No Sanctuary

  On the way up to the stream, Rick stayed behind her. He watched her long bare legs. He watched the way her shirt-tail swayed and fluttered, giving him glimpses of her shadowed rump. The stolen glances, he realized, were somehow even more enticing than when she was naked.

  Just don’t fall and break your leg, he thought. We don’t have the revolver anymore.

  He pictured Julie on the ground. He felt a rush of fear.

  Isn’t it ever going to end?

  Not while we’re in the mountains.

  This’ll be great, he told himself. Yesterday over here was great. Nothing to worry about. The guys are gone.

  They reached the side of the stream at a place where the water tumbled down off a ledge and formed a pool. Rick turned around slowly, scanning the area.

  “Checking for voyeurs?” Bert asked, smiling.

  “We’re really out in the open.”

  “That’s what’s nice about it. Didn’t bother you yesterday.”

  He turned toward the lake. Only patches of blue were visible through the trees. The tops of nearby trees blocked his view of the trail leading up to Dead Mule Pass. The same trees, he supposed, would prevent anyone on the trail from seeing them, even with binoculars.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Bert said.

  “What, me worry?” Rick spread out the sleeping bag. Bert dropped the towels onto it.

  He stood up and went to Bert and kissed her. Her arms went around him.

  The feel of Bert soothed his fears, melted his cold tightness.

  He stroked her back, slid his hands down and under the draping tails of her shirt. He caressed the smooth mounds of her buttocks. He ran his hands up her back. As he curled them over her shoulders, Bert stretched the front of his elastic waistband and dragged his shorts down around his thighs. He felt her cool, gliding fingers.

  Moaning, he lowered his hands. He squeezed her rump, but it slid out of his hands as she crouched. She pulled the shorts down to his ankles and he stepped out of them. He felt a gentle kiss. Her tongue lapped the underside of his shaft. Then her lips opened and slid down him. She was wet and tight and she sucked.

  Then she was rising. Rick felt air on his wet penis. He opened her shirt and spread it wide before she squeezed herself against him and her slick mouth joined his lips.

  Soon, she eased back a little. She gazed at Rick as he slipped the shirt off her shoulders. She reached back and shook the sleeves down her arms. The movements made her breasts shake slightly. Rick caressed them. He bent down and licked a jutting nipple. He pressed it between his lips. He opened wide and filled his mouth with her breast, tongue swirling over the springy nub. He felt her trembling fingers in his hair. He moved to the other breast and took it in, and as he sucked he put a hand between her legs. She spread her legs to make room for it. He slipped fingers into her. She squirmed and clenched his hair.

  She pulled his hair gently and he let his head go back, the breast sliding out of his mouth. His fingers kept stroking. Bert’s hips kept moving in a slow, languid way as she rubbed herself on his hand. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes had a vague look for long seconds, then seemed to focus on Rick’s eyes. She moved his hand away as she lowered herself. He felt the light touch of her fingers on his penis, guiding him. She sank lower, taking him in, sheathing him. He went to his knees. Then he was all the way in, buried in her hugging warmth. She wrapped her arms around him and thrust her tongue into his mouth.

  His knees hurt, but he didn’t care. Bert was tight against him. They were locked together in a hard embrace. They were joined by his penis and her tongue. They had made love many times before, but somehow this time was different. He felt the difference. He didn’t think about it, but he knew it was there. She wasn’t his girlfriend or his lover. They were two parts of the same person and he felt a surge of joy that didn’t overwhelm his passion but fired it instead.

  Bert gasped into his mouth. Her tongue pushed in more deeply. He pulled at it and clenched her buttocks. She was motionless against him, but inside she clutched and squeezed him and seemed to be sucking him up. He fought to control himself.

  She started to whimper. And then she shuddered against him and Rick gave up trying to hold back. He quaked, his penis far up into the center of her, suddenly jerking and pulsing, pumping out his semen, throbbing hard until he was drained.

