Chapter 9

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

Darla saw me looking down between us and smiled as she raised up just a little.

I put my hands on both her hips and pushed her up. She knew what I wanted and raised her body with her feet pushing down and her breasts mashed against my face. When I had her dress down far enough, I hooked my right boot in it and pushed as she wiggled. She kicked one foot free then the other until all she had on was her drawers and they were down past her butt. I hooked the heel of my boot in the loose material and she raised one leg then the other to let me kick her drawers back over the top of the hay pile behind us.

“Joss, I want to take your clothes off now. I have waited long enough and I’m not going to wait any longer. I’m glad I waited now, Joss. I want you for my first time – maybe my first dozen times if you can stay a day or two ... Joss, Mother wants you too.”

As I helped her loosen my shirt and my gun belt, I asked her, “Darla, what if you and your mother get a baby?”

“I’m already planning to have your baby in my womb before you leave this place. I wanted your baby the first time you were here, but you were afraid of me. I told Mother then, that if I could’ve, I would have had your baby in my belly before William and I married.”

“What did she say to that?” I asked as she pulled my boots off, then started pulling on my pants legs. I knew what her mother wanted, I just wanted to see what Darla wanted.

“She told me that if I had let you put a baby in my belly, she would have too and we’d have them at the same time. Will you do Mother for me, Joss? She wants your baby too.”

When she laid back on the hay pile, she had her legs together and all I could see was a small patch of brown hair above her crotch.

I kissed her breasts until she pushed me back. I put my hands on her hips and pushed while I slid down so I could kiss her belly.

“Roll over and sit on my belly, Darla. Then if you feel like you want to try to get my cock to go inside your pussy you can raise up and see if it will even fit inside you ... While you’re sitting on me like that, sort of start riding your body back and forth while you push down.”

We thrashed and wallowed around in that pile of hay until she kicked over one of the milk pails, spilling milk all over her dress. She pulled that dress soaked in milk over her head anyway so we could go over to the house.

She carried her other pail of milk to the house ahead of me while I put my horses up for the night and fed them some oats.

When I walked into the kitchen, Barbara had supper ready. She and Darla were wearing their house robes as we ate. I had a feeling they were both naked under those loose robes. Both of them were in a talkative mood and we sat and talked about where all I’d been and what all I’d done since I was here last time.

When I told them about the women I had met, they wanted to know about each one. I told them, then when they asked about what I’d done with each of them, I told them all about the things we had done. I never named any names but I told them were I’d met them.

When we finished supper, they put the dishes, pots and pans in a tub of water to soak, then Barbara took my hand and led me into a big bedroom with a bed that was big enough for a family to sleep in.

Barbara was the first to drop her robe in the floor. Then Darla dropped her robe.

“Joss, my daughter and I need a man. When I saw you ride up today, I knew I would have you in my bed before you left or I’d hogtie you and strap you in my bed so I could have my way with you.

“Darla was just a small girl when her daddy died. I’ve not had a man since. I’m still of childbearing age and I want a baby, Joss. Darla has already told me that she’s more than likely with child after the way you and she went at each other all over the barn.”

They went to pulling my clothes off, starting with my boots. By the time they had my denim britches off, they’d pushed me backwards to sit on the bedside. When they had me naked, one was on one side and one was on the other as they knelt on the bed and pushed me back with my feet hanging off.

“Joss, you have no idea how much both Darla and I need this. If there was some way you could stay here with us, we’d do this every night for the rest of our lives, except when we were having babies.”

“I wished many times that I had stayed the first time I was here. I wanted to so bad, but then, I felt like I had to go see everywhere there is for a man to see, while I’m young, and before I settled down. One day, I hope to have a place of my own and I’ll want a big bed like this one when I do. I want to love many women and I want them with me all the time. I know it’ll take a year, if not two, before I’ll ever settle down and stay in one place. I just don’t have anything to offer a two beautiful women like you and Darla, at this time.”

“Joss, Mother and I’ve talked about that too. If you ever do get your place, would you let us come live with you? We’d be easy to get along with and we’d even love your other women and share the house work with them too, if you’d let us.”

“What about your young man Darla? He’ll be coming after you as soon as he’s able, and I can’t say that I’d blame him either. You’re a fine young woman and just laying here between you and your mother, makes me wish I had a place for all of us already.”

“Joss, I’ve decided I don’t want to marry William, I want a real man. A man who’s kind and tender and loves a woman’s body in all the right ways and makes her feel good about herself. After today with you out in the barn, I could never lay with William. I’m spoilt to you, Joss.”

“You mean that if I didn’t come back right away, you’d still not marry?”

“I’ll never marry as long as there’s hope that you’ll come back and get Mother and me.”

“Barbara, what about your farm? You can’t just up and leave this place after the two of you have put so much into it and built this place up like you have.”

“I’ve already had an offer to pay me in cash, twice what land is selling for around here. The neighbors to the east want me to sell this place to them for their son, so he’ll stay close by with his wife and kids.”

“Would you really sell this place, just to come live with me, wherever that may be?”

