World War Two had rarely considered effects in such remote areas as the farming region of Rexburg below the western slopes of the Grand Teton Mountain range in eastern Idaho in 1943. The most noticeable effect was throwing the area back into the nineteenth century in transportation. Because of war-time petrol rationing, gas was being conserved for farm tractors and everyone had reverted to wagon and horseback except for people like old Doc Williams, whose home-visit services were absolute necessities, or like the town's middle-aged lawyer, George Watson, who was too important to travel by anything by car.
The other most prominent visual effect was the absence of able-bodied men, all of whom were off fighting the war in Europe or East Asia. This had put the area on minimal-services and mostly women workforce standing. The males to be seen were the elderly and/or absolutely necessary, such as Doc Williams; the young males too young to go as soldiers yet, such as Billy Bond, the eighteen-year-old farm boy just then riding the family's old mare into town to gather supplies; or his eighteen-year-old friend, Rob Denny, serving a vital community need by keeping the town's stable open for his absent soldier father; and those who had connections to avoid military service, such as the lawyer, George Watson, who was almost too old to be called up anyway; or the infirm and already back from the front, such as the dark, handsome, sultry-looking cowboy giving Billy Bond a hard look from the porch of the town saloon as Billy rode toward the stables.
At eighteen, both Billy and Rob were old enough to enlist and they both wanted to, if for no other reason that it would get them out of eastern Idaho. But both were the family's only sons who weren't serving already, and the military wouldn't take the last son not serving--at least not yet. They were especially strict about this in farming country, where the crops had to be raised and harvested or the nation would die.
At the stables, Billy came off his horse and led the mare to the feed box, where he knew his friend, Rob, would let the horse feed while Billy was in town. The stable was Billy's first stop, anyway, as he wanted to consult with Rob on their school assignments, which both of them received from the town's teacher to work on at night when they weren't working. The young men's lives were packed with responsibility, as any teenaged boy had to manage to be a man during this time of thinning of the male population. They hadn't been able to attend many classes for two years, so it was taking them longer to earn a high school diploma.
Billy and Rob had grown up together and they were the best of friends and shared each other's secrets. Among those secrets were that, as they were growing into manhood, they both had admitted to each other that they were more attracted to men than to women. That they both were attracted to dominant men, though, meant the there was little sexual heat between them--just understanding that they were both in a secret place that they couldn't openly acknowledge in Idaho farm country.
They had both reached an age, though, that they were able to recognize what some other men in the area saw in them that was arousing. This had been alleviated in some degree by the growing absence of able-bodied men over the past two years, but there remained a few men, mainly the town's lawyer, George Watson, who was in his early-fifties, somewhat pudgy, but highly self-assured and ruggedly handsome. Rob, being in town every day, had already succumbed to him. It wasn't just the sex. Going with George had money and support included, commodities all home-front families needed extra of in wartime. Rob's family was large and lived on the edge. He was easy pickings for men like George, given his sexual interests.
Billy, living on a small farm some ten miles out of town, was still in the "standing off" phase with the lawyer. This, of course, only made the lawyer's interest in him greater. Once Rob was conquered, Billy was the big challenge. And Billy had not discouraged Watson's attentions.
Billy was not really attracted to Watson, but there were so few other options available here in the middle of the war as the teenager started into full manhood and development of his sexual needs and desires. It was probably just a matter of time, unless the situation changed, before the lawyer's advances prevailed. He was a ruggedly handsome man for his age--just a bit too well fed. If the war went on much longer, wartime conditions might bring a change there. Both Billy and Rob were smaller-than-normal eighteen-year-olds, but they were well-muscled for their ages because they both were manual workers. They both were handsome, blond boys, willowy, smooth, and tanned of body and slim of hips--just the ticket to get the juices such as Watson's flowing.
Billy heard them in the loft of the stable, but that didn't stop him from climbing the ladder and peeking over the top and watching for several minutes. He wasn't ready for Watson at the moment--he wasn't sure that he ever would be--but Billy was ripe for being covered by some man, so he didn't shrink away from watching Rob being fucked by the lawyer. He knew that Rob would want to talk with him about the encounter later.
Rob, wearing a flapping open flannel plaid shirt and his boots but otherwise naked, was on his belly on a hay bale, his head and arms draped over one end and the sides and his booted feet pressed into the floor on either side of the bale. The lawyer, fully dressed, although his suit jacket off and on the floor next to the hay bale, and his fly open, his thick erection out and half buried in Rob's ass, was mounted on Rob's buttocks, his hands gripping the youth's hips, and was riding Rob hard.
Part of the reason Billy didn't pull away immediately was that this was the first good look he'd gotten of the lawyer's equipment. Was the size of it in erection arousing? Yes, it was, he had to admit. The man was built like a bull.
