Frontier 1

He left the ruins of Georgia in the summer of 1874, another orphan of the War of Rebellion and one step ahead of the lynch mobs and night riders.

Headed west into the territories seeking out the promise of fortune on the far frontiers, but he was broke and hungry in the slums of St. Louis Missouri before the month was out. A young man without promise or prospect, shiftless, mean of spirit, scrawny in his form.

To keep body and soul together he joined the army, invented the name of James Cotter and listed himself as an apprentice leatherworker from Cleveland Ohio. The recruiting officer asked few questions, listed James Cotter as five inches taller than he actually was and noted that he could ride a horse, also a lie. As James Cotter the young man was given a bit of tin beef and an oversized uniform and two dollars advance. The next morning he was marched off in the company of other desperate men towards the West and a calvary regiment at Fort Ewing Texas.

Ten young men on the edge of starvation, silent and sullen as they stumbled towards the horizons. Presided over by a drunken Lieutenant on a brindle roan, one Timothy Given, who had lost an eye in the fighting between the States. The first military duties of the newly minted soldiers were to tie the officer to his saddle each morning, and to pick him out of the dust in the afternoon when he had finished his canteen of whiskey and slid from the saddle to be dragged in the dust of the road.

Each day they marched until the officer woke and bayed that he could ride no further, and then the new soldiers would do their best to build some kind of camp, to start a fire, to turn the flour from the sack each carried into something edible. Each evening they failed in the baking of bread, they ate the flour raw. In the night they could hardly sleep over the groans of their stomachs.

By the fifth day they could bear their state no longer, and when their small group saw a farm in the distance they did not need to debate or to discuss. They made for the farm and while two of the privates spoke to the farmer the others stole two calves from the pasture. That night while Lieutenant Given snored his charges roasted the calves over the fire and in the morning the man who called himself James Cotter received his first taste of military justice.

Just before dawn and the cook fire was still smoldering in the pit that the would be soldiers had dug, the charred and greasy bones scattered among their sleeping forms when the riders approached. The soldiers woke to find the farmer and three other men with rifles on their shoulders, demanding payment for two stolen calves. Their demands woke Lieutenant Given, whose own carbine was the only firearm available to challenge the riders, and before his first drink of the day the officer was hardly inclined to make a stand.

Given heard out the charges of the farmers, he took in the nervous soldiers and the remains of their pilfered feast. He noted the scrawny youth Cotter, sullen and gloomy as the rest, the hide of one of the calfs by his bedroll where he had rolled it as a pillow. Lieutenant Given pointed to the young men and announced that the culprit would be dealt with. He wrote out a receipt for the calves to the farmer on a slip of paper, redeemable he claimed at any Federal post, and then he asked the aggrieved farmers if they cared to see the guilty party punished for his theft.

"We didn't come all this way for a piece of paper." the farmer answered.

The Lieutenant nodded and he gave orders to the men to bind the accused's hands behind his back. Announced that they would hold the court martial there and then. Happy enough to see that only Cotter was receiving the blame, several of the men leapt forward to discharge their orders. Cotter had hardly processed just what was going on when he found his arms roughly wrenched behind his back, a length of leather bridal biting deep into his wrists.

"Hold on now!" the young man protested. "This isn't right..."

"The Army looks unkindly upon theives." was Lieutenant Given's calm reply. "You should have thought about that before you absconded with the beef, Private. Anything you'd like to say in your defense?"

"I wasn't the only one!"

"Sounds like a confession to me gentlemen." the officer shrugged.

He announced that he was finding the Private, whose name he did not know, guilty. That sentence would be carried out once he had dressed and had some coffee. He invited the farmer and his companions to dismount and join him in a cup and after a long ride in the early morning dark the riflemen were happy to oblige the invitation.

So the officer dressed and then he sat with the farmers beside the low fire and he chatted with those men about the war that had passed and the places he had been as the coffee slowly came to a boil.

