The Paul & Jenny Stories

Rubies are Red. Part 37

Paul

I stopped where the trail began to widened and crept forward. For a while I had been able to hear the sounds of machinery or vehicles. First as a low rumble in the distance then getting gradually louder. I stepped off the trail and moved forward pushing aside the last few branches of undergrowth and the noise hit me like a physical object.

From my grandfathers descriptions I had thought the mine was a low-key, low-tech affair.

This wasn't. There were heavy earth moving machines and a large conveyor belt bringing rocks from inside a large cave.

Their business plan, conceived in the early fifties when they had been given the mine, had involved working the mine over as long a period as possible to maintain a steady income for themselves and for the workers who made up the majority of the small village by the river.

That small village had grown into a town.

And the small mining operation had changed into total exploitation.

The price per carat of Rubies had dropped but the number on the market had increased. I was doing the sums in my head as my grandfather must have done. He had seen his income decrease at a time when the number of Rubies on sale was increasing. The increase in Rubies hadn't been coming from Burma where most were found. I could imagine him trying to contact Roddrego or the mine manager to find out what was happening. Now we knew.

I looked past the mine entrance. There was a collection of buildings. Timber-framed with corrugated iron walls and roof. That would be the offices and stores.

If the others were here that was where they would be.

They were so many people moving about. I daren't try to cross in front of the mine entrance. Should I wait until dark? That was over seven hours away and I was hungry and thirsty. I needed to do something soon.

I could hear movement on the trail behind me. I crouched low and held my breath.

A group of men walked out into the clearing and one of them waved to a man standing on a wooden platform above the mine entrance. I hadn't noticed him before. I wouldn't have gotten very far if I'd tried to sneak across.

Sneaking across was out of the question. Then I would have to move out in the open.

At the end of the conveyor-belt under a sunshade of broad leaves built on a wooden frame there was a small group of men sorting and splitting the rocks that came to them. My grandfather had told me about them. They could spot ninety-nine percent of the Ruby bearing rocks. Three of them were sorting the stones and two others opening the stones that were passed back to them with small hammers. There was another man with them he carried a rifle.

One of the men splitting the rocks gave a shout and held up a rock. The guard said something to him and he placed the rock in a bucket to one side and went back to splitting stones.

As I watched the conveyor belt stopped. I could see some women approaching carrying baskets. It must be break-time. Men wearing hard-topped hats came out of the cave entrance and the men I had been watching went to join them. Except for one who was walking in my direction. He stopped at the edge of the jungle and took out his prick.

"Hey. Senore." I said, in Spanish.

He froze for a second as if trying to work out what I had said then commenced pissing.

"Yes." He replied.

"Do you know where Senore Wagstaffe is? I am his grandson."

"Your name is?"

"Paul."

"What do you want?"

"To take my grandfather and the others away from here."

"I think that would be very wise."

"How can I get to him?"

"They are in the office block. The large building. Wait here. Some of the women will come into the jungle to collect roots and herbs. They will help you."

"Will they have some food?"

He shook the drips off his prick and put it away inside his trousers. Turning away from me he made his way back to the group of men and women. I could see him talking to two of the women while he ate. My stomach growled as I watched him chew. My mouth went dry as he lifted a skin of liquid to his lips.

I was hungry and thirsty.

Another five minutes and the group split up. The guards, who had ate apart from the workers and their women started ordering the men back to work. I saw four women making their way towards the track. None of the guards seemed to be paying them any attention. Except one. He had his eyes on one woman, hardly more than a girl really, all the way to the undergrowth.

I saw him joking with another guard and then start to follow the women. The other guard followed the workers into the cave. I could hear the sound of some machinery starting up inside the cave and watched as the conveyor belt started turning.

The women entered the trail and I followed them, calling softly. I heard a rustle in the undergrowth and a large woman in her forties pushed her way through the thick undergrowth beside the trail. She stopped when she saw me.

"My husband says I am to help you. What do you want?"

She carried a water skin over her shoulder which she offered to me then reached into her basket and offered me some part eaten bread.

I drank, ate, and drank again.

"Do you know where my grandfather and the others are?"

"Yes. They are in the main office. One has been shot. Not badly."

"Which one?" I asked, remembering Louise's scream.

