When Thunder Rolls Ch. 02

"No." I said softly.

"Please leave Thaddeus." she said even more softly, climbing quickly to her feet.

"No." I said, grinning and folding my arms across my chest.

"Please?" she said, looking away from me.

"Make me." I said with a chuckle.

"Thaddeus! Damn you!"

"I was damned long before I met you Beth." I whispered to her as I leaned down and gently kissed her on the lips, feeling her body gradually relaxing as she began to return the kiss.

Groaning suddenly and placing both hands on my chest Beth pushed away from me. Shaking her head with a look of bemusement on her flushed face, she turned and started walking toward the house and had taken no more than three steps when I asked where she was going. Pausing to look over her shoulder at me she responded by telling me that she was going to the house.

"There will be ten to fifteen people here to finish the barn roof in about a half an hour. I need to start thinking about the noon meal, if I am to feed that many people."

"And us?" I asked her, holding my breath as I waited for her reply.

"You have your chance Thaddeus and on your head, be it. But understand this young man, you may have bitten off a bit more than you can chew with me."

"Then I reckon I'll just have to nibble on you a little bit at a time Beth." I replied with a rather imprudent grin on my face.

"If that be the case, you definitely have my permission." she said with a wink as she continued toward the house.

To be continued...

As always, I hope you enjoyed it.

YDW

Author's Note: I decided last month when I finalized the storyboard for this chapter that I really didn't care about the ratings or view count for it, because the readers who are reading it are enjoying it and voting for it at a higher rate than anything I have published to date. The first chapter of When Thunder Rolls is the least viewed story I have published on Literotica; it has just over 10,000 views. By contrast, Bandit has over 48,000 and was published just sixteen days earlier. Yet I have received more requests from readers for the continuation of When Thunder Rolls than I have with all my other works: combined.

For the record, the 9^th and 10^th Cavalry Regiments were formed in New Orleans in 1866 and white officers did command black troopers. The 9^th and 10^th Cavalry, along with the 24^th and 25^th Infantry Regiments would soon become known as Buffalo Soldiers to the Native American nations that they faced in battle. They were named because their hair reminded the Native Americans of the curly hide of the buffalo. They were as feared and respected on and off the field of battle as any white regiment that the US Army utilized in the American West. They were also the first all-black regiments formed in a peacetime Army. The 25^th Infantry was disbanded after WWII; the other three are still active in the US Army to this day.

On September 6, 2005, the last known original Buffalo Soldier passed away. Sergeant First Class Mark Matthews, US Army (Ret.) lived to be 111 years old. He was a veteran of the Pancho Villa Expedition into Mexico with General Black Jack Pershing and World Wars I and II. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 69, Site 4215, with his wife of 57 years, Genevieve.

The Civil War all but destroyed the economy of the southern states. The livestock population wouldn't recover from its prewar levels until the 1910 census. To either own horses like Thunder and Rose or land like Beth's would have made Thad and Beth royalty in the local area. To have both would have ensured that they survived in relative comfort.

It is also estimated that by the end of the war there were 70,000 widows in the former Confederate states alone. The 1870 census showed several thousand married couples in both southern and northern states where the wife was often older than her husband by more than a decade.

(And you all thought Cougars are a new fad?)