Chapter 1

My parents farmed two thousand acres of wheat, along with a herd of about a hundred and seventy-five head of beef cattle. My dad had worked up to that from the original five hundred and eighty-two acres he inherited from my grandfather. True, most of the land was leased, but he worked hard to make that land produce. So did us kids. I had twin half-brothers older than me. I guess their mom died of some complication after they were born. Nobody talked about her much. After that my dad met my mother at one of the town’s 4th of July celebrations when she was still in high school and the rest, as they say, is history. You can tell what kind of woman she is by the fact that she took on a husband and twin boys who weren’t yet two, when she was barely eighteen.

Anyway, since then the twins had grown up. They went to college when I was eleven. Chet studied agriculture, while Ralph went after an animal husbandry degree. When they graduated and came home Chet handled the crops and Ralph took care of the herd. Dad split his time working with whoever needed his attention the most. Along the way Mom had two kids of her own. I had one of those pain-in-the-ass birthdays, when it came to school situations. I was born on the fifteenth day of October, which was the cutoff date for getting into first grade when you’re still only five. They couldn’t decide if you had be six before the fifteenth, or if you could be six on the fifteenth. They decided to let me in, which made it weird, because everybody else was older than me. It was that way for the rest of my life. I was always a year younger than everybody else in my class when we started a school year, but I passed most of them up before Thanksgiving. That’s why, even though I was only sixteen, I would be going into my senior year at Green Valley High, after that summer. I also had a little sister, Julie May, who was a year behind me.

All of us worked hard, whether there was school or not. I might not have formal training, but I could sure sit on a John Deere tractor and pull discs, sweeps or spring tooth, and I could drive a combine as well as any adult. I might not know as much as Ralph did about cattle, but I could castrate a calf blindfolded, and move a group of cows anywhere you wanted me to.

What I didn’t have - what none of us had - was any semblance of a social life. Well, Chet and Ralph both got one when they went to college. They even got married while they were off having fun and even Mom had to pitch in and plow fields or wrangle cows. If we weren’t in school we were working or sleeping. Eating didn’t count, though we did plenty of that too.

My mother claimed that all that hard work and good food was why I was taller than anybody else in my family. I was taller than just about anybody else in the county, for that matter. I was strong too, though I had a wiry kind of strength. I wasn’t a show-off or anything, but if a piano needed moving at school, and the four guys tugging and pushing on it were having trouble, once I joined them it seemed like the wheels loosened up or something ... if you get my meaning.

I knew all about girls. I was fascinated with them, not counting Julie May, who was in direct competition with me for getting out of chores, not that we had much chance of doing that. But while I was very interested in girls, I hardly ever got to explore what they were like. I got to see them during school hours, but teachers have this habit of making you pay attention to the classroom instruction, instead of more interesting things. And after school I had to high-tail it home and get started on chores.

I had plenty of chances to study up on my mother and Julie May, but they didn’t hardly seem like real females to me. I mean they had all the parts and such, but you know what I mean. And while I occasionally saw Cathy, who was Chet’s wife, and Rebecca, who was Ralph’s wife, my brothers lived in trailers parked a mile in either direction of the main house, and their women didn’t hang around our place all that much. We got together for big dinners and all that, but even after a few years Cathy and Rebecca still seemed kind of distant.

In fact, the only woman I really got to see and know well at all outside my own immediate family was my Aunt Wendy, who was my mother’s little sister. She had been me and Julie May’s babysitter when we were little, and she’d been the one to read us wild adventure stories she got from the library, and play games with us, and go on treasure hunts and build forts and treehouses and all manner of fun things. She was like our grown-up buddy, and it was special. Aunt Wendy was the black sheep of the family, if you could call it that. That might have had it’s seeds in the fact that, before she died, Grandma Haverson called Wendy “her little accident,” because she wasn’t planned, and was ten years younger than my mother. She got along better with kids younger than herself (like me and Julie May) than she did with the ones her own age. Instead of going to college she had joined the Air Force and stayed in for five years. She got out to go spend two years working for a contractor of some kind in Kuwait. It was all hush hush, but she made a boatload of money and put it all in savings. I guess there wasn’t a lot there to spend your money on. It had practically killed me when she joined the Air Force because I was ten, and my imagination was expanding in leaps and bounds because of the things she taught us. She was a whiz at science and knew all kinds of interesting stuff. Additionally, ten was old enough to be given more important chores to do on the farm. So I lost my buddy and became a virtual slave all at the same time.

