Odessa Ranch

Odessa Ranch 14

Malcolm thought that being caged in his master's bedroom was because his behavior and performance earned him the position. It was convenient for Noah to have his slave at the foot of his bed to take his morning pisses; and he didn't have to wander to the dungeon to get sucked off if he got a quick urge. But the reason Mal wasn't in his cage in the dungeon had nothing to do with his performance.

Scott's Boy

Craig was in a doggie cage, naked, beaten. His throat was as sore as his ass, and both were on fire. This was day 3 in the dungeon. His third day in his collar and in this cage. To him it was less dungeon than torture chamber, and he still didn't understand what was going on. He knew that he was having drinks with a former green beret and a few hours (maybe) later he woke up hanging from a chain in a cliche nightmare made real by the horrific whip wielded by the beret's partner.

He knew that twice each day he was removed from his cage, chained to a 'bench' that kept him in a doggie position and was beaten because he wouldn't comply. He was being ordered to suck cock. He was not going to comply for as long as he could make himself stand the punishment. He had only recently come out and was still not certain of how things should be done, but he was convinced that being whipped by two former special forces honchos was not the typical way.

Craig had been military too in Colorado Springs. He had not reupped after his fourth year, last year, because he was going to be coming out and didn't want to have to play the double life game required to stay. It was not so philosophical as that in reality, but he did always have the ability to claim he left on grounds of principle rather than just getting fed up with the pay and the formality. A friend of his had made the transition from the Air Force to civilian industry (developer at a small software company near Denver), and he wooed his pal to come join him-and to split the signing bonus that his friend got for bringing him on.

Now he was in a dog cage with a bowl of oatmeal and a bowl of water-both basically ignored. Now he was waiting for his torturers to return to try to convince him to open his novitiate mouth to take in their cocks. He was still conscious and fearful enough to know that if he tried to bite the cock in his face, that his life, painful though it was at this moment, would be over and he wasn't ready for that.

The door opened and he huddled in fear knowing what was going to happen. He was very surprised to discover another collared but naked man being led into the room by the SEAL that had worn his ass out. "Not a sound out of you, you worthless waste or I will whip your ass even more bloody before we start training you again!"

"Slave drag your cage so and put it here!" Noah was standing very near Craig's cage.

"Sir yes sir." Mal dragged his cage as Noah ordered.

Noah opened the cage and had Mal take his normal position with his hands over his head. Once the door was closed and locked, Mal put his hands through the bars and Noah cuffed his hands there.

"Slave, if you have to piss, do what you can to aim it at this piece of waste." He said pointing absently at Craig. To Craig, he said: "I'll be back with your master soon, so think about your options and your ASS slave." And he walked out of the room filled with a thick silence.

"You got to help me get out of here." A cliche command for this situation-every movie (porn or otherwise) indicated that, but it was appropriate there so why not here.

"I can't do that. I want to keep living myself. Besides I like it here."

"You like it? Did they do this to you too, warp your mind?"

"No, Master Noah bought me from a slave ranch. I'm here . . ."

"Bought you from a slave ranch?" Then he thought for a moment. "So you are here because you want to be?"

"I'm a slave because I want to be, I'm here because Master Noah bought me."

"Ok, strange as that is, I wasn't bought and I am not a slave and I don't want to be here. You have to help me get out or make them understand."

"No. That would be very disloyal of me, very disobedient, and I am not a slave who is even capable of that."

"Look what they've done to me." Craig maneuvered himself around so that Mal could see the carnage of his ass-it was very red and just a slight bit scabby.

"Looks like the ass of a slave that has a lot to learn."

"I'm not a slave!" He tries to scream it, but his voice has been pushed farther than his ass and it would not rise to that octave or that volume.

"You are naked and in a cage, you have a collar around your neck, you have a striped ass and back. Master Noah and Master Scott are keeping you like that, so you look like a slave to me."

"Look man, please."

"For one thing, how do I know this isn't a test, Master Noah has given me a few since he bought me? For another, I'm not going to help you, if you escape it is on you, I won't take your lashes, I won't hang for you."

"Hang?!"

"I made that up, but I doubt I would come out of a session with them able to walk if I helped you escape. They might even throw me out and that would be far worse."

Noah returns with Scott. Both are in their training gear-just a pair of Navy and Army shorts respectively that allow quick access to their cocks. Scott moved the bondage bench to the center of the room and got it ready for Craig who was looking up into Mal's eyes and pleading silently.

