The three brothers had to escort a famous stagecoach that transported, besides a few travelers, a box of valuables from Benson's Bank. During that trip there was, as you know, the stagecoach holdup that ended with the death of all the bandits, thanks to Mel's shooting skills, to Rufus throwing knives and the deadly machete of Peter. So, reaching Benson safe and sound, they entrusted the valuable box to the bank and received their reward. They stopped at the local hotel taking, as they always did, only one room to rest a few days.
One afternoon, they started to make love, intertwined in a tangle of limbs, with their usual passion. Rufus' member was busy rapidly hammering and rotating in the hot and welcoming hole of Peter, while the juicy pole of the boy was eagerly sucked by Mel. Quick hips, stretched asses, untiring hands, eager mouths, members with glorious and palpitating erections were unceasingly changing their actions and target. They were engaged in attacking and surrendering, giving and receiving pleasure, building fantastic castles of lust, staging luxury gardens, climbing peaks of pleasure.
After an explosion of three intense pleasures, they were sorting out their tangle of arms and legs and calming down their desires. Relaxing those three beautiful bodies overflowing with manly sexual instincts and youthful virility, they heard a brawl breaking out downstairs. At first, languidly abandoned in the pleasurable stupor that follows a vigorous and passionate exchange of love, they thought it was just one of the usual quarrels among card players. They didn't care. But then the noise of pistol shots, followed by the screams of a man being dragged out of the saloon, made Peter curious. Still stark naked, he went to the window and just barely sliding aside the curtain, looked down on the street.
"Hey, brothers! On the street something strange is happening. Something really strange!"
"What's up? Are they goina fight a duel?" Mel lazily asked.
"That wouldn't be strange. No, they're tying a boy on two X shaped boards, his arms and legs widespread, and the people are laughin' scornfully... I think they want to torture the boy..."
"Come on! We are in a civilized land, Peter!" Mel said, but stood up and went to look. Rufus shortly joined them.
"Why're they sendin' all the women away?" the mulatto asked thoughtfully. "I don't like that. I'll get dress and go see... Don't ya think it's strange that nobody from the Sheriff's office has come out to check? Look, do you see him behind his window?"
"Yes, that's really strange. Let's get dressed and go see." Mel said.
Quickly, the three brothers were on the street, dressed and fully armed. The young man didn't scream any more. He was still, terrorized, as white as a sheet, tense as a bow's string, tied on the improvised Saint Andrew's cross that was leaning against a wagon. Nearby some men were animatedly discussing with an elderly, refined man that they recognized as Judge Robbins.
"... a regular trial. If he is guilty, I assure you he will be punished with a fitting punishment. But you cannot just geld him here on the street, without even a trial!"
The three Baxter brothers approached even nearer, and almost placed themselves between the young prisoner and the quarreling men. So they came to know that the five men who were discussing with the judge, were the Springer brothers, and that the boy was accused of raping one of their sisters.
"To us, Mary Jane's word is enough. We don't need a trial. You, Judge, you'll at most condemn him to a few years in prison - we are not interested in that. He can go free, once we gelded him. Our father agrees with us."
At that point Mel intervened: "No, the judge is right. This boy has the right to a fair trial."
"What do you want, stranger! Why do you meddle?" one of the Springers asked harshly.
"Judge, why don't you call the Sheriff?" Mel asked without answering him.
"Well, see... the Sheriff is these boy's uncle, and he doesn't want to meddle with this problem..." the judge answered with a dejected air.
"Good. Nobody will touch this boy until he had a fair trial." Mel sharply said.
The five Springer brothers were about to draw their pistols, but Mel shot five times in a very fast succession, without wounding them, but brushing the five hands that were about to extract their pistols. The five men became still. Meanwhile Peter and Rufus were untying the boy.
The elder of the Springer brothers barked: "Hey, what are you doing? Freeing the bastard?"
"No, we will take him to our room, with us, and we will watch him until the day of the trial, since he will not be safe in jail with your uncle. And after the trial, the boy will endure the punishment he deserves, nothing more, nothing less."