  When it was done, they stayed together, panting for air. Bert rested her chin on his shoulder. Her hair tickled his cheek. Her hands lay on his back, almost heavy, as if she were too spent to lift them. Spent or not, she kept certain muscles contracted to hold him inside her. He caressed her buttocks.

  Later, she placed her open hands on the sides of his face and looked him in the eyes. “Could we stay like this forever?” she whispered.

  “Maybe.”

  “Might be hard on the knees.”

  “What knees?”

  She laughed, her nipples moving against his chest. Then she kissed him lightly on the mouth. Her vagina tightened, giving him a friendly farewell squeeze that brought a fresh stir of arousal so that he was growing hard again as she slid off him.

  Bert duck-walked backward and sat on the sleeping bag. Her knees were red. She brushed them off. The grit left her skin pitted. Rick stood up. One of his knees popped when he straightened it. He bent over and rubbed them.

  “We’ve got matching knees,” Bert said.

  “Should’ve used the sleeping bag. That’s what it’s here for.”

  “Any port in a storm,” Bert said.

  Rick limped and sat down beside her. He put an arm around her back.

  “When are we going to take that dip?” she asked.

  “I think I’d rather rest for a while before I brave the freezing waters.”

  “Then rest,” she said. She turned him and guided him. He lay down on the sleeping bag, head on Bert’s lap. Her legs were stretched out. She was leaning back, braced up on her arms. She smiled down at him. “Close your eyes.”

  “Are you kidding?” He turned his head and kissed the hot skin below her navel.

  Bert stroked his hair.

  His gaze roamed up the sleek bare slope of her body, studying her flat belly and the curves of her ribs, lingering on the smooth undersides of her breasts, on the twin rumpled disks of darker skin with jutting posts of flesh in the center of each. He looked up the valley between her breasts, at the hollow of her throat, at the soft sweep of her collar bones, her shoulders, her slender neck. Her face. She was smiling down at him.

  “This may be as good as it gets,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know. As good as it gets was maybe ten minutes ago.”

  “Think so?” Rick asked.

  She shook her head. “Not really. It’s all part of the same thing, isn’t it.”

  His heart suddenly quickened. “I love you, Bert.”

  Her smile died. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  She pressed her lips together. Her eyes shimmered ...

  “FOULNESS! STENCH!”

  Bert gasped and flinched rigid at the sudden shouts. Rick lurched up. Prancing on a rock slab beside the stream no more than twenty feet above them was Angus, waving a large wooden club overhead.

  “FILTH OF SATAN!”

  Bert twisted away from the stranger. She flung an arm across her breasts, glanced up at Rick with shocked eyes, and looked back over her shoulder at the wild man.

  “Angus...”

  Rick sprang to his feet, his heart slamming. He had an urge to laugh—or scream, he didn’t know which. His old buddy, the King of the Wild Frontier. Savior of souls. Christ. What a time to show up. The bastard. That coyote’s head, with its mouth hanging open and those teeth an’ all—no wonder he’d given Bert such a fright.

  Rick didn’t believe this was happening to them.

  This is mad!

  Angus hopped up and down like a crazy thing, shaking his stick, the coyote head bouncing but not falling off.

  “MAGGOTS! GET THEE GONE!”

&n
bsp; “Get out of here, you damn lunatic!” Rick yelled.

  “ANGUS MOUNTAIN KING! GET! NAKED INTERLOPERS! VERMIN! TURDS!”

  Angus ducked and skipped aside as a rock shot by, barely missing his head.

  Rick looked at Bert. She was on her knees, reaching for another rock. She grabbed one and reared up.

  “WHORE!”

  “Crazy old fart!” she shouted, and hurled the rock at him. It struck his bare knee, just below the hem of his animal-skin robe.

  He scurried backward.

  Rick crouched. He picked up some of the chips of rock and joined Bert in throwing them at Angus.

  The old man retreated up the slope, shaking his stick and shouting over his shoulder, “SICKNESS! DEFILERS! PUKE AND PISS!”

