Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:39:34 -0500
From: fireflywatcher ford <fireflywatcher@gmail.com>
Subject: Short Grass Prairie, chapter 1

The usual disclaimers apply, if you're under 18 or material with
sexual content is illegal where you live, read no further.

I would appreciate any comments or suggestions. This story has
limited sexual content. I'm not great at writing sex scenes and could
use some help with it. This is entirely fiction but includes some
historical content as accurately presented as I'm able to do. I
retain all rights to this story. I have five chapters finished, about
80 pages so far. If there is no interest, I'll rework it and try
again some time in the future.

Phil

Short Grass Prairie

CHAPTER ONE

by fireflywatcher- Phil Ford

I tugged at the rope with both hands, trying desperately to loosen it
enough for me to draw a breath. I was on my back in the dirt below
the gallows scaffolding, not suspended in mid-air as I should have
been and still alive to my surprise. God damn these carpet baggers.
I'd been working on the pasture fence and decided to ride to a new
store in a community that recently sprung up to the south-west of the
ranch. My Uncle Jake, just seven years older than me, was off buying
more stock and had been gone three days with the dogs. I wanted to
fix a nice meal when he returned and needed some supplies. I just
shouldn't have left the wire pliers in my back pocket. I never made
it to the general store. These Yankee bastards didn't know any local
people, having just arrived a few months back. It was the new Yankee
law that anyone carrying wire pliers was judged a rustler and hung on
the spot. I don't think they ever took the gallows down.

Strong hands worked with mine loosening the noose. "You can't hang
him again, it's an act of God and Texas law says he's free to go", a
deep voice boomed from the man. His hooded face revealed him to be
the hangman.

"You damn fools", another piped up, "This is Jim Taylor. He and his
uncle have the biggest ranch here abouts and the family was the first
to settle here. His is the only ranch that is fenced in this county.
If you'd of hurt this boy his uncle would have you buried before God
knows you're dead, the whole lot of you, and Austin would look the
other way after he did it."

I recognized the talking man as Dan Parsons, a man who aspired to be
a banker. He had a building, one of four I saw coming into this town,
but I doubted he had any money in his damn bank. I doubted any of the
dozen or so men surrounding me had any money and hadn't seen any
cattle that could have been rustled. I didn't see any women at all.
With the rope lifted from my neck, the hangman put a cup of water to
my lips, saying, "Drink a little and it will ease the pain in your
throat."

After I swallowed a few sips I addressed Parsons, saying, "Whose land
it it to the west of town, Parsons?"

"Well, yours I think", he answered.

"And to the south?" I inquired.

"Yours", he replied.

"And to the north and east?", I inquired further.

"Yours", again he answered.

"So if I fence this town in and put up a sign saying trespassers will
be shot, where does that leave the lot of you?", I inquired of him
again. "Shot and buried, legal and proper", I thought to myself.

Since I didn't hear a reply, I got to my feet and dusted myself off.
I heard the hangman asking for his pay, saying he was done working
here and moving on. I hadn't bothered to say that the town site
wasn't mine and my land surrounding it wasn't fenced because it was a
Comanche winter camp and would be restored to it's former rugged
existence when the chill came in this fall and the buffalo moved into
the area. I shuffled across the way to the store getting my footing
back as I went. I gathered the things I needed quickly, tossed a gold
coin on the counter and took my change. When I had the supplies tied
to my pack mule, I mounted my horse and headed back in the direction
I'd come from. I paused a second and yelled out, "I need my fencing
pliers back now, if you please." They were in my hand in a heartbeat
and I continued onward.

