Archive;'Odessa Ranch 7'{Ian Jacobs}( MM, sm, ws, scat, bd )[ 7 of ? ]
Odessa Ranch
Part 7, The Bunkhouse
When a hand is either asked to leave, or decides to leave on his own, he meets with the man-himself. He is then given a cashier's check equal to $2,000 for each year he served on the ranch. They do not know that when they get there, and since they are escorted immediately off the ranch, this information never gets back to the hands still in the bunkhouse. The man-himself uses interest on static accounts to pay for these departures. He also gives them a name and number for references if they try to find work. They are also given the option of a destination. If they choose, the man-himself buys a bus ticket and Buck takes the man to the bus station in Odessa. Field slaves get $500 for each year, and novices get nothing-they obviously haven't spent long enough on the ranch for it to matter.
Tapping
Buck looked at data from his computer profiles. Choosing which field slave becomes a hand isn't as simple as seniority. The ranch isn't a union shop, it isn't a meritocracy, it is built on whim and the shifting, diaphanous politics that will create. Buck had an excellent memory, he knew what impressions he had of each slave as he entered and whether or not that impression needing editing after they'd been active a while. Technically, there is no rule that stopped Buck from going into the toilet and tapping one of the honey boys to be the next hand-he knows enough to know that would cause a breakdown in the already chaotic structure.
He pulled up the list of trustee slaves; there are 8 for the fields, one for the stable, and one for the kitchen. He checked the age of each, brought up the mental image of their looks; in short order he decided that none of them would do. Whim pushed its case more forcefully than reason and logic. He expanded the search to the field slaves who have been active for at least 2 years. In the list of ten additional names he came to one that makes his cock stir-whim elected a soybean slave called Mike. Mike required only one lash when he first arrived before he emptied his bowels. He was also Buck's kind of pretty. Mike was about a head shorter than six feet, weighed 160 and was toned the way Buck liked-a nice thin coating of fat beneath the skin that gave him a natural look, not a chiseled one, he looked made of flesh, not stone or clay. His hair was almost white and hay dry because of the sun, his skin was the color of stressed hickory and jade colored eyes. Buck knew Mike very well; Buck had made several trips to the toilet and to his shack.
He went behind his office to the small attached stable. He cared for his own horse. He didn't want a horny city slave fucking around with his horse, he loved the stallion, Texas, too much even to risk poor treatment. He saddled Texas and rode out to the soybean fields.
Mike was handling the compost quickly and efficiently.
"Mike." Buck's voice was almost tender, not the normal skeptical tone he used for everyday business on and off the ranch.
"Sir yes sir."
Buck dismounted and tapped Mike on the shoulder. "Go to the toilet and get the last honey boy and bring him to your trustee, then go wait outside my office. You're moving to the bunkhouse."
"Sir yes sir."
Buck got back on Texas and went to check on the herd.
If you were not part of the system for 4 years as Mike had been, you would probably think Mike would cry or be overjoyed at his promotion. At this point, what Mike heard was Buck's orders and he would do exactly that. He knew what tapping meant. He knew he was going to get to sleep in a bed and would wield the whip for a change, but knowing it and accepting it are very different things. He had three tasks to perform and from years of whippings and practice, those tasks took up all his attention.
He went to the toilet and did what he had to. He removed the chain from the last slave. Then he unattached each of the others, one at a time, and moved them into the hole left. He brought the silent slave, who was walking very slowly on wobbly legs that hadn't held his weight in some time, to his trustee.
"Sir, Buck said I was to present this slave to you and go to his office, sir."
"Did he tap your shoulder?" The trustee, six six and more muscular than most (John had been a trophy slave for a puny master, who wanted very muscular slaves before, deciding on the ranch). His tone was almost desperate.
"Sir yes sir."
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." He grabbed the new slave by the collar and dragged him to Mike's former square of soybeans. "G'on, get," he yelled back at Mike.
"Sir yes sir."
