Yelloweye
6
Running with the Herd
The Family
A RANCH IS WORK. Work kept the Bell Family sane. Cole drove by way of the Forest Road to the upper pasture to meet with the Forest Service and the oil company. Ashley went to the Wyoming Cattlewomen’s Association meeting she presided over and encouraged the members to call their congressman and senators. Trail riders were checked in, their horses saddled, and sent out on the trail. Kyle and Ramie rounded up the eighty rescues and drove them to the corral with the assistance of their four hired hands. Two were paid by the rescue foundation and two by LK Stables. It took all six of them for a job Caitlin and Phile could have done by themselves. The vet checked the general health of each horse and put his white chalk checkmark on the left flank. Aubrey and Mary Beth cooked, cleaned, and tended the babies—the next generation born to the land.
“I love being a mommy and a ranch wife,” Aubrey sighed. “It would be nice, though, if one of my four lovers had a few minutes for a little afternoon nookie,” she giggled.
“Wait till winter,” Mary Beth laughed.
“Oh, yes. I better see the doc next week and get protected or you’ll have another grandchild next summer. I don’t mind walking bowlegged but I hate waddling. Teach me how you make that roast so tender, Mom Mar.”
“I’m so glad I got one daughter who loves the kitchen as much as I do,” Mary Beth answered. “Of course, between your tortillas and Ramie’s piecrust, I could get an inferiority complex.”
“If it weren’t for Miranda, Ramie wouldn’t know how to bake a pie,” Aubrey said. “She could burn water in a Teflon pan.” The two women worked companionably in the kitchen and taking care of the children all day.
“I can’t believe they’re telling us we have to move our cattle for them so they can get their survey crews in,” Cole complained as they sat for the late-night supper in the summer. “Let us pause to consider the land,” he intoned and the family bowed in silence for a moment before resuming. “It’s like they are afraid of a couple cows.” He ladled shredded roast beef, rice, and gravy onto his tortilla and rolled it up. Their dinners had become a fusion of Aubrey’s Mexican heritage and Mary Beth’s ranch cooking.
“Probably just scared of stepping in a cow pie with their fancy city shoes,” Kyle joked.
“At least Arlen was polite about it. He worked hard to negotiate where they would work and when the cattle needed to be moved,” Ashley said. “I don’t think the Forest Service is any happier about the companies prospecting for oil up there than we are.”
“Damned government. Sold off the mineral rights without ever thinking about how it would affect the natural course of things. The court wouldn’t even stop the pseudo-fracking of Yellowstone. I thought after Standing Rock, things would get better,” Cole said. They all bowed their heads for a moment to remember the lives lost defending the water.
Pseudo-fracking was a technique based on the old system of forcing sand and water deep into crevices of the earth’s mantle to allow oil to flow more freely. The new method focused on releasing the synthetic oils from shale, a reservoir of which had been discovered in the Yellowstone.
“So many protesters have converged on Yellowstone that they closed the gates,” Kyle said.
“That’s illegal, isn’t it?” Mary Beth asked. “Three U.S. Highways run through Yellowstone.”
“Not right now. All traffic has been rerouted to 90 and 15. We’re even seeing traffic increases down here on 80,” Cole said. “I wish we were still in the days where they wanted wolves in the mountains. Now they want oil corporations.”
“World’s gone to hell in a handbasket,” Ashley said.
First Live Report
“The government is a trustee of the land, not its owner,” the stately young woman said as she faced the camera. The Bell family sat in front of the television in the family room to watch the news. One of the boarders who had been out to ride mentioned that it appeared the Yellowstone standoff was taking a nasty turn, so they’d taken their dinner to the family room to watch. It was a rare occurrence in the Bell household.
The ribbon at the bottom of the screen identified the woman as ‘Earth Sister (Ho'enáséé'e) of the Northern Cheyenne.’ Her dress was not typically native. Her left shoulder was bare and the right shoulder of her blouse was pulled low. The reason was obvious. She had what appeared to be a full torso tattoo that ran down her arm as well. The cameraman was fascinated enough by the tattoo that he got several angles of it. The back of the wolf’s body ran out of sight from her left shoulder blade. The wolf’s face looked out from her collar bone. Her left arm was a full sleeve of the wolf’s shoulder and foreleg all the way to the claws on her left hand. From beneath the blouse on her right, a second wolf peeked out.
The family sat riveted to the television.
