Chapter 654

When the Morales family entered their home, the women, knowing their man, immediately began a pot of coffee. Morales brought the chickens in from the brush fence and fed them, then stood drinking his coffee.

Seeing the look on his face, Jasmine asked, “What’s wrong, Hun?”

“Nothing,” he absently returned, then after a pause, “Look, we still have time. Let’s check out the garden. Unless I miss my guess, there is going to be a lot of it ready tomorrow. If it weren’t for the Matthews volunteering to help, I suspect we would lose some of our crop.”

“I was just going to ask if you thought we had time to check it out,” Jasmine said. “We need to do some planning.”

“I’ll run and get the crawler. You might want to fix us a thermos of coffee to drink on the way.” Rifle in hand, he hurried out the door.

Christine grabbed a thermos to rinse before filling it with coffee.

“Go ahead and fix it the way we drink it,” Jasmine told her. “Morales will drink it either way.”

“I knew that,” Christine said with a grin.

“Sorry. Time seems to fly around here, and I forgot that you two have been part of our family for months now.”

When Morales returned with the crawler, the women were standing outside the cave with rifles, go cups and the big thermos.

As Jasmine seated herself in the front by Morales, she commented, “It seems strange for Lobo and Lila not to be here. I miss them already.”

“Yeah,” he said as he waited for Christine and Ashley to be seated. “It seems odd without them even though they seldom made any sounds.”

“I brought our headlamps in case it gets dark before we get back,” Ashley said as she held them up.

“Thanks, Ash,” Jasmine said. “I thought about it and was going to get them when I saw you already had them.”

Morales spoke up. “Make sure you buckle up. I’m going to push it a little so we will have as much time at the garden as possible before dark.”

Morales deliberately failed to slow when they got to one hump that he had not smoothed out completely. It was a slope upward of only a few inches, but the crawler was airborne for a couple of seconds, and the women loved it.

“The wolves would have loved that,” Jasmine said a bit wistfully. “I suppose I didn’t realize just how much of our family they have become.”

“I can’t wait to hear them talk,” Christine said wistfully.

When the crawler clawed its way out of the stream and onto the field, Morales stopped at the beginning of the tomato rows. Although it was no longer visible in the little valley surrounded by tall trees, the sun had not quite dipped below the mountain in the distance, and the shadows were growing long.

“Keep an eye out,” Morales cautioned. “We don’t have the wolves to smell out danger before anything is even visible.”

“I do not feel comfortable out here this late without them,” Ashley quietly said as she continued to check out the darkening area under the trees and brush at the edge of the woods.

“Yeah, me too,” Morales responded, “but we won’t be here long.”

As the group checked out the ripening garden, and the women made decisions, Jasmine pointed to the rows of tomatoes. “There must be at least ten baskets of ripe tomatoes, and probably that many more that will be ripe in a couple of days. If we don’t get the ripe ones tomorrow, we’ll lose them.”

“There must be that many baskets of cucumbers ready and the same with the squash,” Morales pointed out as he looked down the rows, “not to mention multiple types of beans and peas.

“We’re going to be shelling beans and peas for a while,” Ashley said. “At first there was nothing, then a few tiny pods of beans and peas, then the place seemed to explode with produce.”

“The ground is fertile, we have had rains in addition to the water flowing underneath the garden and the weather has been perfect,” Morales reminded them.

“We’ll dry what we don’t have time to freeze or can,” Jasmine said. “That part will be easy. When we have what we need canned or frozen, we can just leave the last of them on the vine to dry. Shelling dried peas is easy,” Jasmine continued. “They practically fall out of the pod.”

“Speaking of shelling, there is going to be one hell of a lot of pea and bean shelling,” Morales said, not nearly as enthusiastically.

“We need to get our jars washed and ready to be sterilized. It’s a good thing we have that big picnic table for more workspace,” Jasmine added. “There’s food here and lots of it, but it’s going to take lots of work to prepare it all.”

“Our little herb garden is coming along nicely, also,” Christine proudly said since she had taken it on as her own project — overseen by Jasmine, of course.

As they continued walking through the field and planning, Ashley suddenly stopped and pointed. “There. I saw something move just at the edge of the woods,” she said while pointing.

“I don’t see anything,” Morales said. “The wind has picked up some. Are you sure it wasn’t just the wind moving a tree limb?”

Jasmine, who had brought her rifle up to peer through the scope, quietly said, “Ah, crap. She’s right. I can see him with the scope. There’s a saber-tooth just at the edge of the woods, and it’s a big one.”

“Shit,” Morales grumbled as he now also watched the big animal through his scope. “You’re right. He’s definitely big.” With a glance back over his shoulder, he continued, “It’s the better part of a hundred yards to the crawler from here. He’s probably three hundred yards away, but... I doubt we could get to the crawler before he would be on us, not the way those things cover ground. Shit,” he grumbled, “I don’t want to stay up half the night processing a fucking hide, but it looks like I won’t have a choice. I’m certainly not going to throw a saber-tooth hide away.” Then to Ashley, “Good job. If you hadn’t seen him, the first we would have known about him would have been when he charged. We might have had to scramble to get a shot off.”