Noah asked: "You slaves talk about anything while I was gone?"

"Sir that slave asked me to help him escape sir." He wasn't ratting, but for now Craig would see it that way.

"He did? What did you tell him?"

"Sir I said no sir."

"Good boy." He grabbed Mal's semi-hard cock and aimed it at Craig's head. "Piss slave." Mal began pissing without hesitation. As the piss hit Craig, he tried to move away from the stream of very yellow and pungent piss but couldn't move to anywhere that Noah couldn't aim the stream. Craig grunted, which was the closest thing to a manly type scream he could muster at this point-a grunt of rage.

"Listen up waste. That was slave piss, which is the worst sort of piss there is and you are wearing it. Things will get much worse for you if you do not follow the orders we are going to give you. Slave when was the last time you shit?"

"Sir two and a half days sir."

"Having a hard time holding it ain't you?"

"Sir yes sir. Sir I'm fighting cramps right now sir."

"You, mucus, you will be wearing slave shit if you fail to please me and Master Scott, and if slave piss is the worst liquid there is, you can imagine what slave shit amounts to." He shook Mal's dribbling cock at Craig. Then he headed to the shelving that was always just in deep shadow in the room and brought back a cattle prod.

"You going to make it to the bench on your own, or do we have to use this again?" Noah opened the cage and walked close by the silent and crawling Craig as he made his way to the bench to be secured for another ass whipping.

Scott and Noah quickly chained Craig to the bench. Craig could wiggle a little, but his arms and legs were effectively frozen. His six foot two frame was reduced to that of say a chow, but with a much less proud tail. His light brown hair was still dripping with Mal's piss. Noah was right about Mal's piss, it was as pungent as a frat house's common toilet that had WEEKS of dried piss on it. It was stinging as it dripped into his eyes. He tried desperately to avoid any of it getting into his mouth but it was impossible. The taste was very chemically and salty.

"Ok puke, normally we have given you ten opportunities to earn some time from the cage and a shower. But this time, we will cut it to five. If after the fifth order you still don't comply, you will wear that slave's shit for as long as it takes me to be satisfied."

Scott positioned himself in front of Craig and pulled his cock from the shorts. His meaty cut, thick rod was hard and he rubbed it over Craig's piss and sweat soaked face. "To spice it up a little for you, make this tube steak SALTY for you, turd." Scott said. "Now, suck my cock slave."

Craig clinched his jaw against the command and in anticipation of the pain to come. He didn't have to wait but half a second. Noah swung the strop with most of his full strength (early on he was using much softer swings, but he thought he would be able to get Craig to comply sooner-he had to admire the spunk of the slave, even if it was highly annoying). The pain was still electric, but common now. Craig was building up a slight resistance to the pain, either that or his nerves were dying. The first was followed by four others. Then Noah switched to the flogger and gave him 5 more moving vertically so that it hit the small of the back, the ass, and the thigh in its motion. Craig opened his mouth slightly and made the noise that had become his scream.

Scott took his position again four more times. Each of those times, Craig locked his jaw and took his lashes. Each of the sessions left Craig sweatier and closer to unconsciousness. Noah varied the weapon from strop to crop, singlet, flogger, paddle. He also varied where it landed so Craig wouldn't be able to guess where it was going, and because Craig's ass was looking like a holocaust and Noah was almost sure Craig could feel nothing new there.

"Scott, I don't know whether to shake your hand or kick your ass-this fucker better be worth it."

"Noah, look at him, he's hot enough and you said you always wanted to turn a 'man' into a slave, so if this one is tough and you break him, ain't you won something that you wouldn't with a weak one?"

"Whatever. Splash this one with cold water and chain him to the rack."

Scott sprayed Craig with some cold water to bring him to long enough to get him on his feet. He unlocked the rubbery slave and dragged him to the rack. Scott ordered him to lie on his back, which was raw and made Craig jerk when he got prone. Ankles and wrists were chained so that he had zero wiggle room, but was not stretched exactly taut.

"Make sure he's conscious, he needs to be fully aware of the next momentous event in his life as a slave." Noah said as he uncuffed Mal.

"Wake up, dingleturd." Scott sprayed Craig in the face. Craig had to shake his head to clear it of water so he wouldn't breathe it in.

