# Car 54

####
© 2005 / revised 2014
K Pelle

### Chapter 31:
Flash Floods - No Stopping for 5 Miles

One of the many things that living on a farm had taught me was that no matter what problems I was dealing with in my personal life, the animals on the farm had to have food and water. Actually water is the primary need because every form of life on earth is dependant on it, so when Carissa had noticed that the flow of water in the creek was reduced I became concerned.

Every drop of water used on the ranch, no matter what it was used for, came from that creek in one way or another. The major source of water for the creek was the artesian well that Grampa Bender had dug in 1907, which was when he first filed on his homestead at the top end of the upper valley. In fact the whole lease for both the upper and lower valleys was dependent on water rights and almost all of that water flowed from Grampa Bender's artesian well. I wasn't sure what the government would do about the lease if that water supply failed and I didn't want to find out, so that morning I needed to check why there was less water flowing than normal. I had high hopes the flow was being reduced by a buildup of sand in the outlet of the artesian well, since that was something I could fix, otherwise I was unsure how the problem could be solved.

So as soon as the girls had left that morning, I fixed a small thermos of coffee just the way I liked it and loaded some tools I'd need into the Jeep. Then it wasn't long before I was driving the Jeep along the trail to the upper end of the lake at the top end of the ranch, but as I drove I was thinking of how the place must have looked when Grampa Bender had first seen it. He'd told me about how much it had changed, and I had a good imagination, so in my mind's eye I was imagining myself back in 1907. Well actually I was thinking of Grampa Bender and the tales he had told me.

Back in 1907, Grampa Bender, his father, his two brothers, and his brother's wives had moved to Canada from the United States. They'd been sharecroppers in the US, either renting farmland or working for others, but they came to Canada to homestead on property that they'd be able to call their own. All they'd brought with them were some horses and a few cattle, other than that their worldly possessions were carried in four heavy duty 'trail' wagons, each pulled by a four horse team.

Great-Grampa Bender and his two older sons had planned on farming, so all but Grampa Bender filed on homesteads which stretched across the southern edge of a long valley and along a road allowance. The valley floor they'd chosen was relatively level, but well drained and had great potential for mixed farms. They'd chosen to file there because backing their new homesteads was a stretch of rougher land which was unsuitable for plowing and planting, but had the potential to be good grazing land. The family had high hopes that they could somehow find a way to obtain the rights to use that land for ranching. Grampa Bender did more than hope though and since he wanted to be a rancher, not a farmer, he hadn't filed on a homestead when the rest of his family did.

William Tobias Bender wanted a ranch and once his family members were settled on their individual stakes, he saddled his horse and loaded a packhorse with gear. Then he set out to explore the rougher and drier country stretching up the valley above their homesteads, warning them that he planned on being gone for at least a week or two.

The first thing Grampa Bender did was check out the two creeks that ran along the western edge of his father's new homestead. Even in early June one of those two creeks was almost dry, so it seemed likely that creek was only fed by spring runoff from the sloping area around and above it. However the other creek showed promise since it was still running slowly, but steadily, so he followed that creek upstream. About ten miles upstream from his family's homesteads the valley walls had narrowed to only a few hundred yards wide and Toby found that the waters of the creek cascaded down a steep sided ravine. That ravine was so steep that it was almost impossible to climb, particularly since he was riding one horse and leading another. He spent most of one day trying to find a trail that a horse could follow up that cliff. Although the vertical distance between the upper and lower areas wasn't that great, that drop-off was steep and although the cliff was only made up of sandstone and slate, it was still solid rock. He'd had to trace out a long convoluted route on foot before he could lead his horses up that cliff by following steep slopes and ledges that were relatively unsafe. Even then he had to blindfold each horse, then guide each of them up the trail individually.

When Toby Bender saw that upper valley though, he fell in love with the place. Naturally fenced by steep cliffs on the sides and relatively flat bottomed, that upper valley was a 'natural' ranch where stock could graze freely, but could still be easily confined to a limited area. Even though it was early summer the creek was still flowing, so it seemed as if water would always be within easy grazing distance for either cattle or horses.

Toby thought he was in heaven; the place was perfect, well, almost perfect. Water still might be a problem though, since there was a chance that the creek might not run year around. He hoped he was wrong, but it seemed that the creek might also be dependent on drainage from spring runoffs off the slopes of the foothills and mountains to the west of the valley. That lack of a year-round water supply might put an end to his dreams of a ranch since he didn't have the money to build flood control dams which would provide a year round supply of water.

