Chapter 14

"How are you feeling, big brother?" Tess asked.

"Except for the leg, I feel fine, Tess. When are you going to let me start putting some weight on it?"

Tess laughed. "I thought mom taught you more patience than that, Jase. Your wound looks good though. You've been getting around pretty good using the crutch. I'd like to see you keep using it for another week, at least. I imagine you're putting some weight on it now. How does it feel when you do?"

"Well... It does still hurt a little when I put any weight on it. I just feel so worthless when I'm not doing anything."

"I figured it was something like that. You don't have to worry about that, Jase. Even though you're not taking care of the herd, you're still helping out. I don't think you even realize it, but John and Ab both are taking your direction. Both of them ask you what we should do, and how we should do it. As long as you keep giving them advise, you're working."

"You told me once that John was a little jealous of me taking charge. Does he still feel that way?"

"Not that I know of. Jase, you're a natural leader. Men listen to you and follow you and women fall in love with you. The Simmons boys have only been with us for a short time, but they'd follow you to hell and back. Jo has only been with us a short time and she's madly in love with you. Of course you know how Lettie, Wanda and I feel about you."

"Yeah, I know how you feel, Tess. Believe me, the feeling is mutual. I'll have to admit I've fallen for Jo, too. That girl has more spunk in her little finger than most women have in their whole bodies."

"That she does," Tess laughed. "I can't imagine we ever thought she was a boy. She's as cute as a button."

"Yeah, but with her name and the way she looked, it was a natural mistake."

Tess sat there for a minute, then she sighed. "You know I really miss being home. I hope everything is okay, there."

"Yeah, I do, too. I worry about them some. Caleb is going to be looking in on them often, but I still worry a little. Millie and Emma are good women, and they can take care of themselves. Eve has really come on, too. I've been teaching her to shoot and she's almost as good with a rifle as you are."

When the women came back, they helped me get into our tent. Jo said she had to take care of some necessaries. She went off, while Lettie helped me get undressed. Then she got undressed, herself. We snuggled together with Wanda for a while and talked about how fast we were traveling.

We were cuddling together when Jo came back into the tent. She got undressed and crawled in between Lettie and me.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Just put your arms around us, and kiss us goodnight," Lettie said.

I did.

May 22, 1848

While we were eating breakfast, John asked if he could borrow my revolver for the day. I told him that'd be fine.

"I'm going to do something different today," he said. "I'm going to ride back along our back trail for ten miles or so, but half a mile or so south of the way we came. Then I'm going to cut back over and follow the way we came. I want to find out if anyone has been following us."

"That's a great idea, John. Just be careful. I wouldn't want you to come up onto a group of them, all of a sudden."

"Yeah, I was thinking about that. That's one reason I want to make a big circle of it. I'd rather come up behind them than to come onto them, face to face."

"That's good thinking too. Lettie, would you get him my revolver, and its belt and holster? You might want to get him my shot pouch, too."

"I'll get them, Jase," Jo said.

My drivers were the same as yesterday. We made twenty-one miles for the day. That evening, the cattle munched on their dry grass, and tried to find enough water in the shrinking pools of a large creek.

I wasn't too worried about the water situation, because Ab and I figured we'd be crossing the Big Blue River tomorrow. The rest of us had almost finished supper when John came riding in. He got himself a plate of food and sat down by Tess.

"They were watching our camp last night," he said between mouthfuls. "They left sometime during the night and headed back toward St Jo, though."

"Any idea how many of them there were?" Ab asked.

"Yeah, there were three of them. There were three horses anyway. One of the horses could have belonged to the man you shot."

Ab nodded and said, "They may not think they have enough men to do the job, now. We may not be through with them yet."

All of us sat and thought about that for a while.

The women helped me get into the tent, then they removed my trousers and rolled me on my belly. Tess removed the dressing and pronounced that everything was doing fine. With five people in the tent, it was kind of crowded. So Tess finished putting a new bandage on, and left.

I watched Lettie as she started undressing. She wasn't paying any attention to the fact that Jo was watching her, too. When she took her tunic off, her magnificent breasts were exposed.

"You might as well get undressed too, Jo. I don't see any reason you should be sleeping under a wagon when you could be snuggled up in here with us," she said to Jo.

Jo was grinning from ear to ear as she started removing her tunic. I thought, 'What the hell?', and pulled mine off, also. Soon, I was snuggled between two lovely naked women. This time, Wanda was snuggled up to Jo's back.

