Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 13

"I know, but I've just got to say this. It's odd. When we were bedmates, Ezra and I fucked harder and for longer than just now and I wasn't tied up. I came pretty hard then. But I came so much harder tonight and so many times more. It was wonderful!"

"All right." Devon sounded contented at last. "That's all I wanted to say."

Kalyndra held Devon in her arms and they pressed their mouths together, holding the kiss as true lovers do to say goodnight. They took their turns to kiss Ezra the same way; then Kalyndra climbed over him to snuggle up on the other side. The girls lent against him and rested their heads on his chest, their hands clasped together. At last, they all fell into a comfortable and dreamless sleep.

2 Return to the crash-site

As arranged, the Herders arrived next morning at the Mariner Settlement.

Solange and Megan led five horses into the camp. Two of the riderless horses pulled sleds: one full, one empty. The fifth horse was equipped for a rider, with reins, stirrups and a blanket tied on with leather bands around its chest.

The women hopped off their horses into the busy Mariner camp, where preparations for their journey to the Cloner Fair were continuing. Ezra heard the commotion and left his two lovely bedmates asleep in each other's arms to join Calliope and Ferne in welcoming the Herders.

"Good morning, Mermaids," Solange called out.

"Good morning, Solange," Calliope answered with a smile. "What have you brought us?"

"Rations and equipment for the salvage party and an empty sled to take your trade goods to the Cloner Fair."

Ezra greeted Megan with a kiss and took a look in the sled. It carried a basket of dried meat, bladders of milk, tents, blankets, spare baskets for the salvage goods and more empty leather bags. Megan had separated the large pack-horse from the others and tied its reins to her own mare.

"Morning, Earthman," Solange called to him.

"Morning, Madam Cowgirl. Thanks for all this. It's wonderful!"

There was real affection in his voice and more than affection in the look they exchanged, holding it longer than necessary. Then Ezra asked:

"Also, thanks for lending us Megan. She's a good choice."

"No choice: the lucky slut pulled the longest straw."

There was little for the Herders to do in the operation, so only one Herder woman was needed to join the salvage party. Megan was the lithe and lusty gymnast who had showed Ezra she had more than horse-riding tricks up her sleeve. She smiled happily, pleased to be a lucky slut.

Under Calliope's orders, the Mariners began to load their trade goods and tents into the empty sled. This left the fifth horse free to whinny and fret. Solange grabbed hold of its reins, pulling it to order.

"This is the spare horse you wanted, Earthman," she said.

It was a sleek brown mare with a black mane, white fetlocks and a white diamond on its forehead. Slightly smaller than Solange's own high-spirited mare, it was just as bad-tempered, snorting and stamping out its excess energy.

Ezra instinctively kept his distance and the Mariner girls, who'd come to see the horses, asked Megan if they could stroke her more docile pony.

"Where are they?" Solange asked.

He looked around and saw Wildchild and Tamar standing modestly at the back of the crowd. He beckoned them forward.

"Come on you two," Solange said. "Why are you dawdling? Come and say hello to her."

Ezra hadn't told them this arrangement but let it be a surprise. When Wildchild and Tamar realised the horse was for them, they ran over quickly. Solange threw the reins over the horse's neck and stepped away.

Wildchild approached first. She stayed in the horse's vision the whole way, walking boldly up to stroke it gently on the nose. After a minute, she put her arms around the horse's neck and pressed her face to its skin. The mare stopped stamping, bent her neck around and nuzzled Wildchild's back.

Approval gained, Wildchild grabbed hold of its mane and lifted herself up to sit on its withers. After this impressive feat of strength, she got comfortable with her feet in the stirrups and grabbed the reins in one hand. Tamar was next. She said hello to the horse as Wildchild had done and, having gotten her neck licked, asked Ezra to help her. He understood: he cupped his hands and she stood in them and mounted with a nimble athleticism that Megan would be proud of. She sat on the blanket and held Wildchild around the waist.

With a whoop, Wildchild kicked the mare into motion and took a canter around the beach settlement.

It seemed a miracle to Ezra how quickly the girls had pacified the mad beast and made it obey them.

"I know what you're doing," he said to Solange.

"What am I doing?"

"You gave the girls a test, to see if they could tame a feisty horse."

Solange only smiled.

"Or are you even more cunning?" he wondered.

