Northern Lights
by Morlock
Conclusion

Later

I looked at my watch. Four hours. It wasn't nearly enough sleep, but nonetheless, I felt a thousand percent better than when I had crashed. I cracked two chemical warmers and set them in the holders inside of the battery compartment. Then, I pulled another flashlight out of my pants and headed for the cave. Apparently both girls were asleep inside of the sack. I saw no movement as I pulled on the draw ropes to close the opening. They probably woke up as I dragged them across the snow to the machine, but I didn't try to hear anything over the storm. A sack with two cunts was tough to lift onto the snowmobile bed, but I managed it and settled into the seat. By now the chemical packs should have the battery fairly warm - if it wouldn't start the machine, we were dead.

But it did, and once again, we were moving at a snail's pace up the road.

Much, much later

I knew we weren't going to make it. Between the crawling speed and the overload of weight, our gas mileage was horrible. I had emptied the last can into the tank two hours ago and I knew that we were about to suck air in the fuel line. By now, in the mountains, I was able to travel faster without the fear of getting lost. With a cliff usually on one side and a drop off on the other, the trail was fairly evident. At least I knew exactly where I was.

Sure enough, shortly, the engine missed, caught, then sputtered to a stop. At least four miles from my cabin.

I had already planned what I would do, and sitting here waiting for spring wasn't an option. I immediately climbed out, kneaded a chemical warmer to activate it, opened the sack and dropped it in, then pulled on the ropes to close it. Then I put on my snowshoes and headed up the trail.

By the time I got to my cabin, my legs were about to drop off. I could walk five miles and consider it to be a casual stroll, but walking with tennis rackets attached to your feet causes muscles to come into play that are normally not exercised. Tomorrow, they would really be complaining. But, ignoring the siren call of the warm cavern, I opened the storage shed, located my backboard and a roped a five gallon can of gasoline to it. Then, having shucked off my snowshoes, I belted on my skis, grabbed the two poles and was cruising down the trail, far, far faster than I had climbed it.

In no time I was back at the snowmobile, had emptied the gas into the tank, and was roaring back to the welcome embrace of my home.

Inside of a wonderfully warm cavern

I wasn't about to try to drag a sack full of women up some steps, and down a long rock floored tunnel, so I opened the sack and ordered them out. They had no choice but to follow me in hopes of finding someplace warm. The snowfall up here was much less, but the wind was even colder and more brutal. If I didn't get them inside in short order, frostbite would be their next problem. So shortly, we were through the cabin and in the access tunnel. I could see a glow at the end of it from a light that was on in the living area.

Millie had apparently heard the far door close. As I exited the tunnel she was waiting, a happy grin on her face. I could see Mary laying on her mat across the floor, apparently asleep.

Suddenly, looking over my shoulder, she let out an exclamation, then asked. "TWO more?" I nodded. She looked closer. "Women?"

I nodded again, not surprised that the fact wasn't obvious as to the sex of my captives. In their bulky and rumpled parkas, they could have passed for almost anybody.

While they were still half frozen, muscles barely working, and stunned by their adventures since leaving the Peacock, I needed to get them secured so I could shower and rest. "Wake Mary up. She can sleep at the foot of our bed from now on. I'll bring another mat in here." I started getting out of my clothes - my two captives might have been half frozen, but I had been working my ass off for the last couple of hours and I was plenty warm. In fact, I was sweating under my clothes - an absolute no-no up here. You can die from sweat soaked clothing in short order. Of course, I wouldn't have allowed the condition without knowing that I was in close range of a shelter.

Mary was awake by now, and shortly had moved out of the way. I wondered what she would think when she recognized her two new roommates. I towed my captives over to Mary's original mat and pushed them over on their butts so that they were sitting. At the moment I only had the one chain laying across the floor, still there from Mary's confinement, but that was ok for now. Before their tired minds could decipher what was happening, I wrapped the end of the chain around Arie's waist and closed it with a quick link. Then about ten feet further down, pulled it around the other girl's waist and fastened it with another quick link. Unlike a connection to their ankles, this would allow them to take their clothes off - a necessity shortly, as they began to warm up. Connected together like this, they would have to pee and shower together, but that was a minor problem. Tomorrow - late tomorrow - I would make the arrangements more permanent.

Then I began my standard spiel. Pointing, I said, "In there is a shower. Lots of hot water. As soon as I get out it's all yours. After that, you sleep on this mat for tonight and you will keep quiet so I can sleep. If you make trouble, you get thrown outside. You remember what that's like?"

An empty threat, of course, but I didn't want their inevitable reaction to start tonight. Tomorrow was soon enough for fun and games.

I shucked off my clothes, threw them to Mary to handle, then headed to the shower. God, the stream of warm water was almost orgasmic in itself. I began to realize that I was lucky to be alive. If I did this again, the next time some more attention would have to be given to the severity of the weather report.

I walked out of the bathroom, glowing a healthy pink from the hot water that I had luxuriated in for fifteen minutes. Millie was waiting by the bed, knowing full well what I wanted. I turned off all but the night light and stretched out on the bed. The light in the bathroom was still on and I could hear chain dragging and assumed that both of my new captives were beginning to stir. No matter, Millie ooched up next to me, then bent over and swallowed my dong and began her oral workout. I held and massaged her dangling tits as the erotic feeling grew, but it had been too many days since I had any tail, and finesse wasn't what I was wanting tonight. Shortly, I pulled on her knockers and she gave one more slurp for lube, then straddled my waist. Holding my dick vertically, she slowly impaled herself and began the stroke. All too soon, I was shooting up into her, then just collapsed in place and fell asleep.

Morning

Sure enough, once the madam's body thawed, and she got her senses back, the threats started. Demands to have the chain removed, to be taken back to town, what was going to happen to me if I didn't - even Millie got her share of threats.

I ignored them for now. I needed to get the snowmobile pickled for the cold in case it was needed again. The complex's battery was low, so I started the genset to get it charging.

Mary was the cook now, so I had her make some breakfast and deliver it to my captives. Later, she informed me that her ex-madam had tried to make a deal with her. Then started up with the threats again when my girl didn't bite. It was going to be fun to teach her some manners. I had to remind myself that the reason she was here was for information, not entertainment. Mary informed me that the other girl - one Debra by name - had been in on the scheme also. That was a relief. I had been worried about what to do with an innocent girl. Problem solved.

Later

"Both of you. Take your clothes off - all of them." Both of them had shucked off their bulky cold gear, but were still wearing inside garments. A minidress in the case of Debra, and a pants suit for madam Arie. I was standing beside the mat with Mary behind me holding several items I was going to use. Millie was just watching. All three of us were buck naked - our usual attire in the complex. The madam wasn't cooperating - that was evident in about a quarter second.

"You can kiss my ass, you cocksucker," she hissed back through clenched teeth. I now had the bullwhip, but was hesitant to use it at the moment. At my level of expertise, I was afraid that I might put out an eye, or cause major damage - or just plain miss and come across as more of a joke than a dominate figure. So, I fell back on my usual routine when confronting a problem - violence. I stepped toward her and she bared her claws in preparation to scratching my eyes out.

I had grown up on the frontier. My younger life was filled with the usual melee of fistfights and brawls in a town where tussling among the young bucks was not only tolerated, but expected. In addition, I had had a few encounters with wildlife, including one with a grizzly that only fell down after the third point blank shot from a .44 magnum, but not before ripping the front of my coat to shreds along with some of my skin. I didn't consider a rabid human female to be that big of a problem.

"OOOOFFFFFFF," she whooshed as the air came out of her lungs when my fist entered her sternum. Then a rabbit chop to the back of her bent-over neck - pulled, of course. I certainly didn't want to break her neck - and she dropped onto the mat like a lump of bear skat. Her partner looked at me with frightened eyes and was trying to back up. The ten feet of chain between them halted her rearward movement as fast as it began.

I pulled the whip off of my belt, and with a flick of my wrist, laid it across the floor like I had practiced. Fortunately, it worked like it was supposed to, with a satisfying crack. I then pointed to the standing girl and barked, "Clothes off. NOW!" This time, there was no hesitation. She began to struggle to pull the skirt part of her dress up her waist, under the chain that encircled the narrow part of her body. Shortly it was over her head and off, then the panties and bra followed. Nice. Really nice, but that was a given. Obviously a whorehouse wasn't going to employ a skank to hustle hardlegs.

I pointed to her ex-boss, still gasping on the mat, trying desperately to get some air into her lungs. "Strip her!" Fearfully, but instantly, the girl dropped to her knees and began to pull her madam's pants off. The cloth belt prevented much movement until I knelt down and cut it with my knife. Then they slid off. I then cut both sleeves of her blouse to the neck opening, then all the way down the back. Now all the girl had to do was pull the remnants of cloth from under her body. Three quick cuts later and the bra was ready to remove. Then the panties. Now I had two naked cunts ready for questioning. Almost.

I motioned to Millie to hand me a set of wrist manacles. I quickly put them on the madam, then waved for Debra to approach me. "Hold out your wrists." By now her legs would barely hold her up, but she did as ordered. Another set of binders went on. "Kneel here." This was in front of her boss. Now I connected the center link of both girl's binders together with another quick link, then stood up and pulled the ceiling rope down. This was quickly attached to the new link. I motioned to Mary and she moved over to the wall and pulled the slack out of the rope.

"Stand up, bitch!" Arie was finally coming back to the world, but was making a heavy time of it. She managed to lift herself to her hands and knees but that was as far as she could get at the moment. I was in no rush. Plenty of time to let her get her senses back before the fun... questioning began.

In a short while, I decided that Arie had rested long enough. I moved over to the bitter end of the rope and began to pull. Both women rose to their knees, then their feet as their wrists were pulled up. Finally they were standing up at full stretch, although they weren't suspended and their feet could still stand flat on the mat. One more thing. With another piece of rope, I made three loops around their waists and tied it snug. Then I removed the chain around their waists and dropped it on the floor. Now they were standing, tit to tit, stomach to stomach, and held together by the waist rope.

Now for me. To Mary, I said, "Over to the bed. See how fast you can empty my nuts." I wanted to make sure that my coming episode with the two conniving cunts wasn't whipsawed by the distraction of my newly formed appreciation of B&D. Yes, I was starting to learn the terms of this offshoot of sexual activity. Of course, the four magazines that I had also picked up in the big city were a great help in the matter.

She lightly ran to the big bed and pulled the thick blanket over the sheets. We used it during sex to keep from getting the bed all sweaty. And sticky. She stood beside it waiting for me to indicate how I wanted it. I doubled up the pillow for my head, then lay on my back, ready for action. She immediately straddled my knees and leaned over to swallow my throbbing hard. Her term for the action was 'deep throating.' I have no idea where she got the name, but it consisted of her swallowing my not insignificant dong all the way down her throat. Obviously, some time in her younger past, she had conquered the gag reflex. The first time I saw it, I had watched goggled eyed. I still watched with admiration - in fact, the sight made my erotic pressures rise as fast as the actual feeling of suction did.

Millie had come over to watch, as she usually did when I was screwing the newer girl. Sometimes she took part, feeling and pulling this and that.

Mary wasn't some teeny bopper with the idea that sex was just moving a rod in and out of her crack. She was an accomplished artist with techniques learned from several years as a hooker. Since I had indicated that I wanted a slam-bam session, she got right down to it. As her mouth concentrated on its task, the finger of one hand was riming my asshole, and a finger was probing my prostate. The other hand was constantly cupping and stretching my ball sac. In no time at all, I erupted into her mouth, she gripped my rod and jacked it up and down rapidly to finish the orgasm, then I put my hand on her head to stop and just splayed back into the bed.

No way was this little girl ever getting turned loose.

