School was about to let out for the summer and I’d just turned fourteen when my parents decided that I should spend the summer on Uncle Floyd’s ranch in Oregon.  I was a typical Los Angeles skate boarding mall rat and wasn’t too keen on living out in the boondocks all summer but I didn’t have any choice.

            Uncle Floyd and Aunt Meg had purchased the place four years ago but weren’t really ranchers.  Aunt Meg was a writer, and she churned out stupid little romance novels at the rate of about two a year.  Her pen name was Chastity Grace and she had a small but extremely loyal following and she made enough money writing to allow her and Uncle Floyd and my three cousins to escape from the crime and gangs and drugs of Sacramento and flee to what was supposed to be a healthy life style.

            The ranch is in Southeastern Oregon on the East side of what are called the Steens Mountains.  I flew into Boise, Idaho, which is the nearest major airport.  Uncle Floyd picked me up there in the Cessna 182 that he’d bought with some of Aunt Meg’s royalties, then we headed back to the ranch, which according to Uncle Floyd was about a hundred and thirty miles away.  That was a little less than an hour’s flight in the Cessna.  As soon as we got up a ways Uncle Floyd pointed out a hazy mountain range off on the horizon and told me that was where we were headed. The area around Boise is mostly flat farmland but after a while things started looking really desolate and we’d fly for a long time without seeing a building or highway or car.  Just before we got to the mountains the ground below us leveled out to form a large dry lake bed that I learned was the Alvord Desert, where people sometimes attempt to set speed records. 

            We landed on the edge of the alkali desert and Uncle Floyd taxied the airplane to a metal hangar building.  There was a small fenced field next to the hangar and a bunch of curious horses came up to the fence.  We went over and petted them for a few minutes and then I helped push the airplane inside the hangar and we got into a pickup and drove up to the house.  I had heard a lot about the ranch and I was expecting something like the Ben Cartwright’s house on Bonanza, but there was just a small sort of run down shack, a barn Uncle Floyd had converted to a shop, a bunch of empty equipment sheds, and a singlewide trailer house.  “The old house was so rotten and decrepit that we tore it down,” Uncle Floyd explained.  “We’ll start building a new one as soon as the next book sells.  Meantime, Aunt Meg and I live in the trailer and you’ll sleep with the boys in the old bunk house,” He pointed to the old shack.  “The boys saw us land so they’ll be here in a minute or two.”

            I’d kind of expected my three cousins to ride up on horses, but instead I heard the staccato roar of small engines, and then three ATV’s came speeding into the yard and shut down in a small cloud of dust.  Vincent, thirteen, was just a few months younger than me and just about the same size.  Jason had just turned fifteen and was taller than me and obviously more mature.  Paul, sixteen, was already taller than his dad and was apparently in charge of his younger brothers.  All three of the boys were dressed in tee shirts and blue jeans and all wore heavy lace up boots and cowboy type hats.

            “You boys wash up and then we’ll eat,” Aunt Meg ordered, carrying a big platter to the picnic table under the shade trees.  I followed the boys to an outdoor water spigot and sink where they all stripped off their shirts and shook the dust from them before scrubbing their hands and wiping down their faces with a damp washrag.

            “Will I get to ride one of the horses?” I asked as we ate.  The boys kind of tittered.

            “We don’t have any horses, Jeff,” Uncle Floyd finally explained.  “Those down by the landing strip belong to the neighbor.”

            “The locals all have horses,” Aunt Meg added, “but they all learned to ride about the same time they learned to walk.  It takes years to learn to ride a horse like you need to in order to work cattle.  Since we don’t have any cattle it seems senseless to tie up a lot of money in horses, so we use the four-wheelers instead.  There’s an extra one that you can ride.”

            “No cattle?” I asked, perplexed.  “I thought this was a, you know, ranch.”

