Sawtooth Mountain

They had ridden for several minutes before Peggy began the conversation.

"Just for today let's pretend I am not your boss and we are just friends, okay?"

Cal nodded, looking at her briefly with a sideways glance to see that she understood he was in agreement. He thought he detected a more thoughtful mood about her today, but maybe that was just because the children were not along.

"You were embarrassed when you saw me checking out your muscles and your manly physique, weren't you?" she asked after a few moments, a quick smile slipping across her face when she saw his look of consternation.

"Yeah, I guess so," he replied.

"Why? Haven't you checked me out many times in the same way, even though I was fully clothed?"

He thought about that for a few moments.

"I think it's different, somehow . . . at least in a man's mind," he added lamely.

"I don't know why," she said, pursuing the subject. "We girls like to look the same as you guys, we just like to look at different areas of the body, and maybe with a different purpose in mind." Cal smiled wryly – the old gal sure was plain spoken, and he liked her for that.

"So, what were you thinking when you were looking at me?" he asked, looking directly into her eyes, hoping to get the upper hand in the situation. She accepted the challenge without hesitation.

"I was just wondering why I had not tried to coax you out of that little waitress's bed and into my own," she said, smiling at his new discomfiture. "After all, the word around the restaurant is that you are the real stud on this ranch!"

Cal wished he had never pursued the discussion, and had no idea how to respond to the woman. It was she who picked up the conversation again after a couple of very quiet minutes.

"Maybe I misread the attention you have given my body," she said softly, watching him intently. "Maybe you were just being polite."

Cal pulled Paint to a halt, patted him on the shoulder and leaned forward on his saddle horn, looking the now startled woman directly in the eye.

"I have wanted to undress you and make love to you since the first time I saw you," he said, delighting in the sparkling smile that flashed across her face and eyes. "I just didn't think it was proper to let that be known, considering the fact you are the boss and all."

"And the difference in our ages?" she asked pleasantly.

"Well, that doesn't really mean anything to me, I am a man and you are a woman, the hell with the age difference – I'll let someone else worry about that," he replied, hoping that this conversation would somehow end up with the attractive woman lying in his arms.

Her smile was genuine, almost girlish, as she suddenly kicked her horse into a canter, letting her words drift back over her shoulder as he tried to catch up.

"Then follow me, I have something to show you."

They ran the horses for a few minutes and then let them catch their breath as they sat on a small bluff overlooking the upper end of the lake. Below them was a small beach leading into shallow water. About fifty yards out into the lake was a large, flat rock rising only a few inches out of the water. The beauty of the place almost caught his breath.

"This is our family swimming hole," she said. "None of the other people on the ranch are allowed up this far . . . except Jose, of course, he is allowed everywhere."

Cal looked around instinctively, almost expecting the old timer to be sitting behind them, watching. Peggy laughed.

"Don't worry, I told him to stay home today, I have private business to attend to with you." Cal looked at her questioningly, and her smile told him that Jose knew why he should not have followed. Damn her, she had made him blush again.

"You are the first person he has ever trusted me to be alone with since Art died six years ago," she said, reaching over and squeezing his arm. "That is an awesome compliment from my dearest friend," she continued, letting him know with her eyes that he had become very important to both her and Jose.

"C'mon, I brought you out here specifically to tease you into going skinny-dipping with me out on the rock." He again was following her lead as she let her sorrel mare find its way down the face of the bluff until they were able to dismount at the little beach.

They unsaddled the horses and let them graze off along the shoreline of the lake, and Peggy started removing her clothes as soon as they were finished with the horses. Cal just stood, with his hands resting casually on his hips as she unbuttoned and slipped out of her shirt and then reached around and unhooked her bra. As she let the bra slide from her shoulders she raised her eyes to watch his as he looked at her two small, but full breasts as they settled comfortably on her chest, still quite firm despite her age. She kept her eyes on his as she unsnapped and unzipped her jeans, sliding them and her panties down around her boots in one smooth motion. Cal gulped slightly as her shapely hips, round tummy, tight thighs and neatly-trimmed, salt-and-pepper pubic area were revealed.

