Chapter 5

New characters introduced in Chapter 5 & 6 are:

Gale and Storm

Gus and Zoe's daughters, Twins, 7 pounds when born, red hair and green eyes

Richard

Ranch owner, 6'-0" tall, 200 pounds, 50 years old, black hair going gray, hazel eyes

Stan

Hunting guide, 5'-9" tall, 150 pounds, 46 years old, brown hair and beard, blue eyes

George

Ranch hand, 5'-10" tall, 170 pounds, 35 years old, blond hair, gray eyes

Paul

Attack dog owner, 5-'9" tall, 185 pounds, 39 years old, bald, brown eyes

Westley

The man that lost his Buffalo to Gus 6'-2" tall, 275 pounds, 41 years old, black hair and brown eyes

By early December, I was feeling better about things, and I seemed to be my old self again. I had gained even more weight and my breasts were even larger. It was a good thing that I had gotten the new bras. Tiger was also speaking to me again.

"Are you over the baby chemicals?" she asked one day. "I don't smell them much now. I had to stay away from you, or I would have been out looking for a tomcat. You really reeked of them, but you're definitely better now. You're getting fat, though," she finished.

Gus had mentioned to me, previously, that he was getting low on buffalo meat, and now he informed me that he had arranged a hunt for the third week in December.

"Do you want to go?" he asked.

Of course I want to go," I told him. "I want to see these things live, on-the-hoof, and I want to see how they are turned into dinner."

I was feeling much better and my OB/GYN appointment was during the second week of December. I would have all of my promotions and ads for the Christmas and New Year season done by then, so I arranged with my boss to be off that week.

We left on Saturday of the second week of December. Gus had the SUV loaded with blankets and warm clothing. We had a cooler with drinks, and sandwich materials in it. There was also the Sharps and the ammunition that I had watched him prepare and load for it over the last two weeks. We had a long drive to the plains states, but with two of us driving, it wasn't bad. One could rest while the other drove. Tiger sat in my lap a lot on the trip. There were plenty of hotels / motels on the way, also.

We arrived Monday afternoon at the ranch. The weather was cold and the wind was blowing. The people there all seemed to remember Gus, and they were all very friendly. We were assigned a cabin, rather than sleeping in the bunkhouse, like the unaccompanied male hunters did.

Tiger disappeared as soon as we got there and was gone for quite a while. She showed up later at the cabin, and seemed very satisfied with herself and full. We had dinner later in the ranch kitchen and then went to bed, as three days of driving had worn us out.

The next morning, it was still cold and windy, but I went with Gus to sight in the Sharps. Even with the hearing protectors on, it made a deep rumbling sound. When he and the guide were satisfied with its performance, he let me try a shot. Lord, that thing really kicked! I managed to put the shot in the nine ring on the target, but I wasn't anxious to fire it again.

It was arranged for us to go out on Wednesday, if the weather was OK. Their definition of OK was somewhat different from mine, however.

We spent Tuesday afternoon in the cabin with a cozy fire in the fireplace, and Gus sent time cleaning the Sharps. Being a black powder gun, it required a lot more cleaning than modern smokeless powder guns do. We had dinner in the ranch-house dining room that night. One of the other hunters had bagged his animal, and everyone had buffalo that night. I tried not to be too greedy. Tiger had stayed gone all day, and I wondered what she was doing, but she hadn't appeared hungry when she returned that night, so I assumed she had eaten somewhere.

Wednesday, we were up early and dressed in our warmest clothing. We took the two buffalo robes with us, also, as they would make good camouflage. Gus and the guide spent quite a lot of time checking out the herds with binoculars. They even let me look, some. The buffalo were impressive in their winter coats, as they moved and grazed on the lightly snow covered ground.

Finally around noon, the guide found what he had been looking for. There was one animal in particular that they wanted Gus to take. They showed him to me with the binoculars, and he was huge! He looked like the grandfather of all buffalo, but the guide assured me that he was only six years old. They wanted to get rid of him because he had caused a lot of trouble that Fall.

The plan was for us to sneak up on him until we were in range and then shoot him! I thought they were nuts! Sure enough though, that is what we proceeded to do. We left the reasonably warm vehicle in a grove of trees and snuck out into the grass with the buffalo hides covering us. We passed several animals, who seemed to pay little or no attention to us.

