Chapter 13: Beware - Livestock on Roadway

The next two weeks passed so quickly that I felt they must have grown wings and flew away.

It was during that two weeks that I really learned to prioritize the tasks of my life. Most week days I had to go to school and write at least one final exam, in fact one day I had to write two, but I had three other days when I wrote no tests at all. Each day I visited Grampa Bender in the hospital, looked after the animals on his farm and still managed to spend some time with Carissa. On top of that I was able to spend an evening with George’s dad repairing that pesky CB radio. Another evening was spent with Tom making a special stirrup that fit over my cast. As well, I even spent some time with Mom and Beth getting lessons about cooking simple meals.

In actual fact I’m not sure where the time went during those two weeks. I’d never been so busy in all my life.

The first weekend during the exams was just as hectic. Saturday morning I woke early and made breakfast for the whole family as Mom and Beth supervised. After that we caught my two horses, saddled the Thoroughbred gelding and Beth set off for Grampa Bender’s, riding the gelding and leading the Quarter Horse stud. Once she was on the way I drove into town planning to see Grampa Bender, then picking up Carissa so she could spend the day with me. Corinna was going to catch a ride back home with us so she could spend time with Wil, but I was planning on driving back home anyway since I wanted to pick up George and Tom, who were going to come up and help me at Grampa Bender’s place for the day.

At the hospital I found Grampa Bender in a ward room with several other older men and I was shocked at how old he looked. However this was the first time that I really had a chance to talk to him since we’d rushed him to the hospital. When I told him that I was going to be looking after his place until he could go home it seemed as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders. He’d been worried about his animals and I’d just relieved him of that concern. I was astounded that he hadn’t realized that his place was being cared for before then, since at least one or two of my family had been in to see him each day. So I spent nearly an hour with him, explaining how I was planning to look after the place and telling him about the things that we’d already done.

When I finally had to leave, I was stopped in the hallway by one of the nurses who had seen us talking. I was surprised to find that she had noticed how he had perked up as I’d been talking with him and even more surprised when she suggested that my involvement was probably the best medicine that he could have. She explained to me that the stroke he had suffered was affecting his short term memory. She also told me that if I or my family kept on reminding him of what was going on each day, eventually he’d accept the fact that we were caring for his farm. She suggested that I should talk to his doctor, saying that since I was directly involved I should know more of Grampa Bender’s prognosis for the future. Her words and tone left me in a very sober mood, in fact I was somewhat worried when I left the hospital.

Carissa and Corinna managed to restore my mood somewhat when I picked them up, but as soon as I got home I managed to get Mom alone and buttonholed her to see if she knew more about Grampa Bender’s condition.

“Well, he is a very old man, Chris,” she said with a frown and a deep sigh. “I don’t think the nurse should have dropped that on your shoulders though.”

“Unlike you, I think I should know what’s going on,” I answered firmly.

“Unfortunately we’re not certain how long his recovery will take and neither is his doctor,” she said firmly. “It’s not something you need to worry about right now.”

“But Mom, I want to plan for the future.”

“Chris, you’re doing far more than we ever expected, all of you kids are, but you’re the one who is leading the pack as usual,” she put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Right now even the doctor is uncertain how soon he’s going to recover, or how complete his recovery will be. I promise though if we find out anything for certain, Willard and I will pass it on to you. For now, we all have to simply hope and pray that things will work out for the best.”

With that statement she pulled me into a hug and I had a clue that Grampa Bender was in far worse shape than I had suspected, simply because of the depth of feeling that she was expressing. I was actually quite shaken by the dawning realization that Grampa Bender might never live in his cabin again. At the same time I knew that I was going to have to conceal that possibility from some of the members of my family if I could.

Somehow I realized that I’d gone a step further into adulthood than I had planned and I was being given as much responsibility as I could handle. Mom and Dad were there to support me, but they were also encouraging me to go as far as I could on my own. That was a rather sobering thought.

I was still in a rather sober mood as Carissa, Tom, and George climbed into my car. However their moods were all bright and lively, so it wasn’t long before my mood lifted. Because she rode across country while we had to go around by the road, Beth was already at the cabin when we got there. In fact she had the coffee pot on the stove and as soon as we got there she and Carissa insisted that we eat the lunch that Beth and Mom had fixed for us.

