Chapter 11
The four escapees had ingeniously escaped by climbing into burlap sacks which were hauled into a truck driving from the prison at Hanford to Abilene on a Saturday night. They were to be left at a food warehouse and there loaded with dry staples like rice and flour and beans which then would be trucked back to the prison by Monday noon. Ben Salters, who was an excellent judge of distance and had done a great deal of automobile driving in his day, had been able to estimate at about what point they should break out of their sacks and leap out of the truck. They managed this feat about three miles before the city limits of Abilene.
"What we gotta do, boys," Ben announced, "is get rid of these prison rags and get ourselves some civie duds. And some food, and a good shave and bath, so we look like regular citizens."
"I dunno," Mack Bolton dubiously scratched his head. "Don't you think the bulls would be combing all over Abilene for us guys when they find us missing at checkout for chapel tomorrow?"
"Sure they will. But if we get ourselves dressed up nice and fancy, maybe find some hair dye and a car, we can hide out maybe in a farmhouse and not be bothered. That's why I picked this place, because there are a couple of old farmhouses about a mile apart along this stretch of the road. Now let's us guys beat it to the north, get down into that ravine, and on past that little range of hills. Seems like when they drove me here to start serving my time, I remember a house that's nice and hidden from the road."
The four men hurried down into a ravine and up over the range of hills, and then were lost from view as they trotted, crouching low to avoid detection, towards the distant light of a little farmhouse.
Nelda Ames was washing dishes, and wishing that her husband hadn't taken it into his head to drive over to Buford to see his folks this weekend. She was sick and tired of being marooned out here where Christ had lost his shoes. He had taken the only car they had, and she sure as the dickens wasn't going to walk three miles into Abilene. Besides, even if she got there, there wasn't much to do. She didn't care about the movies, and the boy friend she ought to have married had pulled up stakes four years ago-just six months after she had settled down with Dave-and gone to Salt Lake City. He'd dropped her a postcard from there about a year later, and he'd found himself a chick and was getting married to her. It was a darned shame the way life turned out, Nelda Ames reflected. What she wouldn't give to be in a big town instead of this Godforsaken prairie. Even granting that Dave was a fair enough farmer and made a living for them, it was terribly lonely out here in the midst of nowhere. And she knew she was good-looking enough to rate more than this in life. They didn't have any kids, and it was a good thing, too. Dave didn't especially like them, and he wasn't all that good a lover in bed. Not the way her real boy friend had been.
She closed her eyes for a moment and thought dreamily of the times she'd had before she'd finally said yes to Dave. There'd been that night in the hayloft in his Dad's barn, where he'd chased her, they'd started giggling, and all of a sudden they'd looked at each other, and the next thing she knew, her panties were down around her heels and she was being fucked to a faretheewell. Oh God, how he'd been able to love her! Nothing like Dave at all. Dave was a journeyman fucker compared to her boy friend. Dave got on top and then it was over in about two minutes and Dave was snoring five minutes after that. What sort of life was this for a woman?
Nelda Ames had every right to ask that question. She was only twenty-eight, with comsilk-blonde hair cut in a short pageboy, heavy-lidded dark brown eyes, a straight nose with very thin wings, a small ripe mouth, dimpled chin, and a tawny complexion. Her body was breath-taking. Even in the cheap flour-sack dress she had made for herself, there was no gainsaying the long lovely legs, with the gradually swelling calves, the full ripening thighs that merged into a juicy, lushly rounded bottom whose tightly spaced cheeks undulated when she walked, and a pair of high-set uptilting widely spaced titties to match. They still didn't need a bra, even at her age. And all those charms were being wasted on Dave. He did it in the dark and he didn't even care if she was naked. He just hauled up her nightie and let fly. She was really regretting this weekend ... and she was going to regret it a great deal more for his having abandoned her on this particular Saturday night.
"Now keep low and don't make a sound, you guys," Ben Salters whispered to the trio huddled around him. "I'll go in first. I don't see enough lights to tell me there's a guy at home. If there is, I'll get his attention and you, Mack, brain him with that rock you picked up in the ravine."
"I gotcha," Mack Bolton grinned cruelly. He was thinking of his wife and her lover, and how he had settled their hash once and for all.
"Okay, here goes," Ben Salters chuckled. He moved quietly toward the back door, saw a screened-in porch off to one side from the kitchen, and then knocked softly on the kitchen door which was ascended to by three wooden steps. Apparently the porch connected from a side room just off the kitchen, but there wasn't any entrance into it at all, unless you cut the screen.
"Who's there?" Nelda's voice was husky and low, a bedroom voice for fair, although her husband Dave Ames had never really noticed.
"I caught hurt ma'am, and I wonder if you can help," Ben Salters called. He grinned to his cronies, waved to them to hide at the side of the wall of the frame house, and not to show themselves till he gave the sign.
"Just-just a minute," Nelda exclaimed. Ben Salters grinned as he heard the key turn in the lock and then saw the door draw slowly open. Nelda peered out, still holding the knob warily. "Who are you?"
"I wonder if your man's home, lady," Ben Salters gasped as if he were in pain. "Somebody's got to drive me to the doctor in Abilene."
"I'm sorry, but my husband's not here and-what are you doing-stop it-help-oh my God!"
Nelda Ames had said the wrong thing, and Ben Salters had lunged forward, banging open the door and sending her stumbling backwards. The other men had poured into the kitchen, and now the frantic farmer's wife cringed against the table, her eyes wide with terror, her magnificent titties rising and falling with agitation.
"Well now," Ben Salters licked his lips, "Looks like to me we came just in the nick of time, eh, boys? The little lady's husband has gone and beat it and here it is Saturday night and things oughta be lively around the house."
"You-you're convicts!" Nelda Ames gasped, seeing Ben Salters' gray uniform with the arrows marking the legs and the sides and the chest.
"Go to the head of the class, baby," he snickered. "What's your name?"
"You get out of here. I'm not going to help convicts-" she began.
"You're going to help us turn into something else, baby. Now what's you name, or would you like me to bash your face in?" Ben Salters growled. Mack Bolton approached, now lifting his hand and showing the horrified Nelda the rock which his fingers curved around, ready to use as a lethal weapon.
"It-it's N-Nelda-Ames." she quavered. "For God's sake, don't hurt me!"
"How long is your hubby going to be away, baby?" Ben Salters demanded as he approached her. His eyes were feasting on the tumultous rise and fall of her beautiful bubbies, and the lovely tawny skin of her bare arms. She was wearing cheap cotton stockings, but even in those the lovely sweep and curl of her calves was enough to make a man's prick harden ... particularly when that man had been in prison and didn't know what a woman looked like, hardly.
"Till tomorrow night." Nelda Ames quavered. "I-I'll give you money, but for God's sake please go! I-I'm afraid."
"Well, boys, the little lady's afraid," Ben Salters guffawed. "Ain't that a crying shame! Mack, I guess you're so homely you scare her. And Pete and George, you guys need a shave bad. Okay, Nelda, suppose you give us some chow to start with. And nake it snappy if you don't want a good going-]ver."
"I-I'll get you something." she promised, her teeth chattering, as she went to the refrigerator. The four men watched with glittering eyes at the sight of those undulating hips and bottom-cheeks. They exchanged a significant glance. Whatever else they took from this farmhouse tonight, they would take Nelda Ames's chastity as well!