“Hello the house,” Warren called. He kept a good safe distance. Settlers didn’t like to be surprised, and he couldn’t blame them. A musket could carry this far, but he doubted that any settler could fire one accurately this far.

“What you want?” a woman’s voice answered him.

“Maybe a little trade. I’m a hunter for hides, and I’ve shot a deer. More meat than I can eat before it goes bad. If you’ll feed me corn bread and fixings, I’ll contribute the meat.”

“Doesn’t seem fair to you.”

“Well,” Warren said, “It’s what I’ve got. If you’ll put me up for the night and share a bit of soap and fodder for Bessie here, I’d be grateful.”

“Come closer.”

He rode closer. The cabin looked substantial, with two windows this side as well as the door. There was a stake stable with a sod roof as well.

“Way I figure it,” he said. “I skin the deer here and butcher it. I use your fire to cook one haunch, and I take that, the skin, and a little of the fat with me tomorrow. I leave enough meat for you to feast on and dry for pemmican. As I say, I hunt hides. If I only shoot what I can eat, I don’t sell enough to buy what I need.”

“Still, you look like a kindly soul. Jacob!”

“Ma’am? I wasn’t doing anything, honest, Maw,” a boy who must have been Jacob said.

“Go get your paw. Tell him that we have visitors. Go see Aunt Becca and Aunt Martha. Tell them that supper is at our place tonight and that we have a visitor. Scat.”

On the woman’s direction, he went off to the edge of the forest to do his butchering. He hung the deer from a tree by its legs, gutted it, and took the hide off. Jacob was back by that time, and he was watching him closely.

“Here, Jacob,” he said when he’d cut off a foreleg. “Take this to your Maw.”

“Maw says is that all?” came a girl’s voice a bit later. He turned and saw a lass woman-tall, maybe less than a woman’s teats, in a calico dress and a sunbonnet.

“T’ain’t half. I gotta cut it off a bit at a time, and don’t want to lay it on the ground. Want to take this? It’s a mite bloody. Name’s Warren.”

“Won’t be less bloody when it’s inside the cabin. I’m called Rosalind Martin.”

“Warren Daniels. Pleased to meet ya, ma’am.”

She took the other foreleg. Minutes later, Jacob came out with pots to put the meat in. He started on the ribs. Come noon, he wasn’t done. Ted Martin brought him out some corn bread and a good slice of fried meat. If he left the deer, some forest critter would get it.

He carried the two hind legs to the cabin. The woman, Mrs. Martin, apparently, gave him some soap and a large piece of sacking. She directed him to a stream not a mile’s walk away.

He dragged the last of the carcass for part of that distance and then left it a few feet from the trail. Let the forest critters fight over it.

The stream was cold and the sacking was rough, but he’d lived with worse. He not only got the blood off, but most of the last month’s dirt as well. The woman made better soap than he did, and he was trying to get a lather on his face in order to shave when he heard a rustling in the undergrowth. He jumped out of the water to his rifle. He had to dry his hand on the grass before he could prime it.

“Don’t shoot,” a female voice said.

“Rosalind?” If hadn’t quite sounded like Rosalind. He raised the rifle barrel and held the sacking over his privates.

“Not Rosalind, Katherine.” The girl came out of the trees slowly, as if she were afraid he would decide to shoot.

“Rosalind is my cousin.” He could see the family resemblance. Or, maybe, it had been so long since he’d seen a white girl before today that they all looked alike. This one was maybe an inch shorter and her teats had developed more.

“We almost all are,” she continued. There are three cabins within half a day’s walk of here. My family, and my mother’s two brothers and their families. That’s why a stranger is worth seeing.”

“Well, if you’d turn your back I’d put on the clothes so you wouldn’t see too much.”

“I’m not seeing too much. I’m seeing what I want to see. You don’t have to hold that rifle, do you, and you don’t have to hold that rag. You could just hang it there.” Well, yes, he was now so hard that he was sticking up. He wasn’t going to hang the sacking on his erect cock, though.