While they were setting it out on the table and I was doing a quick check of the animals, Tom and George brought all the laundry that Mom and Aunt Alice had done inside and emptied the trunk of my car. Then as we ate lunch I laid out the tasks I wanted to try to do that day. The next few hours were extremely busy and I was astonished at how much we accomplished.

The two girls had taken over the jobs in the house and had put away all the laundry, then had rehung the curtains and made the bed. Next they’d restocked the cupboards with groceries that Mom had bought during the week. After that they joined the guys outside.

Around the farmyard we had repaired some weak points in the fences, replaced the shakes on the bare spots on the barn roof and fixed any obvious leaks that we could see. Then we cleaned out the stalls in the barn and the worst of the manure in the chicken coop. As well I’d started the old tractor and spread the load of manure on one of the lower pastures. After I’d done that, Tom rigged the mower onto the back of the tractor in order to cut some of the long grass near the vegetable garden. Meanwhile, the rest of us started weeding and cleaning up the weeds in between the rows of vegetables. Even with the time it took to do all that, we left by four in the afternoon so the guys could be home in time to do chores.

After we’d eaten that evening I was going to go back and spend the night and Wil was going to use the pickup to run the twins back to town. At least that was the plan until Corinna suggested that she thought Wil should drive her up to Grampa Bender’s so she could see the place. Carissa seemed to think that was a great idea and Wil didn’t mind, so Carissa and I drove back in my car while Corinna and Will followed in the pickup.

Because it was near the end of June, the sun didn’t set until late that evening, which meant that Corinna had a good chance to see the whole setup with Wil acting as her guide. I didn’t feel like doing much more walking that evening, in fact my leg was a bit sore. Using my sore leg as an excuse Carissa and I stayed around the cabin. One benefit of that as far as we were concerned was that we could finally be alone together for a while. In fact, kissing, hugging, and petting almost got too serious, but we managed to break it off before we got completely carried away.

Instead we made coffee, then sat on the front porch and talked as we drank it. Carissa wanted to know what I would do if the place were mine, so I shared my pipe dream of raising horses and turning the place into a working ranch. We were still talking when Wil and Corinna came back from their walk. Of course they teased us about sitting on the front porch drinking coffee like an old married couple, but a moment later they joined us and we talked until quite late. Since I wouldn’t see Carissa again until Monday at school, we managed to sneak in a nice long goodbye hug and kiss before they left.

I expected to have a hard time going to sleep because I’d never spent a night in the cabin, but I suppose all that I’d done during the day had tired me out. I fell asleep almost a soon as I’d gotten into bed.

The next morning I was up bright and early. After frying myself some eggs and bacon and having a couple of cups of coffee, I went outside and looked after the animals then began to putter around the place doing small jobs. In fact the whole morning and part of the afternoon were spent doing little fixups. However, by four in the afternoon I was beat and decided I was done for the day. After one final check around the place, I drove home to have Sunday supper with my family. I even managed to get in an hour or two of review for the exam I had the next day.

The following week was as hectic as the prior week had been, but at least I only had three exams that week. One of the high points of the week for me came when I was able to tell Grampa Bender about all the work we’d been doing on the farm, another was when I brought Carissa into the hospital and introduced them to each other. However, circumstances seemed to conspire to keep Carissa and me apart most of the week. Because none of our exams coincided and since I was so busy outside of school, we only had a few brief minutes together each day.

My last exam was on Thursday, then I was done. I was hoping to be able to spend some time with Carissa that evening, but she had a tough exam on Friday so we didn’t get a chance to be together for long. Instead she spent Thursday evening studying and I spent the evening at home with my family. That weekend Mom, Dad and Beth were going off to a gymkhana. Beth was going to show her horses and Wil was going to stay home to look after the farm. I was planning on spending the whole weekend up at Grampa Bender’s cabin, with the exception of one quick trip to town.

Friday was an extremely busy day for me. My day started with helping the family to load Beth’s two best horses into the horse trailer, then packing the pickup with the gear my family would need over the weekend. Once they had gotten away that was followed by hurried trip to town. After a quick stop at Frank Dolens’ service station to pick up some gas and oil for the old tractor, I went directly to the hospital and visited with Grampa Bender for a short while. Following that I’d planned on visiting the grocery store, then I wanted to be at the school to pick up Carissa after she finished her last exam.

