Chapter 1

Doomsday-style reports had been keeping the static-filled airwaves busy since the night before; warnings of blizzard conditions and likely impassable roads dominated the news coverage. Over and over, area meteorologists implored people to stay home and simply stay warm with their families. But if history were any indicator, there would be some fool-hardy souls who would risk traveling anyway. At least once per year, some knucklehead with no real outdoor skills would thumb his nose at the warnings and head into the hills in his souped-up Jeep 4x4, overly confident in his ability to outwit Mother Nature. All too often, their bodies were found weeks or months later.

Mel Owens greeted the day with a healthy dose of pessimism, convinced that the incoming storm would bring another round of idiots putting their lives at risk. Mel had been a Ranger with the National Parks Service on the edge of Sequoia National Park in California for almost 3 years, and in his experience, every winter storm brought a fresh batch of morons along with it. Sprawling across more than 1,300 square miles of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, and with elevations ranging from about 1,000 feet to over 14,000 feet above sea level, severe weather events were not uncommon, especially during the winter months.

Overnight, snow had begun to fall, just as the weather service had predicted, and though only about 4 inches of fresh powder had fallen since it began, there were no signs of the storm abating.

That morning, the scene out his window would have been considered tranquil by most; large flakes drifting toward the ground lazily and slowly swallowing more of the landscape in its coat of ermine fluffiness. However, the fact that the snowfall was so dense that he couldn’t see the end of the front walk told Mel just how much snow was still coming down, and that they would likely reach the weatherman’s predicted 2 ft. mark before lunchtime. With much, much more expected in the following days.

So, with a heavy sigh, he finished his breakfast, then dressed in several warm layers and poured himself a Thermos full of black coffee before stepping onto the front porch to make his way toward the Sno-Cat. It wouldn’t be too much longer before no other vehicle would be able to get through the snow blanket. He pulled the protective tarp off the Sno-Cat, opened the driver’s side door, set his Thermos of coffee inside and then started the engine. Leaving it to warm up for a few moments, he closed the door and strolled down the front walk toward the road and the opposite treeline to get a clearer picture of what Mother Nature had dropped so far.

Melvin Henry Owens had spent much of his adult life rudderless, which was only funny if you considered that he’d joined the US Navy right out of high school. There were a few reasons he decided to enlist: The first was that his grades hadn’t been nearly good enough to earn a scholarship, and his family simply didn’t have the money to pay for him to attend a university. The next reason was that there was something they called “the G.I. Bill” which meant that once his stint was finished, the government would pay for him to go to college. After nearly losing Mel’s father during WWII, his mother simply wouldn’t hear of Mel enlisting in the Marine Corps (as his dad had done) or the Army. “I can’t stand the thought of you, out there, marchin’ around and getting’ shot at. I won’t stand for it, Mel,” she had loudly proclaimed. And so, Mel, a boy who’d grown up surrounded by hundreds of miles of flat land populated mostly by corn and cows, decided to enlist in the Navy. With dreams of tropical ports of call in his head, he headed for boot camp in San Diego. After that, he spent some time assigned to assorted training, and eventually, he was ordered to report for duty aboard a small, cruiser-class ship.

The reality of Navy life could not live up to his dreams, sadly. Oh there were some good days, to be sure; Like when the ship pulled into the Philippines and Mel was granted 4 consecutive days of shore leave. Or the time when he got to laze for two days straight on the beaches of Oahu. But for the most part, ship-board life was dull, dreary, smelly and depressing. Once his first tour of the Western Pacific was complete, he was assigned shore duty at a shipyard in Long Beach, and that was somehow even more depressing. Every day seemed to be dominated by views of hulking, gray steel, the smells of welding, and the piercing whine of pneumatic needle guns, stripping paint off the metal bulkheads.

By the time his four year stint was complete, Mel wanted to get as far away from the military as possible, and dove headfirst into college life, using the G.I. Bill to pay his tuition. And because the entire San Diego area was so rife with military, he chose to head north, toward the Bay Area.