Understand here, I’m not complaining about the work. We’re a family and it’s a family farm. Some day I’ll get part of it and reap all the benefits of that hard work. Actually, I reap a lot of them now. I’m healthy, well fed, and I have what they call a more well rounded education than some kid who spends hours playing video games. Hell, we don’t even turn the TV on unless it’s for the news or weather.

Anyway, I was out riding fence one day on the ATV and I found a cow who had got caught up in the fence, trying to reach the taller grass on the other side. It was March and it was still cold as hell, and her horns got wrapped up in a loose strand of barbed wire. She’d tossed her head and in the process had gotten the wire around her throat. She was in a bad way, but what made it even worse was that she’d gone into labor while she was caught up like that and that’s when I happened upon her. I got out my fence pliers, which I carried everywhere I went, and snipped the strands that had her hung up. She flopped down then and the half of the calf sticking out of her kicked, so I grabbed on and pulled and that was that. Then I put that calf over my legs and the gas tank, between me and the handle bars, and got back to the house quick. Dad went after the cow and Ralph checked out the calf, deciding that the bumpy ride back had done her more good than harm. He turned the calf over to Julie May to take care of. That was what she called her specialty. It didn’t amount to any more than cooing over it and getting it to take a bottle. Hell, anybody could do that. Ralph got on the 4-wheeler to go help Dad. They saved the cow too, by the way.

Dad was more than happy. He said as a reward for my quick thinking I could choose anything I wanted that didn’t cost more than fifty dollars.

I chose a camping trip to the Twin Peaks State Park - a week long camping trip, with hiking and fishing and swimming and no tractors and no cows. Dad said that he might be able to get away in early June, before harvest started, and the deal was struck.

I planned everything out and was all excited. A whole week of no school and no work. A week of lying around being lazy while I caught fish or swam around. And maybe there would be some girls camping there too.

Memorial Day came around, one of the few rest days we had. We had a big feast on days like this, and company came from all over, primarily because it was hard for us to go anywhere and leave the cattle completely untended. Plus we had a big house and big kitchen and shade trees to eat under and all that.

It was during that feast that everything fell apart.

A group of the men were all gathered around the 55 gallon barrel Bar-B-Q grill that was set up by the three tables where people had put the things they brought to contribute to the feast. The women were sitting at the tables, chatting and waiting for the meat to get done.

Chet announced that Old Gertie had either thrown a rod that morning when he fired her up, or was about to, based on the knocking she’d done before he shut her down. Old Gertie was a ‘63 Chevy grain truck we used to get wheat from the field to the elevator. We had three trucks, and that was the first year I was going to be old enough (legally) to drive the trucks to the elevator. In years past I ran one of our two combines pretty much from sunup to sundown, but this year I’d get to be in the rotation for driving the trucks. I was looking forward to it. Not that I minded driving the Gleaner. It even had air conditioning, but it got kind of boring to do it for fourteen hours straight. And if I was driving truck I could stop and get a soda, or maybe even an ice cream cone or something.

Dad said “Damn. That will take a week to rebuild, and that’s if I can get the parts.”

“I already called Cooper’s,” said Chet. “He says he can get the rods and bearings and a gasket set. Said it will take three days to get them here UPS.”