Interrogation

I walked around my strung up pair, their necks turning to try to follow my movements. Despite the fact that Mary had just unloaded me, I still had a hard on just looking. Remember, I told myself, the idea is to get info, not play B&D - time enough for that later. The older woman was holding her words in - apparently it finally dawned on her that she wasn't in charge - not even close.

Finally, I spoke up. "Here's the deal. I'm going to ask some questions. If you answer in full and correctly, I will turn you loose to go back to town. You have my word on it. But, just to set the mood, I want you to know what will happen if you decide not to cooperate." I wondered how well this was going to work. I had practiced it a few times back in the warehouse. I stepped back, measured my distance and jerked my arm back to lay the big whip on the floor behind me. I knew that I couldn't use a wrist stroke where the end of the leather cracked - that would definitely tear into the women's skin. I twisted my body and quickly brought my arm around in a flat stroke, kind of like a sideways, straight arm baseball pitch.

The results were more than spectacular. The braided leather hit Arie's back about half way down the tail. The far end continued its journey, wrapping around her side under the arm, then around the back of the younger girl. It went under the other arms and was circling the girls again when it ran out of length and the tip impacted on the rib cage of Debra. The loud 'thwack' was immediately replaced by Debra's high pitched shriek. Her madam didn't scream, but gave out with a loud "SHIIIIIIT!"

I let that feeling sink in for a few seconds, the asked, "Get the idea? Want another one?"

Debra immediately howled, "NO NO NO WHAT DO YOU WANT I'LL DO IT PLEASE NOT AGAIN..."

I looked at Arie and she responded with a shout in Debra's face, "Shut up, bitch." Then to me, "What do you want? Why are you doing this? I haven't done anything to you."

That gave me an opening. "Remember last summer? I was in your cunt house enjoying a piece of that..." - I jerked my thumb over at Mary, watching the proceedings wide eyed. I continued, "I woke up in the emergency room after some one found me on a pile of snow." I put my forefinger under my very visible knife scar. "That's where the knife of your partner went in."

Now, her eyes were even wider than Mary's. It probably had just dawned on her that this wasn't a kidnapping for rape, but that she was probably in deep shit with a guy she had tried to help rob and kill. She started with a "I didn't have..." She stopped when I whacked her back with the whip handle - hard.

"Don't start with the lies unless you want your skin peeled off! Remember, I was there and looking into your face just before your man stuck me. And even half drugged, I can recognize a cunt when she was standing two feet away." Something was trying to rise up in the back of my mind, but I pressed on. "You are now going to tell me about everything and everybody or you die standing up with your skin on fire." A bluff - I might knife the murderous bitch in a clean and quick kill, but I wouldn't whip a girl to death. I moved to the other side of the pair so that the end of the whip would hit the other girl. I wiggled the handle of the rawhide tool, then whipped it to lay ready on the floor behind me.

Another stroke and this time, two shrieks. I stepped up behind Debra and examined the bright red stripes across her back. They were definitely welts, but no blood had been drawn. That was good. I didn't need damaged goods up here. I wasn't a doctor.

Again, a stroke - harder this time. Both broke down and just started babbling for mercy, for the chance to talk, for me to stop so they could do anything I want...

Shit! The idea that was fermenting suddenly popped up in full glory. I had wondered what to do with the two bitches when I got their information. Now I knew. Holy shit, what an idea!

Another stroke just for good measure. "STOP OH GOD PLEASE STOP."

"Ok. Good." I made a presentation of setting the whip down, then pulled up a chair beside them and sat. "Now, lets start with when the Peacock opened and who opened it...

The next day

For most of the day, I asked more questions of the girls, mainly the same ones but in different formats and contexts. I was trying to detect any falsehoods that I might have been told. I definitely didn't want to lower the hammer on some innocent dude because of a lie. But, eventually, I was satisfied that I had most of the story. And a pretty sordid story it was.

"Ok. You've told me enough for me to find the SOBs. I promised to turn you loose." I turned around and called to Millie. "Bring one of my shirts." The older woman's blouse had been cut off and was now just rags, so she could wear one of mine. I unlocked the chain from both of them and Mary handed my shirt to Arie. I then ordered, "Both of you, get dressed, but not in your parkas yet. You need to eat before you go."

Mary whomped up a pressure cooker of soup - delicious - and all of us ate our fill. Then I told the two girls to put on their cold weather gear. I pulled mine out of the trunk and began to dress also.

Arie had gotten some of her spunk back. I could see the concern? disbelief? on her face. I asked, seemingly concerned, "You got a problem with leaving?"

She hesitated, not wanting to get a taste of the whip again, but finally said, "You're really going to let us go? You don't care if we go back to... to... our jobs."

"You mean, why would I turn you loose to let you squeal on me?" I snorted my derision. "Who are you going to tell? Your boss? Hey boss, the stiff that we failed to kill, kidnapped us and made us tell him all about you and your organization." I pulled on my boots. "The cops? This guy up north that we robbed and tried to murder, kidnapped us and made us confess."

I stood up. "If you want to live, or even stay out of a very cold prison, I suggest that you make up a story that both of you went to the big city for a good time. Or got stuck by the storm at some out of town party."

Shortly, bundled up for the cold, I led the girls down the entrance tunnel and into the cabin. It was still dark, of course. Daylight, this time of year, was very short and never got much more than twilight. With the storm, it didn't even reach that level. At the moment, it was just fading back into night. The cabin was bitter cold - far below zero - but compared to the howling hell that was outside, it was practically tropical. They stood, waiting, looking at the window with the flurries bouncing off the glass. I guess they expected me to go out and get the snowmobile ready for the return trip. They were in for a shock.

I faced them and pointed south. "The town is that way, a couple of hundred miles. Goodbye." Before they could react, I turned, entered the tunnel and closed the door behind me. As I flipped the lock, and turned to walk back in the cavern, I could hear them screaming something - I couldn't quite make out the words, but I wasn't worried about it.

I settled into my favorite rocker, picked up the book I had been wanting to read all month, and accepted the beer that Millie brought to me. As I put on a record - with the volume turned up - I said, "I sure hope the wolves don't get them."

A couple of hours later

The stack of records had run out. I stood up and stretched, yawned and looked over at Millie and Mary, both already in my bed and waiting. Mary was still looking at me, still not believing that I had sent the girls to certain death in the weather outside. Millie knew better - I had let her in on the plan. I pretended to listen for a second and asked, "Mary, do you hear something banging?"

She nodded rapidly. "Yes, sir. It's the girls. They want back in." In her face, I could see the plea to open the door.

Of course, now, with the music off, the tapping was unmistakable. There was no way that I was going up the tunnel into the cabin in my birthday suit, so I slipped on some pants, a sweater and some lined boots. They had been out in the cabin for two hours, close to the limit for the sunflower parkas that they were wearing. Of course, if they had actually gone outside, they would have already been dead.

Shortly, I was at the door. I could hear a voice, now very weak, pleading for something. The words didn't quite come through. I unlocked the door and opened it a few inches. "What do you want?" I demanded in a loud voice. It had to be loud - if anything, the wind outside was even stronger than it had been earlier. "I told you that you were free to go."

Both girls were shaking uncontrollably and Debra held out her hands and pleaded, "P...p...please l..let us i...in. You... you k...know we will fre... freeze to death out here." Surprisingly, Arie just shook like a palsy victim. She didn't even have the strength to plead.

"I don't need two more cunts in here. It would take too much to feed you." Now, she actually fell down on her knees and cried between more unintelligible pleas. Even Arie tried to get out the word, "Please..."

"Jeez. I'm freezing my balls off out here. Come in here a minute." I opened the door wider and both of them scrambled into the tunnel. The end next to the cabin was always cool, but compared to what they had just come out of, it was a sauna.

Finally, Arie found the strength to speak through chattering teeth. "Y...you know we will d...die out there."

All pretense aside now, I replied, "Of course. You are supposed to. But I kept my word and set you free." They were shaking so violently that it almost made me start shivering. "I don't need two guests. If you stay here you stay on my terms. Understand?" Both nodded violently. Of course, to be let in, they would have made a pact with the devil for anything he wanted. "If I want you to work in the mine, you will pick up a hammer and start banging. If I want to fuck you, the next thing you do is lay on your back and spread your legs. If I want to string you up and whip the shit out of you just for the pleasure of hearing you scream, you'll hold out your wrists to be tied." Keerist! Where the hell did that come from? Maybe I needed to lay off my new porno mags for a while. "Screw up and outside you go, permanently."

I waited. "Well?!"

Sobbing, Debra just repeated, "Yes. Yes. Yes." Arie just nodded, almost falling down. Damn, I may have left them outside too long. I hoped neither had frostbite.

"Ok. Come with me."

As we entered the cavern, Mary jumped off the bed with an exclamation of joy. I pointed to the pair of half dead females and said, "Get their clothes off and give them both a heavy blanket and put them on their mat. When they get warmed up, take them in and give them a hot shower." She nodded and ran to the linen closet.

Meanwhile, I procured another chain from the spool in the warehouse and attached it to the same eyebolt as the other. When they came out of the shower, pink and naked, I put a manacle around one ankle of each girl, then attached it to a chain. That would be their sleeping quarters for a while.

I lay down on the bed, with Millie beside me just toying with my body. I hadn't yet indicated whether or not I wanted tail. For now, I was just thinking about the future. And the last year or so. Before my Uncle had showed up at my apartment, I was just a young stud in a go-nowhere job, with no prospects for more, the only girls I ever had needed to be stroked with money before putting out, and now... I had inherited a very unusual and practical "home" and a gold mine - not El Dorado, by any means, but unless it ran out, it would supply me with a living. I had money on the shelf, gold dust in a can, a young squeeze to keep my nuts company, and now... three more cunts to do with as I pleased. Of course, there was still a number of dudes a couple of hundred miles south that I needed to kill, but for now, I was a rich man in more ways than just money. Tomorrow, I would start training my new work force in the art of gold mining.

The mine shaft

As miners, the girls sucked a big one. At least so far. I doubt that any of them had ever used any machinery except for an automobile and kitchen appliances. At first, I thought they were faking when they couldn't get something to work, but eventually I realized that they actually had no skills with machinery. A girl would squeeze the trigger of the hammer drill and nothing would happen. Any young boy tinkering with it would have instantly realized the problem, but my ersatz miner would stand there helplessly squeezing over and over and not realize that someone had turned the air valve off.

At the start, it would usually take several days for them to finish the blasting holes. Then a day or so of mucking the broken rock to the crusher. Then about two days to crush and pan. Then start all over. When they learned their jobs, I would split them up into the different areas, but for now, I had them work together.

They hated it. It was messy with the constant spray of water to keep the dust down and the resultant mud on the floor and walls would soon migrate to their hair and bodies, sometimes making them look like those jungle primitives that coat themselves with mud for whatever reason. However, they soon learned that they hated the work less than the whip - which I didn't hesitate to use.

They would take turns with the drill - it wasn't difficult work, since all they had to do was expand the braces against the wall, aim at the marks that I made on the rock face, then just turn a crank to feed the bit into the rock. It didn't take long for them to be able to tell the correct speed from the sound.

When enough drill holes were finished, I would do the explosives loading and preparing. That is what they looked forward to, since work would stop until after the blasting and sufficient time to allow for the fumes and dust to clear. Usually, it meant that work was over for the day.

It was after that clearing period that they really weren't looking forward to. They would have to muck the rock into the little railroad cart, then push it along the rails to the crusher room and dump it.

It was here that they were most afraid. The crusher itself was fairly primitive - an artifact of the shortage of power in my homestead. Surprisingly, it wasn't built by my Uncle or his forefathers. The thing was actually used a century ago by miners in their small claims. It was fairly simple, but did the job with almost nothing to break. Every few years the seals in the hydraulics would have to be replaced, but other than that, it was fairly indestructible.