Mike walked to Buck's office. He knew the news was good. If they want you to leave, they just take you. If you are tapped, you get clothes, a whip, a horse, a bed. The specifics began to prick his hidden emotional store and he smiled and felt like running to the office, but just decided to take his time, go slow, something he hadn't done in years.
Mike waited for Buck to return. Buck rode Texas quickly into the stable, but took his time unsaddling the horse and giving him a bucket of oats. His demeanor was always blunt-to-harsh as would be imagined for someone of his position. He walked past Mike without looking and simply said,
"Follow me."
"Sir yes sir."
"From here out you don't use that for anyone but the man-himself if you ever see him. Sit." Buck pointed at a ratty arm chair. Mike sat, silently. Any slave there for even half as long would be able to follow any directions not made impossible by physical law, so the commandment not to use sir was just one more order. After just six months in most cases, slaves are even stripped of habit-their world is usually as changeable as it is static, so they have little to count on, so the foundations for habit are not sound, so neither is habit.
"Do you remember your shoe size, Mike?" Buck looked at the naked man in the eyes. Though as tough as the stereotype demands, he liked this part especially. It was the one act of kindness he allowed himself; and none of the tapped slaves failed to recognize it. He looked directly into their eyes, he said their names. No obscenity, no title of "slave," just their name. The reactions fit into one of two categories, and despite people being different, the reactions were just minor variations on the two categories: they either had tears well up and sniffled, or they just smiled with a specific joy that took years of torture, and the promise of removal, to create. Mike fit the second; Buck preferred that response, the tears tended to make him a little squeamish.
"Ten and a half."
Buck opened a wardrobe. It contained mainly boots, some kind of used, some new. They ranged in sized from 9 to 12; if a tapped slave had larger or smaller feet, Buck's trip to the tack store would require a pair of boots along with the hat. He opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of well worn cut-offs (Buck was practiced enough to be able to gauge a slave's waist measurement without a tape) and a pair of socks. He put the boots, socks and shorts on his desk.
"Kneel." Buck knew what hat size Mike would need, but this was part of the ritual. Mike knelt; Buck took a tape measure and wrapped around Mike's crown. "For your hat. Get back in the chair."
Boots, jeans, socks could all be shared among the hands if they really wanted-there were no proscriptions about it. But the cowboy hats were another story. Each hand received a new one when tapped. His goal was never to need another-weather was the only element considered beyond their control. If the hat wore out before weather would typically indicate, the hands punished the offender themselves. More than anything else, the hat was the purest symbol of their authority.
Initiation Rite
Before Buck went to Odessa to drop off the hand who decided to move on, and to pick up Mike's Stetson, he gave Mike the initiation ritual. It was intended to prove that he could make the leap from slave to hand; that he could go from servitude without question to a role of leadership. As with most things on the Ranch, the transition from slave to hand had to happen quickly, or Buck would demote the novice hand.
The rite was actually simple in design, but making it happen would determine whether or not Mike could remain a hand after the next day. The specifics were that he had to choose 4 field slaves. The four slaves would be reigned and yoked just as mules would and their task was to move bales of hay from one part of the Ranch to another. The only rule was that Mike would not be able to touch the hay in any way or help the slaves at all, except with his voice and his lashes.
Mike's task now was to find 4 men. He knew of the initiation since others he'd worked with had suffered through it, so he immediately knew he didn't want to make any of his "friends" undergo it with him-there are pragmatic reasons for this as well as emotional ones; you cannot expect someone in bondage not to grow affections for others in his situation, but there is a more pragmatic reason: those he knew might not react well to him and embarrass him (familiarity breeding contempt like it can). He knew he would be getting a horse, so he started in the stable.
He didn't have his hat yet, but he was wearing shorts which meant he out ranked the slaves in the stable. They knelt at attention when he entered. They were silent. All but one of the horses were out on the range. So he was able to see the mare that would be his. He also guessed by proximity which slave tended his horse. He would be perfect because he would be caring for Mike's horse daily, he might as well learn now just how severe he could be if displeased.
