Montana Rhapsody Pt. 01

"Larry!"

"Hush," he laughed. "He's absolutely crazy about you because you are taking an interest in him and being so nice."

"But surely not..." She stopped and Hal laughed and said no, he was only teasing. Larry would see her as the daughter he never had."

"Oh Christ," she laughed, holding on to what she was had gone after like a heat-seeking missile. "Come to mummy you beautiful boy."

Hal emitted a long sigh and a few seconds later lifted her on to his chest and spread her legs to lick his lovely lady into ecstasy.

Ten minutes later they were banging away like rabbits. While in the bathroom Paris opened the window and saw some of the ground outside was white. The bedroom radio-clock indicated it was just after midnight. She snuggled up to tell Hal the news but he was asleep. Ninety minutes later Paris was awaken by a crash outside and she heard the wind howling.

"It's the front passing over," Hal said.

"Oh, you're awake," she said and added quickly, "Obviously."

"I think that was the roof of the old garden shed being ripped off. Interested?"

She whispered yes and turned into his arms to have kissed rained on to her face, under her neck and on to her responding breasts. She slid a hand down and found him very ready so rolled on to her back, pulling him on to her.

"Let me put it in," she whispered, and received no resistance. He said he's go slow and gently. There was no climaxing as both fell asleep on the job.

Within the hour there were both awake again. The fury of the storm had gone and Hal said it would be snowing heavily.

"What do you and Annie talk about when out riding? Making cakes?"

Paris smiled in the dark, knowing she was about to blow off his socks. "It won't surprise you to know that I learn more from Annie than I ever did from many of my college lecturers.

"Go on," he said carefully.

Paris took his limp and sticky dick in her hand. "Do you know this versatile fellow is close to the center of your thinking?"

Hal snorted and said guys know women think that and women think their equivalent center is their brain."

Paris remained silent.

Hal sighed and said, "Okay, what has she told you."

"Annie says the first thing a man touches in the morning and the last thing he touches at night is his dick. A working man knows to instinctively protect vital parts such as his shoulders and joints because it's all about mobility and strength and that's because he comes from a tradition of being a hunter and fighting invaders or being an invader. She said but watch him as he goes behind a horse with a reputation of being a kicker. The guy will run one hand over the horses flank attempting to calm it and letting it know where he is but his other hand will be cupping his sex gear for protection, not his shoulders or his knees."

Hal said in disbelief, "Annie used the words sex gear?"

He was unable to see the blush as Paris sighed and said, "If you must know she said cock and balls."

Hal had a good belly laugh.

She said when a guy focuses on a project he's very difficult to deviate and that comes from his past as a hunter and warrior. When a guy goes to war committing to try to do the right thing a woman he left behind will be thinking about life when he returns home or whether he returns home maimed or never returns home. It's like he focuses on the present while she tries to see the future for the ongoing survival of her and her dependents."

"Jesus, that's pretty profound."

"Indeed especially coming from somebody who folk today would proclaim never had a real education."

"We can be so dismissive, so ignorant can't we?"

Paris leaned over and kissed Hal and said, "That was profound comment."

And then within five seconds, "Ooooh, what is this growing in my hand?"

* * *

Just after 8:00 Paris opened the misted bathroom window to note the garden shed no longer had a roof. There was very little wind and the ground was mostly covered thickly in snow. Higher up it would be a real dump. She went to make coffee and saw the three boys come from the vehicle barn inside the close-in cabin of the huge four-wheel tractor used for plowing and hay conditioning. It was still snowing.

She woke Hal.

"Hi. Oh we didn't finish earlier this morning."

"No," she giggled. "It doesn't matter. It's not a contest."

He looked as if it were but instead grinned and asked how deep was the snow.

"About the length of your erection, about three inches."

He roared and went after her. She ran the wrong way on purpose to be caught.

She returned with coffee while he was at the bathroom. He opened the window and called that the shed roof had gone and the snow was around seven inches deep. She knew that snow depth estimate was a lie.

When they were drinking their coffee she said the boys had gone out although it was their day off.

"Days off are cancelled when we are hit by weather like this."

"Three inches is not too bad, surely?"

"Try being a cow out there requiring sufficient feed and cold is sapping her energy."

"Oh."

"And I think since dawn it will have began snowing more heavily and it will continue to snow until after lunch."

"Till 4:00 Annie just told me."