"I doubt it."

"I think you are," he persisted. "You gave them a wild horse to remind them what good horsewomen they were. Those girls are going to remember what it feels like to control a horse."

"Once a Herder, always a Herder, Ezra. Even you don't flinch when you go near the animals anymore."

It was true. Horses still worried him, and he didn't take any chances, but he was no longer petrified of them.

When the girls returned, they'd swapped places. Tamar, every inch a confident horsewoman, fully in control of her mount, trotted the mare smoothly into the camp and stopped by Ezra.

He smiled happily at Solange and said:

"Thank you for this. I owe you something big."

"It's not that big, Ezra, but you definitely owe it to me."

Megan and some of the nearby women giggled.

"I didn't mean that!" Ezra protested, but Tamar asked, "What's not that big?"

Wildchild, sitting behind, nudged her and whispered something.

"But I don't understand," Tamar protested. "How can I learn anything if I can't ask questions?"

Ezra gave Solange a "now see what you've done" look but she laughed it off. Creative vulgarity was her speciality. She looked around to check that everything had been loaded on the sled and, satisfied, hopped onto her horse.

"I'll see you in a month, Earthman. Save some of your energy for us Herders."

"Aren't you staying for breakfast?" Calliope asked.

"No thanks," Solange said. "You keep your fish for yourselves. I'll see you Mermaids at the Cloner Fair."

With that, the Mercurial chief of the Herder tribe kicked her horse into motion and towed away the laden pack-horse, leaving the Mariner camp as quickly as she'd arrived.

***

The rest of the morning was spent having a good breakfast, to which the sleepyheads, Kalyndra and Devon, arrived so late they avoided all the work of loading the sled and cooking. They meekly accepted the good-hearted jibes of the other women and even the sharp-tongued Devon didn't answer back. She merely stretched, yawned and breathed out a long contented sigh. Both the girls looked so serene and content that the laughing women gave up trying to tease them.

After breakfast, there were friendly goodbyes and good-luck wishes; then the salvage party began its trek to try to find the crash-landing site. They went in two groups: Ezra, Dagma, Kalyndra, Devon, Cressi and Thalassa paddled the raft; Megan, Wildchild, Carlin and Tamar went on horseback.

As the senior Mariner, Kalyndra was captain of the raft. She gathered a large group to help launch them into the estuary. Once launched, those on-board had to paddle hard to get the sluggish raft under way. With a steady rhythm established, however, the going got easier and the raft's momentum began to work in their favour.

Thirty or so minutes later, after a strong effort from the crew, they cleared the headland on the south side of the bay opposite the island and entered the open ocean. From now on, until the wind picked up in the evening, it would be a smooth journey on a calm sea.

Ezra knew that, somewhere on the long concave crescent of the shore, between the headland behind them and the place, seventy miles distant, where the southern mountains tumbled drunkenly into the ocean, there was a sunken space-ship with a treasure-trove of old-Earth technology and tools. Buoyed by that prospect, the crew of the raft paddled hard, keeping up their rhythm by chanting a Mariner work-song.

The riders were miles ahead by the time the raft cleared the headland. They had planned to walk, so they could keep an eye on the raft, but the paddlers had a long detour to begin with and Wildchild and Tamar wanted to gallop, so they set off hell for leather and were soon five miles across the plain and far out of sight of Megan and Carlin, who had to go slower because they were tied to the pack-horse and its sled.

Carlin had never been on a horse before, so Megan went carefully, not wanting to frighten the girl. It turned out that Carlin, despite her shyness and fragile elfin features, quickly got used to being on horseback and was keen to go fast. It disappointed her that Megan hadn't galloped after her friends.

Glad to be on horse-back again, Wildchild and Tamar felt like princesses of the plains. Tamar even stopped her chatter to enjoy the ride. Wildchild slowed the horse to a trot and the girls looked around. They didn't expect to recognise anything, neither shoreline nor the line of mountains behind the distant forest, but they both had a clear idea of what to look for.

They were interested in the small brooks and streams that flowed over the plain toward the sea because they crossed more than one on their journey from the crash-site to the Woodlander Camp.

When Megan and Carlin caught up with the girls, it was lunchtime and they stopped in a small lush valley to let the horses drink and graze. Wildchild stood on a hillock and looked out to the coast, hoping to see the raft, but it wasn't visible.

