Chapter 17

Someone shook my shoulder to wake me, and I wasn't sure why. When I glanced at the clock it said four thirty and I knew damned well it wasn't afternoon, so I wondered some more why they were waking me so early. As the fog cleared from my brain it dawned on me that something must be wrong and I shot up to my feet and asked what was happening.

"It's time to get ready to leave. Your breakfast will be on the table by the time you get dressed and into the kitchen," Caysha said.

"Why are we leaving so early," I asked, not because I cared about it so much but I was curious.

"Are you still sleepy?" she asked.

"Well, no. I'm not sleepy any longer," I said.

"Then why not get moving. If we get there sooner we won't have to rush to get our camp set up," she said, and it did make perfect sense, so I got up and headed for the bathroom.

"Will you take a shower in the morning?" she asked.

"It won't hurt me, and besides, we won't have a shower while we are on this trip," I said.

"You are right but I hadn't thought of it. None of us did. Get the water warm and I'll go tell Teechi," she said, and left.

I knew that even if we stayed away a week without a bath or shower we still wouldn't be as nasty as the rest of them had been accustomed to being before I came around. Still, we weren't in such a rush that we didn't have time now before we left. Caysha and Teechi were in with me a minute or two later and we carefully washed each other. It was a much better way to start the day than rushing out to tramp through the woods in the dark.

When we were dry and dressed we went to the kitchen. Biltee and his two new mates, Raasha and Mayna were just coming in from the residence cave and we all sat down and had breakfast. Then we headed out through the warehouse.

You might know there'd be another fucking bear outside prowling around. I let Biltee deal with it while I went to wake the rest of my mates and then Cowta. I'd let him keep watch while my mates dragged the bear inside and dealt with it. I was going to do my best to keep the scouting trip on schedule this time.

As soon as Cowta was in place to watch over things my little scouting party headed out. Even though we all had a big pack on our backs we made good time. I was the main drawback. Even though the spacemen had done a whale of a job on my body, I still didn't have the worked in endurance of the other.

We made it to the river in half an hour but I called a halt for a breather. A breather for me mostly, but I'm sure the others didn't mind. All except Biltee that is. He removed his backpack and set it down, but he was off to check out the next stream to see if it would be easy to cross.

Biltee was gone about a half hour himself. I didn't mind a damned bit since I got to rest the whole time. When he reached us he said that most of the trip was over.

"I crossed all three streams that come into this river before we need to follow the third stream. They are not deep. It will be easy," he said.

He started putting his own pack back on then and so the rest of us did also. I let him lead the way since he'd already been there. It was nearly a mile to the first stream we had to cross and when we got there everyone started dropping their clothes. I followed suit and we were soon crossing the stream. It was no bother, except for undressing.

On the other side Biltee just started off toward the next one without putting his clothes back on. I assumed it wasn't far enough to bother dressing just to undress again. It didn't bother me in the least since I was at the end of the line now. I just kept a good watch on Raasha and Mayna's asses to keep up my enthusiasm.

When we'd crossed the last of the three streams we stopped for another breather. Biltee went on ahead again, buck-naked from the start. He was gone about twenty minutes this time. Since he'd left his clothes here when he left he was still naked. He told us about it while he dressed.

It is maybe half a mile to the canyon's entrance. The stream is not much and isn't deep at all. The canyon's mouth is very wide, as Cowta told us. Maybe as wide as a quarter mile, but it does narrow as it goes back.

I could see the surround and it is near the blind end of the canyon. Nearly three quarters of a mile from the entrance. I did not enter the canyon at all since there are probably fifty or sixty horses in it now. I think we should hurry there and keep them from leaving.

"You are right of course. There's no need to let the chance go by. Come on girls, let's go," I said, as if I was going to be leading the way.

At the entrance I had the girls start gathering squaw wood while Biltee and I used shovels to clean off a spot for ten fires across the entrance. It was a good thing we'd brought tools in preparation for repairing the surround.

While I was clearing off spots I examined the surround from afar. I'm sure it was easy to make and it probably worked well, but it wouldn't be the best thing for us. There was enough room behind it to haze in all the horses here now, and with a couple of good steel axes, post hole diggers, and tie wire we could build a fence across the back end of the canyon that would hold them in without the bother of trying to get them into the surround. It would only be about a hundred and fifty feet of fence.

The posthole diggers would make it not only possible but relatively easy. The current surround had been made by cutting trees for rails and using existing trees as post. Of course they weren't in any semblance of a designed corral. They'd had to use trees that were near enough to where they needed a post. It made the surround very irregular. The best you could say about it was it kept the horses confined into approximate spear chucking range.

It didn't take long to get the fires ready and after they were going good we pulled up dried grass and piled it on them. The large amount of smoke did wonders after the slight breeze drifted it toward the horses.

It was apparent that the horses had been watching us as they grazed but they weren't alarmed until they caught the scent of smoke. You could see when they smelled it because they'd jerk their heads up to look around as soon as they did. Within a minute they were all heading down toward the closed off end of the valley.

As they moved off I realized we could move probably down to the canyon's half way mark and start a new, and much shorter, line of fires. It would make for fewer of them to keep going and would also make them closer together.

We only needed about another hour to get the new line in place, and the canyon was only about seventy yards across where we put it. It was almost like a bottleneck, of sorts, with the canyon seeming to widen again behind it.

When we were done I asked Biltee if he could handle things here overnight. I figured keeping up six fires would be a job but that it would also tend to keep other animals from approaching. He thought he and his mates would be fine.

"I can't think of any trouble we can get into. It's obvious from the lack of sign that this isn't a favorite spot for bears. There is some wolf sign but they won't come up near the fires unless we let them go completely out, and we won't. Besides, the shotgun can deal with anything that might come around," he said.

"Good. I think it will be best if Teechi, Caysha, and I go back so we can get everyone moving quickly in the morning. It is just our good luck that so many horses were already here to be driven back into the canyon. The faster we can get started catching and training them the better off we'll be."

With that decided the girls and I took off, leaving our packs and food where they were. We wouldn't need them for the trek back, and with the reduced weight even my fat ass could probably hold out without a long breather. We even shucked our clothes before we left, planning to leave them off until we'd made our last crossing.

It's really true that no good deed goes unpunished. Here I was sharing beauty with the world, not only my copious good looks but the two wiggling asses of Teechi and Caysha and their jiggling titties. Wouldn't you just know some assholes would come along?