She wore a paisley print sundress and white sandals, no hosiery. She absentmindedly raised the sundress high on her thighs, spreading her legs to enjoy the freedom solitude brings. Her legs, long and shapely--though a tiny bit thin--were nicely tanned. Before leaving the cabin, she had seriously considered removing her panties and brassiere, feeling a summer afternoon in the Adirondack's nature's wish she be unencumbered. Upbringing won out. She had removed her brassiere to enjoy that subtle pleasure, but had kept her panties on. They peeked now from between her thighs, cool and satiny white, soft against what lay beneath.

"'Soldier by Night'," Laura read.

It was the fourth poem in the volume, and so far its longest. She skimmed through the dozen or so pages, then began to read:

Tell me not about flags!

I care not.

Tomorrow brings flowers and steam afloat like misting dreams,

the sun a yellow haze behind gun-black soot.

The dawn, a remembrance of yesterday's dawn, gone forever,

light in my dreams but in reality dark.

Laura's blonde, shoulder-length hair was swept back from her forehead under a plastic headband, tucked behind each ear, casually falling against the nape of her neck. A smaller, colorless plastic barrette kept order above each eye. She occasionally brushed away a strand dislodged by the breeze, either with her hand or by blowing at it from the corner of her mouth. Her white flats, pop-eye bright in the afternoon sun, dangled loosely from her toes. They bounced along with whatever song played in Laura's head. The only sounds were the whir of insects, an occasional trilling bird, and the scamper of small animals through the bush. Minutes crept by. A shadow crossed Laura's legs.

Engrossed in a particularly difficult passage, it took a moment to register that someone was with her. She looked up, startled, discovered a boy of about ten. She immediately snapped closed her legs. "Hello," she said, smiling shyly.

Dressed in--of all things--a brand-new cowboy outfit, the boy was a miniature Roy Rogers. He sported a pair of low slung, imitation ivory-handled pistols on either hip, an immaculate black cowboy hat tipped back at a cocky angle, and a tasseled shirt. His appearance was unsettling rather than ridiculous. He eyed Laura with suspicion.

"I'm Laura," she said, uneasily. "I'm staying over there." She pointed across the small clearing to the line of trees opposite, where unseen behind the foliage was her family's summer cabin. "Beyond that other grove." She raised a hand to her brow to block the afternoon sun. "And who are you?"

"Bruce," the boy answered. His voice was stronger and deeper than Laura would have expected. He said nothing else, only continued to stare. With a tiny start, Laura noticed the coiled rope in his right hand. He slapped the rope against his knee.

"You live around here?" she asked.

The boy nodded. He pointed with the rope toward a cabin at the bottom of the hill, just visible through the trees. So he was vacationing also.

"Well, Bruce," she said, trying unsuccessfully to come up with something intelligent to say. "That's quite an outfit you've got on."

The boy's scowl deepened. "What's that mean?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she said, trying a conciliatory tone. "It was a compliment." She felt the first small ripple of fear.

The boy looked away in sudden disinterest. "You seen my dog?"

"Your dog?"

He grumbled, implying Laura was less than quick. "My dog. Tonto. He came in this direction."

Taking the opportunity to discreetly lower her dress, Laura looked around." Sorry," she said. "I haven't seen anything. What's he look like?" "Big," the boy said. "Black. Kind of a white band around his head." The boy circled his own head with a fingertip. An Indian headband, thought Laura. Hence the name.

The boy abruptly squatted and peered at the book's cover. "What's this?" he said.

"Poetry," said Laura. She was afraid, having the boy this close.

"Mushy stuff."

"It's not mushy," she said. "It's romantic."

The boy made a face. Casually, he reached out and took Laura's left hand, turned the pages outwards, as though inspecting them would reveal the secrets inside.

"I could let you have it when I'm finished," Laura suggested. She did not like his hand on her wrist.

The boy read, silently moving his lips, his expression growing perplexed. He shook his head. "I don't get it," he said. "Who's Daphne?"

"She's lost in the wood with one of the soldiers. She's trying to explain her fear of the war, but the soldier is only interested in getting back to his comrades."

The boy grunted. "You can't get lost in the woods." He looked around, as though checking his beliefs. He suddenly looped the rope around Laura's left wrist and hitched it into a knot. He drew the knot tight.

Laura tried not to sound frightened. "What are you doing?"

"Tying you up," he said.

Laura was amazed at his boldness. And his calm.

"Suppose I don't want to be tied up?" she said, trying to sound light, yet disapproving at the same time.

"You don't want to play?" He looked as though "no," would be a slap in the face.

Laura swallowed. What had she gotten herself into?

"Well, just for a minute," she said, doubtfully. "And not too tight, okay? I have to finish reading this poem."

Bruce said nothing. Taking the book, he stood and walked around the tree, pulling the rope, and with it Laura's left wrist, along with him.

"Ow!" she said, having to twist sideways. "Not so hard!"

The boy appeared at her right side, book in hand.

"Well?" he said.

"Well what?"

He gave her a disgusted look, took her other wrist.

"Wait a minute," she said. "I don't like this." She pulled free of the boy's grip and took back the book, lay it beside her on the grass. She was about to extricate her other arm when the boy simply stole back her wrist and bound it behind the tree with a quick flip of the rope.

"Hey! Ow! That hurts!" The rope tightened more. "Bruce! You're hurting me!"

The boy grunted and Laura's shoulders were pinched firmly against the trunk. Almost frantic, she tried to pull free. She could not.

"This is not funny!" she cried. "Let me go!" Already, a terrible strain grew in her shoulders. "It's too tight!" she cried.

"It has to be tight," the boy said, as though technique were the important factor. "You can get loose if it ain't tight."

Laura tossed her head to the right and a soft mass of hair fell over her eyes, obscuring vision. She tried to shake it away, unsuccessfully. "Could you get the hair out of my face? Please?"

"No."

Bastard! She gave a quick, hard yank on the rope but felt no movement at all. "It's too tight!" she repeated.

The boy muttered, something Laura did not catch.

"What?"

The boy muttered again. He came around the tree to stand before her.

"You need to let me go," Laura voiced slowly. "Right now." Panic was a small, quick animal scurrying in her gut, and it had very sharp claws. She shifted her agonized shoulders against the bark and one ridge dug into her like a finger.

"You ain't all tied up, lady," Bruce said, unexpectedly.

Laura grunted. "I'm not? I sure feel like I am." She tried seeing through her hair, saw only the left side of his face. "What are you planning to do?" she demanded. Immediately she regretted asking.

"Lots of things," the boy said. His eyes clouded like a hot summer afternoon. He reached back and removed a large red bandana from his hip pocket and wiped his face. He had begun to sweat. Then he folded the bandana neatly into a gag.

"Now wait a minute!" Laura cried, twisting against the rope. Could she get free if she really had to?

If I really have to? What's this, if not really have too?

She looked at the red scarf. "What are you doing with that?"

"Gagging you."

"No! Oh, no, you're not." She pulled forward and twisted side to side. "This had gone far enough. Untie me right now!"

"I am not a little boy," Bruce said, glaring at her hotly.

Laura blinked. "I didn't say you were."

He leaned forward until their noses almost touched. Cowed by his anger, Laura became still. Very carefully, she said: "I'm sorry if you think I offended you, Bruce. I didn't intend to. But really, my arms are beginning to hurt and I have to go pee. Please untie me."

"No."

Before she could react, the scarf was jammed forcefully into her mouth.

"Mmmuuumphh!"

"Shut up," the boy said. The words were said in an almost offhand manner, making them all the more scary.

"Mmmuuumphh!"

The boy unexpectedly removed the scarf and she gasped in air. "Thank you! I knew you'd see reason. Now, let me go and we can play this game some other time!"

"No."

"Please!"

"No."

Laura tried another tack. "Listen," she said. "It's going to be dark soon. Untie me and I'll help you find your dog. What's his name again?"

"No."

"Bruce. You have to let me go."

The boy stood back, rubbed the palm of his right hand against the butt of his pistol. His eyes, dark as a thunderstorm, were fixed on Laura's chest. Again, out of nowhere, he said: "It's not good to lie."

Laura shuddered.

How do you reason with instability? she thought. And this boy was definitely unstable. Was he dangerous as well?

She thought maybe so.

"Okay," she said. "You win. You're in charge. What do you want to do?"

The boy stared. His stormy eyes (did they actually seem to flash?) roamed her face, then up and down her body, then to her exposed legs. (Thank God her panties were on, she thought.) He reached out to brush hair from her eyes, then stopped.

"No, please," she said, leaning forward. "Put it behind my ears." She raised her face to make it easier. "It's so much better if I can see."

The boy didn't move. He stared at her chest.

Gulping, Laura looked down. Strapped as she was to the tree, her small breasts rode high and jutting, like hillocks through the front of her dress. They resembled exclamation points.

"Don't be naughty," she said, both embarrassed and fearful. The boy continued to stare. Laura squirm uncomfortably. Like a bright neon sign, the word "Rape" flashed in her mind. "Can we stop this? Please?"

The boy's eyes dropped lower--and widened. Alarmed, Laura glanced quickly downward and almost groaned. Her ministrations had worked the hem of her dress back up her thighs. Her crotch and white satin panties was again exposed and she slapped her thighs together.

"Don't even think about it," she said hoarsely. Her face radiated heat.

Bruce licked his lips and a rush of apprehension swept through Laura's gut. Things had spiraled completely out of hand.

"Let me go, Bruce."