As the coffee was being readied James was sat upon his bedroll, growing pains in his bound arms. He pleaded with his fellows to cut him loose, that he could slip away while the coffee offered a distraction. His fellows were unwilling to oblige. Having seen how simply Lieutenant Given had laid the blame on one, it stood to reason that he could just as easily shift it toward another. Perhaps too they were curious to see the act of punishment, and it was not as if they had known Cotter long or held him in any great esteem.

Lieutenant Given took his time over coffee, seemed to enjoy the company of the armed men who had woken him. When he was finally through he rose to his feet and he gave orders to the men who milled around to collect the guilty party, that lacking any tree or post to tie him on the open plain that two of them should hold him up.

Again Cotter protested, desperate then, fearful of what was to come. His pleas went nowhere however, and he was held firmly between two of his fellows as Lieutenant Given retrieved a riding crop from his saddle, tested its weight upon his calloused hand.

"Penalty for theft is fifteen lashes, well laid on." the Lieutenant announced, though there was some faltering as he came to the number, as though that digit was not wholly fixed in his head.

"You men hold him up tight and I'll show this runt that the army dosn't tolerate thieving from civilians."

But as the soldiers held tight to Cotter's trembling arms, as the young man's pleas echoed out into the wide and empty plains, a look passed across the officer's face for just an instant. It was missed by all assembled, as was the twitching of the brow above the man's lost eye.

"Someone skin him of his britches." Given ordered. "They'd soften the blow and I'd like these gentleman here to see that the US Government puts their tax dollars to hard use."

Once more Cotter protested but there was no hesitation on the part of the crowd, not even from the farmers, who only giggled a bit as the pant's of the Private's uniform were roughly yanked down to his ankles.

"Nearly as pretty as a girls." someone joked but then Given called for quite and he went foreward, slicing the crop through the morning air in practice arcs. His eyes fixed to the waiting flesh of the private's bared ass, a light hue of pink in the skin and the soft sack of the testicles dangling just below.

When Given was behind the culprit he rested his free hand for just a moment on the small of the young man's back, told Cotter in a low voice to brace himself and that he would do no lasting harm.

But when the Lieutenant brought the crop down it was in earnest, and the pain of it exploded through the Private's taught body and caused him to yelp in fear and in agony as Given called out the number of the stroke just delivered.

As the Lieutenant went on he felt the stirring in his trousers with each administered blow, each time he brought the crop down against the reddening flesh of the ass before it. He admired the way that the testicles leapt and retreated with each fresh lashing blow, and the way that the young man whined and mewled as he trembled and fought to escape the grip of the men who held him fast.

For James, each blow seemed to cut all the way to his heart, each fresh falling kiss of the quirt revealing nerves and sensations of the body that the young man had never to exist. Until it was not just the flesh of his buttocks that were on fire, the pain lived in his toes and in the roots of his hair, it filled up the empty spaces of his numb fingers and threatened to burst from his ears.

By the eighth stroke of the crop the tears were streaming openly down the young man's face, and his cries against the injustice of the act had been replaced by promises that he would be good, that he would steal no more, that he would do anything that was asked of him if only the blows would stop. By the eleventh stroke he could support his own weight no longer and he sagged between the men who held him fast and could no longer form words with which to beg.

When the last blow had fallen the men who held him let him go, and James Cotter fell foreward upon his face and there he lay in the long grass, unmoving and without a single sound. The soldiers and the three farmers gathered close around, stunned by the stillness of the body and fearing that the pain had killed the youth. Yet when Given ordered the body to be turned over the soldiers gasped and recoiled from the sight.

Given alone shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly announced that it was normal.

"Something about the circulation of the blood, the physicians say. Carries pain to all parts. Does strange things to the anatomy."

On the ground the youth lay reposed as if in sleep, eyes closed and breathing so shallow as to be imperceptible, but between the man's pale legs his long prick was hard and swollen and colored to an angry and a painful red. A pearly drop of jism glistened upon it's tip and then slowly rolled down the length of the shaft leaving a wet trail to mark its passage.

"Satisfied?" Lieutenant Given asked the farmer and his confederates staring down at the feinted body of the young soldier. "Or is there something else your after here?"

