be politically correct, or sugar coat things. I just want to know what you're thinking. And I hope you'll let me communicate the same way."

She sat and thought for a while.

"Listening to Mal last night drove me crazy," she said, softly.

"Jealousy?"

"I didn't think so. But it was obvious she was having a great time, and for me, it wasn't that way."

"It helps if you really like the person you're doing that with. Really like him."

"Oh, I love Randy. Really. He's said he was going to marry me since we were four or five. And that was fine with me. Of course there have been times since then that I felt differently, but most of the time I can't think of another boy I'd even think about letting touch me. There's only one other man I love more and that's you."

"So what was wrong last night?"

"I think part of it was because I've been telling him no for so many years that when I finally let him do it, I felt like I was doing something wrong. I didn't think it would, but it did."

"That's normal. Sometimes newlyweds even feel guilty about having sex on their honeymoon."

"I've always felt like it would be wrong to let him do that. That's why I never did."

"Wrong because you're cousins?"

"No. I don't care about that. But we were too young. And I might get pregnant. And we'd get in trouble if anybody found out. There were lots of reasons."

"And you let Mal bully you into letting him, and, because your heart wasn't in it, it didn't work," said Bob.

"Something like that. Except I wanted to do it. I really did."

"Because you were mad at me," suggested Bob.

"I didn't think so then ... but ... now I think you're right," she said.

"And you want to sleep with me tonight so Mallory can't?"

Her eyes opened wide.

"No! I wouldn't do that. She really loves you!"

"So are both of you going to sleep with me tonight?" He wanted to grin, but didn't, just to see what she'd do.

"Mal told me you might really be a pervert," said Sam. "Was that what she was talking about?"

"No," said Bob. "Never mind. So why do you think you want to sleep with me?"

"I want to be close to you. I want to feel special. I want to feel like Mal sounded like she felt last night. It's hard to explain."

"I think I understand," he said. "But you said it wasn't for sex, and that had a lot to do with what Mal sounded like last night."

"I know that. But I also know we shouldn't do that. Kissing you is one thing, but that? Before this week, I would have said, 'Ewwww' at the very idea, but now I don't feel that way any more, and that's what I don't understand. I just know we're not supposed to do that kind of thing."

"Like you knew you weren't supposed to do that with Randy in the past," he said.

"Yeah. Like that."

"Okay, then, we won't have sex."

"I can't believe you even said that," she sighed.

"Me either," he said. "But things have changed. That was then and this is now."

"Okay. So I can still sleep with you tonight?"

"Sure. There's always room in my bed for my little girl."

"You want to know something crazy?"

"Sure."

"I actually kind of feel like a little girl right now. Isn't that crazy?"

Unwanted, the vision of Randy on top of Sam, plunging his teenage boner in and out of her no-longer-virgin pussy rushed into his head, reminding him that she was no little girl.

"Life is crazy," he said. "Now, get up so I can start cooking. Go tell Mallory to stop fucking Randy and remember what I told her about birth control this morning."

"What?"

"Just do that. It will be funny," he said.

She was almost to the camper when he called out a final comment.

"When you tell her to stop, don't use the word 'fucking'. I made her promise not to use that word anymore."

Sam just rolled her eyes and opened the door to go in.

While Sam went into the camper, Bob hurried to open the cooler and slice off four slabs of fresh deer meat. Digging into the other cooler, he got out the makings for hobo stew, wrapping tin foil around a slab of meat with a potato and carrots on top of it. He had tossed all four packets into the coals of the fire when the kids trooped out.

"We weren't having sex!" said Mallory. "We were talking!"

"I bet you were talking about having sex," he said, smiling.

"I told you," said Sam. "He knows what we're thinking. I don't understand how, but he knows."

"So, talking about it is better than doing it, right?"

"Mallory, I know that's not how you feel about this. Why are you trying to snow me?"

"I told you," said Sam again, sounding triumphant.

"Oh, go away," groused Mal.

"Uncle Bob?"

"Yes, Randy."

"Is what we're doing okay?"

"You mean you and my daughter, or you and your sister?"

"Both," he said.

"Understanding that this is a very unusual situation, I would normally recommend to any young person to wait until they were over eighteen to start thinking seriously about having sex. I'd also tell you having sex with your sister is a bad idea. But I also have to take into account the background that the three of you share. To that end, I am trying to convince myself that, if all of you are willing participants, and you understand and are willing to live with any unplanned consequences, then what consenting almost adults do on this campout is their business."

"That means he's okay with it," said Mallory.

"That means I'm pretty sure I can't do anything about it," said Bob.

"What are you cooking?" asked Mallory, when she saw Bob poke one of the hobo stew packets with a stick.

"Hobo stew," he said.

"What's that?"

"Meat, potato, carrots and a little onion, wrapped up in that tin foil. It's baking in the coals."

"Sounds good, but won't it burn? It's right in the hot part of the fire."

"That's what makes it work," said Bob. "It's like baking a potato, except you put other stuff in with it."

"I hope it's done soon. I'm starving."

"You can help make the cobbler we're going to have for dessert," he said.

"How?"

Bob sent the other two off to bring in more firewood while he taught Mallory how to make the crust and mold it against the bottom and sides of the cast iron Dutch oven. Then he opened two cans of cherries and dumped them in while she made another layer of crust to lay on top.

Five minutes later the Dutch oven was buried in coals right next to the hobo stew.

Supper was a big success. When the kids peeled the foil open and found steaming, tender edibles inside, they dove in without asking what kind of meat it was. Bob didn't tell them. He had already decided to wait until later to inform Mallory she'd already eaten some of her kill. The cobbler, when it was dragged from the fire and opened, bubbled merrily through fissures in the top crust. It, too, was perfectly done and soon it was half gone.

"Anybody want to roast marshmallows again tonight?" asked Randy, who scooped another spoonful of cobbler in his bowl.