Through her obscuring fall of hair, the boy looked into Laura's left eye. "I'm not nasty," he said. I'm not going to rape you."

Laura shuddered convulsively. "Let me go then," she whispered. "This will be our little secret. No one has to know."

Without saying a word, the boy rose and searched the surrounding ground with his eyes. Moving five paces to the next tree, he stooped and worked loose a half- buried rock. It was the size of a hamburger pattie, caked with loose earth and mold. He hefted the rock in his palm, turned and looked at Laura. His eyes were stone cold.

"What are you doing, Bruce?" Her voice cracked with fear.

The boy smiled frostily. "Nothing."

He returned and pressed Laura's head back against the tree, cleared her face of hair.

"No!" she cried, jerking back and forth convulsively. "Don't you dare!"

The boy took her head firmly between his hands, jammed it against the tree, and growled: "Hold still." The rock ground into her right temple, spilling soil into her eye.

"Owww! Bruce! That hurts!"

The boy groped for her mouth.

"No! Don't do that!"

The rock was forced against her lips, hard, and Laura clamped tight.

"Nnnuhh!"

"Open," the boy said. He ground the stone on her lips.

Twisting her head sharply away, Laura took a lung full of air. "You are not putting that thing in my mouth!" she screamed. The boy dragged her face back around and Laura screamed again, "Damn you!" but Bruce had a fistful of hair and her head was yanked violently back. She had no choice but to open up.

"Immmnnn!" She kicked with both feet but managed only to lose her shoes. "Immmnnn!"

"There," the boy said, stepping back. "Much better."

Laura cried out and kicked at him, but the boy backed further away. Lodged against the roof of her mouth, the rock threatened to cut her palate; it covered her tongue with earth. She kicked out again, struggled violently as the boy secured the red bandana around her head, cinching it over her mouth. Then he tied it behind her left ear in a big knot. Then he stepped back.

"Mnathurd!" Bastard! She breathed through her nose, shaking.

The boy sat down.

"You okay?"

Trapped like an animal, at the boy's mercy, Laura pleaded with her one seeing eye. "Mmmnnnnmmm!" she begged.

Eying his handiwork, the boy stood up. Laura watched through her hair as he disappeared around the tree, then winced when the rope drew tighter. Her hands must be blue. They were certainly numb. She worked her fingers to restore circulation but felt only a cold, tingly ache. He came back around.

"Mnathurd!"

The boy grinned.

"Et-ee-ohh!" Let me go!

Drool leaked from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it against her shoulder. The front of the boys pants were right before her face and as they stirred ominously, Laura wondered if she would be raped. Exposed and taut over her crotch--she felt herself etched like a relief map against the thin material--her panties were the only protection she had.

The boy considered her at length. Laura sensed conflict. On the one hand, he was still a child, not yet into puberty, but she also knew her eleven-year-old cousin got hard-ons. Strong ones for his tiny size, embarrassingly strong. He had already deflowered two little girls in his neighborhood. Though it was questionable if a ten year old could sustain an erection long enough to commit rape, her age-ripened body was a blatant invitation. That alone might sustain him.

Laura crossed her legs but it didn't help. The material only pinched seductively, drawing attention to her crotch like a road sign. Worse, her traitorous nipples had grown hard, and though camouflaged by the colorful material, they popped suggestively out. For perhaps the first time in her short life, Laura wished to be ugly.

"You look uncomfortable," the boy said.

Laura grunted. Of course she was uncomfortable. She was tied to a tree.

Saliva ran down her chin, dropping to the front of her dress in a fragile string. She pleaded again: "Et-ee- ohh!"

"You should try to relax," the boy said. "Stretch out your legs, stop pulling on the rope." He began to rub her shoulders. "Better?"

Laura grunted. If it weren't such a welcome relief, she would have kicked him in the shin. Instead, she tried letting the muscles in her shoulders relax, take the strain out of her arms.

"I thought so. You could even, you know..."

Laura shuddered. Perhaps she should extend a balm, satisfy some of his adolescent need. In exchange for freedom. Dangerous, but her jeopardy was already high. She uncrossed her legs, raised her knees, and let them drop halfway down.

The boy nodded and slowly smiled.

Though unnerving, Laura realized this new position helped. Pulling her heels in toward her buttocks, she pushed against the tree, raising herself up. This helped her shoulders even more. It also left her crotch thoroughly exposed, starkly outlined against the white panties. She squeezed closed her legs.

The boy gulped and dug deeper with his fingers. Squirming, Laura closed her eyes. For just a moment she had a rush of hot pleasure, a sudden traitorous bloom, then she clamped down on that feeling hard. Oh, no you don't! He's not getting a reaction from me! She reopened her eyes.

"Ah-aa-oo-oh-eee."

The boy looked down. "What?"

"Ah-aa-oo-oh-eee." I have to go pee.

The boy shook his head.

Of course you don't understand! Laura thought. Take off this gag!

The boy did nothing. For a youngster, she realized, he was quite attractive. None of the puffy fullness of other boys, no straight up and down physique. His face was strong, willful even, and there was nothing childlike in his eyes. Crazy, yes, animalistic, but not childlike. Then, with dismay, she realized her legs had fallen wider and the boy's stare was locked on her privates.

Was she beginning to like this?

The boy moved away, shivering. Through her one eye Laura saw he breathed hard and his heart pounded visibly against the shirt. He shivered again. Then he sank to his knees. Laura sucked air through her nose and backed away. "Nnnnmmmmfff!" she pleaded, shaking her head. Hair obscured her vision completely, but shaking it fiercely away, her right eye cleared.

"Nnnnummpfff!" she repeated.

The boy moved forward, captured her ankles. She kicked them loose. "Aw-ihh! Ah-eee-oo-oh-eee." Stop it! I need to go pee.

The boy laughed

Laura shook her head again, lost vision again. Banging against the tree brought it back.

The boy barked at her sharply: "Don't do that!" He pushed back the right side of her hair, inexpertly tucked it behind the ear. "I told you I wouldn't hurt you. Don't hurt yourself!"

Laura grunted, plaintively.

"Whatever it is--no."

Placing her left leg outside his right thigh, the boy reached out and touched her panties. He wants to see under them, Laura thought, touch me right there. She drew her knees together, shifting to the side, butting Bruce in the stomach. The boy grunted his surprise. He took each knee in one hand and though she struggled against it, spread them easily apart. He was very strong.

"Ummpfff!" She shook her head furiously, eyes begging him to stop.

The boy ignored her, opened her legs wider, and Laura shifted in panic. She got her left leg free and planted it squarely in the boy's chest. With a panic-driven push she sent him sprawling backwards, somersaulting, coming up hard against the base of the next tree. He whacked his head hard. He lay there, stunned.

Panting through her nose, Laura struggled terrifically against the rope.

"Ungh," the boy said, half-rising. He looked skyward with swimmy eyes, fell back on one elbow. "Ow," he said, holding the back of his head. He removed it and looked at his fingertips for blood. He looked at Laura. "That hurt!"

Laura grunted, belligerently.

The boy blinked. "What?"

Laura grunted the noise again.

Sitting up, he grasped his knees and said sarcastically, "Oh. I see."

A rivulet--no, a river--of sweat ran down Laura's cheek and plunged to her chest below, soaking the point over her left nipple. Another river rolled down her throat into the open top of her dress, down between her breasts and to her stomach. Perspiration wrapped her like clammy dew. Her armpits were soaked. It was insufferably hot.

"You kicked me," Bruce said. He looked at her, shaking his head. "I ought to kick you back."

Laura tried to display regret, but with most of her face buried under loose hair, the boy saw nothing.

"Bitch!"

Laura shook her head. "Nmmnnnmm."

"You sure as hell are." He got to his hands and knees and crawled back. Taking her left ankle, he sat back on his calves and put her foot in his lap. He smacked the top of it hard.

"Unnnnhhhh!"

"Kick me again and I'll really hurt," he said. His voice wasn't the voice of a young boy. He sounded like her father. "Give me your other foot."

Hesitantly, Laura lifted her right foot and placed the heel in the boy's hand. She whimpered quietly. He removed a second bandana--this one blue, showing his disregard for either side of the Crips-Blood feud--and wrapped it around her ankle. He knotted it, leaving the other end loose. Laura understood why.

"Since you're so willing to use these," he said, "I better to get them out of the way." The boy smiled. "Remove temptation."

On the verge of panic, Laura shook her head. "Nnnnnuuuhhh!"

Ignoring her, Bruce tucked her left foot against her thigh and secured it in place with the free end of the bandana. She groaned loudly.

"Hurt?"

Laura moaned.

"Good."

He moved to her right side and felt behind the tree for the rope's loose end. He used it to secure her right ankle to her thigh. Contorted into nearly impossible angles, her thigh muscles screamed. Panic threatened to overwhelm her.

Bruce wiggled her right toes. "Comfy?"

Laura screamed. Saliva in ropey strings hung to the front of her dress, each movement making them wiggle. She felt sick. She swallowed around the stone, fighting a gag, knowing she could not vomit. She would choke to death.

And goddamn it! She had to pee!

The boy forced her right leg farther back, making her thigh muscles threaten to tear. She screamed in pain.

"Hurt?" he asked again.

Laura whimpered helplessly. The boy released her leg.

"Don't hurt me and I won't hurt you. Okay?"

Laura nodded.

"Good."