The base was just a huge round cylinder of steel. A very heavy stamper cylinder was on top of the base, and rode two guide rails up and down. A lever made the stamper slowly rise under the impulse of a hydraulic pump. Then a shovel full of rock was piled onto the base and a foot pedal caused the stamper to release. With tons of force, it impacted and pulverized the rock and sand. A lip around the stamper cylinder kept the pieces from shooting out like shrapnel, but even so, the machine was terrifying to the girls for the first few days. Once the stamper slowly raised again, the power would be scooped into the waiting placer trough, or sluice box, the water would be turned on and the lighter gangue material would be washed away, hopefully leaving a color of gold. The water and waste material disappeared into a two inch pipe at a steep slant and eventually cascaded down the mountainside. Unless it was the dead of winter, then it froze before it even began to fall, piling up far below.

For the first week or so, they barely produced enough color to make a wedding band, but I had hopes for better production as time went on. One result was that when the girls got off a working shift, muck covered and looking like troglodytes, they had no energy left to complain. Millie would have a good meal ready when they got out of the shower, then, after eating, they would just collapse on their mats. Unless, of course, Millie and I needed one or more of them for entertainment.

A couple of weeks before

Millie, Mary and I were up long before the new girls. After the events of the previous day, the overriding exhaustion had laid them completely out. First, they had spent a couple of hours in the sub zero temperature of the outside cabin. Then they were "rescued" and brought into a fairly warm living space to thaw out, and then were allowed what had to be a heavenly period under a cascade of hot water in the shower. That didn't even take into account the kidnapping that they had been subjected to, followed by a ride inside of a heavy sack for hours on end.

Anyway, by the time they were towed out to their sleeping mat, they were limp rags that barely even noticed as the ankle manacles and chains were attached.

This morning, I let them sleep in until Mary had breakfast fixed, then walked over and pushed on the older woman, Arie, with a foot. Then her partner, Debra. "Hey! Lazy girls!" They woke, still groggy, and slowly remembered where they were. "This isn't your soft cunt house, where you can just decide to stay in bed after a hard day of growing hards. Get to your knees!"

Debra wasn't going to be a problem. She was an uneducated female - something I found out later - who would never question an authority figure, especially one holding a riding crop. But, her former boss, Arie, wasn't a wallflower. She was a woman with a steel will and had always been used to getting her way. Woe unto the female employee who riled her. Even a man would want to be careful about triggering her temper. I needed to shortstop that attitude immediately.

She put a hand down, rolled over and started to get to her feet. I let her have one high up on the back of the shoulder. She dropped back to the mat on her hands and knees with a "Shit! What's wrong with you?!"

"What part of 'get to your knees' did you not understand?" Her partner immediately got into the ordered position, fearfully looking at the weapon in my hand. Arie did also, but not willingly and not exactly quickly.

"Look, Mister." she started. "I know you think that something was done to you in my house, but you don't realize just who you have fucked with." Well, maybe I hadn't thought it though. I waited for her explanation of the trouble I was in. It came quickly. "When the boss learns how you've interfered with his operation, he'll destroy this place and everyone in it. Including us, probably, if I can't convince him that you are just a kid that didn't know what he was messing with." I just looked at her and waited for her to impart more information.

She was encouraged by my interest and continued, "You're a nice boy. I'll talk to the boss and tell him that you made a mistake. I have some pull with him and I can get you out of this."

I nodded. As an offer of reconciliation, it wasn't too bad. It was a pack of lies, but it was delivered fairly well. I waved to my other two girls to begin the prearranged plan. They both approached us as I smiled at my two kneeling future employees. "Stand up," I said, pleasantly as Millie and Mary stopped beside me. Arie had just gotten to her feet as I stepped to her side, took an arm and shoved it up behind her back, then pushed her over to the rock wall. As I had ordered, Mary grabbed her other arm and raised it over her head as Millie enclosed the wrist with the manacle hanging by the short chain from the bolt in the rock. Then both moved to the other side as I pulled the twisted arm up and in range of the other manacle.

Shortly, the stunned woman was stretched up against the wall in the X arrangement - arms widely spread and over her head and legs spread wide with ankle chains. I moved up to one side, grabbed a fist full of hair - not gently - and turned her face to look at mine. "I doubt that you will ever see your old boss again, but just in case you do, tell him that I intend to nail his balls to that headboard over there to remind me of the fun I had when I carved him up and left his carcass to the wolves."

I stepped back and took the offered lash from Millie. Taking a proper stance, I swung my arm in a vicious circle that ended when the flat leather cracked across Arie's back. She jumped like she had been electrocuted, and screamed "SHIIITTT!" Apparently, that was her favorite word. Then, with about ten seconds between the blows, I put the leather to her for several minutes. She screamed at the top of her lungs - actually, curse words at the beginning which evolved into pleas to stop the punishment. Eventually, her voice gave out and she just babbled. This wasn't play, like Millie wanted every few weeks. The lash didn't cut into her skin, but the first bright red traces were already beginning to develop into small blood blisters under the skin. Eventually I stopped, the woman just hanging by her wrists with the muscles in her thighs and legs visible jumping from the reaction.

"Take her down," I ordered. I walked over to her associate, now trembling with fear so violently that she had to put her hands on her knees to keep from falling over on her face. Harshly as I could form the words, I demanded, "You got any problem following my orders from now on?"

She shook her head so violently that her cheeks slapped. "Nooo, Sir! No! I'll do anything you want. Please! Anything!" I just nodded and turned away and she almost collapsed from reaction.

Arie had been unhooked from the wall and was being held up by the two girls. "Stretch her out on the floor over here. Face down." They towed her over to an area near the mats, that had some more bolts sticking up out of the rock floor. Millie now knew what to do. She had been in the position several times, although, in her case, with a rug under her. She picked up some pieces of rope from a shelf, then tied one around each ankle and wrist. The other end of the ropes went to the eyebolts in the floor. Now, the woman was X'ed out again, but on her face on the hard rock floor. Well, she had plenty of fat for cushion.

"Tighter." Millie undid the ankle ropes at the eyebolts, then pulled as hard as she could and tied them back. Now the older woman was not only X'ed out, but was tightly stretched as if she were in a medieval rack.

I walked around and squatted down in front of her, reached down and pulled her head up by the hair - again. She was still feeling the stripes on her back, and would for a day or so, but by now her eyes could focus. "Listen really good, bitch," I started. "Your days of herding cunt are over. As far as you are concerned, anybody who might help you out of here is the equivalent of a million miles away. Your only career now is to please me and hope that I'm satisfied with your performance. Otherwise, you go right back up on the wall. And if I have to, I'll use a bull whip, not the little toy that you just got."

I dropped her head, stood up and walked over to Mary. "Lube it up. I'm going to try her from behind."

Mary slurped my hard rod more than necessary to get it slick, then I knelt on my knees between Arie's spread wide legs. Millie, suddenly realizing what I was up to, knelt also and took hold of my dick to guide it to the proper place. Letting my woman do the aiming, I just slowly settled onto the prone woman's butt, my rod easily going up her rear shaft without hindrance.

Naturally, there was no resistance. I had absolutely no idea about Arie's past, but I knew that she couldn't have been a Madam all her life. Sometime in her younger days, she had to have started like any other cunthouse boss - that is, laying on a bed with her legs spread like all the other whores. My dick would have been only the last of hundreds, or thousands, that trod this path. A woman of this type had her asshole trained to give automatically when something tried to enter.

It was good. Not only the rubbing in and out, but the feeling of power over a woman who had been instrumental in almost snuffing me for money. Taking my time, I gave her a really good creamy enema, then walked over to the sofa to relax while Mary cleaned me up with a hot rag. Sitting there thinking, not only of my future plans, but what had happened in the past. I now realized that bondage and discipline wasn't a game with me. It was becoming a really powerful addiction.

In the mine shaft

Standing there looking at the three women lined up and facing me, I reminded myself, once again, to never turn back on them when they were free to move about. I didn't worry about Mary or Debra, but I could easily believe that Arie would cave my skull in with a drill bit if she had the chance. It would probably mean her slow death, since none of them knew where they were or how to get back to civilization, but the heat of the moment might override such future considerations.

They were totally naked, of course, except for wearing pseudo footware composed of leather wrapped around their feet and tied at their ankles. Even my hardened feet couldn't take walking on the shards of rock on the floor. Someday, I would buy a case of flip-flops for them, although that item isn't something that is normally found in a northern Alaskan trading post. They would have to be ordered from the lower 48.

"Ok, cunts. This is where I get the gold and you get the shaft." They didn't laugh at my joke. Possibly, being a naked woman prisoner, in some underground tunnel, at the far end of the world might suppress any tendency for mirth.

Joke over, I went on. "Today, we learn to drill." I waved at the - to them - mysterious gear at the end of the shaft. "Now, I like to motivate my employees, so..." I was really enjoying this. "...here's the deal. The girl who learns best, today, gets to sleep in my bed and get fucked by me and my squeeze tonight. The cunt who does second best, gets stretched out on the rock floor for the night. And the bitch who really disappoints me gets strung up on the wall and striped. And gets to hang there all night to sleep."

That motivational speech didn't seem to raise their morale any. Oh well... I pointed. "See the red paint spots on the face of the wall? Those are the places where you will aim the bit." I laid my hand on the single jack. "This is the drill." I spent the next hour going though the procedures of bracing the mechanism against the floor and walls, aiming it and locking it into place. I had them do it over and over and by lunch they could do it - not well, by any means, but at least good enough for it to work. By the time that Millie appeared, towing a little wagon with our food, we were ready to crank it up.

After the very good meal, I went through the steps to start the process. First the air valve to the rotary drill was turned on, then I had Debra turn the valve for the water. Immediately, a spray of warm water enveloped the end of the borer and several feet all around the aim point. This was for the very important reason of keeping the massive dust cloud that would otherwise develop, under control - a cloud that would immediately envelope the entire end of the shaft, and more damagingly, our lungs. Mining history going back thousands of years proved that silicosis was a miner's disease that was always fatal. I knew that, but Uncle emphasized it with a, "Junior, if the water ain't working, then you ain't either."

I reached down and opened the louver further on the end of the foot wide flexible pipe that led off into the darkness behind us. Without the continual supply of freezing outside cold air, this shaft would be totally unworkable. When the air was shut off, the temperature rose to over a hundred and ten degrees - deadly.

All of them flinched from the water, although it was as warm as taking a shower. I ignored that, since I knew they would be soaked and muddy in short order, no matter what they tried to avoid. I pointed to Arie, and then to the drill handle and trigger. She hesitatingly stepped up and took the hand wheel in one hand and the pistol grip in the other. I nodded and she squeezed the trigger.

She jumped back, the drill immediately grinding to a stop without ever touching the wall. The drill wasn't deafening, but it made some noise, even spinning away from the rock. But, her natural woman reaction to moving equipment had taken over. I pointed again, and she started over. This time, she held on and then began to turn the hand wheel to feed the bit into the rock. Several turns later, the spinning bit touched the rock and the hammer action began, raising the noise level considerably. She continued to spin the wheel very slowly, and I spun a finger around to sign to her to increase the feed speed a little. I knew that it would take several days to get the feel of the proper speed - both by the sound of the bit hammering and the laboring of the air powered drill motor.

She did very well, except for forgetting to turn off the water when she had reached the limit of the drill depth. I pointed to the valve and made a slashing motion and she immediately turned it off. Shortly the drill was screwed back out, and was ready to move to the next hole. The setup began all over again. By now the sump was full and the sump pump was turned on to push the waste water and tailings out of the tunnel and down the mountainside.

End of shift.

