Chapter 1

The autumn colors of late October surrounded the cabin as Glen Wiseman paused in the removal of the last stump in his front yard. He looked at the evergreens nestled among the reds, oranges, and yellows of the oaks. Each time the breeze changed direction, the entire forest around him seemed to shiver; a subtle suggestion that winter was coming.

His cabin, nestled in the valley of the mountain, was surrounded by land that he had cleared himself. Each tree that had fallen was employed in the construction of the cabin. A windmill stood next to the cabin slowly turning in the breeze, generating electricity to power the house. Solar panels decorated the roof, useful in summer and useless in winter when they would be covered with snow. The contrast between the handmade cabin and the high-tech power equipment was almost jarring.

His eyes took in his surroundings with pleasure. He loved living here in wilderness. His nearest neighbor was five miles away. Town was fifteen miles, but the route there was closer to thirty. The isolation suited him fine since the last thing he wanted in his life was people. He had three hundred acres of land to isolate him. His land backed up against a state forest, so he’d never have anyone living behind him.

He knelt down and finished tying the heavy chain around the stump. Walking over to the truck, he climbed in slowly. Starting the truck, he put it into gear, and moved it forward slowly. The chain tightened and then forward progress halted in response to the resistance of the stump. He gave it a little gas and the truck inched forward pulling the stump with it. With a suddenness that always surprised him, the ground gave up ownership of the stump and the truck surged forward. He dragged the stump over to the others by the edge of the clearing. He backed up a little to provide some slack in the chain.

Exiting the still running truck, he removed the chain from around the stump. It only took him a moment to physically wrestle the stump to the pile of other stumps. He stepped back as he examined the pile of stumps. Perhaps in the spring it would become home to a family of foxes. He worked hard to provide habitats for the wild animals in the region.

He stepped back and examined the results of his summer’s efforts. The outside work had been completed on his home. The land was cleared, the shell of the cabin was complete, and the power generators installed. He had several cords of wood stacked for use in the cold winter months. Over the winter, he would finish the inside of his cabin. For now, it was complete enough to live in. By this time next year, he would have a real home.

He undid the chain from the rear of the truck and threw it in the truck bed. Outside of the chain, the bed was empty and he knew it would slide around when the truck moved. Getting in the truck, he put it in gear and returned to the cabin. Parking it next to the cabin, he went inside. He looked at the framing for the interior walls and the stack of sheet-rock that was in the corner. The interior of his cabin was a mess and it would be months before it looked like a home. None-the-less, he was pleased with it. He had built it all from hand, cutting the trees, shaping them into rough logs, and placing them into the structure.

The first order of business would be to complete the bathroom. He was getting tired of going to the outhouse in the woods. The outhouse only had a roof and no walls. He had mounted a toilet seat on a wooden box set over a deep hole. Then when it had rained, he had built a roof. He kept the toilet paper in a coffee can with the plastic lid on it to keep it dry. Unfortunately, when the snow would come, the hike to the outhouse would be impractical and use of it impossible. The bathroom had to be completed before winter arrived.

He undressed and stepped out onto the back porch carrying a towel with him. There were no neighbors to be offended by his nakedness. He turned on the water spigot to give himself a shower by standing underneath the hose. He adjusted the spray by twisting the nozzle to where it produced a fine mist. Stepping into the cold water shocked his system and led him to react with a loud shout. His balls pulled up tight to his body and his cock shrank in response to the cold water. At least the air temperature was relatively warm. Stepping out from under the water in an effort to keep warm, he lathered himself up to wash away the day’s accumulation of dirt and sweat. He stepped under the water to rinse himself. The shock the second time was not as bad as the first.

Turning off the water, he dried himself with the towel. Once his body was dry, although his hair remained wet, he reentered the house. He went to the wardrobe sitting in the middle of his future bedroom and got out a change of clothes. Simple jeans and a work shirt was his standard wardrobe. He dressed for a trip to town. He would get dinner there rather than fix his own, a practice that he had adopted early this summer since he didn’t have a functional kitchen yet.

He stopped by his reclining EZ-Boy and looked at the magazine on the floor next to it. It reminded him that he needed some more hand cream. The hand cream kept his calluses from rubbing his cock raw when he masturbated. When he got home tonight, he’d read another of the sex letters in the magazine as a way of seeking the release he enjoyed when he masturbated. After that, he’d get in an hour or two of writing. It wasn’t that he needed to work anymore, it was that it had become a habit that he didn’t want to break.

