Montana Summer Ch. 13

It surprised Jessi at how much she enjoyed performing oral sex on her friend. Becky's tongue now lapped at her own sex, sending waves of pleasure flowing through her body.

Becky inserted her index and middle finger into Jessi's opening as she sucked Jessi's erect clit between her lips and flicked her tongue in quick sharp back and forth motions. As her tongue moved back and forth, her fingers moved in and out of her warm, moist tunnel. She could feel that her face was wet with the juices from Jessi's pussy. As Jessi moved her hips, she ground her sex into Becky's face.

It was almost at the same time when the two girls began to peak. Jessi moved her mouth away from Becky's clit and began to manually stimulate her. Her own body seemed to shake as gave in to the storm of her orgasm.

Becky's body shook hard as she felt the burning deep inside that announced her own climax. Her world seemed to spin out of control and bright lights flashed in her head.

When Jessi could finally move, she lay next to Becky. Both of their bodies were slick with sweat. No words were exchanged, they both lay their trying to collect their breath.

"Wow." That was all Jessi could manage to say. She waited for a minute. "Well, I guess I should go to..."

"Don't go," Becky sounded vulnerable. "Please stay with me tonight. I don't want to be alone."

Jessi nodded and put her arms around Becky. With the post-orgasmic glow still upon them, they quickly fell asleep.

---

Norm Campbell sat in the back seat of the black limo. Vincenzo had picked him up for a late night meeting with Tony. He had received a phone call from Kenny and the conversation had been short and to the point. Something had been different in Kenny's voice in this call. Norm thought he detected a note of worry in Kenny's voice.

Vincenzo ushered Norm into the study and then went to announce their arrival to Tony. Norm looked at the books lining the shelves. The broad variety of subject matter surprised Norm. He had never thought of Tony as being the reading type of person.

"Mr. Campbell, how nice to see you again." Tony's greeting was warm and seemed to be genuine. "Please sit down and make yourself comfortable."

"It's nice to see you again as well." Norm hoped his reply sounded convincing. The truth of the matter was, he couldn't think of two people that he wanted to see less than Tony and Vincenzo.

"Kenny wanted to wait until spring to send you into the mountains," Tony began. "I would sooner have you at least give the site a preliminary look before winter. I would like to know if it is worth our while pursuing this venture and I don't want to have to wait almost six months."

Norm nodded his head. He now understood why Kenny had sounded a little worried on the phone. Tony was beginning to make his move.

"There was apprehension on the part of Kenny going back so soon, especially after what happened with his other man. I think I have a plan that will explain your presence in the area and should avert any suspicion as to what your motives really are."

"Okay, so what is your plan?" Norm felt a tingling of excitement. The professional part of him wanted to see the mountain that Hank had described to him.

"You will be in the area taking pictures for a travel magazine," Tony replied and he carefully watched Norm to see his expression.

"Hell, I have a hard time using one of those disposable cameras." Norm was instantly disappointed. "And who is going to believe that I am with a magazine?"

Tony smiled. "You will be the photographer's assistant. I have a photographer and you will have credentials from a legitimate magazine."

Norm felt a little better. He had to admit, Tony's plan did have some merit. "Okay, so who is the photographer, and when do I get to meet him?"

"You've met him already." Vincenzo spoke for the first time.

"I have? When?" Norm tried to think of who he could have met recently that was a photographer.

Vincenzo smiled. "Yes, it's me."

"You?" Norm couldn't hide his surprise. Vincenzo was the last person he would suspect of having any skills other than breaking someone's arms and legs.

Tony let out a soft chuckle. "Yes, Vincenzo is actually quite a good photographer. You may have a hard time believing this, but photography is one of his passions in life."

Vincenzo nodded. "Yes, it is. I actually studied photography at the University of Turin."

"What do we do if someone asks what we're doing? From what you say, the town is fairly small and we will probably be noticed." Norm was trying to find any holes that he could in Tony's scheme.

