Blackfeather
20 Massacre
MY FEET WERE COLD, which didn’t seem strange; I was stark naked and drawing marks on my wall map with a Sharpie. Somehow, I’d filled in a line from Springfield, Missouri all the way to Omaha, Nebraska with marks and dates for campsites. I might not know where I was going, but I guess I knew where I’d been. I looked at my shoulder and could see the six indentations of the raven’s talons on the front of my shoulder. I could feel the two behind. At least he hadn’t broken the skin.
I was exhausted and flopped down on my bed. I knew Aubrey wouldn’t leave Kyle tonight. And I was too tired to do anything more if she did. I closed my eyes and slept.
Our junior year came to an end with the usual fanfare plus the delivery of our class rings. We wore our own rings for exactly one day. Aubrey came out to the ranch after the last day of school and dragged us to the barn. What she wanted, she said, couldn’t be done in either of our rooms. When we got to the barn, she sat both Kyle and me down on a hay bale and got down on her knees in front of us.
“This isn’t the same as a proposal, but it’s the only place I can be where I can see both of you. I want you both to be able to see me when I tell you I love you. I love you. And I want to go steady with you.” It was a bit of a surprise, but I figured that one day Aubrey would want to declare that she was with Kyle in a public way. Exchanging class rings was the usual way for high school seniors. I nudged Kyle.
“Give her your class ring, Kyle,” I said. “Unless you don’t want to go steady with her.” Kyle fumbled around with his ring.
“But what about…?”
“You, too, Ramie,” Aubrey broke in.
“Me too, what?” I asked.
“I want your class ring. I’m gonna wear them both.”
“You want to tell the world that?” I asked. Was I ready to tell the world? Well, hell yeah. I pulled my new ring off my finger.
“I’m such a slut,” Aubrey giggled. She dug in her pocket and then pulled her ring off her hand. She held out both hands to us. “I bought two class rings. If you didn’t want to go steady with me, I’d have thrown one away.”
We laughed as we organized who got what ring and how we were going to wear them. Aubrey’s fingers were a little smaller than mine and her ring wouldn’t go all the way on. Kyle barely got it over the tip of his pinky.
“We gotta get chains,” I said. “We can’t wear them like this.”
“I think we should all get chains. I can wear your ring, Ramie, but then no one would know it wasn’t my own. Kyle’s is too big for my thumb,” Aubrey laughed.
“We’ve got to go show Moms,” I said. “I can’t believe we’re going steady!”
“Can we make out first?” Aubrey asked. “I’m going steady with the two people I love most and neither one of them has kissed me yet.” We had a little tussle over who got to her first, but we both managed to get kissed. In the heat of the matter, I put my hand on her breast right over Kyle’s hand. We just giggled some more. Hell, she’s got two breasts. We’d alternated kissing Aubrey before, but it was the first time we’d really made out together. I didn’t care.
It would have been nice if we’d had more than the weekend to celebrate the end of school. The Moms weren’t impressed when they saw us all wearing each other’s rings.
“So, what’s new?” Mom Ash asked. “She’s been going steady with both of you for months. The question is whether she’s riding the herd with you next week.”
“Huh?” Kyle and I both asked. Intelligent. I knew we’d have to spend a couple weeks up there this summer but I didn’t realize it would be next week.
“There’s just too much pressure on the guys up there,” Mom Mar said. “Cole and Ashley are going up, too. You won’t all have to stay all summer, but we need all the help we can get.”
“But what about our horses?” I asked. Let’s get to the important part. We had six pregnant mares and four boarders now.
“Well, you’ve got two hired hands. How do you figure I planned to keep control of those two this summer? And you know they handle the horses as well as you do. Aubrey, you are welcome to be here as much this summer as you can be. I could use an extra hand, and we’ll take regular trips up the mountain on four-wheelers,” Mom Mar said.
“I feel like part of the family,” Aubrey grinned. I kissed her. As soon as I was done, Kyle laid one on her.
“I don’t think there’s any question about that,” Mom Ash laughed.
Between our chores and working with the kids on what needed to be done with the horses for the next few weeks, we didn’t have a whole lot of time to fool around that weekend. We just didn’t sleep much at night. And something else seemed to change. Until that weekend, we’d been pretty divided in our loving. Kissing, sure, but sex was private—except for the sounds coming through the thin wall.