“That’s not… It couldn’t be Caitlin, could it?” Ramie asked. The woman on television had black hair and Ramie was certain she was smaller busted than her sister. But most striking was that beneath the wolf’s snarling mouth was the face of a woman.
“Not unless her nineteenth century body was transferred to this time,” Ashley said. “That’s not my daughter. That’s her spokeswoman.”
“This protest village that sprang up over the winter,” reporter Sarah d’Angelo interrupted the speaker. “Can you tell us how what is now known as Yellowstone Grizzly Village came to be?” Earth Sister ignored her.
“Grandmother Earth will not allow the destruction of her body to continue. The People stand in witness,” she declared, sweeping her hand toward the line of natives standing on the village earthworks behind her. There was a flicker over the faces and the cameraman jerked back to the ranks of protesters. But there were only people there. “Mother will bring her children to totally destroy what you have built. And to you who stand with the corporations raping mother earth, flee. Flee before it is too late and you are trampled beneath the hooves of her army.”
All through the confrontation at Standing Rock years before, no aggressive words had been spoken by the water protectors. As a result, they were sprayed with water cannons in freezing weather, shot with rubber bullets, and devastated by shock grenades. They stood fast until the bulldozers moved forward and proceeded to simply bury those who held the line. No one thought the Native Americans would return to protest yet another destruction of habitat and resources, but during the late winter, the village had materialized in Yellowstone. The official word was that they had trekked in from the North unobserved. No one could figure out how they moved with such speed and stealth. The interview proceeded with a final pan across the protesters to Earth Sister and the prairie beyond her. Bison browsed, but as the camera held on her, the bison began to group together and face the construction site.
Drums began a low rumble in the protest village. As they took on a distinct rhythm that echoed through the basin, more bison came over the rise beyond to join those already in the meadow.
“Are you threatening the workers on the jobsite?” asked the newscaster.
“Look beyond me,” said Earth Sister. “Ésevone, the buffalo are the first to arrive. This is their home. It is not we feeble two-legged people who come to oppose you, but the legions of Mother Earth. Next will come mo'éhe, the elk. Ho'néené'šeohtsévá'e and Ho'néemé'eōhtse, the White Wolf Twins, will come to lead them. But every one of the old ones will join them. Owl, Raven, and Hawk will lead the feathered. But even those who are too small to be seen will infect you. They will enter you through the water. They will eat you from the inside. Your walls will be trampled to dust and the mountain lions will feast on the bones. The rats will chew through your power lines while goats consume your food. No trace of this abomination will remain.” Below her the buffalo began to move forward at a measured pace, not stampeding, but moving like they were intelligent beings on a mission, then stopping to face the drilling site. “Flee,” Earth sister said. “It is your only hope.”
The Family
“She called them by name. The Wolf Twins,” Aubrey said into the silence after the news had changed to the latest baseball scores.
“The White Wolf Twins. That has to refer to now-time Caitlin and Phile,” Ramie said.
“There’s only one person that could be.”
“Call Merv Longsteer,” Mary Beth said.
“Mom Mar, Merv is gone,” Ramie said. “He left soon after Phile and Caitlin disappeared. I went down to see him and ask him what he knew. You know Merv. He said we had all the answers in our hands. Then he said that his time was near and he was going to the reservation to join his ancestors.”
“And I’ll bet he took his granddaughter Mandy Stevens with him,” Ashley said. “That has to be her. Who else would tattoo herself with the images of our children in their wolf robes? You could almost see them moving. We need to be up there, Cole.”
“They wouldn’t let us close,” Kyle said. “They blamed the problems at Standing Rock on the outsiders. No one who doesn’t live there is allowed west of Cody.”
“I’ll read tonight,” Mary Beth said. “I feel that reading will lend my strength to Caitlin and Phile. Be safe, my babies.”
Caitlin: The Belly of the Wolf
We weren’t finished with the wolves. I still hated them, but somehow, I was now one of them. This massive silver ancestor that we could only call by the name he gave us: Manėstóhó'néhe, Creator Wolf, demanded our obedience, our submission, just as he did that of his pack. We lay down on our bellies with our wolf robes covering us so that we must have looked almost like the wolves in front of us. And he placed a paw on our necks.
I am your nésemoo'o, your spirit guide. I will teach you the way of the wolf and you will lead my pack to the great battle.
