Page 10 of Disciplining Dana

Kurt looked down to where Gary’s finger was pressed. “Sapphire Mountain Range.”

“Yep. In Montana.”

Kurt looked up. “And?”

“I want you to take her there. To a mine that’s been dormant for over a hundred years.”

“Another abandoned mine.”

Gary nodded. “Yeah, I know, I know, but this one… this one should be different. Less dangerous.”

“And why would that be?”

Gary chuckled. “Well… because it’s on a dude ranch.”

Kurt blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Hear me out.” Gary held up a finger, then turned to another page of the report. “The location is an old sapphire mine situated on a large ranch located here in Ravalli County, Montana. Place was started by a pair of brothers, and it’s been in constant operation in one manner or another since the eighteen hundreds.”

“You just said the mine is dormant.”

“It is. The ranch isn’t. It used to be an operating one, but now… now it’s one of those places folks go to experience a taste of the old West. You know: horseback riding, playing cowboy, seventy-dollar steaks cooked over a campfire, washed down with hundred-dollar bottles of wine.”

“A dude ranch.”

Gary nods. “A dude ranch.”

Kurt tilted his head to look at the map again. “What’s it called?”

“Don’t laugh.”

Kurt looked back up.

“Rawhide Ranch.”

Kurt swallowed, his thoughts racing. That… that can’t be right. There’s no way Gary just said Rawhide Ranch.

“Never heard of it,” he replied, after a beat.

But he had.

“Not surprised,” Gary confessed. “It’s kinda an exclusive place, doesn’t really advertise much, and it caters to a very select clientele.”

Which was correct, if the things Kurt had heard from folks at munches and in the lifestyle were true. He didn’t know how much Gary might know about Rawhide Ranch, but from what Kurt did it was a kinksters’ Western-themed version of a Sandals resort, a place where Dominants could take their submissives, eat those seventy-dollar steaks, and drink those hundred-dollar bottles of wine, all while wearing leather of a completely different type than your garden-variety cowboy gear.

“So… are you telling me you’re sending Dana and I to a dude ranch to… look for rare earths?”

“In so many words. As I said, the mine on the property hasn’t been active in a hundred years. When it was, it was a sapphire mine. Those sapphires are how the original brothers financed their operation. Now, it’s an attraction at the ranch. They let people pretend to mine for sapphires and take away a chip or two for their efforts.”

“And Dana’s analysis said there was the potential for rare earth minerals to be found there?”

“Yes. Specifically, neodymium and praseodymium.”

Kurt’s head snapped up. “Wait, I thought you said niobium?”

“That’s what US Critical found in Colorado. Dana theorized what is in the Rawhide Ranch mine area are the other two.”

“Are we talking a substantial amount?”

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