"Annie also said she's not a clock."

Annie smiled and asked, "Why did the boys go out without instructions?"

"They know what to do."

"Will they get another day off in lieu?"

"No but I'll toss in a few more dollars when I pay them."

"When will they be back?"

"About 11:00."

"I have a thought about their commitment to duty. Would you mind if I loaned them my vehicle to go into town to see their lady friends?"

Hal swung round to say no but was seduced by the pretty face.

"Only Tom has a genuine lady friend. The other two go to prostitutes or perhaps to women they know whose husbands are out of town for some long while, like on military service overseas."

"I am trying to be benevolent, not moralistic."

"You'll spoil them and I'll have to knock them back into shape when you go."

"I'll not spoil them. They are smart to know I am kind and what I offer is kindness and is not to be abused. And I don't want them hit. If you so much as lay a finger on any of them I'll, I'll..."

"You'll what?"

"Er, put you on rations."

"Oh, this is serious," he grinned. "All right, not boot and no fisticuffs."

"What, you kick them?"

"If you want the answer to that then ask them," Hal teased. "Come on, those boys you are trying to soften have left us the onerous task of checking on the heifers. Now that the wind has died away we can open the rear door to that middle barn and allow them to wander in for better shelter. There's room for half of them standing up but once in the warmth they'll want to lay down."

"Warmth?"

"It's our calving barn with under-floor heating. The heated water comes from that boiler you lit last night. I was pleased to find you'd stoked it up this morning when you made coffee."

"And about 3:30 when I was busting for a pee."

Hal looked at her thoughtfully and said, "Thanks."

The boys returned with just one sickly-looking heifer. Hal and Paris had gone out to meet them when they heard the tractor approaching. Allan gave the heifer an injection and Tom put a blanket on it and pushed it into a stall and forced some liquid food supplement down its throat.

"Boys, this kind lady has given you the use of her vehicle to go into town for lunch. I want you back here and on your way out to check on the stock by 4:00. And I mean 4:00 unless you find it unsafe to return."

The boys muttered their appreciation and smiled at Paris who then handed them twenty bucks each with the caution, "Now be good boys. Spend your money on food and women and not booze."

They'd looked at approval from Hal before taking the money and looked again before laughing with him at Paris's motherly comment.

"Who drives," Larry asked.

"The best driver in snow conditions."

Larry and Tom pointed to Alan and Paris nodded her approval.

After the boys left Hal lifted a hay bale on to the front-end loader of the smallest tractor to take it out to the horses in a box canyon that conversationally Hal said would contain little or even perhaps no snow because of the direction in which it ran. The wind driven snow would have gone straight over it, er mostly.

Paris said, "Now you don't lift that bale higher than necessary. I don't want it coming back on to you and squashing you."

Hal grinned. "Ah, the boys have been talking to you."

She smiled and looked up to the sky and saw nothing promising and said yeah, that Alan had been coaching her with real lifts. "I must focus on nothing else and if I do that I'll feel a wobble or something seconds before something bad starts to happen and I lower the lift to avoid that problem."

Hal looked at her boss-like and she stared back as if waiting for instructions. He cleared his throat, "Would you like to take this bale and dump it into the feeder for the horses. You've seen the boys doing that, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, come and sit in the seat and I'll go through how to operate the hydraulics for this job. I've seen you driving around in this tractor and you look to be handling it well. Today just concentrate on keeping your speed down and keeping safe."

Hal advised her to drive alongside the metal horse feeder, which was higher than the cattle feeder, to set the height she needed to lift the bale and then to back and come in straight, stopping to lean out to check how far she had to go before allowing the bale to drop into the sturdy structure. "It doesn't matter how long it takes, just do is slowly and safely. Don't worry if there is hay still in the feeder. It will be outer hay from the bale that the horses leave till last."

He then showed Paris a map over the recording station bench where the canyon was. The access pasture was through the fifth gate on her right from starting off. He pointed out the creek crossing through the pasture and that the wide wooden bridge over that crossing was market clearly by stakes on both sides at either end.

"Leave the box canyon gate open as you go through because the horses will be up at the most sheltered end which is where you'll find the feeder. If you get off the tractor for any reason make sure you don't risk being crowded and crushed because the horses will be thinking grain but this delivery is only hay."

"I've got all that boss."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I better come with you."

"No."