However, as he investigated further, he noticed a small lake surrounded by stands of willows and marshy ground near the farthest cliffs of the upper valley. Then in amongst the willows he found several spots where ground seepage drained into the little lake. After some digging with a camp shovel at one promissing spot he found a small spring where water was seeping out of a sandstone layer sandwiched between two layers of shale. Scratching away at the sandstone with his small shovel, he found he could increase the flow slightly and he had thoughts of opening that gap to try to increase the flow of water. But, first he wanted to know if that was the only source of water, so he decided to check out the rest of the valley before he tried to do much more.

It had taken him two days to trace the creek back to the lake, but he'd warned his folks he might be gone a week or more, so time wasn't a worry. He spent two additional days checking for water sources, but by the end of that time he was convinced that the ground seeps, the spring and the tiny lake were the true source of the water in the creek. As well as that though, the more he saw of the valley, the more he liked it and the more he wanted to live the rest of his life there, however that thought lead to worries about the problem of access. He had to have a better means of getting anything in or out, something other than that steep path up the cliff at the bottom end of the upper valley. The obvious place to look for a possible trail in or out of the valley would be one of the water eroded gullies that cut their way down through the surrounding cliffs. Luckily for him there was a coulee less than a mile from the upper edge of the valley that had a manageable grade. Toby was convinced that a trail wide enough for a wagon could easily be cut into one bank of that eroded gully.

Toby led his horses up the grade and across the exceptionally dry plateau above the cliffs in hopes of finding a road that would lead him back to his family. Soon though he felt as if he'd wandered into a desert because the area was baking in the sun and the ground was parched. Everything was covered in saw grass, scrub willows or low brush, but it was also cut up by erosion gullies, so it took some time to work his way through the area. Yet before long he found himself on the edge of what looked like a poorly farmed field, and he realized that someone was trying to homestead that dry barren area. Following the edge of the field he soon found himself riding along a narrow strip of unplowed ground between two rough fields. Eventually that unplowed track led him to two poorly built sod homes and in moments he was meeting two French Canadian men and their families. They had been trying to scratch a living out of that dry ground, but were failing miserably. They had lost their plow horses, used up their money, shot the last shells of their only unbroken rifle and they were worried that their well was going dry. If the two men hadn't been married to native women, everyone might have starved. As it was the two women and an older daughter were feeding both families on what small animals they could snare and what native plants they could find.

Grampa Bender never told me much more about that family, other than that he shared the supplies he had on his packhorse with them and that he went hunting to get them a deer for meat. However, homestead regulations of that time stated that single men could only file on 160 acres of land. Yet I had seen a copy of the original homestead documents that stated "William Tobias Bender and wife" filed on 320 acres of land at the head of our valley. I've come to assume that the older daughter of that family became Grampa Bender's first wife, Nettie.

Grampa Bender said Nettie was with him when he brought back a pick, a shovel and a few sticks of dynamite and they opened up one of those springs to increase the flow of water. After that, they filed on the homestead and negotiated a lease with the government for the whole valley - clear down to the homesteads that his family had previously filed. Needless to say, the respect level he received from his family was a lot higher than it had been. They were especially appreciative once the level of the creek rose, even though there had been no recent rains.

The original lease agreement that he and the family worked out was a direct result of a large herd of cattle that had been driven into the area from south of the border. A rancher had driven four hundred cattle in from Montana, but didn't have any range for them yet. Grampa Bender and his family had the range that could be used to pasture them for a short time, but they had very few cattle. A deal was soon struck, and while the rancher moved on to find an area to set up as his ranch, his cowboys and Grampa Bender's brothers agreed to pasture the herd in the lower valley for a few weeks. Part of the charge for pasturage was paid in cash, but another portion was settled with several head of cattle. Suddenly the Bender clan had a source of income and a small herd of cattle, but both were due to Grampa Bender's foresight.

Knowing that winter was going to be rough, the first thing Grampa Bender did after he had filed on the homestead and lease was to help his father and brothers to build soddys. He'd had to explain to me that a soddy is made by taking the sods plowed out of the field and stacking them like oversized bricks to make walls. Built right, they could be warm and cozy. However, soddys got a bad reputation over the years, because they were often thrown up quickly and as a result they were often drafty and cold. Then too, since wood was hard to come by on the flat prairie and glass was relatively expensive, it was hard to build windows into a soddy, so they were often dark and dingy inside. Because of that, more than anything else, Grampa Bender disliked soddys, but he was skilled with woodworking tools and he had no problem finding or felling timber. Since he couldn't talk his family out of building soddys, he convinced them to at least build a timber framework, then build their sod walls using that frame so they were able to mount proper doors and windows.