He pulled out of the private drive onto the dirt road. His was the only house on this road and he was at the very end. He considered the road his own private driveway. He always drove slowly, not because he expected to encounter other traffic, but to allow the animals that frequently crossed the road a chance to leave. He had seen numerous deer, raccoons, possums, and snakes along side the road.

He was daydreaming a little as he drove, looking off to the sides to see what wildlife might be lurking. The only time he had ever seen another car on the road was when the postman dropped off his mail. As a result, it was natural to be surprised to spot a U-Haul truck parked a mile up the road. All he could make out at first was the bright orange back of the truck. Curiosity, as well as a suspicious nature, led him to slow his approach as he considered the oddness of the situation.

He slowed even more once he noticed a man standing over three blobs on the road. His sixth sense was on full alert and it was telling him that something was definitely wrong. He stopped about a hundred feet away and got out of his truck. He grabbed the shotgun from the gun rack and walked towards the man. He carried the gun in a relaxed natural fashion that suggested great experience with the weapon. When he was close enough to realize that the blobs on the ground were people, he shouted, “Hey, what’s going on there?”

The man took one look at Glen carrying his gun and ran to the U- Haul truck. Glen seeing the man flee, broke into a run to catch up. Before he had a chance to reach the truck, it pulled away spinning its tires. Glen was left behind beating away the stray pieces of gravel that shot out from behind the truck. He would have fired at the tires, but his shotgun was unloaded and he knew it. He felt stupid letting the man escape.

He raced over to the prostrate forms on the road. It was a young man and two young women. All three were naked. Their hands and wrists were bound with duct tape across their mouths. They were all unconscious with scrapes and bruises all over their bodies. He looked at the wrists. It looked like they had been hung by their wrists. John looked over the three and swore, “Shit! I don’t need this crap!”

He returned to his truck and drove up to the three people. This way, he wouldn’t have to carry them too far. He fished his Swiss Army knife out of his jean pocket and used it to cut their bonds. They had been tied with a very tough rope. He had to work slowly to avoid cutting them rather than the rope. He pulled the tape off their mouths, expecting them to regain consciousness if only to scream in pain. He noted that they must be in very bad shape not to have reacted to that.

He looked around to see if there were any clothes, but there were none. He would have to load them in his truck naked. Carefully he picked each one up and carried them to the bed of the truck. He gently set each one in the bed. He didn’t want to carry them back there, but his cab wasn’t large enough to hold four adults. None of them were too heavy for him to carry. He had spent all summer lifting logs to build his cabin and was in very good physical shape.

Once all three had been settled in the bed of his truck, he turned the truck around and headed back to his home. There he quickly found a pair of the blankets. He wrapped his passengers in them while they were still in the truck. His movements were slow and deliberate with a gentleness that belied his rough exterior. He tucked the ends of the blankets under his passengers to make sure the blankets would not blow off as he drove. The chain was still in the truck, so he took a minute to remove it so that it wouldn’t shift around and hurt them.

Once everything was ready, he drove as fast as was reasonable to town. He kept looking in the back to check on his passengers. He was afraid that one of them would wake and panic, maybe even jump out of the moving truck. It was an extremely tense trip of almost forty minutes along narrow country roads. The highway was closer, but it didn’t lead to a town with a hospital for quite a distance.

The nearest hospital to his house was in town and he drove directly there knowing the staff would contact the sheriff. The kids, at his age they were still kids to him, would require medical attention before they could answer any questions as to how they got into that condition. He breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled into the emergency entrance. He stopped the truck and raced into the hospital. He shouted, “Hey!”

A nurse came out of a room looking irritated at the noise he was making. In a voice that conveyed her irritation, she asked, “What’s the matter?”

Glen shouted, “I’ve got three people unconscious in the back of my truck.”

His answer echoed down the halls and allowed everyone within fifty yards to know what he had announced. In seconds, a very active medical staff emerged from various rooms to take care of the situation. Glen headed towards the truck once he knew help was on its way. The nurse, pulling a pen and small notepad from her pocket, stopped him. “Hold on a second buddy. Now tell me exactly what happened.”

