I was so angry with Mama that day! It was all I could do to hold my tongue.

The rain was falling hard, and it was all mud and muck outside, but Mama insisted that I go out and lead Mr. Stevenson's team. Of course the brutes wouldn't budge, they never want to haul the wagon even when it's sunny bright out, and they're even worse in a rainstorm. I had half a mind to tell my mama that no girl should be expected to go out into the rain and muck on a day like this, especially now that we were with all the other folks in the big wagon train and they'd see me out there like some sort of servant girl.

But I couldn't possibly talk back to Mama, never, but definitely not in front of Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson, whom I already believed didn't think very highly of me. So I just gave her an angry glare that hopefully even she didn't notice, and I went out into the muck like I were told.

Ol' Doc is what everybody called Mr. Stevenson back home in Ohio where we was from. He was the town doctor, back before the new doctor came to town. The new doctor were a younger man, and so much better looking, and an eligible bachelor too! and he moved in and stole most of Ol' Doc's business away from him. That's when the Stevensons decided to up and move out west where Ol' Doc could establish a new practice in a town that didn't have a young'un upstart to interfere.

Now the problem, and the reason I were sent out there by my mama this day, was that Ol' Doc had a team of oxen that were as hard-nosed as you could ever imagine. The lead steer of the team was a big huge beast that he called "Blue," and Blue was as moody as anything you've knowed before. When that steer was in a mood, you could not get him to move an inch no matter what you'd do. Mr. Stevenson would sit up in the wagon and jerk on the reins, and slap him with the whip, and it wouldn't make no nevermind at all to the ox, who would stand there as stubborn as a mule. And the other three oxen, they only did what Blue did. If Blue pulls, they pull. And if Blue is in a mood, then they is in a mood, too.

This wasn't such a big deal when we first left Ohio, since we was all by ourselves then and had plenty of time to meet with the wagon train before they headed west. So it was just us in Mr. Stevenson's covered wagon, Ol' Doc and his wife, who was twenty years his younger and married him for his money before he'd spent it all on loose women. That's what my mama says anyways, I don't rightly know much about loose women, but apparently they cost a pretty penny! And he brung along his simple-minded son from his first marriage, too, so it was the three of them and then me and my sister Jane and Mama, all together six of us in a Ol' Doc's small little wagon. But luckily my mama and us had nothing much to our name so no real luggage to speak of.

So, the fact that the oxen was so stubborn that sometimes you couldn't even make them go at all wasn't too much of a problem when we were by ourselfs, since all it meant was that we had to sit around while we waited for Blue to get into a better mood. During these times Mama would tell us all about where we was going, how beautiful it was out there in the Nebraska territory, and how much land her new husband owned, and won't it be wonderful when we finally get there? That was before she learnt the news, of course. We didn't learnt that until we joined the others.

When we finally did join the others, Jane and me was so happy. We love Mama of course, and I guess I liked the Stevensons OK, but it was so nice to have other people around to talk to! And there were even kids our age, even some boys, which made Jane very happy indeed. For me back then, I didn't much care for boys, I guess. Maybe boys that were around Jane's age were more interesting to me, maybe, I suppose. She's four years older than me, and boys her age are starting to become men, or at least starting to act like them. But boys my age aren't men. Not hardly, especially back when this story happens. I'm fourteen now as I write this, but I were twelve back then and boys around that age mostly all are a bunch of lousy kids, if you ask me, running around like squirrels and the only attention they pay to a girl is to give a painful yank to her braids. Mama told me that's just the way a boy shows a girl he likes her, but that made no sense to me and only further confirmed what I was feeling about how annoying they were. Although in truth, it don't matter to me no more either way, how annoying a boy might be, as you'll see soon enough.