We ran with the pack that day. We chased down three deer and when Manėstóhó'néhe had his fill, we tore into the kill and ate with our pack. Of course, we did not have the tearing canine teeth of the wolves, but we had the sharpened iron horseshoe axes that we hacked at the carcass with and tore the raw meat. We journeyed in the belly of the wolf for many miles that day. The wolf knows its pack. The wolf knows its hunger. The wolf knows its territory. This territory—this land, was ours. Communicating with the wolves had to be done on the level of base desires.
We slept with the pack. Our dreams were wolf dreams. The hunt. The kill. The gorge.
Our nésemoo'o led us back to our snow cave in the morning after all the wolves had stuck their noses up our butts. Oddly, when I sniffed at the alpha female, I could tell her scent from the younger females. The males had a stronger scent than the females. But none of us were in season, so the males ignored us.
You, like me, dwell in many ages. We will find each other many times. You will guard my territory and keep it against all others. I will help you call the wolves when it is time to hunt.
With Creator Wolf’s words ringing in our heads, we packed our limited gear—our buffalo robes and bows. We returned to the valley and called our horses. We needed to follow the buffalo south.
When Ramie and Kyle came down from the mountain, they said the wolf problem was solved. But they didn’t bring any pelts or teeth. Ramie wouldn’t say they were dead. All she would say was that we wouldn’t have any more problems with wolves.
I didn’t trust her.
Or maybe I didn’t trust myself. Even having traveled in the belly of the wolf, even having Manėstóhó'néhe as my spirit guide, I hated the wolves.
Of course, we called Mandy. She came out to visit her horse the day before school started. It was a quiet day after the excitement of the hunt. We talked in the stable as she brushed Wildfire and we rubbed down Bells and Bows and the one remaining colt. I cried over the horses.
“Is there somewhere we can have a powwow?” Mandy asked. “A talk like we conference.” I looked at Phile. He was wide-eyed.
When Ramie and Kyle moved into the other side of the bunkhouse with Aubrey, Moms and Pa finally let us move out to the two singles they used to have. First thing Phile did when we were home alone was cut a door between the two apartments. Mom Ash came out to visit me when we were all moved in and Phile was painting the trim. She shook her head.
“We need to have you checked at the doctor to be sure your birth control is up to date,” she said. “I don’t want you pregnant while you are in high school. I figure it will come soon enough as it is.”
“Mom, I wouldn’t be much of a woman if I couldn’t control when I got pregnant,” I laughed. I’d learned all about that from the village wise woman when I became a woman in before-time. It had been a busy time and we’d had to travel to Oxėse and it gave the wise woman and several other older women a chance to give me the whole instruction on being a woman. It wasn’t hard if you paid attention to your body. Mom Ash just shook her head.
I looked at Mandy and just knew what Phile was thinking.
“Scout and make sure the way is clear,” I said. Phile took off and I led Mandy as he signaled it was clear. She was awestruck when she saw our apartment. Not that there was much to it. Two rooms with a big bed in each, thanks to Kyle and Ramie sharing Aubrey as a lover. A chair and bathroom and mini-fridge. I offered Mandy a water and turned to see her stripping. Phile wasn’t much behind her. Mandy had her shirt and bra off before I could get my shirt unbuttoned. She hesitated as she looked at the bed and Phile unbuckling his belt.
“We’re inside and going to meet on the bed, right?” she asked. I nodded. She unfastened her jeans and shoved them, panties and all, down to her ankles. She had to sit on the bed to pull them off her feet. “I’ve never been naked with anyone,” she said. “Except… Well, when you told me you were naked on your bed when we conferenced, I started getting naked, too. Except we never pointed the cameras down to see that,” she giggled. “Now. Oh fuck! Here I am.”
“And here we both are,” I said as I pulled my socks off. My room was warmest. Ramie told me she always was too hot in the room but Kyle was always too cold in his. With the door open between the two, it mostly balanced out. I was certain that, based on my own reaction, Mandy’s hard nipples weren’t the result of a cold draft.
We all got on the bed and poor Phile was the most embarrassed because his arousal was so obvious. I was sure both Mandy and I were wet, but you couldn’t see that unless you were doing a personal investigation. Nonetheless, Mandy got us focused on business. We told her all about our wolf hunt in before-time and about Creator Wolf. I just couldn’t let go, though. Those damned wolves killed Bells’ foal. My baby. I still wanted to kill them all.
