Chapter 20

Once Frank had learned the rhythm of the saw, it was just a matter of being patient as the teeth worked their way slowly through the wood. It wasn't interesting work, and it took enough breath that there was little left for talking, but they did carry on a conversation of sorts. It was remarkably like that being had between the women.

"So you've been peeking at the real thing," said AJ.

Frank flushed. "Couldn't help it."

"Can't really blame you," said AJ.

"You're not mad?" asked Frank.

"Naw. It put a burr under your mother's saddle, though. Women are touchy about things like that."

"Think she'll get over it?"

"Don't know," admitted AJ. "Mebbe."

"I'm glad you do it," said Frank.

"That a fact?"

"Pappa used to hurt her so bad. You don't do that."

"Man shouldn't ever hurt a woman. It ain't proper."

"He done it anyway," said Frank.

"Not any more," said AJ, a little callously. It still made him mad to think of a man beating on Bella.

"I'm glad he's dead," said the dead man's son.

"You mentioned that before," AJ responded. "And I believe I said it shouldn't be that way."

"Can't help that either," said Frank. "Seeing you has taught me how a man should treat a woman. Before this all I knew was that to make a woman do what you wanted, you had to knock her around."

"I'm glad you learned it, then," said AJ.

"Me too."

The log fell apart and they grunted to lift the five foot long piece into the wagon. Then they started on another cut. There was no more conversation until the saw blade had cut it's own width in the log and was riding in the groove smoothly.

"Guess we can't watch no more, huh." said Frank.

"Be surprised if she let you," laughed AJ.

"What about you?" asked the boy.

"I suppose it don't bother me all that much," said AJ. "Might get you fired up, though, if it hasn't already."

"Yeah," admitted Frank.

"And then you got to do something about it," said AJ.

"Yeah," said Frank.

"So that means you know what to do?"

"Yeah," said Frank a third time.

"What about your sister?"

The saw came to a grinding halt as Frank Jr. lost the rhythm. There was a look of guilt on his face.

AJ peered at him through narrowed eyes. "Don't tell me you been foolin' around with your own sister."

Frank swallowed. "All right ... I won't."

"Oh damn," sighed AJ. The fact that the boy hadn't blown his lid at the accusation told AJ more than if the boy hadn't said a word.

"We ain't done nothing real bad!" objected Frank.

"Do you really think your Mamma will see things that way? Or anybody else for that matter?"

Frank Jr. slumped. "I reckon not."

AJ didn't know what to say. He pulled the saw and stared at Frank, who pulled it back. They got the rhythm going again.

Eventually curiosity got the better of AJ.

"How much have you done?" he asked. He wondered if the boy would blow up at such a personal question. Had anybody but AJ have asked it, he might have.

"Not everything," he said warily. "We done some kissing and touching."

"Like I kiss and touch your mother?" AJ almost lost the rhythm himself just then, but managed to keep his end of the saw going.

"Somewhat," said Frank stiffly.

"Don't you go making a baby in your sister, boy!" said AJ, feeling panic in his gut. It had just occurred to him that he had information their mother needed to know ... but he had no idea of how to break it to her. It could tear the whole family apart.

"Of course I won't!" gasped Frank. "We don't do that part. I would never do that!"

"What do you do?" asked AJ. Gone was his reluctance to pry.

"We just rub each other, AJ, and that does the trick," explained the boy. "She rubs me until it squirts, and I rub her until she gets all wiggly and says to stop."

"Damn!" sighed AJ. He had a vision of that sweet young thing, naked, all wiggly while being rubbed. He felt his groin react, and pushed the thought away.

"We're not hurting anything," moaned Frank.

It was at that point that AJ's own relative inexperience with women came into play. When he'd stolen those few kisses from the girls back home, there hadn't been any real thought of what that naturally led to. It had all been a mystery back then, but a delightfully scary one to investigate. Since then, before meeting Bella (and after that too, when one thinks of it) there had never been a time when they petted, got excited, and then had to stop. Not really.

So the fact of the matter was that AJ didn't actually know how hard it might be to stop, right in the middle of things.

"I don't think your Mamma would see it that way," said AJ again.

Frank looked like he was going to cry. "We have to stop, don't we?" he moaned.

"I reckon you should," said AJ.

"You gonna tell Mamma about this?" Frank asked.

"I don't rightly know," sighed AJ.

The men were back with a wagonload of logs by noon. They were offloaded beside the stable, where they could be cut up into smaller pieces and then split for later use in the winter. They wouldn't be cured by then, and would make a lot of smoke when they burned, but there wasn't anything AJ could do about that.

Bella and Becky had gathered the equivalent of four bushels of grain, but had put it all in two sacks that turned out to be too heavy for them to carry back to the house. AJ and Frank Jr. went to get them while the meal finished cooking.

There wasn't much conversation as they ate, but there was a lot of thinking going on.

When the dishes had been gathered up Bella said she wanted to survey the grain plot with AJ. She told the children to gather more wood. It was a tedious task, but both knew it had to be done, and neither complained.

Once up in the field, it became obvious that Bella was more interested in talking than in surveying anything. She told him how the discussion had gone between her and Becky. In the process she said he was right, and thanked him for helping her see things that way.

That made it pretty difficult for AJ to tell her what had been said at the wood cutting site. He was sure she'd be devastated, and her now upbeat attitude would vanish like smoke in the wind.

And he had nothing to tell her that might help her see a sexual relationship between her children in a positive light.

So he kept his mouth shut.

Bella then turned to looking at the field and asking him questions about what it would take to grow enough grain there to make a cash crop.

Where bits and pieces (and the whole conversation between AJ and Frank) had been left out of the confab between the adults, the teens had repeated every word they could remember that had been said.

Both knew that their "game" might come to a screeching halt at any moment. Becky was worried that her mother might put her in the wagon and drive straight to Wichita, where she would walk around, dragging her daughter behind her, asking if there were any single men in town who needed a wife. The thought of some other man putting his hands on Becky made Frank seethe and, congruent with their tender ages, they talked of running away together. Both knew how hard it was to travel and stay alive, though, so that decision was set aside for the moment. The decided to wait and see what happened.

While they talked, and plotted, Frank Jr. put into practice an idea he'd gotten from AJ's earlier use of the horse to drag branches back to make the ceiling of the stable with. They bundled up pieces of dead wood and he let his horse drag them back to the house. As such, after two trips, both felt like they'd done their share of wood gathering for the day.

Both were anxious about the future. Both knew that their mother and AJ were up in the field, most likely talking about them, and they decided to go see which way the wind was blowing. Together, hand in hand, they trudged up the hill.

As their heads broke the rim of the dip, the two youths stopped, and ducked back down instinctively. The tall grass made it difficult to see clearly, but what could be seen was interesting.

Their mother was on her knees in front of AJ, whose pants were down around his thighs. Her face was bobbing back and forth as she held his stiff willy in her hand. He had his hands on his hips, which were jutted forward. He was looking up at the sky.

It was a decidedly funny sight, a semi-dressed cowboy, hat firmly on his head, with a woman sucking on him like a calf might suck at it's mother.

His hands left his hips and went to clasp behind his head under the brim of his hat as he let out a groan they could clearly hear from where they were hiding. Their mother's mouth never left his hard shaft, until she finally pulled off and wiped her mouth with the back of one hand. AJ's formerly hard willy hung down, limp and spent, as their mother stood up.

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The Bad Bet

Lubrican

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