Anyway, there were lots of girls, too, and every day there got to be more and more people joining us and by the time we gots to Illinois we had over forty covered wagons in our train! There were like a hundred or two hundred people. Sometimes we'd have dances at night around a big fire and the men would all drink too much and the ladies would scold them, and the children all run around, and at some point Jane would disappear into the bushes with a boy and I knowed what they was doing there! Sometimes I would follow and watch, just like I did sometimes when she did the same with Ol' Doc Stevenson or with his simple-minded son Johnnie. Don't get me wrong, now, Jane's not one of those loose women my mama talks about. She was still a maiden then and swore she'd be such on her wedding night, an oath I know first-hand she kept. So no, Jane weren't a loose woman at all, she just liked to use her hands and her mouth to help the boys out, and the boys all liked it a whole lot when she did, that's for sure! She said I should start to learn how to do it myself pretty soon, and I agreed with her, but I just couldn't with any of the boys in the wagon train. I was too shy for that. Nor with Ol' Doc Stevenson nor his son Johnnie. I didn't really like them that way at all, and I'm not like Jane who says it doesn't matter whether I like them that way or not, it's not about love or anything like that, it's just about helping a guy out when he needs it. I understand what she means, I guess, and I suppose if Dunlap hadn't come along I'd have started learning with the doctor and his boy. But now I've gotten a little ahead of myself by talking about Mr. Dunlap. Back to the story for a second.

So it was wonderful when we finally joined the wagon train in Illinois and started making our way across to Missouri, but there was a big problem with being with a group, too. And that was these stubborn cows. When Blue decided not to go, we couldn't go, and this meant we were always the last to leave even if we was lucky and could leave at all. A few times we were left behind completely and only managed to catch up by driving those oxen all day long. That's all well and good in Illinois, but by the time we get to Indian country over in the Nebraska territory we're going to have to be with all the other wagons all the time or we will be in big trouble. And I was beginning to doubt that we could ever keep up with them.

It was around that time that Mama got the news. A letter found its way to us somehow, and in it it told that her new husband off in the Nebraska territory had been kilt, and we had nowheres to go in the Nebraska territory anyway then. Even though Mr. Stevenson said we could stay with his family wherevers they was headed, I'm not sure Mrs. Stevenson much liked that idea, and I think I know why. So we weren't to go with them anywheres after they left us off, and now we had nowheres to go when they did that. I told Mama that we should just go back home again to Ohio but she said there weren't no home nowhere for us anymore, not in Ohio neither, not since my pa died and she had to sell everything just to get us a bit of food and the scraps we wear on our backs. May as well just keep going to the Nebraska territory, she said, we can be poor there just like we can be poor in Ohio. I suppose she's right.

So now here we were with the whole wagon train leaving once again, everyone getting their teams going and their wagons rolling, and the rain coming down hard and turning everything into mud, and of course Blue was in a mood, and wouldn't move for nothing in the world. All of Mr. Stevenson's coaxing and talking, all his whipping and pulling at the reins, nothing. So Mama told me I had to go out and try and lead the steer and I knew it wouldn't work, but like I said, I couldn't rightly talk back to her so I went out there in the muck up to my ankles and making my old worn dress all muddy and wet and pulled and pulled on the lead, and the steer just stood there like the girl what was pulling on his lead didn't even exist.

But that was when I hears a voice saying:

"Hey there, lady,"

I turned and looked and there was a man. He stood nice and tall, big shoulders like a fellow who works hard for his keep, in fact he looked a lot like I remember my pa looking, actually, though older. Well, really he was about the age my pa would have been right then, if he were still alive. But that's older than my memory of him.

The stranger put his hand on Blue's neck and ran it down to his back. "Having troubles with this here ox, ma'am?" he asks me.

I nodded, feeling a little too shy to talk much I guess. Ain't nobody never called me ma'am before.

He leaned over and he whispered something to the steer, right in his ear, then he took some oats out of a bag he had around his shoulder and held it up in front of Blue's nose. Blue sniffed at it, then gobbled up what was offered.

"Hey down there," I heard Ol' Doc say, "what the devil is going on?" Mama and my sister Jane came to the front of the wagon to have a look, too.

'It's just," I hollers back, "this here's Mr., uh..."

The man smiles at me and turned and looked up at Ol' Doc. "Dunlap," he says, nice and loud to be heard over the rain.

"What you doing with my ox down there, Dunlap?" Ol' Doc asked. It looked like he was about to put his hand on his pistol grip.

"I'll get this steer moving in a second, if you give me the chance," this stranger answered.