“You’ve got white-itis,” Mandy said. I looked at her like she’d just told me I was an alien. Again. “Whites believe that what happens to them is unique. It’s more important than it is for anyone else.”
“Wait. You’re white,” Phile said.
“I’m less white than you are,” Mandy said. “I just never paid any attention to my heritage. Once I started hanging around with you two, Grandfather Longsteer started teaching me about my heritage. I’m a quarter Cheyenne, just based on his blood. But his wife was half Arapaho. It was my mother—three-quarters Indian—who married a white cowboy. I figured out the percentages and I think that makes me three-eighths Native American. Next summer, I’m going up to Montana to the reservation to study my cultural heritage.”
“Wow! We’re only like a sixty-fourth or a hundred and twenty-eighth, or something. Not enough to be considered of the blood,” Phile said. “It’s in before-time that we are full Cheyenne. Now what about white-itis?”
“We are the People. Tsétsėhéstȧhese, what we call ourselves, just means people. But we also think of the whites as people and the blacks as people, they’re just people who are other than us. When you think about before-time, I’ll bet that you even think of the elk and bison as people. I’m absolutely sure you think of your horses as people. But whites… They think they are the only people. Some of them don’t even include all whites. It’s only the ones who are in their church or in their social club that are really people,” Mandy said. I had to agree with that. I knew good people and bad people, but they were all people.
“So, if a white baby gets killed, that’s a tragedy. Call out the police and the National Guard and hunt down the murderer,” Mandy continued. “But if a black baby gets killed, well it’s a shame really, but what do you expect?”
“What’s that got to do with this?”
“When you kill a deer for food, you honor it. You thank it for its sacrifice that you can live. You praise its bravery. Because the deer is people. What you forget is that every one of the people of every species that die to feed you is somebody’s baby. But you’ve got white-itis. It’s a shame, but what do you expect?”
“I understand,” Phile said. “But it’s part of the cycle of life. There’s predators and prey. It takes us all.”
“But in the case of one little foal, a beautiful little horse that you gave birth to, she has more value than the people who needed food and killed her. White-itis.”
I looked at Mandy and burst into tears. She and Phile both moved at the same time to wrap me in their arms as I wept for my baby and tried… I really tried to forgive the wolf.
“You hunted with the wolves. You killed. You ate. You slept with the pups in their den. You were there,” Mandy said. “You know that even if you don’t understand their hearts, they are people. What’s more, you are wolves.”
We fell back on the bed with Mandy and Phile both sort of on top of me. It wasn’t uncomfortable. I kind of liked their weight pressing into me. I kissed one, then the other. Then they kissed each other. I felt the roundness of Mandy’s ass in my hand and I liked it. I felt her caress my breast and I liked that, too. I felt her hand join mine to stroke Phile. Mandy rolled off the bed.
“I don’t think we’re ready to do everything yet,” she said. She looked kind of longingly at Phile’s erect cock. Then I realized she was looking between my open legs, too.
“Yelloweye says our season hasn’t come,” Phile said. “I mean… Mandy, Caitlin and I are mates. We’re going to be together all our lives. We’re going to make love and probably have babies one day. But we haven’t done anything yet and we both really like you. You are our healer. And you’re pretty. And…” he looked at me and I nodded.
“Tell her,” I whispered in before-time.
“And we love you,” he finished. Mandy came back and gave us a hug, then started putting on her jeans.
“In old times, it was common for braves to have more than one wife,” she whispered.
Phile: Calling the Herd
After our adventure with the wolves, Wolf Riding Woman and Wolf Rising followed the buffalo as they made their way south across the Great Plains. I’ve heard there are about a million bison scattered across the North American Continent in now-time. There was no way we could count what we saw. There were bison as far as the eye could see across the plains.
Like cattle, bison don’t clump together like you see on a TV western. They come together for protection and migration, but they scatter for grazing. If they were all close together, there wouldn’t be enough food nearby to eat. The prairie grasses grew as tall as the buffalo, so unless we found a rise to look down on them, it was almost impossible to see individuals. We just saw brown shadows as the grass moved.
Mandy continued to track our movements using her astronomy and geological software. She was very smart and we learned from three sources—the animals of before-time, the school, and Mandy. We managed to get together almost every day at school. Other kids just referred to us as the weird ones who ate lunch together. We got to hang around after school together on days that Ramie and Kyle had late classes. That made it possible to go to Merv Longsteer’s place, though we avoided the days that Ramie was there. Merv taught us the lore of the people. Mandy was soaking that up like a sponge. Cait and I spoke to animals. Mandy could speak to people.
