Saturday: Mid afternoonish, Week Fourteen.

Who: OPEN to ANYONE to hears her screams just tumble on in!
What: Kahea comes across Belle Fourche and a little trouble....
When: Saturday Week Fourteen
Where: Belle Fourche River and MOVED to Gent's River Boat.
Rating: PG-13 for Language and situation
Status: IN PROGRESS and STILL OPEN! ^.^

Kahea shifted the sacks on her back. Even though the sun wasn’t as hot as Texas or California, it still made her sweat, making her load just a little bit more uncomfortable at times. Anela was running in between her feet again, and almost caused her to trip a few times. “Anela, enough! I know you’re hungry, but we can’t eat now, we have to wait at least until sundown. Save food, remember?” Anela looked up at her with her emerald green eyes and mewed. Kahea stuck her tongue out at her and kept walking. She fought the urge to pop an ear bud into one ear and listen to her iPod, but she needed to conserve the power as much as possible. Instead she lost herself in thought, trying to remember what she had been told at her last two “city” stops. The first one, a source told her that there had been no military forces coming through that town ever. But they had heard a rumor of a unit of some sort up in Wyoming somewhere. “Oh, where am I now?” she had asked the man. “What remains of Salt Lake City, Utah.” How she came to Utah in the first place, she had no idea. Her initial direction was north, to Washington, but little by little she strayed east and was somehow lucky enough to come across some viable information about her brother. Her sense of direction sucked, and she knew it, so from then on she took better care to pay attention to the direction of the sun and head directly the way she was told to go to find the next town who had rumored to have a “run-in” with a military unit of some kind. In that town, what remained of Casper, Wyoming, she asked questions again about possible military forces and described her brother’s features. This is where she had received her first inch of real hope in years of wandering and looking. They told her about a small unit of about four men who came through and stayed a few days in the town and also tried to “recruit” some of the men in town to join them for some kind of an uprising against something or someone. They didn’t get anyone to go with them but Kahea was told that the man fitting her description carried with him a picture that he was always looking at. That’s when Kahea got brave and took out her iPod to show them the picture of her brother so that she could be 100% sure it was him. The people in the small building, used to be hospital, all nodded in agreement that one of those men was her brother. “Where had they come from?" She asked. If she could retrace his steps, she just might discover where he was going. “I think they came down from Sundance,” spoke up one young woman. “I think I overheard one of them saying something about Sundance.” “Where is that?”

Now she was headed to Sundance. And hopefully she was in the right direction.

Kahea and Anela walked on for an hour and a half more; Kahea taking a few swigs from her leather skin bottle that she had traded a few forks and spoons for on one of her first encounters. It held more water in it than any plastic water bottle could, and it was perfect for long journeys, like hers. Every now and then she’d squirt some at Anela, knowing that the kit needed water too. At one point Anela stopped dead in her tracks and picked up her ears, twitching them every now and then. “Really? Is there really?” Kahea put her nose to the wind and whiffed. “Ah! There is!” A huge smile came across her face as she picked Anela up and took off running in the direction of the heavenly smell. Sure enough, after about five minutes of running, Kahea came across a river. “WATER!” Kahea hadn’t swum in a whole month in a half, and her shakes where getting to a point that she could barely stay quiet while hunting. She quickly and carefully checked her surroundings before changing into her swimsuit that she had to have carrying with her. She then stashed her sacks behind some brush and fallen tree branches and slowly walked into the water. She wanted to relish this feeling.

Anela stayed out of the water and watched from the river bank instead. Kahea slowly dipped all the way in and emerged with a sigh. The water wasn’t as blue as Key West, Hawaii, or San Diego but after four years, whatever water she could get, she took and appreciated. She swam around for about ten more minutes until she heard Anela screeching out to her; a warning, she had heard or smelled something or someone. Kahea slowed walked back out of the river, moving her dagger from her ankle strap to behind her in her bathing suit bottoms.

Just as she fully emerged from the water, three men came out of the wood around it, in an attack type formation. “Well, what do we have here? You look pretty sweet girly? You lonely?” Kahea kept the river to her back and her stance natural but prepared. Her eyes darted between the three men, sizing them up. The one who spoke to her was of medium build, reminding her of a guy she face-planted in high school. The other two were both rugged looking, and a bit more muscular than the first guy, but nothing she couldn’t handle, one on one. Then her memory clicked. She had seen these guys in Casper. Had they followed her this whole time and she never knew it? Or had they ran ahead of her and met up with her here? Doesn’t matter now, what matters is that they were between her and her colt pistol. “Hey guys. Didn’t I see you in Casper? Did you decide to escort me all the way to Sundance? I think that is very sweet but you see…” The one on her left lunged and she dodged just in time to have him miss and start falling face first in the dirt. To make the fall that must better, Kahea planted an elbow square in his back and turned around in time to find his muscle twin coming at her next, which he met a jaw full of her fist and followed by his ear boxed by her elbow. She pulled her dagger from her back and slashed it forward to the smaller guy when he tried to lunge next. But it was a blow to her back that caught her off guard and sent her falling to the ground. She caught herself on her elbows before her face hit the dirt but a rough hand quickly grabbed her and turned her over, and a heavy male weight was placed on her stomach, and pinning her arms to her side.

“You may not be lonely, but we sure the heck are!” “NO!” Kahea thrashed as hard as she could and slammed both her knees into the back of the filthy man, but they were soon held down by one of the other men. “Damn you! Stop! Stop! This isn’t going to do anything! I can trade things with you! Valuable things! In fact, you can take it all! Just LET ME GO!!” All three chuckled maniacally. “All we want is something that’s not in your nap sacks girly. And for you to be figh’n so much, I be guess’n you be a virgin?” “Screw you!” Kahea spat back. “Well boys, it be our lucky day! We got ourselves a real gem here! Now let me first! I saw her first and it was my idea to follow her here!” There was a zip and a ruffling of clothing and Kahea did not want to look up at it. She thrashed harder and let out an ear piercing scream.

The men laughed again. “What was that for? “Who’s going to hear you out here?”

“Me!”