While he'd helped them build the soddys, Grampa Bender had been buying, selling and trading various goods he had hauled north on the trip for the tools and equipment he needed for his ranch. When he'd come from the US, he'd owned a heavy duty wagon, a four horse team, two well-broken saddle horses and three half-broken broncs. Since he'd been a skilled trader, the wagon had been almost half-full of various western gear and paraphernalia which he'd collected during his short lifetime. Because he had different needs now, he traded away most of his cattle-driving gear, a rifle and two revolvers, two saddles and two of the horses. He even traded off the heavily built 'trail' wagon to a man who ran a cartage business. However before all three of the soddys were finished, he ended up with a lighter wagon, a plow, a pot bellied stove, a bed and mattress, a mare in foal, six Hereford cattle, a young Shorthorn bull, a pregnant sow, five hens and a rooster. That list doesn't mention a small wagon load of hand tools and dried food that he had either owned previously, traded for, or bought in a nearby town.

Once his father and each of his brothers had a place for their families to live, he convinced his two brothers to help him move his menagerie up to his new ranch. They not only agreed, but insisted that they wanted to give him a hand for a week or two, which meant he could get established before the winter. Once his family drove the wagon load of goods and the animals down the rough trail through the water eroded gully and into the upper valley, they understood why Grampa Bender wanted to settle there.

Over the next two weeks and with his brothers' help, Grampa Bender built a tiny, one room cabin, a lean-to pole barn, a couple of temporary sheds and several short fences to pen the pig and chickens. He was used to living alone, but after his brothers left, he and Netty found out just how lonely and isolated their new ranch was. So they worked from early morning until late night, but they also visit his family every few weeks and they made trips out to the tiny town that had been established just a few miles away.

They also explored the valley, closing off and fencing the cuts that water had worn in the cliffs in order to prevent their stock from wandering away. Not far up one of the larger coulees Grampa Bender found a small seam of coal, so he and Netty hauled several wagon loads back to the cabin, building another log-walled lean-to in order to store it out of the weather. However, most of that first summer and fall were spent in making sure they could care for the stock during the winter.

One of the things they had done was to return to the spring that they had opened up, to check how that was doing. To their surprise, a fair amount of sand had built up around the outlet, in fact, enough had built up that it was actually slowing the flow of water. They spent most of the next week expanding the hole as much as they could, often working waist deep in the cold water. Finally Grampa Bender lost his temper when he found that the water was actually forcing its way through a tiny slit between two layers of shale. He made a trip to town to buy more dynamite. When he returned and set off the blast, he was astounded at the results. The water now came out of the hole so forcefully that it welled up a few inches above the pool that formed in the hole they'd dug. In fact it was flowing so strongly that the flow carried most of the smaller rocks and rubble from his blast right out of the hole. Now the ranch didn't have a normal spring; it had an artesian well. However at least once a year from then on someone had to go clear the sand out of the well, either that or the water flow gradually slowed.

Clearing out that sand and hopfully increasing the water flow from the artesian well was the job I had set myself and I knew the job would take a while. There is simply no way to scoop fine sand out of flowing water unless you do it slowly and carefully. If you rush the job you lose more sand than you remove on your scoop because the flowing water washes it away, instead you have to move your scoop at the same speed as the water is moving and that happens to be slowly.

As I dug about a half-ton of wet sand from the pool around the artesian well, I carefully tried to steer my thoughts away from the problem concerning the two young women who seemed to both want to live with me. Instead I tried to think about the ranch and what needed to be done during the upcoming days, prior to the time when I had to rush off to Calgary and begin my studies. Of course, trying not to think about the girls made it impossible for me to do anything else.

Resigning myself to the fact that they were the prime worry in my mind, I decided to review my thoughts about each of them. The first thought that came to mind was the fact that I couldn't see why either of them wanted to have anything to do with me. I was younger than they were and ... wait a moment, they said that our ages didn't matter. Okay, trying to look at things from their view, what else was a negative for either of their involvement with me? Over the last few hours, I had just heard them sing my praises, so at the moment my mind was blank toward negative thoughts they had about me.

Instead of thinking along those lines, I began to think about the negative points of their characters. Carissa could be very pushy and so could Sandy, but I was as stubborn as they were pushy. Carissa even said I could almost always convince her to see things my way in the long run. In fact she claimed that I dominated her and most other people, but she seemed to like that particular character quirk.

