Chapter 26

Caesar's vantage point was such that he could witness the two groups of horse-carried, male humans moving in separate directions, as well as his golden-one and the fiery-eyed female stumbling through the ravine below him. Only the huge barrier of rocks divided the party of males from the pair of females he had thought were his friends! Now, his keen animal brain sought other answers! By chance alone had he, through intuitive instinct, become aware of the mass human presence and moved above them to investigate! What he saw slowly enraged him! They had deeply penetrated his domain, with both the golden-one's male-human and the brute-man heading them! But more hurting than all else was the apparent fact that his loving, human-mate and the fiery-eyed one had somehow brought them there!

For a long moment, the great and powerful animal stood picturesquely outlined against the skyline, his tongue licking out characteristically; then, a deep whimper emitted from his broad chest. He had been betrayed! How, he was not yet certain, but retribution for such traitorism he was inherently steeped in! The handsome, massive animal whimpered inside himself once more before he backed off, turned, then leaped away as silently as he'd appeared!

A sudden rumble of deep, distant thunder sent a curdling chill up Carol Foster's spine. From behind, she called to the girl only yards in front of her and said: "It's a storm, Jean! Let's find someplace to get out of it!"

The young blonde wife paused to look back, almost as if just remembering at that moment that Carol was with her. "We'll start climbing right here," she said. "There's an overhanging ledge up there; it'll shelter us. Anyway, it's just a little thunderstorm..."

"We should have turned back!" Carol said, reaching her and grasping onto the other's arms. "This is crazy, Jean... !"

"Oh... ooohhh, Carol, I'm sorry!" the blonde girl exclaimed. "I told you to go back... !"

"Damnit, I'm not about to go anywhere without you!"

"Are you afraid?"

"Well, it's getting dark enough to be... and that storm's almost on top of us, girl, if you haven't seen it!" Carol half- whimpered. "I-I mean if... if we only knew where we were going... !"

Jean started to console her friend, but she never had to. The sudden appearance of a horse carrying the huge frame of Link Morgan whipped her breath away. For a moment, she stood as frozen, then undeniably welcomed the sight of the big Chief of Police.

"Look!" she said, pointing. "It's Chief Morgan!"

Carol did, not in the least disappointed with his unexpected appearance, though she could think of others that might be more pleasing! "Oh Goddd... !" she sighed.

"What the hell you girls trying to do, kill yourselves?" Morgan blurted. Apprehensively, he looked up at the clouded skies. "In seconds, there'll be a downpour that'll send flash- floods all through these gullies! Come on!" he ordered, swinging down from his mount. "Let's climb!"

Struggling on hands and knees into the mouth of a cave, Jean couldn't help but wonder what would happen to the horse Link Morgan had abandoned below! She turned to help Carol behind her, and then the big frame of Link Morgan who moved into the cave opening with surprising agility. She hardly noticed the faint smirk curling the lips of the police chief as she looked down to see the saddled animal standing fast...

Morgan read the concern on her face, his smirk broadening. The horse was in no danger, he knew, getting to his feet and setting his rifle against the wall of rock. There'd be no flash- flood... probably no more than a few drops of rain, but it'd been the perfect gimmick to scare them up into the cave!

He'd had no problem getting away from his party! Putting Frank Clifford in charge, he'd used the excuse that he wanted to investigate a distance into the ravine for signs, and that he'd join up with them later on the other side of Wiley's Stream. His plan, of course, was to double back and sight Mark Blakely's group from a perfect ambush point he was well familiar with... but what the hell... here he'd stumbled onto Blakely's wife, along with that goddamned writer's doll!

Shit, he'd almost tumbled out of the saddle when he spotted them. After all, they didn't exactly compose the scene a man expected to find in the depths of this friggin' wild country! But there was hardly time to speculate on why, or what the hell they were doing there; only that they were starting to scale the accessible bank was important! And the goddamned cave where those three teenaged punks were holed-up was directly above them! What the hell, there was nothing to do but join them and revamp his plans! The deputy was going to win a few more minutes reprieve... !

"The horse... will it be all right?" Jean anxiously questioned the big lawman.