A small creek or bayou passed through the Comanche camp site where
the town was rising. It flowed south and a little east on it's way
into the Colorado River. Short grass prairie filled the horizon
broken by live oak and wild plum thickets, and the buttes or mesas
with cedar breaks on their slopes that seemed to rise out of the flat
land randomly. The creeks and rivers were lined with pecans,
cottonwoods, elms, and willows along the banks. The ranch lay an hour
and a half ride away on the high bank above the Colorado. An all
season spring rose from the rocks to form a crystal clear pond where
my grandparents and parents had built their homes and outbuildings.
It's outflow ran down the slope of the bank in a gully to the river.
I scared up a young buck as I neared a thicket and he just stood
there staring at me, so I pulled my rifle from the saddle holster and
shot him before he could run. I gutted him, moved the supplies to my
horse, behind my saddle, and hung his carcass over the mules back to
tote back for an addition to the supper.

Life hadn't been easy on Jake and me for the last few years. The
Civil War took my dad and both granddads when I was six and Jake was
thirteen. It had been either them going or getting shot dead, so they
went. Jake was my mom's younger brother. We were left with three
women and two boys to run a ranch. Five years had allowed the men to
get the houses and buildings built, most of the land fenced, and a
good herd built up as well as other livestock. They had settled in
Milam County when Texas was a new country and great granddad and my
granddad's sister, my great aunt on my father's side, were still
there along with other family members. Both my grandfathers sold
their land for ten dollars an acre and bought this land for three
cents an acre, putting the balance away in gold coin for when it was
needed. I'd been born that first year after they moved, to a young
bride and groom.

The war ended and the men never returned. After six years it was a
certainty they were dead. Three years back Jake and me were away
fencing the last break in our north pastures when the Comanche paid a
visit, or so we thought. The three women lost their lives while we
were gone, leaving Jake and me to bury them. A gift of a couple of
cows could have saved their lives. I'm seventeen now and that buck
outweighed me but I got him on the mules back. Jake is twenty four.
We share one bed in the smallest of the three houses left to us and
carry on the best we know how. The year is eighteen seventy one.

I spied a horse trailing me and checked the rifle to make sure I'd
reloaded it. It was a single shot, though newer models were
repeaters. I slowed my pace to see if the rider was up to mischief or
had friendly intentions. All the land surrounding me now was mine and
Jake's, and we weren't accustomed to visitors. I stopped at the first
gate, opened it, and waited. It was the hangman and he was a mite
prettier and had a familiar appearance without the hood covering his
face.

"It weren't no act of God that broke that rope Jim Taylor", the
hangman declared, "I'm your cousin Dan Johnson from Milam County and
if you got your mail I wouldn't have sat in that miserable town for
two weeks and taken the hangman's job to buy some food. I nicked that
rope with my knife in so many places, I'm surprised it didn't break
before the hanging."

"How'd you know it would be me they would be hanging?", I asked.

"I didn't. I figured if anyone needed hanging it was that bunch of
sorry Yankees and not anyone they brought in. You got off your horse
with those pliers sticking out of your pocket and they were itching
to get some work out of me", Dan explained. "No one seemed to know
who you were or where you lived and I could of got shot looking for
you, so I stayed put and waited until I could find out."

I shut the gate behind us after Dan passed through. We'd never met
but being predisposed to be friendly since we were family had us
talking up a storm by the time we reached the ranch. I learned he was
twenty, just between my age and Jake's. The three of us favored each
other in our features and coloring even though he was no kin to Jake.
Jake  had the light brown hair like a bay horse, I was a lighter
honey hue, and Dan's hair had a touch of red tones. He was bigger in
build than Dan, but an inch or so shorter and being the youngest, I
was shorter still at just over six feet tall and hadn't filled out at
all. Jakes eyes were as blue as sapphires, Dan's were green, and mine
were hazel changing from blue to green. Jake said he knew I was up to
mischief when my eyes were deep green. He said he could tell if I was
lying because I'd have gold flecks in my eyes and they'd always be
green then, too. I couldn't hide nothing from Jake even if I wanted
to.

