Author's Note:
I have been badgered, implored, propositioned, and downright threatened with eternal damnation if I didn't write another chapter to this story. So here it is. Let's see how things are going with Peter, his mom Margaret and his aunt Millicent, down on the farm shall we?
Chapter 3 -- Bad Things Sometimes Happen to People We Love
Ramon Ruiz and Daniel Clutterbuck sat on the porch of the bunkhouse smoking and passing a jug of moonshine between them.
The farmhand bunkhouse was located well away from the house and was self-contained with its own kitchen and domestic facilities. William Balfour had moved it to its current location when he married his young pretty wife Margaret Ryan. He didn't want coarse and licentious farmhands roughhousing and carousing near his bride in case they got any ideas.
William Belfour had gone missing several years ago and was not missed by anyone. He was an angry cantankerous drunk who had walked out on his wife and son leaving them to run a five hundred acre farm on their own. Well that's what most people thought. At the time there was conjecture that foul play might have been involved but neither the sheriff nor anybody else was interested in following up that rumour.
Peter Belfour did an excellent job of running the farm; far better than his father had. He took care of his mother and his aunt and they had a pleasant comfortable lifestyle for Midwestern farm folk. In 1975 grain prices were peaking and another bumper crop was ready to be harvested so Peter had taken on extra seasonal workers to assist with harvest.
"How old you think that whippersnapper is who runs this farm?" Daniel Clutterbuck inspected the cigarette he had just rolled.
"Can't be any more than his twenties," Ramon took the proffered cigarette and put it in his mouth.
"Something strange about this place. That young buck and those two fine women, all alone way out here on the prairie. You'd think those women would be bored to death. He keeps them cooped up in that farmhouse like prize fillies," Daniel began to roll another cigarette for himself.
"He don't talk about them and he sure don't want us talking about them neither. I overheard some of the regular hands say they are his momma and his aunty. Sure didn't really appreciate the lecture he gave us about staying away from the house and the women," Ramon lit his cigarette and then took another pull on the liquor bottle.
The barracks was supposed to be dry. Farmhands were forbidden to drink liquor, forbidden from approaching the farmhouse and strictly forbidden from engaging with the women.
Ramon and Daniel were used to such rules and restrictions. They were common on farms where seasonal workers were employed. The farmhands were often drifters, moving from job to job, following the harvests and the roundups and their only credentials was their word.
Which was just as well for Ramon and Daniel as they had both met in prison and were only recently released.
Ramon had broken into a house down in a well to do suburb of Oklahoma City intending to rob the place. When he had found a husband and wife and their eighteen year old daughter asleep in their bedrooms he had tied up the husband and raped the women. When the police came they only reported the burglary and not the rapes because of the shame. Rather than savagely ravishing the women Ramon had taken his time with them, and both women had eventually succumbed to Ramon's gentle foreplay and coital expertise. The husband had been forced to watch his wife and daughter being willingly defiled right in front of him.
Daniel Clutterbuck had been imprisoned for robbing a liquor store. He had also committed a string burglaries and robberies across the Midwest for which he was yet to be incriminated.
"Yeah that young buck sure has an attitude," Daniel lit his cigarette, took a drag, and blew on the glowing tip.
"Someone should teach that boy that he needs to respect his elders. No need for him to look down on us," Ramon agreed with his compadre.
The truth was that Peter had been reluctant to take on the two drifters but bumper crops across the Midwest meant that there was a shortage of seasonal workers so Peter had reluctantly hired them both. He didn't like their attitude but they worked hard in the fields and that's all that mattered.
Peter had gone into town that morning in his new olive green Chevrolet pickup; a gift to himself after last year's bountiful harvest. He had banking and business to attend to and a Co-op meeting to attend which would take up most of the day and the women would join him later that afternoon for an early supper after a well-earned shopping spree.
Peter's mother Margaret Balfour was only seventeen years his senior at forty two. Meg was long-legged, slim-waisted, and big-breasted. Her black hair was worn in a bob with bangs just above her big blue eyes and she preferred the conservative fashions of the fifties rather than the modern bright-coloured shifts and skirts, patterned tights and low-block heels that were now popular.
His aunt, Millicent Ryan, was three years older than her sister and had run away from home to the city as soon as she could. She'd married an advertising executive and had lived the high life, looking down her nose at her family as if they were country hicks and conveniently forgetting where she came from. Millie, as she preferred to be called, had a similar build to her sister but her hair was dyed blonde. Her dress style was totally different to her sister's; more modern and very trendy. She liked seventies chic fashions. Millie's had been a coquette who was serially unfaithful to her husband until he found out about her affair with a younger man and had thrown her out of the house penniless leaving Millie with no one else to turn to but Meg.
Both women wore heavy makeup reflective of their preferred fashion and whilst they were more than capable of dressing in denim jeans, work-shirts and boots to help with the chores or riding stock horses around the farm, when they were in the house they were always dressed to feminine perfection. They both liked to dress that way and Peter insisted on it.
Peter might be younger than them both but Meg's son had voracious appetites that both women were required to fill.
As soon as Peter had left for town Ramon and Daniel had settled on the porch of the bunkhouse and pulled out their bottle. When the acting foreman had bristled Ramon had flashed his knife and the foreman had backed off and taken the other workers with him out into the fields.
Ramon and Daniel knew that they would be fired as soon as Peter returned and the foreman ratted them out. They didn't care. There were plenty of other farms that would be willing to take them on because labour was scarce.
"How much you think we got comin'?" Ramon studied the tip of his cigarette.
"Two week's wages. We aint getting' a bonus that's for sure," Daniel sniggered.
"I reckon we can at least quadruple that with what we find in that farmhouse," Ramon postulated.
"The women are still in there. I can see their car," Daniel pointed at the farmhouse with his cigarette.
"They get on the phone to the sheriff before we clear the county we gonna get caught for sure," Daniel added.
"Then best we make sure they don't," Ramon eased himself out of chair and flicked his cigarette into the dust.
"What about that Mexican maid? I seen her around the yard sometimes," Daniel commented.
"I ain't fuckin' no chola border-cunt. If I want that I can always fuck my sister," Ramon snickered.
"You comin'?" he smiled down at his partner.
"Yeah... I'm comin'" Daniel grunted as he pushed himself out of the rickety chair.
