Chapter 34

Even with some of Goondoe's women taking care of our kills there were still plenty to cook. While they were at it I led Goondoe and Juko over and showed them the path down. Both were surprised and even more so when I told them we'd only be going about half way to the river. When we made it back over to the campsite supper was ready. I felt like I'd done a really good job getting away from things while the women were laying out the sleeping furs.

We were a little late settling down for the night, but not by much and I slept soundly. I thought it was probably because I knew we were close to home. I did sleep light all night since we were outside and I realized something could come up, but nothing did and we were up with the women cooking at first light.

Breakfast was good for a traveling meal, and unlike last time I went down the path alone first to make sure we didn't surprise any bears. We hadn't so I rode back up and got us started moving down the trail. The ones who were armed spread out along the path after we were inside the gate and had it closed behind us. I didn't think we'd run into anything dangerous, but there was no sense taking chances.

We did see a couple of wolves as we headed along our shelf and the damned path didn't look exactly like we'd left it. It seemed to be wider somehow, even though I knew it wasn't possible. It also looked straighter in a couple of places, but it couldn't be because there were no tree stumps along the forest side and felling trees would have been the only way to clear more width. The rock walls sure as hell couldn't have been moved.

I decided to just forget about it since none of my girls mentioned anything out of the ordinary. The bison, aurochs, and horse situation looked about the same and damned if Jack didn't come trotting up and give us several lusty hee-haws as if he was glad to welcome us home. We just ambled along with Goondoe and I in the lead, but when we came within sight of the cave I nearly fell off my horse at first.

After I recovered a couple of seconds later I kicked Jingo into a lope and he nearly did a good sliding stop when I reached Rose. Of course I was completely flummoxed when she stood up out of my chair, but it didn't mean I wasn't happy to see her and when she held her arms wide I rushed to her and wrapped her up in mine.

"What? How?" was all I could say after we stopped kissing.

"Hold your horses cowboy. I'll explain it all later. At least get your harem up here to meet me and we need to get the others settled in. We have plenty of light for now, but the sun won't stay up forever," she said.

Catla was with us next and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Are you Rose?"

"You bet your life sweetie. I can't tell you how glad I am to meet you," Rose said.

"I am glad to meet you too. Sometimes Jack gets very sad when he thinks of you not being here. Now you are here he should be happy all the time," Catla said.

"You're not a bit more happy to meet me than I am to meet you. I've been dying to since Jack first found you and every day which went by only made it worse," Rose told her.

"I don't understand. How could you know about me?" Catla asked, and I didn't mind admitting to myself I wanted to know the answer too.

"It will take a good bit of explaining for you to understand, but I'll make sure you know as soon as you can. To give Jack a hint I'll just say Rosco and his buddies got their asses in a crack not two days after he left and they were begging and pleading for me to help them out almost right away.

"Right now I think we need to get Goondoe and his people plus Juko and his into the cave and find them places to settle in. I worked all day yesterday cleaning out the horse shit from your aborted try using the large back chamber of the cave as a barn," Rose said.

Once we were inside it was easy to tell Rose had done one hell of a lot more than clean up horse shit. Our former sleeping area had been moved from near the right wall by the door over around and past the tub and toilet on the left. Apparently plenty of new things had come along with Rose too, but some of them only made things more puzzling.

We had a large wood burning kitchen stove range-top and ovens. All the plumbing was completely changed too. The single toilet was now three and they were actually laid out where partition walls could be added for privacy. It was the same deal for the bathtub, which was now joined by a large Jacuzzi type hot-tub looking thing which was big enough for all my current women, including Rose, and there might even be room for a few more.

The dining table I'd cobbled up was over near our new area too, but there was plenty of room to get around. We had several more light fixtures now and they marched all the way back into the former barn and there was now and even wider cleared area for through traffic.

It took tie on blinders for some of the horses who'd never been into the cave before, but we were able to get those pulling travois into the cave to drop them and Rose was able to show Zakkon and Mendal exactly how to use a snow shovel sized scoop to clean up after any horses who happened to have accidents during their time inside.

Most surprising was Rose spoke much better Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon than I did. Her demeanor was also able to give Neanderthal men the idea she wasn't to be fucked with over the details. No doubt my stunt the first time one of Goondoe's men had caused my women grief was also partly responsible for their manners now. Besides, Rose introduced herself to Goondoe as soon as he entered the cave.