Dan was sure surprised when he got a look of the houses and buildings
at the place. Paw Paw, my mom's dad, had brought a bunch of Mexicans
up from San Antonio to get the buildings built while my dad and dad's
dad were still back in Milam County.  They were low slung, built of
flat field limestone. The walls were thick to keep them cool inside
and they had red tile roofs. All they had in common with the wood
houses back in Milam County was porches all the way around the
houses, or so Dan told me.

He helped me carry in the supplies and then we went about skinning
and butchering the buck. I fixed a brine barrel to soak most of the
meat overnight and carried in a rump section to the cook house to
put  on the stove. I added some jowl from the smokehouse to the pot
to flavor the lean venison, along with some potatoes, onions, and
carrots from the root cellar. Dan brought his things in and we took
the horses to the barn, unsaddled them, and gave them a quick
brushing which the mule especially loved. We turned them out into the
lot and gave each animal a ration of feed.

I led Dan to the pond made by the spring and we shed our clothes to
get the dirt from the ride off of us.  It weren't about getting
clean, it was about boy's play with splashing and dunking, and
wrestling around in the water. We tired out after a while and Dan
grabbed me around the waist to hold me still. He turned bright red
realizing we both had hardons, but I was used to that. It happened to
Jake and me all the time and I knew just the trick to make them go
down. We climbed up on the drying rock and spread ourselves out in
the evening sun. I scooted lower and took Dan into my mouth. He
spurted his juice in my mouth after just a few minutes, then turned
and did the same for me. I could tell he'd never done it before, but
he learned fast and I spurted, too. We walked back to the house in
just our boots, carrying the dusty clothes. I spotted Jake with about
thirty head of cattle and a few calves coming toward us and turned to
get the gate open to one of the lots near the barns.  The dogs guided
them right through it and I shut it behind them.

"I got to get this dirt off me, too", Jake exclaimed, "Who do we have
here, Jim?"

"Dan Johnson from Milam County", Dan answered.

"Turn around", Jake instructed him. "Ok, show me your butt", he
added. "Yep that's Dan, I remember that strawberry birthmark on his
ass from changing his diapers when he was little. You growed into a
right pretty man there Dan", Jake commented.

I carried Jakes things inside, stopped at the barn and got the saddle
off his horse, turned him in with the others and gave him some feed.
At the pond I found Jake and Dan passing a bottle of whiskey between
them as Jake washed off. I took a sip as the bottle came round to
me.  "What in the hell happened to your neck?", Jake bellowed when he
finally looked up from the bottle.

"They hung me over at the town springing up by Comanche Camp. I
should say, Dan hung me, cause if he hadn't I'd be dead and buried
now."

Jake climbed up on the drying rock beside us and listened to the tale
as we passed the bottle until it was empty. Dusk was settling in when
we finished and the walk back to the house was a walk in shadows. The
orange ball lit the west and peaking over the eastern horizon was a
rising full moon.

I lit a lantern and brought the venison roast to the kitchen after
checking to be sure it was done. "I was going to fix something
special but I kind of got hung and didn't get home in time", I told
Jake. He and Dan had the table set and a lamp blazing in the center.

"I might not have got back today or might have got here yesterday and
this roast looks special to me", Jake answered. A loaf of sour dough
I'd made the day before soaked up the gravy. When we'd eaten our fill
the dogs were staring through the door wanting their supper. Jake
pushed away from the table to care for them. He skinned out three
rabbits he'd shot on the way home and split each one giving each dog
half a rabbit. He salted down the skins and rolled them up to stretch
out the next morning. I brought out a bottle I'd bought and we sat on
the porch, me playing my mandolin, Jake his guitar, and Dan joined us
with a harmonica as we passed the whiskey around taking sips between
songs.

Jake and me had built the bed frame from pecan wood we cut at the
river and it had taken a years feathers from all the foul to fill the
feather bed but it was built for two big men to share and easily held
a third man. The long day and the whiskey took their toll and we
headed to bed early in the evening. I took the center spot and we
woke in a jumble the next morning. I crawled over Dan to get the
coffee started in the kitchen, and then I took my morning piss off
the porch while the fire got it perking.

