Chapter 12
Nelda Ames, coerced by fear as well as the hope that by cooperating with the four convicts she might escape injury, had prepared an appetizing supper which was just now being finished. She had made a tasty lamb stew, hot biscuits, and there was a big deep dish apple pie in the refrigerator, with good strong black coffee.
"Christ," Mack Bolton swore as he shoved back his pie plate after a second helping, and patted his paunch, "best chow I've had since I went to stir This broad can sling a mean skillet."
"She sure can," Ben Salter agreed. Then, with a wink ot Mack and the other two men, he added, "Seems like we really ought to pay her for all the trouble she went to."
"Oh, it-it was no trouble at all, really," Nelda Ames uttered a nervous little laugh which had no humor in it whatsoever. "I-I was going to have to eat supper anyway, so all I had to do was set four more places, that's all."
"Ain't she a nice accommodating bitch?" Mack Bolton chuckled, picking his teeth with a dirty fingernail and leering at the shrinking blonde farmer's wife whose eyes shifted here and there, scared as she was, trying to read from the expressions on her four unwanted guests' faces what humor they were in. "Your hubby's a lucky guy, baby."
"Th-thank you," Nelda stammered, her face crimsoning. Mack Bolton's eyes boldly studied her neck and then her breasts, which were still rising and falling quickly against the flower sack dress which she had contrived into a rather attractive costume. Only trouble was, it was a dark material, so it hid from his eyes what she had against her bare skin. He had a fierce hunger growing in his cock. He remembered how his wife Mae used to take care of him on a Saturday night, after a hard week's work. God, could she shag, till she went and brought another guy into their place and did it right before his eyes on his own bed. He hadn't put his cock into a good hot tight pussy in so damn long he almost had forgotten what a pussy felt like. He was willing to bet that Nelda Ames could really take care of a man when he wanted his ashes hauled, no two ways about it.
Before Mack Bolton's wordless and insistent scrutiny, the handsome blonde young matron finally shoved back her chair and rose, stammering, "I-I'll do the dishes and get them out of the way."
"Great," Ben Salters winked at the other three. "Clear the decks for action, I always say. Then we can be ready for a little entertainment."
"En-entertainment?" Nelda Ames echoed, as she turned back, her eyes widening with astonishment.
"Why, sure, baby, we ain't going nowhere tonight. So it's up to you to put on a good show and keep us happy," Mack Bolton sadistically remarked. "Ain't that right, George?"
George Budrow nodded his head and grinned, revealing the empty spaces where his front teeth had been. Nelda Ames shuddered, and her heart began to pound wildly as she began to understand the leering greediness of their gazes, all now fixed unrelentingly upon her. But she tried to bluff it out, for it was the only thing she had left: "I'm afraid we don't have much. There's the TV set, and my husband's got a portable phonograph and a few records, but that's about it."
"Hell, baby, we get radio and TV in stir," Mack Bolton jeered as he rose, shoving back his chair, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his convict trousers. "That's not entertainment. What we need is a good hot piece of ass. You look like you could give it to a guy, too, sister."
"Oh no-please-n-no," Nelda Ames panted, shrinking back against the sink, her hands clutching the end of it to support herself, her thighs beginning to tremble as their eyes glittered and narrowed with lustful intent.
"Hey, you know something, you guys?" Mack Bolton asked. "I don't think our little Nelda is real interested in putting on a show for us. Now why do you suppose is that?"
"Please-please don't hurt me-I-I've done what you wanted-I'll give you money-anything, but please get out of here!" the attractive blonde farmer's wife gasped, tears welling to her eyes.
"Let's go into the bedroom with this broad, maybe she likes privacy. After all, the kitchen ain't no place to fuck," Pete Pullman grinned obscenely.
"That's a great idea. Come on, honey, show us the way," George Budrow grinned.
But Nelda Ames turned frantically around, wanting to escape. Anticipating her maneuver, Mack Bolton lunged at her and caught her by the wrist, dragged her back until with a cry of terror, she stumbled against him. He put his other hand against her bottom, and he growled, "Next time you try that, sister, you'll sure wish you hadn't! Now get into that bedroom, and make it damn fast!"
Nelda Ames began to cry, bowing her head and hiding her face in her hands. Mack Bolton sniggered cruelly and, raising his right hand, delivered a sonorous swat to the young woman's right bottom summit. With a wail of pain and surprise, Nelda Ames stumbled forward, as the four men gathered around her, escorting her in mock gallantry to her own connubial bedroom.
