I was mystified.Maybe the presents had some kind of answer. I picked up the first oneto hand. It seemed fairly light. I looked at the wrapping--toy...oldiers marching with candy canes held like bayonets. On one corner,there was a tag. All it said was "From: Santa Claus." I picked upanother, and another. Different wrappings, different tags, but the samenotation on each tag: "From: Santa Claus." Not much of a clue, that.I decided to open them, and see whether I could get a hint from what. Dad had come in from the field to pick up some tools so he popped his head in the door and asked how I was feeling."Not too bad. It's still hurts a little, though." What a dumbass!" was all he could manage by way of sympathy before he closed the door.Dad's OK but he's not the sympathetic sort and also makes it plain I'm not his favorite child. Sometimes I think he's jealous because Mom dotes on me, always hugging me and kissing me on the cheek and doing things for me. Maybe if I were him I'd be. The dogs started barking when they were still a long way from the main house. Some of the hands were up and working on fences and building a sheep-dip needed to get the wool ready for harvesting. The shearing of the wool was an intensive affair that needed expert cutters from an agency that traveled from point to point to collect and ship the wool to the processing plant in another State. They were most Australian and European cutters and they didn't even carry weapons because they were far too. Bo then proceeded, as he did with all his victims, to read him the riot act:. . . . what was going to happen to him . . . .(the lawyer would serve hisevery sexual need for the remainder of the night and then some); the consequencesof uncooperation (mutilation of the body and/or death); and the reward (unharmedrelease the length of captivity depending on how he performed his duties asslave). When he finished, he told the lawyer that he would take off his gagand the only thing that he wanted to.