A Wild Life

Bobbie maneuvered carefully down the dirt road that was rapidly disappearing under the heavy snow fall. Old Ned Hoover had said he saw someone prowling around the bluffs at the back of her property. Sneaking back here at the beginning of what was forecast to be the worst snow storm of the year was not necessarily smart, but she was well prepared for weather and trouble.

Betsy her nearly antique but well maintained Jeep could climb through anything short of an ice age, was kept stocked with enough emergency supplies to handle a natural disaster and the weight of her .44 rode comfortably on her belt.

She wound her way through two switch backs and a hairpin on the old access road in disgust. It was probably the local teens deciding her back 40 was the best place for this years pot crop, and with the new state laws that meant they could seize any property used for drug production everyone had to keep close tabs on their property for fear of losing it.

She hadn't spent an entire career flying all over the world taking wildlife photos to loose her retirement dream to kids growing pot. It wasn't growing season yet, but last year they had started hauling in and hiding supplies on Mary Fords place in the middle of January.

Bobbie turned the last sharp curve and came out at the bottom of the rock bluffs. Parking in the shielding branches of a cedar thicket along side the dirt track she swung down from the Jeeps formidable height.

Just as she rounded the rear of the vehicle to begin checking around for signs of recent activity her cell phone went off. Damned modern technology! It didn't do much good to hide the Jeep when that damned thing was chiming loud enough to echo off the bluff.

"Hello!"

"Hey Bobbie this is Jim Birch down at the bait shop in Green's Valley."

"Hey Jim! What's the problem this time, not another Osprey I hope?"

"No, no, this time it's a screech owl, one of the tourists hit it with a car last night up on Bakers hill and brought it down to Julie. We've had it in a box like you showed us since last night and it seems to be doing fine."

"By fine do you mean capable of flying on home fine or just not bleeding and unconscious? Is it alert and combative or meek and timid?"

"Damned near took my hand off when I opened up the box to check on it this morning."

"OK, that sounds good, did you notice any wing feathers missing and was there any blood at all, at any time?"

"No, never any blood and doesn't seem to be missing any feathers. I would just have turned it loose but Julie said I needed to check with you first. I'd hate for you to have to come way out here in this weather if all is well though."

"Well it sounds to me like it just got a mild concussion last night and has recovered on it's own. This March snow storm has everyone and everything confused. Do you know the general area where it came from?"

"Yeah, she met him in that big bend right in front of George's place. Want me to take him up there and release him?"

"Sure, go ahead and do that, but just to be safe take your welding gloves and a fishing net. I've had more than one look fine and then had to chase it after it couldn't take off on its own. I'd rather do a good exam on it but in this weather I probably wouldn't make it to you and if I did I'd be stuck there till the roads were cleared."

"Don't you worry one bit. I'll set him free and if he doesn't take wing immediately I'll bring him back and take care of him till you can get here safely. You have too many others depending on you to get stuck out here in a snow storm."

"Thanks Jim, you're a big sweetie and let me know later this evening how it went."

As she put her phone away Bobbie heard a tremendous crack followed by a female voice spewing expletives ending in a strangled cry and a loud thump. Out of the corner of her eye she saw and old oak stub on a shelf about halfway up the bluffs fall over then slide down the steep rocky incline lodging itself in a crevice.

Worried by the sound of a human voice preceding the event, she reached into the Jeep for her binoculars. What she saw made her even more worried. There was a backpack lying just above where the stub had lodged and it looked like an arm protruded from underneath the stub it's self. She knew she had to get up there to help. It took fire and rescue over an hour to make it to her in good weather and now it would likely be days before anyone could come to her aid.

Bobbie jumped back into the Jeep and pulled it in as close as she could to the bottom of the bluff then hopped out and went around to the back. From her emergency supplies trunk she pulled rope, a grappling hook, her first aid backpack and reluctantly a light weight climbing harness. On second thought, not having any kind of litter or method of lowering a person, she grabbed a second heavier harness as well. Climbing was just about the worst possible thing she could do for her injured knees and she avoided it whenever possible but now she had no choice.