The girls were exhausted. And looking like creatures from an old science fiction movie. They were covered - and I mean, head to foot - in light brown mud which was actually the watered down dust from the drilling process. Their hair was matted solid and their faces had a coat of makeup that would have put a woman's spa to shame. Only their eyes and mouths broke up the facial masks. Both Arie and Debra still had their pubic hair - that would come off the first time that a day came along that they weren't working. Right now it was just as mud packed and matted as their hair on their heads.

The amusing thought struck me that it was a good thing that women's twats remained closed when they weren't being fucked. Otherwise, those holes would have been full of mud, also.

I motioned them over to stand in the tailing sump, now mostly drained, but still with a couple of inches of water in it. I picked up a hose and aimed a gentle spray of water over their bodies, motioning them to turn slowly around and raise their arms over their heads. I wasn't trying to get them bedtime clean - just hosing off most of the muck so that it wasn't tracked into my living cavern.

Without a doubt, Arie was the best mining student of the three, by far. In thirty minutes she had the techniques down and, while a long way from a professional rock biter, could probably have run the gear without my being there. She would eventually be my straw boss.

Debra, did ok, but still had a fear of unknown and scary machinery. But...

...Mary was a disaster. She would forget to turn on the water, forget which way to turn the hand wheel, look around in confusion when the drill wouldn't feed any more, without realizing that she had finished the hole and the machine had hit the stops. The first time, she didn't clamp the struts properly, so the drill just moved backwards into the shaft rather than into the hole. I wasn't sure that she would ever be to a point that she could be turned loose with it.

Shutting down the gear and turning off the lights, I led us by flashlight back to the big metal door that blocked off all the dirt and noise from my living space.

Millie had a man sized meal ready for three pseudo men and I sent them to the showers before we sat down to eat. Afterwards, I locked them back to their individual chains with the ankle bracelets and retired with Millie to my living area. My day had been easy, and I was relaxed. We turned on the radio and I told her to be sure and listen for the weather report. I didn't plan to go back to town till summer, but with five people in a place that was supplied for two, I would have to get on the road with the truck as soon as the spring melt slowed down. I blessed my Uncle's advice of stocking far more supplies than were actually needed. We would get along ok. Plenty of food, although the goodies might run low, like sugar and syrup and suchlike.

My uncle had subscribed to a plethora of magazines. They were held at the post office by old man MacKensie, the town postal clerk, and were hauled back to the cavern in huge bundles. I had renewed the subscriptions. Tonight, I relaxed with a copy of a popular science magazine. I was interested in this new system of playing movies from some kind of tape machine. This summer, when I went to town, I would look into buying such a device, along with a TV, and, hopefully, a supply of movies.

Millie loved to read and she had piles of those sickeningly sweet love novels. I would pick up another box full when I went to town.

I sat back with my magazine and some music. What a day.

Bedtime

Mary was terrified. She knew that she had fucked up all day and was dreading my threatened punishment. When I walked over to her and pulled her to her feet, she broke down and bawled for mercy. She was thinking of the terrific lashing that I gave her ex-Madam - one that didn't quite cut her skin, but raised blood blisters for days. What she didn't know was that I had no intention of punishing her anywhere near that severely. But I couldn't let her off. My authority depended on the girls knowing that I would punish them when and if needed.

She was still wailing as I chained her up, then walked over to pick up the same lash that I used on Arie. Looking over her shoulder and seeing me coming, she screamed for mercy at the top of her lungs. I walked up to her and pulled her head around by her hair, gently this time. She cried, "Pleeeease! Don't hurt me! I'll try my best tomorrow. I really will!"

I nodded and replied. "I know you will, Mary. But you have to take the punishment coming to you. That's only fair."

I stepped back and she began to wail for mercy again. I stopped at the proper distance, aimed and put the lash across her back - with far less force that I had used with the older woman, and not even the strength that I used when punishing Millie. Nonetheless, she screamed as it thwacked across her skin. Actually, her fear was far more than the actual pain and if she hadn't been panicking, she would have realized that. I gave her a total of ten, then left her in the chains.

Millie had laid down a rug between the floor eyebolts. I pointed to Debra then to the rug. Eyes down, she scampered over to it and lay down on her stomach. "No," I said. "Turn over." She did and I watched as Millie put more bracelets on her other three limbs, then tied them off with ropes. Not stretched tight, but definitely spread in a horizontal X, just as Mary was X'ed out in a vertical stance.

For Arie, I put a pair of manacles on her wrists, wrapped a light chain around her waist, then attached her wrists together and then to the chain. Now she could lay comfortably on her back, but couldn't lift, lower or spread her arms more than a few inches. The reason for this, of course, was because she would be in our bed and I didn't want to wake up with her trying to twist my head off. I removed the ankle chain, then pointed across the floor to the king sized bed.

She was waiting when Millie and I got out of the bathroom and shut off the main lights.

In the dim night light coming from the bathroom, both girls were barely visible shadows. "Lay down," I said to Millie. To Arie, I said, "You're going to do her first and she likes lots of tongue. I knew that girl on girl action was old hat to these females. Whether they enjoyed it for the act, or just did it on occasion for the customers, they certainly knew how. And in the short time that Mary had been here, before the other girls where dragged in, I found that Millie had no objection to the act, either.

Arie knew what to do. She walked with her knees to the foot of the bed, then leaned over and dropped to her stomach between Millie's legs. I couldn't see anything, so I whiled away the time by playing with Millie's boobs. Arie was apparently doing a good job, from the panting and the groaning coming from my invisible woman. Eventually, there was a long "Auuuuuuuuggggggg" and I knew the action was over.

No way was I going to let the woman take my johnson into her mouth. She would have to become a lot more docile before that would happen, so I would have to do her normally. I didn't want to lay on manacled hands, so I pulled her up to lay beside me and on her side. Millie had recovered and was feeling around trying to decide how I was going to do the woman. I reached down and lifted Arie's leg so that her crack would be open enough for me to enter from behind. Once again, Millie was there to guide my dong into the proper channel, and in it went. Now I could drop her leg, then reach under and over to fill my hands with the Madam's chest handles. With Millie rimming my rear hole with one hand and pulling and cupping my nuts with the other, I casually enjoyed my duo performance.

The perfect ending to the perfect day.

Time passes

In the next couple of days, the girls had finally managed to punch all the holes in the rock wall and they got a day off so that I could charge, blast and clear the air. After the first session, I didn't play the game of grading punishment for the night based on performance of the day. Nevertheless, I made it plain that it was always optional if I decided that my workforce wasn't paying proper attention to their jobs.

The next morning, Debra was stiff, but otherwise all right. Of course, she had pissed on herself during the night, but laying on a warm rug on a warm floor alleviated any discomfort of laying in her own pee. Mary was in a different shape. Not only did she have a major case of museum legs from standing all night, but her body was so stiff she would have fallen down when I released her if I hadn't supported by the arm. In her case also, there was a puddle on the floor between her legs. She managed to recover somewhat in her inactive time before breakfast, but still had a hard time the next day. After the second workday, she just collapsed after dinner and apparently didn't stir all night.

Now it was time for them to learn to crush and pan. If they thought they were scared of the drill, they soon learned how foolish they had been. When I demonstrated the workings of the crusher, they were terrified of just being in the same rock room as the equipment. Once again, I ran them through the steps, slowly.

First, though, the broken rock had to be moved from the rock face to the crusher room. A small mine cart, running on rails like you would see under a toy train in an amusement park, was loaded with a flat shovel for the loose material and by hand in the case of the larger pieces. Rock is heavy, and the cart would hold almost a ton of material, but I knew that the girls would have trouble pushing that much at first, so I had them shovel in about a half load.

Over the decades, the crusher had been moved closer to the work site. There were three other empty rock cavities up and down the main shaft where it used to reside. The cart was easy to push on level rails, but impossible if there was any slope, so whenever there was a major rise or fall in the shaft following the gold vein, the equipment had to be moved. Making a big cavern in the rock for the equipment was easy - it just took a few days of blasting, but the problem lay in the fact that the water and tailings from the panning process had to be removed. To do this, a two or three inch hole had to be bored at a thirty degree angle from the room to the outside of the mountain. I hadn't had to do this yet, but had been told by my Uncle that it could take an entire winter to accomplish. "And Junior, when you have to drill it, go slow and easy. Remember, if you jam or break the bit a hundred feet down a rock hole, you can't exactly call a pipe retrieval fishing service."

Loading rock by hand and shoveling gravel was something that girl muscles and motions were unused to, so the first time it took about ten times as long as it would have taken me, but eventually they had a cart half full. It was ready to move.

"Ok, girls. Listen up." I pointed to the flanged front wheels of the cart. "Think of this as a train. See those wheels..." They looked, sort of apprehensively. "...well, they will cut an arm or a leg off just as fast as a real train will. NEVER, NEVER get in front of the moving cart. Always push from behind." I pointed to the horizontal bar that was the push handle on the rear end. There was one on the front for pushing it back, also. "Start pushing."

The three got into position and together began to push. I think they were surprised that it moved so easily, but, of course, steel wheels on steel rails take a fraction of the effort of normal wheels on the ground. Slowly, it began to move down the shaft. I was just enjoying the sight. Three sets of tits dangling from three leaned over bodies. Tits that were jiggling and bobbing back and forth. And from behind, three sets of holes in plain sight. And, in fact, at the right angle for me to just step up and shove my dong in...

Whoa, I told myself. I was trying to emphasize the importance of working hard and correctly. It wasn't going to help my position for the boss to interrupt work because he wanted to pump one of the employees on the job. I would wait until the lunch lady came by, to relieve my pressures. So for now, I just walked beside or behind and occasionally squeezed a bobbling tit or explored a bent over crack with a finger.

Eventually, the cart rolled up to the stops in the crusher cavern. I showed them the dump lever and soon a pile of rock was sitting on the rock floor and I began the next phase of training. First, the lever was engaged that caused the hydraulic cylinders to raise the massive piston to its waiting position about eight feet above the anvil. Just about the time it finished its upward travel, the safety prop - just a very heavy three inch steel pipe - fell into place under the piston.

Then a pile of rock and dirt was shoveled onto the center of the anvil. Next a little spray of water to keep the dust down when it was broken. I pointed to the two floor pedals that had to be stepped on to release the piston and the lever that moved the safety prop out of the way. The reason for two pedals was safety. Accidentally stepping on one wouldn't release the fall latch.

"Pull that lever," I ordered Mary, pointing to the handle that moved the heavy steel pipe out of the way to allow the piston drop when triggered. She did that. Then, "Step on both of those." Hesitantly, she complied. The piston suddenly dropped like a bomb and hit the target eight feet below with a resounding smash of sound. All three girls jumped about a foot off the floor, looking wild eyed at the crusher. The violence had utterly surprised them. After they had settled down a bit, I had them raise the piston, then demonstrated how to push the crushed material off the side of the anvil and onto the chute that dropped it on the lead of the sluice trough.

Now, around on the far side of the trough, I turned the valve that let water cascade in to the wooden chute. This item dated from the early gold rush days in California - not the actual trough, but the design. All it consisted of was a long slanting piece of wood, a foot and a half wide - with sides - that had water pouring in at the top and overflowing at the bottom. At one foot intervals, crossways along the inside base were short pieces of wood that turned the chute into sort of a man-made set of rapids. The gold bearing sand would be dumped in at the top and the stream of water would wash it down the chute and finally out at the bottom and into the waste drain. The gold flakes and specks, being much heavier than the rock particles, would be caught and settle against the top side of the cross pieces. This design hadn't been modified for a hundred and fifty years or more. Very little gold escaped the chute to be lost.

After a significant amount of color was seen above one or other of the cross piece dams, it would be scooped out with a small form fitting spoon and the process would continue.