He moved forward and again massaged her neck. Laura worked her shoulders against his hands, trying to ease the pain, unable now to feel her arms. The were numb right up to her armpits. She shifted forward, dug in her heels and lifted herself. It didn't help. Her thigh muscles quaked. She whined plaintively.

"Forget it. You're not getting free."

The boy stared at her stretched white panties, at the bulging lips behind, at the small wet spot that had developed. He surreptitiously rubbed the front of his pants. The remaining free length of the rope was by his foot, maybe six feet in length, and he casually picked it up and wound it in a coil. "Sorry," he said, as though suddenly contrite. "But I have to do this."

Laura closed her eyes. This was it, then. Rape. She knew it and he knew it. Her only hope was someone happening by and she glanced furtively in both directions. The boy caught her look and looked around himself. He shook his head.

"No one here but you and me." He tapped the rope against his thigh. "We've been coming here for years, and I know every cabin around. The Meyerson's--" he pointed west, through the trees, "-- are the closest cabin, but they don't get here until the last week of July. The next closest cabin is three miles away." He grinned. "Can you be heard three miles?"

Laura thought more like three yards.

"No one's going to help you," he said.

Laura objected past the rock. Her parents would.

"I checked before I left," the boy said, reading her thoughts. "No parents, no car."

No salvation there either.

Laura's mom and dad would be gone all day, maybe the night. They had taken Jeremy, her younger brother, down to Utica for his twice-weekly kidney dialysis. One hundred and ten miles from Racquet Lake, plus three long hours hooked to the damned machine, they might as well be in China. Often, Jeremy was so weak afterwards her parents simply checked into a local motel and spent the night. And since there was no phone in the cabin, Laura went under the assumption they would see her tomorrow. Until now, she was glad for the time alone.

Bruce reached out and placed his hand over the flat of her belly. Laura looked down, shaking. An embryo had recently grown there, but no more. Careless sex on a careless April night, performed by a careless boy and girl. She thought about the procedure that emptied her womb and how much less terrible that ordeal now seemed. She wished she were back on the table, heels stirruped, vagina open, waiting for the doctor. Maybe this was her punishment; God's payback.

A large wet spot had formed over her left breast, revealing the outline of her aureole and the small stiffened nipple. The boy stared at it, as though mesmerized. His huge erection swelled the front of his jeans. He licked his lips.

At least his attention is away from my crotch, she thought, though he had not yet removed his hand. Somehow, she felt, being touched there, where life had originated and had then died, seemed more unnerving than being touched below. She shifted again, pulled back against the tree, looked into his face.

"You've had sex, right?"

Laura looked uncertainly with her one eye, then nodded.

"You like it?"

She remained still.

"I said I wouldn't hurt you."

Laura nodded slowly.

"With the right guy?"

She nodded again.

The boy looked thoughtful.

"How many times?"

"Nnnun-utth-uour-ithness."

The boy grinned. "None of my business?"

Laura nodded.

The boy laughed out loud. He removed his hand and put it on his thigh.

"You'd like to kick the shit out of me, wouldn't ya?"

Laura hesitated, then nodded yes. She made a sentence long on undecipherable words. The boy laughed again.

"Well, maybe you'll get your chance," he said. He looked into Laura's eye. "Can I touch your breasts?"

Laura became still. Finally, lowering her gaze, she shrugged permission. At least he had asked.

Putting down the coiled rope (Laura knew he intended tying her head to the trunk if things went badly) he reached out and placed a tentatively hand over each breast. They seemed to fit his palms exactly. A quiver ran up her spine.

"They're really soft," the boy whispered. Laura raised her eye. He laughed. "They're really firm."

Incredibly, Laura had a reaction. A thrumming began in her chest, then one in her lower belly, then one in that most sacred of places, between her legs. Heat baked her face.

"How old are you?" he asked. "Sixteen?"

Laura shook her head.

He continued in the wrong direction. "Fifteen?" Then: "Seventeen? Eighteen. My sister's twenty," he said. "Susan." He nodded toward the bottom of the hill. "She's probably asleep. Sleeps all the time. Laziest girl I ever met." He brushed aside Laura's hair and wiped away the strings of saliva. The hair fell immediately back in place but her saliva flood seemed to have stopped.

"Want me to do it?" the boy asked.

Laura looked at him with her left eye. She once had unfulfilled dreams, wonderful pictures of how the first time would be. He'd say gentle things, touch her gently, say he needed her touch. They would hold hands and kiss, making Laura feel alive and heated and a wholly equal partner. Instead, she got banged in the back seat of a Dodge.

Now some stupid kid in a cowboy outfit wants to know if I want to do it.

He removed his hands from her breasts. "I take it that's a no."

Laura shook her head and indicated to put his hands back. Why, she didn't know. He replaced them and Laura moved herself slightly forward under his touch. Her nipples swelled. She closed her eyes. The sunlight on her hair made a golden glow against which her face felt bathed. The stone pressed against her soft palate, but the gag reflex had eased, and she simply pushed it forward with her tongue. The worst of the taste had gone. If only her jaw didn't ache.

She groaned and arched her chest forward and he embraced her with care. No--he caressed her. She took a lung full of air and then his hands were undoing the straps of her dress, and then they were unbuttoned, and he lowered the dress and let it rest against her tummy. Her breasts were bare. Her nipples responded by growing even more.

"My, God," the boy whispered, letting out a hiss of air. Then: "They're beautiful."

Laura opened her eyes. The boy stared as though finding a chest of gold. She needn't look to know how high she jutted: They threatened to pop off her chest. Her nipples pulsed, throbbed with urgent desire, needed to be touched and held and pinched.

"Can I hold them?" he asked.

She had never wanted anything more. "Mnuummph."

The boys eyes were wide and starry and his hands twitched." What?"

"Mnuummph."

"I'm sorry," he said, fumbling at the gag. "I'm having a hard time not doing what I said I wouldn't do." He licked his lips. From his expression, he had lost the fight already. His erection, eight inches long, maybe nine, formed an alarmingly big rise beside the zipper. It was the largest erection Laura had ever seen. It was not that of a boy.

"Mnuummph!"

"I'm trying!" the boy said. His face was scarlet and shiny with sweat. "It's tighter than I thought."

Laura shook her head. Sounds gurgled in her throat. Her body seemed to vibrate and what she wanted was to be let go and then do it.

The boy gave up and lowered his face to Laura's chest, kissed the skin right above nipple. His tongue played over her skin, tasting it; he put his hands back on her breasts.

Laura shut her eyes tight. I am not doing this! she thought, pushing her chest up to him.

There was a sudden loud snap.

Both Laura and the boy jumped, looked to their right. The underbrush stirred and Bruce whipped his hands off her breasts, and fell back. As though it were real, he gripped the pistol on his right hip.

"Who's there!"

Laura strained to see.

"Stay here," the boy said, rising. (Both missed the irony.) He moved to the tree line, hand still on the gun butt, and there was another crack!

"Who's there, dammit!" He yelled. Then, crazily, "I have a gun!"

The sound came closer and Bruce backed away. Too loud for a dog, Laura thought. In woods, dogs moved with stealthy quiet.

A final loud crack and Bruce hissed, "Shit!", then took off running, bounding out of sight into the opposite trees. Laura's heart trip-hammered as she shouted after him.

Crack!

She twisted against the rope, craning to see, and the bandana and the rope securing her ankles threatened to break her in half. Was it a bear? A lion?

A hiker?

This last was not only the choice most likely, but also the most dangerous one. She might be raped. Worse, she might be killed.

Holding her breath, Laura whimpered, forced herself to remain calm. She worked her wrists and feet against the bonds, then something touched her right shoulder. Laura screamed. Throwing her head to the right, she brained herself on the tree and stars exploded before her eyes. Dizzy and unable to breath, she felt the light slipping from of her eyes, and falling toward oblivion, the last thing she saw were the slit yellow eyes of a demon.

Chapter 2

A narrow band of sunlight slanted through the trees and shone on Laura's hair. Combined with the strain of her bondage, it conspired to send rivers of sweat down her chest. Her dress was soaked; her bare chest gleamed.

For Laura, the sweat and the pain of bondage didn't exist; only the trip-hammering of her heart, and the grotesquely loud breathing in her right ear. She dared not move. She was terrified. She had awoken some minutes before, to something rough and bristly on her right shoulder. Jumping convulsively, she kept her head down and her eyes shut. The touch went away for a time, then returned. Slowly, as slowly as a creeping minute hand about a watch face, she moved sideways. It was a goat. A goddamned goat! She jerked her head up and whacked the goat's snout with her cheek. The goat brayed and stumbled away, hoofing the earth. It snorted. If Laura could have, she would have laughed.

A goat!

It had nibbled her hair.

She could have kissed it!

After a minute's observance, the goat decided Laura was no further threat and shuffled back. Its rough tongue lapped at her shoulder and sweaty armpit, and though it felt funny and gross, it didn't hurt.

Must be the salt, she guessed. Lots of salt in perspiration.

Laura--the human salt-lick.

While the goat satisfied its odd need, Laura looked around the clearing. No Bruce. Only herself and the goat. She debated whether or not she wanted Bruce to come back.

Emboldened by her lack of response, the animal slopped its tongue against the sensitive area at the base of Laura's neck and a hard shiver ran through her.

"Ayy! Gwuith-ath!" Hey! Quit that!

The goat backed away.

Laura twisted her head and rubbed the affected spot with her chin, only to be chased away when the goat returned.

"I told you to stop."

The goat licked halfway up her neck.

"Oh, gross!"