Glen, not given to conversation, tersely explained how he had found them as he was coming into town. He used a minimum of words. He was not very forthcoming with details and that bothered the nurse. The nurse wrote down his story and then stated, “Okay. Stay right here while I call the Sheriff.”

Glen nodded to indicate that he understood. When the nurse headed towards the admissions desk, he headed towards the door to move his truck out of the way. He wasn’t very happy because he realized that he would have to stay around for at least another half an hour. The nurse stopped him and asked, “Where you going?”

His voice gruff, he answered, “To move my truck.”

The nurse looked at Glen for a moment trying to decide if he would try to leave. She didn’t like the dour looking man and decided he would leave given half a chance. She even entertained the idea that he was the one who had harmed the kids. She was required to keep him there until the Sheriff arrived. She countered, “No. You stay right here until the sheriff comes. You make one move to leave and I’ll have a hospital guard on you before you get five steps. In fact, give me the keys to your car and I’ll make sure it gets moved out of the way.”

Glen handed over his truck keys as shrugged his shoulders. Having nothing better to do, he followed the nurse to the admitting desk. He sat at one of the chairs and waited. He watched as the three people were brought in on gurneys. In his haste to take care of them, he hadn’t noticed that the women were identical twins.

They wheeled the young man into the first bed in the emergency room. He could easily hear the excited voices of the staff as they worked on the young man. He listened as the doctor discovered that he had been anally raped. Glen was shocked and wondered what kind of horrible situation he had stumbled into.

Deep in his own thoughts, Glen jumped when a hand grasped his shoulder. Startled, he looked up to see the Sheriff standing next to him. He was a portly man with thick glasses, nearly bald with the remaining hair gray, almost white. Glen shook his head wondering how it was that the Sheriff had never seemed to age. He looked the same the entire time that Glen had known him.

Glen looked back at the floor, stating, “Oh, it’s you.”

The lack of enthusiasm was not lost on Sheriff Dale Brocker. He looked at Glen and shook his head. He couldn’t believe that the vibrant young son of his best friend had grown into such a morose quiet man.

He asked, “What in the hell happened?”

Glen answered, “I already told the nurse.”

Dale frowned at the lack of cooperation. He stated a little more harshly than intended, “I’m asking you. What happened?”

Glen, unhappy at telling his story a second time, answered in a monotone. “I was coming into town. A mile from the cabin I saw a U-Haul truck parked in the road. A man was standing over those three. I got my gun and went over to find out what was going on. The man jumped in his truck and drove off. I put those three in the back of my truck. I went back to the cabin to get some blankets to keep them warm and then came here.”

Dale looked at Glen. That was the most that Glen had said to him in the past year. He had been given all of the essential facts. Now it was a matter of grilling Glen for more details. “Can you describe the man?”

Glen shook his head and answered, “No.”

“Why not?”

“Too far.”

Dale asked, “Did you shoot at him?”

Glen shook his head and answered “Wasn’t loaded.”

Dale nodded realizing that he should have known that would be the answer. While many of the locals kept a loaded gun on their gun rack in case they came across a deer, Glen didn’t. Glen was a real law and order type. He only hunted during hunting season and he did it in a legal fashion, meaning that he actually had a hunting license.

Dale asked, “You still don’t have a telephone?”

“Not getting one.”

The Sheriff hiked up his pants. They slipped right down again and would do so until he gave up on belts and started wearing suspenders. The action of hiking up his pants was now habitual. He stated, “Glen, you’re going to have to start talking to people again. You can’t hide away up there in your cabin for the rest of your life. It’s not healthy.”

Glen shrugged his shoulders and didn’t say a word. He looked around as though hoping he could escape from being the topic of conversation by finding something else to talk about. His tactic was successful as the nurse came over to them to inform the Sheriff about the situation. “They’re coming around. Most of the injuries were minor, but painful. You should be able to question them shortly.”

The Sheriff looked down at Glen and frowned as he considered what to do with him. He knew he wasn’t going to get anymore out of him. He looked up at the nurse and answered, “I’ll be over there in a minute.”

Glen asked, “Done?”

The Sheriff shook his head. Glen looked healthy. He needed to shave and could use a haircut, but other than that was in as fine a shape as he’d ever seen him. He was about to send him on his way, but changed his mind. He answered, “Stay here until I have a talk with the doctors and the injured people.”