Noah leashed Mal and led him to the rack. He helped Mal onto the rack and had him straddle Craig with his asshole pointed at Craig's chest. Craig could see through is pain haze that Mal's asshole was puckering and relaxing like a subwoofer and that there were brown stains around the hairless rim, presumably from turtling. It was really going to happen.

"A master isn't worth his whip if he doesn't keep his word to his slaves. I said you would wear slave shit if you didn't comply and you will." Noah said. Craig would have whimpered if he had had the energy.

"Slave I want you to shit on this slave's chest. All of it stays on his body, you eat what falls off."

"Sir yes sir." Mal knelt so that his cock was over Craig's belly button and his asshole just at the base of Craig's ribcage. He was basically too full to fart. He relaxed and pushed in equal measure because he needed to make sure the shit stayed on his new brother's body-a good twenty percent of the shit coming out of him came out of Master Noah this morning and thrice eaten food is not very good at all.

Noah in anticipation that Craig would hold out this long, had purposely fed Mal things that would make his shit smell as badly as possible, and put up with the gaseous slave in his room for the last couple of days. The smell would be worth it if Craig started to get the picture.

Craig laid his head back so he couldn't see what was happening to him. He watched as the turd came out and made contact, but that was all the visuals he could take. He was not able to avoid the smell. Mal's shit was in the same category as his piss, but it was magnitudes worse. His mind could not really take in this new humiliation on top of the pain he already felt. Here was the most delirious thing however, he was finally having hunger pangs; his mind was really having a tough time now.

Mal checked his progress. He had left a long turd on Craig's chest that had scooted its own way up to just below his throat, so he sort of squatted over Craig's stomach and pushed out the rest of the soft and most recent matter. Mal sighed with severe relief when he finished.

"You done boy?"

"Sir yes sir."

"Hop off the rack and face the slave." Mal complied with Noah's order. "Now take the soft slave slop and rub it on his face, make sure to put a heavy amount under his nose, then spread the rest around on his chest."

"Sir yes sir."

Craig tried to move his head for no other reason than that he wasn't ready to give in just yet. Scott held his slave's head while Mal performed his ordered tasks. He smeared his stench over Craig as ordered. When he was finished, he looked at his master asking with is shamed look what to do about the shit on his hands.

"Wipe some on the slave's cock and the rest in his hair. Master Scott will hose you off when you're done."

Mal rubbed an ample amount on Craig's flaccid cock and into the hair on his balls. He then used Craig's medium length hair as a sort of paper towel. Scott took Mal's leash and led him to the drain near the center of the room and sprayed his asshole and hands. Mal wasn't given soap; it wasn't a shower day for him. And, at any rate, he was going to be in close quarters with a man covered with his own shit, so it wasn't like he was going to be able to escape the smell.

Noah moved his face closer to Craig's. The stench was terrible, but sometimes a master must endure activities or outcomes that he ordinarily wouldn't accept in order to prove a point to a slave. The main point to be made is that the master is in control, period. Slaves can recite this on command, in their sleep, wherever. But reciting it and believing it are often in different area codes. So doing making slaves perform more extreme and humiliating functions hammers home their ordinal ranking in a way that no words could. The master's command with the whip as foundation will strip away shame and dignity and inhibition-all three luxuries allowed to men and not to be part of any slave's very limited 'possessions.'

"You've fought a good fight, hell I admire you," Noah whispered to the shit covered Craig. "But you must realize now that we aren't going to give up, you will comply. Smell your current condition, feel slave shit dry on you and begin to irritate, itch. Consider this and ask yourself how far away can the ultimate punishment be?" Noah backed away and hollered in his typical way, "Sleep well slaves."

Mal fell asleep quickly as usual. He did so to the sound of some wheezy whimpering coming from the rack. He also fell asleep proud of himself and the smell from his ass that was helping to convince the new brother of his place in the scheme of things: at his masters' command and leave.

Noah's Philosophy

So much of the Master/slave relationship is symbolism-through-action. It might have been true in the days when slavery was a recognized institution, but I doubt it was nearly so elaborate. The Master is a master by inclination, the slave a piece of property by inclination; it's standard alpha male/omega male animal kingdom stuff. The rest of it-the whip, the tattoo, the brand, collar, boot, cage, and of course all the commands and outcomes-is just symbolic of why the relationship IS in the first place.