She twisted her head and tried again to swat the animal's snout. He pulled back, regarding her coolly with yellow eyes.

"Cut it out," she mumphed. "I won't tell you again."

The goat suddenly looked at the surrounds, into the trees and undergrowth, seeming to listen. Laura listened too.

"What is it?" she mumphed.

The goat butted her gently with his snout, as if to say, "Quiet," then listened some more. Laura listened also. Neither heard anything more, and the goat turned back and licked Laura across the front of her neck.

"Yuck! Stop that!"

Scavenging salt from her chin to the swell of her breasts, the tongue worked her up and down, left and right. Laura became increasingly alarmed. She tried butting it again with her chin, then her chest, but she was ignored. Then the goat stepped casually between her legs, dipped his head, and began lapping its wide tongue over the flat of her belly. Laura jumped back.

"Cut that out! Stop!"

Truly alarmed, she shoved backward against the tree, then sideways. The goat continued to lick and Laura could only cringe and watch in wide-eyed amazement.

What would she do if it licked her crotch?

The goat raised its head and sniffed her left nipple.

"No. Please."

It licked and Laura jumped away.

The goat licked her again.

"Jesus!" she cried, convulsing her chest. The goat nuzzled the underside of her breast and ran its tongue up to the nipple, then over it, bringing it immediately to attention. "Stop! Jesus! Mommy!"

This was worse than being molested.

Laura clambered sideways and up the tree, mewing deeply in her chest. The goat followed with remorseless indifference. It claimed all of her skin, licking incessantly at her nipples, as though drawn to the hard little points. It nipped her left breast.

"Ow!"

It nipped her again.

"Stop that!"

Looking about frantically, Laura struggled against the ropes, discovering some unexpected movement in her legs. She batted the goat's head with her knee. Braying, he started and jumped back, but Laura paid dearly for the act. Sheets of white pain whipped through her hips and her right thigh seized in a charley-horse.

"Nuunngggh!" she screamed.

Twisting back and forth, desperate to ease the cramp, Laura screamed into the gag. The goat watched curiously, a spectator at a tennis match. After a further ten seconds agony, the cramping eased.

"Jesus! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Laura yelled.

What would she do if the cramp had continued, full force? She wasn't going to find out. She made herself relax.

Immediately, the goat came back and resumed its licking. Laura ignored it. She thought about school. She thought about her part-time job. She thought about Cowboy Bruce.

What was he, anyway?

No ten year old, that was for sure. Not with an erection like that. Eight inches long. Thick as a bottle. Laura had witnessed its arrival herself, knew this was no sock-stuffing fake. The boy was a mutant, a freak, a hormonally-imbalanced threat. Wanting it or not, she had come this damned close to being raped.

Probably she would be when he came back.

The goat concentrated on her left nipple, starting a buzz in her head that Laura could no longer ignore. Her gut tightened. The sensation widened. The goat tickled her nipple, then rasped it, then made it hurt. Each new lick made it harder to think and she expanded inside, as though taking in air and not letting it out. Her breasts swelled like balloons, growing lighter and more taut, the tips bouncing like ticking metronomes.

It felt good. It felt disgustingly good.

The goat, lost in its animal stupidity, had no idea of her response--it only wanted salt. Or so Laura thought. Her pheromone rush had triggered a rush of it's own. Between it's hind legs a small pod began to thicken, soon emerging as an erect penis; pink, wet and eerily human.

Laura groaned. Her drooling was back and again growing ropes to her chest. She worked her mouth trying to stop the flow, but this only worsened the ache. Worse, the goat followed the salt-rich saliva back to the source and began licking her face. Disgusted, Laura turned away. The goat followed. He became more aggressive.

"Stop it! Go back to my boobs, you prick! Better yet-- leave me alone!" Her bloom of sexual hunger had vanished.

The goat nudged forward, making Laura press against the tree. Its tongue rolled out and lapped again against her left nipple and Laura yelled "Stop that! It hurts." Then its lips curled back and the goat opened his mouth, bit down hard on the nipple and pain shot all the way to her back.

"STOP THAT!" Laura screamed.

The goat released her, shook its head, then bit down again and pulled the bud left and right. Laura bellowed in pain. Unfazed, the goat stepped backward, digging for purchase with its front hooves, eyes still locked on her face. Laura's nipple stretched like a macabre rubber band until Laura screamed at the top of her lungs.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Her nipple would tear!

She threw back her head and screamed again, butting the goat with her knees. She couldn't feel the impact but the pain in her joints was enormous. She screamed again.

Her nipple would tear! It had to tear!

Nothing could hurt this much and not tear away!

Her left breast stretched to twice its length, and every tendon, every muscle stood out on her face and neck in purple relief. One more tug, one more hard bite, and her nipple was gone.

And then the other?

Laura seriously believed she'd never see the sunset.

Suddenly the pain stopped and though Laura's eyes were clamped shut, battened down like steel hatches, she knew her nipple was gone. It had to be, a tasty morsel now in the goat's stomach. She rocked back and forth in terror, knowing it wanted more, but a noise sounded to her right. Slowly she became aware the goat was mewing. She opened her eyes.

The goat crouched two feet away, belligerent but fearful, staring hard into the brush. It had not bitten her nipple off.

The noise came again, a low threatening rumble, and the goat dropped lower to the ground. It scratched a hoof, looked hastily back and forth, considering escape. Another noise, a rustling of branches, and then a loud threatening snap. Something nudged her opposite shoulder.

Laura screamed, found herself staring up the nose of another goat. A much bigger goat. A billygoat. "Oh, no," she wailed.

Looking obstinate, the second animal nipped the first, then butted it solidly on the neck. The smaller goat brayed and backed away, confused and defiant. It snorted and shook its head. The larger goat snorted back, twice as loud, and advanced. Obviously the alpha male.

"Oh, no!" Laura moaned. Then she saw the goat's erection.

Hooked upward like a banana--but twice the length of one--the triangular glans was bulbous, resembling a snake's head. The whole thing protruded from a matted sheath between the goat's legs. It swayed ominously.

Had she caused that?

While the smaller goat held its ground, the big goat chose to ignore it, nipping casually at Laura's shoulder. Laura twisted away. The goat thrust his long tongue into her armpit, tasting the salt content there, recoiled slightly from an unexpected taste. Her deodorant, she thought. Good! But the goat enjoyed the skin beneath her arm, and worked it in big swaths up and down. He nipped her again with his blunt teeth, making Laura leap.

This goat liked to bite!

She swatted its muzzle with her head, but he continued to lick, gradually working his way around her biceps and up to her shoulder. Then the side of her neck. He nipped her there and Laura recoiled.

"Dammit! Cut that out!"

The goat nipped her again and she screamed around the rock, swishing her hair back and forth wildly. Momentarily startled, the goat backed up. Now Laura was really frightened. Blunt teeth or not, if it took a good bite and got a vein or artery, she might bleed to death. When the goat moved forward again, Laura whacked it hard on the nose with her head, making her ears ring. The animal grunted loudly and snapped at her again, barely missing her cheek. Laura screamed a third time. The goat butted her shoulder, then the side of her neck, then took another hard nip at her right shoulder. She jerked her head down, hoping to block his thrusts. The goat got hair instead. He yanked it hard.

"Owww! Leave that alone!"

She struggled and got her hair free, only to have the goat swipe the side of her head, sucking up a huge mouthful again. He started to chew.

"Stop that!"

She twisted away, threatening to pull hair out by the roots. She fought panic. She pulled again, this time more slowly, easing it from between the goat's teeth. They were unaccustomed to anything as fine as hair. A wet lumpy mass, her hair slapped disgustingly against her face. At least she could see.

The goat, uncertain whether to try again or go back to a more fruitful pursuit, snorted.

"Leave me alone! Bastard!"

She bumped its flank with her right knee, trying to drive it away, succeeded only in making her thigh scream. The goat snorted, shook its head.

"Go! Get out of here! Eat weeds or something!"

Crack! Crack-crunch!

"Now what!"

She looked for the source of the noise and soon another goat stepped into the clearing. Then another. Then a third.

"Oh, God!" she wailed.

What is this?

The nearest farm was five miles down the road, where she had often saw goats before. But the animals were behind sturdy barbed-wire fences, and she had never seen one loose. Until now. Did the goats herd here? Had they escaped to graze where food was more plentiful? It was tinder dry. Perhaps the farmer was right there in the woods, behind a tree, watching his big billy make a spectacle of her.

"Ow!"

One of the goats stepped on Laura's left foot and she jerked away, tried lift the foot from the ground. The best she could do was to point it up. The first goat nipped at the bandana experimentally, then pulled aggressively at it for a moment, gave up when the bandana slipped from its teeth. It nibbled Laura's curled toes instead. Laura screamed and batted the goat with her knee, straining her thigh muscles again. She screamed and the goat stumbled back.

"Leave me alone godammit!" Then a frustrated: "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

She twisted back and forth against the rope, against the tree, waiting for the next attack. The rest of the herd edged forward, grouping in a loose semi-circle. They watched with impenetrable goat-interest. Laura saw herself as lunch.

"Nnnnnnuuuhhh!"

The goat on her right licked the bottom of her foot, and extremely ticklish, Laura cringed away. "Stop that! Stop that right now!" She bucked up and down. "No! Don't do that. Eeeeee!"

Her foot curled in a capital 'C', firing an extremely painful new cramp, bending her double. "No-no-no-no! No-no-no-no! Don't do that!" She fought both the cramp and the goat's insistent tongue.

