“Get that thing away from me!” Brazos yelled.
I crossed my arms. “I thought you liked cock,” I said.
Brazos sent me a death look. “I like cock, but that ain’t no rooster, that’s a fucking killer dinosaur. When he pecked my ankles he was going for blood! He’s a killer, I mean, look at the spurs on that thing!”
“Yeah his job is to guard the flock. Look at him puffed up right now, he’s doing such a good job.”
“Aw Christ, I’m sorry, just call Bucky off!”
“First, you’re gonna listen to me,” I said sternly. “You listen to me, and you listen to me good. If I catch you with Derrick again, or find out you snuck off with him, I’m going to geld you first and then have that rooster chase you off my property. He just turned 16. You want him, you wait. You understand me?”
“16?” Brazos gulped. “Aw hell, he said he was almost 18-”
“That doesn’t make it better! He’d still be 17. That’s still underage! Are you tryin to lose your balls?”
Brazos winced.
“He came on to me first!”
“Brazos, you fucking moron. He’s 16. Looking at a tile floor makes him horny. There ain’t a lot of boys out here his own age for him to mess with -and I’m working on that- but that doesn’t mean you take advantage of him. Laws still apply out here.”
Brazos whined. He watched the rooster patrolling around the AC unit. “Fuck I’m sorry. Don’t send me to jail. I’ll behave, I swear, I know that was wrong- god my leg’s are cramping. Come on, call off that rooster Danny, please. My ass is burnin’ out here in the sun.”
“You’re going to go into town and work out your urges you hear? You come back on Monday and act right, or I’ll fire you. I don’t want to, cause you’re damn good at your job. But my family comes first.”
Brazos hung his head. He looked ashamed. “Yeah, I understand. I’m sorry, Danny.”
“Good.” I walked over and picked up the rooster, tucking him under my arm like a football.
“How on God’s earth did you do that?” Brazos gawked. “That’s a bird of satan.”
“Aw Bucky? No he’s such a sweet baby.” I stroked his neck feathers. “Oh you’re all worked up. You protected our family, you big strong boy. Let’s go get you a treat.”
Bucky clucked.
Brazos sheepishly climbed down from the AC unit. The other ranch hands who heard the commotion had come over and were snickering at him. His face was bright red. We watched him shuffle into the barn, hand over his crotch. A moment later we heard a yell. “Where are my pants?”
“Ask Rambo.” Jose said while laughing.
Brazos came out of the barn with his shirt in his hand. He squinted into the sun at the paddock across the dirt lot, where a large bull was staring at him, wearing Brazos’s jeans over his horns.
“Oh are you fucking serious!”
We burst out laughing.
As Brazos went over to him, the bull trotted away, sending everyone in peals of laughter. Brazos was great with the horses, but that bull was temperamental and only liked Jose, who had raised him since a calf.
While Brazos was trying to negotiate with Jose to get his pants back, I took Bucky to get a treat and put him back with his ladies.
Now, I had to go talk to my son. He was too old for a bare bottom spanking over my lap, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need one. I was going to have to do something about him. There’s a lot in the Farmer’s Almanac about raising corn, but not a lot about bringing up a twink. Good lord, was there a summer camp I could send him to? That boy needed to be away from sweaty shirtless men for a while. I think that was just the heart of the problem. He needed to be around sweaty shirtless teenagers his age.
I went inside the house. As I was washing my hands, I heard the stairs creak. “Dad? Did you kill Brazos?”
“Wanted to geld him, but no. And he won’t be bothering you no more, and you won’t be bothering him.”
“Oh,” was all Derrick would say. He sighed in relief. “I’m glad you didn’t kill him. I’m so sorry Dad, I didn’t mean to get him in trouble. He was just shirtless-”
I dried my hands. “Shirtless. Christ, shirts, the cause of our all problems. Derrick, go back upstairs and lie down on the bed in your shorts.”
He knew exactly what that meant. “Oh no,” Derrick groaned.
Running a ranch was complicated and messy; often it was just not fun. The days I was in college and spanking people for fun seemed like a long time ago.
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Captions are fictional.