“That’s a relief,” said Dad. “Okay then. We’ll get the motor out of it tomorrow and get it torn down the next day. If the crank is all right we should be able to have the machine work done and be ready to put it back together when the parts get here. We’ll just have to baby her to break her in during the harvest.”

Like an idiot I said “You can’t do that, Dad. We’re going camping tomorrow.”

He was a very practical guy. “Sorry, Bobby. No can do. I have to get that truck back up for harvest. You know that.”

He didn’t sound all that sorry. I think he was a work-a-holic myself.

“I’ll go by myself,” I said. I admit it might have sounded a bit angry.

“No you won’t,” said my mother. I didn’t ever argue with her. She said what she meant, and meant what she said. “You can go camping some other time,” she added.

“Maybe after harvest,” said Dad.

“Yeah, right,” I said. After harvest there would be haying, and then working the ground to make sure weeds didn’t take hold until it could be seeded again. Then we’d be loading cows up to sell at auction. Unless I wanted to go camping in the dead of winter I knew I was out of luck.

I know it’s silly that it meant that much to me, but I snuck off so I wouldn’t cry in front of them. There was an old bag swing out back. Nobody had used it in probably three or four years but when I tugged on it, it still seemed strong enough to support my weight, so I wrapped my legs around it and kicked off. I was about to work up to a good sniffling cry when my Aunt Wendy wandered over.

“What’s up, Bubba?” she asked. She’d called me Bubba for as long as I could remember.

“My name’s Bobby!” I snapped.

“Oh, I see,” she said, clearly unruffled by my correction. “What’s up, Bobby?”

“I want to be alone!” I growled.

“Tough shit,” she said, all calm like.

Nobody in our family cussed. It wasn’t allowed. Of course she’d seen the world and she didn’t go by our rules. Still, it was a shock to hear an adult, and especially a woman, curse like that.

“Just leave me alone,” I moaned, trying to hold in the sobs so she wouldn’t see them.

“Can’t do that,” she sighed, and sat down on the ground by the trunk of the tree. She was wearing a loose summer dress, but she just plopped down there anyway. “From the sound of it you might commit suicide and then everybody would say it was my fault, because I could have stopped you.” She had this melodramatic tone in her voice and she worked it as she went on. “And then I wouldn’t be welcome around here any more, and since I don’t have any other family worth a flying fuck I’d be all lonely and pretty soon I’d take to drinking strong liquor and hanging out at pool halls and rolling drunks for quarters. It would all end badly with me in prison, running a gang of the most feared women in the whole state. We’d be called ‘Wendy’s Wolves’ and grown men would tremble in fear at our name.” She looked over at me. “You wouldn’t want that to happen, now would you?”

Did I mention it was hard to stay mad when Aunt Wendy was around? She was just so fun-loving and she said such crazy things ... like what she’d just said.

“Wendy’s Wolves?” I snorted. “Oooo, I’m scared already.”

“You should be! We tear our victims’ throats out,” she said, completely serious. “And then howl.” She lifted her chin and made a sound that was part coyote, part hyena and part alto. I had to laugh.

She stopped. “That’s better. Now what’s got your dick in a knot?”

I stared and she actually blushed. She knew there was no cussing allowed in our family.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I slip back into military speak. Why are you all worked up?”

“Dad promised me a camping trip and now he’s backing out of it.”

“Is that all?” She smiled.

“You don’t understand,” I moaned. “It’s a whole week at the state park and we were going to fish and hike and swim and there wouldn’t be any cows or chores. And he promised, because I saved a calf and it’s not fair.”

I was getting worked up again.

“So go without him,” she said.

“I tried.” I almost sobbed. “Mom says I can’t go alone.”

“No problem,” she said. “Hell, take me. I’ll go.”

I blinked. “Really?” You’d have thought she’d just said “Don’t worry about that nasty old cancer, I’ll donate some bone marrow.” There was that much hope in my voice.

“Sure. I love camping,” she said. “I’m pretty good at it too. I went camping lots of times in the Girl Scouts, and I kind of miss it. How about I go talk to your mother and fix it all up?”