Incredibly, she began to laugh.

"Stop it! Stop it! Please!" She laughed even harder, a maddening laugh, feeling her bladder control slip. Already over-stretched, it began to gush urine.

"Stop that! Stop! I can't pee my pants!"

The wet spot on her panties grew quickly to the size of a half-dollar.

"No! Stop!"

The goat continued at her foot and Laura continued to pee.

"Please!"

Her crotch became soddenly wet, urine flowing until it came through her panties in a gushing jet, arcing six or eight inches onto the grass. Laura squealed helplessly as the closest of the goats lowered its head and sniffed he grass; two of the others backed away. She laughed and shut her eyes against the awful sight, not reopening them until her bladder was empty.

A third goat began sucking her right toes.

"Please! Oh, please! Have some mercy!"

Working its mouth around and slobbering like an old man with no teeth, the goat made Laura yank back and forth. The big billy lowered its head, seemed ready to butt the offending goat, then lowered its snout to her urine. It sniffed, took an experimental lick, and Laura thought, miserably, No-no-no-no!

The goat found the taste to his liking. It continued to lick, working it way back to Laura's panties. Laura skittered away.

"Come, on. Come on. Give a girl a break." She looked desperately around. "Please!"

The goat sniffed and bumped Laura curiously, making her quail, while yet another goat licked the wet grass and began to move closer. She was going crazy, laughing even harder, beginning to choke.

Great! Now I'll be eaten by goats!

Then the big goat licked the front of her panties and Laura wailed crazily, "Nooooooooooooo!" and flailed back and forth. Not my crotch! she pleaded. Not my crotch! Oh, God, not my crotch!

The goat nipped the satin between his teeth and gently tugged, catching Laura's pubic hair. She nearly died. "Leave me alone," she begged, clutching her freaked-out mind. It wanted to blast into orbit, carrying with it her sanity. Another goat thrust its tongue into her left ear.

"Get away!"

This goat settled for slobbering on her shoulder

Undeterred, the big billy lapped at her crotch, hunkering down and putting its snout to the ground, allowing its tongue to lick sideways. Laura scrunched her eyes. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! The original goat, the one with the delicate pink erection, returned and began to lap her damaged left nipple--oh, God it ached--while a fifth took care of the other. I'm a human udder, she thought crazily. She laughed in horror while, behind the tree, her bound hands clawed the bark, splintering her nails. She relinquished her hold on reality for a moment, let it bound away out of sight. A stone-crazy old man with cartoon eyes danced in her head.

"We're gonna do it!" the madman cackled. "We're gonna do it!

Laura fought back. "We're not doing anything!"

The madman cackled and danced. "Fuck the goats! Fuck the goats! Open your legs and fuck the goats!"

"I'm not fucking anyone!" she screamed aloud. "Now go away!"

Her nipples on fire, Laura concentrated on this, using the pain to banish the madman. "I'm not so weak," she chanted. "I'm not so weak." She looked straight at the sky, concentrated on the canopy of leaves, the glimpsed white clouds. "I can hold on," she whispered. "I can hold on." Slowly, her sanity returned.

"I can do it! Do it, Laura! Just do it!"

The billy and two of the other goats looked up, yellow eyes blankly curious. The billy looked around, as though expecting someone to whom this tied-up one spoke. No one was there, but that didn't diminish its worry. It sensed something was wrong.

Laura raised on her heels, straining. The undersides of her feet were abraded, her back abraded, her palate abraded, her entire body a quivering wreck. Goats were everywhere. Despite the pain, a traitorous frenzy had built in that small dark place inside her crotch-- though she fought heroically against it--and the incessant licking had Laura panic-aroused. Very aroused.

"Stop that," she whimpered. "It's not fair. Not fair at all." Her buttocks tightened and she raised entirely off the ground, ankles and thighs screaming in protest. "Noooo!" she wailed. "Leave me alone!"

Could she really being starting an orgasm?

Looking desperately at her crotch, where the big animal worked her panties with mindless endeavor, hooves scraping the ground and its huge erection--twelve inches of thick, angry red--waiting patiently for her vagina, Laura wailed again, knowing her humanness would disappear with the goat inside, hating herself for wanting it. "Nooooooo!" she pleaded again. "Nooooooo!" The harder she fought, the stronger her foe became. The tonguing inflamed her until all that stood between Laura and sexual inferno was force of will. Then it became too much. Suddenly she rose high and hard against the tree, locked in spread-eagled explosion as an orgasm ripped her apart. "NOOOOOOOOOO!!" she howled, grinding against the bark. Her thighs spasmed convulsively and gas rocketed out of her tail.

Laura erupted.

Laura detonated.

Like a star going nova, her mind collapsed onto its fusing core, then rebounded violently. She jumped ferociously against the rope, smashing and thumping against the startled goats, making all but the big one stumble away. The big billy didn't stop, but worked Laura's fevered crotch with a mindless greed, lapping the gushing juice as fast as it came out. She clamped her eyes and succumbed to complete abandon, humping the goat's snout, not caring about muscles or pain or anything else. Tendons, which ached for weeks afterward, strained beneath her skin like pleated cords and her tummy--hard as tempered steel and thrumming like a dynamo--convulsed with need. Her vagina clutched a cock that wasn't there; her ass bounced hard on the ground.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" she screamed and the goat bellowed and Laura bellowed and both of them bellowed.

Her star went supernova.

Chapter 3

Laura awoke.

"Whaaa?" An incoherent mumble.

She looked around. Her head spun and her mouth throbbed--every muscle felt ruptured.

"Don't," she muttered, fighting to stay conscious. "Stop it."

Eventually, the light returned and Laura opened her eyes. The goats were still there, half of them staring at her blank-eyed, the big one included, which stood with its head canted to one side. Others grazed unconcernedly around the clearing. She moaned and the big goat stirred.

She had passed out.

Oh-God, Oh-God, Oh-God, she thought. She hadn't really gotten off with a goat? No-oh-no-oh-no!

Her eyes half-lidded, Laura looked from one goat to the next, then lowered her head and cried. Not goats, please...not goats. "God will kill me," she whimpered. "Please, God, forgive me!"

The sunlight had a mid-afternoon slant and felt good on her bare breasts, also the soft breeze. Her thunderstorm of hair, bunched mainly over her right eye, allowed Laura to keep tabs on the small herd. As well as she could, she took stock. Her panties were soaked--both with urine and vaginal discharge--and stuck disgustingly to her crotch. A trickle of warm goo slid between her open buttocks, settling even more disgustingly on her exposed anus. More had dried in her soft down of hair. Her thighs were broken sheets of glass.

The goats stirred.

Laura looked up. Two or three looked warily about, as though catching a scent; maybe something in the trees. The big billy alternately hoofed the ground and snorted, shaking its grizzled head. Laura looked again.

"Ayeyow?" Hello?

"Eh-ee-uhn-ehre?" Anyone there?

No answer came back and eventually, the goats relaxed. The big one, in fact, came back and sniffed her crotch.

"No more," she begged. "Please." The goat stretched his neck and gave Laura a moderately hard nudge. "Why are you doing this?" she cried, swinging at it with her knee. The billy snorted and nudged her again.

No! Please make him stop!

The goat nudged her again.

"Leave me alone," she whimpered, squirming away. She yanked at the rope, raised her buttocks and tried to figure how protect herself. There was no way. Low to the ground, the goat's snout thumped her again and Laura cried: "OWWWW!"

Catching her panties between his teeth, the goat pulled. Laura keened, choking on the rock. She forced her jaws wide open to scream, "Stop that! You're hurting me!" and shook her head back and forth. It wasn't just her panties he had. The wedge of pubic hair above her clitoris was firmly in the billy's grasp (Laura was otherwise shaven clean for swimsuit season and wished now she had shaved it all), and the goat now threatened to pull it out. "Owwww!" she wailed. "Stop it!"

The billy pulled again.

"Stoooooooooop!"

She tried to box the billy's head between her legs but failed.

"Stop it! Go away! Please!"

The goat released her and canted its head, took a bigger bite, this time catching her labia. Laura sucked air.

"No-no-no-no! Oh no, please!"

She skittered sideways, stretching her tender lips, a biting pain shooting through her groin and into her tummy. She jerked convulsively and her lips came free and, wailing uncontrollably, she slid further away. It did no good. The goat clamped firmly onto her panties and pulled with a hard snap.

This time she couldn't scream. Her teeth were clamped to the rock.

No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no! The words rang in her head. Please no!

Then the billy shook its head and whatever hair had not torn away before now did. Laura screamed again and banged against the trunk, ripping her sundress to shreds. A second goat moved in and attempted to join the billy at her crotch, but the billy bellowed and bit it hard on the neck. The smaller goat floundered away, its left front hoof catching between Laura's leg and hip. Panicked, the goat stagger-stepped sideways and bolts of pain ripped through her thigh. She screamed around the rock, blasting saliva into her hair.

"Ungh-ungh-ungh!" she howled. The pain was monumental. "Nunnnngggggg!"

The trapped hoof ground lower, down to the right, the split toe biting in just above her clitoris. One hard jab and her clitoris was gone. But the goat found footing and lurched back, tearing itself loose and, followed by the billy's angered cries, darted into the underbrush. The big billy emitted one final bray, then returned his attention to Laura.

"Please!" Laura whimpered. "Leave me alone."

