Chapter 20

By the time we got back to the cave with Red's cargo a late lunch was waiting for us and Lola was hobbled and grazing. I unhitched Red and did him the same favor while the women took our brand new dog into the upcoming horse cave and set her cage down with the door end against a wall, just in case.

As I went in looking for my next meal I could see the cubs - or pups - weren't going to be even nearly as much trouble as their mother. All six of them were on a big bear skin and were already quite fond of the meat bearing children that wanted to play. All the kids, except Sika, were on the fur, making friends.

"You just don't have any task commitment do you?" Chris asked, softening the blow with a thick broiled bear steak.

"You know I'm easily distracted."

"If those cubs grow up to be what I think we both hope, you're going to be so forgiven."

"I'm sure they'll fall right in line, but I am worried about ever being able to trust their mother."

"I wouldn't bother hoping for that much if I were you. If you can just get her where she doesn't try to bite you immediately we should be able to chain her out front at night and she'll be a hell of a lot better lookout than any of us could ever be," she said.

"You might be right, but I think there's a chance she'll just take up dog habits if we feed her well."

"That shouldn't be much of a problem. There's probably over a thousand tons of meat on the hoof in the back valley and we're the only ones around here with guns. I don't think meat will ever be a problem for us," she said.

"You're probably right, but it just adds an item to my todo list. After I get caught up we need to do some more in-depth scouting in the back valley and try to get rid of some of the pest that must be hiding back there somewhere."

"Poor Jack. His work is never done. Cut it out Jack, you don't look good when you're trying to piss and moan at the same time. You only have one set of lips, remember," Chris said, and she and Mary both laughed at me - meanwhile the other women wanted to know what was so funny.

After we'd finished eating I took the scraps back to the wolf bitch. She growled at me at first, but cut it out when she smelled the food. She even let me get close to the cage and hand her pieces of meat, and she almost danced a jig when I pushed a big bear leg bone through her prison's mesh. She was doing some serious gnawing when I left.

We got back to work soon enough but didn't bother stranding Mary in the middle again. She came on to the back with us. I felled sixteen more trees before time to go and eight of them got moved up near the caves. One wasn't for construction though.

I'd found a big hickory and it was cooking-fire wood only. In my opinion nothing could beat hickory for smoking meat. It left the best flavor, and besides, it smelled best too. I cut it into two-foot sections before I went in for supper.

After it was over I took another load of leftovers to the wolf and she didn't even growl once when I got near and then started giving things to her by hand. I decided to see if I could get someone to make her a good stout collar. She was probably about ready to have a walk so she could scratch and sniff a little.

When I got back into the cave and explained what I wanted, Marita was first to volunteer and it didn't take her long. I robbed a heavy buckle from a belt I'd brought with me and Marita had everything in shape, including a D-ring to snap a light chain onto, in less than an hour. I took a little more meat with me to encourage cooperation and Welta, Reela, and Keela waited just inside our cave's entrance with a lariat and two clubs.

Getting the collar on the wolf wasn't that easy, no matter how much meat I had for bribery. She finally stood still for it though and after I had the chain attached I raised the trap door completely and she made a break when it looked to her like she could.

She ran so hard she flipped herself when the chain ran out and she got up snarling. I wasn't extremely worried because I had on Carhartt bibs and a Carhartt canvas coat covering most of my tender hide, but for some reason she didn't associate the jerk she got with me. When I held out another morsel she cautiously came to me and gobbled it down.

Now that it was dark she seemed more comfortable for some reason and after a few minutes I walked off and she came along behind me. When I stopped she did too and as I knelt beside her she sat on her ass. I did a lot of petting and stroking on her then and she seemed to appreciate the effort. Later, when I stood again and just stayed where I was she moved off slowly after a few minutes and began sniffing around, pissing first and after some more wandering and sniffing she took a big dump.

Not being a dummy I praised and petted her for doing her duty and walked her around a little more before getting started on the struggle to put her back in her cage. She fussed and even growled at me a little, but finally she went on in, even though I knew she didn't like the idea. I considered it a major breakthrough and was very pleased with myself.

Back in the cave everyone wanted to know how things had gone, even the three that watched over me for safety's sake jabbered out questions. I even talked slowly as I told the whole tale to Mary, Chris, and Mecha. I knew for sure by now that Mecha could understand almost everything I said if I said it slowly and distinctly.

They were all surprised she cooperated so well so quickly. Mary thought wolves might not be as hostile toward men as we'd assumed because they probably had little contact, or contact they lived over anyway. I didn't know what I thought about that but it didn't raise any immediately wrong flags. I just didn't really have an opinion.

Mecha had one right away though and she wasn't shy about spitting it out. As far as she was concerned she didn't blame the wolf for not wanting to get back in the cage and she thought we should build her a larger one first thing tomorrow and also put in some kind of bedding for her. I couldn't argue over that either.

She barely had room to nurse her pups in her current cage and it sure as hell couldn't be comfortable trying to lie down across that crosshatch pattern of sticks. Speaking of sleeping I was ready for it and headed for the furs, hoping at least a few of them would join me.

They all did and Chris let me know right away she wanted some attention. Hell, I live to serve and as soon as Chris was pacified Welta showed me Mary had taught her how to suck a dick. While she was at it Mary gave a demo of sitting on the man's face and it was well received by all, even me.

By the time Welta has sucked me back hard Chris prompted her to the cowgirl position and she and Mary found themselves face-to-face and titty-to-titty. From the moaning and groaning that got started I felt sure I was missing quite a show up there.

There was definitely an advantage to this setup though. I could basically take care of two women at once and it let me get through the sexy nights with less work and more satisfied women.

The next morning was up and at 'em early for all of us. Breakfast wasn't a big event even though there was plenty. We had things to do, a wolf to train, and trees to haul. My first project after breakfast though was finding chain.

I knew damned well I had about a hundred feet of porch swing type chain hidden in our uptime supplies somewhere. We'd been planning to spend a few weeks out in the boonies and I'd brought the chain to surprise the women with some swings. Chain is really all you need to make them when you have trees around and I'd made sure to bring plenty.

Later I'm sure I'd make some swings here and now, but today I wanted to take Missy with us and I wanted to make sure she hung around. I found the chain after about ten minutes of digging and Welta, Shantee, and Kalela joined Reela, Keela, and me for the logging today. We not only needed more big logs - we had an order from Mecha for more wolf cage sized straight branches so we could build Missy a large cage that would hold her pups too.

I didn't actually think we'd need a cage for her more than a couple of days, especially now that I had the long chain in operation. All we had to do was keep the pups in a small comfortable cage or basket of some type and keep Missy chained up. I'd make a decision after a couple of hours of letting her try out the chain.

We worked two hours past lunch and got all the trees I thought we'd need down and trimmed. I'd also built two narrow travois for easier log skidding. We could skid up to three logs at a time with them and we headed for the cave with a full load on both. Red and Lola weren't in a real bind pulling this bunch so we made it in about half an hour with no trouble. The rest of the horses had wandered down to be near Red and Lola and they more or less followed us back.