“We’d sell it and help you buy more land for your place, and buy more horses and cattle, and build big barns too. Don’t you see, Joss – Darla and I both love you. If we lived with you all the time, we’d feed you, bathe you, and love you.”

“Mother, he’s getting hard with you talking about us living with him and loving him.”

Darla was more right than she knew. I was already thinking about both of them living with Emily, Jo Anne, Alina, Amelia and me. We’d need to have a bigger bed than this one even. I’d want all my women sleeping with me. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that was what I wanted...

We went at each other all night like a bunch of jackrabbits in heat. The next morning they cooked breakfast while I went to feed. After breakfast, we went back to bed and stayed until morning.

I ended up staying three days with them, and when I left this time, we were happy and we were making plans for when I’d send them a letter telling them where I was so they could come live with me.

I left early that last morning, after they had bathed me again. I really am getting used to a woman’s touch as she bathes me.

I rode into Kansas City a few days later, riding Red and leading Blue, just like I left there a month ago. Polk and I took up right where we left off. We’re best friends now, is what he told me.

Polk had hung a picture of a very pretty girl on the wall next to his desk where he kept his records. It wasn’t there when I was here a month or so ago. One day I asked him who she was.

“That’s my only child, Ruby. That picture was made back a few years ago when she was younger, and her ma was alive. She now lives west of here in Silver Lake, over in Shawnee County. She’s married to an Englishman and they have two little girls. I’ve never been there, but she keeps writing me letters and telling me to come see her and the girls. I been meaning to, I just never seem to find time to get away...

“ ... Joss, you ought to go over there and hire on. Ruby wrote me not long ago and told me they were in need of some help on their cattle and horse spread. Her husband took a bad fall from a horse he was trying to break a few years ago. She wrote in her last letter that he’s been so sickly since then, he’s not able to get around anymore, and he’s getting worse as time goes on. She also wrote me that they’d bought more land from a neighbor who was selling out cheap, and she was having a hard time finding honest men who’d do ranch work.”

On the wall across from his desk he had a map of Kansas. He showed me right where Silver Lake was. They had just incorporated this year, he told me. It’s about seventy miles west of Kansas City and not far at all from Topeka.

“You say they got cattle, sheep and horses, too? I’ve never been around cattle except to run them through the chutes in the stockyards back in Sedalia. I’ve never been close enough to a sheep to get a good look. I have become a fair hand at bronc riding though, and you’ve taught me a lot about how to handle the cantankerous ones while we’re shoeing them. I’m going to need a steady job for a while so I can save some more money ... and grow up a little more ... I kinda like the thought of working with cows and horses.”

“You’ll need to take some of the money you’ve gained and go outfit yourself with two or three more suits of tough ranch working clothes. Get some boots with high heels too, your feet will stay in the stirrups better ... and for damn sure, buy yourself a hat like everyone else wears in Kansas.

“I’ll write a letter for you to give Ruby, introducing you and telling her how good ‘a hand you are ... That you got good manners, and you don’t mind hard work.”

I sat on the corner of his desk as he wrote on one side of the paper, looking up at me now and then, before writing more. Then he turned it over and wrote from top to bottom on this side, as I watched. I didn’t see what he wrote, but I knew he was writing his daughter a letter on the back side. He folded it and put it in a brown mailing envelope before he handed it to me.

“Joss you really ought to consider you, Red and Blue taking the train over there, now that I think about it. That’s still quite a ways to ride your horse, you being fourteen years old. ‘Sides that, you’re not really that trail savvy, even though you’ve learned to handle the pistol and the long gun as well as most grown men. You’ve got to realize that there’s a lot of folks out there who’d kill you just for your new boots. If you ever run upon the wrong man, or men out there on the trail, they’d kill you, take your horses, guns, all your money and belongings that you’ve worked hard to gain. I’m telling you now – if you ever run upon a man, or men who you feel are out to do you harm, don’t waste a second... kill ‘em all, before they have a chance to kill you.”

The next day, I said goodbye to Polk for the second time.

Red and I were about to head west once again, with Ol’ Blue on the train with us.

I was easy to convince that it was a good idea for Red, Blue and me to ride the train over to Silver Lake, after I found out it wasn’t gonna cost me but $6.95 for all three of us. Plus the fact that he’d told me more than once it that he worried about me riding the trails alone.

Ol’ Blue didn’t even stop to look around when I headed him up the loading ramp into the cattle car.

Red had been no trouble to load when we went back to Sedalia by train. But for some reason, he didn’t think it was such a good idea when we got to this loading dock. He balked at walking up the ramp into the cattle car with the other twelve horses, even with Blue already in there. Then, about halfway up the ramp, with me pulling on his halter, he snorted, farted loud, and threw his nose in the air.

Red smelled a hot mare in that cattle car. He nearly ran me and Blue over getting in there. Come to find out, there were twelve mares in that car and more than one was horsing hot and heavy. I wasn’t sure who they belonged to and even went to ask one of the railroad men on the dock about them. Red had already covered one of them. He wasn’t wasting any time with her either.