The judge nodded and said: "I appoint you guardians of this boy. I'll prepare immediately for a trial. And you, remember that Mary Jane has to testify, so she can not leave town."
"We'll stay here. We don't want this bastard to escape. Who knows, these three are possibly his accomplices!"
"No, I don't really think so, they are three security guards. I know them by sight. Anyway, you can be on watch around the hotel, if you like, and if you see the boy trying to escape, you can even stop him with your weapons. But woe to you if you try to go to take him. Is that understood?"
"All right..." the Springers answered sulkily.
Rufus and Peter took the boy in their room and Mel followed them. The young man trembled like a leave tossed by the wind of a Fall's storm. They made him sit on a chair and sat around him.
"So, then, is it true what they say about you?" Peter asked.
"N... no... no, I am in... innocent... n... nt!"
"Calm down, now. I know you just had a bad time, but the worst is over. How can you prove you are innocent? Just saying it, is not enough." Rufus asked.
"I... I... never even bru... brushed Ma... Mary Jane, not e... even with a ki... kiss. I don't li... like her."
"Is she so ugly, this Mary Jane?" Mel asked.
"No, she's pre... pretty but... I didn't tou... touch her."
"But then, how come she accused you?"
"I do... don't know. I was as usu... usual at the saloon and they arri... arrived and disa... armed me and to... told me these things... But here in o... our town, no gi... girl can accu... accuse me I tou... ched them."
"But Mary Jane did, right?"
"Mary Ja... Jane yester... day tried to get me. But I to... told her to sto... stop, I swe... swear!"
"Your story is not too convincing. You say that Mary Jane is pretty... How old is she?" Peter asked.
"Ei... eighteen."
"And she made you understand she liked you, and you refused?"
"It... it's so... it's so, I swe... swear."
"Do you already have a girlfriend?" Rufus asked then.
"No."
"But then?"
"I... I... well, I..."
"Dear boy, at the trial you have to defend yourself, to prove you didn't rape her. It is not by saying I, I, I that you will get out of this trouble!" Mel said.
"At the tri... trial, I ca... cannot defe... defend myself." the young man said, lowering his head.
"But you said you are innocent!" Peter exclaimed.
"I... I don't li... like women. This is the tru... truth. But even if I sa... say that, nobody will be... believe me. As not to ma... make it under... understood, with my friends, I al... always ta... talked about gi... girls."
"Do you mean that you like men, that you have sex with men?" Rufus asked.
"Yes, I li... like men. When I was a boy I cou... could have se... sex with them. But now, it's se... several years I don't da... dare any more, here in to... town. Nobody is li... like me here, and I can... cannot be kno... known."
"As a defense it seems well founded, but who can tell us you are not lying? You can perhaps persuade us, who are strangers, with this lie, but of what use is to you? You have to persuade the Judge, anyway. Can you prove to him that you like men?" Mel asked.
"I do... don't even try. Do you kno... know how they puni... punish those li... like me, here? When I sto... stopped is ri... right because I sa... saw it! They bu... bury them in our ce... cemetery, just the... their head out, and po... pour salt on it, and they lea... leave them die from hun... hunger and thi... thirst. I saw it whe... when I was six... sixteen!"
"How is such an atrocity possible ?" Mel asked, his eyes widening.
"After pastor Jeff... Jefferson came. He says that it so is wri... written in the Bi... Bible. So the So... Sodomy sin... sinners have to die."
"But, what is this, the land of horrors?" Peter exclaimed.
"What's your name, boy?" Mel asked.
"Red... Red Mulligan."
"Red, if you can persuade us that you really like men, we will find the way to protect you." Mel said.
"I... what can I do to per... persuade you of su... such a thing? Nothing."
"We are three men. Make all us enjoy. We can understand if you really like doing it or if you are lying." Rufus proposed.
"I... I am too sca... scared. I don't know if... but you can fuck me... in my ass..."
"Would you like that?" Peter asked him.
"I don't know, it's ye... year that I don't ta... take it there... It will po... possibly hurt, but... once I li... liked it."
"What did you like to do best?" Peter asked again.