We watched a late movie in the family room Saturday night. Everybody else had gone to bed but we just wanted to all cuddle up together. Aubrey was kind of smashed between Kyle and me on the sofa and we were all making out like crazy. If Kyle was kissing her, I was nibbling on her neck or ears, and I had one hand up under her shirt pinching her big nipples. Aubrey was breathing pretty hard when Kyle’s hand nudged mine aside on her tit. She had a hand between my legs and I was pretty sure she was stroking Kyle, too. I drifted down and she sucked in her tummy so my hand slid right down beneath her waistband and into her panties. She was so wet and slippery that I nearly came just from touching her. She moaned into Kyle’s mouth and I sprinkled kisses on the back of her neck as I found her little clit and started rubbing it.
Aubrey came. It would have been loud if Kyle hadn’t kept her mouth sealed to his.
“Oh god! I love going steady with you two!” she gasped. “Having both of you making love to me was just so damned hot! I thought I’d never stop coming.”
“You should take your boyfriend back to his room and fuck him silly,” I whispered in her ear. “Then come to my room and let me lick you to another one.”
“We could… We could all do it together,” she whispered.
I looked up at Kyle and could see my blush reflected in his face.
“I don’t know, Aubrey. That’s like… a little weird.”
“Like me going between the two of you isn’t?” she giggled.
“But I’m never in the room with my sister while you’re… you know.”
“I’m not quite ready to watch my brother banging you,” I laughed nervously. “Not tonight anyway. You two go ahead. If I’m asleep when you come in, Aubs, wake me up!”
It had always been exciting to think about what Kyle was doing to Aubrey in the next room. Sometimes, I’d tease her about it when she was lying with me and I was feeling around up inside her for that spot that always seemed to make her go crazy. I’d ask her if her boyfriend ever rubbed her there with his prick just to watch her butt bounce off the bed while she came. But I was willing to wait my turn. I didn’t need to actually watch it.
Monday morning, we headed out for the upper pasture where the hired hands already had our herd. There wasn’t much time to just sit and mope about Aubrey. We rode all day and after dinner, we slept under the stars. Kyle and I had tents. Pa and Ashley commandeered the little camp trailer we had on the upper range. Rafe, Jess, and the other two guys all had their own tents, too. And don’t think it was cruel for them and that Pa got the best. Our campsite was pretty well developed and the tents were all on platforms off the ground with cots in them and air mattresses. For me, I just liked the idea of sleeping under the stars as long as it didn’t rain.
Aubrey and Mom Mar and the kids all came up on the weekend and brought a picnic with them. Camp food wasn’t bad and we all took turns tending the camp stove, but Mom Mar’s fried chicken and the strawberry-rhubarb pie Aubrey made were like a little taste of heaven. We slipped off with Aubrey for a while before we had to mount up and circle the herd on the night shift. We kept our privates in our pants, but we all had a good come.
We’d been up there three weeks and Kyle and I were settling down for the night. Pa and Mom Ash were in the camper. Jess and Arlen were riding the first shift tonight and Kyle and I would be going out at midnight. Nighttime was usually pretty quiet. The cattle clustered together at night and mostly lay down so they weren’t attractive to wolves. A bobcat might try something, but since they are individual hunters and not pack animals, they tended to go for smaller game. Mostly, we rode around slowly so we didn’t disturb anything and listened for any restlessness that might indicate a predator was near.
We were on our horses when Jess and Arlen got to camp and they said it was all quiet, so we rode out to take up our stations. We were talking quietly when a black shadow came across us and that raven landed on my shoulder again. At least I had a shirt on.
“Uh-oh,” I whispered. “Kyle, I don’t know what I’ll be like when he takes me. You got my back?”
“I got you, Ramie,” he said. Old Blackfeather turned his head so his one good eye could see Kyle.
Awkawkawkawk. Knockknockknock.
Nothing happened. I was still sitting there looking out over the moonlit herd. Kyle was sitting beside me on Dado. The horse shifted a little.
“That was strange,” I said. The raven lifted up and flitted away in the darkness. “You ever see anything like that?”
“See what?” Kyle mumbled.