Everything went well until I was finished at the grocery store, that’s when I found my car was blocked in by a delivery truck. Of course that made me late getting to the school and after looking all over the school for her I found out that Carissa had already left. Expecting that she might be annoyed with me for being late, I drove to her house, but it seemed that there was no one home, at least no one was answering the door.

Then my world fell in around me. One of the neighbours saw me at the door and came over to tell me that the Coulter’s had gone away for the First of July weekend just like my family had.

I was stunned. Carissa hadn’t mentioned that she was going away. Of course I assumed the worst since I was still something of a neophyte concerning romance. On top of that I was slightly pessimistic about my luck with women so I jumped to the conclusion that she’d decided to break up with me.

I made a beeline for my car and drove directly out to Grampa Bender’s place. At first I planned on going down to the cellar under the cabin and opening a quart of Grampa Bender’s hooch so that I could drink my sorrows away. However when I got to the cabin I decided to look after the animals first and get drunk later. Of course one little job seemed to lead right into another and before realised it, I had worked the whole day away. When I finally stopped looking for small jobs that had to be done, it was late in the evening. That’s when I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and I was extremely hungry.

While my meal was cooking, I turned on the CB and called home to let Wil know I was okay. Since I didn’t want to talk long, I used my hunger and the fact that I had food cooking on the stove as an excuse to sign off after only a moment or two.

I’ve heard it said that after a breakup, people either eat too little or too much. I suppose I fall into the latter class. At least that night I certainly put away a huge meal. Expecting that I was going to have trouble getting to sleep, I made myself a cup of hot chocolate and went out on the porch to sip it as the sun went down.

As I sat there my mind was wheeling and whirling about the tough luck I had with women, but the combination of a hard afternoons work, a heavy meal and the hot chocolate combined to make me quite sleepy. I decided to go in and go to bed.

I had stripped down to my shorts when the dog started to bark. I pulled my jeans back on, then rushed outside to see what was the matter. In the fading daylight an old Jeep was coming across the bridge over the creek and since I didn’t recognise it, I wondered if it was some form of trouble that I hadn’t anticipated.

One of the things I had worried about was the idea that some of the rougher elements from town might have heard that Grampa Bender was in the hospital and decided that the place might be abandoned. I’d heard of them going out to various outlying farms that had been unoccupied for a few weeks and trashing those places while having wild parties. Since this was the last Friday evening of the school year, that possibility seemed quite probable. So, just in case that was what was happening, I stepped back inside the cabin and grabbed Grampa Bender’s old twelve gauge pump shotgun from the pegs it hung on near the door. I even jacked a shell into the chamber as I stepped back onto the front porch, not that I was planning on shooting anyone, but having that old scattergun in my hands as a deterrent was very reassuring.

Although the light was failing, as the Jeep got closer I could make out the fact that there was only one person in it. Seeing that, I relaxed enough to pop the shell out of the shotgun and stood it against the wall. Then the Jeep was coming toward me across the flats and pulled up beside my car. I stared in astonishment as the driver stepped out.

“Hi, I thought you might get awfully lonely up here by yourself this weekend, so I borrowed Uncle Frank’s Jeep and came to visit you,” Carissa grinned at me.

I was shocked and totally speechless for several seconds.

“You aren’t going to make me drive all the way back home tonight are you?” she asked with a slight quaver in her voice.

“Unh, uh,” I managed to grunt and shook my head, still trying to adjust to the implications of her being there, but at the same time very happy that she was.

I’m not certain how long we stood there staring at each other, but at some point I realised that she was probably as uncertain of herself as I was. I took one hesitant step toward her, then suddenly she was rushing into my arms.

“What about your folks?” I asked, my face buried in her sweet-smelling hair as we hugged tightly. “Your neighbour told me that your whole family went on a holiday.”

“The neighbour is a nosy parker and an idiot. Mom and Dad took the weekend off,” she sighed. “Corinna is spending it with Wil and I’m here with you. Now, do I finally get a kiss or not?”