"Let them ask, the more publicity we get, the easier it will be to hide what we are really doing. If you give people a reasonable explanation, they generally tend to believe you. Think about this for a moment. In the middle of the day, a van drives up with a cable TV logo on the side and parks in front of your neighbor's house. A man in work clothes gets out and straps on a tool belt and then walks up to the door. What do you think? Are you suspicious?"

Norm shook his head. "No, I don't think I would be."

Tony smiled wide, his perfect white teeth gleamed. "Exactly! That's because I have given you a perfectly legitimate reason for the man to be there. Did you realize that more burglaries are committed during the day than at night? At night, people are more cautious and more inclined to be suspicious. I will give the people of that town a reason for the two of you to be there. The more publicity we get, the easier it will be for us to hide what we are really doing."

How freaking perfect is this, Norm thought. Tony had hatched a plan, that at least on the surface, had a reasonable chance of success and Tony's man would be with him every step of the way.

"Okay, when do we get started?" Norm asked.

"A few weeks," Tony replied. "We have some preparations to make. I need you to make sure that you have whatever equipment that you will require ready within the next week."

The thought of tramping through the Montana wilderness with Vincenzo caused Norm to shiver for a moment. He turned his attention to Vincenzo. "Do you really intend to take pictures?"

"Most certainly, and I hope the magazine will publish them as well." Vincenzo then grinned. "Who knows, you might get your picture in an Italian travel magazine."

---

Becky and Jessi arrived home from school and the light was blinking on the answering machine, indicating that there was a new message. Becky pressed the play button and listened to the message from the nurse at the family planning clinic. Becky felt her heart race as she listened. She was scared, all she had to do was call, and they had the answer. Whether it was the answer that she wanted to hear, or if it was the one that she had been dreading for a couple of weeks, that was the only question left.

She looked at Jessi. "I'm so scared, Jessi. I don't want to call them."

Jessi looked at the clock. "Well, they will be open for a few more hours. You can wait for a while if you want to, but you have to call them today. Like you said yourself, it's the not knowing that is the worst."

"I lied," Becky tried to make a small joke out of her nervousness. "I think finding out that I am pregnant is worse than not knowing, now."

"Yeah, and finding out that you aren't pregnant would be a whole lot better, wouldn't it?"

Becky stared at the phone. She couldn't bring herself to pick it up and dial the number that the nurse had left in her message. The fear of what she might hear seemed to paralyze her arms. Boom! Boom! It was the sound of her own heart in her ears.

Jessi could see the look of dread in her friend's face. "You have to do this, Becky."

Becky nodded. "I know." She took a deep breath and with trembling hands she picked up the phone and called the clinic.

The receptionist put her on hold and with each second of waiting Becky felt like she died another death. The urge to hang up the phone was almost overwhelming. If Jessi hadn't been there at her side, she thought that she would have hung up the phone and gone and buried herself in her bed.

"Miss Evans?" The nurse's voice came on the line. "I have your results."

In a timid voice, Becky managed to squeak one word out, "Yes?"

This was one part of Nurse Reynolds job that she disliked the most. Like most of the girls she saw, this was too young, and too unprepared, to be pregnant. None of them were ever happy to get the news. She often wondered what it would be like to work in an environment where the news she had to give so often would be met with tears of joy and not with tears of fear. She quickly scanned the results from the lab and tried to remember what this girl had looked like. "We got the results back from the lab, Miss Evans. It came back positive."

Becky felt the world spin out of control. This was exactly what she had expected to hear. For days, she had tried to steel herself for this moment. "Oh my ..." She wasn't able to finish her statement.

"The doctor wants you to see an OB-GYN as soon as possible," Nurse Reynolds continued. "They have an opening at 8:20 tomorrow morning. Can you make it?"

Becky tried in vain to remember what her schedule was for the next day. "Yes, I think so."

"Miss Evans, I need to know for sure. It's important that you keep this appointment. The doctor wants you to have a couple of more." The nurse tried to be both firm and reassuring.

"Why? Is something wrong?" Becky began to panic.

The nurse hesitated. Yes, there was something wrong, but this had to come from the doctor. She had immediately recognized what the doctor suspected by looking at the lab results. "He just wants you to have some other tests done, Miss Evans, to make sure that there is nothing wrong with you." She paused for a moment and then added, "Or with your baby."