Let's take the most common symbol. Slaves say 'sir' as a matter of one syllable convenience-not for the slave but for the master who has to hear it more often than any other sound from his slave. The true thing a slave would call his master would be like the name of God that group of Jews is trying to find in the Torah or whatever, it would be long and earth shattering. It would take so long to say and leave the slave so trembling as to render him useless. So we use sir to symbolize the Master's place as god over the slave. As such, it has a poetry in action and behavior and manner all its own: Sir as symbol for god, the whip as metaphor of control and retribution, the collar a simile of ownership.

Take what I'm doing with Craig. Strapped to the bench, his asshole is completely exposed and he could do absolutely nothing to stop me and Scott from fucking it. But what does that do? It turns him into an unmitigated victim-we took from him something he was powerless to protect in the current circumstance; therefore, his mind would be able to take it and latch onto it in a way that would be very counterproductive for what I want. But when he opens his mouth to accept a cock, he is making a choice to join this world. The whip and the other punishments are just incentives. He will not be able to paint himself as a victim the same way, so he will be far more ready to take his place as a slave. This action (both symbolic and real) creates the psychological toe-hold for me to make sure the transition from person to slave is relatively quick.

Buying Malcolm was an easy way to start my stable. I have had slaves in the past, but was not ready until now to have a real stable. Malcolm came 'fully' trained according to Sam, but I still had, and have, to do more training to get him to be MY slave rather than just any slave. I enjoy training him, it makes me use the parts of me that wish most to be used, but it isn't enough. It isn't enough to take a slave who knows he is a slave and treat him as such. For most I suppose it would be, but I crave something deeper.

Step one is to take a fag, just the ordinary run of the mill fag, and turn him into my slave. This might prove to be enough on its own, especially given how sturdy Craig seems to be. If it is enough, then Scott and I will build the stable using a mix of trained and semi-trained slaves with broken-fags-cum-slaves.

I think, though, that this will not be enough. I think I will want to take it to step two which is to take a straight man, sort of a straight version of me or Scott (mainly Scott though, I think he would have buckled when covered with shit, it would be my cue to find a way to beat the torturers to death or die trying) and turn him into a turd eating cock fucking slave.

Training is good exercise for the master, both physically and mentally if he is any good. But I want to go further and exercise the psychology of it, the psychological joy that comes from turning a man into something he would not be on his own. For now, Craig seems to be just what I need to keep things interesting around here.

Craig? Malcolm? The final symbol now. Until now, Malcolm has just been 'slave.' Since he is the only one, there is no confusion. But now that there are two, and will soon be more, I will have to resort to renaming. Slaves have too much baggage and humanity tied up in the names their parents gave them, so masters should always rename them if they cannot just call them slave. It gives them the handle, the tag, to their new, to their real, lives. Some masters and groups prefer numbers, believing that when they become a number they become less alive than when given even pets' names. This might be true, and definitely works to keep a very large stable or a prison or a concentration camp in some sort of order. But those are SYSTEMS, a system where the controller is just as much a part of the machine as the controlled. Names help define a relationship, and to deny the relationship of a master to his slave or diminish it means only that one man is beating another because he can, not because it works best that way. It also means that the master remains not only the symbolic head of his minor kingdom, but is actually so.

Tomorrow Craig will comply. I have no doubt that wearing Malcolm's shit for twelve hours will bring him around. Once he is hosed off, I will present him and Malcolm with their new names. Now I have something to sleep on.

New

Craig was able to sleep. His brain stopped accepting the repetitive information from his nerves-those in his back and ass were screaming in pain, those on the rest of his torso and his face were moaning in concert with itching-it just tabled what was coming in so it could deal with it later. He woke up because Mal finally said 'hey' loud enough to be heard through all the rest that his brain was already processing.

"Hey." Craig said. "Man I'm itching like crazy."

"I know what it feels like to be where you are, I know how bad it itches. The Masters will be here in a little while."

"Great." That was going to be the most mixed blessing Craig had yet experienced in his 22 years."

"What's your name? Mine's Mal."

"Craig." He paused for a second. "Mal, you have the smelliest shit I have ever encountered." A little gallows humor.

"Master Noah says it is the mark of a true slave. I don't know if it is true, but it makes me happy all the same. How many men's shit have you smelled, anyways?"