Actually my mind wandered off at that point, thinking that I was going to have to talk to my folks about that domination thing. I wondered if they thought I was as forceful as Carissa did. I knew they often respected my opinions, and I knew that both Will and Beth listened to what I said. Heck, even Tom and George respected my views. Maybe Carissa was right, maybe I did have a dominant personality, but if I did I didn't think I took advantage of people. After a few minutes thought about the subject, I sighed and shook my head. I'd worry about that later.

Right now I had two young women who were going to be coming back from town soon and they'd be expecting me to have an opinion on whether or not I wanted to be involved with both of them. Somehow I had to make up my mind what I was going to say to them.

My next thought was spoken aloud, "Dammit, I'm too young to be thinking of things like multiple marriages and crap of that sort."

Looking around somewhat sheepishly at having started talking to myself, I went back to thinking quietly about the problem at hand as I worked. First off I wasn't ready to settle down and stop looking at other women. Sure having Carissa live with me for the summer had been wonderful, but did I want to be involved with her for the rest of my life? Having sex and working with Carissa had been great. Even our bad times, when we were both blaming ourselves over Corinna's suicide attempt hadn't been that bad because of our support for each other, but was she someone I wanted to be with forever? Especially now that she'd told me she'd like to have sex with women too?

Was the idea of Carissa having sex with another woman a big thing to me? In other words, would I regard her having sex with a woman as cheating on me? What about if I was able to have sex with the other woman too? Wouldn't we be cheating on each other?

Whoa, I was getting carried away, just asking myself questions, or was I? Maybe I should think of all the questions I wanted answers to first?

What about Sandy, what did she think about the idea of having sex with Carissa? Heck, what did she think about having sex with me or with both of us? In fact what did I really feel about having sex with both Sandy and Carissa? On top of that what would my family and my other friends think if ... no, make that when they found out? What would the neighbours say if they knew I was living with two women and did I really care? Carissa had bad mouthed the Bible, but what about religion? What did I really believe?

About then I realized that I had to stop and take the time to think things through one at a time. It was time to let the water in the deep pool settle a bit anyway, so I took out the thermos of coffee I'd brought along and leaned back against a tree. Sipping on a cup of coffee, I thought about what I was faced with and made up my mind that first of all that I should really decide who I was, what I wanted, where I was planning to go and what I was planning to do.

For one thing, I was only sixteen years old and there was no way I was ready to settle down in a marriage. There were too many things I wanted to do before I settled down to spend my life with anyone and I was definitely too young to start a family. As I thought about the situation, I realized that Carissa and I hadn't made any pronouncement of being mutually exclusive in any way either. That should answer my first question about cheating if Carissa had sex with anyone else, but did it? In actual fact, we'd been living together, almost like a man and wife, so in a way, we'd come to feel we were a couple. I'd actually enjoyed that very much. The sex was great, but the mutual support during the day and the cuddles that happened every night when we slept together was even more satisfying. I felt that both of us had gained a lot from each other and if anything I knew that I owed Carissa a huge debt for her commitment to making my life so comfortable for the last few months.

Now it seemed Carissa wanted to branch out and expand her horizons. She wanted to explore her bisexual feelings and she was actually inviting me to play along. In several ways, that alone was a huge WOW factor for me. I'd never realized that Carissa had any desires to be with women, but then she admitted that she'd hidden those feelings from everyone. The fact that she was comfortable enough with our mutual situation that she would trust me with that knowledge was quite a compliment, but I wondered if it changed my feelings toward her? The fact that she had desires for people of the same sex didn't really bother me, but I didn't know why. It wasn't that I had any desires toward any guys, but for some strange reason it seemed different for a woman to feel that way, at least it did to me.

I paused and shook my head after wondering why I felt that sex between two women wasn't the same as sex between a woman and another man. However, I decided that I'd have to think about that idea another time because that wasn't a question which would take a short time to resolve. I already had enough personal questions on my mind and I needed to focus on the problems that I might be facing in my present situation rather than going off into a philosophical fugue.

As I swallowed another sip of coffee, my mind wandered to Sandy and her statement that she had an aunt who was married to a man with umpteen wives. That pretty well established where she stood about having sex with me even if I was involved with Carissa. However, it still begged the question of what she thought about the idea of having sex with Carissa. That was a question only Sandy could answer.

Of course thinking of Sandy telling us that her mother had been raised as a Mormon brought up the question of religious beliefs. Exactly what was my personal feeling about the church and its attitude toward adultery, because that's exactly what I was thinking about. Of course since none of us were married, it really wasn't adultery, not legally. But even though I wasn't a regular participant in the church and its religious rites, I knew that any sex outside of marriage was considered adultery, at least in the church my family sometimes attended.