The rafters didn't stop for lunch but ate as they paddled, making steady progress all afternoon across a sparking ocean. There was no relief from a hot sun and the salty wind but what a hat and a splash of water might provide.

Five hard hours later, they'd done about fifteen miles and were exhausted. Now a strong cold wind was blowing, making the sea choppy. Waves splashed over the starboard out-rigger and soaked the knees of the paddlers. Progress was getting harder and though there was plenty of daylight left, it was surely time to head for the shore and beach the raft for the night.

Kalyndra stood to look around for a good place to stop. The shore here was a thin beach leading to sand-dunes that rose steeply to the grassy plain. At the top of one sand-dune, they saw a horse and rider again for the first time in hours. Wildchild had been watching the raft, waiting for them to see her. She waved and signalled them to go further along the shore.

Kalyndra waved back and gave the order to carry on. Wildchild trotted down to the beach and emerged from between the grass-tufted dunes. She led the rafters on to where the dunes were cut by a narrow river valley.

It was a good place to stop. They could refill their water-bladders and the deep trench cut through the sand by the river offered good mooring for the night without having to drag the raft up the beach.

The paddlers put in an final effort and guided the raft into the shelter, gaining a helpful push from the insistent waves at their back. Having wedged the raft between the muddy banks of the stream, the crew at last stood up and stretched, though Cressi collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily.

"I don't know why I volunteered for this punishment!" the playful girl said, not at all bitterly.

"I'm grateful you did," Ezra said, offering her a hand up.

"How grateful?" she asked.

"Not that grateful, Cressi," Devon said. "Take your turn."

Cressi stuck her tongue out at Devon. "Easy for you to say."

"Yes, isn't it?"

The rafters followed Wildchild over a dune to where the riders had set up three tents. It was a flat grassy meadow, fifty feet from the stream and sheltered from the wind and sea by a line of high dunes. A dinner of cold cuts of meat and cheese in dry soft flat-bread with milk to drink was prepared and gratefully eaten.

They all went early to bed in the roomy four-man tents. The Woodlanders (Dagma, Wildchild, Carlin and Tamar) shared one. Kalyndra, Devon and Ezra were officially bedmates and shared the second tent. Megan, Cressi and Thalassa shared the third. The lusty Cressi might have thought it was a waste of a night with Ezra just to sleep, but Kalyndra and Devon were too tired to do anything. They kissed goodnight and slept sandwiched together to keep warm.

Next morning, the whole groups was needed to push the raft out to sea again, then the rafters got on board and paddled away, leaving the riders to clear up the campsite and pack up the tents. After paddling a while, the rafters ate a breakfast of dried fish.

"I hope you like fish, Dagma," Devon said, not unkindly, "because it's your lunch as well."

"I love fish," she replied, with the diplomatic grace of a chief's daughter.

Taking their time clearing up the camp and meandering slowly on their way to get their bearings by the mountains and the brooks, the riders caught up with the rafters by mid-morning and were a few miles ahead again by lunchtime. Tamar went in front today and rode slowly, giving Wildchild the chance to stand on the back of the horse and get a better look around, occasionally holding Tamar's shoulders for balance.

Studying the line of trees in the distance, the slope of the beach and the small hills and valleys, she pointed out a stream to Tamar. They left Megan and Carlin to follow the line of the coast and, instead, steered the mare along the valley of the stream. They'd meandered a few miles and lost sight of the sea when Wildchild mumbled in disappointment. It wasn't the right valley. They carried on southward.

They were many miles inland when they reached a small ridge of land beside another narrow meandering stream. Tamar stopped in the middle of the stream and turned the horse around slowly. Babbling water on a leisurely path to the sea lapped over the horse's ankles. The water was clear and they could see a river-bed of pebbles.

Wildchild stood up again to look along the shallow valley toward the forest. She used one of her scarce store of words.

"Remember?" she said.

"Yes," Tamar said. "There was a kingfisher."

Heading more west than south from the stream toward the sea, they gradually sped up as they recognised more of the landscape, eventually galloping with excitement when they saw the coast a few miles away. There was a stretch of smooth yellow sand with a long gentle slope down from the grassland. The shore here made a small dip in an otherwise flat coastline.