Walking to the bottom of the cliff, thinking as she went, she realized she could use the winch on the Jeep to get her up there if she had a heavy enough weight and made a very lucky throw.

Back to the tool box to grab a hammer and she was almost ready. She threaded the rope through the eye on the end of the grappling hook then tied the hammer to it. It made for a heavy and ungainly mess to throw but hopefully all those years of pitching horse shoes at summer picnics would pay off now.

It took three tries but she was finally able to get it up the bluff with enough force hook at the base of a small tree. She then began playing out the rope letting the weight of the hammer bounce the rope along down the bluff to the ground.

When she got the end of the rope back she attached it to the cable from the winch and pulled it backwards again till she had run the cable through the hook and back down to her. Now she could winch herself up and hopefully both of them back down.

Bobbie stuffed the remote for the winch in her pants pocket and took a moment to prepare herself. An incident with a charging rhino in Africa had ended her photography career and left her knees in such a shape that every step was painful. This climb was going to be sheer torture on her, even with the winch doing most of the work.

She stepped into the climbing harness, attached it to the cable and took several large deep breaths. Slinging the backpack over one shoulder she began winching herself up the bluff, bouncing off the rocks with her legs as she had to.

Reaching the top, she was relieved to see that the woman, who ever she was, had been very lucky. She was down in the crevice, unconscious, with one arm pinned by the section of tree trunk, but it hadn't landed directly on her. The question now was how to get her out. That is when Bobbie discovered the second lucky thing, The section of old tree was hollow and so rotten it didn't weigh nearly what you would think.

Using a young sapling she cut from the nearest ledge she pried the tree trunk up enough to take the weight off the woman's arm then slid her out of the crevice as far as she could before levering the trunk over so that it slid on down the bluff. The mystery lady was wearing a gun! Bobbie removed it from her belt and stuffed it into the pack.

Doing an emergency exam on an injured human was unfamiliar but she was used to dealing with injured mammals and a human was more or less a large mammal after all. The arm was broken and she had a large knot on the side of her head. She also found lots of scrapes and bruises and a thin branch had pierced her leg at the ankle and run up under the skin like a giant splinter, but the head injury worried her the most. Thankfully there didn't seem to be any spinal damage so while transport wasn't going to be easy it shouldn't do her any further injury.

Curiosity took reign for a moment and Bobbie rifled through the woman's pockets and the backpack. When she came across the badge she nearly dropped it down the cliff. It seems she had an agent of the Department of the Interior and from the other identification she was assigned to deal with the protection of Native American sites.

Looking back up the bluff Bobbie realized that it was possible the small caves in these bluffs had been used in the ancient past. Why agent Carrie Brown had been out here at the beginning of a huge snow storm and hadn't just approached her to ask for permission to check it out puzzled her, but answers would have to wait, for now.

After splinting the arm and maneuvering her into the heavier harness, Bobbie heaved a few times and managed to get the woman upright in her arms. She looked to the sky and hoped for the best as she stepped over the edge and began winching them down together.

About half way to the ground Carrie started to regain consciousness somewhat, moaning, squeezing Bobbie tightly around the ribs and humping against the thigh she was straddling . Up to this point Bobbie felt proud that she had managed to ignore the obvious beauty of her patient but when a beautiful woman is squeezing you, moaning, humping your leg and nuzzling the side of your neck it gets hard for poor Butch to concentrate. Thankfully she seemed to drift off again and didn't interfere with their decent.

Reaching the bottom at last Bobbie was shocked to see the snow well over ankle deep and mounting. Several stressful minutes of struggling, with Carrie rousing on and off, alternately moaning and mumbling "Oh Yeah Baby!" and she was ensconced in the passenger seat wrapped in a sleeping bag. Bobbie was left trembling, panting and thinking it had been way too long since she heard someone moaning those words.

The trip back up the old access road to the top where her home and the clinic were went fairly well. She only slid sideways and nearly off an embankment once, it was a good thing her passenger was out of it and missed the whole adventure.