"Don't worry, it'll take care of itself," Morgan replied, his mean eyes ogling Jean's appealing curves the tight slacks and shirt were temptingly enhancing. The ripely pointed mounds of her firm breasts were straining the shirt-front, while the slacks were stretched tautly over the smooth, rounded ovals of her buttocks and across the small swelling of her belly, snugly clinging to the puffy "vee" at the adjoining angle her voluptuously full thighs formed. He couldn't help but remember her naked beauty. The night he'd fucked her at Lydia's! Christ... ! "The question is, what're you girls up to in these hills?" he probed, though a crazy goddamned answer was already forming in his tired brain.

"We... we were hiking and got lost," Carol quickly put in when she saw Jean struggling for words.

"Y-Yes... that's it... we got lost!' Jean followed, nodding her pony-tailed head.

A grin stretched the police chief's lips. He shifted his glance to the vivacious, willowy brunette, his lustful eyes rakingly appraising her lissome, curved, young body. There was something fiery in her expression that intrigued him, even reminded him of Lydia Newell, that illusion alone enough to cause a stirring in his heavy loins. He said: "You ah... you don't expect me to believe that shit, do you? I mean, with a pack of wild raping dogs menacing these hills, you dollies just come out for a hike? Let's try another answer, what do you say?"

"I-I don't believe it's necessary for us to give you any explanations, Link Morgan!" Jean suddenly snapped at him, then turned to Carol. "Come on, let's get out of this place! The sun is shining again... !" She paused at the odd expression on her friend's attractive face. The brunette wife was looking beyond her toward the back of the cave, with her small, slender nose raised as if she were smelling something... "What is it, Carol... ?"

Jean pivoted to follow the direction of her stare before the other could answer, noticing for the first time that the tunnel was quite deep and arched off to the right... ! And... and there was some sort of light... a flickering light, similar to what a flame might cause... !

"D-Do you smell that, Jean?" Carol hesitatingly questioned, suddenly looking toward the big frame of a grinning Link Morgan. "I-It's marijuana... pot! Someone's back there... !"

When Jean swung around toward Morgan, he had picked up his rifle and was using it to point in the direction of the flickering light. "Too late now, girls," he growled, his voice undeniably threatening, his red-face an open leer. "I don't know what I'll wind up doing with you, but we'll decide that when the time comes. Get moving, both of you! Let's go back and join the company!"

"Oh... oh God, Jean... !" Carol frightenedly hesitated, grasping the young blonde wife's hand.

"Don't be afraid, Carol!" Jean bravely pretended, taking the brunette's small hand and holding it tightly in her equally tiny one, even as her flesh began to crawl at what might await them ahead. She'd already had experience with Link Morgan!

"Move!" the corrupt police chief barked, slapping them both luridly across their full buttocks, a lustful charge taunting his groin at the resilient give of their rounded ass-cheeks. "Maybe, we'll just have a party while we're making up our minds what to do with you bitches!"

They did, clinging to one another's hand, Jean stumbling once over an unseen rock, but quickly catching her balance. Then, as they rounded the bend in the hollowed-out cavern and the flickering light grew more illuminous, they saw them! Automatically, the two young wives halted side by side in shocked apprehension! Neither could find her voice... but before them, stretched out on what looked like soiled mattresses and blankets, lay three naked men... no... boys!

"Good God... !" Carol gasped, the words choking from her throat! "Wh-What is this... ?"

Jean had yet to speak, but a myriad of unwanted reflections were racing through her brain! The three of them were little more than teenagers... and smoking crudely-made cigarettes in the candle light surrounding them! The small area reeked of the sweetish aroma, but it was not that as much as their lewd nakedness and the still unexplained attack upon her nights ago that sent clammy chills rippling upward along her spine! Somehow, at that horrifying moment, she knew that these were the three masked attackers Caesar had driven off that first night... !

"You dumb fucks!" Morgan vilely barked out from behind them, each young wife sensing her own particular reaction to the graphic four-letter word. "A whole goddamned army could march in here and you pricks wouldn't know it!"