Hal scuffed his feet. "It's not a ride in the park."

"I know. Could you please stop being a fusspot? You've explained the dangers by describing them and what to do to neutralize threats. All I need to do is not to become complacent."

Hal walked into a side room and came back with a leather coat. "It was dad's."

Pulling it on Paris said, "It fits me exactly. I'm his size."

Hal looked away. "I know. He would have loved you."

Paris rushed in and hugged him, kissing his face and saying, "Oh, you poor darling."

"Beat it," Hal said sniffing. "The horses need hay."

"Yes boss."

He called just as she was about to shut the cab door, "I'm very proud of you."

Paris moved off, almost taking the half-open barn door with her. She thought she heard Hal scream "Oh Christ" but didn't look back. She just gritted her teeth and prepared to count the first gate on her right as Gate One.

Inside the house Hal paced around. Alice who'd had her longest sleep-in in years attempted to calm him, saying Paris may be a greenhorn but she'd be one of the smartest greenhorns around.

"I'm not worried," Hal lied. "Tell me, what is she doing now."

"I'm not an x-ray machine Hal."

"What can you tell me," he asked, peering out of window. "Christ, this snow is a foot high."

Alice came to the window and sniffed. "Perhaps four inches now."

"You need your glasses," he snapped.

"I need my glasses for reading, not for distance. I can see an eagle five miles away."

"You can scarcely see forty meters out there."

"Hal, it's snowing with light fog. What else do you expect? If you must know I know she and I will be in Butte tomorrow."

"But the snow. How will you get through?"

"Ask the driver Hal, only she won't even know yet she'll decided she'll go to Butte tomorrow and will invite me to accompany her."

"How can you possible know that?"

"Oh, grow up Hal. How do you think I know?"

Hal quickly relaxed and went off to the study to work on preparing the accounts for Merle. If Alice was confident she'd be in Butte tomorrow with Paris then everything was okay.

Half an hour later Alice went to the window and called out, "I can hear a tractor Hal."

"Weren't you expecting to hear a tractor?" he called out. "Let's have some pre-lunch drinks. I feel I could do real damage to a steak."

"Steak for lunch when you've only been lounging about?"

"Yeah, why not Alice? You always say eat when you feel hungry and it's almost 2:00, a long time since breakfast."

"Oh nervous energy. Have you been under stress Hal?"

There was no answer.

"Hi, how did it go?" Hal asked, hugging Pearl around her thick layers of clothing so firmly that she gasped.

"Piece of cake really. A great line of horses. There are three with obvious mustang in them Alice."

"Mustang, what's this about mustang?" she said, handing Paris fruit juice and holding a glass of wine.

"What's this fruit juice. I'm not pregnant am I?"

Hal blew some of his beer over the old newspaper he was reading.

"Ooops here's your wine," Alice laughed. "You had me off-balance talking to me about mustangs."

Paris smacked her lips after ingesting a little wine. "There's one, a mustard filly with a blonde mane. It has your name written all over it."

Hal grunted, Prairie Queen.

Alice tried the name twice. "Will she meet my expectations Hal?"

"You better ask Tom. He's our horse wrangler. My guess is she'll exceed them."

Hal spluttered his beer when Paris said, "I'd like to go somewhere new tomorrow perhaps to Butte. Like to come with me Alice? Hopefully there will be no troopers trying to stop us going shopping."

The women looked at Hal and Paris asked, "Are you okay Hal?"

He had his head in his hand, elbow on the table, and was shaking his head.

"He's having trouble coping with news in advance," Alice chuckled.

Not understanding, Paris said Hal wouldn't get news in advance from a newspaper two or three days old.

It stopped snowing at 3:50, just as the boys arrived home. They were in great spirits.

"We were almost mobbed when we arrived at the diner," Tom said. "There's only one yellow SUV like this in this area and it seems we disappointed the women who came running."

"Right off you go and change," said the boss.

"We remembered in the bar when having a couple of drinks before coming home that we must take hay to the horses."

"No need. Paris took a bale out to them before lunch."

"Paris?" said the boys.

"Hello boys," Paris smiled, fluttering her eyelids and waggling fingers held against one cheek like an old-time movie star. "I've moved up a step today so have been excused of afternoon duties. Apparently the boss thinks you'll take unnecessary risks coming under pressure from this hot competition."

All four men grinned at her, patronizingly, of course.