For the rest of the day, the girls would muck a load of rock, run it down to the crusher, then smash it and pan it for any color. The process was fairly simple, even for unmechanical girls, but the violence of the crusher still terrified them. I knew it would take a while to get over the fear. Heck, even I was nervous for the first week or so when I learned to use it.

In a few days or weeks, when they got familiar with the process, I would have one girl drilling, one mucking and hauling, and one crushing and panning, swapping positions every day.

The weeks pass

The girls had learned the process, and the three could just about produce the amount per day that I could have without help. But, since they worked almost every day, rather than my irregular schedule, much more color was produced.

It was much more pleasant waiting in the living cavern with my squeeze while my unpaid employees worked to increase my wealth. I would quietly walk down on occasion, without using a flashlight, and observe them as they worked. It only took a couple of times for me to catch them goofing off for then to not ever again make that mistake.

Like all low paid employees the world over, these tried everything in the book to take a break from work. They made the assumption that once I had inspected them, I wouldn't be back for a hour or two. That turned out to be a mistake. My leaving, then turning out the flashlight and returning in a couple of minutes later caught them all relaxing on the floor. The workday stopped at that point, and shortly each was strung up side by side and taught the lesson of honest work. It was a loud set of lessons, with lots of screaming and loud thwacks from the whip. I had mounted two more sets of eyebolts in the wall so that all could be X'ed up at a time. It was planned for my entertainment, but as it turned out, was used for real just a few days after I finished.

I finally fixed the problem by going from an hourly wage - ok, not a very funny joke - to piece work. At the end of the day, one of them would give me the can of dust that had been produced, and if the weight didn't measure up, they had the choice of the wall, or to keep working until it did.

By now, of course, all of the girls were in far better physical condition than when they started, and by the end of the day they were fatigued, but not on the verge of exhaustive collapse as in the week they began the work. Once the idea settled in that they had no choice, and even if they managed to run out of the cavern, there was no way in hell they would ever escape. Or even survive for longer than a few hours. Even in summer.

Now, in the evenings they could actually relax and enjoy themselves with a book, or just talking. Even Arie became less of a prickly female as she got used to the routine. Not that I would trust her for a second with my back turned. She was still not accepting the fact that she was effectively a slave. So, I arranged for a couple of tests to check out my theory.

They got one day a week off, at least. And, of course, when I was loading the holes and blasting, they were back in the cavern, as they also were for at least half a day as the fan cleared out the fumes and dust.

As planned, I made Arie the straw boss of the operation with the authority to move the girls around to maximize production. If the crushing and panning were getting behind the mucking, she could bring the other girl into the crusher room to help unjam the process. Of course, she worked also. Her position didn't give her the privilege of standing around and watching.

They got really efficient in drilling. I was wondering why that part of the operation seem to go faster and more smoothly than the other. Then I saw that the mucking girl would help in resetting the drill when it was time to change to a new hole. I realized that they wanted the wall to be finished, since once I started the explosive loading, they got the day off.

That was ok with me and gave them a reason to be efficient.

Time passes

The girls were showering after a workday and I was sitting at the table and measuring out the day's run of color. By now I had filled my original can to the top with dust and was starting on another. In a few years of this I would be a rich man. Millie had cleaned up after supper and was waiting to go over the latest inventory of supplies. I knew that the diesel consumption was up considerably from all the mining, but I had plenty of full drums of fuel stashed in the power cavern. I could go a couple of more years like this without running short.

Food was another problem. Of course, I had put in a surplus last summer, but it was an excess intended for two people, not five. The staples would last until mid summer but stuff like sugar, canned goods and suchlike were going to get thin. Already we were rationing the shortages and our meals were long on flour and cornmeal based foods and short on deserts like pies and cakes and cookies. Not a problem - we might get bored with eating, but we certainly weren't going to starve. The first load in the summer would be just foodstuffs.

I reached up and tweaked a nipple on the end of a bobbing tittie. "Sit down, sweetie. What cha got?" She crinkled her nose at me and laid her clipboard on the table and flopped into the chair opposite me. Flopped, was a good term. I never got tired of watching braless knockers bobble, swing and sway. I assumed that the sight might get old someday, but I hoped it was a long time off.

We went over the counts and I gave her some suggestions for the next couple of months. She wrote some notes, then said, "They're out of the shower. Time to hook them up." We always hooked the three to their chains for the night. No way would I ever go to sleep with loose slaves in the complex - not even the two docile ones, Debra and Mary. That fact was about to be demonstrated in spades.

Millie had just started across the floor when she screamed. I looked up to see Arie almost running towards us. Normally, a naked girl hurrying somewhere would be erotic as hell, with girl parts swaying too and fro, but I only had eyes for the gun in her hand. A big gun. My .44 magnum, in fact - the only gun that wasn't locked up tight in the gun safe.

Millie just backed up as Arie stopped ten feet away, holding the barrel on me. I never realized just how big a large caliber pistol looked from the wrong end. I gave her credit. Somehow she had gone all the way across the floor to the shelves beside my bed to get the gun, and then back without either of us noticing. Nothing wrong with my alertness.

"Just what..." That was as far as I got.

"Shut up and listen." It was a heavy piece, and she had to hold it up with both hands. But they were steady. "You can follow orders in one piece or you can follow them with a bullet in your leg."

Hmmmm. That showed me how much she know about firearms. She obviously knew how to use one, but wasn't really knowledgeable about calibers. If she shot me in the leg, I wouldn't follow any orders. This wasn't Hollywood where the good guy took a shot, stepped back into the shadows for a second to make sure he wasn't hurt badly, then shot the perpetrator between the eyes. A bullet from that gun would take a person's leg clean off, and leave them dying from massive blood loss and shock in just seconds.

"You and I are leaving. You!" This was to Millie. "Find the clothes I wore coming up here. And bring his."

I tried to talk some sense into her. "You know, of course, that it's forty below outside?"

"So what? I've seen plenty of trucks work in colder temperatures."

Now she was being wacko. "Truck? You remember that we came up here on a snowmobile, don't you? A truck wouldn't get five feet in that snow."

She remembered. "Ok, then we'll go on it. As soon as your bitch brings our clothes, we go. Sit down."

She wasn't a fool. She stayed far out of any jumping distance for me, rather than walk up to me and stick the gun in my ribs, a la Hollywood.

I did. Then tried to reason with her. "I don't think you know what it's like out there. If you thought it was chilly in the cabin that week you got here, you're going to be in for an unpleasant surprise when you go out in a real cold. Especially with those department store clothes they try to pass off as snow gear."

"Ok. Then I'll wear some of yours." Her arms were getting tired of holding up a three pound hand cannon. She kept dropping it to her waist then back up again. "I can stand a few hours of being cold to get out of here."

A few hours! She obviously thought that she was twenty or thirty miles north of town. Her trip up here was confusing, and she obviously didn't remember the two hundred miles. Well, she HAD been unconscious for part of the trip. I looked over to see Millie hurrying over with our cold weather gear.

"Put it down and back up." Millie, was scared, but did as she was told. Then she pointed the gun at me again. "Lay down on the floor till I get dressed."

I was getting horny. There were two naked ladies in front of me, both with bare cracks showing, and jugs just waiting for my hands. I didn't want to go outside - I wanted some ass.

I stood up. "Tomorrow is a busy day. You need to get some sleep or you're going to hate yourself in the morning."

"Back up, Buster. Last chance." She pulled the hammer back.

I didn't stop, and just walked around the table toward her. She moved the barrel sideways and pulled the trigger in a warning shot. Instead of a deafening bang, there was just a click. Panicked, she looked in the end of the cylinder - it had bullets. Once again, point and click. I noticed that she was trying for warning shots - both times she moved the point of aim away from me before she squeezed. Interesting.

As I got up to her, she suddenly knew that she had been... well, had. I took the gun from her limp hands, set it on the table, then spun her around and pushed an arm up behind her shoulder. With that arm in on hand and her hair in another, I frog marched her over to the punishment wall. She didn't even struggle as I trussed her up in the X.

By now Millie had unfrozen, and had run over and wrapped her arms around me like an octopus. In a few seconds, I unwound her and told her to go get the flat whip from her hope chest. In a short while, the cavern rang with the screams of the foiled escapee.

Later

Arie had been stretched out on the floor again, and I had enjoyed using her rear hole - again. Millie and I were in bed but not sleeping. She kept hugging me over and over, as if I had come back from the precipice, or a dangerous mission. "I knew she was going to shoot you. I knew it!"

I just traced a finger around and around her boobs - I was satisfied for the night and not in need of any more tail. "Actually, I don't think she really would have. You didn't notice, but both times that she pulled the trigger, she had aimed to the side of me. She's a conniving bitch that had no problem setting someone else up for the axe, but I don't think she has it in her to do the deed herself."

And of course, I had never had any intention of allowing her to even try. I had deliberately left the big revolver on the open shelf as a test. And, of course, all real ammunition was out of her reach. The six rounds that were in the gun when she grabbed it were empty of powder. I had pulled the bullets, emptied the cases, killed the primers with oil, and then put the cartridges back together.

But, for the escape attempt, the judge tacked on many more years of servitude.

Time passes

Arie was now wearing new jewelry. Both ankles had manacles, and a foot and a half chain connected them, just as if she were a inmate of a southern chain gang. She couldn't walk now at full stride - and certainly couldn't run - but had to shuffle along in a short-step lope. It was a movement that really made her jugs bobble up and down, side ways and round and round. She was no longer the straw boss - that position I gave to Mary for now.

In the weeks that followed her ridiculous attempt at escape, she was never let to forget her infraction. Besides the permanent ankle hardware, she showered last, waited on the other two girls at meals, and serviced me in unique ways.

Sometimes I would enter her work area and just order her to bend over and spread 'em, Of course, her legs would only spread so far with the ankle chain, but she could bend her legs out somewhat to widen access to her crack. I would pump the muddy woman's twat from behind, unload, then tell her to go back to work.

Or, I would just sprawl her out, face down in the mud of the sump pit, and shove my dick up her rear chute. She would get up, hair, face, and body dripping with mud and water, and her rear crack dripping with goo.

Millie enjoyed getting revenge on her for trying to kill her man. Hours and hours would go by with Arie kneeling at the foot of the chair that Millie loved to sit in and read, the bitch's tongue almost numb from the fatigue of licking my squeeze for so long.

Since I had really gotten into B&D, I began to put Arie into some of the positions that I got out of my porno mags. On occasion, one of the other girls would be used, but usually just my rebellious bitch. I would manacle her hands behind her, then draw them up to the ceiling. Strappado, it was called. That made it easy to use her from behind.

Or, tie her ankles to her wrists, then her knees to her elbows. In that position, legs bent and held widely open by her straining arms, a woman has nothing that can't be used, abused, or fondled.

Or, just tie the overhead rope to her wrist manacles and draw her up a foot off the floor. That was real punishment after a few minutes, especially if I lightly wrapped the bull whip around her a few times.

But, as the months went by, I slowly let up on her punishment. I still had fun with her, but slowly changed from punishment to just bondage for my enjoyment. Because I knew that she had really tried to shoot the revolver, but had deliberately aimed to miss, she could redeem herself an become just one of the girls again. Had she actually tried to lower the hammer on me for real, she would be going through hell right now and forever on.

I was standing behind Millie, who was bent over the back of the sofa with her hands on the cushions supporting her. My rod was pumping in and out and my hands were pulling and massaging her tits and nipples. Mary was behind me with her finger stuck up my asshole and massaging my prostate and her mouth was engaged in both swallowing and licking my balls. All too soon, I grabbed Millie's hips, and pumped will full force. I spewed her full of cream, then shuddered as the post orgasmic spasms set in, pulled out, backed up and sat down to wait for one of the girls to clean me up.