"A big man."

"Howie." I breathed a sigh of relief it wasn't Louise then felt guilty for being glad it had been Howie..

"Do you know what is going to happen to them?"

"No. I saw to the big man's wound." She was quiet for a few seconds and I could hear the sound of somebody on the trail.

He called out. I heard a girl's voice answer, taunting him.

"She will keep him busy for a little while. He is a pig. Thinks he can just take a woman as he pleases."

"But if he catches her?"

"Then I will kill him."

You cannot look after everybody my grandfather always said.

"Can you help me get to my grandfather?" I asked

"Senore Roddrego is with him." The woman listened for a few seconds to the taunts of the girl. She smiled.

"Yes." She said, looking me up and down. "You can dress in our skirts. With your blanket over your head and a basket on top you will do. They never look at we older ones."

She took a nine-inch bladed knife from her basket and began cutting at plants and roots that lay all about me.

I could hear the girl calling out to the guard again.

The basket was long and narrow. The sides and the centre of the base were quite stiff but the ends and the remainder of the sides floppy.

She places the plants she had cut in the basket and picking it up carried it to another area. I followed her, keeping listening to the calls of the young girl and the guard.

The woman stopped and showed me which plants to cut and where to find the best roots. I dug some up and placed them in the basket.

I looked at the woman. I couldn't hear the girl.

"Quickly." She said. "We must go to her."

We went back onto the trail. I could hear the girl again now. But her cries were not taunts. They were screams. We hurried in their direction meeting the other two women on the way.

I could here the girl sobbing. We turned a corner and she lay on the ground in front of us. The guard was just getting to his feet. I looked down at the girl. I could see her fanny. Still open from his invasion. I could also see the blood.

The guard turned to face us a smile on his face. His expression changed when he saw me and his hand dropped to the handle of a revolver he carried in the holster of a gun belt he was about to put on. I pushed the knife at his stomach. He screamed. I think I might of as well. It hadn't gone in very far as he continued to try to get his gun from it's holster. I chopped at his neck with the blade, again and again. He raised his arms to protect himself then staggered back dropping his gun belt. The next second he was coming at me, his eyes were wide and his face contorted in rage and pain. I thrust the knife out in front of me. This time it did go in.

He stood bolt upright for a second then collapsed to the ground holding the handle of the knife and curled up into a little ball.

He groaned. I knelt by his side and tried to inspect the wound in his stomach. I couldn't see much but I knew he needed medical help.

I looked around. The other three women were gathered around the young girl. One held the guards rifle. She stepped forward and hit him on the head with the rifle's butt.

The man cried out. She hit him again.

I stood up and took the rifle from her.

"Don't." I said.

"He is an animal." The woman spat at the guard.

He had stopped groaning. There was a lot of blood. His neck and shoulder was soaked in it as was his shirtfront. I could hear the buzzing of insects.

"Come." the woman I had collected plants with said, bending over and pulling her knife from the guard's body, "he won't be missed for a while."

The guard's body twitched at my feet. The woman ignored him. The young girl removed her skirt and they handed it to me. She had a nice body. What I could see of its outline through her blouse and underskirt.

"They will stay here." The woman said wiping her knife on some leaves and placing it in her basket and indicating the young girl and another woman. "If they remembered to notice how many went into the jungle then if only one less comes back they will think that pig is keeping her here."

She spat again at the guard's body. I could hear something moving in the undergrowth. I could also hear a low rumbling sound.

"Cat." The woman said. "Take off your trousers."

I looked about nervously.

"Quickly." The woman insisted. "The cat will come. For him."

I took off my trousers aware of four pairs of eyes on me. I resisted my normal tendency of adjusting my prick and balls inside my underpants. I was only grateful my prick wasn't sticking out of the hole in the front of them. The woman adjusted the skirt about my waist whilst the other women placed my trousers and the gun belt in a basket and covered them with leaves.

The girl stood looking down at the guard her hands on her fanny. I looked down at him as well. I felt nothing.

I looked down at my hands and for the first time noticed they were covered in blood. There were some specks on the front of my shirt as well. The woman looked at me and bent over from the waist. She straightened holding two handfuls of leaf mould. She rubbed it onto my hands and forearms. It did the job of covering the bloodstains and also darkening the whiteness of my skin.