I stirred up a batch of drop biscuits and slid them into the oven.
Then I cut off enough slices of bacon from the side I had in the
larder to make our breakfast and started it frying. When the biscuits
were brown, the bacon was finished and I cooked us each three eggs,
over easy. Last, I made bacon gravy from the remaining
drippings. "You won't have to make water gravy anymore now Jim", Jake
announced over my left shoulder. "I got some Jersey milk cows and a
bull in that bunch I brought home. I didn't aim to make us dairymen
but thought we'd save a few more orphan calves if we had a few. We
can milk what we need for the house, though."

We had thirty odd Nubian goats I could milk if I needed it, even one
with three teats, but they were ornery as hell and I didn't like
milking them. "I saw an Angus bull in that herd, too", I commented.

"Yeah, we'll take a look when we get about in a bit. I need to get
those bulls separated as quick as I can", Jake replied. Our herd was
mostly mixed breed between longhorns and Hereford we'd brought from
Milam County before I was born and was referred to locally as
shorthorn, but the Hereford tended to get pink eye and Black Angus
wouldn't get it. We'd bought Angus bulls for five years now and
except for a small herd of pure longhorns we kept, most of our cattle
were black. If rustlers were to hit us everyone within two hundred
miles would recognize our cattle at a glance. We had them shipped by
train from Iowa and drove them back to the ranch. Cattle brought ten
dollars a head on the hoof and other ranchers couldn't afford
breeding stock.

Dan passed through the kitchen grabbing a cup of coffee at a trot
asking where the outhouse was. After returning, while he filled his
plate, Dan told us he hoped to stay with us and make a life here. He
saw no future for himself back in Milam County. We welcomed him but
Jake cautioned him to reserve his decision to stay until after he'd
been with us a while. We were sorely lonesome, even together, and
needed his help on the ranch as well.

Eighteen years of work had built the ranch and Dan got the full tour
as we tended to the morning chores. We had every type of foul in runs
to keep them safe from foxes and varmints. The goats were matched in
number by a flock of sheep kept mostly for the wool. Hogs kept the
smoke house in use on a regular basis, but cattle were the only
practical money producers.

We cultivated a few small fields for grain to feed and our own use in
the house and for feed, and kept a good size garden that produced
abundantly in years with enough rain and spared the blight of
grasshoppers that came most years. In those bad years planting an
excess assured us enough to get by and hogs could always eat what was
over produced. If the produce couldn't be dried or stored in the root
cellar, we only had it when it was fresh. We made a few barrels of
wine from the wild grapes each year and tried our hand making home
brew from the grain. With another mouth to feed the work involved
still wouldn't be a burden.

There were pecans to gather from the river bank in the fall, wild
plums and blackberries ripened in May, and Paw Paw's orchard gave us
peaches, pears, apples, plums, and figs as they ripened. Two bee
hives gave us some honey and a plot of ribbon cane got turned into
syrup and molasses. All we needed to buy was kerosene for the lamps,
salt, spices, and some store bought clothes from time to time since
neither Jake or me could sew. We could turn out some fine buckskin
work, but denim made better work clothes. We made our tack but bought
saddles and boots. Distilling whiskey was one thing we never
considered. Our family didn't hold with drinking as we grew up and it
seemed that if we had more than a bottle or two around from time to
time, we'd be tempted to stay drunk and no work would ever get done.
Dan got a look at everything close by. The two empty houses that had
been my grandmothers' homes were draped in dust covers and shut up
tight. If they'd been swept, dusted, and mopped with the coverlets
folded and put away, they'd have looked like the old ladies had just
left for a while and would soon return. Only the graves by the old
oak tree said different.

Jake cooked lunch and as we got up from the table when lunch was
eaten, he announced he had another short trip to make. He'd take the
wagon and return in a day or two. Dan and me hitched up the team and
waved him good bye as he headed south east instead of north west,
this trip, away from the ranch. "I was going to gather firewood this
afternoon by the river but with the wagon gone why don't we go
fishing?", I asked Dan.