'My baby' Becky thought. This was the first time she had used that term. It was almost like she had forgotten that being pregnant meant that she would be carrying a baby inside of her body. "Yes, I'll be there." Becky confirmed that she would be at her appointment.

Becky hung up the phone and looked at Jessi and burst into tears. "I'm pregnant."

It was what Jessi expected to hear, especially after listening to Becky's half of the conversation. Jessi put her arms around her friend and tried to console her. "Is there something wrong?"

"I don't know," Becky managed to get out between sobs. "The doctor wants to see me tomorrow morning to do some more tests."

"What kind of tests?" Jessi asked.

"I don't know. She didn't say." Becky closed her eyes. She wished that this was just a bad dream and that she could wake up shortly and just be able to shake it off.

---

Hank sat across the desk from Norm and was a little surprised at what he was hearing. Norm was relating what Kenny had told him and what he had learned from his late night meeting with Tony and Vincenzo. Hank had spoken with Kenny the day before and had a rough idea of what was going on.

After listening to what Norm had to say, he had to begrudgingly admit that the plan sounded good and it appeared that a lot of careful thought had been put into it. A large map from the U.S. Geological Survey Department was spread out on the desk.

Hank pointed to a spot on the map. "That's where it is." He traced his finger along the map. "You can get up to about here. I guess you could get further if you have a good four-wheel drive vehicle. It took us about two and a half hours to hike from where we parked to get to the top."

Norm nodded and took notes as Hank spoke. He was surprised at how calm he felt now. Once the real planning had started, his professional background had kicked in. For the first time since he had gotten involved with Tony and Kenny, he felt like he had some control back in his life.

"This is the little creek we were talking about. I think there is gold in it. Sal said he would have bet his life on it." Hank felt a little shiver go down his back. Sal had bet his life in those mountains and had come up the loser.

Norm studied the map and looked up at Hank. "It looks like a good spot to look." He pointed at an area near the bottom of the mountain and near the creek. "I wonder if we can get in there. It would the perfect place for us to set up camp. It would give me the chance to check out the creek."

"I don't see why you couldn't." Hank pointed to a wiggly line on the map. "It shows some sort of a road heading at least part way in."

Hank was glad that Kenny had told him to stay in Denver. If too many of them showed up in town at the same time suspicions could be raised. It wasn't only that but, with what happened to Sal back there, Hank was extremely hesitant about setting foot in that area again.

What bothered him the most, and he hadn't admitted it to anyone, was that they had tried looting some Lakota burial platforms and Sal had ended up with five arrows in his chest. To Hank, this had a deep significance and served as a warning for him to stay away. Besides, he would be happier staying in Denver and fucking his stripper girlfriend.

"How long do you think it will take you to come up with some results?" Hank asked as he watched Norm writing on his note pad.

The geologist looked up and stared at the map for a few moments. "Oh, I'd say a week will tell us if there is anything up there that we can work with."

'Better you than me,' Hank thought.

---

Although she missed the comfort of her bed and the convenience of her bathtub, Esther was glad that she agreed to stay for a few more days up at the cabin in the tipis. She gazed her husband as he puttered around the camp. It gave her a warm feeling inside to watch him. This was what he loved, being out in nature and trying to live in the old way. Esther could sense a change in him. He seemed to hold his head a little higher and there was more spring in his step. At times like this, she thought that Charlie was a man that had been born too late.

Charlie was in his glory. His wife was right, out here, he was a changed man. As he had grown older, he had gotten more reflective in his life. Many an hour had been spent imagining what life would have been like if he had been born one hundred and fifty years earlier. There were times that he felt frustrated that he would never experience the life of his ancestors. Occasions like this gave him a small window into what their life would have been like.

The peace and solitude gave both of them comfort. There were no sounds of modern life up here—no jangling of phones or the incessant jabbering of a television, no cacophony of vehicles with missing mufflers running up and down the roads at all hours of the day or night, and none of the headache-inducing music that some of the younger generation seemed to enjoy.