It was spring and I was about to leave to my hometown. It was a little earlier than might have been wise, although way past the time of high water. I wasn't going to pull that boner again, like I had done after my first winter up here. I had made one change. There was now a chain on the outside of the door leading into the cabin from the tunnel that would prevent any of the girls from leaving. I didn't think that any of the three would try to escape again and would only give them a five percent chance of making it to town even if they tried it even in the height of summer, but I wanted to shortstop even the try.

However, there was always chance that I would never come back - for many reasons, all of them violent. In that case, the girls would slowly starve in the dark. So, in private, I showed Millie how to remove the grate from the little tunnel that used to have a conveyer to move rock out of the cavern to fall down the side of the mountain. I told her that if I didn't make it back by winter, then I was probably dead and she would need to ration the food for the winter, then leave the next spring. In the diesel/battery cavern was hidden a map and directions on how to walk back to town and where to lay up safely for the night. Of course, she had long known about basic maintenance of the complex, such as fueling, battery use, and so forth.

One last good shmuck on Millie, along with a pussy fingering and titty bob, and I was in the truck heading south.

Town

It didn't look all that different than when I left it last fall. A few new buildings but, all in all, the same. On the way down, I had stopped at the supplies cache, gathered up the empty cans that I had left, then made an inventory of what I needed to put it back in order. Parking at Joe's fuel depot, I unloaded the empty drums of diesel, ordered them filled, along with the gas cans, then headed for Stuffer's hooch.

"Goddamn, John. Good to see you again," he said as we shook hands. At least he was still all right, but I had never known him to go to a joy house, so I wasn't expecting him to wind up in a snowdrift with a shiv in his back.

I sat at the chair he waved me to. "What's the bad news for the winter, this time?"

He waved his hand. "We'll talk about that later. I've been waiting for you to show up again. You aren't the only one who wants our town back."

I yawned, then crinkled my forehead. "What are you getting at?"

"You're tired. I want you to sack out over there until later. That will give me some time to get the word out."

I was about to protest, but I WAS beat from the trip. Even in summer, it was a long, slow, bouncy ride. I nodded, then relaxed on the ratty sofa as he turned off the lights and left.

Later

Dave, Bob - different Bob, not the constable - William, Stuffer and myself were sitting around the table. The first three were old acquaintances from my school days and pre-gold mining inheritance. "Kat was killed?" I asked. I knew about Jake, but little Kat? Our resident comic book nut. He had thousands of them - some valuable.

"Why? Unless something changed while I was gone, he didn't have money."

Bob shook his head. "Unknown. All we're sure of is that he left from the sawmill one evening, went to the Peacock, and was never seen again."

"It isn't hard to put two and two together," added Dave. "He might have left town, but there is no way in hell he would have left his collection behind. And damn sure, he wouldn't have left without his sister."

I nodded. "So, we have several sunflower boots that wound up as stiffs, myself stuck and left for dead, Jake and Doc murdered, and now another local missing."

William was nervously opening and closing his huge pocketknife. "Stuffer says you have... uh, already handled some of the bastards."

"Bitches," I said. "Not the main man and his hired guns." I wondered how much to say. "My tipster said that the kingpin was a guy named Reed. I never did see..." I looked over at Stuffer shaking his head.

"No, John. While you were gone over the winter, I did some snooping. The real owner of the Peacock and two others is this guy." He laid a picture on the table. A guy standing by a car talking to someone. "Reed is his name. Larson Reed. Keeps a low profile and lives in the top floor of the Heston." A upscale hotel, downtown." Likes to mingle with the customers at night, but never brags about his position. Most people think he is just the house accountant. Buys drinks for regulars. Even loans them a bill or two when they aren't holding."

I looked at the picture. A big man, not bad looking. About thirtyish.

He continued. "Carries a shiv in one boot and another under his left armpit."

I looked at Stuffer with wide eyes. "How the fuck did you get that information? No, don't tell me. You have an insider at the place."

He just looked back at us blankly.

Bob spoke up. "Stuffer said that you probably already have a plan."

William stabbed the knife into the block of wood on the table. "We're with you. Jake was my sisters fiancee. And a friend."

"So was Kat," Dave added. "That kid never hurt anybody. Hell, he would lend you his last dollar if you weren't holding."

I nodded, the replied. "Sort of a plan. I've been thinking about it nonstop all winter. But it's incomplete. I need some more info. And a few items..."

Fairbanks

I drove down to the big city to visit my "banker." He was happy to see the large container of dust that I brought. In fact, it was more than he had cash on hand to buy, so I went shopping for the day to give him time to round up more greenbacks. Once again, the price of gold was up. The next day he paid me and I began to look for that magical device that I had read about during the winter - the TV Tape player. Unfortunately, it wasn't available yet, at least up here. What the heck. I stopped by a record shop and stocked up on some more platters. And girl stuff. Flip flops, combs, twat plugs for their periods, and so forth. And lots of miscellaneous general supplies - small ones, of course. I only had a car to haul the stuff back to my hometown and the truck. But now I had plenty of money.

The truck was loaded with supplies. With five of us upstate, buying food by the can wasn't practical. At least for the staples. I loaded fifty pound bags of flour, rice, cornmeal and so forth. And bags of salt and sugar. For canned stuff, I got the restaurant size, in huge tins. The cabin made a great cold storage during most of the year - no weevil was going to survive forty below. And it was varmint proof. No problem with wolves and bears.

Loaded full to the top, I started back home. It was late spring and the weather was beautiful and I took my time. Along the way, I replenished my emergency stash, just in case. Soon, I was home and unloading. I wanted to make two more trips before winter so I could have several years worth of supplies on hand. If my plan went south, it would be unwise for me to return to my hometown the next summer.

By late summer, I had done just that. The complex was brimming with fuel and food and supplies. And I had a plan. How good it was would depend on luck, timing and mother nature. And greed.

As it turned out, Stuffer had a couple of local girls working on the inside and willing to supply him with information. He was careful to make sure that they were never found out, otherwise there would be a couple of more bodies laying in the woods with slits in places where girls weren't supposed to be slit. But, now we knew who and how.

Bob was the inside man. He spent all summer going to the Peacock to establish his bone fides. He dropped a casual hint here, and asked an innocent question there. Talking about me.

During the summer, I made some additions to my obscure trail leading to the mine.

Fall rolled around and we were waiting for the proper weather.

Time passes

"This might be it." Stuffer was reading the weather report that Dave brought over from the airport. We had been waiting for an interminable time for the proper front to come through, but so far every one had petered out. "Forty eight hours will tell."

"I hope it doesn't come too fast. Last time I tried something like this, I..." My eyes widened as the door opened and a woman entered - a girl, actually. Since she hadn't knocked, the obviously she was either expected or had the right to be here. I looked at her for a moment. I didn't think she could be Stuffers squeeze - she was thirty years younger than him. Heck, she was even several years younger than me. I looked at Stuffer, but he looked back calmly. So... She was part of the deal.

"John, this is Christy White." Son of a bitch! This had to be Kat's kid sister. Damn, the last time I saw her she was flat as a board and had braces on her teeth.

"Christy. This is..."

"I know who it is. Hello, John." She walked over and gave me a hug. So this was his inside source. Goddamn. If mild little Kat found out that his sister was working in a cunt house, he would come riding out of hell on the Devil's own horse.

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "Promise me one thing, John." I nodded. What else could I do? "When you cut his balls off, tell him who was your source of information." I nodded again, then looked at Stuffer. He just looked back, blankly. She turned around and looked at him. "Remember, Joe. Peggy is innocent. Some of the other girls are in on it, or at least help with setting up the killings, but she doesn't."

He nodded. "Yes. We know." He turned her toward the back door. "Now get out of here - the others will be here soon."

I watched as she left, emotions in a... well, I didn't know. But I hoped that I could cut his balls off while he was still alive and bring them back to Kat's sister.

In about fifteen minutes, my other three conspirators came in and we ran over the plan one more time.

Finally, I looked at my friends. "Ok, we need to get the tale started. Remember, if it starts to go wrong up to the truck leaving, we back off and try again with another plan. If the truck goes, we're committed."

Later

I was looking over the truck that I had "bought." Actually, Dave had leased it for me and had taken my truck out of town to an out of the way location. I needed to make sure that I was familiar with it, since it was somewhat bigger than mine, which made it a damned good size for sure. This one also had a few special modifications that didn't come from the factory. The main reason I had it now was that it had a crew cab. We made a dry run and it seemed to work.

Dave ran a truck mechanic shop so we parked it in his garage where it would be 'worked' on for some obscure problem. Actually, it was a way to stall my leaving town in case our weather front died off again, as the last two had done. The truck wouldn't be 'fixed' until the proper weather began to blow through.

Later that afternoon, Bob came by looking for me. "Ok, you're on. I think he took the hook. Now you have to set it." He took my hand. "Be careful, John. This bastard is a snake."

Almost instinctively I moved my right hand and felt for my hunting knife, hidden under my clothes on my left rear side. What the heck. I might get it, but unless I was ambushed from behind, there was some uncertainty about just who would wind up stuck.

We moved out into the increasing wind. I looked to the northwest. Nothing yet. At the entrance to the Peacock the bouncer nodded to Bob and we entered the warm joy house. Inside the door was a huge room, taking up most of the bottom floor. This early in the day, very few stiffs were in the joint and only two girls were visible, sitting at a table drinking colored water and talking to each other. Bob walked over to the barkeep, said something and was nodded toward a door. He knocked and we entered.

For the first time up close I saw the bastard that I intended to feed to the wolves. The man in Stuffer's picture. Tall, well built, clean shaven. He looked like a prosperous pipeline engineer, with polished leather boots, new jeans and a plaid shirt.

He got up and took my hand. Just another regular guy. "Hello, John. If Bob hasn't told you, my name is Reed. Larson Reed. Sit down. Drink?"

I shook my head. God no. I needed all my senses and reactions working if I was to survive this day. "No thanks, Mr. Reed. Too early for me." I sat down in the offered chair.

He nodded at Bob in obvious dismissal. When the door closed, he leaned over the desk and said, "Bob tells me you have a claim and need a grubstake." That told me that he was a sunflower trying to talk like a Sourdough. Grubstake. He had been watching too many movies.

I nodded. "I have a good vein and it's getting better, but with a hammer and hand drill I can't produce much." I reached into my pocket and took out a metal can with a screw top. "This is the month's run of color." I set it on his desk and he picked it up with an effort. Unscrewing the lid, he looked in and just stared. I could almost feel the greed radiating from him as he looked at the product of an entire winter's worth of work, and a little extra from my stash. I knew that when I talked about my minimal production, he was probably expecting a little tobacco pouch with a few ounces. He was looking at about twenty thousand dollars worth of gold. Not a small amount in the nineteen seventies.

"Not bad," he said. "What do you need?"

I started listing a long phony set of needs for turning this putative mine into a big production. "A lot more than this will buy. Drills, explosives and someone who knows how to use them, dump trucks, crushers, separators. I have a full list made up, but I left it in my cabin. I wasn't expecting to find someone interested in investing in the mine. I just came down for more supplies."

He screwed the lid back on and pushed it back over to me. I had no fear of him taking the gold and disposing of me. No way would he kill the farmer before he revealed the location of the goose with the golden eggs. I put it back in my pocket - a heavy load for my jacket. He leaned back and steepled his hands, looking at me and pretending to think.

Finally, he started, "I might be able to find the money. If the claim is as good as you say it is. How far is it?"

"A few hours," I lied. "My truck should be ready in a little while if you want to run up there and look. Maybe with a mining engineer, if you want."

He shook his head. "No. Lets not get anyone else involved yet. We can take my truck and go now."