That was the thing, we seldom went to church because the church had been so weak in its support of Mom and Dad when they'd first gotten together. To be honest the preacher at Dad's regular church at the time had refused to marry them, saying that Dad needed to mourn Mama Kate for a decent period first. After that response you can imagine Dad's reaction. Right then Dad was worried about a pregnant woman that he'd grown to love, a young son that needed care, and a farm that demanded attention. He certainly didn't need some pompous little prick telling him that he needed to grieve for Mama Kate either. I'm surprised that Dad didn't hit the dolt. Instead of smacking him, Dad quietly turned his back on the preacher, walked out of the church and never entered that building again.

Aunt Alice was nowhere near as nice. First off, she arranged for a wedding ceremony somewhere else. However the Sunday following the wedding ceremony, she arranged for all of the Bender family, except Mom and Dad, to attend the services. During the preacher's sermon, which was nothing more than a rant about adultery, she and the whole family stood up and filed out of the church. Most of the rest of the congregation followed them. Since the Bender family had helped build the church, then had paid for over half of the pews, the statement was clear and effective. When rumours spread about the reason for our family's action, community support followed their lead and the preacher had to leave the town. Then inside of a year the church went bankrupt and was sold to a more moderate congregation. Some of our family occasionally attended services there, but they no longer gave the amount of support that they previously had.

With that sort of situation in my family's history, it isn't too surprising that I'd learned early in life to look on organized religion with a somewhat jaundiced eye. In fact with my background I certainly wasn't strong on churches or preachers. I certainly didn't feel that I needed an interpreter to read the Bible and tell me what my view on what any single passage in it should be. That situation was far too prone to personal bias. I'd seen two different churches, and even two different preachers who belonged to the same church, take diametrically opposite views on a passage from the bible. As Carissa had pointed out, the bible was filled with ambiguities, so different people read the various passages to mean totally different things.

I suppose I felt that there might be some sort of supreme being, but did I believe in God as an individual entity? At the moment I wasn't sure. I believed in ethics. I believed in the 'golden rule,' but I knew that I wasn't one of those people who could slavishly follow all the bible's precepts. I wasn't even positive that I believed in following all of the ten commandments. I mean there were times when I might break one or another of them if I felt it was warranted. For instance, if I felt someone was out to kill me, I'm not too sure that I wouldn't 'do unto others,' only I'd try my dangdest 'to do unto him' first. After all, in that situation I'd be defending myself. So, even though the situation I described was far fetched, it effectively eliminated my concrete belief in the commandment that "Thou shalt not kill." Unfortunately beliefs are like a bucket of water. Once you've poked a hole in a bucket, the water will leak out, but the ten commandments are something similar, find a reason to circumvent one and others could easily follow. In actual fact that was why I was sitting there thinking in the first place, I was considering breaking another commandment, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'

As I thought about that and about my overall beliefs, I remembered the old newspaper clipping that Grampa Bender had framed and hung on the wall in his kitchen. I'd read it many times, in fact I thought I could probably recite it from memory. So, shovel in hand and gently lifting each scoop from the roiling water, I tried to see if I could remember the verse.

> A NAME IS A NAME © pella
> A being with nine billion names, Tibetan monks will say.
> They have wheels that they spin, to help them as they pray.
> To say these names is their goal. They strive toward that day.
> For when each name is spoken, in every different way,
> a better world will come to be, or so these monks all say.
> Some people call out to their god, and others say goddess.
> The name that each one uses, makes reverence no less.
> I have no word that I can use, to this I must confess.
> No masculine, no feminine, no name to call to bless.
> Perhaps just 'old ma nature', is the term that suits me best.
> You see to me, there is no church, that holds me in its sway.
> Wherever I may hap to be, that is my church that day.
> I need no priest to influence, the way that I may pray.
> I need no term of reverence, no special name to say,
> for every entity there is, is sacred in some way.
> It doesn't matter any way, what term that each may use.
> A name's a name whatever, no matter what you chose.
> I'm in the world, and of the world, wherever I am bound.
> I live the world and love the world, no matter my surround.
> Each day to me is special, each sight and every sound.
> And yet there is no special thing, to me that is profound,
> for every thing that happens, is a new love, that I've found.
> Creation or evolution? Don't ask me which is real.
> I've planned no major argument. To me, it's no big deal.
> You too have your opinion, but to me there's no appeal,
> for I've no plan on changing, the way that others feel.
> I only speak here for myself, and what to me is real.
> Thank you all for listening, as I philosophize.
> In case I have offended, I hereby apologize,
> but this is my way of reverence, I've come to realize.
> Divinity surrounds me. I need not catechize.
> I need no word of naming, to call upon its guise.
> It doesn't matter any way, what term that each may use.
> A name's a name whatever, no matter what you chose.