“Kyle?” He didn’t answer. His head kept turning like normal, listening to the night. Shit! Kyle is traveling. So that was what it looked like. I asked him a question or two and he mumbled a response. We continued our ride around the herd, watching and listening. I looked at him to make sure he was stable in the saddle. The lights were on, but nobody was home.
We got back to camp at four in the morning, and after we got our horses unsaddled we just lay down.
“You okay, Kyle?” I asked.
“Okay. Love you, sister,” he mumbled as he fell asleep.
“Love you, too, Kyle.” I sat on my bedroll. Rafe and Jim had ridden out as we arrived. Nobody else would stir for a couple of hours. If I was still awake, I figured I’d get coffee and bacon started.
I saw the shadow in the pre-dawn light and heard a faraway call of the raven. Kyle jerked in his sleep and started to whimper. I reached over and touched his shoulder.
“You okay, brother?” His eyes came open and he looked at me through his tears. He didn’t say anything but just started shaking his head back and forth. Then he started sobbing. I did the only thing I could and caught him up in a hug and just rocked him, sort of crooning softly like I’d comfort a baby. He was back but he wasn’t happy. God! I hope nothing happened to his host.
He finally cried himself to sleep and I kept holding him while I nodded off. That’s where Mom Ash found us.
“I don’t know, Pa,” I said. I switched to Ashley’s next shift so I could ride with him. “I know he went traveling last night. I saw him go and I saw him return. It’s weird. He kept functioning but it’s like he just wasn’t there.”
“I scared Mary Beth half to death once when I went while I was driving on the Interstate.”
“Oh shit.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, little girl. You kids seem to be doing things I never did. I recognized Joe Teini and Philemon as travelers when I looked in their eyes, but it wasn’t like I knew who they were. And you and Kyle can recognize each other. But you are all out of sync.”
“It’s hard, Pa. It’s like I already lived through things that he hasn’t gotten to yet. So, when he gets to it, the box is already open. But if he’s still behind me, I know his host is okay. I saw his host the last time I traveled. Only Kyle wasn’t in him at the time,” I said.
“All I can say is do your best to help each other. Once Laramie died, I never went back again, even in spirit. I don’t know what will happen to you.”
“Thanks for talking, Pa. I can’t imagine what it was like for you with no one to talk to.”
“It was a lot better when I finally let Mary Beth and Ashley in on it. You know you’re eventually going to have to tell Aubrey if you plan to stay together.”
“We just killed them,” Kyle whispered. We didn’t have to ride for another couple hours and this was the first time he’d been willing to talk. “The whole company was gathered together and Captain told us there was a raiding party lying in ambush. All our Indian scouts were locked up. He didn’t trust any of them in an actual encounter. We were given our orders to engage and destroy the enemy.” I reached over and took his hand and he squeezed it.
“I was so scared, Ramie. We’d never been in an actual fight. All I could think was that we had to kill them before they could kill us. We rode over the ridge at a full charge and into the camp. We could see them scrambling and fired our carbines first. Some fell. Then we pulled our revolvers. You can’t aim worth a damn when you are riding at a full charge. You just point in the direction of the most people and shoot from about twenty-five yards away. More fell.
“We were pulling our second guns and were right on top of them when I saw two children looking up at my gun. There was no ambush waiting for us. It was just women and children and old men. We were cutting them down. They weren’t even armed. They were standing around a flagpole with an American flag flying. They thought they had a treaty and we just killed them.”
Kyle was weeping. So was I. How could I ever look at that fucking Jason again?
“I pulled up and screamed to cease fire but it was too late. Those little kids ran past me and into the woods. You just don’t know what it’s like to be scared for your life and not understand what you’re doing. More of them escaped. About fifty fell. I tell you, if I get that damned Private Randolph in my sights, I’ll kill him,” he said with venom.
“He was just like all the others, right?” I asked. “Why him?”
“He’s a filthy man. He jumped off his horse and started slicing scalps off their heads. He didn’t even look to see if they were dead. He was howling and laughing and holding up fistfuls of hair and blood. That started the others.”
“Did you…?”
“No! I was sick. Jason was sick. Don’t think he was any worse than me. We were together on what we were doing and what we saw. I hope he deserts. I hope he takes John Hamm and that they go back to Omaha and we can find you and Miranda. I just wanted to kill myself.”
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