Upon arrival at the center she hit the garage door opener and backed into the clinic garage. She planned to put Carrie on the roll out bed she kept in the clinic instead of a bed in the main house. All her equipment was there and she was set up for video conferencing. Normally she would be conferencing with a Veterinarian while treating orphaned or injured wildlife but in this case she could use it to contact Dr. Potter in town.

As soon as she had Carrie in the clinic, laid out on the bed, she grabbed her phone and paused a moment to consider how this was going to go. She really dreaded having to do it but she had no choice.

Dr. Beverly Potter was the only other lesbian Bobbie knew of in the Tri-County area, not that there weren't more of them around, they were just not very open about it, being open around here was not always safe. She would not have known about Beverly if it hadn't been for the fact that she had started out to be her personal doctor. Beverly was a rather predatory Fem and once the sparks had started flying she'd had to find another doctor for her medical needs. It meant having to drive 2 hours for an appointment but ethics dictated that she do it.

Of course, Bev being Bev meant that it had taken her just about 3 months to chew Bobbie up and spit her back out, which was why this call was going to be very uncomfortable. The phone rang four times before she finally picked it up and Bobbie had to wonder if she had hesitated when she saw what the number was on the incoming call.

"Well, hello there Sugar. Decide to change your ways, come down off that mountain and enjoy being snowed in with me?"

"Sorry to bother you Bev but I've got an emergency on my hands here. Can you get online and conference with me?"

"Oh, I'll web cam with you anytime Babe but I'm not going to be much good trying to help you treat one of those nasty beasts you hang out with."

"Please, lets just not go there again, OK? It isn't an animal, it's a human, a woman actually, and a federal agent. She's fallen about 30 feet down a bluff, is in and out of consciousness, has a broken arm and a large knot on the side of her head."

"Federal? What in the world? Oh, never mind! Give me a minute to get the computer fired up I'll be right with you. You did check her pupils didn't you?"

"Yes, her pupils are equal, I don't have any way to check her BP but pulse is normal too."

"OK, I'll get in the conference as soon as I can."

"Thanks and I'll call the sheriff while you are doing that."

As she dialed the Sheriff's office she moved the laptop over near the cot, set up the web cam so that it was focused on the patient, and opened the video conferencing software waiting to see Beverly pop up online.

"Henely County Sheriff's Office can I help You?"

"Hey Martha this is Bobbie up at the wildlife center is Joe in or can you patch me through to him where ever he is right now?" There was a short pause as the call was transferred.

"Bobbie this is Joe. Please tell me you didn't catch your trespassers and shoot them I don't want to have to deal with that right now."

"No Joe. I have something that may be worse. I have an officer down so to speak. When I went back to look for the trespassers a federal agent somehow managed to fall half way down the bluff. I've got her back to the center but she's in and out of consciousness and there is no way I can get her out in a hurry."

" Federal agent? No one has notified me of any kind of federal operations. Who the hell is it and who is she with?"

" Agent Carrie Brown Department of the Interior assigned to the protection of Native American sites according to the papers I found in her backpack."

"Oh hell, not that mess again."

" What mess Joe and who do we notify and how do we get her out of here?"

"Well there just isn't going to be a way to get her out for days, trees are down across the State Highway for miles between you and civilization. This has to be the worst storm since '93 and may end up being worse than that before it's over. As for who to notify as soon as I can I'll call the university and see what I can find out. They started the whole ruckus last time I am sure they are in on this one too."

"What ruckus? I don't understand. What does the university have to do with her being on my property?"

"Way back in the 70s a couple of university archeology students found a bunch of Native American sites up there. Most of them were on the State Wildlife Management Area land adjoining your place, but a few were on your land. There was all kinds of legal fighting over access rights and protection rules and it went through federal court for several years. It ended up that the sites had to be fenced a certain way and the tribe had to be granted access upon request. You should have several small areas with 12 foot high chain link topped with barbed wire up there."

"Well, I've never seen them but with this much acreage it would be almost impossible to see everything. Why did no one ever tell me about it when I bought this place 3 years ago? I haven't gotten any request for access from anyone either."

"They probably just forgot about it. I don't think that real estate agent was even born when it happened."

