One day Rufus wanted to surprise Pam and decided to follow her as she made her morning round at her family's ranch. She was riding her spotted mare, then dismounted, shading her eyes as if she was watching for someone, which she in fact was. The someone was a man RJ had seen before, but didn't really know. What he did know was the way he felt when he witnessed how she welcomed him, with an embrace and a passionate kiss. His heart dropped into his feet. He started to turn away but instead elected to wait and watch.

He was afraid they would actually have sex or something but after some walking around a bit and chit-chatting nothing like that occured, only another drawn-out kiss before the guy left. It was enough. Pain and rage boiled deep in the pit of his gut, and he stepped out of his hiding place and saw her horrified expression as she spotted him. "RJ," she said simply.

"Why," came his question.

"Rufus, I--"

"What's this," he grabbed her hand and looked pointedly at the ring there. A big one. "When was you gonna tell me? After the honeymoon?"

"Well, everytime I mentioned settling down you'd get sleepy or find something else to talk about. I ain't gettin' any younger, RJ! I want a family."

"You're a miserable bitch," he said bitterly, cursing his luck with women. "Why? Why fuck with me like this? Why'd you come to my fuckin house that day? Come into my fuckin' life and now leave, just like that!" She started to say she was sorry but was halted when she got a huge fist buried into her midsection. Her reaction was shock as she doubled up, then fell forward trying to breathe. Then he had her by the hair jerking her upright just like the field was a wrestling ring, and nearly broke her jaw with another powerful blow. He left her sobbing and retching in the cow pasture and went home, disgusted.

The whole family was baffled by RJ's behavior, he wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, had lost interest in his work. Tiny came and sat beside him as he sulked beside the creek bed, putting a heavily scarred arm around him as if he were a child. It was comforting, but he didnt' want to talk about it. He scribbled, "It's that gurl, ain't it? She broke up with you?"

"She's got another man. A better one, I guess," he muttered.

Tiny hugged him again, then shuffled away when no more information was forthcoming. And of course it wasn't long before Otis sought him out. "Why you so tore up," he asked him, irritated. "She can't be a part of this family. If she's sneakin' around like that now, she can't be trusted with our secrets. Want me to take care of her?"

"Yes. Kill her," he said angrily. "But no fuckin' her."

"RJ, I'm hurt. My brother's woman? I wouldn't never. After she's dead, though...that don't count."

"Please, I wanna talk to RJ," pleaded a penitent Pam.

"He don't wanna talk to you," stated Angel Baby, curling her lip at the other lady, who was sporting a swollen face from RJ's anger.

"Baby, let 'er in," commanded Otis who'd appeared behind his adopted sister. Rolling her blue-green eyes she obliged. "Follow me," he told her. She moved carefully, as if she was sore, and he smiled when she wasn't looking. Seems RJ lost his temper with her. Rufus could hear everything from his room upstairs, could hear them coming up the stairs. Soon the door swung open and Pam entered, wearing a plain t-shirt and blue jeans, hair unadorned and falling around her shoulders. After everything was said and done he still found her beautiful and intriguing, but sentimental time was over. Yes, very much over. "Rufus," she said gladly, stepping toward where he was seated at the desk.

She was stopped by a knife blade held to her slim white throat. Otis' wiry arm was around her chest in an instant, holding her to him. "Now no sudden moves, sugarpie," he whisped hoarsely in her ear. "I'm a bit jumpy, y'see."

"Ohhh," she sobbed. "What's going on? Please, RJ, make him stop!"

"You done fucked up," RJ told her, his face and tone neutral. His dark eyes glittered with hurt and malice, however.

"RJ, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that to you, it was wrong. I came to apologize," she burst into tears. Otis snorted with mirth and with his blade caused a tiny trickle of blood to well at her throat and fall down to her white t-shirt, coloring it with drops of red. "RJ," she said desperately. "I miscarried your baby. When you hit me I freaked out and I lost our baby...but it was really my fault..oh RJ," she wept.

"Fuck, it coulda been mine, Otis', that dude, who knows? It don't matter anyways. Now...you gonna die."

"I bet yer insides are as pretty as yer outside," Otis mused, cutting her t-shirt.

Vera-Ellen entered the room, interrupting Otis' sport of cutting Pam's skin and clothes. She looked at the teenager hopefully--Pam's mother was often a restraining influence on the rambunctious and hot-tempered males of the family. "Baby! Make them stop, please help me," she gasped in the arms of Otis, his knife appearing once again at her neck.

"What you boys up to," Angel Baby demanded, looking from Rufus to Otis. Pam ran forward, throwing her bony arms around Baby and sobbing incoherantly. "You poor thing," she tsked, stroking her hair. "Guys, you really need to stop fuckin' around." Then she pushed the traumatized female back to her adopted brother who held her arms behind her back. "Let the bitch know ya mean business," she she cold-cocked her, leaving Pam dazed and seeing stars on the dusty floor.

Rufus opened his eyes and yawned, smacking his lips and looking about. He was sitting in the floor leaning against his badly abused bed, his sister nestled lovingly in the crook of his massive arm. They were sticky with blood and wrung-out from the mass drinking and torture of his now-ex-girlfriend. He felt the bed squeak from a spry body moving about, and heard Otis snicker, "Man, I can't believe you'd date a girl who wears underwear like that. Plain jain cotton torpedo boobs hahahaha...lovely underpants big enough to fit you, RJ."

"You're such an asshole," he observed groggily.

Rufus could make out some muffled moans and labored breathing and asked, "She still alive?"