"Everything... to... touch... jack off... kiss...fuck an ass or to be fucked... If I liked the o... other, I was re... ready to do everything..."
"And who of us do you like best?" Peter asked.
"I don't know. All three you are hand... handsome."
"But if you had to choose one of us?"
"Perhaps him... He pos... possibly has the bigger cock..." Red said pointing at Rufus, then added, to Peter. "But you too... I like you ve... very much... all three."
So, Peter said: "All right. I have a way to decide if you really like men or not. Undress completely, Red, and sit there."
The young man hesitated for a moment, but then obeyed. He had a slender body, tall, possibly a little too thin, but agreeable. He had a small member, soft, surrounded by a bush of reddish brown hair, more red than his hair that barely had copper nuances.
"Good. Now stay there, sitting, and carefully watching what Rufus and I do. You have to do absolutely nothing, don't move a finger, just watch us, understood?"
Red nodded, with a baffled expression. Mel observed, amused and attentive - he thought he understood what Peter had in mind.
Peter and Rufus started to slowly undress each other, in front of Red. While undressing, they were caressing each other in an erotic way. When the last garments fell on the floor, Rufus' stake was already erect and hard, and Peter's didn't look out of place both for its size or for its lordliness. Red's eyes widened, and between his thighs, his member was starting to stretch and slowly rising, increasing its size and length. Peter knelt in front of Rufus and started to give head to his beautiful stake, in a skilled and lusty way, until the mulatto was all a quiver with pleasure.
Red eyes were glued on the scene, wide open, round, eager, and his breath became shorter. Red's member now emerged from the young man's groin erect in all its expansion and length, quivering and palpitating. Mel was pleased by this reaction and also amazed that a member, so small at rest, could develop into such a perfect size and shape. Mel saw Red slowly moving his hand to his own groin, saw it seize the hard member and starting to slowly massage it. The boy's eyes shone with excitation and didn't part from the scene that was taking place in front of him, for him.
Then Mel drew near the boy, opened his trousers pulling out his already turgid member, and started to jack off, one inch from the boy's cheek. Red turned a little to look at it, and widened again his eyes, observed for a moment how Peter was taking care of Rufus' member with his mouth, then looked up, into Mel's eyes, with an interrogative, almost pleading expression. Mel smiled and nodded yes. Red looked again at the rod pointing to his face, threw a last glance to Peter and Rufus, then turned again towards Mel's pole, opening his lips and slowly drawing his face closer, putting out his tongue. Mel pushed his pelvis forward, and the tip of his member leaned on the stretched tongue, and glided towards the wide opened mouth. Red, who now had started to jack off with his full hand with strong and fast movements, pushed forth his head to meet that loaded weapon, and let it slip inside his mouth, while testing it with his tongue and wrapping it with his lips. Mel caressed the nape of his neck and started to move his pelvis back and forth, back and forth in a soft undulating motion.
Rufus, became aware of that, slipped out of Peter and pointed him to the other two. Peter smiled, stood up and went between the widespread legs of Red. With his hand he stopped the boy's movements of his hands, preventing the boy from continuing to masturbate.
Red left Mel's member and looked in confusion at Peter, who told him: "I ordered you not to move! What are you doing?"
Red blushed, then, with a low voice, trying to apologize, murmured: "I couldn't resist, I was too excited and... I didn't know it was possible with your mouth... I saw you liked doing it, and so I wanted to try with his pecker..."
Mel smiled and ruffled his hair: "It is somewhat my fault, as I put it in reach of his lips. So, do you like sucking it?"
"It's exciting... terribly arousing. But... but then you too... you too like doing it with a male?"
"Yeah, sure dude, all three of us. And at this point, we believe you when you say that you too like men. Or else you wouldn't have been so aroused just looking at me and Rufus, and more than that, you wouldn't have felt like trying it with Mel. You are a quite handsome boy, Red, and... I feel like tasting your little, almost virgin ass..."
"I'm afraid it will hurt me, but... take me, please. Take me all three of you, if you want... After so many years, just the thought of having again one inside my ass, and one fucking my mouth, and another in my hand... makes me mad with desire. And this, too because... after the trial I might not be able to have a cock, god knows for how many years... If they don't sentence me to death."