"I was in the service, so more than I would like to count. Some of them were awful, but none were in the same league with you."

"Listen Craig, I don't know how you got here and it doesn't matter anyway. But if you want to make it through the rest of the week, you better go ahead and do what they say."

"That's easy for you to say, you like it like this."

"That doesn't mean I didn't struggle with some things, Craig. I do it because it is what a slave is supposed to do and I am a slave, so I like doing what a slave has to do. I didn't take to being caged like I took to the lash and the collar and it took lots of force to get me to drink piss and eat shit."

"I can't believe you do that."

"Whatever. Do what you like, but I have been here long enough to know how Master Noah and Master Scott work. They won't quit, they won't let you go-hell you know their names and what they look like."

Craig started to cry again, not weeping, just something that caught him by surprise and didn't respond to being suppressed.

"Look, I can't tell you how to think or anything like that, only tell you what you should do. Do what they say, and you will get some decent food and a shower."

The door was unlocked and both slaves went quiet. Noah and Scott entered ready to train just as they had the night before. "You ready for your daily labor slave?"

"Sir yes sir."

"Good, but it will have to wait. I have other plans for you."

Scott put rubber gloves on and tried not to gag-he thought he saw the necessity of having shit part of slave training, but this smell (and the fact that it didn't seem to affect Noah at all) made him question Noah's general sanity-as Noah released Mal from his cage. Scott was to release Craig from the rack and bind him in a kneeling position. He did this quickly since Craig had gone pliable, which Scott took as a good sign. Craig was bound with his wrists bound tightly together, his ankles bound tightly together, and the two bundles attached by a short chain. This forced him into a sitting-kneel.

"Ok waste. You have behaved in a way that means you have to earn a master's cock. I'm not going to wash this shit off of you, and will make sure it is replenished daily, until you open up. But you won't be sucking my cock, or Master Scott's cock, that is far too good for a slave covered in another slave's shit. You will have to start with this slave's cock. Also, I think you have begun to get used to the way I lay on the lashes, so we are going to do that different, too." Scott approached holding a bullwhip; Craig's shit surrounded eyes widened amazingly. "Master Scott is going to stand behind you and vary the delivery times so you can't know when it is going to happen and we will stay here for as long as it takes for you to suck this slave off."

Noah positioned Mal in front of Craig so that he was about two feet from the kneeling slave. It was important to Noah that Craig not only had to suck a slave cock, but had to crawl a little to get to it. Scott took his position about 8 feet from Craig. The six foot whip would have plenty of distance to gather momentum before actually hitting the slave's back.

"Suck that slave's cock, turd." Scott ordered.

Craig jerked a little bit, but otherwise did nothing. He wasn't ready for this. He had decided while crying that he was going to give in, but this was a different scenario and he was trying to process it. Being bound meant being passive, all he had to do was open his mouth and they would do the rest. Now he had to move to get it. He didn't think that anything could be more humiliating than being covered in shit. By itself, there wasn't, but that in concert with having to try to crawl to another man and suck his cock was a deeper degree. He was frozen. Fear of the whip and confusion over how to get his exhausted and bound body to travel the distance left him unable to move.

There was a very short warning. He didn't know what the whistling was and didn't barely had time to register it before the lash landed atop one shoulder and traced a diagonal path to the opposite hip. He yelped and jumped; then he wobbled as he tried to keep his balance and fell over. Scott stomped over to the now sniveling slave and righted him. Then Scott returned to his position.

Time had no meaning at this point, only distance. The pain held in that small stretch of leather moving at that speed might have been enough on its own to get him to move, but he had finally had enough and concluded that sucking cock wasn't all that bad, especially considering he wanted to anyway-just under his own conditions. The pain, the depravation, the fear now worked to remove his last compunctions against the activity. The only physical constraint that meant anything at this point was distance. He found that his knees did actual work when he asked them to move. He was able to scoot himself two feet. The physical distance was short and traveled with a minimum of discomfort, but the symbolic distance was far greater. The two feet on the ground represented miles psychologically-the psychological distance from a free man to the beginnings of a total slave.

He not only opened his mouth, he moved his body to take in Mal's semi-hard shaft. He concluded correctly.

"Not bad waste. Slave don't help him much now, just let him do all the work, when you get close to shooting you can use your hands on his head, but pull out and cum on his face."

"Sir yes sir."

