Warren Savage only visited the Hayden saloon and required Cal's services one more time during Cal's temporary work there. He was a bit more demanding and rough on the repeat than the first time, and Cal sensed that this was something that would build in intensity until something gave—probably Cal's life. He knew that law was so raw out here on the edges of civilization and Savage was so powerful here that he could get away with murder if he wanted to. Thus, although the totality of the taking attracted Cal on some level, and he was forced to say it was what he wanted, which only egged the man on, he was relieved that he was only at the Hayden saloon temporarily and thus didn't have to worry—much—about where it was going.
Despite Levi's advice to neither become attached to any of his customers nor to give his favors away for free, Cal met Frank more frequently. Never in the saloon again, but three times, in the morning, across the Yampa on land of the Double O ranch. They met in a lean-to in a gully Cal could get to on foot that was there as an emergency shelter in case one of the men was out on the range in the winter and was overtaken by a storm before he could get to one of the more permanent buildings scattered about the ranch.
Whoever got there first stripped and lay on blankets under the low, sloping roof of the lean-to. They would embrace and kiss and grope each other as soon as they met, making full use of every minute available to them. Whoever had arrived first would start off on the bottom. The first time Cal arrived first and Frank, stripping off outside the lean-to, came down between Cal's spread legs and lifted his knees with his own knees. He leaned over Cal's body, his hands around Cal's neck, his thumbs stroking under Cal's chin, and his forehead plastered against Cal's forehead, the two of them locking eyes to fully capture the effect of the coupling on each other. Cal's hands moved between their bellies, and he stroked both cocks together as they engorged. Then he rolled his pelvis up and guided Frank into him, giving a little cry at the thickness and strength of him—and then at the length of him as Frank pressed in and in and in. He stroked slowly at first, and Cal moaned deeply, a sound that was cut off by Frank's lips finding his.
Innnn, and outtt, slowly at first. Then increasing in speed and intensity. Cal grabbed Frank's buttocks and dug into the flesh with his nails as Frank pounded him, both of them lost in the fuck.
The second time Frank was there first and Cal straddled his pelvis and rode the cock.
The third time Cal almost left before Frank finally arrived, thinking that perhaps he had the date or time wrong. And when Frank did arrive, he seemed disconcerted and he fucked Cal roughly, in a more primeval, businesslike way like their first copulation rather than like the previous two hot, and almost romantic, couplings in the lean-to.
"Is something wrong, Frank?" Cal asked. He felt he knew what it was. Cal's time at the saloon was coming to an end. Frank would be wondering where, if anywhere, the two went from there in what could become more than casual fucking.
He was completely surprised and dismayed by the answer, which wasn't something he'd been prepared to hear. Once hearing it, though, he knew that he'd been stupid and shouldn't be surprised.
"I've seen Andy Reeder from up at the lumber mill on Hahn's Peak. You know Andy Reeder, don't you?"
"Oh," was all Cal could say. Yes, he certainly knew Andy Reeder. He knew him from Milo Mather's mill; they had worked side by side on more than one occasion. And he'd seen Reeder just two days previously—in the Hayden saloon. Like the other mill workers, Reeder had left the mountainside until tensions between the cattlemen and the sheep men and homesteaders settled down. Reeder had seen Cal in the saloon, and he'd found out what Cal was doing in the saloon.
For the life of him, however, Cal had not imagined that Frank and Andy Reeder would ever meet up and, even if they did, that they would have a reason to discover that they both knew Cal. Now he could see that that had just been wishful thinking.
"Reeder tells me you live in the Slater Creek valley—that you are a sheepman."
"I live there, yes. And I live on a sheep ranch, yes, although we're switching to farming. But I was adopted. I have no stake in the sheep; I'm just living with an old man there who is no threat to the cattlemen. I doubt he'll have an opportunity to be a threat to anyone very long."
"I can't be consorting with no sheepman," Frank said. "If Savage found out, I'd be a dead man. So would you. This has got to be the end."
Cal processed this and sat on it for a minute, but then he answered, with a sigh. "It would have been the end, or close to it anyway, Frank, wouldn't it? I finish in Hayden and go back to the valley in a couple of days."
"They won't let you back in the valley."
"I got out of the valley when they weren't letting anyone in or out. I'll get back in. I can't just leave the old man there."
"What's the name of this ranch you live on?"
"Round and about it's known as Heaven; but it says Paradise on the signpost. But it's neither, Frank. As soon as the old man can be convinced to leave or . . . or dies . . . I'll be moving on. Maybe into Hayden."
"To be a fuck doxy?"
"Maybe and maybe not. That's how you found me, Frank. That's how you've used me. Does it matter so much now?"
Where was this coming from, Cal wondered. Frank had always been so impersonal about their fucking, giving the impression that he was just taking his pleasure on Cal's body—for free now. Cal was getting what he wanted out of the coupling, and it's true that he was having feelings for Frank. But Frank hadn't shown any indication that it was more than just a good fuck for him.