She still referred to us as her alien lovers, and we were getting a lot closer to being lovers. Whenever we could find a place to be alone, we’d kiss and pet. We slipped her into the bunkhouse on a couple of her visits to see her horse. We got naked under the pretense that we were having a meeting and then we’d just make out. The first time Mandy made me come was a shock to all of us, but she was lost in the orgasm Cait was fingering her to. We all knew we were coming into our season.
Cait and I missed Mandy when we went to bed at night and we did a lot more kissing and petting, moving together and getting each other off at night.
In Oxėse, we were learning more about the herd mind. When we entered the mind of any of the big beasts, it was like we entered them all. Ten million minds with one thought—to graze. Even when a big bull mated with a cow, the others rubbed against each other.
It was different with the horses. Every horse is an individual. They have complex communication and social organization. Out here on the plains, where other horses were available, our two mares acted differently than when we had been in the mountains or isolated. When they came into estrus, we tried to calm them down, but ended up linked to them when the herd stallion covered them.
We ended up naked on a buffalo robe in our tent, rolling and pawing at each other. If I had been riding in the stallion instead of the mare, we would probably have had sex. But I felt the opening and receptivity of the mare, lying there with Cait longing to be filled, even though I didn’t have a vagina to fill. And ‘longing’ is an inadequate word. It was all-consuming, like I would die if a stallion didn’t mount me. And when he mounted our mare and we felt his shaft entering it was like the world’s purpose had been fulfilled. I don’t think a human orgasm is even comparable to what the mare felt when she was covered.
It would be soon. We knew it would be soon.
In spring, the scent of new grass turned the herd of bison northward. It was a new experience for us. Always in our mind-riding with animals, we initiated contact and asked to talk or to ride with them. When the herd turned, we felt the pull from them. We found our minds to be part of the full herd, bent on spring grasses. We ran among the animals as they picked up speed. Soon the sound of hooves was like thunder. When these big animals started moving, we could easily be trampled.
Yelloweye swooped in over the top of us with a sharp command.
Ride!
The picture he gave us was not of melding minds, but of riding on top of the buffalo. Cait and I both grabbed the wooly shoulder of a passing bull and swung ourselves up on his back. Our consciousness sank further into his with the contact and we were caught in the thrill of migration. It was as intense as the sexual thrill of the mustangs.
We rode for three days before the animals slowed and began to spread out again around the lush prairies of Kansas. We slipped from the big bull giving him our thanks as he found a dusty spot and rolled.
We moved through the herd toward the mountains and when there were only scattered animals around us, our horses rejoined us. We went into the hills and set up a camp near the hot spring above our village. We would stay there for the summer while we replenished our supplies that had been scattered across the plains. It’s funny how this little bit of land where our family homestead is called to us, even in Oxėse.
Caitlin: Riding a Woman
Mandy spent the night with us the last weekend of April. It wasn’t hard to arrange. She’d been at the ranch all day with a dozen other riders who wanted to take advantage of the open trails—even though there was still some snow on the ground. We’d been busy with all the riders and we received three mares that day for breeding to the big Standardbred, Harley. Ramie and Kyle were riding fences because they’d just brought in some more rescues.
When Mandy came in from her ride, she suggested we have a burger at the Bear Claw. It didn’t take much to convince Moms that Phile and I wanted to go without ever mentioning that Mandy would be there. I think they were concerned that all we ever did was work on the ranch and go to school. They were pleased that we wanted to go out somewhere, even if it was just the two of us and only a mile away.
We took a four-wheeler and buzzed up to the restaurant. We met out back for some serious kissing before we went in. Rachel, the waitress, had worked at the Bear Claw for as long as we’d been alive. She smiled and seated us well away from the door to the bar.
“A new generation of chili burger connoisseurs,” she laughed. She brought us Cokes and a platter of fries long before the burgers were ready. “Now you three listen up to the rules. Don’t try to sneak into the bar or get anyone to bring you a drink. Frank will ban you from ever coming in again. You are just three high school friends on a date. I put you back here so no one would pay attention to who was sitting by whom. Don’t get loud and don’t get demonstrative. And if your girlfriend needs to leave her car here overnight, pull it around next to my white truck out back. It’ll be safe enough. Your business is your business as long as you don’t make it everybody else’s. You understand what I’m saying?”