A bright weal lay on her left thigh, and blood stained a V-shaped tear in her panties. Frightening, but the bleeding seemed not too bad. She looked at the billy, stark with fear and trembling all over. Alert, the billy making ticking movements with its head. It eyed her. Its erection skimmed the ground, huge and threatening, a milky white substance leaking from the tip.

"Please!" Laura repeated. "Leave me alone."

Moving forward, nostrils flared, the goat butted her crotch. It reclaimed her wet panties and Laura gasped as teeth first caught, then lost her labia, then scuttled sideways away. It did no good. The material was yanked viciously outward, her hair with it, taking the whole front of her panties as well as the hair beneath. Laura shrieked and wildly bucked, and when she looked down, only the waistband of her panties remained. Her labia were exposed, the tiny pearl-like clitoris just visible in its collar of flesh. If the goat bit there, she was ruined for life. The goat licked her.

"No!" she wailed, lifting clear of the ground. "Please, no!"

Wedging his tongue between her hairless lips, parting them roughly, the goat found her tender vagina. It flicked in its tongue and Laura bucked hard and wailed, rolling her head over the bark. She climbed higher, digging her fingernails into her palms, unaware she was aiding, rather than hindering, the goat. The goat licked her again.

"No-no-no-no-no-no!" she wailed.

The rough tongue flicked over her vaginal opening and again inside, deeper this time, then traversed her entire labia.

"No-no-no-no-no-no!" she howled.

Then he licked her anus to clitoris, and Laura began to weep. She poured out tears. She pressed hard against the tree, further ripping her dress. She felt a growing crescendo.

"Ohhhh, pleeeasssse!" she screamed. "Nooooooooooooooo!"

Suddenly the goat turned sideways, working its tongue deeper, scraping the delicate walls free of ejaculate. Laura's eyes became large as plates and, as the tongue probed deeper, filling her entire vagina to the point of rupture, she rotated in torment, every nerve firing pain.

"No-no-no-no-no-no!" she screamed again, now a desperate prayer. She shuddered and bucked and the only relief came by forcing herself wider, canting upward, effectively making her vagina an open pit. The tongue worked her cervix and she felt her uterus compress, the cervical dome pushed back until all elasticity in her vagina was gone.

Laura crossed a threshold.

Replaced by a grim, masochistic glee, agony faded and Laura began to counter the goat's movement, its thrusts parried by thrusts of her own. Her orgasm built and as she continued to weep--softly at first, then with a growing intensity as tears spilled down her face onto her thrust-forward chest--saliva joined the tears and formed again into long ropey strings. Unable to stop, she began coming in powerful long cramps, the tongue gripped by her spasming walls. The goat worked even harder, grunting and scraping the ground, mashing its teeth against her delicate lips. Like an atomic bloom in slow motion, Laura's climax grew, until no sound was louder than the blood in her head. Then, like the demon she knew it was, the goat was against her chest, hot breath baking her left ear. It thrust its powerful hips forward and Laura thrust back.

The first attempt missed. The huge tip dug upward along her belly, planting in her navel instead. Laura shuddered violently. The second thrust caught in the folded cowl surrounding her clitoris, and a terrible pain exploded there before the head broke free. It rode up her belly again, planting again in her navel. This time she shrieked.

When the final thrust came, some part of Laura's mind forced forward her pelvis, canting it downward, trapping the head in the mouth of her vagina. She thrust onto the shaft with impossible need, the million year old part of her brain in charge. "Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh- oh!" she wailed.

Braying madly, the goat shuddered forward, filling her raw canal, making Laura suck air like a diesel engine. Her orgasm exploded.

"Gaa, aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa!"

Laura pumped against the huge cock.

"Mnnnum-umm-umm-umm, mmnumm-umm-umm!"

Laura clamped the goat's snout between her cheek and left shoulder and didn't let go. The erection slammed in and out.

"Ungh-ungh-ungh-nahhh, ahhh-ahhh-ahhh!" she wailed.

The goat bottomed her out, twelve inches deep, ensuring a blood storm of agony the next day. The cervix held but the bruising on it's dome turned the pink tissue a brutal red.

"Nuuhhh-unhhh-unhhh-unhhh!"

Laura twisted in wild gyrations as the goat finally came, and gout after gout of semen blasted her cervix. The goat bucked madly forward, ripping loose mouthfuls of bark, spitting them into Laura's hair.

"Nuuugunggggaaaaaaaaaa!" she bellowed.

Twin nuclear explosions burst in her brain and her gut, and sperm, hot as a blowtorch and in huge amounts, engorged her and demanded escape. It sprayed out around the shaft, drenching both her and the goat, a tidal wave washing over her ass and her bulging anus. Sucking spasmodically, the small opening entrapped the goat's sperm, ensuring a bout of intestinal misfortune.

Laura screamed one last time and then was gone.

Chapter 4

Time passed. Maybe an hour.

Laura stirred, almost awakened. She dreamed of the circus. She dreamed of talking goats. She dreamed of boys.

Exhausted from its prize, the goat disconnected from the young girl and staggered away. It nearly fell off its feet. After a time it sniffed the girl's dangling head, nipped lightly at her cheek, decided the sow was asleep. It sat down, regarding its deflated penis. It licked itself, savoring the foreign, oh-so-rich taste.

Something had happened, something incredible. Something dangerous. Its goat's mind understood this, understood the sudden and powerful presence was now gone--watching from afar, more the truth--but leaving him back in control of his own behavior. He was afraid.

His name was Gramp's, the name given him by the farmer when the goat turned two. Even then he was bigger than the other males, combative and bellicose; very soon he took over the herd. Now twelve years old, the oldest and still the meanest goat around, Gramps never before had experienced a human sow. Not like this.

She was one of the feeder class, omnipresent, troublesome, never before seen in sexual terms. The juice of this female--Gramps sensed the sex of all species on the mountain--was definitely the best he ever had. In fact, had the need to rut not come over him so overwhelmingly, even now he would be lapping her pouch. His tongue ached with her taste. Actually, it just ached.

Gramps goat-sighed, struggled to his feet, and took stock of things. The sow was filled with seed, and no goat stomached his own seed. He looked around at the scattered herd--his two male contenders eyed him warily back--and wondered if sticking around was safe. Previous experience told him no. Planted seed took days to absorb, and how fast it would go with a feeder he didn't know. Besides, planting seed in a feeder sow might be a thoroughly bad idea. Females were unpredictable. And sooner or later a male would turn up in search. Worse, the presence might reestablish itself, might again take control, and decide this sow needed more.

Better not to stick around.

Gathering up scraps of the sow's panties, Gramps wandered into the bushes, chewing the tasty material with fond remembrance. As it left, the presence withdrew from the goat's mind completely, returned to its own, and those memories faded quickly, leaving the goat's mind like droplets of water down a drain. Soon it remembered nothing: Of the encounter, or of the presence. Gramp's disappeared from sight and the others with it.

Eyes watchful, body unnaturally still, the presence observed the departing herd from its bulwark in the opposite trees. None of the goats paid him heed; indeed, they seemed unaware of his presence. Eventually the woods became still.

For some minutes nothing happened, then, stepping into the clearing, the dog that wasn't a dog crossed the ten yards to Laura's open legs, inclined its head and sniffed. It snorted, licked her once, the scraped the ground with its paw. It sat down to wait.

Chapter 5

Laura awoke slowly.

Her arms were slabs of wood, her legs deadened stumps, her insides sandblasted desert. She looked around with eyes barely slitted, but no goats remained. No nothing. A few pubic hairs littered the ground, a thread or two from panties, but that was all. That was not all. A gross pool of white something was beneath her.

She sat in it.

She didn't care.

This was a dream.

She wasn't tied to a tree.

She wasn't leaking sperm.

She hadn't been violated, fouled in the most awful way.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

Then why did she ache so?

Laura looked down. Distended and raw, her nipples protruded like acorns. Her left nipple was twice the size of the right. The surrounding flesh was florid and raw, covered with dried saliva. Her groin she ignored. Better not to think of that.

She shifted against the tree but could feel neither her arms nor wrists. Her feet were flagstones. The drooling had stopped, but the stone in her mouth was the size of a car.

A noise sounded to her left and Laura looked to find a dog.

There was a white band around its head.

It was Tonto.

"Ohh, Gaa," she said. "Oh, God."

Penetrating the tree line with the forward part of its body, the dog was huge and black, a mixed breed containing strong traits of both pointer and German Sheppard. It's weight had to be over one hundred and fifty pounds. Large white canines--fangs really--graced the big mouth.

Laura didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified.

"Eeerrree?" Here?

Beckon it? Was she crazy?

The dog moved quietly into the clearing, tail against the ground, its big head low. Its eyes narrowed in suspicion, and though it kept watch in all directions, it made no sound.

Laura breathed heavily through her nose, back hard against the tree, praying for mercy. The dog, closer now and intent on her examination, was either the largest, most beautiful animal Laura had ever seen--or the most dangerous.

"Errr-own-urrr-eeee-iiii?" You won't hurt me, right?

Tonto stopped. It growled deeply and Laura pressed harder against the tree. Her head turned involuntarily away, eyes squeezing shut. It took everything not to keen.

The dog grunted.

Laura cracked an eyelid.

"Good doggie?"

The dog shook its head and changed to a slightly less threatening stance. Maybe it intended to wait before it ate her. It took another step forward.

"I can't hurt you," she said. "You know that, right?" The dog raised its snout and sniffed. "I'm like, the last person in the world you have to worry about." She thought how totally nuts this was. "Get me out of this and I'll give you anything you want." I'll even fuck you, she thought.