As he fucked, Watson, sensing they weren't alone, looked around and saw Billy peering at them from the top of the ladder into the loft. It wasn't lost on Watson that Billy didn't withdraw as soon as he saw what the two were doing--that he remained there, watching. The fuck of Rob thus turned into an exhibition for the more elusive young man the town's lawyer wanted to get to.
Watson pulled out of Rob's ass momentarily and turned his pelvis toward Billy to give the teenager a good look at what the man had to work with. What he had was one of his best weapons. He laughed to see Billy's eyes open wide. The man took the erection in hand and wagged it at Billy, pleased to see that Billy didn't turn his gaze away. He gave Billy a "you're next" grin. Billy involuntarily returned the smile and it was only then, when Watson seemed more interested in connecting with him than with the youth he was fucking, that Billy pulled away and Watson turned back to Rob, causing the stable boy to cry out when the man's cock was thrust up inside of him again and the pumping resumed.
Later, as Billy moved about town picking up the supplies his mother had sent him into Rexburg to pick up, he sensed that Watson was always there, somewhere, watching him. At one time, Billy saw the man talking with the dark, sultry cowboy who had watch Billy ride into town. The cowboy was younger than most men still in the area. He was tall and lean, but muscular, dark-haired, with a perpetual tight, curly mustache and beard and piercing dark eyes.
The characterization that came into Billy's thoughts when he first saw the young stranger was "foxy," which was ironic considering what Billy later found out his name was. That someone that young and fit was still here and not fighting overseas was explained by how the left arm of his flannel shirt was pinned. His left hand and forearm were missing. He was one of the few men his age in the area who could be listed among the infirm. In his case, though, disabled for war didn't seem to be the same as being incapable. The man looked fit and was dressed as a working cowboy. He obviously was able to work, which in this farming country at haying time meant that he was a man in his prime--at least as much as a one-armed man could be considered in his prime.
As Billy was preparing to mount his mare and leave town, he saw that the man was being engaged in conversation by George Watson and that the two were looking at him. Were they, Billy wondered, talking about him? Whereas he had heretofore been able to stave off the advances of Watson, Billy wasn't at all sure that he could resist the foxy-looking cowboy if the man was bent in that direction. Despite the missing forearm, the man was a hunk--and there were few hunky options available in eastern Idaho in 1943 with so many of the younger men away at war.
As he rode back to his family farm, Billy's thoughts were mixed. He kept pulling up the sexy-looking cowboy, but when he did so, the size of the lawyer's massive erection being wagged at him floated up to intrude.
* * * *
They got out to the field early in the morning, as soon as it was light. They could tell a storm was coming later in the day. The hay had been cut, but now they had to bale it. The storm that was coming promised to ruin any hay on the ground and not yet baled. It would be best to get it under cover as well, but that was too much to hope for on this day. They were delayed an hour getting started because the tractor wouldn't start. Old Man Jordan from the next farm was fetched by Billy to tend to the tractor, while Billy's mother, Frieda, and the hired girl, Katie, called a hired girl but she really was with them because she had no other family and was given room and board in exchange for work, not money, went over to the Jordan's farm to tend to ailing Mrs. Jordan to relieve her husband of that chore. He couldn't help the Bonds bale because he had his own fields to tend to before the storm hit.
Billy's dad and older brother were off to the war--the dad in Europe and the brother in the Pacific, so any crops they were going to get in this year would be those Billy, his mother, and Katie could harvest.
The tractor not completely fixed but sputtering along, they got the baler going behind it by 8:00. They'd already lost an hour. There was no way they'd get this field done before the storm hit, but they had to save what they could. They needed the hay. So, they got started, Katie driving the tractor, Billy picking the hay up as he walked along beside the baler and stuffing it in at the side. Frieda, his mother, walked behind, wearing the heaviest work gloves she could find to save her hands, and poked the wires into the bales as they came out the back. This was normally a two-person job, but there was only one, so that had to do. What Frieda could manage determined how fast the tractor could go. She had to be very careful because this was an easy way to lose a hand.
Occasionally, they all looked up at the sky at the gathering clouds. There was no way this was going to get done before the storm hit. It was coming from the west, from the coast, and wasn't likely to last long, but it was projected to be intense. There was a barn dance at the Davidson's that night and Frieda was determined to take Billy and Katie to that. She was bent on the family getting its pleasures as it could no matter the wartime conditions and the sacrifices that had to be made on the home front. "However bad we have it, we're not getting shot at like Charles and Junior are," she said.
Around about 9:00, Katie called out, "Who's that?"
"I don't know," Frieda answered. "If he needs a meal, though, he'll have to wait until we're done in the fields. I wonder what a man that young is doing... Oh, I see." That's when she saw the pinned-up shirt arm of the man riding up on a horse. "I wonder..."
Billy looked up to see that it was the foxy young man he'd seen talking with George Watson in Rexburg the previous day.
"Howdy, Ma'am," the man said, as he approached them on his horse. He raised his hat with his right hand, still holding the reins with that. The left arm hung at his side. "It looks like you could use some help with that baling."
