Chapter 13

And the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander...

Looking at my map, I figured four days to Wichita Falls, with Red and Blue stepping it off faster than when we had the women with us.

I made Decatur around noon the next day. Once there, I sold the three horses and the pack mule to the livery man for a hundred and forty dollars. By the time I had my horses fed, watered and stabled, I was hungry and I knew I needed a hot bath. I decided to spend the night and make Bowie by dark the next day, then stay in Henrietta the next night and take a bath.

I was already missing my women friends and when I went up to my room to bathe, I had a man and a boy bringing my water up. That made it all the worse for me.

They didn’t open up until 6:00 for breakfast the next morning, and I already had Red and Blue tied out front waiting, while I ate.

I made Henrietta easy in two days and just as I rode into the edge of the small town, I saw a man beating on two young women with a green, cane fishing pole.

I rode right up beside him and when he drew back to hit the women as they hunkered on the ground with their hands over their heads, I reached out and snatched that cane from his hand. He whirled as if he wanted to take me on, but then he backed off when I stepped down off Red and splintered that cane across my knee, then doubled it and splintered it again.

“Mister, I have no idea why you’re whipping these young women, but I don’t take kindly to seeing a woman being beaten. Now, you can either take me on or you can walk away and let these women up off the ground. The choice is yours.”

“These are my daughters and I have every right to whip them if I feel they need it. This is none of your concern and you’ll have hell to pay when I get my son back here to take care of you.”

“Then bring him to the office of the local law, because I’m taking them with me to see the town marshal or whoever is in charge of the law here in this town.”

He was drunk as hell and I’d already spent enough of my life trying to make sense with a drunk.

He backed off a ways, then yelled at his daughters, “Louise, you and Mildred get up off that ground and come go with me. If you don’t, I’m telling your Ma and Grandma that you’ve took up with a no-good drifting saddle tramp. Your Grandma is apt to cut you out of her will if you don’t come with me right now.” He was so damn drunk he was wobbling and swaying on his feet, staggering here and there to stay upright.

“We’re not going anywhere with you, Pa. We’re damn tired of you getting drunk and beating our asses just because we won’t sleep with you and James. I hope this man does take us to see the law. Maybe this time they’ll do something about you and James, and both y’alls mean-ass ways towards Louise and me.”

There were a few men and women who had gathered closer, now that the man had been stopped from beating his daughters. As he stomped off down the dirt street, staggering and stumbling, they were laughing and pointing their fingers at him.

“Are you women alright? Do you have a safe place to go and stay away from your Pa?”

“No we don’t ... My name’s Mildred and this is my sister Louise. Who are you and where are you headed?”

I knew right then, this could very well lead to two more women tagging along with me to somewhere else.

“I’m Joss Wayward, and right now I’m headed up here to stable my horses, then I’m going to get a room at the hotel and take a hot bath. I’d be glad to buy you and your sister supper if you wanted to wait that long and wanted to eat with a stranger.”

“Will you walk along with us so our Pa and our brother, James won’t try to jump us from behind. I’d like to eat a fresh cooked hot meal and I know Mildred would too.”

I walked between them, leading Red with Blue’s lead rope looped over Red’s saddlehorn. They were sneaking looks and smiles at each other and I was sneaking looks at them. They wouldn’t look so bad if they were cleaned up and had their hair washed and brushed.

“How old are y’all?” I asked them when we neared the livery.

“I’m eighteen and Louise is twenty. How old are you?” Mildred asked.

“I’m fourteen.”

“You’re only fourteen? Damn, Boy you look every bit of twenty, big as you are.”

“Are you married?” Louise asked.

“No ... Now that you asked, why aren’t you girls married? Back where I come from, girls marry early in life.”

“Pa wouldn’t let let us marry, even if we had met a nice man like you.”

“Joss?” Louise called my name in a way that I knew she was about to ask for some help. I didn’t really see how I could refuse them if she did. Besides, now that I’ve seen them close and talked to them, they look pretty damn good and I know a hot bath and a hairbrush will make them look even better.

“Yes?” I answered as I slid the saddle off Red’s back and put it across the rail in the stable.

“Would you take us with you when you leave here?”

“Take you where?”

“Wherever you’re going ... Just somewhere else besides here.”

“I’ll take you as far as Wichita Falls. Will that be alright?”

“You’re going all the way to Wichita Falls? We have an aunt on our Ma’s side, who lives there. If you’d take us with you, we could look her up. I know she’d take us in until we could make our own way,” Mildred told me.

“Joss?” Mildred asked.

“Yes?”

“Would you buy us a hot bath too. We’ve never had a bath in hot water. We’ll cook for you on the trail and we’ll help make camp too, if you will.”

“Sure I will. You’ll need some more clothes if you’re going to travel. Those dresses are about to show everything you were born with.”

“We don’t have any money for clothes.”

“If I give you five dollars each, will you go buy some clothes to travel in, then come to my room and take a bath before you put them on?”

“HELL YES ... Damn Joss, would you really do all that for us?”

“Yes I will. Here, take this money and buy yourselves a hair brush, and some boy britches and shirts. Dresses on the trail won’t fare well. I’ll pay for a room with two beds and y’all can sleep in one and I’ll sleep in the other. That is if you trust me.”

“We trust you, Joss. You’ve already saved our lives.”

They headed across the street to a dry goods store and I turned to the man who ran the livery. “I need to buy two horses and saddles. Do you have two that are dead broke so a woman can ride?”

“No, but I got two fine mules over here that’re saddle-broke. They ride as good as any horse and they can single-foot as good as any horse you ever saw.”

“How much for the two of them and two used saddles that are not so worn out a woman could sit on them for a day?”

“Would you be willing to pay fifty dollars?”

“For both mules and two saddles, I will.”