I chuckled as I recited the last words, maybe Grampa Bender and I were more alike than I had thought? Actually, I wished I could meet the guy who wrote the verse. Then I wondered if it had been Grampa Bender or one of his friends who had written it under a pen name. Maybe I'd ask him one day?

However, I was almost done the job at hand, but I still had some questions to answer, didn't I? I thought back and decided I did.

Okay, what did I really think about the idea of sleeping with both Carissa and Sandy? Well, as a horny sixteen year old, I loved the idea, but at the same time I worried about what effect it would have on my relationship with each of them. Did I want to risk losing what I had with Carissa, just to get my rocks off with another woman? Would she be jealous? Hell, would I be jealous if she and Sandy got it on without me being involved? Even more important, did I want to be involved with Sandy? She'd already proven to me that she had an extremely volatile temper and I knew that there were bound to be times when either Carissa or I would set her off. Dammit, this was one of those questions that made me think of more questions than it did answers. So I took the easy way out, I decided that these were questions that I needed to discuss with both girls.

On top of everything else, what would my family and my other friends think, when they found out? What would Carissa and Sandy's folks think? Damn, another question that I couldn't answer instantly. The only thing that I could think of was the fact that all of our mothers had seen fit to try to isolate us here with each other, so they had to expect something to happen, didn't they? I really wasn't sure what their reasoning was, but after a moment's thought about each woman, I realized that each of the three mothers probably had a reason of her own for agreeing with the idea.

I think Mom may have felt that Carissa had pressured me into becoming involved and this might have been her way to wake me up to the fact that there were 'more fish in the sea.' As well, it was possible that she was worried about me finding a place to stay in Calgary and she was opening an opportunity for me. Perhaps she was letting me live through a situation similar to what Dad had lived with for a short time, in order that I'd understand their situation better? I really didn't understand her reasoning, even though I'd just thought of several plausible excuses. But then, Mom was a complicated woman, I seldom understood the reasoning behind her actions until after the dust had settled from a situation and it was history.

I think Wilma Coulter may have had a clearer reason than Mom did. She may have suspected that Carissa had a 'thing' for women. Since this was such an isolated situation, isolating the three of us here might have been her way of giving Carissa an opportunity to explore those feelings. In fact as outspoken as Carissa had become since Corinna's dive from the church tower, it was quite possible that she'd told her mom about her feelings. Perhaps she had, perhaps she hadn't? I really didn't know and to be honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

The only person whose reasons I was relatively certain about was Ann McAdam. First off, she'd been raised as a Mormon, so the idea of two women and one man was far from foreign to her eyes. Secondly, Sandy had told Carissa and me directly that her mom was relatively covetous for her daughters. She wanted them to marry into families who owned property. On top of that from what Sandy had said, she was extremely manipulative. I wouldn't be surprised to find out sometime in the future that she had convinced both Carissa and Mom into trying to isolate the three of us for some other supposed reason. In the meantime, I think she was hoping that Sandy could inveigle her way into some sort of relationship with me.

Or perhaps the three of them had just been playing a practical joke on the three of us? Naw, that idea was a little far fetched, even for me.

Of course I'd left all of our fathers out of the equation. I knew that Dad and John Coulter had a lot of faith in my ability to think my way through problems. As for Sam McAdam, I was sure he had a lot of faith in my character as well, but I didn't think he was a great judge of character, so I wasn't about to accept his faith in me as a compliment. After all I'd been the guy who had refused to take his daughter's virginity when it was practically offered to him on a platter, well, at least on a steering wheel. Really though, I don't think any of them realized exactly what was going on. Each of them probably had something else on their mind at the time and never even paid any attention to the fact that Sandy had been left with us.

The only other person who had been there, and done anything, was Wil. I was still angry with him for his little 'joke' of disabling the vehicles, but I knew that since Mom had said she asked him to do it, he was only being an obedient son. I wasn't happy with Mom on that subject either, in fact I wanted to sit down with both of them in the future and explain my feelings. The idea of disabling a person's transportation when he was in an isolated situation, almost twenty miles from any help was not a joking matter to me. However, that was a worry for a later time, right now I was still pondering what to do about having two pretty women who seemed to want me in their bed. No, let's be correct here, they both wanted to join me in my bed.