"Come with me." He grabbed a bit of rope from the stable and hooked it to Nick's collar.
"Sir yes sir." Nick hadn't heard enough varied talk at the ranch to have the slightest idea what was going on. Only Ed knew, and he knew from experience. He just laughed a little as Nick tried to keep pace with Mike who pulled him roughly out of the barn.
Mike ordered Nick to sit at the base of the whipping post. He tied the rope around the post. "Just sit tight faggot."
"Sir yes sir."
Nick had no idea what to think. His couple of weeks spent away from the honeyroom did not help reinforce the fact that whatever analysis he came up with, he would likely be wrong. He knew pain and humiliation would be part of it, but that is the way it worked on the Ranch. Pain, humiliation, boredom were the three things that they could count on every day. But his mind still raced.
Mike had no clear idea of how to fill out the mule team. His only goal was not to use anyone he knew, even those he disliked, especially those he disliked because of the potential power they would have. He walked towards the fields. He would have to take the remaining 3 from here so he basically went shopping. He walked past the first patch of corn. Attached in that familiar, ass-up, exposed and painful way that Mike knew well, was Seth. If he thought logically, he would likely have gone deeper into the corn or any other patch for that matter and gotten a slave not prone to fucking up. But he noticed two things about Seth that made him pick the German. The first was the bandana. This would be a way for him to tell his new mates that he wasn't some sort of pussy who was still thinking like a field slave. The second was what Nick saw. Seth had a magnetism that just made people want to be with him-since being with someone at the Ranch meant one had dominion over another, at this point Seth only saw the submissive end (not having enough seniority to do it any other way).
Mike bent down to separate Seth's collar from the concrete slab. He noticed movement in the corn. He stopped what he was doing.
"You, come out here."
Ty came to the edge of the corn but did not step onto the hardscrabble. "Sir yes sir."
"Get this slave up and both of you come with me."
"Sir yes sir" in stereo.
At this point it was a matter of timing. He needed 4 slaves, now he had 3. Lunch was in the process of being doled out so there was cross movement from the fields to the kitchen. He just grabbed literally the first one he saw and took them to the whipping post. Each slave sat when ordered, each at a different side, and all were bound through their collars to each other around the post. Mike went to Buck's office to wait for what came next.
Mule Team
By habit, Mike stood in Buck's office at attention until the man returned. He was wearing clothes for the first time in almost 4 years but that mantle didn't change his behavior.
"Kneel." Buck said evenly when he returned.
Mike knelt without hesitation and remembered not to utter the mantra of his slavery. Buck put the plain, brown Stetson on Mike's head. Before Buck took over administration, the crowning took place after the initiation. Buck was confident enough in his choices that he changed the order and removed the public display of the formality: most hands simply couldn't give a shit (Buck knew because as a hand he didn't give a shit and most of his peers expressed the same sentiment). This also removed whatever limited possibility that the slaves involved in the initiation would rebel because their commander wasn't fully decorated.
"Stand up."
"Is that it?" Mike didn't sound disappointed, his tone was steeped in pragmatism, literally just his way of asking, what next?
"Next we take a look at the slaves you picked and get them ready. They don't start the work until the morning, but you need to spend the time between now and then making sure they will act as a team." Buck knew what Mike meant by his question. Only someone from outside the Ranch would have thought twice about its format.
Buck led Mike to the stable where he kept his horse. He pointed to a contraption. It was basically a wooden I bar shaped along the top and bottom slats to conform to a slave's shoulders. There was padding, but it was warn from use and lack of care. "Grab that and the 4 bridle sets hanging next to it."
As Mike gathered the equipment, Buck gave him this advice and warning,
"You will get no help from here out. You figure out on your own how to hook them up, make them work as a team, get the hay moved. I'll be watching and from time to time other hands will ride over to take a look, but none will comment. Best thing for you to do is keep your mind on making the 4 slaves you picked do what you tell 'em, pay no attention to the rest of us."