U.C. Berkeley offered everything that Mel felt he needed to escape military life, and much more. On campus, the mindset was diametrically opposed to what he’d experienced in his small hometown, or the military. The whole place seemed alive with an undercurrent of excitement about freedom of expression and throwing off the shackles of ones parents’ ideals. It was everything he didn’t know he’d been looking for. He was able to completely put aside the oppressive and oftentimes racist practices he’d seen throughout his life. He was able to try marijuana and LSD and cocaine and magic mushrooms and so many other mind-altering substances that hadn’t been allowed while he was enlisted. Of course, when he spoke with his mother, back in Kansas, he neglected to mention these ‘fringe benefits’.

Somewhere during the second semester of his first year, a professor announced that they would be holding class outdoors for a week. “Meet me in the parking lot,” he told the class, “we’re going to Tilden Regional Park!” he told the class, before making his way out of the room. Outside, the entire class piled into an old school bus before it lumbered along to the destination. In fact, the entire trip had only taken maybe 25 minutes, and might’ve been quicker if that old bus hadn’t been leaking oil and belching blue smoke the entire way, forcing the driver to watch the oil temperature like a hawk. But once they arrived and filed off the bus, the most amazing thing happened to Mel; He felt like he’d been holding an overfilled balloon inside his chest for his whole life, and someone had just popped the balloon, instantly easing the uncomfortable pressure that he’d harbored for so long.

The professor had everyone toss blankets on the ground and form a sort of semi-circle, then he began his lecture. But Mel’s mind was so far away that he barely heard a word the man said. Years later, if Mel would admit that he didn’t even remember what the class was supposed to be about, or why he’d signed up for it. All he knew was that among those hills and towering trees, he felt home. He lay on his back, watching the treetops gently swaying in the midday breeze, listening to the rustle of unseen critters in the underbrush and the calls of the birds he’d never heard growing up in Kansas. Even at night, on the mighty Pacific Ocean, he’d never felt so lulled and comforted as he did in that moment. The half-tab of acid he’d ingested a couple hours before probably didn’t hurt either.

But for Mel, the main takeaway was that he suddenly knew where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. As if he’d been visited by the hand of God himself, Mel suddenly knew that no matter what, he would spend his days trying to recreate that sense of warm comfort that he felt among the tall trees.

And so, the very next day, as a freshman, he declared a major – Forestry. Imbued with a renewed sense of purpose, the threw himself into his studies and found himself partying much less. Sure, he still imbibed sometimes, but he no longer felt the need to fill every waking hour with drink or smoke or other substances. Plus, it wasn’t as if he had to worry about pushing women away from his door ... there hadn’t been any there to begin with.

In truth, Mel didn’t have much luck with women ... never had. He’d only lost his virginity during his senior year of high school because he’d finally given in and paid a ‘call girl’ for the experience. Well, she called herself a ‘call girl’, but she was really just a run-of-the-mill truck stop lot lizard.

You see, Mel had been cursed with an abnormally large penis, and though none of the girls his age had ever seen it naked, plenty of them had seen his fat sausage snaking down one leg of his jeans at school. C’mon, he’d been a horned-up teen at the time, and just because he couldn’t control when he got hard shouldn’t have made him the target of ridicule. And it might not have, if some of the jerkwad jocks hadn’t spotted him the shower after gym class. Mel hadn’t been touching himself or anything, he’d simply been trying to quickly soap his body and wash the stink of his own perspiration off, but once those lunkheads saw Mel’s semi-hard snake swaying, they began pointing and jeering. Ever since then, Mel had been convinced of his ‘freak’ nature, and hadn’t tried to get close to any girl that might make fun of him. So, by the time he turned 18, he shamefully found himself still a virgin and without any first-hand knowledge of how a girl’s body worked. He’d never even kissed a girl! Sure, he’d jerked himself off so many times that he imagined that he might be able to turn professional at it, but he doubted there was a respectable job market for such talents.

Another slight problem was that Mel was kinda picky when it came to a girl’s body shape; He preferred slender girls. Ladies with big, wide asses and thighs made his erection droop. He wasn’t sure why, but he thought it might have been because women built like that reminded him of his own mother and grandmother – and while he loved them both dearly, he felt absolutely no sexual attraction toward either of them. Although ... he had always admired the fact that they both had large, pendulous breasts. And so, Mel created a built-in challenge for himself by precluding women that didn’t fit his ideal woman’s body type; Rarer than a four-leaf clover, he was holding out hope for a slender, petite lady. “And if she also happened to be a bit top-heavy, that would be ideal,” Mel thought.