            “It is, or at least it was.  You see, the last owner went broke and the bank auctioned off all of his cattle, horses, tractors, everything including all the stuff in the house, and then put the land up for sale.  We bought it.  The neighbors didn’t like us at first; they don’t like anyone who isn’t from around here and they particularly hate people from California, but as soon as they figured out that we weren’t going to run cattle or sheep they warmed up a little.”

            Vince piped up, “Hauling Old Lady Evans ass to the hospital in the Cessna kind of helped too.”

            “Watch your mouth, Vincent,” Aunt Meg warned, then added,  “She got bit by a rattlesnake and had an allergic reaction to the antivenom and went into shock.  She might not have made it if we hadn’t flown her to Burns.” 

            “Who owns those horses down by the hangar?” I asked.  “I thought you said it was your land.”

            “It is but we lease all of the land to Pike Creek Cattle.  Those are some of their horses,” Uncle Floyd explained.

            “Then you guys don’t really do anything?”  I asked.  Dad didn’t have much use for his brother-in-law and he always said that Uncle Floyd was useless.

            “Oh no, not at all,” he answered.  “I’m still a pretty good mechanic and I work on most everyone around here’s equipment, and the boys all work some.” 

            “Right now we just change irrigation pipes,” Paul, the oldest, said.  “Later on Jason and I will work bringing in the hay crop.  Vince, the runt, is too puny so he’ll keep on irrigating.  You can probably get a job helping him if you want, God knows he’ll need it.  It’s only a couple hours a day anyway.”  Paul gave his youngest brother a playful poke in the ribs.

            We talked until dark then Paul and Vince and Jason each shouldered one of my bags and led me to the bunkhouse.  It looked like a shack from the outside but was fixed up really neat inside.  There were two computers and a large TV set with a play station. There were four bunks in the front and in the back was a short partition wall that partially concealed a double sink, toilet, and large concrete walk-in area with two wall mounted showerheads.

            “We have a satellite dish,” Jason announced, “so we get over a hundred channels of TV, but Mom has all the good stuff blocked, if you know what I mean.”  I did.  My parents didn’t let me watch the good stuff either.  “The satellite also gives us high speed Internet but we’re on Mom’s office network and she has all of the adult sites blocked too.”  Bummer, no porn, but I’d get by.

            “Well, I’m going to clean up,” Paul said, stripping off his tee shirt and untying his bootlaces, prompting his two brother to do the same.  “How about you?” he said, looking at me.

            “I usually shower in the morning,” I answered.

            “The water is solar heated so it’ll be cold in the morning and if you wait for us to finish it’ll all be used up,” Paul informed me as he pulled off his jeans and stripped off his skivvies.  It was kind of weird, I thought, as I joined them in the shower area.  I showered with other guys at school and at the pool all of the time but I need some privacy now and then and wasn’t sure that I liked quite this much togetherness.   I finally stripped down and joined them in what was kind of like a small locker room, and as I soaped up I checked out my cousins’ bods.  Vince, like me, had pit and pube hair but just fine fuzz on his legs.  Jason had curly hair on his legs and his pube hair was spreading upwards towards his belly, while his older brother Paul had hair all over his belly and even some on his ass.  Vince’s cock and balls looked about the same size as mine.  His older brothers’ were progressively larger, but none of them were anything like the guys I’d seen in some magazines.  What really made my cousins different from me were their muscles.   I’m kind of skinny, but even Vince’s arms and thighs bulged with muscle and I figured that they all must work out a lot.

            I’d just finished rinsing off when the water turned from hot to warm and then was suddenly cold.  “That’s it for the hot water, guys,” Paul said as he shut the valves.  I grabbed a towel from the pile by the door and followed my cousins back to the bunks, drying off on the way.  Paul and Jason were following Vince and as if on cue they both twirled their towels into ropes and each took aim at one of their younger brother’s butt cheeks.  I’d done the same thing a time or two in PE and also had it done to me and I knew it stung like hell.  Vince caught the motion as Paul snapped his towel, and he tried to dodge and as a result turned right into Jason’s already-launched shot and caught the towel snap right in his nuts.