“I wouldn’t have noticed him either, but I happened to be looking in that direction, and when he moved, it caught my attention.”

“Lobo and Lila would have known he was here as soon as we got out of the crawler, or maybe before,” Ashley said.

“So, what do we do?” Christine wondered aloud.

“If we have to kill him, then we’ll do it, and we’ll all pitch in and help with the hide,” Jasmine said.

“We would have to go back for the trailer before we could even start to skin him out,” Morales pointed out. “Looks like my idea about checking out the garden was a bust.”

“Maybe we could fire a few rounds and scare him off,” Christine offered.

“Scare him off or piss him off, “ Morales said. “We’re talking about a saber-tooth. Fear just doesn’t seem to be part of their makeup, but let’s begin easing back toward the crawler. Maybe he isn’t hungry and will let us get away without a confrontation.”

“Should we label that as wishful thinking?” Jasmine hurriedly asked as they saw the big beast come out of the woods and enter the field at a slow lope.

“You girls run on to the crawler. I’ll kill him when he’s a bit closer,” Morales said while hoping they would actually do it.

All three women responded with a perfectly timed, “Fuck you,” as they lined up and brought their rifles to their shoulders, waiting.

Morales didn’t even raise his rifle fully to his shoulder as he stepped to the side so he would have a clear shot should his round be needed — which he sorely doubted after the thousands of rounds his women had fired in practice.

Just as they had practiced, Jasmine quietly called out, “Ready ... Three, two, one, fire.”

The rounds sounded almost as one as the rifles bucked in the women’s hands.

The tiger, now running full out, was less than forty yards away when the rounds hit it squarely in the head. The giant animal nosed into the dirt, its momentum flipping it onto its back as it slid to a halt, coming to rest on its side. It twitched twice and was still.

While his wives were congratulating each other, Morales stood thinking for a moment before saying, “Well, he was nice enough to land between the rows, so he didn’t even damage any of the bean plants, but I damn sure will when I bring the crawler and trailer in here so I can string him up. And by the way, Ladies, I wish I had a video of that. I’m damn proud of all of you.”

He had momentarily forgotten about the ever-present micro cameras that recorded almost everything they did.

After a second’s hesitation, “Fuck it. With the three of you helping to turn him over, I can skin him out on the ground. That will be a lot quicker than going after the trailer and hoist, not to mention doing a lot less damage to our garden.”

With a look back toward the machine, “Let me move the crawler so I can get the lights pointed this way, and I’ll get started. You three sit in the crawler and watch for me.”

Jasmine was shaking her head as she broke in to say, “Much better plan. Why don’t you get started with the skinning while I go position the crawler? All three of us hit that tiger square in the head. Ashley and Christine stood their ground and fired precisely with me — just as we practiced. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve proven they are quite capable of standing guard for you. Oh, and I’ll bring the headlamps when I come back.”

Turning to Ashley and Christine, she opened her mouth to caution them, but they had already turned toward the woods and were obviously alert with their rifles ready. Smiling, she realized that her sister-wives were quickly adapting to the planet and the way of life here.

Jasmine jogged to the crawler and moved it across the end of the field until its lights pointed down the rows directly at Morales and the cat. Headlamps in hand, she jogged back while bringing a two-gallon bucket and a hatchet with her. A moment later, she was helping Morales skin the saber-tooth.

“What’s the bucket and hatchet for?” Ashley asked before she remembered, “Oh, I forgot.”

“Yep, we have to take his tanning kit with us,” Morales quipped, meaning the animal’s brain would be used to tan the hide. “You three managed to get rid of some of his brains, but I think there is enough left to do the job; they’re just scrambled a bit,” he finished with a chuckle.

A couple of minutes later, Jasmine let out a muffled giggle.

“What?” Morales asked as he looked up.

“Oh, I was just wondering,” she said as the giggle broke into a chuckle, “how many modern-day wives have helped their husband skin out a saber-tooth tiger while checking out their garden.”

Morales chuckled, “Not many, at least currently. That might have happened a few thousand years in the past, though.”

A few minutes later, Morales asked Ashley and Christine for help in turning the animal over. When the girls were back at their guard positions, Jasmine, having noticed their swollen nipples, whispered to her mate. “You do realize that those two are going to be ready for you when we get back to the cave, don’t you?”

Morales glanced at her as he raised an eyebrow before she continued, “They have just faced death and shot dead this giant killing machine. Human nature has a way of making sure the species propagates. They’ll be horny as heck tonight — probably already are,” she finished with a giggle “And ... they aren’t the only ones,” she quietly said as she unconsciously arched her back to push her breasts out.

Ashley and Christine were helping Morales with the heavy hide while Jasmine carried the bucket of brains as they all made their way back across the long field. The gross work with the hatchet and bucket was over. Morales commented, “I hate to leave the carcass here. Oh, I know the scavengers will have most of the animal gone by morning, but you can bet there will be fights among them that will cause our garden to suffer — to put it mildly.”