Still, by the time his 18th birthday had passed, and high school graduation was nearing, he was desperate to get laid. So, he lied to his parents and said he was going out with friends, then drove one of the family farm trucks about 20 miles to the truck stop, and propositioned a woman who called herself “Angel”. She was clearly in her 30’s, but her hips weren’t too wide, and she looked less ‘road-worn’ than the other ladies that were on the prowl that night. Plus, she had a set of double D’s that made Mel’s pecker twitch.

Overall, the experience hadn’t been all that he’d been hoping for. Sure, he’d finally been able to get his hands on a pair of real tits, and he’d been able to have sex with her, but even then, there were limitations. “Honey, yer jus’ too big t’ fit all th’ way inside o’ me,” she’d told him with a tone of regret in her voice, “an’ besides, the rubber ain’t big enough t’ cover yer whole meat!” She’d been right about that part. Mel hadn’t considered the need for a prophylactic, so he hadn’t brought any with him. Of course, she was prepared for that, until she pulled down his pants and Mel’s massive mamba slapped her in the chin. It was nearly 10 inches long, which was one part of the challenge ... but the thing that amazed “Angel” was how big around it was. “Good Lord!” she exclaimed with wonder, “It’s so thick!” After she let him play with her tits for a while, she rolled a condom onto as much of his twitching cock as it would cover ... and it only rolled down about ¾ of the way. “I ain’t never had one o’ them black fellas inside me b’fore,” “Angel” claimed, “but yer ever’ bit as big as them, I reckon.” She seemed to be wrestling with her own thoughts for a few moments, the turned to Mel and said, “Okay, sugar. If you wanna do this, then I’m game. But you gotta pull out o’ me ‘fore you cum, alright? I don’t wanna take a chance on yer goop squeezing out o’ the rubber somehow.”

The whole notion seemed pretty far-fetched to Mel. The damn condom was already so tight on his dong that it felt like it was nearly cutting off the circulation, so how could his semen leak out? But he was so close to having sex that he probably would have agreed to almost anything, and simply nodded his understanding.

She squatted over him as he sat on the passenger side of the truck’s bench seat, then eased her hairy muff onto his missile. Mel didn’t know if the noises she made were genuine or just an act that she put on for all her ‘johns’, but he didn’t care. As a matter of fact, he rarely tore his gaze away from her naked, wobbly, swaying tits as she rode him. It took her a minute or two before she could sheathe about 2/3 of the thing, cursing like a sailor the entire time, but soon enough, she felt him bottom out inside her and sighed with a sense of relieved accomplishment. Of course, Mel had no interest in taking this slowly, nor any real-world knowledge of how to please a woman, so when she paused to acclimate herself to his size, he began to lunge upward into her, causing her to gasp and begin cursing him again.

Mel had no idea how long they’d been coupled, only that the windows were fogging up and he kept hearing people’s footsteps not too far away. Soon after that, she eased herself off his rigid rod and rolled the condom off him. “C’mon baby,” she tried to coo, but it came out sounding unsexy due to her habitual smoking and whiskey-marinated vocal cords, “I’ll let ya’ shoot it on my titties.” She used both hands to stroke his lurching cock, urging him onward with practiced enthusiasm. Very soon after, he groaned, grunted and began to unload on her shaking sweater puppies. Over and over and over and over, the ropes of man batter ejected from the tip of his circumcised dong and splattered her chest. When he was finally spent, she sat in the floorboard, staring up at him with a mixture of awe and horror. “Jesus Tap-Dancin’ Christ!” she hollered, “I ain’t never seen nobody like you b’fore ... hell, I ain’t even heard o’ nobody like you. Holy shit ... yer like some kinda medical marvel... ‘r one o’ them sideshow freaks...”