The only question left was what would the neighbours say if they knew I was living with two women? Did I really care what the neighbours thought about me? The answer was definitely ambivalent. Yes, I cared, but no, their opinion didn't really matter to me all that much, not unless they got really riled and started to pelt us with rocks or something. In actual fact, there weren't that many neighbours near the ranch and the closest ones tended to mind their own business anyway.

At that point I heaved a deep sigh. I had spent the whole morning working on an almost mindless job, but I was finished. At the same time I had reduced some of the conflicts in my own thoughts. I still had several unanswered questions, but I needed input from Carissa and Sandy to answer those. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, simply because of those unanswered questions, but I was a lot closer to a decision than I had been.

As I worked at levelling and spreading the pile of sand I'd scooped out of the well, my stomach growled, letting me know it was time to start to think about having something to eat. I quickly packed up my tools and drove back to the ranch buildings. Once I was there, I saw that Carissa and Sandy weren't back yet, so I decided to put away the tools before I made lunch, maybe we could talk things out as we ate. I spent close to half an hour putting the tools away and cleaning up the tool storage area, but when I looked out toward the cabin the car was back.

Good, we could have lunch and I could talk to the girls about the situation to find out their opinions on what they felt. That would help me make up my mind about what to do, so I hurried back to the cabin.

When I opened the door, there were grocery bags on the kitchen table and the counter, but the girls weren't in the main room of the cabin. Then I saw that the bedroom door was partly closed and I could hear a muffled sounds from inside the bedroom, nothing I could really understand, but things sounded normal. I decided that they were probably changing from their good clothes into something more suitable for working around the ranch. I decided that if I looked in and they were changing, I might make Sandy embarrassed, so to give her some privacy, I set out to clean up and make some lunch. I'd put away the groceries, made three sandwiches and put the coffee pot on before I realized that they'd been in the bedroom for quite a while. Then I heard sounds that were quite familiar and definitely not quiet conversation. Curiosity drew me to the bedroom door.

Okay, so they weren't just changing their clothes.

The door had been partly closed, had they wanted privacy? But by the same token had the door been left partly open as an invitation for me to enter? I didn't want to embarrass or disturb them by asking, but ... shit, what was I supposed to do?

Suddenly I was the one who was embarrassed. I was even feeling a tinge of jealousy. Mostly though, I was feeling aroused. My body was excited and wanted to be involved in the ongoing fun and games. At the same time my mind was screaming at me that if I walked into that room and did anything at all, there were bound to be serious consequences to that action. I knew that I hadn't made up my mind yet which way I was going to jump and I certainly hadn't been prepared for the situation I was facing.

I admit it, I watched them for a moment and I dithered. Part of me wanted to be the rooster in the henhouse, covering any female that arousal had made ready, another part of me wanted to act like a chick and run to be safe, getting myself well away from the action. I knew that the longer I watched, the more likely it was that I'd step inside the door.

Somehow the thought of possible repercussions sank into my skull and I forced myself to step back, then turn away. I'll admit that I was fighting with myself, but somehow my reason won out over my desires. I managed to grab a mug of coffee and a sandwich, then went out onto the front porch to sit and think. Thought didn't come easily. The vision of the two tangled female bodies, writhing on the bed, seemed to be burned into my retinas.

My life had just grown a lot more complicated.

As I sat on the front porch with my coffee and sandwich, I couldn't help but see the humour of turning away from the bedroom and leaving the girls alone. What I found humorous was not the fact that while my body had wanted to join them, but that my thoughts and reservations had won over my physical urges. For some strange reason I found that fact hilarious.

The more I thought about my own reaction to the situation, the stranger it seemed to me. Since I'd grown accustomed to making frequent and very energetic love with Carissa, I couldn't believe how calmly I was acting at the moment. Over and above that I'd just spent the morning considering the situation and had come to no real conclusions, but had decided that I wanted to talk to Carissa and Sandy before making up my mind. Now I'd found that they must have come to a conclusion of their own, then without consulting me they'd acted on it. If anything I thought I should have been upset that they had become involved without discussing it with me, but instead I was left looking at a 'fait accompli.' And yet I wasn't really all that upset that they'd gone to bed together without all of us discussing it first. Okay, I had to admit that perhaps I was somewhat surprised, but I didn't feel even a trace of jealousy. In some strange way I felt almost as if I wasn't involved. Yet, one of those two writhing bodies was a woman that I'd been making love to for months and the other woman was one that I certainly found to be sexually desirable.