Mr. Stevenson made a funny noise, a sort of snort, like he didn't believe the stranger could get his ox to move, but right at that point the man whose name I now knew as Dunlap held his hand a little bit aways from Blue's nose and the steer took a step forward to try to get a bit more of them oats that the man were offering. Blue took another step, and another, and then the other oxen looked up as they felt the leather tack of their harnesses pulling them into action.

"Here you go, young lady," the man said to me, handing me his bag of food after taking another handful out himself. "Give some to the others."

I slopped through the mud and fed some of the stranger's food to the other cows, and pretty soon the wagon was moving right along through the mud like there never was a problem at all.

"Well," I hears Ol' Doc saying, "thanks you Dunlap." He flicked the reins, and the oxen hauled the wagon into line with the others.

"Pleasure's all mine, Stevenson," he hollered back through the hard rain. Then he turned to me. "Well, Blossom, since you are so good at getting a team started, would you do me the kindness of helping me out with mine?"

I looks at him, like, is he teasing me? Obviously I ain't any good at getting a team started! But he seemed to be sincere enough about the offer, and I was sort of taking a liking to the man I guess, in a certain way that was pretty new for me. Besides, he just called me "Blossom," right? Ain't nobody ever called me anything nears to that before! So I gave him a silly courtesy, although I didn't really know how to courtesy. Then I shouted back over my shoulder, "Mama," I shouted, "I'm goin' to help Mr. Dunlap get his team started."

Mama poked her head out the wagon. "What now? You come back just soon as you get him movin', Marilyn, you hear?"

"I do Mama, I hears you!"

"Marilyn?" the man says as he and me started sloshing through the mud in the direction of his wagon. "Pretty name."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Some peoples call me 'Ranger.'"

"Ranger? What sort of a name is that for a pretty girl?"

I started to answer him back, but my words got caught a bit in my throat, because that's when I seen his wagon for the first time. It was the most beautiful thing you could ever imagine. His team was four big cream-colored draft horses, and his wagon was the biggest in the entire world, I swear. Two little children poked out from inside, and along with them the face of a big bulldog with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. They was watching us, and he waved at them, and they waved back. I lifted my hand to give a wave as well, and they waved back to me, too.

Oh, I just knew this stranger must be a terribly rich man, to have a wagon like this, pulled by a team of such beautiful horses! Nobody in this whole wagon train had anything as beautiful as this! I did stammer a bit, but I answered his question eventually. "Ranger's what my pa called me," I says. "'Ranger of the Wild,' that was his favorite nickname for me, 'cause I was good at finding a trail when we was out in the woods."

"Well, that's a good name for a pa to call his girl I think. But not so good for a man like me to call a lady like you. If it's all the same, you'll be 'Blossom' to me."

"Blossom? I ain't no Blossom," I said, looking down at myself, all covered in muck and looking more like a boy in a dress than a girl. "Begging your pardon, sir, I mean."

"I ain't no sir, but you certainly are a Blossom! A little flower bud, you seems to me."

A flower bud? Not me, not yet at least I weren't. I was pretty much all girl and no woman, and mostly tomboy at that, skinny as a rail and my hair all messed up from lack of a proper bath in weeks and now soaking wet from the rain. I was wondering again if he might be playing me.

He saw me looking and laughed. "I bet when you put on your pretty Sunday dress and your stockings and your pretty shoes, you're the sweetest thing ever seen 'round these parts, ain't you?"

About this time we got to his wagon. He didn't need to lead his team of big cream draft horses, they was stomping to go, so he gave me a hand up to the front bench instead, and we was out of the rain. The children had scattered into the shadows to hide, but the big bulldog sniffed about me, curious. He made me a bit nervous, what with his size, and being a breed known for a lack of kindly temperament.

"I ain't got no pretty Sunday dress," I told him, feeling a bit embarrassed.

All he had to do was lift the reins into his hands, and the horses started walking and the wagon fell in line behind the Stevensons'. By now the bulldog had ceased with his sniffing and laid his head on my lap like a puppy, looking up at me.