Otis poked her. "Heh, yep. Prob'ly not fer long, though." The wraith grasped her jaw in a crimson-covered hand and peered into her glassy eyes. She didn't appear to be the same girl she was yesterday, swollen, beaten, cut and molested (Spaulding had popped upstairs to put various objects in her various orifices) not to mention strapped to RJ's bed and stripped down to her bra and panties, she barely had enough strength to even groan as Otis pinched and twisted her nipple.

RJ nudged his little sister and she went thump onto the floor without a visible sign. Alcohol comatose, it seems. He took his shirt off and put it on Baby's near-naked form, she was only wearing a nightie and her panties.

Otis was carving designs into her flesh when he noticed Pam stiffen up. Her swan song was a sad gurgling rattle in her chest, and she breathed no more. "Hup, looks like too much fun for the lil lady," observed Otis drily.

RJ had a certain grim satisfaction at that news, but he was unaccountably sorrowful as well. Perhaps he should've married her and settled down, but she just wasn't Firefly material. She fucked him over, and he didn't take that lightly. He heard the rip of Otis cutting Pam's remaing shreds of clothing off her corpse and the bed begain squeaking as he fucked her. "Damn, Driftwood, right on my bed," snorted the behemoth as his head bounced in time to Otis' thrusts.

He daydreamed for a time then snapped to attention at his foster brother's howls of ecstasy. His head bopped with Otis rolling off the dead body and scratching his belly. RJ lumbered to his feet feeling a bit icky. When was the last time he had a bath? He couldn't remember. "Hey RJ," came Otis' voice playfully. "Wanna have a go? It's not like she can stop ya. Best one I've had in a while."

"Nah," RJ replied. "Guess I better dump her someplace, though," RJ reasoned, turning and going back to the bed. He undid the restraints on one of Pam's wrists when Otis laid a hand on his arm. "It's for the best," he told him. It was Otis' way of consoling the huge man.

"Hey," came Johnny's irritated voice from downstairs. "Any o' you numbnuts know where this big asshole chained up in the bathroom came from?"

RJ looks at Otis who grins. "Well, couldn't just let the other man get away with it, could I? He could cause trouble for us, anyways."

"Dammit," swore the big man, shaking his head.

"Think about it, ya big ape," Otis sat up on the bed naked, his face earnest. "It could be put around that the lovebirds ran away and eloped." Then he laughed his harsh, guttural laugh.

"Hey," hollered Cutter again, tromping up the stairs. "I can't take a good piss with that motherfucker chained to the shower starin' at me!"

"Look, the mail run today," burbled Vera-Ellen cheerfully. "We got a whole Ruggsville County phonebook!"

"So," Otis said, picking his teeth with his butcher knife.

"So, we can call people! Teehehe." Curious, the pale creature and RJ follow her to the back room where an old rolltop desk and phone sat. Leafing through the book she picked a number and dialed it. She then faked a screaming orgasm and hung up, giggling.

"Look, the mail run today," burbled Vera-Ellen cheerfully. "We got a whole Ruggsville County phonebook!"

"So," Otis said, picking his teeth with his butcher knife.

"So, we can call people! Teehehe." Curious, the pale creature and RJ follow her to the back room where an old rolltop desk and phone sat. Leafing through the book she picked a number and dialed it. She then faked a screaming orgasm and hung up, giggling.

"Gerry Ober," she went on. "It's Goober," then she called him and had phone sex with him until she got bored and hung up. Rufus and Otis were holding their sides laughing at her antics. "Oh, wait," she declared, running to the bathroom and returning with a package of toilet paper. "I'm callin' the toilet paper company!"

She dialed the 800 number and spoke in a phony British accent. "Um, yes, I'd like to ask someone what is it they put in their toilet paper that makes me bum itch?"

RJ wiped tears as Otis, indignant, jumps up and shouts, "You retard, that don't sound like an English accent!"

"Shut up," she hisses, continuing to harangue the poor customer service person with her baloney accent.

Years pass...

Cutter eventually made up with Charlie, who would come and visit from time to time. Things between the estranged family members improved to the point when Baby reached legal age she went to dance at the Frontier Fun Town Charlie owned whenever she wanted quick cash. Then came the road adventure Angel Baby and Otis took culminating in meeting and falling out with Dr. Satan and the Professor and fleeing back to the family home in Ruggsville.

While they were gone RJ threw himself into his work and hobbies, hunting and fishing and stuffing animals. Johnny and Eve separated, finding their lives growing apart. He moved into the investment he'd been cooking up, the Museum of Monsters and Madmen, taking up with a vagrant named Emmanuel Ravelli. He planned to turn his unhealthy interest in in freaks, deformities and serial killers into something lucrative. Or at least fun. Mother Firefly 'retired' from her busines, having saved up a substantial sum of money buried around the yard and stuffed in the mattress of her antique bed.

Late evening finds RJ donning his bearskin he'd taken to wearing since the weather was shitty and raining, armed his rifle and handgun, sheathes his knife and loads up the tow truck. Baby, excited, had told him of Spaulding calling about some fresh meat heading their way and he dropped his sister off at the predetermined spot, turned around and drove a short distance back toward his house. She was armed with her knives, revolver, cowboy hat and child's umbrella.

It slowly grew dark, finding RJ kneeling behind cover watching the road intently. At last came the car threading its way carefully down the muddy dirt road. Steadying his firearm and taking careful aim he pulls the trigger, careful since he didn't want to kill or hurt his sister who was sure to be inside. He then hightailed it back home.

The end...or the beginning..