When we were finally in range, Gus took up a sitting position in the grass with the X shaped sticks holding up the barrel of the Sharps near the front. The guide was watching the buffalo with binoculars and talking about the wind to Gus. I was wrapped in the other buffalo hide and had my internal heater set on low.

There was a tremendous BOOM when Gus fired, but the bull just stood there. It looked like Gus had missed! How do you miss something that Large? Gus was quickly reloading. Some of the other animals around us looked very nervous at the noise and started moving away from us. Soon most of them had moved away from us.

The bull was still on his feet and hadn't moved more than a foot or two. I could see now that his legs were spread further apart, like they were bracing him up, and about five minutes after that, he just fell over, PLOP, right there in the snowy grass!

The guide called in on his radio and soon a large truck with several men arrived, and we then approached the bull. He was as dead as yesterday's news. I couldn't believe it - just one shot! The men with the truck dragged him up into it and took off for the processing plant back at the ranch. The guide had shown me where the bullet had gone in. It had seemed like a very small hole for such a large animal.

"You can see the bullet later, when they process the animal," the guide told me.

All of the men had congratulated Gus on a fine kill. We walked back to our vehicle and headed back to the ranch. When we got back, they let us watch as they skinned the bull and removed the head. Gus wanted the head mounted, but said he had enough robes, so they could keep that.

"That head will look just great on the wall above the fireplace with the Sharps right under it," he told me.

"What about 'The Ax'?" I asked.

"I'll find another place for it. That bull's head is really impressive," Gus said with a big smile.

The skinned carcass was then passed to the butchers, who commenced to cut it up. The organs were removed and placed in containers to be processed separately. The carcass was taken apart then with axes and saws to be processed into the various cuts of meat.

Who did I find there, watching every move the butchers made? You guessed it - Tiger. She looked full, but she still watched every move. The men would cut off a snip here and there and throw it to her. Some how, she ate them all.

Later the guide took me over to where the organs were processed. He retrieved the bullet from one of the men working there. It was soft lead and had mushroomed out to over an inch in diameter and was now much shorter than when I had seen Gus load it into the cartridge.

"That slug expended a lot of energy when it hit him and it tore up his lungs. They're a mess, and that's what killed him - lack of oxygen," the guide told me. The bullet was returned to Gus to be mounted with the head.

That evening we again had dinner in the ranch house dining room. They served a small portion of our buffalo. The rest was still being processed for shipment to our house next week. The head would arrive from the taxidermist later.

The meat was served just the way I like it, charred on the outside, but still red and bloody on the inside, and I have to admit it, I made a pig of myself. After everything I had seen and done today, the blood lust was on me and I ate like it.

"Your wife really seems to be enjoying herself," our guide said.

"She has to eat for two," Gus told him after a minute, when he had finished chewing on his own piece of meat.

I tapped the table with my knife handle to get their attention. I had a large piece of meat in my mouth at the time and wasn't ready to swallow it yet, so I just held up three fingers for them to see.

Gus almost spat out the piece of meat he had just started on.

"Three!?" he asked, around the mouth full of meat. I just nodded my head. My own mouth was still too full to answer. When Gus had swallowed, he looked over at me.

"Are we having twins!?" he asked, obviously shocked.

By now, I had managed to chew the meat enough to swallow it, so I could answer.

"Yes, I think so," I told him.

This got a lot of back slapping for Gus, and several of the ladies present came over to speak to me. The men all had wine and cigars after the meal. We ladies adjourned to the kitchen to gossip. They also had some wine, but I just had some water.

That night, I slept like the dead. All of the exercise and the meal had me gone to the world as soon as I got in bed. Gus had been cleaning and oiling the Sharps when I went to sleep, but he was right there next to me in the morning when I woke up.

"Zoe, are you sure about the twins?" he asked, after he kissed me passionately.

"Tiger seems sure. While she was sitting / sleeping in my lap on the way here, she was checking me out. She says there are two small heartbeats under my larger heartbeat. She says that means there are two babies," I told Gus.

"How can we get this confirmed?" he asked.

"I can get an Ultrasound at my next appointment. That should tell us for sure," I told him.

After that we made love. It was long and tender, but at the end, we fucked like bunnies. The doctor's words were forgotten for a while. Tiger had been asleep at the foot of the bed, but My screams definitely woke her up, and she moved over to the chair.