As soon as he heard her utter the word ‘freak’, Mel’s anger and embarrassment rose in him and caused his fists to clench. He took a moment to steady himself and quickly began to feel sick for even considering striking the woman, but soon stowed his sticky cock and pulled up his pants. He pulled the agreed-upon $20 from his wallet, then rolled down the passenger window and crumpled the money into a wad before tossing it to the pavement outside. “You’ve served your purpose,” he said calmly. “You can leave now ... the quicker, the better.”

Suddenly, the balance of power in the truck shifted. She no longer felt that she had the upper hand, nor any type of control over him. She scrambled to put her clothes back in some semblance of order, then quickly exited the truck, cursing at him impotently the whole time. Her words no longer carried any venom. As soon as she was out of the truck, Mel slid to the driver’s side of the vehicle and waited for her to close the door. Of course, she took the time to reach down and collect her money first, then flipped him off before shutting the passenger door.

Mel drove away from her and the experience feeling only the slightest hint of achievement. He had technically lost his virginity, so that was a good thing. But the overarching feeling he had was that he’d been overcharged for her company. He never imagined that a hooker would call him a freak, but she had just done exactly that. And in the end, that left Mel ever more certain that a more innocent lady, a more desirable lady, would be even less likely to see him as a suitable partner.

Despite his hopes, Mel’s next sexual encounter also involved hired companionship. Well actually, it involved two of them. While on shore leave in the Philippines, Mel and a couple buddies were drinking at one of the many, many bars lining the “street” outside the gates of Subic Bay Naval Station. There, like just about everyone else, they were propositioned by a carousel of local hookers. They ranged widely in age and apparent ‘road wear’, but they all promised the same menu of services. “I do everyting”, they all offered in their best broken English, “I do everyting for you.” Initially, Mel had only a passing interest in their services, but had no intention of following through. But by the time the sun set, his alcohol-fueled brain had stopped making decisions based on logic, and a short time later, he found himself in a nearby motel room with two of the girls. He didn’t remember much of the evening, except that neither girl made fun of him for his size or the volume of his ejaculation. On the contrary, they seemed amazed by everything he had to offer. Of course, neither of them showed any desire to have him enter them either. They were content to lick, suck and stroke his manhood until he squirted his juice everywhere.

Sometime during the dead of night, he was awakened by the sound of a man yelling down on the street. “Balut! Balut!” The girls were pushing on his shoulders to roust him and pointing toward the balcony.

Mel learned the hard way that balut was a sort of delicacy ... the gross and stomach-turning sort: A fertilized chicken or duck egg that had been boiled or steamed – and in some cases, buried to ferment – then, the locals would crack the top half of the egg and slurp / eat the bird embryo straight from the shell. At the girl’s insistence, he paid for 5 of them ... two for each of the girls and one for himself. With that mindset of “Well, I’ll try anything once,” Mel attempted it. And it lasted until the fermented baby bird hit the back of his mouth – then he heaved. Mel vomited with such force and for so long that he was afraid he might throw up one of his own feet! It was so vile that he couldn’t imagine how someone could imagine it as food. But when he turned back from the balcony railing, through his tear-soaked eyes, he saw the looks of glee on both girls’ faces as they enjoyed their balut. They thanked him profusely afterward, to which he informed them that if they wanted to stay the night, they’d have to brush their teeth.

Mel decided to keep the same motel room during his shore leave. It was kinda dingy, but it made up for it by being run by churlish and rude people. Still, it was cheap, and it meant he didn’t have to sleep aboard the ship ... so why not?

He also learned that the girls called themselves sisters, and even claimed to be biological sisters. Though Mel wasn’t sure if they were being completely truthful, it was possible. They were both stereotypically petite, slender and small-breasted, but not flat. And the longer he didn’t forcibly oust them from the motel room, the longer they stayed near him and tended to his comforts. In the late morning, one of them would go somewhere and retrieve breakfast for the three of them. In the afternoon, Mel would make his way to one of the nearby bars with at least one of them in tow. In the evenings, they would lie naked on top of the motel bed linens, their bodies entwined. By the second night, both girls were willing to try taking his cock in their vaginas, though maybe not eager to do so. Still, they both tried and they both succeeded in taking about half of his member inside their impossibly tight honey holes. In both cases, Mel lay on his back and let the girl do the driving, so to speak, partially from drunkenness, partially because they made it clear that they would only try it if they could be in charge. And Mel learned another thing about his own sexual urges; He learned how arousing it was to watch a lady riding him. To see her curves move sensually, to watch her pert breasts bounce, to watch the determination on her face as she raced toward her own pleasure. The fact that both girls had apparently done a lot of trimming in their pubic region also helped heighten his enjoyment. They weren’t completely smooth, but only covered by a wispy thin, carefully manicured strip. Just enough to show that the girl was probably of legal age.