“You got a deal then ... When you ridin’ out?”

“Tomorrow early, right after breakfast.”

“I’ll have ‘em saddled and ready. If you’re a mind to, I can have your packhorse ready and that big Roan of your’n saddled fer you too.”

“You can lower that packsaddle down on Ol’ Blue’s back, but you better stay away from Red, over there. He’s real touchy around strangers.”

I paid for the mules and tack, then told him to feed and water all four of them tonight and again early in the morning. I had just stepped up onto the front steps of the hotel when I heard my name called from behind me. I turned to see Louise and Mildred running across the street with their new clothes bundled under their arms.

“We bought boy britches and shirts like you told us, Joss. The woman helped us pick them out and made sure they would fit,” Mildred told me.

“Mister, I need a room with two beds for the night and I need two bathing tubs filled with hot water. These girls are going to stay in my room and we’re going to come down and eat supper when we get cleaned up ... You got any problems with what I just told you?” I asked the older man as he looked at the three of us. I didn’t want any trouble later on so I told him up front.

“You pay for the room, it’ll be yours for one day and a night. It’s none of my business unless I have to call the law.”

“If it comes to that, I’ll handle whatever trouble comes our way. These girls’ Pa was beating them with a cane pole when I rode into town. I made him stop and they told me he whipped them all the time. I don’t take kindly to men who beat on women.”

“I know their Pa. That drunk-ass bastard won’t cause no trouble in my hotel. You can damn well rest easy about that.”

“That’s all I needed to know. Here’s an extra dollar for helping me help them.”

“Your room is 202, and your hot water will be brought right up. Both tubs are half filled with cold water already.”

“You’re a good man, Mister. If I ever come this way again, I’ll stay here at your hotel.”

“Where you headed from here, Son. If you don’t mind me asking.”

“From here, I’m escorting these two sisters over to Wichita Falls. From there, I’ll just head out to somewhere else, looking for a honest day’s work and seeing all of Texas I can while I’m at it.”

“Here’s a newspaper which a man left with me yesterday, with a story about Adobe Springs, out there in The Panhandle. There’s a big wild-horse roundup fixin’ to happen out there soon. They’re looking for wranglers and bronc busters, if you’re interested in that sort of work. Says in the story that a man can earn top pay, if he’s good at it. Down at the bottom it tells that they’re about to roundup all the Longhorn cows, calves and bulls they can find here in Texas, and drive them up through New Mexico, Colorado, and on into Wyoming in the coming months and they’ll need good men for that too.”

“Let me have that paper, I’ll give it back to you in the morning.”

“Keep it, Son. The man left a dozen for me to pass out. You’ll see his name in the story more than a few times.”

Sometimes I think my Ma must be smiling down on me, then at other times, I’m damn glad she’s not.

Tonight, was another time I hope Ma wasn’t looking...

When the two boys had poured hot water into both bathing tubs until they were nearly full, they left and I locked the door behind them. I turned around, there stood Mildred and Louise buck-ass-naked, smiling at me.

What I had first thought of as two skinny young women, turned out to be some of the prettiest naked women I’ve ever set eyes on. Neither of them are fat, neither would weigh over a hundred and twenty pounds, if that much. Neither had big asses or big titties, but they were put together better than any woman I’ve ever been naked with. Every part of their bodies seemed to be a perfect fit for the rest of the parts. Neither of them hardly had any pussy hair, but the hair on their heads was long, dirty, stringy and matted.

“Joss?”

“Yes?”

“You can bathe at the same time we do. We want to see you naked anyway,” Louise told me.

“Are you both sure about that? Have you ever seen a naked man?”

“We’ve been fighting our Pa and brother off since I turned twelve years old. Both of them would come to our room naked, at least three times a week when they’d get so drunk they couldn’t walk straight, then try to get in bed with us,” Mildred told me.

“Did they ever get in bed with you?”

“Hell no, they didn’t. Shit, they couldn’t have done anything if they had. They would fall in the floor some nights and sleep there naked until they sobered up, then beg us not to be mad at them,” Louise told me.

“Neither of you have ever done anything with a man?”

Mildred looked at Louise and they both turned to smile at me, “You mean have we been fucked?” Mildred asked.

“Well, that was what I was trying to ask, without just coming right out and saying fuck in front of you.”

“Joss, we’ve probably heard more cuss words than you will ever hear in whole your life,” Louise told me.

“I hope you girls don’t take this wrong, but both of you are as pretty as any woman I’ve ever seen naked and I mean that in a good way.”

Louise asked me real quick, “Have you seen a lot of naked women?”

“I have and I’m probably not much better than your pa or your brother when I see a pretty woman without her clothes on.”

Mildred asked me, “You’ve never beat a woman or forced her to fuck you, have you?”

“No. The women I’ve been with, had to show me what to do. I had never seen a naked woman until a month or so ago.”

“Did they show you how to fuck them gentle and not rape them?” Louise asked.

“They did and since the first one, I’ve had many lessons from many women. So you see, I’m not much better that your pa or brother, except I don’t drink and beat women and try to rape them when I get drunk. I like loving womens naked bodies, not beating on them.”

“Joss, come take your clothes off and get in the tub before the water gets cold. We’re going to bathe you and we want you to show us what love is when we get ourselves cleaned up.” Louise told me and both of them walked over to pull me close to the tubs of water. I could smell their dirty hair and I knew their hair had to be washed too.

“Will both of you let me bathe you and wash your hair?”

“Joss, would you really do that? That sounded so damn caring, when you asked us that. Do you always ask a woman before you do things with her?”

“Do things?”

“Yes, do things like touch her body and maybe even kiss. We’ve never kissed before but we want to learn how. We want you to teach us all about being with a man and what a woman is supposed to do while he’s fucking her.”