"Sure thing", he told me. "Is there a swimming hole down to the
river, too, or does it run shallow?"

"Where we're going it has a long deep stretch but you can't do no
diving there. That old muddy red water is so thick you can't see your
hand just below the surface. The current moves boulders around when
it floods and you'd likely break your damn neck diving in", I
answered. I got me a trot line strung across the channel and a little
john boat for checking it I keep on the bank tied to a tree so it
won't get washed away." I got Dan to scratch old Jack's ears while I
put the pack frame on his back in case we had more to carry home than
we could handle. I tied a few toe sacks on the frame, one holding my
stink bait and a can of worms dug up by the chicken run. Jack carried
our poles, too, and we carried a shotgun and a rifle to get any game
that we ran on to. The mule and the dogs followed along behind us.

"I like this country, Jim", Dan told me as we walked. "In Milam
County I could spend a life clearing trees and digging out stumps to
make one field and here you just need to sink a plow and cultivate it
a few times to have one. Making open pasture for grazing is the same
work. Some stumps in pasture cleared by your great granddaddy are
still there and ain't rotted out yet. I just thank God we had sandy
dirt instead of black gumbo or I'd have spent every year of my life
up to now dragging a sack and picking cotton."

"We can grow it dry land here, but there ain't no help around to pick
it or even keep it hoed clean. Cattle take work, too, but between the
lots to work them and the help of the dogs, me and Jake manage just
fine. You'll make it an even easier job of working them. I'm glad you
came, Dan."

I got the little boat in the water and started running my line. Dan
was anxious to wet a hook and fished the bank as I ran it. I pulled
two big channel cats from the line and eight dead turtles. I had to
cot off the turtles heads to work the treble hooks out and kept the
carcass to feed the dogs after we were back at the house. Dan pulled
in a good stringer full of bass, crappie, and perch. I never used my
pole. The catch we had was plenty for supper and we'd smoke the rest.
We swam for an hour or so and started back to the house. Dan got a
couple of rabbits for the dogs as we went. Old Jack followed along
behind us carrying everything, just like the dogs.

Granny's barn cats smelled the fish and came running when I started
cleaning them. They were all the short tail Manx breed and we rarely
fed them so they would stay busy catching rats and mice. Their
numbers never seemed to change much. Either horny tom cats were
killing the litters or coyotes were eating them, or they just didn't
produce many kittens. I'd split the turtle shells with an ax for the
dogs, and Dan skinned out the rabbits for them, but the cats got the
fish cleanings. They'd even clean up what the dogs left of the
turtles. The dogs and cats maintained a healthy respect for one
another. I even suspected a bob cat might have got mixed into the
breed of cats. They were big cats and if a dog got too close they'd
arch their backs and growl, not mew or hiss like you'd expect.

We salted the fish a little and laid it out to smoke. I basted some
of the venison with honey and laid it out, too, then I added a few
sticks to the smokehouse fire and we carried the fish we were having
for supper back to the house. I poured us some wine to go with the
meal. After we finished I went down into the cellar twice more for
pitchers of home brew. We drank more whiskey along with the beer and
went to bed early, while we could still walk.

"Can we do it again, Jim?", Dan asked as we lay in bed.

"Do what, Dan? Help each other out like we did yesterday?", I
countered. He nodded a yes and I said, "We can do that any time
you're a mind to, Dan. I like it a lot and you sure taste sweet."

I scooted down on the bed and taking him in my mouth, I began to bob,
reaching his short hair with my nose on each plunge. "I was afraid
I'd gag", Dan began saying, "but you taste really nice." He proceeded
to tell me the story of his lifelong best friend and how they helped
each other out all the time. "I always gagged when I tried to take
him in my mouth. We worked it out and I gave him my butt. We fucked a
lot, but he called it 'corn holing'. He let me fuck him, too. I left
because he got married. I couldn't take seeing him all the time,
knowing we'd never help each other out again. I think I loved him.
Looking back now, I think the difference in the taste is we're cut
and he wasn't."