Then, around the stone and through the red bandana, she said it.

The dog's eyes narrowed. It effected a noise made famous by Tim Allen on Home Improvements.

Yes?

For one absurd moment Laura believed he understood. Then the dog sat down at her feet--in her present position, this placed his snout right at her breasts-- and began to pant. Laura relaxed--half an iota.

"Where's your master?" she asked. "Is he over there?" She indicated the trees opposite.

Tonto looked momentarily back, then resumed his loud panting. He wagged his head.

"No? Where then?"

Tonto sat and panted. His white teeth glistened, and his black fur glowed with health. He really was a beautiful animal. Probably no more than a year old. The kind of pet Laura had wanted for years and was always refused. She had a Toy Poodle named Pierre.

Tonto rose and walked around the trunk, sniffed casually at her right foot. Laura wiggled her toes. "That wasn't an invitation," she said, remembering the slobbering goat.

His black eyes glittered with intelligence--they seemed almost to speak--seemingly a depthless black. He poked the underside of her foot, then sniffed curiously at her privates. He nosed her open labia. Laura kept still. Then he sniffed along the inside of her left thigh, then her right, poked his snout into the taut muscle. Laura jumped.

"Hurts," she said.

Then he licked her crotch and Laura closed her eyes.

"Please God. I'll do whatever you want. Just get me out of this." She looked at the dog. "I meant it about fucking you," she said. She was so in touch with her animal self that communication seemed possible, even certain. "The goat fucked me, and I lived through that. Dogs and human females do it all the time. Right now I'm in no position to say no." She paused to see if she was getting through. He listened with quiet intensity, eyes impenetrably black.

Was she slipping her moorings?

"Bark if you understand."

Tonto nodded.

"Was that a yes?"

He nodded again.

"Jesus," she laughed. This was impossible. "I'll do anything you want," she begged. "I'll fuck you, I'll suck your dick. But I would rather do it with my arms and legs free. Can you help?"

She knew a part of herself was seriously bent, if not torn loose. There was no insincerity in her thoughts, no deceit. This was her last best chance to get loose from this tree, and any bargain with this animal was in good faith.

She bent forward her head.

"Undo the bandana, okay?"

The dog moved its snout behind her left ear and sniffed the knot. It bit down experimentally.

"You have to work it loose," she said. "Don't worry about hurting me."

Tonto rose and planted his front paws either side of Laura's hips, stepped in right against her. His penis was semi-erect, dangling in plain sight, and Laura felt heat and power coursing throughout his frame. He was, she knew, taller on two feet than she.

Tonto took hold of the knot and, growling softly, worked it back and forth. The bandana worked down over her ear and, suddenly came loose, falling partially off her lips. "Uhnnn!" she cried excitedly. The knot shifted again and the bandana came lower still, and then it fell around her neck.

She yelled triumphantly, shouting around the stone, spittle flying out. "You thid it!" she screamed. "You thid it!" She forced the rock out between her teeth and let it fall--painfully against her belly--and the dog licked her mouth and she licked him right back.

"Thank you!" she cried. "Thank you so goddamned much!" They licked each other more. "Good doggie! Good boy! You are the bestest doggie in the whole wide world!" Tonto's penis, fully out of the sheath now and ten inches long, slapped wetly against her thighs. Nothing ever sounded so good. "I love you," she said. "I love you-I love you-I love you." She placed her mouth against the tip of his snout and gave battle to his tongue. Though intense, the battle was rather one- sided.

"Here!" she said, shaking her left shoulder and indicating behind the tree with her head. "Can you get the knot? Holding my hands?" Tonto stopped licking and danced back and forth. "The knot, Tonto," she said. "Behind the tree."

But her eyes were fixed on another knot entirely, the one between his legs. Dangling twelve inches long from the sheath (it had grown?) his penis was huge and reddish-blue, encircled with fiery scarlet veins. A large bulbous knot--which she erroneously mistook for his scrotum--protruded from the shaft right atop the sheath. There was no "head" like the penis of a man, but a blunt end with an enormous crested hole. The thickness swelled in the middle to three inches or more, tapering only slightly at the tip. Hot and angry, it thudded with his heartbeat.

"Oh my God, Tonto," she whispered. "What is that?"

Skip-stepping with excitement, Tonto first licked her face, then disappeared behind the tree. The rope pulled taut and began to jerk. Tonto growled loudly.

"You getting it boy?" Laura prayed. "Please! Please get it loose."

She groaned as the rope pulled her shoulders against the tree, coughed loudly with one especially hard yank. Tonto came back around.

"No," she said, tears pouring down her face. "I'm okay. Get me loose."

Tonto shook his head, growled once, savagely licked her cheeks.

"I'm okay, really." She licked him savagely back. "Please, just hurry."

Tonto scampered away and resumed his efforts and Laura fantasized what moving her arms would be like. She felt nothing past her shoulders. Her thighs were petrified wood. She wondered if she'd ever walk again.

"Having any luck, boy?" she called. The dog's ministrations had increased both in volume and ferocity, but the rope was just as tight. She became afraid. "Come on, boy! You can do it! I know you can!"

The dog barked in frustration.

Maybe I won't get loose at all, she thought. Maybe I'll hang here and die.

"Don't give up," she begged, beginning to sob. "I know you can do it. Please, Tonto, Please! I need to get out of here!"

Tonto's growls become snarls of anger, then rage. His teeth broke loose after one particularly hard yank, and he yelped with machine gun-like fury. He stomped around to Laura, panting madly and barked again.

Laura screamed, "I want to get loose!" her frustration too much to bare. Tonto came forward and scrubbed her face, whined against her shoulder. "I know," Laura sobbed. "I know. God hates me."

With an expression of desperation, the dog grabbed the bandana around Laura's left foot and attacked it with fury. Her defenseless skin was gouged and when she keened in pain, he moved to the length between ankle and thigh. He rip-sawed the material and in seconds, shredded, the bandana came apart.

"Yes!" Laura screamed, kicking her leg free--or trying to. "You did it! You really did it!" Her leg fell dead to the ground. "Oh, no," she whimpered, knowing what came next. "It's okay," she reassured the dog, backing against the tree.

Tonto looked on, anxiously.

The tingling began in her hip, spread outward to the thigh, finally all the way down to her knee. She grimaced in pain. She gasped, clenching her teeth. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" she hissed, as the tingling became a thousand hot needles--a million hot needles--burning right down to her toes.

"Noooo! Oh, no! Oh, no!" She moved the leg back and forth, bent and lifted it high in the air. It did no good. "No, no, no, no, no," she wailed. The pain was so great it made her laugh. This was hysterically funny! Tonto danced back and forth, barking.

"I got it," she said. "I got it. Under control." Tears poured down both cheeks. "What about the other one?" she pleaded. She wagged her right knee. "Can you get it?"

Tonto attacked the rope. Looped twice around her ankle and twice around her thigh, there was little accessible cord. Canines tore into her flesh.

"I don't care!" Laura cried. "Just get it off."

His teeth broke loose and Tonto staggered back, then went sideways for a better grip. Growling ferociously, his rear end thrashing back and forth, Tonto tore frantically at the rope, rip-sawing as he had with the bandana. It required a full two minutes before the nylon frayed.

"That's it!" she cried. "Tear that rope up!"

Tonto growled with renewed fervor, rolling his eyes back to see Laura. Laura continued to cheer.

"Atta-boy! Good dog! Good Tonto!" A bolt of excitement flew through her belly and her chest--she was going to get free! "You get that rope off my leg, Tonto. You get me free and I'll give you the best fuck you've ever had!" She bent in futile effort to kiss his back. "Fuck! I want to fuck you right now!"

Tonto tore at the rope with frenzy.

"Go, Tonto! Go!"

One of the braided strands severed and Laura screamed.

"Keep going, boy! Tear it up!"

The rope came apart, strand by strand, and Tonto attacked the remainder with such fervor that his teeth tore away bark. A hole developed under the rope and his muzzle went into the void, allowing him to rip it side to side. Another strand break, then suddenly Tonto gave a final violent lurch, and his snout came away free.

She was loose! She was fucking loose!

Laura screamed, stamping her left foot. "You did it! You fucking did it!" Tonto jumped back and forth, barking furiously and Laura screamed, "You fucking rope! You goddamn fucking rope!"

Tonto bounded backward and up and down, barking proudly. He shook and waggled his head. He pranced in a circle.

"You are so good, Tonto! You are so unbelievably good!" Laura furrowed her heel into the ground, screwing her face against the pain. She lay the leg flat out. Jabbing needles ran from hip to knee but Laura only laughed. "Fuck it!" she yelled. "It feels good! It feels so fucking good!" Still prancing back and forth, Tonto barked.

"Come here," she said, pulling forward. "Come here and get a kiss."

Tonto jumped forward, eyes bright with exhilaration. He barked again.

"Yes, my big handsome rescuer," she said, snuggling him with her mouth. "Get your sugar." They joined, muzzle to lips, exchanging joyous licks. Laura's face soon became lathered.

"Want some real sugar?" Laura exclaimed.

Tonto barked and laughing, Laura put her left leg over his hindquarters, pulled him forward and down. She got her mouth completely into his muzzle. He went all the way into her throat. Choking, she pulled away and couched loudly.

Am I really doing this? Fire seared her belly and she mentally cried: I am! I am! I am fucking a dog!