"Where does your hubby keep his clothes, Nelda baby?" Ben Salters demanded.
"In-in the closet in here," Nelda piteously sobbed, as she stumbled across the threshold. There was a large wide double bed, a padded leather couch against the wall, a chest of drawers, and a straight-backed chair. The shades were drawn, and there was a quilted comforter on the bed.
"Take a look in the closet," Ben Salters told Pete Pullman, who gave him a scowling look, but obeyed. Swinging open the closet door and pulling the light cord, the gray-haired convict glanced inside, then exclaimed: "Hey, four or five good suits. Looks like they might fit us all. Except for maybe you, Mack, you've got a belly on you, guy."
"You'll get a shot of lead in yours, you bastard, if you keep making cracks like that anymore," Mack Bolton snarled.
"Take it easy, you guys, let's not fight among ourselves. We all agreed that Nelda here has been a real nice girl and given us a fine supper, and we're going to thank her for it and show her how obliged we are, now, aren't we?" Ben Salters said with a mocking smile on his lips.
"That's sure right," George Budrow fervently agreed, licking his lips and staring at the shrinking and trembling young woman who had to lean against the edge of the bed for support.
"What say you start by peeling off that lousy dress. Damn if it ain't made out of a flour sack," Mack Bolton said disgustedly.
"Oh-what-what are you going to do to me-oh please, don't hurt me, don't touch me, I'll do anything else you want, I-I know where my hubby hides some money, I'll give it all to you, but just get out and leave me be!" Nelda Ames pleaded.
Mack Bolton approached her and, with a cruel grin, plunged his left hand into her short pageboy, then yanked it, tilting back her head, and at the same time delivered two vicious slaps against her left cheek which made her scream and twist. "When I tell you to do something, bitch, you hop to it, see?" he growled. "Want a couple of more?" Again he drew back his hand.
"Oh don't, don't hit me, please, I-I can't stand pain, please-please give me time to-to know what you want," Nelda Ames tearfully blurted. On her fine tawny skin, the angry red blotches of Mack Bolton's palm burned fiercely.
"I'll give you time, all right, baby," he leered at her. "I'm going to count five, see, and if you haven't got that lousy sack peeled off by then, I'll really start working you over. If you don't think I can, you ought to know what I did to my wife when I caught her cheating on me. Now get moving. One ... two ... three-"
With a frightened little cry, Nelda Ames stooped, seized the hem of her flour-sack dress and tugged it up over her head and shoulders, let it drop to the floor from nerveless fingers, then cowered back against the wall, her eyes huge with terror and glistening with tears.
"Wow!" George Budrow gasped, "look at that pair of knockers the bitch has got on her!"
Under the dress, Nelda Ames wore only a cheap white cotton bra held snugly against the uptilting gourds of her luscious titties with a narrow bandeau that hooked at the back, matching panties, and nothing more. The day was too warm for stockings, and the dry Kansas air made her want to wear as little as she needed to against her tender skin. That was another thing she missed; in a big city, or at least one like Salt Lake City where her boyfriend had gone, she'd take more pains to make herself pretty, go to the beauty parlor once a week. But it meant borrowing Dave's car and driving into Abilene and spending a lot of money which Dave wouldn't hold kindly for, because he was a tight one with a dollar. And whenever she asked him for some money for dress goods, he'd always chuckle and say that she could make do with the sacks he brought home from the feed store, because after all they weren't going calling on anyone and he knew what she looked like under the sack. And now ... and now these four horrible convicts were going to know that, too.
"Say, we gotta draw lots to see who's gonna fuck this juicy broad first," Mack Bolton tugged off his convict coat, and then his undershirt, baring his fat, hairy chest. Nelda's eyes grew bigger and bigger with terror, as she huddled herself against the wall and the edge of the bed, her arms folded around her panting breasts, the very picture of female anguish at bay.
"Yeah, we gotta do that," Ben Salters agreed. "Nelda, baby, you got a deck of cards in the house somewhere?"
"Oh please, please don't touch me-oh I can't-please, I don't want to-won't you let me be-won't you be kind and take pity on me-I-I fed you, and I'll give you money-and-" she sobbed helplessly.
But Mack Bolton, with a hoarse little laugh, again plunged his left hand into her hair, yanked it and applied two more stinging slaps across her already blotched cheek, drawing cries of pain from the sufferer. "Just make up your mind you're gonna get shagged, bitch, and that you're gonna be nice about it, see?" he menaced, drawing back his hand for another blow. "Now where's that deck of cards?"