Mike nodded. Buck pulled the rocking chair from his office and watched from the narrow shade just outside the door.
Mike untied the slaves and ordered them to stand. He ordered Seth to place the I bar on the ground and straighten the moveable cross beams parallel to each other. Mike ordered Seth to stand at the lead spot front left, Nick front right, Ty behind Seth, and Jayson (the last unfortunate) behind Nick.
"Hands and knees, slaves." No verb necessary, it was one of the things they learned shortly after leaving the honeyroom. They complied in concert, all with the "sir yes sir." Mike then put the first cross bar over Seth's and Nick's shoulders; he moved to the back and slipped the other bar over Ty and Jayson. He took the bridle sets and slipped the bars into each slave's mouth and hooked the bridle over their heads as he would any horse. The shoulder harnesses had rings that attached to the slave's collars. This is where the strange balance took place. Only the lead mules felt the reins, but the back mules would be much more likely to feel the lash. Mike hooked the leather reins through their places and wanted deeply to kiss Seth who just knelt motionless, drooling lightly over the bar running through his mouth.
"From here until I unhook you, you are mules. You don't speak, you don't use your hands, you don't do anything a mule can't. Until I say, you stay on hands and knees."
Mike walked over to Buck. "I think you forgot to give me something."
Buck allowed the smile that started to turn into a smirk. This was actually a test, really one of his best. Most hands used riding crops to deliver their blows, but they had access to just about any type-the bullwhip being the only exception, only Buck was allowed that-but it was such a part of the slave's day that it was amazing how many who became hands began the initiation without asking for it. Buck had no fears once a novice hand asked for his crop; it meant he was already thinking in the right way. To Buck, it was essentially over at that point, the rest was formality.
"I don't think so. You got your hat and boots."
"But the whip? Do I have to wait for that?"
"Oh, I guess you're right, I did forget."
Mike held the reins and stood behind the team. He was given his riding crop, which he put in his boot the way most hands did; he was also given a carriage whip so he could reach the mules once he was standing on the wagon's buckboard. Buck told him where the hay had been stacked-he took care of that earlier in the day, getting a group of slaves to stack two tons of hay bales in a corner of the ranch farthest from where the cattle were currently grazing. Mike was going to take the slaves out to that spot and spend the night with them. He wanted to put them through some paces with little chance of a wandering audience. He knew others would come to see, but if they wanted, they were going to have to make a long and purposeful trip to do it.
"Hup, mules." He didn't bother whisking the reins. They didn't start out well, each slave was crawling at his own pace which caused the contraption to spasm and rattle. "Hold." They all stopped. 'Shit,' Mike thought, but instinct or will divined the best way of getting them in sync, they had a long trip to make on hands and knees and would have to work together to make it happen. By the time they arrived at the pile of hay bales, they would pretty much be moving smoothly.
"Left, right, left, right" And so on. It was slow at first, but Mike used the whip to get them to go faster. He only had to revert to the cadence if one began to lag or lead; on the way to the hay, he had to stop only half a dozen times. Each time he picked the slave he believed to be at fault and delivered as many lashes as he thought necessary on their asses.
The team and its driver made it to the site at about dinner time. The mules were hungry but only their stomachs could speak. Buck didn't anticipate that Mike would take the team to the site to practice, but there was food and water there all the same for the next day, so Mike placed a bowl in front of each slave and removed the bit from the bridle so they could eat. He followed that up with water for each. When they were finished, he re-bit them.
He looked at the huge pile of hay and had no idea what to do. He moved the hay so he could make a bit of a chair for himself, and ordered the team to back up so he could use one of them as a footstool-he opted for the horse-hung Ty. He put his new boots up on Ty's ass and tried to think of the best way for the work to flow. Would it be easier for him to unhook all 4, let them load and then hook them back, or would it be best to unhook just 2 and rotate them out on each return trip? The first option would mean the wagon would get filled faster, but would it leave them too tired to pull. The second option seemed to balance out better, but would he lose too much time with just two filling the cart?