We looked at her with our mouths hanging open and just nodded.
“What was that about?” Mandy whispered. We sandwiched her between us in the booth.
“I guess we’re kind of a weird family,” I said. “But I don’t think we’re the only ones. Grandma Bell lives with Gram and Grandpa Alexander. They’re all retired and go to Arizona in the winter, but they’re very close. Pa and Mom Ash are married, but Mom Mar wears a wedding ring, too. You might not know our family as well as some folks. Like Rachel said, it’s our business. But you are our girlfriend. You should know these things. Mom Mar and Pa are cousins.”
“So that’s how you keep your secret powers in the family,” Mandy said. We laughed. Quietly.
“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” Phile said. “Our brother and sister, Ramie and Kyle, share a girlfriend, Aubrey.”
“Like you two share me?” Mandy asked.
“No. Ramie and Kyle are stupid. They’re afraid that if they were boyfriend and girlfriend, they’d end up with two-headed babies. They both love Aubrey, though. And Aubrey’s been around for a couple years now, so I think it’s gonna stick.”
“Why isn’t that like us?” Mandy asked. She cast her eyes down and Phile and I held a hurried conversation in Oxėse before I answered her.
“Honey,” I said, “Phile and I both love you. Not only that, you’ve been our only friend for the past four years. I think, our only friend ever.”
“I love both of you, too,” Mandy said. There was a sparkle in her eye.
“The difference is that Phile and I love each other, too. Mandy, honey, if you make love to us, you have to know that we’re going to be making love to each other, too. In now-time and before-time. Phile is my mate. I plan to have his baby someday. Nothing would make me happier than to raise him with your baby. So, these are just some of the things you need to know about our family before you take any last steps.”
“Have you already made love to each other?” she asked.
“We haven’t done anything more with each other than we have with you,” Phile said. “We just have the opportunity to do it more often.”
We ate our burgers and conversation lightened up. We talked about how we were ever going to get through the last month of school. Mandy was already sixteen, but we were still two months from our birthdays. She was planning to leave right after school got out to go study with the old women and medicine men on the Northern Cheyenne reservation at Lame Deer, Montana.
“I’d like to have a conference,” Mandy said. We looked at her. We’d been talking non-stop for two hours. “In your ‘conference room’ at the ranch,” she concluded. Oh! The last couple conferences we’d managed on my bed hadn’t involved much talking. They had involved a lot of bare skin touching each other. We nodded. “All night,” she added. We grinned, paid the bill, and left. Mandy moved her car around back next to Rachel’s truck and climbed into the four-wheeler. Phile swung around back of the bunkhouse to let Mandy and me off at our door and then went to park the four-wheeler and let the parents know we were back and going to our rooms.
Mandy and I went into my room while we waited for Phile to park the four-wheeler. Mandy looked at the map on my wall. Ramie had started the map. She and Kyle were always studying history and once told me that it was filled with information about where our ancestors had come from. As soon as I moved into the room, I began filling in our own movements as best as I could tell where things happened. We didn’t have a good feeling for dates, so I wasn’t sure how our marks related to theirs. I did recognize one place as a starting point. Ramie had found the massacre that took our mother and pinpointed it on the map. From there, we plotted the various journeys.
“I think this is as far south as you journeyed,” she said. “The Red River of the South divides Oklahoma from Texas. It matches the description of where you said the buffalo went to drink and some crossed farther south.”
“We were farther north when the herd turned and headed toward the spring grasses,” I said. “We were here in northern Nebraska when they bedded down and we walked west.”
“Yes. And you ended up here again. Have you ever noticed, Caitlin, how you are always drawn back here? I believe you are tied to the land, my alien lover,” she said turning and taking me in her arms.
“Are we going to make love tonight, fair one?” I asked. I had nothing against the idea. I was ready. Ready for her and ready for Phile. He joined our embrace, kissing each of us softly.
“Yes. No. Not exactly,” she said. “I’m as wet as you are just thinking about it. Phile is hard and I… I want to take him in my mouth. With you. I want to feel his… and your tongue between my legs. I want to taste you and share your nectar on his tongue. But there is something more that I want, my lovers. I want you to ride me.”