Mel’s shore leave continued like that. During the days, he spent time with the girls, learning some phrases in Tagalog, wandering around some of the less run-down parts of the city, and drinking until he was ready to retire to the motel again. The evenings were spent in a heady haze of drunken groping, sucking, fucking and eventual showering for cleanup.

Finally, the end came and Mel asked what he owed them for their time. He’d feared that they would bilk him out of his entire paycheck, but had already decided that it had been worth it. And so, as tactfully as he knew how, he asked them how much was reasonable. After the two girls discussed it in whispers for a few moments, the older of the two looked at Mel and sheepishly said, “Forty dolla American ... please.”

Mel’s mind was reeling. The 15 minute experience he’d had with “Angel” had cost him $20 ... and these TWO girls had spent the entire weekend with him! Hell, they’d even washed and ironed his uniforms!

Shaking his head in disbelief, he handed them $100 to split and gave them each a hug before grabbing his knapsack and the hanging uniforms, then walked out of the motel and back toward the ship, still shaking his head in wonder.

So after such limited actual experience with the fairer sex, and a lingering fear of being mocked or rejected for his physical differences, it wasn’t too surprising that Mel didn’t have much luck in college. Many people might be surprised at this, since he found himself at Berkeley in the early 1960’s. So many people have a mental image of that period as all ‘free love’ and whatnot, but while there were certainly plenty of ‘hippies’ around while Mel was in college, he never saw any hint of the whole ‘free love’ movement during his time there. Oh, there were a few dates here and there, but only one of those girls showed any interest in taking things beyond hand-holding and chaste kisses on the cheek. The girl who’d dared to invite Mel back to her apartment had been a sweet and very intelligent teaching assistant for one of the advanced mathematics courses. She and Mel had been making out for some time on her threadbare sofa, with her taking a great deal of pleasure in his manhandling of her breasts, but then she slid down to remove his pants and noticed the bulging mass that extended down Mel’s left thigh. Once she worked his pants off and saw that the bulge was, in fact, caused by his penis ... and how much of it protruded below the hem of his boxer shorts ... and how thick it was, well ... she got scared. In the most gentle and caring way she could, she tearfully informed Mel that there was no way that thing would fit inside her and she was terrified of what it would do to her body if she tried. No amount of cajoling or reasoning by Mel could change her mind, and eventually, he simply pulled his pants back up and kissed her on the cheek before walking back to his own rented flat.

Shaking himself back into the present, as he stood watching the snow fall, no part of his adolescence or military or college had any bearing at all on his task for the day. Clad, as usual, in his park ranger uniform (along with several more layers, to combat the frigid cold), he climbed into the Sno-Cat and began to motor down the established traffic areas, in search of stranded vehicles.

He wasn’t quite sure what year or model of Sno-Cat had been acquired by the Park Service, but it had served him well during the previous winters in Sequoia National. He’d seen catalog pictures of some other models that looked more like snow plows, complete with a large blade on the front. He’d also seen some models that looked more like a van perched atop the tank-like tracks. But the one that had been delivered to him looked much more like a single-seat, two-door work pickup that sat on top of four tank treads. The machine was ungainly and odd and not well-suited for any ‘normal’ terrain, but it was a god-send in wintry conditions like the blizzard that he found himself in that day. Not only was the diesel engine capable of providing enough power for him to traverse almost any snowy or icy ground where the it would fit, the tracks propelled it without much effort, and the cab heater worked really well ... so Mel never felt like he was struggling just to stay warm during the long hours of patrolling the area during terrible weather.