The wagon he was to use wasn't there, so he couldn't do any actual figuring to see how many it would hold and how many they would be able to pull. So he just had to guess. He was literally lost in the math he was trying to do since he hadn't had to use it in so long; he hadn't forgotten how, he was just fully lost in it, wanting to get it right so he would look cool under the pressure. Then he noticed a familiar smell and heard some snickering. Ty, the most animal of the four, maybe the most animal of all the field slaves, shit a huge load; the idea of being a mule for him was something he really enjoyed. He couldn't help but laugh.
Technically Mike could have whipped him for shitting, but he had ordered them to behave as mules, but he could whip him for laughing. Basically Ty broke his concentration.
"Mules don't laugh you piece of shit." He delivered a series of lashes across the offensive ass. Ty grunted a little when the lashes stopped and squeezed out a little more shit just to have what amounted to the last word.
Mike could do anything he wanted, but what he really wanted was some sort of respect which he knew didn't derive from the lash, but from the way the hand carried himself and how he handled or created situations. Whipping Ty had given him a new hard on. He hadn't been this stiff since just after he left the honeyroom. He was desperate to fuck one of them, and Seth was the object of his cock's specific lust. But he had enough presence of mind to want to be creative about it. So he unhooked both Ty and Seth. Each was still on hands and knees (knees now bloodied from the trip). He ordered Ty to get hard.
"Stick that slave cock up his hole, I want to see if he's clean enough for my cock."
Ty tried to comply, but couldn't get more than the head in. He tried to push harder, but Seth jumped slightly and whined. "Go on, pull out mule." Ty's cock head was streaked brown. Mike thought briefly about making one of the others clean Ty's cock, but thought better of it, he considered it more punishment for Ty to be stuck like that than to put one of the other compliant slaves through something unnecessary. Instead he just focused his attentions on Seth.
"Shit mule." Seth tried to comply. Ty's attempt to force his cock past his full rectum made it difficult. Mike lashed Seth across the shoulders with the carriage whip and that essentially did the trick. Mike led Seth to a hay bale and ordered him on it so he wouldn't have to get on his own knees to fuck that gorgeous ass.
He lubed his cock with a little spit and went wild. He came in a very short time, but it was an enormous load. He came regularly, but this was his first without any expectation of reciprocity, where he could cum and not have to worry about anything else. Before he buttoned the fly, he noticed his cock was a bit streaked too. He decided Ty deserved one more reminder that he could act like a mule, but he was still a slave. He removed the bit and made Ty not only clean off the shit, but suck him until he was hard again and came again.
In the morning, Buck arrived with two horses pulling the wagon. He told Mike where the hay was to be dropped off. Then he faded a bit into a distance and watched.
Mike hooked the I bar to the wagon which required each of the slaves to stand. Their knees were bleeding a bit still and caked with dust. He would tend to that personally as a form of thanks once he passed the initiation, for now though, he couldn't care. He decided that two on, two off, rotate was the best way. He unhooked Ty and Jayson and had them load the wagon first. He tested things. He had them load it to a point, put the two back in place, stood on the buckboard and made them pull. It moved too easily at first so he had the two add more bales. The pulling was still pretty easy, but he needed to know how far he had to go and return more than he needed to get the load balanced.
The trip to the drop spot and back took about an hour. He had 5 more loads to go, so it wasn't going to be a difficult task. He looked at Buck and smiled as Nick and Seth loaded the wagon. Buck smiled back and tipped his head slightly. Buck knew by design, now Mike knew that the test was the process, not the completion. Mike had passed the initiation by just proving he knew what to do; Buck never put more than a half day's worth of hay in the pile because the journey, and how it happened, was far more important than the finished product.
After the final load was delivered, Mike stood down from the wagon and allowed the 4 slaves to pull the wagon back to the barn with no extra weight. He unhooked each one and ordered them to the shower. He watched quietly, but with great ease as each one had their first shower in quite some time.