"In-in the drawer of the d-desk in the 1-living-room," Nelda wept poignantly.
"Go get it, Pete," Mack directed. The gray-haired convict glared and was about to reply, but thought better of it, and left the room. The other three men stared greedily at the sobbing, cringing Nelda in just bra and panties. Her calves were elegantly shaped, sleek and slim as they rose above the ankles, ripening into breathtaking curves as they reached the full resilent apex of their contour. She had dimpled knees, and her thighs were equally lovely in their rounding proportion, from slender grace to womanly fullness, and then the appetizing juncture at those ripe rounded, tightly spaced bot-tomcheeks.
"Here's the cards," Pete Pullman announced as he hurried back into the bedroom.
"Okay, you guys, we'll shuffle them up, and then we'll each cut. High man gets first crack at Nelda's crack, haw, haw haw!" Mack Bolton sniggered. Then, to the terrified young woman, he ordered, "You better start peeling your duds off bitch, because by the time we find out who's gonna be first in bed with you, you better be Goddam good and ready, see?"
And when, numb with horror at the fate which awaited her, the unfortunate blonde matron stared at him, unable to speak, he applied still another slap against her already darkeningly blotched cheek, drawing a wail of pain. "Don't you understand English, you dumb bitch? Take off that bra and those pants, and do it fast!"
Sobbing pitifully, Nelda Ames reached behind her with trembling hands to find the hooks and eyes of the brassiere, which at last fluttered to the floor. The other men had begun to crouch over the bed, while Pete Pullman shuffled the deck like an expert.
"Who gets first cut, though?" he suspiciously queried.
"I think us lifers ought to have first try," Ben Salters amiably interposed. "You and George get out of stir a helluva sight faster than we ever will. I'll go first, since I was the guy that found this place."
"I guess that's right," Mack Bolton said with a surly look. "But make it snappy, and I get second cut."
Then he turned back to stare at the almost naked, whimpering and trembling blonde captive, who had crossed her arms over her heaving naked titties, biting her lips in despair and helplessness. "Get those pants off!"
Nelda burst into hysterical sobs as she stooped, inserted her trembling fingers inside the waistband of the cheap cotton panties, and began to tug them slowly down. She tried to prolong it as much as she could, but when Mack Bolton took another step towards her, she uttered a frightened little cry and frantically yanked them down to her knees, then let them fall to her ankles and stepped out of them. She was naked except for her sandals.
"Holy jeez," he breathed, licking his lips avidly, his chest heaving with his lust. Already his prick had begun to jab against the crotch of the convict pants, and its formidable length made poor Nelda shudder as she realized that she must service four brutal, desperate men who, sex-starved as they must be from their sojourn in prison, would spare her nothing.
She was so cowed by his glare that she didn't put her hand over her pussy, which she was dying to do. It was extremely thickly furred, with a light brown-ish-hued fleece that disappeared beyond her crotch and on towards the groove which separated the succulent round cheeks of her behind. It completely hid the quivering lips of her cunt. Her titties rose and fell violently now, and Mack Bolton's beady eyes lifted to contemplate those treasures. The aureola were narrow and of a dark coral tint that was delicious against the tawny sheen of her naked skin. The nipples were crinkly and pert, for she had never given suck to a child. Soft little curls of light brownish hair grew in her sweating armpits, and her body was a voluptuary's delight.
"Come on, Mack, it's your turn to cut," Ben Salters exulted. "Me, I just turned up a jack of diamonds!"
Mack Bolton reluctantly strode to the bed, reached for the deck, hesitated a moment, then lifted part of it and turned up a nine of spades, swore disgustedly, "Son of a bitch anyhow!"
"I'm next by seniority," Pete Pullman growled as he reached for the deck. He turned up a three of hearts and swore even more loudly than Mack Bolton, who had begun to guffaw.
George Budrow now came forward, and made his cut. His was a king of spades. "Whee!" he crowed, holding up the card for all to see including poor whimpering Nelda. "I got first dabs at that sweet piece of cooze!"
With this, he yanked off his convict coat and then his pants, his undershirt, and unbuttoned his shorts, revealing an elongated penis whose length was rather more than usual, though the breadth was not overly fearsome. "All right, Nelda baby, get your ass onto that bed!" he commanded. "You other guys, you wait your turn, and give me fucking room!"
"Oh please don't, oh don't do it to me, oh my God, I don't want to," Nelda wept.