This was the place! They were about thirty miles south of the Mariner Settlement, which was hidden behind the curving shore and tall headland. Forty miles further south were the Southern Mountains, abutting the sea as steep cliffs, invisible in the mid-day heat-haze.

The girls made their way back along the shore to intercept Megan and, they hoped, get a glimpse of the raft. Two miles along, they saw the riders and the pack-horse in the distance. They galloped up, excited to tell their news.

"Well done girls," Megan said. "Carlin saw the raft no less than an hour ago. Shall we ride on and set up camp?"

They rode on and found a good spot inland from the beach. There was no stream but lush grass further inland indicated a watering hole or natural spring. They detached the sled from the pack-horse and took the horses to drink at the spring, letting them graze a while.

Back at the campsite, they erected all three tents. Now they kept an anxious eye on the ocean, not wanting to let the raft pass them by mistake.

With the tents set up, Tamar volunteered to ride along the beach to look for the raft; so it was the blonde adolescent who had the joy, fifteen minutes later, of seeing the raft come into view among the waves, about a quarter of a mile from the shore, taking the shorter route across the crescent coast and avoiding the long-shore drift in the shallows. She stood on the back of her horse, waving and shouting.

At last, someone from the raft noticed her and Kalyndra ordered "Oars up!"

The paddles were stowed so they could hear what she said.

"We've found it," Tamar shouted at the top of her fourteen-year-old lungs. "Wildchild found it. It's two or three miles that way."

She pointed further down the beach. Kalyndra, standing up on the raft, waved to say she understood.

"You all heard that?" she checked. "All right, not far to go. Ready? Oars!"

The crew paddled with a mission while Tamar galloped back to the camp to give the good news. In an hour, the rafters were in sight of the girls waiting on the beach.

The landscape had changed in the last few miles, from sand-dunes and a sharply-rising short beach to a longer beach that rose gently to the plain, transforming gradually from golden sand, through sea-spurge and grassy tufts to a thick carpet of green. It seemed familiar to Ezra, though he couldn't trust his memory of a year ago, when he was injured and exhausted.

Kalyndra again ordered the crew to steer the raft toward the shore. They did so gleefully, however tired they were, and with a final lift from a wave, beached the raft on the sand. Everyone grabbed a rope or an outrigger and helped heave the raft further up the beach until it was clear of the water. They planted the oars in the sand between the logs, to secure it from the sea when the night rain would whip up the waves, then they all rested.

All except Ezra. Relieved and happy, he didn't expect such easy success but not wanted to be up and doing.

"Show me the spot," he asked Wildchild and Tamar.

They pointed to a place in the shallow sea about ten yards from the raft.

"We think that's where we found you," Tamar said.

"Girls, you're amazing!" he said, adding: "I know I say that a lot but it's true, especially today."

Ezra stripped to his shorts (rather threadbare and no longer completely respectable) and walked into the water. He swam out a hundred feet or so and then dived under, surfacing a good way south parallel to the shore. He dived and popped up again. A change of direction under water and he scouted north of the spot he believed the ship should be. Clearly he was having no success.

The Mariners had rested now and thought it was only fair that they should help him. There were a couple of hours of good daylight and the tents were already set up by the riders; so they stripped naked, asking the other women to take their clothes to the camp, and joined him.

"I can't see anything," Ezra told them somewhat disconsolately when they reached him.

"How deep is it?" asked Kalyndra.

"About ten feet. I should see her, unless she's sunk into the sea-floor and been covered by sand."

"Maybe you haven't swum out far enough," Devon suggested.

"Possibly, but I was injured and tired, only half-conscious. I can't have swum far."

"If you were half-conscious, you might have swum further than you realise," Thalassa suggested.

"True. Let's try further out."

They swam in a line underwater, five abreast, about ten feet apart, scanning the sea-bottom. When they'd covered a fifty-yard stretch parallel to the beach, they moved out further and repeated. On the fourth sweep, only Ezra's keenness to continue persuaded them not to give up for now. On the sixth sweep they were about eighty yards from the shore: much further than Ezra thought he'd swum from his ship. Here they found something.

Cressi saw something glistening in the murky depth. She swam down and began digging in the sandy sea-floor. The others noticed and helped her dig. It wasn't long before Ezra recognised the silver cowling and exhaust port of a rocket-motor. He had no doubt it was the starboard motor that had failed and caused him to crash. It must have broken off when the ship hit the sea.