The farmers, tearing their eyes from off the body and they hastily announced that justice had been done. They tipped their hats to the bemused officer, met no other eyes as they moved to their horses and mounted up. A few moments later they were nothing more than specks on the horizon, moving eastwards towards the sky.

Given nudged the young man with his boot, chewed his lower lip.

"He can't march today." the officer declared. "We'll throw him over the saddle. My horse can bear two riders for a couple of hours at least."

James Cotter was pulled off the ground, and he was still faint as his fellows untied the bridle from his wrists and as they threw him across the officer's lap on the saddled horse. His britches they left down, as Given's declared his skin would need time before it could bear the touch of cotten again. When the group set off west once more Given rode some way ahead, the bouncing form of the Private laid bared across his lap and from time to time Given would run his palm across the red welts that the crop had made, feel the heat pouring off the feinted soldiers skin and he would run his tongue across his lips, his mind going to places of which his face gave no hint.

It was the first day that the officer did not drink in the saddle, the first day he did not fall from it.

For James the day passed in a strange and uncertain delirium. Fits and starts, opening his eyes fo see the long grass moving beneath him, the feel of the sunlight on his back and the ragged pain of his flesh. He felt the endless jostle of the horse, the cramped movements of legs beneath his belly. From time to time he felt a hand caress his ass, but it felt so far away as to a ghost or a memory. Phantom fingers that slid down between his legs and ran themselves gently across the skin of his scrotum and made him shiver within his dreams of pain. Sometimes he felt a bulge growing against his belly, something hot and confined that pressed needful into his side.

It was not until Given stopped some hours later and lifted the Private from off the horse, poured water across the young man's lips, that James truly awoke from that mornings punishment. He opened his eyes and saw that Lieutenant Given was kneeling over him, a thin smile on the soldiers face as the officer apologised for that morning's demonstration.

"Had to do something Private. We were outgunned and those farmers were not fool enough to belive that the Government is going to reimburse them for anything. Price had to be paid, and it was your number called. No hard feelings."

"We all took those calves." James Cotter grunted. "You ate some of them yourself, you were just too drunk to recall."

"True, but I'm an officer." Given nodded. "And rank does come with certain privileges. Besides, you didn't receive any lasting harm. I took it easy on you...you'll be able to walk with all the rest by morning."

It was then that James looked around and he saw that he was alone with the officer, laid down beside a muddy stream that cut across the endless prairie and from which the horse was drinking. He asked where the others were, to be told that they would be along.

"We've left them maybe an hour behind, and those boys are slow walkers on their best day. Still, they'll reach us before the sun goes down. And if not? Well easy come easy go. Army won't miss a few cutthroats and theives from its ranks, got enough already."

Cotter stared at the one eyed Lieutenant but said nothing in reply.

"You took it well this morning." Given remarked approvingly. "A lot better than most would have. I would say you are not exactly a new hand at corporal punishment...maybe you've spent some time in jail before answering your country's call?"

Once more Cotter said nothing, but his eyes darted away from Given's lonely stare for just an instant.

"Dosn't matter." Given shrugged. "Out here we've all got our story and our reasons. You get so uded to men with false names that it stips making any diffrence. Everybody thinks they've got something awful to hide, when the truth is that out here all the stories are exactly the same. Out here on the fronteirs it's all the scum of the earth come together. World can't find anything else for them so it might as well send them off to chase Indians and bandits...let 'em be wicked out where it won't bother any decent folks. Or what passes as descent I suppose."

Given began to chuckle, and he pointed down between Cotter's legs to where the soldiers pecker lay soft and docile against his white thigh.

"When I was finished with your whipping, when we turned you over I swear your prick looked ready to burst. Those farmers who were all riled over the loss of a few calfs and ready to see men dead over it, well they sure had a hard time tearing their eyes of your pecker. I swear they were salivating at the sight of that thing. If it had just been you and them? Wouldn't surprise me if you'd woken to some farmers mouth swallowing you whole. Decent people...they just do a better job of hiding what they are really."

