Hunter's Prompt Responses - 3. Prompt #534 - "And who are you supposed to be?"

"And who are you supposed to be?" I called out.

I stepped out onto the back porch of my ranch, only to see movement coming from the fields. I wasn't surprised. It was almost harvest season, and movement meant either more scavengers, or more thieves. Either way, I wasn't happy to deal with them.

I was less happy when it was people who popped into view. the couple, at least I assumed they were a couple the way they were dragging each other along, appeared at the edge of my corn field without any warning.

The taller one seemed to be younger, though not by much, and even then he wasn't particularly young. He looked sweaty, his chocolate curls plastered to his forehead. The shorter one was middle-aged, but still younger than me still. His hair started to turn on him, with those telltale signs that it was graying around the edges. The contrast in skin tones was striking. Tall and alabaster, shorter and nearly charcoal. I had heard of these sorts of mixed pairings before, and I wasn't fond of them neither.

Both looked over when they heard the sound of my voice. A look of alarm fell over the younger one, while the other man simply froze in place and stared at me. I could see the younger one saying something to his friend, but as they were still ignoring me, I stepped off my porch and called out again.

"I said, who are you supposed to be? I sure don't remember us being introduced, so you're gonna have to explain why you're all in my fields without any permission."

I closed the distance, fully aware of how threatening I looked. I hadn't shaved in weeks, and the few people that dared to interact with me considered me to be some insane rancher recluse. Under my unwavering gaze, the younger one finally broke down and dropped to his knees in the dirt, crying the whole time.

"We were just waling around and didn't realize we that we were on your property. Please, don't freak out, we weren't here to steal anything!"

His compatriot looked disgusted by the display, but I was intrigued. I hadn't even thought that they were here to steal corn. It was too early in the year for that, and the two of them alone didn't have the ability to take much of my crops either. All this told me was that this guy didn't know much about farming, and less still about me. More and more, I was thinking that these guys weren't here for anything good, and that they needed to be gone.

"Y'all obviously aren't here for my corn, and I don't think you just came for a walk. If nothing else, y'all are trespassers on my land; I should deal with you accordingly. Especially since one of you is a coloured, that could be a long time in jail for you, sonny boy."

The stone-faced facade of the darker man finally started to give way. I didn't are about some law that said the blacks were equal to us white folks, or whatever it was the government had come up with. They gotta earn the right to be equals, and none of this proved they were work treating like they were the same as us. Wandering through a man's property at night, without permission just showed how we had to keep them in their place.

"What's it gonna be boys? Y'all gonna fess up for why you here, or shall I get the police to ask you?"

The man stood up and wiped away the rest of his tears, before looking me right in the eyes.

"We really were just walking sir. There's a forest nearby, I like to go there and look for animals. I photograph them. He came to help."

Indeed, the young man did have a camera. I knew the forest he was talking about, it was where all my problem critters seemed to be coming from. I often had troubles dealing with the game eating my crops.

"Alright boy, so why you here? This is private land."

The dark an spoke for the first time, and I was surprised, his voice was much deeper than I expected.

"We thought it would be faster to cut through. We figured that no one would care. It's late, we all wanted to get home. You know how it is around here."

Right there, I decided what to do with these folks.

"Y'all got five minutes to get off my property. If you still here, you gonna be shot for trespass."

I turned back towards the house to grab my rifle. As I got further away, I smirked as I heard the men fading into the distance. I also heard the younger one say something.

"See? I told you We could mess around and not get caught."