He shook the priming out of the pan, eased the rifle out of cock, and leaned it against the same tree. There was enough sacking that he could tie it around his waist without showing very much. She watched, though, and the cock was pushing the sacking out.

“You were going to shave, weren’t you?” she said. “You could have borrowed a mirror from Aunt Alice.”

“I have a mirror.” He removed the sliver of mirror from his pack without turning so she could see his bare ass.

“I like a whole mirror, so I can see my dress. Wouldn’t fit in your pack, though, would it. Want me to hold it for you?”

“Do that, if you please,” he said. “Hold it steady, and I’ll move so I can see the parts I’m working on.” It would be better than putting it in the crook of a branch; besides, he’d have to turn his back to do that.

“The family is most of the trouble.” Holding a mirror did not interfere with her speech. At least, shaving gave him an excuse not to answer her, and he could find nothing useful to say. She should go away, but he had not talked to a female who spoke English for more than a month before today.

“There is not one man who isn’t related to me within walking distance ... Well, you. But I mean besides you. Rosie and I talk about it sometimes. At least she has my paw, but her paw and Uncle Fred are my maw’s brothers. Then there are the boys, but they are cousins, and -- besides -- they don’t know nothing.”

“And nobody else?” he asked.

“Well, my brothers.”

“I’m a hunter. I left a farm that was better developed than the one I saw, well, frame house and everything. I don’t like farming, and I don’t stay put.” It seemed to him that she was looking at him as a mate.

“I don’t ask you to stay around,” Katherine said. “Just keep shaving. Doesn’t Aunt Alice make the best soap? She gave me some for last Christmas. She has three rose bushes, and she saves the old flowers. She put them in the water for that soap.”

He was done shaving and wanted to rinse off the soap, which did not smell anything like a rose. When he reached for the mirror she gave it to him. She turned her back and took off her sun bonnet.

He took the opportunity. He turned and jumped in the stream. He ducked his head, and realized that put his ass in the air. He sat down and looked at her.

“You staying there?” she asked.

“As long as you’re staying there.” He was thoroughly chilled, but at least his cock was going down.

She sat down and took off her shoes and stockings. That gave him a view of her legs up to the middle of her thighs. Chill or no, his cock started to harden again.

“Won’t that razor rust?” she asked. “Rinse it off and give it to me. I shall put it on top of your pack.”

“That would get your dress wet.” He would be damned if he would come closer to shore. That would raise his privates above water level.

“Not now.” She stood up and raised her dress. In a moment, she was wearing only drawers. Her teats might not be as large as those of a woman who had nursed a child, but they were large enough and firm with youth. Her pink nipples stood out. “Ow, it’s cold,” she said.

He gave up. He stood and walked to the bank. The knot behind his back gave way, and he caught the wet sacking and held it in front of his crotch. That didn’t help when his back was to her.

“You know what to do?” Katherine asked. He nodded. “I don’t want you forever, though that would be nice. I want you for today.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“A woman’s first time hurts,” he warned her.

She nodded. “But it will hurt whoever does it.”

He stretched his buckskin trousers out on the grass and helped her to sit on the part he usually sat on. He pushed her down, and her shoulders were on the legs of the buckskins.

He kissed her with her soft teats pressed into his hard chest. He was hard, and he reminded himself that Katherine, however forward she was, was a virgin. He’d have to go slow.

He kissed down to her firm teats. His lips nibbled over one, and then he got to her nipple. He licked, nibbled again, and sucked. She lifted her rump off the ground at that. Her hands came up, petted his shoulders, and settled on the back of his head where the pressed him into her teat.

He stroked over her belly, and it trembled under his hand. He played with the thin patch of hair which shielded her womanliness. He stroked downward, and she closed her legs.

“You still certain?” Warren asked.

“Yes. It still seems strange.”

“It is strange, and it gets stranger.”

“Well, it’s felt fine up to now,” she said. He could feel her shiver as she spread her legs.

The lass trembled even more when he stroked over her lips down there. He switched to the other teat and sucked that nipple. He parted her lips and felt the first juiciness. She was right. She had a virgin barrier.