  A rock thrown by Bert skimmed the top of his head. His coyote hat flew off. Suddenly, he looked a sorrowful sight; his straggly gray beard shook and trembled as he mumbled more profanities. He dropped to his hands and knees, grabbed the hat by its snout, scurried up and ran. Soon, he disappeared among the trees near a bend in the stream.

  Rick and Bert faced each other. Her face was ashen, her eyes wide. “That, I presume, was Angus the Mountain King. You never did get around to telling me the whole story last night ...”

  “Yeah, sorry. I should have prepared you for that. I told you, he’s a maniac, a freak. But, on the whole, probably harmless. Probably gets off on watching folks doin’ what comes naturally...”

  Bert was not convinced. She was still pale and Rick could see she was shaking.

  “Let’s get out of here.” She hurried into her shirt. She tried to fasten the buttons while Rick put on his shorts. Her hands trembled too much so she gave up.

  They rushed down to the clearing. In minutes, they were dressed and packed.

  On the shoreline trail, they hiked fast and looked back often. They reached yesterday’s campsite. The girls had already packed up and gone.

  Bert stopped by the dead remains of the fire. She was breathing hard. Her shirt was still open. She lifted its front, baring her midriff, and knotted the ends together,. “Should we head for the car?”

  “If you want to.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “It was awfully nice before the Wild Man of the Mountains dropped by.”

  “What is he? What really makes him tick? He’s out of it, sure. And gets his kicks spying on other people. Yuck. What a sicko.”

  “He’s a hermit, I guess. Mad as a hatter.”

  “Don’t mention hats. My God.” She took a deep breath and shook her head.

  “I suppose he was probably harmless.”

  “A High Sierra shopping cart man,” Bert muttered.

  “I wonder if he would’ve bothered us again.”

  “What, you want to go back and find out?”

  “I hate to leave that place.”

  Bert looked into his eyes. “It wasn’t the place, it was us.”

  “That’s true. But the place was special, too.”

  “He ruined it.”

  “Maybe we can find somewhere else.”

  Bert raised her eyebrows. “Does that mean you don’t want to leave?”

  “I guess that’s what it means. We ought to be able to find another nice, private place.”

  “That one didn’t turn out to be so private.”

  “It was for a while.”

  “What have we got here, a convert?”

  “Apparently. Why don’t we take the trail you picked out yesterday?”

  “The one the girls are taking?”

  “We’ll walk slowly.”

  “They can’t be very far ahead of us,” Bert said. “We weren’t gone all that long.”

  “If we run into them, we do. But we won’t stay with them. I want to find a place where we can be alone.”

  “Pick up where we left off?” Bert asked.

  “Before the rude interruption.”

  “Fine with me.”

  Rick twisted the burning stub of his cigar against the rock by his hip. Then he rolled the remains between his thumb and forefinger, crumpling the cigar to flakes of brown leaf that drifted down onto the trail.

  He looked at Bert. She was beside him, leaning back against her pack, her legs stretched down to the trail. Her hat with its one side turned up rested on her thigh, held there by the weight of her curled hand on its brim. Her belly was the color of dry sand. It had light, downy hair that was almost too fine to see. Her shirt was tied below the swell of her breasts. Her mouth was open slightly. Specks of sweat glistened above her lip and below her dosed eyes. The hair across her forehead shone golden in the sunlight and moved as the soft breeze blew through it.

  Maybe she was simply resting. Maybe she was asleep.

  Rick decided not to disturb her.

  There was no reason to hurry.

  He felt perfectly content. So far, it had been one helluva trip, he reflected, and in some strange way he was sorry that it was all over. Back in civilization he wondered if they’d still feel the same way about each other. The same way as they did now.

  Wide open spaces—and a touch of danger—did funny things to people. Heightened their senses. Made them think things they wouldn’t normally think—or feel. What if... well, suppose Bert didn’t feel the same about him when she hit the real world again.

  What if...

  He hoped not. He sincerely hoped not.

  Meanwhile, he was quite content. He wouldn’t mind sitting here all day, he thought. Just looking at her...

