On the Banks of the Bighorn Part Nineteen – by Tracker

Moving towards Nightfall.

 

From Viki’s Narrative

 

Ever since Mac the bartender released me from my collar in the alcove, I have been inundated by messages from my Master’s spy and contact on the Lazy F.  All the messages are coded and are to be sent on to his mysterious second contact.  There are no messages to be sent to his employers, my masters, in the Montreal Family. I keep the communicator hidden in my apron when I am serving drinks on the floor. It keeps buzzing, but no messages for Montreal, and lots of messages for the other people to whom he apparently reports.  This is not why my Masters supplied him with Kurii comms technology!  I am off duty here in ten minutes and will have to report to my Masters.  I will be whipped for doing so.  I was ordered by the Family to obey him in every particular, and the agent strictly ordered me to pass on his third party messages by the Narrow Beam Reporter.  I was also strictly ordered to not report this messages to Montreal.  I will be disobeying a direct order and must be punished.  I know that.  If the agent has betrayed my Masters though, and I don’t report that, I will also be punished or even destroyed. I am a slave.  My loyalty must be first to my Master, and then to the orders of another Free Man. I must act and do what is right, because I shall be punished in any case.

 

From Fliss’s narrative.

 

I am cold and hungry.  Not an unusual fate for a slave, it is true.  Cold and hungry, out on the plains, hunted by the Free Soil Survivalists and not a person anywhere in sight.  Last night’s attack was scary, and the forces of the Lazy F were taken by surprise. Many girls were driven from the ranch by the attackers before the Lazy F men rallied.  They did not bind us very well, as obviously they are not as used to capturing women as the Fricks and their crews who are very experienced at binding us Kajirae.  When a Frick binds a girl, she knows she is bound.

 

Many of us got away.  I managed to free myself at about the same time as Kimmy from the Ranch House did.  We untied the other girls and scattered out onto the plain. I do not think we were wrong to escape, because these men were not our real masters. If we don’t get back to the ranch quickly enough though, we may be whipped as escapees, even if it wasn’t our fault.  Masters can be so cruel and demanding to a girl.

 

I must get back to the ranch!  I have information that is very important, almost as important as not been given a whipping.  There is a spy on the ranch!  I heard two of the enemy mention it when I was lying tied face down in the long grass.  I was blindfolded and gagged, but that did not affect my ears!

The spy has been sending them coded messages back to their base north of the ranch somewhere, and then they use radios to bypass the ranch patrols. With the information they set ambushes and plan attacks.  The attack last night was possible because the spy put two sentries ‘out of commission’. I fear that means killed.

 

I understand the importance of intelligence and communications.  I was not always a slave. Before I was collared, I worked in communications in the Navy with my best friend Teresa. We were given Final Separation Leave at the end of our enlistment, but I wonder if anyone wondered why we didn’t return to pick up stuff?  

 

If I had stayed in the Navy, Teresa and I would not have been captured while camping on the wrong side of the Bighorn.  I would have a different life: perhaps a discontented housewife, or stressed single mom.  A slave has a better life, I think, after the original shock anyway. The branding is not fun, nor the training.  I was so glad to come back to the ranch rather than remaining a slave to that Chelsea Frick. Being a woman’s slave is no fun. Fleur was so much happier serving Master Willard Frick than his daughter Chelsea, who was a typical Free Woman. Worse than a typical Free Woman.  A typical Free Woman will just switch you for your ‘slave belly’ and ‘heat’ and sexual urges and be done with it.  Chelsea Frick was worse. She despised us for our slavery and subjugation, while asking us questions about our service. 

 

“How did it feel to submit?”

 

“What was it like to be helplessly penetrated?”

 

“What was it like to be always available and shamelessly exposed?”

 

Of course one cannot suggest that a Free Woman has slave urges, or that she try out a collar for herself.  That would earn a whipping - one by a man - not just a switching.  You really cannot make those suggestions about a member of the Old Families. But I was independent when I was in the Navy, and now I just want to get back to my masters, so I suppose any woman can be tamed by a collar.  I must avoid the enemies of my masters.

 

Time to remember the survival training I had in the Navy. I can out-survive these survivalists for sure.

 

From the Narrative of the slave Inge.