May 23, 1848

I hugged and kissed all three girls before I got dressed. When I crawled out of the tent, I tried putting a little more weight on my bad leg. There was a little pain, but not that much. It certainly made it a lot easier to get around.

Jo started out driving for me this morning, but it wasn't long before Lettie rode over beside us.

"Jase, do you think you could handle driving the mules for a few minutes?" Lettie asked. "I'd like to talk to Jo for a minute."

I told her that'd be fine. After I took the reins from Jo, she stood up, and stepped over onto Lettie's horse, behind Lettie. I watched them as they rode off a little way.

When they rode back over, Jo stepped back onto the wagon and took the reins from me again.

"So, what was that all about?" I asked after Lettie had ridden off again.

Jo looked at me, smiled and said, "Girl talk."

No matter how many times I asked, that's all she would say.

We made twenty-three miles for the day and crossed the Big Blue River. After crossing, we started following along its west fork.

John made a circuit behind us again today. This time when he came in, he reported that no one was following. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief. We decided that he'd make another circuit every couple of days.

The Simmons boys had started spending more time with us in the evenings and this evening was no exception. I was beginning to like George and Matt especially. Matt and Phil were teasing Mark about this one young heifer who had a mind of her own and who had driven Mark crazy all day.

"You know," George said, "I've been riding point for the last couple of days. Well, it looks like there's been some wagons go through here before us in the last few days."

"A wagon train, you mean?" Ab asked.

"No, I wouldn't call it a wagon train. It looks to me like there's only about three wagons, and maybe two or three outriders. There was a whole passel of wagons that went through eight to ten days ago, but these were a lot more recent. It also looks like there was a herd of cattle went through about a week before the big wagon train."

"I wonder why three wagons would be by themselves," I said.

"Well, they could be trying to catch up with a train, or they could have started out by themselves hoping to meet up with a train they could join," Ab said. "The other thing is, maybe they just figure they can make it by themselves."

"Well, if they didn't have any more trouble with Indians than we had, I'd say they could," I said.

"Yeah, but I was talking with one guy in St Jo that said the Indians, especially the Cheyenne and the Sioux, are a lot more restless than they were when we went through," Ab said.

"Well, whatever the reason they're out here by themselves, I wish them luck," Lettie said. "When our wagons were by themselves coming out, I was scared the whole time."

I put my arm around her and held her. I know that it must have been traumatic for her, but she had never talked much about it.

When we went into our tent, Lettie and Wanda started stripping down immediately. I didn't know what they had in mind, but I followed their example. I had just gotten completely naked when Jo came in and stripped too.

Lettie crawled on top of me and started kissing me. Of course, I returned the kisses. As we kissed and I stroked her back and butt, my cock started to respond. Lettie sat up, straddling me, and raised herself so that my cock came up and made contact with her pussy.

She reached down and positioned me, then started lowering herself onto me.

"Have you been taking lessons from Millie?" I asked.

Lettie giggled, which did wonderful things to her vagina.

"Jo has never seen anyone do it, and having three other co-wives has pretty much gotten me over any shyness I ever had."

Jo was lying on her side, watching Lettie ride up and down on me and Wanda was on my other side. I put my arms around both girls and pulled them over so their heads were on my shoulders.

"Enjoy the show," I said, and Jo giggled.

May 24, 1848

Tess came in early and checked my wound again.

"This is really looking good, Jase," she said. "A couple of more days and I think you could try riding a little."

"Thanks, Tess. I guess I was lucky. Either that, or it was the way you took care of me."

"Mom taught me a lot about medicine. I don't know nearly as much as she does, but this was a pretty simple wound."

Lettie started out driving for me again. "Lettie, I wouldn't have any problem in the world, driving for myself," I said.

"I know that," Lettie laughed. "Driving for you gives your women an excuse to sit by you, though."

I couldn't argue with that. We had a great day for traveling and made around twenty-five miles. We were still traveling along the Big Blue. Jo took over as driver again, after our nooning. Whether it was Lettie or Jo driving, Wanda would ride with us for a while, then she'd spell one of the guys riding herd for a while.

We had gone only a couple of miles when George came over to the wagon I was riding.

"Jase, we appear to be gaining on the three wagons I was telling you about," he said. "I don't think we're more than a day behind them now."

"Well, keep your eye out for them," I said. "Who knows what's going on with them."

George nodded and went back to his position at point. "I wonder what they're up to," Jo said.

"Yeah, so do I. If we're gaining on them, we'll probably find out."