            Vince went down and rolled himself into a ball, clutching his stomach and trying not to puke or cry.  His brothers both apologized and assured him that the nut shot wasn’t intentional and even offered to go fetch an ice pack.  Vince couldn’t even talk for a few minutes, and when he did it was to cuss out his brothers in words that I hadn’t even heard in LA.  Paul and Jason finally got him to his feet and walked him to his bunk, where he sat bent over and still clutching his belly, while the rest of us finished drying off and donned our underwear.

            I had taken pops to my balls and knew that although it hurt like hell for a while there wouldn’t be any permanent damage, and although I sympathized with my aching cousin I couldn’t help but laugh.  Paul and Jason also saw the humor but all poor Vince could do was cuss us all out.  I finally left him to his misery and fired up one of the computers and sent off emails to my parents, sort of girlfriend, and to a couple of my buddies.  After that I went to bed and slept like a log.

            Jason rousted me out of be early the next morning, a Sunday, and I went with him to change the irrigation sprinkler pipes.  He explained that it only took two people and it was Paul’s turn to sleep in, and since Vince wasn’t feeling very well I could help.  He gave me a quick lesson in how to drive the Honda four-wheeler and then I followed him out the driveway and down the gravel road for a mile or so and into a large field. 

            The pipeline we were going to move looked like it was a mile long and I thought it might take us all day but it went pretty fast.  It was simple enough; just shut the water off, twist each pipe to disconnect it and carry it fifty feet to the next location and reconnect it then go back for another.  It didn’t look like it was that hard and it only took a little over an hour, but by the time we were done I was dead ass tired.   No wonder these guys had muscles.

            We rode back through the fields and I got a chance to look at the cattle.  Feisty little calves were running around or nursing on cows in one field, another was full of what Jason said were steers, and another, smaller field was reserved for the bulls.  It was easy to tell the difference between the bulls and the steers; the bulls not only had huge balls that hung low enough to almost drag the ground, but they also had massive shoulders and thick, powerful bodies.

            Paul and Vince were just getting up when we got back.  Vince’s left nut had swelled to the size of an egg but said he felt okay.  He put on a jock strap but it was still obvious that he was walking pretty carefully as we went in for breakfast.

            “You’re moving pretty slow this morning Vincent,” Aunt Meg commented as we came to the table.  “Did you hurt yourself?”

            “Uh, it’s a guy thing, Mom,” Vince said with a little touch of embarrassment, “I’ll be okay.”  Paul and Jason both chuckled as if wondering if he was going to let Mommy kiss it and make it all better.

            “I was wondering,” I asked as we chowed down on bacon, eggs, and toast, “How old to the steers get before they turn into bulls?”  There was a second of silence, and then everyone started laughing and I thought for a minute that Vince might choke on the piece of toast he’d been eating.  Even Aunt Meg, who was about as humorless as a post, chuckled a bit before turning red and leaving the table.

            “Uh, Jeff,” Uncle Floyd said, “Steers don’t have testicles.”

            “I could see that.  My question is how old to they get before they get them?”  Jeez these guys are dense.

            More laughter.  “They castrate the male calves,” Paul answered.  “That turns them into steers.”  I felt my face get red and also my balls tingle.  I’d heard of castration, of course and knew that they did it to dogs all of the time and had read some stories about guys getting their nuts cut off and had even thought about it a time or two as I jacked off, but I had no idea that they did it to cattle.

            “Why?”  I asked.

            “They gain weight faster and the meat is better,” Uncle Floyd explained, “and the animals are a lot less aggressive and easier to handle.”

            “Oh.”  I felt like a dumb ass.

