Summary:
On fence patrol across the high plains of west Texas, a ranch hand checks lines between the Salt Fork Brazos and Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red. He encounters wildlife threats and discovers a barefoot Native woman collapsed in the bluestem during a sleet storm. He shelters her at camp. She reveals herself as Nahemah, a Comanche medicine woman from Wichita Falls hills, seeking a strong man for her line. Under sage smoke’s influence, she initiates an intense encounter by the fire in a box canyon. Chanting leads to a supernatural shift revealing skinwalkers, leaving him drained until dawn restores his strength.
Here is your Story: I Fucked a Comanche Medicine Woman on Fence Patrol
Early October in west Texas. Time to check the fences for winter. I’m out on the lines across the high plains, between the Salt Fork Brazos and the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red. Flat stretches and caprock hills get brutal under snow and ice. Riding fence ain’t for sissies. All sorts can get you while you’re crashed out under the Milky Way next to your saddle and bedroll. Out here you run into javelinas, coyotes, ringtails, rattlers. Or Comanche, Kiowa, Lipan Apache holdouts. Renegade raids ended generations back. They stick to ancient ways. Big medicine especially.
Horses beat ATVs on the flats. No fuel. No breakdowns. Just nails, water, graze. Two of ’em handle two weeks, hauling grub, one as spare. Day three. Spotted a dozen strays up the Salt Fork. Herded ’em into a box canyon for holding. Radio the hands on the Iridium next week to trail ’em down to the bottoms and headquarters, plus whatever else shows.
Nights drop to forty with that norther blowing. Stygian dark, clouds choke the stars, no moon sliver. Hunkered by a low fire in the bedroll. Horses stamp, snort sharp. Something’s got ’em jumping. Snatch the Winchester lever gun. Twigs snap, buffalo grass rasps under boots, maybe fifty yards northeast. Woman’s mutter floats over. Old frontier yarns crowd my skull, witchy mash of ghost stories from cattle drives. I freeze. Holler once. Silence. Growl rolls low. Mountain lion. Belt out a warning shot’s coming. Crack one over the treetops to run it off. Ten minutes ticks by quiet. Sack out with ears perked.
Dawn Patrol
Horses tug the picket at five. Chilly mist hangs thick. Build up the fire for Folgers and biscuits. Sack ’em some Purina for breakfast, cinch saddles for the push north. Scout northeast first, forty, sixty yards, for lion shit, prints in the mud. Jesus Christ. Native woman flopped cold in the bluestem. What in the fuck, eighty miles from the nearest rez? Ease her onto her back. Breath steady. No knife, no bullet holes. Barefoot, no gear. Just fringed leathers. Good-looking. Front blowing in hard, forty-two degrees and sleeting. Wet ride ahead, shit. No options. Sling her over the roan. Rig a tarp lean-to. Warm her up, get chow in her. Who’s this chick?
Gear squared away. She’s under the tarp. Horses ground-tied firm. Fire crackling. Sleet sheets down, gusts whipping. Camp’s as tight as it gets.
Sleet hammered all night, looks like all day too. Might break by dusk. She’s still lights out. Horses grained. Nurse the coals, scarf jerky and beans, crash again. Hours drag. Jolt awake to flames leaping high. Night still black, sleet quit, air dead calm. Holy fuck, where’s the woman? Bolt upright. Yell her way. She ghosts out of the gloom. Eyes catch the fire, flare orange like a feral cat’s. Freezes my gut. “Where you been?” “Sit by the fire. Hungry? Got water?” She shuffles close, locked on me. “You alright?” Blank stare. “Beef stew? It’s cold but I’ll nuke it.” Zip. “Park on this cedar log. Stay till you say something.”
River Gorge Run
Sunup. I’m perched there. She crouches by the flames. “What’s your name? Where you from?” Crickets. “Break camp, hit the canyon off the Salt Fork, full day’s ride. Gets you nearer the rez, yeah?”
She don’t say dick the whole haul. Hit the box canyon up the Salt Fork. Drop camp. “Gonna hit the river for a rinse. Back soon, we eat, hit the sack early. Big push tomorrow.”
Hours on, rustle under the wool blanket. Rattler? Whip out the Ka-Bar, pivot, set to nail it. Her hand. Eases the blade down. “Tribal man, I am Nahemah. You?”
“Travis. Where you from?”
“Wichita Falls hills. Comanche blood. Seeking strong man to carry my line.”
“Your line?”
“Medicine woman.” Sage smoke blasts my face. Hack, eyes water. Drop like a sack. Can’t twitch. Shock hits. Pure fear.
Nahemah grins crooked. Loosens the leathers, lets ’em fall. Bare as the day. Firelight licks her copper skin. Straddles my shins. Works up slow. Yanks my belt, shucks the Wranglers to my Ariats. Crotch exposed. Tongue flicks her lips. Crawls higher, tits trail my thighs. Palms to my pecs. Rips the pearl snaps on my shirt. Eyes bulge, fire-reflects sharp, hunter-fixed. My panic’s plain.
Plants on my thighs. Palms my cock, nuts. Blows cool eucalyptus haze over ’em. Instant iron-hard throb. Body quakes, horned up, no clue why. Grins wider. Lips part, swallows my dick. Rough tongue laps. Pulls off. “Strong seed. Worthy, Travis.” Strings thick spit down, throat, ribs, gut, my bush. Eyes blaze orange. Teeth pointy now. Claws lengthen. Hisses like a bobcat. I strain to yell, throat locks. Done for. Rakes nails down chest, abs, gonna gut me.
Chants in some ancient tongue. Sinks on my soaked cock. Cunt scalds like coals. Chants louder, spits globs from her mouth. Terrified but the fuck feels prime. Vice-tight. Smears spit over my chest, her tits. Screams rip out. Head thrashes, black hair whips wild. Feels eternal. “Give your seed now.” I do. Climax drags a full minute. Sucks the life clean. She stills. Climbs off. Stands tall. Pads away mute. Leaving my ass to rot?
Hashtahli sun ghost nudges me over. Twist my neck. Nahemah with a half-dozen clan, bare, throat-singing at the flames toward me. Execution hour. She shimmers, warps, sprouts white fur. Bobcat. Tribe shifts too. Skinwalkers. Final glare. They melt into shadow.
Strength floods back, Hashtahli’s gift. Yank on clothes. Perch the cedar log by dying coals till false dawn. Rattled, beat, chilled, starved, filthy. Picket rope droops slick in the canyon wind.
By noon the next day, I’d dragged myself together enough to break camp. Horses stood steady after extra grain and a rubdown with the currycomb. Nahemah’s sage stink lingered faint on my shirt collar, mixed with the sharp tang of my own dried sweat. No sign of her clan or those cat tracks, just churned dirt from hooves and boot prints fading fast under a weak sun. Radioed the ranch: strays secure, fence solid, personal weirdness filed under “don’t ask.” Trailed south slow, roan’s gait lulling the shakes out of my hands. That night, back at HQ, I cracked a Shiner under the bunkhouse fluorescents. The Iridium sat charging on the scarred oak table, its screen dark.