"You put up any more squawks, bitch," Mack Bolton snarled at her, "and I'll spreadeagle you on that bed and tie you up and gag you, and then I'll let you have the belt on your bare ass until the blood runs down your legs, see? Now get into that bed and get ready!"
"Don't give the poor girl such a hard time," Ben Salters joked. "You're sore because you're third in line for her crack!"
"Yeah?" Mack Bolton growled. "I might just decide to use her other end, that's what, after you guys butter up her bun for me. Me, I like a nice dry tight hole to fuck in. Okay, Nelda, are you getting into bed or do you have to be helped?"
"Oh no, I-I'll do it-oh don't hit me, don't hurt me," Nelda whimpered. She stumbled towards the bed, put her knee on it and clambered onto it, as all eyes greedily devoured the pendant fruits of her firm-tipped titties. George Budrow followed, kicking off his heavy workshoes and flexing his toes in the dirty cotton socks, his prick throbbing with animosity and anticipation.
With a sob, Nelda Ames lay down on her back, arms at her sides, and twisted her face to one side and closed her eyes as if to remain oblivious through this coerced surrender of her naked person. George Budrow sniggered as he knelt between her legs, his eyes roaming her quivering nakedness, and then he put out a hand and playfully patted her stomach. Nelda's belly button was wide and shallow, and her belly was smooth and sleek, and it shivered under the obscene caress which intimated the beginning of her martyrdom. A stifled little whimpering sob escaped her clenched lips.
"Boy, I'll bet this bitch is squirmy as hell, way down underneath her skin/' he turned to regard his cronies. "Living way out here in this goddam prairie, married to a farmer, most like as not, he probably don't even give her what she needs. Ain't that right, Nelda honey? Well, you just keep those sweet legs open, and I'm gonna prong you so good you're gonna want to have me around the place reg'lar!"
"Can the chatter and start fucking, you dumb jerk," Mack Bolton growled irritatedly.
"You just gotta wait your turn, Mack," the lanky towheaded convict grinned. His left hand was caressing Nelda's belly, and now his right hand moved over the thick curls of her crotch, his fingertips playing with her private hair, delving slyly to feel the twitching pink lips of her crevice. "She's dry as hell," he announced. "I'll oil her up, you watch and see. Okay, Nelda baby, here goes for the first crack at your twat! I'm gonna give you a real good ride, baby!"
So saying, he stretched himself over her, and Nelda uttered a groan of heartrending despair to feel his body merging with hers, to feel his hard long thrusting, ripping prick gouge for the secret cavern of her womanhood. She winced as he prodded viciously against her groin, and then his fingers dug into her hips as he steadied her, groping with the tip of his stiff prong for the secret orifice. At last, after several essays, he found the outer labia of her slit, and pushed forward. Nelda bit her lips and twisted her face to the other side, her face crimsoning, tears seeping out from under her quivering, closed eyelids, her nostrils dilating and shrinking erratically.
Suddenly, with a massive thrust, the towheaded convict rammed his prick into her vaginal sheath. Nelda uttered a groan and squirmed and arched, despite herself, for the rasping, brutal dig exacerbated the tender tissues of her soft quim. "See? She's starting to wriggle, she feels what I've got to hose her with, you guys," George Budrow exulted.
He thrust forward still more, with a gasp, "Cris-sake, but she's tight! Almost like she was cherry! That hubby of yours sure don't grease you up proper, Nelda baby, but don't you worry none, we will, for fair!"
He wriggled forward on her, slipping his hands under her buttocks, and Nelda again groaned as she felt herself crammed up to his hilt, his hairs grinding against hers, in lubricious cohesion.
"Boy, is she tight and hot for fuckin'!" George Budrow breathed. His lean fingers sank viciously into the round resilent bare buttocks of the victim, and Nelda Ames groaned and turned her face again to the other side, clenching her fists, trying with all her might to remain passive and unyielding, so that this atrocity would pass and leave her unscathed.
"Looks like a cold potato to me, Georgie," Mack Bolton taunted. "Now me, if I was cuking her, she'd really be squalling and bucking until you'd hear that mattress creak from here to Abilene! Looks like to me your cock isn't big enough to wake her up!"
"Oh, yeah?" the towheaded convict angrily flung back, "I'll make her give down her cream, you watch! Now then, Nelda baby, let's you and me fuck!"