Charlie reveled in the sound of a hawk soaring high above, its shrill screech sounding just before it dove in pursuit of some prey. At night, he had built a small fire outside of the tipis to ward off the chill of the night air. They had sat near the fire and listened to the singing of the coyotes. Charlie told old stories that had been handed down from one generation to the next.

Esther enjoyed times like this. It took her back to when she was a young girl and her grandfather would sit and tell many of the same stories that Charlie knew. She had often wished that her grandfather had lived long enough to meet the man she married.

"I think I could spend the rest of my life living like this," Charlie told his wife as he watched her frying up the trout that they had caught earlier in day.

Esther looked up from the fire and waved the smoke from her eyes. "Yes, I know you could. I think I would miss my washing machine and dryer. Well, not so much the dryer, but the washing machine for sure. I wouldn't want to have to beat your clothes on a rock by the creek just to get them clean."

Charlie laughed at the mental picture of his wife doing laundry by hand and had to admit that she had a point. "Well, I might try to stay cleaner longer if that was the case."

Esther laughed as she turned the fish over. "No, you would just go around in dirty clothes." Her tone turned serious. "I remember my granny washing clothes in a tub with a washboard. I remember trying to help her and how tired I got. It was just plain hard work and she would spend the whole day at that washtub scrubbing clothes. I remember her hands, all red and cracked from the soap they used."

Charlie nodded. "Not everything about the good old days was so good, I guess. All the same, it's nice that we have the time to spend up here and that we can still enjoy it."

Time didn't matter here. They got up when it was light and went to bed sometime after dark. Charlie thought that was what was wrong with the world today. People seemed to be a slave to time. You had to be up at a certain time, you had to be at a certain place at a certain time, you went to bed at a certain time. Days were divided up into small bits of time with various tasks assigned to each block. People walked around with books devoted to planning their days, or they had a small electronic device that did the same task. It seemed that the faster society went, the less time people had for the simple things in life. He wondered what his ancestors would think of a long weekend. He laughed inside at the thought.

After they had eaten their meal of pan-fried trout and baked corn-on-the-cob, they sat and watched the sun begin to make its descent behind the mountain to the west. For a moment, the sun was in Esther's eyes, and she could see Charlie's profile silhouetted against the sunset. For a brief moment, Esther saw the man he could have been if they had lived more than a century before.

Charlie loved the sunset, the ending of another day. Tomorrow his son would come and to take them home. For tonight though, this was their home and time had stopped. He was Lakota and he was living in the old way.

---

Bill leaned up against the bed of the pickup and studied the cattle in the pasture. "Well, I think most of this lot will go. They look like they gained good weight over the summer."

"When are we going to move them down to the ranch?" Ryan asked.

"I have to get a hold of the trucking company and see when they are planning to show up. I still need to decide how many head we are shipping out," Bill replied. "I'm hoping we can get them moved down to the ranch tomorrow or the day after."

"How do you decide on which ones stay and which ones go?" Ryan asked.

"Well, we will keep all of the yearlings, and all of the pregnant cows. Mainly we will be selling off the three-year-old and some of the two-year-old steers. We want to keep all of the pregnant females to build the size of the herd up. The yearling steers aren't big enough yet to make any real money."

Ryan nodded. "I've been meaning to ask... I haven't seen any bulls. How do the cows get...?" Ryan blushed as he tried to find words that made sense.

Bill chuckled. "Artificial insemination mainly, but occasionally, now and then, I will use a bull. There are ranchers around here that offer the services of their bulls."

Still blushing slightly Ryan asked, "Well, wouldn't it be easier just to let nature take its course?"

"It might mean less work for us, but there are a lot of advantages in using AI. If we only used bulls we might only have a few bulls for the herd. By using AI, we can get semen from as many different bulls as we want. The advantage in that is that it keeps the bloodlines of the herd mixed. We don't want any in-breeding in the herd and that helps in keeping any genetic defects to a minimum. By keeping records, we know when the cow was impregnated and who the sire is. If we left it up to nature, we would have no guarantee that all of the cows are going to get their chance with Romeo?"