"You ain't got a pretty Sunday dress?" says Mr. Dunlap to me. "Well, we'll have to do something about that, won't we, Blossom? And would you just look at Jack there!" says he, nodding at the dog, in a voice merry with laughter. "He's taken to being smitten with you! And he is a fine judge of character, ma'am, if you don't mind my saying." Then he spoke up over his shoulder into the wagon. "Lucy! Jebediah! Come on out here and meet our new neighbor!"

The first of the children to appear was the boy, who didn't look much younger than me, maybe around nine or ten. He was a little shy with me, but not nearly as shy as the girl. She was just the sweetest little thing, six or seven year old perhaps, who barely looked at me before diving back all embarrassed into the shadows of the wagon.

"And what abouts your wife?" I asks him. I wanted to know, since I felt like the stranger was being awful forward with me, and I found that I liked it some. But sure his wife wouldn't like it at all.

"My wife died," he said, "when little Lucy was being born."

"Oh!" I gave a piteous little sound. "The poor thing!" I looks into the shadows after the girl.

"Seems you have a tender heart, Blossom," he said. I could only nod, shy and embarrassed about his compliment. "What brings you out in this wagon train? That man we's talking to earlier, he ain't your pa, is he? Maybe your granddad?"

"No, he ain't a relative at all. My pa died years ago now, when I was just a little girl. My ma was offered the hand of a man out west and accepted and so we set out, but just a couple weeks ago we learnt that this man has up and been kilt, and we gots nowhere to go."

"Well..." the man said, holding back the reins to slow his horses so they didn't overrun Ol' Doc's much slower team, "I could use a little lady help about the house, myself."

"My mama keeps a good house," I told him, feeling pretty excited at the prospect of this handsome Mr. Dunlap being my new pa.

He laughed. "Well I ain't met her yet so I can't say as I would or I wouldn't want her to fill the position. But I done met her daughter, and she seems about the right fit to me."

I couldn't say nothing in response. Was he talking about me? Nah, he must mean Jane, right? "Yessir, Jane'd make a good wife," I says. It were true, you know. She would.

"I don't know Jane," he said. "Who's she now?"

"She's my older sister. You mighta seen her in the wagon, with Mama? You'll love her, everyone does."

"Is she good at finding a trail when she's out in the woods? And getting a team of stubborn oxen a-movin'? 'Cause thems the skills I'm looking for." I could feel my face getting all red. He was smiling. "Since I ain't met your older sister neither, I can't says whether she'd make me a good wife, but if your mom and her are anything like you, little Blossom, I'm sure the two of 'em would make a man very happy."

"I 'spect so," says I. even though my face was hot with embarrassment now. "All the menfolk seems to like Jane a whole lot, though she's still a bit young for the marrying, at least Mama says so. And it do seem Ma made Pa happy, far as I remember of it. She would sure make a man a good wife." I really wanted to talk Mama up nice to this wonderful rich man!

"I don't know about being a bit too young for the marrying," he says. "Where I come from, a man marries a girl when she's young, if he can."

"Young?" I says, feeling myself getting even redder.

"Sure," Mr. Dunlap said, pulling back the reins again and saying "Woah, girl," to the most eager of his team of pretty horses. "Where I'm from, a man would be right pleased to wed a lady about your age, and maybe wed her older sister, too."

"Both of 'em?" I said, more confused than amazed at the man's words.

"Where I comes from," says he, "a man having more than one wife is commonplace. So's a man marrying a girl your age."

I really couldn't think of anything to say back to that! But I didn't have to, because right then one of the wagons in the front of the train got stuck in the mud and the whole line of wagons came to a halt.

After that they called the whole day's travel off, on account of the rainstorm and the mud. Mr. Dunlap got out and looses his horses, and I along with his son Jebediah got out and helped him, and we set them to eating some hay under a nearby tree with the bulldog Jack standing guard nearby. By then, we was soaking wet, and when we climbed into his wagon he just went ahead and started changing into dry clothes, right in front of me! Not even using a screen or nothing! It was nice to see him with his shirt off, I must admit I looked. And I found myself hoping with a quick-beating heart that he'd take his skivvies off once he'd removed his trousers! But he left them on, even though they was wet, too.

Then he said to me that I looked like a drown rat, "a pretty rat, mind you, but a drown one!" and maybe I ought to borrow some of Jebediah's clothing, it ought to fit, or might'n I like to wear one of Mr. Dunlap's shirts, as a sort of dress?