“Um… That sounds like you want us to make love,” Phile said. I could feel his hardness pressed against my side and I was ready. We started undressing each other, taking turns removing an article of clothing from one of the others. That had intent that we’d never experienced before. We’d been naked together several times, but we always removed our own clothing. Somehow, removing the others’ clothing for them made it different.
“Yes. Someday I want you to ride me like that,” Mandy said. “But we have to deal with something else.”
“Mmm. Even Wolf Riding Woman is wet and Wolf Rising is sniffing around,” I said. I could feel the hands of my lovers on both my bodies.
“That’s what we need to include. When we make love in now-time, you’ll experience it in before-time as well. I want to, too.”
“I don’t think we can take you there,” I said.
“How many animals have you ridden the mind of?” she asked. Wow! I had to think about that one.
“Um… Elk, deer, goats, buffalo,” Phile said.
“Wolves, bears, mountain lions, coyotes, foxes,” I continued. Riding a mountain lion had been an unbelievable experience. When we asked to ride along, it was like the lion said, ‘Yeah. Whatever,’ and ignored us.
“Horses, antelope, marmots, squirrels, rabbits,” Phile continued.
“Hawks, owls, ravens, eagles, sparrows,” I concluded. I was sure there were more. We hadn’t been successful with reptiles. We’d tried snakes and lizards, but it was like there was nothing there.
“Human?” Mandy asked.
“We can’t even communicate mentally with each other unless we’re both riding the same animal,” Phile said. “It looks like we do because we can talk to each other in before-time and answer in now-time without talking it over, but that’s different. We are always completely aware of both times.”
“Like right now, we are talking over the same ideas in before-time while we sit in our tent naked, touching and kissing,” I said.
“But other people?”
“Um… Never really tried, I guess,” Phile said. “People have big barriers around their heads. I think language does it. Words separate our thoughts from reality.”
“I’m dropping all barriers,” Mandy said. “I’m inviting you into my mind. Both of you. Like you rode the herd of buffalo. I’m inviting you in.” She leaned forward to kiss us and I could feel her invitation. She was inviting us to touch her as she touched us. And what I never considered before was that Wolf Riding Woman and Wolf Rising were touching her through us.
You’re so beautiful, Mandy. I was startled to hear what I knew was Phile’s voice, yet there was no sound in my ear as we continued to kiss.
I love you both in both your incarnations. Mandy’s eyes were closed and her lips were sealed against mine. It wasn’t words I heard. I could feel her love deep in my heart—in both my hearts. Wolf Riding Woman and Wolf Rising were weeping. I felt my tears in now-time splash against Mandy’s cheek. I just wanted to flood her with my love.
And joined with my love as Caitlin was my love as Wolf Riding Woman and Phile’s love and Wolf Rising’s love. There has never been anything more intimate. We marveled at tastes, touches, sounds of each other across the time, joined all together in Mandy’s mind. We kissed and licked and sucked each other, experiencing every thought, emotion, and discovery in each of our minds and in each of our bodies. The mental feedback of our orgasms tripled in intensity.
All five of us passed out and slept until morning.
The Family
“Why did we never know or meet this Mandy girl?” Ashley demanded. “They started sneaking her into their room six years ago? Seven? How could we have never seen her?”
“I met her a few times,” Ramie said. Kyle nodded his head. “She was a boarder. In fact, she was one of our first boarders. About three years ago—a year after the kids graduated from high school—she took her horse and left. Said she was moving to Montana.”
“Our poor babies,” Mary Beth cried. “I can’t bear the thought that the story will be of their broken hearts.”
“I broke all our hearts,” Aubrey said. “That first night we were all together and I found out my lovers were time travelers and hadn’t told me.” She turned to growl a little at the two she was cuddled with. “They were the most miserable months of my life.”
“It gave Kyle a chance to court me,” Ramie said. “But it was a miserable time for us, too.”
“We got the barn painted,” Kyle laughed. Both women poked him.
“And the reunion brought us back here with you,” Miranda said through Ramie. “If you hadn’t all three got together, we’d still be homeless spirits.”
“Well, that’s one mistake it doesn’t look like the younger kids made,” Cole said. “It doesn’t sound like Mandy had any trouble believing they were living in two timelines, and it sounds like she helped them. I’m sorry they couldn’t trust us with what was going on in their lives, but I’m glad they could talk to her.”
The family got up and went off to their beds after closing the box and leaving it on the mantel.
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