She didn’t just get a kiss. Actually, she almost got eaten alive, but she was as enthusiastic as I was, so it was a fair trade.

I’m not sure if she expected to be scooped into my arms, carried inside the cabin and into the bedroom, but she certainly didn’t argue. In fact she was completely cooperative, or rather she was as impatient as I was. Only moments later neither of us were virgins. Neither of us may have had any experience, but we must have made up for that with our sheer enthusiasm, or else we simply had a surplus of natural talent. Perhaps the days and weeks prior to our finally getting into bed had served as foreplay or else Carissa was extremely easy to get aroused. Anyway, she certainly disproved the old wives’ tale that virgins never climax during their first session of intercourse. As for me, I was almost euphoric.

I couldn’t seem to get close enough to her, and I fell asleep holding her gently in my arms.

When I awakened in the morning and found myself in Grampa Bender’s bed, I was literally lost and didn’t know where I was for several seconds. Actually since I had a morning woody which was tucked between the soft, but firm globes of Carissa’s bare bottom as I cuddled to her back, I was shocked and somewhat alarmed as well. It took at least a couple of minutes for the happenings of the previous night to sink into my thick skull. Until that happened and I realized that she and I had both wanted to make love I was almost afraid to move. Of course by then the hydraulic pressure in my bladder had reached the danger level and I knew I had to either move or I’d suffer an accident.

Untangling my arms from around her delightful body so that I could manage to get out of bed without awakening Carissa seemed to take forever, but I finally managed to slip out of bed and make a mad dash outside. It wasn’t until I was standing there relieving myself into the bushes off the end of the front porch of the cabin that the true implications of what had happened interrupted my thought processes.

I’d had sex with one of the Coulter twins and of course I remembered the rumour that all guys my age had heard about the twins and about their father. John Coulter had supposedly threatened to use a rusty tin can lid to nut any guy who took the virginity of one of those twins. The two of them were the delight of his life and he’d spent eighteen years guarding them from the world. Now in one rampant moment I had destroyed one of those precious bits of flesh that he’d spent so many years protecting.

It didn’t matter that Carissa had been a willing and eager participant in our actions, for some reason I still saw her as an innocent participant that I had drawn into my version of depravity. I was the guilty guy whose undisciplined actions had disgraced one of the two stars of John Coulter’s universe. I was the damn fool who had picked her up and carried her inside the house, then taken her to bed. I was going to have to face the music, not only with John Coulter, but with my parents as well. All I could do was hope that they wouldn’t be too hard on me.

With a deep sigh of resignation at my fate, I crossed the front porch in an attitude of surrender to the world. I was guilty and I knew that I had to face the music. In my weakness, I had given in to the temptation of having sex and now I knew I had to suffer the consequences for my actions.

On top of that I had to find some way to face Carissa and apologise for being such a weakling. I resolved that in some way I was going to treat her so wonderfully that it would make up for the disgrace I had brought upon her. Then as I was preparing the coffee pot for the morning brew and thinking about how to apologise to Carissa, I remembered that she’d driven out here and had been the one to tempt me, not the other way around. Perhaps an apology wasn’t called for? After all, she was literally as guilty of our actions as I was. I paused as my mind whirled around and around while I had an argument with myself.

Then my rebellious memory recalled the delight of being involved in the act of sex and my libido clamped down on my reason. Some twisted and perverse tendril of thought intruded itself into my brain, insistently pointing out that now that Carissa was no longer a virgin, no one would be able to tell if we’d only had sex once or if we had enjoyed the act of making love a dozen times.

The hormones in my body must have been waiting on standby and instantly leaped into action. Almost instantaneously I had another erection and without any thought of the consequences I was suddenly moving back toward the bedroom. It didn’t help that Carissa was awake and smiling at me as I came through the bedroom doorway; nor did it help that she had thrown off the covers on the bed so that my rebellious libido was further stimulated by the sight of her delightful body.

“Well, look at you,” she purred softly and I could almost feel the weight of her gaze as it singled out the swollen flesh that waggled at my groin. “Is that for me?”

Something suddenly switched in my brain and once more reason intruded. Abruptly I was again the shy kid who had worshipped this young woman from afar. I felt the blood rushing to my face and one of my hands attempted to cover the shocking display of swollen flesh at my crotch.