Frank didn't say anything. He just moved away from Cal and reached for his trousers and shirt.
"Or does what matter is that I live with the sheepmen? Would it make it even worse if you knew that before that I lived with the Arapaho? That I was raised by them? That I'm no better than a half-breed. You're a half-breed, Frank. How do people look at you? As who you are, inside, or do they only think of you as a half-breed?"
"I don't think there's any more to say," Frank said angrily, as, standing outside the lean-to, he buttoned up the fly of his trousers.
The last time Cal would see that lovely horse-hung cock. The last time he'd feel it inside him. Nothing else was said. Frank turned and strode toward his horse. Cal watched him go, his heart sinking. The man was magnificent, even from the back. Back in the saloon that first time they'd fucked, Cal had fantasized on what Frank looked like naked. Now he knew, and the reality was much more arousing than the fantasy had been. But now it was over.
After he'd had time to be angry and sad and to mourn the loss, Cal gave a sigh and became resolved to how this had turned out. It would have only been a matter of days before they had parted anyway. He would have hoped that it wouldn't be because Frank had learned of the great divide between them—something that was larger than either one of them; something that, Cal believed, was silly nonsense.
But maybe a sudden, sharp break like this was for the best. Levi Yost had been right. There was nothing but folly in having feelings for men who bought your tail for their personal release. He turned his eyes to the south, toward Hahn's Peak. Three more days and he'd be moving out in that direction again. He missed Ilesh. Perhaps he'd take an extra day or two. Linger at the timberline above the mill, spend a day or two with Ilesh before returning to the drudgery and frustration of Heaven.
* * * *
The break with Frank wasn't as clean as he had tried to establish. At the end of Cal's stint in Levi Yost's saloon in Hayden, Frank dogged Cal's trail all the way back to the southern slope of Hahn's Peak, where Cal picked up the Arapaho mountain trail that would permit him to bypass the cattlemen's blockade of the southern end of the Slater Creek valley. Frank had hung back far enough to think he wasn't observed by Cal, but Cal was aware of him—and was inwardly glad for the protective gesture. When he was close to the mountain, though, Cal evaded Frank as best he could. Frank was with the cattlemen. Cal didn't want to reveal to the cattlemen where the Arapaho trail started.
Also from the moment that Cal felt he had lost contact with Frank, though, he started to ache for him. But that was working to a dull ache. Just another disappointment to add to the others in his life.
Cal camped out for two days where the Arapaho trail branched off at the Hahn's Peak upper timberline to drop down from the western slope to the wider logging trail leading out of Milo Mather's lumber mill. He was waiting for Ilesh, who had told him to come to this point if he needed the Arapaho brave. Cal felt he needed Ilesh badly—to help him recenter himself if nothing else. He had fallen for Frank. He was able to admit that to himself after the break. It isn't what he wanted. It was as much a disaster for him to fall for a cattleman as it was to Frank to fall for a man living on a sheep ranch. And then, as another reason to camp a few days before returning to Heaven, there were the bruises and welts that Cal had to nurse and endure from his second visitation from Warren Savage.
Added to this was how, despite the roughness of Savage's fucking, Cal was increasingly aroused by the man. This was not the sort of domination that Cal wanted to fall under, but he could see that it could happen—that he could succumb to the sexuality of the man even while Savage was beating him.
But Ilesh didn't appear. The Arapaho brave had been so insistent that he would be here if Cal needed him that Cal hadn't even considered that it wouldn't happen. But why had he counted on that, Cal thought—just because Ilesh had been so positive and Cal hadn't ever known him to fail in what he wanted to do? Ilesh was a hunted man, continually on the move. There was no reason Cal should expect the brave to know that Cal was waiting for him there. And Cal couldn't afford to wait for another day.
His heart was heavy as he pushed the mule to descend to the logging trail and then north to the lumber mill camp. Being alone as he had been for four days on the trail now, he had the time to think on whether what he'd had to do, to give of himself, in the Hayden saloon was worth what he had received. He was coming home with more cash than he'd ever seen before in his life, that was for sure. But what was it for? It was to rebuild a shed to please his adoptive father, to allow him to live the false hope that life in the valley wasn't irrevocably changing—when, in fact, it was ending for sheepmen like Old Henry. And until the mill was back in operation, the shed couldn't be rebuilt anyway. Was that worth what Cal had put himself through?
Other than that he had enjoyed being fucked, of course, having men wanting to be inside him. Even knowing that they were willing to pay for it had a little thrill of its own. He could do this, what Samuel was doing, more than just occasionally, he thought. It was another option for him. And he didn't have many options in life.
By the time he was riding into the lumber mill camp, he had decided that, yes, it was worth it. Henry and Lizbeth had taken him in and given him everything they could in life. What was happening in the valley was going to happen no matter what; it was bigger than any of them. Cal had to just keep on being a son to Henry as long as he could. The big issues would just have to take care of themselves.