Bobbie noticed Beverly in the video conference and cut Joe short. "Joe I've got to go, Bev is video conferencing with me to help treat her. Try and get rescue up here as soon as you can and yes, I know that could be a week from now."

Bobbie made sure the speakers were activated and turned the mic on voice activation just in time to hear Bev let out a whistle. "My, my, you have a beauty on your hands there don't you?"

The shrill whistle combined with Bev's voice startled Chance, the one eyed barred owl Bobbie kept for educational seminars. Chance Hissed loudly and clacked his beak, mantling on his perch in the corner of the room. Bobbie tried to get him settled down. "Calm Chance, Calm now old boy."

"Have you still got that demon owl? No wonder you are still single that thing is dangerous. You should have put him down years ago."

Chance and the other animals in her life had been the major reason for their breakup. While Beverly was a doctor and had empathy for her human patients that empathy did not extend to animals. "He's not dangerous Bev, he just didn't like you because he was jealous or something. I take him to schools all the time and he has never hissed at the kids."

Carrie picked that moment to open her eyes and nearly sit up on the cot, then fall back mumbling and moaning again bringing their attention back to the matter at hand.

Bobbie moved around to the side of the cot and tried to talk to her. " Carrie? Carrie can you hear me?" All she got in return was a "Yes Sergeant!"

Bev took over at that point and began barking instructions "The first thing you are going to have to do is restrain her somehow so she doesn't take your head off while we do this. Do you have any restraints big enough for a human? Oh, I know! Do you still have that bondage set I talked you into ordering but we never got to use?"

"I think so, it may be in the nightstand but I am not sure."

"I bet you have never even opened the box. I swear you have to be the most prudish, straight laced Butch on the damn planet! Now go get it, get her restrained and her clothes cut off so we can get those wounds cleaned up and check out that arm."

"Clothes cut off? Never mind, I'll be right back."

Bobbie hurried off to get the restraints, she knew she still had them. Four leopard patterned, Velcro closure, cuffs with 6 foot tethers attached. She'd just had to open the set after reading the warning label on the back of the box. "Do not use while driving or operating heavy machinery." She had known then, without a doubt, that if people used such things while driving bulldozers often enough that they had felt the need to put a warning on the box she was way behind the times and definitely a prude.

Back in the clinic, holding a pair of bandage shears Bobbie was trying her best not to shake. She had been celibate for months and here she was looking down at one of the most beautiful women she'd seen anywhere. Petite, maybe 5'3", mid thirties, muscular in a wiry, feminine kind of way, short black hair that shined in the glow of the exam lamp and when she roused up and opened those beautiful blue eyes it made Bobbies heart pound. If only she would stay conscious, her constant rousing and passing back out was bothering both Bobbie and the doctor.

"Come on Bobbie hurry up and get her clothes off, and while you are at it tell me what kind of drugs you keep on hand, with that ankle wound she is definitely going to need an antibiotic. I hope you are up for some minor surgery, you are probably going to have to cut that piece of tree out of her ankle."

Bobbie cut both legs of her pants upwards from the ankle and when she pulled away the pieces a bright pink lace thong was revealed. After cutting away her black fatigue jacket and T-shirt she realized she was staring at a pink bra and thong set, both very frilly and lacy.

When she stepped out from in front of the web cam and Beverly got a look at the situation she whistled again. "Damn! Here I thought you were going to be up there enjoying being snowed in for a week of Butch bonding. I expected you to find boxers and a sports bra. You definitely do not have a Butch on your hands there! Now, lets get this done."

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Carrie opened her eyes and tried to get them to focus. Her head felt like it was filled with a swarm of angry bees and she was so nauseous she feared she was going to throw up on herself. She was in just her bra, thong, a cast on her right arm and a bandage around one throbbing ankle.

Finally able to focus, she looked around the room and realized she must be in the wildlife clinic. She was on a cot in a room filled with counter tops and veterinary equipment. A large owl sat on a perch in the corner staring at her with it's one eye and puffing it's feathers out, an Opossum with a leg in a cast was in a large cage on the wall to the right and there were several neonatal style incubators on her left.