"Come." The woman said.

I carried the basket and the rifle and followed the women back to where the trail began to widen. The young girl and her friend stepped from the trail there and disappeared from view.

"We will come back in two hours with more food and drink for our men and the guards. They make us feed them as well as use us."

She spat. One of the women lifted her skirts, crouched and urinated.

"Walk close behind us. But bend. You are too tall."

I lay the rifle down out of sight, beside the path. Might need it later. I'd seen its type before. It had a curved magazine. Capable for being used both single shot and automatic. I couldn't remember the name. I thought it was Russian.

The women showed me how to arrange my blanket on the top of my head so that it covered three-quarters of my head. Then the women stepped out and I followed them, crouching slightly and bending from my load.

The woman passed by the men sorting rock some of the men passed some comments but the guard took no notice. We walked on. Not hurrying. I wanted to run but realised that would do no good. So I walked slowly. Watching the large, swaying buttocks before me until we reached the huts.

There were two Land-rovers parked between the first two huts.

I could hear voices from inside the largest of the huts. My grandfather's voice and that of his friend Roddrego's. They were talking in English. Not talking, arguing.

The women kept walking as I stepped out of sight of the guards beside the Land-rovers. Now I was here what was I too do? I moved to the window where the voices were coming from. Laying my basket on the floor. There was an old, empty oil drum lying on its side. I stood it upright and climbed on top of it. I now had to crouch but I could see inside.

++++++

Jenny.

I replaced the receiver. Damn that woman. Paul's mother. 'Well if you going then that sister of yours can't stay there on her own.'

I resisted the temptation to tell her that if I knew anything about Steve she wouldn't be on her own. Anyway, he could always take her to his flat in Taunton.

Now there was a thought. They might be there now. I didn't know the number. I could walk down to his mother's cottage down by the old Catholic chapel. The village shop and sub-post office was down there. I could buy a newspaper and some fresh milk.

I put on my coat and locked the front doors behind me. Should I drive? It didn't look as though it were going to rain and it wasn't very cold. I decided to walk.

I crunched over the gravel towards the lane that led to the main road through the village. I looked at the hedges by the gate to the fields. Had I seen somebody there when I had left on Thursday night? It had been only for an instant and the headlights of a car can create weird shadows.

I passed a second gate. I could see down over that field to the field behind the school they used as a cricket pitch in the summer. There was the little pavilion where the changing rooms and small bar was. Beyond it I could see a small sports car. It looked like Steve's.

I could get to the shop by walking across the fields and it would give me a chance to tell Mandy about my change of plans.

I climbed the gate and walked across the field to the gate in the far side. I climbed that. Now if they came out of the pavilion I was close enough to attract their attention by shouting.

I walked around the fencing that protected the wicket from grazing animals during the winter months and walked up to the pavilion door. Should I call, knock or just go in?

I heard Mandy give a short cry. She sounded in pain. I went to one of the windows and looked inside. The window was covered in grime so I couldn't see very clearly at first. A movement caught my eye. I could see two ass cheeks moving up and down. Steve's as he thrust his prick in and out of Mandy. I remembered it had hurt taking Paul for the first few times. It still could if I wasn't quite ready for him.

If the first going in had hurt Mandy she was showing every sign of enjoying the rest of it. Her knees were bent and she had her arms wrapped around his back.

I could see that Steve was moving faster. Then there was a flurry of movement as he pulled his prick from Mandy's fanny and moved away from her slightly. His body stiffened and I could picture his shooting his come all over Mandy's pubic hairs and belly. He rolled onto his side and lay beside her. He had his underpants and jeans about his ankles while Mandy was naked from the waist down with her jumper up above her breasts. Breasts Steve was feeling with one of his hands.

They looked like they were building up for another go.

A sudden blast of cold air reminded me I was standing on a hillside in mid-December. I had felt quite warm while I had been walking but it was more exposed out here. I wasn't going to wait for them to do it again.

I moved to the door and knock loudly upon it. It swung open. I could see everything now. Steve's fingers were just beginning to rub on Mandy's fanny. I could see his come, matting her pubic hairs.

"Sorry." I said, closing the door as Mandy shrieked. "I have something to tell you."