"A shirt please," I said to him. "One o' yours."

I looked around for a screen or something to give a little privacy for when I was changing, but there wasn't one and so I just had to change right there. I felt real shy about it, but I did it, and neither Mr. Dunlap nor his son Jebediah turned away to give me privacy. Both of them just watched. After I took off my dress and put his shirt on, he hung the dress up next to his clothes to dry and he spread out a couple of bedrolls onto the floor of the wagon and put a big thick wool blanket on top. The storm was getting nasty, with thunder and lightning, and I climbed under the blanket with him and little daughter Lucy did, too, and he told us stories about his grandpappy who was a miner back a hundred years ago when the British still ruled America, while I did my best for little Lucy to ignore the lightning and pretend to be brave.

I don't know when I fell asleep there in Mr. Dunlap's wagon, but when I opened my eyes again it was sunshining out and the storm was passed. Mr. Dunlap was no longer on the bedroll, though his daughter Lucy was still there with me. But she was sitting up and staring wide-eyed at something. I looked over at what she was looking at, and there were my sister Jane, down on her knees in front of Mr. Dunlap. She was helping him out, like she likes to do! He had his hands on the top of her head and he was rocking his hips back and forth and saying really nice things to her, like "You're a sweetheart, Jane. You're beautiful!" And I knew right then that I wanted to help Mr. Dunlap out too, lots, so that he would say nice things like that to me! And I saw his boy, Jebediah, sitting nearby watching, and that made me smile. Jane's never had any problem letting people watch while she helps a guy out. She thinks it's just normal and natural and something girls should always do for men.

Mr. Dunlap was starting to breathe hard, and I knew that meant he was getting ready to finish up. Most guys want to finish in Jane's mouth, but a couple times that I've been watching, the guy has pulled out right as he was finishing, and that means that it gets all over her face and her hair and that makes her giggle! I was hoping that Mr. Dunlap would pull out, because I wanted to see what it was like when he finished. I saw him take one of his hands off her head right then and reach down and put it on her bosom. I'd seen guys do this to Jane before, and when I asked her about it she said it was OK, guys like to touch a girl's bosom, especially when she's helping them out, and she's happy to let them do it. Jane has such a nice bosom, too! I knew Mr. Dunlap must be really happy, touching her there, because hers is so full and pretty. I figured if I were to ever help him out, he wouldn't like touching mine, because I ain't got nothing much yet, though he did seem to like seeing mine anyway when I was changing. But he must have been really happy with Jane's bosom, because right then I heard him grunt and I saw him push into her mouth and I knew he was finishing then. It was sad that he didn't pull out but it was fun to see how his face got all red anyways while he did it.

When he finished I finally got to see his organ, and it was just so big! It was incredible, and really beautiful. Then Jane opened her mouth, looking up at him, to show him that she had it all in her mouth. She always does this, she says the men like to see it. And then after showing him, she swallowed it.

While Mr. Dunlap stuffed his penis back in his pants, Jane looked over at his boy, Jebediah. "What about you?" she asked him. "You want a little help, too?"

Can you imagine how the boy nodded yes? It made me smile so!

Jane pulled Jebediah's pants down, and even though he didn't have any hair down there and he was nothing but a little twig compared to his pa's much mightier member, he was stiff anyway, and standing up. It looked really cute! She took it in her hands, still on her knees and looking up at the boy. "You're really big, Jebediah," she said to him. She's so nice! Even to a boy that's not big at all, she knows he likes to hear that so she says it! She bent over and took him into her mouth, and he put his hands on her head, just like his pa had done.

'Round that time, Mr. Dunlap noticed that I was awake. "Blossom!" he said, smiling big and coming over to me. "The storm done pass us by, and Jane came over to visit."

I nodded, smiling up at him and then both of us went back to looking at her bobbing her head up and down on Jebediah's cock. The boy slipped one hand down and started squeezing her bosom, just like his pa had done. It didn't take long for him to finish up, after which Jane showed his cum to him in her mouth before she swallowed it.

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The next part of this story is at Wildflowers (part 2). Enjoy!