Suddenly conscious of his exposed state James reached down towards his ankles, the movement causing a ripple of pain to spread across his back, as he sought to pull up his trousers to cover himself. Only to have his hand firmly taken in Given's own and held there.

"None of that." Given ordered. "Like I said. We've got an hour or more before the rest come up. So it seems to me we've got some time on our hands, enough for you to pay me a little of what you owe."

"Owe you for what?" Cotter demanded, eyes narrowing in anger. "I didn't do anything."

"Owe me for my leniency." Given shrugged. "For giving you fifteen light strokes when I could have stripped every shred skin off your ass if I'd cared to. For letting you ride all this way when I would have been easier just to drag you behind the horse. For being friendly to you...for being willing to go easy."

Cotter opened his mouth to say something but the words did not make it into the open. Quickly he shut his lips and he looked away from Given's spreading smile.

"Rank has its privileges." Given went on. "And nobody cares what happens out here. You are a scrawny little thing, but you've got a nice ass...I swear the minute we saw it this morning every mouth started to water. There isn't a man out here that wouldn't relish the opportunity to bend you over one night and ride you like a filly. Isn't a man out here that wouldn't love to feel those soft lips of yours wrapped tight on their prick, those big blue eyes of yours staring up at them. The way you took your punishment today, the way you reacted? Dosn't seem like a man like you would even mind that sort of thing too much. You were begging me to stop the whipping, and I was barley even touching you. I bet you would have fucked all ten of those jailbirds right then and there if I'd ordered it. Man like that, breaking so easily? Out here that's an invitation. Everyone who heard it knows that you'll give it up easy, that you're a punk to be used."

"When your freinds get here this evening, I wager that they'll fuck you near to death by dawn, unless I have a reason to step in."

James Cotter heard those words, and he shivered in spite of himself, knowing that it was true. He had seen enough, and indeed known enough, of such things back in Georgia, in the brothels and the whiskey shacks where he had grown up among the whores and the men who came to see them.

"What do you want?" James asked meekly, his eyes on the ground and his voice a low and accepting whisper.

"I want you of course." Given laughed. "Want everything you have to offer...but unlike those others I'm willing to be a sport about it. You and I can be real good friends on this march. I'll take care of you, protect you, see that you have food to eat. In exchange, you can keep me company, be my little trail wife until we reach Fort Ewing. You do everything I say, give me everything I want and when I want it...and I'll be good to you."

Cotter did not need long to think it over, had always been quick to see the angles in any proposition.

"My ass is sore." Cotter admitted. "I feel like it would kill me to be fucked right now."

"It wouldn't kill you." Given replied. "But there's no need to go so far right now. I'm patient, I can wait. Still, I'd like a sign of our agreement. I've been looking at your ass all day and feeling your belly bounce on my prick...it's grown uncomfortable. Why don't you help me get some relief, and we'll consider that a bargain sealed."

With that Lieutenant Given stood, and he slowly divested himself of his unform. First his shirt and his suspenders, and then his tall boots and the socks beneath them. His trousers were the last to fall, and Cotter could count the scars on the veteran's lean body, the ugly sworles of sabre cuts and the purple stars of musket balls that had pierced the officers form. But his eyes went swiftly lower, to the heavy prick which hung ready between the Lieutenant's pale thighs, the heavy balls that hung expectant beneath.

"Had a hard time in the War." Given declared as he lowered himself to the earth, sat down upon the ground with his legs spread wide before him. "But as you can see I've been lucky too, everything important still works just fine."

The lieutenant grinned as he began to run his hand slowly up and down his thick shaft, squeezing tightly to it's heated girth.

"You know what to do?" Given asked.

Cotter nodded, and without a word he rolled over onto his stomach and he crawled across the earth that separated them on his belly. He shimmied carefully between the officer's spread legs until he was prone between them and his face raised up just inches from the man's stiff cock. Close enough already to feel the heat of it upon face, to take in the musty scent with every breath. The officer removed his hand and ran it instead through the Private's ragged blond hair.