            Other than changing the irrigation pipes there wasn’t any work done on Sunday, so Vince went back to the bunkhouse to lie around and watch TV while Paul and Jason and I rode up the mountain on the four-wheelers.  They dug me out some jeans, heavy gloves, and a long sleeve shirt for the trip, saying that the sagebrush would carve me up if I were to wear my customary LA uniform of shorts and tee shirt. The Steens, they explained while I dressed, were formed when a big slab of the Earth tilted up on one side.  The East side, where we were, is almost straight up and down in places while the West side rises gradually to the ninety-seven hundred foot summit.  Both sides have deep canyons eroded into them and it was up one of these canyons that we followed an old jeep trail past a defunct mercury mine and old cabin to a high meadow.  There were antelope, deer, and wild sheep up there and it was really neat. 

            We got back down late in the afternoon and just as I was looking forward to having some supper and kicking back, Paul announced that it was time to change the sprinkler pipes.

            “We just did that this morning,” I informed him, aware that he’s slept in and missed the fun.

            “It has to be done twice a day,” he replied.  “Come on, let’s get at it.”  I was already pooped, but with three of us it took less than an hour.

            It was dark by the time we finished supper and had helped Aunt Meg with the dishes, and by then I was just about done for.   I had been expecting a relaxing kick back summer vacation but from what I’d seen so far I’d be working my butt off.  We all went to the bunk house and showered, and it was obvious that Vince’s left nut was a lot better.  Most of the swelling had disappeared and it was now almost the same size as his other one.  He was also feeling a lot better and didn’t seem to hold a grudge against his older brothers, but I’d be willing to bet that it would be a long time before he turned his back on them again.

            After showering I pulled on my skivvies and a tee shirt and crashed in front of the TV.  “Hey,” I said, “I was wondering about something.  How do they go about castrating the calves?  Do they cut their balls off or what?”

            “They can cut them, but they usually use an elastrator,” Paul answered.

            “What’s that?”  I asked.

            “It’s a thing that puts a rubber band around their balls.”  Paul got up and went over to an old cabinet on the wall.  “Here,” he said, handing me a funny looking pliers like thing with four protruding metal prongs that stuck out sideways. “We found it behind the counter.  The rancher must have lost it or left it here.  It uses these little rubber bands,” Paul said as he handed me a small jar of what looked sort of like green rubber Cheerios.  “Just put the band on the prongs, squeeze the handles, put it over the calf’s nutsack and you have a steer.  The balls die right away and then fall off after a couple of weeks.”

            I loaded a band onto the prongs and squeezed the handles and watched as little green band expanded to form an opening about two inches square.  I put the band over two of my fingers and released the handles, leaving the band on the prongs, and tried to imagine something like that being around my nutsack.  “That must hurt,” I commented, handing the tool back to Paul.

            “I guess maybe it does,” Paul said.  Then all three of them jumped me.  Paul, the biggest, tipped my chair over backwards and laid his powerful body across my chest and pinioned my arms while Jason yanked my pants off and pulled my elevated legs apart.  I started to holler so Vince put a pillow on my face to silence my shouts.  Suddenly I felt a hand grab my balls.  The only guy other than myself to touch my cock or balls had been Dr. Blair and he’d always worn a rubber glove during his yearly physicals that included gently rolling my balls around between his fingers.  Next I felt the cold metal of the elastrator prongs and the scrape of the rubber band as each of my balls was none to carefully forced through the opening.  A sudden constriction as the handles closed, and then the bite of the rubber band on my bag as the band was rolled from the prongs.

            “Get it off of me!” I practically screamed as I desperately dug with my fingernails at the small band that seemed to be buried in the soft skin of my scrotum.

            “Sorry, Dude,” Paul deadpanned.  Once I had been banded they released me and sat back to watch the show.  “Those bands are re-enforced with Kevlar.  It can’t be cut and there’s no way to get the tool back under it.  But there is one way to get the band off,” He said, taking a large hunting knife from its sheath.

            “No!” I screamed.  I remember seeing the gleam of the polished steel of the blade, and then looking down at my balls.  They had been compressed by the band to a lump the size of a doorknob and had turned dull red.  Then I fainted.