Chapter 4

The first nine days after Dave's arrival flew by in a flurry of activities. Ever the fanatic, Grandpa Mike made a daily schedule to maximise the activities the family would undertake. The odd numbered days were spent hiking on trails all over the park. The even numbered days were spent touring, to allow the legs to recover from the hikes. Dave particularly enjoyed the ice field tour in the large specialised vehicle, and he was looking forward to the white water rafting trip they were going on tomorrow.

It was going to be a challenging river, and Grandpa Mike had been told that anyone rafting had better be a strong swimmer. That was why he and Frank weren't going. Frank had always had trouble staying afloat. It was a bit of a paradox, for he was very athletic and did great in all other sports. But when it came to swimming, he had very work hard to propel himself through the water, and Grandpa Mike had the same problem.

The thing he was looking forward to the most, however, was to retreat to his tent with Iris and have sex. They had had oral sex every other day, and they repeated the anal sex a few days ago. But what would have been Iris' most fertile period—had she not been on the pill—ended a day ago. They could finally have good old-fashioned vaginal intercourse for about ten days, after which her period was due to start. But first they had to sit around the campfire and indulge Grandpa Mike by singing those silly campfire songs.

"You're cheating," he heard Ed grumble, just as he finished igniting and fanning the kindling under the firewood triangle. Satisfied that it would not go out, he looked up to see what Ed was talking about, since he couldn't understand how someone could cheat at chess.

"How am I cheating?" Dahlia asked. She had placed her arms in such a way that they squeezed together and lifted her boobs in her low-cut summer sweater as she leaned over their small fold-out table."

"The official chess rules say you're not allowed to annoy or distract another player. You're distracting me."

Dahlia shot him a sultry smile. "Am I? Gosh, I didn't mean to. How am I distracting you?"

Ed rolled his eyes. "You know very well how."

"No, I really don't," Dahlia replied, trying to look innocent, though the twinkling in her eyes gave her away.

"Fine, I'll spell it out. You're distracting me with your womanly wiles."

"Oh, that!"

"Yes, that."

Dahlia shrugged. "You call it cheating, and I call it levelling the playing field."

"Good girl," Veronica praised from a nearby fold out chair, looking up from her crossword puzzle. Next to her, Iris giggled from behind her trashy romance novel.

"And I'm not making him stare at my cleavage, so I don't think it counts as active distraction," Dahlia added

Ed shook his head. "Even though the choice to look was ultimately mine, you knew I'd look. That's entrapment, and that counts as an active effort."

Dave grinned. Ed had a solid point. How could he not look at those full, round and suckable breasts? But Dahlia had a point too. There was no way she'd win under normal circumstances, and he decided to point that out. "I thought you liked challenges, Ed, and we all know she can't beat you under normal circumstances. You always play the members of the school chess without a queen and without looking at the board. Why don't you consider the distraction a handicap as well?"

"Because she's a lot better than the chess team nerds, and we've already established a handicap that evens the odds. She doesn't need to distract me."

"Really? What odds did you give her?"

"Pawn and two moves."

"Just pawn and two moves?" Dave asked incredulously. Whenever Ed played against Dave, with sight of the board, they played Queen-side odds. That was the heaviest equalizer in chess. But allowing white to move twice while removing the F7 pawn and leaving the black king vulnerable ... that was on the lighter end of the handicap list, and he eyed Dahlia curiously. "Is she really that good?"

Ed nodded. "I think she's skilled enough to have had a rating of about 2400, if she'd been a competitive player. If you add her looks to her skills, she probably would have been world champion," he added with a sly grin, and Dahlia blushed.

"Unless she played a straight female grand master, or a gay male one." Dave was about to elaborate on the relative influence of Dahlia's sex appeal, when he spotted a small scooter pulling into their campground circle. An older gentleman got off and approached their campground lot.

"Good evening, my boy. Is this where I can find Mr and Mrs Adams?" the man asked. His accent was distinctly British.

"Mom ... Dad!" Dave yelled, turning to his parents' tent. "Someone's here to see you."

His father soon appeared out of the large tent, and Dave nodded to the older gentleman.

"I'm Alan Adams," Alan said, frowning.

The old man walked over to him and stuck out his hand. "Ben Smythe."

Alan shook his hand. "What can I do for you, Mr Smythe?"

"Let me first say that your son Frank will be all right. We took him to hospital immediately, and my wife just told me that the doctor said he'll be all right. She radioed me," he clarified, patting a CB transceiver on his hip."

"What?" Alan exclaimed, alarmed in spite of Mr Smythe's reassurance. "What happened?"

"He defended his girl from a thug with grabby hands. He was doing all right too, until the thug's brothers showed up. He put up a great fight, but it was seven against one, and they eventually brought him down. My wife and I saw it all happen, of course, and the doctor called the local RCMP detachment office after we told her the specifics. They kicked your boy after he was down, you see. That's no longer a simple fight, is it?"

"No, it isn't," Alan said grimly. "How old were those thugs?"

"Your son's age and older, but not old enough to go to prison, I reckon. Maybe the oldest one was."

"And they're here by themselves?"

"No, they're here with their parents. But I don't think talking with them will help, Mr Adams. I wager those thugs got it from their pop. A big, nasty bloke he is, and the wife's like a frightened little mouse. She must get slapped around from time to time, and my wife doesn't think she had a say in her reproductive efforts. She's worked with rape victims most of her life, you see, and the boys who beat on your son must be Vatican septuplets."

"Is their camp near yours?"

"Yes, they've parked a few spaces away from our spot. I wrote down their license plate number before we brought your boy to hospital. You know, in case they decide to move on before the police shows up."

"Alan?" Dave's mother asked, poking her head out through the tent flaps. "What's going on?"