 

They came for us just after we had been given our evening slop. I am repulsed by the idea of being fed animal feed out of a trough.  My face and hair are full of the stuff.  Again, Sarah and I and the University women ate first because the survivalists and the wyld women were rowing again.  There are only two of the wyld wymen, but they are fiercer than the five survivalists.  I don’t like them and am pleased the masters have named them Dirt. It hurts that I refer to these people as masters, but that is what the treatment is designed to do.

 

I try to give Sarah what support I can.  I want to be a good friend of course, but I need her support to maintain some sort of status in this group.  I need to eat first to keep up my strength to attempt an escape. Within our larger alliance with the University women, I think I can detach Reading, as the girls  from the two American elite universities look down on her a bit.  Harvard and Stanford look down on Sarah and me more of course, but if I can build some European solidarity with Reading against the Americans, I can end up leading a group against the Wylds and the Survivialists.

 

A Granny with a switch, accompanied by a man with a rifle, and two boys, came to move us. Our group had fed adequately, while the dirts and the wylds had wasted half their food in disputes. The Granny was that mean and wretched Granny Mowbray, with a switch in one hand, and the other supported by a starched white linen sling. Her face was lined with pain, but she allowed no other concession to whatever had hurt her.  She was as stiff-backed  as when I met her in the assessment hut.

 

“We are moving you to a cell under the house.  We need the corrals for the horses, now that the barn has been burned down.”  It was the man with the rifle who spoke. He looked to the Granny, but she said nothing.

 

The boys ran among us, putting us in order of height, one behind the other, tallest to shortest.  With the height from our Scandinavian early nutrition and ancestry, Sarah and then I led the line.  Then the University girls from the United States, then the others were all mixed up.  Unfortunately, Reading was placed between two Dirts, and was kicked and abused.  The boys with their switches slashed at all three of them, demanding order.  They attached chains running from one collar to the next, telling us all the while to stand straight, with our shoulders back.  This was embarrassing.

 

The man with the rifle commanded, “Coffle forward, left foot first.”  It was a shambles. He tried again.

 

“You sluts are the coffle.  Your left foot is the attached to the leg and thigh that has your brand.  Do you need another brand there to remind you which is your left?”

 

I didn’t.  I knew which thigh had been branded.  I would never forget the pain or the humiliation ever.

 

“All right, we’ll try again.  Coffle forward, left foot first.”  One of the boys touched the back of Sarah’s leg with his quirt and we moved forward. I could not stop looking at the mark the quirt made just below Sarah’s backside.  Just a casual swipe to move her along, but it reduced her humanity.  It was like training animals. I didn’t want to be an animal. I wanted to be a modern woman. But because I was treated like an animal, I feared I would think of myself as an animal.

 

The sun in the west was moving towards sunset. The sky was a fiery red, and the breeze brought to us the smell of smoke and destruction.  It was like a scene out of an apocalypse. In the foreground, twelve captive chained women moved, supervised by an old black clad woman, a man with a rifle, and two boys with switches.

 

A timeless picture of war and enslavement, no doubt.  I was ashamed, and a little aroused at the same time.  As I suppose my captors, my masters intended.

 

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The Meeting of the War Council

 

Wilson and Woodrow Frick were meeting with their Foreman and assistant Foremen.  The Luthan Prime Minister was present.  All were dirty and tired, even Count Franz Rupert. Wilson Frick spoke.

 

“We have withstood the attack, and tomorrow we counter-attack.  I want to give condolences to all those who have lost family and friends in the fight against our attackers.  We mourn with you. I express our grief to Franz Rupert on the death of Captain von Tarleheim, who fell defending the Ranch House. And our many other losses will not be forgotten and will be avenged on these people.  What is our situation for a counter attack and a push out onto the plains?”

 

Hawkins spoke first. “The Ranch is secure. We have double sentries posted.  The recent slaves have been moved to the cells under the house under the supervision of Granny Mowbray. There are a couple of house slaves as well who were not driven off or captured, but that is all. The Grannies and the married women from the ranches will have to provide the food for the fighting men and boys, again under the direction of Granny Mowbray.

 

“With the ranch secure, we can strike out against the enemy tomorrow.  What worried me most is that they seem to have intelligence about our movements.  They evade us and set up ambushes. I think we have a spy.  Likely one of the new men, Smith, Fred, or Jimmy.”

 

Woodrow Frick spoke. “I don’t think it is Smith.  He has been watched, he doesn’t use any electronic gear at all.  Not even a cell phone.  If he is a spy, he is using old school spy craft which would not give real-time intelligence to those who attacked us. Any cell communication a spy is using would have to go through our cell tower, and we control that.”