I needed to cut this off at the knees right now. "Is that your green 4x4 outside?" He nodded. "I'm sorry, but nothing gets up that road and over the water but a ten wheel drive with a fording kit. In a pickup, we'd be swimming in really cold water at the first river." I shook my head. "No. We need to take my truck. But... do you have a couple of men that can come along? Maybe one with a rifle? Grizzlies can be a problem this time of year." Nobody who was planning something not exactly kosher would deliberately ask for his mark to bring along reinforcements.

Dave's garage

The truck was outside and idling. It was also loaded to the gills, although most of the cargo was phony. Empty boxes and empty fuel drums. Reed and his two goons were standing beside the passenger door, waiting for me to "pay" Dave for the service. I was wearing my light plaid shirt on purpose. The three men were too ignorant of their environment to know that you NEVER went into the boonies, even in summer, without a full set of snow gear.

I nodded to Reed, went around to the driver's side and climbed up into the seat. Reed got in the front with me and his two men in the crew cab seats behind us. I shoved it into gear and off we went.

It was just getting dark and the wind was picking up. I could tell that the norther was only a few hours away. If I looked really hard, I could see an occasional flake of snow crossing my line of sight. As we drove, the boss man asked a few questions about the claim. I lied and just threw out answers. I knew I was perfectly safe until we got there, but once they saw the place and knew were it was my life span would be measured in seconds. Eventually, we hit the trail at the end of the road and kept going. Now it was pitch black, the wind was really blowing. Not that it bothered the huge truck, but I could see the branches in the headlight beams whipping in the wind. I kept the cab nice and warm, but feeling the side glass, I could tell that the temperature was close to freezing by now and dropping rapidly. With the wind like it was, the chill factor had to have been well in the minuses.

Reed was starting to get restless. The few hours away were getting to be a little longer than he was expecting. Finally, I reached the part of the trail that I had modified in the summer and they didn't notice that we turned left at the fork in the trail. Actually, I think they were dozing and noticed nothing. I reached down under the dash and flipped a hidden switch - one that wasn't standard equipment on this truck. The new trail led on though the woods then began to curve back toward the real trail in a great circle. Finally, it intersected the original trail, I drove on for a half mile or so, then braked to a stop.

Reed and his men popped out of their highway trance. "What's the deal?" he asked, not exactly in a friendly voice. He had gone lot further than he had been led to believe the distance would be.

I pointed to the temperature gauge. It was almost pegged on the H. A phony reading to be sure - it was the direct result of the switch I had flipped a short time before. "We're overheating. We got ice in the radiator on that last creek fording. I just need to put a piece of cardboard over the grill for a short time and it'll melt." Not giving him a chance to reply, I opened the door and climbed down, quickly closing it behind me. I would prefer them not to know yet just how cold it was. As I hit the ground, I immediately stooped, reached under the climber, and twisted a valve. Diesel began to pour out onto the ground. Then, not hurrying, because my suspicious passengers might be watching in the side mirror, I walked down the side to the truck to the back and disappeared from view.

I reached up for my prepositioned seabag, began to pull it out... and just about had a coronary. A figure suddenly rose up, totally fur covered, and began to crouch in preparation to jump. I backed up, whipped out my hunting knife was just about to meet the lunge with a blade, when a voice shouted over the wind, "No! John. It's me, Christy."

God almighty damned! I spent the next few seconds trying to get my heart restarted, then reached up and pulled her down. Now wasn't the time for stupid questions, especially with a truck cab full of armed bastards who were about to be in even more of a killing mood than normal.

I grabbed the seabag, slung it over my shoulder, grabbed her hand and hauled ass up the road.

Waiting

Goddamn, the wind was fierce! It must have been blowing at forty or fifty miles an hour. I liked to have froze before I got my snow gear out of the bag and put on. We were well off the trail, but in a pre-surveyed spot with a view of the truck, about a hundred yards away. Of course, all we could see was the taillights.

Once I was properly clothed, I pulled out the rescue bag, held it open and said, "Get inside." She climbed in and I was right behind her. I pulled the sides up to our necks, then pulled on the draw ropes to lightly close the opening. Then I kneaded a chemical warmer and sat back to wait. The irony of being on a major revenge trip, and then winding up sitting in a bag in a major storm and with a pretty woman was... well, it wasn't anything I would ever tell anybody. I didn't want a reputation as the biggest blowhard south of the Arctic Circle.

The bag was totally wind proof, and we began to warm up quickly, especially with a warmer between us. I had been dressed for warm weather and had been riding in a heated cab. My exposure to the elements without proper clothing was only a couple of minutes. She had been riding in the back of the truck for hours. If she hadn't been a genuine Sourdough female who knew how to dress, she would have been dead and stiff long before.

"Now. While we're waiting. Just what the fuck was this little stunt for?"

Obviously, we couldn't see each other faces. In fact, we could see nothing but taillights and headlight glare in the distance. But, I doubted that she currently had a little girl smile on her face. "That bastard murdered my bother. I want to help kill him. Or, at least watch him die."

Shortly, I heard the engine stop as the tank ran dry from the valve spewing all the fuel onto the ground. That diesel was now air locked and nobody was going to start it, even with fuel, that didn't know how to purge the fuel lines and injectors.

"You've got a part in the next phase. You're supposed to be with Bob, not me. What the hell were you thinking, you dumb bi... broad? This isn't a game or a movie. What did you think you were going to do that I couldn't?"

"Please, John." A little girl voice. "I just needed to see it happen."

I wondered how long they would stay in the cab. It would start cooling off fast, but with no clothes except what they were wearing, they had nowhere to go. If they stayed in the truck they froze. If they left and started walking, they froze faster.

They got out. I could see shadows between the headlight beams, shining the other way down the trail. I saw the taillights blink as they moved around behind the truck, no doubt looking for me. That only lasted for a few seconds and I heard two doors slam as they desperately climbed back into the cab.

"Are you warm enough to walk a few miles?"

I could detect the disbelief in her voice. "Walk where? Back to town? What about the truck?"

"Nope, we're going back down the road a little."

Now she was getting disturbed. "And just leave them? What if they get the truck started and find their way back?"

"That truck ain't goin' nowhere till the storm stops and a mechanic comes by with a can of fuel and a wrench."

I got out of the sack, waited for her to climb out, then put it back into the seabag. I slung it over my shoulder again, and began to walk back toward the truck, but well off the trail. As we passed it, I looked as hard as I could, but I could see nothing through the windows. We stayed well into the woods until we were ahead of the headlight reach, then moved back to the trail. I could still see the truck, now about a quarter mile away. "You'll thaw out as soon as you get to the gates of hell," I said quietly, then we turned around and kept walking.

About three miles down the trail, we came to a tree that had been marked with the florescent tape, entered the woods again and pulled the tarp off of Bob's jeep. Opening the hood, I kneaded two warmers and set them in the battery compartment. In a few minutes, I tried the starter and it kicked right off. I slowly steered the jeep onto the road and waited for the engine to warm up.

"We're going to your claim?" she asked. "I thought we had to..."

"Nope. Back to town. More stuff to do."

She was confused, as I knew she would be, along with the unfortunates in the truck. "But town is in the other direction."

I had a little time to brag about how smart I had been. "That's what they're supposed to think, also. In the summer, I cut a long loop through the woods that allowed me to double back without my passengers noticing it. So the truck is facing south, now. The plan was, for our stranded bastards to leave the truck, once they realized they had been had, then start walking in the direction they would think was back to town - except, the rear of the truck is facing north, now. They would have headed for the north pole. Of course, the cold or the wolves would probably have gotten them before they came to Santa's place."

In the low light from the dash, she was looking at me with a different expression. I suddenly realized that it was admiration.

I quickly went on. "We were planning on doing this when an ordinary end of summer cold front came through. They would have lasted quite a while, but still nowhere long enough to walk a hundred miles back to town, even if they knew the right direction. What we didn't plan on was a ten year storm and a wind chill that would freeze your bal... ass off in five minutes."

She put her hand on my arm. "John. I've been a hooker for a year. I know all about the references to male parts." Then she leaned over and kissed my cheek. "Thank you."

Shortly, we were flying down the trail toward town. In far less time than it took the truck to get to it's final stopping place, I pulled up to Stuffers house, got out, and walked up the steps. The door opened before I could knock and we scrambled in.

Later that night

Congratulations had to wait for later, but everybody got the news that the operation went ok. The satisfaction level in the room could have been cut with a knife. The guys were wondering what in the heck I was towing Kat's sister around for, but I didn't have an answer for that yet and no time to make one up.

Holding a steaming cup of coffee in my hands, I started going through the checklist. "Truck?"

Dave spoke up. "Idling new to the field. Along with the van."

The van had been bought the week before by a straw buyer so as to have no connection to the conspirators - i.e us.

"Any customers in the place?"

Stuffer shook his head. "We don't think so, unless some stiff is laying over from last night. Bob is bouncing the front door, keeping everybody out." I knew that on a night like this, there was no way that one of the inside goons would be standing on that porch. He would be a permanent totem pole in five minutes. Even with cold weather gear, Bob was probably having a tough time as it was. Especially since the wind was face on to the front of the building. "They're probably wondering why at least a few customers haven't showed up tonight. And where their boss and his goons are."

"Phones?"

"Dead since sundown." William held up a pair of dikes.

I looked at the clock. "Ok. Let's do it!"

The Peacock, and thereabouts

The fucking wind was howling even more than it had been in the woods. It was far too cold to snow, but still, little flakes of ice were blowing sideways. The wind was going to make this a touchy operation. Fortunately, the two story Peacock was sitting alone on the outside of town, with no other buildings near. Especially downwind. Behind it was just an empty field that was sometimes used to park snow from the streets. I watched as Dave backed my truck up to about fifty feet of the back of the building. I could see a light in the back of the truck, under the flapping canvas. I also knew that there was a roaring propane heater at the front of the bed. A draw for anybody caught outside on a hellish night like this. The entry flap was down, and the entire canvas covering over the bed was trying to blow up like a balloon. I hoped it didn't just rip off. Yet.

I saw the brake lights come on, and the truck stop. The rear loading light came on. Then the van zoomed onto the field and parked in front of the truck.

I waved to William. He upended a can and a liquid began to pour out. He didn't soak the porch, but laid a good stream on both sides of the entry door, but not closer than about ten feet. Then under the porch. I made sure he was plenty far enough away, then lit a soaked rag and tossed it.

The porch went up with a whoosh, although it was barely audible tonight. In seconds, the wind had made the gasoline into a blowtorch and the wooden porch began to burn. We gave it about twenty seconds, then I ran up the steps with Bob, and threw the door open.

"FIRE! FIRE! Everybody out the back door!" We stopped just inside the front door to warn anyone who tried to exit that way, to go out the back. Suddenly, flames began to lick around the door facings and we were suddenly in the position of having to go out the back also. And fairly soon. There were panicky screams from the seven or eight girls in the barroom, and the bartender suddenly woke from his trance, took one look and headed down the hall.

I ran up the steps and yelled at the top of my lungs. It worked - the hall flooded with more girls.

We knew that besides the bartender, there should be three other goons in the building and about twenty women, including the new madam, whom I had never seen. There was now full scale panic in the building, so counting noses was out of the question. Bob and I stopped shouting and ran down the hall and out the back door. Several people had already exited and were being helped into the truck by Dave and William. And a much shorter individual. Bob jumped into the truck bed and William handed him a long object - a shotgun.

Son of a Bitch! In this wind, the old frame house was going up like a Hindu funeral pyre. In a few minutes, we would have to move the truck to keep it out of the horizontal flames. Dave gave me a five and one sign with his left hand, and a four with the other. Ok, we had all the men and five of the women. More girls came running out of the house, screaming. All ran to the truck as we frantically waved them on.