With this, he drew himself back, then crammed viciously to the hilt inside her cunt, drawing a stifled gasp of pain from the unfortunate naked captive, for the violent friction rasped her tender tissues. Mistaking this for response, he continued the furious gait, cramming back and forth, his sinewy buttocks tightening and jerking spasmodically as he fucked her. He pinched her bottom to elicit more cooperative enthusiasm, but all he drew were sobbing gasps and groans and tears as Nelda tried to remain impervious to her rapist. Nor did the rape take long, for the youngest of the four escapees had little self-control after so long a denial from the sweet clasp of pussy, and at last with an angry cry, he thrust himself to the balls and exploded within her, drenching her with the spatter of his gism.
Then he pulled out, and got out of bed. "She's a dead fish," he proclaimed angrily, "I bet none of you bastards can work her up good."
"Get me a towel from the bathroom, and be of some use even if you don't know how to fuck a bitch," Ben Salters chuckled. "I like a dry pussy because I can make it as wet as I like when I blow my wad. Hurry up with that towel!"
"All right, all right, keep your shirt on," George Budrow angrily exclaimed as he walked into the bathroom while Ben Salters now stripped down to his shorts and socks, kicking off his workshoes, and, unbuttoning his shorts, displayed a broader if not quite so long prick, with gnarled, very hairy balls. "This little toy will wake the bitch up, you watch, you guys," he boasted.
He knelt on the bed between Nelda's twitching thighs, as George Budrow tossed him the towel from the doorway of the bathroom. Bending, he began to wipe out the stickied lobbyway of her quim, making her gasp and blush furiously, while tears poured down her flushed cheeks. She had dug her nails into her palms, her eyes were tightly closed, but her lips were trembling convulsively.
"Get ready, baby, I'm gonna make you hit the ceiling," Ben Salters bragged. Lowering himself, he easily found the moistened gateway, and deftly inserted his prick, working it in slowly, inch by inch. His hands cupped Nelda's titties, and began to squeeze and fondle them, until at last he was in her to the hilt, and his mouth crushed over hers, demandingly exerting his male mastery over her helpless, palpitating naked body.
He fucked her slowly, but he did not bring her to climax as he had promised he would; once again, the long denial of prison life had attenuated his self-restraint, and after two or three minutes, he uttered a shout of anger and exploded his lust-lava deep into Nelda's womb.
It was now Mack Bolton's turn, and he was already prepared, having taken off even his shorts and leaving on only his socks. He took the towel which had been flung to the foot of the bed, roughly swabbed her stickied cunt, flung it to the floor, and then knelt down between her thighs. "This time, you're gonna do a little of the work, you crummy bitch," he told Nelda Ames. "You're gonna put your arms around my neck and hold on tight, and you're gonna kiss me good, hear? Otherwise I'll take a belt to your ass and that's not the only place I'll lay it onto, savvy?"
Nelda could not speak, but only nod, tears blinding her dilated eyes as she stared at the hairy, fat, but cruelly muscular naked convict.
"And I want to feel those legs of yours wrap over my ass, too, when I'm shagging you," he added. With this, he edged himself forward until just the tip of his prick pressed between the pouting, moist, twitching lips of Nelda Ames' quim, and then he put his right forefinger into her slit and found the dainty nodule of her clitoris. He began to stroke it very slowly and gently, and suddenly Nelda Ames opened her eyes and uttered a moaning sob: "Aaahhh! Oh don't do that-oh don't, please don't!" while at the same time her hips executed a convulsive swerving movement.
"My God, wouldja look at that," George Budrow gasped incredulously. "She shook it like a real two-dollar whore that time, she did. What the hell did you do to her, Mack?"
"You young punks don't know nothing about screwing a dame," Mack Bolton bragged. "Okay, Nelda, mind what I told you now, hug those arms and legs over me when I'm reaming you out, bitch." With this, he sank himself to the hilt inside her cunt, but kept his right forefinger between their bodies as his left hand gripped her by the hair and yanked at it, tilting her face up, taunting her features into a mask of helpless agony. Then loudly he began to suck and kiss one of her nipples, which began to glisten and to stiffen and to darken under this osculatory veneration. His finger had returned to the lodestone of her life, and was plying it with delicate touches. Nelda's face turned this way and that, and then she uttered a cry of "Oh God, oh stop it, ooohhh!" and suddenly her arms and legs locked over the fat hairy murderer as she gave up her veneer of ostrich-like imperviousness, beginning to feel for the first time since her marriage the wakening of deep-rooted emotions in her matrix.