"I'm going to need some help with these boots," she teased, the girlish smile having returned to her face. Cal helped her sit on one of the saddles and pulled each boot and sock off before removing her jeans and panties from around her ankles. While he was still kneeling in front of her he slowly opened her legs wider to get a better view of all that she was, and she willingly let him have his way, just enjoying the look on his face as he drank in her mature beauty.

"You are as beautiful as I had anticipated," he said, his eyes finally finding her own and locking there. "No, you are more beautiful than I expected."

"Well, if you just continue to sit there and stare I am going to start feeling self-conscious," she said, smiling happily. "When is it my turn?"

Cal stood up and peeled off his shirt, before dropping his cutoffs and jockey shorts over his erection and around his ankles. Then he sat down on the other saddle and looked expectantly at her.

"I think I may need some help also," he said, smiling widely.

Immediately she was on her knees in front of him tugging on his boots, her breasts swaying gently with each tug. When the last sock had flown over her shoulder she surprised him by leaning forward and taking his erect penis in her mouth for a couple of minutes of oral manipulation. Cal could only lean back on his extended arms and enjoy the sight and feeling of this wonderful woman giving him such immense pleasure.

Suddenly she grabbed a bottle of suntan lotion from her saddlebag and sprinted toward the water.

"Last one to the rock is rotten egg," she laughed as she splashed into the water a few strides ahead of him. They swam together, then, neither wanting to race, arriving at the same time, and stopping before they climbed upon the rock for a long embrace. The embrace was not enough, though, as they began touching. When he realized how wet she already was, he spread her legs, grasped her upper thighs just under the buttocks and lifted her up onto his aroused penis. She looked him directly in the eye as she settled down on him, her own eyes opening wider as she realized how tight she had become after six years without having sex.

Then they were moving in a graceful, rhythmic dance which grew more intense with every stroke, until orgasms only seconds apart locked their bodies into a frozen embrace as they kissed again, passionately exploring each other's mouth with their tongues.

"I didn't think about protection," Cal said apologetically as he came out of the woman and helped her onto the rock.

"Well, I don't think I am in any danger of getting pregnant," Peggy laughed playfully, "And I have every reason to believe your waitress is clean . . . since we had random drug tests two weeks ago and did an extra test on her blood." Cal pulled back from the woman and looked at her to see if she was teasing.

"Does that make you angry?" she asked, hesitant with him for the first time that day.

"No, I was just wondering why you would go to that trouble with her, since she is not going to be around much longer."

"Because, Mister Benton, I have had every intention of getting you inside me since the first day I caught you enjoying my ass and breasts," she replied impishly, once again smiling freely. Cal just shook his head, not having had any idea that the woman was as attracted to him as he was to her, right from the start. Oh, well, he wasn't going to complain, but just wanted to get inside her again as soon as possible.

That didn't take long as they began kissing again, and he soon was totally erect. They slid back into the water, but this time their movements were slow and deliberate, though just as passionate. He slid his finger down to begin rimming her clitoris as she scratched tiny trails down his back with her fingernails. They came again almost simultaneously before climbing back on the rock.

Peggy handed him the lotion and rolled onto her stomach so he could work it into her back, bottom and legs in a soothing, sensual massage. After she had returned the favor – for both his back and front – she again relinquished the bottle and stretched out for him to do her front.

Cal had moved from her shoulders to her breasts, taking one in each hand, gently massaging the nipples and then the whole breast. As he did he felt something that did not seem quite right. Getting more lotion he used both hands on the right breast, making love to it with his fingers and palms, before moving to the left. As he slowly worked the left breast his fingers told him he was right originally – he felt a golf-ball size lump on the outside half of the breast.