At least I had answers to some more of the questions I had asked myself and I chuckled at that realization. I'd wondered what Sandy would do if Carissa 'came onto' her, so now I had a definite answer. That did open another question though: where did that leave me? As I rolled that thought over in my mind, I realized that I still had the same choices, the only difference was that the two women seemed to have made up their minds. However, they had made a decision that involved the two of them, not me. Somehow that fact calmed me even more. I sighed deeply because I still didn't know what I wanted to do. I wasn't even positive that they'd want me to be involved any more.

While I'd sat there thinking, slowly eating my sandwich and drinking my coffee, I hadn't noticed that the sounds of lovemaking had stopped. Which meant I was surprised to hear the screen door opening. I turned my head and couldn't help but grin when I saw Carissa's flushed face and nude body.

"What?" she frowned, then blushed.

"Nothing, I know shouldn't find this situation funny, because it's really none of my business."

"Fuck me, is that all you have to say?" her voice rose in astonishment, tinged with a trace of either anger or worry.

"Okay, let's clarify that. I really don't know if it's any of my business or not," I sighed. "I know it should be, but somehow I've convinced myself that what you and Sandy do doesn't really bother me. After all, you're both old enough to make up your own minds what you want."

"Oh shit!" her head bowed forward as she walked over to lean on the porch railing, facing away from me. "We were afraid this might happen."

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand."

"Sometimes you think too fucking much," she snapped. "Just this one time tell me what you feel, for cripes sake. Give me a clue what the hell is going on inside that fucking head of yours, so I know if we fucked up or not."

"Why would you think you fucked up? " I asked in surprise. "You warned me that you were attracted to Sandy. I was surprised that you didn't tell me that you felt strongly enough to start something this soon, but I can live with that."

"You fucking bastard!" she screamed, then spun on her heel and went inside, slamming the screen door behind her.

"Shit, what did I do?" I asked myself. "In fact, what do I do now?"

I was barely setting my coffee cup down in order to stand, when Sandy came crashing out through the screen door. She wasn't wearing a stitch either, but if she'd had an after-sex glow, it had faded, instead she simply appeared to be furious.

"You son of a bitch!" she screamed at me. "That's it, just like that? You're simply going to give up on Carissa and walk away?"

"What in hell are you talking about?"

"You told her you didn't care!" she snapped.

"I did not. I simply told her that you two were individuals who could make up your own minds what you did with each other."

"That's the same thing. After all, you two have been living as a couple for months."

"Well ... yeah, we have been, but even as a couple neither one of us is the boss. Neither one of us tells the other one what to do or think. Usually we discuss things, then if we don't agree we come up with a compromise."

"Carissa said she told you how she felt."

"She did, I just thought we'd talk more before either of us made up our minds what we were going to do."

"Wait a minute. Don't give me that. She said that she told you she wanted at least one woman involved in your relationship."

"She did?"

"Yes, she said she told you that right away, when she first told you she wanted to have sex with women. Hell, she even trusted you with her earlier feelings when she thought she might be a lesbian."

"Umm, I suppose maybe she did. I was probably thrown off by her telling me that she liked women. She trumped that idea though when she threw in her idea that I'm some sort of domineering character. With those two statements thrown at me at once, perhaps her thoughts about us having a three-way relationship didn't sink in even if I did hear it."

"Well, we did talk things over rather thoroughly at breakfast," Sandy snapped.

"Yeah, but at that time I thought we had agreed to discuss things further. At least I know I said I wanted to talk thing over a bit more, before we started acting like mink and getting it on with each other."

"Well, you can blame that on me," Sandy snapped again. "I got curious, but I have to admit that Carissa didn't argue about getting involved."

I saw the humour in that and I grinned. "Did you really expect her to fight you off?"

"Well, no," Sandy admitted, and developed a tiny grin herself before she frowned again. "Unfortunately, when you looked in on us, you didn't come over and join in. That surprised me, because that's what I really wanted to happen."

"Physically, there's nothing I'd have liked more, but I'm still worried about the complications and repercussions, which affect a lot more people than just us three," I sighed.

"Yeah, I know. Like Carissa said, you think too fucking much," With that, she spun on her heel and walked back inside.

At least she didn't slam the door when she went inside, but she still left me thinking that she didn't like what I was doing. All I could do about that was sigh. It was simply my nature to think things through before I made a decision and I wasn't about to rush my decision just to please Carissa, or Sandy, or anyone else for that matter.

### Chapter 32