Mack Bolton's fleshy lips fused over hers, and his tongue dug and gouged between her lips, as he slowly fucked her, while his finger kept up its persistent tickling. Nelda writhed and groaned, sobbing and gasping, babbling incoherent words, as her eyes rolled in their sockets, and her body jerked and jumped each time his prick retreated from its moist tightening haven.
Gritting his teeth to hold himself back all he could, Mack Bolton pursued his expert siege on Nelda Ames's emotions, till suddenly, her head rose from the rumpled pillow and she uttered a raucous cry just as he thrust himself in for the last time and felt himself shatteringly release all his pent-up gismic burden. Her body writhed and bucked and squirmed under him, her legs shifting over his buttocks, her nails gouging his shoulderblades, as her face twisted to one side, her eyes mad and staring, her nostrils flaring and shrinking, in the proclamation of her own unwilling but coerced orgasm.
Pete Pullman was next with her, but the scene had excited him so that the unfortunate young woman's ordeal was mercifully terminated. But that was only the first bout, a kind of "warmup," as Mack Bolton salaciously put it.
For now the unfortunate blonde captive heard herself ordered by the brutal murderer, "Now, you little bitch, now that you've got the hang of it, you're going to give us seconds. And you're going to suck us till we're hard and ready for your twat! The same order we drew the cards in, we're gonna let you French us good!"
George Budrow let out a cry of pleasure as he scrambled onto the bed and, crawling on his knees up over Nelda's torso, reached her face and dangled his limp, greasied cock over her mouth. "Suck it, you bitch," he panted hoarsely.
But Nelda Ames revolted: twisting her face away, her teeth clenched, she refused, even though her younger assailant applied three or four harsh stinging slaps alross her cheek.
"Lemme handle this, Georgie," Mack Bolton rasped. Unwillingly, George Budrow clambered off the moaning victim, and Mack Bolton seized her by the hair, as he seated himself on the edge of the bed, then dragged her pitilessly across his lap, shrieking in pain and trying to tear away the clutch of his cruel fingers. Clamping his left arm around her waist, he raised his fleshy right hand and brought it down with a furious smack on the ripest curve of her naked right bottomcheek, leaving a fiery red outline of his palm. Nelda Ames uttered a yelp and kicked her legs in the air, looking back with frantic eyes. A second spank followed on the other cheek, and then Mack Bolton began to spank the naked victim furiously, alternating on each bounding, tightening, round, resilient satiny globe, until the angry flame of fustigation marred the smooth tawny sheen of her bare flesh.
"Oww-oh don't, it hurts-Aiii! Oh please stop, oh my God, it hurts me-I can't stand it-Aarrrhhh! Oh please, don't spank me anymore, I can't stand it, I can't-Owww!! No more, I-I'll do what you want-oh stop, you're hurting me so dreadfully-Eeyaahhhrrr!!"
By the time he had administered about forty hard sonorous slaps over her bounding and jerking naked bottomcheeks, Nelda Ames hysterically shrieked for mercy and agreed to perform the odious task.
And then in turn each man knelt over her face, while, at Mack Bolton's mockingly taunting order, she was obliged to reach out her hands and grip her partner's buttocks, as she raised her head to put her lips to the limp and greasied organ so that she might harden it for the task of ravaging her anew.
All the convicts had "seconds" in that way, and in the same order in which they had cut the cards. Poor Nelda, her resistance and her pride destroyed by the humiliating spanking, and by the helpless violation of her body, experienced two more orgasms before the night was done.
They bathed, shaved, and then appropriated her husband's suits. Mack Bolton found a hidden wallet in one of the pantry jars, with about eighty-seven dollars, and appropriated it. Then, at dawn on Sunday morning, after a quick breakfast, they left the Ames house, with Nelda gagged and bound and locked in the closet and the key flushed down the toilet.
They had found some of her blonde shampoo tint, and used it, and this coupled with new clothes and a bath and shave made them almost unrecognizable as the grimy, hardened, desperate convicts who had escaped scarcely twenty-four hours ago.
Ben Salters was making a plan of action. "This is summer," he reasoned, "and there'll be lots of tourists driving from back East on through Kansas and on their way maybe to California. What we've gotta do is to get ourselves picked up by a family, so we won't be dead marks to identify. And we've gotta keep in hiding until we find a family like that. I figure we oughta do it by early afternoon if we're gonna get out of this area at all. Now there's a broken down old cabin over by the highway, couple of miles east. We've gotta head for there and stay hidden and just watch the lay of the land and see what goes on. Once we get across the State line, we'll be okay."
And even as they planned, the car bearing the four Martins was nearing Abilene.