“You’d really do that?” I asked. It was like Christmas had been un-cancelled.

“Wait right there,” she said, and got up. She brushed at the skirt of her sun dress and went to stand next to my mother, who was cutting up watermelon slices and arranging them on a big plate. They put their heads together, and Mom looked over at me. I tried to look pitiful, which is pretty hard to do when you’re hanging onto a bag swing. Then Aunt Wendy was on her way back and she was smiling and my heart just about burst.

I couldn’t wait for the next day so that Wendy and I could get on the road. Julie May was already saying how unfair it was that I got to go with Aunt Wendy and she had to stay there and work, but Mom just said “You didn’t save a calf.” Julie May said as how she’d fed the calf and had kept it alive, but Mom wasn’t having any of that.

I tried not to wake anybody up the next morning. All my stuff was already packed and waiting down by the front door. We had decided to start really early so we’d get there with daylight left to set up and do some things. That meant she was picking me up at three in the morning. She was right on time. We loaded my stuff next to hers in the back of her pickup. It felt so strange to leave without saying goodbye to anybody, almost like I was sneaking off or something.

We headed down the road, west towards the Colorado line. It was about a seven hour drive to get to the park. We made small talk along the way, mostly about me and what I liked most about school. She’d only been back from Kuwait for maybe six months and I’d only seen her a couple of times since then, and only a few minutes each time. So I spent two hours with my jaw hanging down as she told me stories about what she did there. Some of it was what she called classified, which meant she wasn’t supposed to talk about it, but she told me anyway.

We decided not to stop for a proper breakfast. Instead when we stopped for gas I got half a dozen donuts and a quart of chocolate milk.

We got back on the road, gorging on the sweetness of the donuts and sharing the milk. Eventually she asked me about my girlfriends.

“So tell me, Bobby. A good-looking man like you, you must have all the girls chasing after you. How many girlfriends do you have?”

A man? She called me a man!

“Well I really don’t actually have a girlfriend. I wasn’t even allowed to date until I turned sixteen, and since then there hasn’t been any time for dates. I mean what girl wants to go out starting at nine at night, and have to be home by ten? Besides, girls aren’t interested in me.”

“Don’t be silly, Bobby. You are what I believe the girls call a hunk these days. I bet they salivate over you.”

“Yeah, right.” I smiled. She made me feel good, but I doubted she was right. Girls talked to me at school and all, but I didn’t even know how to ask one out for a date. Then there was the fact that Tanya Talbot, the tallest girl in school, only came to my chin. Plus there was the problem of when I’d be allowed enough time to actually go on a date. I think my mother wanted me to wait until I was in college, like my brothers. I had an errant thought, wondering if that’s why my brothers had gone to college - so they could have a social life.

I had turned sideways so I could face her while we talked, and suddenly I remembered something. A year or two back she’d sent a picture of her wearing a bikini on a beach somewhere. It had “Wish you were here” on the back, and my mom said it was just to torture her. It had tortured me just a bit, because I got hard looking at it. I’d jacked off, remembering how she looked, and then felt guilty for days. I know that sounds goofy, but she’d always been just Aunt Wendy before. Pretty, yes. Fun, yes. But just Aunt Wendy. That was the first time I’d seen her as a female of the species, if you know what I mean.

Now I actually looked at her as a female again.

She was really pretty in a wholesome way. Her hair wasn’t done up fancy and she didn’t look like she was wearing any makeup, but she was still interesting to look at. It’s hard to explain, but I felt like wanted to watch her for hours. She was Maybe 5’7” and 120 pounds. I’m 6’4”, which means everybody looks short to me, and sometimes my estimates are off. It was also hard to tell how big her breasts were. I mean I could see she was wearing a bra and it seems like that would compress things. In the bra they were about as big as an oversize soft ball maybe. She had long legs and a nice round ass.