 

“Could the spy be using off-world technology?” asked Randy Schlesinger. “We got some new detection and comms gear from our furry friends that we haven’t had time to unpack yet.  That might help us detect who our spy is.”

 

The Count intervened. “I agree it makes sense to focus on the new incomers, but don’t ignore the possibility that someone trusted may have been corrupted by money or promises of some other sort.  And do not ignore women either.  They are weak and easily corrupted. Once corrupted, they are easily overlooked. I understand your ‘furry friends’ use them for that reason.”

 

Woodrow nodded.  “That is true. The spy will be difficult to find.  What is our arms situation?”

 

Wilson Frick himself answered.  “Very good.  Trelawney Hawkins loved keeping us well supplied, we have more arms and ammunition than I knew.  He left us well supplied and died preserving his legacy. We will mourn with James Hawkins.  He was a good man.”

 

Abner Schlesinger, Randy’s brother spoke up.  “I interrogated the prisoners that Hawkins captured the other day. The reason they are attacking us now is that they expect to gain a good part of the Lazy F’s range and that of the other traditional families here. They know that our deeded acres also include grazing rights on long term lease. Wipe us out and gain the whole range.  Someone with a lot of money is backing them: the backer gets half the range, and they get half.  They are convinced they can trust this person because he sent them some hard men, contractors, mercenaries with no loyalty or Home Stone to help them.  Of course, once we are gone, the mercenaries will oust the survivalists as well. I don’t think our attacker comes from among the Families we are allied with; they all know we are part of the larger Frick clan. With our allies, we can destroy him.”

 

Wilson Frick intervened.  “We don’t want the help of the Allied Families.  We don’t even want them to know we are under attack. We don’t want to show weakness. I want to settle this, if possible, even without help from Pittsburgh.”

 

The conference ended as the tired men sought sleep for the adventures and dangers of tomorrow.

 

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From Juliette Chen’s narrative.

 

What a blissful day in our secret Paradise.  Today Patrick and I just took it easy after my ordeal.  We read and talked, and occasionally he fucked me like a Master would fuck a slave girl.  I am a bit worried that Patrick is so easily falling into this role. Captive of Gor would have me believe that his mastery is genetic and such a relationship is natural, but can atavistic ways from the past so easily trump hundreds of years of civilization? I don’t really think so, but even more alarming than Patrick’s behaviour is my response.  It is becoming natural to sit naked at his feet.  How is a couple of days of role-playing beating my lifetime of being a respectable modest woman? Yet when he takes me without a thought or concern for my pleasure, I orgasm as well.

One thing is for sure though.  If I were ever to be a slave for real, I would not be a brat like that Elinor Brinton, who constantly misbehaves in a bratty way.  

 

Patrick told me about his book, Nomads of Gor.  The hero, Tarl Cabot, found a lovely girl who accepted her life: Elizabeth Cardwell.  Patrick said that she and Tarl Cabot are so well suited that they will likely be together throughout the rest of the series. I am not so sure, as Master Tarl Cabot seems awfully hung up on an unsuitable woman named Talena.  She is likely the villain of the series who will come between Tarl and Elizabeth. As a romantic, I am hoping for a happy ending for those two, even if she has to be a slave to gain his love.

 

I hope Patrick doesn’t want me to be a slave like Elizabeth. I am no Elinor, but I would find that hard, I think.

 

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And so night falls on the range, with Inge and the coffle in the dark cells under the Ranch House, the Fricks and their retainers sleeping, dreaming of their counterattack to protect their Stone and their range.  Viki is asleep in the attic above the Three Moon Saloon, awaiting the results of her disobedience, and Fliss on the open range, trying to get back to her Masters. Fliss is no Elinor Brinton.

 

Juliette sleeps in Patrick’s arms, secure in her new collar, dreaming alternately of slavery and marriage.

 

In his bunk in the half empty bunkhouse, Fred, the spy, rages against the incompetence of the attack that failed to take the Ranch.  He is convinced that he created a marvellous plan, and only the stupidity of the attackers to carry it out caused the failure.  On the range, the survivalist leaders blame faulty intelligence for their failure.  Failure breeds suspicion and finger-pointing.

 

Smith sleeps peaceably, dreaming of Fliss in his bed again.

 

Tomorrow will bring more adventures on the Banks of the Bighorn.