I pulled off his prick. "I ain't gelded and neither are you", I
protested, "I got everything God give me still intact."

"Not quite, Jim. Your dad's granddad was the preacher back home. Boys
are born with skin covering their knob and hanging down. He
circumcised us all right after we were born saying it was a covenant
with God", Dan explained.


"Damn. I wouldn't like nothing covering up my knob. I never seen any
pricks but mine, yours, and Jakes, so how would I know about that?",
I asked. I went right back to work and Dan got so caught up in it he
couldn't answer me. After he spurted a good gullet full for me, I
asked, "Can you teach me about fucking? Jake and me never did any of
that."

Dan went to the kitchen and returned with a small crock of lard. We
practiced at fucking, between breaks for sleep, until nearly noon the
next day. My butt was sore and I was sure his was, too.

Lard is the stubbornest thing in God's creation to get off of you. I
knew from past experience when I packed meat from the smokehouse into
the larder in the kitchen, that only hot water with plenty of soap
and repeated washings would remove it. Cool water with soap just
spread it around into an even coating all over. The water heated in
the stove tank would never be enough to get me and Dan clean. When I
fed the chickens, I stacked the firebox under the boiler full of wood
and fired it up. Paw Paw had bought this big iron boiler that took
eight oxen to haul to the ranch, when it was built. We had a gravity
feed line made from Mexican clay pipe that carried water to the
houses. Iron pipe brought hot water from the boiler into the washroom
and a line to the kitchen, but we used it mostly in the winter when
we couldn't bathe in the pond and do our washing there.

Mexicans really were ahead of us in a lot of ways. They dug a well in
the cellar of each house in case the spring dried up. Then they had a
cistern down there that stayed full and closed up for the worst
possibility of the well going dry. Then there was the wash room. It
had a basin lined with glazed tile that would hold four people or a
month's washing at one time. There was an outhouse seat built into
the room that carried the waste away to a buried pit, too, so we
didn't have to venture out in bad weather. It tended to get a smell
if we didn't lime it a lot when it was in use, so it stayed shut up
most of the time, too. Dan and me had a long soak and a good wash
when the water got hot. I washed out the basin and put all the dirty
clothes in there to soak to take advantage of the hot water. Later on
after some scrubbing, we rung the clothes out and carried the bunch
to where the spring water left the pond and rinsed them out. Another
ringing and they were hung on the line to dry. We'd have to find
something besides lard to slick us up for fucking.

Long about sunset Jake came driving in with a loaded wagon and a boy
riding beside him. Behind him were four wagons, loaded full and eight
more men. I had a big pot of beans cooked but knew we'd need more
than that to feed this many hungry men. Dan went to help unhitch the
teams and I went to the smokehouse for some meat. Boiled cabbage,
smoked ham, biscuits, and cornbread made the beans a meal.  The men
headed to the pond to wash up after supper, but I told Jake about the
hot water, thinking there would be enough left in the boiler. He and
the boy made use of it. Sleeping arrangements were the men in our two
spare bedrooms which had two beds each, and the boy bunking with us
in the big bed. We could have sent the men to the hay loft or opened
the grandma houses, but doing it this way was Jakes idea and more
practical.

In the bedroom Jake gave a quick explanation before we turned in. He
pulled some strings to get the town moved from the Comanche camp and
bought more land to buffer us from outsiders as well as a large piece
for the Comanche's to use as hunting ground during their annual stay.
The boy was Mexican who spoke only a little English, was sixteen, and
had been being abused in the town where he was staying. We now had a
ranch hand. The other men were to survey and put in fence lines
around our perimeter, where it was still open to the prairie.



(continued in chapter two)