They started making love again, all four in unison. Red seemed almost crazy with pleasure. He touched, caressed, fingered, kissed, sucked all three of them. He offered his ass to all of them to be penetrated, and tried to penetrate all three of them. For a long while Red completely forgot his problem, and fully abandoned himself to the lust that he had to restrain for so many years. He was untiring, insatiable, tireless, and the three friends, willingly, let him do what he felt like. Red was literally in ecstasy, reached several orgasms, and seemed to want more of them. He really had fire in his veins, and even if he was rather awkward, the three friends liked his enthusiasm and did their best to give him the enjoyment he so badly needed.
All three were busy above all with Red, for Red, surrounding him, besieging him, wrapping him with their bodies and their limbs. And Red surrendered or attacked, and did all he could not to miss anything in that orgy of bodies. They all were thirsty for pleasure, and for those overlapping and bursting, intertwining and overwhelming emotions.
When at last Red fell down worn out, panting but sated, his body still shook from time to time with sudden quivers of the last waves of enjoyment. Tidying with the back of his tongue a drop of seed dripping out from a corner of his mouth, he murmured with hoarse voice: "I don't want to die, to go to prison. It's too good making love with men. Help me, please..."
"Red, we'll help you. We could try to help you escape, but we would have to do a lot of shooting and kill too many people. But you'll see that we'll find a way to save you, trust us. Now, when would the rape have happened, according to the girl?"
"I don't know exactly, they didn't tell me. I think last night, but I'm not sure at all."
"Where were you, last night?"
"I was there on Springer's farm. I was sleeping in the hayloft, as usual."
"Did anybody see you going to sleep, or wake up this morning? Did somebody see you while you were sleeping?"
"I don't know, but I don't think so."
"That's a shame. But, just one more thing - why, in your opinion, does the girl accuse you of something that never happened?"
"I don't know, I can't understand... really, I have no idea."
"You don't have a family to help with your defense, right?"
"Me? No, that's right."
"Where is your family?"
"My parents died when I was ten years old. That year there was a kind of strange epidemic. So the Springers took me as a stable boy..."
"You told us that when you were a boy you had sex with some men. Also with the Springer brothers?"
"No, never! I did it with some other stable boys, sometimes with a couple of men. Springer's cowboys. But then, as I told you, I stopped. I was too scared."
"Tell me, that girl, to your knowledge; does she have a boyfriend, a man she likes?" Peter asked.
"I think she likes Ronnie, a twenty-six year old cowboy. But I don't know if..."
"I've got an idea. Could she be pregnant with this Ronnie and not want to admit that to either family, so invented the rape?" Peter asked.
"Ohmmygod... I've no idea... But why accuse me?"
"Because, when her pregnancy starts to show, this Ronnie would not be involved." Peter explained.
"It could be as you say, but we have to get proof, and I don't think it will be easy to come by...." Mel said shaking his head.
"Anyway, if we know that the girl says that the rape happened while Red was sleeping, we could say that he was here in our room playing poker with us..." Rufus proposed.
"No... somebody would have seen him coming here or leaving. No, it would not work." Peter said.
While dressing, they discussed possible solutions to the case. They advanced proposal and discounted them. They made plans and abandoned them. But slowly a possible line of defense emerged. So Mel, telling the others to stay locked inside the room, left to look for Judge Robbins. He found him and explained what his suspicions were, and discussed with the judge what was possible to verify them.
The judge concluded: "I would really like to make light on this case, and if I find proof that the boy is innocent, I'll acquit him, for sure. But then you have to convince the boy to disappear - here anyway he will no longer be safe. You must take him away with you. But if I find him guilty, and have to sentence him, the most I can do is to call the Federal Sheriff to take the boy to another prison, far away. I can't do any more than that."
"Judge Robbins, my brothers and I are more than convinced about Red's innocence. When the possibility that Ronnie made the girl pregnant come out, as I explained to you, Red didn't try to put the blame on him as a guilty person would have done at once, to exonerate himself."