"We're going to the hospital, Angie. Ed's been hurt, but he'll be all right."

"Hurt?" Angelica's eyes widened with dismay, ad she quickly stepped out through the flaps. Her brother and sister-in-law quickly followed her, looking concerned.

"So that's why they're late," Bryan said.

"You'd better come along too, Bryan. Mr Smythe will fill you in on the way." Alan turned Mr Smythe. If it isn't too much of a bother, that is. I don't know exactly where the hospital is, so we might save time if you guide us. We can load your scooter in the back."

"I'll gladly accompany you, Mr Adams. And don't worry about the scooter. My wife and I will come back to the campground. We'll pick it up then," Mr Smythe said.

After they left, Dave took a deep breath to calm himself down. He had been wondering why it took Frank so long to get back. He needed to suppress the urge to find those two thugs and introduce them to his brand of electroshock therapy. He unclenched the fists he hadn't known he had been clenching.

"Stay back," he barked, as he felt a familiar presence come up behind him. He took a few more deep breaths before turning to face Iris. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you, but I might zap you if you touch me right now. Give me a minute to calm down."

Iris smiled reassuringly and nodded in understanding.

"Too bad we can't give the guys who beat Frankie up a taste of their own medicine," Veronica spoke up. "Even if it could be done unseen, we'd be the first ones to be questioned by the Mounties in the morning."

Dave ground his teeth together. That was her way of telling him not to do anything stupid. He knew she was right, of course, but that didn't scratch the itch for payback.

"Of course, we could help the long arm of the law by making sure they don't leave," Veronica added.

"What if they've already left?" Dave growled.

"That would be an unfortunate inconvenience, but not an insurmountable one," Ed said. "They could have been tracked down even if Mr Smythe hadn't written down their license plate number, because they needed to register when paying for a parking spot. But I don't think they've left," he continued. "Mr Smythe's description strongly suggests that they believe they're allowed to employ violence as they see fit."

Veronica nodded. "I got the same impression, but we'd best not take any chances. If they stick around for the night, I'll have James do some minor sabotage to prevent them from moving on the morning."

That made Dave feel a little better, and he crouched down to touch the ground, releasing the pent up charge into the earth. Iris hugged immediately after he rose from his crouch, and Dave hugged her back, grateful for the comfort.

"We might be able to make them pay for what they did to Frank," Ed suddenly said. "Without getting in any trouble, I mean," he added.

"How?" Dahlia asked.

"Entrapment," Ed answered. "We know they have trouble keeping their paws to themselves whenever they see an attractive woman, correct? So we parade an attractive, second degree black-belt in front of them and see what happens."

"They won't take the bait," Veronica said. "Teenaged sexual predators prey on younger, innocent looking girls like Erica. I may look fifteen years younger than I really am, but that's still too old. With the right clothes and make up I could look twenty years younger, but even that wouldn't be enough."

"They'll take the bait if they think you want them to touch you. The most common defence sexual predators employ is the claim that their prey 'invited' their advances. You're attractive enough to negate their preference for younger girls. If you convincingly act like an airhead and sexpot, they will try to cop a feel, even if they think you're thirty. And when they do, you can... defend yourself."

Dave felt a smile forming on his face. He knew his brilliant brother would come through with a plan. "Please, Aunt Ronnie! It's worth a try, isn't it?"

Veronica frowned as she though it over. "It's true that they also go for women who are easy or look easy. But Mounties aren't stupid, you know. They understand the principles of entrapment. They'll know I deliberately enticed those guys to cop a feel just to kick their arses in retaliation."

"Probably, but Mounties are human beings too, and I'm sure they'd conveniently suffer from a bout of temporary stupidity in order to avoid connecting the dots."

"What if there happens to be an eager beaver constable with no sense of moral ambiguity and a compulsion to do everything by the book, no matter how justified straying from the book would be?"

"We could get our stories straight and say you weren't here when Mr Smythe showed up. Then the eager beaver wouldn't be able to lay the link between what happened to Frank, and your presence in the thugs' vicinity. He'd probably suspect that we were lying about your ignorance, but with no proof he wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

Veronica sighed. "Fine ... I'll do it." Then she looked at Iris. "But I'll have to borrow your push-up bra and hot pants. They really need to think I'm serving myself on a silver platter."

"Just a change of clothes won't do, Aunt Ronnie. You'd still be too classy. We need to apply some trashy make-up," Dahlia said. "I've got some whorish red lipstick, and if we lay the eye-shadow on really thick—"

"You have whorish make-up?" Iris interrupted.

"It doesn't look whorish on me, of course. Everything looks great on me," Dahlia said, in a tone so matter of fact that it made her sound positively bitchy.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're an insufferable bitch sometimes?" Veronica asked her.

"I tell her all the time," Ed said, smiling fondly. "But it is part of the reason why I'm so attracted to her, so I don't want her to change for anything in the universe."

Dave's mouth was watering by the time Veronica's makeover had finished. The pushed up breasts under the low-cut sweater, the really brief shorts and the make-up combined for a 'fuck me' statement only completely gay or completely blind men could ignore, causing Dave to wonder whether they overdid it. Even Ed had clearly underestimated what the end result of the makeover would be, for he was momentarily rendered mute when Veronica presented herself for inspection.

Since it was too long a walk to the sections where the motor homes were parked, they took Uncle Bryan's Blazer and drove around the full service and electrical lots, looking for likely candidates. They didn't find anyone fitting Mr Smythe's description the first time around, but the second time around they spotted a harassed looking women, an unpleasant looking man, and five boys ranging from Dave's age to about eighteen, supporting Mr Smythe's assumption that the eldest might be old enough to be prosecuted as an adult.