Glancing down he realized Peggy had been watching his face carefully, and he knew he could not hide the concern in his eyes. He lowered them, then, and slowly and lovingly moved to her rounded tummy, her thighs, legs and feet and, finally, back to her pubic area, where he dwelt for several minutes until her felt her shudder under her third orgasm of the day. Then he lay down, resting his head on one hand so he could continue to watch her body.

"I found it about six months ago," she said softly, watching his eyes. "Old Doc Barker in town said it was probably nothing and just to keep an eye on it. I guess he is not too familiar with these kind of things, because that was the wrong advice." She stopped then, looking out over the lake before returning her eyes to his. "It started growing about three months ago, right after you moved up to the top and started giving me so much positive attention." She smiled, then, a warm, loving smile as she remembered the past few months.

"Next Tuesday I am scheduled to fly out to the Mayo Clinic . . . the preliminary report is that I will probably have to have the whole breast removed. The mammogram shows there are several growths there, not just the large one." She stopped again, waiting for him to speak if he wanted. He just nodded, not trusting his voice at that time.

"I guess it has already reached my lymph system, and they want to keep me there six weeks for some intense radiation treatment. When I come home, it will be minus one breast and all my hair, and no promise that I will live another year."

She signed, then, looking back out over the lake before returning her gaze to the saddened young man now sitting up beside her, gently stroking her hair, her face, and her breasts. She watched his hand on her body and slowly broke into a series of sobs, prompting him to draw her to himself, holding her against his chest as she let the emotion flow.

"I guess I tricked you into coming out here with me . . ." she began, but he stopped her by putting his index finger to her lips.

"I wish I had been man enough to let you know how much I wanted you three months ago," he said quietly, stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "Today has been wonderful . . . more wonderful than I could ever have imagined."

She thanked him with her eyes and they slid off the rock again for their third, most prolonged session of kissing and lovemaking before swimming slowly back to the shore.

"The kids will be back pretty soon, and we probably won't be able to be alone again until Monday night," she said, watching him for any reaction. "Would you spend Monday night with me?" His smile and the tears in his eyes were answer enough and they stood holding each other for what seemed like an eternity until the horses came up, knowing it was soon time for their ration of oats back at the barn.

They dressed and saddled up in silence, mounting and climbing the front of the bluff carefully. They stopped at the top and looked back at the little beach – their beach — one last time before smiling their love to each other and letting the horses break into a canter on the way home.

Monday evening Cal slipped quietly out of his bunkhouse apartment, surveying the ranch grounds for anyone who might see his destination. He caught sight of Jose, leaning against the front of the barn and knew no one would see him – Peggy's old friend would see to that. Carmela let him in through the kitchen door, kissed him quickly on the cheek and led him to his lover's room.

Peggy was wearing a beautiful transparent blue nightgown and had fixed her salt-and-pepper, shoulder-length hair up high on her head. She had a camera ready and asked him to take pictures so they could both remember what she looked like. He took two full rolls of film until they could stand it no longer and fell into bed in each other's arms. She opened her legs for him with the first kiss and he glided into her, much easier this time that when in the water. As before, they made love three times, breaking twice for oral interplay before they fell asleep. They awoke in the middle of the night for a fourth time, and just before breakfast Cal was able to get a final erection which he gladly shared with his lover.

After breakfast and a lot of long, tearful goodbyes, she drove off with Jose, waving bravely at the family, and giving Cal one last teasing wink as the jeep passed him. She would not be back for six weeks, and the place surely would not be the same until she returned . . . maybe not even then.

Midway during the second week of Peggy's absence, Cal was leaning on the corral fence watching the two children brush down their horses. He was slightly surprised when the kids' father pulled his jeep over to the corral instead of just waving as he went by. The kids gave him a hug and excitedly told him about the rattlesnake that had scared the horses and that Cal had killed with a stick. When they were done with their story, the father hugged them again and sent them up to the house to get ready for dinner. He then walked over to the corral fence, leaning on it just a few feet from the young man he had practically ignored the entire summer.

"Thank's for working with the kids," he said, not looking at Cal but across the lake and up the valley. "They need a friend like you at a time like this."