Tonto licked her shoulder, the side of her neck, her left cheek.

"I want you, Tonto! I want you real bad!"

Breathing hard, she scooted forward on the grass, raised her barely functioning right leg over Tonto's back and crossed her ankles. She maneuvered them over his rear end and hung from his hips. Tonto easily bore her weight.

"You have to help," she panted. She hadn't clue what to do.

Tonto lowered into a crouch, licked Laura all over the chest and neck, moved his hindquarters in closer. While they exchanged kisses, Laura managed a look under his chest and saw her waiting prize. It was unbelievably huge.

"Don't hurt me," she whispered, knowing he would. The goat was diminutive, compared.

Her pelvis came forward and up, seeking his cock; Tonto thrust downward. Something heavy, hot and large hit Laura on the belly and she cried, "Oh, my God!" looking under him again. The head lay just above her clitoris.

"Down a little," she breathed into his left ear. His breath was a blowtorch on her left shoulder. He lowered himself and the thick cock moved over her clitoris and breath locked in Laura's chest. "A little lower," she whispered, unsure she wanted him to move. Cupped in his opening, her clitoris felt very good. Very, very good. It thrummed and sang. Understanding she needed him more inside, she canted upward and found the club-headed end of his cock, captured it with her vagina. She took it all the way in. She shuddered deeply. She worked up the shaft.

"Oh, please," she begged. "Fuck me!" The effort was torture on her arms. "Please hurry, Tonto!"

Burdened by her weight, Tonto bucked forward ungracefully, unable not to hurt her. Laura gasped in pain, clenching off a scream. "It's okay!" she panted, feeling his alarm. "I'm fine."

She was anything but.

Biting her lower lip, she spread to her maximum and came up and forward on his cock. Both the pain and the elation were great. Talk about rapture, she thought. She coaxed him in, filling her vagina completely, and cried: "That's it! That's it!" as her eyes and teeth clamped shut ."Just like that," she said.

Tonto established a rhythm, and Laura rode; within moments they copulated like ancient lovers.

"I'm gonna come!" she whispered, disbelieving how quickly it came. Her face expressed wonder and a growing certainty that her lover, whatever he was, was not just a dog. She felt his presence equally in both her mind and her vagina.

Tightening her grip on Tonto's rump, Laura drew the dog downward and in. She exhaled pain. "Jesus! Jesus-Jesus- Jesus!" she cried, clamping Tonto's head between her jaw and shoulder as she had the goats. She refused to let go. "Don't stop, Tonto! Don't stop! Please don't stop!"

Tonto slammed in and out and Laura chanted, "I love you-I love you-I love you!" in a furious prayer, punctuated by, "Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!" until the pitch of their lovemaking grew so frenetic that Laura drove upward as hard as Tonto drove down. Her words disappeared into a continuous high pitched wail.

Driven by the intensity of Laura's need, Tonto exploded in orgasm, engorging her vagina with sperm. It blew out as fast as it blew in and again Laura's rear end and anus were soaked. Tonto fucked her madly and up and up she went, until the earth's surface was a patchwork of details and beautiful colors and then Laura was beyond orgasm and she soared out of the atmosphere and right into space.

Chapter 5

Laura awoke.

"Whaaa?" An incoherent mumble.

She hung low against the tree, legs akimbo, rear end two feet from the trunk. Tonto lay between her thighs, legs folded beneath him. His tongue lolled just right below her crotch.

"What are you doing?" she said. Then, slowly, like a broaching whale, memory surfaced. "Oh," she whispered. "Jesus."

She dug in her heels, bark digging clefts into her back. Her dress, what was left of it, lay bunched in her lap. The afternoon sun, what was left of it, was behind her, casting long shadows across the clearing. Groggily, she said, "What time is it, you think?"

Tonto shook his head.

"Of course you don't know," she said. "How could you?" She thought of her wrist watch, useless on the other side of the tree. She looked at the sky. "Five o'clock?" she said. Tears welled in her eyes, began to spill over. "I'm never getting out of here, am I?"

Tonto crawled forward, lapped her labia as though in consolation. It made her feel worse. She lifted her legs, crossed them above his head and put them down to his right. She turned sideways. "No more," she said. "I have to get loose."

Tonto nudged her thigh.

"Have a heart, baby. I'm dying." She feared she actually was.

Eyes miserable, Tonto tilted his head.

"You understand me, don't you, boy?"

Tonto nodded.

Laura blinked, disconcerted. "Not really," she said. "You couldn't."

Tonto shook his head, then bobbed it up and down. He scraped his right paw.

Laura leaned forward. "You understand English?"

This time he barked, scraped the ground twice in quick succession, barked again. Laura looked at his paw. She looked at his face.

"You're telling me you understand English?"

Two more quick, agitated swipes and he pranced back and forth. Laura backed against the tree.

No way!

"No way," she said.

Scrape--scrape.

Laura's mouth fell open. "You can't!" Again: Scrape--scrape.

"You can?"

Scrape--scrape.

"How? How can that be?" She became animated. "You're name is Trigger, right?" One scrape and he shook his head. "Rin-tin-tin?" He barked angrily. "Okay, okay," she said. "Tonto!"

A bark and two scrapes of the paw.

The dog understood. Somehow, he could communicate. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, realizing what that meant. She leaned forward, her mind frantic. "You can never tell!" she pleaded. "What we just did!" She clasped him between her legs. "You won't, will you? Promise?" Her lungs chugged like a steam locomotive. "You have to promise me, Tonto! Promise!"

Tonto struggled to get away.

"Tonto! Please!"

He bobbed his head, the lapped her face and neck with his tongue.

"Thank you!" she exclaimed, exchanging ferocious licks. "Thank you! Thank you-thank you! Yes--I love you too." She pulled away. "You know that, right?" She needed confirmation that she wasn't insane. "I actually love you?"

Tonto licked her face, between her legs, his paw scraped twice.

"Come here, boy." She extended her mouth and Tonto played his tongue into it. They French kissed for a long time, Laura finally getting the hang of it. Finally, she leaned back. "Holy, Jesus Christ," she panted. Then: "Free my hands! The way you did my legs! Okay?"

Tonto barked furiously and ran behind the tree. He attacked the rope.

"Don't hurt yourself!" she cried, suddenly alarmed. He ran back and licked her wildly. "Okay, okay! I believe you!" He dashed away again.

"I'm going to kill that little Bruce when I find him," she called. Tonto barked once. "Will you help me?" He barked again.

"I could have died out here alone. I probably would have if you hadn't showed up."

Tonto ran back around, licked her face twice, then returned to the rope.

"Get me free and I'll take you home and show you what a bitch girl can really do!"

Tonto came back. He stood between her legs and stared.

"What?" she said. "You don't believe me?" Very deliberately, very slowly--very deeply--Tonto licked her groin.

Laura shuddered violently. "Jesus Christ!" she wheezed. She closed her thighs, but too late--a fire storm had ignited. "You can't do that," she stuttered." I--I--" Color burned hotly in her face and also between her legs. Nothing in her whole life had shocked her like that. Shaking in every part of her body, Laura reopened her legs and Tonto licked her again and this time she moaned loudly. She felt doused with sexual fuel.

Unable to control his lust, Tonto went down on all fours and began to ferociously lick.

"Jesus! Jesus-Jesus! You can't do that!" A shudder raced up her spine, shaking even the tree. The shudder rolled down again. She backed uncontrollably away, legs spread-eagled, jerking spasmodically. "Stah-ah-ahp that!" she begged, while at the same time lifting her rear end. The dog worked her anus to clitoris and back and Laura wailed, "I-ca-aa-aa-aannt-sta-aa-aa-and-it! Stoooohhhhppppp!"

Within seconds she rode a tidal wave of orgasm. The biggest yet. The muscles clutched and unclutched in her belly, and if she were Xena, the Warrior Princess, the tree would be ripped from the ground. The wave hit shore and broke.

"Do me!" she screamed, throwing her pelvis upward and out until her hip joints threatened to snap. "Do me! Do me! Do me!" Tonto leapt to his feet and mounted her with desperate need.

There was no missing the mark-- Laura's vagina gaped like a beckoning cave. He plunged in, ramming himself home and Laura screamed and shook like an earthquake. "Stop it! Stop it, oh please! STOP!"

Tonto lunged until only the knot remained and started working on that. The size of a baseball, it continued to grow, until its size was almost unimaginable. No human could embrace it without rupturing herself.

"Jesus! Jesus-Jesus-Jesus!" Laura screamed. The knot was going into her now.

She wanted onto her belly, onto her knees, her ass in the air, his huge cock pounding her ass. Tonto howled and Laura howled, and she hammered her pelvis against him. Twelve inches tore in and out and battered to failure--her cervix finally gave.

Dilating two full inches, it passed Tonto inside, into her uterus, and the knot filled her vagina and the pain was tornado strong.

"NEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Laura screamed.

Tonto came.

Howling like a maddened wolf, Laura exploded while shotgun blast-hot sperm blew into her uterus and her battered flesh screamed. She arched up and up and pulled Tonto with her, away from the ground and Tonto rode her madly, testicles pumping sperm, the sperm blasting back onto them both as Laura screamed again. Throughout the forest, startled birds shot skyward, squirrels and groundhogs clambered back to their nests, while two miles away a black bear jerked its head upward bounded away in the opposite brush. Four miles distant, a farmer looked up a from plowing a field, turned off his tractor and listened.

Too late--the wail had faded to a whisper.

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