By now, Bob had lowered the rear canvas flap to keep out some of the wind, but it was a matter of degree only. The four men were wearing loafers, jeans and short sleeved shirts, but the women were wearing standard cunt house harem garments. They would get chilled if somebody turned down the air conditioner - in this wind, they would have frostbite in sixty seconds.

As each woman ran up, I would shine a flashlight into their face, the shorter figure would wave at either the truck or van, and the girl would be shunted to the indicated vehicle.

Now we had to leave. The building was becoming fully engulfed and the flames were being blown along the ground by the wind almost to the truck. Dave and William piled in the passenger's side, and I climbed to the drive's seat, shoved it into first, and hauled ass out of the field and down the road.

I saw the massively overloaded van start moving and knew that Christy would be taking the innocent hookers to the fire station across town to get out of the elements.

In the dark, I could see nothing behind us except the fire and the disappearing lights of the town, but I doubted that anyone would jump out of the truck at fifty miles an hour, no matter how many misgivings they had. The propane heater would be far more attractive than the hellish wind. Besides, Bob was standing beside the rear tailgate holding an automatic shotgun.

Twenty miles up the road - the same one leading to my claim - we turned off on another trail. This was a minor gravel road leading mostly up. In fact, it led to the top of a ridgeback, quite an altitude above the surrounding terrain. In twelve miles or so we pulled up to a small log cabin, on the top of the ridge and in the open. This had been here for decades. Originally built for the use of hunters, I guess, it had been a place for teen beer parties, a lookout for the fire service, more hunters, and once a college sent some students here with a telescope for some kind of observation.

A four star lodging, it wasn't. The glass in the windows had been gone since before I was born, the roof had holes, and, for now, most importantly, it was sitting in the full force of the wind. I backed the truck up, stopped and immediately heard Bob yelling for everybody to get out and get inside the shelter. In the dark, lit only by the single work light on the back of the truck, and in their utter confusion, they did.

Bob gave me the double five high sign - ten people left the doomed whorehouse with us, ten went inside the cabin. He jumped on the running board and I was already in gear and heading down the trail.

Three days later.

The storm had blown out. It was still cold, but outside was almost tropical compared to the last three days. My truck was loaded with supplies. I didn't particularly need any at the claim, but I wasn't going to waste the trip by driving an empty truck back. Down the road, I could see the small pile of ashes and left over metal of appliances where the Peacock used to be. Nobody was the wiser, as far as we knew. By the time our little fire department got on scene, there was nothing they could do. With our town in a continual state of population churn from the oil company personnel coming and going, they had no idea who might have perished in the fire.

The crew met one last time at Stuffer's and we drank to the memory of Doc and Jake and Kat - and all the unknown stiffs that had just wanted some tail, but lost their lives in the pursuit. And the young girls who either wouldn't cooperate with the murderous scheme, or wanted to get out from under it. There was little conversation about what we did. It was done - they deserved it, and besides, we had now saved no telling how many lives in the future from that sadistic bastard and his crew. I knew the other whorehouses in town weren't primarily in business to spread friendship and cheer, and any stiff who went to them to get a piece of ass needed to keep his hand on his wallet. But, while those houses would be concentrating on separating the men from their money, they would do it in the normal way and not by murder and robbery.

I shook hands all around, got in my truck with Dave and started north for the winter. We were quiet, wondering what we would see when we came to the big truck that I had abandoned. As I came around the corner, there it was. I stopped, looked for a minute, then let out the clutch and slowly drove up to it. We were both armed to the teeth, but I knew that there was no miracle in heaven that could have allowed the three lightly clothed men to last out the storm. Or an hour, for that matter.

I stopped, and with every sense on full alert, walked up beside the truck on the drivers side. With my .44 magnum in my hand, I climbed the running board and looked in the window. There was nobody. That is, there was no body.

I motioned Dave up, he looked in and swore. "What the fuck?" We looked around, then got down and explored the surroundings of the truck for a while without finding anything.

"Did they get out and wander off?" I wondered. "Instinct would have been to huddle down in the cab."

Dave was still looking around. "Maybe at the end, they were delirious, and just took off toward some illusion. Hell, you know as well as I do when someone is freezing to death, they see all kinds of things."

It was a mystery that was never solved. To this day, I have never heard of any reports of any remains of a man or men found near these parts. The next summer, though, I did hear that a dozen or so people were found in a hunter's cabin northeast of the town. By the time they were found the bodies were eaten and scattered by wildlife, but still, after the remains were sent somewhere down the coast, the coroner there had no idea how they died. There wasn't a bone in the lot with bullet damage or knife scrapes or indication of poison or brute force trauma. Another mystery that made headlines for a day or so, then was forgotten.

While I swapped the dead battery out for a fresh one, Dave closed the temporary fuel dump valve, then siphoned diesel from a barrel in my bed to the other's tank. Then as I cranked, he began the purge of the fuel lines and injectors. In a short while, it caught, sputtered, then roared to life. We shook hands, nodded to each other trying to find words, then got in our trucks and started off - me going north and him heading south.

A few miles down the road, I suddenly jumped as someone banged on the back of the cab. Startled, I stomped on the brake, skidded to a stop with my heavy revolver already in my hand, and jumped out of the cab. About halfway to the back of the truck, I suddenly knew who it had to be. Shit! I don't goddamned believe this.

Sure enough, climbing over the top of the boxes was Christy. She got to the back of the truck and climbed down. I just looked at her for a moment, and then said, "This better be good, little girl."

Meekly, she replied. "I don't have anywhere else to go, John. I know that I'm just a hooker, but I also know that you like women. I'm fairly pretty, aren't I? I could keep you warm at nights."

Shit. What did I do now? She was the little sister of a friend. A dead friend. I didn't want to turn her into a kept woman. On the other hand, dumping her back in town to work in another joy house wasn't exactly something that Kat would have wanted, either.

"Bullshit. You're not a hooker. You're a very brave woman who was instrumental in revenging your brother." It was true, I wasn't BS'ing her. "Leave this place. Go south. Find a college and make yourself a career. Your whole life is ahead of you."

"With what? I've got ten bucks to my name." I started to speak but she cut me off. "Kat was a good brother. He took care of me when our parents died in the crash, but he wasn't educated. All he could get was manual labor jobs. We didn't even have a car. College? I didn't even finish high school." Again, I tried to butt in, and again, she desperately kept going.

"John, think about it. Nobody know the fire was set. Yet. And even if they find out, none of you are going to be connected with it. All the girls are going to be able to say is that some men with parkas rescued them. But they KNOW I was there and helping. And the girls are going to blab. Hell, it's the biggest event in their lives. Of course they are. While there're laying on their backs afterward, it's all they will talk about for months."

"And, if somebody decides it was arson, then they are going to want to take that little girl that helped into a back room and ask questions. With a rubber hose, if she doesn't seem to be in a cooperating mood."

I motioned her to the front of the truck and to get in. I followed her and got back in the driver's seat, but didn't drive off. I needed to think.

She wasn't trying to snow me. If she went back to town, then she would almost automatically wind up back in a whorehouse. Or prison as somehow connected to an arson. The joy house might not be the best of the two. It was the only place an uneducated woman could make anything besides minimum wage. Eventually, she would marry some guy with a junker pickup truck, have a passel of kids, and live the life of a minimum wage wife, beaten up every Saturday night after he got in from the bar. Not a pleasant prospect.

I didn't need another girl. The thought had hit me before the operation that all those bitches in the Peacock that had lured the holding customers to their deaths, would make fine gold miners and deserve it. But, I didn't consider it seriously. For one thing, logistics would become a nightmare trying to feed that many mouths on the other end of a two hundred mile supply line. For another, I wouldn't have known what story to tell my friends about where I was taking all these women.

Christy knew to keep quiet as I decided her future. She was old enough that she wasn't jailbait, although that was almost never an issue between consenting couples. Very few kids up here waited for the approval of the law to learn about the birds and bees. What was it to be? We couldn't sit here forever.

Finally...

I looked over at her. "Here's the deal." I could see her in suspense, waiting for my decision. "I already have women at my place. One is my mistress, so to speak, and the others are three girls that were in on the house's scheme. They're serving time for their crimes, so to speak." Her eyes definitely got larger at this point. "You do what I say, when I say and how I say. This bargain is totally one sided, but it's up to you. I can take you back to town, if you want. And give, or loan, you enough money to get the hell out of there and someplace that you can try to reestablish yourself." I waited.

She smiled, trying to keep from breaking down and crying. In a small voice, she said, "Let's go. It's getting late."

The cache

We stopped a couple of hours away for lunch - and a pee break. I only had one sandwich, but I shared it with her. By now, I was in a better mood and so was she. It was too cold to get out and stroll around, but the cab was nice and toasty so we just sat and ate after our break for nature's call. As we finished the little meal, I noticed her looking at me with a... quizzical? smile.

"What?" I asked.

She began to unbutton her blouse - we had removed out cold weather clothes after our break outside - and said, "Would you like to try me now? You need to know what you're getting." She lowered her head and looked at me under her eyebrows. "If I'm no good, you can just chuck me out afterward to the wolves. Nobody will ever know."

Holy shit! Another submissive woman! No, I decided. She was just being catty. What the heck. The girl was going to be another squeeze in a household full of women on demand. There was no reason for me not to sample the new candy.

The truck had a full bench seat, but I wasn't exactly dressed for a quick bang. It took a while for the boots and socks to come off, then the jeans and shirt, but finally, we were naked and prone on the seat. She WAS pretty. Not nearly as full breasted as Millie, but nice for all of that. And she might have been working in the joy house for revenge, but she HAD learned a thing or two. She definitely wasn't the normal young girl whose total ability was to wet down her partners tool, then lay back and let him do the work.

In a while, I was laying on her in a contented sweat, enjoying the aftermath, but when I tried to rise and pull out, she just held on tight and said, "Not yet. Please." I think she was just overwhelmed to suddenly realize that she wasn't still out in the world on her own - no small thing for a very young, penniless girl with an incomplete education and with her entire family dead and gone.

So, I laid there a while more while my dong slowly retracted on its own. Finally, I said, "We have to go. It's only a couple more hours to my home."

She let go, we got up, dressed and started on our way.

Home

It had happened before, so Millie wasn't totally surprised to have me show up with another woman. She was startled at the new occupant's youth, though. On the way I had explained the workings of my home and enterprise, so Christy wasn't taken aback by the nudity in the cavern. In fact, she easily slipped out of her clothes and thought no more about it. After a shower, and a meal, I sat down on the sofa with my pair of squeezes - Christy had become my squeeze, no other term for it - and told the story. The other three girls were sitting on their mats, one reading, the other two playing a card game. Of course, while I was gone, no mining took place, since I wasn't there to do any blasting. They had had a long vacation - one that would end tomorrow morning.

I was winding down. It had been a long trip as usual, following an even more exciting experience in town. Tonight I would again sample my new young addition to the fold, and tomorrow start back in the ordinary routines. That is, relax and watch while my three female criminals served out their time down the mine shaft. Maybe I would make Christy the straw boss.

A lot had happened that I needed to think over. I was still young, and suddenly, the idea so spending my life in a hole in the ground, however nice and comfortable, didn't seem to be quite as desirable as before. I knew now that since gold had become legal for ordinary Americans to own, it would probably increase in price for the long future. I would start mining in earnest. Even if I didn't come to the putative mother load, I could still pull out enough to become a very wealthy man in a few years. I could cash it in, hire a professional money manger and live the good life around the world.

In the dim light, I lay back on the pillow and watched one set of young tits climb onto the bed on one side, and another and older set climb up on the other. It was a good plan to start with. A few years of work, then a lifetime of... of... well, doing whatever I wanted.

But for now, I had four dangling titties to have to deal with.

The End

Copyright© 2012 by Morlock. All rights reserved. I welcome your comments. Email me at Morlock1024@yahoo.com