"They need a real Daddy at a time like this," Cal said, not too gently, spitting into the dust at his feet.

"You don't think too highly of me, do you?" Rob Grable asked, turning to look intimidatingly at the younger man.

"You haven't given me any reason to," Cal replied, refusing to turn and face the man.

"Maybe you'd like to explain that remark," Grable said, almost threateningly.

It was then that Cal turned to look at him with an icy stare.

Grable remembered a conversation he had heard between two of the ranch hands not long after Cal had come up to work on top. They had not known he was on the other side of the barn wall and were discussing the confrontation between him and Cal at their second meeting.

"I asked ol' Jose what would have happened if Grable had jumped the kid," one of the cowboys said. "And he just said the boy reminds him of a gray wolf trotting along the edge of a clearing. There might be bigger and meaner animals around, but they all find reason to move aside when the wolf comes too close."

"Well, I'm with ol' Joe," the second cowboy said. "When that boy tells you with his eyes he has had enough, I'm ready to clear out cause I don't think he would stop until one of us was dead."

Grable felt a cold shiver run up and down his spine as he looked into the cold eyes of the younger man. Cal finally spoke, after nearly a minute of looking at the older man.

"You have a beautiful, loving wife, yet you run around with some little floozy you should never have hired in the first place . . ." Grable started to speak but was silenced with an upraised hand by the younger man. "You have two wonderful children, yet you ask a stranger to be their surrogate father, driving them farther away from you every day you are a lazy parent. And you had a loving mother-in-law who would have willingly given you the lifelong results of her life and her husband's, but you are too poor an excuse for a man for her to even consider doing so."

Cal turned, then, leaning on the fence again, ignoring the blustering man who wanted to challenge him, but feared him too much to do so.

"I don't have to take shit like that off of you," Grable finally grated out between clenched teeth. "I came down here to try and thank you for helping my family and you have the audacity to tell me how to be a husband and father and businessman. Fuck you, you little cocksucker." He then spun on his heel, climbed into the jeep and spun his wheels in the loose dirt in front of the barn.

Cal just shrugged and turned toward the bunkhouse, not seeing the old man leaning just inside the barn door – or the slight smile that played across the weathered face.

Two days later, Cal walked into the corral to find Rob Grable helping his youngest child saddle her horse. The father didn't look up when he felt the other man's presence, but just voiced his intentions in an unfriendly tone.

"I'm going to ride with the kids while their grandmother is gone," he said tersely. "That leaves you time to do something else." The kids grinned their excitement at Cal and he smiled back, waving at them as he turned to leave. As he stepped up on the bunkhouse porch Jose emerged from one of the rooms, looked out to the corral and then reached up to squeeze Cal on the shoulder. The two men looked at each other and nodded . . . maybe something good was going to come of Peggy's ordeal.

A week later Cal overheard a conversation in the bunkhouse between two of the long-time hands. One of the waitresses had told them that Grable's favorite cigarettes and brand of whiskey were piling up and they would not have to order any more for a while – he had evidently quit using both.

That was not the only change. Cal was being invited much less to the 'big house' for dinner, but was rather having dinner at the little house behind the bunkhouse with his friends Jose and Carmela. The Grable family was seen more and more doing things together, and Rob was even taking extra time off from work to drive down to the city some days with his family.

The six weeks passed quickly for some, but it had seemed like an eternity for Cal before he saw Jose's jeep pull up in front of the lodge. Everyone was there on the porch to greet the gracious woman who had given them so much.

She emerged from the jeep wearing a brightly colored kerchief around her head. She had lost some weight and her face looked sad, but the vivacious eyes which they all loved so much were unchanged as she took the time to kiss them all – even the blushing cowboys -- before moving up to the 'big house.' Halfway up the rise she stumbled slightly and Cal stepped forward and picked her up with no effort whatsoever, holding her carefully in his arms. The look she gave him melted his heart, and he held her closely until depositing her on the porch swing where her family was waiting to greet her.