Craig was only so-so at sucking cock at this point; he had only done it a couple of times before. It was very good for him that he hadn't started on Scott's cock-it wasn't as long as Mal's fairly impressive cock, but it was thicker. He couldn't keep his teeth entirely away from the head. Mal, used to pain didn't care much, Scott would have whipped him without mercy.

It took a couple of minutes for Mal to get close to cumming. He was of two minds here: he could cum quickly and get his new brother closer to some sort of salvation quickly, or he could take his time. Because he hadn't been given explicit instructions to take it easy, he allowed himself to reach climax pretty fast. After a couple of minutes he put his hands on Craig's shit crusted hair so he could guide his swelling cock better. He took it to maximum pressure, knees locked, head light, then pulled his cock out and jerked his massive load onto Craig's waiting face. It had been three days since he was allowed to cum and his load was at least three days worth of volume.

Noah and Scott clapped.

"Very good slave, not bad waste, you've earned some relief." Noah said proudly.

"Sir thank you sir." Mal said.

"Sir thank you sir." Craig whispered.

Noah and Scott stopped. They hadn't expected him to come this far.

"Hell, I was just going to hose you off, but you just earned yourself soap boy." Scott said as he moved to unbind his slave.

Scott attached a leash to Craig and grabbed the one already hanging from Mal's collar. He led them to the concrete slab outside the dungeon so he could have Craig washed off without making the kind of mess in the dungeon. Noah stayed behind briefly to open the windows to air the dungeon out a bit. He wanted it to stink of fear driven sweat and shit and piss and a little cum-it added to the atmosphere that it was a dungeon after all.

"Slave, get the bucket and fill it with soapy water and bring it and the swab here."

"Sir yes sir." Mal rushed off to comply with his leash slapping his tight ass as he ran. "You did a good job. From here you will be cleaned up. I will put some salve on your wounds to take care of some of the pain. You will be given time to rest, then we will start training you." He paused to let this sink in a little. "You understand?"

"Sir yes sir." Quietly.

Thinking to himself: "Damned if Noah doesn't know all there is. I doubt him because he is so damned SEAL cocky, but just because he's cocky doesn't automatically make him wrong."

Mal returned with a bucked filled with tepid soapy water and the swab as ordered. He stood there holding both, waiting for Master Scott's command.

"Ok slave, wash the shit off of him with the swab first, then use your hands for the hard to get to spots. Be careful with is back and ass, but wash them too."

"Sir yes sir."

Scott watched Mal be gentle with Craig when he got to his back side. Craig was doing all he could to remain calm and still, but the damage didn't respond well to the soap and he teared up but did not cry. Mal left Craig's hair until last. He was not only gentle with it, but gave him a slow scalp massage while he washed the lumps of dried shit from his brother's hair. While he did this, Noah walked over from the dungeon.

"We can't call both of you 'slave' by name since there are two of you, so you will each be given a new name. You," pointing at Mal, "are now Crete. You are Rex." No ceremony, no game of 'do you like your new name,' just a name so that the slaves could be ordered separately without confusion.

Noah picked Crete for Mal because of his abilities with hauling huge loads of quik-crete, nothing special there. He chose Rex for Craig, not because of the pet dog aspect (but that is what he would have all involved believe), but because of the regal aspect. Craig had lasted more than twice as long as Noah had anticipated. He knew he wasn't finished, that Rex was probably still scheming a way out of here, but he would address that in its place.

Meanwhile

Back at the ranch [remember the ranch? this is a story series about the ranch], the chat room slaves were actually doing a good job and it was working out far better than Buck expected. He had already liked up half a dozen slaves who wanted to be auctioned. His main duties at this point were to get another honeyroom built for the auction slaves and create a new atmosphere because of it. The trustees, who until now had to piss and shit outside and got no more showers than their slave wards, were now going to have use of a facility similar to that of the hands.

Sam had been right. The auction brought a new life to the place that Buck hadn't considered well enough before. He was actually enjoying himself again.

NOTE: to the longtime readers of this series. I apologize for the digression if your main interests are in the workings of the ranch itself. In a move that is quite different from the previous stories, I have actually mapped out an outline of what is going to be in future installments. I will be returning to the ranch and offering stories told from the perspectives of some of the characters. I will not be neglecting life at the new extension of the ranch however. I hope you enjoy, and as usual, I do respond to email comments.