"Yes, I see your point. I will see what it will be possible to do. But I cannot make any promise, until the trial is over."
"There will be many people, at this trial?"
"Half of the town, certainly. Why?"
"Oh... just a thought. May I defend Red at the trial, together with my brothers?"
"Even if you are not barristers, why not. Anyway, the law doesn't forbid it, and we have no lawyers here. Also the accusation will not be argued by a lawyer."
Mel returned to the hotel and told the others about his meeting with the judge.
That night they again made love, but this time Rufus with Mel, and Peter with Red.
The next day the trial was held. In the saloon, as it was the biggest place after the church. The pastor wouldn't allow use of the church, saying "it is not possible to talk about sex in a sacred place".
The debate was heated, but neither party could produce proof in one sense or the other. It was only Mary Jane's word against that of Red. At a one point, Red whispered something to Rufus, who stood up, went at the saloon door and placed himself at the side of a cowboy that had just entered. Red told Rufus that the young man was Ronnie. They hoped he would came to help with the trial.
Mel understood, and addressed the judge: "Your Honor, I would like to interrogate a very important witness."
"All right. Is he present?"
"Yes, Your Honor, he is. It is Ronald Kaine, known as Ronnie."
The cowboy, hearing his name, quickly tried to leave. But as he turned towards the door, the strong hold of Rufus blocked him, and forced him towards the Judge's table.
"Your Honor, the witness tried to escape." Rufus said, continuing to hold him strongly by his arms, on his back.
The interrogation started. At first the man answered with arrogant air, denying he had ever touched Mary Jane, and also the girl strongly denied it.
But Mel insisted, and succeeded in making both very nervous, until the man, to give more force to his denials, exclaimed: "I never made love with Mary Jane. I don't even like her, she is just a little flirt, and I feel nothing at all for her!"
At this point Mary Jane, who believed his words, widened her eyes, and burst in tears. So Mel immediately asked her more questions, and finally Mary Jane admitted that Ronnie was courting her. A breach had been opened, even if the girl denied having had sex with him.
Mel hammered, until the girl almost shouted, confused but stubborn: "I'm not pregnant with Ronnie, but with Red! He raped me!"
Mel had a small smile, and asked, angelically: "But if the rape happened just two nights ago, how do you know you are pregnant? We need to call a doctor to check her, Your Honor. To check if she is pregnant and for how long. And if it is around one month, as I suspect, it is obvious that the defendant is innocent. Mary Jane said the presumed rape had been the only sexual union with him..."
The girl became white as a sheet, and confessed - Red was innocent, she was pregnant with Ronnie. All the saloon was a chaos.
Ordering silence, the judge acquitted Red, but he refused to charge Ronnie, as there had not been a rape but a consenting union. And he advised Red not to charge Mary Jane with slander, but just to disappear.
Mel, with Rufus and Peter, escorted Red upstairs to their room, while the saloon was emptying. As they were in their room, the young man was of course radiating, and thanked them profusely.
"Red, you'd better leave with us, now. Here you are not completely safe, Ronnie or others could seek revenge on you. We have to go to Yuma. You can stop there or go farther with us, if you want."
"Can't I stay with you?"
"You mean you want to join us? Forever?"
"Yes. Besides owing you my freedom, I would like to work with you... and to make love with you. Do you want me?"
"Well... why not?" Peter said looking the other two in the eye. They both nodded assent.
So they adopted their fourth brother. They bought him good clothing, a horse and a hat identical to theirs, and Red Baxter became part of the family.
Red was able to use a pistol, but he was not really skilled. Under Mel's teaching, he improved so much and became so skilled that in the end he was even able to hit a bullet shot by another pistol! That's how he got his nickname "The Bullet".
At first he was not even so skilled in making love, but under Peter's teaching, toward whom he had a special liking, even if he liked the other two very much, he rapidly improved.
They toured, working and amusing themselves, and the deeds of the quartet are well known. Following the official story, they toured one more year to look for their fifth lost brother, until they found him. In reality, they didn't even know that their "family" was deemed to grow more. Anyway, I will next tell you how it came that they met and adopted Leo...