Chapter 11

Twins

It was the summer of 1957. For two years I had been living and working on various ranches in central and northern Colorado. By this time, I had ended up in Loveland on the ranch of one Lawrence Anderson.

I was working 10-12 hour days plowing, irrigating, and looking after many acres of alfalfa and corn (Milo). I was also training young horses and tending to cattle. Pretty heady stuff for a 15 year old. .

After school let out, I got a rather pleasant surprise. It had been decided that The Anderson's twin thirteen year old granddaughters would come and spend part of the summer with them. Only not at the same time. Janelle would visit first, then Janice would take her turn.

I soon met Janelle. She was rather tall for her age, very slender and lithe. She had the beginnings of a great figure and soft, doughy eyes. She was an excellent horseperson, having spent her entire life on horseback. I first met her when she rode out to where I was cleaning an irrigation ditch with a one-way plow. She came trotting up and slid off the young filly she was riding with a graceful ease I will never forget. She said, in what I would come to realize was her direct and forthright manner;

"Hi, I’m Janelle Anderson, who are you?"

I fumbled with the tractor's clutch and throttle, only managing to stall it and look like a fool.

I stammered "I'm Marcus, I work here". For the first time, I heard "The Laugh". It was bells tingling in a breeze. It was the happy sound of a Lark singing. Whoosh; there went my heart!!

"It seems like you don't know how to run a tractor. Maybe your shouldn't be working here!" With that, she was on horseback in one smooth, effortless motion. She squeezed the horses sides with her long legs, and was off in a cloud of dust.

In the basement of the Anderson house was a recreation room with a couch and television. That night, while I was watching Maverick, Janelle came downstairs

We watched television until 10 O'clock when they went back upstairs. I will never forget what she looked like that night, or what we talked about. It was not the usual inane chatter of teenyboppers, but such things as the price of cattle and the relative merits of Three Bars and Poco Bill as studs. She was surprised I knew about such things, and

complemented me on my knowledge. I was, to put it mildly, pretty pumped up.

All the next day, I wondered if she would come back down to the basement again. Sure enough, she did. Every night. After about two or three nights, she shocked me into incoherence by patting the sofa next to her and saying "Come sit next to me".

That was the beginning of my summer of bliss. We would spend our days

working together training the new crop of yearling quarter horses and our nights on the couch in the rec room. She was way ahead of me. Whenever I made a move, she matched it and then some. It was pretty tame stuff, mostly just kissing and heavy petting, but we both were enjoying ourselves immensely.

Later that summer, I was given the chance to be the exercise jockey and

assistant trainer of Poco Red, a son of Poco Bill and a promising quarter miler. He was a huge horse, standing over 16 hands and weighing over a thousand pounds at 16 months. I had the build of a jockey at the time, being only 5'3" tall and weighing 115 lbs. I was very strong for my size and age, so I was deemed capable of handling him. Janelle would come and watch as I lapped the track, sometimes for hours on end. It really seemed

to turn her on.

Our bliss came to an end when it was time for Janelle to return to Wyoming. She never said or did the normal things most young girls did on parting. There were no expressions of regret of promises to write, only a quick kiss and goodbye.

I met Janice that same day. I had already decided that she was off limits to me, out of loyalty to Janelle. She was, of course, a carbon copy. The same lithe figure, the same lilting laugh; EVERYTHING.

She began immediately to come on to me. I resisted for days. Even when she

said and did the same things Janelle had, I would try to ignore her. She seemed to get offended, so I got to thinking that maybe I was wrong. One night, just to see what would happen, I kissed her. She was all over me. I was back with Janelle, spending my days and nights just as I had when she had been there. After a while, I lost my discomfiture over my seeming disloyalty to Janelle. Finally one day, I got up enough nerve to tell her

that I had made out with Janelle.

She tipped her head back and said, with a laugh "I know, she told me all

about it". That's when I learned that twins keep no secrets between them. They also don't get jealous with each other. Janice seemed to take delight in the fact that they had shared me. Go figure.