When we got up later that morning, she did also. I noticed that she disappeared for a while when I was on my way to the bathroom. I think both of us needed to get rid of some of that used meat. She came over to the kitchen for breakfast with us, but only had a bowl of milk. One of the men from the processing plant was there at the same time.

"That cat of yours sure can put the scraps away," he told us while we were eating.

"Yes, she's a great moocher," Gus said. "She probably gained several pounds on this trip."

Our guide and a number of other well-wishers were there when we left the ranch later that morning. We drove more sedately and stopped earlier on the return trip. We left Thursday well before noon and arrived home on Sunday evening. It had been a long adventurous week, and we were glad to be home. The weather was also better here.

I had to be at work on Monday, but it was a very short week. Christmas and New Years and the time in between were very quiet. Gus got us a real Christmas tree after we got back. The smell is very nice over the holidays. The meat did arrive before New Years and we packed it in Gus's two freezers in the garage. It should last us awhile. We had a really nice roast for New Years.

Gus had a heavy workload in January because of the show that he was attending in February. I was going on my forth month. The Ultrasound had confirmed twins, and the doctor had restricted my activities even more. I wasn't running any more, and walking was even becoming a bit of a chore. My bras were also getting too small, again.

I missed the February knife show. It was only a half-day's travel, but I just wasn't up to it. I also missed the May show, and it was right here in town. I could hardly waddle around, and I had to stop working the last part of May because I just couldn't get around. My boss was very understanding, and the ladies at work were also. It was so much different from my former job.

Thank heaven for being able to transport. It seemed like I had to pee every half-hour or so. I don't know how normal women do it. I had gained fifty-five pounds, and I waddled like a duck. I hadn't seen my feet in a while, and I was tired all of the time.

It was very early on a Thursday morning in mid-July when my water broke. Gus got me to the hospital, quickly. There followed six of the worst hours of my life, but Gus was there with me through the whole thing. I cried, screamed, panted, and pushed. I thought that I was being ripped apart.

Finally, I heard a baby crying. I was so out of it that I didn't realize it was one of mine. I was still being told to push. I was so out of it that I don't know if I did or not. Eventually, Gus was kissing me and the doctor was there congratulating me. The nurses were holding two babies, but I was way too tired to even realize that they were mine!

They moved me to a room while I was asleep. Later the nurses woke me to feed the babies, who were both crying. They were so small and so cute, but they were soo hungry. Gus was allowed in for a few minutes while I was feeding the babies.

"Are you OK?" he asked, quietly.

"Yes, I think so. I have my babies, but I'm so tired and sore.

"Have you thought about names?" he asked.

"Yes, but I'm too tired to remember them now," I said. I was ready to go back to sleep, even if the girls weren't finished nursing yet. The nurses showed Gus out and I went back to sleep in a few minutes as the babies had finished nursing and were asleep also. The nurses took them to the nursery just before I dropped off.

After three days, I went home with the babies. I was still tired and sore, and I still couldn't really see my feet without a lot of trouble, but I didn't care. Many of the women from work had come to see me in the hospital and had oohed and aahed over the babies.

We named them Gale and Storm. They were both seven pounds at birth with a mop of red hair and green eyes, and were they ever hungry?! I thought they would suck me dry, but there was always milk when they were hungry. I had to wear a size 40DD bra to hold things up, but there was plenty of milk for them.

When I got the babies home, Tiger was there and sniffed them when I put them down on the sofa.

"They smell like milk," she told me.

"That's because they are very thirsty, and I'm making a lot of milk," I told her.

"Yes," she answered, "those things are huge now. Can you walk with them like that?"

"Yes, I can walk. I don't know about running though and I'm way too sore to even think about it now." Just then the babies woke up, hungry as usual, and started to cry.

"Do they always make that much noise?" Tiger demanded.

"Oh, that isn't as noisy as they get," I told her. "When they are wet and hungry, they get even noisier."

"I think I'll be spending a lot of time in the shop for a while then. That noise hurts my ears. My own kittens had the decency to be much quieter," she assured me, as she turned tail and slunk off.

I had been home for a week when Gus brought in a present for me. I had been aware that he had spent a lot of time working on something, but I had no idea what it was. That afternoon he came in with a big smile on his face and something in his hands.