  Chapter Twenty-five

  It was late when they woke next day. Ten-thirty. No nymphets invaded their space. No teen thugs. No Angus. They were alone. Just as they’d planned from the first, a vacation together, away from it all. Rick lay back and thought how different things would’ve turned out if only it had stayed that way.

  No Andrea to disturb his dreams. No Bonnie to give him the snake-eye. Yeah, so they could still have met up with The Three Thugateers. And Angus, the Wild Man of the Mountains. In an ideal world, he supposed he and Bert could have handled all four of those dudes. Could’ve and would’ve, most likely.

  With some help from my trusty equalizer...

  Rick frowned. Not for the first time did he bitterly regret Bert having tossed his gun into the lake. Oh well, at least we have our knives—and I suppose in an emergency we can hurl a nifty rock or two.

  Bonnie’s hatchet would’ve been useful ...

  Bert’s eyes were closed, but she was smiling.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking, honey?”

  “Mmm ... maybe. just depends. What are you thinking?”

  “That I could murder a coffee. And a long lazy swim.”

  “Oh great!” Rick said. “And bring the wrath of that goddamn Angus down on our heads again!”

  Bert faced him and leaned up on an elbow. She was naked, happy and smiling. The forefinger of her free hand traced slow circles on his chest.

  “Hey. Ricky baby. Think positive. That’s all over now. This is us, remember? We’re on vacation and having a great time. Come on lazybones, let’s go. Race you to the coffee pot!”

  She swung back the flap of her bag and stretched luxuriously. She could afford to—as of right now she had him all to herself. Rick watched her smooth tanned back and the way her arms twisted provocatively above her head as she stretched. He reached out to touch her skin, then gave a sigh of resignation and let his hand drop. Plenty of time for that later.

  Sins of the flesh!

  Whoa boy, for a moment there you sounded like our lunatic preacher...

  “Go on, get the coffee going, woman, and let a man get dressed in peace!”

  They were alone now. Together. He savored the thought like a kid with a special Christmas toy. He had this all-over warm feeling because he knew they both cherished the joy of being together—the tenderness of it.

  Nothing else mattered.

  They’d been through hell and come through the other side okay. From here on in it’s vacation time
, folks.

  Enjoy!

  They heated up and drank what was left of last night’s coffee. It tasted gritty, bitter. Like something from the bottom of a lion’s cage, but hey, what the heck? Right now it was nectar from the gods.

  “Let’s just mosey around awhile before we set off back on the trail,” Bert said. “Let’s live a little; enjoy ourselves. Might as well, since we’re here.”

  “Suppose we meet up with Angus?”

  “Then we’ll turn right around and get back on the trail again. Whatever. C’mon, Rick. We can’t keep saying what if? We’re two responsible people. Innocent people, doing what hundreds of other responsible, innocent people do every year. Hit the trail and enjoy this great big beautiful country of ours!”

  He held up his hands and said, “Okay, okay. Let’s do it.”

  It was hot on top of the ridge. The blinding sun scorched their heads, despite the hats they wore. Rick checked his wristwatch. Two forty-five, near enough. They’d been on the back-of beyond trail an hour and a quarter. Before that, they’d lingered over coffee, eaten beans and a couple of oaty breakfast bars. Then they’d spent some time in the stream. He sure could use that cool stream water right now. He imagined himself naked, scooping it up in cupped hands. All sparkling and cold. Sluicing down over his head, his shoulders, chest, and trickling all the way to his feet.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Bert asked.

  “Probably. It’s goddamn hot up here.” He swatted away a bunch of mosquitoes swarming around his head. They parted, and came back for more. Persistent little bastards. Sizing him up for grub. He splatted one on his arm. It squelched red. His blood, he guessed. Or maybe Bert’s. Or...

  Bert pointed to a finger of pale gray smoke curling skyward. It came from a cabin, halfway down the other side of the ridge. “Who’d live in a place like that? Kinda isolated don’t you think?”

  They stared at the cabin. It was a dilapidated place, sprawling in an untidy heap, part hidden amidst the tall dark pines. It looked like a good place not to visit.