Though he was still harboring some of the disdain he’d felt earlier when imagining the morons who would get stranded after having been warned, that sneering sense of superiority was ebbing away. It took some time, but as he sipped his coffee and slowly navigated along the park’s roadways, the scenery through the windshield calmed him. Over the CB radio, he could hear his colleagues chattering away about a couple of motorists that they’d already had to rescue. Those folks were all ferried toward a ranger station at a lower elevation, on the west side of the mountains. From there, they would be able to wait for a family member or friend to come get them. Or, if that wasn’t an option, they could call for a taxi, and get to the Greyhound station over in Visalia, or even Fresno. Anyone Mel happened to find wouldn’t have that luxury, since he was on the eastern side of the mountains – toward the California / Nevada border, and all the major roads had been closed in that direction. So, if Mel did happen upon someone, but they didn’t need immediate medical attention, then they’d probably have to hunker down in the same cabin he slept in.

It was a nice enough place, and plenty big enough for one person. It was actually a two-bedroom, one bath log cabin. Originally built by the Parks Service nearly 15 years before, it had a nice little front porch with a swing, running water and electricity. There was no heater, but there was a pot-bellied stove in the sitting room, and when properly stoked, it gave out plenty of heat to warm the majority of the house, so long as the inner doors were left open to let air circulate. And it had no air conditioning either, but it rarely got above 80 degrees that far up in the mountains even in the hottest part of summer, so that wasn’t an issue at all ... just open some windows for a cross breeze.

Still, when Mel moved into the place nearly three years before, he got rid of a bunch of dilapidated furniture ... a whole bunch. In the end, he had one queen-sized bed, a worn, but comfortable sofa, a small dining table with 4 chairs and a chest-of-drawers dresser for his folding clothes. It was more than enough for Mel by himself, but he was sure that if he had to host anyone – even for a short time – the limited accommodations he could provide would be a challenge. Mel shook his head and laughed at his own silliness as he tried to push those thoughts out of his mind. He muttered to himself, “None of that matters unless I find someone who needs help ... and I’ve been out here looking for,” he looked down at his wristwatch, “nearly two hours already, and haven’t seen a soul.” Mel knew the terrain as well as any man ever had, especially for the part of the park he normally patrolled and tended. There were other rangers in the park, but they had their own focus areas, just as he did. Not only that, most of the other rangers had erroneously taken Mel’s shy and quiet nature to be aloofness, and they tended to leave him be.

Mel got the edge of his territory and slowly maneuvered the Sno-Cat through an about-face before proceeding back the way he’d come. He was already imagining sitting by the warm pot-bellied stove and sipping some bourbon while watching the snow continue to fall outside.

But just after he made his way back onto the main road, during a long, sweeping left-hand curve, he spotted a station wagon with its right wheels stuck in the snow pack, to the right of the roadway. Whoever had been driving had apparently tried to started sliding and simply lost control of the car before it eventually came to rest with its right side leaning toward the roadside ditch, and its left tires hanging nearly a foot off the ground. He noticed that the hazard lights on the station wagon were blinking, though slowly and only faintly, as he steered the Sno-Cat closer toward the trapped vehicle.

When he stopped the Sno-Cat behind the car, he used the CB radio to call the central ranger station and report his status as well as what he’d found. “It looks like a Ford station wagon,” Mel stated on the radio, “and I can only make out the first few letters on the license plate. But I’m gonna take a closer look, just in case there’s someone trapped inside.”

“Roger that, Mel,” came the reply from the dispatcher. “Be careful ... and let us know what you find.”

The windows of the stranded vehicle were foggy and icy. That, combined with the dense snowfall made it difficult to tell if there was anyone inside. Taking one more big swallow of coffee from his Thermos, Mel exited the Sno-Cat and made his way toward the possibly deserted car. He only needed to walk maybe 20 feet, but he hadn’t quite made it halfway when he noticed some movement in the car. Taking care to keep his cool, he moved to the left side of the vehicle (which was suspended off the ground and called out. “Anyone in there?! My name is Mel Owens ... from the Park Service ... I’m only here to help. Hello?!”